Antagonist Idea - Invasion of the Body Snatchers

[Newt King]

That would of course mean that the dude whose body you jumped to becomes a ghost as if he were headspidered, might give a person pause to know his round could end at a moment's notice

[Captain_Bravo]

No offense, but with every idea it seems like this just inches closer to "Changeling, but like, REV changeling."

First they must drag victims into a secluded place and stuff a tube down their throat.
Then someone suggests adding Lesser Form.
Then someone suggests giving them a way to poison people (I.E. a little more blatent than Neurotoxin Sting.)
Then someone suggests giving them headspiders.

I mean, surely we can come up with better ideas than just taking all the elements from different antags and shoving them into one. How about this? Instead of just a Body Snatcher Round, build them up more as anti-changelings. A body-snatcher round spawns a few body snatchers, but also a couple changelings. Body Snatchers can kill changelings by stuffing the transformation seeds down their throats, but they're also worth 15-20 DNA points and are prime targets for changelings. Cut out all the semi-changeling crap (headspiders, lesser forms, immunity to vacuum, etc.) and make it a classic three-way struggle. Changelings wanna eat the crew, and REALLY wanna eat Body Snatchers. Snatchers wanna kill the changelings, and also wanna transform the crew. The crew is afraid of the changelings, but also must make the decision whether to join the body snatchers, or resist both groups and stay human.

Make Snatchers a bit more obvious, green skin, leaves for hair, stuff like that. Make their punches more likely to knockout, and give them a resistance to neurotoxin. (Since they don't have brains!) It would also be super hilarious to give them special limbs which can be sold for a shitton of money, so unscrupulous individuals might try to take one down for a payoff.

This would help alleviate the classic Rev/Alien problem of "I can be an antag!? Sign me up immediately" that ruins these rounds, because you're just making yourself a bigger target for the changelings without really gaining a lot of benefit. Whenever one of the groups dies out, or all it's members have left the Z-level, the remaining members of the other group summon a special shuttle, and whatever crew is left has five minutes to try and take down the remaining members of the other group. If both groups are dead or AWOL at the end of the round, it's a victory for the crew!

[Newt King]

That sounds pretty cool too. Anything to shake things up a little couldn't hurt. I was definitely picturing in my head more of a focus on 1 team vs another type of game mode rather than a small number of one villain, and while I was picturing humans vs aliens, I hadn't considered throwing in other types. So yeah, it could also be something that could happen to mixed rounds rather than trying to balance a whole bunch of people becoming evil.

[Newt King]

Actually further reading that suggestion I really like that idea, having that element of uncertainty when some dude is being captured as to the manner of his end seems like it would be really fun!

[david2222121]

There's one antag that can make itself plenty of fellow antags that I think really works well at balancing itself out. Namely, the vampire's ability to make thralls. It takes a good while to actually even get the ability(Or not depending on your pr0 vAmPiR3 skillz), eats up a massive portion of your resources, and takes a while to actually convert the person while putting out some rather blatant messages as you do so.

What if the pod people needed to obtain their equivalent of blood/DNA points by eating or collecting something plant related before they could start converting people? Like, they have to eat compost or produce, or maybe any sort of food. Once they have enough biomass, they can start to convert crew members to their cause.

Also, if we ever get a Changelings versus Pod People versus The Sociopathic Manchildren We Call A Crew type of round, It'd be better if the pod people are just as hard to uncover as the lings are. Or maybe just a bit easier. Instead of needing to get a blood sample and heat it, maybe they leave(leaf ) green blood splatters because chlorophyll? Maybe they bleed clear/yellow sap?

[Newt King]

I like that idea, that in order to convert people they need to eat compost/water for points. I like the sap blood thing too. It seems like it would encourage snatchers to be picky about who they turn, and I'm picturing a bunch of people racing to QM to order compost after botany runs out to wolf it down and it's kinda hilarious

[Newt King]

Maybe a mulching ability that takes 60 seconds and is loud and obnoxious but can turn organic matter into compost

[david2222121]

That is a great idea. Part of the reason people go after and kill vampires(at least, what I think the reason is) is because they are far more likely to be a bloodless corpse in a maintenance shaft than a vampire thrall. Making pod people dangerous, or potentially dangerous to the crew would help stave off them being the next Rev/Alien.

Though sixty seconds to grind someone to compost is a long time. Maybe make it take as long as a ling absorbtion?

[Newt King]

Yeah I just pulled that number out of my ass, ling-length mulching would probably be fine.

[atomic1fire]

No offense, but with every idea it seems like this just inches closer to "Changeling, but like, REV changeling."

First they must drag victims into a secluded place and stuff a tube down their throat.
Then someone suggests adding Lesser Form.
Then someone suggests giving them a way to poison people (I.E. a little more blatent than Neurotoxin Sting.)
Then someone suggests giving them headspiders.

I mean, surely we can come up with better ideas than just taking all the elements from different antags and shoving them into one. How about this? Instead of just a Body Snatcher Round, build them up more as anti-changelings. A body-snatcher round spawns a few body snatchers, but also a couple changelings. Body Snatchers can kill changelings by stuffing the transformation seeds down their throats, but they're also worth 15-20 DNA points and are prime targets for changelings. Cut out all the semi-changeling crap (headspiders, lesser forms, immunity to vacuum, etc.) and make it a classic three-way struggle. Changelings wanna eat the crew, and REALLY wanna eat Body Snatchers. Snatchers wanna kill the changelings, and also wanna transform the crew. The crew is afraid of the changelings, but also must make the decision whether to join the body snatchers, or resist both groups and stay human.

Make Snatchers a bit more obvious, green skin, leaves for hair, stuff like that. Make their punches more likely to knockout, and give them a resistance to neurotoxin. (Since they don't have brains!) It would also be super hilarious to give them special limbs which can be sold for a shitton of money, so unscrupulous individuals might try to take one down for a payoff.

This would help alleviate the classic Rev/Alien problem of "I can be an antag!? Sign me up immediately" that ruins these rounds, because you're just making yourself a bigger target for the changelings without really gaining a lot of benefit. Whenever one of the groups dies out, or all it's members have left the Z-level, the remaining members of the other group summon a special shuttle, and whatever crew is left has five minutes to try and take down the remaining members of the other group. If both groups are dead or AWOL at the end of the round, it's a victory for the crew!

The delimbing part + plant people might make chainsaw arms actually useful, as opposed to a funny thing.

[Bologna Prime]

Make Snatchers a bit more obvious, green skin, leaves for hair, stuff like that.

This seems like a good idea, but what's to stop a snatcher from being pointed out and mobbed by vigilante coworkers at round start? What if they started out in one of the many shady places around the station? Places like behind the jazz lounge, the drug den, and Geoff's store.

[Chike101]

Make Snatchers a bit more obvious, green skin, leaves for hair, stuff like that.

This seems like a good idea, but what's to stop a snatcher from being pointed out and mobbed by vigilante coworkers at round start? What if they started out in one of the many shady places around the station? Places like behind the jazz lounge, the drug den, and Geoff's store.

Botany would be alright too, because of it's isolation and plantlike nature.

[atomic1fire]

Here's an idea that might be a bit close to changeling, but I think might be worth it.

Why not the body snatchers a human form, but unlike lesser form or any changeling thing, it's not designed to last long.

A fake human skin that molts off after 2 minutes (or some time limit that only makes it effective for a quick escape or some quick planning)

Make it cost compost so that power in numbers is prefered to pretending to be human.

[Newt King]

I feel like they shouldn't be too hard to discover if you're paying attention, but that on the surface they should appear normal. Mainly because of situations like getting killed by a coworker due to unlucky spawning and because I think having a situation in which a few humans among a station of many snatchers have to avoid being targeted by pretending to be aliens would be interesting. That said I think that should only apply to base appearances, if you have a dude who bleeds yellow sap instead of blood or has some very specific and odd limitations it should not be too hard for an observant human to figure out what you are, but if you have a green dude with leaf hair it kinda fucks with the slow, stealth element.

[atomic1fire]

Also is the yellow sap the same thing as maple syrup.

Maple syrup blood being harvested by chef could be pretty funny.

overall I like the idea of snatchers vs ling vs humans