Chaplain tweaks

[Kyep]

🆑 Kyep
add: Updated chaplains. They now spawn with their nullrod in their hand, and their soulstone in their locker. They now have the ability to bless other players. The more players they bless, the more likely admins are to answer their prayers. There are no longer any atheist chaplains. The chaplain items that reference atheism have been tweaked accordingly, e.g the atheist fedora is now the binary fedora. A few other items have also been tweaked. Paranormal ERT members now count as holy, like the chaplain, and red/gamma paranormal ERTs get a more powerful version of the nullrod, so they have a reason to use a weapon other than their gun.
/:cl:

[datlo]

Just to clarify, as of right now, blessing only increases favor, and favor is only used to show how many you blessed when praying to admins?

[Kyep]

@datlo Correct.

[granodd]

Makes the chaplain a bit more interesting and dynamic. Though I'm a bit unsure on how I feel about the atheist themed chaplain; it just seems like a guy with a mindshield and a really sharp hat who doesn't do any of the typical duties of a chaplain at that point. Like for instance:

"Captain we have a cult!" "Quickly fetch the chaplain!" "Sir he's an atheist and is currently in the brig for throwing his hat at someone."

Just doesn't seem like someone you would be sticking in charge of your holy sector if you know what I'm saying.

[ScratKnapp]

Gaining favor seems a bit pointless because you can just bless everybody to no effect to the bless-ee without much thought, I do think there should be SOME effect of a bless depending on religion.

[Kyep]

@granodd There were already atheist chaplains. I just codified them and made them more sensible. Previously you could walk around wearing the atheist fedora but still praying and expecting the gods to heed your prayers. You could be an avowed atheist that did not believe in any gods, yet routinely invoked them and their power. That made no sense. After this PR, the trade-off is more explicit - you're giving up your supernatural powers in exchange for material, mental defense. Half of chaplains shirk their chaplain duties anyway. If they're gonna do that I'd rather it be obvious from the start that they won't be doing supernatural stuff, and they have a mindshield which makes them harder to subvert. There are also other changes in this PR (like bless/favor/prayer) encourage chaplains to take their duties more seriously, and if all else fails you can always make holy water at any of the chem machines on station. Plus, the chapel actually starts with some holy water.

@ScratKnapp: assuming they agree. They have to agree. And stay still. And not be freaked out when you start blessing them 'in the name of the dread god c'tan!'. I did previously want some material effect of bless, but I get the impression that the headmins don't want the chaplain to get into 'performing actual magic' territory, so I ended up taking out the physical effects of blessings.

[Necaladun]

There is an effect. It means you're blessed. Millions (billions?) of people get said blessings IRL with no mechanical effect!

[ScratKnapp]

Hmn, true true.

Perhaps allow an admin to add favor manually in case they are assigned a divine quest or perform some other symbolic sacrifice or task that people already do every now and again? Perhaps if one Prays, a quick button to add 1 favor, idk

[Mitchs98]

I'll echo what I said on the forums. Yes it ICly makes no sense an atheist be able to bless water tanks and the like, however, that's often needed regardless. People are going to get mighty pissed at a Chaplain picking Atheist on a cult round. Everything else sounds alright I suppose, I just don't see much point in an Atheist Chaplain if the literal only upside to it is a mindshield and a nullrod anyone can steal once it's actually used beyond RP factor.

[KasparoVy]

SPAYCE JAYSUS!

[granodd]

@Kyep As neat as it is, I still am not sure Nanotrasen would be putting a person who holds no faith in charge of their chapel, a place dedicated to worship, blessings, and holy rituals, when none of that is going to take place. The other three choices seem good, and will likely get picked more often, though I don't think having the atheist option be there is really a wise idea.

[Tayyyyyyy]

This is awesome!

@granodd I don't know if it's that out of character for NT. They're a heartless corporation that probably doesn't care too much about the spiritual side of things. If they can get an edgy atheist "chaplain" for half the cost of a university seminary educated, ordained by space-pope chaplain, I'm sure they'd go for it 😛

[Necaladun]

Holy water can be made in chemistry, and more chaplain slots opened, so I don't see the lack of that as an issue. Moving chaplains away from "designated valid hunter" is a great thing in general.

[datlo]

@Necaladun I'm actually like 99% sure chaplain slots can't be opened specifically because of their special ability to use bibles.

[Squirgenheimer]

I would worry the lack of rewards that give purpose/direction to the atheist chaplain (non-atheist chaplains get favor) actually increases the chance they would resort to valid-hunting, grey-tiding, etc.

Combine that with the mindshield which may instill a false sense of authority by making them superficially more like a security person.

However, given that a lot of the cool weapons that are more effective against antagonist are given to the other chaplain types the valid hunting specifically may not really be much of an issue for atheists.

Half of chaplains shirk their chaplain duties anyway.

This is probably because the role lacks structure. Cutting out a sub-role specifically for chaplains who may end up fucking off somewhere, spacing themselves, going ssd, etc may seem like a good idea to help separate the "good" chaplains from the "bad" chaplains but I think that the way the role is designed influences behavior to a degree. This means that it may be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. If they really don't want a role with structure, they should be encouraged to choose civilian.

That said, this PR generally looks like a great idea.

[Necaladun]

Nothing stopping a mindshielded chap from being a tator or ling ;) Hopefully it'll actually decrease the trust.

[Mitchs98]

Holy water can be made in chemistry, and more chaplain slots opened, so I don't see the lack of that as an issue. Moving chaplains away from "designated valid hunter" is a great thing in general.

As I said on the forums and here; yes chem can make it. But in limited amounts.

But I digress. Most are in favor of it anyway even if it seems like a bad idea for Atheist to exist in such a way.

🤷‍♂️

[TDSSS]

Do you have a screenshot of the holy torch?

Also, what null rod forms do supernatural ERTs get, and which 'alignment' do they count as?

[KasparoVy]

Lawful good

[Kyep]

New Changes:

• Chaplains no longer see favor numbers when doing blessings.
• Admins now see favor as "blessed: 4" (for example) so that it is clearly just a count of the number of people they have blessed.
• ERTs count as 'good' aligned for the purpose of which nullrods they get.

Other thoughts:

• Its perfectly feasible to create enough holy water using chemistry. I've done it myself in a bunch of rounds where the chaplain was dead or missing.
• Atheist chaplains don't get many of the weapon forms, the armor, or the torch. So, arguably they're at a disadvantage when looking for trouble in maint.
• The holy torch re-uses the torch sprite from botany. No new sprite added.

[Kyep]

Update:
Paranormal ERTs on RED or GAMMA alert now have the new 'sanctify_force' property applied to their nullrod, and any variant they transform their nullrod into. This property adds 10 bonus BURN damage to the weapon (so the energy guns they start with, which do 20 and work at range, are no longer always better than their nullrod). It also causes information about their sanctified status to be added to the weapon's name, and description. Finally, any non-holy person who tries to pick up the weapon will find it reacts badly, jumping out of their grip, bouncing off the floor, and smacking them in the face. This stuns them, and makes the weapon drop to the ground. Effectively its the holy opposite of the cult blade. Since this is quite powerful, only red/gamma paranormal ERTs get it.

[variableundefined]

I am not sure whether I agree on the atheist part, though adding in alignment might be a bit restrictive on RP freedom and potentially bind Chaplain's roleplay to a dualistic (?) view of morality.

[KasparoVy]

That works too heheheh

[variableundefined]

I have multiple concerns about the design of this PR:

1. This PR splits chaplain into three hard-defined roles and restrict their roleplay by implicitly telling them their god is "Good", "Neutral" or "Evil". Why?
2. The atheist part is way too snowflakey and might as well be a second job. Not being able to pray or do anything holy-ish make them prone to acting as a validhunter plus with a mindshield and...not much else? Please remove it.
3. I do not like how most of those are straight nerf. Neutral and Evil have access to less option than a normal chaplain, while Good chaplain lose soulstone & armor in exchange for a...unique flashlight? It's still a nerf.
4. The part where you cannot pick up a null rod as a non-chaplain or ERT seems to be just a way to arbitrarily mess up anyone who beat an ERT and loot them. I do not like this.
5. Most of these changes are just, why? Why split them up into three roles? Why give them alignment? Why restrict them from accessing other staff based on an arbitrary alignment system?

I am personally fine with the isholy port & blessing tracking myself.

[Agameofscones]

I fear that, given time, in the same way a meta develops for each department (Read: Medical surgical duffels, tesla > singulo almost every time, botany rushing meme plants), one will develop due to this PR. Currently the Chaplain's items offer them freedom and choice, but their designation doesn't exactly change. Yes they might be could-be-valid-mcgee, but by offering players a mindshield off the bat (Which is usually seen as a license to pseudo-sec), as well as arbitrarily dividing the chaplain gear will lead to 'good' and 'bad' chaplain players (as judged by other players) based on their equipment choice, and not so much their actual actions in-game.

For example, Bob "Painting" Ross chooses to be a good chaplain that always takes prayer beads and invites people to paint in the chapel, blesses holy water for security, and valids when permitted.
On the other hand, Billy "Destruction" Jones choose to be an evil chaplain, and since he's been directly told by the game systems that he is evil, he will act as such, and potentially self-antag and refuse to help security since it is against the will of evil.

Thus you will get players being shamed for making interesting roleplay choices, taking atheist, or doing anything that doesn't already fall in line with what Chaplain's do right now.

Having a player culture that would actively shame people for making choices that go against the grain just isn't right.

Remind yourself that vocal coders, maintainers, and contributors are one thing, but that the silent playerbase not actively complaining about chaplain duties is a voice in of itself. And that their silence is important.

Consider me slightly against. Perhaps, splitting the atheist into their own job (without a mindshield) as an opposite to the Chaplain might be worth investigating. A similar situation that we have with the Mime - Clown dynamic.

[Tayyyyyyy]

I don't really see the issue with alignment. They're broad and they're the common ones from that one chart with lawful good and stuff, from DND. So it's a widely established roleplaying archetype thing.

It's exactly why in games with character creation your character is more interesting whereas games where your character is a "blank slate" are boring.

This PR absolutely will need adjustment as time goes on but we shouldn't be afraid of really interesting new things like this.

[Agameofscones]

Fair point @Tayyyyyyy but I just can't help but worry about how power-game minded players will react to this change if ever testmerged or merged long term.

[Dinarzad]

If the name of the alignments is a point of contention, it could easily be changed to "Light" and "Dark"

No mention of good or evil, just vague notions of 'holy' or 'unholy'. And there's plenty of fiction to go off of from there about "Light" deities being as or more evil then the "Dark" ones, or "Dark" beings that strive for a greater good in a 'ends justify the means' kind of methodology.

[Kyep]

@variableundefined

1. Good/neutral/evil have been renamed to "light", "neutral" and "dark". This choice is there partly to prompt chaplain players to define their god in more detail (which helps them RP it consistently, helps admins to know what sort of god they're pretending to be when responding to prayers, and so forth). Its useful in terms of being a framework for RP. It also helps on a practical level, preventing chaplains from taking all the most validhunty gear together, like a torch + armor + soulstone + best weapon combination. It is part of the changes aimed at encouraging chaplains to spend more time giving religious services (like blessings) to crew, and less time hunting for combat in maint.

2. Atheist chaplains have been entirely removed as of latest commit. There is no longer an atheist sub-type of chaplain, and all its features (including mindshield) have been removed. The atheist bible skin is still accessible (now named 'PlainRed', after its look). So is the atheist fedora (now named 'binary fedora', after its black/white color scheme).

3. To be blunt, chaplains need their combat ability nerfed a bit. Right now they're the only job that starts with armor, a choice of over a dozen weapons (many of which with unique effects that are pretty strong), a soulstone to keep sentient servant, serious torso and head armor, supernatural immunity to some antag powers, and more. Right now they're designed more like crusaders than chaplains. They have every incentive to validhunt in maint and no incentive to provide services to the crew. My PR seeks to change this by giving them some incentive to interact with crew (the more they do, the more likely admins will answer their prayers when they make them), and putting in some limits to prevent chaplains taking ALL the most powerful combat equipment at the same time.

4. The only nullrod that cannot be picked up by non-holy character is the "sanctified nullrod", which only RED/GAMMA paranormal ERT members get. Buffing this nullrod to a substantial degree is required for it to see actual use, since by default the nullrod only does 15 damage, whereas their guns do 20, and can hit from range. Thus if we want the paranormal ERT to actually wield a holy weapon, as it seems like they should, it needs to be stronger than the regular nullrod. Hence, the sanctified nullrod. Also, I would point out that having a holy weapon that really, truly is reserved for holy characters is both a neat concept and actually quite hilarious when other people try to pick it up - much like people trying to pull the sword from the stone. We already have an evil variant of this - the cult sword - this is basically just a holy equivalent, except where all cultists can get the cult sword, only the rare red/gamma ERT can get the sanctified nullrod.

5. Your point five is sorta 1-4 combined, so, see my answers to 1-4.

[TDSSS]

IMO, supernatural ERTs should be neutral, not light/good. That seems to fit their equipment and way of going about things more.

[variableundefined]

We are still convinced that the good / neutral / bad things are too limiting.

Please remove those changes too.

[Kyep]

The PR has been updated, the alignment system removed. The CL at the top of the PR has been updated accordingly, and the PR renamed.