Carnivorous changelings: Electric Boogaloo

Man_Shroom · Post by **Man_Shroom** » Wed May 06, 2015 12:27 am #86016

Okay now let's do it right this time.

Removed: Changelings can't sting no more, changelings can't absorb bitches no more. Mute sting for ever and ever, and LSD sting too.
Possible return of: Transform sting, cryo sting, extract DNA sting, I'm serious about the last one.

New shit that is 100% finished:
Resonant Shriek now stuns for 2, compared to a stunbaton that stuns for 7
New ability: Spine Burst, sprays spines in every direction, stunning any non-silicons in melee range for 5. Costs a whopping 40 chemical points, and is extremely obvious to anyone that can see you.
Changed summon spiders to summon NPC Experiment 35b-type monsters, loyal to you like a space carp plushie.
Changeling objectives getting nerfed to hell, giving the axe to steal a brain, objectives will most likely be "Steal 3-4 genomes, kill X, escape safely/replace X, escape with X's ID.
Cutting down on the number of changelings in a round, wouldn't want 10 greater forms running about.

New absorbing system: Aggressive grab someone, click yourself to bite them for 15 brute(and 0.5 chemicals), if they are stunned/KO'd, you will rip and tear them open and eat a bunch of their guts(no longer appendixes) and gain points, chemicals, their identity, and fill your hungry bar.

You can rip open humans for 2 genetic points (used to buy shit in the evolution menu) xenomorphs for 4, monkeys for 1, and simple mobs with 50 or more health for 0.5. You can also eat other changelings to steal all of THEIR points/chems/genomes. This will hopefully allow stealthed changelings some options, but also stop people from grinding mice for XP.

New shit that will be added:
Lesser Form allowing you to turn into any simple mob that you eat.
Greater form for a large genome cost, probably like 6.
More shit that the community wants.

New shit that /MAY/ be added:
Changelings being guaranteed to not have each other as objectives.
Leaping ability like xenomorph hunters
An ability that makes simple mobs go nuts and rampage, AKA space rabies.
An ability that lets you split like an ameoba, halving your health and all your points, and spawning a lesser changeling with only a few select abilities.
Biting/Ripping and Eating ONLY be possible if you have no mask or face-covering helmet on.
More shit that the community wants.

This remake is NOT intended to force lings to go on murderbone sprees, it is intended to stop ling rounds from dragging on and on, make lings more of an open threat, and still allow people to stealth if they want. Ling victims will not longer NEED to be spaced, the same way that traitor victims are not spaced, because the ling will be robust enough to survive being exposed, and having a chance of taking on the entire crew and the AI.

RG4 · Post by **RG4** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:28 am #86025

So basically Goonling w/o the OP as fucking neurotox spit and sting?

Man_Shroom · Post by **Man_Shroom** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:35 am #86029

RG4 wrote:So basically Goonling w/o the OP as fucking neurotox spit and sting?

Yes, kinda-sorta. Lings will probably never get ranged abilities, and silent-stunning shit is a no-no.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:39 am #86033

If you can kill a xeno as a changeling you deserve to be able to transform into a xeno. Just make it they get all xeno forms save queen

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:49 am #86036

Here are my thoughts
New abilities: Yes
Removing stings fnr: No
New absorption method: It sounds basically the same as normal absorption but you can absorb nonhumans and humans can be cloned, I'd be okay with it

New "points for absorptions" system: GIMPED LING AT ROUNDSTART, YOU'RE WEAK AS FUCK! GOOD LUCK NOT DYING IMMEDIATELY, SHITHEAD! BUT ON THE OFF-CHANCE YOU SURVIVE MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES THEN GET POINTS FOR KILLS RAISE THAT K/D GET AS MANY KILLS AS YOU CAN AND UNLOCK MAD DAMAGE TO RAISE YOUR K/D EVEN MORE! SEE THAT SHITHEADED ASSISTANT ALL HE IS IS MORE POINTS GO PUT HIM OUT OF THE ROUND K/D/K/D/K/D GO FARM SOME SIMPLE MOBS REMEMBER TO POWERGAME AS HARD AS YOU CAN AND KILL EVERYTHING

in other words this is a bad idea

Stronger abilities for more point cost: sure
Buffing existing abilites: sounds cool

Overall: I think most of this is pretty cool, but there are some points I disagree with. The cool bits are something to be excited for, though (disguise as Ian hype).

Man_Shroom · Post by **Man_Shroom** » Wed May 06, 2015 2:02 am #86042

Whoa there amigo.

First, there may be some new abilities to get people back into the round, either as the summon creatures, or the amoeba splitting thingy.

Secondly, changelings at roundstart are not that weak, they start off with their teeth and 2 EVO points, which is enough to buy any ability on the menu, or 2 of the smaller ones. They also still have their revival stasis.

Third, people have shown that it is really not that hard to kill someone, especially if you have some kind of special advantage that only you know about and can never be taken away from you.

Fourth, I don't think the players are so shitty as to murderbone 24/7 every round. Any antagonist is capable of going for MAXIMUM K/D MAN SO SWEET, but they don't.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Wed May 06, 2015 2:31 am #86050

If you could give lings the ability to mindwipe how they died with evo points that would be cool

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Wed May 06, 2015 2:34 am #86052

Man_Shroom wrote:Secondly, changelings at roundstart are not that weak, they start off with their teeth and 2 EVO points, which is enough to buy any ability on the menu, or 2 of the smaller ones. They also still have their revival stasis.

True, but this is two points compared to the 10 they regularly start with, and revival stasis can't work every time because as soon as you use a ling ability it's "LING CREMATE HE." Many lings already flop at roundstart with 10 points, and lowering it to 2 won't do them any favors. Their teeth only do 15 brute and require an aggressive grab, which requires the target to stand still, so you're better off just punching them like four times.

Man_Shroom wrote:Fourth, I don't think the players are so shitty as to murderbone 24/7 every round. Any antagonist is capable of going for MAXIMUM K/D MAN SO SWEET, but they don't.

Unfortunately, players generally are that way, which is why we don't have many features like this. It's one of those "good in theory, horrible in execution" kind of deals. Any antagonist is capable of going crazy, sure, but with this you get more powerful with every kill, meaning your potential power is basically limitless as long as you raise dat K/D (meaning murder is both encouraged and made easier as time progresses). With traitors, your potential power pretty much caps out depending on what items you have and how much TC you have to spend.
I guarantee, 100%, that if this system is implemented, we will only have two kinds of lings: Ones that die immediately, and ones that murder half the station by themselves.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Wed May 06, 2015 3:38 am #86059

PKPenguin321 wrote:
Man_Shroom wrote:Secondly, changelings at roundstart are not that weak, they start off with their teeth and 2 EVO points, which is enough to buy any ability on the menu, or 2 of the smaller ones. They also still have their revival stasis.
True, but this is two points compared to the 10 they regularly start with, and revival stasis can't work every time because as soon as you use a ling ability it's "LING CREMATE HE." Many lings already flop at roundstart with 10 points, and lowering it to 2 won't do them any favors. Their teeth only do 15 brute and require an aggressive grab, which requires the target to stand still, so you're better off just punching them like four times.

Man_Shroom wrote:Fourth, I don't think the players are so shitty as to murderbone 24/7 every round. Any antagonist is capable of going for MAXIMUM K/D MAN SO SWEET, but they don't.
Unfortunately, players generally are that way, which is why we don't have many features like this. It's one of those "good in theory, horrible in execution" kind of deals. Any antagonist is capable of going crazy, sure, but with this you get more powerful with every kill, meaning your potential power is basically limitless as long as you raise dat K/D (meaning murder is both encouraged and made easier as time progresses). With traitors, your potential power pretty much caps out depending on what items you have and how much TC you have to spend.
I guarantee, 100%, that if this system is implemented, we will only have two kinds of lings: Ones that die immediately, and ones that murder half the station by themselves.

Usually shuttle gets called on lings because they are still working on their extremely hard objectives not to murderbone

RocKeD · Post by **RocKeD** » Wed May 06, 2015 5:34 am #86090

I thought you said this was "KO'd for a little while". Either way I'll just leave with this as it has a lot of good feedback: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9306

Incomptinence · Wed May 06, 2015 7:27 am

I would agree with keeping the objectives simple. Changelings are shitty thieves still unless you give them more ways to deal with barriers than an assistant has. I would say keep it to "eat X genes" and "escape alive" as training wheels. If you manage to get an antag that can deal with objective bloat past the boxer rebellion it can always be changed latter.

Changelings in low numbers seems like a bad idea it is one of the crucial flaws of current ling. It creates the false impression "this is definitely more dangerous than a traitor" when that may not actually be true. Even oldling was only on parity with traitors for killing and most actual murderboners are traitors not lings and despite your intention to bring back the evolution system probably means they will initially be much less intense than traitors who can lead lord singulo on a merry beacon'd beeline through the station in less than 30 minutes of prep.

I see your design doesn't include future ranged weaponry so how about traps like webs or biological mines instead? Traps are much more common in nature than shooting shit it would be fitting and add more differentiation to traitors besides the janitor and clown.

Arete · Post by **Arete** » Wed May 06, 2015 7:46 am #86124

The relative harmlessness of changelings is a good point. It's cool that they're designed around a theme of being more subtle and insidious, but the gameplay doesn't back it up. It might be interesting to try focusing their objectives less on collecting lots of genomes and more on the kind of sabotage that would be served by slipping into the identity of a high-ranking crewmember. I'm thinking of stuff like releasing the singulo ("Ensure that station integrity is less than 80% by the end of the shift"), stealing research ("Escape with a disk containing Biology 7 and erase any records of that research level on the station"), or framing a high-ranking official for some crime ("Head of Personnel Ophie Schlange must be Wanted or Arrested at the end of the round").

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:30 pm #86162

Problem with that high-ranking official type of dealio is that that encourages a meta of setting people off arrest the moment they're in the shuttlebrig.

I'd prefer a Bay-style 'Make sure that x spends a consecutive y minutes in a brig cell', from back when Bay still had objectives.

Post by **Jacquerel** » Wed May 06, 2015 5:35 pm #86205

If you implement a point gain through murder system, you are going to turn this into a murder-only antagonist. It's fine if that's your intention, but I'm not sure that it is. That's precisely why it was changed to the "start at 10, sting to win, don't ever gain extra model.

When you start weak and can only gain power through killing people then that's what you have to do, you can take a couple of powers sure but you'll suck compared to if you killed a couple of people, and if the powers you can take to get things through stealth or misdirection are strong enough to support this then it will merely make someone who does kill a lot of people dramatically powerful (nothing stops them from taking the same powers, after all they'll have a much more forgiving budget than you).

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed May 06, 2015 5:36 pm #86207

So wait, when did an antagonist killing people become a bad thing again?

RocKeD · Post by **RocKeD** » Wed May 06, 2015 8:09 pm #86249

Arete wrote:The relative harmlessness of changelings is a good point. It's cool that they're designed around a theme of being more subtle and insidious, but the gameplay doesn't back it up. It might be interesting to try focusing their objectives less on collecting lots of genomes and more on the kind of sabotage that would be served by slipping into the identity of a high-ranking crewmember. I'm thinking of stuff like releasing the singulo ("Ensure that station integrity is less than 80% by the end of the shift"), stealing research ("Escape with a disk containing Biology 7 and erase any records of that research level on the station"), or framing a high-ranking official for some crime ("Head of Personnel Ophie Schlange must be Wanted or Arrested at the end of the round").

This my friends is a great idea. I feel like the changeling is being massively changed "just because", I agree with Arete that these changes do not back the changeling style of game-play.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Wed May 06, 2015 9:39 pm #86290

Bombadil wrote:Usually shuttle gets called on lings because they are still working on their extremely hard objectives not to murderbone

and now it will get called because all the antags died instantly/the entire crew is getting murdered by one changeling

Saegrimr wrote:So wait, when did an antagonist killing people become a bad thing again?

as someone who fairly frequently murderbones as antagonist, i can tell you there's a difference between a traitor murdering a bunch of people and an antag designed to get more powerful with more kills
one requires some level of effort and skill and can be countered
the other gets almost exponentially more powerful because every point gained leads to more points gained and isn't fun to play around at all, especially when it's guaranteed to happen literally every time there's a changeling because that's what this is trying to change them into

alternatively, lings murdering everyone isn't the issue at all, but rather they're so weak at roundstart that they'll just die immediately which is still an issue

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed May 06, 2015 9:42 pm #86291

PKPenguin321 wrote:alternatively, lings murdering everyone isn't the issue at all, but rather they're so weak at roundstart that they'll just die immediately which is still an issue

I keep hearing this, like somehow an assistant with a special power is somehow weaker than another assistant without that special power.

What kind of methods would lead to the ling being robusted? The same tactics he is more than capable of using, and should be using to take down his targets?

Oldman Robustin · Wed May 06, 2015 10:39 pm

Yes, Yes, and Yes to all these changes.

Ling is one of the most common antags and yet they are far more likely to induce sleep than fear.

Anyone who claims getting more points will make them OP, unkillable, or as one idiot put it "exponentially more powerful" has clearly never played ling before.

Even after this buff, most of the abilities will still be garbage and only useful for troll-Ling or ensuring that the entire crew readily recognizes you as a Ling and the AI starts shocking/crushing every door you attempt to use.

Chemicals have always been the most limiting factor in Ling's power. You can give me unlimited evolution points but I'm still going to limit myself to using the 6-7 abilities that make Ling robust. Lings will see a small spike in power as they get the next 2-4 evolution points and then it plateaus because you simply don't have the chemical pool to use your core "must have" abilities while still having anything left for the fluffier abilities. I've seen admins spawn full-power lings before and they really don't feel any different,same tactics, same strengths, same weaknesses.

Saegrimr wrote:So wait, when did an antagonist killing people become a bad thing again?

There's a small group of people who seem to think that dying is bad for the game and it won't be fun until nobody dies and nobody ever experiences fear/excitement/adrenaline when facing antags every again. This complaint is especially stupid considering coders have added several ways for ghosts to get back into the round and participate. Plus I'd much rather be dead spectating an exciting round than alive and wishing for death because nothing is happening because all the underpowered antags are shitting themselves at the thought of doing anything overtly hostile.

Arete · Post by **Arete** » Wed May 06, 2015 10:51 pm #86316

Saegrimr wrote:I keep hearing this, like somehow an assistant with a special power is somehow weaker than another assistant without that special power.

What kind of methods would lead to the ling being robusted? The same tactics he is more than capable of using, and should be using to take down his targets?

The ling's need to take multiple risks to achieve his objective mean he's facing a lot more possible deaths than a non-antag assistant. He needs to have some advantages in order to have a decent shot at surviving every single one of those risks and having a significant impact on the round. This is why traitors get special gear, remember.

Reimoo · Post by **Reimoo** » Wed May 06, 2015 10:55 pm #86317

Oldman Robustin wrote: Chemicals have always been the most limiting factor in Ling's power. You can give me unlimited evolution points but I'm still going to limit myself to using the 6-7 abilities that make Ling robust. Lings will see a small spike in power as they get the next 2-4 evolution points and then it plateaus because you simply don't have the chemical pool to use your core "must have" abilities while still having anything left for the fluffier abilities. I've seen admins spawn full-power lings before and they really don't feel any different,same tactics, same strengths, same weaknesses.

What if it worked like an evolution tree? As in you can only specialize in one branch.

Incomptinence · Thu May 07, 2015 4:58 am

Maybe let them burn evo points for a chemical refil? Like giving up more resources in a card game for short term gain. Pretty sure old absorbing gave a bit of chemicals to you but that was silly the ling is at their least interactive if they can manage a husk hug undisturbed.

RocKeD · Post by **RocKeD** » Thu May 07, 2015 5:40 am #86388

Reimoo wrote:
Oldman Robustin wrote: Chemicals have always been the most limiting factor in Ling's power. You can give me unlimited evolution points but I'm still going to limit myself to using the 6-7 abilities that make Ling robust. Lings will see a small spike in power as they get the next 2-4 evolution points and then it plateaus because you simply don't have the chemical pool to use your core "must have" abilities while still having anything left for the fluffier abilities. I've seen admins spawn full-power lings before and they really don't feel any different,same tactics, same strengths, same weaknesses.
What if it worked like an evolution tree? As in you can only specialize in one branch.

I think what Oldman Robustin is saying is that, no matter how many points you give them, once they hit a certain point they just don't get more powerful or "op". An evolution tree admittedly would be pretty cool as I played Diablo 2 back in the day and its similar in that regard. I'm not sure though what the overall goal you guys are trying to accomplish is with these changes, I feel that if you limit them on their abilities with a specialized evolution tree they will become much weaker. As someone stated previously many lings already fail at the beginning just because they are hard enough already, I also feel that when you see someone that's really good at ling or completes all his objectives, it's just a result of them playing a lot and being good at it.

qwert · Post by **qwert** » Thu May 07, 2015 7:19 am #86419

Saegrimr wrote:So wait, when did an antagonist killing people become a bad thing again?

There is a difference between traitor running in hallways gunning down everyone, so shuttle gets called. And : pew, dead, absorbed, not noticed by anyone x 28 times + recall shuttle, because I did not get all the abilities.
Imagine traitor getting 10 telecrystals for every kill he does + said traitor having standart uplink but with nuke ops level gear, like c-20r or LMG or dark gygax. This guy would be recalling shuttle until he would be sitting with lmg, energy shield and thermals inside dark gygax surrounded with syndicate cyborgs.That is what oldling fucking was and why antag getting special gear points for kill is awful.

Incomptinence · Thu May 07, 2015 8:23 am

An over 20+ absorbs oldling not artificially inflated by eating other lings, eating humaned monkeys or probably just stealing prekilled people from near the cloner haha okay suuure.

Even with the RARE EXCEEDINGLY RARE oldlings recall shuttle kill everyone round they were probably trying to achieve their overly bloated objectives and some of them still failed with total station control. Like some needed to eat 12-15 genomes if I recall correctly and they were so bad at stealing and this scenario takes so long to be enacted an assistant probably say broke in and took their steal objective away to parts unknown.

Cult recall abused more though. Magical teleport cult bases near impervious at the end of space with a computer is what forced the shuttle console to be station only.

Oldman Robustin · Thu May 07, 2015 8:33 am

qwert wrote:
Saegrimr wrote:So wait, when did an antagonist killing people become a bad thing again?
There is a difference between traitor running in hallways gunning down everyone, so shuttle gets called. And : pew, dead, absorbed, not noticed by anyone x 28 times + recall shuttle, because I did not get all the abilities.
Imagine traitor getting 10 telecrystals for every kill he does + said traitor having standart uplink but with nuke ops level gear, like c-20r or LMG or dark gygax. This guy would be recalling shuttle until he would be sitting with lmg, energy shield and thermals inside dark gygax surrounded with syndicate cyborgs.That is what oldling fucking was and why antag getting special gear points for kill is awful.

You don't even deserve a full rebuttal telling you how fucking stupid you are.

Chems have always been the limiting factor on Ling power, not the number of powers themselves.

There is absolutely no parallel between evolving lings and letting a traitor get access to a dark gygax.

Not-Dorsidarf · Thu May 07, 2015 9:32 am

I like the idea of burning an absorbtion for a full recharge on chems.

peoplearestrange · Thu May 07, 2015 10:27 am

These ablities and point systems basicly push lings towards snowballing, while thats not necessarily bad (as pretty much thats what happens with a shadowling), it does completely remove people from the round via what I assume would be a gibbing. As far as I recall we've always tried to avoid antag's/situations where people can be permanently removed. Hence making C4 no longer insta gib, making welder tanks no longer gib corpses etc etc.

Oldman Robustin · Thu May 07, 2015 11:56 am

peoplearestrange wrote:These ablities and point systems basicly push lings towards snowballing, while thats not necessarily bad (as pretty much thats what happens with a shadowling), it does completely remove people from the round via what I assume would be a gibbing. As far as I recall we've always tried to avoid antag's/situations where people can be permanently removed. Hence making C4 no longer insta gib, making welder tanks no longer gib corpses etc etc.

Removing Appendix != Gibbing

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

They 'tear your guts out viciously' now instead of eating your appendix, apparently

peoplearestrange · Thu May 07, 2015 12:13 pm

Oldman Robustin wrote: Removing Appendix != Gibbing

I was more referring to this:

Man_Shroom wrote: You can rip open humans for 2 genetic points (used to buy shit in the evolution menu) xenomorphs for 4, monkeys for 1, and simple mobs with 50 or more health for 0.5. You can also eat other changelings to steal all of THEIR points/chems/genomes. This will hopefully allow stealthed changelings some options, but also stop people from grinding mice for XP.

Ripping open a human I assumed was gibbing?

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

Also I persuaded man_shroom to assign an EVO value for ascendant shadowlings. (they're a simple mob!).
He said he's make it 100 EVO
That's right, if you can stand next to an ascendant shadowling with it in grab for 10 seconds, you too can become a god.

Man_Shroom · Post by **Man_Shroom** » Thu May 07, 2015 1:07 pm #86462

I'm totally gonna try to add that but it will probably get denied.

RocKeD · Post by **RocKeD** » Thu May 07, 2015 6:11 pm #86530

Man_Shroom wrote:I'm totally gonna try to add that but it will probably get denied.

No just no, and yes it will.

leibniz · Post by **leibniz** » Thu May 07, 2015 6:14 pm #86532

Transformation sting should work on dead creatures only, usually it's used as a shitty troll tool instead of a clever way to mislead investigations and convert dead creatures into edible food.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Fri May 08, 2015 1:49 am #86618

Oldman Robustin wrote:Chemicals make lings weak forever regardless of evolution points

So what you're saying is this won't make ling any stronger, but you're in favor of having lings start with only 2 evolution points so they can die more easily at roundstart. That kinda does the opposite of fixing that problem where ling rounds are boring (since now the lings will die earlier in the round more often).

On a related note, 2 EV points is really only good for an armblade or EMP + monkeyform or something. Considering changelings already rely very heavily on ghetto tactics like stunprods and don't have very much room to use their special powers to begin with, giving them less special powers at roundstart makes them less likely to be even remotely successful.

Other than that, you admittedly have fair points.

Man_Shroom · Post by **Man_Shroom** » Fri May 08, 2015 2:19 am #86626

I'm going to slightly buff chem points, and also lower the evo point cost of everything, except the big powers, to 1.

Post by **PKPenguin321** » Fri May 08, 2015 4:41 am #86657

>fucking a numerous amount of my points and like half of oldman's

fuck it, just merge it and we'll see how it goes, people will hate lings anyways
inb4 the new ling meta is to farm mining mobs
inb4 the new ling meta is get the spider puke ability asap, use in isolated area, eat own spiders

RocKeD · Post by **RocKeD** » Sat May 09, 2015 5:50 am #86863

PKPenguin321 wrote:>fucking a numerous amount of my points and like half of oldman's

fuck it, just merge it and we'll see how it goes, people will hate lings anyways
inb4 the new ling meta is to farm mining mobs
inb4 the new ling meta is get the spider puke ability asap, use in isolated area, eat own spiders

That's a good way to lose players. If we just say fuck it, just do it with everything, I can see things going down hill.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Sat May 09, 2015 6:29 am #86867

Congratulations, Rocked, you just got the concept behind Goonchem.

Post by **oranges** » Sat May 09, 2015 12:31 pm #86902

Fucking lings, I swear someone just put them in to fuck everyones day.

Oldman Robustin · Sat May 09, 2015 2:36 pm

RocKeD wrote:
PKPenguin321 wrote:>fucking a numerous amount of my points and like half of oldman's

fuck it, just merge it and we'll see how it goes, people will hate lings anyways
inb4 the new ling meta is to farm mining mobs
inb4 the new ling meta is get the spider puke ability asap, use in isolated area, eat own spiders
That's a good way to lose players. If we just say fuck it, just do it with everything, I can see things going down hill.

You must be new here. This shit happens all the time, at least there's been proper feedback on this first.

Buffing the ling's endgame is only going to matter for a small fraction of players in a small fraction of games. The vast majority of the lings are going to be the ones that never engage in violence, or attempt to engage in violence in an incompetent manner that they will never pose a threat to anyone but themselves. The robust lings already have all the tools they need to succeed, and random luck will be the biggest determining factor in their rounds. Chems are the biggest limitation in me being able to robust people when I'm outnumbered or outgunned, there's nothing about being able to get new powers that will allow me to get OP because I will still be seriously constrained by chems.

My only balance concern would be the new ling stun, people will find a way to complain about it, so make sure its chem cost will only allow for one other ability to be used (like EMP or armblade) at most.

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

The whole reason lings have the Chem system instead of them just being abilities is to limit power use though, right? Jack of all trades yada yada?

Erisian · Post by **Erisian** » Sun May 17, 2015 8:32 pm #88751

Would it be possible to add both and let a ling choose between the subtle and stealthy approach or the more violent and carnivorous one? Or even just focus lings on being entirely stealty and focus gameplay/abilities around that and add in a new antag who is more carnivorous and vicious.

Stickymayhem · Wed Oct 13, 2021 6:17 pm

Erisian wrote:Would it be possible to add both and let a ling choose between the subtle and stealthy approach or the more violent and carnivorous one? Or even just focus lings on being entirely stealty and focus gameplay/abilities around that and add in a new antag who is more carnivorous and vicious.

Changelings have needed multiple evolution paths forever.

Void Slayer · Post by **Void Slayer** » Wed Jun 03, 2015 1:40 am #92513

Ha, I remember when I was a full kitted out changeling under the old system, I could take down 3 people every 30 seconds just with stings alone, good times.

Honestly the condition of the body after eating does not really matter, any halfway decent changling will store them in an out of the way location or space/gib them.

As long as you remove steal brain objective I don't really care, but please keep the DNA absorb sting. Grabbing your objectives DNA early can help save against a lot of random bullshit making them unavailable later, and you can get backup escape identities, the whole point is that you can change into different people to hide.

Would hive chat be removed?