Carlarc's Wacky Idea Repositorium

[carlarc]

Hello! As you may or may not know, I'm Carlarc, a feature contributor not very famous for various cool features such as Syndicate Monkeys, Cult vs. Heretic, and Genetics Content. I'm cursed with a hyperactive imagination and not nearly enough time, skill, mantainer fiat, or GBP to put all of my concepts into the game. I don't want the ideas to languish in obscurity, so I'm dumping them here just in case anyone is interested in them, gets inspired, or maybe even feels like placing them into the game with their own spin on it!

Related thread: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=36323

The template is thus:

Concept: One sentence of the concept.
Goals: What it should do.
Non-goals: What it could but shouldn't do.
Elaboration: A more in-depth explanation of the concept.
Rambling

► Show Spoiler

A hidden tag for my unhinged, useless rambling on specific small parts of the feature that aren't really all that relevant until the idea starts being coded but I enjoy making up.

Small ideas just get Concept.

I'll link each 'Idea' here via a link to the post, separated into one of these:

- Antagonist Ideas
- Job Ideas
- Miscellaneous Ideas

[carlarc]

Concept: Psychologist machine that lets you fight their moodlets and traumas to cure them
Goals: Give psychologist something to do that isn't drug dealing
Non-Goals: Make psychologist a crucial part of medbay/moodlet management
Elaboration: Some form of machine with an attached helmet for the patient and VR headset for the psychologist. In some way, their negative moodlets turn into enemies and the traumas into bosses.
Rambling

► Show Spoiler

Positive moodlets turn into equipment for the psychologist in VR
Negative moodlets are basic minions to fight, though they get dangerous if very bad
Traumas range from angry chimps to full-blown armed and armored humans to fight.
Ideally they'd all be turned into something that resembles the moodlet or trauma associated ( tasty food into a buff donut )

[carlarc]

Concept: Chaplain reunions every X amount of time that grant fun boons to attendants
Goal: Give chaplain tools to allow congregations and hangouts of people, with an incentive to do so
Non-goal: Become a meta way to get robust loot, yet, at the same time, not having insultingly paltry rewards
Elaboration: Chaplain 'communes' happen every 5-10 minutes, and chap can hand out pamphlets to people to sign up for the commune, getting an alarm in their PDA when it's happening.
Rambling
Each sect has unique benefits and commune goals. The Greed sect requires money and valuables to be thrown into the altar, pyre requires someone to be burnt alive, Punished requires someone to be Fucking Beat To Death, techno requires... surgery? All communes share the reward of a large mood boost
Greed sect should totes be a pyramid scheme

[kayozz]

Concept: Psychologist machine that lets you fight their moodlets and traumas to cure them
Goals: Give psychologist something to do that isn't drug dealing
Non-Goals: Make psychologist a crucial part of medbay/moodlet management
Elaboration: Some form of machine with an attached helmet for the patient and VR headset for the psychologist. In some way, their negative moodlets turn into enemies and the traumas into bosses.
Rambling

► Show Spoiler

Positive moodlets turn into equipment for the psychologist in VR
Negative moodlets are basic minions to fight, though they get dangerous if very bad
Traumas range from angry chimps to full-blown armed and armored humans to fight.
Ideally they'd all be turned into something that resembles the moodlet or trauma associated ( tasty food into a buff donut )

Playing as Psychiatrist is boring unless someone else decides to RP that round, so yes, this is great. A tad wild, but I love the idea of a mad mood machine onboard, genuinely.

[kayozz]

Concept: Chaplain reunions every X amount of time that grant fun boons to attendants
Goal: Give chaplain tools to allow congregations and hangouts of people, with an incentive to do so
Non-goal: Become a meta way to get robust loot, yet, at the same time, rewarding players for their time spent there
Elaboration: Chaplain 'communes' happen every 5-10 minutes, and chap can hand out pamphlets to people to sign up for the commune, getting an alarm in their PDA when it's happening.
Rambling
Each sect has unique benefits and commune goals. The Greed sect requires money and valuables to be thrown into the altar, pyre requires someone to be burnt alive, Punished requires someone to be Fucking Beat To Death, techno requires... surgery? All communes share the reward of a large mood boost

Holy points. The more people who spend time in the chapel - the more holy points.
Could encourage good roleplay vs meta.

[Bepis]

The chaplain being able to dictate when such meetings happen would be nice, maybe needing (x) amount of participants

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I do like the idea of chaplain being able to call an assembly which gives them AND participants something. Anything which causes people to want to put down what theyre already doing and get together in one place in this game for a short while is cool.

Plus you can have a trait which makes you "pre-signed-up" to these

[bingusdingus]

I do like the idea of chaplain being able to call an assembly which gives them AND participants something. Anything which causes people to want to put down what theyre already doing and get together in one place in this game for a short while is cool.

Plus you can have a trait which makes you "pre-signed-up" to these

I was going to say make a "Spiritual" trait that makes it so you have to show up and participate in the service when the Chaplain calls for one and get a positive buff ala the Festival Sect buffs, or get a negative moodlet until you can make it, or be "forgiven" by the Chaplain (have them slap you with their bible or pray at the altar).

I would love if some of the more roleplay focused jobs actually got more things to do. As someone that mains less important jobs, these kinds of ideas are my favorites.

[COwlbear]

Just so long as the proposed trait doesn't interfere with the existing Spiritual trait, sure. "Chaplains doing Chaplain things" doesn't always line up with why a character would have the current Spiritual trait active, and I'd rather not get dinged because my Spiritual Body Purist didn't show up for, say, a Technophile sect meeting.

[bingusdingus]

Oh shit I don't use traits normally so I just pulled a random name not realizing it was an existing trait. Maybe just "Chaplain fan" along the lines of the clown and mime ones that exist.

[carlarc]

Concept: Temporary ID passcards
Goals: Allow a middleground between pestering AI and permanent access.
Non-goals: Be easy to spread by everyone, conversely, be too niche for simple usage
Elaboration: A PDA Program, downloadable by anyone, which creates holocards that can be worn or attached. Notably anyone can create any card which just needs swiping from a head to activate.
Rambling
Normal crew have 4 'certs', heads have 10, cap has 20. Each active card costs 1 cert base, then one cert per access and per minute of its duration. This limits spammability.

[carlarc]

Uh, how do I link posts to the original post

[bingusdingus]

Concept: Crime scene investigation glasses
Goals: Sec science unlock that allows glasses that have the ability to forensics scan, giving Sec a better way to capture antags later on in the round. This could also be combined with the existing sechud glasses as an upgrade.
Non-goals: Have an action that plays the CSI Miami YEAAAAAH when you put them on to punctuate sweet one liners.

Seccie: "Detective we found the clown dead in maints, can you give it a scan?"
Det: "It appears the Clown has Cap's prints and fibers from their suit on them, making me think this was the Captain giving a field execution."
Seccie: "So not a murder?"
Det: "No it looks like the clown.... *puts on forensics glasses* Slipped up"
YEAAAAAAAAH

Elaboration: To be honest, I thought of the CSI meme first and the actual function of the item second, but I feel like this is one of those things that would actually be in the game because it's a stupid reference and has a real function. I guess it would also work as just something that happens when you Emag normal Sec glasses or something.

[carlarc]

wtf this is my thread get a room

[bingusdingus]

Whoops I dunno why I posted that here, my bad.
I can delete it if you want, otherwise, consider it a freebie.

[carlarc]

Concept: Dismantle Pirates as a group concept and expand on each individually.
Goals: Turn a set of hollow midround antagonists into a set of well-crafted, individual events.
Non-Goals: End up with just standalone hollow antagonists. The dismantling should be piecemeal.
Elaboration: Pirates have very poor flavor, construction, and themes. Their money collection system is unmantained and unusable: In the end everyone just murderbones. This idea aims to solve this piece by piece, splintering off a pirate faction and turning each into a fully fledged midround event.
Rambling

Space IRS

► Show Spoiler

Space IRS

IRS inspector comes on board. Pacifist, but valid. His goal is to reach either the comms console or the bank console (or both)
Reaching either the comms console or the bank console will allow the inspector to send an audit to the IRS, which will result in a insurancelike option

1. The station pays its taxes, resulting in a deduction of everyone's paycheck, subsequent payments, and all budgets going into the negative. Centcom gets angry and replaces your shuttle with a garbage truck to reimburse.

2. The station refuses to pay its taxes. An elite hitsquad of space feds hits the station!

The inspector can choose to either rendezvous with the hit squad and gain new directives, becoming one of them, or try and go for the second objective now that the station's wholly aware of them. If the crew chooses 1, they also give executive authority to the inspector, which gives him AA, a telescopic baton, and a fining device he's encouraged to vigorously abuse. The crew is still allowed to kill him. (This will increase their fines.)

The Lustrous

► Show Spoiler

Each Lustrous has several things of value:

A pocket grinder that turns BS into dust.
Being able to sense bluespace crystals onscreen
A material sniffer tuned to them

They have a spell system themed around bluespace dust. They're pacifists, so they use bluespace to teleport around and evade security, hoovering up the station's crystals.

Due to the relative lack of actual bluespace crystals onstation, many indirectly related items now count as containing one, such as the bar's portal, the produce console, the comms consoles, etc.

A short while after arriving, an announcement marks them as KOS.

They have an unique system which allows them to crush crystals in their hand to gain power, which they use to fuel 'spells' to dodge around. Each crystal renews a bar of charge.

Possible spells:
- Blinkspace: 10 second cooldown, 1/3 bar charge. Blink!
- Skip: 30 second cooldown, full bar charge. Skip to a spot onscreen.
- Shift: 20 second cooldown, 1/2 bar, swaps positions.
- Farskip: Double bar charge. Heretic blade teleport, uses a windup though.
- Refract: Deflect energy projectiles at the cost of 1/8th bar charge. Stun batons cost 1/2 to block.

Their mission is to consume every crystal onstation at the time of arrival. Once this happens, they will 'overdose', filling their bar out permanently and gaining an objective to run into the SM shard. If they do so the station is teleported into a random new orbit (+threat) after some minutes. This ports back anyone alive outside the station, and loops all zlevel exits.

Killing one allows you to take their liver for yourself, which grants you all their abilities at the cost of making you pacifist. (It swaps the position of your livers)

[carlarc]

Concept: A new side antagonist like Nightmare and Voidwalker, themed around electricity, the supermatter, and ethereals.
Goals: Add a new and interesting side threat with neat rewards for the crew if defeated. Allow it to be powerful and slippery but not quite unkillable.
Non-Goals: Have them overpower the round, be too easy to 'summon', be a cakewalk to deal with.
Elaboration: The Voltergeist's spawn system is detached from Dynamic: Instead, it's linked to the supermatter. Anything that interacts with it (dusting, instability) slowly increases the chance of one appearing. When one does spawn, anyone who was dusted by it has priority in the roll.
Rambling:

► Show Spoiler

Arcfiends are a form of parallel mid round antagonist to Nightmares, themed around electricity and the supermatter rather than the darkness. However, unlike the latter, they're linked to a tangible object, rather than being a dynamic threat - the Supermatter. The chances for an Arcfiend to spawn increase with the following variables:

- How much power the Supermatter is emitting.
- How unstable the Supermatter is.
- How many people have been dusted that shift (Their minds have priority when one spawns)

Supermatters that have degenerated to anomaly spawning can likely make one. Resonance cascades in progress will summon several, and finished ones straight-out work as a ghost spawner like Nar-Sie.

Arcfiends themselves effectively look like crystal-headed, yellow Ethereals. They are completely shock immune, chunky, and have similar restrictions on clothing as Nightmares. Their heart is a refined flux core.

Their objective is simple - drain the esoteric energy in the brains of people. To so this, they have an actual, normal energy bar, which they increase via the classics - APCs, loose batteries, and so on. Draining actual people increases max capacity, recharge rate, and provides a short boost.

Potential powers:
- On The Grid: Jump into live wires and traverse them as you would a pipe. If the wire loses power you're booted out. Can't carry items through wires!
- Overload Lights: Blow out one of the lights in the room to cause a lightning shock towards a target. Only works if the lights are turned on. If they're broken and sparking, the attack will be weak.
- Seize: Similar to shock touch. Causes muscles to seize up, same as a stun baton. Cooldown is too long for another hit, though. Causes convulsions.
- Power Surge: Direct a lot of your power towards a piece of machinery, causing it to explode in a few seconds.
- Induce Malfunction: Randomly pulse wires on something. If alt clicked, emag it instead (not cheap)
- Lightning Leap: Teleport to a tile with a powered cable on top. Anyone on that tile is stunned, anyone in proximity is shocked and thrown away. Arcfiends can always see cables.
- SMES Shunt: Move from SMES to SMES! Not cheap.
- Lightning Ball: Fire a tesla ball that damages those nearby with bolts. Stuns on hit.
- Zapcharge: Recharge held item, like the wizard spell.
- Flatline: Two uses. Left click causes cardiac arrest disease - Right click instantly breaks the target's heart, usable as a wind-up on incapacitated targets. Doesn't work on corpses.
- Capacitor: Store all your current energy in this spell. Click again to unload it all back!
- Overcharge: Reset cooldown on two random spells.

Heals by draining APCs. Or anything an Ethereal does.

They start out with only a few spells, but each drained mind gives a new one.

Each organ they have has electric buffs of some sort, from giving you immunity to becoming a battery to a mod core to stabilized yellow. Cannibalize the poor guy

Eyes: Let you see cables
Ears: flashbang resistant
Heart: Rip off the pseudorganic bits to reveal an anomaly core. Can be wired to turn into a mod core with infinite power.
Stomach: Allows draining, charging
Lungs: Shock resistance
Liver: Grants you the spell system
Appendix: Rip to reveal a super power cell

Ideally, a simplified version of this would be PR'd, with elaborations on the concept being introduced afterwards.

[vect0r]

If you want some inspiration goonstation has something similar
https://wiki.ss13.co/Arcfiend

[carlarc]

Concept: Re-add soapstone messages as an opt-in ultraviolet graffiti system.
Goals: Reintroduce soapstoning!
Non-goals: Be an eyesore. Be too hard to notice by players.
Elaboration:

The curator spawns with an invisible ink pen/marker/quill, which can be used to 'engrave' a memory, a message, or a graffiti. These are revealed by blacklight lamps: Light fixture-like items that can be found commonly in maintenance & jannie office, in a hacked? autolathe, or as a loadout item.

There's also a quirk that lets you see messages directly!

This fixes the problems of engravings, being that they were an everpresent eyesore, while keeping them meaningfully visible unlike the system that replaced them.

[carlarc]

Concept: Breed-O-Matic: Device that lets you duplicate animals as long as you have at least two.
Goals: Add a silly and amusing machine for the sandbox. Help with collecting critters for gimmicks and stuff like the infuser.
Nongoals: No rule 8.
Elaboration: A machine that you can put two living mohs into, it rumbles for a but, and then it poops out rither their baby version or a weak tiny one transformed to be small thst grows up later. Doesn't work on robos.

If emagged, you can put two humans in which causes them to gib in a moderate explosion.

[Xkallubar]

Concept: Breed-O-Matic: Device that lets you duplicate animals as long as you have at least two.
Goals: Add a silly and amusing machine for the sandbox. Help with collecting critters for gimmicks and stuff like the infuser.
Nongoals: No rule 8.
Elaboration: A machine that you can put two living mohs into, it rumbles for a but, and then it poops out rither their baby version or a weak tiny one transformed to be small thst grows up later. Doesn't work on robos.

If emagged, you can put two humans in which causes them to gib in a moderate explosion.

Watch people rush to get polybelts

[Bepis]

sounds like a fun way to bring back flypeople into the meta

[Capsandi]

Concept: Put carlac on site wide post approval
Goals: Humor. Enforce the superiority of the pinned minor suggestions thread.
Nongoals: Unchecked expansion of the people's republic of china's territorial claim.
Elaboration: That non goal doesn't have to do with carlac or anything its just not my goal

amidoinitrite?

[carlarc]

shut up i dont like you

Concept: Medbay Chemtank Storage & Fabrication
Goals: Ease doctors into making and using chems instead of constant surgery, add options, add depth to pharmacy gameplay that isn't completely 'chemist-'
Non-goals: Become the sole form of treatment, be yet another overly convoluted chemplumb system
Elaboration: Medbay would start with four prefilled chemical tanks: Libital, Aiuri, Multiver, Convermol, alongside several unfilled ones. Ideally, tanks would be two per tile to reduce space encumbrance.
Medbay would start with 300?u of each, and to refill/fill new tanks, they have to utilize a new machine in the pharmacy, the 'chemical memorizer'.

This machine, which is similar to a dispenser, would basically listen to the chemical reactions in it and then begin production of the reagent towards a selected chemtank. That said, it has a limited amount of manufacturing: The purer the reaction ends up, the more can be produced. (But the produced chems are always 75% pure) Other caveats: It can only memorize medical chems, it needs constant upkeep, unlike plumbing, and it can't memorize any reaction that uses chemicals unreactable with just the synthesizers.

After memorization, the doctor sets production to a specific chemtank. Chemtanks have a 'tap' that can be opened by a medical ID that turns off after 10 seconds, during which time they can refill their stuff. It can be hacked to force the tap open, but it causes constant drainage. This or a similar method are meant to preempt tiders/sec filling four beakers roundstart and running off. Perhaps something like degradation over time instead?

This would serve the function of a way to ease doctors into medicine production and resupplies without relying on the one competent chemist onstation.