Monkey mode improvements

[Amnestik]

There seems to be a lot of stigma around this roundtype for some reason. We've had it for years, and play it occasionally, and it generally ends up with a lot of bitching in deadchat about how bad it is.

So I thought I'd create a thread where we can discuss the problems with the mode and suggest improvements. Hopefully by improving it we can make it more fun to play, so we can play it more often and add further variety to the list of possible gamemodes.

Try to keep discussion respectful and logical.

My thoughts:

• After the player is bitten, the bananas capable of being grown to cure them before they transform never seem to be potent enough to slow down or prevent the transformation
• The lack of instant vent-crawling for monkeys means they can often end up trapped in departments, with no place to flee due to attackers being able to drag them away from the vent before the animation completes
• Monkeys make terrible fighters and are better suited to fleeing assailants. But because they're unable to carry their IDs through vents, they can often end up trapped in a department with an attacker after vent crawling in. A solution to this would be to allow small items through vents.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome.

[Septavius]

monkeys should have some sort of method of team-wide communication, like what cult has. i guess it wouldnt make that much sense though.

[Incomptinence]

Maybe they can just yell really loud like howler monkeys.

[Amnestik]

monkeys should have some sort of method of time-wide communication, like what cult has. i guess it wouldnt make that much sense though.

If someone gave them ear slots they could use headsets. Humans still wouldn't be able to understand the chatter without the help of a pAI.

[Takeguru]

An issue I noticed recently was blue pipes tend to be overpressured due to atmos optimizing, so monkeys end up taking pressure damage while faffing about.

Making monkeys immune to pressure extremes WHILE vent crawling would help.

And allowing them to carry items would bring us back to the days of genetics looting the armory for fun, so unless you snowflake in that only Jungle Fever monkeys can carry items, it causes issues.

[Falamazeer]

Use item sizes.
Not that complicated, if it can fit in a pocket, it can fit in a vent, Only weapons I can think of are knives, flashes, grenades and pepper spray
Which is tough enough to be worth doing, but not so extreme as the whole motherfucking armory.

Boom, done.

[Scones]

Give fever monkies a howl that is very loud and obvious and is only decrypted by other monkies.

[Cheimon]

Use item sizes.
Not that complicated, if it can fit in a pocket, it can fit in a vent, Only weapons I can think of are knives, flashes, grenades and pepper spray
Which is tough enough to be worth doing, but not so extreme as the whole motherfucking armory.

Boom, done.

In addition to this, the fact that ventcrawling is no longer an instant teleport means you need to close to the brig first to get into the relevant pathways (making it more obvious) and you can be heard on the way there.

Plus it's now easier for the warden to fight you because he can drag you away from the vent.

[Falamazeer]

Then be stealthy, and don't get caught.
Or accept that's there is and should always be an inherit risk in entering the room with all the fun pew pew lasers.

Balancing to allow armory looting as a sure thing ain't fun for the 59 other players who now have to deal with a rogue monkey.
But balancing to allow monkeys to not get trapped over stupid stuff like not being able to take IDs is fine

[Incomptinence]

Bring back gun monkeys. They still sucked anyway.

[Oldman Robustin]

The mode was better when the infection was instant. Now, even if you bite someone (especially security), they are still going to beat you to death. Plus monkeys have become more and more restricted in their use of items/equipment.

Honestly at this point I'd rather see a zombie mode than trying to make monkey work with all the inherent drawbacks and limitations of affecting other gamemodes with more/less robust monkey functions.

[PKPenguin321]

IMO the biggest issue with monkeymode is that monkeys are less powerful than humans in almost every respect. This stems from a few issues, one of which them not being able to use most equipment, and being further disencouraged to use equipment thanks to not being able to carry it when ventcrawling. The issues this causes seems small on the surface, but because of it they can't use radio headsets to communicate with each other, can't wear armor, generally can't use weapons as they can't carry them around (and leaving them behind means a human will inevitably find it and use it against you), can't use equipment like insulated gloves, all that. Another issue is the "You lack the dexterity to blah blah blah" message that pops up when they try to interact with most machines. This keeps them from doing things like healing each other with medbay equipment, sabotaging security records, subverting the AI, and a bunch of other things. A third issue is them not being able to use guns. Ranged weapons are a huge advantage in any sort of combat, and since monkeys lack that, they will lose practically 100% of their battles with security officers. Also borgs can kill them validly, but that's kind of a given.

I say fix this by making monkeys with the virus able to use consoles and guns, and be able to ventcrawl with items. This puts them closer to the level of humans with the boost of being able to sneak around with all their gear. It would be nice if they could use more equipment like exosuits (armor, spacesuits) too, but the spriting for that might be a bit too much work.
Either that, or make it so the monkeys with the virus are ridiculously strong in some other ways, like being naturally hulked (or just make them much more stun resistant), or being able to squeeze through airlocks with almost no delay, or having more base health, or something to that effect.

[Saegrimr]

That's because you're supposed to BITE THEM AND RUN. You're not nuke ops why the fuck do you want to have a prolonged gun battle with security? SAX THE FUCK AWAY AND BITE SOME OTHER STUPID FAGGOT WANDERING THE HALLS. Swarm the armory when you have like 30 monkeys all fucking around. All it takes is one bite and they're done.

[Septavius]

too bad monkeys cant use guns, right saegrimr?

[Saegrimr]

Why would you even need to? You got a ggnore bite.

[Falamazeer]

Well, I was just thinking about the vents being critical, a little too critical since monkeys aren't likely to have an ID when one sure would be handy.

[Saegrimr]

Its certainly less OP with the whole ventcrawling update, I have trouble figuring out how to get to point B often but the delay on entering vents isn't anything terribly new.

[hanshansenhansson]

Allowing monkeys to wear headsets would go a long way, I think.

[Steelpoint]

Zombie Mode when?

The thing with Moneky Mode is that either the monkies are too weak and get crushed or are very strong. I would prefer them being very strong.

[PKPenguin321]

Why would you even need to? You got a ggnore bite.

not really though since botany can poop out 6,000 bananas almost effortlessly and monkeys have no way of securing an area to stop them from doing so due to the flaws i pointed out

[Incomptinence]

People ghost to stop being phasing killer constructs and wall smashing killer constructs with built in armour.

A lot of this assumption you have that monkeys are "fine" Saegrimr depends on people actually playing the infected monkey with any interest. A weaker in every respects mob that can't fight but can infect other people into equally useless mobs that can't fight, I would beat the starter monkey to death too this is ridiculously bad it is basically griefing yourself and sharing it.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Why would you even need to? You got a ggnore bite.

not really though since botany can poop out 6,000 bananas almost effortlessly and monkeys have no way of securing an area to stop them from doing so due to the flaws i pointed out

Then bite the botanists first and eat the bananas yourself?

[Oldman Robustin]

Why are people talking about vents and guns when the transformation moving from instant to 2+ minutes later is the single greatest reason this mode became stupid, and it's the easiest fix discussed here compared to all the other stuff that would influence lings and other naughty monkeys.

Before a monkey would pop into medbay, chomp a doctor, and within 60 seconds the entire medbay would be full of viral monkeys.

It was chaotic, fast-paced, and if managed properly by the admins (aka rarely) could be a short, fun, fast round.

Too often admins would let it drag out where a few holed-up sec had become impenetrable to monkeys and monkeys would get slowly picked off until it was just a boring stalemate that went on for half an hour.

If monkey mode is ever going to be a thing, or even a fun button, it needs to be fast, focused, and the shuttle needs to come quickly and am emphasis placed on who controls the escape shuttle to determine the "outcome" of the round. Part of that means bringing back instant infections.

[Saegrimr]

I gotta agree with Robustin about the bite timer being the biggest changer of this game mode. Nothing else really matters but if its too short then chances of a "cure" are pointless unless you really want to trust lining up a bunch of infected monkeys in genetics to slowly work them back.

[Steelpoint]

Monkey mode is really extended mode.

Take what Oldman said and rebuff monkey bites to be instant or near instant, as in less than five seconds.

Prehaps make armour have a chance of blocking bites but otherwise monkey rounds right now are just ehhhh.