Jamison Stamos (the Changeling)

[Chaznoodles]

Here's a question. How did you know he deathstung the Warden? Had you seen a deathsting used before? How did you know what a deathsting is? How do you know the Warden didn't just take a fit?

Edit: I had no idea that was a feature. Ignore this post.

[Gollee]

When Deathsting is used, it causes the arm of the user to transform into a giant scorpion tail appendage and stab the victim, in bright red text.

[mirkoloio]

Eh, Gollee. The /same/ text for deathsting is too used for the blind sting. Just pointing this out. And I agree with 1138

[Skull132]

No. Wrong. He did not ever attempt escape. The warden was merely trying to implant him and then he immediately responded by deathstinging her and then following it up with "I'll cooperate". He did not use his insta-kill ability to create roleplay, or try to escape, he did it for no reason other than to just murder Meowy because... why? We had him in cuffs. We all had guns. There was no way he was going to get out of there, so why bother? It was a simple tracking implant, and he didn't even try to get out in the ensuing chaos. He sat there and said "I'll cooperate." after impaling the warden. There was no smart way to do this.

 

Thank you for posting context. My reply was based on the assumption that he staged an escape attempt, or managed to escape. If he did that, then I would approve of such actions -- tools are meant for a purpose, and the use of lethal force to escape a situation like that, to me, looks to fall within ROE. The exact circumstances, and whether the sting was actually warranted or not, will be found out shortly.

 

The fact that you as a staff member hold this opinion, and as one of the highest ranked staff members, is troubling to me. You can see the reason behind it? What's that supposed to mean? How can you even attempt to justify this behavior?

 

It's my job to see every side of every argument presented. And I said that I can see why someone would do that, I never said that I approve of it, nor did I say that I condemn it. I simply stated that I would personally not do such an act, that it looks like it goes against the human rules of sportsmanship (ergo, it was "Eh..."). My words mean exactly that: I can see the reason why someone would do this. That's it. So cool your roll, Susan.

[ZipZero]

I would like to point out that Stamos did use deathsting once in order to escape. Samuel Avalon, I think their name was, was dragging Stamos off in a locker somewhere, with PARAGON following close behind, continually giving warnings (Stamos had previously been shown to possess lethal chemicals). Stamos woke from the dead and burst from the locker, stinging Avalon while rushing into maintenance. PARAGON had to rush the stung idiot to medical, allowing Stamos to escape.

I do think that this case was a legitimate use of deathsting. However, I am not convinced of the legitimacy of the other uses of this sting, nor the used method of acquiring it.

[Guest]

They are literally invincible and there is no way to stop the random death stings. So I guess I'm sorry I didn't metagame and run to saw off his head.

 

Did he use ranged death stings or melee death stings?Because if buckling him to a chair turned him into a turret which shoots unavoidable instant death bullets, I withdraw my criticism and admit that that was indeed, a shit thing to do.

However, assuming that this is good ol' melee sting, here's what you could do.

1. Melt his face off and shove him in a locker

2. Call medbay over and have them tranq him, shove him in a locker.

3. Shove him in the execution chamber/permabrig and put him to sleep.

4. Follow Step 1 and 2 to shove him in a xenobio pit quickly, have him fight slimes to death for your amusement

5. Strip him naked, toss him in a cell entirely covered in glass shards while his hands are bound.

6. Call a borg to slap him around, Make a borg out of someone he killed and have him slap the ling around

7. Chairbuckle him in the end of the firing range, shoot at him untill he gets bored and stops moving

8. Do just what you suggested and retrieve a shotgun in a fit of bewilderment, rationalize that alien spike zombies rising from the dead and killing your friends is enough justification to get a bigger gun.

9.Follow steps 1 and 2, have science tie him to a chair and fire an emitter at him repeatedly, James Bond style.

10. Facemelt, Straitjacket and Muzzle, Locker, Weld locker, Solitary, Weld solitary. In my opinion the least fun solution.

11. Expanding on 8, really get into the idea that you're going to need a bigger fucking gun, alien spike zombies jesus christ!Ask science to give you something murderous, uselessly zap at his bound form with a temperature gun!

12.Shove a bluespace beacon in the middle of a small 3x3 chamber with singuloth containment fields instead of walls, throw his corpse into a portal leading to the beacon before it gets up, doom him to high speed decapitation pinball for the rest of the round.

There are so many silly ways in which you could deal with changelings that do not include the obvious "GIB HE/INCINERATE HE/WELD VENTS" metagame.And these ways could very well be justified with the fact that "Alien shapeshifting cannibal murderzombies" are not something you find in your Mallcop handbook, and thus you'd be perfectly okay breaking out of SoP to deal with them.I mean, even if you dont engineer a ridiculously complex demise for the ling you could just call medbay to run over with the syringe gun loaded with simple easily available soporific and a sleepy tank to save the day.

[EvilBrage]

You should try reading the rest of the thread, Starfish. This thread isn't about fighting changelings, it's about using monkeys to jack up your evolution points to the highest number possible. I was Samuel Avalon in that scenario, and I probably deserved to get stung (mostly because I hadn't physically seen prior stings, so there was still a thin veil of disbelief,) and I was dragging him to the incinerator not because it's an incinerator, but it was the only place I could think of at the time that had an outwards-facing disposals chute, since the idea of spacing him had surfaced multiple times. I personally thought it'd be interesting to see him survive space, but apparently that didn't work out.

[Guest]

Changelings survive space anyway. They can only permadie by way of cutting off their head or destroying their body.

And now that I see the actual context, circumstance and intent, I can get behind accusing Mirkolio of bad RP in the sense of... seriously? Deathstinging a warden about to implant you? And then saying, "mmk i'll cooperate."

That's just. Fucked up. As Sue said, there's no smart way to even react to that.

[Skull132]

And now that I see the actual context, circumstance and intent, I can get behind accusing Mirkolio of bad RP in the sense of... seriously? Deathstinging a warden about to implant you? And then saying, "mmk i'll cooperate."

 

At that point, I will agree that you should be committed to actions taken, and not bent a knee right after. It's just disrespectful, at that point.

[EvilBrage]

At that point, I will agree that you should be committed to actions taken, and not bent a knee right after. It's just disrespectful, at that point.

 

There wasn't even an attempt at negotiating, but it seemed like a prerequisite instead - just something to get out of the way before the killing starts. I remember the demands being rather absurd (namely, no implants, being released, etc) to the point where they'd definitely not be met. I'm much more concerned about the abuse of monkeys being used to bump up changeling evolution points, and we really should prevent that 27th block from being modified by the changeling's sting.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

At that point, I will agree that you should be committed to actions taken, and not bent a knee right after. It's just disrespectful, at that point.

 

There wasn't even an attempt at negotiating, but it seemed like a prerequisite instead - just something to get out of the way before the killing starts. I remember the demands being rather absurd (namely, no implants, being released, etc) to the point where they'd definitely not be met. I'm much more concerned about the abuse of monkeys being used to bump up changeling evolution points, and we really should prevent that 27th block from being modified by the changeling's sting.

 

See, if he instead murdered a bunch of people for points, people would complain about him "ganking" his way to getting points and that "killing isn't the antags objective".

[K0NFL1QT]

That's an erroneous presumption, Jackboot. For example, Nebula played an awesome changeling recently. They roleplayed with their victims, lured them into solitude, then subdued them, sucked them and disposed of them. They were eventually caught, but everyone involved had a good time and didn't feel cheated. They didn't get a lot of points, but getting the high score isn't the point of antag rounds.

With Stamos in this particular round, he ordered monkey cubes and hid while transforming and absorbing them. He already had deathsting at about fifteen minutes into the round, before any notable interaction with players, and then used it liberally on anyone who got near.

[EvilBrage]

See, if he instead murdered a bunch of people for points, people would complain about him "ganking" his way to getting points and that "killing isn't the antags objective".

 

I remember a particular round in which I killed all 28 members of the crew. There was not one complaint. Why? I did it in a manner that was fun - that, and I turned the crew into mindless automatons so they could still play. If you make it fun, you'd be surprised at the number of people who will accept dying - but to use a cheap method to obtain the most powerful sting, or to kill people for the sole purpose of watching those points rack up, is not fun. It's comparable to fulfilling antag objectives just to see green text.

[Susan]

 

 

This is apparently something Mirk consistently does. Further evidence of powergame, round as of 1:09 PM central, Feb 9 2015.

On the mining outpost, chain-eating and spacing monkeys, adding nothing, inflating genome points.

This behavior seriously needs to be curbed.

[Zygman]

With the changeling round still in progress as I'm writing this and me,The other changeling of the round,Dead...I guess I can add a comment on this.He wasn't afraid to share those monkeys in virology as each of us ate every 2 monkeys...So,I'm still gonna stay out of this debate cause it's none of my business but I just wanted to write a quick remark.

[mirkoloio]

Why do all of you people are mad about me avoiding to kick players out of the round? I cleared this with a moderating staff earlier and they stated it is Ok to eat protohumans as long as I do not go on a gankfest with deathsting.

Say, Do you want me to shoot you out of the round? Or would you rather have me eat monkeys and let you guys (E)RP in the bar?

[Guest]

It's the spirit of being an antag and being sportsmanlike about it. Using /extremely/ cheesy methods to gain a larger advantage over the crew without even working for it isn't fair at all.

[Cassie]

In a gamemode where the entire purpose of being a changeling is to eat people (or steal DNA somehow) it's hard not to knock people out of the round other than eating monkeys. I mean, changelings can be well-RP'ed I think, but the death part is enviable since "hostage holding" would be rare or pointless.

So the question arises: What is a changeling expected/supposed to do?

[Guest]

That question is the answer to why the gamemode can be conceived as bad. The changeling is supposed to kill people or sting them with horridly debilitating stuns, and given the stings have such a short cooldown and are stealthed, it's horridly griefy and not really fun.

[EvilBrage]

You have to RP with your victim; any game mode can be made fun if you know how to properly approach it. Kidnapping them and taunting them with the voice of their loved ones? That's fun, and best of all, it doesn't require the powergaming of racking up as many evolution points as you can. If changelings were supposed to evolve by doing that, they wouldn't even need to target a space station, they would just corner the monkey cube market.

[Cassie]

Yes, I'm not saying you can't do that (in fact, that's minimum of what I'd expect from a ling) but the issue here is that people complain about being knocked out of rounds a lot. Obviously, it can't be a hostage situation, but a taunt situation definitely works. For some people, they dislike any gamemode that involves death (myself, I just decanonize the round and call good sport but some people don't) is disliked, in fact, the slightest bit of antag activity drives people into a frenzy.

So yes, you might RP with them until death, lock them into a locker and so on. But then what? Someone moaning in deadchat for the next hour before passive-aggressively not readying up for the next changeling lobby startup?

[Frances]

Can we look at the issue from a game balance perspective while we're already at it?

I mean, I'm not even going to go into the specifics of light-rp, but you'd think that on a heavy-rp server, a gamemode based on progression and escalation wouldn't possess a workaround letting the antag unlock all of their powers/abilities immediately with minimal RP or effort.

Changeling is about being a serial killer. Changelings who are successful at killing multiple people without getting caught are rewarded with stronger abilities, thus encouraging them to preserve the serial killer MO while favoring a stealthier/more subtle approach.

If feeding on monkeys isn't playing to win, why is it still an existing game mechanic nevertheless? It does not create any roleplay, and if anything, puts changelings willing to eat all the tasty monkeys at a clear advantage over those actually putting effort into finding worthwhile victims.

Could we make it so lings can only get DNA from mobs with a valid (or ghosted) ckey?

[EvilBrage]

Could we make it so lings can only get DNA from mobs with a valid (or ghosted) ckey?

 

Just a tidbit to help the coders: it would be easier to code the sting sent to the target to include all blocks but the 27th structural enzyme - or better yet, just the unique identifiers. That way, the sting couldn't be used to turn monkeys into humans at all and you don't have to fumble around with CD keys.

Additionally, if we want to cut genetics protohumans out of the loop, you could instead remove the addition of evolutionary points if you absorb someone with the catatonic flag/variable (like the genetics protohumans and those created with the changeling sting.)

[Guest]

Quickest was would be to check for a computerID or IP var, once you enter a mob these are set until someone else jumps in or the round restarts

[George VI]

No, this is not power-gaming. I think it's clever, and clever thought should be applauded, not frowned upon. Because the description states it is used to make a human into another, yet it works on monkeys also is clear evidence that the developers of the function wanted to reward changelings who were clever. If we try to dispatch clever thought on mere technicalities, we ruin the point of the game. If a changeling wants to farm for more power, ( in a way that doesn't kill players, mind you all ) I say sure. Why the hell not? Normally it ends with their capture and being sold away to Xenobiology anyway.

There's a fine line between game mechanics and role-play that doesn't need to be there. If it's about being a serial killer, being a serial killer is about power. It's about the thrill, the feeling. But why should every changeling be a cold-hearted serial killer? Some changelings can be intellectual, can farm, can put themselves into society. I'm not against monkey farming.

However, if he abused the powers he got from this in a way that violated the rules / lacked role play, he deserves punishment for it.