Possible change to uplinks (for traitors)

[oranges]

Floating an idea that I think could have merit here around changes to uplinks for traitors, want to see what people think.

If your gut reaction is I hate this it's shit, don't post, I want useable feedback, just use the poll instead

First, we enforce a budgetary limit (on coders) around the uplink, say a maximum of 80tc (we enforce this with a unit test, easy), this encourages a real focus on a smaller number of antag items to ensure they meet the traitor role niche.

This number could be tweaked up and down as necessary to prune/smarten focus.
These are you core traitoring tools (no powergaming/murdering items included here), stealth/deception/hacking/disabling an individual who is alone/fleeing from groups of people should be the aims here.

Second, we take 99% of the remaining items that just got shot into the sun and we put them behind a second store, one that's only available depending on completion of your objectives (which pay out a second type of TC based on difficulty of completing that objective). As you complete objectives, you get more on a timed basis, getting harder, until you get your escape objective (at around 30-40 minutes in), for this bit, think contractor, but it's merged with traitor.

We enforce the same budget system on that (using whatever total is the current total), since it is quite bloaty still, but we can be more relaxed on the focus here, this is also where your powergame/murder tools live.

This encourages a slower playstyle for traitors, they have to limit their murderbone until they have completed objectives and are approaching the times where a shuttle would be called.

Side note: yes this makes escape alone pretty much impossible, so I would kick that objective to the curb, it never really sat well in the round, and it long since ceased to be people creatively destroying the shuttle (especially now that pods exist).

Other thoughts:
We would need a lot of more easier objectives, i.e break into dept, upload "virus" into "relevant" computer etc, stuff that you can do and get away with.

[oranges]

Some subnotes:
This moves the antag into a more progression based system, something which changeling, our other solo antag, has.

There is possibility we take murderbone focused stuff and move that to yet *ANOTHER* store, where you can only get access to it if you press a button/request help.
This grants you full access to murderbone shop inc, *BUT* NT gets notified of who you are and announces to the crew.

NB: this alert/request help would only become available after either a time bound pneriod, or some level of objective completion, this is to prevent round start traitor murderbone giving away gamemode for more passive traitors.

[Flatulent]

having an objective to steal disk and steal HOS gun makes you fight the entirety of security on your own and could be impossible if you don't have those murderbone items that are locked behind objectives

you should probably consider adding a difficulty tier list for objectives and allow murderbone items if objectives the traitor has are hard to accomplish without a lot of equipment

[oranges]

This post was deleted by oranges on Tue Mar 24, 2020 9:07 am.
Reason: you thought you were so funny, now you are on post approval

[oranges]

Yes that would be important, difficulty ratings on objectives, so the user can build up to their most difficult objective (which they get roundstart, so they can plan).

Mayb ebreak it into the concept of
Difficult Main objective
Simple sub objectives that you have to complete to build up a gear set for your main one.

[RaveRadbury]

I really like this idea.

One issue that exists within the presented model are cases in which the target has been killed due to circumstances not involving the antagonist. Would we be making traitors "lock down" their kills and steal objectives? Perhaps a full overhaul of traitor objectives would need to accompany this, unless we're meant to send off the bodies/steal objectives like contractors do. This would be a shift in the game play narrative as part of the challenge is maintaining control over the steal objectives after you have absconded with them. Death is a reversible situation, and if we were to force some sort of guarantee on the removal that would affect options like borging your target which would be sad to lose.

[oranges]

Kill objectives will require some form of confirmation of kill, perhaps a DNA sample. (So a traitor geneticist could get the DNA sample and risk lying to syndicate about the user death - redtext if user makes it off station)


To make it situational, so you're not forced into full round removal, you could require a confirmation of death (via scanner readout), but not require the user to be dead on shuttle arrival at centcomm (which tbh, how does Syndicate even track that)

Maybe the major objective is Kill: permanently, and the minor is kill: at least once (sending a message or delaying some NT research project through personnel injury)

[Flatulent]

what happens to contractor kit and special syndikits(a recon kit is a set of core traitoring tools you mentioned, while guns kit is made for murderbone, they are in the same bundle)

[oranges]

all kits would be in the secondary shop, contractor would just be subsumed into traitor as traitor adopts some of it's key ideas.

[Stickymayhem]

orange man bad but idea good. I'd love more creative story-based objectives

e.g.
Upload virus to telecomms, triggers blackout, or gives all traitors syndicate channel access
Stealing research actually wipes research, encouraging backup protocols
Hack Teleporter, brings in a syndicate portal storm
Hijack a cargo shuttle, cargo loses shuttle access and all the gear they ordered on that shipment

shit like that would make traitors inherently stealthier yet easier to track down

[oranges]

good ideas for minor objectives, exactly the sort of stuff that i'd like to see.

[Dr_bee]

Minor objective ideas:
Plant a tracker on a crew member. Which would always appear with a kill, kidnap, protect, or strand objective and would actually allow the syndicate target pinpointer to work. Note that the paired objective might not be given to the person with the plant tracker objective.

Siphon x amount of power. This would involve the powersink. The powersink should also be given controls to throttle how much it takes, making the traitor have to choose between siphoning for a long time to do it quietly, risking discovery over a long time, or taking the whole powernet in one go like the powersink currently does, guaranteeing discovery but getting the objective done faster.

Protect objectives. The syndicate has means in place to turn a crewmember after they make it to centcom, so make sure they do so alive. similar to the space ninja objective.

[Stillplant]

For a permakill objective, maybe add a traitor item for making revival difficult. My idea would be a chemical, that has no effect on a living person, but in a dead person, causes their brain to disintegrate.

Anyways, so if I understand correctly, codewise, kill objectives would change to "examine" target while he or she is dead, then ensure that they are not on a shuttle or pod, with an option to fake the victims death.

That would allow for a "fake death" objective, where you have to "kill" a target for one faction, but also ensure they survive for another faction.

[NecromancerAnne]

While I am definitely on board with limiting murder tools, I do think every traitor requires at the very least access to a sidearm or something to help with personal defense. Not a revolver but the bog standard stechkin and preferably only one, or the ebow, which is maybe the best thematic gun traitors get and essentially both an escape weapon and an aggressive weapon but heavily limited as a murder tool due to needing to shoot one person at a time and struggles to perform against multiple threats, which is often what security/the crew can rally if necessary.

Antags without a weapon just get deleted by the first security officer that gives them the stink eye, and constructing makeshift weapons can be an answer but is fairly balatant most of the time. And I think plenty of players have had bad experiences where security has validhunted over extremely minor IC crimes like breaking and entering and minor theft. I get this both borders on rulebreaking and also not very common, but some people prefer to handle those guys as antags themselves than get into the administrative mess of whether the officer over stepped their bounds and deal with having an admin question the legitimacy of the situation given the person was an antag. Only on Manuel do we have a harder restriction on validhunting antags, so it does get dicey with regards to the other servers on whether the situation is simply marked IC.

Traitors should have something that helps them when backed into a corner, and either that is a more nonlethal sidearm than the stechkin, literally just a stechkin (It's not any stronger than a disabler, really), or some method of evasion to help them dodge and avoid attacks. Stealth box is one that comes to mind. The contractor baton another.

Weapons and items that absolutely should not be in the uplink at the start are therefore stuff like the revolver, the desword (It's bad both functionally, a relic of a dead era and also pushes a bad mindset), powerfist, probably esword and probably any big round affecting purchases.

Weapons and items that should be available roundstart are sleepy pens (but these might need some restrictions because unsurprisingly you can murderbone with these pretty hard actually, I've done it), ebow, throwing kit, stealth box, storage implant, hypnoflash, space suit, stuff that is enablers and help with gimmicks. The allowance of gimmicky items for traitors and emphasis on them will help antags be a little more creative.

[NecromancerAnne]

For a permakill objective, maybe add a traitor item for making revival difficult. My idea would be a chemical, that has no effect on a living person, but in a dead person, causes their brain to disintegrate.

Anyways, so if I understand correctly, codewise, kill objectives would change to "examine" target while he or she is dead, then ensure that they are not on a shuttle or pod, with an option to fake the victims death.

That would allow for a "fake death" objective, where you have to "kill" a target for one faction, but also ensure they survive for another faction.

Why permakill? Body disposal adds the challenge of keeping your target from blabbing but to complete that objective you could just have the ol' classic taking of a trophy to indicate they were killed. A finger, and ear, some sample of dna that can't be fooled, and then uploading that to whatever market system you're using.

[Ayy Lemoh]

idea

Yeah, this actually doesn't suck. It seems to be what traitors were actually meant to do anyways.

My only real question is about tc trades however I don't think that is something you can answer. Other than that, what about those syndicate bundles? Some are basically gimmicks while others are meant to be very dangerous.

[NecromancerAnne]

For any trades we basically just make you a unique antag and leave it at that. You give up your traitor round, we give you X goofy stuff. Since it is largely admin bullshit it shouldn't really factor into this change at all. We, as admins, can make those decisions and come to an arrangement.

[Akrilla]

This was basically the fundamentals for the contractor, so having it become more the default traitor would be really nice. I really do think it adds a lot more. Also there was a poll a while back asking if people wanted traitor/contractors merged more, and that came out positive so.

[Fikou]

an idea to add to this would be giving security better equipment during the round for managing with traitors, for example if a traitor steals all the research from r&d and security manages to obtain the disk back they get some technological prize or a special tech node from centcom

[PKPenguin321]

So if I'm reading this right:
- Traitors now get a plethora of minor objectives that are drip-fed to them as they're completed
- A final "get the shuttle called and get on it" escape objective is fed around 40 minutes in
- Several uplink items (with a focus on destructive ones that could get the shuttle called) are now locked and must be unlocked by completing these minor objectives

Could work depending on what items are locked, would need a good amount of testing imo. The addition of tons of new minor objectives would probably necessitate that we make certain stealth/escape/B&E tools cheaper, because traitors will be a lot more at risk of getting caught/will likely need to break into 10x as many places undetected and traitors are still a valid KoS target.

Also be wary of the old changeling issue of "you unlock strong abilities which lets you unlock stronger abilities which lets you unlock stronger abilities." You mention that traitors will get up to 80 TCs (!!!) which means their endgame power will be a LOT larger than before if they can get there, but even at, say, 30 TCs, a traitor will be so strong that reaching that endgame will most likely be no issue. At some point an antag can get so strong that they reach a defacto-endgame where victory is all-but assured way before you might intend it to be.

[zxaber]

Kill objectives will require some form of confirmation of kill, perhaps a DNA sample. (So a traitor geneticist could get the DNA sample and risk lying to syndicate about the user death - redtext if user makes it off station)

We could require some sort of kill confirmation to unlock more gear but still have that separate from the actual greentext. For example, if you kill your John Doe target, you scan the body with your uplink to register the kill and get some better loot. If someone revives John, it's still on you to make sure he winds up dead again or you risk failing the objective.

[oranges]

You mention that traitors will get up to 80 TCs (!!!)

No, this is the budget of TC available to coders adding antag items, they can't exceed 80TC on the core items, so they have to replace or remove existing items to fit their item in.

The idea is to keep our core items focused by restricting coders, it has nothing to do with the actual player in game.

[Armhulen]

You mention that traitors will get up to 80 TCs (!!!)

No, this is the budget of TC available to coders adding antag items, they can't exceed 80TC on the core items, so they have to replace or remove existing items to fit their item in.

The idea is to keep our core items focused by restricting coders, it has nothing to do with the actual player in game.

Is this counting job specific antag items?

[NoxVS]

Would the TC limit include job specific things?

[Armhulen]

Would the TC limit include job specific things?

...Yes, that is what I just asked one post above you.

[oranges]

All job specific items would be included in the TC limit and likely fall into the second store of items.

[BeeSting12]

So what you're saying is the entire uplink would have no more than 80TC worth of items in it. (Besides the second store you mentioned). I really like this idea and I think it will turn traitors into stealthy saboteurs instead of nuke ops lite. I'm not sure how murder objectives or steal objectives would work since those rely on the shuttle docking with Centcomm.

For the purposes of getting currency for the second store or getting access to it, the best way would probably be allowing traitors to summon a free tool that scans the body and uploads the results to Centcomm. It could be spoofed by taking the target's DNA and putting it on a monkey, but that requires cooperation from the target (or kidnapping the target). If the target's identity is changed then the tool could scan its brain instead.

Still no clue for steal objectives. They might have to be removed and replaced with sabotage objectives per department, ie. Download X research levels.

[Gogodapogostick]

Could we get an official poll for this? Forms don't really seem like the best place to poll such a major change to traitor gameplay.

[angelstarri]

i like this idea merge it now

[Gogodapogostick]

I say again, this is a pretty major change for it to not be on the big poll

[wesoda25]

nah this is pretty small im surprised it even got a vote

[oranges]

it's an idea mate, not a proposal for change yet

[deedubya]

This is a good idea in theory, but it ignores the primary purpose of even having TC and an uplink to begin with. The items you get are supposed to aid you in completing your objectives, not function as a reward for completing them. The reward for completion is the all important greentext. Admittedly, not too many players see the value in getting their greentext these days, so you're not too misguided in wanting to give traitors incentive to work their objective.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

If you get drip fed objectives that you need to do to unlock items, does that mean you rework the tc limit Antags use? Like if I have to virus a computer eventually everyone is going to have some level of meta knowledge about it and so youd probably want to spend some tc to do that.

But if you wanted to buy one of the "use all your tc" items like current desword you'd have to practically do all your objectives with no tc first? Or would you get drip fed TC with your objectives to encourage ramping up your power over time instead of either blowing everything on stealth immediately or just be a regular grey shirt until you unlock what you actually wanted to buy?

[CDranzer]

Progression for traitors and locking more dangerous weapons behind "going loud" are both decent ideas, but the idea of limiting the store to 80 tc seems both oddly restrictive and not especially useful - it won't make it so you'll have better or more balanced items, just a smaller choice.

Here's a spitball - You know those random "kits" you can buy, a bunch of thematic items in a box? Consider the following - you choose one and only one kit from a selection of predesigned kits, and the kit you choose determines what objectives the syndicate sends you. Completing objectives gives you TC which then allows you to buy specific items. The kits could be modest, and certain items could appear across multiple kits, but it also means that things could be balanced in isolation easier while still letting people actually design sort of mini subjobs.

[Akrilla]

Consider the following - you choose one and only one kit from a selection of predesigned kits, and the kit you choose determines what objectives the syndicate sends you. Completing objectives gives you TC which then allows you to buy specific items. The kits could be modest, and certain items could appear across multiple kits, but it also means that things could be balanced in isolation easier while still letting people actually design sort of mini subjobs.

People would always just choose the kit that has the strongest kill items I feel, and would likely end up in 1-2 being the only "viable" kits.

This is a good idea in theory, but it ignores the primary purpose of even having TC and an uplink to begin with. The items you get are supposed to aid you in completing your objectives, not function as a reward for completing them. The reward for completion is the all important greentext. Admittedly, not too many players see the value in getting their greentext these days, so you're not too misguided in wanting to give traitors incentive to work their objective.

I think the contractor system proves that people enjoy working towards something that isn't just greentext. If you give interesting challenges, provide them with enjoyable rewards, and allow them to become stronger than it's a good incentive. If the challenges then support gameplay that's fun for the majority of people, it's a complete win-win.

[oranges]

The restriction on TC is to encourage devs to think heavily about the items in the core toolset and ensure they're balanced and rounded, and there are not too many of them, I'm essentially trying to gamify the metagame aspect of developing.

[angelstarri]

can we remove all the retarded useless bloat tc items as well please thank you oranges based god fruit

[deedubya]

This is a good idea in theory, but it ignores the primary purpose of even having TC and an uplink to begin with. The items you get are supposed to aid you in completing your objectives, not function as a reward for completing them. The reward for completion is the all important greentext. Admittedly, not too many players see the value in getting their greentext these days, so you're not too misguided in wanting to give traitors incentive to work their objective.

I think the contractor system proves that people enjoy working towards something that isn't just greentext. If you give interesting challenges, provide them with enjoyable rewards, and allow them to become stronger than it's a good incentive. If the challenges then support gameplay that's fun for the majority of people, it's a complete win-win.

Sure, and that's why I like having the contractor kit as an option. Not so sure about it becoming the model for all antags to follow.

At least that's what I'd be saying if oranges didn't post right after you, and clear up the intent. I do sort of agree with that philosophy. It just needs to be executed very carefully. Deciding what is and isn't an essential part of a tator's potential tools and how to price them is not going to be easy.

[PKPenguin321]

The restriction on TC is to encourage devs to think heavily about the items in the core toolset and ensure they're balanced and rounded, and there are not too many of them, I'm essentially trying to gamify the metagame aspect of developing.

i don't think there's any problem with having an inoften-used item in the uplink. AI Detectors have been in the game like 10~ years and are almost never used but they serve a cool and niche purpose, there's no reason to scrap it, and capping the number of items in the uplink by an arbitrary "coder TCs budget" would invariably lead to people cutting it out of the game to make space for their Epic /k/ Wet Dream 9000 which sucks

[Tarchonvaagh]

Upvote!

[oranges]

The restriction on TC is to encourage devs to think heavily about the items in the core toolset and ensure they're balanced and rounded, and there are not too many of them, I'm essentially trying to gamify the metagame aspect of developing.

i don't think there's any problem with having an inoften-used item in the uplink. AI Detectors have been in the game like 10~ years and are almost never used but they serve a cool and niche purpose, there's no reason to scrap it, and capping the number of items in the uplink by an arbitrary "coder TCs budget" would invariably lead to people cutting it out of the game to make space for their Epic /k/ Wet Dream 9000 which sucks

You clearly did not read the thread at all, go back and try again.

[SumFaggotPlayTester]

Liking the suggestions in the OP; especially the part where you get new objectives when you complete your current set. Though I'm wondering how diverse the new objectives will be. Cargo shuttle hijack sounds good as suggested, but outside of obtain high-risk item X or kill/steal the DNA of person Y what else, and how far, would these objectives go? I know they can't exactly be to piss easy; such as stealing x amount of technology. How creative can they get without being the equivalent of spessman radiant quest? Mainly asking to see what to brainstorm on.

[PKPenguin321]

The restriction on TC is to encourage devs to think heavily about the items in the core toolset and ensure they're balanced and rounded, and there are not too many of them, I'm essentially trying to gamify the metagame aspect of developing.

i don't think there's any problem with having an inoften-used item in the uplink. AI Detectors have been in the game like 10~ years and are almost never used but they serve a cool and niche purpose, there's no reason to scrap it, and capping the number of items in the uplink by an arbitrary "coder TCs budget" would invariably lead to people cutting it out of the game to make space for their Epic /k/ Wet Dream 9000 which sucks

You clearly did not read the thread at all, go back and try again.

but i did read the thread, and i know that this is just one of many ideas. i was only commenting on this particular one.
that said i dont think that one idea is a BAD idea, but perhaps too strict of one. very low impact/situational items should be exempted from it imo, but it could be really nice for imposing a harder limit on the more murdery items

[oranges]

there are two stores, the second has a much higher limit for all the low impact situation items, if you read the thread like you claimed, how did you miss this

[PKPenguin321]

there are two stores, the second has a much higher limit for all the low impact situation items, if you read the thread like you claimed, how did you miss this

ah, i misread this: "Second, we take 99% of the remaining items that just got shot into the sun and we put them behind a second store, one that's only available depending on completion of your objectives"
as "Second, we take 99% of the remaining items that just got shot into the sun and we put them behind a second store, one that's only available depending on your objectives"
my brain a worded two words and i filled it in as "this store is for objective-specific items"

[NoxVS]

The total TC limit feels pointless and entirely arbitrary. Whether or not an item is in the uplink should be because its fun/useful, not because adding/removing it will impact the magic number. I feel it would be better to just decide case by case.

[oranges]

I disagree

[MisterPerson]

The total TC limit feels pointless and entirely arbitrary. Whether or not an item is in the uplink should be because its fun/useful, not because adding/removing it will impact the magic number. I feel it would be better to just decide case by case.

We can always raise the number later if we actually need to go past it. It's mostly just an excuse for maintainers to deny overly niche traitor items that clutter up the list.

Think of it like a deckbuilding restriction. If you want to add a new card, you have to choose something to replace it with. You can't just keep adding cards forever (Battle of Wits goes brrrrr).

[ATHATH]

I say again, this is a pretty major change for it to not be on the big poll