Idea: Orbital Dysfunction Syndrome

[Doukan]

 

TL;DR: psychiatrist has a reason to exist: the gamemode.

 

Anyone here seen Pandorum? you should, it's got plenty of flaws but loads of cool stuff (and is what I'm pretty sure is the source for the alert change sound), too many people haven't! The soundtrack is awesome too (

 

should really be lobby music option, yes I'm a fanboy)

 

One of the core plot points is the titular pandorum, the spess crazies, spend too long in space and you just lose it, you get shakes, start seeing weird shit, your nose starts bleeding and BEWM you go wacko.

 

Not "LOL RANDOM" wacko, but "the ship is cursed, I need to save everyone by ejecting them into space!" self righteous pumped up on roids brainwashed and crazy wacko, ie: the best kind.

 

So what I was thinking was somesort of round type (yay another antag that nobody will ever code because the coders are all overworked slave driven and burnt out), but then I thought: we already have most of what'd make a pretty cool random event of sorts, with the potential for all sorts of gimmicky !!fun!! stuff.

 

Here's a layout of my thoughts, feel free to poke holes in them/make suggestions, I just think it'd be a cool thing.

Also I made this up as a I went along with little/no forethought so please don't tear me a new asshole for being a dumb fuck

 

 

Coding difficulty? Depends how much would be added, minimal to massive.

Scope? I know fuck all about coding so can't really answer this one, in terms of effects on other roundtypes though probably minor depending on how people play it.

Balance? Would need lotsa testing, but ideally it'd work like a less murder boney version of wizard.

 

Actual idea:

 

When the event fires, have the mastercomputer in Mel's basement pick 1-3 (3-7? depends how robust they'd be) crew who have the preference enabled to start to suffer from pandorum, they immediately start to suffer involuntary *shaking every so often (30 seconds? maybe a bit much, every few minutes so it's not so obvious?) and hearing the occasional weird thing (the xenos shrieks we have would be perfect for this), they're not informed of their condition.

 

Give it ten minutes or so (semi-random timer?), the "visions" become more intense, the pandorumees start to shake more intensely, drop objects, lose sense of direction (not too much, the occasional wrong direction would suffice), occasional momentarily blindness, they basically act like they've got low-medium brain damage, at this point they begin to receive some very obvious pointers as to what's happening in the form of BIG LINES OF RED TEXT ie: THE EYES, THE EYES, THEY WATCH ME, THE EYES, which gives them the chance to seek medical help (more on that in a second).

 

They also start *feeling things, like *you feel your mind slowly begin crack *you blink, and for a second, you do not exist, *you feel a sudden urge to honk.

 

Alert! New command report created! > so people don't just get their validz on and mass hunt the pandorumees (really need a shorter name for them, Pandoras? Pandos? Pandas?), they're gonna be very obvious very soon anyway so it'd only be fair to give them a grace period of a minute or so before comdomand blab it all over public radio.

 

Something something abnormal readings detected something something psychological danger present blah blah please consult station psychiatric services for support > finally gives the psych a reason to exist!

 

Once a set amount of time has passed after the pandas start seeing BIG LINES OF RED TEXT (again, semi random timer so they don't all set off at once?) they're finally told exactly what's going on, their noses burst leaving a constant blood trail so they're nice and obvious for the not crazies (though they take no damage from this because of reasons), and they see something along the lines of...

 

You are the Pandorumee/panda/space psycho/off your fucking meds!

Your hopes, dreams, desires, all gone all that matters now is >objective<.

>wiki/guide link of somesort<

 

Why only one objective? They're now single mindedly and utterly excursively focused on this one thing to the detriment of al else, all other things are utterly irrelevant.

 

What sort of objectives? Well, as I said above, hopefully something nice and !!fun!!, the BIG LINES OF RED TEXT they'll have been seeing thus far will have been relevant to it.

I'm terirbad at wording, but maybe the panda's shattered mind has taken offence at being constantly monitored and has been given psychological carte balance to destroy all the stations cameras, maybe they simply must consume all the station's donuts, perhaps they crave to "purify the station", not by purging, but by picking out of the best of the best and fucking off into space to start over with them.

 

General gist: slightly OP buffs, very gimmicky objectives.

 

Onto abilities and such, the pandas are not just mere psychos, whatever is left of their consciousness is on bath salt bath salts, just fucking watch the film and see how Officer Eden throws folks around when he's busy saving everyone by spacing them.

Ie: Major stun resistance (NOT immunity), buffed unarmed damage (because psycho strength, maybe base of 7? they're not sleeping carps. just really psyched out), pale complexion upon examination for identification purposes (because of the constantly bleeding nose, which leaves very frequent and obvious blood pools), maybe a minor healing ability?

 

Also, where the psychiatrist sort of finally comes in: Major major weakness to sedatives, you want to take down a panda who's busy ripping your co worker's legs off because robotic limbs are unclean? jab that bastard with some ether, he'll be down for a while.

 

Where does the psychiatrist actually come in? Have the distribution of whatever goofchem's version of "mind stabilizer chem" is be their responsibility and have it reverse the progress of the illness of/weaken (but not cure) the pandas.

 

They're not evil remember, they're innocent victims who's mind has collapsed under the constant pressure of shitty pay and no dental, the corporation has a duty of care in ensuring they spend all their time being looked after by the psych.

 

Guidelines? The panda's objectives would ideally be very gimmicky (as I keep saying) and very specific in order to minimize griff, ie: they might rip off robot legs but completely and utterly ignore the person they're attached to even in face of resistance, they're that focused on just destroying robo limbs/stealing everyone's shoes.

 

Other idea? ignore the above and have them be roided out raiders IN SPAAACE, ie: shameless rip offs of firefly's reavers.

 

 

Obviously my thoughts here are all over the place, if someone else would like to make something more coherent please go right ahead.

 

EDIT: More grammatically correctioned title.

 

EDIT 2: edit for the edit to say that I edited the edit.

 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Guest

[Dumbdumn5]

 

The way you described the objectives, I could only think of this.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/ ... range_mood

 

EDIT:It's also really damn cool.

 

[Doukan]

 

The way you described the objectives, I could only think of this.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/ ... range_mood

Welp, I've subconsciously ripped Toady off.

Still though, more references can only be a good thing.

 

[AzyWng]

 

Actually, this seems more of a tantrum than anything else.

 

Except more geared toward the panda's objective.

 

Also, there's obviously gonna be the folks who use this as an excuse to LOLRANDOM.

 

[Tauka Usanake]

 

I like the idea, but nothing is stopping Chemistry or any surgeon/Medbay employee from doing the psychiatrist's job. They will get syringe guns and shoot them full with however many syringes they have just because they want to stop them. The psychiatrist doesn't have any means to solve this anymore than the others in their department. That is, unless it's a special chemical that can cure them that only the psych starts with but that could only work so much too.

 

I like the idea but it needs better solutions if any. Might as well just leave the crazy crazy all round long

 

[Vivalas]

I like the idea but agree this isn't really limited to the psych. I say it should be medical's job in general to restrain and help the pandos but the psych and CMO should be in charge of it. Psychiatrist doesn't need to be an important job. It should remain an RP thing. But this does sound cool and would give psychiatrists some people to RP with.

[Doukan]

 

I was originally thinking it'd be great to have mini-hulked pale maniacs running around, but then I realized what a terrible idea that is, strange moods IN SPAAACE with less craftdwarfship and more robusting sounds a lot nicer.

 

As far as the psychiatrist's involvement goes, upon reflection it would probably would be better to have it be a medbay wide responsibility, albeit with the Freud guy being the one calling shots (if the CMO can't be bothered to, but they should be running surgery or something anyway).

Kinda like how with cult/vamp the chaplain is meant to be the one going all van helsing, they're nigh always subsumed in that role by sec/everyone else, having something for the psych to do though even if it is just on paper would still be a step forward IMO.