Making Gang Great Again?!

[TrustyGun]

As discussed in this thread: https://tgstation13.science/phpBB/viewt ... 148#unread, gang is terrible right now for a security crew-member, because gang conversion will always outpace security deconversion.

For other reasons, gang is also terrible from a non-security standpoint! Most people will die, and will boil down to orbiting the dominator currently up and waiting for a long time for a gang to eventually take over, to finally get a chance to play again. Also, the only real way to determine a win with the current system to kill literally everyone who isn't a gang member and set up a dominator and wait for more than 10 minutes. This is just boring and not really any fun for 90% of the people on the server.

So, I suggest a rework of the game mode into something more true to it's roots.

Objective

The new objective would to be the only gang to escape on the shuttle. No take over bullshit, just a simple be the only gang on the shuttle.

Gang Structure

There are three gang leaders at round start, and instead of infinitely reusable recruitment pens, there are one use recruitment pens. Each gang leader starts with three of these new pens (and you can't buy more), meaning there can only be up to 9 members in one gang. This forces you to save your pens and who you recruit. Plus, you can not recruit security or command roles.

Influence

Influence will be kept mostly the same, but with a couple of more ways to gain influence:

Time: Works the same
Spraying Windows: Works the same
Keying Vehicles: Use a sharp object on a vehicle (Secway, Pussy Wagon, Scooter, Skateboards) to gain 2x the amount of points from spraying windows.
Beating a Rival Gang Member: Just casually beating a gang member with a blunt weapon will gain you 3 points per punch.
Killing a Rival Gang Member: Killing a gang members will net you a 10 point bonus.
Reviving a Friendly Gang Member: Doesn't need to be revived by your own hands. Nets you a 15 point bonus.
Reviving a Friendly Gang Leader: 20 points!!
Being 2cool4school: Lighting cigarettes, donning your gang outfit, drinking alcohol, nets you a one point bonus per action.

Buyable Items

For obvious reasons, you can't buy a dominator anymore, or pens. You can now buy a gang detector (detects if there is ANY gang member within your sight, this includes your own)! This is to obviously help the gang into finding the rival gang.

There are a couple of main reasons to change gang into this:

1. Security is discouraged from just blindly killing gang members (The antags will succeed!)
2. It is more of an antag vs antag instead of sec vs antag vs antag.
3. This stops gang from converting everyone in the entire station and making it an headache for security and the other gang.
4. This is more minor, but the effects of a gang leader going AFK is lessened by the power being shared with three leaders.

[InsaneHyena]

This seems a lot like tg's first conversion side antag to me.

[kevinz000]

Basiclly: To win you murderbone everyone on the shuttle cept for your 9 cause you don't know who's gang?

[Cheimon]

If you want it to play out in a non-murdery way, you need to make killing less appealing. If you say "security does that already" then all you do is make killing security more appealing (and then killing the other people). That is, you need some sort of penalty for just murdering random dudes that isn't fixed by murdering more random dudes.

Killing is appealing because of the points, the gear on the other players, and the desire not to get caught and validhunted.

[Tornadium]

This implies security won't just mass implant people regardless.

[WarbossLincoln]

Another issue would be the meta of knowing that gang=murderbone the shuttle. As soon as gang tags appear security will arm up and kill everyone who tries to get on the shuttle who isn't implanted.

I think putting a hard cap on the round is a better idea so that gang rounds don't last fucking forever after 80% of the crew is dead. Maybe make it where you auto win if your gang controls a very high percentage of the station.

[Super Aggro Crag]

With dominator limits t becomes a game of Dom chicken, everyone afraid to drop Dom first because an engieborg will decon any foertifacfions and smash it with a fire extinguisher.

[Okand37]

This doesn't seem as much as making gang great again, as turning gang further into a team deathmatch than it already is. It isn't really as much as problem with the gamemode, as much as the community playstyle. Personally I believe gang would be a better gamemode if we had more people roleplaying it, than just security and gangs mass converting each other blindly to win.

[Cheimon]

This doesn't seem as much as making gang great again, as turning gang further into a team deathmatch than it already is. It isn't really as much as problem with the gamemode, as much as the community playstyle. Personally I believe gang would be a better gamemode if we had more people roleplaying it, than just security and gangs mass converting each other blindly to win.

The issue with roleplaying is that as soon as one group stops doing it, they gain such a big advantage that the others have to as well.

[Actionb]

I haven't played for a few months but... After all this time, gangs still don't have an incentive to drop the dominator as early as reasonably possible?
It's kinda silly that a dominator is much more a confirmation of how a gang has already won rather than being the primary way of winning.
Gang rounds need to be fast paced to avoid ending up as a 90-minute borefest to total domination... by simply not allowing one side enough time to, slowly but surely, totally overpower all the others.

A dominator forces all sides to react; gets gangs out of hiding, security out of cargo. Depending on how the fight over it goes, it can shuffle the balance of power between gangs and security. People will die. Shit's gonna happen. It's messy. And mess is what the gang mode currently needs.
Let's assume the domination attempt fails - the trying gang should not automatically be put 'out of the game' or we end up at the current metagame of never even attempting domination again.
How do we do this? After all, most of their gang are most likely dead since they failed in protecting the dominator?
My proposal: make the dominator and the gang boss not quite as important as they currently are. If the situation is getting too hot, everyone's first idea should be to gtfo - leaving the dominator undefended. Or it shouldn't be heavily defended in the first place. Obviously, this means ditching the dominator limit. If a gangboss went down during the fight, a new one is automatically promoted (that's how it goes in gangs, trust me I have seen Breaking Bad). Having an active dominator provides certain benefits, like say increased incoming influence and access to more equipment or whatever. Now the dominators would be disposable assets rather than THE END OF ALL THINGS and maybe a gang would plop one down early to reap the benefits for as long as they can - while still not fully committing to domination.
Perhaps the dominator should be the only source of influence to really rub it into people's faces that they have to use it as often as possible? I dunno. Might get annoying with all the delta level alerts.

TLDR: current way of how gang is played needs a 'wake up!' slap in the face, make dominator fights more common to promote a more chaotic playstyle ... away from the 'systematic conversion before domination' approach that we're currently seeing.

[Armhulen]

Make dominators take longer and have less health the longer they wait to place it.

[paprika]

Make dominators take longer and have less health the longer they wait to place it.

This.

[Actionb]

That's backwards.
You're penalizing the late dominator instead of giving rewards for an early one.
People respond better to rewards than to punishment.
This also doesn't solve the problem of just taking over the station first and then dominating. Actually, it makes it even worse, since the longer you wait with the dominator, the stronger your position will have to be to successfully defend it, given how the timer will be longer and the machine will have fewer hitpoints - and people will factor that stuff in.

Gang needs to have a faster pace and/or be more chaotic. Obviously security is gonna have most of the crew implanted by minute 40 when fuck all, apart from some minor shootings, has happened. One gang can easily infiltrate security/headroles within 40 minutes if left undisturbed. As it is, gang mode has an insane snowballing potential - leading to boring, one-sided rounds very quickly. Don't even let it become a snowball.

[Armhulen]

Is it *that* backwards? You can either place it early, for a fast and strong dom, but face the wrath of the whole station. Or, have a slow and weak dom, but be fortified and only have to fight a weakened security. I don't know, even then it doesn't seem that strong to just instantly start and place, so really the best strat is a midgame place, with reasonable forces, a chance to lose and an okay dom. I don't see what's wrong here.