If you didn't already know, changelings now have percent chance to get their objectives as a team, sharing assassination targets as well as impersonating entire departments.
I'm wondering if working against fellow changelings in this circumstance should be acted upon by administration.
Explicitly ratting out a fellow ling when you have a team objective will be against the rules. However it's not a full rule, it's a precedent and a new one at that so players breaking it will get the opportunity to be warned first. This specifically applies to explicitly ratting out a fellow ling. Lings not helping, lings using their antag license for a gimmick and disregarding the objective, lings concentrating on their other objectives, lings using strats which cause collateral damage to other lings, and lings killing other lings, will be considered fair play for now.
Factors in this include lings having their own objectives, the potential for lack of communication and friendly fire, and how lings seem to spawn in without team objectives despite other lings having them. As nice as new game content is, I think this was poorly implemented and any policy change will only be stopgap measures.
The patched, dusty, trimmed, feathered mantle of evil +13.
Teams are still half-assed at this point but my soul... the very core of my being... shudders when I hear people going on about "YEA JUST BRING US BACK TO LINGS HAVING OBJECTIVES/BIG INCENTIVES TO KILL OTHER LINGS THAT WAS COOL".
It was shit, it is shit, it will never be NOT shit.
Here's the outcome of encouraging ling backstabbing:
1) LINGCURITY BRAH. Ling runs up to brig at roundstart, tries to score identities of the other lings, within 5 minutes 2-3 people who acted like actual enemies of the station get knocked out of the round before even getting a chance to play and the round becomes extended right off the bat. Bonus points if its Traitorling and the ling proceeds to play "unkillable sec officer with thermal vision".
2) WAIT? WE HAD LINGS?! Encouraging backstabbing is awful for lings. Lings are terrible at killing other lings (sting immune, fleshmend, etc.) and so you either had a loud messy armblade fight that gets both lings caught or lings just get paranoid and hide in maint for most of the shift. Even if a ling is good at removing other lings, the entire point of antagonists is to provide conflict for the crew, when the lings virtually wipe themselves out without even confronting security, well its a terrible (extended) experience.
3) Lings excel as a team and are more entertaining for everyone. They have incredible synergies as a group but with backstabbing being so common it was almost impossible to convince someone to reveal their true identity and place their trust in you, so much of ling was wasting away because everyone was just a lone wolf who would say nothing in hivemind before a short OH GOD THEY CAUGHT ME THEYRE TAKING ME TO KITCHEN HELP before another long silence. People want ling to be good again but don't want to give it parasting back, teamling is the perfect solution. Plus lings taking over a department is absolutely terrifying. Just imagine stepping into medbay as multiple doctors all stream out of the morgue together with the CMO. They stalk and stare as you head to cryo asking for a quick heal, you get tossed in the tube but notice you aren't healing, the doctors all close in around your tube.... hey guys cryo isnt working did you forget a beaker? ... then come the armblades.
On an actual policy note: What debate is there here? Teamlings have to work as a team, they're more dependent on good teamwork than most already existing teams. They share a hivemind for crying out loud! Just make team lings a little more polished and then make sure that their team status is made very clear at roundstart.
But I'd rather they be lone antags, that if need be, can betray and murder one another, as opposed to special friendly team antags that are obliged to circlejerk together.
lumipharon wrote:Encouraging lings to kill each other is bad.
But I'd rather they be lone antags, that if need be, can betray and murder one another, as opposed to special friendly team antags that are obliged to circlejerk together.
There is a way between, you know. You can say they're not obliged to help each other while still enforcing that they're not allowed to destroy each other.
All that would do, essentially, is prohibit gibbing and absorbing other lings (including, I imagine, releasing the singularity). Almost anything else your teammates can revive from, so things like large plasma fires or whatever are still totally an option, and you can be a lone wolf if you want. You just get the element of trust that's necessary for some teamwork back.
Yeah. Traitors don't have team objectives. Lings do. When an antag has team objectives, coming with it is this expectation of you not being sold out to security 5 seconds into the round, tossed into the singularity, or quietly being killed and absorbed.
Spoiler:
Zilenan91 wrote:
Just replace both their arms with chainsaws.
The team objectives are also bugged to shit - each ling has a DIFFERENT set of targets for it's team objective, or some wierd shit. Dunn if it happens every time, or only sometimes, but I've seen it happen atleast twice.
Void Slayer wrote:Not every time but yeah. Also there can be more targets then lings.
More targets than lings doesn't happen unless the team ALSO get differing objectives.
eg: ling A gets 5 guys, and ling B gets a differing 3 guys, that's a total of 8 guys for 5 lings, but it's still the same bug.
