Refactor distress beacon mercenaries to heavily favor NT

[Nantei]

Let me paint you a picture, and I will show you exactly why I was very nervous about introducing a neutral party to the ERT pool.

It's evening PST, server is at about medium pop, getting ready for dead hour. We have about five total sec members, no warden, and a Captain. The roundtype is Mercenary, and there are four mercs.

Four mercs vs five sec is already a pretty tall order unless security gets the drop on them. So things are pretty dire. Mercenaries take security eventually as tensions rise, making reaching the armory a non-factor. Our chances of protecting the station are pretty null, even with Cargo ordering us a slight amount of gear. So we do the rational thing, we run the fuck away, and call ERT. Guess what happens? 

That's right. Two Mercenaries come. And they backstab the Captain despite the Captain offering them a pretty handsome sum of cash. The antagonistsare wnning though, so of course they have more money overall to offer since they essentially own the station now, and it's way less risky. The ERT of course makes the safe choice to side with the antagonists. Guaranteed payday, safer overall for them. On top of this, we cannot even end the round because we can't call for evac with the beacon. I have no idea why that is, and why it isn't just a simple delay, but that's how it is. Eventually staff has to actually force the shuttle to come, because the only other way around this is to go down to blue and call a transfer, which is incredibly cheesy. This is thankfully a bug. Thank you for the quick reply, Wildkins.

So we have a round where the antagonists have full control over the station, and the ERT showed up essentially to do nothing but stomp on our twitching corpses. This is exactly what I was afraid would happen.

Because the antagonists were essentially granted reinforcements to further sodomize us with, about eight total people die, and the antagonists are essentially invincible. In other words: It's a pretty terrible round. 

So what should change?

ERT should almost never be siding against the station. This should be reflected in their spawn flavortext, this should be reflected administratively. If a valid beacon is being called, the mercenaries should be helping NT. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Nantei

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Why is it a terrible round if antagonists are winning?

[Nantei]

2 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Why is it a terrible round if antagonists are winning?

I never said it was. The issue is they are invincible, because they are reinforced by the other mercenaries. All the beacon did was serve to stomp on the station harder. Not very fun IMO. And I think a lot of people in that round would agree. Fun rounds involve a power struggle between the antagonists and the station. ERT showing up and slamming their boot down on the station is not a struggle.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Nantei

[Wildkins]

hi the evac didn't work because of my shitcode that is all

[MattAtlas]

 You're part of a freelancing mercenary team who just picked up a distress beacon coming from the Aurora. You have no affiliation to anyone, but you sure do want a quick buck.

This is the welcome message now. I guess I'll make it so that they're very biased towards NT.

[Nantei]

1 minute ago, MattAtlas said:

 You're part of a freelancing mercenary team who just picked up a distress beacon coming from the Aurora. You have no affiliation to anyone, but you sure do want a quick buck.

This is the welcome message now. I guess I'll make it so that they're very biased towards NT.

Thank you. It's appreciated. I've noted this happening quite a lot, this was just the only one I personally witnessed.

[BearSchwanz]

I'ma just throw in as well,

Who is gonna pay more? A mega corporation with multiple stations and copious wealth as well as a nation sized military that makes intergalactic diplomatic deals due to their power and influence.

Or four red suit boys who are working the same job as you and resort to violent seizure of goods because they don't have enough to live off otherwise.

[Peppermint]

Hiya, I was in that round as Grace - one of the antags.

 

I was going to run with the other merc's gimmick that he somehow knew my character and play off of that, only to backstab them later. However, we spawned as a two person crew and the other merc ghosted pretty much instantly despite telling him multiple times it was part of the plan. So..at that point there wasn't much I could do in a 1v4. Hostilities in the shuttle (Weird Diona aside) started after sec decided to attack me and I let the captain get medical care. 

 

For the issue itself, I personally enjoy the chance for mercs to be called. Makes it more interesting than an 'I win' button via NT ERT which tends to happen 90% of the time. It does feel like merc has a higher probability though? Part of the issue is also imo that it's often very small groups of freelance mercs than spawn, which hugely pushes the favour towards them siding with the antag so to survive. Not sure what can be done about that, but changes would be nice.

[Brutishcrab51]

I was the head-merc, Kaddus.

Honestly, I don't see this round as an issue. I've played Freelancer mercs twice. Both times, I've saved the station. Once from traitors, once from changelings that were eating everyone and killed Security. This time, our gimmick was that we were Freelancers. Our engines weren't so great, functional but not enough for trans-planet movement. We had an announcement from the NTCC Odin saying we were arriving. Security should avoid antagonizing us, but that they should protect the station and notify the Odin if anything happened.

 

Boom. An hour later and we're fighting. After purchases from Medical and Science, the CSI picks a fight with me, Kaddus, hardcore Freelancer Leader. I have my bear-tree cut his arm off with a chainsaw for grabbing me with it, after he insults me several times more when I ask for an apology. It, obviously, escalates from there.

 

Cue the distress signal. It's Freelancer Mercs, isn't that a treat? One of them doesn't side with us, the other does. That's only after we blow our way into Medical through the Construction Level, and Security is in disarray. It makes sense, right? Mercenaries helping Mercenaries. The Freelance ERT isn't contracted by NT, it's just picked up a distress call and is responding to it. That's all. They're neutral, able to swing either way. This is the first time I've ever seen them side with the antags.

 

And that was fine.

 

As for payment? They didn't expect to be paid going on the Aurora, and they're relatively poor mercenaries if their equipment and shuttle is anything to go by. The antagonist mercenaries? An Armory with dozens of suits, dozens of weapons, an asteroid base, a gunship, a nuclear bomb, explosives, a medical bay and 100 telecrystals. I'd say they're eons above what normal Freelancers are, and are actually what Freelancers want to be.

 

So, it's reasonable that, in this particular case, they'd help each other. Why does that need to be changed? The neutrality is there for a reason.

[Skull132]

13 minutes ago, Nantei said:

ERT should almost never be siding against the station. This should be reflected in their spawn flavortext, this should be reflected administratively. If a valid beacon is being called, the mercenaries should be helping NT. 

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeebut.

The entire point of non-NT ERT is to make the situations generated through them being called more dynamic. That doesn't work when we pigeonhole them into being just reskins of ERT.

Though I do also understand that if it ends up being that they completely fuck the station 9/10 times, then the player base will, rightfully, simply stop calling them. So some steps should be taken to curb merc-ERT from outright fucking the station if it ends up being a consistent issue.

Ultimately it's a balancing act. But knee jerking after a week, at most, of the update being live is something I would rather nooot do. Though I will grant that we should try to differentiate the two merc entities thematically. As to slightly break the correlation the player base might have, and thus allow them more flexibility in how they want to approach dealing with the station.

[Nantei]

35 minutes ago, Skull132 said:

The entire point of non-NT ERT is to make the situations generated through them being called more dynamic. That doesn't work when we pigeonhole them into being just reskins of ERT.

But they are not. They are not nearly as beholden or loyal to NT. Mercenaries can: Disobey orders they disagree with, shake the station down for money, be generally more antagonistic than any other ERT.

Mercenaries generally should not: Be stomping on an already failing station. If the mercenaries are consistently siding with antags, I think that is a problem, and it will absolutely lead to people just not calling ERT. Why would I call something that has a 1/3rd chance of making things worse? In my opinion, ERT should be generally positive for the station. Not always positive, but generally positive.

Also I will note this has been, as far as I have been told, not a particularly rare occurrence. There isn't enough distinction between ERT mercs and regular mercs. Hell, if they are both on the station, a lot of people can't even distinguish between which ones are 'the good guys' and which are 'the bad guys'. This will lead to lopsided support of the ERT mercs joining what is arguably already one of our stronger antags. Not as big an issue on highpop, crippling on low and med.

[Carver]

10 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

 You're part of a freelancing mercenary team who just picked up a distress beacon coming from the Aurora. You have no affiliation to anyone, but you sure do want a quick buck.

This is the welcome message now. I guess I'll make it so that they're very biased towards NT.

The issue is most players should realize that siding with the attacking terroristic forces that are typically Syndicate-backed would make it so you suddenly wouldn't be able to do freelance work in TC anymore. Sure, you might get rich off this last job, but it's your last job and you'll be leaving Tau Ceti after this for participating in terrorism as your face is plastered on wanted posters.

[N8-Toe]

The example you gave, sounds like a fun situation. unexpected, a twist. overall good shit. 

 

I like the idea that the Merc ERT is not 100% stuck being the goody two shoes help NT guys. They're mercenaries, you gotta make it worth their time to help you. And the fact there is little distinction between the ERT mercs and game mode mercs is a good thing in my opinion