Changeling Objectives

[Poorman]

There really isn't any good reason why changeling objectives are so much harder than traitor objectives.

It's one of the reasons why Changeling is so unfun of a roundtype, because they have really difficult objectives that often involve killing and hiding a LOT of people.

Honestly, the majority of changeling objective sets should just be to kill a head of staff, and to leave the station with their identity. It's an objective that plays off what makes lings unique, but it's difficult enough that it could be a sole antagonist objective.

[MisterPerson]

I'm inclined to agree that ling objectives are just needlessly hard. Debrain needs to go, if nothing else.

How do people feel about ling-on-ling murder objectives? I feel they should either not happen or should be very, very explicit that your objective is a changeling with ways to track the target even when they transform. The former is more desirable if lings are supposed to work together but I feel the latter creates an interesting dynamic where you're never quite sure if you can trust the other changelings.

[onleavedontatme]

Debrain needs to go, if nothing else.

Second. When I see I have to steal some random assistants brain I just ignore my objectives entirely.

[lumipharon]

why is debrain that hard?

Arm blade is a saw, and you can use normal tools ona toobelt for everything else.

So if you're in a position to husk a person, you're also in a position to debrain them. The only thing you need is a bedsheet and 30 seconds.

[qwert]

Changelling can cheat the accidental stupid death, like being robusted in maint by ebow esword scrub.
Changelling has all his stuff integrated in him.
Integrated emp and stun removal.
While traitor, who goes for implants is limited, ling is not.
Implants are limited, ling abilities are not.
You have much greater opportunities for escaping or getting to your target.
If you have one absorb you can switch your choice to fit the current situation even better, the traitor cant redeem his syndicate items for telecrystalls.
You can husk bodies, effectively removing corpse disposal problem, as you dont meet with -> your victim gets cloned > urist tator killed me > ; urist tator is traitor, kill him, boys.
Ling is much more robust then traitor, thats why objectives are harder.

[Incomptinence]

why is debrain that hard?

Arm blade is a saw, and you can use normal tools ona toobelt for everything else.

So if you're in a position to husk a person, you're also in a position to debrain them. The only thing you need is a bedsheet and 30 seconds.

Took a while for armblade to be count as a saw for surgery. I think people just gave up eventually like most changeling objectives.

Absorbing is more time to kill than a traitor would do now add ghetto surgery on top. That is a lot of time there spent mostly stationary. It is a pretty poor objective really.

Note on changelings they are terrible thieves also, I believe the accepted go around is kill someone and steal their access and face? Doesn't seem to be working well.

Changelling can cheat the accidental stupid death, like being robusted in maint by ebow esword scrub.
Changelling has all his stuff integrated in him.
Integrated emp and stun removal.
While traitor, who goes for implants is limited, ling is not.
Implants are limited, ling abilities are not.
You have much greater opportunities for escaping or getting to your target.
If you have one absorb you can switch your choice to fit the current situation even better, the traitor cant redeem his syndicate items for telecrystalls.
You can husk bodies, effectively removing corpse disposal problem, as you dont meet with -> your victim gets cloned > urist tator killed me > ; urist tator is traitor, kill him, boys.
Ling is much more robust then traitor, thats why objectives are harder.

If a traitor is around trying to murder you sure you will probably red text them but that is fantastic bad luck ALSO coexisting with traitors just shows off how bad you are. these bad boys act faster than you their objectives are simpler more concise and they end rounds much more thoroughly than you can say hello singulo beacon, well placed syndibomb/c4, powersink. So when the non weakling antagonist wants to leave you are stuck trying to get along with your several functional targets.
A lot of these perks are old old news. Even with death sting and parasting it all amounted to coming just up to par in one metric: assassinations.
If you are abusing integrated stun resists too hard the officers will go lethal then the AI goes lethal a consistent problem with making the most out of your abilities is the AI is already out to kill you. I always saw it as justifying a bit more love but git gudders will shove their heads in the sand I suppose.

Target singular? Lings always have multiple functional targets first you have your assasination then you need to kill to steal or debrain / whatever, in the past you had required absorbs going up to 14-16 or so or you chore easy dna sting which is so boring people ignore it.

Acting like working around husking isn't basically religious doctrine in medbay (brain swap) and robotics (borging). Husking is soft, you should probably still space or destroy it's not much of an advantage. I once survived a round by the skin of my teeth as a pre dna sting boreling, I had not even killed anyone they found a discarded copy of myself I absorbed and identified me by the MMI brain name of a fucking monkey.

I will agree they are great at running away, number one sir robin here ditch your clothes ditch your life ditch your hope.

[TheNightingale]

I wouldn't say debrain objectives are difficult - it's just killing someone with an extra step.
However, they are awful objectives. Debraining someone (and it has to be their current brain) takes them out of the round forever, unless they become a drone, pAI, alien, golem etc. And although lings are masters of ruining rounds (how many times have you found husks in maint lockers?), debrain is the only one where you can't borg them after.

Lings aren't terrible thieves, it's just that they don't have a built-in emag (and emagging into somewhere doesn't make you a good thief). They have to do it like everyone else does - hack in with a multitool, steal the object, escape unseen. It's cleaner and quieter, which fits with the theme of a 'stealthy sneaky changeling'.
(Or they could Lesser Form in through the vents and EMP Shriek the cameras and doors.)
How would making cameras run off environment power, and having armblade be able to cut APC wires (like an alien's claw) work?

[Incomptinence]

They do it like others yes. Your average greytider isn't busy all round doing ling nonsense though, trying to do all those objectives is a bit of a chore really.

Probably the biggest flaw with ling is being too sneaky so you are designed to have a TON to do, so you ain't all that sneaky you are basically doing a full time alien asshole job. While you are busting your ass by design/getting found toiling/pulling our your pants-shiting abilities if you planned to fail and dumping it all, that guy over there. Look look at that traitor. He has less shit to do, he can just play it cool most of the round he is inherently sneakier by inaction. There are more of them to take the heat off so security isn't paralyzing the traitor's ass in their hunt for the next burger star like they are with you. Yeah there is more to the game than objectives but since you can't objectively measure role play quality at this point we have to settle for them as a metric of changeling being garbage. Even with stats no longer being tracked the record was pretty consistent when we had them and my personal viewing of ling red texts afterward agrees. Lings are worse than traitors our last bout of stats to back the revamp of antag scaling said the same thing really.

[qwert]

To get shuttle called, you need just this : - Hello, , can I become atmos tech/ engineer/ scientist?
- You are not going to kill everyone?
- No, no, why would someone even think of this?
- Ok. Give me your id.
After four minutes singularity is eating medbay/ station is mangled mess/ everything is bombed.

Syndicate big bomb is too weak to perform true devastation, it is rather tactical tool for disabling something or performing a gimmick with hostage or bomb defusal festival. Also it beeps loudly, so most likely it would be heard by random assistant and crew will not suffer any casaulties.
Singularity beacon is really robust, but through four years of ss 13 I had seen it effectively used 3 times. As for me, the minibomb, detomatrix and c 4 seem only real advantages of traitor as :stunprod + minibomb = instagib, detomatrix = instant knock out, loading lots of c 4 with remote signaller into the bible/ toolbox/firstaid kit/ briefcase can give you most effective instakill weapon after deathwand

[PKPenguin321]

How do people feel about ling-on-ling murder objectives? I feel they should either not happen or should be very, very explicit that your objective is a changeling with ways to track the target even when they transform. The former is more desirable if lings are supposed to work together but I feel the latter creates an interesting dynamic where you're never quite sure if you can trust the other changelings.

Having been tasked with debraining a fellow line 3 ling rolls in a row, I feel they should be much, much rarer, and it would be nice to know that your target's a ling. Only problem is that if you don't get them at roundstart, you'll be shit out of luck, so if this happens then people will be crying over getting murdered by a fellow ling at roundstart.

[bandit]

why is debrain that hard?

Arm blade is a saw, and you can use normal tools ona toobelt for everything else.

So if you're in a position to husk a person, you're also in a position to debrain them. The only thing you need is a bedsheet and 30 seconds.

Because with a normal assassinate objective, if you can't find them there's a reasonably good chance something else killed them. With a debrain objective, you have to personally track down and keep track of the person and their body. It also means that if they get gibbed via a bomb/singlo/etc, or just fuck off and die, then you're boned.