Syndicate Drone: A Pacifist Antagonist.

[Lady Birb]

For a while I had the idea of an antagonist that was worse at killing than even a normal player, outright forcing them to use stealth, while still being enough of a threat/annoyance that the crew will feel motivated to deal with them. Meet the syndicate drone.

Wait, what is that drone doing to the quantum telescope?

Syndicate drones would look identical to normal drones normally, but they lack an RCD or any of a normal drone's laws. They must use their abilities to avoid drawing the suspicion of the crew while stealing Nanotransen data.

A Drone's Tools

Syndiedrones, as mentioned above, lack an RCD. In exchange, they have larger batteries and more importantly, proper hands rather than the inconvenient and clunky magtractors. Don't think they can use this for murder though, their small hands mean they can't use guns and may drop items if they are using them as melee weapons and deal less melee damage, and even their built-in tools deal next to no damage and no stamina damage. They can also speak but that is rather useless in most cases as anyone will be able to tell you are a syndiedrone if you talk.

For self defense, they have a radio-jamming pulse they can use to shut off the headsets of anyone nearby for a few seconds, and a single-shot taser that stuns in one hit, but takes thirty seconds to recharge and makes a VERY obvious noise when used compared to normal tasers. These things are slippery bastards, but don't expect one to actually kill you.

Corporate espionage

A Syndicate drone's objective is to steal data from various consoles across the station. To do this, it is equipped with a USB drive tool that it can use to begin downloading data from a terminal or computer. As the drone transfers the data from the terminal to itself, the terminal will slowly become corrupted in increasingly visible ways, first experiencing a slight lag when receiving commands, then randomly not registering commands, then suffering from visible glitches, and finally wiping the terminal's mainboard, rendering the computer useless.

As you download data, you would gather data points, or "DP", with wiping a computer getting you around 100 DP. DP is split into six categories based on the terminal you collect from: Engineering(Mineral magnet controls and basically anything related to the power grid), Medical(Medical consoles, surgical computers, cloning/genetics computers, and the pathology terminal), Robotics(AI upload, robotics control, and the module rewriter), Research(The quantum telescope, the mainframe, and the different teleport computers), Customs(ID terminals, bank records, and supply computers), and Security(secmate and camera terminals).

Upgrades and unlocks

As a syndiedrone collects DP, it will unlock new powers depending on the type of points it has so far. In general, drones get a "Single target" power for self defense and fleeing at 100 DP of a type, and a single-use "Chaos" that has the syndicate using the data and access you got them to have some fun with the station at 1000 DP of a type(could be a different amount depending on the map) .

• Medical single-target: Nerve Shock. One minute cooldown. Melee range. Different effect depending on body part targeted. Targeting a limb will render it useless for 30 seconds. Targeting the torso will cause a large amount of stamina loss and stop their stamina from regenerating for ten seconds. Targeting the head will blur their vision and cause screenshake and braindamage-like symptoms for ten seconds.
  
• Medical chaos: Mass Equipment Malfunction. Causes the cloner, enzymatic reclaimer, and all defibrillators and hyposprays to spontaneously and permanently become emagged. Maybe if we want to keep syndiedrones as useless in actual combat even after they reach their endgame make them take damage if they pick up an emagged item because the sparks hurt them or whatever.
  
• Engineering single target: Battery Drain. one minute cooldown. Disables the targets PDA for thirty seconds, as well as any items they have that can be toggled on/off like flashlights, mesons, t-ray scanners or siren helmets.
  
• Engineering chaos: SMES Unit Overload. Causes all SMES units expect the one targeted to have their power redirected to this one, while every APC connected to this particular SMES unit to behave like it is connected to a hardwired engine, shocking people, electrifying doors, and blowing out lights.
  
• Robotics single target: Borg Powercell Sabotage: 30 seconds cooldown. Basically your taser but for borgs, instantly draining the target's powercell to zero and stunning them.
  
• Robotics chaos: Ion Artillery Strike. Instantly causes the equivalent of three ion storms hitting the station at once and fries the killswitch and upload terminal. Good luck getting enough points for this with how few robotics terminals there are on the station, but if you can get that many the mayhem will be worth it.
  
• Research single target: Stealth Teleport Gun. One minute cooldown. Teleports the target to a random nearby location. Target can only be sent to areas that have atmosphere.
  
• Research chaos: Chemistry Flood. Causes all chemistry dispensers to start dispensing random chemicals before foaming them every minute. Hope you are not standing anywhere near research when you use this.
  
• Customs single target: Access Download. One minute cooldown. Wipes the target's ID card for thirty seconds, and permanently gives you any access they had. 
  
• Customs chaos: Anarchy Protocol. Removes all access requirements from every door, terminal, and locker, and send an announcement to the station along the lines of "This is the syndicate speaking. We just wiped the stations ID records, effectively gaving everyone all access. Have fun."
  
• Security single target: ziptie fabricator. Not a skill, but an upgrade to your taser. Now anyone you stun with it will also instantly have a pair of weak ziptie cuffs applied. They can be broken out of very quickly once the stun wears off, but still makes syndiedrones an even bigger pain in the ass to catch than they already were.
  
• Security chaos: Beepsky's Wrath. Permanently sets everyone on the station to arrest and double-emags any securitrons on the station. Time for justice to be delivered!
  

Feel free to point out any balance tweaks you would like to see.

Your Actual Objectives
No antagonist would be complete without busywork you can do if you want greentext, Here are some idea I thought up:

• Acquire X total DP (X depends on the map and the number of wipeable terminals available)
  
• Acquire X DP of a specific type
  
• Wipe a specific "High Risk" terminal (High risk terminals are ones that are one-of-a-kind and frequently used, like the AI upload, ID computer, or cloning console. Something that everyone will notice if it is wiped)
  
• Survive until the end/escape on the shuttle alive (Self-explanatory)
  

In conclusion

Whew, this was a lot to type. Anyone who happened to read "Worst moments ever" around march and april would know about my woes with repeatedly losing all my work on this particular suggestion.  Once again, feedback is appreciated and encouraged, and hope you all had a great time reading this! <3

[Mageziya]

This actually sounds cool. I don't have the time to read over everything at the moment, but the ability to mess with literally every piece of equipment of one type at once seems a little... too much, though I see how it ties into the goal of causing chaos on a station level.

A major problem I can think is that people seeing a ghost drone early in the round will instantly become suspicious, but at the same time, this drone seems to have tools to be based on hiding out of sight, as opposed to hiding in plain sight.

That said, it could have a feedback loop where people kneejerk and kill all ghost drones on sight, as they can technically do that with the way drones are a currently treated. This would mean that no one would be a ghost drone, and in turn, the only people playing ghost drone would be these antagonists, giving people to kill all ghost drones on sight, and so on.

[Lady Birb]

That said, it could have a feedback loop where people kneejerk and kill all ghost drones on sight, as they can technically do that with the way drones are a currently treated. This would mean that no one would be a ghost drone, and in turn, the only people playing ghost drone would be these antagonists, giving people to kill all ghost drones on sight, and so on.

That was a concern I had while coming up with this. My solution is to only make them available as latejoin antagonists. And normal ghostdrones can prove they are innocent just by using their RCD, as syndiedrones don't have one. Though that could result in scenarios like this:

Asshole Mcturbonerd says "Hey, drone! Use your RCD right now or I am going to kill you!
Drone-Rho 66 fires the taser at the floor!
Asshole Mcturbonerd is hit by the taser bolt!
Asshole Mcturbonerd stammers "HEELP DRONE-RHO 66 IS A SYNDIE!"

(I don't actually remember the naming system for drones so I am going off of the borg names)

[Berrik]

If anything, I'd say this sounds TOO weak. Most of the 'chaos' options are an inconvenience at best.

[Lady Birb]

If anything, I'd say this sounds TOO weak. Most of the 'chaos' options are an inconvenience at best.

Which ones in particular feel weak? I was worried ones like SMES overload (Note: When I said that it would redirect power to the targeted SMES, I meant that everywhere that isn't connected to that specific SMES would completely be drained like there's a powersink) and Ion Artillery would be too powerful.

[NateTheSquid]

Sounds good but maybe not as a ghost drone stealthy thing? I'd say an easily hidden but obvious to spot thing would work well. sounds like a predator with my logic but eh.

Late joining only would also work

edit: what if its just a small chance for regular drones to spawn as these? maybe not, cause either people would spam drone or normal drone players would be upset if they just wanted to build stuff

[Lady Birb]

Sounds good but maybe not as a ghost drone stealthy thing? I'd say an easily hidden but obvious to spot thing would work well. sounds like a predator with my logic but eh.

Late joining only would also work

edit: what if its just a small chance for regular drones to spawn as these? maybe not, cause either people would spam drone or normal drone players would be upset if they just wanted to build stuff

One of my ideas that didn't make the final cut was having them be a bee-sized, syndicate colored, light borg.

---

Another idea I remembered now was that they would be good Destiny antagonists. Their lack of general destructive or lethal abilities stops them from going on rampages, while the RP rules mean that:

1. People won't be able to interrogate them on sight when they see a drone one minute into the round
   
2. People will actually have a reason to go after them when they learn what is going on (Protecting Nanontransen secrets!)
   

[Cirrial]

Y'know, I like this idea. My only objection is making them look like regular ghost drones. I think with some buffs they can work without the blending in with other ghost drones. I really, really, really don't like the idea of any sort of game mechanic that requires people to view ghost drones as potential threats -- they're supposed to be more like stagehands working in the background than active main players.

So I'd prefer to make them look unique and rely on their abilities to remain hidden. If that makes life too hard they can always get some buffs to adjust.

edit: wow that's some redundancy. also if they're too weak they can get buffs and if they're too weak they can get buffs

double edit: should probably give them the chameleon projector as a starting item in all honesty

triple edit: I'm not sure about the command lag/lack of responsiveness for the terminals as a tell, that's probably just going to be blamed on BYOND lag.

[Gannets]

There's some neat ideas here. imho they should have a unique look, but carry that traitor disguise projector thingy so they can remain unseen when folks walk in on them.

Also, maybe some of the powers could be targeted at specific areas/departments rather than being global?

[Berrik]

A more insidious use of the chemistry one would be fixing the dispensers such that they dispense the wrong chems instead of just causing them to spew forth and lag everything to shit.

Basically, randomize what chem actually comes out when a nerd clicks it. Same for the soda fountain and alcohol dispenser.

[Lady Birb]

So making them look like normal ghostdrones is a no-go, from the looks of it. As I said before, my idea for making them look different would be tiny red and black light borgs. Cirrial's idea of giving them chameleon projectors is a good idea.

A more insidious use of the chemistry one would be fixing the dispensers such that they dispense the wrong chems instead of just causing them to spew forth and lag everything to shit.

Basically, randomize what chem actually comes out when a nerd clicks it. Same for the soda fountain and alcohol dispenser.

That would likely just result in everyone using the dispensers once and than not touching them for the rest of the round when they realize they are hacked. An alternate idea for research chaos ability I had was the syndicate hijacking the teleporters and teleporting in a bunch of angry shotgun wielding syndicate NPCs, but that sounds a bit ridiculous.

[Gannets]

I kind of like the idea of a slow-burn, non-violent antag getting to summon a squad of goons after they've done enough hard work across a fairly long round.

Maybe if they get enough points they could pop an Alien Invasion random event that'd poll two or three dead players to join up as a syndicate attack force. The same way mid-round antagonists already work now.

It'd give you a reason to keep your eyes out for them, to stop them from reaching that goal. But maybe it goes against the concept of them being largely peaceful, background antags.

[Frank_Stein]

How about a special chameleon projector that keeps a record of things scanned, so you have a list of disguises to choose from?

Put the normal bots like securitron on the list at start.

Rather than summoning more antags, maybe they power up to a ramapage anatag? Like the transform, Deception style, into a killdozer homicide vehicle and can run people down in the halls

Pacifist, eh.... How about they spend points to create events? Those randomized things that happen during rounds.

[medsal15]

Add a turn lights off options for them. You dont want to be caught in the dark, do you.

[Lady Birb]

Pacifist, eh.... How about they spend points to create events? Those randomized things that happen during rounds.

That was the idea behind the chaos powers, but I guess I didn't make them destructive enough. I still would like to see ideas for how to make the chaos powers be destructive enough that the crew feels motivated to stop a syndiedrone simply out of fear that they could potentially reach the threshold for chaos powers.