Cirr's Terrible Idea Feedback Type Thread Place Event Kiosk [GONE WRONG]

[Cirrial]

basically the problem with getting critters to do anything was so intractable i threw my hands up and said "i'll just make a new critter specifically for the purpose"

[TrustScience]

Cool idea !!

[Sundance]

That is hella cool. Aesthetically its robotic, which is great because I felt we needed to fill the void of having a robotic antagonist (as per the artitact n lore). I'm glad you went down that route instead of the eldritch, as felt it should be more horrific and also its shoes are kind of filled (wraith, arguably ling [technically forerunner])


As per the mode it seems kind of a fusion of both resource based like blob and defend based like nuke, with a sprinkling of cult, which is interesting. Ive no idea what to suggest yet as per the constructions as I kind of need to experience first hand what's it trying to be.

A standing concern is the active ghost conversion, which reminds me a bit of alien mode but this mode seems a bit more slow burning defense than active murder like alien.

[Mageziya]

Active ghost conversion is always going to be a mess. The reason it's a problem is that people would much rather be an antag than a normal, boring crew member. During the days of alien people would suicide so they could try to play as an alien.

There needs to be a motivating factor to stay a human and combat the problem, which is difficult because you play as a normal human 99% of the time in SS13. Also, there are some minor problems in suddenly switching sides on a problem entirely, which can sometimes be demotivating, though that's a bit of a rarer problem.

[ZeWaka]

There needs to be a motivating factor to stay a human and combat the problem, which is difficult because you play as a normal human 99% of the time in SS13.

spacebux?

[Ed Venture]

There's barely anything Spacebux offers that even motivates me to spend cash on it.

[Frank_Stein]

It's a goddamn radio owl!

[Mageziya]

It's a goddamn radio owl!

Reminds me more of sea butterflies/angels.

[Lady Birb]

There needs to be a motivating factor to stay a human and combat the problem, which is difficult because you play as a normal human 99% of the time in SS13.

spacebux?

That actually gives me an idea: what if all the antagonists with station-destroying consequences if they win (nukeop, blob, and now flockmind) would cause centcom to give the crew a massive spacebux bonus if the crew wins? Centcom cares more about the equipment then their employees, after all, so stopping the destruction of the station would likely please them.

[Sundance]

This really isn't the thread for spacebux discussion.

And my point was that this doesn't seem to be like alien. The tide tends to be turned fairly quickly in that mode, and if i'm not mistaken is practically a direct convert. While on paper this seems to require resources to build drones and seems far less onesided in that it's picked out of an interested party, meaning you're not guaranteed to become one right off the bat.

It's all far too early to say, this is all pontification. One possible thing that might remedy this is a weighted death feature. The flockdrones are pretty low health if i'm not mistaken. I'd suggest that upon death, the player is punished by lowering the chance they have at becoming a drone the next time a drone is activated. This weight would not only ensure that the flockdrone is populated fairly amongst the ghosts, but ensures the "ooh free antagonist" status is far less likely to game.

[Nnystyxx]

Things related to Critters:
- I'd like more critter variety.
- Cockroaches can hear & understand people on the radio if they have a turned-on headset but won't be heard/understood when they speak over it. Not sure about mice.
- Perhaps some more hard-set rules (a popup like soulsteel) would help manage poor behavior; put in some 'do', some 'please don't', and some 'FUCKING DO NOT' such as attempting to kill players. Could also throttle their murder capacity with cooldowns?
- In response to Sundance: Lowering critter health would be suicidal. One good smack can already take cockroaches to like, orange-red health, and if you do die the respawn timer for another critter is -massive-.
- I think a critter-drone-ghost hivemind chat of some sort would be nice, maybe one you can turn off if you want peace and quiet. I don't like forcing players not to be able to communicate because of after-death decisions, especially when you can't respawn by pretty much any means (maybe droning) after critter-death. I like players being able to tell each other cool shit is happening. On the flip side: Ghosts should not be able to make people interfere with rounds, since ghost rones can't.

Things related to Flockmind:
- I REALLY like the concept of this. The idea of the station being eaten, and its crew melted down into resources, just to transmit a self-propagating signal for this bizarre entity to keep existing is uniquely terrifying.
- The reliance on structures seems a bit unfair for the flock, but then that's without considering the other ways the flockmind will be able to defend itself and, most critically, kill threats by caging them.
- When I played, the text distortion was so heavy as to be nigh impossible to understand anything the crew said. If it is that bad for cyborgs listening to the 'mind, or for the 'mind listening to the crew, or the crew listening to the 'mind over a hijacked intercom, those abilities would be completely pointless.
- Apparently the Flockmind itself has to designate tiles for the NPC drones, which explains why they were so damn useless when I went off from the group and made some eggs.
- Drones can repair each other. Good! Drones have to individually examine each other to see their status. Bad. There's no obvious delineation between player and NPC drones, their names are randomized, and they don't have talking icons (I think). Worse. Someone bombed a bar full of drones and I was absolutely incapable of figuring out which ones to heal or how much health they had. They need some sort of GUI in my opinion, like health scanners, or at least visible sprite damage.

- Pertinently: how the heck do you prevent your relays from getting immediately busted when they broadcast their location (by scrambling other broadcasts)? The barriers are weak; I guess you'd mark enemies that get near them so the drones would bumrush them.

EDIT: Some other feedback:
- I like the ghost notifications and would love to see them broadened further. They're a really neat feature.
- If Flockdrones can talk during solar flares, that turns solar flares from an annoyance into a threat. Interesting.

[Lady Birb]

Maybe add an option/ability to make AI-controlled flockdrones act like their old state where they would passively convert every floor in sight and murder anyone who attacks them I guess.
Also I already started thinking about the lore behind the flockmind and am thoroughly spooked. Was the flockmind the reason that the forerunners went extinct? A highly technologically advanced civilization would be more vulnerable to it's radio-manipulating abilities, after all. What if the reason the space wizard federation is so technophobic is because they know the truth about the flockmind and think that abandoning technology is the only way to save humanity from the flock?

[Zafhset]

Holy cow, the flockmind thing is very cool.

I don't have much else to add that others haven't already said. What kind of interaction could nanite swarms (from pulling a nanite rock in mining) potentially have with the flockmind? I think it would be nice if they could be utilized by the flockmind somehow since they're really nice but also rarely ever appear. Maybe a defensive structure that spawns them for area defense/denial?

[locusts]

i like these ideas

[mbc]

- Perhaps some more hard-set rules (a popup like soulsteel) would help manage poor behavior; put in some 'do', some 'please don't', and some 'FUCKING DO NOT' such as attempting to kill players. Could also throttle their murder capacity with cooldowns?

This is just my opinion, BUT i am against adding specific rulesets for specific playable mobs. Especially in the case of these tiny critters - we can probably just make them weak enough to the point where they have only slight ability to affect the events of the round. (For example, just yesterday I patched it so that ghost-controlled critters are not strong enough to PULL or GRAB anything heavy like lockers or humans). Let me know if you think they could do with any other specific handicaps.

Basically mob-specific rules are a pain to administrate + a pain for new players, and I would also like to leave open the possibility that, yes, maybe sometimes a teeny mouse WILL save the station from the bad guys somehow.