Changeling/Double Agent Overhaul Thread

[TwitchTail13]

As we all know, Changeling and Double Agent are game modes with significant problems. People tried to take Changeling in multiple directions at the same time and Double Agent is a clusterfuck.

First, Changeling.
The list of changeling powers should keep in mind their inspiration and what changelings were designed to be: Paranoia fuel infiltrators. The stings are used twice as much as the transform power. How do we make transform more useable?
I have a list of ideas. First of all, we could give changelings an internal clothes storage. It would only carry wearable items (shoes, jumpsuit, hats, coats, etc) to prevent easy gun smuggling. Lings could switch items from this list with the clothes they're wearing. The switch would have a minor delay.

Alternately, changelings could be given the ability to eat and then fabricate clothing types. The fabricated clothing would have weaker stats than the original and fabricated headsets wouldn't work at all (Just carry them in a box.) I'm on the fence as to whether or not fabricated hardsuits would work or not. Maybe everything but the light would work?

The enhanced vision ability should only give thermal vision.

Finally, combat based abilities. These are mostly fine as they are. Maybe a neurotoxin spit power would be a good addition/replacement?

Double Agent:
This gamemode is a complete mess. The rounds only last for 30~ minutes depending on whether all or only most of the traitors buy bombs and aim vaguely at the department their target works in. I'd suggest changing the uplink items available to double agents. Remove the explosives and add more stealth based items such as a knife that can be attached to jumpsuits or a specialized poison kit.

Also, ban anyone who turns themselves in to sec and asks them to go after their target for them. It's complete bullshit.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Do any other gamemodes need to be changed?

[Saegrimr]

Have you considered looking through the multiple old threads about this exact same topic?

[danno]

where's the "this is a bad poll" option

[Fragnostic]

What if changeling were scarier by skill with things like a sloths claw which can tear really with enough slashes with high knockout rate?

A spit attack that gives a shitty knockdown.

An external chemical gland that has WAY more storage than just enlarged and can produce chemicals at an insane rate, with the counterplay that it is braindead obvious. Like an amorphous growth protruding from under thhe users neck. and you have to transform at least once.

It'd be really cool if changelings got scarier. I've seen people go to the bar and ask people to come to the magic show. Then they grow armblade and get killed by validhunters. And what you suggest is more useful, but not a lot of options for when shit hits the fan. But your internal clothes storage concept gives me the idea that if I were a caught ling, I could switch identities so fast that I could giggle as I point them in the right direction as a different person, uniform and everything.

[Cheimon]

If, as a ling, you transform into a monkey and back into a human on a pile of clothes, you automatically equip as many as possible.

It's not subtle, but it's fast enough in a private spot. This is in game at the moment.

[Poorman]

I've always had a problem with changeling, through every revision, whether or not you consider them OP. The simple fact of the matter to me, is just how much overlap there is with the traitor gametype, except traitor is objectively more fun.

Coderbus has tried to revamp lings and give them new ways to play, more powers, everything, but at its core it's just a variant of traitor, except the traitor's potential "kit" can be far more varied. If a ling is intent on being a ling, guess what? Players get to get silenced, dragged into maint, and get to sit and watch for an agonizing amount of time as they're choked out and absorbed, before being stuck in a locker and being put out of the round. Not only that, but if they actually are found, cloning them is a royal pain if you don't have a geneticist on staff that can do genetics, and even then you're stuck with a body that isn't really yours, which is kind of a turn off honestly.

Changelings don't need a kit rework, or a nerf/buff. Lings need to function entirely differently. That's always been the case. They really can't have this round type revolving around a stealthy antagonistic alien, when traitor rounds just end up doing that, but also have the potential for a lot more exciting traitor playstyles. They're just a niche that's already filled in a much more fun way via traitor rounds, and they just don't really have a place in normal rotation. One thing I was thinking about, was the possibility of rather than Changelings being bound to roundtypes, they're actually an antagonistic role entirely separate from them. Just have a very low percent chance for a changeling to spawn during any kind of round, save for nuke ops, maybe. That gives it something unique in comparison to Traitor, the unlikelyhood of it actually happening making it all the more exciting of a gamemode. After all, changelings should come along when you LEAST expect them, right?

[Cheimon]

I find changelings mostly fun until the round gets too long. The alien as a confrontational antagonist works for me because it has totally different tools compared to the traitor, most importantly its ability to blind, mute, freeze, and change the genetics of an opponent. I have enjoyed this both as a changeling and as a security officer. Paranoia fuel is okay as a mode, but I would prefer that the angry changeling be kept or moved into a separate creature, not scrapped. You could have stealthling and skraeling, or whatever.

Double agent has an entirely different problem, which is partially about bombs but much more about just the meta surrounding it. Everyone knows two things going in: first, that there are a hell of a lot of double agents, and second, that someone they don't know about is after them. With that in mind, strategies of murdering as many people as possible and causing as much collateral damage as practical are highly emphasised. Double agents know that security will be overwhelmed (so they don't have to be stealthy), they know that someone is looking for them (so if they can kill them first, it's ideal), and they know that they may well have trouble finding their target (so environmental issues are much more likely to kill them anonymously).

With that in mind, the simplest change is also the best. Remove knowledge of the roundtype from antagonists by pretending it's normal traitor: give everyone the standard traitor assassinate message (so: 'Joe Antag, the assistant' instead of 'Joe Antag, the double agent') and the standard 'escape alive and not in custody' message. Make it impossible to tell which is which (so don't remove items from the uplinks either) and I think you'll see a station that's a lot more cautious in how it goes about its aims. I'm not certain this will work, but since it's so simple and has no downsides (that I can think of, anyway), it ought to at least be tried out for a couple of weeks.

[Incomptinence]

Either redesign changeling into a demi wizard death machine or just remove it. Obviously with less lings around or maybe just one ling.

If people aren't scared and it is a sub traitor waste of a round it's not scary, it's less fun, it's pointless.

[Cheimon]

Either redesign changeling into a demi wizard death machine or just remove it. Obviously with less lings around or maybe just one ling.

If people aren't scared and it is a sub traitor waste of a round it's not scary, it's less fun, it's pointless.

Players are rarely scared anyway, they're just annoyed when they die. We can't make Space Station 13 a game about fear without redesigning most modes from the ground up.

[Incomptinence]

Well maybe fear was the wrong word. Tension, excitement, apprehension, intrigue that sort of thing. Not wanting to be taken out of the round should stimulate good play on the non antag's part. Of all the antags changeling is basically the least dangerous game, getting crude traitor imitation at best.

[rockpecker]

I find changelings mostly fun until the round gets too long.

I thought this was the idea behind eventually letting them power up into "become a big honkin monster" mode, but maybe they need more options at the high end?

With that in mind, the simplest change is also the best. Remove knowledge of the roundtype from antagonists by pretending it's normal traitor: give everyone the standard traitor assassinate message (so: 'Joe Antag, the assistant' instead of 'Joe Antag, the double agent') and the standard 'escape alive and not in custody' message. Make it impossible to tell which is which (so don't remove items from the uplinks either) and I think you'll see a station that's a lot more cautious in how it goes about its aims. I'm not certain this will work, but since it's so simple and has no downsides (that I can think of, anyway), it ought to at least be tried out for a couple of weeks.

And this, this is great. A simple, targeted fix to the meta-knowledge problem.

[Incomptinence]

Unless your arbitrary "rp" rule is to have the changeling lauded as the god king on exposure and elevated to the position of supreme captain it will still be the worst round driver in the toolbox.

[Fragnostic]

What if changeling are forced to absorb or they gain abilities whether they want to or not.
They are after all, an unknown lifeform that has an original form that it started as and has assimilated a crew member, appearing as them.

The background could be that they took this form posing as a crew member, but their genome set lacks several DNA patterns present in other complex lifeforms, so the form they have at the moment(roundstart) is unstable and must be completed in order to support the identity they took.

The reason changeling is boring IMO is because there are a ton of stealth options that you don't even have to try in order to get.

It'd put pressure on changeling if they started sprouting amorphous organic structures because they didn't absorb anyone to stabilize/diversify their genome set. if they go too long, they will become a very obvious ling and it'll be hard to fend off the lynch mob.

Organic Structures Lings Could Evolve Without Notice:
monstrous tentacle: tentacle sprouts from the Lings palm, occupying a single hand slot and can aggressively grab at once upon using it on someone on grab intent or it can tackle with a very mild stun on disarm intent and flog/whip on harm (no help intent, ERP is banned)

Organic Bone Pistol: the Ling's arm is specialized into a mechanism that rapidly forms masses of calcium and fires them at low velocities ( could have the stun of being disarmed, not enough to rampage, just to help when in a pinch/running from a mob that's closing in)

Super Efficient External Chemical Glands: produces chems at an alarmingly fast rate, with the disadvantage of being very obvious(large red swollen glands below the neck, production rate slows down a lot when very hurt

Split-Face Acoustic Upgrade: face is split apart and has a more efficient mechanism for producing dissonant soundwaves(both EMP shriek and the other dissonant shriek)

Mundane, benign growths: horns, clawed hands, spiked talons/spurs, torso forms a large, useless mouth(harmless evolutions that only make the user more intimidating/loud)

As well as armblade, organic armor, organic shield and all the loud abilities

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I love the idea that stealthlings and their tiny prick occasionally become fleshorrors spontaneously.