Regal Rat

PESTILENTIAL STAFF
Rat King	Access: None Additional Access: Wherever you can command your legions into Difficulty: Easy Supervisors: None Duties: Establish your territory over Maintenance, chew upon as many wires as possible! Guides: This is the guide. Quote: Grime on the airlocks, grease on the trigger. Go get your hands dirty, will ya?

According to all known laws of station engineering, maintenance should not exist. Stations constructed during humanity's initial bout into the stars had their power grid and ventilation systems laid completely under the hallway floors. Extensive cataloguing by Nanotrasen historians have demonstrated that power grid security does not increase with the presence of maintenance, rather, it decreases due to the ease of deployment and concealment of some Syndicate devices.

Nonetheless, maintenance continues to be a signature feature of Nanotrasen stations. The reasons behind this are unknown. Leaked documents of questionable validity have asserted that Nanotrasen engineers have been afflicted with a madness, persay, of maintenance construction. Even when the dimly lit, cramped, safety hazards of the corridors are not specified on design documents, even when supervisors are posted (who also, inevitably, no matter how noble or steadfast their character, succumb to believing that maintenance corridors are a necessary part of the station), even when stations are built by machine intelligences, maintain the common characteristics of maintenance linking the various departments of the station.

The document offers few hints of what may drive these delusions. It details the sometimes obsessive habits of Assistants on Nanotrasen payroll to mill about, doing nothing in particular within the confines on maintenance. It cites statistics, highlighting how the frequency of murders, muggings, eldritch activities, and xenobiological contamination increases from anywhere between threefold and tenfold as compared to the regular hallways of the station. It highlights how creatures, their home planets often separated by thousands of parsecs, have spontaneously manifested within the confines on one Nanotrasen station's premises.

As for the cause? It's left up in the air, but recent developments have shown assistants making sacrifices to the "maint gods", with common invocations being for "dies of fate", "skeletal trombones", and "tabling armor". Most concerning of all, some of these prayers appear to have been answered. And as of late, the piles of trash that accumulate seem to have been stirring...

Preface

Whenever the Mice Migration event triggers, a bunch of mice get spread out over maintenance, it varies per round, but on average, it should be around ten mice. Each mice has a 2% chance of spawning as a Rat King, which in total, works out to about a 20% chance of having a Rat King spawn whenever Mice Migration is triggered. Somewhat uniquely, the spawning of a Rat King is untied to dynamic and its threat levels.

In addition, a non-sentient Rat King can be spawned by feeding a mouse some Royal Cheese, which is cookable in the kitchen. They'll probably keep it caged, and try to milk it for profit, so it's not as interesting, is it?

Objectives

Hoard wealth (and cheese!), establish a rat kingdom in maintenance, chew through the flesh of any interlopers, command your legions to kamikaze the station's power grid. Lead an invasion against your rival Rat King(s), assuming that they exist!

His Majesty, Himself

Health: 70

Melee Damage: 15

Speed: Slow

The Rat King, asides from these stats, has night vision, and can heal mainly by eating cheese. That cheese can be obtained via invading the Kitchen, or, more likely, it'll be manifested through the Rat King directly. A wheel of Royal Cheese results in a full heal, a wheel of normal cheese results in a heal of 50% of the Rat King's health, and a cheese wedge heals for 10 health.

Abilities

• Raise Army (Cooldown: 4 seconds): This ability does two things. Firstly, it mutates any mice around the Rat King into stronger, loyal rats. The most notable aspect of these rats are that they are innately hostile, and will attack any organic beings that it encounters, asides from its ruler. If there are no mice around to mutate, a mouse will be spawned below the Rat King IF the ratio of loyal rats to non-loyal mice is high enough. If the ratio is too low, then the Rat King gets prompted to go about converting the station's local mice first.

• Fill Coffers (Cooldown: 2 seconds): This ability has the Rat King "scavenge" around its surrounding area, which has the possibility of manifesting some items out of thin air.
  • There is a 60% chance that the Rat King fails in finding anything.
  • There is a 39% chance that the Rat King will manifest some maintenance garbage.
  • There is a 5% chance that a Cheese Wedge will be manifested.
  • There is a 5% chance that some coins will be manifested
  • There is a 1% chance that a two-headed coin or a plastic antag token will be manifested.

A Guide in Kingdom Building

It's pretty simple. Keep mashing your ability buttons, hide in maintenance during your early, vulnerable phase, and accumulate enough rats that they can pose a threat to the station, even if they may do pitiful damage. Don't fight directly, as you'll very quickly die in a few laser shots.

Github PRs

• PR #49884
• PR #54191

Jobs on /tg/station
	Command	Captain, Head of Personnel, Head of Security, Chief Engineer, Research Director, Chief Medical Officer, Quartermaster, Bridge Assistant
	Security	Head of Security, Security Officer, Warden, Detective, Veteran Security Advisor, Prisoner
	Engineering	Chief Engineer, Station Engineer, Atmospheric Technician
	Science	Research Director, Geneticist, Scientist, Roboticist
	Medical	Chief Medical Officer, Medical Doctor, Paramedic, Chemist, Coroner
	Supply	Quartermaster, Cargo Technician, Shaft Miner, Bitrunner, Cargorilla
	Service	Head of Personnel, Janitor, Bartender, Cook, Botanist, Clown, Mime, Chaplain, Curator, Assistant, Lawyer, Psychologist
	Non-human	AI, Human AI, Cyborg, Positronic Brain, Drone, Personal AI, Construct, Imaginary Friend, Split Personality, Ghost
	Antagonists	Traitor, Malfunctioning AI, Changeling, Nuclear Operative, Blood Cultist, Heretic, Spy, Revolutionary, Wizard, Family, Blob, Abductor, Holoparasite, Xenomorph, Spider, Revenant, Morph, Nightmare, Space Ninja, Slaughter Demon, Pirate, Sentient Disease, Obsessed, Fugitives, Hunters, Space Dragon, Elite Mobs, Sentient Slime, Regal Rat, Paradox Clone
	Special	CentCom Official, Death Squad Officer, Emergency Response Officer, Chrono Legionnaire, Highlander, Ian, Lavaland or Space Role, CentCom Intern