Plasmeme vampires and IPCS

[Bernkastel]

Heyo first post here, anyway I've heard that ipcs cannot be vampires as they do not have blood, but then i notice that plasmamen can? Why is that, they also have no blood. Not to mention their built in strengths plus a vampires strengths make them near impossible to deal with. Without blood you cannot use any chemical warfare, they break out of stuns, can jaunt away. I'm still fairly new but it feels like vampires are the strongest antags among the typical starters. Their thing says don't go in chapels, and don't go in space, but plasmamen are immune to space, immune to chemicals, immune to stuns as a vampire, and typically will get anti fire gear asap making them impervious to almost everything? Its kind of frustrating, and doesn't make sense lore wise. Can slime people be vampires? Give me your thoughts.

[Machofish]

One of the inherent downsides of being a plasmaman antag is that there is no way for them to change their appearance or keep a low profile once they've been identified.

As a frequent security player, I will remark security does not typically resort to chemical warfare for a number of different reasons - a shotgun is preferable to a syringe gun or gas bomb for multiple reasons. A shotgun slug might not have the same lethality as a syringegun full of hellchems, but shotguns have the unrivalled advantage of having easily replenished ammo, and inflicting injuries which are eventually lethal unless treated by surgery - this is particularly important since Security will almost always be welcome in the surgery ward while antags are not granted the same hospitality from Medbay.

Note that vampires do get a number of timed-cooldown abilities that allow them to counteract being stunned, but they are certainly not immune. 'Glare' can be used while stunned, which sometimes allows vamps to punish attackers in melee combat, but Glare has a 30-second cooldown and does not guarantee results against any more than one attacker. 'Rejuvenate' removes all stuns, which is particularly dangerous when used simultaneously with 'Glare', but it has a 20-second cooldown and has no lasting stun resistance which, once again, means the ability can be wasted if the vampire gets stunned again after they Rejuvenate. Mistform is also a way to escape a stun, but consumes a small stipend of the vampire's blood supply each time they use it. In regards to the vulnerabilities of vampires, updates have continuously diminished the vulnerabilities of vampires to the point where they have little to use against a vampire in an active combat situation. Space inflicts barely any burn damage at all on any vampire, while holy water and the chapel are both nullified by a vampire reaching Full Power.

What I'm trying to say here is that most of the dangers and problems pointed out here are common across all vampires, not just plasmapeople. Like changelings, vampires are meant to have overwhelming advantages in one-on-one combat that rapidly diminish as the vampire is outnumbered.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Machofish

[Shadeykins]

IPC's can't be vampires because they're machines.

Slime People can be vampires as well, unless this was merged out.

On another note...

* Plasmamen can't disguise themselves whatsoever. Not only are they scarce, but they are given a job-designated suit that they can't remove without dying - they are immediately identifiable in all of two seconds of looking at the manifest even if they're an "Unknown" by virtue of not wearing their ID. Stealth is a non-option for plasmamen traitors.

* Plasmamen can't readily change equipment. They can never be immune to major catastrophe (tesla release). They can't steal security armour to get the benefits from it. They can't become immune to syringe guns in any capacity, ever. They can never be immune to heat damage, unless they manage to steal an atmos/CE suit (others have fire suits available) and even then, they're stuck being permanently on fire. Their suit will auto-extinguish them a few times, but this has finite charges and doesn't restore temperature.

* Plasmamen, like Vox, are permanently missing a slot which others can make use of - for Vox this is a pocket or belt (A huge deal), and for Plasmamen it's an exosuit slot (which you can often stow spare weapons in). This is probably one of the biggest nerfs they have - I would dare anyone to try and play with a missing inventory slot. It is a serious, serious handicap that strips you of the ability to take that one extra thing that you really need (like a spare gun). When duffelbags were first introduced they had no slowdown - literally everyone on station had duffelbags because they recognized the massive advantages involved in having more inventory space.

* Plasmamen can't be anesthetized with anesthetic tanks, which means breaking a bone as a traitor is even more dangerous. Your traitor buddy patching you up now has to also steal a very specific chemical from chemistry, or dose you with a debilitating amount of ether if they don't want to probably break *more* bones by trying ghetto surgery.

* Plasmamen are complicated to clone, and in the minds of most players are regarded as "uncloneable" due to the process involved (which pretty much requires either two people and very precise timing, or clever ingenuity).

* A plasmaman who loses their suit is permanently dead, whereas a Vox can simply replace their breathing mask if they lose their stuff.

Plasmamen, for reference, are no more immune to space than someone wearing a basic EVA suit.

They have absolutely no mechanical advantages outside of not having blood, and having their suit. They're not immune to chemicals either, as every chemical in the game functions similarly on them as they do in humans with the exception of Heparin (they have no blood to lose) and Plasma (which heals them).

 

In the context of the round that drew forth this thread, there were ten security officers, two detectives, a HoS, and a warden that shift (the Captain/HoP increased the job slots). The issue with the particular plasmaman in that scenario (And I'm well aware of it, since I was the warden and was ardently tracking the suit sensors of every member of security) was not "plasmamen are unfair and unbalanced", it was a matter of "security repeatedly failed to respond to cries for help, refused to travel in pairs, and subsequently let themselves get picked off by an antagonist who specializes in hunting single targets".

For instance, the HoS was captured and dying - there were six available members of security armed with lethals (four of ten were dead at this point), and there was no ongoing arrests whatsoever. Despite calling out their exact location, the location being repeatedly verified by Medical and myself, and exact coordinates via suit sensors being given, zero officers responded. To contextualize this further, at the end of the round the fourteen man security department only managed to arrest the HoP and a single vampire who willingly entered their custody. The plasmaman was not "op", security was just really, really bad.

[Bernkastel]

I thought because they had no blood, chemicals would not work on them. For instance black slime extract does nothing to shadow people who similarly have no blood, nor do roburgers or anything else(I accidently turned myself into one and tried desperately to be anything other than a useless monster until I died and got my brain transplanted). Because of the rarity of plasmamen I haven't tried it on one and came to the conclusion that since they also have no blood, chemicals were useless against them. If that's not the case and chemicals work on em then case closed, I was just ignorant. Honestly I was just tired of code red where the same person is a vampire and kills all of science wing...every single time without exception, and the only method of self defense available to science wing is chemicals and bombs, obviously not gonna use a bomb. Its that or play literally the entire round as a civi with a science degree which isn't what I signed up for.

Thanks for the lesson on plasmamen, learned alot which i'm sure you've nearly got on copy pasta because of all the op talk surrounding them. You have a good argument... 

[Shadeykins]

It can certainly be frustrating, yeah - honestly with fastmos the space-faring capability of both Vox and Plasmaman was nerfed. They're incapable of making very good use of it without also stealing or protolathing a pair of magboots too.

Keep in mind that any wanted entity in space is automatically considered to be "Armed and Dangerous" under Space Law, and may be immediately engaged with lethal force (at the discretion of the officer).

Edited November 30, 2017 by Shadeykins

[bigfatbananacyclops]

atleast plasmaman is organic 

[imsxz]

There are some misconceptions you have about the game mechanics here. Vampires don't use up blood from their own blood stream to use their powers. They collect blood from draining other people, and their pool of collected blood is used to cast abilities such as jaunting. Additionally, some vampire abilities cost no blood (such as the one that removes stuns, but it DOES have a cooldown).

Furthermore, all organic species can be organic. Plasmaman, and slimes, to answer your question, can be vampires as they are organic despite their blood oddities. To note, diona are also a bloodless species which can be vampires.

As for your question about space proofness; all vampires take damage in space. Even in a space proof suit, plasmamen will slowly burn and eventually catch on fire while floating in space. It's just really weak and can be outhealed by pretty much anything.

Oh and another thing you may find useful is that being in space/chapel not only ignites vampires, but also does burn damage itself, which can't be protected against by clothing.

Hope I was able to address your questions.

edit: IPCs can't be vampires because they're robots (inorganic)

Edited December 1, 2017 by imsxz