# Ancient Boss Antagonist

## **Abstract**
The Ancient Boss Antagonist is an event antag mid-round spawn that occurs during an average round of Space Station 13. The Ancient is a guardian unit created by the Ancient race and is tasked with protecting Ancient facilities. An inert Ancient artifact has collided with the station and awakens due to the lifeforms on board the station.
The Ancient is spawned on the station after an artifact collides with the station. The Ancient then seeks out players to fight. Over the course of the event, the Ancient utilizes short ranged and long ranged attacks, as well as melee attacks to combat the crew. This event incentivizes crew cooperation in order to deter the threat.
## Goals
* Provide players a unique combat experience
* Give the crew an incentive to cooperate with one another
* Give the crew an incentive to arm themselves with many of the player made weaponry available mid-round

## Non-Goals
* Cause a station wipe or create a scenario with too few crewmembers to fight the Ancient
* Dissensentivise fighting the Ancient due to station destruction or player deaths

The Ancient spawns on top of the activated artifact after a short period of time. A stationwide announcement is made alerting the crew of the Ancient's presence, similar to an artifact bomb. From here, the Ancient has a number of attacks and abilities to aid it in combatting hostile lifeforms:
* Grab: The Ancient can grab a critter within a one tile radius of itself. This is an upgraded grab similar to the Changeling Horror Form Grab.
* Crush: The Ancient can crush the critter within its grasp
* Throw: The Ancient can throw the critter within its grasp
* Short Range Beam: The Ancient fires a short range, 3 tile wide blast that can knockback players.
* Long Range Beam: The Ancient fires a medium range attack with piercing damage. This is used to pick off injured or fleeing enemies.

Passive Abilities:
* Pry: The Ancient can inherently pry open airlocks, both bolted and restricted.
* Self Propulsion: The Ancient can propel istelf through space.
* Self Healing: If the Ancient is not damaged within 5 minutes, it begins a self repair function that heals a maximum of 1/8 its total health. This process takes 30 seconds and can be interupted.

Upon the Ancient's defeat, its core will attempt to "flee" the crew, giving the crew coordinates to an Ancient Derelict. These coordinates will open up a portal to the rewards chamber of the event: A room filled with ore and machinery that the crew would not normally have access to.

The Machinery in question would be artifact activators and other useful research tools.

The Ancient would not spawn on rounds that included less than 20 active players, nor would it spawn on Nuclear Operative, Revolution, or other Antag focused rounds such as blob.

## Alternatives
The initial intent was to have the Ancient summoned via the research department. However, such methods might be too dissruptive for round to round engagement. Thus, the new method of "delivery" for the Ancient was devised. I have come up with a few alternative forms of the Ancient event:
* The Ancient is spawned off the station Z level and will only approach the station after a period of existance in the Debris Field or Mining Level. This would give the crew ample time to prepare for its arrival, or incentivize the crew to seek it out and destroy it before it broached the station Z level.

## Potential Changes

If the event is too disruptive, the abilities and attacks of the Ancient are fluid enough that they can be changed.

The Ancient could potentially summon backup drones as seen in the Void and Lava Moon.

In the event the rewards for beating the Ancient aren't lucrative enough, they can be reworked with player feedback.