[SEMI-MODULAR] A (Nearly) complete rework and rebalance of xenos

[Paxilmaniac]

Please testmerge this before just fullmerging without thinking about it

I tried my best to make this as modular as possible, if you see anything in the two tg files I touched that can be modularized please let me know.

About The Pull Request

"Man I wish xenos were interesting or generally possible to have fun playing against." Me (Bored on a Friday night):

What does this do?

Firstly and most important, instantly stunning people on right click, or by using neurotoxin, are both gone. There are no more hardstuns, no more, no more hardstuns!!! (There is a single one that lasts 0.1 seconds on an ability the queen has but that doesn't matter)

Second, xenos have been reworked to be, instead of being three classes then the royals, four separate classes, each with their own second evolution, or third if its the drone > praetorian > queen evolution line. Each of the new castes has somewhat unique abilities, differing speeds, health, so on. Is this not going to just result in giant unending hordes of really strong combat xenos? Good question, no, because only one of each special xeno type may exist at any given time, compared to the basic four which do not have this limitation.

The xenos (sprites included) are loosely based off of tgmc xenos and their abilities, with exceptions based upon what I thought would work better here, and what wouldn't work here.

Paxil I didn't read a single word of that and I'm gonna complain without knowing what I'm talking about if you don't give me a tl:dr

Xeno hardstuns don't exist anymore, xenos are now more similar to tgmc xenos, but not identical.

Stuff I'll likely do

• [ ] Change warrior into crusher (300 lines of tgmc crusher code later :trollface:)
• [ ] Change spitter into something else, maybe defiler or boiler

How This Contributes To The Skyrat Roleplay Experience

Xenos as of present are completely unable to be allowed into a normal round, because the abilities xenos have as of present means they will snowball to the point of everyone on station dying if they aren't killed in the first five minutes of them spawning. Generally, fighting against xenos isn't any fun due to the fact that they can instantly stunlock you with a single click, sometimes even at range depending on the xeno. My hopes are that this can be allowed to spawn on station, being both fun to play as or against, without it being another "Ughhh xenos spawned we're gonna get steamrolled again" situation.

Changelog

:cl: add: several castes of xeno, and abilities to boot that reflect a less hardstun on click focused gameplay loop balance: xenos no longer have a one click hardstun, instead relying on several new castes and abilities for combat soundadd: several fitting sounds for the xeno menace to scream at you imageadd: xeno sprites from tgmc, credit to the many people who did those /:cl:

[Paxilmaniac]

holy commits batman, I forgot I've been working on this for a few weeks

[PCPort]

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO

[Paxilmaniac]

that should've also stopped checks from failing due to duplicate ability names, we'll see

[jjpark-kb]

Okay so, this might drive you crazy-- I really think you should have a var that just says what each caste will get ability-wise. Then, on initialize it will give them those abilities; plus, on destroy it will qdel those abilities.

This would get rid of a lot of additional vars and the repeat code of having to initialize each caste differently with abilities.

[Paxilmaniac]

Okay so, this might drive you crazy-- I really think you should have a var that just says what each caste will get ability-wise. Then, on initialize it will give them those abilities; plus, on destroy it will qdel those abilities.

This would get rid of a lot of additional vars and the repeat code of having to initialize each caste differently with abilities.

that would probably be the smarter thing to do but I'm not sure how to do it exactly yet, so I'll see about it later. It doesn't effect gameplay so I'll save it for cleaning up.

[Aether217]

The return of Skyrat TGMC

[YakumoChen]

Tgmc xenos typically only work because its a dozen versus 100 on xeno home turf

I can't see it working well when the Typical Xeno Threat is less than four versus a 120pop server station on station crew turf (that's assuming they even manage to infect a single monkey, most of the time only one larva spawns)

Xenos already have the odds EXTREMELY stacked against them and only win when they get a head start in viro and the crew fails to burn them out (the best solution to most xeno problems is plasma fire)

Removal of hard stuns will just completely neuter them like they did on oldbase, really. Xenos almost never manage to spiral out of control and I only see them winning when the crew takes every wrong step to contain them. Lack of mechs, lack of atmos, general incompetence and easy early infections.

[Paxilmaniac]

If xenos turn out to be completely unable to get going then this can be tweaked.

[YakumoChen]

Current xeno balance hinges on the fact they are glass cannons. Lasers crit them in a few shots. Fire is a death sentence unless they have somewhere to escape to so they can roll (setting the hive on fire usually solves this problem immediately). Their mobility is not hard to contain. They are helpless in space and most of the station has welded vents within a few minutes of announcements. Stuns are the only thing that make them remotely viable in combat because they have no utility outside of stuns.

[Paxilmaniac]

They have been given much more utility aside from stuns with this pr, if you are uninformed then don't post about balance

[YakumoChen]

I read the PR

It looks like all you added was a bunch of lethal combat utility to xenos.

I think you forgot that hosts need to be alive and healthy to make more xenos, anyone can prevent a xeno infection in crit by just typing "succumb" in the hotbar

Xenos have almost zero use for lethal combat unless they've already snowballed out of control, or the combatant is immune to infection (basically borgs and synths)

[weesnaw-ops]

Thank fuck a xeno nerf

[Zonespace27]

Test server report:

• queen lacks large text in hivemind text
• A stray > is visible on-examine
• No description
• Xenoes use human fire overlays
• Drone can become a queen very fast

[honkpocket]

Don't let them strip, they only use it for meta gaming suit sensors.

---

Skyrat-tg/code/datums/elements/strippable.dm

At /datum/strippable_item/proc/try_unequip(atom/source, mob/user)

Line 141

	// SKYRAT EDIT CHANGE START - XENO STRIPPING
	if(ismob(source))
		if(is_species(source,/mob/living/carbon/alien/humanoid/skyrat)
			return FALSE

	// SKYRAT EDIT END

edit: oh and you could add an exception here for masks.

	if(istype(item, /obj/item/clothing/mask))
		return TRUE
	else
		return FALSE

[YakumoChen]

How are they supposed to get helmets off Or modsuits Or any other full body slot that covers helmets?

Also them being unable to strip doesn't really make sense either way. Xenos are intelligent and they should be able to strip away weapons and such, especially if they plan to vore transport them to the nest.

Stripping suit sensors is not the issue you think it is either. xenos can't hide bodies in crates or space them or gib them, removing their stripping is an extreme take.

[honkpocket]

How are they supposed to get helmets off Or modsuits Or any other full body slot that covers helmets?

Also them being unable to strip doesn't really make sense either way. Xenos are intelligent and they should be able to strip away weapons and such, especially if they plan to vore transport them to the nest.

Stripping suit sensors is not the issue you think it is either. xenos can't hide bodies in crates or space them or gib them, removing their stripping is an extreme take.

Dunno why you're asking these questions when you can just rule out suit stripping and have the rest be fine. that way suit sensors cant be gamer'd off and the bits that they actually need can. thats why i added an edit about a type check.

[YakumoChen]

How are they supposed to get helmets off Or modsuits Or any other full body slot that covers helmets? Also them being unable to strip doesn't really make sense either way. Xenos are intelligent and they should be able to strip away weapons and such, especially if they plan to vore transport them to the nest. Stripping suit sensors is not the issue you think it is either. xenos can't hide bodies in crates or space them or gib them, removing their stripping is an extreme take.

Dunno why you're asking these questions when you can just rule out suit stripping and have the rest be fine. that way suit sensors cant be gamer'd off and the bits that they actually need can. thats why i added an edit about a type check.

The reasons to remove stripping are far more flimsy and open to abuse than just leaving it alone

For instance: players that know about this can powergame by wearing a knife in their boot, knowing boots can't be stripped, if a xeno is going to vore them to take to the nest.

Far more realistic: players can have guns on their belt, grenades in pocket, etc, knowing xenos can't strip them if they get caught

The suit sensors argument is invalidated anyway when a xeno could just claw torso until the suit rips