Gang Mode Playtest Feedback

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:01 am #32340

NOTE: I had a falling out with coderbus so gang will unfortunately no longer be in development.

If you've participated in one of the Gang Mode Playtests, feel free to leave feedback here.

For reference: http://tgstation13.org/wiki/Gang_War

Changes for r2 here: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/5055

Septavius · Post by **Septavius** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:02 am #32341

NEED MORE JUMPSUITS TOP PRIORITY

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:09 am #32345

NT has like a million different coloured jumpsuits, and the ability to roll down the top of your jumpsuit. MERGE THIS SHIT TO TG RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Having different options like this makes it alot more fun in terms of gang colours and shit.

Also NT gang weapons. Metal to make pleb bat, wood to make a baseball bat (hello mr security officer, me and my face mask wearing, pompadoor styled friends are just on our way to baseball practice), metal + plasteel for a butterfly knife, brass knuckes as a mining reward, and there was a chain, can't remember how to make that. Also glocks, probably debatable, but made only from upgraded autolathes and shitloads of metal, was pretty fun.

Oh, and because deconverting is rng based, sec basically has to be shitty, by beating everyone to near crit, and even then, you can't be certain that the person isn't a gangster (or even boss), because thy might have jsut been lucky with rng.
That round we just had was a massive clusterfuck for sec.

If gangsters actually RP, this stands to be a 10/10 gamemode but... sadly I don't see this happening very well on tg as it is.

Edit: Also, bandana's. NT has bandana's that can cover your mouth, or be toggled to be on your head. When they cover your mouth they work to hide your identity, which is neat.

Edit2: Metastation would be better for gangmode, since there is a lot more interesting things in maint for the gangs to deal with (maintbar/ghetto robotics/blackmarket/ghetto medbay etc). Is metastation compatible with the current server build? Someone should update it if it isn't.

Septavius · Post by **Septavius** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:11 am #32347

lumipharon wrote:NT has like a million different coloured jumpsuits, and the ability to roll down the top of your jumpsuit. MERGE THIS SHIT TO TG RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

NO WE JUST NEED MORE JUMPSUITS

highlow · Post by **highlow** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:13 am #32348

Two things off the top of my head, as a recruited gang member:
1) As a gang member I wasn't really sure what to do to help take over the station, and the notes didn't say anything. Do we kill the other gang's leader? deal drugs? steal stuff? kill everyone not in the gang?
2) Maybe have something besides a flash to convert people? Sec and everyone seemed to go nuts at the first sign of flashing, thinking it was rev and bashing suspect's heads with little mercy.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:32 am #32353

We need some sort of policy that prevents security from going "hurr arrest everyone wearing green hurr." Also give gang bosses tommy guns.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:01 am #32355

When you deconvert someone and they literally tell you 'my gang are all wearing green' what else do you expect sec to do?

And in terms of gang leaders, I think it would be better if there was one 'leader' while the other boss slots are their lieutenants/recruiters whatever. Objective wise it could be exactly the same (or have it only the actual boss, then you can have sneaky stuff where people don't know who is the leader, and who are just his recruiters), but I'd like to see this happen, purely so it's slightly less clusterfucky, because everyone would be answering to one person. Having say 3 bosses of equal rank just means you're going to have bosses actively doing things that at odds with each other.

Additionally, if people oppose adding constructable gang weapons to tg, you could perhaps give the leaders something similar to an uplink, to a few weapons for his boys. So your boss could buy a fair few baseball bats, or splerge his points on just a glock, for example. Then maybe have some weapons (not glock) have a chance to spawn in maint, for anti meta. It would be better if they were just constructable though, baseball bats are neat.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:25 am #32364

Green genocide best day of my life

Basically this, Ikarrus:

When the entire method of deconversion revolves around beating people in the head, it means security will rush to paladin the AI and start cracking skulls and the game will just be team deathmatch.

Loyalty implants should deconvert gang members on the spot. I don't see why they don't. It'd offer a non-lethal version of deconversion for sec. Maybe pepperspray can deconvert.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:40 am #32373

Good to see that the detective who beat everyone they saw into critical feels that is a bad way to deconvert.

No deconvert method should exist and if one does it shouldn't be loyalty implants. It's not like they aren't loyal to NT its just that they want the other gang dead.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:40 am #32394

Yeah there always need to be a consistant way to deconvert people, like implants or holy water for revs and cult respectively. Otherwise you're going to get people beat, people missing the message/didn't know someone else already beat them etc and it's just going to end in tears.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:59 am #32414

I didn't participate in playtests, but I'd like to comment on the info from the wiki page.

First of all, I hate how conversions are still based around flashes. This makes it very hard to distinguish revolution from gangster mode as security and you have completely different goals in those, apart from mass loyalty implanting, of course. Best tactic seems to be just flashing as many people as you can as fast as you can, getting an advantage over your enemy. Yeah, you say there that it's gonna blow your cover, but it doesn't matter if you are being protected by dozens of men and other gang has five. It's just good to get as many people permanently converted as possible.

I like the recaller mechanic a lot, since security doesn't really care for real leaders, just the devices they hold. It is also possible for gang to try and recapture their devices and their leaders. The fact that killing leaders is not an objective of security is also very, very good. This is a huge step forward.

Heads of staff don't play any special role in this apart from not being able to spawn as gangsters. Can they be converted without implants? Otherwise they are just permanent crewmen who will get killed anyway.

I love the fact that people cannot tell who their buddies are. I wanted the same for rev. It's gonna be pretty harsh on friendly fire and lack of cooperation (hell, even cultists have a hard time using runes), but it opens up a lot of possibilities. Wearing clothes of the same color, posting papers and newspapers with list of gangsters, infiltrating to assassinate enemy boss... This is really refreshing.

Crew isn't just a neutral side that gets beaten up all the time, I like that. They actually have a goal here as well and like I said earlier, I quite like the recaller mechanic. AI will have a less of a hard time helping them, since objectives aren't lethal now.

So, to sum up, I really like how it is turning out to be, a lot better than I anticipated. I still think that conversion mechanics suck ass, and security may have a hard time identifying whether it's revolution or gang mode, as well as the identity of leaders.

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:51 am #32425

ThatSlyFox wrote:No deconvert method should exist and if one does it shouldn't be loyalty implants. It's not like they aren't loyal to NT its just that they want the other gang dead.

As a warden, this is exactly how I see that working out.

"Dangerous gangs running around tearing up the station and killing eachother, sir."
"Not if we kill all of them first."

If sec can't stop the gangs peacefully via deconversion then the only thing left is to start emptying the armory into them. That's essentially what we got stuck with the round I was in. Implants didn't do shit, so I started handing out guns.

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:08 pm #32432

My ideal situation would be encouraging security to pick a gang to assist slightly just to stay alive and keep informed, as happens sometimes IRL.

"HEY WHY DO THE GREENS ALL GET RELEASED EARLY? CORRUPTION!"

If this mode gave security some more OOC freedoms I think it would be perfect.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:06 pm #32440

Mass recruitment hasn't shown to be as powerful as one would expect. In the playtest we had, the members were largely unorganized and security responded very harshly to them. I believe the team that recruited conservatively won because security executed the other teams' gang boss.

This was, after all, just a single playtest however. I will run a couple more before deciding what changes I will make next. I have some ideas in mind already.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:50 pm #32468

Bandanas

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 6:17 pm #32471

Ikarrus wrote:Mass recruitment hasn't shown to be as powerful as one would expect. In the playtest we had, the members were largely unorganized and security responded very harshly to them. I believe the team that recruited conservatively won because security executed the other teams' gang boss.

This was, after all, just a single playtest however. I will run a couple more before deciding what changes I will make next. I have some ideas in mind already.

I believe that was the case. The surviving boss from the other gang was on lockdown (ironically from roundstart as he was spotted flashing people by a borg right out the gate) in the brig when the other team's final boss died (I believe also in the brig.)

As security, we really had no idea what the hell to do. Most of the officers instantly resorted to "probably rev, we're pretty sure its rev" and went into harmbaton mode. I handed out guns to a few implantees on the assumption it was revs (which I then heard officers report were used on other implanteds entirely throwing all that time spent implanting the whole station out the window.) We took the guns back and started mass permaing everyone. Though this only happened because centcomm intervened to make the officers stop killing gang members. Gr3yt1d3 virus hits and perma starts flooding out. I capture one perma prisoner and lock them in a looping 10 minute sentence because they "Don't want any trouble." Fair enough. I order the AI to lock down the perma brig which it takes to mean "use the lockdown button and trap the captain and HoS in the permabrig." It never opens it again so I can't get my SOs in there to fight back the tide, shuttle called, last boss for one side dies, the end.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:07 pm #32487

Can someone just port all of NT's fabulous fashion stuff to tg? It's all so fantastic. Bomber jackets, leather pants/jackets from botany, winter coats, so much great stuff that would be really neat to have, especially for a mode like this.

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:33 pm #32498

lumipharon wrote:NT has like a million different coloured jumpsuits, and the ability to roll down the top of your jumpsuit. MERGE THIS SHIT TO TG RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Having different options like this makes it alot more fun in terms of gang colours and shit.

Also NT gang weapons. Metal to make pleb bat, wood to make a baseball bat (hello mr security officer, me and my face mask wearing, pompadoor styled friends are just on our way to baseball practice), metal + plasteel for a butterfly knife, brass knuckes as a mining reward, and there was a chain, can't remember how to make that. Also glocks, probably debatable, but made only from upgraded autolathes and shitloads of metal, was pretty fun.

Oh, and because deconverting is rng based, sec basically has to be shitty, by beating everyone to near crit, and even then, you can't be certain that the person isn't a gangster (or even boss), because thy might have jsut been lucky with rng.
That round we just had was a massive clusterfuck for sec.

If gangsters actually RP, this stands to be a 10/10 gamemode but... sadly I don't see this happening very well on tg as it is.

Edit: Also, bandana's. NT has bandana's that can cover your mouth, or be toggled to be on your head. When they cover your mouth they work to hide your identity, which is neat.

Edit2: Metastation would be better for gangmode, since there is a lot more interesting things in maint for the gangs to deal with (maintbar/ghetto robotics/blackmarket/ghetto medbay etc). Is metastation compatible with the current server build? Someone should update it if it isn't.

Really, all of this.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:10 pm #32537

I find securities role during the playtest funny. Officer X:"Two gangs are killing each other, sir! What do we do?" HoS:" We kill all those fuckers. Red gang rules!"

Like sticky said maybe we could encourage people to RP this gamemode a little more. Security could get bribes and stuff. Gangs could pay off security to let the other gang get some alone time with someone. I see the detective being the most useful guy in the round if he RPs it a little.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:37 am #32561

Like I said, if everyone puts effort into rp'ing, gangmode is 10/10, but tg isn't rpish enough for that. Will still get the rare 11/10 round though hopefully.

miggles · Post by **miggles** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:40 am #32565

lumipharon wrote:Can someone just port all of NT's fabulous fashion stuff to tg? It's all so fantastic. Bomber jackets, leather pants/jackets from botany, winter coats, so much great stuff that would be really neat to have, especially for a mode like this.

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:30 am #32575

ThatSlyFox wrote:I find securities role during the playtest funny. Officer X:"Two gangs are killing each other, sir! What do we do?" HoS:" We kill all those fuckers. Red gang rules!"

Like sticky said maybe we could encourage people to RP this gamemode a little more. Security could get bribes and stuff. Gangs could pay off security to let the other gang get some alone time with someone. I see the detective being the most useful guy in the round if he RPs it a little.

Sec's job is to maintain and preserve the peace at all cost short of liquidating the crew outside of extremes (rev). Two opposing gangs busting each other up is pretty damn extreme and on-station warfare is something sec can't really take lightly.

If gangs don't want sec going animal style on them, they should probably avoid mass converting and think about how to approach things.

Silavite · Post by **Silavite** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:06 am #32583

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:I didn't participate in playtests, but I'd like to comment on the info from the wiki page.

First of all, I hate how conversions are still based around flashes. This makes it very hard to distinguish revolution from gangster mode as security and you have completely different goals in those, apart from mass loyalty implanting, of course. Best tactic seems to be just flashing as many people as you can as fast as you can, getting an advantage over your enemy. Yeah, you say there that it's gonna blow your cover, but it doesn't matter if you are being protected by dozens of men and other gang has five. It's just good to get as many people permanently converted as possible.

I think the conversion method should require
Keeping your victim still for a few seconds, and you must be in speaking range
Something like, maybe.

Johannes Po reads the tenants of the Mafia to Kim Mannheim.
Johannes Po: "You're now a son of the Mafia, watch out for yourself, your brothers, and me, your daddy."

Obviously, you'd have to do this in a discreet area, so no one would overhear. On the flip side, however, there'd be no incriminating item. I think the fact that members cannot automatically distinguish eachother balances the fact you need no conversion item. The ways members would be identify eachother would be incriminating enough. (Welding gas masks, for instance, as your sign)

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:23 am #32607

There won't be any more playtests until I get v2 up. Almost done.

Changes
- There will only be one boss per gang.
- Flash conversion replaced with new special pens gang bosses spawn with. tiny prick
- The pens are silent and never burn out, but they have a cooldown between conversions that get longer the larger your gang is
- The pens will blink while in cooldown and will vibrate to notify the user when it's ready for use

- The pen otherwise looks and behaves exactly like a regular pen. Only gang bosses can use their special function.
- Config option continuous_round_gang added, defaulting to off. Mostly for debugging purposes.
- TODO: A way to spawn pistols and colored jumpsuits for your gang

Bugfixes
- Gang bosses will no longer count as dead if their player disconnects from the server
- Gang bosses can no longer be deconverted

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:46 am #32610

Ikarrus wrote:and will vibrate to notify the user when it's ready for use :)

oh god why wrote::)

I hope theres some kind of larger notice about you being converted, because people will see "tiny prick" and scream LING instantly, guaranteed.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:49 am #32611

I think that this will encourage Security to execute gangsters akin to old cult. The only difference being that this will lead to one gang 'winning' since their gang boss is not the one to get executed first.

Having the only deconversion method being bashing someone in the head is not a good deconversion method, as well as being unreliable.

Nonetheless, I'll have to actually play the gamemode to get a better opinion.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:07 am #32615

Headbashing is not the best method, I agree. I'm still trying to figure out a good alternative.

What's important here is that gangs can deconvert their rivals to figure out the identity of their target. Regarding security, the trick is finding a way to do this that doesn't encourage them to go full martial law on the station. It was my belief that Inadvertently causing either team to win would be enough of a incentive to keep gangsters alive. Which is why there exists a way to end the round with both teams losing: evacuation.

I want to reiterate that Security's role in gang mode should be secondary to the gangs themselves. This is not rev. They are not the focus this time.

They can still be a useful tool for resourceful bosses, however. They're there to discourage gangs from "going loud" early on, and may be able to be manipulated to take out your rivals for you.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:09 am #32616

Saegrimr wrote:I hope theres some kind of larger notice about you being converted, because people will see "tiny prick" and scream LING instantly, guaranteed.

They're actually knocked unconscious for a few seconds to let it really sink in.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:24 am #32619

One thing I can see is the game mode becoming a game of the Gang bosses trying to dodge Security for as long as possible as they keep recalling the evac shuttle. However the one that recalls the shuttle will alert Security to where they currently are (to a certain accurate degree).

Admittedly the incentive to not kill the two gang leaders and to capture them and evacuate is a good incentive in of itself.

Oldman Robustin · Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:40 am

Haven't played it but here's a longshot propsal for a really exciting finish:

1) One gang boss dies
2) The surviving gang gets a special evacuation shuttle sent to arrivals, arrives in like 5 minutes after other gang boss dies.
3) Communication consoles all get a secret "communication intercepted" printout that reveals the name of the surviving gang boss
4) If surviving gang boss is alive on the gang shuttle as it lands at round-end, gangs wins, otherwise station wins. If surviving boss dies at any time, station wins.

People seem to forget that climatic round ends >>> stale endings, every time. It would be disappointing to see Gang end up as a "well we got the bosses now lets wait around the shuttle for 15 minutes". Rounds would move faster and be a lot more entertaining like this.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:58 am #32630

Security is one of the biggest most involved departments on the station. They will be involved in any gamemode. if you try to rule them out of gamemodes, you'll just be disappointed.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:16 am #32661

Ikarrus wrote:- There will only be one boss per gang.

I don't think this is for the best. At least add consigliere to each gang so rounds don't abruptly end because boss got harmbatoned in the first five minutes of the round. It's possible to die really quickly and wizard at least has excellent escape and disable.

Ikarrus wrote:- Flash conversion replaced with new special pens gang bosses spawn with. tiny prick

Cool.

Ikarrus wrote:- The pens are silent and never burn out, but they have a cooldown between conversions that get longer the larger your gang is

Interesting decision. Hopefully cooldown will be enough to deal with mass conversions.

This could either be really bad or really good for security, since implants don't have a cooldown and they could actually mass implant. Or they just don't notice at all. We'll see.

Ikarrus wrote:- The pens will blink while in cooldown and will vibrate to notify the user when it's ready for use

So basically it's easily identifiable by a third party when looked at when on cooldown?

Ikarrus wrote:- TODO: A way to spawn pistols and colored jumpsuits for your gang

Would be interesting to experiment with some structure rather than device, so a gang would have to set up a base in order for equipment (and potentially armor and uniforms) to become available.

Also, what about adding asymmetry, so gangs aren't all the same?

Reimoo · Post by **Reimoo** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:45 am #32666

Oldman Robustin wrote:Haven't played it but here's a longshot propsal for a really exciting finish:

1) One gang boss dies
2) The surviving gang gets a special evacuation shuttle sent to arrivals, arrives in like 5 minutes after other gang boss dies.
3) Communication consoles all get a secret "communication intercepted" printout that reveals the name of the surviving gang boss
4) If surviving gang boss is alive on the gang shuttle as it lands at round-end, gangs wins, otherwise station wins. If surviving boss dies at any time, station wins.

People seem to forget that climatic round ends >>> stale endings, every time. It would be disappointing to see Gang end up as a "well we got the bosses now lets wait around the shuttle for 15 minutes". Rounds would move faster and be a lot more entertaining like this.

This. You can't have a gangster mode without a getaway finish.

The consigliere idea isn't bad either. Gangs feel disconnected right now because the anonymity lends itself to disorganization, even moreso since there is only one person coordinating everything. Real mobs operate like clockwork even under anonymity, pic related.

Obviously we can't be that complex but at instead of having one boss only there could be one boss plus two underlings at roundstart. This could be the starting family and any converts are merely associates.

I say all this because we need more mobster movie references or something, damn it. The game mode does not make me feel like I am in a gang.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:01 pm #32670

The problem with a conversion pen, is if it gets taken off you, you're fucked in terms of recruiting people, where as with the flash, any flash works. Having said that, I do think it's better then more dull flashing.

Old man's idea is pretty neat, although knowing exactly where the boss has to be when his shuttle arrives makes it a little less interesting, but I can't think of a (practical) alternative.

And yeah, I agree as I said earlier. One boss + X number of recruiter/inner circle types.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:19 pm #32673

Oldman Robustin wrote:Haven't played it but here's a longshot propsal for a really exciting finish:

1) One gang boss dies
2) The surviving gang gets a special evacuation shuttle sent to arrivals, arrives in like 5 minutes after other gang boss dies.
3) Communication consoles all get a secret "communication intercepted" printout that reveals the name of the surviving gang boss
4) If surviving gang boss is alive on the gang shuttle as it lands at round-end, gangs wins, otherwise station wins. If surviving boss dies at any time, station wins.

People seem to forget that climatic round ends >>> stale endings, every time. It would be disappointing to see Gang end up as a "well we got the bosses now lets wait around the shuttle for 15 minutes". Rounds would move faster and be a lot more entertaining like this.

>give HoS metal and plasteel
>wall off special shuttle location with rwalls
>kill anyone trying to prevent you from doing it

Incomptinence · Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:11 pm

Yeah that would be walling off arrivals, we already don't allow that for obvious reasons.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:57 pm #32683

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:So basically it's easily identifiable by a third party when looked at when on cooldown?
---
Also, what about adding asymmetry, so gangs aren't all the same?

j-j-j-jam it in your PDA. I think the station being asymmetrical in terms of finding a hideout and department to loiter will make the gangs asymmetrical enough.

lumipharon wrote:The problem with a conversion pen, is if it gets taken off you, you're fucked in terms of recruiting people, where as with the flash, any flash works. Having said that, I do think it's better then more dull flashing.

J-J-J-JAM IT IN YOUR PDA. Alternatively wasn't the initial point to capture the gang boss and take his stupid recaller? Confiscating the pen/flashes sounds natural after that anyway.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:07 pm #32686

Saegrimr wrote:I think the station being asymmetrical in terms of finding a hideout and department to loiter will make the gangs asymmetrical enough.

Oh yeah, having a room in north maint or in south maint. Making stunprods in engineering or making stunprods in science.

Saegrimr wrote:
Lo6a4evskiy wrote:So basically it's easily identifiable by a third party when looked at when on cooldown?
j-j-j-jam it in your PDA.

I didn't ask "how to avoid detection". I asked "is it easily identifiable by someone else". Does this mean that it is?

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:17 pm #32688

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:Oh yeah, having a room in north maint or in south maint. Making stunprods in engineering or making stunprods in science.

You're thinking really narrow, assistant vs assistant. You know you can convert scientists, engineers, cargo and the likes, right?
Guncargo vs Jihad science is definitely a thing that can happen.

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:I didn't ask "how to avoid detection". I asked "is it easily identifiable by someone else". Does this mean that it is?

I don't know if the mini icons in Examine are animated, so maybe not. Although people will meta anybody holding a pen, they do it anyway for traitors.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:21 pm #32689

Saegrimr wrote:You're thinking really narrow, assistant vs assistant. You know you can convert scientists, engineers, cargo and the likes, right?
Guncargo vs Jihad science is definitely a thing that can happen.

I got your point, I just don't like you denying any notion of possible item asymmetry or may be even conversion methods, stuff like that. Why not potentially do that?

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:24 pm #32698

Gang mode should not be exclusive of other modes. It should include other antags, with gang rules and loyalties being the highest priority, so you can have traitors and changelings (and even wizards?) joining/leading gangs.

Gang recruitment also shouldn't be like rev, but I don't have a better idea. I guess that's up to RP.

cedarbridge · Post by **cedarbridge** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:59 pm #32715

Scott wrote:Gang mode should not be exclusive of other modes. It should include other antags, with gang rules and loyalties being the highest priority, so you can have traitors and changelings (and even wizards?) joining/leading gangs.

Gang recruitment also shouldn't be like rev, but I don't have a better idea. I guess that's up to RP.

Mixed type modes add complexity without always adding clarity. Nukeops wizards are alright for a one-shot, but if every nuke team was MM spewing wizards I'd probably skip it. Eventually there is such thing as too much.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:02 pm #32719

Scott wrote:Gang mode should not be exclusive of other modes. It should include other antags, with gang rules and loyalties being the highest priority, so you can have traitors and changelings (and even wizards?) joining/leading gangs.

I'd love to see mixed modes, but this is pretty terrible for a consistent game mode. Admin event? Sure. Not game mode please.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:07 pm #32722

Of course it shouldn't be common, but should still be allowed to happen. I mean, gang leaders that are also other types of antagonist have more motivations and objectives than a random crew member being a gang leader. Use the gang for their own ends.

Converting should have a cooldown, if it doesn't have one already.

Arete · Post by **Arete** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:28 pm #32732

Oldman Robustin wrote:1) One gang boss dies
2) The surviving gang gets a special evacuation shuttle sent to arrivals, arrives in like 5 minutes after other gang boss dies.
3) Communication consoles all get a secret "communication intercepted" printout that reveals the name of the surviving gang boss
4) If surviving gang boss is alive on the gang shuttle as it lands at round-end, gangs wins, otherwise station wins. If surviving boss dies at any time, station wins.

The problem here is that it swings back into incentivizing security to harmbatoning everyone. If security kills one leader quickly, then the other leader won't have time to convert enough gang members to forcibly take the evacuation shuttle (and because security knows the surviving boss's name and where he has to be and when he has to be there, the gang will have to force its way through).

That said, the point about the game dragging on once it's become a foregone conclusion that the station wins is a valid one. The game is effectively over once security has confiscated both recallers. Maybe using one recaller on the other one should end the round with a station victory.

Also, regarding bosses and consiglieres, having only one boss on each side does seem like it'll lead to very random outcomes. Maybe each side should have one boss and a number of consiglieres depending on the number of players, but only one recaller for each gang.

Oldman Robustin · Wed Oct 01, 2014 9:19 pm

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:
Oldman Robustin wrote:Haven't played it but here's a longshot propsal for a really exciting finish:

1) One gang boss dies
2) The surviving gang gets a special evacuation shuttle sent to arrivals, arrives in like 5 minutes after other gang boss dies.
3) Communication consoles all get a secret "communication intercepted" printout that reveals the name of the surviving gang boss
4) If surviving gang boss is alive on the gang shuttle as it lands at round-end, gangs wins, otherwise station wins. If surviving boss dies at any time, station wins.

People seem to forget that climatic round ends >>> stale endings, every time. It would be disappointing to see Gang end up as a "well we got the bosses now lets wait around the shuttle for 15 minutes". Rounds would move faster and be a lot more entertaining like this.
>give HoS metal and plasteel
>wall off special shuttle location with rwalls
>kill anyone trying to prevent you from doing it

Shuttles have windows too m8. Plus the surviving gang will be able to immediately move to secure the shuttle area as well, and security is still bound by the rules so they can't go full genocide on arrivals.

There's no set of rules for a gametype that will be perfect, but I think the most appropriate quote here is "The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan". A crazy clusterfuck escape for the gang leader will be infinitely better than "ok lets wait 10 minutes for the shuttle, 2 minutes to load, 2 minutes to travel, and there is no incentive for anyone to do anything exciting once one gang boss has died.".

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 10:11 pm #32796

I feel like having one gang boss is too few and three is too many. Maybe the win condition should be something like oldman suggested. I would like to see the recaller be the win objective, whichever boss combines the two wins or something.

I'm terrible with ideas.

Wizardjenkins66 · Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:57 pm

Maybe we should have a Second in Command who becomes gang boss if the First one dies, Like a Real Mafia.

ThatSlyFox · Post by **ThatSlyFox** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:58 pm #32806

Wizardjenkins66 wrote:Maybe we should have a Second in Command who becomes gang boss if the First one dies, Like a Real Mafia.

One person is just to few we need something like this. People die quickly.

mrpain · Post by **mrpain** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 3:38 am #32842

I want a verb specific to individual gangs that lets me throw up gang signs specific to that gang. Because MUH IMMERSHIONS. And [spoiler]RP[/spoiler]