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Let's talk about Antag Captains
#1
hello, yes, curious about the discussion on benefits of antag caps vs. nonantag caps on classic; it's been on my mind a little and while i haven't had any memorable remarkable Bad moments with caps on classic, i haven't had any memorable remarkable Good moments either. it was brought up today and i was interested in hearing more about people's perceptions of the role as antag; but to a greater extent, people's perceptions of the role. tangentially, i also was poking around on the ai/captain wiki pages and hoping to try and solidify a level of difficulty new players might reasonably expect in these roles, but obviously high access + good starting tools + cool cosmetics means your experience is either potentially very Hard (as a nonantag), or very Easy (as an antag? maybe?). anywho, that's all aside, some thoughts people brought up:

in favor of antagonist captains:
  • part of the game dynamics and paranoia; anyone can be subverted
  • aa is not a deciding factor when discussing capability, since HoP specifically can also attain aa with minimum effort (where does this discussion end and discussion on ALL heads begin, you know?)
  • does making captains nonantags mean they only are going to be relevant to rounds if it's Nukie or Revs where they are Needed:tm:
  • captains don't receive any tools through uplink not available to other traitors; unlike other Head counterparts
  • antag caps give a different, unique and fun dynamic from many other servers
  • does otherwise changing captain antag status make the role into something that is only paralleled by whitelisted roles, and is that too far for something like captain?
less in favor of antagonist captains:
  • captain being antag may contribute to hos always being treated as the de facto head of the station (does this unnecessarily uphold hos players in light we may not want, or is this  reasonable since they're whitelisted? do people who play as cap then get ignored in these scenarios?)
  • too many roundstart advantages with aa, lethals, armor, potentially trust
  • make it easier to differentiate when someone is engaging in abusive and bad behaviors without the shade of "maybe they're doing it because they're an antag"?
  • are people antag fishing just as captain and maybe this reduces that?
  • does this better fill a niche related to (1) where nonwhitelisted players can take on a role with responsibility and respect if they desire to?
old threads:
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=15258
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=15551
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=14444

people also added in discord that they liked antag captains, "EXCEPT for x or y antag type". if you have any thoughts like that to share, please do. maybe captain is only a hardmode traitor? maybe it's not a role for antagging at all? maybe it's perfectly fine as is?
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#2
Captain being an antagonist is A-okay to me. I think they get a little short-changed on the RP server as they are limited only to Conspirator antags, so have a slight bias there (namely in that if I think they should be allowed to be one on the RP server, I by extension probably think the same on Classic).

They get more gear and access, sure, but you could logically extend this all of the way down to Staff Assistants. A captain messing around in Chemistry gets a bit of a weird look - and definitely a Captain messing around in Toxins - whereas an antagonist Scientist doesn't get a second glance in there while they mix up their arguably much more destructive things. You may claim this is a slippery slope fallacy, or whatever, but extending this to department heads in general (they meet most of the points mentioned) is easy.

A Captain is memorable, seeing as there's only one, so you notice them when they're around (and, conversely, their sudden absence). This makes being a sneaky Captain antagonist much harder.

Note that the Captain being unable to be an antagonist would make the times that they are one so much more deadly (changeling, thrall, mindslave, someone killing them and using their blood and stable mutagen to take on their identity). The baseline suspicion of Captains right now is a balancing factor. If we go on to make it so that they can't be mindslaved, I would argue that takes away a good chunk of fun for the sake of "balance". Not every antagonist has to be perfectly balanced if applied to different roles - there being a Captain antagonist does not invalidate there being an Engineer antagonist, for example.
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#3
I think captagonists are good, but tend to be boring because they can usually very easily accomplish their objectives without even buying any traitor gear.

I recommend that captain traitors be given (in addition to normal traitor goals) a pool of really over the top objectives that take advantage of their position. Some ideas off the top of my head:

Neutralize the entire security team
Destroy as much of the station as possible
Convince the crew to abandon their posts and defect from Nanotrasen (might only be good for an RP objective as this blurs antag lines)
Divert the PTL to a Syndicate relay and keep it running for at least ten minutes (this might leave obvious clues of some kind to tip Security off?)
Convert more than half the crew, willing or not, to (a randomly selected mutantrace)
Frame (another randomly selected head) for your crimes and see that they are imprisoned or neutralized
Disrupt station productivity in all departments with as many frivolous distractions as possible (not tracked, but imagine the captain ordering 100 clown suits and reassigning everyone to clown)
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#4
I can understand removing captain antag for RP but I don't care about RP so I am going to say this as someone that only plays nonRP.
Antag captain is great and it makes you think you can't trust the heads all the time.
Only problem I see with antag captains is they don't really go for big cool antag stuff but that's mainly a player problem and not a antag problem.
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#5
I think antag captain is fine, fun antag players will still make for fun rounds, boring antag players will make for boring rounds.
I also really like Souricelle's idea, it sounds very cool, and it does make sense that the syndies would expect more of a captain.
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#6
Objectives don't mean jack shit. Giving traitor captains more/harder objectives will just further encourage them to murderbone with their free best gun in the game. Either take away the gun or take away their ability to be antagonist.
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#7
Objectives have as much value as you put into them. I think that upping the stakes for what an antagonist captain should aspire to do seems great given thier access to the station, gear, and thier ability to more ready coordinate gimmicks/people.

A minimum round count or whitelist similar to a HoS seems like it would set a bar at least in helping ensure a wild, perhaps less murderbone, and fun experience for crew.
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#8
Honestly i think making it so captains/hops cant be spies, because the other spytheifs are at such a disadvantage when that happens would be nice.
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#9
I don’t think command staff can roll spy
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#10
Make it so antag captains must buy either a surplus crate or a syndicate hat.
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#11
To counter this, playing Captain is a hard enough role when trying to lead the other departments/help manage sec without a HOS, without people metagaming in the back of their minds "hey our cap is probably an antag" because they disagree with me not letting them execute the clown for throwing pies or borging an antag really early on for, not much reason.
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#12
Captain on classic is just a mess around role doesn't matter much if they are antag once in a while, but, people who only play captain to powergame are lame and I feel like removing the captain's chance to be an antag would make people think twice before putting that role in favorite. I am indifferent to this change.
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#13
(06-10-2021, 01:21 AM)Mouse Wrote: Make it so antag captains must buy either a surplus crate or a syndicate hat.

I like this, it pushes the wacky.  It is like an episode of Chopped, given these unrelated ingredients bring chaos, destruction, and fun to the station!
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#14
I like Captain-Antag. I've explained it plenty in other threads--It's just more fun.

If you're an antag-cap, yes you get weapons and access--now you have an opportunity to pull off a fun gimmick. Or particularly bad traitorous activity.
This is an opportunity you wouldn't get as a staffie where you have to sprint around trying to gain access to places you aren't allowed.

Moreover, as member of SEC, it's fun determining whether your Captain is acting maliciously against the crew or perhaps merely abusing his power.

>captain being antag may contribute to hos always being treated as the de facto head of the station
Only seen this happen if CAP is dead or deemed traitorous. Most of the time, the HoS respects Captain's authority--Just not over security matters.
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#15
(06-10-2021, 06:24 AM)THISISANICEGAME Wrote: Captain on classic is just a mess around role doesn't matter much if they are antag once in a while, but, people who only play captain to powergame are lame and I feel like removing the captain's chance to be an antag would make people think twice before putting that role in favorite. I am indifferent to this change.

The people who pick Captain to powergame are generally just as happy to load up on sec gear and hunt "bad guys" with their laser gun when they don't get antag, and removing their chance to be an antag would just exacerbate this problem in a different way. ("Captains can't be antags, so I'm ordering you to open up the armory and give me all the gear in it, I can't be an antag so there's no way for me to misuse it")
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