Midround Alternatives to Antags

[TypicalRig]

After discussing in another thread, it's become pretty clear that a lot of players simply won't take any risks because they are that afraid of round removal. And it's no secret that extended rounds with a ton of players dead leads to pop decreasing. The issue is, our current "regulator" of ghosts re-entering the round naturally is mostly through ghost antag spots, often powerful ones, which generally create more death than the players they reintroduce into the round. This is obviously meant to move things along as well so the round can end, but it made me wonder, why is this limited to antags?

My suggestion is simple. Make it so that when any amount of crew is dead, there's a chance of a "second wave" of crew that can be reintroduced to the round from the dead, with the downside being they wouldn't be allowed to use the name they died with. I'm not sure if it should limit them to another custom name, or just give them a randomized name and appearance to begin with, but this would serve as an easy means of keeping people in the shift.

Pros: Keeps people in the round, doesn't introduce threat that would remove more pop than it gets rid of, makes round removal less scary as now you don't have to compete for that one midround antag slot with a ton of others just to get back into the shift, means you can re-join the shift after dying without being an antag which some people might like.

Cons: Might cause more issues with people using metaknowledge and people will have to be monitored more heavily for this, creates more admin work due to this.

This is only one idea, but I thought it would be worth discussing alternatives to reintroducing dead people into the shift since dynamic's original intended purpose was to keep people in the round, which it's currently failing to do. I think the way going forward isn't necessarily just more threat, but also giving regular crew options to come back.

[blackdav123]

imo the two solutions to large amounts of ghosts are either admin events like interns or something forcing a shuttle call.
ideally every round would reach a breaking point where the crew needs to call the shuttle because antag plans have reached their apex
if antags are too weak of a driving force in the story of the round then you'll end up with situations where lots of people are dead but no antags are left to perform their final acts of sabotage that result in a shuttle call
personally I dont like midrounds serving this role because seeing a dragon or something randomly pop up as the big bad roundender can sometimes feel like a "rocks fall everyone dies" conclusion as opposed to a carefully crafted plan a traitor has spent all round working on so that the station will be inoperable

[Striders13]

how's this different to enabling respawn on a timer

[TypicalRig]

how's this different to enabling respawn on a timer

it's not different. the topic is reintroducing ghosts into the round. respawn with a timer also works but would need to keep people from using the same character

[Itseasytosee2me]

Here's some ideas:

Ship with a distress signal requests to dock, containing some crew that suffered a disaster and now seeks to take refuge in space station 13. Maybe it can be denied at the requests console, maybe the ship can be shot down at a distance with the BSA to some interesting effect.
Maybe there are also rare variants that start with a stowaway changeling, someone infected with a xenomorph larva, sentient disease, or some other unique antag.

A nanotrasen combat ship whose crew just got their asses handed to them who need to stop at the station to try to recover, maybe they have a chance to later force a pirate variant to attack the station in pursuit of them

A nanotrasen cooperate VIP (who might have bodygaurds on higher population) who gives some buff to the station while they're alive, or perhaps can do some unique action that helps the station. Traitors get some sort of reward for iceing them, changelings get some sort of reward for absorbing them

A troupe of civilian entertainers enter the station to host a performance for the crew as part of some contract. They have no idea of the stations ongoing and may be very surprised to find the station in ruin.

[Nabski]

You can tell who here has never had someone take the bartender or other "easy to return to the station" type ghost roles and gotten killed by them for being an antag that killed the ghost.

Those roles were all removed for a reason.

[WineAllWine]

I don't think using ghost metaknowledge is a problem for this proposal. people die (and are revived) in shifts all the time and normally fine with not using metaknowledge. Even it it happens it's normally fairly easy to spot

[Capsandi]

RIP TRANSLOCATED VET MY GOOD FRIEND OF YEARS DIED 2018 RIP KING U THE MAN U THE MAN HANDLE THIS

I don't think using ghost metaknowledge is a problem for this proposal. people die (and are revived) in shifts all the time and normally fine with not using metaknowledge. Even it it happens it's normally fairly easy to spot

*laughs in posibrain*

[Bepis]

Players could spawn as a crew in a ruined shuttle/cargo transport, not on Nanotrasen's payroll. They just need to get on the ship and escape (while not being detained by sec), and are not aligned with anyone. They could be traders, unionists (one hell of a way to start a rev round), priests/monks etc. They'd probably have something worthwhile to trade with cargo, and Sec/Command would get an additional greentext if they stopped these ne'er do wells from escaping.

<snip>

basically more of this stuff, yeah

[massa]

when you die just do homework lol

[carshalash]

I think there should be a midround alternative to paradox clone, where instead of a clone that wants to kill you.. Get this. You get a clone of yourself, that is 60% of your height, and they're just your lil buddy.

[MooCow12]

I want a midround "antag" that is just someone having a baby and the baby`s objective is to get themselves killed

[Itseasytosee2me]

I want a midround "antag" that is just someone having a baby and the baby`s objective is to get themselves killed

I do not want to add birthing

[TypicalRig]

I want a midround "antag" that is just someone having a baby and the baby`s objective is to get themselves killed

I do not want to add birthing

felindhuggers when..

[kayozz]

I was thinking of something earlier which would work similar to the 'mutators' in Streets of Rogue (see here: https://streetsofrogue.fandom.com/wiki/Mutators) [obviously not all of these]. But how it would work is mutators would be similar to random events, but are SECRET and are randomly generated before the shift starts and affect the station as a whole, but here's the fun part - there's little or no warning in most cases, to keep everyone guessing if it's an actual mutator/an act of sabotage or other fuckery. These should range from rare to extremely rare (i.e not every shift may have a mutator) and might create for interesting dynamics when combined with other events/antags etc.
Sometimes if the RNG is feeling spicey, two mutators might occur (+ usual events, dynamics per standard rounds).

So for example:

Werewolf (new idea for a player controlled enemy) it has a tiny chance of triggering during a celestial event and lasts for one ingame hour before they turn back into their normal form. They are very weak to silver and fire but can regenerate health slowly by eating raw meat and they inflict bites/scratches and have a small % of turning wounded (but not dead people) into lesser-werewolves similar to zombies. This will only work with players who have it selected as a possibility.

Exploding corpses - Nobody will know it at shift start but bodies that are NOT in the morgue will start randomly exploding, gibbing the corpse and hurting anyone within a few tiles. They won't breach tiles but have a chance of sending out impaling bones / brute damage. This of course won't be instant. But bodies left laying around might become dangerous. Fun for all the folk in medbay.

Dangerous doors/airlocks. Similar to the greytide door event, but random doors become shocked/lose their safety mechanisms. Fun for engineers and anyone without insuls (and fun for the AI when they get blamed).

Bot virus. A random bot (floorbot/Beepsky etc) has a chance of becoming 'emagged'.

Super speedy fun time. There's a tiny % chance that everyone just gets faster!

The Haunting. Ghosts sometimes become visible for a few seconds. If combined with a Revenant, the ghosts may attack the Revenant (or defend it from other ghosts).

Invasion of the stick men. Fax machines have a tiny % of going berserk and spawning stick men. Fun for everyone watching in the HOP line.

Faulty showers - Showers becoming very cold/very hot for no good reason.

Faulty disposals - Disposal chutes sometime get clogged and eject their contents at very speed.

Exploding lightbulbs - As fun as it sounds. A very, very low chance that one or two lights on the station suddenly get injected with plasma and turn off, waiting for the poor sucker to switch it back on again.

Exploding space carp - Upon death they may release a random chemical gas or explode. Fun for atmos.

Slow Lasers - Like Lasers guns but the laser beams travel at half speed. Fun for anyone wanted by Sec.

Funtime space ruins - Space ruins have a little extra chance of either spawning rarer items/contraband or nastier monsters. Or other random shit.

Funtime janitor grenades - These faulty versions sometimes contain space lube.

YOU'VE WON THE LOTTERY. A random player gets a hideous amount of space credits. Chance - extremely, extremely low.

Faulty PDA - Like a PDA bomb but random.

Evil Plushies - A low chance that Plushies suddenly become evil and attack people.

Evil pets. Ian and Polly (etc) turn nasty.

Exploding pets - Ian and Polly (etc) turn explodey.

Super Sentient disease - Like the sentient disease but has the ability to talk to the host and sometimes mock them.

MOAR PARADOX CLONES - Fun for all the crew when say 3-5 clones spawn in place of the usual single one.

Fake Centcom messages - Compiled from a big list of random shit - ranging from warnings, memes to downright lies and insults. Who knows what to believe anymore?

Make Love not war! - Fake war ops alert that will hopefully send the crew into a panic.

Psychic wave - Either good or bad, random people get a random buff or nerf for half an hour.

Ticking time bomb crew member tag-athon bonanza - Suddenly a crewmember starts flashing like a hot potato. This lethal explosion can only be prevented by passing to another crew member by attacking them / or surgery to remove the hot potato from their body/brain/random limb.

Bountiful harvests - Plants get better growing potency for a limited duration.

Killer tomato - All tomatos on the station have a tiny chance to become enraged.

Maintenance radiation storm - The crew get the usual warning and rush to maints to find only maints get the radiation storm.

Heatwave / cold snap - the whole station gets warmer/colder for a short while.

Prison break - a very, very low chance that a roundstart perma prisoner starts as a traitor with a hidden uplink.

Sleeping sickness - Random members of the crew fall asleep for a minute or two. If more than say ten people are asleep at any one time, a Nightmare gets spawned. Wake your crew members up by shaking them.

Snakes on a station! - Like cocroach infestation but with venomous snakes.

Bananas on a station! - Like the above but instead of cocroaches/snakes it's blue space banana peels.

Brand unintelligence - Vending machines begin attacking each other in a show of dominance.

Hitting the Gym - Gym equipment suddenly becomes alive and angry.

Faulty portal gun/portals/gateway - It doesn't always go where you think it does. I.e Lavaland or a random ruin. And has a higher chance of turning you into a lovely flyperson.

Angry Wisdom cow - Like the wisdom cow but the cow has mad cow disease and attack you.

RADIO fuckery - A few members of the crew suddenly get access to a different departments frequency.

[Cobby]

I think im on the inverse of this, If a lot of people die I think you should feel that on the station.

If we had a lot of roles that interacted on the station or mimic'd second lives its really difficult to pick up what is going on.

If someone wipes out engineering I want to see power start flickering in areas, if someone wipes out science I want to see people going "why isnt this stuff being researched" and so forth

Id be ok with more neutral/positive roles like a merchant who can sell items to the station and has to try to amass as much money as possible through trade only, or a non-antag "cult" who are tasked with trying to bring people to their fold, but influx of more crew (second lives) that arent distinct from the original crew would be heavily scrutinized.

[cocothegogo]

perma is too easy to break out of now why would you perma a tot if they can break out in 5 mins and murder you.

also maybe incentivise perma'ing if antag has been in cuffs for X time the threat gets recycled back into the round. maybe would convince people to break people others out of perma?