Changeling Auto-Revival and Antag-power-creep.

[Dr_bee]

I know it is kind of a bad time to talk about this considering there is an antag code freeze, but this is getting somewhat stupid.

Changelings were originally designed to be one of the main causes of paranoia in SS13, they could be anyone, no where was safe, and they wouldnt stay dead if you murdered them. But if you knew they were a ling they were not hard to deal with, as they only had powers situated around stealth, nowadays however...

The problem of having no overall design for the antag has made them slowly creep up in power over the years. What was once a stealth antag that was only slightly better than a regular person in combat, now has a combination of abilities that make them very unfun to deal with.

The primary ability that I think would help to make lings a bit less of a pain in the ass to deal with is the ability to automatically revive. This ability, which is baseline to all lings, needs to either be purcashable for points, making it actually cost something for the power it has. Or it needs to be removed entirely, giving playing a ling and getting caught have actual stakes.

I mean why even bother with changing identities if you can just revive after being killed, slip out of your cuffs with chems and armblade your captor to death.

That and combined with The Hivemind, changelings basically act like a better nuke ops, and regularly take over the station.

[ShadowDimentio]

Lings centuries ago were rather fairly balanced in that they were godlike in 1V1 but sustained combat, especially when outnumbered destroyed them. Thus, their utility powers such as changing faces, reviving and so on were justified because lings were so limited in strength.

Then parasting got removed and literally the only tooth lings had was gone, turning them into nothing more than a greyshirt with a chameleon suit and an auto-applying medkit. They were subsequently removed for being hilariously underpowered for a full antag, until eventually the abomination that is modern ling came in.

Now lings are stronger than a wizard, and there's 3-4 of them running around along with 5-8 traitors, sometimes who are also lings. It's retarded. Bring back oldling, bring back an actually balanced antag.

[Muncher21]

Bring back oldling, bring back an actually balanced antag.

RIP parastring. I always preferred oldling, if I'm correct was basically parasting + stealth and escape tools. This was perfect because like he said, They could fuck you if you were alone, but just one other person could really fuck up any murder attempt, and expose them. Then they could monkey (slug now?) and get away, change form etc. etc. This always seemed like much superior gameplay then what we have now. I suppose parasting got boring, but there is no other way to make them strong without a very fast stun/mute. Managing to get someone alone should be rewarded.

I think making parasting more noticeable, maybe with an animation or quiet sound would make it a bigger giveaway if not alone. Remove most of the other combat evolution, except maybe tentacle or arm-blade.

[ShadowDimentio]

Nerfing newling will just take us back to ling being nothing more than a greyshirt with a chameleon suit and medkit, at best it'll be removed again.

[Muncher21]

Nerfing newling will just take us back to ling being nothing more than a greyshirt with a chameleon suit and medkit, at best it'll be removed again.

I meant to say give them parasting back as well. Or just revert to oldling and give them tentacle/armblade.

[ShadowDimentio]

Also parasting wasn't removed because it wasn't noticeable enough, it was removed because people were assblasted because sometimes you got para'd and succ'd and you couldn't do anything. Which sucked, but it's no worse than any of the other ways an antag can fuck you up before you can react.

[oranges]

them slowly creep up in power over the years.

lings used to be outrageously good

[Incomptinence]

Lings need a total rework. The absolute worst aspect of ling, being a meat traitor or near invincible guy while carrying the armoury, was emphasised.

While it was absolute frustration to be on the receiving end of a ling team was the height of unique play before everything fell under cheridan's malaise so meat squad should be a starting point.

1 on 1 ambush using their own fucking kit instead of a stun prod was good but maybe a bit too strong. Since every 1 on 1 tool needs to just wriggety wreck people in seconds while not applying the dreaded stuns a combat morph temporarily making them unable to use items but doing terrible things to people would work. However to prevent it becoming "might as well just have an esword" murderboning cookie cutter apply a hard time limit, resources running dry sort of thing in a minute or two.

Then traitor objectives + perfect stealth was shit because people barely bother to do the objectives they get as traitor so more of the same at once was never going to excite anyone. Dna extraction sting needs to flat out go it makes new identities absurdly low effort to acquire and leaves no evidence trail of oh this dude got all his fluids sucked out. Not that holding victims immobile for several minutes was a good mechanic. Evidence should mount as they function on the station stuff like finding bizarre gardens of harvested and fermenting meat, human bodies in vats of acid, web works of living tissue from said displays they can suck up the nutrients of their victims from like it's a really long straw.

On that note progression ling must return. It needs to be fleshed out as a mechanic, lings need a mechanical point of interest to differentiate their round from "spawn everything in gonna syndibomb medical 5 minutes in and giggle at the 30 minute shuttle" traitor boys. Probably don't base it on genomes or make it a mixture of that and cultures of ling cells cultures cultured off stolen food and bodies in ling dens. Lings need to refill up on fresh ling cells often to use their big time powers and unless they fatten up with disgusting tumour sacks full of the stuff outing themselves at first sight and stopping them wearing clothes. As they get stronger the number and spread of meat slurry makers increases so even the thickest shakes around here can see trouble coming.

As for progression ling they should specialise along development trees so not everyone is going for the same shit like it used to be with death sting. Either encourage it mechanically like one guy can be a big armoured brute that murders people fast while another is turgid mosquito guy who specialises in lugging a fat ass full of cells around to refill the brute while being able to attack bodies with a hardened proboscis to top up on the go. Or reinforce it by randomly locking them to a tree so someone needs to be parasites guy who sends worms into apcs and borgs to fuck with the AI among general day ruining duties.

Oh yeah forgot to mention an always missing part of the design was no station terrain/ silicon interaction tools and EMP is the sloppiest mechanic for addressing such a thing. Antag having trouble with AI? SLAP AN EMP ON IT!

As for objectives they should have a group objective like produce X horrible stashes of alien meat syrup or a really time intensive process to produce a few baby lings from a vat somewhere and send them on the shuttle to start a new generation of monsters nothing convert antagy just produce a vent crawling sentient Ian analogue you need to protect or something. Just examples, you know stuff MONSTERS do. Maybe have a random chance to have personal objective to do something to generate a LITTLE inter group conflict maybe an objective to force your other lings to submit to you as alpha by beating them up until they give up in a way we track mechanically so the beta bitch doesn't instantly backstab you for rough housing. Or maybe just something about feasting on X amount of slurry beyond the usual being a glutinous pig that exposes the group more than needed. You know ANIMAL stuff.

For endgame day ruining lings should develop their own plagues and parasites of increasing potency and utility with specialised infector changelings who culture them then spread them for their own flavour of round ending havoc. Parasites grow in people like larva or slugs do terrible stuff to you and at endgame kill you and multiply. There should be reserved extra disease slots for ling plagues also. Start out with barely contagious debilitating diseases and parasites that they can debuff people with work their way to contagious lethal ones. Parasites for borgs and machines too the very station should be ill from an infestation of alien monsters.

TL;DR ling should be a heist team after our man flesh and candy bars and we either catch them in the act and wear them down or they have puppies made from captain soup

[Remie Richards]

Parasting is never coming back.
Forget it ever existed because as far as the future of ling or any other mode is concerned, it doesn't exist.

[CPTANT]

They should get a stamina destroying sting.

Working in the same way as stamina destroying poison (or just literally injecting that).

[Lumbermancer]

Remove all ling abilities and point system, except for thermal sight, dna sting, transform, fleshmend, revive and melt handcuffs. All have it by default.

Buff transform, so the fake items are real, except unusable. Make it fake loyalty implant.

Lings fixed.

[CPTANT]

Have ling start out weak and gain powers by absorbing people.

Lings then actually make sense.

[DemonFiren]

Parasting is never coming back.
Forget it ever existed because as far as the future of ling or any other mode is concerned, it doesn't exist.

t. still salty years later

[DireVictory]

Have ling start out weak and gain powers by absorbing people.

Lings then actually make sense.

So, add hippie's and yogstations ling? Some abilities are locked until you absorb more people. Horror form?

[Steelpoint]

Ditch our ling and take theirs.

Ours is just bad.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Lings should be able to convert people they succ into weaker lings so we can make lingmode an even shittier conversion mode

[InsaneHyena]

If you gonna suck, suck all the way!

[Remie Richards]

Parasting is never coming back.
Forget it ever existed because as far as the future of ling or any other mode is concerned, it doesn't exist.

t. still salty years later

nice, but I didnt encounter many oldlngs at all, and didnt have many rounds of it myself at the time.
I'm just sick of people requesting legitimately shit mechanics.

[Wyzack]

Parasting was so universally reviled as a shit mechanic and I smile a bit every time someone demands it back. Rose tinted glasses doesn't even begin to describe it.

[CPTANT]

I feel like a broken record player:

Side antag, progression based ling.

end of thread.

[Oldman Robustin]

Since we removed Ling mode they've already been a "side antag" just like malf is.

I'd like to hear more about other server's lings, and actually hear if players prefer those.

I do feel that ling should be progression but that will inevitably create tears when a good ling get more power than they already have.

[CPTANT]

Since we removed Ling mode they've already been a "side antag" just like malf is.

I'd like to hear more about other server's lings, and actually hear if players prefer those.

I do feel that ling should be progression but that will inevitably create tears when a good ling get more power than they already have.

Ling's getting powerful is why they should be side antag and in small numbers. Once in a while a ling eats enough people to become a more acute threat than the main antag.

[Anonmare]

I'd like them as a progression-based side antag that could show up in almost any mode (they ought to be immune to conversion to prevent team antags from having a potentially powerful team member on their side).

We could port our version of goonling. People absorbed by a goonling become part of the Changeling hivemind (though a ling can kick someone out if they're annoying) and instead of making spiders, they make handspiders which are weak, player-controlled creatures that can absorb dead bodies to bring DNA points back to the 'ling. Downside is, the Changeling has to literally pay an arm for it. Goonlings are also immune to disease, have no need to breathe nor can they suffer from heart conditions and break out of restraints instantly.
Their version of fleshmend is weaker and instead is an ability you activate that heals you every tick. The downside is that it's obvious, even to an AI, and straight up doesn't work if you're on fire.

In addition, their abilities don't use chemicals - they work on cooldowns and DNA points (which must be absorbed from living things) so the powerful abilities are not something they can easily rely on having

[Armhulen]

I'd like them as a progression-based side antag that could show up in almost any mode (they ought to be immune to conversion to prevent team antags from having a potentially powerful team member on their side).

We could port our version of goonling. People absorbed by a goonling become part of the Changeling hivemind (though a ling can kick someone out if they're annoying) and instead of making spiders, they make handspiders which are weak, player-controlled creatures that can absorb dead bodies to bring DNA points back to the 'ling. Downside is, the Changeling has to literally pay an arm for it. Goonlings are also immune to disease, have no need to breathe nor can they suffer from heart conditions and break out of restraints instantly.
Their version of fleshmend is weaker and instead is an ability you activate that heals you every tick. The downside is that it's obvious, even to an AI, and straight up doesn't work if you're on fire.

In addition, their abilities don't use chemicals - they work on cooldowns and DNA points (which must be absorbed from living things) so the powerful abilities are not something they can easily rely on having

Just DO THIS (in two months)
Although, keep regenerate so the ling can return it's arm from corpses and let them be converted just fine. If you somehow manage to convert a ling in clockcult or something else you deserve a strong addition to the team

[Anonmare]

I don't think revs ought to have a ling on their side, considering how easy their conversion is. Plus we should port the ability to detect a Changeling by heating their blood. I remember one round way early into when I started playing where I thought a ling could be discovered that way and had everyone meet me in medbay and stated we were all going to do bloodtests (drawing my own blood out in front of them and heating it with a welding tool to prove that I wasn't a Changeling trying to trick them into making one of them a patsy). There was paranoia and accusations all over and it was fun.

I'd also like to retain the digital camouflage ability. Maybe we can re-work our version to use chemicals for weak abilities and strong abilities to expend DNA and chemicals.
We could merge the tentacle whip and armblade into a singular morph arm ability that requires DNA+chemicals to activate and make it use chemicals to switch between the whip and the blade.

[PKPenguin321]

Transformation ling is still viable today with flesh disguises

Last time I played ling I DNA stung like 30 people including sec officers, nude lizards, etc. I would then disguise as a greyshirt/lizard or whatever and just kinda hit people with spears or get into fistfights. At one point I had a group of 3 sec officers running after me. I rounded a corner and while I was out of their sight transformed into a sec officer disguise I had and blended into their group, saying I had just seen the criminal run past. It was fucking dope.

We honestly already have the tools to make stealth ling good and it can already be done, it's just that nobody really does it when things like armblade and tentacle exist.
On that topic, reviving and healing powers should stay. IMO they're vital to this ling build, since half the point is getting caught and running off before re-entering in disguise and making people wonder who the ling they just had a second ago is disguising as now.

[Lumbermancer]

Remove all ling abilities and point system, except for thermal sight, dna sting, transform, fleshmend, revive and melt handcuffs. All have it by default.

Buff transform, so the fake items are real, except unusable. Make it fake loyalty implant.

Lings fixed.

[bandit]

The problem with ling is that there was never really an overarching design for what "newling" was supposed to be, so more and more and more and more and more junk was successively piled on until it became the clusterfuck it it today

[Dr_bee]

The problem with ling is that there was never really an overarching design for what "newling" was supposed to be, so more and more and more and more and more junk was successively piled on until it became the clusterfuck it it today

So remove it until someone proposes a full design doc maybe? it the re-implimentation was bad perhaps it needs to be re-re-implimented

[Anonmare]

Antagonists honestly need a consistent design document.

Changeling and Blob's fatal flaws are the lack of a clearly defined direction. So now Changeling is ridiculously OP and Blob is ridiculously UP.

Changelings should be extremely proficient in 1v1 combat and unable to take on a group of people without expending a serious amount of resources (I.E. Horror form). They're ambush predators, they're not supposed to reliably take on groups of people. The Thing, the thing that the Changeling is based upon, never attacked a group unless it was forced to - it always sought to deal with its victims when they were out of the safety of a group.

Blob is supposed to be a constantly expanding and dangerous wall of flesh and getting up close and personal with it is not something you should be able to do without sustaining injury. Remove player-controlled blobbernauts and return them back to their tough, wall destroying, NPC glory. Return the Split Mind power and axe around about ~50% of the chems and make reactive chemical adaptation a chosen, not a random, thing (it's supposed to be an 'adaptive' reaction). Either return blob infection or give blobs a longer saving grace period to establish themselves, as soon as the alert goes out - everyone is assumed to be armed, all-access validhunters.

Also remove the following chemicals because they honestly have very little purpose:-

• Explosive lattice - Wow resistance to something that almost never comes up
• Blazing oil - So I told the Overmind to die to one guy with a fire extinguisher and he actually did it the madman
• Energised jelly - We don't even have a tesla anymore
• Reactive Spines - Who even uses brute based melee weapons on a blob?
• Regenerative Materia - Probably the least shit on this list but that's not saying much

[Xhuis]

Consistent design documents aren't really possible with our current design process, which is "anyone who feels like doing something does it." Colonial Marines gets away with this because they have a set team of developers that coordinate and work on stuff together. It's a lot harder for an open-source, volunteer-based codebase like ours. Occasionally a rework can be done - like how I'm reworking clockcult right now (slowly) - but it typically falls to people to do whatever for this kind of change, and because it's usually done individually, there's a huge difference between what sounds good to one guy and what actually plays well in a populated server. While I like the stuff you've proposed here, for instance, I really don't know how it'd actually play, y'know? It's much easier to do small balance changes, like removing or adjusting those blob chemicals you mentioned.

[ShadowDimentio]

Remove all ling abilities and point system, except for thermal sight, dna sting, transform, fleshmend, revive and melt handcuffs. All have it by default.

Buff transform, so the fake items are real, except unusable. Make it fake loyalty implant.

Lings fixed.

Congratulations you're now on par with a greyshirt with a chameleon suit, freedom implant and medkit.

I'd like to hear more about other server's lings, and actually hear if players prefer those.

Every other server has parasting and Goon has a ranged version of it. Lings are as they were always meant to be, scary monsters that are nigh unbeatable in 1v1 but get nuked in group combat.

On Goon lings are very progression based as by succing people you gain DNA, a non-regenerating currency which can be spent on new powers or set on fire to turn the ling into a superpowered abomination that vore's people and is extremely dangerous. Only problem is, you're constantly burning DNA in that form, and speaking of burning fire FUCKS YOU UP, and if you get crit your turn back into a normie with a huge stun, basically guaranteeing your death.

It's pretty awesome. I can't imagine why we haven't just thrown our garbage version of ling out the window and ported their ling.

[Dr_bee]

There is a large amount of systems that goonstation has that I still dont know why we havent ported over, genetics and ling being the primary one.

[Steelpoint]

At the very least make it take longer for a ling to revive. I've seen lings revive within fifteen or twenty seconds of dying. Which is insanely fast.

[Dr_bee]

At the very least make it take longer for a ling to revive. I've seen lings revive within fifteen or twenty seconds of dying. Which is insanely fast.

Why not just replace the auto-revive with the headslug power. I mean no one ever has reason to take that damn power when you can come back from the dead baseline.

[CPTANT]

At the very least make it take longer for a ling to revive. I've seen lings revive within fifteen or twenty seconds of dying. Which is insanely fast.

Why not just replace the auto-revive with the headslug power. I mean no one ever has reason to take that damn power when you can come back from the dead baseline.

Well it IS useful when they are dragging your body to make burgers out of you, but yeah that is extremely situational.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Give changelings the ability to fart out web bolts

[ShadowDimentio]

Transformation ling is still viable today with flesh disguises

Last time I played ling I DNA stung like 30 people including sec officers, nude lizards, etc. I would then disguise as a greyshirt/lizard or whatever and just kinda hit people with spears or get into fistfights. At one point I had a group of 3 sec officers running after me. I rounded a corner and while I was out of their sight transformed into a sec officer disguise I had and blended into their group, saying I had just seen the criminal run past. It was fucking dope.

We honestly already have the tools to make stealth ling good and it can already be done, it's just that nobody really does it when things like armblade and tentacle exist.
On that topic, reviving and healing powers should stay. IMO they're vital to this ling build, since half the point is getting caught and running off before re-entering in disguise and making people wonder who the ling they just had a second ago is disguising as now.

Fun for you, horrible for sec. They were seconds away from nabbing you and all you did was round a corner, swap your face and bam sec has no idea who you are. Lings are entirely too fucking good at hiding to also be as hilariously strong as they are.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Lings don't leave any conclusive evidence by their own mistake or code deliberation besides randomly husked people, in which case even so, the fingerprints from grabbing them on the person may yet well be non-relevant as per their previous disguise. The only way to catch a ling is when they are actively caught. For most antags being literally forensically undetectable puts security as its being targeted & whittled down at a disadvantage and will only spur on the numerous suggestions for a thematic antag check such as burning the blood etc.

Perhaps we should slow down the transformation process into a gradual morph rather than a instant switch because look at that example there, there's absolutely no way without some sort of bullshit meta-check of a special security meta-password to oust people to even know what happened. Morphing your face gradually can also be hidden so its not that outrageous, but changing skin colour or species gradually might be harder to hide & grotesque.

Dumb lings would change then forget their ID, but most half decent players specialise in how to play lings in the most effective manner making them extra dangerous offsetting arguements that bumbling lings aren't that bad (but even the worst ling has the ability to essentially fix their mistake with a revive)

[Anonmare]

I still say we make them robust solo fighters and escape artists but can be outed with a blood check. It shouldn't be too difficult, all you'd need is a blood sample, a container that can hold liquid and a means of heating up the blood (heater, lighter, welding tool etc).

Plus I like the idea of a Changeling subverting the blood screening by being the one to draw everyone's blood and keeping a syringe of normal blood to fool everyone into thinking they're trustworthy and one of their own blood to "out" an innocent person as a ling. Bonus points if they use something like false armsting on them to sell it.

[ShadowDimentio]

By the way false armblade is the most retarded skill in the entire game, it's literally a bait for sec to kill someone because there's no way to tell if it's real or not unless they hit you, so either you execute some poor chucklefuck who didn't do anything except stand within 5 tiles of a ling or you do nothing and either let the ling escape or that guy live.

There's no winning for sec against lings, ever.

[Dr_bee]

By the way false armblade is the most retarded skill in the entire game, it's literally a bait for sec to kill someone because there's no way to tell if it's real or not unless they hit you, so either you execute some poor chucklefuck who didn't do anything except stand within 5 tiles of a ling or you do nothing and either let the ling escape or that guy live.

There's no winning for sec against lings, ever.

The lack of a concrete check for lings is another rather frustrating problem yeah. I imagine ling rounds are absolute shitstorms of adminhelps because of the confusion they cause. Leads to very un-fun rounds

[Super Aggro Crag]

In my day people thought ling eyes would react sofferent to flashlights so we all shined each others eyes.

[PKPenguin321]

Transformation ling is still viable today with flesh disguises

Last time I played ling I DNA stung like 30 people including sec officers, nude lizards, etc. I would then disguise as a greyshirt/lizard or whatever and just kinda hit people with spears or get into fistfights. At one point I had a group of 3 sec officers running after me. I rounded a corner and while I was out of their sight transformed into a sec officer disguise I had and blended into their group, saying I had just seen the criminal run past. It was fucking dope.

We honestly already have the tools to make stealth ling good and it can already be done, it's just that nobody really does it when things like armblade and tentacle exist.
On that topic, reviving and healing powers should stay. IMO they're vital to this ling build, since half the point is getting caught and running off before re-entering in disguise and making people wonder who the ling they just had a second ago is disguising as now.

Fun for you, horrible for sec. They were seconds away from nabbing you and all you did was round a corner, swap your face and bam sec has no idea who you are. Lings are entirely too fucking good at hiding to also be as hilariously strong as they are.

Would you also say that getting assassinated is fun for your killer but not for you?
Oh no, I was antagonized, remove it!

[ShadowDimentio]

>Three sec guys chase a ling
>Ling rounds a corner, changes face, walks the other way
>Sec has totally lost the trail

>Haha guys it's fine, the game being unfun is normal

If you don't see the issue with you being able to be a blatant and persistent menace all shift and also instantly throw sec off your trail when THREE of them are CHASING YOU then there's no helping you, you're retarded

And yes getting assasinated is unfun, but fucking hell this is incomparable. At least when I get revolver'd in maint I know that if I had played better I could have dunked him or ran away and called sec, but lings? Fuck me, you'll never catch them no matter how hard you try.

And you wanna know the best part? Even if you get a ling, unless you know with absolute certainty that they're a ling, which is nigh impossible since they have like five fucking abilities specifically made to throw you off, you get to play ahelp roulette if you execute them because if you get it wrong some admins are going to chew your ass out for not being certain they were a ling.

[calzilla1]

There is a large amount of systems that goonstation has that I still dont know why we havent ported over, genetics and ling being the primary one.

And cargo

[ShadowDimentio]

We have most of the goon cargo ported over, we just don't have special vendor shops.

[Steelpoint]

Goonling when?

[PKPenguin321]

>Three sec guys chase a ling
>Ling rounds a corner, changes face, walks the other way
>Sec has totally lost the trail

>Haha guys it's fine, the game being unfun is normal

????????????????????????????
you havent backed up your argument, you just said "UNFUN!"

[ShadowDimentio]

Fun for you, horrible for sec. They were seconds away from nabbing you and all you did was round a corner, swap your face and bam sec has no idea who you are. Lings are entirely too fucking good at hiding to also be as hilariously strong as they are.

And you wanna know the best part? Even if you get a ling, unless you know with absolute certainty that they're a ling, which is nigh impossible since they have like five fucking abilities specifically made to throw you off, you get to play ahelp roulette if you execute them because if you get it wrong some admins are going to chew your ass out for not being certain they were a ling.

By the way false armblade is the most retarded skill in the entire game, it's literally a bait for sec to kill someone because there's no way to tell if it's real or not unless they hit you, so either you execute some poor chucklefuck who didn't do anything except stand within 5 tiles of a ling or you do nothing and either let the ling escape or that guy live.

There's no winning for sec against lings, ever.

You have an enemy that can easily slaughter legions of the crew, is impossible to find, impossible to capture if you somehow manage to find them, and impossible to kill if they're even vaguely competent.

Lings are unfun.