the thingling, changeling rework

[Armhulen]

this came to me on late night sybil so feel free to criticize

The changeling loses all of it's abilities, even revival. It has one ability now called transform. It's basically a human with this one thing.

Transform gives the thingling a random sprite of meat, legs, arms and other yuck. It also has random stats, and a random amount of abilities.
How many stats it has like health and stuff are decided on how many people witness it transform. As a thingling, you have to decide on how you're going to prey, go loud and become the behemoth, destroyer of worlds or stalk maint, getting maybe a tendril to attack or a bone dart.

The abilities it can be passives like surviving high pressures, being space worthy, or exhaling plasma, or something wild like having more arms than it really should. It gets actives, too, like goblin bone darts filled with reagents or something like that.

and finally, holding the form for a long time will slowly kill you. So you have to escape at some point. There should totally be a rare passive that makes the form hold forever, but like I said, rare.

The reason I think this isn't completely shit is because it doesn't make the mistake some gamemodes have in the past. It's not hard to learn. So how about it. Shit? Not shit?

[CPTANT]

Shit.

[Lumbermancer]

If I had to rework Changeling i'd combine it with Morph, and make it all about pretending to be somebody else and roleplaying your way in.

[Armhulen]

If I had to rework Changeling i'd combine it with Morph, and make it all about pretending to be somebody else and roleplaying your way in.

right now you can just stay as one person and silently kill everyone with mutesting


and i dislike it

[PKPenguin321]

lame

only reasons changelings now are """""bad"""" is because nobody knows about how stupidly robust transform is with flesh disguises

what you propose takes away the ability to do anything cool aside from murder people for 4 seconds before instantly dying

[Anonmare]

I don't think Changeling can work as standalone antagonists. As a stealth antag, they don't drive enough conflict to keep a round going. As a combat antag, they're too strong and too unkillable.

That said, if you were deadset on making them their own gamemode. I had some thought about Changeling and I'd like to re-introduce Changelings able to steal EP from one another and install a progression system based around achieving their own shared idea of "perfection" which could be a horror form possibly the same one or variable depending on the path they take to get there.

Changelings begin the game with 5 EP, Hivemind chat, Transform, their objectives and the rest of the usual. The genome shop, or whatever it's called, separates out abilities into: Offensive, Defensive, Stealth and Utility with effectiveness increasing in cost, but you have to buy lower in the tree to progress in it.
For example, for 1 EP you can unlock the "tree" and get a minor boost/ability/buff in any of these ability paths, like spending a point in combat to open it up and passively increase your base muscle mass to increase your punch damage slightly and get a better RNG chance of weakening or knocking out. Spending 2 EP gives you the armblade, but you have to buy the muscle mass to open the tree, and another ability (say, a toggleable ability that greatly increases your punch damage in exchange for draining your chems) beforehand.
Some of the trees might have crossover and in order to get a particular ability, you'll have to have acquired two other abilities from different trees, like an armoured bio-space suit requiring chitinous armoured flesh ability and the organic space suit ability.

DNA sting would be weakened and you'll only get 1 point for every 5 people stung. Absorbing a person will give you 2-4 points, depending on how intact/fresh the corpse is. Corpses that have never had a c-key/soul are only worth one point. Absorbing your fellow Changelings will give you the usual point gain, and, their own acquired EP. You'll also make them unevolve a random ability, meaning there is a risk/benefit of Changelings working together/turning on one another. If anyone wanted any idea of how the abilities would play it, I tried my best to put together a list.

Base Abilities

Spoiler:

• DNA sting - Allows us to absorb a sample of the target's DNA without alerting them. We remember their appearance whilst doing this and will mold our flesh to resemble it. The amount of DNA we recieve is very little to evolve with.
• Transform - Allows us to change our appearance between remembered forms. We always remember our original disguise.
• Hivemind Commune - We have a short-range telepathic link to any brothers or sisters in our area. We can communicate across z-levels and speak with our "real" names. Use .g or :g to speak.
• Hivemind Link - We can force a subject, living or dead, into our mind to speak privately, or across the Hivemind. Requires a firm grip. The link is broken as soon as we release them.
• Absorb - We extend a proboscis to completely absorb a subject's DNA, emaciating their corpse and rendering them unsuitable for use in most genetic equipment in the process. We gain much more DNA from this, but bodies that were never alive lack the brain chemistry for significant evolution. We can glean short-term information from their mind this way.
• Regenerative stasis - We cease all life functions, if applicable, and enter a state of prolonged regenesis and recover from all injury. We are aware of our surroundings whilst this is occurring. Medical tests performed on us will reveal our nature during this process.

Combat

Spoiler:

• Muscle Growth Surge - We refine our form's forelimbs to be the peak of physical fitness, we can throw more force behind our punches. Passive, requires no effort to maintain. - 1EP; unlocks the combat tree
• Disabling Stings - Allows our body to produce compounds made from our own chemicals that can blind, deafen or induce hallucinations in our target. Adds Blindness, Deafness and LSD to possible effects we can use with our sting, can be made to effect instantly or be delayed. - 1EP
• Cryo Sting - We produce a compound from our chemicals that chill our prey's internals to hypothermic levels. Our kind is immune to this chemical. Adds cryo to list of chemicals udner Chemical Sting. - 2EP; requires disabling stings
• Bone Hypergrowth - We expend our chemicals to greatly intensify our bone structure, granting us a greatly increased chance of knocking our target off their feet for a moment. This is taxing to maintain both it and our humanoid body, we lose chemicals over time to maintain this effect. - 2EP
• Armblade - We no longer bother try to disguise our weapons and form a blade of bone and sinew, allowing us to force open airlocks if need be. Has a moderate activation cost but costs nothing to maintain. This effect is obviously inhuman. - 2EP; requires Bone Hypergrowth
• Adrenaline Overdose - We flood our system with epinephrine, ephedrine and other such stimulants, allowing us to immediately recover from being stunned or weakened and to get up faster after follow-up stuns. However, these chemicals will poison us if we attempt to use this ability in rapid succession. Moderate chemical cost. - 2EP
• Bone Spine - We expend a small amount of our chemicals to forge a spike made from our bone and expel it at a target. This spine has a high embed chance and will almost assuredly induce bleeding. Has a range of 4 tiles. - 1EP; requires Bone Hypergrowth

[*]Ranged Sting - We produce a hollow needle-like spine filled with chemicals of our choice to expel at a target. The target will be warned of the sting, even if the chemical normally wouldn't. No attack message. To use, prepare a sting then use this ability to make it a ranged one. - 2EP; requires Bone Spine

Defence

Spoiler:

• Twitchy - We accelerate the response time of our automatic reflexes, passively increasing our ability to doge attacks made against us slightly. Passive, requires no effort to maintain. - 1EP; unlocks Defensive tree.
• Passive Regeneration - Our body naturally produces Bicardine/Kelotane, allowing us to survive the most common and basic of injuries. Drains chemicals at a somewhat moderate rate to maintain. - 2EP
• Fleshmend - We forego time wasting and simply stitch our flesh, bone and organs back together manually and gain an immediate 50 brute/burn healing, repeated usage gives decreasing returns. This is an obviously inhumane ability to bystanders and requires a moderate chemical cost. - 2EP; requires Passive Regeneration.
• Anatomic Panacea - We purge our body of toxin damage, genetic defects, radiation, non-beneficial microbes and chemicals. We also vomit up any parasites (Xeno and borer) that have attempted to make their home in us. - 1EP; requires Passive Regeneration
• Chitinous Shield - We form a shield from our bone and flesh, blocking the most common of projectile and melee attacks with ease, however concentrated attack will break our shield. Requires a moderate chem cost to activate but does not require chemicals to maintain. - 1EP; requires Bone Hypergrowth
• Chitinous Flesh - We encompass our form with hardened bone plates and deaden our nerves. Our armour cannot be broken but it can be penetrated by specialised weapons, and we become more vulnerable to heat. Requires a moderate chemical cost to activate but does not require chemicals to maintain - 2EP; requires Chitinous Shield
• Chitinous Spacesuit (Direct upgrade to Chitinous Flesh and Organic Spacesuit) - We refine our chitin to form a vacuum sealed layer and produce salbutamol in excessive quantities, we can expel air from gas tanks for manoeuvrability in zero-g. Requires a moderate chemical cost to activate but does not require chemicals to maintain. - 1EP; Requires Organic Spacesuit
• Last Chance - We use our chemicals to make a volatile mixture and explode our body in a shower of gore, knocking over and blinding bystanders nearby whilst shunting our consciousness into a headslug, capable of implanting our conciousness into any unattended corpses. - 1EP

Stealth

Spoiler:

• Vocal Mimicry - We alter our vocal cords to emulate the vocal range and pitch of another, allowing us to mimic them. A toggleable ability with a minute activation cost. - 1EP; unlocks the Stealth tree.
• Digital Camouflage - We produce chemicals on our skin that interfere with automatic security tracking devices. AIs can no longer track us and secuitrons/EDs do not register our existence. - 2EP
• Digital Invisibility - We become mostly invisible to Silicon senses, AIs can no longer see us except with x-ray cameras, HUDs do not register our existence and cyborgs will only see a faint outline of us. We appear strange to carbon observers and obviously inhumane. Has a high chemical maintenance cost. - 2EP; requires Digital Camouflage
• Improved Transform - We refine our ability to transform and can emulate any organic being or inorganic objects we can see. Anyone examining us however, will notice our imperfections. Standing still while in disguise does not drain our chemicals but moving does at a moderate pace. - 2EP
• Mute Sting - We produce Perfluodicin from our chemicals, paralyzing our victim's vocal cords. They will not realise anything is wrong until 1 second after where they will notice their vocal cords are paralyzed. Has a high use cost. - 2EP; requires Disabling Stings.
• Smokescreen - We produce a thick cloud of smoke,rapidly release it from our pores and randomly change our appearance to one of the people in our immediate line of sight, if there is no one - we do not change. Has a high chemical use cost. - 1EP; requires Improved Transform
• Feign Injury - We inflict fake wounds upon ourselves that look real to all medical tests. We can decide the extent of the injuries and we will react as though we were that injured, we also gain the ability to produce blood splatters, drops and even dragging. Does not require a chemical cost to use. - 1EP
• Feign Death - We enter a state of false death and slow our life processes to the point that no medical test can identify. We can leave this state instantly at any time and are aware of our surroundings the whole time. We cannot produce chemicals while in this state. - 1EP; requires Feign Injury.

Utility

Spoiler:

• Shock resistance - We alter our base chemistry to become resistant to electrocution, we no longer suffer electrical burns when interacting with high-voltage equipment without protection. Passive, requires no effort to maintain. Can be toggled on/off. - 1EP; unlocks Utility tree.
• Night Vision - We are used to hunting in the dark. Our eyes are light sensitive and we can see in the dark maintenance tunnels of our hunting grounds clearly without aid. However, bright lights are more dangerous to us and even a penlight being flashed in our eyes is enough to dazzle us. - 2EP
• Thermal Vision - Our eyes become sensitive to heat, we can now stalk and watch our prey through the walls. However, our light sensitivity worsens and bright flashes will now temporarily blind us. - 1 EP; requires Night Vision
• Organic Spacesuit - We inflate our flesh and vacuum seal it, forming a protective cocoon, and produce excessive amounts of salbutamol - We can now survive in space, requires a moderate activation cost. - 2EP
• Organic Omnitool - We shift and alter one of our forelimbs into a veritable toolset. Our hand is considered a screwdriver, wirecutters, crowbar, wrench and multitool and we can will it to alter into each tool as needed. This is an obviously inhumane effect. - 1EP
• Lesser Form - We degrade ourselves further and assume a form that is below even our disguise - that of a common chimp. We can use most of our abilities while in this state, but not all of them. Our available chemicals are halved while in this form. - 2EP
• Engorged Chemical Sacks - We enlarge our chemical glands to store more chemicals, allowing us to stor 25% more volume. - 2EP

[*]EMP Screech - We let out a scream that interferes with electronic devices, disabling cameras, opening locks, stunning silicons and more. Moderate cost per shriek. - 2EP

[Armhulen]

kinda reminds me of the being, with the research tree thing. I like it. doesn't really solve the problems pk pointed out


and you know, personally I don't think changelings are bad at all. They can wipe lowpop and kill pretty freely on highpop, if you're decent at the game. And that's without using flesh disguise, which together makes the changeling in-fucking-sane

[Poorman]

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

The reason that changeling is a failure of a round type is because of how similar it is to traitor.

The difference being that traitor is not only a much more balanced roundtype, the traitor toolkit is just far more varied. So many different options of traitor are available, as opposed to the singular changeling style of "stealth kill, remove people from round permanently."

Traitor is just fundamentally preferable as a roundtype to changeling. It's also obnoxious how changeling get tools in combat that are just fucking nuts, like being able to get up from stuns, and being able to get up from death. A retractable esword that can't be disarmed. All their tools are internal, something a traitor only gets through implants, and even those aren't as fucking batshit as changeling powers.

Changeling tries to be this weird place on the power scaling, something between wizard and traitor in terms of power, which seems like a decent purpose for the round, but the round is just so fundamentally unfun alone that it has to be paired with traitor in order to be ANY fun, even then dealing with changelings isn't fun. It's just stressful and annoying.

Changelings need a purpose in order to be enjoyable. I honestly suggest scrapping the whole role, and redesigning it in name only.

My own suggestion: In a new changeling round, it's announced at round start that there are changelings aboard. If a changeling succeeds in getting off the station, they succeed. Several departments have methods of detecting changelings. Changelings still have abilities that make them harder to subdue and kill, the ability to change into other people, but no "offensive" abilities, and they have limited uses. Suddenly the round is still similar to traitor, but it has its own unique flavor, and isn't just a second version of a better round.

My idea isn't great, but it's a jumping off point. Changeling needs to be redesigned from the ground up. If you can't figure out how to make a round type have a purpose, then it just shouldn't be a round type.

[CPTANT]

The solution is still side antag progression ling.

[Armhulen]

Okay forget op we need to fix lings

We need to encourage ling vs ling fights.

[Copybass]

Okay forget op we need to fix lings

We need to encourage ling vs ling fights.

The obvious nonanswer is to first say that Ling v Ling should definitely NOT BE a greentext objective and should instead be a passive encouragement. Outside of that I know absolutely nothing about Lings.

[Lumbermancer]

90% of the time I rat out fellow lings. It's really fun to work for sec and heads hunting other lings down, while in the same time achieving own objectives backstabbing your new allies if need be.

[Dagdammit]

In the last changeling thread, I was thinking it'd be interesting to make serial impersonation a direct changeling goal- spend at least 5 minutes apiece in the forms of X different fellow crew members. If progression ling, tie it directly to progression; if not, make it necessary for greentext.

One thing I'm curious about examining: What other kinds of ling objectives might be good? Maybe stuff to replace the theft objectives they currently share with traitors?

[Anonmare]

Changelings used to have an objective to steal brains. Back then, before dismemberment, getting someone's brain required surgery. Might be worth revisting now that armblades can decapitate and debrain. Maybe expand the objective into generic organ theft? Maybe even an objective to escape with a high amount of blood in your possession.

[D&B]

A good starting point would be to treat ling more like the Prototype virus rather than the proper changeling from the thing.

I remember there being a locked progression system in game based on points from things killed. Thus, maybe absorbing people gets you stuck with their identity rather than beijg able to toggle it on and off. In order to change identities, you'd have to absorb someone else.

The pro to this con would be that rather than active skills, the ling would get passive skills that increase its overall power or stealth. You can either sharpen your arm blade to make it hurt more, or develop your grab skills to not show a warning to your target. You could fine tune your screeches to affect a small radius and make you able to isolate someone, at the cost of less aoe range.

Thus the ling player would be forced to get creative with low resources, or have to pretend to be the person they just sucked in order to evolve their abilities. Make objectives such like "unlock x and x" or "evolve to your full potential" in order to encourage ling players to pick one of the two paths.

Then again it sounds broken on paper so maybe somebody could tweak around it.

[Dagdammit]

also a rehash from past thread, but I'd love to see a changeling choosing one of several "types" at roundstart, which changes how they get new DNA, transform, and their strengths & weaknesses. Say:

Fledge Ling: About the same as present, maybe more progression elements.

Elder Ling: Non-progression option, basically ling Syndicate Bundle- you get a full set of powers but some/all are determined randomly.

Blood Drinker: Progresses by drinking blood, has a "taste blood" sting instead of extract DNA sting that undetectably drains small amounts & absorbing target just starts draining blood until it's all gone or the ling chooses to stop (potentially not killing target). Can use taste blood to sample dna of bloodstains like a forensic scanner, though the code it gives may not be DNA. Full power list.

Spider Ling: Reduced points to spend because you also get the spawn spiderling power. Reduced access to combat-oriented powers. Has to wrap victims in web (or let other spiders do so) before they can absorb them. Can sense spiders and spiderlings through walls, counts as friendly and can give them simple silent orders like with with xeno and their slimes. Horror form is replaced with form of extra-nasty-looking giant spider (incapacitating bite). Also, can maybe coccoon self to hide.

Thing Ling: To me this would be all about a couple angles- this ling absorbs biomass, can quietly absorb things like gibs and limbs into its body (and gets similar benefits from uncooked meat), in addition to absorbing fresh bodies. Limbs sever more easily. Ling can shift consciousness to new part of body, and will continue dwelling in a limb if it's severed (becoming a kind of lesser form that can absorb a new body to use it or go back to their existing body to reattach). Otherwise, severed limbs become npc mobs that play dead but will flee if they take damage, & slowly creep towards nearby dead bodies in hopes of absorbing them. Standard ling powers would be significantly curtailed, instead choosing from a number of passive custom upgrades (better attacks, regen, spaceworthy, digital camo...) to horror form (which starts as much weaker than standard horror form but is also easier for Thing Ling to turn on and off).

I like the idea that figuring out what KIND of ling(s) you're hunting (or being hunted by) makes a big difference in terms of what you wanna do to fight/kill them.

[Armhulen]

I stopped reading after the first sentence. Meh.

Thank you for your quality post

[oranges]

Don't respond to such posts, just report them please