Cult rework design thread

[deedubya]

First off, let me state that I'm not a coder. This is just a collage of ideas and concepts I've adapted from several aspects of play I've experienced, as well as a solution to a current problem(cult is a shit mode). If the maintainers/community like the design proposed, and people would be willing to work on it, that'd be great. We can even hammer out specifics of it in this topic if that becomes the case.

So: First thing we do is toss out cult as a gamemode in it's entirety. It's a mess.


Now, a not-so-brief overview:

Cults will function as the only official antag v antag v station mode in tg code. It will be a conversion game mode. The sides will be: Blood cult, Clockwork cult, and Nanotrasen(aka the station). The win condition for either cult: Construct an altar and summon their god. If they achieve this, the end of round will play out the same way that a cult victory currently plays out. The win condition for the crew: Kill the prophet of each god. The shuttle will not leave until the prophets have been eliminated, but killing the prophets will not immediately end the round. This mode will only be enabled during medium-high pop(30+ roundstart players) with a chaplain present at round start.

How the game mode begins: Cultists will be randomly assigned to six crewmembers at the start of a round. Three for Nar'sie, three for Ratvar. These three players are considered "priests". One of these priests will assume leadership via an internal vote, much the same way cults currently designate a leader. Once this is done, the player will become the Prophet, aka the leader of the cult. This will remain for the entirety of the round. The prophet will be able to spend "influence points" that the cult accumulates over the round. Their survival is also mandatory. If a prophet dies, everyone in that cult will immediately deconvert, and any present altars will deactivate and cancel any summoning attempts being made. The prophet will also gain either a Runic Tablet or Clockwork Slab, depending on the cult. This item is how you'll be able to purchase additional items, and construct your altar. The prophet is immune to deconversion, and will instead take suffocation damage when fed holy water. This means if you arrest a cultist and they start gasping for air when you try to deconvert, you have the prophet.

Once the prophet has been chosen, all three cultists will gain an item in-hand to use for conversion. This will be either a Tome of the Geometer or a Tome of the Justiciar, depending on your cult. It will fail when used on anyone with a mindshield, but will go through sunglasses. Usage of the item on someone will cause you to shout a phrase in red or gold text, depending on your cult. This gives it an obvious tell, so you can't just run down the halls like a rev flashing everything that moves. This means conversions must be done in isolation, and one wrong move will give you away to the crew, causing them to prepare. So intense snowballing with two different conversion antags on the station should be harder to pull off. Anyone that becomes converted to the cult will gain a scriber, including the three roundstart cultists. This scriber is essentially the same in function as the old gang spraypainter, and is used to claim areas of influence for your cult. Using it in a unique room(designated by APCs/station blueprints) it will leave an obvious graffiti. A red "Praise Nar-Sie" with a rune inscribed, or a brass "Hail Ratvar" with circuitry inscribed. Only one cult marking can be in a room at a time. Using your scriber on an enemy mark will remove it, so you can place your own mark in the room. The null rod can also remove these runes, making the chaplain invaluable in removing cult influence.

"Influence points" accumulate over time, and will be based on a simple (Number of Cultists*Percentage of rooms controlled[or number of rooms controlled])decimal factor that can be tweaked based on item costs and how the game mode plays out over several rounds. The Prophet can spend this influence on items to help their cult fight, but these items will also make the presence of cults more obvious. We can brainstorm items in the topic itself; but this will mostly be porting over existing cult items, then giving them a reskinned analogue for the clockwork cult. The prophet will also be able to purchase tomes in this fashion, so more cultists will be able to have the ability to convert. However, the most important method of spending influence will be in constructing the Altar. Once the altar is constructed, the prophet will gain glowing red or gold eyes, depending on the cult.

The altar will occupy a 1x3 space and be extremely obvious to anyone that sees it. If an Altar is destroyed, a prophet will not be able to construct a new one for 5 minutes after it is destroyed. The purpose of the altar is twofold. It's first function will be the ability to drag bodies onto it. This will sacrifice the corpse permanently and bring the soul back into a golem of either Runic Metal or Brass(yes brass, not bronze). These golems will be modified so that they're functionally identical to Gold golems, and immune to conversion. Additionally, striking a golem with a null rod will cause a stun, and striking them with a bible will cause a conversion process to start. If the golem remains unmoved for 5 seconds during this process, they will be converted to a Mithril golem. This will automatically deconvert them from the cult, and permanently protect them from conversion. The golems are a replacement for cult constructs in their entirety.

The second - and most important - function of the altar is to begin the summoning process for your god. This summoning process will use the same factor of (Number of Cultists*Percentage of rooms controlled) to determine how long the process will take, and will immediately announce the location of the altar to the crew. This timer can be modified by gaining or losing influence during the summoning process. Once the summoning countdown begins, the cult will reveal itself. The prophet will gain a halo/cogwheel, and all cultists of that prophet will gain red/gold eyes. Destroying the altar during this countdown will reset and stop the timer, and remove all influence points accumulated by the cult thus far. After one minute, all cultists of that cult will lose their halo/eye traits, so they can possibly blend in once again. If the countdown succeeds, you already know what happens. If both cults succeed within a minute of one another, both gods will be summoned. Once this happens, they will be programmed to move directly towards one another. When the two gods meet, the one who's cult had the most influence at the time of summoning will kill the other god. That cult will then get a special victory text.

Holy water will primarily exist as a way to deconvert or otherwise check for cult status. Deconversion will be much faster than in the current cult. As soon as you process one unit of holy water, you will be deconverted with the usual message. Nobody likes sitting around cuffed for several minutes while the holy water works, and nobody likes having to sit around and force feed cultists repeatedly. The only exception will be the prophet, who will take 10 units of suffocation damage every tick that the holy water is processed. As explained above, the null rod will be the only thing a crew has to remove a cult mark. In order to help prevent the null rod from being spaced(in the event the chaplain loses it in some way), cultists will be unable to pick it up, instead causing burn damage to them should they attempt to. You can still drag it to bypass this, but this will make you pretty obvious. Be suspicious of anyone dragging a locker in this mode.



What this is meant to fix about current cults: Making it an antag v antag v station mode will stop it from being "revs but OP". Blood magic is removed in its entirety. It was too complex for inexperienced cult players to intuit, and too strong for experienced players to abuse. Cult stuns could possibly be reintroduced as a purchasable item through the prophet(return of the stun paper). Constructs are also removed in their entirety. Watching a wraith yeet the AI every single cult round is not fun for anyone involved, and the other two constructs were not enjoyable experiences for the most part. Making them golems instead still introduces a "punishment" for dying and being sacrificed, but still allows you to play as a humanoid character. This also removes the boring old meta counterplay of "we have a cult, call the shuttle". Having to kill the prophets gives the crew a way to fight back besides just sitting around twiddling their thumbs while the cult delays the shuttle arrival. The altars also give the crew(and enemy cult) a clear target to eliminate. Finally, this will bring back the aesthetics of the Clockwork Cult, which were generally well-liked by the playerbase.


Comments, questions, ideas, and criticism are all welcomed. If there's anything you need clarified about this idea, feel free to post. Yes, this is basically mashing together Gangs and Cult, while effectively removing the problematic aspects of both.

[MisterPerson]

So basically it's gangs

[deedubya]

So basically it's gangs

I'm glad you managed to read the bottom of the post.

[carlarc]

is this a joke? i hope it's a joke

[CPTANT]

Just do my alternative instead:

I say remove cult conversions after they reach halo status and balance around that. Prevent Shuttle call and give cult a deadline in which they must summon after reaching this phase.

It makes the round distinct from rev and forces an endgame.

Rebalance as needed.

Smaller scope rebalance while solving the major problems. Cult stays cult but unlimited converting and delaying go out the door.

[Timonk]

Your suggestion is gangs but with religion and only 2 gangs

[chickenboy10]

Sounds like hand of god
https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Hand_Of_God

That got closed down pretty quick after test merging iirc

[Timonk]

God there's so many TDM modes for tg

[deedubya]

Sounds like hand of god
https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Hand_Of_God

That got closed down pretty quick after test merging iirc

Hand of God was more complicated, and was never even remotely close to being finished. Most of the items/code for this idea are already technically finished, and the only balancing required would be numbers relating to influence gains/costs. Because you guys are right, it is mostly gangs with a cult skin over it, without giving everyone free guns.

[L_Nacho_Chaos_L]

So basically it's gangs

Gangs but not literal shit.

[nianjiilical]

considering clockcult is currently a blank slate, i feel like theres a unique opportunity to use it as essentially the 'beta test' of any bloodcult reworks

readd clockcult as a 1:1 clone of bloodcult, start making experimental changes to it, and then backport any well-received changes to bloodcult