Swarmer Game Mode

[wesoda25]

I doubt this idea will ever go anywhere, I myself know nothing and have no motivation to learn about code. Regardless, I thought it was a cool idea, and maybe it'll catch the eye of someone competent with code.

Swarmers. I've always thought they've been really cool in ways ranging from their "lore" to their language of music notes. There's some swarmer oriented stuff in the code too, lying dormant from event to event. Anyways, upon becoming one you get the message:

Spoiler:

You are a swarmer, a weapon of a long dead civilization. Until further orders from your original masters are received, you must continue to consume and replicate.

. So swarmers end up on the station via the gateway, meaning its possible that their masters are not as "long dead" as it would seem.

Anyways, I think it'd be awesome game mode if first swarmers come, followed by their true masters. I think the type of game mode would be centered around domination/summon type. Effectively, the stronger the swarmers get, the more powerful beings come through the gateway. Possibly swarmers can "upgrade" to said beings via materials intaken, like a mild form of shadowling ascension. Effectively, the goal of the swarmers and their upgraded selves is to set up a beacon, and then signal their ancient masters to come and find them.

There's a lot of potential here, just typing this I can think of numerous awesome ideas and parts that could be added to this game mode. Naturally, it would be the baby of the code if they choose to take it.

Again, this is very rudimentary and the roughest of drafts. I'll throw on some of my own ideas to get the ball rolling.

[wesoda25]

Ideas:
- Stronger creatures who come through gateway would have sound oriented weapons. This would mean those with earmuffs are highly resistant, and bowman headsets medium resistant. A possible strategy could be to remove ones ears.
Ex: sonic grenade, blows out nearby windows, stuns and dizzies humans, stuns borgs, and deafens humans for a long time
- Perhaps crewmembers playing songs on instruments could give some effect to nearby swarmers and their allies. Maybe those with instruments are seen as swarmers by the swarmer army, and the music is the tip off that someone nearby is disguised.
- Upon "winning" (aka sending a signal to the swarmers masters) multiple jaunter like portals appear on the station, in which mobs similar in idea to harvesters (but very different in ability) come through. Perhaps they shoot beams which teleport humans into space or something?

[PKPenguin321]

two criticisms:
1. swarmers to begin with aren't a great antag, they'd have to be redesigned. right now they are painfully weak when there's only a couple, meaning they will actively hide from the crew, meaning there's just about no crew interaction (and therefore no actual conflict) for the first half. once they enter the second half and there are 10,000 of them, they start to multiply exponentially, and 5 swarmers swarming one crewmember will just about always win, leaving the entire crew perpetually chainstunned/cuffed.
2. having the only spawnpoint be the gateway is a horribly flawed idea. spawncamping/singulo bombs come to mind

two positives:
1. really really neat spin on an existing side antag that i'd love to see. it could give swarmers eating everything in sight an actual purpose, like for example, how much they eat could directly correlate to how powerful/how numerous the eventual ancient ones are.
2. the concept of having "ancient ones" emerge from a portal leads itself to all kinds of interesting implications, and would be an entirely new concept for the game. could introduce all kinds of fun new mechanics and themes without clashing with existing material.

really cool idea in concept and i hope it gets fleshed out more

[Gun Hog]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/ ... swarmer.dm

[dapocalypse]

OHH YESS! THIS IS WHAT I CODE!