Technical guide to holoparasites

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Technical guide to holoparasites

Hello. In this guide i am going to explain how holoparasites work in detail going over what exact effect stats have on them as well as explaining each ability. This guide was written with more experienced players in mind who want exact numbers but i belive newer players can benefit from it as well as long as they have basic experience to understand terms used. I hope you find it uselful - a lot of my time was spend code diving and testing things in game to write it. Please point out any mistakes you find and give me feedback. Also im sorry for terrible formatting ;(

Stats

Each stat can have a value from 1-5 referred to as FDCBA in game with 1/F being the worst and 5/A being the best. Increasing stats costs one point.

  • Damage
    The most important stat. You will almost always regret not spending points on it - holoparasites are meant for combat

    • Melee(Default option)
      • Deals 5 * damage stat on hit vs living beings
      • Deals 16 * damage stat on hit vs objects
    • Ranged (costs 3 points)
      • Projectiles deal 1.5 * damage stat on hit
      • Deals 2.5 * damage stat on hit vs living beings
      • Deals 6 * damage stat on hit vs objects

  • Defense
    How much damage host takes when holoparasite is damaged. All damage dealt to holoparasite is transferred to its owner and this stat affects how much of the damage goes through. Below is a list showing how much damage is transferred with each defense level. Unfortunately defense does not provide protection from explosions(proptip - affecting holoparasite with explosion strong enough to gib will kill its owner instantly)

    • F - 100% | 100 DTC (Damage to crit host)
    • D - 80% | 125 DTC
    • C - 60% | 166 DTC
    • B - 40% | 250 DTC
    • A - 25% | 400 DTC

  • Speed
    The delay between holoparasite attacks. Important stat but remember your victims will not be standing still and you might be unable to fully benefit from low cooldown between attacks.

    • Melee
      • F - 2.3s
      • D - 1.1s
      • C - 0.75s
      • B - 0.55s
      • A - 0.45s
    • Ranged
      • F - 0.5s
      • D - 0.25s
      • C - 0.16s
      • B - 0.125s
      • A - 0.1s

  • Potential
    Depends on ability. Tends not to affect abilities too much.

  • Range
    How far holoparasite can move from its host. Range of holoparasite equals ranged stat * 2 however if you dont put any points in this category holoparasite will be buckled to you and unable to move at all.

Abilities

  • Assassin

    • Cost - 4

    • Description - Can enter stealth mode. While in stealth mode holoparasite is almost completely invisible and will deal 50 armor piercing damage. Attacking somebody whiles in stealth mode disables it, makes holoparasite unable to be recalled for 4 seconds and puts stealth ability on a short cooldown.

    • Potential - Affects stealth cooldown. Formula is 7.5s / potential stat. Due to 4 second cooldown on entering the host and inability to enter stealth mode while manifested anything above D will have no effect - dont waste your points.

  • Explosive

    • Cost - 4

    • Description - Holoparasite can turn almost everything including doors and walls into powerful explosive traps by alt clicking it - 20s cooldown regardless of potential. They will activate when somebody touches them (Items will explode when picked up and things like lockers or airlocks when bumped into) instantly putting them into hard crit and usually removing few limbs - however this is not a real explosion and will not damage anything other than the living being which triggered it. Host and holoparasite will not trigger their own traps and can handle trapped items in complete safety unless guardian is dumb enough to detonate them manually while in possession of the host. Guardian is notified when and who activates the trap. The victim gets a message that they triggered a booby trap making it obvious they were a victim of holoparasite.

      Explosive traps can also be detonated manually using “Detonate Bomb” verb in guardians “guardian” tab for a single tile explosion which is about as powerful as the one triggered on touch and which is capable of damaging the station and even the host or holoparasite. This explosion leaves no indication of what caused it which means there is a good chance it will not be attributed to a holoparasite

      Additionally holoparasite attacks now have a 40% chance to cause 3x3 AOE 15 brute armor piercing damage centered on the target(target is affected too) and teleporting the target randomly within a range of 10. Worth nothing teleportation effect can interfere with bluespace equipment - send powergamers to Brazil.

    • Potential - Affects how long objects remain trapped. The time objects remain trapped is
      3 minutes * potential stat

  • Frenzy

    • Cost - 3

    • Description - When manifested host gains 1.5x speed multiplier. On attacking “charges” through the victim teleporting behind them unless the ability is on its short cooldown.

    • Potential - Each point put into this stat shortens the cooldown of charge by 0.2s from basic 2.8s. Additionally, having potential stat A or B will make it so holopara will throw the person they attacked on the tile behind them. Throw can stun a person if they hit something - good in tight spaces.

  • Gravity | WARNING - THIS ABILITY IS HEAVILY BUGGED

    • Cost - 3

    • Description - On attacking applies high gravity which causes slowdown and makes it so picking up items takes a lot of time - this effect lasts until person is far enough away from the holoparasite.

      Alt clicking a tile will apply high gravity to it. This effect is somewhat stronger than the one applied on hit and person affected by it will be taking 1 brute damage every 2 seconds. Tile stops being high gravity when holoparasite is far enough. Cannot be used on space tiles.

    • Potential - Affects how far from the holoparasite high gravity effect stops. Formula is
      2 * potential stat

  • The Hand

    • Cost - 5

    • Description - When holoparasite clicks on a non-adjacent tile it teleports everything from that tile next to the holoparasite. This ability does not interfere with bluespace equipment

    • Potential - Affects teleportation cooldown

      • F - 10s
      • D - 5s
      • C - 3.33s
      • B - 2.25s
      • A - 2s

  • Healing

    • Cost - 4

    • Description - Guardian has medhud. Can enable healing mode. When attacking creatures and objects will heal them instead of damaging while in healing mode. Healing of living beings is affected by potential while “healing” machinery always restores 10% of its max health each click. Will heal brute, burn, oxygen and toxic damage - will not heal clone damage. Worth nothing here that half of the damage transfered from the holoparasite while host is unconscious will be turned into clone damage. Can heal while not manifested but healing amount is halved and capped at 2.

    • Potential - Affects amount of healing each on each click. Formula : 3 + 0.8 * potential stat. Putting any points into this stat is a waste as speed stat will increase healing per second much more and on top of that it does not only affect healing

  • Predator

    • Cost - 2

    • Description - Holoparasite can enter analysis mode in which it can click on blood and items to scan them for DNA and prints. Once persons prints or DNA has been scanned holoparasite can start tracking them at any time which will make pinpointer in upper right corner of the screen point towards them. Selecting tracking target has 60 second cooldown.

    • Potential - If it is at least B when holoparasite starts tracking somebody on another z level it will tell them what z level it is exactly. Also affects tracking accuracy - formula is
      10 / potential stat - 1. This mean that with potential F target can be up to 9 tiles away while with potential A pinpointer will show exact location of them

  • Scout

    • Cost - 1

    • Description - Guardian can enable scout mode when not manifested to become somewhat invisible and incorporeal allowing it to fly around the station like a ghost. Range is not limited while in scout mode but cannot attack.

    • Potential - No effect

  • Time Distortion

    • Cost - 4

    • Description - Holoparasite spawns “doppelgangers” at the location of itself and its host on attack which appear to others as if they were real holoparasite and its host. They vanish after 6 second and will move around randomly twice during their short lifetime. Most players will easily tell apart illusions due to a fact that they dont move around much and dont attack. In my opinion this ability is almost completely useless and waste of points in its current state.

    • Potential - Affects cooldown between creating doppelgangers on attack. The formula:
      13s - potential stat

Minor Abilities

  • Surveillance Snares

    • Cost - 1

    • Description - Guardian can deploy up to 6 invisible snares using verb in guardian tab. When somebody crosses over the snare guardian is notified of who crossed the snare and where it is located. There is a verb to disarm snares but its bugged and doesn’t work - probably best to avoid this ability.

  • Teleportation Pad

    • Cost - 3

    • Description - Guardian can deploy teleportation pad and teleport things to it. Deploying teleportation pad has 5 minute cooldown and teleporting ability needs to be channeled for 6 seconds. Only things adjacent to guardian can be teleported unlike what cursor might hint at. Teleporting interferes with bluespace equipment. Cannot be used in scout mode.

Special Abilities

Can be obtained using mysterious arrow which has a chance to grant random guardian which can include special and using “rare” variants of guardian creators. Only available via adminbus

  • Time Stop

    • Cost - 5

    • Description - Guardian gains timestop spell which stops time in 5x5 area centered around the guardian for 15s. Host and guardian are not affected. Spell has a cooldown of 50 seconds

    • Potential - No effect

  • Absolution

    • Cost - 5

    • Description -

    • Lazy description - While holoparasite is manifested host is invincible and will deflect attacks. That’s all you need to know really but feel free to look below

    • In-Depth description - The following happens when holoparasite is manifested.

      • Host no longer needs to breathe.
      • Attempting to punch or grab the host will deal 15-25 damage to random arm while attempting to shove will always deal 15.
      • Living beings will hit themselves instead if they attempt to hit the host, projectiles and thrown items will bounce back.
      • Explosions will have no effect on the host

    • Potential - No effect

5 Likes
2

Nice! the other day i was wondering about some of the values, very appreciated it!

3

When in doubt go for healing and max out your speed. It’s impossible to tell how good your holopara is being a para (one time I accidentally blew up my host) so with this you can just ask them to keep clicking you non-stop.

Especially useful if you are non-antag and gets hold of the holo injector. You can jump right into a crowd of zombies and laugh at their inability to turn you.

4

Please stop doing this. It’s horribly boring and the only thing pretty much anyone actually uses holoparasites for anymore.

The fact nearly every holopara is healing with the same stats makes me want to go back to before we even had healing holoparasites and they all actually did different things.

2 Likes
5

It’s a perfectly valid tactic, especially since as william said you have no clue how competent your para will be and they’re able to get you killed very easily. Your opinion speaks to an error in the design of paras, they are played that way because it is the only way that is reliable. Don’t take the design error out on the players

6

I never said it wasn’t valid, I’m just begging people to break the mold and do something other than enslave a ghost that wants to do something cool only for them to be a 0 range heal slave that is forbidden from abandoning you to do something fun.

I used to enjoy being a holopara but now 9 times out of 10 I’m just someone’s ghost-bitch with no free will, decison-making or anything even remotely interesting to do.

I had to stop taking the role when it pops up because of how prevalent the healer meta is

if you have ever had issues getting a holopara despite knowing there are ghosts, this is why. It used to be just as fun to be a holopara as it was to have one.

7

Yeah but that’s what stands are, an extension to one’s willpower.

8

I just make scout holoparasite with telepad and i call it “Around the World”. Basicly i ask it to scout, make a pad, teleport back to me, hit me to teleport me there. That’s how i use holoparasites. Plus it sometimes can be amazing. Getting your target dead. Teleport them and yourself far away from everything and then finish disposing of the body.