kills swarmers

[Therealdoooc213]

About The Pull Request

removes swarmers from the game

apolgy for bad english

where were u wen swarmer die
i was at house eating dorito when phone ring
"swarmer is kil"
"no"

Why It's Good For The Game

Swarmers are a bad antagonist in almost every aspect, and this also shows with how a majority of swarmer players play the antagonist.

I've observed quite a bit of rounds with swarmer's, and this is how it usually plays out:
Swarmer spawns. Eats the gateway room, ventcrawl's to vault, eats ore silo, runs away, then griefs the station for the rest of the round by eating departments, breaking critical departmental components (Lathes, consoles, doors, etc).

How is this fun? Swarmer's can't even interact with the crew anyways, they can't speak common, and don't understand it. Swarmer's are just a bad excuse for a antagonist.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots&Videos

2025-02-02.00-06-44.mp4

Compiles.

Changelog

🆑
del: Removes swarmers & swarmer related content from the game. Including space ruins, and the megafauna.
/:cl:

[Rukofamicom]

Swarmers need improvements to how they interact, but not a full removal.

Full removal should be the final action only after attempts at improving them have failed. Even a substantial nerf such as removing ventcrawl if they have resources is a better step up than this.

[Therealdoooc213]

Full removal should be the final action only after attempts at improving them have failed. Even a substantial nerf such as removing ventcrawl if they have resources is a better step up than this.

I genuinely see no way on how to redeem swarmer's unless you completely gutted it and reworked the entire thing with a different gameplay style.

[Fronsis]

Full removal should be the final action only after attempts at improving them have failed. Even a substantial nerf such as removing ventcrawl if they have resources is a better step up than this.

I genuinely see no way on how to redeem swarmer's unless you completely gutted it and reworked the entire thing with a different gameplay style.

That's pretty much what was talked during the last attempt to fully kill them, you can check the PR and the forum post where it was discussed, there were even some bandaids like preventing the vault to be eaten or a straight up turret

[Rukofamicom]

This makes the threat mostly finite and also centralized. It makes playing swarmer more fun and interactive for the swarmers because they're actually meant to interact directly with crew now. It makes it more fun for crew because they have a concrete threat and goal instead of a persistent and mostly invisible boogeyman that munches only where they aren't seen.

[PowerfulBacon]

I'd rather delete them for now, I think the level 7 is much more easilly recoverable than swarmers and swarmers are genuinely the worst thing to exist when they spawn just from how frustrating they are

[Rukofamicom]

I'd rather delete them for now

Would you consider trying something like taking away vent crawling first? They will likely be dealt with more quickly, but they're a very unique antagonist in how they function. What makes them frustrated can be mitigated in any number of ways. De-centralizing the ore silo is easily the biggest step in reducing the frustration they cause, but removing vent crawling will make them a lot more manageable and should feel fair to the station.

I don't think we can afford to remove very many events right now without reaching a critical level such that every round feels like it fires every event.

[PowerfulBacon]

Removing the ventcrawling would be a good change even if they end up deleted

[itsmeow]

Why not just make swarmers much rarer? They still serve some intrigue to new players as a mysterious lil guy, even if they suck

[Therealdoooc213]

Why not just make swarmers much rarer? They still serve some intrigue to new players as a mysterious lil guy, even if they suck

Avoiding the issue doesn't solve it

[Therealdoooc213]

Removing the ventcrawling would be a good change even if they end up deleted

Removing ventcrawling would probably end up in swarmer's being stomped instantly.

[Rukofamicom]

I made #12231 in 15 minutes to at least try before a full removal.

It's not the rework I want, but it will dramatically change how the antagonist plays out by simply removing ventcrawling and tweaking their other stats so they're more of a stand-off antagonist than an eternal boogeyman. It will at least offer vaguely similar gameplay to what I posted above by keeping the swarmers in at least a relatively centralized location and fighting together.

[Tsar-Salat]

A generally pretty boring antag that we have to constantly police because they are either explicitly hunting crew once they reach a critical mass rather than pursuing their primary objective, and breaking the Atmos/power of the station which they are lawed not to do.

I do not think the issues of this antag are addressed by removing their vent crawling and increasing their health. This antag is spiders, if they were made to be not engaging to players at all.

[github-actions]

This pull request has conflicts, please resolve those before we can evaluate the pull request.