Glitch gadgets for Traitors and Nuclear Agents

[Nazsgull]

Before you read anything, Heat Signature is a great game (after all, most of these ideas are from there).

<Syndicate ad>

Quote

 

*70s ad music*
Hi there, fellow Syndicate agents and welcome to "Why should we have Glitch gadgets in our traitor uplinks?" Hold on, you do not know what are those gadgets? 
Introducing:
Swapper: Will allow you to swap positions with any humanoid in view range. Targets mobs.

Visitor: Will teleport you to a point in view range and pull you back after a short while. Targets tiles.

Glitch trap: Will designate a point and when someone different than you steps in his radius will teleport him there. Works like a proximity-based bomb.

As a countermeasure we know that Nanotrasen has invented stolen:

Glitch Inhibitor: Will stop any attempt to teleport or be teleported in a radius arround the user who wears it or arround the point where it is deployed. Blueshield personnel from all stations carry this as standard equipment.

TC prices are to be discussed with your Syndicate provider (which basically means any TC price is not final)

Get yours now!

 

<Syndicate ad/>

So basically there s that, multiple types of teleporters that will allow traitors and nuclear agents to bypass walls and access for a price. Will add many more "fun" situations to Blueshield and Security to deal with but also a way for them to combat them directly (Glitch inhibitor). It will also add more pressure on R&D to do their job and create Scramblers as fast as possible (required components and/or research level to be discussed). Also imagine the clown with a swapper.

How would these objects be used:

Swapper :

Situation 1: Being traitor, you have been discovered, there's a security officer hot on your tail. He fires his tazer but you use the swapper on him at the right time and now he s where you where and backwards. He gets hit by his own tazer bolt and gets shocked, you have the chance to get his gear and such.

Situation 2: Being traitor your objective is to kill the Brig Physician or the Head of Security. You spacewalk to the outside of Brig Medbay or the HoS office and space him using the Swapper. You are arguably about to get arrested but what if ...
Situation 3: you have also bought a Visitor. You use the visitor on a random space tile and then the swapper on your target. You are teleported inside the room, the target is in space, but then the Visitor pulls you out and now both you and your target are there.

Situation 4: Being Syndicate Operative, you and your team are near the Bridge and the captain is in there (you have a thermal implant). Your pinpointer is set to search for the NAD and points to him. He has lowered the shutters and you have no time to place explosives to get in, crew is starting to get annoying. You use the swapper on him, the other teammembers finish him and get the NAD. You, on the meantime get to be inside the Bridge.

Situation 3 can be applied here to the 4 too.

Visitor:

Situation 1: Being traitor, you are badly hurt but you do not have access to medbay storage and have no E-mag. You use the visitor, and grab a few supplies. After a few seconds you are pulled back where you fired it.

Situation 2: Being traitor your task is to kill the Head of Personnel. You have seen him going inside his office but shutters are down. You go inside, drop a some grenades and then the Visitor pulls you out.

Situation 3: Being traitor you need to steal the AI upload board from Secure Tech Storage. You go into engi-cargo maintenance, teleport inside, get the board and then you get pulled out by the Visitor.

Glitch trap:
Situation 1: As traitor you have to kill X target. You have set up the teleport destination of the trap previously, somewhere dangerous for him. The target leaves his working area, you go in, place the trap and leave. When he comes back gets teleported to that location.

Situation 2: As traitor or Syndicate Agent, you are being chased. You activate the trap and drop it. The chaser gets teleported.

Glitch Inhibitor:
Any of the above situations will go south if someone is wearing or has deployed one of these near the teleport location, the gadgets won't use charges nor do anything aside of sparking and making a noticeable noise.

Details:

Of course, anything can be changed

    1 Swapper (Traitor version):
    Will swap locations between the user and the victim. Victim must be in view and be a player.
        -Costs 6 TCs
        -Has 3 charges (or infinite?)
        -33% Chance to slightly irradiate the user and/or the victim on each jump?
        -Normal size
        -Class S contraband

   
    2 Swapper (Nuclear Agents version):
    Will swap locations between the user and the victim. Victim must be in view and be a player.
        -Costs 10 TCs
        -Has 5 charges (or infinite?)
        -Small size
        -Class S contraband

    3 Visitor (Traitor version).
    Will teleport the user to a location and a few seconds later (10-15) teleport him back.
        -Costs X TCs (NOT cheap, arround 10-12) 
        -Has 2 charges (or infinite?)
        -50% Chance to slightly irradiate the user on each jump?
        -Normal size
        -Class S contraband

    4 Visitor (Nuclear Agents version):
    Will teleport the user to a location and a few seconds later (10-15) teleport him back.
        -Costs 10 TCs
        -5 charges (or infinite?)
        -Small size
        -Class S contraband
    
    5 Glitch trap:
    Will teleport anyone who steps in it radius of action to a previously marked location.
        -Costs 3 TCs
        -1 charge (or infinite?)
        -75% Chance to slightly irradiate the user on the jump?
        -Small size
        -Class S contraband

   
    6 Glitch inhibitor:
    Will stop any attempt to teleport or be teleported in a radious arround the user who wears it or arround the turf it is deployed on (radius 3-5 or area based?). Used by staff/sec/blueshield to negate any of the other gadgets.

        -Holds a battery inside
        -Has 1 charge only, when used can be reloaded like a weapon in a charger
        -Has to be activated by attack_hand() (changes sprite)
        -Can be attached to clothing as accesory or to the ground with a multitool
        -Whenever it goes off will make a strong sound and emit sparks
        -Blueshield spawns with one attached to his uniform
        -Can be EMPd which will disable it until manually reactivated after a while
        -Can be researched by science (midtier tech)
        -Created in protolathe (not cheap)
        -Tiny size
        -Not contraband (belongs to security/blueshield)

Things that are specially not final:
TC prices of the visitor and the Nuclear Agents versions of the others.
Charges of gadgets: exact number, the existence of them at all (infinite) or the possibility of reloading the gadget just as a weapon in a charger
Irradiation: I'm against irradiation because it's difficult to deal with and kind of annoying but I put it for possible balance reasons. Other people has suggested for them to randomly explode when used

Why do I think this should be added?
Because in my opinion, when playing as a traitor I've found really hard to step where I'm not supposed to be in a peaceful and stealthy way. In other cases my target is always with someone else or there is no obvious way to abduct him without drawing a lot of attention. I think these gadgets would make traitoring a bit easier and fun. Also most of the people I've talked to about adding this (Necaladun, Yuuki and some more) liked the idea too.

How would I go with coding this?
I'd start coding them from bottom to top, one by one, with placeholder sprites. I'd base my code on the Hierophant Club teleportation code (it does what I want but with some purple things on top) and then I would add the real sprites (I have made some drafts of them).

 

 

 

 

Have I told you Heat Signature rocks? It does.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Nazsgull
Update, added possible situations as suggested

[MarsMond]

I think one problem theese will have is what people can see. For one i think you'll have a rather small distance. 7 tiles you can view doesn't give you much distance you can traverse. And given that you need to see it, that'll reduce the possible uses again. Want to get in the captain's office? Not really possible, both doors into it don't have glass. So at best you can glitch in while someone is moving through the door.
What could make the glitch gadgets more usefull if you can split the targeting and teleporting. Tag someone in you view, now you can see what's around them and actually swap with them if you aren't too far away. Similar goes for the trap, can set the destination and place it a bit further away.
The visitor has the biggest issues. 2 seconds are too short, have a way clunkier interface and latency the source doesn't have. It will need quite a bit more time if you want to use it for a short dispatch of someone, and for a short trip into a locked room, it will need some form of xray. Not sure if the visitor can be adapted to this game that well.

[Nazsgull]

21 hours ago, MarsMond said:

I think one problem theese will have is what people can see. For one i think you'll have a rather small distance. 7 tiles you can view doesn't give you much distance you can traverse. And given that you need to see it, that'll reduce the possible uses again. Want to get in the captain's office? Not really possible, both doors into it don't have glass. So at best you can glitch in while someone is moving through the door.

Visitors do not need a humanoid target, you only need to see the tile (you could teleport in there for a few seconds using a visitor if you wear mason glasses)
 

Quote

The visitor has the biggest issues. 2 seconds are too short,

I agree, two seconds seems a really small time frame to do anything, I was considering the visit time to be between 10 and 15 seconds more or less.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Nazsgull

[Eler00]

Why do you propose different versions for nukies and traitors? I don't really see the need for it here.

[Nazsgull]

15 hours ago, Eler00 said:

Why do you propose different versions for nukies and traitors? I don't really see the need for it here.

Because both gamemodes (Traitors and Nuclear Agents) are based on people going into places they are not supposed to be, the difference is that traitors usually have the option of going in in stealth while nukies most of the times are expected by crew and end up in an all out PvP team based battle, hence the need to have different equipment. It also fits the lore for a strike team to have better gear than a lone traitor.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Nazsgull

[TheMaveran]

Honestly I think the downsides should be removed, given infinite charges, and just have a cooldown be the limiter. Visitor needs more time, ss13 is too clunky and laggy, I would say 10-20 seconds, and perhaps the option to re-use it to teleport back sooner? Also, does the glitch trap have an indicator there is a trap there, or is it invisible?

[Nazsgull]

I agree with a 10-15 second visit time, althought that is subject to in game testing. It has to be enough time to grab items but not enough to kill someone or break , for example, the display case.

Abut the reusing part I'm not a fan of this because adding that option because it makes the "stay in restricted area" part end prematurely, which in my opinion would make the gadget too unbalanced.

On the glitch trap, it is supposed to be tiny, not bigger than a cigarette or a burnt match so it's hard but not impossible to see.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Nazsgull
grammar

[Nazsgull]

Reviving post due to update (added situations).