Suicide Headspidering: is it intended? Is it wanted?

[Silent Majority]

Hiho, i just had a round that reminded me of this from other rounds.

We had a ling do the ol suicide succumb headspider thing to get out of the porta brig.

Sorta the old classic ling trick of doing it holding breath etc to keep anchain since headspider infects super fast. 

Is this an intended behavior? Is it good behavior?

I like headspider thematically. But i feel like it should have a coat and wipe out all dna. Maybe if its an activated power instead of a suicide so theres still counterplay?

Looking for ideas!

[kyle2143]

Yeah it's intended that they can do that. It's a high risk high reward move, the headspider is much weaker than it used to be too.

As for using that to get out of the portabrig? idk how I feel about it, seems cheesy, but also I like giving the changling a way to bust out of it faster than the normal flipping...

[Silent Majority]

Ah i see. Should they still keep all their dna though? I know that headspiders take one hit to kill but they take 1 click to infect and sometomes the infection can instantly turn you so you can't get to help.

The porta brig thing can be frustrating. Security losing access to crematorium couplee with lings ability to ignore cuffing AND brittong is..rough.

At the moment our logical response should logically be to just gib them where we find them.

[Mouse]

Headspidering costs what, 30 DNA?  It's not cheap.

[Lefinch]

I guess at least that if someone's in a portabrig they're -probably- also at least got some security present on sight. It's not a straight sneakout, it's also a complete giveup of any "secrecy" about what they are, so the escape is coming with a heavy bargain, and also puts security in the escalated place of "well we can't even guarantee this weird alien thing will stay in containment, it's too dangerous to live"

I honestly don't know how I feel about that aspect though. If it was removed or tweaked I could also understand that just fine: It's a weird little escape.

[Emimiyu]

Iirc if you headapider someone, I think you restart with 0 dna? I might be wrong though.

[Kateaclysm]

I guess at least that if someone's in a portabrig they're -probably- also at least got some security present on sight. It's not a straight sneakout, it's also a complete giveup of any "secrecy" about what they are, so the escape is coming with a heavy bargain, and also puts security in the escalated place of "well we can't even guarantee this weird alien thing will stay in containment, it's too dangerous to live"

I honestly don't know how I feel about that aspect though. If it was removed or tweaked I could also understand that just fine: It's a weird little escape.

Then what's stopping us from just gibbing them when we catch them? The suicide out of the portabrig gambit certainly reveals you, but with how inconsistent the headspidering timer is, and the fact that you don't lose any extra DNA when you headspider, means that you can do this every time you get caught. There needs to be a way for security to reliably contain someone for at least a little bit. Otherwise, where's the RP? I fear this would just lead to sending the porta brig to the crusher before the ling can react.

---

Headspidering costs what, 30 DNA?  It's not cheap.

sorry to doublepost, but headspider activates automatically as long as you have 10 DNA and die, so it's exactly one kill's worth of DNA if i remember correctly.

[Lefinch]

EDIT: This was too long, boring! Ultimately it was a big discussion on sec/antag relationships which isn't what the thread's about.

Instead, here's a nicer simpler version more relevant to things:

I can live with it being removed or kept, but I ultimately think there's probably a middle ground of tweaking -how- they escape or the costs. But the whole thing still seems a bit weird to me.

[KikiMofo]

Headspider is a LAST CHANCE move. Its all or nothing.
I prefer to have the ling able to get one last chance to continue contributing to the round instead of getting caught and crushed and its over.