Game Mode: Parasite

[AdenAbrafOfTheO]

New game mode suggestion: Parasite. I'm not sure what the goal of this gamemode would be, maybe infecting the crew with your parasitic offspring. Simply put, you start off as a parasite and must feed off the crew. You start out in one random crew member and must feed off him to get 'upgrade points.' Feeding off the crew member would probably cause brain damage or some other type of damage. One the parasite has enough upgrade points they can evolve themselves in some way. Examples might include their feeding rate, damage, defenses or one time abilities for a high upgrade point cost that allows you to do such things as control your host directly or control a dead body directly. Some upgrades/abilities would be controlling your hosts voice, making them unable to talk, blinding them, paralyzing, etc. Now, there may not seem like theres a practical use for any abilities that control your host when theyre awake but since you're a space parasite you could do stuff that controls them even when they're unconscious.

The parasite should only be identifiable with the help of a sleeper or something and would be able to be stopped at first with basic stuff like spaceacillin which would cause high amounts of damage so that only 15-20 units are needed to completely kill the parasite at first. After getting upgrade points they would be able to choose what harms them for those points so that spaceacillin no longer worked and the crew had to find a different remedy. Extreme heat, extreme cold, genetics modification, chemistry magic and even telescience somehow are all examples of ways that the parasite could upgrade and choose to be hurt by. Naturally, the harder to do the more points they cost. Even if you infect people prior to upgrading your children should evolve to fit the new upgrades every 3-5 minutes. Your children wouldn't be as resilient as you, able to be killed by only 10-5 units of spaceacillin but you should be able to upgrade their defenses slightly.

Infecting the crew would require you to have a person subdued for 15-30 seconds and you would release parasite babies into their mouth, naturally their mask and helmet must be off. Upgrades would allow you to determine the effects of being infected with your offspring and would be more dangerous than what you can singlehandedly do. The parasite can transfer himself to anyone a tile away, there would be no message for anyone but the parasite and there should be a cooldown for this probably a 1 minute or so. If the parasite gets caught they should be able to burst out of the persons head and run away as their true form for some upgrade points, for less upgrade points they should be able to just pop out of that persons head.

Obviously this needs to be fleshed out more but I think it's a good starting point for considering this as a gamemode.

[AdenAbrafOfTheO]

Also, you should be able to just control a headless body you burst out of for no upgrade costs but you move 15% slower and have low endurance.

[thehman03]

Also, you should be able to just control a headless body you burst out of for no upgrade costs but you move 15% slower and have low endurance.

This sounds extremely awesome for apocalypse type scenarios. let me think of a story.

"The barman was just serving drinks like regular that day, little did he know that something BIG was lurking in that small shot glass. CUT TO 10 MINUTES LATER. The first reports of death on space station 13 rack in to centcomm, the station is quarantined and given the order to stop the parasite by any means necessary. CUT TO 20 MINUTES LATER. The crew had started to burn bodies to halt the progression of the disease, throwing bodies into the fire like it was going out of style. CUT TO 30 MINUTES LATER. The botanist, the engineer and the clown were the last ones, they had somehow survived, or so they thought, in the distance a footstep was heard, and out stepped a plague ridden half dead abomination of a man, who had only his voice to control, he walked in jerky movements and contantly shouted KILL ME, PLEASE, KILL ME. They should have listened, but the infection got all of them too, space station 13 was nuked, and that is the end of this story."

This story brings some of my suggestions into light, A: allow the parasite to infect nearby liquids and food, thus spreading it's influence. B: on the first related death, give the AI a quarantine law and prevent the shuttle from being called. C: Allow us to burn bodies into crisps with the engine and toxins, this should eventually get rid of a body, and i'm not sure why it does right now. and finally D: if someone is infected for too long, make signs of decay start to show, missing arms, discoloured skin and vomiting, this could be a horrifying and very fun round type, if handled well.

[atomic1fire]

Perhaps each upgrade should carry a downside.

That way a smart member of the crew, tries to lead the parasite into a trap by forcing it to constantly upgrade and change so that's it's unable to protect against their big finish.

This also gives pathology a good excuse to come back because if the crew can create several viruses, they can plan a multiple stage attack aimed at getting the parasite exactly where they want it.

Instead of making viruses that kill people, they make a virus that makes a host incompatible or outright hostile to a parasite.

[Bobbeh]

ant infection, arrest the guy leaving food out on the floor because he's obviously the queen

[pizzatiger]

On the bay servers they have a old gamemode called meme that is bassicly this. The huger problem with it is it Requires roleplat

[AdenAbrafOfTheO]

It doesn't require that much roleplay, Im assuming it would uncommon enough and new enough so that people aren't rushing to be scanned at the start or something like that. The parasite also wouldn't be obvious when it has infected someone. All great ideas, and it would definitely be a good reason to bring pathology back.

[Megapaco]

I think this idea is pretty sweet. Time to use necromancing powers.

[Iatots]

Yeah it is sorta nice, /vg/station at one point had a brainslug antagonist in the works, but development came to a halt for some reason.

[Frank_Stein]

Oh yeah, I remember this thread. I wrote a whole different take on it that was crazy long and detailed and probably needed a good edit.

It was inspired by playing an overly long session of System Shock 2

(I saw this thread and it got me thinking about how a parasite game mode could work. I came up with an idea that while parasite themed, was pretty different from what they were describing. What I have here is something inspired by System Shock 2, and somewhat of a combination of Spy and Changeling, with elements of Wizard tossed in.)

Alternative idea for a parasite themed mode.

Parasites are small worms that infect humans, multiplying and mutating their host as they gain control. There are different stages to the infection, and mutations are based on a timer that starts at the initial infection time. At the start of the round, one player (Maybe more?) is at Stage 3 infection. Stages of infection, their length, names, effects, and abilities associated with them are as follows:

• 1. Stage 1: "Blessed" 0-5 minutes after initial infection
     No adverse effects
     
     Stage 2: "Disciple" 5-10 minutes after initial infection
     Victim begins to show signs of brain damage, makes occasional erratic movement, eventually passes out.
     
     Stage 3: "Missionary" 10-20 minutes from infection time
     Victim's mind is eroded. When victim awakes from sleep caused by Stage 2, they will now be under the control of the parasite. The player gains the objective to further the infection, and to protect the infected when possible. For RP purposes, players are to consider themselves and other players at Stage 3 and beyond one entity and to act selflessly towards the cause. They can communicate with each other through a hivemind channel using ":p". Crewmen in stages 1 and 2 are to be protected as a means to help the infection spread, though sacrifices can be made as needed. Crewmen in stages 1 and 2 of the infection will be highlighted with a greyed out "T". Crewmen in stages 3 and above with a red "T" At this stage, the infected crewman gains several abilities:
     [list=2]
     
  2. Bisect -The ability to produce a parasite egg in their empty hand every 3 minutes. The egg can be added to food, dropped into a drinking glass, or drawn into a syringe. The next person to eat or drink the food, or to be injected with the syringe becomes infected and enters Stage 1
     
  3. Bile -After having been in Stage 3 for 6 minutes, the infected crewman can, with a victim held in an aggressive grab, regurgitate into their mouths, rendering them unconscious and immediately putting them into the final portion of a Stage 2 infection. They can only do this once while in Stage 3
     
  4. Husk Bomb -The infected crewman can stab a victim, and implant the body with several egg clusters. This will rapidly decompose the body, rendering it into a husk. Using this ability will remove the ability to produce individual eggs during the rest of the duration that the infected crewman is in Stage 3. 5 minutes after the husk was created, it will burst open in a gaseous explosion that will infect those caught in it, immediately putting them into the early portion of a Stage 2 infection
     
  5. Psi Blast -The victim is overwhelmed by psychic energy and passes out. Essentially glare, but with a longer cooldown.
  
  Stage 4: "Acolyte" 20-25 minutes from infection time
  At this point, the infected crewman enters their first visible mutation, their skin becoming cancerous with odd growths. At this point, it is no longer possible to reverse the infection without killing the host. They lose Bisect and Husk Bomb as an ability, but can now perform Bile at will. The cooldown for Psi Blast becomes shorter, and they gain additional strength and stun resistance. The infected crewman's blood becomes a yellowish bile and passively infects people on touch.
  
  Stage 5: 25-35 minutes from infection time
  The infected crewman mutates again, losing their ability to perform Bile. However, they are given a prompt to pick from one of two forms which determine their new abilities and appearance:
  [list=2]
  "Paladin"The infected crewman grows larger in muscle mass, turning into a slower hulking mass of flesh. They lose Psi Blast as an ability, gaining the Hulk Genetic mutation, and increased Stun and Damage resistance. They gain the offensive physical abilities:
  [list=3]
• Charge - The infected crewman quickly dashes forward, knocking and stunning people that get in it's way to the floor
  
• Eviscerate - The infected crewman after putting a grab on a crewmember, tears their body into gibs.

"Bishop" The infected crewman's body starts to become frail, while their head enlarges. Using psychic energy, they hover inches above the ground. They return to the strength of a normal human. However their psychic powers greatly increase. The range of Psi Blast and it's the length of it's effect increases. They also gain the abilities:
[list=3][*]Psi Wall - The infected crewmate creates a psychic shield in the form of a wall directly in front of them, extending 5 tiles on either side.
[*]Sensory Scramble The infected crewmate creates field that scrambles the senses. The victims are unable to speak, and all infected crew stage 3 or higher gain temporary invisibility to the minds of the victims.
[*]Mind Melt - The infected crewmate focuses their thoughts into a harmful beam of pure psychic assault, exploding the head of their target.[/list][/list][/list][/list]

I was also thinking that possibly there should be a final stage of the infection, where the body starts to break apart, eventually exploding in an effect similar to the Husk Bomb. Infection times, and abilities might need to be adjusted. The idea would be to give the player options of being more stealthy with how they infect people, or quicker and more direct at the cost of a smaller infection pool as part of the early game. I think the trick would be to find the balance between not making the infection spread too quickly like with Zombies, or be too spread out before a response could happen. The later stages of the infection would be more to provide support for the people you infected earlier to infect others.

As for treatment, I was thinking that maybe the parasites are weak to heat. Catch the infection early, and you can heat up the infected to kill the worms inside of them. The later in the infection, the longer they have to be exposed/more heat required, to the point that Stage 3 would almost kill someone at full health. Health scanners should probably not pick up the infection until late in Stage 1, or maybe only sleeping beds would show it as was suggested in the other thread.

Anyway, I think the Gamemode could be interesting in that it can fake a lot of the symptoms of other round types, not letting people quite know what to be expecting and making metagaming harder. I also tried to use powers and abilities close to things that already exist to not make it overly complicated.

Yeah...

[salix_catus]

maybe not a game mode, but another antag for mixed?

[robertGN]

maybe not a game mode, but another antag for mixed?

This. I like the idea, but it seems like people would get used to it, and learn how to instantly fucking destroy it. Mixed would make it much less common.

Also, what stops you from jumping into space the moment you discover you have the parasite?

[atomic1fire]

Add symbiosis skills, that allow the parasite to empower the host.

If the host wants to be cooperative, they'll do stuff in exchange for free super powers with the understanding that they'll probably only get to rampage until the parasite fully takes over and they die.

[Isilkor]

Also, what stops you from jumping into space the moment you discover you have the parasite?

As I understand the proposal, the parasite turns you into an antagonist with full control (unlike a headspider) so nobody is going to kill themselves over it. I'm more concerned about people rolling around in the infect-on-touch blood.

[Isilkor]

Also, what stops you from jumping into space the moment you discover you have the parasite?

As I understand the proposal, the parasite turns you into an antagonist with full control (unlike a headspider) so nobody is going to kill themselves over it. I'm more concerned about people rolling around in the infect-on-touch blood.

Actually I think I'm confusing the two parasite proposals so uh nevermind me I guess