It was brought up a moment ago in staff channels that Abductors could use some love.
How would we go about growing Abductors into a more complete, enjoyable experience which would reflect a round type which is able to maintain itself through the entirety of a round? I feel this is worthy of discussion because there are already a large number of supporting code mechanics for Abductors, and it has the potential to offer an experience beyond “bad man on station try to kill and steal”. If you think Abductors are fine as they are, an event, post up relating to that too.
Discussion topics:
Current Abductor Mechanics
Potential Abductor Mechanics
Abductors as an experience involving more than two players
Methods of interacting with Abductors beyond killing them when they appear
The Spirit of abductors is to be like an ayy oberver trying to experiment and lern about these strange stations, expermenting away on them. Their equipment is powerfull as shit, as is aporpiate for advanced ayys. They bear no ill intent towards crew, only scientific curiosity.
Giving them things to do besides abducting people and brainwashing them with fun RP things might be good though.
Maybe a third person, a second agent would make them more of a presence. At the moment only really seems like an issue if you are alone in maint or dorms. Otherwise the threat and notification can be largely ignored.
They can already have their gear stolen and organs harvested and researched. Not really much else is needed here
I’d like to see more objective variety. Though this would be a ping to coders.
That’s very much the focus of the discussion, yes. Methods of expanding the mechanics of Abductors to make them more interesting, fun, and worth a player’s time. One of the complaints that was brought up briefly in the staff channel is that it’s one of the roles that players simply choose not to accept when it pops up.
thats why it should be a round start type thing, possibly incorpate on station side antags with the goal of extracting a experimented on person/killing one and/or killing a ayylmao
adding a possibility for abductors to /also/ spawn roundstart, along with possible expansions on things to do, sound good to me actualy. 90% of the time abductors spawn when the shittle is about to leave
I’d love to see them become more common, I love playing them and it’s really fun gameplay getting abducted and trying to fight back. The only problem I have is if it’s a bad abductor crew that kills the abducted. I’d love to see a clear message to them to not kill unless it’s needed, and maybe as llol said a chance to spawn roundstart along with the antags.
I’d also love to see them expanded into a real roundstart antag, while still keeping the event, like nuke ops and lone op. If anyone has a good idea of how to expand them, I could take a shot at coding it.
After some thought - I was thinking expanding the concept of abductors to include anywhere from a 4-8 person team of aliens, which all have dedicated roles, and a much bigger UFO. What could those potential be? They should all focus on some sort of experimentation or information gathering relating to the crew.
So basically make them be there from roundstart, otherwise nobody gets to play abductor on LRP because often there are no actual ghosts, so they just don’t spawn in.
I actually saw them a little while ago, but before that I hadn’t seen them for months, and I play at least one round a day.
give abductors one or two monster cells that will let transform crewmembers using surgery into something horrible with some objective.
this “monster cell” Could have some very rare chance to spawn memes like the hivemind
it could work like this - you implant the cell, then you do the experimental brain surgery and if it succeeds the victim will shake violently for minute and they have chance to change into any antag.
This “monster cell” Could either spawn right away or be reward for experimenting on x number of people.
Personally I’m fine with how they are, maybe a BIT more frequent spawn, but if you want to make em special:
Spawn in three teams at once, give them 10 minute to compete between each other, team that gets the most points wins; already experimented on subjects get a marker so you can’t just get them abducted thrice.
Oh i had yesterday a enjoyable abductor round while i was AI. A Borg walled me off to prevent abduction, but guess what, they can bug use and just teleport onto your AI Core and wush your round is over.
Or some days earlier where they implanted me into the chest of some Engineer but due to the incompetence of everyone nobody managed to get me out of the chest of this guy for 30 mins+
Abductors are very fun and dont need more love i think.
I think it’d be cool if one of the things abductors can do to people is subject them to an interactive experiment. You could just re use the ol slider puzzles but new additions would be nice too. Maybe a little maze? Make the crew really feel like lab rats when abducted while also adding more interactivity.
i once had an idea about having a giant abductor ship as a rare midround thing or possibly a new round type where there are a lot more abductors and they have cooler new tools
such as a way to teleport anyone who is standing still long enough (so really only prisoners) into the ufo
or an “advanced disabler” wich is just the advanced baton with some range and a bit weaker
maybe some other stuff like a hardsuit, and some ability to disguise yourself as other people (kill all humans style)
and possibly having the endround goal to scan as many human/oids and animals and stuff and at the rounded the ufo becomes a giant “mob” (like the narsie avitar at cult roundends) wich abducts stuff under it and destroys everything in its path
this wouldn’t even be THAT hard to code (I think anyways) besides probably the rounded ufo thing, tough this is just me rambling and I think the abductors would probably just be op then
as for poential objs aliens could get that could be fun:
implant a bomb into a live crew member, the bomb is very obvious, the person glows red; you need to do surgery to open up the bomb (chest only) then defuse it like a syndicate bomb, would have the radius of a standard syndicate bomb.
study human behaviour under pressure, give an implant that essentially hypno-flashes a crew member into carrying out a antag objective, the twist being that the aliens can watch you and if you deviate from the plan gib you remotely to prevent discovery. Steal X item or get X amount of cash and hand it over to the aliens. (could even be kidnap X person)
A generic ‘experiment on X amount of people’ with special augs
Possibly a harvesting mechanic like the lings where they can get more powerfull subjects if they ‘harvest’ i.e husk kidnapped victims for there human juice, which in turn lets them unlock more meme-y and powerfull tools (like the bomb or something)
Making it so a human can infilitrate the ship if they say, implant themselves remotely with something to counter-act the sleep-stun combo they use with a chemical implant
4-8 is a bit much. Unless full antag, there’s no need for 8 people. Keep in mind nukies are 4 ppl.
Custom objectives to victims
Maybe a “monstruosity” class. Starts in a cage and goal is to escape/not end on the abductor ship. It should break containment and be able to use the console to teleport. Abductor baton naturally sleeps it. I’m thinking, neutered xeno?
Maybe make it like wizard but with teamwork, one ayy on the station with super advanced tech trying to get objectives done but reliant on other ayys back in the mothership that need to support and operate powerful abilities for the agent in the field