The Revolutionaries Rework

[SlamBamActionman]

The one rework to rule them all.

Revolutionaries as a gamemode is currently fairly derided as a gamemode that relies too much on murderboning and being too "metagamey" to counterplay. This design document aims to remake the Revolutionary antag into one that escalates appropriately in presence throughout the round, has clear end conditions and doesn't encourage round removal.

"I want to see people kidnap the QM, lock him in a room with a bunch of communism posters and have 5 medical doctors wearing red headbands scream at him until he converts to the revolutionary cause"

Enjoy!

I want to highlight the previously submitted Revolutionaries reworks #251 and #146, as some concepts from those documents have made it into this proposal where appropriate.

[goet]

Does this rely on borgs automatically getting the AI laws in the future, or are borgs supposed to be unconvertible for revs? Even converted scientists can't really do anything to them without an emag afaik.

[SlamBamActionman]

It's up in the air for how Malfunctioning AI might work in the future; as far as I know borg laws will eventually copy AI law. It just seems fun to have a way to subvert the AI.

[goet]

I feel like this makes a crew lose before the round ever reaches the open confrontation, arresting a single antag in a couple minutes is considered pretty fast normally, but would be deadly here. Might be fine with some number wrangling, but wanted to give an alternative:

I love the idea to nudge sec to be violent about this, possibly lethal after a certain point, but some nonviolent ways should be available to the rest of the crew. Perhaps being around the captain humanizes him so he passively heals CHP. Or alcohol/space drugs makes people content so it greatly increases the healing rate. The random pizza event deals global CHP damage, but actually eating it heals a ton. Stuff like this would actively push revs to be increasingly more public to counteract these effects. It could also make paranoid heads do the things corpo managers do to keep morale up, which could be pretty funny.

I agree that deconversion should not happen on accident and it makes these tricky, but they could work similarly to how poison works in a lot of games. Simply can't go over 0, and/or the effect scales in a way that can't deconvert, but the heal amount is greater the further away from 0 the person is.

[SlamBamActionman]

I wanted to make deconversion/healing methods to have interplay with the Revolutionaries somewhat; you shouldn't be encouraged to start slamming alcohol the moment you suspect Revs.

Instead I made crew have a passive heal. It's low but not insignificant, and taking LHP damage disables it for a moment. That way you don't need to go out of your way to do something "metagamey" to heal damage and you can't really pre-emptively prepare for it. Once Revs are confirmed it breeds some great paranoia too.

[Everturning]

this is a really good idea and it seems real fun. Here are the things I like and that I don't.

Like:

• Mindshield being breakable. It makes it have some reason to buy multiple for the same people instead of just to distribute to crew. And, I love the scene you detailed in PR description.
• I just generally like it. there's a lot here I like. I cant organize it all. this is just a good rework proposal.

Dislike (mostly if not entirely to do with the DDD, which is a good idea in itself, just the items are weird)

• Cargommunism Pad is OP. It's just a evilcoded QM board, with supposedly little counterplay. Maybe it should be cargo locked or have at least one major difference from the digiboard.
• Mind-swap doesn't make sense. I understand it's locked behind tier 3, but... a complete mindswap? why would revolutionaries have access to wizard spells? it's weird.
• The defriebman should make it so that the people you defib are convertable, not instantly converted. Makes for a cool scene where when you wake up from death you have a few seconds to run before joining the wave.
• Something about the headset codewords thing irks me. I understand the intent, but mechanically it's very strong. Even 0.25 of the damage is still kind of powerful with the major codewords. But maybe it's not that. I still see something wrong there that I can't really define.

An idea I had: There should be some sort of interaction with the news management console. Maybe amp up the communications console effect on there? Would probably only apply if the crewmember reads the article.

Please take this all with a grain of salt, as, after all, these are just the musings of a player. I just wanted to add my thoughts on such a good rework proposal. This also completely remakes the conversion format for the game mode, which is truly... Revolutionary.

TL;DR, maybe analyze the DDD items more, mindshields being breakable is good, radio codewords needs a bit of looking at

[Kadeo64]

wow holy shit this sounds 200% better

who would have thought that making murderbone a bad idea would solve revs

[Kadeo64]

CentComm agents and other Admeme should be similarly unconvertable by default.

*except centcomm interns

[Kadeo64]

The Captain is also unique in that they always have 100 CHP and can never go below this.

Head of Security should have same property imo.

thistbh HoS would never support a revolution

[mirrorcult]

there are some very good concepts here

[Djungelskog2]

I like how not only did you stop the issues with the gamemode but actively turn some negatives such as metagaming pr lack of RP into positives by mechanically forcing people to socialise or do social deduction

[CaelleakNavinski]

Yes. Ten thousand times yes. This is amazing. Very very well done.

[SlamBamActionman]

This revolution idea sounds amazing. What are you thinking about renaming Conversion Health Points to Loyalty? Also it should have interactions with reporter and news.

I did this, though I still call it Loyalty Health Points for the acronym LHP. Calling it just Loyalty works now though, and it sounds better (plus makes the Convertable state sound more distinct).

[LittleNorthStar]

A potential idea I have is the implementation of propaganda videotapes which can be used on TV's to provide a area deconversion/conversion effect similar to posters but more powerful

also a idea for a T3 Dead Drop Items, IFF integrated surplus rifle and IFF rifle ammo schematic, essentially a special gun and ammo type which doesn't hit revolutionaries instead passing over them to hit other targets, individually the guns are kind of pathetic (low fire rate and damage) but in a group they can make for a good final push for the revolution without the normal risk of friendly fire you would get from just ordering guns from cargo

[ArcaneOcto]

This seems incredible. Literally the perfect gamemode imo. There appears to be several strategies for victory on both sides which is awesome! Man, I really hope someone codes this. The gameplay sounds so much deeper than most of the gamemodes we have rn.

[githubuser508]

Small additional idea: If a Revolutionary kills themselves with damage (explosion, self-immolation), it could also perhaps deal LHP damage? I love the theming of this rework, and martyring oneself is another very "revolutionary" concept, I think.

[saga3152]

What if at tier 3 you could buy mosin and ammo blueprint? That's very commy. Maybe also some kind of revolution music you can play to increase loyalty damage and decrease loyalty overall

[TytosB]

this is a bit of a personal thing, but i dont like that Revs seem to be going for an explicitly communist theme here. revolutions can be motivated by a number of factors, and it should be up to the players how they want to RP the flavor of their rebellion. one of the most fun times ive ever had as a headrev was being a chaplain that played it like a cult taking over the station by indoctrinating people.

[ilovehans10]

It would be interesting if sec/command killing a crew member also did damage to loyalty. It would mean that even if the game mode wasn't revs 2.0, but you instead became an initial rev via midround conversion, you would benefit from shitsec gunning down a protest earlier in the round.

[southbridge-fur]

What is preventing this from being approved and merged? I'd like to start implementing this game mode but am hesitant due to this still being unmerged.

[EthanQix]

A suggestion for that very last line :

Revs could be given objectives that, if successful, deals special map-wide LHP damage that is difficult to heal back up.

The trigger for this should be tied to converted Command members. Converted Command should also deal more Loyalty damage through the use of codewords than the common crew, maybe with a reduce malus when using radio/announcements.

[SlamBamActionman]

I have updated the document with some small but impactful changes based on feedback:

1. Codewords over radio have been slightly lowered, and a clarification has been made that crew passively heal LHP. This means dealing damage over radio is slow if you're not using high-tier words, and if not constantly kept up can be negated by the passive heal. Crew also have the ability to negate this by simply removing headsets or selectively disabling certain telecom servers. Since the damage is also split among listeners it becomes better as a passive heal for Revolutionaries when the revolution is in full swing, rather than an attacking option.
2. Relaying a codeword over the announcement console only works once, but deals full damage. I don't love this option but it frees the console from being repeatedly abusable.
3. Dealing/healing LHP damage upon death is now reserved for crew-on-crew, crew-on-rev, rev-on-crew and rev-on-rev violence. Mobs and other antags do not trigger the mechanic. This means Security don't have to worry about dealing lethally with other threats, but are punished for indiscriminately killing crew. Additionally, only a Revolutionary being killed by a crew is able to convert crew, to prevent Revolutionaries from spawning during a non-Rev round.*
4. Mindshields have been changed to not break, but instead loses its passive recharge when the owner is a Revolutionary. This means Security are not alerted if a converted department head no longer has a mindshield. However it might still be desirable to inject someone with a mindshield when deconverting them, as that provides a fresh 100 LHP shield, protecting them from new LHP damage.
5. Minor number adjustments (they're suggestions anyways) and text edits.

[Everturning]

I must say I think there can be more to bring LHP.
An idea I had is having certain people become "loyalists" that are selected roundstart but don't actually activate until they are convinced (maybe also set a time gap of like 20 minutes to activate the loyalist's convertibility). They would gain a set of codewords to heal LHP, but considering how they would likely be near the revs when they're converted, they would have to make a run for it.