Clockwork Cult (now off of rotation, suggestions go in this thread)

[Oldman Robustin]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Xhuis take time to read what I post man.

I said there would be a CV (construction value) limit per lane so that CC defenses would have to be split evenly.

Power needs to have strategic coherence. Right now it simply doesn't. You grab a space suit (almost effortless) and then dump a bunch of stargazers way off station where nobody will find them.

Power should be a resource, gathering and managing it SHOULD matter. When you just act like cancerous cheese strats are all part of the master plan it makes it seem like you have no plan at all. Why not just give the cult infinite power (or just remove the mechanic) if you think it should just be there as a joke to fuck over people who don't abuse it. Because that's the current divide. Either you cheese power with gazer spam in space and have 300k or you try to "play as intended" and have 10k when the crew shows up.

I wanted you to pull this off given what contributors have to go through to get big shit done around here, but then you quickly resort to shit talking a mode I never asked to have back and never finished work on because of coderbus politics (something you should relate to). Gang in poor form when it got removed and I made several critical QOL improvements (no more wallspam, a reasonable influence system).

Then I added a bunch of stuff with the intent of going to no-security version (something Kor strongly believes in) only to get cockblocked because that version took an extraordinary amount of work, was difficult to get tested, and was actively sabotaged by two maintainers and a headmin - when I finally started getting a no-sec version in good shape the server poll shows 2/3'rds in favor of keeping Gang War but they were split between wanting a "classic" version with the new features and a "vigilante" no security version. I tried to weight the mode about 50/50 with each version but neither side was satisfied with that compromise so I just gave up and took a break. The mode was half-finished and it showed, dozens of bugs and several major imbalances were all addressed in my final PR but it was never merged, we got a summer with an unfinished mode, and after I was gone support dipped from 2/3rds to under half, which makes perfect sense - even I couldn't stand playing the incomplete version and wanted it gone until there would be a serious effort to have it updated.

This was all because PKP brought gang back, I was bored and I felt it had potential, and nobody else wanted to touch it. Bloodcult has been my passion for almost 2 years now and it's been one of the SS13 classics, brought back from the dead and its now solidly within my top 3 favorite modes. Aside from Warops it's the only successful mode update we've seen for several years.

I want CC to succeed too but for some reason you want to make this personal. It's got huge issues but Kor has handed you the reins and instead of being proactive you're sitting here trying to balm your ego. The only balance changes you've made in the past 2 weeks were things I explicitly told you to change. It's frustrating playing this mode every day knowing that you have no interest in some of the most appallingly unfun aspects. CC without some serious attention is going to take the exact same trajectory that Gang did when I abandoned it, RIP in Peace.

[oranges]

I've reposted Robustin's post with all the extraneous whinging about gangs and maintainers and balming egos

I said there would be a CV (construction value) limit per lane so that CC defenses would have to be split evenly.

Power needs to have strategic coherence. Right now it simply doesn't. You grab a space suit (almost effortless) and then dump a bunch of stargazers way off station where nobody will find them.

Power should be a resource, gathering and managing it SHOULD matter. When you just act like cancerous cheese strats are all part of the master plan it makes it seem like you have no plan at all. Why not just give the cult infinite power (or just remove the mechanic) if you think it should just be there as a joke to fuck over people who don't abuse it. Because that's the current divide. Either you cheese power with gazer spam in space and have 300k or you try to "play as intended" and have 10k when the crew shows up.

Anyway, you're entitled to criticise but Xhuis doesn't have to listen to you, dont' take it personally, move on and focus on other things

[Nabski]

The APC giveaway smoke might be a bit much since it's supposed to be the stealth option to stargazers. The fact that they can stare into space is semi questionable but meh.

Had an interesting round the other day where clock declared war and I'm doing toxins, plus trying to teach a new scientist heater freezer bombs. Three of the starting cultists attacked toxins. All three got dunked (RD, Me, HOS showed up for the third one and even arrested/deconverted me for having a slab and toolbelt). Watching an area be contested like that was neat.

I personally like the alien abductor style of cult, but have mostly been ignoring base building.

Best failure would be the time I brought an assistant back to Reebe to convert them, and they got out of grip while still cuffed and ran into the safe area. We walled it off and went on our way. When I eventually died there were about 10 ghosts watching "Conor?", with a pAI there trying to help him out.

[Xhuis]

Thinking back on what I said last night, you're correct in that it wasn't you who brought gang to its knees, but the two childish maintainers who worked against it to ensure that people hated it and by extension you. Given my vent, it seems that they succeeded in that, and I retract my earlier statements. What I said was both incorrect and harsh of me, and I'd like to apologize for having insulted you personally based on your own gripes with the mode, which you're completely allowed to have.

Now then, after some sleep I'm a lot more coherent, and I'd like to take a second to actually address your concerns without being unfairly scathing.

Power has no strategy involved, and either exists or does not

In a perfect world, this would indeed be the case. You've been around long enough and coded enough things, however, that I think you're fully aware of the attention span of an average tg player. I'm unsure if making power more than a feast/famine resource by design would prove effective or not. Most people don't often plan ahead and only think in the here and now - if power exists, then there's no need to worry about it, and if it doesn't, then there is. Planning ahead and rationing power doesn't occur to a lot of people, and it's why most of our antagonists have simple premises with simple execution.

Overall, if it's to be done, I'll have to give it a lot of thought.

Cogs aren't stealthy enough and stargazers can be parked in space for infinite power

These are both valid complaints that I intend to address. I didn't consider that cogs could be heard from offscreen when I made them; their intention was to only be obvious if they hissed out steam to anyone who could directly see them, but this has proven not to be the case. The only obvious solution that occurs to me is outright removing the hard tells in favor of keeping the soft tell of 25% power being maintained, and I think I'll do that sometime today.

Stargazers are meant to be obvious, easy to find, and fragile, at the tradeoff of giving a huge amount of power. While putting them in space is a legitimate strategy, it's also cheesy and unfun for the players. I think I'll add a restriction on them that prevents them from activating in a tile that was space from the outset of the round, so that they have to be built on-station.

Lanes with CV?

I've already stated why I dislike this idea. I think that it discourages creativity with base designs and that servants might end up blockading two lanes with incredibly annoying defenses to funnel the crew into one lane where all of them are waiting. Thinking on it, though, this is a perfectly legitimate strategy, and one that isn't infallible. I personally am happy with the open-ended design that exists currently, but I'll be the first to say that it's a rather huge amount of space that has be to covered; maybe a little too much. I'll take it into consideration, however.

Edit: I've made a patch to power generators on GitHub that anyone interested may want to review.

[Xhuis]

I should note that GitHub appears to be having a mental breakdown and I can't log in, so I can't answer any questions in the PR.

[Shezza]

virgin clockcult

chad hulks

[Durkel]

How can clock boys even compete?

[Anonmare]

tbh if someone tried to add Hulk to Genetics today, it would never get in

[Xhuis]

virgin clockcult

chad hulks

[Nabski]

This might be shitposting, but wait those are chamo jumpsuits?!

[DemonFiren]

another reason neets are objectively superior

[Xhuis]

This might be shitposting, but wait those are chamo jumpsuits?!

They are indeed chameleon.

[Yakumo_Chen]

As with other team modes it seems almost impossibly hard when there's decent players on the cult side and laughably easy when there is not. Dealing with hellish defenses like wall spam is incredibly irritating, especially when combined with a shitload of runes that are invisible, and doubly so when you have un-killable respawning mauraders and cogscarabs that just build back defenses the moment you're forced to retreat. I really hate having to secure the plasteel every shift it's confirmed because I know if cult gets any it will make going through the base 20 times worse and a lot of the plasteel is hidden away in very non-public or rarely used areas like Aux Construction and EVA, and Engineering Storage about 5 minutes after the shift starts.

The APC cogs are also incredibly obnoxious to get rid of as you can't unlock APCs with cogs in them unless you're a cyborg, which makes getting it out pretty much not worth it anyway.

Science (and by extension, genetics) is a hard counter and I've seen rounds where a single gygax just steamrolls in and destroys the ark in less then half a minute if one is ever allowed to be built and survive till the ark turns on and I've not seen hulk spam yet but I would imagine it would be a lot of the same.

Trying to get rid of power sources seems almost pointless since cult is generally going to have way more then enough power to do anything if they're half-competent so hunting for stargazers doesn't feel effective at all.

[Dr_bee]

The APC cogs are also incredibly obnoxious to get rid of as you can't unlock APCs with cogs in them unless you're a cyborg, which makes getting it out pretty much not worth it anyway.

Science (and by extension, genetics) is a hard counter and I've seen rounds where a single gygax just steamrolls in and destroys the ark in less then half a minute if one is ever allowed to be built and survive till the ark turns on and I've not seen hulk spam yet but I would imagine it would be a lot of the same.

These are the 2 biggest issues I have with clock cult currently now that I have had a chance to play on both sides.

There was one round where the cult almost exclusively attacked the science department, even going to far as to burn down robotics and then BoH bomb RnD, only for a single gygax that we somehow missed end what would have been an interesting fight in less than a minute due to the wall rush power.

Hard counters dont make for interesting gameplay, as we tend to see in blob mode on highpop. They lead to repetitive meta strats that HAVE to be done if you want any chance at winning. Clock cult basically has to take the science department if they even hope to last more than 2 minutes against hulk/gygax spam.

Also the APC thing feels like a bug to me, I found a way around it as CE by using the remote access console in the CE office to unlock the APC frames before I went to them. Fix the bug and remove the tells outside of reading the power storage and it will be perfect.

[Xhuis]

I understand the balance issues with Science, but it's a bit of a strange spot. Science is by nature a counter to everything; every single tech advancement is gained from Science alone. If the cult targets them, of course the offense will be crippled; but if they don't, it's very easy for the servants to be crushed easily. The only thing I can think of to fix this is adding a defense against mechs, but that in itself poses a lot of issues.

Cogs are meant to be obnoxious to get rid of compared to how quickly you can cog an APC; they're very slow and often not worth using once stargazers have been built. The unlocking thing is a bug, however, and it should be easy to fix. There was also a recent change merged that removed their obvious giveaways.

Destroying stargazers doesn't have any obvious tangible reward, but the repercussions of a stargazer setup being destroyed are actually very strong. They're designed in such a way that not having them halts power generation except for cogs (which are meant as a trickle or backup) and so forces the cult's attention elsewhere. If you take out some stargazers, nothing will change for a time, but the servants will soon realize their power gain has slowed to a crawl and cult activity will diminish while they set up more power. A PR was recently merged that prevents them from being built in space, so this is doubly true. If you constantly apply pressure to stargazers and the servants make no effort to build them in somewhat-hidden places, their defenses will end up very lacking since brass is very expensive to produce by design. You can think of stargazers as on/off switches rather than just generators; with stargazers the servants have power to build, and without them they generally do not.

Having to secure plasteel and other materials is fine in my eyes. It's just one of many strategies that the cult can use and I view it as organic that the servants and crew will compete for sensitive resources and manpower.

The most obvious issue is clearly mechs, but I remain unsure how to address it short of a hard counter, and I'm very on the fence about that.

[Hathkar]

Maybe there could be a sigil or device that corrupts nearby mechs. Either it can rapidly drain the mech's power, do damage, hit it with EMPs, or just corrupt its systems so it only works for cultists.

[onleavedontatme]

Maybe I'm rationalizing the winrates but I actually like that the crew wins most of the time in the mode.

Most other antags the crew just serves as a punching bag, having something everyone gets to feel useful in and get their happy ending (at a great cost in lives/after a big brawl) is a nice change of pace.

Cult could definitley stand to be a bit stronger but I think it'd get miserable if we buffed them enough to get a 50% winrate

[Dr_bee]

Maybe there could be a sigil or device that corrupts nearby mechs. Either it can rapidly drain the mech's power, do damage, hit it with EMPs, or just corrupt its systems so it only works for cultists.

Or have running into brass walls damage a mech significantly, by say 20%. You can still use a gygax mech as a makeshift battering ram that way, but you are giving up a valuable combat platform to make an opening in the defenses.

It keeps mechs as a huge threat but removes their ability to end the fight completely in 2 minutes.

[DemonFiren]

bad idea but
absurdly powerful emp emitter that hits all electronics on reebe, but also shuts down clock structures
cucktures?
to prevent feedback damage

mechs, borgs and energy weapons are pepperoni, but your defenses are decoration until they reboot

[Jarek]

I didn't really think about this much until recently, but it's common knowledge a malf AI has a nuke that has the ability to instantly end a round. Normally a malf AI won't be around during clockcult, let alone being given rogue laws enabling it to nuke the entire station, but what if something like this did happen?

What if the miners killed the ashwalkers relatively early on and gave the AI the combat disk upgrade, and through some crew stupidity or mindless AI subversion without a care in the world by the clock cultists, the AI was actually able and allowed to activate the doomsday device and managed to successfully nuke the station, would the clock cultists win or would the crew win, or would neither?

[Yakumo_Chen]

I didn't really think about this much until recently, but it's common knowledge a malf AI has a nuke that has the ability to instantly end a round. Normally a malf AI won't be around during clockcult, let alone being given rogue laws enabling it to nuke the entire station, but what if something like this did happen?

What if the miners killed the ashwalkers relatively early on and gave the AI the combat disk upgrade, and through some crew stupidity or mindless AI subversion without a care in the world by the clock cultists, the AI was actually able and allowed to activate the doomsday device and managed to successfully nuke the station, would the clock cultists win or would the crew win, or would neither?

[Anonmare]

It would be a win for the crew due to the cult's objective being to summon Ratvar and the crew's to stop them and nuking the station ends the round. And if they nuke before the Ark is finished summoning, then it counts as the crew stopping the cult.

[D&B]

So a phyrric victory?

[Xhuis]

I'd say that would count as a crew win. The servants and Ratvar are using the station as a vector for the summoning; if any old patch of space would work they would do it in deep space where nobody could find them. Destroying the station would mean the servants need to find somewhere else to summon.

[oranges]

It can't be a win because it incentivises the crew to just nuke the station every round, it has to be a cultist minor victory

[Anonmare]

Why don't we make it so that the shuttle leaving the station is a minor cult victory, for both cults (Nar'sie cult could have a required number of cultsits in order to escape with the minor victory), to incentivise crew to deal with it instead of leave at the first opportunity?

[oranges]

Anything that has the crew abandoning or otherwise destroying the station should be a loss for the crew

[onleavedontatme]

The doomsday device leaves the station perfectly intact and kills all organics, lore wise it's just handing the station to the clock cultists on a silver platter.

[AnonymousNow]

Anything that has the crew abandoning or otherwise destroying the station should be a loss for the crew

[Arianya]

Regarding WarCult, I think making the original cultists into clockwork people is awesome but a bit overkill as tells go, especially since theres no gas masks or the like on Reebe by default.

It's hard to tell since our run basically floundered and died before the Ark even activated, but I'm not sure the scripture empowerment justifies giving the crew the extra notice (and thus making any conversions twice as hard, let alone avoiding the watering/implanting cycle.)

From a general gameplay point of view, you might want to give the cult some kind of expensive but functional way to break mindshields, since as it currently stands if a crewmember gets grabbed by the cult but has a mindshield, they just get removed from the round, often permanently, since the cult has no real reason to keep them alive when they can't be converted.

(Yes I know surgery is a thing but generally speaking its not worth the time or the risk of stealing tools)

[DemonFiren]

why the fuck are loyalty implants a problem for a machine god of all things anyway

[oranges]

because balance trumps lore

[Wyzack]

The doomsday device leaves the station perfectly intact and kills all organics, lore wise it's just handing the station to the clock cultists on a silver platter.

I thought with the new better explosion code we were going to be able to have our nuke be an actual nuke maybe?

[onleavedontatme]

The nuke explodes, but the AI is trying to claim the station, not blow itself up

[Oldman Robustin]

Ok back to the actual mode:

Xhuis can you PLEASE describe what you envision Reebe defense looking like.

Right now the meta is

1) Spam walls and tables and windoors interspersed with wardens, crew gets a 2-4 minute exercise in tedium as they smash a path to the base

2) Crew clears the spam zone and reaches the base where 6-8 cultists and a couple constructs face off against 40+ heavily armed crew

I would much rather you narrow the area between the base and the crew and then limit the dumber of "dense" structures that you can place on each "row" in such a way that the crew always has a "path" they can follow to the base. That way the cult can actually engage the crew immediately and the push to the Ark is actually interactive and not just RCD spam.

The chief problem with this is on highpop it would be a nightmare pushing all those people into a single "lane", hence my suggestion that you make 2 or 3 lanes.

[Armhulen]

I still think the mode would be better as a tower defense thing instead of cult but you can't reach their base until 40 minutes

[Arianya]

Right now the meta is

1) Spam walls and tables and windoors interspersed with wardens, crew gets a 2-4 minute exercise in tedium as they smash a path to the base

I mean, yes, this is what bases look like in our game. I'm not sure what you expect it to look like

2) Crew clears the spam zone and reaches the base where 6-8 cultists and a couple constructs face off against 40+ heavily armed crew

I've actually found cult vs crew fights to be fairly even most of the time. Resistances, healing and sigil traps, plus replenishable marauder ranks tends to make it hard to put down the cult permanently, not to mention the inevitable attrition of getting through the first layer of defenses.

I would much rather you narrow the area between the base and the crew and then limit the dumber of "dense" structures that you can place on each "row" in such a way that the crew always has a "path" they can follow to the base. That way the cult can actually engage the crew immediately and the push to the Ark is actually interactive and not just RCD spam.

The chief problem with this is on highpop it would be a nightmare pushing all those people into a single "lane", hence my suggestion that you make 2 or 3 lanes.

I mean, assuming you mean "the crew is ensured a clear path to the Ark" then I hope you're ready for "hulk on meth speedruns to ark in just under 5 seconds and smashes it down at very hihg speeds"

We can't have a antagonist type based around base building and tower defense that also has to ensure the crew doesn't need to bring any tools or RCDs, with our current construction system.

[Xhuis]

Xhuis can you PLEASE describe what you envision Reebe defense looking like.

Reebe defense can look like nearly anything. There's a huge space for the servants to build anything they want to, so it varies on a by-round basis.

Right now the meta is

1) Spam walls and tables and windoors interspersed with wardens, crew gets a 2-4 minute exercise in tedium as they smash a path to the base

That's what you've seen, sure. Each working defense design has its own merits and drawbacks. This is a viable strategy and even if it was the meta (which it's not) then there's plenty of counters to it. Of course it should be impossible to breach a defensive wall without the right equipment. Otherwise it'd just be paper mache with gears glued on the front. You can't possibly say that every base looks like this because with the amount of variability they can look like anything. Each base looks very much different in all the rounds I've spectated or played in.

I would much rather you narrow the area between the base and the crew and then limit the dumber of "dense" structures that you can place on each "row" in such a way that the crew always has a "path" they can follow to the base. That way the cult can actually engage the crew immediately and the push to the Ark is actually interactive and not just RCD spam.

The chief problem with this is on highpop it would be a nightmare pushing all those people into a single "lane", hence my suggestion that you make 2 or 3 lanes.

For reasons I've stated at least three times now, I don't think lanes will work, and for reasons Arianya also stated, it would lead to frustrating gameplay wherein an entire round's worth of defenses are immediately circumvented by a single hulk or mech - even more so than they are now. SS13 is not like a moba, and you cannot have three lanes and expect them to be feasibly defensible in a reasonable way. Tactics can vary wildly, and there's not five people here but functionally any amount of players can be on either side depending on how the round plays out.

[Oldman Robustin]

Xhuis this free-form design plan is never going to work. There's only ONE fortification type that allows for CC to move around but inhibits crew movement and that's the door. Everything else is just as impeding for the defenders as it is for the attackers. Furthermore the doors either permit laser fire (windoors) or block vision (airlocks) so you're left. So either the defenders have to stumble arounds blindly opening a bunch of doors to find out where the attackers are pushing or they use windoors and expose themselves to an immense volley of laser fire that they almost never have a counter for.

Realistically no defender is collectively going to understand this nuance unless you get some tactical savant who volunteers for Scarab and manages the entire defense construction by themselves. Instead they resort to the strategy that the Fabricator itself encourages, wallspam. There is absolutely nothing redeemable about a "finale" to a mode that revolves around wall destruction.

Lanes are just one alternative, though I still think the space is just too wide for any coherent fight to take place. Ultimately you need to find a way to force the CC to keep their defenses "open" and mannable so that the CC can start offering resistance from the moment the crew crosses the "line", instead of being cockblocked by some random ghost player who 90% of the time decides that putting 200 tables and walls between you and the crew and leaving only the base itself for fighting is the best strat. With the fighting space as wide as it is that might even be the best strategy since currently "focusing" defense in the middle just means its way too easy to smash down a side and bypass everything.

I think even having a pre-made defensive line where the walls are all indestructible and the defenders focus on placing structures/traps/etc. would be far superior. After all most online PVP games drop you in a preset map and the thought of some random person having to decide what your base looks like when you're not even around would be abhorrent in almost any scenario, perhaps the same abhorrent outcome is inevitable here.



Also the whole point of lanes is that it would let you harden CC walls so that they couldn't easily be busted down by every hulk/mech/RCD in seconds. It would be a tactical choice but never a necessary one.

[Armhulen]

Robustin's starting to get it- you need to actually make a defensive side of the game mode. Right now they gear up like operatives, armor weapons and marauders etc. the cost of walls punishes you for defending

[Arianya]

Xhuis this free-form design plan is never going to work. There's only ONE fortification type that allows for CC to move around but inhibits crew movement and that's the door. Everything else is just as impeding for the defenders as it is for the attackers. Furthermore the doors either permit laser fire (windoors) or block vision (airlocks) so you're left. So either the defenders have to stumble arounds blindly opening a bunch of doors to find out where the attackers are pushing or they use windoors and expose themselves to an immense volley of laser fire that they almost never have a counter for.

I'll take "What is a brass girder next to a brass airlock" for 500 Alex.

Realistically no defender is collectively going to understand this nuance unless you get some tactical savant who volunteers for Scarab and manages the entire defense construction by themselves. Instead they resort to the strategy that the Fabricator itself encourages, wallspam. There is absolutely nothing redeemable about a "finale" to a mode that revolves around wall destruction.

Simply not what I've experienced. Sure, scarabs tend to be more defense focused (being solely aimed at construction) but cultists are intrinsically involved in construction, especially since Mania Motors, Wardens, etc. require a cultists' involvement. Similarly, however, the cultists are not forced to engage with building if they'd rather go hijacking power from the station or converting more people or performing y action that helps the cult

The only area I've seen prone to pure wall spam is the area immediately preceding the ark itself, but generally speaking this tends to be dismantled pretty quickly by a victorious crew, especially since non-cultists can use the brass tools that most clockcultists and all clockscarabs carry on them.

Lanes are just one alternative, though I still think the space is just too wide for any coherent fight to take place. Ultimately you need to find a way to force the CC to keep their defenses "open" and mannable so that the CC can start offering resistance from the moment the crew crosses the "line", instead of being cockblocked by some random ghost player who 90% of the time decides that putting 200 tables and walls between you and the crew and leaving only the base itself for fighting is the best strat. With the fighting space as wide as it is that might even be the best strategy since currently "focusing" defense in the middle just means its way too easy to smash down a side and bypass everything.

That may be your "thought", but I've played several rounds of clock cult on both sides and several times its ended up with a cult vs crew brawl that is generally way more satisfying then the majority of our modes. Indeed, even when the sides have been stacked (including a round where there were 4 total cultists at the time the Ark activated!) have had atleast some fight in them and been more then "lmao gg no re"

Additionally, the existence of wardens and marauders has generally made flanking/bypassing ineffective, since crew can't hold still long enough to make good on their attempt.

I think even having a pre-made defensive line where the walls are all indestructible and the defenders focus on placing structures/traps/etc. would be far superior. After all most online PVP games drop you in a preset map and the thought of some random person having to decide what your base looks like when you're not even around would be abhorrent in almost any scenario, perhaps the same abhorrent outcome is inevitable here.

SS13 is not most PVP games, and our construction system is key to enjoyment, especially with the cult that is specifically focused around their construction (CV is still a thing!)

Generally speaking I've seen more complaints about the absence of robusting skills on the part of cultists then complaints about the base that x cultist or y cogscarab has built, though its possible this might change with time.

Also the whole point of lanes is that it would let you harden CC walls so that they couldn't easily be busted down by every hulk/mech/RCD in seconds. It would be a tactical choice but never a necessary one.

And again, if your idea is that the lane will have a clear/mostly clear path to the ark then it will be cheesed by hulks on meth or mechs. Its a non-starter.

[oranges]

I wouldn't expect Robustin to ever understand this mode, he only understands ones where there always a clear path of *the* best thing to do, he is unable to grasp a mode that has more than one way to play, it leaves him confused and frustrated that everyone won't play it the way he thinks it should be played.

[Armhulen]

But there isn't, base building sucks right now when you can just teleport around the station spawning marauders and killing people for less cost than building a base

I just really want to see conversion and marauders, the two worst parts of the mode gone. Then maybe with some new turrets that do stuff we'd have something neet

[Oldman Robustin]

I wouldn't expect Robustin to ever understand this mode, he only understands ones where there always a clear path of *the* best thing to do, he is unable to grasp a mode that has more than one way to play, it leaves him confused and frustrated that everyone won't play it the way he thinks it should be played.

The problem is that every round I've seen DOES play out the exact same way and its objectively not a good experience. It's not a "well that was SORTA fun but I think my way is better", its a "this is a shitshow that inevitably results from core design choices".

Yes the cult will eventually fight the crew, but if all you want if crew and cult bashing each other in an open space just turn Reebe into a goddamn rage cage and last side standing wins - because thats pretty much all it is now except there's 200 brass walls/tables/windows between the crew and the rage cage that they have to mindlessly destroy to get there.

I envisioned the invasion of Reebe like D-Day, the gates open and the crew pours into immediate combat with the enemy, you have to fight inch by inch all the way to the Ark.

Currently it looks like D-Day only if the Germans had abandoned the entire beach and just spammed tank traps, then proceeded to stand in an open field behind the beach with nothing but spears, hoping that a bunch of passive fortification spam will buy them enough time to develop an A-Bomb.

[Arianya]

I envisioned the invasion of Reebe like D-Day, the gates open and the crew pours into immediate combat with the enemy, you have to fight inch by inch all the way to the Ark.

So you want something that our combat system neither allows for nor encourages.

[kevinz000]

right after rounds of playing this i don't think it's fun for the only methods to effectively counter to be 1. hulkspam 2. a combat mech 3. xray lasers 4. bombs.
conventional things should work too instead of just WMD spamming.
just my two cents, take with a grain of salt as I honestly don't have a better idea of how defense should be done.

[Qbopper]

it would be unbearably boring if rebee was a preset layout every time and the gamemode would become a literal deathmatch at that point

the construction system is the best part, even if the balance needs work it's the first time a conversion mode hasn't made me want to quit playing forever

[naltronix]

if there were different reebes that are decided as a whole by the team or they are random that would be p cool
like same idea as cc right now, but theres a slightly different layout
e.g crew has one room to spawn in
reebe is flipped so ark is at the bottom crew attacks from the top
removal of areas like the mini medbay
smaller/bigger reebes (for the removal of things, ratvar will arrive more quickly as a trade off of for less space/removal of things)

[Oldman Robustin]

Qbopper a preset layout doesnt mean "exact same defense every round".

I mean fuck there's already a "preset layout" right now, its that layout is a vast empty space.

I'm proposing preset walls so that the defenders can make strategically coherent decisions like where to drop wardens, how to use the structures, where to use their limited number of doors, extra walls, etc.

Arianya there's absolutely nothing about our combat system that prevents a slow, rolling battle from taking place.

If we want to encourage an aggressive defense I would highly recommend you give the defenders a machine that will teleport them to safety when they get crit, it would put them in "stasis" for healing for ~30 seconds and then release them at the base for another chance. The machine would only be able to trigger 2 or 3 times per cultist.

If we're going to design this defense around the cultists being vastly outnumbered then giving them a 2nd or 3rd chance solves two problems:

1) Nobody wants to defend aggressively and die early

2) There aren't enough defenders to halt the push of a crew force that's 5x their size

Either way we NEED to make the cultists construct a coherent defensive line or else every fucking game is going to be giant wall followed by empty space. I haven't have a single memorable fight on Reebe, literally they all blur together.

[naltronix]

robustin the thing is
its empty so its all open
if its a preset layout then its a pain in the ass to remove the walls to make your own layout

[Qbopper]

Qbopper a preset layout doesnt mean "exact same defense every round".

if you can't see how a preset layout wouldn't force defenders even further into a specific optimal playstyle then I don't know what to say

I mean fuck there's already a "preset layout" right now, its that layout is a vast empty space.

are you retarded or just pretending

I'm proposing preset walls so that the defenders can make strategically coherent decisions like where to drop wardens, how to use the structures, where to use their limited number of doors, extra walls, etc.

if the walls are all preset the meta will become "place shit here and if you don't you're hindering the team", this happens in every game ever, not just ss13

Arianya there's absolutely nothing about our combat system that prevents a slow, rolling battle from taking place.

it's pretty absurd how quickly people move in this game, combat is lightning fast

If we want to encourage an aggressive defense I would highly recommend you give the defenders a machine that will teleport them to safety when they get crit, it would put them in "stasis" for healing for ~30 seconds and then release them at the base for another chance. The machine would only be able to trigger 2 or 3 times per cultist.

this is an interesting idea

If we're going to design this defense around the cultists being vastly outnumbered then giving them a 2nd or 3rd chance solves two problems:

1) Nobody wants to defend aggressively and die early

2) There aren't enough defenders to halt the push of a crew force that's 5x their size

Either way we NEED to make the cultists construct a coherent defensive line or else every fucking game is going to be giant wall followed by empty space. I haven't have a single memorable fight on Reebe, literally they all blur together.