Respawn Mechanics

[Scones]

How can we implement them? Antagonists (Like Kor's proposed demon) become much more interesting when body destruction and total removal from the round (With the small chance of respawning as an antag thingy like alien) is not permanent.

I'd propose 3 sanctions on a respawn feature:
- Forces randomname randombody on respawn
- Requires your body to have been destroyed AKA you have no other way back into the round (Gibbed/cremated)
- Has a lengthly timer after death before you can respawn (10+ minutes?)

Wrote this briefly please discuss, I don't think meta is an issue, admins would shoot it down pretty well. Rev is the only gamemode I'd be worried about, but then again, timer.

[onleavedontatme]

I'd rather have it be based on stuff the crew does rather than straight respawn.

Like give the players the ability to request reinforcement/crew infusions from Centcomm via the comms console if they've met some requirement or another (time passed, number of people alive, resources gathered?). Reinforcements might look like


-Prisoner transfer: X random people spawned as prisoners with random sentences/backstories, can rejoin the crew after they're done mining in the gulag.

-ERT: But balanced. No pulse weapons or space suits or whatever, "normal" weapons and armor.

-Replacement crew members: Bunch of assistants for the HoP to assign

Would not require admin intervention, just some sort of resource system.

On the other hand death should be somewhat meaningful, so maybe only demi-human stuff should be allowed, such as

-Migrants
-Ruins NPCs (strange alien bartender inexplicably out in the desert, hermit, etc)
-Letting botany grow plant people pods, let ghosts click on them to enter. Similar rules to golems.

[Scones]

The best of those options is Prisoner Transfer + Surplus Crew. Give some console (CAPTAIN THRONE) the ability to request these on a very long cooldown.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I like the Prisoner Transfer idea, but it opens up the whole "re-entering the round with ghost knowledge and a new name" issue

[onleavedontatme]

I like the Prisoner Transfer idea, but it opens up the whole "re-entering the round with ghost knowledge and a new name" issue

You can already do that via golem, pAI, positronic brain, and sentience potions though. I mean yeah it's an issue, but not one we haven't dealt with before.

[Scones]

I like the Prisoner Transfer idea, but it opens up the whole "re-entering the round with ghost knowledge and a new name" issue

You can already do that via golem, pAI, positronic brain, and sentience potions though.

There would be a zero-tolerance policy on abusing this shit, moreso than there already is

[QuartzCrystal]

Our playerbase is accustomed to the rules about being an ERT and roleplay it well more often than not. I see no reason why there should be an issue about Prisoner Transfers or what have you.

To clarify, would the captain's request for these be admin-approvable only? I wouldn't mind seeing it as something that could happen independently of admins.

[onleavedontatme]

Our playerbase is accustomed to the rules about being an ERT and roleplay it well more often than not. I see no reason why there should be an issue about Prisoner Transfers or what have you.

To clarify, would the captain's request for these be admin-approvable only? I wouldn't mind seeing it as something that could happen independently of admins.

Completely independent of admins, yeah. Maybe have a notice so that admins can deny the request if they want (maybe it'd ruin an event?) but even during an event round I think it'd be funny if they called in a ragtag gang of prisoners as reinforcements and they shivved the big bad enemy

[QuartzCrystal]

I see no reason why we need to deny requests, but perhaps it could become a ban option for us to prevent folks from being respawned if they have a habit of abusing it?

[Scones]

Our playerbase is accustomed to the rules about being an ERT and roleplay it well more often than not. I see no reason why there should be an issue about Prisoner Transfers or what have you.

To clarify, would the captain's request for these be admin-approvable only? I wouldn't mind seeing it as something that could happen independently of admins.

Nah. It would just say "Prisoner Transfer inbound. Please prepare to receive convicts at the transfer docking point."

Small shuttle spawns (More like a pod) with 6 prisoners on board

{}
X X
X X
X X
=

3 on each side with a filing cabinet in the back containing Security records. Prisoners spawn on the shuttle (Which has a five minute ETA from the announcement in transit) with a message like:

You are [NAME]. You are aboard this ship after having been convicted of [CRIME(S)]. You are not a free man. You will serve your sentence and face possible reintegration into society. Praise Nanotrasen!

EDIT: Forums won't let me place spaces to make that shuttle design clear. And yes, there would very obviously need to be a convict ban.

[onleavedontatme]

I see no reason why we need to deny requests, but perhaps it could become a ban option for us to prevent folks from being respawned if they have a habit of abusing it?

Sure. Could also just use drone ban or PAI ban or whatever other meta potential roles there are.

[rdght91]

I don't think the "high-stakes" feel would be ruined at all by allowing a method of re-entry into the round that takes in the neighborhood of ~20 minutes. (IE Requires being dead for 5 minutes, and happens about every 10-15 at the very least).

[PKPenguin321]

This might be nice at times, but honestly, it just detracts from the significance of death and only really leads to a lot of potential meta. Before you say "BUT GOLEMS/DRONES/PAIS/POSIBRAINS," those all have strict rules or laws saying they must obey a certain something or someone. Straight up spawning new, free-willed humans with no real restrictions on their actions leaves a very vague line for what is bannable or not for them. Did they happen to run into their murderer in maintenance and kill them by coincidence, or because they knew OOCly that they might be there?

If you want to get back into the game after you've perma-died, go to the other server.

If you really, really, REALLY, absolutely MUST have this, there need to be very strict rules around it. Rules like not letting prisoner transfers harm anyone at all (use IC fluff like centcomm gave them anti-harm implants so if they hurt anyone directly they feel excruciating pain).

[Incomptinence]

I would say let the migrant project cover it.

I mean isn't that what they are for?

[onleavedontatme]

I would say let the migrant project cover it.

I mean isn't that what they are for?

Yeah but that's assuming I ever finish it instead of coding more random bullshit or suddenly losing interest again

[Incomptinence]

You go back far enough and ghosts spinning chairs and spooking shit predated the era of NO YOU MUST NEVER COME BACK.

These in my eyes are just medications to better handle bored dead people. I like observing myself but I have pretty much get no memorable interaction from my fellow ghosts beyond the old omnighost ololo so I won't miss them.

I would think the meaning of IC traitor actions is IC, whether the player on the other side of some ghost moving around I won't see if alive and would probably ignore if dead too logs out isn't my business and without admin privileges and extreme pettiness you can't track it.

I find the idea of a round not necessarily a long one but one you can't quite predict how long it will persist and hold its own steam more interesting than two hours tops planned obsolescence station in the middle of a bland and intentionally uninteresting space setting.

I like people playing to win or stakes or whatever but the game really doesn't need to be streamlined into a spartan doldrums around this.

[Steelpoint]

The reason I've gone along with the migrants idea is simply because the actual migrants are very far removed from the station and (in theory) it would be very difficult for them to return to the station proper.

Otherwise I disagree with any other respawn mechanics, I think the problem with respawning now is that we have rounds that last for far too long then they used to. We've gone from 30 minute rounds to 2 hour rounds which excacerbates the down time for when you die.

If you were to die a year or so ago at most you would be sitting out for 20 to 30 minutes, yet now you could be out for well over an hour.

[onleavedontatme]

In a perfect world the game would last half an hour again and have perma death but there is simply no way the current codebase or community would accept that.

I'd rather have reapawn rules than this terrible aversion to death at all because it "removes people from the round."

I'm not gonna fight a one man war to drag this game back to 2012 so I'll work with what we have, and what we unfortunately have is a trend towards long rounds where everyone has to keep playing.

Maybe once we have more respawn roles people wont be so adverse to triators actually killing people

[Drynwyn]

The community might accept 30 minute rounds if half the games content wasn't gated behind an hour of work. As-is, a huge number of jobs (The entire Science department, mining, botany, Detective because a 30 minute round isn't long enough to investigate any crimes that occur past the 10 minute mark, Engineering because doing repairs takes time and there's no point to it if the station is deliberately self destructing so that the shuttle gets called 15 minutes in) can do almost nothing interesting until the later half of a 2 hour round.

[onleavedontatme]

The community might accept 30 minute rounds if half the games content wasn't gated behind an hour of work. As-is, a huge number of jobs (The entire Science department, mining, botany, Detective because a 30 minute round isn't long enough to investigate any crimes that occur past the 10 minute mark, Engineering because doing repairs takes time and there's no point to it if the station is deliberately self destructing so that the shuttle gets called 15 minutes in) can do almost nothing interesting until the later half of a 2 hour round.

Well most of that used to be achievable by half an hour as well, not sure exactly what happened there. Slowed down like everything else (construction, movespeed) to "balance" it I guess.

And suddenly we're stuck playing 2 hours with maybe 1 hours worth of content stretched out behind shitty gates, yet people are demanding the rounds last longer so they can finish their mechs (when it'd probably just be better to make mechs buildable in 40 minutes or something again).

[Loonikus]

We have enough ways to get back into a round.

The very best way to stay in a round is by not dying.

[onleavedontatme]

The very best way to stay in a round is by not dying.

Unfortunately people have taken that to mean "remove things that kill you from the game" and not "get good"

[Balut]

Eeeeh on respawn mechanics.

Yeeees on Space Valhalla.


Also Space Practice Zone, where I guess you get all the bits n' shit to practice at whatever jobs, I guess. Robofabs, some chemistry and med shit and a human-dispenser or something to beat the shit out of and practice on, whatever. All atmos-unsimulated, I guess. That's an idea too.

[Jacough]

-Migrants

Stow away refugees? On occasion the supply shuttle might come back with a few respawned players who are naked and starving.

[Shaps-cloud]

What's so great about half hour rounds, that's ridiculously short for an average round length

[firecage]

I personally wouldn't mind super hour rounds instead of these short 2 hour rounds.

[lumipharon]

There's already 20 ways to get back into the round even after getting completely removed.

Hell, soon there's going to be a drone spawning machine, and there are already round start drone shells at the derelict.

What is the point of death when you just respawn?

[Jacough]

What's so great about half hour rounds, that's ridiculously short for an average round length

That's about the average length of a round on Goon and quite frankly its fucking gay. A lot of the fun stuff and even some jobs take time and become obsolete during short rounds. Want to build a super autistic death trap as an engineer? Too bad, some dick bag just went on a killing spree, shuttle's coming. Want to build a wrestling cage as an assistant and organize a tournament? Nobody cares, everyone's dead, call the shuttle. Got enough minerals as a miner to get a ri- TOO BAD BOMB WENT OFF NO MORE ENGINEERS SHUTTLE'S CALLED.

I'd rather have a long round where people can actually get back in and start doing fun shit than a short thirty minute round that ends abruptly when some chuckle fuck decides to go on a boring rampage and gets the shuttle called.

[Steelpoint]

Most of the game's content was always balanced around it taking about 30 minutes to finish. Genetics, virology, botany, mining, engineering or science.

A few years ago the first third of the round was usually spend in building up the round, people would do their job and research. After that first third antagonists started to ramp up and the station would start going crazy before eventually the shuttle was called when things got out of control.

When I first started playing Security my job was far more based around keeping as many people alive to evacuate and overall just surviving, in rare cases we would do well enough, or the antagonists would not be as good enough, so that the round did not end after the 30 minute mark.

This gave the rounds that lasted more than 30 minutes more meaning, it meant we had earned those longer rounds due to us keeping the station afloat against all odds. Usually as Sec and the crew we were fish flowing against the rapids and 90% of the time we would get swept away, yet 10% of the time we would somehow beat the rapid and reach clear water.

[Amelius]

Hell no. The whole point of permanent death is that you stay dead. Being able to come back into the round as a full-fledged human means that it's going to be literal hell to prevent metagruding / metaknowledge coming back into the round. We all know that metaknowledge, does affect how people play, and makes people more suspicious/watchful/etc. of particular crew members, even if they don't 'act' on that metaknowledge, so they will pick up on the slightest mistake that they'd likely let pass by if they didn't have that knowledge. Slimes, golems, ERTs and so forth come with several restrictions that innately prevent ghost metaknowledge from affecting much, such as being slaved, being a fucking slime that almost everyone will try to kill in the first place, or being spawned specifically by an admin (and thus watched), and so on. I really really hate this idea, and it's another hugboxy idea that not only removes any sort of fear or impact of death (oh, I can respawn - who cares?). At least make a poll.

That said, I think having an area that people can respawn into, and perhaps work on their combat with other people would not be a bad idea. Think a more organized thunderdrome with a mini 'everything' area, so people can practice things while the round processes onward. No BoHs and other laggy shit that will ruin that area though.

I'm not gonna fight a one man war to drag this game back to 2012 so I'll work with what we have, and what we unfortunately have is a trend towards long rounds where everyone has to keep playing.

Kor, you make me sad every time you type because ever month I keep hoping we'll start sliding back to 2012, but we keep sliding away from it. I suppose it's a two-man war, at least ;_;.

[Stan_Studnick]

To those people saying meta knowledge would be bad, how about this:

If you respawn, your character slot is done for that round. You'll have two other characters to play, meaning everything you know or have learned goes byebye just like if you were a positronic brain, a cyborg, or a golem. Reusing your previous character's memory for nefarious shit (like making a revenge murder as an Asimov borg your first priority) is already against the rules, and it's not just defined by the rules of those roles. To make it perfectly simple, what happens with your name stay with that name, Brick Hardmeat doesn't know a fucking thing about Dirk Hardcheese, or what the ghost of Hardcheese saw, or the fact that Heunk McHue, Clown extraordinaire, murdered him in maintenance.

EDIT: Oh, and to reiterate, metagrudging is already against the rules, if somebody gets banned for abusing the respawn to metagrudge then nothing of value was lost; they're either a shitlord or need time to cool down.