/tg/Station 13

Here's an idea for an alternate hive antag to the xenomorphs. (I'm not suggesting that plasmavores REPLACE xenomorphs, just suggesting that sometimes other "swarm" antags spawn instead of xenos)


[center]Plasmavores[/center][/b]
Plasmavores are a more plasma-based alt of xenos. They would resemble purple centipede-like creatures, except the "larva" looks like a plasma spore from Goon.
Instead of glowing resin, they create "plasma nodes" which replace non-plasma gases in the area with plasma. Plasmavores drain plasma from the environment and convert it to some other gas (not oxygen). The plasma nodes still spread resin around but plasmavore resin is purple instead of the dark grey/blue color.
They also don't have hands or a facehugger equivalent (They can still grab mobs though). Also they're immune to fire (since their bases are constantly filled with plasma and otherwise everyone would just burn them) but they're NOT immune to lasers, and they can only recover plasma by passively consuming plasma gas (so no space hives).



Hunters:
Same abilities as a xenomorph hunter. Has low plasma storage like one too.

Drones:
Can "sting" nested or grabbed players/monkeys to infect them with a plasmavore larva. They can also shape resin like the xenomorph equivalent. (The sting replaces facehuggers for the plasmavores). Can evolve into a queen (but there's no intermediate "praetorian" stage, they just evolve directly into a queen).

Guards:
Higher health, more powerful melee attacks, but slower. Can screech at someone to stun them for a short period of time.

QUEEN:
Has all the abilities of other castes like the xenomorph queen does, but slow and can't ventcrawl. Leads the plasmavores.

Post other hive antags if you have an idea for one.

What would be the point of a queen if the drone infects people just fine by itself.

Gratian wrote:What would be the point of a queen if the drone infects people just fine by itself.

To lead the plasmavores.

I remember there was some talking about pests as some kind of ghost role where mice go to war with cockroaches or something. It'd be cool to have some kind of swarm that is ultimately unable to affect the station at all beyond making it look pesty. It'd also be an interesting dynamic because humans could interfere at any time with mouse traps / stepping on and oneshotting the mice or cockroaches.

OR

If that's no fun than what about a rat king that raises mice into being horrible rats, which are just player controlled mice that are a little harder to kill and chew on things. And then slowly the swarm gets little rat goblins, which are like monkeys with only one hand that can steal things but not threaten humans unless they gang up on them, and then maybe human sized rat snatchers who still have only one hand, but have a really pretty high disarm chance that snatches things from you. They shouldn't be able to actually use the guns or any computers.

Their objectives would be to just make a rat's nest of "Stuff", just having tons of objects (Medium sized and under? No one wants them black-holing guns easily) stashed in some kind of structure/container called a rat's nest. It'd have to take a while to ramp up in the beginning since the Rat king would be the only one who has hands to put things actually into the nest, and he could then use it to shape more rat units. Also, he could speak english just so there is a possibility of diplomacy. They can eat organs to heal and get a bonus for designated "Trash" items being stashed in the nests?

The Janitor could be the frontline of the war- maybe the rats could be slightly slowed on cleaned tiles and fully lit maintenance tiles, and take moderate damage from space cleaner - maybe we could add bleach as a chemical (which would be memeworthy on its own) that would basically be the same as setting a rat unit of fire. Pest spray could poison them, mouse traps should one-shot the horrible rats and do devastating damage to rat goblins and heavy damage to rat snatchers.
It'd also be cool to make the rats breathe so they can't do space nests. Give them dodge chance or souped up block chance versus melee.
Cheese should be able to buff them or be used against them somehow. I really think this should be one conflict where the service roles can contribute.

The issue with a lot of swarm antags is that they need to be addressed immediately or else they fuck your shit really fast. Xenos, Swarmers, fucking every Ash Ligger that gets to the station, if you don't get them called out before they have a queen, it's gonna be a bad time. It'd be nice to have milder side antags with more varied goals, so that they don't need to be addressed right away but can definitely exacerbate the main issues of the round and perhaps threaten the crew physically if left out of control for too long.

SaveVatznick wrote:I remember there was some talking about pests as some kind of ghost role where mice go to war with cockroaches or something. It'd be cool to have some kind of swarm that is ultimately unable to affect the station at all beyond making it look pesty. It'd also be an interesting dynamic because humans could interfere at any time with mouse traps / stepping on and oneshotting the mice or cockroaches.

OR

If that's no fun than what about a rat king that raises mice into being horrible rats, which are just player controlled mice that are a little harder to kill and chew on things. And then slowly the swarm gets little rat goblins, which are like monkeys with only one hand that can steal things but not threaten humans unless they gang up on them, and then maybe human sized rat snatchers who still have only one hand, but have a really pretty high disarm chance that snatches things from you. They shouldn't be able to actually use the guns or any computers.

Their objectives would be to just make a rat's nest of "Stuff", just having tons of objects (Medium sized and under? No one wants them black-holing guns easily) stashed in some kind of structure/container called a rat's nest. It'd have to take a while to ramp up in the beginning since the Rat king would be the only one who has hands to put things actually into the nest, and he could then use it to shape more rat units. Also, he could speak english just so there is a possibility of diplomacy. They can eat organs to heal and get a bonus for designated "Trash" items being stashed in the nests?

The Janitor could be the frontline of the war- maybe the rats could be slightly slowed on cleaned tiles and fully lit maintenance tiles, and take moderate damage from space cleaner - maybe we could add bleach as a chemical (which would be memeworthy on its own) that would basically be the same as setting a rat unit of fire. Pest spray could poison them, mouse traps should one-shot the horrible rats and do devastating damage to rat goblins and heavy damage to rat snatchers.
It'd also be cool to make the rats breathe so they can't do space nests. Give them dodge chance or souped up block chance versus melee.
Cheese should be able to buff them or be used against them somehow. I really think this should be one conflict where the service roles can contribute.

The issue with a lot of swarm antags is that they need to be addressed immediately or else they fuck your shit really fast. Xenos, Swarmers, fucking every Ash Ligger that gets to the station, if you don't get them called out before they have a queen, it's gonna be a bad time. It'd be nice to have milder side antags with more varied goals, so that they don't need to be addressed right away but can definitely exacerbate the main issues of the round and perhaps threaten the crew physically if left out of control for too long.

If the queen-equivalent is the Giant Rat That Makes All Of The Rules then fund it

Also it turns out real "Rat kings" are these grotesque little arts n' crafts things. so yeah those could be craftable out of rat corpses.

Okay here's another idea I had.



Mycelials are a fungus-based xenomorph alt. They resemble walking clusters of fungal tendrils and spore pods. Instead of glowing resin, they have fungal spires, which release spores into the air that infect people with something kind of like the fungal tuberculosis disease, and spread mycelium, which is like resin but it looks like mold. They have a resistance to brute damage but a weakness to burn damage, and toxin damage heals them, but anti-toxins hurt them. Instead of facehuggers, they can turn corpses into new mycelials. Their attacks also inject toxic spores.

Drone
The average mycelial. Can create structures out of fungal biomass. Can evolve into a reaper or sporelord. Unarmed attacks are sharp, but not very powerful. However, it attacks very fast.
Reaper
Large, slow, and strong. Can no longer create structures, and unarmed attacks are much stronger but also slower. Cannot ventcrawl.

SPORELORD
Leader of the mycelials. Can release a large spore cloud that turns corpses into mycelials (drones can only convert 1 corpse at a time, and reapers can't infect corpses). Even larger and stronger than the reaper, but also slower. Can still make structures.