Changeling Hivemind

[Hathkar]

So overall, lings are pretty strong, or at least most people would agree they're not weak. Hivemind also pretty much means lings can just roam around the station in groups and just mob people if they so choose.

Anyway, my idea is to make ling hivemind and maybe channeling DNA into the air cost evolution points in order to use. Somewhat similar to the syndie encryption key traitors need to buy, if they want an alternate means of knowing who else is a ling besides being stung and noticing. This way, if you want to team up with other lings, you can't just do it for free. Or if you even plan on killing the other lings, you can't just listen in for free to determine who to kill.


Also nerf mutesting. (yes i ded pls nerf)

[ShadowDimentio]

Lings need to be removed, not tweaked. Goddamn coders have buffed the ling into being wizard-tier in stupid unkillable bullshit and every ling round the lings always slaughter everyone with minimal effort.

[DemonFiren]

ling is to shadowmemes what cuck cult is to hyena what secborg is to pkp

detect the pattern

become headmin


no please don't

[BeeSting12]

Changelings need a rework to be better at stealth than murderbone. There's currently no incentive to not murderboning as a changeling. You can get a perfect combo for murderbone that would require a couple uplinks as a traitor. (Adrenals, armblade, tentacle, fleshmend, EMP, and room for one more I believe.) Not only that, but you get a free hivemind to coordinate your murderbone except it can't be stripped and works while you're mute, deaf, EMPed, or critted. Toss a free revive in there and it's no wonder noone wants to play stealthling and change into people. It's easier to murderbone!

Here's how this needs to be reworked:
1. Take away the hivemind.
2. Take away all abilities except for the free roundstart ones, such as extract DNA sting, revive, etc.
3. Changelings only get 5 roundstart points, and they can earn more- one absorb=one point. Caps out at ten, must reevolve similar to how it is now to get back to five and reearn points to spend again. (more emphasis on spending the points wisely.)
4. Start readding abilities to the emporium. This time, focus on abilities that add stealth rather than murderbone.
-Hivemind can remain, just add a cost to it similar to the syndicate key.
-Fake loyalty implant for 10 points.
-Remove transform sting or rebalance to cure automatically after a while. Making the whole crew one person that cheaply is too powerful and gets tiring after the fifteenth time.
-Armblade/tentacles should cost more. Three each.
-Remove the armor. It encourages you to go on a killing spree which is the main problem with lings right now.
-Lengthen revive time to make death more costly, especially against other changelings. Absorbing another changeling gets you five points. (still caps out at ten though) Right now, absorbing a changeling simply doesn't work because by the time you're absorbing them, they've revived.

If nothing else, changelings need less per round, even on high pop. Two officers vs 4-5 changelings plus the normal batch of traitors is bad. In their current state, changelings should probably have no more than three on highpop and preferably two.

[Hathkar]

-Snip-

Yeah, I agree with pretty much all of those points, except maybe being able to buy a loyalty implant. You can still get them in a few different ways (Tricking someone into implanting you early on, cargo, removing one from a dead body via surgery).

But yes, less murderboning abilities, more actual stealth abilities, and an actual penalty for being "Killed".

[BeeSting12]

I thought the loyalty implant one was iffy, yeah. It would be ridiculously powerful since I've had rounds where I've disguised myself as an officer and run through the brig beating "traitors" five times in a round, warden never got mad at me and the HoS gave me a medal.

[ShadowDimentio]

Lings need to revive at like 10 health and doing so uses all the chems the ling has, meaning the ling repeatedly reviving is gone and they go down very easy if they revive near anyone.

[Anonmare]

I feel like Changelings get too many points right now. Especially since they can refund their powers and re-adapt.

Imagine if traitors could re-fund any equipment they bought to get the full TC investment back.

Another thing I've experienced is that Changelings have too many powers that counter everything. Adrenaline Surge, Biodegrade, EMP screech, Fleshmend, Panacea, Lesser Form, Last Resort etc.

Traitors and Wizards don't even have that many counters and Traitors are limited by their counters having limited uses and Wizards are solo antagonists, in addition to having them on a cooldown while Changelings can spam as long s they have the chemicals for it.

[ShadowDimentio]

And any ling worth their salt gets the double chem thing immediately so chems are effectively bottomless

But by far and away the worst goddamn thing is there's no test for lings, no way to tell if the guy that was called out over comms is or isn't, so you either get to roll the fucking dice and hope you don't get banned* or do nothing and everyone keeps getting murdered. It's fucking bullshit.

*There are badmins that actually give people shit for killing nonantags in ling rounds even when there's pretty damn good reason to suspect someone. I got at note as sec once for permabrigging a guy after a headslug escaped and I found him wandering around near the mourge, with no ID, and a bunch of random shit from various jobs that nobody would pick up. I threw him in perma because that's suspicious as hell and there was no test, but apparently he was innocent and nice guy badmin gives me shit about doing a bad job. Fuck you badmin, and fuck lings.

[CPTANT]

Progression based side antag ling.

[Anonmare]

Oh and Changelings always smash up the crematorium/gibber with their armblade first chance they get and de-braining them doesn't destroy them anymore so you have to either use a shuttle or the shield generators to gib them. Spacing them in a welded locker with no equipment doesn't work due to biodegrade and the ability to grow a spacesuit/drift their way back. And walling them into a tomb in space doesn't work because they can use their hivemind to call for help.

[XDTM]

And any ling worth their salt gets the double chem thing immediately so chems are effectively bottomless.

Wasn't that one removed like a year ago

[Wyzack]

lings have constantly slingshotted between being so weak in combat that they are worthless and being so good in combat they are indestructible and just murderbone.

[DemonFiren]

it's almost like balance doesn't exist

[Nabski]

If they are supposed to be moving more towards stealth, can they at least get some of the stealth things improved?

I'm still salty about the time I bought the "Silicons can't see you" power and it apparently gives a hard tell on examine by anyone.

Or something simple like always having a jumpsuit on so you can always have a belt, rather than a flesh disguise that mimics clothing sometimes, and then you switch into someone who didn't have a top on and you've dropped your internals.

I acknowledge this is supposed to be chatter on the hivemind rather than general ling bitching. I like the hivemind. It's an extra level of "do I trust this group". I've used it to get me out of jams, help others, betray others, and even occassionally dunk the second ling that comes to save the first from being gibbed. It's like a 2 for 1 special!

[onleavedontatme]

And any ling worth their salt gets the double chem thing immediately so chems are effectively bottomless.

Wasn't that one removed like a year ago

Closer to 2

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/16081

[christ110]

ehhh...
the real problem with lings is killing them, imo. them being only killable via this massive painful process is wrong. just let lings (and only lings so its also a soft-tell) have their corpses turned to remains if they're on fire for a while after being dead.

its very shitty when you're stuck in a dept with no way to permanently kill this ling who has his murderboner reaching full erection, and all you can do is delay the inevitable.

[CPTANT]

it's almost like balance doesn't exist

Its almost as if a progression based ling that has to work for its power would be a better idea.