Horrorform (Merge-Ready)

[ShadowDeath6]

Refer to issue #907 .

Been a long time coming, right?

Intent of your Pull Request

Adds horrorform, an ability that all changelings start out with but can only be used once five people are absorbed. The changeling, after opting to transform, will drop all their items and stand still for ~4 seconds in order to enter horrorform. Upon entering horrorform, they will screech, which is able to be heard for the same range as a tesla bolt.

Horrorform is extremely powerful, having 80% melee resistance on chest and , 100% energy immunity (disabler beams and energy crossbow bolts being the most common), hulk abilities (unstunnable, breaks walls and such), and punches that do 40 damage, not to mention night and thermal vision a la Augmented Eyesight. It also has a variety of abilities to use:

Screech: AoE stun that stuns for ~3 seconds, 15 tick cooldown

Fleshmend: Changeling fleshmend, basically. 30 tick cooldown.

Devour: A variant of absorption that leaves remains and the items that the victim has. Takes ~5 seconds after activation to actually devour someone. Devouring returns 50 chemicals and gives the amount of chemicals the victim had if they are a changeling.

Revert: Returns you to a human form but disfigures you and stuns you for ~5 seconds after reversion. This is the optimal way to transform back to human form.

Weaknesses: Horrorform can't use guns whatsoever. Horrorform has a constant drain on chemicals, 5 per tick. This means that unless you manage to kill a massive group and eat them all, you're not going to be able to sustain this very long. This is doubled by the fact that it's extremely slow, so it has a hard time catching up to people. As Conanzx said, it's viable, but not reliable for stomping everyone.

Its major weakness is atmospheric fire, I.E plasma. It takes a massive amount of damage from fire, and although it can fleshmend, fleshmend can only keep it alive a short while unless it gets out of the fire. It's also weak to being flashed or flashbanged, although it won't be stunned by them. Notice that using it a lot will blind the changeling, which will severely hamper its ability to attack you. It also only has a 30% resistance to bombs, so maxcapping it will make it extremely dead.

Reversion: A changeling has to revert in one of three ways: manually, damage, or from lack of chemicals.

Manually reverting is the safest way, with the least obvious callouts and the shortest stun, although it's still notable.

Lack of chemicals will weaken the changeling and cause much more genetic damage (NOT CLONE DAMAGE, IT'S THE THING THAT RESTRICTS CHEMICAL USE) than manually reverting does.

Damage is when the changeling takes too much damage (obviously), getting below 35 health. It will weaken for 20, and do 50 genetic damage to the changeling, plus 10 clone damage from not being able to change back correctly.

(NO LONGER CONFLICTS WITH OTHER SPELLS, THANKS OISIN)

Also: Hulks no longer bypass armor and do damage to every limb, now it's just adding 15 damage to your punch. Also also: You shouldn't be able to obtain abomination species as anything outside of admin abuse, SHOULDN'T.

:cl: ShadowDeath6 rscadd: Changelings can now activate horror form after they have absorbed 5 people, giving them massive strength and new abilities for a limited time. tweak: Hulks no longer bypass armor and target every limb. They should work like regular punches. /:cl:

[X-TheDark]

Should also add the fact that it's slower than a golem to it's Weaknesses.

[ShadowDeath6]

I've got most of the stuff fixed, but I have to sleep so I'll push the changes tomorrow.

[FluffySurvivor]

it's bad very bad not the idea, but the gameplay part.

so normal crew will just run away while security will spam flashbangs on you, kiting until you have to revert to normal form

also please don't tell me you can use normal items as an deadly huge alien creature, it would be lame as fuck if an horror form ling just went pew pew on people with an egun

also, why punches ? I thought we're talking about deadly aliens, not a fucking glorified onepunch man.

[ShadowDeath6]

You can't use guns as horrorform.

[AdamElTablawy]

it's a good idea and it works fine, fluffy

it's been tested before and it's balanced, and it works fine on goon too, which was where the idea was taken from

a horrorform ling is NOT supposed to be some end-all juggernaut boss that nobody can kill or an extreme combat ability like an armblade or flesh shield or wahtever

horrorform is as much of a last-ditch ability as going monkey or last resort is, because it is most definitely going to let you kill your attacker with your stun screeches and retarded melee damage, but you'll burn out fairly quickly and trying to use it to murderbone will get you killed

it's perfectly fine and you can't use weapons as a horrorform ling

[FluffySurvivor]

then why would you ever horrorform, you can do your job just fine with mutesting/adrenals/heal/thermals with no risk involved

being forced to be snail-slow, melee and counterable by a million things doesn't sound appealing to me

[ShadowDeath6]

Counterable by what? This is unstunnable, has near the best armor in the game if not the best, stuns on EVERY hit, has an AoE stun, and is immune to every nonlethal method security has. The only things that counter this is fire, bombs, and time.

[FluffySurvivor]

Horrorform is extremely powerful Horrorform is extremely powerful Horrorform is extremely powerful

your thing is forced to transform back in only 5 lasers to the head, from full hp. Nobody will engage you in melee, so melee armor is worthless.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the concept, but you just made it extremely underpowered. The aoe stun is shorter than even a disarm.

Okay, here is what you can do: -give it a more reasonable slowdown -give it a better stun -give it a default, empowered armblade (not punches) -give it some actual, non-useless armor

As I said, with the current iteration there is no reason to horrorform, calling the whole station to validhunt you while you can barely kill an AFK assistant is too much.

[ShadowDeath6]

It has 50% laser resistance. Its punches do 40 damage plus weaken. I'll increase screech stuntime.

[AdamElTablawy]

For accuracy, shadow, fleshmend should be automatic and fire every ten seconds.

[ShadowDeath6]

That would make them unkillable. I'd prefer it to be an ability.

[AdamElTablawy]

again this is an AOE stunning 40 damage dealing unstunnable ebow immune abomination with infinite fleshmend with armor that's stronger than deathsquad tier and can instant kill you if it's in range for 5 seconds.

this is not underpowered by any means.

shadow, the devour time is a bit too high-it should be three seconds, preferably. Or four.

the fleshmend cooldown is way too long for it to be of any use-at best you get one free save before you automatically run out of time, and you're likely going horror form in the middle of a mob of security who are trying to cremate you.

horror form also should not require you to stand still, so that again, it can be a last ditch ability.

[ShadowDeath6]

Devour is almost the same as aliens devour takes, and this permanently takes the person out of the round, so I'd prefer it to stay as is. The stun is supposed to be a warning "oh shit he's about to kill me I better get away", but I can lower the transform time a bit. These aren't seconds, these are BYOND ticks which are a bit faster than seconds.

I don't want it to be instant because it would turn it into an ambush ability because you can just immediately spring it on anybody and ggnore them immediately.

[FluffySurvivor]

because you can just immediately spring it on anybody and ggnore them immediately.

THAT'S THE POINT OF THE ABILITY

[AdamElTablawy]

it shouldn't be instant, it should take 3 seconds, but not be interrupted by moving so you can use it while being cremated or so

[ShadowDeath6]

It... It doesn't require you stand still. It just stuns you until it's completed.

[FluffySurvivor]

It doesn't require you stand still It just stuns you

???

[ShadowDeath6]

@AdamElTablawy's question. It doesn't need you to manually stand still, it automatically stuns you. If you're moved while transforming, you still transform.

[FluffySurvivor]

That's what he meant. You should be able to channel while moving, which I agree with

[ShadowDeath6]

forgot to kill the for loop oops

[ShadowDeath6]

New stuff: horrorform now has 70% laser resistance, up from 50%. Screech now stuns for 5 instead of 3, and wearing earmuffs drops that down to 2. Transformation now takes 3 seconds instead of 4.

[AdamElTablawy]

70% laser resistance is iffy man. lasers only do 20 damage, it'll barely nick a horror form ling and it'll easily be able to pull off a fleshmend and gg no re all that shit, plus devour people really quick-this could chain really badly and the only defense would be to run.

Go for 50% laser resist.

[ShadowDeath6]

that's literally what it was at first and fluffy whined about it

[AdamElTablawy]

fluffy's fluff is covered in the shit from their shit ideas, keep it at 50%

[ShadowDeath6]

I think 70% is a good level since at 50% you die from 7 shots, not even a full clip from an energy gun. Killing a horrorform with regular sec weaponry shouldn't be as easy as point and shoot, and more armor will help that.

[X-TheDark]

Also, daily reminder, this thing is slower than a golem.

[ShadowDeath6]

I added it in the op xddd

[FluffySurvivor]

Your head laser resistance was 30%. Chest armor was 50%.

@AdamElTablawy it's slower than a golem, it's impossible to juke lasers. You NEED the 70%.

[ShadowDeath6]

Fucking time giving me merge conflicts with icons

[ShadowDeath6]

If nobody has any complaints this is merge ready

[ParagonPrime]

I'm still concerned about how slow this is- you'll get one, maybe two kills off before being cornered, kited, and murdered the moment you leave horror form.

[OurDreadFather]

I'm also concerned about the horrorform speed and the 5 second stun upon reverting. As a last ditch measure, you should have the option of fight OR flight. But with a snails pace movement speed and a 5 second stun after reversion, flight is out of the question. Your only option is to kill everything nearby. And when the "HORRORFORM IN CHAPEL" call goes out, you better believe killing everything nearby is going to rapidly increase. Reverting manually should either have no stun, or a very short one. That would allow for horrorforming, screeching, hulking down a wall, manually reverting, and booking it the hell out of there. Thats a 1 to 4 second head start on the stunned people around you depending on how generous you are with the stun time on manual reversion and how quick the player is at performing those actions. Also, your now a confirmed alien with an identity you cant swap out for some time because of genetic damage.

Alternatively, have reversion automatically cast screech for free so that everybody gets up at the same time.

[ShadowDeath6]

Horrorform isn't intended to be an alternative to adrenals. It's extremely high risk, but it you use it right you can easily kill everyone around. The AoE stun gives you plenty of time to chainstun melee attacks so you really just need to get within melee range and it's gg. Reminder, this isn't just free hulk or a utility ability. The stun is important so that if sec tries to fight a ling in horrorform it doesn't just revert and run away as soon as it's remotely in danger. There are dedicated abilities for running, this is a last ditch combat ability that a ling uses if it's about to die or surrounded by sec.

[AdamElTablawy]

Horrorform is different from the other abilities in that it is intended to absolutely wreck shit, but as a last ditch measure. It's no combat ability and it's nothing you should use if there's no other option because it can backfire very very badly.

70% laser resistance is a bad idea-that means that a full clip from a laser gun will barely scratch it and it can fleshmend off the damage. You'd need the full security team, and slow as you are you can probably munch everyone in the chapel and skedaddle before being found by security who is unlikely to have lasers at that time.

Typically only the HoP, Captain, and HoS will have weapons to use on you that are actually effective-Unless things have gone to shit security rarely has lasers, and unless it's late in the round science probably won't have anything anyway (and if they do you're fucked regardless). As a result, 70% laser resistance means that those 3 people won't be able to kill you even if they're firing simultaneously.

So 50% laser resistance means that they still stand a fair chance (good luck tho with that screech.)

Again, screech needs to last long enough to devour or to close the distance to devour, seeing as people are probably running the fuck away from you-unless they're right next to you you won't stand a chance against angry crew throwing tiles at you. Screech should stun for about 7-8 seconds, and apply the changeling resonant disorient as well, in addition to breaking the lights as changeling screech does.

Disarm should also knock people to the floor the way the alien tackle does in addition to applying stamina damage, so that you can actually devour people. Or disarm could do what repulse does and knock the person hit away from you while stunning, so you can basically swat the asshole assistant with the welder out of the air.

In terms of ranged abilities, again, the extreme slowness means they may very well get circles run around them. We won't know until we testmerge it to be absolutely certain, but it may be worth considering adding some sort of targeted spell neurotoxic spit.

[ShadowDeath6]

I don't like the idea of killing with devour, it should be used similarly to absorption, getting some chemicals back from someone you killed. I think you should have to screech, kill, then devour the body.

[ShadowDeath6]

Well if that's all the feedback people have I'd say it's good to go

[ShadowDeath6]

If we aren't totally sure about the vars, maybe it can be testmerge it? It's the best way to check this kind of stuff.

[FluffySurvivor]

Merge it, I have some follow-up ideas.

[oisin100]

Ill merge this tomorrow morning unless anyone has any more feedback to add.