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So a criticism that is levied at the Nuclear Emergency round as it stands is that it's often very fast, either with the Syndicates boom and zoom the Captain and get the disk early and the round ends within ten minutes, or with the Syndicates rushing and getting surprised by competent crew that beat them. There's rarely any finesse by the Syndicates or any chance for the crew to beat the Syndicates once they have the disk, given the base's isolation (unless a syndicate is stupid enough to allow the crew to get one of their teleporter controllers).
I recently suggested having a sort of "stealth" nuke mode on #2, which seemed to be received well by the folks that were on then. I figured I'd flesh it out and get some input from others before I tried dicking around with coding it.
Rough sketch for Stealth Nuclear Emergency
Either one leader and 1-5 agents (as it is now) or just 1-6 equal "agents", one of whom has a station bounced radio that is locked
All agents start with normal jobs, like traitors
The nuke will be a permanent fixture on the station in some kinda secure area. We can explain it in character as a fail-safe as an ironic preventive measure to protect the station's research from the Syndicate or something. There'd be a console that the Syndicates would have to put the auth disk and code in to activate it.
Agents would have a popup telling them to confer with other agents to meet up - once all agents meet up and provide a code, the station bounced radio can be unlocked (to prevent the dude who spawns with the radio from spawning a bunch of dumb shit all by himself) -- this could be accomplished either through PDA messaging or by maintaining the :h ability on their headsets.
Since syndicates would start on the station, the list of items able to be obtained through the SBR would have to be adjusted. Any ideas?
Once agents have met up, they can either decide to stick together as one unit or go off and prepare themselves using tools from their own jobs (scientists could prepare chemicals and bombs, janitors could stockpile cleaner to slip up heads/security, mechanics could create extra gear, etc.) and then strike when they're ready. This would give nuke more variety than just "oh, the captain got hit with an RPG and there goes the station."
Lastly, with the agents starting on the station, I think the need for free pinpointers is eliminated - either steal the Captain's or just find the captain. The ability to hide in plain sight would make a tool that directs you straight to the objective a bit overpowered, in my opinion.
Comments/critiques/further thoughts on this would be appreciated!
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I like the idea a lot, but I don't want it to take over Nuke as a round. I'm not sure if that's part of the idea or not but either way.
My thoughts on it:
1. Agents should have a pre-set case of Dumb Shit For Your Job, with an Agent ID Card, a Voice Changer Mask and maybe some random 1-telecrystal item each time. I know they do get a bunch of fun toys, but if it's meant to be about stealth, giving them this stuff from the get-go will only help reinforce the stealth aspect I hope.
2. I remember ages ago when Conspiracy was being tested, there were a series of emotes used to denote who was in a Spy group. This was really really fun and lead to great situations where e.g. the captain would wink then fart and someone would immediately throw him a csword and tell him they were about to kill the HoS, and if our Syndie Squad had something similar, it would rock.
Other than that, I don't really see any issues that aren't already part of a normal Syndie round. I'd be a little wary of how people may end up walling off the bomb or even how easy it might be for them to just walk in and detonate it in 5 minutes, so maybe have it so that any TermOS computer can run the authentication disk, but the timer is 3 minutes and unchangeable, so that they need to defend but not the bomb itself. Keeps action from being deadlocked with one walled off room.
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Weavel Wrote:Other than that, I don't really see any issues that aren't already part of a normal Syndie round. I'd be a little wary of how people may end up walling off the bomb or even how easy it might be for them to just walk in and detonate it in 5 minutes, so maybe have it so that any TermOS computer can run the authentication disk, but the timer is 3 minutes and unchangeable, so that they need to defend but not the bomb itself. Keeps action from being deadlocked with one walled off room.
what about a commaster-like program for ThinkDOS that's only available from the auth disk? there's tons of data terminals hidden around in dark places to build spare heavy terminals and learning to boot ThinkDOS and run programs is probably more accessible to most people than TermOS.
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More nuke team operatives should spring for the DNA scrambler, chameleon jumpsuit, and stealth storage. You'd be amazed by what you can get away with!
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Yeah, it's strange to see this requested when a few months ago people were complaining about "oh they just go stealth every nuke round and win in 2 minutes".
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I assume the nuke disc would be nuke agent only. Otherwise other traitors might try to arm the nuke.
Don't get me wrong, a vampire/traitor/wizard/ling heist that involves stealing the disk and arming the nuke as a playing card or suicidal final blow would be cool as heck, but it might be a bad idea.
I think it would be really neat though if an antagonist could arm the nuke, but they wouldn't have the advantage of knowing the password, which the nuke team obviously does.
3 guesses before the nuke disarms itself as a fail safe to prevent brute forcing, basically like the passworded crates that explode but the nuke can't explode.
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atomic1fire Wrote:I assume the nuke disc would be nuke agent only. Otherwise other traitors might try to arm the nuke.
Don't get me wrong, a vampire/traitor/wizard/ling heist that involves stealing the disk and arming the nuke as a playing card or suicidal final blow would be cool as heck, but it might be a bad idea.
I think it would be really neat though if an antagonist could arm the nuke, but they wouldn't have the advantage of knowing the password, which the nuke team obviously does.
3 guesses before the nuke disarms itself as a fail safe to prevent brute forcing, basically like the passworded crates that explode but the nuke can't explode.
The nuke *code* would only be generated for nuke agents. There are 100,000 possible nuke codes if we keep the current five-digit code as-is, so the likelihood of a non-agent getting the disk and actually arming the nuke are very low, even without fail-safe disarming. In fact, I think fail-safe disarming is a bad idea as a shithead captain could just go put in 3 random code guesses at the start of the round to prevent the Syndicate from winning (if it even ends up being a nuke round).
The nuke disk is spawned on the captain in all round types.
rulib Wrote:Yeah, it's strange to see this requested when a few months ago people were complaining about "oh they just go stealth every nuke round and win in 2 minutes".
They still have access to a lot of gear from the syndicate shuttle. Maybe they shouldn't have access to any special gear, and have to work together using tools from the station and their own jobs to accomplish the objective?
Anticheese Wrote:More nuke team operatives should spring for the DNA scrambler, chameleon jumpsuit, and stealth storage. You'd be amazed by what you can get away with!
The last two nuke rounds I've seen have done exactly this, and they ended right away. Without a way for the crew to really do anything once the syndicates have the disk back on the station, it's not very fun. If the nuke was on the station, with the ability to stop the countdown with a head ID in a console, it'd allow the crew to buy time and force the Syndicates to sabotage computer networks (while setting up their own) to succeed.
Weavel Wrote:I like the idea a lot, but I don't want it to take over Nuke as a round. I'm not sure if that's part of the idea or not but either way.
My thoughts on it:
1. Agents should have a pre-set case of Dumb Shit For Your Job, with an Agent ID Card, a Voice Changer Mask and maybe some random 1-telecrystal item each time. I know they do get a bunch of fun toys, but if it's meant to be about stealth, giving them this stuff from the get-go will only help reinforce the stealth aspect I hope.
2. I remember ages ago when Conspiracy was being tested, there were a series of emotes used to denote who was in a Spy group. This was really really fun and lead to great situations where e.g. the captain would wink then fart and someone would immediately throw him a csword and tell him they were about to kill the HoS, and if our Syndie Squad had something similar, it would rock.
Other than that, I don't really see any issues that aren't already part of a normal Syndie round. I'd be a little wary of how people may end up walling off the bomb or even how easy it might be for them to just walk in and detonate it in 5 minutes, so maybe have it so that any TermOS computer can run the authentication disk, but the timer is 3 minutes and unchangeable, so that they need to defend but not the bomb itself. Keeps action from being deadlocked with one walled off room.
Yeah, I'm definitely not thinking of this as a replacement for Nuke, just as a similar objective with a slightly different implementation.
I'm not sure how ideal it is to provide a free agent ID and voice changer, especially as there's no immediate indication that they're bad guys. if they fuck up and get suspicion cast on them then they should have to deal with it somehow that isn't such an easy out imo
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not totally related to the suggestion, but i think part of the reason the syndies can run in and grab the disk in the first five minutes is because it's most likely going to be kept in the windowed room with almost no walls, that is open to space from three of it's four sides, and can be easily bombed because it's a straight path out to space. getting a vault or something the disk starts in would help the "five minutes ur dead" problem
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Noticable flaw with a couple of ideas: If stealth nuke ops don't start with a pinpointer, then the captain can fairly safely just hide both his personal pinpointer and the disk in any closet, box, bag, or disposal/mail chute and the operatives would be screwed. Maybe a less accurate pinpointer that operated only as a "warmer/colder" type sensor, rather than directional? This'd prevent them from tracking the captain easily, while also preventing the disk from being hidden for the entire round.
As for the countdown that could be disabled by any head ID - it might be alright if it was 30 seconds or less, but anything more gives the HoP/Captain or anyone with their ID enough time to disable the bomb and then fart out dozens of spare head ids to every person on the station, meaning that as long as there is a computer, any crew member could disable it, which'd make it "the nuke ops hunt down and kill every crew member", which wouldn't really be in the spirit of stealth, or very practical. A different, and better, fix would be to make only computers with the nuke disc program be able to stop the bomb (still with a head ID, though it'd be fairly easy to stop them by destroying or discarding head IDs - easily accomplished by accident if the captain goes exploring, and no one else took any head roles). This would mean that the station crew would have to find the computer that the nuke operatives used to start the bomb, making the 3 minute limit far more practical, and a greater emergency.
The obvious problem with that, though, is if the program on the disk can be copied to any hard drive, meaning anyone could just set it up at the start of the round as a life line. I suppose the program itself could verify if the nuke disk is in the disk drive before it performs any commands? That'd make sense.
Does a new nuke disk spawn if the previous one goes off z-level? Might be more balanced for this situation if the disk itself returns to the z-level, rather than a completely new one (so that you won't end up with duplicate disks).
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RedbeardRum Wrote:Noticable flaw with a couple of ideas: If stealth nuke ops don't start with a pinpointer, then the captain can fairly safely just hide both his personal pinpointer and the disk in any closet, box, bag, or disposal/mail chute and the operatives would be screwed. What if only the syndicate ringleader spawns with a pinpointer? Then he'd have to direct the others to it.
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RedbeardRum Wrote:Noticable flaw with a couple of ideas: If stealth nuke ops don't start with a pinpointer, then the captain can fairly safely just hide both his personal pinpointer and the disk in any closet, box, bag, or disposal/mail chute and the operatives would be screwed. Maybe a less accurate pinpointer that operated only as a "warmer/colder" type sensor, rather than directional? This'd prevent them from tracking the captain easily, while also preventing the disk from being hidden for the entire round.
As for the countdown that could be disabled by any head ID - it might be alright if it was 30 seconds or less, but anything more gives the HoP/Captain or anyone with their ID enough time to disable the bomb and then fart out dozens of spare head ids to every person on the station, meaning that as long as there is a computer, any crew member could disable it, which'd make it "the nuke ops hunt down and kill every crew member", which wouldn't really be in the spirit of stealth, or very practical. A different, and better, fix would be to make only computers with the nuke disc program be able to stop the bomb (still with a head ID, though it'd be fairly easy to stop them by destroying or discarding head IDs - easily accomplished by accident if the captain goes exploring, and no one else took any head roles). This would mean that the station crew would have to find the computer that the nuke operatives used to start the bomb, making the 3 minute limit far more practical, and a greater emergency.
The obvious problem with that, though, is if the program on the disk can be copied to any hard drive, meaning anyone could just set it up at the start of the round as a life line. I suppose the program itself could verify if the nuke disk is in the disk drive before it performs any commands? That'd make sense.
Does a new nuke disk spawn if the previous one goes off z-level? Might be more balanced for this situation if the disk itself returns to the z-level, rather than a completely new one (so that you won't end up with duplicate disks).
I really like the "warmer/colder"-type non-directional pinpointer, and it'd be super easy to make.
As for the nuke program - maybe the nuke authentication disk has a copy of the nuke activation program, and then there's also a copy (non-auth disk, so the Syndicate couldn't just steal this one) of the program on a disk in the Bridge and in Electronics Storage? That'd give some options for the crew to try to stop it, and would be something the Syndicates could either preemptively steal or guard to make sure it times down. Alternatively, it could be something that one of the heads picks up as a safety measure to prevent a syndicate steal.
As another thought, it's kind of silly that the Syndicates just let their operatives get blown up. Maybe part of the victory condition should be that the Syndicates have to be off the station z-level? If the Syndicates want to "win", they'd have to leave everything unguarded, which means they'd have to make sure they were fairly confident it would go off before leaving the station, or sacrifice someone to stay behind.
A new nuke disk does spawn if the original goes off-z-level or if the original is destroyed. There are no duplicates.
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So if the syndies are spawning on station that would mean they would have normal names? Like when syndies use DNA scramblers? See the problem with that is always no one had anyway of knowing if they are a syndie or not. Some people don't have problems killing a random person just because they look suspicious but some like me just don't do that and that is why the DNA scramblers fuck stuff up alot. I mean in syndie rounds you can ask people to take off their masks to see who they are but if they are scrambled they have nothing. It's fine with normal traitors since they aren't going to be nuking the station but syndies can end rounds with DNA scramblers within 5 minutes. I dunno what can be done about that though if the syndies in this round mode would be normal people.
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Mosheninkov Wrote:Lastly, with the agents starting on the station, I think the need for free pinpointers is eliminated - either steal the Captain's or just find the captain. The ability to hide in plain sight would make a tool that directs you straight to the objective a bit overpowered, in my opinion.
Okay, most of what you said is fine(although I think you could solve some of the problems with Nuke just by putting the nuke on the station and changing nothing else) but this bit right here is a real bad idea.
There is 1 pinpointer on the station. All the Captain has to do to thwart the syndies is pick it up, put it in his pocket, and then hide. They will never find him without it. What this means is that the instant anyone yells "it's nuke" over the radio the captain will grab the pinpointer and disappear and the syndies might as well just kill themselves because they've got 0 chance of finding him and especially 0 chance of finding him in ten minutes after the AI calls the shuttle.
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Dauntasa Wrote:Mosheninkov Wrote:Lastly, with the agents starting on the station, I think the need for free pinpointers is eliminated - either steal the Captain's or just find the captain. The ability to hide in plain sight would make a tool that directs you straight to the objective a bit overpowered, in my opinion.
Okay, most of what you said is fine(although I think you could solve some of the problems with Nuke just by putting the nuke on the station and changing nothing else) but this bit right here is a real bad idea.
There is 1 pinpointer on the station. All the Captain has to do to thwart the syndies is pick it up, put it in his pocket, and then hide. They will never find him without it. What this means is that the instant anyone yells "it's nuke" over the radio the captain will grab the pinpointer and disappear and the syndies might as well just kill themselves because they've got 0 chance of finding him and especially 0 chance of finding him in ten minutes after the AI calls the shuttle.
I think the ability for the Syndicates to spawn one or two "warmer/cooler" non-directional pinpointers would be fine (AS YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU HAD READ THE REST OF THE POSTS)
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KikiMofo Wrote:So if the syndies are spawning on station that would mean they would have normal names? Like when syndies use DNA scramblers? See the problem with that is always no one had anyway of knowing if they are a syndie or not. Some people don't have problems killing a random person just because they look suspicious but some like me just don't do that and that is why the DNA scramblers fuck stuff up alot. I mean in syndie rounds you can ask people to take off their masks to see who they are but if they are scrambled they have nothing. It's fine with normal traitors since they aren't going to be nuking the station but syndies can end rounds with DNA scramblers within 5 minutes. I dunno what can be done about that though if the syndies in this round mode would be normal people.
the entire suggestion is about a stealth syndie mode
i'm not sure how they're going to be able to be stealthy if they spawn as SYNDIE-TECH OPERATIVE #1
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