Mini-Antag: Luminary

[HugoLuman]

(Still very much WIP, especially on the design front!)

 

 

A newborn being of pure energy has come to the station, drawn both by curiosity and the enticing power flowing through its machinery. They desire only to feed, grow, and learn, but the crew may find this interfering with their work... and safety.

As creatures of energy, Luminaries are not subject to many physical restrictions, enabling them to travel through the station's electrical fixtures such as lights, computers, and consoles (though only powered and unbroken ones). They are also immune to most forms of attack, and in fact absorb fire and energy projectiles; though disablers, ion rifles, and temperature guns on low settings are effective. Those wishing to stop a Luminary will likely have to use different tactics than a guns-blazing chase, however.

On the other hand, Luminaries by default have no directly harmful abilities. Even their melee attack only does stamina damage. They may sometimes unlock deadlier powers as they progress, however...

GAMEPLAY

Luminary objectives include gathering a certain amount of power from the station's devices and learning more about the things on board the station (via interacting with certain things in certain ways). As it gains more power and knowledge, a Luminary will develop new skills/powers, likely based on what it has been studying/doing.

Here are powers as designed so far:

Transmission: The Luminary's most basic ability, incorporeal travel via electrical devices. Works similarly to bloodcrawl.

Galvanization: Finding a dead creature, the Luminary probes its internal energy pathways and figures out a way to restore the flow, reanimating the body with a surge of energy. Corpses missing hearts or brains receive a couple... improvisations. Reanimating humanoids may count towards a learning objective. A corpse with no owner becomes eligible for ghosts, which creates a new mind with no memory of the body's original life. Such beings may or may not receive objectives (as some kind of reanimated minion, probably), needs discussion.

Assimilation: The Luminary feeds itself into various machines and computers around the station, learning how to use/mess with them. For instance, entering an autolathe. Another probable research objective.

Network Lance: One of the Luminary's few offensive abilities. Having studied the powernet, the Luminary directs it against a single (or not?) target, causing arcs to strike them from nearby machinery. More machines nearby, more arcs, more damage.

Lightning: A non-damaging variant. The Luminary discharges chain lightning, stunning nearby humanoids.

Translation: The Luminary gains the ability to pull an incapacitated (or willing?) target into the airwaves with it when it transmits.

[Bobalobdob]

I dig it, seems like a cool mid round antag.

[TJ3003]

Might be nice for them to attain additional strength to their powers if the amount of electricity the station is receiving is far more then it actually needs, such that Engineers need to optimise the SMES to avoid it attaining to much power. This shouldn't decide weaver its too OP or too nerfed, but give it that extra oomph, as optimising that power may be difficult for some engineers.

Additionally maybe it could cause power issues in the general station or individual APCS, and needs to drain said power to gain, power. These changes are to avoid it being too similar to revnants, as it seems some of its power are along the same line.

Edited November 15, 2017 by TJ3003

[willior13]

I would be curious on how much of an issue this would make it for IPC's, maybe make it an objective to hijack an IPC or a posibrain

[Bxil]

4 hours ago, HugoLuman said:

Galvanization: Finding a dead creature, the Luminary probes its internal energy pathways and figures out a way to restore the flow, reanimating the body with a surge of energy. Corpses missing hearts or brains receive a couple... improvisations. Reanimating humanoids may count towards a learning objective. A corpse with no owner becomes eligible for ghosts, which creates a new mind with no memory of the body's original life. Such beings may or may not receive objectives (as some kind of reanimated minion, probably), needs discussion.

I am bought.

[YungCuz]

This sounds amazing to have around.

[Mitchs98]

This sounds really cool actually. We need less griefy mid-round antags. 

[KingPhilipIII]

I personally think midround antagonists should be griefy. They're supposed to cause chaos and challenge the crew, but this?

I love this. Full support so far. Looks fun to be, looks like it has a lot of potential for actual interaction that's not outright hunting, and just generally cool.

[Spacemanspark]

Reminds me of Megaman Starforce.

I love this idea and want it right now.

[Vargh]

I love the idea and I think it will be an amazing mid round antag.

[necaladun]

Jesus Christ that is sexy. 

[Nayser]

Many yes. It's a great idea. I would only love it.

[Dinarzad]

Sprite is fancy as shit, and the con cept of what it does mid round is nice.
I do love me some non-lethal mid-round antagonists that exist more to sow discord an cause problems for the stars of the show to take advantage of.

[Streaky Haddock]

I like the look of the sprite on its own, but when it's put next to SS13 assets it looks... off. Like it should be in hyper light drifter. I can't quite place exactly why it doesn't fit.

[KingPhilipIII]

I like the sprite too, but Streaky is right. 

Its nice, but compared to how everything else looks, it's too bright, too animated, too colorful. I mean, the closest thing in terms of it I think would be the Tesla  

Like it's in the wrong genre of game. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by KingPhilipIII

[HugoLuman]

Quote

the closest thing in terms of it I think would be the Tesla  

That's kinda what I was going for :v

[Dinarzad]

8 hours ago, Streaky Haddock said:

I like the look of the sprite on its own, but when it's put next to SS13 assets it looks... off. Like it should be in hyper light drifter. I can't quite place exactly why it doesn't fit.

Actually, I think that's even better.
Like this is a bona fide ALIEN entity, it's not something comparable to any other creature, it's something that strains the mind a bit to comprehend, existing in a wholly different state that regular carbon alien life forms.
The fact it stands out so differently then anything else is, I feel, a big appeal to it. It's alien, weird and juxtaposed against the rest of the station and crew.

[Jountax]

Waaaaaant.

Would love to see a round where the RD/CE somehow manages to get through to it to make friends and or captures it to dissect the hell out of it and find out how it works.

[KingPhilipIII]

12 hours ago, HugoLuman said:

That's kinda what I was going for :v

Well. Good on you, the impression is evident. But the rest of my statement stands.

[HugoLuman]

One important question I need to answer for development: how should they feed? Should they seek out SMES's, drain power from rooms (APCs), or drain power from cells/items with cells? It should probably be one of these things, rather than all, as otherwise gathering power would be way too easy.

[Jountax]

I feel SMESes might make them too restricted. To my knowledge, the only SMESes on station are the bank that collects energy from the engine, one that powers containment (which could go VERY wrong if completely drained), and one for each solar array which are not even guaranteed to be set up.

If someone who knows more about engineering comes by to tell me I'm stupid and wrong, I fully acknowledge that I don't know all the intricacies of the power grid.

 

Draining from APCs spread out where the thing can attack, and allows them to indirectly mess with the operations of a department, while draining from power cells allows them to more directly interfere. I'm sure the chemists would be out for this thing's electrical blood if it ate all their chem dispenser charges!

Though, APCs are in fact an item that has a power cell in them, so if they drained from cells they could hit APCs, Chem dispensers, Borgs, ExoSuits, Space Pods, and the bar dispensers. I'm probably forgetting some stuff too.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Jountax

[SP00K_E]

Beautiful. I don't have much else to say but this just seems fun.

[Hylocereus]

I absolutely adore the idea of this. Speedmerge pls.

[HugoLuman]

Death:
If the Luminary's health is depleted, it will contract into a small, brightly glowing ingot. This can be destructively analyzed for massive tech levels, sent back to CentCom for cargo points, or enslaved via surgical implantation (as a symbiote or as a brain? Not sure yet). However, if left alone too long, the Luminary can reform, at a somewhat weakened state.

[KingPhilipIII]

I'll be honest as a midround antag the tech levels are pointless R&D will already be maxed out by then.