# ‘The opposing force’ concept A major overhaul of the SS13 antagonist system and rework of how we as SK13 operate our antagonists. Codename "The Opposing Force" Ultimately we want to redefine what it means to be an "antagonist", meet "the opposing force". ## The problem Here's a brief summary of a lot of problems we currently face. ### Antagonists are too predefined What I mean by this is that currently, we have two types of antagonists that can roll, and because they are the base types, a preconception of what is expected is formed. For instance, if you roll changeling, you expect to play changeling and this is fine. However, it limits the scope of what can be achieved regarding the quality of roleplay, you are an alien, you want to go eat people and have your ambitions set regarding that. Or if you’re a traitor, you are an enemy agent sent there to kill people and have an uplink to support this preconception. We aim to enable people to choose their backstory and build themselves up as a bad guy, regardless of if you're an antagonist or not. ### People are forced to be antagonists Not only can you not choose what kind of antagonist you are, but you also can’t determine when you get it. This is because we again operate off a rolling system for antagonists. This creates a massive issue, and probably the biggest we have currently regarding roleplay quality and variety of antags. Imagine you have this epic idea for an antagonist, and you want to do it. However, you roll… and roll… and roll for traitor. Even though a traitor isn’t really what you want to antagonize as. And you just don’t get it, so now you’re not in the mood. BUT! Then randomly you get antag and aren’t really in the mood for it. This means you admin help to get it removed OR you try to think of an idea that you like at the time because you’re not in the mood for your grandiose opposing force idea. ### Hot or cold So currently, as stated above, we only have two antagonist types. Traitor and changeling. There is no way for a normal crew member to antagonise without one of these. Sure, we allow “self antagging” however, it’s not to the same level of definition of actually getting antagonist. Meaning people don’t do minor crimes. And when you do get traitor, you are essentially forced to do something drastic to make the most of your very rare antag round. And changeling suffers from the same issues, only worse. This means that people cannot do moderate crime, thus leading to a hot or cold issue and no in-between. This contributes to burnout across the board. Specifically security. ### Major preconceptions Another issue regarding the current setup is that security or, for that fact, anyone on the station KNOWS it will either be a greenshift, event round OR traitors/changelings. This means people can form preconceptions of what the round will be like. A security guard knows that he’ll only have to deal with a traitor with an emag, the captain knows he'll have to deal with people that might be shapeshifters. Though we do not display or act on this, it can make the game feel less in-depth. We want our rounds to be more flavoursome, more intricate. The current antagonist setup does not allow this. ### Staff Overwork Because of the "People are forced to be antagonist section", a huge amount of staff work is created. Ranging from really bad ambitions to ahelps to remove antag from someone. This is a lot of work, and instantly every round there are a few people, that even have antag set, that request to have it removed. Then staff create more to replace them, but those people don’t want it either. Meaning there is this mass of ahelps that need to be addressed regarding swapping antag etc. This is a major issue. Then we have ambitions. When players are forced to be antag, they will not always say no. They will a lot of the time create impromptu ambitions and goals, meaning staff have to review these and a lot of the time they are ambiguous. This creates a lot of post-round staff helps relating to ambitions that allow a player to do something not quite against them, but bad enough to cause a lot of trouble. An unmotivated traitor is much worse than a motivated one. If we can trim the flock via high word requirements, staff will have less to deal with in regards to "ambiguity" as players that have a good story will not need to stray out and find things to tickle their neurons. ## The Solution ### Summary solution So, I’ve stated the current issues with our "antagonist" setup, and sure, there are benefits and even more downsides, but I propose a solution that is far more rewarding for everyone involved. And that is called “The Opposing Force”. This system takes all of the issues with the current system and throws them out of the window. First of all, this system is based on requests. Anyone, in any role, can request to become an “opposing force” to the station. Someone that has a reason to go against what the normal flow of things is. There are no preconceptions on what someone that requests this can be, no traitor, no changeling. A blank slate for anyone to request to be an opposing force. Hell, we currently allow light “self antagging” but this is never actually used because people are scared of overstepping and getting the dreaded bwoink. Firstly this new opposing force system would entirely replace the ambitions system and would be maintained as it would be entirely independent of the current system. A system where anyone can submit a request to become part of the "opposing force". This requests system would have a few moderative functions such as a minimum word limit, a maximum gear requests section. It would be entirely controlled by the staff team, at the admin level. ### Template Players would be required to fill out a template much like the current ambitions system and also provide motives, reasoning and goals to complete. This can be dynamically updated as things go forward, the round changes, your motives might change too! This is going to be ENFORCED, it will not be optional. This sort of system would mean that you can prepare an opposing force template and submit it when you are in the mood. Meaning there is no rush to roll it, and you don’t roll antag when you don’t want it etc. ### Gear You are given the option to request gear along with your ambitions, we will have created a precompiled list of items that will be of major use to you. You will need to justify why you're requesting an item, and once you've requested it, an admin will be able to easily, with the press of a few buttons, send you an automatic care package with all of your items inside! You also have the option of requesting custom items, though for these you will need to use the inbuilt chat system. ### Control The administration team has full control over the system, with a broad set of control tools within the UI and subsystem. They're able to shut it down, block users, mute users and have access to approve and disapprove individual objectives and items. Or just deny it outright. We have also given you a chat tab, which you should always read! This will be your port of call to the admins, you just send your messages there. Talk to the admins, discuss objectives, items and send specific requests. It's also your logbook, to see what things have been approved or disapproved. “But there would be low pop rounds with too many opposing force and high pop rounds with none”. This is easily mitigated via direct control of when people can submit opposing force requests. Lower pop with less sec would mean far less slots for the opposing force. Or admins can control this entirely too. If they feel like there are too many requests they can close the system down and prevent more from being submitted. On the other hand, if there are not enough opposing force staff can press a “request more opposing force” button, which will send a prompt to anyone with the “be opposing force” status on, requesting that they submit a request. Any approved opposing force applications would be displayed on the end of round screen. We may even incorporate a discord channel that you can use to get preapproval on opposing force templates and plans, with gear too! This will be a manual system however. P.S. staff will, if they want, be able to override all automated systems. ### Example uses To further solidify the point in this system, we can provide a few scenarios that might make sense. These are all hypothetical and may not even be accepted depending on how the round is going. There is no minimum level of opposition force you can go for, it's up to you if you want to submit a really small one! **These also are not templates, they are examples of acts that would require prior authorisation and a template.** * You are the head of security and wish to act in a way that would not normally be accepted: You wish to abuse a prisoner for whatever reason(You would be expected to elaborate). - **Going out of your way to hinder security however is not really acceptable, as you are still the HoS and are expected to perform that role to the best of your ability.** * You are an assistant that would like to get rich, thus, you submit a request to raid the vault or siphon credits from your workplace. - **This alone is fine, however if you then started to kill anyone that tried to apprehend you, that would be crossing the line as this wasn't really specified in your motives. Just because you are a robber does not mean you are a killer.** * You are an MD that wishes to perform malpractice due to insufficent training, and have a decent backstory as to why. - **The fewer people you involve, the lower impact it must be. You can't just lobotomize your patients as a doctor and send them on their way. That's no fun... You can however start a brainwash cult with some IC lead up.** * You are a cargo technician that wants to join a gang, or become a pirate. - **If you have a decent reason for it, you could technically steal the cargo shuttle(once the overmap is in) and use it for your grand get away! Watch out though, the cops have ships too!** * You are an engineer that wishes to make a not-so-safe contraption. - **This is fine if you wish to simply create a small workplace hazard, but it is not fine if you decide to sabotage the engine. This is against the rules.** * You are at a bar and wish to pick a fight with someone and maybe need some prior approval if you want to go all out. - **You need a good reason to start a fight, you cannot just pick your fight and say "I want to kill him!" for no reason.** * You are a scientist gone mad, you want to experiment on REAL people and abduct them! * You are a security officer and wish to accept bribes for weaponry(we can supply you with a blackmarket link, or you can steal them from the armory!). * You are the HoP and wish to sell access to people illegaly! (Very illegal!) - **Within reason, you must specify how far you plan on going. You cannot hand out all access. Only small amounts of it.** * You are a cook and wish to cook people or animals and perform general malpractice such as making bad food! (Illegal!!!) * You, for whatever SICK and twisted reason, want to kill Ian, and spite the HoP. Or you just want to kill the HoP because they wronged you(**You need a genuinely good reason for this**). * You want to start a gang and recruit people into it, and do generally bad things such as spray painting walls, stealing things and breaking into places! * You want to start a maintenance organ "donation" business, and require specialised tools to do so. * You want to roleplay as a stowaway(we can organise something like this for you!). * You are a crazed geneticist and want to capture and experiment on someone, and then let them go after a few minutes. This works out because mutations are trivially easy to fix for other genticists, doctors, and pharmacists, It's even a 1 click undo for upgraded medborgs. Your expectation from the outset would be that someone is mildly to moderately inconvenienced, and then security arrests you. If the intention was to statue or gib someone with genetics overload and then get in a gunfight with security, that would have to be **CLEARLY** outlined in your application. And here are some **BAD EXAMPLES** that you would be denied for: * You are an assistant and want to mass murder people. * You are the RD and want to maxcap the bridge because the captain didn't invite you to his party. * You are the HoS and want to murder your colleauges. * You are the CMO and want to murder your patients for no good reason. **If you plan on going quite far with your ambitions, you MUST state this. If you do something not covered by your opposing force template, you will be bapped for it, submitting and having acceptance does not make you a "traitor".** **Attempting to be purposefully ambiguous will only lead to you getting into trouble as if you go overboard and your application does not back it up, you will be punished.** ### Developer Comments In summary, I feel like the pros of this system far outweigh the cons of the current system and having something like this would massively improve our antagonist/security/overall feel of the server. It would enable people to play low-level opposing without having to roll for traitor, meaning we get more petty crime. And because it’s entirely moderated, we would have very few bad antags. And if you think this is more work for the staff, check the staff overwork section.