Blob should start different

[Supermichael777]

You get three kinds of blob rounds. one where the blob bursts in the middle of a hall and gets wrecked to much shouting of NOOB. one where the crew utterly fails to out meta game the blob and doesn't find it until its the size of maintenance, and one where the blob gets totally metaed/stumbled on by Looter Mcgreyshirt and killed before the announcement. it makes for boring samey game-mode with a tight meta and almost zero actual skill other than mass coordination/ a general apathy.

I feel this stems partially from how it starts. blobs come onto the station via a crew member bursting somewhere in maint(it is always maintenance unless they are literally the viro). blobs need accesses to where they want to burst and needs to use its initial surprise stack to cripple the station without getting instantly killed and ensure it wont get x-rayed or telebombed. Inevitably this means science blob which is crappy because after bursting there is exactly 1 optimal strategy for the location of south east maintenance you picked(ALWAYS THE SAME). Blobs who cant do this get fucked over by it and blobs who can just do. The solutions to this are discouraging bombing the blob(buffing blobs bomb resistance globally would help.) and cutting xray becuse it is literally anti blob and useless otherwise. the other is that their needs to be better blob incentives for bursting elsewhere. Maybe bursting in tcoms would prevent the announcement or eating the food out of kitchen would let you grow faster.

Another change to help accommodate this would be to allow blob to begin from a ghost eye rather than a body(because the burst mechanic has never done anything but screw over low asses blobs and give the crew a specific time to go wandering around maintenance)

[Vekter]

Xray is pretty much the only reliable way to kill a blob without bombs or luck.

[lumipharon]

High potency death nettle does the trick.
So do emitters with good upgrades, for rapid fire pew pew.

[DemonFiren]

Are nova flowers more effective than death nettles?

[Incomptinence]

Flashbangs can work just need to get the dummies to listen for once. Fire team used to be fun but with EVERYONE BURNS FIRE MUST KILL EVERYONE update is no longer a thing. Drat pve wowcoders.

[DemonFiren]

I wonder, do hellfoam grenades do anything to blobs?

Dammit, too many questions.

[callanrockslol]

Flashbangs can work just need to get the dummies to listen for once. Fire team used to be fun but with EVERYONE BURNS FIRE MUST KILL EVERYONE update is no longer a thing. Drat pve wowcoders.

Who the fuck nerfed THE FIRE RISES? that plus an emitter or two and insta wrecked blob every time

[Oldman Robustin]

Xray is pretty much the only reliable way to kill a blob without bombs or luck.

That's a super overgeneralized statement.

Crew numbers largely decide the blobs fate. If you're just short of the two-blob threshold and you've got a weak chem, even good placement will not be enough to save you. Throw enough welder zerglings at a blob and it will be contained until sec brings up the chargers or engineering brings up the emitters and whittles you down since you never really have an "ace in the hole" as a blob.


Anyway, nothing will ever stop one-man antags from being terrible aside from putting in stricter requirement. There's also really no such thing as "finding a blob too late" as long as people make an effort after the Confidential message/Level 5 biohazard go out. Two cans of plasma can easily prevent any blob growth for several minutes, security just emptying both of their flashbang boxes will take out an entire cluster that took the blob 5+ minutes to build, and a competent team of medics/welders can also keep the blob contained until better weaponry shows up.

Likewise, there's a lot you can do to prevent from being discovered early as a bleb. You can get access to metal/plasteel/RCD within 30 seconds of roundstart with any role. Then get your butt to maint, even if it means having the AI open it for you, and then quickly wall off all the corridors that might be used to find out. Looter McGreyshirt will almost never bother with trying to weld down a mysterious wall and even if they do they won't get past them all until you're big enough to withstand being discovered.

The only things I think deserve immediate attention on bleb are:

1) Bombs are just a tad too effective, if a scientiest can chain together 3 maxcaps near a core then they probably deserve to win, but right now one scientist can have bombs ready within 2-3 minutes and just toss a bomb near your core on the side you haven't expanded on yet and win. Make bombs similar to what they were before the maxcap buff, a desperation tactic that can kill the blob if it is very well executed.

2) Splitting just seems too strong. You can easily split before even being discovered and if you're already near the lower-end of the relevant population threshold (lowpop 1 blob and medpop 2 blobs) then you get way too strong way too fast for the crew to contain. I mean we require dozens of additional crew to justify moving from 1 blob to 2 blobs, but somehow saving 100 chems right off the bat to double your bleb is balanced?

[Incomptinence]

With how much the new maxcaps dominate blob the crew could deal with 6 sets of split blobs close together.

[Jalleo]

You shoupd know that one really bad aspect is that the blob nodes control how fast factories and other stuff for the blob works making you have to think more about placement rather than deal with the actual crew breaking down your defences. That is not right and just makes busywork for no reason.

[Marflow]

AFAIK the timer for blob is wonky at the moment. For some reason there's no countdown timer for it like there is for literally everything else, resulting in blebs popping in hallways or having to be overcautious. Oldman made a very good point about blob victory being very tied to the population threshold. There could be a sliding bonus for blobs that would depend on crew number that would readjust when over a threshold. What I mean is that a single blob would get more energy right from the start if the round is 1 crewmember away from 2 blebs, but that the energy bonus would be back to 0 if the game starts with 2 blebs exactly with the amount of crewmember it requires to have 2 blebs.

[lumipharon]

You shoupd know that one really bad aspect is that the blob nodes control how fast factories and other stuff for the blob works making you have to think more about placement rather than deal with the actual crew breaking down your defences. That is not right and just makes busywork for no reason.

It's pretty straight forward though.

Factories and resource nodes need to be close to your core or a node to work.
The closer the better - too far, and they don't work.

this translates to: put your factores and resource nodes adjacent to your core and nodes always.

[Incomptinence]

That simple fact catches half the blobs I see off guard I mean the number of dead expansions with no node and a bunch of inactive resources and factories is staggering.

One split blob actually asked his partner and fucking learned fast one round I watched. Once these very simple basics were learned they fought ferociously as blob bros holding back xrays through tactics and sloppy crew work. Sadly after over an hour of intense fighting having xray scrubs mindlessly cook each other in spore fights someone remembered toxins existed and that was the end of that. Only way I can imagine to counter a competent non floor plopping (delete valve by expanding) suicide bomber is to have enough storage blobs and station control to relocate core at any time and that is just a solution to a single bomb which a core can survive but leaves them totally naked their inner resources annihilated and a gap in walls almost a department wide leading to the core.

[lumipharon]

When you are a blob you literally get this bunch of text that very clearly explains, in no uncertain terms everything you need to know about blob mechanics.

People of course don't read it, and proceed to place factory blobs in the middle of no where and job hard.

[Cheimon]

That simple fact catches half the blobs I see off guard I mean the number of dead expansions with no node and a bunch of inactive resources and factories is staggering.

One split blob actually asked his partner and fucking learned fast one round I watched. Once these very simple basics were learned they fought ferociously as blob bros holding back xrays through tactics and sloppy crew work. Sadly after over an hour of intense fighting having xray scrubs mindlessly cook each other in spore fights someone remembered toxins existed and that was the end of that. Only way I can imagine to counter a competent non floor plopping (delete valve by expanding) suicide bomber is to have enough storage blobs and station control to relocate core at any time and that is just a solution to a single bomb which a core can survive but leaves them totally naked their inner resources annihilated and a gap in walls almost a department wide leading to the core.

If this is the blob fight I remember that was mainly based around the maintenance above primary tool storage (until it spread out from there), there were a bunch of people struggling to put together toxins and the equipment to use those bombs properly for about 30 minutes.

It definitely wasn't someone going "oh yeah, bombs are a thing" and ending the round. There was a lot of planning, a lot of waiting around, and a fair bit of outright failure in the lab before that went on. It was a decent end to a long round.

[Danowar]

Honestly, I kind of wished blob was reworked into, say, a traitor implant. It would cost a ton of TC, but you could either use it to give a victim a cruel, yet potentially entertaining death, create a distraction while you carry out your plans, or use it on yourself if you need to fulfill the "die a glorious death" objective.

[PKPenguin321]

Honestly, I kind of wished blob was reworked into, say, a traitor implant. It would cost a ton of TC, but you could either use it to give a victim a cruel, yet potentially entertaining death, create a distraction while you carry out your plans, or use it on yourself if you need to fulfill the "die a glorious death" objective.

i like that you've effectively removed blob as a gamemode, but i also dont like the thought of traitor rounds having 500 blobs
this is a horrible idea

[Saegrimr]

>giving people an antag button for their friends.
Noooo thanks.

[Danowar]

>giving people an antag button for their friends.
Noooo thanks.

But we already have Rev/Gangs/Cult/summon guns to make innocent crewmembers into antags. Adding one more option to the pile couldn't hurt any.

[PKPenguin321]

Honestly, I kind of wished blob was reworked into, say, a traitor implant. It would cost a ton of TC, but you could either use it to give a victim a cruel, yet potentially entertaining death, create a distraction while you carry out your plans, or use it on yourself if you need to fulfill the "die a glorious death" objective.

i like that you've effectively removed blob as a gamemode, but i also dont like the thought of traitor rounds having 500 blobs
this is a horrible idea

It'd be great. Your target can't clone themself and when they pop you'll likely be right behind them to finish the job so you can escape... or you'll get screwed over/they'll shout in comms.

think for a moment about what happened with macrobombs

do you really think traitors will use it that way

[newfren]

The way I think it will be used is TWELVE BLOB ROUNDS EVERY TIME WE ROLL DA WITH MAYBE ONE OF THE GUYS ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO HIS OBJECTIVE.

[Zilenan91]

The way I think it will be used is TWELVE BLOB ROUNDS EVERY TIME WE ROLL DA WITH MAYBE ONE OF THE GUYS ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO HIS OBJECTIVE.

Granted this would probably be fucking hilarious at first, but ultimately it would be macrobomb syndrome. It would get old fast, and take the coder responsible a week or two to erase it from the game.