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+--- Thread: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (/showthread.php?tid=2102)
Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
I thought of something that might be an interesting way to mix up the rotation of round types. Basically my idea is, one player starts as a body snatcher who looks human, and their goal is to replace as many crew members with alien body doubles as possible and ensure no humans reach centcom. I came up with some possible abilities for it, the general spirit of my idea is that the antagonist has to rely on stealth to convert crew members and then later cooperation, with less focus on abilities that are outright lethal.
Below is my proposed antagonist, let me know what you think (WALL OF TEXT):
Body Snatchers Mode:
One crew member is replaced with an alien plant life form whose objective is to colonize as many crewmembers as possible and ensure that only body snatchers reach Centcom. If all the body snatchers are killed the round ends.
Their primary strength is meant to be in numbers – a horde of body snatchers can easily overpower a crew, but by themselves they are vulnerable and rely on stealth and slow assimilation.
Abilities:
Create Seed – Spawns a body snatcher’s pod seed in your hand. This is your primary tool through which you will assimilate your victims, and when you click on a human with it a feeding tube will be force-fed to them, causing slowly over the course of (3-5 min? time undetermined) a seed pod will grow next to the victim attached by a tendril, draining health from them and incubating their body double. Vines will grow over the victim and the pod during this time, rendering both immobile unless they are cut, and covering the victim’s eyes and mouth so they cannot communicate. When the pod is finished, the victim will be drained into a husk, and the player of the victim will emerge from the pod as a second body snatcher, with identical powers as the first. Emerging takes about 20 seconds. (This means that victims cannot be cloned – unless their double is dead) If the victim is a corpse, their assimilation will only work if the player did not go braindead. The seed pod process is meant to be incredibly obvious to anyone who stumbles upon it, it is silent but the man-sized pod attached to a person covered in vines and pink flowers is hard to mistake for anything else. This combined with its slow incubation time means body snatchers should be clever about where they choose to do this, the room will be covered in thin kudzu-like vines as this is occurring, and the vines and pods can be destroyed with fire or cutting implements. If the connection between the feeding tube and the victim is broken, the assimilation stops and the body double in the pod becomes a green Unknown NPC that is weak but hostile, and the player remains at whatever health status they were when it stopped, but unable to speak until the tube is surgically removed from the chest.
Hivemind(LATENT) – This is a latent ability which applies if the body snatcher has assimilated other people. Body snatchers have their own private channel, and do not need to wear a headset to communicate over it. To human observers this will not appear to make a sound, but the alien’s eyes will flash blue every time they say something over the channel.
Alarm – When this ability is activated, the snatcher emits an ear-piercing screech that immediately notifies all other snatchers of the screecher’s location. This will also show scary red messages to people nearby like “John Doe’s eyes bulge out!” or “John Doe’s mouth stretches wide!” Early on the sound could be mistaken for a vampire/changeling scream, but this ability is best used when a horde of aliens are hunting few humans as it will reveal your nature to anyone nearby.
Cold/Space immunity(LATENT) – Like changelings snatchers can survive in space, and do not breathe. They are also vulnerable to fire.
Emotionless(LATENT) – Body snatchers lack emotion (and since making them unable to use certain emotes might be too metagamey) this manifests itself as their speech being unaffected by stuns, drugs, etc. So, if you wish to hide your cold alien nature from the cops under stun, learn to fake stunned stammering!
Spore – The snatcher emits a small spore (no message indication, but there is a small sprite) that passes into the mouth of the victim and after a delay of 60 seconds injects them with a massive dose of morphine. The spore will continue releasing small amounts of morphine for about 3 minutes afterward. This is in the same spirit as the changeling’s sting, but in this case the spore is largely non-lethal and can be recovered from unlike neurotox. Its main function is to serve as a way to temporarily subdue someone discreetly, but be easier to treat and with less reliable unconsciousness for the victim. The delay makes it harder to figure out who did it, but the visibility of the sprite makes it more likely to be spotted if someone is observant.
Vines – spawns a kudzu-like vine with a much slower spread.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - KikiMofo - 01-22-2014
From all that I read on it I do really like this idea. Maybe also allow them to transform into what is basicly a green monkey for quick get aways or sneaking into a place under tables but it makes them drop every thing and you can only equip what a monkey can equip like the changeling's lesser form ability.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
That would be cool too, having little green gremlin plant-monkies scurrying around. Another power I think could be entertaining is the ability to, with an aggressive grab, vomit glowing slurry into the victim's mouth. (transferring maybe 30ish units to their blood with a big red message)
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Zadeon - 01-22-2014
Something else that could be neat is if you got a hydroponics tray the pod would grow in it, allowing the usage of compost, nutrients, and maybe even mutagen for speeding up the growth process and for a chance to give the new pod person a mutation (equal chance of being a good or bad mutation).
One more thing, I suggest give them a downside of some sort. Maybe they have to drink all the time or they will slow down/whither? Just something that could get them caught/different from the rest of the crew.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
Yes I definitely agree that they would need another downside. Considering their goal is to make as many of them as possible, individually they shouldn't be that tough. Maybe something plant-oriented, depending on how tricky it would be to implement:
-perhaps they use light sources as energy (charging it passively similar to borgs by being in a lit room) and lose energy steadily when in the dark, running out of energy causes them to become dead or paralyzed
-maybe weedkiller acts like sarin on them
-meat from gibbing them is soylent chartruse
-or maybe instead of charging on light they recharge in their pods like borgs, and are stuck in the pod until they are recharged at which point they are ejected with a loud splat
-perhaps their limbs are easy to sever by plant cutting tools like chainsaws or wirecutters
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Lavastage - 01-22-2014
Yeah this seems like a great round type, great fun. there is just a major downside I cant help but notice. (IM SORRY FOR THIS!)
The alien round type syndrome (just going to call it that.)
Once people realize its the snatcher round type, they will most likely throw themselves at the snatchers to be turned into a snatcher so they can antagonize people. this thing alone pretty much killed the alien round type.
Perhaps make it so that there are 3/4 snatchers that spawn on the station, and make it easier for them to absorb people (turn them into fertilizer or something) rather than turn them, so people don't just charge at the snatchers thinking they will get a free transformation. this alone wont fix the problem but it will help.
Though in essence, this is a great idea and could work well.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
Yeah, I'd been thinking about that too. There are a lot of players that itch at the chance to go on a murder spree that won't get them banned. My thought on that is to discourage murdering your victims, maybe dead bodies should be unable to sustain a pod. Making them much more physically weak then a person could make people think twice before they rampage as well, especially with the length of time a body has to incubate in a pod.
Of course, then you'd have to deal with people who attempt to suicide as soon as they're captured. Maybe the pods make you unable to suicide?
Ideally, there should be incentive not to kill unless truly necessary. I know in the movie the body snatchers are supposed to have short lifespans and turn to ash or something, maybe people who didn't start out as one turn to ash after a certain time period of being cloned?
Anything that puts a focus on slow, gradual growth of a colony while de-emphasizing individual strength and lethality would be in line with the spirit of my idea I guess.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
Also maybe it ends the round if all people are converted.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Zadeon - 01-22-2014
There should be other objectives for them also. Maybe after enough crew members are converted, they can start growing really strong and thick vines all over the station. Once enough of the station is covered then they can win. With this objective, they could still win if some of the crew decided to fly off into space.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
Zadeon Wrote:There should be other objectives for them also. Maybe after enough crew members are converted, they can start growing really strong and thick vines all over the station. Once enough of the station is covered then they can win. With this objective, they could still win if some of the crew decided to fly off into space.
That would be pretty cool too, and would work well with the kudzu-like power I suggested. Maybe, like the movie, they should be tasked with bringing a certain number of seed pods aboard the escape shuttle!
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Readster - 01-22-2014
This sounds neat, I support this idea.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - atomic1fire - 01-22-2014
Make the body snatchers ultra suceptable to fire/weed killer/most chemicals.
Makes sense with the whole plant motif, and setting people on fire is always fun.
Actually building a weedkiller thrower and spraying everyone who looks at you funny could be pretty fun.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Readster - 01-22-2014
Ok my last post was a quick show of support, now let me expand on why I support it.
This sounds kind of like what rev was except not sucky.
This fits into the sci fi references that ss13 is full of.
The end game of this round type where the tables have actually turned and it's the normal humans outnumbered and trying to blend it sounds like the most fun way for any gametype to end.
The only downsides I see are body snatchers being caught early on and the round becoming really difficult for them as everybody is armed to fight them and checking every out of the way area.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Zadeon - 01-22-2014
Okay, how about when a plant man is killed, they release spores that infects the nearest person. Then that person will eventually turn into a pod person automatically after a set time if they don't get medical attention. This way it makes them more of a threat when trying to deal with them. And there should be no indication if your infected (but a physical cloud should appear). That way if a group of people kill one they all have to go check if they are infected or not. The time it should take for somebody to turn should be short-ish. Basically, if you are infected and don't start heading for medical, then that's it for you. One more thing, your body would be taken over BY THE PERSON THAT YOU KILLED. With this, it would help reduce the effect of people forcing themselves to be assimilated so that they can be an a tag.
Re: Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Newt King - 01-22-2014
Yeah it would definitely be better to make a transformation resulting in the victim becoming another antagonist be one that only the antagonist can initiate, i.e. forcing an tube down a knocked out dude's throat. Maybe instead of having assimilated dudes be antagonists with the same range of powers, they should be weaker versions that are like mindslaves to the originals with fewer (or different) powers, and if one of the originals dies he can choose one of his slaves to take over?
Balancing is tricky as shit but it could be cool