Subjuzine

[Kandiyaki]

About the PR

Added a new reagent, Subjuzine. It works the exact same as cognizine, but makes the ghost role a familiar instead of a non-antagonist.

Subjuzine can be bought in a traitor uplink. It comes in a 6TC kit that includes a 20u vial of Subjuzine, an empty syringe, and two mice. It can also be made chemically by combining Cognizine and Vestine.

Why / Balance

I think it could be very fun for traitors to turn animals into their secret henchmen. Use mice as spies, steal Shiva by forcing her to follow you, feed hamlet some potassium pills and tell him to get a drink from the captain.

Balance-wise, the strength of the henchman is entirely dependent on the strength of the injected creature. One could inject a mouse only to instantly lose them to a mousetrap, or somehow manage to inject a sharkminnow and have a very strong companion.

There's a blacklist for if the creature is humanoid, since those are already sentient in-context and would also be way too strong to have as a familiar.

4 TC may be a bit cheap for the possibilities this item holds - it's entirely possible the cost may have to be bumped up.

Technical details

The Subjuzine code is similar to the Cognizine code. It checks if the subject has a mind, and gives a new ghost role if not. Since Subjuzine-injected creatures will almost always be serving an antagonist, the Subjuzine code changes any pre-existing ghost role's description and rules to make it clear what the player is getting into. It also does some wizardry in the ForensicsSystem to find the name of the person who mixed their blood into the Subjuzine, and adds their name to the role's description.

This PR depends on changes I made in PR #32341! that functionality isn't listed here because it's a separate system!

Media

(old) basic overview & demonstration of edge cases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93HqsHlX-OI

current functionality as of 9/30/2024:
https://youtu.be/MAgdNeC7BE4

screenshots:

Requirements

• I have read and I am following the Pull Request Guidelines. I understand that not doing so may get my pr closed at maintainer’s discretion
• I have added screenshots/videos to this PR showcasing its changes ingame, or this PR does not require an ingame showcase

Breaking changes

Changelog

🆑

• add: Added Subjuzine, an alteration of Cognizine that bends the newly-sentient creature to the injector's will. It can be bought in the traitor uplink as part of the 6TC Animal Friends Kit, or created by mixing Cognizine and Vestine.

[EthanQix]

I've been thinking about what would happen, syndizing critters from the station...

• Hammy : create minor havoc with the perfect excuse of being Hammy
• Ian : Top 10 Anime Betrayals material right there if you have the butchering objective
• Shiva : yes.
• Sharkminnow : YESSS.
• Goliath : MUHAHAHAHA

[Cojoke-dot]

should be craftable with the syndie chem instead of being its own thing...

[UbaserB]

should be craftable with the syndie chem instead of being its own thing...

it already is

[Cojoke-dot]

ah, its both... hm...mouse...

[deltanedas]

leviathing with syndizine:

[Cadunkus]

Syndizine made me think it was a syndicate version of omnizine (the god healing chem) and not cognizine.

[beck-thompson]

My only recommendation would be to make mouse cubes! It feels a little weird that the mice are alive when they arrive. Love the idea!

[Boaz1111]

hi two concerns:

1. Syndizine foam bombs make this really strong
2. You say you can’t syndizine humanoids, but is that really the case for all humanoids? Cogni can be used to make unidentified corpses and catatonic players into ghost roles, does the same apply here?

[Ilya246]

people will use this on goliaths

also can use it on unidentified corpse

[Boaz1111]

This was tested by a member of the discord, from their testing, Goliaths can't metabolise chemicals

[Kandiyaki]

2. You say you can’t syndizine humanoids, but is that really the case for all humanoids? Cogni can be used to make unidentified corpses and catatonic players into ghost roles, does the same apply here?

ack, i never tried that. it just checks for a HumanoidAppearanceComponent, so it theoretically shouldn't work on those? will test in a few hours

[Kandiyaki]

2024-08-29.05-46-41.mp4

unidentified corpses and catatonic players seem to work as intended

[Ilya246]

though maybe it should work on unidentified corpses? why not

[Kandiyaki]

that'd essentially work like the player purchasing a reinforcement radio, but for a quarter of the price. in my opinion, it's too powerful for too cheap. plus, it'd be a bit weird to completely control another humanoid being like that.

[ScarKy0]

To be honest if this worked on catatonic players it would be very goofy
Also had no clue cognizine makes catatonic players into ghost roles, now i know what to do with that pile of catatonic people below medical

[Kadeo64]

As long as this doesn't affect boss mobs (double check rat king/dragon please) and unidentified corpses/catatonic corpses aren't affected I don't see any issue.. besides monkeys. If they aren't humanoidcomponent this is essentially four monkey reinforcements at an absurdly cheap price, and that's potentially 20 syndicate agents WITH A HAND SLOT at one traitor's disposal. monkeys should either require more than one dose of syndizine or should be blocked from it entirely.

[dffdff2423]

I really don't like the name "Syndizine". It kind of feels "cheap" to me.

[Errant-4]

This was tested by a member of the discord, from their testing, Goliaths can't metabolise chemicals

This should not be used as the mitigating factor for this concern. They could at one point get metabolism, or another powerful mob might get introduced with a metabolism, reintroducing the problem. There should be some sort of whitelist-like condition to what can be affected by this

edit: (with possibly it still having a CHANCE to work on non-whitelisted mobs, but it might just fail and create a free agent, without the user knowing if it worked or not)

[Dutch-VanDerLinde]

As long as this doesn't affect boss mobs (double check rat king/dragon please) and unidentified corpses/catatonic corpses aren't affected I don't see any issue.. besides monkeys. If they aren't humanoidcomponent this is essentially four monkey reinforcements at an absurdly cheap price, and that's potentially 20 syndicate agents WITH A HAND SLOT at one traitor's disposal. monkeys should either require more than one dose of syndizine or should be blocked from it entirely.

Monkeys made conscious with this chemical can't use guns, while syndicate reinforcement monkeys can

[Crotalus]

Name suggestion if Syndizine is too cheap/obvious:
Dominosol, Thrallium, Obedixin, Vassalex

[Kadeo64]

Monkeys made conscious with this chemical can't use guns, while syndicate reinforcement monkeys can

monkeys can still use melee and 4 monkeys with cybersun pens for 8 TC (or 4 monkeys with edaggers for 12tc) is fucking insane

also: not everything is based around combat, and four monkeys working for you, even if they were all pacified, is still four extra hands that can go steal things, cause major distractions, or hypopen sleep important targets.

[Dutch-VanDerLinde]

Monkeys made conscious with this chemical can't use guns, while syndicate reinforcement monkeys can

monkeys can still use melee and 4 monkeys with cybersun pens for 8 TC (or 4 monkeys with edaggers for 12tc) is fucking insane

they can't wear armor, they can't wear shoes, you can defeat them with glass shards and any competent security member can gun them down with an SMG

[Kadeo64]

they can't wear armor, they can't wear shoes, you can defeat them with glass shards and any competent security member can gun them down with an SMG

lack of shoes never stopped diona + not everything is combat oriented (see previous comment edit)

[Cojoke-dot]

they can't wear armor, they can't wear shoes, you can defeat them with glass shards and any competent security member can gun them down with an SMG

It's still a 6tc purchase made 1tc… I've seen monkeys take out cap with just a cleaver and they can totally wear armor.

[Dutch-VanDerLinde]

they can't wear armor, they can't wear shoes, you can defeat them with glass shards and any competent security member can gun them down with an SMG

lack of shoes never stopped diona + not everything is combat oriented (see previous comment edit)

monkeys are clumsy, so it'll be harder for them to use a hypopen, the sabotaging part is fair though it'll just be harder for them to lug around tools (which is already a problem with syndie monkeys)

[Kadeo64]

but anyway if this PR gets merged with monkeys unwhitelisted i'm going to buy a c4 bundle and as many of these as possible and send my horrible monkey minions to go suicide bomb everyone until this gets nerfed

[github-actions]

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

[SlamBamActionman]

A main concern I (and some other maintainers raised) is that there is no way for the mob to know who injected them or what their objectives are, unless they spawn in right next to the person converting them.

I would add a ReagentData property to the Subjuzine that remembers who bought the reagent. Then, once it is being metabolized and used to turn the mob into a ghost antag, that property can be used to copy over traitor objectives and maybe even provide the appropriate description text in the ghost role to let you know who you are serving.

[Kandiyaki]

alternate idea: make it so subjuzine is inert upon creation, and needs to be "activated" with the user's blood (or slime or whatevs). would let me use the dna system for identification, let it still be created chemically, and add some cool flavor. might need to put a user guide in the kit tho, lil complex

[SlamBamActionman]

fat fingered while commenting from my phone, disregard the PR being accidentally closed

[SlamBamActionman]

alternate idea: make it so subjuzine is inert upon creation, and needs to be "activated" with the user's blood (or slime or whatevs). would let me use the dna system for identification, let it still be created chemically, and add some cool flavor. might need to put a user guide in the kit tho, lil complex

This could work, but it needs some extra functionality that doesn't exist yet. DNA and forensics doesn't track the actual owner, but is just supplied a string containing the DNA letters. So you would need a system to connect the DNA back to the owner entity, and handle edge cases such as the Subjuzine getting in contact with two DNA reagents at the same time.

[Kandiyaki]

I'm like 99% done. I just need to add the little paper in the kit explaining how to use it. don't merge yet

[Kandiyaki]

all done :)