Cult 2020 (actually let's just call it Cult 4) Rework Part #3: Conversion rework, Deconversion, & Holy Implants

[DeityLink]

Fixes #28568
Fixes #28538

This PR was begun on November 14th 2020, on the 17th a BSOD made me lose two hours of work, and prompted me to take a break from stuff altogether. But I got back to it yesterday and now it's done.

🆑

• experiment: Cult conversions have been reworked! Details below.
• experiment: The sounds produced by conversion runes can now only be heard by those who have a line of sight to the rune.
• experiment: Automatic boxing now only happens to cult-banned players.
• experiment: Refusing conversion now restrains you with ghastly bindings that hinders your movements through pain. It takes 1 minute to resist out of those.
• experiment: Loyalty Implants no longer slow down conversions, but instead force-refuse them.
• rscdel: Setting your cult preferences to Never no longer auto-refuses conversions (you now always get the choice) but still displays your preferences as such to Seer users.
• rscadd: Non-cultists restrained by ghastly bindings show up on the altar's cult roster, and are valid Blood Magnetism targets (for both summoning and rejoining)
• rscadd: The pain induced by ghastly bindings fades over time, but gets reset when their victim travels through the veil (Path or Blood Magnetism runes)
• rscadd: The cultist who performed the conversion that restrained someone will instantly be informed should the bindings get removed. The bindings also remove themselves should another conversion attempt succeed.
• tweak: Cultists no longer resist Loyalty Implanters, instead the implant pops out 10 seconds later.
• tweak: All loyalty implanted cultists also get informed that they have 10 seconds before their implant pops out when Act 2 begins.
• rscadd: Added holy implants. Can be ordered at cargo. Implanted cultists become unable to perform any ritual or use any cult spells. They also become unable to travel through the veil (Path Runes or Blood Magnetism) or be affected by Fervor. However they are destroyed upon conversion so they cannot be used preemptively unlike loyalty implants.
• tweak: Cultists with holy water in their body will also suffer from those impediments.
• experiment: Cult deconversions are a thing once again 2 years and a half later. They work as such, first have the cultist (or suspected cultist) take a sip of holy water (splashing them from the flask also works, or giving them a holy wafer to eat, etc). Immediately after slap them with a bible on help intent (the target needs to have over 20hp or it won't work). Everyone can do it, not just chaplains. If the target wasn't a cultist, nothing unusual happens. Otherwise they will be knockdown and given the choice to abandon the cult or resist. In both cases after 10 seconds, they take 10 brute damage, and a pair of red shades appear. If they accepted the deconversion, those shades will immediately start attacking them, otherwise if they resisted the shades will attack the one who attempted the deconversion, and other nearby non-cultists.
• experiment: If a chaplain performed the deconversion with a bible of their religion, those red shades have 20hp and deal 5 damage, making them about as much of an inconvenience as blob spores. Otherwise they will be as strong as regular shades.
• rscadd: Bibles, Holy Water, Incense, and Thuribles are now available from Cargo as Religious Paraphernelia under Supplies.
• tweak: Cult mobs spawned by bloodstones no longer stand still for a while before attacking non-cultists, they instead immediately give chase once they spawn.
• tweak: Blood Communion tattoo now also gives a small buff to blood regen.
• bugfix: Fixed Confusion runes sometimes causing people to remain blinded forever when they time-out.
• bugfix: Fixed deculted players still having cult UI elements on their screen
• bugfix: Fixed splashing mobs with a holy water flask applying the equivalent of half the flask's current volume to them instead of only the 5u being spent.
• bugfix: Fixed the holy water flask having wrong in-hand sprites when facing some directions.
• bugfix: Using a soulstone on a cultist shade as a non-cultist now properly decults the shade.
• rscadd: De-culted players now get a message specifying exactly what they remember about the cult, generally only the player who converted them.
• rscadd: Cultists can now use altars as operating tables with the same efficiency as if they were using an actual operating table. Furthermore, Blood Daggers can now be used as ghetto scalpels and circular saws, and Talismans can be used as ghetto hemostats.

[Kurfursten]

Feels like a push to make librarian and chaplain even more irrelevant roles. No need to go to the library to print bibles, no need to protect the chaplain to keep the holy water coming.

[Kammerjunk]

@Irradiation dragging out the conversion for as long as possible, duh

[iFlashYou]

Should there not be a way to remove a holy implant via the help of other cultist and some rune?

[iFlashYou]

My problem is this:

cult gets found out
people get holy implanted
now with every conversion you need to even surgically remove implants out of them

[iFlashYou]

Then they should like loyalty implants cuck the conversion and not leave one cultist that can't even use any cult spells. That will just make one more frustrated player. Or just make holy implants pop out like how now it is the case with loyalty implants

[DeityLink]

@Irradiation

What's the point of setting it to NEVER if it's not going to auto-refuse for you?

Read the second half of what you quoted. The point is to send cultists a message to not waste both your time as you won't become their ally.

Does this mean that a Mime can't summon a blood dagger (or a tome, as it uses the same proc)?

no it doesn't? I made that proc. not too long ago even.

Might want to more explicitly indicate that being a silicon "pauses" your cult life/objectives

no it doesn't. becoming a silicon was already basically a deconversion, although a half-assed bugged one since you would keep part of the cult UI and were still among the cult faction's members list which caused lots of HUD issues and such. This PR fixes all that. Borging, Holy Water + Bible, and Soulstone are now all 3 forms of full deconversion. No more "temporarily muted role" (which wasn't even really the case despite what the flavor text would have you believe lol)

@iFlashYou

Should there not be a way to remove a holy implant via the help of other cultist and some rune?

Ghetto surgery is a thing. an undocumented a now documented change of this PR is that blood dagger can now be used as both a ghetto scalpels and circular saw, and talismans as ghetto hemostats. Add a crowbar and a lighter, and a you can remove implants by yourself.
I may also make it so that altars count as surgery tables for steps safety.

My problem is this: words

Welcome to the average Cult 2.0 rounds. Except now ghetto surgery will be more easily doable. Also combined with #28590 the cult should be able to stand its own.

That will just make one more frustrated player.

Because getting cucked out of conversion by a simple implant isn't orders of magnitude more frustrating? This however opens some room for interesting interactions between sec and the cult that couldn't happen until now. Plus it's still completely optional.

@Kurfursten Honestly I think that's how it should be. Both jobs can still help to some extent, but neither should be required (which was one of the main complaints about Cult 2). I can elaborate further on that if you want.

[iFlashYou]

okay, but make it again that you can store talismans into pill bottles and that you can stack runes on one tile

[gurfan]

Will you be able to use soul stones on cult-binded players to box them? Or will you have to get rid of them in other ways

[DeityLink]

@gurfan soul gems already box their victims so yes. You'll have to bludgeon them to crit first, but it's easily done with an arcane tome (that also deals burn damage so no suspicious blood splatters)

[Kammerjunk]

not gonna read all that cause tbh I don't really care about the specifics
1 question: with cult3, as with all or almost all incarnations of cult, I could say "that was a cult round" because the gamemode dominated the round. after this, approx. how often will I say that?

[Exxion]

the details sure do bellow

[drawsstuff]

God fucking bless you diety

[gurfan]

can the holy implants work on vampires too

[BurntDevil]

I gotta feel like Kurf is right and this kinda ignores librarian and chappie and the effect they could have on the round if you just bypass the need for them altogether.

Example of how to make atleast chappie more useful in this would be the deconversion process - make it exceptionally more dangerous for non-chappies to attempt it. The retardedly weak shades should be only come out when a chaplain does the ritual, if anyone else does it, it should be very strong shades. Need an element of danger to it for it have weight, and need a reason to secure and protect the chaplain if you want to safely deconvert cultists.

[drawsstuff]

2 - cult has no reason to ever keep live captives, especially loyalty implanted, seccie ones.

Have you tried being original?

[Eneocho]

The holy implants seem like overkill, no point in chaplains and paranoia if you can just holy implant everyone preemptively as shitsec.
Make it so if non-chaplains try to deconvert, there's a mayor risk for both parties, not only ubershades, but possibly heart attack or something. That way, if non chaplain, you can still try and deconvert, but there's a reason for chaplains to exist.

[Eneocho]

2 - cult has no reason to ever keep live captives, especially loyalty implanted, seccie ones.

Have you tried being original?

I see his point though. Why keep a live captive that could fight back or be an overall nuisance? Just get some monkeycubes from cargo/genetics/xenobio and go wild.

[Eneocho]

At least make the holy stuffs cargo box retard expensive or behind some kind of special requirement (contraband and needs to be opened by a chaplain), as to avoid making chaplain completely redundant.

[Blithering]

Refusing conversion manually (ie, not implanted with communion wafer implant) should ghost you and poll in a ghost to take over your body. Too many cults stall because everyone just boxes and sits around complaining in deadchat.
Also the implant popping out 10 seconds later does nothing but add another 10 seconds to every cultcheck and make sec tase and cuff everyone instead of handing out implanters to the willing.

[drawsstuff]

2 - cult has no reason to ever keep live captives, especially loyalty implanted, seccie ones.

Have you tried being original?

I see his point though. Why keep a live captive that could fight back or be an overall nuisance?

Arr Pee Baby

[TGFH]

Good stuff.
Could you add a text or speech line to the shades that pop out on deconversion though? I can easily see it confusing people to some extent, regardless of who is being attacked.
Ex: Cult shade intones: "Traitor!"

[Kurfursten]

[ghost]

I agree that making random chaplain equipment available from cargo might be a bit silly since playing "secure the flask/chaplain" is an interesting optional goal for cultists/sec that makes the mode slightly less rote, and it does make anti-cult prepping a little more effortful than one-stop shopping at cargo (not to mention the side effect it'll have on vamp rounds).

That being said, I wouldn't change anything else about it other than that. Chaplain shouldn't live or die as a role by its relevance to fighting specific antags, and making deconversion require one is just going to make it a far less viable/attractive option compared to the old bootknife.

[BurntDevil]

Can you nerf the religious paraphernalia cargo crates? Make it so they need chaplain access to open, at least.

anyone else with an opinion on that?

Here's whats gonna happen - Commands going to rush to order these - presumably because you dont have a librarian, or chaplain, one way or another. Command likely will have all access, captain or hop, and failing that, cargo has never had much issue busting these open anyway.

At best its a time sinking road hump that slightly lows the propagation of bibles and such throughout the station. Not much, as its a trivial one to overcome, but a slight enough one that I feel that its not a bad thing to add. In the event that both command access and librarian/chaplain are compromised it becomes harder to flood the station with these tools, so that gives the cult a soft objective to go after, or incentive to hit cargo to head off such attempts.

Sounds like a reasonable thing to me.

[coronasaurus]

Ex: Cult shade intones: "Traitor!"

Cult shade intones: "..jatkaa.."

[Kammerjunk]

there'll only be a cult round once a week but only for the first half of every 29.5 days? sweet.

[Blithering]

Yeah the intent here is clearly to end the age of cult-checking using loyalty implants as holy water+bible will be a much faster alternative (and also lore friendly imho). Not to mention what cultist would be willing to be implanted anyway until now? Loyalty implants should be something you use pre-emptively, not something you use in the fire of the action. But that's my take on it.

I was saying that sec will most likely continue using implants exactly as they are now, since they're readily available to sec, just become even more gestapo like in their usage of them. Cultists were never the ones accepting implant handouts, but now the regular crew are gonna get the boot to the neck just in case. If you really want implants to be preventative you could always go back to them preventing conversion but not having any effect on those already converted.
As for the seer rune cult preference thing, its a nice idea but with a quota to meet and most people hanging around public areas you gotta take whatever maint goblin filters through a quiet enough spot to drag over a rune without people hearing the BWOMMMMMMM through walls.

[bathosbathtime]

While the strength of medbay in cult2 meant access to implanted targets for conversion while also helping your team by doing what you joined the game to play, and I am glad that seems to be returning, turning the altars into safe surgery tables is an idea I very much like. Thank you for it.

[DeityLink]

@Blithering

not having any effect on those already converted.

The sec metaclub would get my head for that. "Green square = not a cultist" is like the one thing they can count on.

sec will most likely continue using implants exactly as they are now, since they're readily available to sec

Maybe in the short term, but I think it'll change over time.

you gotta take whatever maint goblin filters through a quiet enough spot to drag over a rune without people hearing the BWOMMMMMMM through walls.

Oh shit you're doing right to remind me, I'm changing that so you only hear the noise if you have a line of sight to the rune. Those sounds were meant to be QoL SFX feedback, and while I knew it added a bit of risk to conversions, present day cultists could use a lot less risk.

@bathosbathtime

While the strength of medbay in cult2 meant access to implanted targets for conversion

The strength of medbay in all version of cult is conversion runes under tubes and cloners and you know that very well, even more so in cult 2.

[Blithering]

present day cultists could use a lot less risk.

That they could. Would really help with the glacial startups since noone wants to be the first to ...mgar... over comms and get the unprepared cultists shotgun shuffled

[DeityLink]

Finished fixing the issued reported by Kurfursten

[Exxion]

My first comment in this PR was mostly a joke but you should still probably fix the typo in the changelog it was referring to

[DeityLink]

My first comment in this PR was mostly a joke but you should still probably fix the typo in the changelog it was referring to

Turns out I actually didn't know how to properly write that word.

[TGFH]

Can you nerf the religious paraphernalia cargo crates? Make it so they need chaplain access to open, at least.

anyone else with an opinion on that?

Personally I think the religious crates are great. Chaplain is largely just a fluff role that hardly anyone plays most of the time. Seeing how you intend to make it so chaplains have an easier time deconverting people, I don't really see why any other "nerf" to the crates would be needed. If a chaplain is actually present then they could simply bless a water tank + print bibles at the library and you've got all the deconversion supplies you need for free.
Then again, crate access is hardly an issue if there's a HoP, captain, or emitter present.

[SonixApache]

i hate it
good work deity, proud of your dedication as always

speedmerge and polish later imo