Hi everyone,

Reading this, I presume you're curious about why we made the changes we did to revolutionaries. Our vision for Revolutionaries is to get rid of it's title as an NRP deathmatch game-mode. I personally believe that revolutionaries offers the most freedom and unique situations for players to deal with. Instead of doing a massive PR like I was originally going to do, I decided to break it up and introduce them in a rolling release style (frequent changes, one bit at a time.) This way we can better gauge and track player behavior when these rounds do happen. I've personally sat and watched multiple rev rounds and have observed how players act when certain things are available to them (for example, no one knowing how to craft a rev flashbang.)

I think it's a downright shame that multiple down-streams either modify revs to be WORSE than the Wizden experience or just outright disable it. Enough of that.

For this blog post, I wanna talk about each PR we've made, and discuss the intentions behind them.

Adds the revolutionary flashbang (#169)

The revolutionary flashbang. A symbol of defiance. Funny as hell. That's why I added it. It's funny as hell, and there's less of a chance of someone snitching you out if you cook this just right. Great fun. In my view, it allows a loud revolution to really be what it should be. Flashing an entire department really get's that ball rolling, forcing security and command to act, while leaving those who got flashed the option to either ignore it or join in on the beating. It makes seizing a department possible in the funniest possible way. Only HRevs can make/use these, so command and security finding one and declaring red alert is perfectly acceptable. More ways to convert people should be added, as flashes being the only way is limiting and easy to meta-game.

Revs: Evac shuttle doesn't arrive when HRevs are alive #324

Previously, before this PR, Command couldn't call the evac shuttle. At all. The button wouldn't be available. Terrible game design as this introduces a sure fire way for command to confirm that it is revolutionaries. This PR changes that behavior, allowing evac to be called. When evac is supposed to dock, it just doesn't. Instead, a message of "strange behavior" or something along those lines is sent to the station. This forces both sides to make a move, as there are no half-measures in a revolution ( :trollface: ).

Critics of this might say, "Doesn't this just encourage more NRP behavior?" Let's dissect what NRP behavior is, and why this doesn't encourage that.

Command will mind-shield anyone and everyone, and kill those who refuse
Command mind-shielding everyone is against the rules. Command may mind-shield those who are directly accused of a crime. Being flashed by someone, witnessing someone flashing someone else, hell even slipping security during a code Green isn't exactly a crime that deserves a mind-shielding. This is classic power-gaming, and we already enforce rules around this. If anything, regular station crew who witness this blatant abuse of power should feel free to rise up, converted or not (and throw an ahelp in there too). Security and command that allow this to happen, should honestly just lose that round.
This just encourages the death-match part
Letting command call evac whenever they want is terrible. Command would have the leverage to end the game whenever. That's the truth of it. We hope this makes things more even, and forcing both sides to finish their business on the station (since, that is what the revolutionaries want, and NanoTrasen doesn't want a perfectly good station going to waste), we're allowing games to play out the way they should. Having a revolution be interrupted by a forced evac is one of the most shitty feelings you can feel, and forces everyone to finish their business in evac. Evac is a natural closer to the game, and if revolutionaries win, it needs to change. In-universe, things have changed, you don't go "home" anymore, as the station is your home. For command winning, CentComm is where you debrief, get medals, have a drink and rest easy knowing you protected NT's interests. Roleplay around this will follow suit.

This also adds the feature of having the game wait 2 minutes before it ends on the station if Revs win. This allows role-play to gracefully end, and giving everyone a breather before you hear Star Pilot's Hymn.

Revs: Revolution fails if HRevs abandon station for >1 minute (#330)

More often than not I've seen revolutionaries take over the cargo and salvage shuttle, and think that's how you take over a station. All this does is prolong the round and put command in an awkward position mind-shielding everyone they can and protecting those who aren't in security, while anticipating an attack that will only come during an attempted Evac or, previously in our case, an attack that happens after an hour of stalling. Enough of that.

They are HRevs, they need to plan. HRevs, more importantly, need to co-ordinate with each-other more. One Hrev can be off station while the other stays. If the on-station HRev dies, the revolution dies, and if you're too late, too bad too sad.

Far too long I've seen on-station HRevs play risky as hell for no good reason while the one who's salvaging or getting materials uses the Trading Outpost as a base. Boring as hell.

Revs: Adds the HRev uplink #336

This one is a fun one. This just adds the functionality, but this hopefully solves the issue of mid-round revolutionaries not being that awkward to play anymore. We all knew they were busted. God forbid you have a full backpack, so all your shit just drops on the floor. The uplink also allows people to pick and chose when they want a certain item, so they aren't just immediately caught with shit that immediately sniffs them out for being a HRev. I've seen far too many instances where a simple charge for flashing someone as a joke turns into an HRev being discovered.

It's also funny as fuck, the possibilities with this are endless. Viva.

This is a summary of all the changes we've made so far, with more coming. I'm not sure on the paths and uniforms anymore, as those encourage a snowball effect leading every revolution to play out pretty much the exact same. With our current changes, I think we've achieved a nice balance of Funny As Fuck and reasonable for command.

You have an opinion? You agree or disagree? You think I'm stupid? Leave a comment!

Thanks for reading.