Abduction [Gamemode]

Post by **AnturK** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:14 pm #81991

Abduction mode just got merged so let's open up this discussion.

Basic Information:
https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Abductor (Wiki page is still WIP)
or here
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/8155

Improvements being worked on right now:
* Easier spawning of alien equipment
* Headcams for agents

Too hard ? Too easy ? Too boring ? Any comments and feedback welcome.

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:40 pm #81993

Needs more anal probes.

Loonikus · Post by **Loonikus** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 5:49 pm #81998

If there's no implant that makes you sporadically burst into song and dance I will be rather sad.

But really, the only things I would want is more (and possibly negative) possible effects from implants and a message for abductees so they won't try to blow the abductors cover, but so far this is great. Keep up the good work.

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 6:05 pm #82000

I think people'll be really keen on getting abducted for a while, but that's not really a bad thing.
Can't wait to try it!

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 7:53 pm #82014

All the abductee objectives are 100% flavor. I have a feeling people are gonna ignore them and just use it as a license to griff once they figure out they get greentext no matter what they do.

Wait.

Shit.

Loonikus · Post by **Loonikus** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:01 pm #82018

I'd imagine thats kind of the point. They create chaos to act as a distraction while the abductors do their thing.

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:10 pm #82020

Hopefully this doesn't swing too far in the other direction, like people are flocking to the abductors for upgrades+griff passes.
Maybe, if abducted, there should be some sort of large drawback? Implants explode after x amount of time unless you get a tune up or something? I don't know.
We'd need the mode to be actually be played a lot before we start making solutions that don't exist yet I suppose.

Loonikus · Post by **Loonikus** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:25 pm #82022

Way back when I made the original idea thread I had the same concern, hence why in my draft of the mode many implants had negative, even lethal, effects like constant spontaneous combustion or corgification.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:27 pm #82024

You aren't seriously suggesting corgification is a negative effect, are you.

Post by **AnturK** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:45 pm #82028

Yeah, this is fair concern. Adding new glands with more destructive effects is rather simple so we just need to wait and see if it's needed.

Another non-issue i was wondering when coding is stripping of abductees. Should abductors be somehow encouraged to return their victims fully dressed and with ID's.

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:57 pm #82030

Glands should occasionally provide some disincentive to wanting to cooperate too so it isn't just objectively better to go get probed for some free powers.

Luke Cox · Post by **Luke Cox** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:27 pm #82034

Woah, this is a bit of a surprise. A nice one too.

The main issue I see is people cooperating to get powers. Glands need to have a variety of nasty effects.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

Glands really aren't powers, except for healing and ventcrawl.

Nothing is controllable, so good luck explaining to sec why you emped them 5 times in a row, or why the captain saw you pukin' spiders (gib he)

or the fact you're only occasionally human.

The point of glands is to be mostly a pain for the glandee, but dangerous/deadly/annoying for the entire rest of the crew.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:47 am #82096

As noted, my biggest concern is that most of the glands seem to have some form of positive benefit with nothing that significantly really bad. I think there needs to be a sprinkle of really negative, but not necessarily lethal, glands to discourage people from wanting to be probed for those awesome powers.

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:11 am #82101

Does the number of Collector Agents scale with population?

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:48 am #82108

the "really bad" thing about most glands is that they're hyper obvious and automatically flag you as antagonists if your caught power incontinent.

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:55 am #82110

And, because you are Valid, you will then be swarmed by assistants with stunprods who GOTTA GET DAT K/D UP.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:12 am #82116

Don't forget that the Agent's vest has a anti-stun function.

Post by **AnturK** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:52 am #82123

Drynwyn wrote:Does the number of Collector Agents scale with population?

Yes, right now it's at 1 team per 15 people.(It's a config option, so can be changed if it needs tuning) Up to four teams maximum.

onleavedontatme · Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:57 am

So the aliens are largely stun immune and can warp back to their shuttle at any time, meaning the only way to stop them would be to board said shuttle

Boarding/looking for shuttles would ruin the round more or less though, as it does in nuke. So the crew is more or less torn between letting aliens steal people and abductees fuck things up until the shuttle is called or metagaming/ruining all the fun.

Maybe I'm getting the wrong idea but that's a potential issue I'm guessing at from looking at the code. Very cool idea though, look forward to playing it.

Post by **AnturK** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:25 am #82125

Not exactly. Agent can't go back to ship without help. Scientist can but has no anti-stun abilities and the teleport implant has a cooldown. They're pretty vulnerable during body recovery since nobody can use the teleporting console at the time.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:36 am #82126

To summarise a bit.

The Scientist is utterly helpless while on station and the only thing he can really do is mark someone to be teleported back to the ship and also teleport himself off the station.

The Agent has the tools to work on the station, but is utterly reliant on the Scientist. He can't change his vests mode (from stealth to combat and back again) and he must be teleported back to his ship by the Scientist, only the Scientist can change the Agents vest remotely.

onleavedontatme · Tue Apr 14, 2015 8:01 am

AnturK wrote:Not exactly. Agent can't go back to ship without help. Scientist can but has no anti-stun abilities and the teleport implant has a cooldown. They're pretty vulnerable during body recovery since nobody can use the teleporting console at the time.

Steelpoint wrote:To summarise a bit.

The Scientist is utterly helpless while on station and the only thing he can really do is mark someone to be teleported back to the ship and also teleport himself off the station.

The Agent has the tools to work on the station, but is utterly reliant on the Scientist. He can't change his vests mode (from stealth to combat and back again) and he must be teleported back to his ship by the Scientist, only the Scientist can change the Agents vest remotely.

My bad, didn't realize the gear was split between the two roles. Teach me to mouth off after skimming the code. This sounds very cleverly designed.

Can't believe we're getting new game modes.

Tokiko2 · Post by **Tokiko2** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:53 am #82135

I played it for a bit on a local test server. It looks fun but I did come across some things I'd want to mention:

Following the agent on cameras as the scientist is be a bit annoying with the usual security camera interface. It would be nice if the agent had a camera that you could follow, similar to borgs or those security helmets. And preferably only from that console so AI and security can't meta that there's abductors on station.

I think that the teleporter and suit control console should be right next to the camera so you don't have to walk all the way across the room to change between combat and stealth mode. Relying on another player to manage that aspect should already be enough of a challenge.

Also some possible bugs I encountered(it was on debug though so these may be my fault):

You can do the experimental surgery on the researchers which will give them an ability, a new objective and count towards your abduction goal. Could be a feature? Maybe?
The mark text is also very confusing. Marking humans through cameras will give a misleading message that you can retrieve them which does not work. You need to mark them while being on station. Marking them on station requires you to do it twice before it works and it also gives a strange "This specimen is already marked." message.

Aside from that, the gamemode looks very promising. Looking forward to try this in a real round.

Post by **AnturK** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:21 am #82143

Alright, i'll switch the operating table and camera console around and i'll see if i can add abductor-only headcam.

Giving abductors powers should not work. You can perform surgery but not activate it with the machine. I'll see if i missed a check there and reword the marking text a bit.

Alex Crimson · Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:26 am

Curious, why is there no way to make yourself an Alien in the traitor panel? I cannot figure out how to do it any other way. Cannot spawn as one because you need two ghosts, and cannot take control of one because there is no alien mob in the game panel.

Post by **AnturK** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:29 am #82148

Just use the swap species choice in var editing panel. I didn't add the option to the traitor panel because they're pretty reliant on full setup of gear and location to work, so making one abductor would be pretty pointless.

And yeah this kinda makes this annoying to test.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:31 am #82149

suggestion: give the aliens their own language so all players hear is [alien] says, "ayy lmao"

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:35 pm #82166

Alex Crimson wrote:Curious, why is there no way to make yourself an Alien in the traitor panel? I cannot figure out how to do it any other way. Cannot spawn as one because you need two ghosts, and cannot take control of one because there is no alien mob in the game panel.

If you use the DEBUG_GAME verb it should let you bypass round start requirements, although I'm not sure if that'll work with new game modes or not - wasn't of concern when I coded it (to test cult changes)

You can also ghetto multi-key on your test server by first logging onto the server as your key, then logging off and reconnecting again - this will reconnect you as a guest.
So you'll have control of two players at the same time.

peoplearestrange · Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:51 pm

Miauw wrote:suggestion: give the aliens their own language so all players hear is [alien] says, "ayy lmao"

This hahahha!

EDIT: Actually that be a terrible idea... would make reading logs a nightmare.

Durkel · Post by **Durkel** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:07 pm #82174

I haven't seen it in action much, but what I have seen is aliens using handcuffs and cable restraints. That's not very high tech for a "advanced" alien race. Could you possibly give them some flashy handcuffs made of energy of something?

Also, they could possibly have something like that already and I missed it totally. Honk

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:09 pm #82175

New fancy cuffs/batons would be doable, just getting someone to sprite something in line is the problem.

Alex Crimson · Post by **Alex Crimson** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:50 pm #82179

From what i saw during the first playtest of the game mode...

The ship needs a redesign. The cramped style of the operating room is fine, but they need a second room for storage and more spare gear. Also i think adding in a second operating table with a husk on it would be a cool spooky aesthetic addition. Could probably add more aesthetic stuff. They also need a freezer or some kind of storage device for organs they extract. Food in the storage room if they get hungry etc.

Virus gland needs more non-lethal diseases. Brainrot needs to be a low chance thing. Aliens should be immune to diseases.

The aliens need more incentive to return the human and their gear. Maybe make them unable to use any of it and instead give them an entirely unique set of weapons/clothes. Or just add a message to the surgery note that it would be best to send their gear back via the telepad to avoid suspicion.

Give them some kind of energy cuffs that disappear when removed. Maybe a device that applies the cuffs, like those holosign projectors.

Rather than stunning they should have a device that puts people to sleep. Fits more with the "alien abduction" theme.

Right now they need to steal IDs for access. Could instead give them some kind of super emag doorjack ID. Basically an all-access id that looks like an alien device.

The stealth device doesnt copy clothes, so an agent still appears to have syndicate/alien gear when you examine them. Might want to change that somehow? Give them chameleon gear they can change at will?

EDIT: and seeing as we are referencing X-com, could you make the damage the agent takes be shared by the scientist? Not sure if thats possible code-wise but it would be cool, no? Also would prevent the scientist from being left all alone if the agent dies.

Post by **Vekter** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:23 pm #82196

[youtube]HTLZjhHIEdw[/youtube]

Post by **AnturK** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:21 pm #82206

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/8976

I'll be adding more fixes and tweaks to this as i get them done.

Loonikus · Post by **Loonikus** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:28 pm #82207

Adds Advanced Baton - Stun,Sleep,Cuff in one tool

That's pretty robust, does it at least have a cooldown so we can't ayy lmao entire mobs of people at once? Maybe a species check so humans can't use it?

Drynwyn · Post by **Drynwyn** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:47 pm #82213

I'm starting to think that, due to the low degree of direction involved in Abductor play, they might be better off as a secondary antagonist- especially since the glanded crew could seriously spice up the round of traitors, revs, etc. A ~25% chance to spawn a single Abductor team in Traitor, Changeling, Rev, Gang, Shadowling, and Cult rounds (Nuke rounds would be an excercise in frustration for the Abductors, I think, due to the rapid pace, and the disruption potential in Malf rounds is too severe) would be interesting, as a) the Abductors would have to decide how to best take advantage of the ongoing events of the round and b) The station crew would have to decide how to best take advantage of the glands the Abductors insert in crew members. You COULD valid salad that gland implantee that's spewing EMP's- or you could drag him to your local Revhead and enlist his help in breaking into the brig.

Alex Crimson · Post by **Alex Crimson** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:59 pm #82216

Yeah a single abduction team operating at the same time as other louder antags would be awesome.

Still, i imagine with 2-3 abduction teams operating at once, racing to finish their objective first, the round would be quite hectic. Also remember its a new mode so the aliens are kinda slow at their job because they are still learning it.

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:26 pm #82219

There should be some special sunglasses in maint that see through the alien's disguise

[youtube]4-MVMbm6c0k[/youtube]

Lumbermancer · Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:57 pm

Abudctors come and go as they please, and seemingly can't be touched. This doesn't seems to be entertaining to anyone else but abductors, even from the perspective of security.

meme gamemode.

Alex Crimson · Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:38 am

No they cannot. The Scientist can teleport back to the ship, but the implant has a cooldown. The Agent can only get back to the ship if the Scientist marks him and manually teleports him back.

If its an issue, then you could always add some kind of star trek transporter fade in/out rather than it being instant.

So far ive seen the Abductors get rekt most of the time.

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:16 am #82282

save the second image, change filename extension to .dmi, the byond dmi data should be retained

these are offered as is unless there are minor things that could be changed, the ayylien outlines might need some reworking to show up better on floor tiles I'm not too sure otherwise it might be a week or so for new alien floor tiles/walls/machines

onleavedontatme · Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:19 am

You're a saint

Poorman · Post by **Poorman** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:47 am #82289

My only interaction so far was just walking in on a disguised abductor running around as the RD. I just sort of shot them to keep them stunned while everyone else beat on them. I figured it was just a shitty admin event at the time, not an entire new round type.

That being said, I've yet to see this really in action as an ayylien or as a victim, probably because I've personally stopped putting myself in those vulnerable positions the abductors seem to play off of, but in theory it all seems pretty fun.

Way better than shadowling, at the very least.

peoplearestrange · Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:04 pm

The Abductor ships really needs more rooms. Holding cages would be interesting and fun too, having captives talk to each other about what might happen to them whilst silent aliens onlook.

They all REALLY need a medbay, right now if the abductor gets hurt in anyway they have to steal supplies from the station, which seems ridiculous. Also god forbid one die, even if the scientist gets them back to the ship they have no way to revive them. Doesn't really feel like they're that advanced if NT themselves are surpassing their tech.

Also having a limited supply of kit can be a real pain. If someone disarms you and you loose your baton then you have to raid the armoury. Which is insanely easy to do as the scientist. I don't think this should be stopped but it also shouldn't be necessary as an abductor to have to raid anything.

But other than that I think this has a lot of promise, I think it works best combined with other game modes however, so that its not the main focus of the crew. Crew shouldn't be gearing up to defend against them, it should be the odd person being picked off and dumped back.

Remie Richards · Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:05 pm

imblyings wrote:-sexy as FUCK image snips-

save the second image, change filename extension to .dmi, the byond dmi data should be retained

these are offered as is unless there are minor things that could be changed, the ayylien outlines might need some reworking to show up better on floor tiles I'm not too sure otherwise it might be a week or so for new alien floor tiles/walls/machines

omg.
those sprites.
omg.

I cant even.
Implement yesterday.

Alex Crimson · Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:09 pm

peoplearestrange wrote:The Abductor ships really needs more rooms. Holding cages would be interesting and fun too, having captives talk to each other about what might happen to them whilst silent aliens onlook.

They all REALLY need a medbay, right now if the abductor gets hurt in anyway they have to steal supplies from the station, which seems ridiculous. Also god forbid one die, even if the scientist gets them back to the ship they have no way to revive them. Doesn't really feel like they're that advanced if NT themselves are surpassing their tech.

Also having a limited supply of kit can be a real pain. If someone disarms you and you loose your baton then you have to raid the armoury. Which is insanely easy to do as the scientist. I don't think this should be stopped but it also shouldn't be necessary as an abductor to have to raid anything.

But other than that I think this has a lot of promise, I think it works best combined with other game modes however, so that its not the main focus of the crew. Crew shouldn't be gearing up to defend against them, it should be the odd person being picked off and dumped back.

Someone posted a redesign of the ship in OOC...

http://puu.sh/hdQpn/43d16d2631.png

Personally i think the Telepad should be in the operating room(as that is where the humans are teleported to).

Post by **AnturK** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:16 pm #82318

imblyings wrote:-snip-

save the second image, change filename extension to .dmi, the byond dmi data should be retained

these are offered as is unless there are minor things that could be changed, the ayylien outlines might need some reworking to show up better on floor tiles I'm not too sure otherwise it might be a week or so for new alien floor tiles/walls/machines

aw yiss. This is amazing. Thanks man. Will get to putting them as soon as i can.

Remie Richards · Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:17 pm

Alex Crimson wrote:
Someone posted a redesign of the ship in OOC...

http://puu.sh/hdQpn/43d16d2631.png

Personally i think the Telepad should be in the operating room(as that is where the humans are teleported to).

The telepad should remain next to the teleporter console.
Since you can see when your agent is on the pad, instead of him having to say "Im on the pad" every single time.
You also see your marks the exact moment they pop on the ship.

Alex Crimson · Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:32 pm

Remie Richards wrote:
Alex Crimson wrote:
Someone posted a redesign of the ship in OOC...

http://puu.sh/hdQpn/43d16d2631.png

Personally i think the Telepad should be in the operating room(as that is where the humans are teleported to).
The telepad should remain next to the teleporter console.
Since you can see when your agent is on the pad, instead of him having to say "Im on the pad" every single time.
You also see your marks the exact moment they pop on the ship.

Then put them both in the operating room? Or even in the middle fluff room. Then the far right room can be pure storage(which is really messy and probably not something the human should see. Gotaa maintain the creepy image and all).

Also the ability to resist out of the surgery table could do with fixing. The new baton that puts people to sleep should help stop it, but it would be nice if the problem itself were fixed.