Make Nar'Sie cult summon similar to Clock Cult

[BeeSting12]

It would be nice to have a message that shows you the direction every seconds rather than the location to counter space bases and mislabelled maintenance places.

[kevinz000]

Just make it state coordinates
So I can telescience.

[DemonFiren]

deadmin now

[PKPenguin321]

deadmin now

[D&B]

deadmin now

[DemonFiren]

I mean, if you really wanted to you could move until it says "south/north" of you instead of (south/north)(west/east), take the X coordinate and repeat with west/east.

Unless the rough position indicator has changed recently.

[Luke Cox]

A while back during the dumpster fire that was cult ops, I suggested that weird supernatural shit happen the closer you get to the summoning rune, with strange feelings in the general vicinity, hallucinations at medium-close range and possible fainting spells right next to it (all of which can be blocked with chaplain gear). Something like that would feel great thematically while still giving a clear indication of how close you are.

Edit: Same goes for clock cult. Make electronics act weird the closer you get to the summoning.

[Sweaterkittens]

I agree with the sentiment here, that "SPACE TIME ANOMALY DETECTED IN MAINTENANCE ROOM #420" on a big ass station like Delta is highly unhelpful. But while I think that something like clock cult that constantly gives you a direction, or spooky stuff happening as you get closer would be very cool - Nar'Sie's summon doesn't take half the time that Ratvar's does. Unless it's a smaller station or some place like Box where everyone knows it like the back of their hand, by the time any real sort of resistance has been mustered it's already too late, the rune is down, and my interdimensional waifu is tearing a hole in reality.

Again, it's not that I don't like these ideas, but blood cult goes so fast that people hardly have a time to respond unless they're trying to summon in the middle of a crowded place. At the very least though, a single message pop-up (in addition to the central command update) giving you the direction like clockwork cult gateway would be nice.

[Luke Cox]

Summoning length is another issue. It needs to take significantly longer, and have the aforementioned spooky shit happen the closer you get.

[confused rock]

yea, because it needs to be worse than cuck cult in literally every way, right?

[Iatots]

The delay for normal runes is 50, the one for nar-sie's rune is 450, which comes to less than a minute from experience. Oppose that to ratvar's 5 minutes and a requirement for at least some structures. The hardest task for bloodcult is always "sacrifice person X", never "summon your fucking god from another dimension", because as soon as you get 9 people you can go to any remote location on station and as long as you hack your door close, nobody will have the time to stop you.

[Bombadil]

The delay for normal runes is 50, the one for nar-sie's rune is 450, which comes to less than a minute from experience. Oppose that to ratvar's 5 minutes and a requirement for at least some structures. The hardest task for bloodcult is always "sacrifice person X", never "summon your fucking god from another dimension", because as soon as you get 9 people you can go to any remote location on station and as long as you hack your door close, nobody will have the time to stop you.

If Mekhi is the HoS though he'll pull out his RCD and 3 boxes of flashbangs until he can chew through your defense

[Bombadil]

The delay for normal runes is 50, the one for nar-sie's rune is 450, which comes to less than a minute from experience. Oppose that to ratvar's 5 minutes and a requirement for at least some structures. The hardest task for bloodcult is always "sacrifice person X", never "summon your fucking god from another dimension", because as soon as you get 9 people you can go to any remote location on station and as long as you hack your door close, nobody will have the time to stop you.

Because we don't get to build massive bases with magical clockwork shit that shoots lasers at the first person it sees we only get swords and not magical fucking throwing spears. We also don't get to have FREE posibrains

[Oldman Robustin]

The addition of all these goddamn stations does make it easier to summon. When you're just dealing with Box the location given by the summon warning is very easy to respond to. You'll find that summons on Box are rarely uncontested and since my last update I'd say that roughly 50% of summon attempts are successful there. I've seen plenty of Box cults get BTFO when they get their sacrifice, assume it will be an easy win, and start drawing the Nar'Sie rune only to have 15 validhunter/security show up and absolutely roll the cult. Even a single assistant with a welding fuel tank is enough to disrupt most summons.

I may make adjustments simply because we're running 3-4 maps now (and I hate it) and it makes it really hard to track down a summoning. I may also consider penalties for summons in space. Keep in mind it still has to be on the station z_level, and I do want to encourage creative cults to make their own bases... but maybe creating an off-station rune should double the amount of channeling time required so that people have time to suit up and locate the base. It may also be possible to give a more specific location for space summons (e.g. split space into 8 sectors like N/NE/E/SE/S...). I don't like ruling out space summons entirely though.

Perhaps I could just make it so that the Rune drawing scale with distance from the center of the station, so that you can weigh the risk/reward of fast summons near the bridge versus longer attempts out in space.

I don't want to change too much else about the summon though, it was one of the best changes I made to cult (it used to be almost instant with no warning). I've seen some of the best fights in SS13 happens when the crew rushes to try and stop a summoning. I would love to add flavor stuff though, nothing that would affect balance too much, but aesthetic stuff that lets the crew know that shit is about to go down.

In general I just got back and I'm still getting a sense for how cult is faring, apparently the stats page stopped updating in November but cult had relatively low win rates back then I think (like between 25-35%). I'd like to see win rates around 40-45%. I think the proliferation of shotgun security is the cult's biggest new problem though. If I make it easier for security to find/stop the summon you can bet I'll be making changes that strengthen the cult in other ways. Flashbang were countered by artificers, but I really don't see artificers getting used as much now - partially because its easier to get soul shards and construct shells now, and partially because artificers, and constructs in general, become a joke when security is toting around shotguns that will one-shot them.

I may even consider reversing the current weapon balance by making constructs weak to lasers but resistance to ballistics since right now shotgun lethals are pretty much super effective against everything in the game right now.

[BeeSting12]

I think just making space into sectors like Robustin said, and maybe giving a penalty for summoning in space, would be great. Maybe fixing the maintenance summon messages, some of those are messed up. Only one off the top of my head I can think of is maintenance near medbay being called engineering maintenance.

[Oldman Robustin]

That sounds like a mapping issue, what map was it?

[BeeSting12]

That sounds like a mapping issue, what map was it?

Metastation, I think there's a few areas that don't give the right maintenance location but can't remember off the top of my head.

[starmute]

deadmin now

[cedarbridge]

While cult spess bases were clever the first time, I'm getting the feeling that they're just a bit too strong. You essentially have to meta their existence to counter them "oh we have a cult? get the eva gear" and that kinda counters the concept of having a station-antag in the first place.

[Anonmare]

Primary issue is that cult bases on the space station have a very short shelf life, especially with roving Geneticsts with x-ray and hulk who bypass the whole "no maintenance access" by just punching around the doors. The Hereteks have Ocular wardens who can at least pose a threat to x-ray users and their floors being invisible to mesons. I think Bloodcultists might need an anti-x-ray/meson vision thingamajig too.

[Oldman Robustin]

I gave blood cult meson protection for their tiles a while ago, I'm not sure if the same applies to structures - but I think theyre meson proof too.

Xray is an issue but a hard one to balance. On one hand there are bases that would be absurdly hard to find without xray and genetics is something thats pretty easy to counter if the cult doesn't ignore it for 30 minutes.

Overall I don't think ill mess with genetics v. cult balance because its just "one of those things" that the cult has to be ready for, if the cult doesn't want to have to worry about it, its really not hard to EMP their shit or use any other number of methods to stop them before they're fully loaded on powers.

[Weepo]

mutadone that hoe in the name of public safty, once the scientist is a wimpy geneticist once more beat he ass.

[Screemonster]

Add some AoE talisman that deals damage based on the number of genetic/viral powers the victims have

purge the mutant

[Weepo]

Alternative point to the OP: Don't make any part of bloodcult anything like Cuckcult and delete clockcult from the goddamn game. Its the worst.

[calzilla1]

deadmin now

[onleavedontatme]

It is becoming increasingly silly to maintain two cult modes since they both grapple with the same game play issues and get similar solutions for them

[InsaneHyena]

It is becoming increasingly silly to maintain two cult modes since they both grapple with the same game play issues and get similar solutions for them

Remove clock cult when?

[Dagdammit]

Perhaps I could just make it so that the Rune drawing scale with distance from the center of the station, so that you can weigh the risk/reward of fast summons near the bridge versus longer attempts out in space.

I like this angle. Yogs just nixed the option to summon nar'sie in space (or other z-levels), which also works.

[Weepo]

It is becoming increasingly silly to maintain two cult modes since they both grapple with the same game play issues and get similar solutions for them

Remove clock cult when?