New Antagonist Idea: Parasite

[Ikarrus]

A thing I'd be interested in developing if you guys are interested in playing it.

PARASITE ANTAGONIST
A parasitic lifeform that has the ability to completely hijack the bodies of others for a period of time.

THE BASICS
-Solo antag assigned to multiple players, like ling/traitor
-Spawns as a human infected with a parasite (the antag) in it.
-Standard traitor objectives; nothing really out of the ordinary

THE PARASITE
-Has the ability to leave the host body and roam the station as the parasite itself
-Parasite is like the alien larva: weak and helpless without a host.
-Parasite has Low health, no hands, and no means to attack, but can hide under objects and use vents to travel
-Slowly loses health without a host. Should be able to survive a few minutes max.
-Heals when inside a host

HIJACKING A BODY
-Parasite can hijack the body of any living carbon being, including humans, dogs, cats, monkeys, etc.
-Hijacking a body is instantaneous but obvious to anyone who sees
-Parasite has full control over the body. The host can only observe and can only speak to the parasite in a private conversation
-Parasite loses control over a body over time.
-For example, infecting a body for more than 10-15 minutes or so and they will begin to experience nasty things such as seizures, stuns, rapid hunger, brain damage, physical damage that get worse as time goes on
-Host's mind may temporarily gain back control, or host's private whispers may be blurted out by the host's body
-The parasite leaving the body will knock the host unconscious for several seconds
-A parasite may leave the host at will with no complications if the host is healthy

VULNERABILITIES
-Leaving unhealthy, damaged, or stunned hosts will stun the parasite for a few seconds after it leaves the host
-An unconscious host is also an unconscious parasite
-Will die in the host dies
-Can be force removed with brain removal surgery
-Hosts retain all memories while it was under the parasite's control
-Cannot hijack a body without a brain, or if the body is infected with another parasite
-Cannot hijack changelings

[Bluespace]

"he might be a parasite crit him"

[Ikarrus]

I love you bluespace I changed that part

[DemonFiren]

So it's more or less Bay-style Cortical Borers?

[PKPenguin321]

For reference: VG's wiki page for Cortical Borers, what this idea seems to be kinda loosely based off of.

[Ikarrus]

>It's apparently already a thing in at least two codebases

Fucking hell nevermind then

[Stickymayhem]

No totally do it but maybe it would be better off as a mini antagonist in the style of xhuis' revenant thing.

Just one spawns later into the round.

I'd say that you need to make it very clear when the host is about to be able to do actions themselves. No one wants to spam HELP ME A PARASITE a hundred times in the hopes one slips out. Maybe filter the word parasite to 'friend' or something too.

[Cheimon]

Just because it's on other servers doesn't mean it can't be really interesting to see happening. Xhuis recently coded revenants, which are similar in concept to goonstation wraiths, and that looks like it's going to become a fun part of gameplay. Especially as something for ghosts to respawn as.

It could also be a fun way to integrate braindead people (well, their flesh) into the round. After all, if they're not paying attention nothing is stopping the parasite from taking over and doing their job (and some other stuff) for them.

I love the idea that you have to remove the brain to get the parasite out, killing both people (and then presumably defibbing/cloning the patient).

Steal objectives would be far more difficult if you can't hang onto a body for more than 15 minutes. As would something like exchanging documents. How do you hold onto a particular item if your host knows exactly where you put it? I mean sure you can cuff and poison yourself, then leave the body, but it's still tough. Objectives to sabotage, destroy, or kill would be more fun I think.

VG shows their concept involves parasite reproduction, in a similar method to spiders, but with really obvious slug vomiting. Good for getting ghosts in. Would that work or not work for something like this?

With facehuggers, there are hard counters to being infected (basically any strong mask). That would be worth considering.

One last point, how is a parasite going to stop their human from literally just spamming out of annoyance? The other day I had this problem with a nuke op's suit PAI: it consistently spammed *honk just to annoy everyone around it, filling my chat with pages and pages of *honk and limiting my ability to have any other conversation or idea. Is that going to be policy'd against? Because it could be pretty frustrating as a parasite.

[Lumbermancer]

Can you find out who's the parasite by asking them a simple arithmetic question?

[Atlanta-Ned]

One last point, how is a parasite going to stop their human from literally just spamming out of annoyance?

EDIT: misread the initial issue, but I still think this has merit.

Perhaps a "cooperation" meter? If they say something that isn't a private chat with the parasite, they get a strike. When they get three strikes, the parasite can eject without any consequences, but the host is grievously injured/killed? Make the number of strikes visible to the host as well.

Infected Sucker exclaims "Help!"
A dull throbbing at the base of your skull makes you think you probably shouldn't do that again.

[Microscopics]

All for this. I hope that bs12's borer mini-antag is indeed implemented.

[Phalanx300]

All for this. I hope that bs12's borer mini-antag is indeed implemented.

Shouldn't that mean a gamemode like this becomes easier? (Porting stuff)

[Xhuis]

I don't see why this wouldn't work. It's a good idea, and we could do some sort of twist on it, i.e. changing it from a slug to maybe a tiny little nanobot to fit with the sci-fi theme. Maybe give it the ability to shock a corpse back into life to be controlled by you? A small flying Syndicate brainbot seems like a cool concept and I would code it if I knew how to start.

[Alex Crimson]

Tis a neat idea. Maybe let it activate abilities that cause the body to degrade much faster. Like super strength.

...personally i prefer the idea of it being organic rather than a machine. Some kind of Goa'uld(Stargate) ripoff.

[Cheimon]

That, and mind controlling space slugs would be nice and FTL-like.

[Scones]

What kind of objectives would it have?

[PKPenguin321]

You could give it standard murder objectives

You could give it a "Escape inside [Person], the [Job]." objective

You could encourage it to jump between multiple people by making it need DNA like the changeling but only let it get DNA when inside the person (or change it to something more flavorful, like laying parasite eggs in their brains). "Lay your eggs in the brains of three different crewmen, so your species may live on!"

[Cheimon]

Honestly, even 'kill x the y' sounds fun enough.