Spy mode things.

[Shoddy]

Righto, so spy mode is rarely ever seen in rotation, and devolves in to an " everyone's a traitor go on a rampage" team death match.

Here are some ways to fix the constant straying from what the mode was supposed to be.
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Variety of interesting objectives, instead of just having to steal some shit and murder eachother

In fact, i believe that killing the other spy masters should be an OPTIONAL objective.

Spy's need to stop being murderers and evolve in to something different, thus i feel the need for new objectives, all spy's will have 3 objectives to fulfill.

( these are example objectives, only rough ideas, these objectives will require some more work, but are alot more thematic like nuke ops mode.)

1) Plant a bug on the captain, but have him leave alive on the shuttle, the syndicate values him more alive for his information than dead.

(Bonus) Congratulations on your objective completion agent Blue, we have sent you a supplement of 2 telecrystals on your uplink.
2) the syndicate requires information on the location of a nuclear bomb Nanotrasen has procured from space USSR, once you have accessed the captains personal computer, you may find the location by entering these hacked access codes: 24508 Omega. once this is done, email the sector name to SYN3@ST12 ( the sector name would be random, like Foxtrot Zulu 345454)

3) We require the Head Of Personnel's personal access codes to Nanotrasen's swiss bank account.
they are on his person and you may take them by any means necessary.

(Optional Objective) We have learned that some of the agents we sent to do this mission before may have gone rogue, if you encounter any suspicious persons, eliminate them quietly.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISSION LOG ALPHA-056-TRANSMISSION ENDED.

I imagine these kinds of objectives would be super cool to play, actually doing spy stuff instead of trying to murder everyone else every round, it also ties in somewhat with what the syndicate would actually be doing instead of just pitting their agents against each other for a job.

For example, the location of the nuclear bomb so that the syndies can blow the station to fuck, that would be the spy's job.

also some fun objectives like trying to bug someone without them realizing anything, or protecting someone without them knowing about it.

Also, the way the traitor PDA's would work in spy mode is that you get your standard crystals at the start, but you can make more if you complete your objectives, each main objective is worth two crystals, while the optional objective gives you 1 crystal per spy eliminated, this is so that people CAN kill all the other spys for a hefty reward, but it may not be worth it to just go on a rampage and murder everyone!

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I believe these ( honestly pretty large) changes would make spy mode much more enjoyable for both the spy's AND the crew, imagine the captain trying to protect his monetary ties to nanotrasen, or security with the aid of the detective trying to figure out who has been bugging key personnel.

If ONE of these changes were implemented, it'd make spy more interesting byfar, and i'd love to see it more prevalent in rotation.

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Sorry for the possibly shitty drawn out post, but i would like to know if anyone would agree with me on this. and i could also use some discussion on what you would like to see in spy, not huge things like the basis of this thread, but things like tweaking the amount of crystals spy's have etc.

Please let me know what you think!

[UrsulaMejor]

I like it.

[Marquesas]

Introduce the spy character in mixed with these spy-like objectives and a different set of traitor items steered towards espionage. Keep spy as a mode where there are multiple. Remove the implanters.

[APARTHEID]

Introduce the spy character in mixed with these spy-like objectives and a different set of traitor items steered towards espionage. Keep spy as a mode where there are multiple. Remove the implanters.

The implanter, as it is, destroys spy mode, as you're just rushing to implant the four best people available to gang up on and rush down everyone else that has the slightest chance of being a spy.

Spy as a stealthier traitor round? It's a cool idea, but it'd require all the traitor items in question be revalued and balanced to serve the purpose.

It's worth a shot!!

[jflan17]

The implanter, as it is, destroys spy mode, as you're just rushing to implant the four best people available to gang up on and rush down everyone else that has the slightest chance of being a spy.

I haven't really thought this through too terribly much, but maybe a simple solution to this, if more drastic measures are not wanted, is to randomize everyone's names and appearance settings if it's a spymaster round.

[jflan17]

Wish I could edit.

Forgot to mention that it fits the story pretty well - it's a syndicate training operation, which we could argue is occurring in VR or on a syndicate station modeled after cogstation. It makes sense, then, that it would be different people manning the space station - syndicate stand-ins for Nanotrasen, basically.

[Admiral jimbob]

The problem with that is that everyone would instantly know it was a spy round, defeating half the purpose of spy rounds. On the best spy rounds, you don't know it's spy until it's far too late.

[mozi]

yeah that idea is rad but would be a dead giveaway and also everyone just goes for the Captain/HoS anyway

[Cogwerks]

Getting rid of the henchmen would kinda defeat the original point of the mode. However...
What if instead of mindslaves, the henchmen are auto-assigned? The spymasters might get these goals:

You are a special operative of the (random nuke-mode corporation name)!
OBJECTIVE 1: There are X# of rival operatives at work on the station! Identify and eliminate them without getting outed yourself! You will receive 15 points if you are the only lead operative to escape on the shuttle.
OBJECTIVE 2: You have Y# of henchmen waiting for your orders, they are (name1 the job1), (name2 the job2), (name3 the job3). You will receive 3 points for each henchman who survives the round and escapes with you.
OBJECTIVE 3: Steal (whatever, something that conflicts with one or more other teams) for 10 points.
OBJECTIVE 4: Assassinate (all of a certain department excluding henchmen and miners) for 10 points.
OBJECTIVE 5: Amass credits within your escaping team! You will receive (shared_credits * 0.0001) points.

For henchmen:
You are a (corporate name) henchman! Report to (leader) for orders and help them beat their rival operatives!
OBJECTIVE 1: Make sure your leader survives the round! 15 points if they are the only leader to escape.
OBJECTIVE 2: Escape on the shuttle alive for 3 points!
OBJECTIVE 3: Report to your leader and help with their evil schemes!

Of course the point counts could change for balance as needed, but it'd be possible to win with just duckets alone if your team cornered the drug market or something.

[Shoddy]

henchmen are auto-assigned?

to be honest i was gonna put that in the original post but completely forgot.

Yes to that idea, a thousand times.

[Daeren]

Henching is my favorite part of Spy and automating that so it's not a mad rush for the Heads, notable ass-beaters, or buddies of the Spy would be great.

In addition, the current Spy rules encourage constant murder bonanzas as henchmen mow through anyone they aren't sure works for their Spy so their boss can effectively escape alone. A legitimate strategy but it gets kinda old, barring the occasional round where two or more sides are evenly matched and absolutely insane five-on-five brawls break out. A credit-stealing goal would heavily encourage graft, make people suspicious of the RD growing fucktons of glowing weed, outright robbery, and carrying around briefcases full of money so it couldn't be stolen back out of electronic accounts. Though, I'd make money stored on cards more accessible to dedicated thieves if it was regularly implemented so people couldn't just swipe bank money to a card and have it be safe to anyone who doesn't guess right and happen to have the genetic mutation that lets them get PINs.

Basically the end point of all this rambling is I want to be part of a running battle to the shuttle behind my Spy toting a briefcase of $10,000 bills in one hand, a revolver in the other, and tripping my balls off on our product.

[Marquesas]

What currently happens in spymode is:
About 5 people, 1; max 2 competent, get chosen as spymasters. The competent ones implant the most robust people they can get their hands on, while the dumb ones sit around with a 4/4 implanter still on them 30 minutes on, by which time they get randomly murdered by someone at some point.
Then, there are three scenarios:
* There is a single competent spymaster, he will proceed to indiscriminately slaughter the station.
* The two competent ones meet early on, one implants the other, and eventually the implanting one will tell the implanted one to suicide. The single remaining spymaster will continue to indiscriminately slaughter the station.
* Very rarely the two competent ones manage to avoid eachother, and we have a good fight of two teams where still inexplicably most of the station is bombed, burned, destroyed, or otherwise maimed and pretty much everyone dies except the two masters in the shades.

Spy has apparently been a ball thrown in the right direction only to barely miss the target, ricochet off the rock and fly off to fucking pluto. It's a slaughterhouse not even remotely resembling what in my opinion the gamemode should be about.

TL;DR, this is revolution with much less people doing the murdering everyone not involved thing.

[Klayboxx]

I've never ever seen two teams fighting because each of the teams have no fucking clue who their other members are. I've murdered fellow mindslaves because I have no way of knowing if they are on my team or not and neither do they and our orders are to MURDER

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

TL;DR, this is revolution with much less people doing the murdering everyone not involved thing.

this exactly, I think there need to be more non-lethal objectives in it like stealing shit and siphoning credits and goods.

[Captain_Bravo]

The best way to play a spy mindslave is to set up a bomb somewhere, give it a 1 minute timer, then message your spy leader with the location and time so he can get all your fellow slaves outta there. If there aren't massive holes being punched in the station constantly, it's not a spy round.