04-13-2019, 07:26 AM
Right now, Rev rounds that I've seen typically go one of two ways:
1. Revs quickly overwhelm and kill all the heads with little resistance from sec or the regular crew
2. As 1, but a single head survives and spends the rest of the round playing hide and seek to run out the clock on centcom gibbing everyone
Sometimes I've seen a variant of 2 where through admin intervention the last head is given the ability to go toe to toe with an entire revolutionary cadre, but this is fairly rare. Even rarer (that I know of) is an on the ball sec team and cooperative crew that can take down the revolution on their own.
This last part is compounded by the apparent reluctance of revs and crew with loyalty implants to do battle with one another. In a previous round I was in there were several instances of implanted crew voluntarily getting them cut out so they could be revs again. None of us in deadchat were sure what to make of that but it feels like kind of a shit thing to do.
All of this means that I don't really think rev is in a good place as a roundtype and could use some improvement. I have a couple thoughts on that and would like to have some feedback or other suggestions in the thread. My basic ideas for improving rev are as follows:
A. Start a few random crew with loyalty implants - One of the big complaints about rev is that the rev heads are able to rapidly convert the entire crew and gain an overwhelming numbers advantage which gets worse as server population goes up. This tends to mean that scenario 2 I talked about above is nearly inevitable on very crowded stations. Loyalty implanting random crew at roundstart might slow the advance of the revolution and provide the heads with a supply of guaranteed manpower to draw from. I was brought up however that telling the crew this at the start of the round would lead to metagaming shittery, so if possible it may be a good idea to give the implants secretly and only reveal them when someone tries to convert the crewman in question.
B. Prevent the last head from being able to hide in one spot forever and run out the clock. Admittedly this one may be a bit more of a kneejerk after I watched the MD hide under a medibot in arrivals maint for 20 minutes last night, but I still feel like it's one of the big weaknesses of rev. If the heads are forced into hiding, getting them to move every so often and maybe beat up the occasional wandering rev I think would be a good change. I don't really have solid ideas for getting this done other than perhaps PDA messages to surviving rev heads but maybe the thread will come up with something good.
I have also heard suggestions in deadchat that sechuds should have a dedicated icon for loyalty implanted crew so sec can know who is on their side better. I personally think another status set through the computers would be a preferable way of doing this compared to, say, how prodocs work with health implants to provide additional options for subterfuge.
Anyway that's a lot of about rev rounds and how I think they could be better. Am I on the right track here or completely off base?
1. Revs quickly overwhelm and kill all the heads with little resistance from sec or the regular crew
2. As 1, but a single head survives and spends the rest of the round playing hide and seek to run out the clock on centcom gibbing everyone
Sometimes I've seen a variant of 2 where through admin intervention the last head is given the ability to go toe to toe with an entire revolutionary cadre, but this is fairly rare. Even rarer (that I know of) is an on the ball sec team and cooperative crew that can take down the revolution on their own.
This last part is compounded by the apparent reluctance of revs and crew with loyalty implants to do battle with one another. In a previous round I was in there were several instances of implanted crew voluntarily getting them cut out so they could be revs again. None of us in deadchat were sure what to make of that but it feels like kind of a shit thing to do.
All of this means that I don't really think rev is in a good place as a roundtype and could use some improvement. I have a couple thoughts on that and would like to have some feedback or other suggestions in the thread. My basic ideas for improving rev are as follows:
A. Start a few random crew with loyalty implants - One of the big complaints about rev is that the rev heads are able to rapidly convert the entire crew and gain an overwhelming numbers advantage which gets worse as server population goes up. This tends to mean that scenario 2 I talked about above is nearly inevitable on very crowded stations. Loyalty implanting random crew at roundstart might slow the advance of the revolution and provide the heads with a supply of guaranteed manpower to draw from. I was brought up however that telling the crew this at the start of the round would lead to metagaming shittery, so if possible it may be a good idea to give the implants secretly and only reveal them when someone tries to convert the crewman in question.
B. Prevent the last head from being able to hide in one spot forever and run out the clock. Admittedly this one may be a bit more of a kneejerk after I watched the MD hide under a medibot in arrivals maint for 20 minutes last night, but I still feel like it's one of the big weaknesses of rev. If the heads are forced into hiding, getting them to move every so often and maybe beat up the occasional wandering rev I think would be a good change. I don't really have solid ideas for getting this done other than perhaps PDA messages to surviving rev heads but maybe the thread will come up with something good.
I have also heard suggestions in deadchat that sechuds should have a dedicated icon for loyalty implanted crew so sec can know who is on their side better. I personally think another status set through the computers would be a preferable way of doing this compared to, say, how prodocs work with health implants to provide additional options for subterfuge.
Anyway that's a lot of about rev rounds and how I think they could be better. Am I on the right track here or completely off base?