A red spy has entered the base: Adds Spies, a roundstart antagonist inspired by Goonstation's Spy-Thief

[MrMelbert]

Disclaimer: No Goon code was referenced or used in the making of this PR

About The Pull Request

Design Document (Read this for more information)

This PR adds Spies as a new roundstart antagonist type, inspired by Spy-Thiefs from Goonstation.

Spies are tasked with stealing various objects around the station, from insulated gloves to the black box, from the clown's left leg to the bridge's communications console.

For every item stolen, the Spy is rewarded with a random item from the Syndicate Uplink, plus some items uniquely available to the Spy. Stolen items are then shipped off and sold on the Black Market Uplink, allowing the crew - or maybe some other evil-doers - to get their hands on them.

More ideas for theft items and bounties are welcome.

Why It's Good For The Game

See the design document for more information.

In short: Adds a solo antagonist which has less impact than your Traitors and Heretics, but more impact than Paradox Clones and Thieves. In other words: On the same tier as old traitors.

Seeks to embrace the sandbox aspect of antagonists more by having no precise greentext objective, and instead some suggestions for chaos you can embark in. Have fun with it!

Changelog

🆑 Melbert
add: Spies may now roam the halls of Space Station 13. Watch your belongings closely.
/:cl:

[MrMelbert]

The purpose of thief is to be a lesser antag than traitor

This is not the purpose of thief. It's supposed to be on par with traitor.

Adding more reward items( especially disguising, stealing tools specifically designed for thieving) to the pool

Feel free to suggest more. Almost all uplink items (and then some) items are in the pool. Only some high tier nuke ops loot is not whitelisted.

For example: Physical stacks of minerals

This would only work if minerals were actually difficult to access and not in every single department

the ORM and Ore silo

I considered these but I decided against it.

the surgery tables in medbay which nowadays every doctor uses frequently to heal people

Operating computer are in the pool but I felt no need to add surgical tables since they're literally just silver tables that anyone could make.

There's an argument to be made for stasis beds, and they may come later, but I decided against it for now.

Lastly, the PDA-scans when stealing something should be silent and non-visual

Nah. Be more stealthy.

[bigfatbananacyclops]

The purpose of thief is to be a lesser antag than traitor

This is not the purpose of thief. It's supposed to be on par with traitor.

Adding more reward items( especially disguising, stealing tools specifically designed for thieving) to the pool

Feel free to suggest more. Almost all uplink items (and then some) items are in the pool. Only some high tier nuke ops loot is not whitelisted.

For example: Physical stacks of minerals

This would only work if minerals were actually difficult to access and not in every single department

the ORM and Ore silo

I considered these but I decided against it.

the surgery tables in medbay which nowadays every doctor uses frequently to heal people

Operating computer are in the pool but I felt no need to add surgical tables since they're literally just silver tables that anyone could make.

There's an argument to be made for stasis beds, and they may come later, but I decided against it for now.

Lastly, the PDA-scans when stealing something should be silent and non-visual

Nah. Be more stealthy.

Dear Mr Melbert,

Ore stacks are in fact easy to steal, the consequence is pissing off the crew but i agree it shouldnt be a higher degree of objective.

Regarding the statis beds, if it weren't a single statis bed it would be more impactful.

[SomeoneYouProbablyKnow]

Ore stacks are in fact easy to steal, the consequence is pissing off the crew

Yea it pisses off the crew but it's not high profile enough for people to figure out who did it. Unless you put no effort in hiding it but that's kinda... the whole point of the antag so.
Idk get a disguise, a fake ID, put a signaller on a fuel tank in adjacent maints to distract people, use a hidden away lathe like the engi one, no one ever checks the engi lathe, pay the clown to do it.

[Ghommie]

'kid'

[sylvia-from-fulp-station]

tgstation/strings/antagonist_flavor/spy_objective.json

Line 10 in 1de3bb4

"Ensure no members of @pick(department) @pick(escape) the station.",

This is incredibly impactful more so than any traitor objective, primary or secondary. A traitor with die a glorious death could feasibly cause more destruction, and anyone hijacking the shuttle could kill the whole crew, (in the last 3 minutes of the round) but both of those objectives are rare because of their impact.

tgstation/strings/antagonist_flavor/spy_objective.json

Line 9 in 1de3bb4

"Ensure no heads of staff @pick(escape) the station.",

During a rev round this situation is deemed so unbalanced it ends the game; here it is untracked.

I suggest removing these or changing them to be less impactful but still open to interpretation; eg,
Ensure all members of x department are; sent to Medical, gravely wounded, victim to a workplace accident

tgstation/strings/antagonist_flavor/spy_objective.json

Lines 50 to 62 in 1de3bb4

	"affected": [
	"ablaze",
	"burning",
	"covered in blood",
	"demolished",
	"destroyed",
	"engulfed in flames",
	"obliterated",
	"on fire",
	"ruined",
	"sabotaged",
	"wrecked"
	],

Departments are affected in a few different ways, for their personnel right now it is just 5 different ways to say make sure they don't leave. You CAN interpret this as build a silly little maze to stop them from leaving, but nobody will. I have only seen the objective go un-attempted, or an entire department round removed.

tgstation/strings/antagonist_flavor/spy_objective.json

Lines 77 to 83 in 1de3bb4

	"escape": [
	"depart",
	"escape",
	"evacuate",
	"flee",
	"leave"
	]

Finally, i think you should experiment with progressive tiers of loot for the steal rewards, getting nuke ops gear isn't possible for anyone other than nuke ops who are some of the rarest antags in the game and it's potentially available to spys roundstart.