New blood cult ending

[Bombadil]

FUCKING INCREDIBLE. THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN WAITING FOR THE SHUTTLE TO GO TO CENTCOMM FOR 6 MINUTES

Also new harvester sprites are pretty gud

[Armhulen]

please make nar'sie's arm not move around like that it looks gay


other than that it's fantastic good work

[Luke Cox]

What changed precisely?

[D&B]

What changed precisely?

The ending

[Oldman Robustin]

FUCKING INCREDIBLE. THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN WAITING FOR THE SHUTTLE TO GO TO CENTCOMM FOR 6 MINUTES

Also new harvester sprites are pretty gud

Im happy to hear you like it. It was something I've had in the works for a while. I'm not an artist (or a coder for that matter) so I have to work pretty hard to get this stuff together - but it's always worth it if it makes the game better.

please make nar'sie's arm not move around like that it looks gay


other than that it's fantastic good work

I'm not totally satisfied either. I spent a lot of time tweaking the cinematic but its still a little awkward. The biggest problem is we have one Nar'Sie sprite and I'm nowhere near good enough to try and actually animate new angles for Narnar so that the movement/turning/etc. seems completely natural.

If any spriters are reading this, feel free to take a crack at anything I do as long as it doesn't change the spirit of icon/animation.

What changed precisely?

Once Nar'sie is spawned you get a new message and a 3 minute timer. Nar'sie basically has a list of surviving crew members on the station and the (new, much more powerful) harvesters need to get at least 60% of the survivors back to Nar'sie before the 3 minutes is up. Either at 60% or 3 minutes, whichever happens first, the self destruct sequence begins with the nuke alarm, the 3 second timer animation begins, but the outcome drastically changes depending on whether the harvesters hit 60%. Both endings count as Major victories since Nar'Sie is summoned and the station done for, but one definitely "feels" a lot better.

Theres a lot of details too, the harvesters a lot more fun to play and they have a tracker that lets them hunt survivors (actually broken ATM but fix is ready for merging), all the harvesters are cult again and its generally just a faster more exciting conclusion to the Bloodcult as opposed to 6 minutes of red farts on a shuttle.

[Steelpoint]

Wish there was a video of it, I oft seem to miss cult rounds, or at least one's where that ending is achieved.

[Oldman Robustin]

Wish there was a video of it, I oft seem to miss cult rounds, or at least one's where that ending is achieved.

I mean its in our game files (albeit it previews in a tiiiny screen with no sound).

[Not-Dorsidarf]

basically nar'sie stops the nuke with blood magic, then eats all the stars.

[Steelpoint]

I have some feedback.

When the cult wins and you get the call to evacuate, I think it should be made more clear that you are meant to abandon ship manually. I thought I had to sit in a escape pod and wait for it to launch, not to launch it manually.

Also I think there should be a timer until the nuke detonates, or fails to detonate.

I would also imagine a nuke would stop nar sie but I digress.

[Remie Richards]

>An explosion obeying the laws of physics can defeat The Geometer of Blood from another dimension

ummm, no.
Also the nuke never actually goes off, she stops it.

[Steelpoint]

It does if not enough of the crew are harvested, if that happens good ole Nar Sie fails to stop the nuke in time.

I would imagine losing the station does not physically hurt her, but it destroys her main tie to our dimension, thus she would get thrown back to whence she came.

[Remie Richards]

No, once she's summoned she doesn't need a tie anymore, the cultists have done their job, she's here now to stay.

[Steelpoint]

Really it's all down to personal head canon.

Though she does look all lonely if you blow up the station.

[Remie Richards]

Aha! Lonely perhaps, but she's still there!
steelpoint 0 narsie 1

[Steelpoint]

Amusingly the new lore text indicates Central Command/Nanotrasen is at least aware of the existence of the more insidious affairs of the blood cult and even has a entire division on standby to ascertain and resolve any invasion scenarios. (Round start the NT security division is only aware of the more surface parts of the blood cult, that they use some form of magic (implied to be tech/mutation based) and it involves blood and sacrifices, shown from the round start comms intercept report).

When the round ends in a cult victory a message is received to the station.

An acausal dimensional event has been detected in your sector. Event has been flagged EXTINCTION-CLASS. Directing all available assets toward simulating solutions. SOLUTION ETA: 60 SECONDS.","Central Command Higher Dimensional Affairs

After 60 seconds you get this.

Simulations on acausal dimensional event complete. Deploying solution package now. Deployment ETA: TWO MINUTES. ","Central Command Higher Dimensional Affairs

It seems blowing up the station may offer the best short term solution to Nanotrasen in attempting to resolve the crisis. Now whether its a permanent inhibition preventing Nar Sie from moving on, a temporary set back that only wounds it long enough for reinforcements to arrive or if its utterly worthless are up to the players to decide.

[Remie Richards]

Well it's still a Major Victory for Nar'sie, so it has to be in her favour still.

[Steelpoint]

Well of course, I just like to think the last three minutes determine if Nar Sie's rising is either a major issue that'll plague the deeper regions of space for decades to come, or a more minor issue that only affects the local sector due to her getting blown up during her most exposed vulnerable period of entering our dimension (Its a oft trope that something just entering a new area/exsistance is usually at its most weakest).

[Oldman Robustin]

The truth will be revealed in Cult Ending 3.0: When the you get the best Nar'Sie ending the next round is forced to "The Geometer's Wrath" where Central Command is under attack by countless waves of constructs and cultists while NT charges a device that may be capable of banishing Nar'Sie from our dimension.

Coming in 2024.

I did notice that our code is pretty clear that we're only dealing with an Avatar of Nar'Sie. This could have implications.


On a more serious note while I did put a good deal of effort into the endings, I'm less of an artist than I am a coder and I still rely heavily on just moving around existing pixels. The "nuke goes off" ending was going to have the text be animated before it cuts off and Nar'Sie's appearance wouldve happened more slowly and subtly. The "nuke stopped" ending was far more difficult though, we only have one Nar'Sie icon (well two, but its just different sizes) and it would've taken days for me to try and depict Nar'Sie from even a slightly different angle without making an abomination. So if anyone ever thinks they can improve it, be my guest. Unfortunately we have so few sprite people I'm just having to do what I can. I'm pretty happy with how bling in Gang War turned out though, it does look pretty good/hilarious with most gang outfits.

On the most serious note, admins if you could try and keep an eye on Nar'Sie's "souls_needed" var during the last 3 minutes, I'm still trying to make sure its working as intended. I've seen a couple rounds where it felt like harvesters burnt through the remaining crew but still didn't hit the goal - but who knows. As for the escape pods, I'm sure people will learn over time now that fleeing on a pod has some relationship to the round (though it would help if cult was weighted a little heavier), just yesterday I had a plasmaman who managed to launch himself and 2 harvesters (I was one) to lavaland by strategically waiting until we had boarded before launching.

[Remie Richards]

Oh, yes. that is very true.

[DemonFiren]

nar-sie will be summoned into this plane unless you stop misspelling her name jesus fuck the apostrophe triggers the shit outta me

[calzilla1]

nar-sie will be summoned into this plane unless you stop misspelling her name jesus fuck the apostrophe triggers the shit outta me

Sier-an

[ShadowDimentio]

Narssy

[InsaneHyena]

What do new harvester sprites look like?

[Anonmare]

What do new harvester sprites look like?

Like the old ones but not as long and they have red spikes coming out of their back

[Oldman Robustin]

When I add sprites its always a hack job. New harvesters have pincers and are spikier. They're an improvement (I couldn't stand the idea that we'd have the old floating turds running around hacking off limbs despite having no appendages) but I would never turn away anyone's improvements on my icons.

[Kel]

it would be cool if achieving a cinematic ending (nar-sie snuffs out the lights) would make the next round have different space tiles that had no stars or some shit like that so it actually means something

[ShadowDimentio]

We need to make an ending cinematic for every mode.

[Steelpoint]

If you're prepared to either sprite or pay someone to make good qualify ending cinematics for every round type, it would be quite easy to implement them.

Hell I'd pay for seeing cinematics based on who won a round type, see revs running wild with a dead Captain in the background.

[Oldman Robustin]

Its pretty feasible to give revs an ending where it shows the (scaled up) icons of each head in their respective uniforms hanging from the rafters in front of the brig or something (a mix of art and in-game icons).

Or vice-versa for Revheads.

[ShadowDimentio]

All the heads put on meatspikes in front of the brig while the revheads stand in the foreground looking at them. Reverse if the heads won.

[Leon962]

All the heads put on meatspikes in front of the brig while the revheads stand in the foreground looking at them. Reverse if the heads won.

Alternatively, the heads being dragged off to some room for "re-education"

[Super Aggro Crag]

You know how in Mario world where he runs into the castle and puts up a good boy flav and fireworks go off? Rev should do that. If heads win there should be a picture of the rev heads with condoms stretched over their heads and being marched to the gallows.