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

[Superlagg]

True, while ghostdrones have the ability to cause untold horror [see: Ass Day], critters are very limited in the extent of their shitlery. Plus, they're self-regulating; a firm thwack'll put them out of commission. A dedicated roachole could theoretically be just as destructive, but it'd require a loooot of dedication and skill to pull off, something that'd be too entertaining to be punishable.

That said, what about using your critter to lure people to your corpse? Would be neato for a sort of critter metalanguage to develop, like ghost chairmancy did, like communicating the location of things through bee dancing.

[Cirrial]

Part of the deal of being a critter is you can't (well, shouldn't) be able to be brought back as a human or borg, so I mean, you could be Lassie and let them know the traitor threw you down the well, but that's it.

[atomic1fire]

I haven't seen the chickens yet but I was kinda hoping for ducks, considering they've been a goonstation pest for years. I then realized that I confused ducks with those evil geese and that they're actually two separate animal species.

So yeah I think Geese should totally be a player critter though, just maybe not as hostile as regular geese.

Player controlled parrots that can store and repeat things other people say would be hilarious though.

[ZeWaka]

Part of the deal of being a critter is you can't (well, shouldn't) be able to be brought back as a human or borg, so I mean, you could be Lassie and let them know the traitor threw you down the well, but that's it.

Maybe critter-ing would set DNR, but ghostdrones and regular ghosting would not?

[Mageziya]

Having witnessed a flockdrone hoard, it's got an interesting balance to it. It's incredibly difficult for the drones to kill someone, but it's also incredibly difficult for the crew to kill off the drones. Drone's don't have anything lethal besides, say, spacing, but can easily stun and disarm people, eating people's weapons while they're at it.

They're a little fragile during setup, but once they get past that they can snowball like all hell.

Also, dumb thought, here's a dumb alternative name for the flockdrones: Radiolarians

[babayetu83]

- 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.

why? i think it's much more sound to lay some ground rules down so when someone inevitably abuses it and gets in trouble we don't get something fun taken away from us again

[locusts]

If you want more sprites for small and useless critters that dead people can play as I have some unused ones handy.

In fact having dead people come back as butterflies seems vaguely spiritual.

[locusts]

Fun fact: ghost critters can sign infernal contracts.

[Dr Zoidcrab]

Player critters can be absorbed by blobs, but are also targeted by blob launchers. I had some mice that were stuck unconscious distracting all my blob launchers away from the people trying to kill me. Also probably a problem when all the people you kill come back as critters three minutes later and start attacking you again.

[Ed Venture]

Yeah Critters are gonna need to have some sort of rules cause what the good Doctor just described seems like metagaming to me and if this is deemed A-Ok to do then I will make it my mission to kill any player controlled critter I see just to avoid things like this.

[Mageziya]

Good news is that 1 hit from a standard blob melee attack instakills a critter.

The other day I had a cockroach with a razor try and kill me. They were quickly disposed of.

[Zafhset]

There should also be a way for antagonists to prevent critters from being spawnable, much like how they can block the drone factory if they really don't want dead people coming back when they're destroying the station/setting traps around the station.

I've had enough experiences with just ghost drones toe-ing the line by hovering around traps intentionally set in dark areas with flashlights or building walls to "repair" damage. I imagine salty critters could potentially be equal enough of a nuisance in some way or other.

[Frank_Stein]

There should also be a way for antagonists to prevent critters from being spawnable, much like how they can block the drone factory if they really don't want dead people coming back when they're destroying the station/setting traps around the station.

I've had enough experiences with just ghost drones toe-ing the line by hovering around traps intentionally set in dark areas with flashlights or building walls to "repair" damage. I can imagine salty critters could potentially be equal enough of a nuisance in some way or other.

 
Some kind of area that they spawn from, like a mouse hole could work.

Alternatively, require player controlled critters to be purchased through QM in animal crates

[Cirrial]

For maps that have pest spawnpoints, they spawn there (typically in maint or areas that already have critters). For maps that don't have that they spawn where latejoin players are, so please of course don't fuck with the arrivals areas.

Player critters shouldn't be able to sign contracts, they're supposed to be illiterate, dammit. Thanks for the report. Regarding the blob thing, I'll go make it so ghost controlled critters can't be targeted by slime launchers. I don't think I can prevent them doing any damage to blobs whatsoever if they rock up with tools, though.

Also perhaps letting people have free reign over whether or not they can spawn as an animal critter was a bad idea. Perhaps I'll set it up so they can only spawn in an event so people at least get to be aware of it.

EDIT: I've just made it so ghost critters can't use weapons on blobs period. You may say "but that means a blob can hurt a ghost critter and the ghost critter can't fight back!" To which I will say "yes".

[Frank_Stein]

Alternatively, require player controlled critters to be purchased through QM in animal crates

I wanna expound on this: I think this option solves a lot of problems with special rules about behavior and conduct

When dead players can freely come back, we need limitations on what they can do because of how easy it becomes to metagrudge and take out antags. 

When players can come back only through the intervention of another player, those rules can be relaxed or forgotten. It takes effort, resources, and time to make a clone/borg/soulsteel

If critters weren't as freely available, less restrictions would be needed for them.