[CLOSED PR] New midround antag: surplus ops

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About the PR
linking #11000

Surplus ops is a midround, team-based antag I've been working on over the summer. In this, ghosts are polled, and then spawned aboard a ship. The core principle of surplus ops is that they have access to a variety of equipment categories, but do not get to choose exactly what equipment they get.


Many of the design choices I made are focused around creating an environment where antagonists truly work together and act as a cohesive team:
-Surplus ops all share the same objective set.
-Surplus ops have antag icons for one another enabled, and all start with an agent ID and syndicate headset.
-In order to deploy to the station, they all have to vote using an authorization computer.
-Surplus ops have limited loadouts; while all of them get at least one weapon, it is rarely powerful.




A more detailed, but very outdated writeup can be accessed here:
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=19130
A much less outdated youtube video can be accessed here:
https://youtu.be/XWqDNQGdgOo



Why's this needed?

Firstly, surplus ops is meant to occupy a similar niche to the one that SWORD did- An impactful event guaranteed to shake up an otherwise dull round. Especially on goon1, where sec are often very on the ball, rounds can stagnate and drag on with little in the way of obstacles.

Second, Surplus ops hopes to provide a more RP-friendly, but still combat centered antagonist similar to nukies. Surplus ops are a syndicate presence on the station, but their sole goal is not to cause carnage, and they allow for conflict between security and an armed force without dominating the round.

Third, surplus ops is a proof of concept of a team-based antag where people are more likely to work together. By giving surplus ops both the tools and the incentive (same objectives, little ammunition, weak loadouts), I hope to provide a proof of concept for better team-based antags in the future.



Changelog

Code:

changelog
(u)NightmarechaMillian
(*)A new midround antag has been added to the game: surplus ops.

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[ZeWaka]

not a big fan of midround antags period personally

[Tarmunora]

to paraphrase what I said in adminchats:
I'm not exactly keen on the idea of an event that randomly respawns people as humans, heavily arms them, then drops them on the station

like, pretty much none of that appeals to me conceptually

[KikiMofo]

Station wrecking events mid round should be left to admin fuckery

[NightmarechaMillian]

Feedback is appreciated. For clarification, this will be a very lateround event, similar to SWORD, where it will only spawn after all the existing antags are dead. Furthermore, while they do get weapons, they're not too much more heavily armed than your average staff assistant or miner.

In regards to the concept, I can change it to be a roundstart spawn on mixed if you're of the opinion that would suit the game better. I'm willing to make heavy modifications to the code if it appeals to dev opinion.

[Jakson]

Love everything about this, really hope it goes through, mid round budget operatives sound really fun and will add more challenges to goon1 sec

[ThatScarlett]

I really like the idea of a team of antagonists, who get not so powerful gear and don't have their objective to blow up the station. Even as midround spawn, I think it'd still be a lot of fun, and would give security something to deal with, that is if they only spawned if all other angonists died.

I'd be pretty happy to see it in-game and play surplus ops on RP. A Syndicate team with some surplus items that need to cooperate to achieve a goal, and don't need to necesseraly go out killing everyone like nukies, and are expected to have some stealth.

[Waffleloffle]

if it's an only-once-all-the-other-antags-are-dead thing, this seems like it runs the risk of encouraging more validhunting from sec, which concerns me

[George_Manning]

I get you put a lot of work into this, and it seems fun, but from the beginning it’s felt a bit “off”. The whole discount antag designed to have a really high skill ceiling doesn’t really fit the way other antagonists operate. This is just my two cents, and it’s not because it doesn’t look fun to play, because ir does. I’m just worried about an anathema with a “designed to fail/hardly succeed” philosophy

[Lord_earthfire]

From what i know, i think this could work as a good team-based roundstart mode. Especially RP doesnt have many of these (even though the nukie rounds i witnessed on RP were *chef's kiss*).

Like with conspirators, the gimmicks you can pull off as team are absolutely great, but some does fail on simply everyone being just in their job. Surplus traitors could far better do stuff like hostage situations or others, since they have a completely different type of preparation.

[babayetu83]

why have it be a murderous group of antags? why not have it be a group of thieves?

[nefarious6th]

not interested in adding combat-centered antags to RP specifically. Classic exists to better get your robustin' jimmies russled

Plus ike, everything always falls to sec to handle on RP because "it's their job". The wraith rework nailed bringing in other departments and jobs to help fight the antag. This seems like it'll just end up as Sec Vs Antags, which I'm not super into that specific dynamic

[DioChasek]

As a palate cleanser on rp it would be fantastic if you ask me. I can't tell you how much I savor nukie rounds on RP when they happen because they drip feed in just enough absolute chaos on the station compared to the slow burn of most rounds on RP. Variety in antags is good.

[NightmarechaMillian]

why have it be a murderous group of antags? why not have it be a group of thieves?

For reference, the current objectives they have are 2 random steal objectives, 1 objective to steal the nuke disc, and a single assassinate objective. Furthermore, I have it so the loadouts discourage murderboning- they don't get much ammo, and they sure as hell don't get good melee weapons.