Have more ERT and Death Squards in rounds

TLDR: Make it so that admins must respond to ERT requests by the Capitan or make it so that ERT is automatically dispatched when red alert is triggered. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective and a lore perspective.


I wish ERT and especially death squads where more common. I have played for about 250h at this point and I don’t remember seeing an ERT, let alone a Death Squad even once.

According to the lore we are in an anarcho-capitalist dystopia. That means that NT’s primary priority is maintaining it’s assets. The station is much more valuable than the crew. Evacuation is not meant to save lives, but to preserve human resources. Yet this is not reflected in the game since evacuation is way more common. Not only does this not makes sense form a lore perspective, but it’s bad for the game in a literal sense because it ends the round. Evacuation and abandonment of the station should be the last step in NT’s policy.

You have multi-trillion credit space station and you are telling me that NT won’t dispatch a ERT to a confirmed blood cult threat? Or a confirmed xenomorph threat? Something that has a very real chance to destroy the entire station and you are telling me that NT won’t dispatch the team that is literally has for these situations?

Take for example loud nuclear operatives. A literal imminent deceleration of hostility with intent to destroy the entire station and you are telling me that CentCom would not IMMEDIATELY send over a death squad to protect the station? Makes no sense at all.

In the real world the second the station goes to red alert an ERT would just spawn automatically. No need to contact CentCom. This roleplay guide for CentCom officials is what really pushed me over the edge on this. The ERT request is mentioned 11 times for proper station protocol. Why? Because it makes sense.


Finally, from a gameplay perspective it will be good for the game. As it stands group antagonists are very steamrolly. For example, blood cult. Either sec find them early, mindshields and arms the crew and then the cult swiftly loses or becomes incapable of doing anything. Or the cult manages to keep it on the dl while they gain a lot of power and then in one swift motion wins the round. Where is the conflict? Not to mention more ghost roles which are always good for the game.

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I support this idea fully, but from advocating for some kind of non-admin dependent method of getting a ERT the main thing that is going against it is that people can abuse this to get a ERT whenever they wanted. Though I think that can be solved by requiring maybe some kind of vote, timer, or maybe just require 5 people to authorize red alert so at least all the heads will need to agree to call it to red alert to get a ERT team.

Though personally I feel like it should also tie into some kind of credit or research cost. Calling a ERT squad is expensive so CC might want to collect on credits and research objectives. Which would mean beside losing credits which are easy to get, the station would have to “re-research” things as CC downloads the results so if it’s a false alarm there is some kind of penalty

also you reminded me I need to finish that inspector guide

You seem to misunderstand the purpose of the deathsquad
its internal cleanup that ICly does not officaly exsist
deathsquads are rare for a good reason, because their one and only purpose is to EXTERMINATE ALL LIFE ON STATION

If at all they are used when say the station rebells against cc, and the inspector is killed, AND the following ERT is also killed - CC might decide to cut their losses (warning : might also have ooc consequences)

You seem to misunderstand the purpose of the deathsquad…

You are right. It makes sense for death squads to be rare, but my points still stand for ERTs.


…people can abuse this to get a ERT whenever they wanted

Unnecessary ERT calls would have IC consequences an if abuse persists OC consequences. It’s a tool of command to be used properly just like alert levels. We have red alert in the game despite the chance that it might get abused.

Though personally I feel like it should also tie into some kind of credit or research cost. Calling a ERT squad is expensive so CC might want to collect on credits and research objectives.

I don’t understand what research would you need to scream to CentCom for help. We don’t have research needed for red alert or a evac shuttle call. And however expensive calling the ERT is it’s certanly much cheaper then replacing a station. We can instantly request and recall the shuttle, but we can’t do that with an ERT. Again makes no sense.

If you are implying that a station should recoup the loses inured by calling the ERT after they do their job then that is a cool idea and and can lead to roleplay™.

I like to imagine that CentralCommand does not know whats going on the station unless they are told/asked. Yes, if its neccary we can always fluff up some reason how they’d know, but most of the time i like to not interfere as CC unless a request is sent.
When a request is sent, i personaly like play greedy and overly suspicous as commander, so i’ll almost always send an inspector first to compile a report on wether or not a full ERT would be needed.

Should that inspector actualy manage to compile a report and send it home (or come back to tell me)
then i’d send an ERT.,

But thats just how i do things.

In general, reluctance to send ERTs and other intereference likey stems from staff not wanting to ruin the antags rounds by sending murderfuckers to end them

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In general, reluctance to send ERTs and other intereference likey stems from staff not wanting to ruin the antags rounds by sending murderfuckers to end them

This is my concern as well. Again from a lore perspective it makes sense that ERTs would be way more common. From a gameplay health perspective while it would make rounds more interesting when antags get the upper hand it would also make rounds where they don’t, but it’s also valid to call and ERT end WAY faster.

so i’ll almost always send an inspector first to compile a report…

This is actually a great idea. It doesn’t make lore sense, but it’s good for round health. Plenty of roleplay opportunity in CentCom officials. The slow speed of the CentCom officials coming, doing the investigation, return the report to CentCom and then finally having the ERT come in sounds like a time sink to allow for antags to do something.

Maybe they can delay the ERT if they kill or delay the CentCom officials report. Since I assume CentCom has a timer that if an inspector doesn’t return they assume station is hecked. This need to happen without admin intervention tho. The Captain should be able to request a ERT inspection at anytime.

This should not just apply to antags threats tho. If there is a pandemic and the station can’t handle it Medical ERT. If the SM delamed and the station is out of power with no one to fix it Engi ERT. Frankly the Engi ERT sounds very damn good for the game health because of how often the station is without power.

lol imagine if you made Revolutionaries instead of steamrolling or losing instantly, after killing all heads an automated message would be sent to CC about revolutionaries demands and game would auto ghost-role deathsquad, so Revs would need to kill deathsquad to fully win their round.

have it like Nukies, Lose scenario - heads are alive, all headrevs die; Semi-Win - Heads are dead, revolutionaries couldnt kill deathsquad ; Win - Revolutionaries killed Heads, Deathsquad and had their leaders survive.

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People only want deathsquad if they are already dead. its not that fun to fight these juggernauts

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In my case, honestly I never get requests by command for an ERT or anything. I’ll try to send inspectors more often though.

Otherwise some of the rare times I see them, its in the middle of like 5 tickets

smol fishy

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i wouldnt mind more moments where you as some of the last surviving crew try and survive and escape whilst avoiding the two fighting titans (ERT/deathsquad and the antags). It doesn’t happen often but its a fun opportunity for interactions and stories.

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Response teams should only ever be used by admins if the round has stalemated and would take an unreasonable amount of time to conclude.

Auto on red alert is sus but I was always told that we should generally send SOMETHING if requested, even if it’s just an inspector at first.

I’ve never been one to send them unprompted because it’d be mean to just give the antags an L for no reason, even if it’s something like xenos. When I have sent one unprompted usually it’d been pretty small unless the round is stale with many dead.

You have to actually ask for an ERT. It’s actually pretty rare for people to ask.

Mods opinion so its meaningless ofc ~

One thing that you should probably understand is the sheer power of an ERT or DS, even in inexperienced hands, especially in experienced hands that are able to work together. One specific experience I can point to is when I was a Code Amber ERT engineer, 6 man ERT, vs about forty five revs that had seized control of the old corg armory (for anyone that didn’t play corg, it was a really good armory. We were able to stay together and completely swing back the round, ending in a victory with 4/5 heads of staff alive/revived. A DS or Juggernaut leaves pretty much zero chance for any antag to live, save very few specific incredibly powerful circumstances which I’ve maybe seen twice. These teams require the guiding hand of an admin to choose when to use them, or else they’d be no fun steamrollers.

Honestly, a lot of the ERTs I thought were good were the ones that went in with objectives that werent “kill valids” and were objectives based around whats happening in the round (Save specific person, collect specific prisoner, etc). Course, that means it cant be done without admins but ERTs do kinda need admins there to give it the go ahead. Without admins, ERTs would be way too frequent and way too steamroll-y

no offense but sending in 6 well armed valid hunters is bad in most cases, and throws alot of stuff off balance.

ERT’s do work if they have specific objectives and goals and if they can avoid steamrolling but this is very hard balance to strike.

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I remember that shuttle was stuck due to revs. Admins just sent the death squad and they killed the captain, while the revheads just hid.

I remember, not to long ago last year, an ERT or DSQ was sent to the station to NUKE that shit cause Xenos, they mostly died Horribly and the captain of either the squad or of the station was the one to actually put the disky into the nuke console.

It’s almost impossible for the crew to defeat a deathsquad without skill and strategy (which just means explosives) because of just how powerful those pulse rifles are.

Take this from someone who sent a death squad to the station before, it’s not that fun of a fight to watch people die in a few quick shots

Just had a idea, what if to get a ERT team you had to put proof in the form of either a body (like the body of a head rev) or an artifact (any cultist item) and that could be used to exbidite getting a ERT sent. At least forces the crew to prove that there is a viable threat, and depending on the situation very handy if there isn’t time to have a inspector check manually. Maybe give the option between submitting proof and having a inspector come down to confirm, gives a way to confirm blobs and allow the inspector to input the nuke code.

Some people here don’t seem to actually understand the purpose of a deathsquad.

They are not meant to be balanced or particulary defeatable.

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