Intrusion Gamemode

[Cirrial]

Well I've been working on this slowly by myself in secret ("secret"), but after discussion in IRC I feel I should probably bring this idea to the fine people of the Ideas & Suggestions subforum.

TL;DR - RTS-style antagonist where you build structures, control critters like RTS units, start out weak and need to hide and eventually become some sort of horrific storm upon the station of vengeful animals and unnatural effects.

The Idea

The stars are right, or the planes have aligned, or someone poked into dimensions of reality they shouldn't have (yet again, you'd think people would learn but they never doooo)

Something has been awoken, or at least made aware of a strange new reality it never noticed before, and for no adequately explained reason it has surfaced near to a certain Nanotrasen research facility. Weird telescience artifacts? Plasma concentrations? Ancient Martian burial orbit?

However, unlike your typical eldritch presence from beyond the stars, this presence finds this alien reality incredibly difficult to adjust to. It is filled with strange alien thoughts and confusing concepts, both overstimulating and tantalising, and decides that what it wants to do the most, what it really, really wants, is to submerge itself deeper into this universe.

The only issue with this is it is existentially hostile to humanity, and upon fully entering our space will likely end up causing some horrible incomprehensible psychic apocalypse like an ocean claiming a sinking ship. What a tragedy!

The Actual Game Idea That Matters

The Critter Overmind (note: please, please recommend a better name than this, christ) is, much like the blob overmind, an intangible phantom presence that roams the station and its space. Unlike the blob overmind, though, its actual "corporeal" presence lies in/might actually be another dimension. The Overmind is itself a mere component of its greater consciousness, and its destruction is nothing but a minor setback.

Human minds are beyond its comprehension to control, but the wills of lesser organic creatures can be bent to its whim. After spending some time, depending on the will of the targeted critter, the critter will obey the Overmind's instructions.

The Overmind, however, cannot understand the workings of mechanical minds, nor those of other strange extradimensional things like spooky ghosts and the like. These are forever beyond its reach.



The Overmind's goal is to establish and manifest its presence and to avoid being evicted from this reality. It does this by controlling critters and situational approaches.

Approaches

The Overmind will have three modes of operation - Silence, Hum and Clamour. It begins in Silence.

The three modes have vast sweeping effects on all aspects of the Overmind's powers, structures, and critters in its thrall.

• Silence - Critters are more slow to respond to orders, structures function more slowly or less powerfully but are far more hidden (transparent, perhaps even completely invisible without special eyegear), and the Overmind is fairly invisible and undetectable. Overmind speech causes strange barely audible whispering to be heard by humans.
  
• Hum - Critters are responsive and mildly boosted. Structures function at normal rate, but will make the odd quiet sound or effect happen in their vague vicinity. Lingering, eavesdropping Overminds will cause strange experiences to any living brains nearby, including cyborgs. Overmind speech can be heard by humans, but terribly garbled and almost impossible to understand.
  
• Clamour - Critters are incredibly fucking obviously possessed. With higher Presence, they become visibly unnatural and glowy and crackly, etc. Structures function at ridiculous doubled rates but are annoying beacons and klaxons that scream their position to all and sundry. The Overmind's presence causes unnatural phenomena that it has no capacity to change as a direct consequence of its alien existence. Overmind speech is a roaring scream into the minds of all crew, impossible to ignore regardless of distance, but still garbled.
  

Critters and Controls

The Overmind has one ability, and this is to begin asserting its will over a creature. When the critter is under the Overmind's control, it can be sent to different locations and to attack humans and other critters if required.

Shift + right-click will bring up some form of popup menu (design and UI TBD) to allow for setting the critter to guard mode (stay on alert near a point) or patrol mode (stay on alert near a path).

[This is not super well defined -- need to come back to this later, probably]

Presence and Structures

The Overmind's primary resource is Presence, representative of how "deep" it has come to fully entering this reality. Unlike wraiths or blobs, this resource does not accumulate by itself.

The Overmind begins with 0 Presence, and can get [TBD] Presence by placing its first and most important structure, the Manifesting Spire. This structure represents the primary anchor binding this extradimensional presence to this plane of existence, and, if destroyed, will prevent the Overmind from finding this reality ever again (or, well, for a good few dozen human generations, anyway).

As the Overmind grows in Presence, weaker modes of operation such as Silence or Hum become unavailable. Terrible violence is surely inevitable.

Here are the structures that the Overmind can expend Presence to manifest:
[note: have not decided on numeric values for any of this yet]

• Manifesting Spire - [-TBD Presence] - The only available structure to begin with. The weak point of the Overmind. A bit like the blob nucleus, except without the ability to have several. Defend it well.
  • Silence - At low Presence, invisible. At higher Presence, transparent.
    
  • Hum - Visible, with the odd strange message to people nearby. Regenerates health slowly.
    
  • Clamour - Sparks/glows/noisemakes. Higher Presence makes the effect larger in radius. Creates unnatural phenomena around
    
• Crystalline Conduit - [TBD Presence] - All structures must be linked to the Spire orthogonally due to extradimensional geometry something or other. As this puts some incredible restrictions on what can be built, the Conduit can extend the range of what can be built. As long as a structure is connected to the Spire by a series of orthogonally-aligned Conduits, it will function, else it will stand idle. As an added bonus, any critters near the Conduit will be converted more quickly.
  • Silence - Completely invisible. Not invulnerable, however, as explosions will still damage them.
    
  • Hum - Transparent.
    
  • Clamour - Visible, some sparking effects around them in the directions of anything that the Conduit connects to.
    
• Presence Collector - [TBD Presence] - This is the means of gathering Presence. In the presence of living minds, this manifestation collects and processes the experiences and perspectives of creatures native to this reality. Controlled critters do not contribute to this, as their experiences and perceptions are being warped by an alien presence.
  • Silence - Low collection (+??? Presence per living thing per tick), invisible.
    
  • Hum - Transparent, middling collection (+??? Presence per living thing per tick), strange messages towards people, some minor stamina decreases for humans very close to the Collector.
    
  • Clamour - Bright and glowy, works at incredibly higher efficiency, causes stuns and stamina loss to anything trying to destroy it directly. (+??? Presence per living thing per tick)
    
• Whisper Formation - [TBD Presence] - Slowly converts critters nearby automatically without need to directly do so.
  • Silence - Very rare hint messages to non-critters, and rare messages about strange behaviour and discomfort of nearby critters, and an incredibly slow conversion rate.
    
  • Hum - As with Silence, but tells are more frequent and conversion rate is faster.
    
  • Clamour - Sounds and effects and critters that are affected are clearly marked.
    
• Memetic Block - [TBD Presence] - Hides other structures nearby.
  • Silence - Visible, small radius of effect.
    
  • Hum - Visible, larger radius of effect.
    
  • Clamour - Other structures are transparent instead of invisible, and the Block sparks and crackles and makes weird sounds.
    
• Patient Siren - [TBD Presence] - Anything human that passes by the Siren alerts all critters in patrol range to the intrusion and sends them to the area to defend it.
  • Silence - Invisible (silent alarm activated!)
    
  • Hum - Invisible until activated, long time until it deactivates and becomes invisible again.
    
  • Clamour - Visible, and goes off like a damn car alarm when triggered.
    

Unnatural Phenomena

This is still TBD, but the general idea is fancy damage effects in a field, such as eldritch lightning arcing around the place, weird colour shifts that deal mild brain damage, weird fluids seeping in from the cracks in reality, or even critters that shouldn't be around finding themselves teleported onto the station, confused and enraged. Basically, this is a giant TODO. Suggestions incredibly welcome.


I'm aware there's probably a lot of things I've overlooked, and any suggestions to make this fit into Goonstation better are strongly, strongly requested.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? "ur idea is dum"? Please post away!

[aft2001]

Very well thought out, creative, and just interesting! I'd imagine this'll take *ages* to make but it'd be fun to have a being of chaos slowly overtake the station as everyone desperately tries to hinder it and succumbs to brain damage and horrible psychological and memetic effects.

yes pls

[Cirrial]

The ironic thing is I thought "hm, before I get cracking on Martian mode I should make a simple antag and game mode first to see if I can do it."

sorry Sundance

[ZeWaka]

a thought: what do you mean by critters?
monkeys? roaches? ants? spiders?

we don't really have much, so if there is critters all around it's pretty much "intrusion gamemode, find spire now AI"

heck spiders and ants arent even critters

[aft2001]

Maybe eventually have the ability to mindslave mobs? Like, if it's a monkey then maybe you'll be able to mindslave/control it at Hum, and if it's a human/player/cyborg (not AI) you have to reach Clamour.

However, you should only be able to do it to one thing at a time (except with monkeys. In Clamour you can make a hoard of monkeys!) and it will do severe brain damage over time, as well as nasty brain-based genetic defects such as speech impairment, motor dysfunctions, behavioral issues, etc.

Also *possibly* control electronic-based things such as doors and computers and PDAs and manufacturers and etc. Only one at a time with a cooldown, and has a 10% chance of E-Magging it and a 5% chance of breaking it permanently.

[Mageziya]

Hello yes, this is the person who made the overmind sprite. This actually seems like an interesting antagonist, the big catch to everything feels like what Byond is capable of doing. I don't know how critter code works, but some of these things feel like they're pushing it.

Though in terms of game designs, here are several thoughts that I have:

While interaction/goal that the overmind has with the crew is very clear, (Kill da crew, rip the world apart), the interaction that the crew itself has with the overmind is a little fuzzy. The crew doesn't seem to have a proper way of addressing the overmind itself, only it's buildings. This makes my mind quickly go to the images of the utter war that the crew can wage on the blob, a base building antagonist, and how absolutely brutal it is. The moment the crew learns it's possession mode, everyone is going to go ham and hunt down those buildings as fast as possible, at least until the apathy that familiarity brings sets in. Buildings are interesting, but with the concept of limiting their placement location, an examination of their role and function needs to be examined. I suppose that the critters are what the crew interacts with: Fighting off wave after wave of critter as they hunt down the buildings.

That said, unless I missed something, where is the overmind getting it's critters from? The station doesn't get that many critters, only a handful of mice, roaches, and bees (Oh god this mode would turn bees on the crew. That's amazing, we need it ASAP). I could see diversifying into an RTS style and allowing the creation of buildings that automatically create critters. Could make things like, a "Roach Hatchery" to start out, make a "mouse den", have a "bee hive" be a high level building, ect. This could maybe be explained by having the buildings be "warps" for critters from other places. Top tier critters could also be designed in the aesthetic of the overmind, where subtlety is no longer needed, only sheer power.

Though, thinking about this, beyond wreaking havoc upon the crew, what is the victory condition of the overmind? Building certain structures? Building enough structures in general? Collecting enough presence? And then again, how can the crew combat the victory conditions.

All said, I'm willing to make more sprites for this.

[misto]

you can name the critter overmind "the intruder" itll be cool

but

u will need to have a structure that summons more creature, or u will run out too quickly the moment ppl notice trouble and start slaughtering the on-station supply

[NateTheSquid]

security will rush for the monkey dome at any signs of an intruder.

I love this idea though it seems neeeeeaaattttttt

[misto]

a special power that lets u rupture vendachimps to free the bounty within

[Mageziya]

Funny thing is I think monkeys are considered Mobs, so this thing likely wouldn't be able to control them.

Then again, a high level ability probably should be able to make use of monkeys.

[Wraithcraft]

I like this idea, but the overall lack of critters on station is saddening.

[misto]

maybe you could command the critters to begin multiplying? big swarm of mouse and roach

also uh, the lack of critters on station could be helped if that xenobiology dept thing ppl sometimes suggest existed. then there would be more variety of creature

[Cirrial]

So it turns out I forgot to look through ALL of my notes, to my chagrin, so here's some of that along with some of the points mentioned here:

• Monkeys and possibly even NPC humans (not player controlled humans, even if braindead) should be contenders for control, but as mentioned it will require establishing more Presence first.
  
• I'm especially loathe to allow mindslaving because I can easily see humans running around screaming HEY HEY HEY I'M YOUR WILLING DEVOTED SERVANT PLEASE CONTROL MY BRAINS SO I HAVE A BLANK CHEQUE TO GO ON A MURDER SPREE, although the overmind gets resources from things not being killed and any explosions would potentially damage its minions and structures, so there would be some limit to how much destruction a mindslave could get away with.
  
• I did have the idea for "critter nests" where critters could be told to take food items on the ground and gather them into a tile to be used as nest building materials, and which would passively spawn more critters as you had critters roaming the station in search of food, but I thought the concept might have been adding even more complexity to an already unconventional and game-changing antagonist. Perhaps it'd be best to have some sort of portal structure instead as suggested. I like Mageziya's ideas for specific structures per critter type, too.
  
• as are the ideas for critters representative of other parts of the intruder seeping through, I like that a lot
  
• One potential counter to "oh hey, critters are acting weird, AI look for weird glowy shit" is that the buildings initially start off completely undetectable until the intruder has enough Presence to start defending itself properly. This does however cause a problem of a lazy intruder just sitting pretty and causing mild mischief without revealing itself, but this problem more or less exists for a lot of special antags already (wraith and blob could sit there and do nothing the entire round)
  
• I originally wanted there to be some way to make the intruder's actual mob visible and manifest and damageable but I thought that might be getting into wraith's territory too much. Although, if destroyed, what would happen is the intruder is completely out of play for some amount of time and loses some amount of Presence (potentially all of it) and has to wait to tunnel through back into this dimension with some new part of itself. 
  
• Related to the intruder being vulnerable itself, I was at one point considering that human speech would cause it some sort of stamina harm until it manifested, and then I immediately realised how godawful an idea this was and threw it into the rubbish. Suggestions for weird idiosyncratic weaknesses that force manifestation (that are not related to salt piles) incredibly welcome.
  

[locusts]

The nest suggestion is a good way to address overall lack of critters, as that's the biggest issue I can see with this. Maybe in the lowest intrusion mode you can teleport random critters in, in case the crew has been evil and spaced all the critters on the station.

[medsal15]

-Get spooky with telesci
-Summon a syndie NPC
-Control it
-Win