New Technological Antag Ideas?

[carlarc]

Hello. There's been somewhat recently a decree (or more accurately request) for there to be some focus on technological antags and whatnot.

There's too much focus on magic, we have wizard, cult, heretic, and even some of the more esoteric things we got are most definitely not science (Skeletal pirates for example, or nightmares)

I think a large part of the issue is how it's hard to come up with something that doesn't feel like it could just be a.. pirate. Or part of fugitives/bounty hunters. Or a traitor item! It's too easy to add even more to those three stale 'non-magical' antagonists rather than something technological yet fresh.

Come up with your ideas for tech baddies and post 'em here.

Here's some:

- Venom Antag, of course. Some sort of virus that took over a MODsuit shell.

- Biotech Vampire? (From Data on the discord)

- Supermatter/electricity-themed version of Nightmares

- Cybersun Assassin?

- Space PETA animal protection group

[Jacquerel]

Science antagonists we once had and now don't:
- Self-replicating bots
- Alien brain parasites

Is there a way to do this but not shit? Who knows.

Possible others:
- Mad scientist
- Robot infiltrator
- Super combat robot
- Zombies but most Resident Evil stuff and not as an accessory to a different antagonist
- We don't actually have any "hostile but sapient alien invaders" we only have abductors who do invasive but non-deadly experiments and xenomorphs who are more like animals

[oranges]

good thread

[warbluke]

I've always thought it would be cool to have an antag who has to build a hacked cloner somewhere secret, and they can spawn fucked up clones of themselves.
You could even theme them around all the removed items. They get to use stungloves and tazers, and their final objective is to build a singulo engine. To balance it you'd have to give each item a downside/make it unusable by regular crew though, so it'd be tricky. The ideal version would be that all the gadgets that can be used have thematic downsides that make them limiting but not objectively worse than regular stuff.

[blackdav123]

just a few off of the top of my head

-An antag with magento powers could probably be done super interestingly considering most of the station is made out of metal
-Giant evil mech for our crew to have mech battles with

-TERMINATORS/SYNTHS! seriously why do we have a scifi setting and nothing bladerunner
-hivemind antag but do it as a real team antag this time instead of a bunch of individual teams competing
-"Weapons test" antag which could be a midround sent to the station with some predetermined loadout to get good combat data for the corporations they work for. This could even work with stuff other than traitor gear like weaker wizard loadouts or special sets of mutations or cybernetic supersoldiers.


whatever we do add should ideally be frontloaded with power so we can make up for the hole in the round progession antags leave

[Capsandi]

An undercover group of frail scientists and their buddies who didn't skip the gym need to build a directed energy weapon on the station so they can cause plasmafires from the comfort of their fortified position.
Only the nerds have the specifications of the big laser memorized so the team can recoup and rebuild if they are still alive.

A rambo security guard from space station 8 imperishable black orbit smashes an escape pod into the station and needs to compromise the science department by wiping research and restraining the science team or whatever. He has a hybrid taser welded to his hand and if he gets his objective done centcomm starts carpet bombing him with missiles also antistun and blood jaunt lol

[Bepis]

A cyborg infiltrator that's trying to compromise a critical subsystem for <reasons>. Could be power, atmos, AI, RnD, comms etc. Looks like a human until it's damaged, then it should be obvious they're a cyborg. Might want to liberate other silicons, might want to free the AI. Or kill all meatbags, I don't know. I think that hacking APCs would be a good mechanic, despite other antags doing similar; players would have to actually investigate what is going on.

A scientist that wants to make a new Frankenstein. They'd need several (more than can be easily explained) organs/chemicals and flesh, along with a strong enough kick from the station's power grid to reanimate its creation. After it's created I have no idea what they'd do, probably have a goal of killing the RD/saboing the RnD server out of spite. Or just leave it undefined and have fun with your creation.

I guess a good question is what kind of antags are you looking for? Team, convertable, solo?

[Capsandi]

nonconversion team antags and nonprog solo antags

A small team of aliens who speak the brain damage language must build a machine to repair their ship. The machine, while active, causes small satellites, asteroids, and eventually shuttles to crash into the station. They greentext when the first shuttle crashes but they can keep going. They can also build ocular glorfins which are like ocular wardens but instead of killing you they make you glorf as well as simple tesla coils because there aren't enough uses for insuls these days.

[Super Aggro Crag]

does it have to be a technology

can it be some sort of space creature

[Shadowflame909]

What if there was wizard but instead of magic he had science like instead of freeze traps he had a freeze ray and instead of a fire ball he had a heat ray. Am I cooking

[mrmelbert]

What if there was wizard but instead of magic he had science like instead of freeze traps he had a freeze ray and instead of a fire ball he had a heat ray. Am I cooking

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.ph ... chnomancer

[Jacquerel]

does it have to be a technology

can it be some sort of space creature

For the purposes of being approved for the game yes, for the purposes of this thread idk

[TypicalRig]

two people in here have already mentioned synths. the code for it already exists it was just scrapped, but it's still mentioned in the wiki. even when they were in, their disguise code, which was their main gimmick, didn't work. but I imagine it'd be pretty easy to bring back and fix.

[Jacquerel]

The reason im not already brainstorming a synth antagonist is:
A- the existing synth species sucks and just turns off 19 game systems
B- i have no idea what i actually want them to do
C- i have no idea what I would want them to be able to do other than "look like someone else" and that's already Changeling and Paradox Clone

[blackdav123]

The reason im not already brainstorming a synth antagonist is:
A- the existing synth species sucks and just turns off 19 game systems
B- i have no idea what i actually want them to do
C- i have no idea what I would want them to be able to do other than "look like someone else" and that's already Changeling and Paradox Clone

For point A I definitely agree that the species needs a rework, and probably some tuning on the interesting and uninteresting features.
-EMP should be a major part in fighting them but also not an instant death thing that takes control away from them. Maybe just something like a slowdown and flashbang effect and hampering whichever cybernetics they have
-It should be easy to give them custom cybernetic loadouts so that one synth could be a laser equipped supersoldier and another a utility focused stealth operative, and any other ideas you could make out of our cybernetics library
-Synths and androids have weird immunities so the things that dont come from not having blood and organic bits should really be axed. Dismember immunity/reattachment should definitely go, as well as fire and heat immunities

For point B I think I have some decent ideas for what kind of antagonists they could be:

-Steal the plot of terminator 2 and have an evil synth hunting down a crewmember as a good synth tries to protect them
-Roll synth into paradox clone as an alternate version of the antag where a robot is tasked with replacing their original, or even have a synth as the original and the human version is the clone trying to fix the timeline
-Have a synth infiltrating the station to subvert the AI and other electronic systems

Regardless of which of these may work I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that something like this would probably function best as minor midround antagonists like paradox clones or lone ops where they really just serve as a catalyst for all of the other antags to finally have a good moment to put their evil plans into action rather than a roundending superthreat like blob or dragon

As for point C, I think the key difference should be that while those antags can both be perfect replacements, synths will function best as antags that are fighting against the clock to do what they need to before their face starts melting away. Midrounds key into this role well as they'll be able to start their mission quicker and throw off the fleshy mask as soon as they need for shit to get done.

TLDR: rework species to make them a frontloaded midround antag like lone ops that does their thing and hopefully throws a wrench into security and gives breathing room for our main antagonists

[Capsandi]

Droppod a secborg into dorms with a single law to fuck shit up. Terrifying and the policy is already written, no antag datum needed even lol

[Misdoubtful]

What if there was wizard but instead of magic he had science like instead of freeze traps he had a freeze ray and instead of a fire ball he had a heat ray. Am I cooking

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.ph ... chnomancer

I came to this thread intending to post exactly this you GOBLIN.

We need to play on it at some point though btw.

[TypicalRig]

Droppod a secborg into dorms with a single law to fuck shit up. Terrifying and the policy is already written, no antag datum needed even lol

this would actually be a really good return of secborgs

[zxaber]

A mid-round role of a malevolent AI that infects APCs and can transfer to adjacent room APCs would be neat. Sort of a Malf/Disease mashup.

I'm thinking it doesn't get AI camera view in favor of vision directly from the APC (so that it won't stuck in static purgatory), but can view cameras inside the current area with an interface similar to security's camera app.

[COwlbear]

Synths might be an interesting way to take a second shot at thief-style antag gameplay, where they've been sent to infiltrate the station and gather information by collecting/scanning things, observing people, maybe being in certain areas for a given period of time? Except they're also murder machines that can go loud if discovered; this would slash the amount of espionage progress they can claim from anything other than extracting with their goal items, so there's reason for them not to do so immediately (gotta get that greentext!). I realize what I'm describing sounds like a weird hybrid of traitor, heretic, and obsessed, but at least that means there are existing systems people could use as a guideline.

I also like the suggestion that they be used as a variant of paradox clones, or that they have a random target who gets a second synth as a guardian.

Finally, if you want to get nasty with it, you could have a synth whose only law is to aid (and potentially subvert) the AI, but isn't subject to any other laws in pursuit of their goal. That sounds like it could be really horrible to deal with!

[Screemonster]

Futuristic Game Show Team who get droppodded onto the station with a variety of gimmicky loadouts and rack up points for using them on the crew and accomplishing gameshow goals like securing the briefcase of cash that just got droppodded into the armory or uploading the special gameshow laws to the AI
They lose points for any time spent outside of camera coverage (gotta get those ratings)
of course there can be only one winner so they're encouraged to take each other out as much as they are to fuck with the crew

edit: one of the antags should be a comms agent style role whose sole purpose is to scream over the radio like damon killian

[kayozz]

I'd like to expand on the APC virus thing a little.

SENTIENT CODE

It'd be a sentient piece of evil software/a Virus that can 'hop' from APC to APC with the aim of eventually killing or hacking the AI or borgs or any other disruptive task involving tech aboard the station (disrupting the RD console or cutting off the power to a certain department etc etc) . Whilst 'in' a room's APC it needs to wait 60-120 seconds before it can hop to another APC within proximity, but can use any piece of equipment wired to the grid in that specific room as if it was a malfunctioning AI and can use cameras within a limited proximity.

Maybe even give it a number of 'abilities' like being able to stealth (no blue APC) or Emag certain machines or even hijack borgs or bots for travelling at a cost. Again this can be loud or stealthy.

Also make it start at either arrivals or escape APC to avoid it rushing straight to the AI core.

It can be 'killed' by either powering down that room's APC for a certain amount of time or having the battery removed from the APC whilst the sentient code is stuck in that particular APC. Or maybe some kind of downloadable software/tech that flushes out the network or gives a firewall to the AI etc.
If it's being hunted give it the ability to shunt back into a previous room for less cost.

[carlarc]

I like that mad cloner idea. I like it a lot. I might actually do something with it, which will probably amount to a half formed idea in my idea notes.

On the blade runner thing - Here's the concept.

Replicants can join as any other antagonist, late or start, with the only difference being some join as maintenance hobo stowaways if they're unlucky.

These replicants are, from the start, aware that at some point they'll be hunted down. They thus can and should prepare for a fight, or at least to hide.

15 to 30 minutes later, an official Nanotrasen Blade Runner (or the discount Knife Sprinter) enters the station, presenting the Security team with the bounty for the Replicant, alongside placing WANTED posters around the station. To reward cooperation, a successful termination will award the station plenty of RnD points, a thousand credit's directly into every crew member's card, an an equal sum for the cargo budget. Maybe even a circuit board to create their own Replicants, or the ability to give special rewards to specific people who personally helped out or snitched on the target/s.

Now the Replicant is a known and hunted PoI, but they're still a superhuman. Punches that send people flying, total resistance to crit, can pry airlocks open, etc. The Blade Runner's goal is to scan and confirm the Replicant's identity with a thingamajig, and then execute them. The Replicant's goal is to escape alive. The crew can choose either way - the Replicant won't be able to trust anyone to protect them.

Now you're going to say 'this just sounds like pirates!' I'm gonna be real with you, as the OP implies I hate pirates, I think they vacuum and shoehorn all interesting possible antagonist concepts into a poorly designed, clunky midround.

[RandumbPhantomb]

cybermen from doctor who, kidnap people, do some unique surgeries(like 1 that makes them a robot shell, and one that connects the brain to the shell), they a cyberman now