In order to hopefully prevent the full removal of swarmers I’ve made a bandage for them that will completely change how they are played and played against. If this bandage is received well I will begin chipping away at a more complete overhaul that finishes pushing them in that newer direction, but if it doesn’t go well they will probably be removed for good.
What is changing?
No more vent crawling, which means no more immediate ore silo deletion and no more scurrying away from conflicts like cockroaches that just saw the light flip on. Swarmers will have to directly engage with crew that tries to interfere
Generally increased combat capability because running away is no longer an option. Swarmers will now fire faster (still only half the speed of a security disabler), while also doing more stamina damage with their melee attacks. Because they will be less able to stockpile resources before being forced into an engagement as well, all of their abilities cost less to use. They also have a bit more HP.
Traps are no longer instant to place, so no more baiting players into an instant stun while running away. However, the traps now do an AoE stun when triggered, and destroying them triggers this effect so they cannot be safely whacked with melee anymore.
Well rip the only fun i had with swarmer. Was really funny annoying a captain so they chased after you, then placing down a trap around a corner so you could eat their sword and teleport them.
i like the changes.
i tend to be a more chill swarmer palyer so i will probalyl miss ventcrawling.
also the no ventcrawling migth also cause issues thats the swarmers migth get rushed early because sometimes they get an announcement and somethimes not.
Part of why they were given a random spawn location + reduced material costs for abilities. Whether outed early or through being discovered, once they’re discovered the fight is on and they will leave a trail of eaten walls and such if they try to leave the general area.
Ah that’s good if they kept spawning on gateway without ventcrawl that would’ve been an insta-death for them and a very meh experience since they wouldn’t manage to impact anything
Progression is cool and I recall ruko discussing some beacon stuff before. I assume that’s part of the “if this gets received well” section mentioned before. Aside from just becoming more buff or making a beacon, what would the end goal of swarmers even be? Building a shuttle like the lavaland one maybe (but functioning)? And then they take off?
That’s something to consider yeah, the Borgs were always the most effective way to deal with them since the traps and lasers didn’t do anything to them so if we ever go the route of them having a beacon or have a few with red lasers there should be something to fight back against cyborgs otherwise a single cyborg easily destroys a beacon since there’s no tools for the swarmers to fight them
The traps do actual burn damage to cyborgs now, where everyone else still only takes stamina damage - swarmers can feasibly kill cyborgs now, though it will involve the cyborg willingly getting close to a trap + manually triggering it, or the cyborg tripping straight through a trap.
As far as the plan I have right now goes, they’d just be defending a central point and gathering resources for it, slowly eating the station in the process. The end goal would really just be the eventual destruction of the station if they weren’t stopped, death by a thousand paper-cuts style.
Giving them an actual end-goal that isn’t a hard round-ender would be rough and probably require a change to their lore. In-lore their ultimate goal is stripping the station down to a husk for takeover.
I basically don’t play these days, but I pretty much thought the same thing. I think Swarmers just needed some direction. They are really easy to rush and kill, and once swarmers are discovered, it becomes very hard to survive even with vent crawling. Their only real problem was that they had no reason to work together, and nothing to work towards but more shells which cap out on ghosts after not that long. The trap changes are good, but I think that Swarmers just need something to actually do. Maybe have a randomized area on the ship become a location that gets set to be dismantled, and it changes every so often for all swarmers. theyll stick together but also not get locked out of the area they need permanently.
But Im also a notorious Pro-Swarmer advocate, so maybe thats just me.
@Ruko Were swarmers always able to eat guns? I had a round where Captain reported that their saber got eaten and i saw a Paramedic lose a hiero staff too, i feel like that wasn’t the case before i could be wrong.
Swarmers can only eat things that have materials, and the saber counts as one, for some reason. you probably can recycle it in an autolathe, now that I think about it.