Changelings, and why they're just too damn powerful

[Frank_Stein]

1-The lings/ling should be forced to transform into the organism they assorb. It can still transform into stuff it has assorbed in the past but it taken alot more dna points then you earn from assorbing a corspe. This makes shitty bill and father jack less of a free meal but a desperation thing

I like that this solves that problem of the free meals, but there are legitimate reasons to not want to change right way into who you're eating. Like, will the changeling have to pass up an easy target because he's disguised as the captain and doesn't want to spend the DNA points to change back?

2-Lings acid spit and neruotoxin should both cost a bunch of Dna points to use but has no cooldown

Neurotoxin stings are kind of a necessity for the ling, so making them cost something is kinda drastic. The acid spit as it is is pretty powerful. I'm not sure if no cooldown would make it even more powerful even with a cost. I do fully support nerfing it to be more like the spray bottles through.

3-Allow the lings lesser form to include most animal types. I include this because i want to be a bee

Yes, absolutely. Also, let them give them a name or choose one from random out of the pool that creature names are chosen. This should be a stealth ability, and having an obvious monkey name doesn't help.

4-The abomination form should be a perment change. You can also split off your head in this form which will result in a ghost taking control of the body while you run away in the head.The head is easy to kill but is fast and can use nerutoxin sting. It can also crawl down peoples throats if they stand still long enough which allows it the ling to take control of the body instantly

I'm not sure it should be permanent, but I do like the head spider idea. Maybe only if they choose to do the head spider thing.

5-Have it so lings can't use medical chems to heal but make the loud healing ablitiy where you stay awake when you heal but your flesh bubbles and stuff have a longer cooldown and make it free to use.

Eh, I'm not for this.

6-The ling can survive in space but they enter a dead like state unless the spend some dna points to wake themselves up.If they don't have enough dna points they can do this for free but there is a super long cooldown

I think maybe the Ling should just be susceptible to the coldness of space, without really dying from it. Just have them take the same moment penalties, and possibly sometimes get ice cubed.

7-The lings have a hive mind. They get nothing for assorbing each other but they are allowed to betray eachother for their own gains.

Neutral on this. I do agree with taking away the incentive to absorb another ling.

8-If the ling takes too much burn/brute damage its will enter a semi-Abomination state where it is super obvious and has a slight stronger attack (Blade arms!!!) but doesn't have any cool powers and can't consume people. It can revert back to its regular form if manages to heal itself

Against this. Sometimes it would serve the changeling to fake being a normal dead human. And to that I suggest that when a changeling takes enough damage to die, it should give all the appearances of being dead. The player could activate a revival power at the cost of some DNA if and when they choose to. I want to see changelings faking suicide, wiping out genetics when they are taken to be cloned, and then assuming their identity or hiding amongst the monkeys for their next victim.

[pizzatiger]

1-The lings/ling should be forced to transform into the organism they assorb. It can still transform into stuff it has assorbed in the past but it taken alot more dna points then you earn from assorbing a corspe. This makes shitty bill and father jack less of a free meal but a desperation thing

I like that this solves that problem of the free meals, but there are legitimate reasons to not want to change right way into who you're eating. Like, will the changeling have to pass up an easy target because he's disguised as the captain and doesn't want to spend the DNA points to change back?

2-Lings acid spit and neruotoxin should both cost a bunch of Dna points to use but has no cooldown

Neurotoxin stings are kind of a necessity for the ling, so making them cost something is kinda drastic. The acid spit as it is is pretty powerful. I'm not sure if no cooldown would make it even more powerful even with a cost. I do fully support nerfing it to be more like the spray bottles through.

3-Allow the lings lesser form to include most animal types. I include this because i want to be a bee

Yes, absolutely. Also, let them give them a name or choose one from random out of the pool that creature names are chosen. This should be a stealth ability, and having an obvious monkey name doesn't help.

4-The abomination form should be a perment change. You can also split off your head in this form which will result in a ghost taking control of the body while you run away in the head.The head is easy to kill but is fast and can use nerutoxin sting. It can also crawl down peoples throats if they stand still long enough which allows it the ling to take control of the body instantly

I'm not sure it should be permanent, but I do like the head spider idea. Maybe only if they choose to do the head spider thing.

5-Have it so lings can't use medical chems to heal but make the loud healing ablitiy where you stay awake when you heal but your flesh bubbles and stuff have a longer cooldown and make it free to use.

Eh, I'm not for this.

6-The ling can survive in space but they enter a dead like state unless the spend some dna points to wake themselves up.If they don't have enough dna points they can do this for free but there is a super long cooldown

I think maybe the Ling should just be susceptible to the coldness of space, without really dying from it. Just have them take the same moment penalties, and possibly sometimes get ice cubed.

7-The lings have a hive mind. They get nothing for assorbing each other but they are allowed to betray eachother for their own gains.

Neutral on this. I do agree with taking away the incentive to absorb another ling.

8-If the ling takes too much burn/brute damage its will enter a semi-Abomination state where it is super obvious and has a slight stronger attack (Blade arms!!!) but doesn't have any cool powers and can't consume people. It can revert back to its regular form if manages to heal itself

Against this. Sometimes it would serve the changeling to fake being a normal dead human. And to that I suggest that when a changeling takes enough damage to die, it should give all the appearances of being dead. The player could activate a revival power at the cost of some DNA if and when they choose to. I want to see changelings faking suicide, wiping out genetics when they are taken to be cloned, and then assuming their identity or hiding amongst the monkeys for their next victim.

1-To me the fact that a changing captain/head has to pick between remaining a head or eating an clown is a good thing to me.This makes each kill a strategic move that can easily backfire on you when you do something the original would NEVER do. There are multiple ways to deal with the problem of eating an clown as a changling captain such as; Use stable mutgen on your prey before you eat them to force them to become you or even eating them first then proceeding to eat shitty bill,then use your Dna points to become yourself with no lost. You could even roll with the punches and become a clown which makes changelings harder JUST LIKE YOU GUYS WANT!!!!

2-How about making neurotoxin free to use and also having it mute the victim.
2.5-Why don't we make acid spit use 5 DNA points to use and have it have no cool down. The debuff to this is that the stun time is a little longer than a banana peel slip

4- I suggested the permeant part because it makes abomination more of a last stand kind of thing that you spring when you have no chance

5-Now that I thought about this one. I realized it could be used as a pretty easy ling check. I still think the loud healing should be free though


8-What about a button that allow lings to fake their own deaths, That way they can pop back up anytime they want so they can destroy genetics?
8.5 With the idea of lings being made into a semi-abomination when he hits crit was reasoning this would make fighting a ling more fun for both party's due to the fact that not only do you know they have low health but now you know that they can hurt you badly with their new blade arms (this replaces their normal arms so they can't pick stuff up but works like a c-saber+ can chop limbs off). This also means even if the ling wins the fight he has to heal himself using his healing ability (if he mishandled this it can still be on cool down!) or his ability to hide is severely diminished

[Paineframe]

I unloaded an entire clip of a laser gun (I found a laser gun in space when doing some scavenging) and unloaded an entire clip of an egun, into a changling.
He went abomination after the first clip, he was extremely burnt so it SHOULDN'T of taken it much to finish it off, but a second clip of later, it remained standing.
Holy shit like.

Aren't shamblers super resistant to laser shots, as well as every other damage type that isn't a welder? Or was it that they had super regeneration that you had to hit them with a welder to disable? Either way, every time I've ever seen the call of "SHAMBLER" go out over the radio, the ling drowned in a welder-wielding gray tide in maybe a minute, so maybe you're seriously just doing it wrong by arming yourself to the teeth with guns when I vaguely recall lings being super resistant to gunfire if not softened up with a welder first.

[SgtBriar]

I unloaded an entire clip of a laser gun (I found a laser gun in space when doing some scavenging) and unloaded an entire clip of an egun, into a changling.
He went abomination after the first clip, he was extremely burnt so it SHOULDN'T of taken it much to finish it off, but a second clip of later, it remained standing.
Holy shit like.

Aren't shamblers super resistant to laser shots, as well as every other damage type that isn't a welder? Or was it that they had super regeneration that you had to hit them with a welder to disable? Either way, every time I've ever seen the call of "SHAMBLER" go out over the radio, the ling drowned in a welder-wielding gray tide in maybe a minute, so maybe you're seriously just doing it wrong by arming yourself to the teeth with guns when I vaguely recall lings being super resistant to gunfire if not softened up with a welder first.

haha yeah that's funny because the realistic scenario that happens is the shambler screams, slows everyone to a crawl and makes them drop their weapons and eats them one by one. also your information is 100% wrong because laser fire is very effective against lings because they don't regen burn damage as well as brute, it's just that they *cannot die at all* and so its really a pointless exercise

[Ed Venture]

Just had a great discussion in dead chat and more and more people are agreeing that changelings need to be toned down. I still think a step in the right direction is making them kill-able again and making acid spit cost DNA points.

[babayetu83]

i think itd be neat if changelings could have some sort of expensive mindslave implant that goes into the brain

i don't know if it was suggested or not but i think it could add some variance into the round other than just instantly ko and kill someone

[atomic1fire]

i think itd be neat if changelings could have some sort of expensive mindslave implant that goes into the brain

i don't know if it was suggested or not but i think it could add some variance into the round other than just instantly ko and kill someone

That sounds like a terrible idea, but...

I think it would make for a good offshoot corny overpowered admin gimmick.

Agent Ling: One dude is picked as an Ling handler and is given free reign over 1-3 lings. The Handler is given a remote hooked into explosive implant implanted to each ling so they can't just absorb the handler. If the Handler's implants are removed the lings presumably can go nuts against the handler or anyone else. Handler's objectives are probably mostly freeform, since I don't really know what you would do with 1-3 changelings at your command.

The handler could even be a jerk and order changling fights, or a ling boxing ring where you box the ling.

Basically mindslave with lings.

That said Agent Ling is a terrible idea given how dangerous a team of lings would be.

--END THREAD POOP--

Anyway I once tried to fight a ling to the death, unfortunately short of hitting a ling with a shuttle I don't think the lings can die right now but I could be wrong.

[BaneOfGiygas]

The thing is, the fact that the lings are able to perfectly execute their abilities no mater how lacerated, incinerated, or unconscous they are is sort of ridiculous and makes proper disposal of a changeling really fucking hard, especially if the nearest convenient device for complete bodily destruction is on the other side of the station.

My suggestion: Give ling abilities a chance to miss or otherwise not fully work as it takes more damage. If a changeling is unconscious and has taken over 500 burn damage, I'm sorry, but they should not be able to sting and spit with just as much proficiency as a changeling who is fully alive and kicking.

[atomic1fire]

I don't know how changeling is coded, so if any of this stuff doesn't apply then you could probably ignore it.

Why not tie in some changeling abilities into stamina.

Some moves could require less stamina then others, to create some kind of balance.

Once the ling is all out of stamina, that's prime time to shoot it with lasers because it can't do anything.

There are already drugs that increase stamina regen, so a clever ling could get knocked down and back up kinda quickly if they time it right. (although a drug that slows down regen might be neat)

If balance is an issue, give ling a higher base level of stamina to compensate, at least during abomination form.

[Dauntasa]

making acid spit cost DNA points.

no


before they were made literally unkillable changelings were too weak. All they need is some weakness that can be exploited by the crew to kill them, or to just make them killable again. Either works.

Reversing their buff and then nerfing them further is just going to make them worthless.

[Frank_Stein]

I say, make death a thing the Changeling can spend DNA to recover from, and make them weak to temperature changes, so that the crew can freeze or burn them.

And make acid spit a spray attack. Still free with a cooldown, but no long range homing thing.

[Ali0en]

They were fine before they brought back regen from death. I'd know because I was always a murdermachine as one.

[Conor12]

make death a thing the Changeling can spend DNA to recover from

This seems like an interesting suggestion.

The ideas here don't have to fix everything, but taking steps in the right direction is always good.

[BaneOfGiygas]

With the Changeling no longer basically immortal, it would probably be good to note how much/little this effects the changeling game.