The purpose of this request is to rework the Head of Security’s emergency orders
As of currently, the Head of Security’s high value item is virtually useless, and serves no other purpose rather than being a target for syndicate agents to steal as an objective.
My proposal is to make the HoS’s emergency orders act as a way to contact Central Command for assistance during emergencies, via spawning ghost roles, such as ERT and CBURN.
The way i suggest to implement this is for the orders to have a randomized code inside of them (like traitors) with a card that you insert into the red phone, as well as the an authorization code (like the auth disk).
This suggestion would help change how roles play such as nuclear operatives and initial infected, enticing them to change their strategy around the Emergency orders.
In terms of balancing it could be changed in what situations the orders could be activated, such as disabling the option to when Nuclear Operatives declare war on the station, and etc.
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This isnt a bad idea, but the ERT that come in would likely have to be a lot weaker than the ERT the admins spawn. If players could spawn in full strength ERT every round, it would be far too unbalanced.
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not a bad idea and it kind of fits with the other objectives as ce’s boots have a function so dose the hypo and the digi board this would also give hos’s more of a reason to carry it other than just protecting it at all times and can serve as support for small sec teams that’s getting overwhelmed.
but yes they would have to be downgraded a bit and possibly the number of ghost roles spawned would have to depend on the pop of the server.
I’m not sure if a timer on how long the ert can stay on station would effect things might limit things too much. Maybe it also calls evac (can’t be recalled) as well as if your calling for ert sec probably can’t handle the threat, this would also stop hos’s prematurely calling ert just so that they can get more sec offs with better gear.
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I’m thinking more… of something more creative.
Almost like how theif’s toolbox works, but for the emergency orders.
Now here we can have option to make ERT, or, in cases where there are not enough security officer, the capability of making police borgs/sec borg modules.
This way this item become more HIGHLY sought after by antagonist.
Disabling it on WarOps is a bit… questionable, but futher discussion can be had.
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Ah, imagine being able to EMAG it to call in a threat, like ninjas can do.
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Let’s ignore that admins are unlikely to want to make an admeme role into a game mechanic.
On its surface I think that this would be a decent way to extend rounds and give ghost roles something to do. Where I bump into issues is how to limit its usage.
ERT and CBURN only make sense in those cases where the antags steamroll the station and when there needs to be a new force to break up stalling rounds. The game is and should be balanced around the crew being able to fight back threats on its own, and if the crew puts up a good fight and loses, the antags shouls not be punished for overcoming them.
You would need some check to prevent crew from using the orders to just call ERT at any time. Making it require the evac shuttle being called is a decent option (maybe it even blocks recalling once activated) since if evac is called shit tends to have hit the fan. But if Nukies attack you should not be able to just call ERT reinforcements immediately, and every round shouldn’t end with the HoS calling ERT “because why not?”.
I don’t have a good answer for how to solve that. X% of players need to be dead for the orders to be able to activate?
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Make the orders only send a pop up for admins to decide if you autorize ert or cburn.
I feel there are a few decent options.
For a timer, it should be hidden and game mode dependent. Nukies could be one hour to incentivize them to make the round interesting before too long, where on Traitors it should probably be an hour an a half or outright disabled. This would also be more believable; A stalled nuclear threat is a much bigger deal than a small group of agents.
Hiding the timer obviously prevents metagaming to figure out what gamemode it is. A message saying All local ERT teams are busy or something would suffice.
Of course, if it’s an zombie round, CBURN should be sent instead. On Survival why not have it able to be activated rather quickly? People are expected to die rapidly and these are a few more ghost roles to help out.
You could base it off ghost player percentage, too. But I fear this will just punish nukie teams for being too effective and (further) incentivize turned zombie players to ghost, rather than play.
Another option might be having ERT cost a large number of spesos to call in. Fits with the (totally not evil) space corporation theme. “Your station isn’t that profitable? Sorry, but here at Centcom, we reserve our best defenders for our best financial performers.”
This also opens the door for having cheap and expensive ERT options. Maybe you just really need a team of janitors to help with 42 lube bombs. Or perhaps cargo been poppin’ off, so you can afford a full ERT fireteam.
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