Smokincheez

Holoparasites are expensive and have huge potential for unique combat and utility abilities, but unfortunately for them with how combat focused the playerbase is, most types have fallen into meta hell. Most people never consider playing half of the types, understandably, because as soon as you're a known user, you will be killed on sight, meaning you must rely on your expensive ally to be able to keep you alive when being chased by several security officers. Anyways, the goal of this post is to get ideas from people, so that hopefully someone will put the work in and make all holoparasite types worth their 12TC. (I will point out that I'd also like all holopara types to have unique sprites, as well as allowing them to pick their color and name. I think would be an excellent way of adding more personality to them. Things like this are also welcome in this thread, though it is not the focus.) One thing I'd like to suggest is giving more holopara types an ability they can use while not summoned, like Explosive's bomb trap. These abilities offer much more utility. Here's one example that I came up with: Standard Holoparasite Ability: Counter Stance Toggled by the holoparasite while not summoned If the user is attacked by melee with Counter Stance toggled, the hit will be deflected with no damage to the user, the holoparasite will be immediately summoned, and then the holoparasite will instantly and automatically counterattack the attacker (stamina damage, knockdown, and/or brute damage, should be better than a normal attack) If the user is hit with a projectile with Counter Stance toggled, it will be deflected in a random direction, and the holoparasite will be summoned Counter Stance has a cooldown of (idk, 10 seconds?) between uses A simple sprite or animation, as well as a blocking/reflecting sound effect will occur when Counter Stance is activated This should give an idea of what I'm thinking holoparasites need, and I ask for everyone's sake that everyone else formats their ideas in an organized fashion like you'd see on a wiki. I'll make separate posts replying to this one about the other ideas I have, I just wanted to have an example in the main post. Anyways, please post any ideas regarding holopara strengths, weaknesses, and new things you may have in mind. Ideally I'd like for us to come up with enough things so that these ideas could possibly be used in the future. (Keep in mind that the ideas you post may be used in future PR's, and I also ask anyone who does take inspiration from here for their PR to credit the user who came up with it.)

Here are many of my currently unorganized and hastily prepared thoughts. Balance - 12 TC is a significant amount and will basically make the rest of your gameplan revolve around it's use. Maybe if they're changed to be more useful, unique, and interesting, this could be raised. However, I think under no circumstances should any changes made to them lower their value or cost. They're already a great idea with a lot of untapped potential, they just need a re-evaluation and eventually big changes; that's what this thread is for, gathering the community's various opinions and suggestions. Types - Like previously stated, many types aren't used often or just suck without being incredibly robust. The types should have abilities that are useful for users or holoparasites of any robustness ranging from decent to Gamma level worthy. Each type should be able to play off of its strengths and abilities while also having areas it cannot account for, leading to exploitable weaknesses for security and challenges for the user and holopara to overcome. They're literally a jojo reference, so there's not much shame in taking inspiration from the hundreds of jojo stands out there for some powerful, but limited abilites. Each type should be evaluated and expanded upon, but new types should also be in careful consideration. Artwork - I'm also of the opinion that with a rework should come a sprite overhaul. This would not be a simple task and would require a lot of collaboration, good communication, and dedication from everyone involved. If each type had it's own unique look, as well as differences between guardians, holoparas, and scarab swarms, they would be an amazing testament to this community's passion for this game I'll definitely be posting more but these are my initial thoughts I have on the matter. Responses greatly appreciated.

A thread for posting thoughts on possible changes to holoparasites as a whole. Types, balance changes, new features, literally anything. As of right now they're in a really weird spot, usually a noob pick, and only half of the types are ever really used, only a few being useful. Let's all discuss our thoughts on what quite frankly is a great idea whose potential is much greater than it's current state of being.

Original post says they have a point limit. They then probably have to go somewhere secluded to use them or something.\

Does it count as assault to pass a hot potato? Will officers legally be allowed to give it to some greytider in self-preservation?

I love this idea. If you ever want help with sprites I'd be glad to make some.

A little addition I thought would also be interesting: the kid gets to leave before the rest of the crew, most likely depending on admins, such as running out of RP stuff to do, excessive danger to the kid, or some other thing that means it's time to end the event. Afterwards, the crew gets a moment to breathe, the kid most likely tells his parent about his time there, and then the crew gets a response, and then has to deal with the consequence of their actions for the last bit of time before the emergency shuttle is called or arrives. Overall, I think more events such as this should exist; they allow for unique and rare stories to be created. By having more options for stuff like this, they'd probably happen a bit more often, as there would be less worry about using it too much, since each would offer a very different experience while still giving the crew a curveball for what they're doing on a station, and events that are more RP focused allow for more creative input from all parties.

Let me preface this with the fact that I am very unrobust, only been playing for a couple months. Get clown, change name to Winkus. Winkus is also a vampire, who needs to drink blood, kill a miner, steal station blueprints, and survive. First, I lure the mime into maints, where after only a tiny bit of drinking, I'm walked in on. I play it off, and despite the mime's best efforts, she is ignored. I go into the mafia den near sec to change clothes to hopefully shake suspicion. I clumsily trap my second victim with a banana and zipties, and as I'm drinking a chemist comes along. The chemist reveals they are also a vampire, and we share a hearty assistant snack. She gives me a spray cleaner full of lube that gets taken from me not 10 minutes later. After failing to trap a janitor, I run away and switch my clothing back to my clown attire. Soon after, sec gets to me. After blowing all of my blood points, they force me to drink the stinky water, and then I die. For some reason, they bring me to medbay where I'm resurrected, and after a failed escape attempt, I'm beaten to death once more. This time, someone puts me in the cloner, and this is where things fell apart. When I was cloned, my name wasn't Winkus, it was Boggart Welles, my usual character. They're confused, so they cuff me and put the clown suit on (I assume for the sensors) and ONE officer takes me off to sec to be tested for vampirism. I stun him, and run to EVA where I talk a slime person out of turning me in while I free myself. Naked and afraid, I stumble around until I find some clothes, and disguise myself. Without an ID, I can't go anywhere, so I hide in maints that people left open until I come across the chemist again. They get me an unidentified ID in maints, that at least lets me use regular airlocks, but not maints. Still hungry, I walk right up to genetics and ask for a humanized monkey. The geneticist there didn't even flinch and just gave me one. As I drag it to the bathrooms to feed (most secluded place I could think of without maints access), someone catches me. Immediately, most of sec is there to arrest me. I look out the door and use the stun eyes, and walk away undisturbed. I later try to stun the CE, who also turned out to be a vampire. He happily gives me the blueprints and a CE radio so I can hear comms again, and sends me on my way. Not long after, I subdue and suck an assistant dry, who after I read his PDA notes, he knew what was coming and let me do it. My pride hurt, I suck him dry, but its not enough to fill me. New ID and one identity morph later, I'm crawling through maints. I try to abduct a janitor, who ALSO happens to be a vampire, and no blood is sucked. A while later of ambling through maints, failing to capture people, and changing clothes, the shuttle arrives. I succeed in all but killing the miner, who I was hoping would just die, as my capabilities are lacking and I could only take easy kills, not actively target someone. That was my first vampire game, and it was a damn good one.

True, but it does take some time and luck to get what genes you want. Also, such an item could be made hard to obtain, if it's added as a separate item. Possibly something that could only be used at short or melee range.

Couldn't the same be said with a syringe with lethal toxins or hallucinogens? Of course, it would be powerful, but injecting someone against their will isn't too complicated anyways. In my opinion, this doesn't really change the power of the syringe gun itself, it just gives it more options.

It's not a very big suggestion as far as I'm aware, and I think it makes sense. I was playing a round of Geneticist, got my hands on a syringe gun, and attempted to load in some DNA injectors. I was very disappointed when they couldn't be loaded. Of course, this seems wildly powerful, but the whole point of the syringe gun is to inject people with questionable concoctions in the first place. It could allow a geneticist to quickly arm sec with powers to help fight off antags, or it could also be used by a traitor to discreetly and quickly debilitate someone. Overall, I think it's a logical addition that will make rounds a lot more interesting. EDIT: Though harder to implement, a specific item only meant for DNA injectors could possibly solve the issue of balancing, as it could be made hard to obtain or limited in its capacity/fire rate.