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A Ling Refractor


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Ling is a bad gamemode. Last time I checked it's the most disliked gamemode according to the playerbase, and it's one of the more poorly designed gamemodes for HRP. Ling has a lot of potential to be great, but it fails horribly because its core objective is to gank crewmembers.


Current Problems with Ling:

- They gain power by ganking.

- The amount of lings are lacking per round because no one wants to play them.

- Ling is too hard to player in an HRP manner.

- Ling interaction doesn't exist.


Solutions:

- Give changelings the ability to morph into any crewmember that they currently see on screen. If they want to morph into someone that's not visible, they will have to steal their DNA.

- Remove reliance on succing. Obtaining DNA should just be obtained by actually having a physical copy of their DNA, such as hair strands or blood.

- Enforce minimum 4 lings. 1 or 2 lings is just bad and it ends up being extended.

- Make Evolution Points based on how many DNA strings they have.

- Possibly maybe not really give then a traitor uplink.

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just give them more points at roundstart and make killing give a lot more. easy fix

 

This will likely be a thing. Aurorastation likes to give antags all their abilities at roundstart however just doing this fix alone won't fix ling. The core issue isn't that they are lacking points, but because the core concept of the gamemode is bad.

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Yeah agree, the one thing I'd mark as REALLY breaking the gamemode is how extremely long a changeling takes to actually you know, changeling.


It's fucking impossible to actually impersonate someone because people are on radios/PDA's/suit sensors 24/7 while security patrols the entire station 4 times with the cargo techs and janitors using maint constantly for shortcuts and free items.

It takes a RIDICULOUS amount of time to sting someone, take them into maint, interact with them, kill them, take their clothes, take off your clothes, transform species, wait, transform into character, dress up. All of this with a corpse literally AT YOUR FEET THE WHOLE TIME.


What I would like to propose as a possible solution is to copy the scan function from /tg/ abductors similar to burgers suggestion.

Simply put, a changeling can "mirage" whoever it "sampled" copying their look however not their body. If the changeling receives a certain amount of brute damage or attacks someone, it morhps right back into its original form.

Further I believe there should be a mid-point form similar to horror-form, a stronger human mob or perhaps naturally grown armor similarly to Prototype (the game) from which we already copied the shield plus blade.


Further I think what ling lacks the MOST importantly, is a second chance. While the ressurection is useful the way corpse elimination works in aurora means you'll either have to out yourself in the middle of surgery or be stuck in morgue without any ID.

Perhaps being able to hide a certain amount of biomatter in random areas of the station would help, plus we wouldn't have to include 3-4 lings that way as a single ling could terrorize a round for quite a while and from multiple angles.


I am not sure about Kyres's suggestion, I have not thought that one through yet.

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I always like the idea of making it similar to Vampire. Instead of killing the target give them genetic damage (like from slimes) and make them not remember the experience as if it were a vampire round.

 

I want to avoid making it vampire which is why I actually want to not make changelings rely on the gank and succ mechanics.

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Ling is a bad gamemode. Last time I checked it's the most disliked gamemode according to the playerbase, and it's one of the more poorly designed gamemodes for HRP. Ling has a lot of potential to be great, but it fails horribly because its core objective is to gank crewmembers.


Current Problems with Ling:

- They gain power by ganking.

- The amount of lings are lacking per round because no one wants to play them.

- Ling is too hard to player in an HRP manner.

- Ling interaction doesn't exist.


Solutions:

- Give changelings the ability to morph into any crewmember that they currently see on screen. If they want to morph into someone that's not visible, they will have to steal their DNA.

- Remove reliance on succing. Obtaining DNA should just be obtained by actually having a physical copy of their DNA, such as hair strands or blood.

- Enforce minimum 4 lings. 1 or 2 lings is just bad and it ends up being extended.

- Make Evolution Points based on how many DNA strings they have.

- Possibly maybe not really give then a traitor uplink.

Port Polaris ling. It gives ling more rp abilities, makes impersonation easier, changes how points are gained by allowing you to only gain points from killing other lings. You get to refund your points if you eat a nonling.

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I love the idea of letting changeling instantly morph into anyone they can see because having two of a person in front of you is better at creating panic and confusion than just the possibility of a changeling stealthily replacing one without anyone's knowledge. Not to mention, it keeps everyone in on the RP.


+1


Is there any interest in giving changelings the ability of mimics like from the most recent Prey? That is, to shapeshift into any item or object they can see, too. I feel as though this would increase the delicious paranoia. And you can imagine the hilarity of a changeling who uses this to sow fear in people before going in for the violence.

The gibber says, "Come closer..."

 

... Not to mention the amazing breadth of possibilities if mimics somehow retained the functionality of the item they're copying, as well.

You buckle yourself into the chair.

The chair bites you!

The chair bites you!

The chair bites you!

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Is there any interest in giving changelings the ability of mimics like from the most recent Prey? That is, to shapeshift into any item or object they can see, too. I feel as though this would increase the delicious paranoia. And you can imagine the hilarity of a changeling who uses this to sow fear in people before going in for the violence.

The gibber says, "Come closer..."

You buckle yourself into the chair.

The chair bites you!

The chair bites you!

The chair bites you!

... I want this so badly I don't have words for it.

We've already got the chameleon projector to steal the code from

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I'd like to throw a (bad) idea into the mix too, which is why not change the idea of lings from ''the thing but slightly different'' to ''slowly adapting shapeshifter''. What my version would be is that you produce DNA points slowly over time along with letting you turn into other people that you interacted with for a while. That being said, that should propably be it's own thread. Having prey changelings can potentialy be bad, as in theory they could play as a multitool and change into crowbars/screwdrivers/ect unless they get some kind of mechanical thing that prevents it. However, quickly morphing into people you see would propably fit auroras playstyle alot better.

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I love the idea of letting changeling instantly morph into anyone they can see because having two of a person in front of you is better at creating panic and confusion than just the possibility of a changeling stealthily replacing one without anyone's knowledge. Not to mention, it keeps everyone in on the RP.


+1


Is there any interest in giving changelings the ability of mimics like from the most recent Prey? That is, to shapeshift into any item or object they can see, too. I feel as though this would increase the delicious paranoia. And you can imagine the hilarity of a changeling who uses this to sow fear in people before going in for the violence.

The gibber says, "Come closer..."

 

... Not to mention the amazing breadth of possibilities if mimics somehow retained the functionality of the item they're copying, as well.

You buckle yourself into the chair.

The chair bites you!

The chair bites you!

The chair bites you!

Lings used to be able to do this on old code bases, A ling made a rubber duck talk to an assistant and told them to kill people.

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