[MIRROR] [MIRROR] Cult Vs. Heretic: 7 Months Later Edition [MDB IGNORE]

[ArkStation-Bot]

Original PR: NovaSector/NovaSector#3384

Original PR: tgstation/tgstation#82877

About The Pull Request

This PR was originally meant as a replacement for the Bloody Bastard blade, but then I stopped existing for 7 months. Now that I'm here again, I'm finishing the job once and for all.

HERETICS VERSUS CULTISTS

Heretics

Heretics can now sacrifice cultists, which will give them one of three gifts: The Cursed Blade, the Crimson Focus, and the Rusted Harvester. The gifts given are weighted to be spread out equally with each type. They will also gain one knowledge point.

• The Cursed Blade is a free heretic blade that is more powerful than the normal heretic blade, including a small block chance. It can also be used to draw heretic runes off combat mode.
• The Crimson Focus is a necklace that grants focusing and a minor regeneration effect which also affects nearby heretics, at the cost of gaining the BLOODY_MESS trait while wearing it. Additionally, it can be squeezed to heal 50 points of brute/burn damage, injecting yourself with three to six (separately) units of Eldritch Water Essence and Unholy Water. Yes, this isn't good.
• The Rusted Harvester is a heretic 'monster' summon. It's a normal Harvester, but instead of Area Conversion and Forcewall, it has Aggressive Spread and Rust Construction (Raise Wall). It can delimb, but only cultists, with a delay. It has an aura of decay, corroding the environment and withering enemies near it, but it's VERY fragile.

Rusting cultist item dispensers will now cause them to turn into a Heretic object. Altars turn into small heretic runes, Archives turn into Codex Cicatrixi, Forges turn into Mawed Crucibles.

Ideally, Heretics would be able to gain an amount of these new powers and use them to turn the tide against the cultists, amassing their power and almost forming a sect of their own in turn which sweeps over and converts the cult.

Cultists

When a Cultist sacrifices a heretic, two things will happen:

• A new item will be available for creation at one of the dispensers.
• The Heretic will be trapped inside a powerful Haunted Blade.

/obj/item/melee/cultblade/haunted
name = "haunted longsword"
desc = "An eerie sword with a blade that is less 'black' than it is 'absolute nothingness'. It glows with furious, restrained green energy."

This blade will be stronger across-the-board than a normal cult sword, and will even allow those who wield it to cast one heretic spell from their previous path. The only downside? The heretic can also cast one spell. It's up to the trapped spirit if it wants to help you, or be a nuisance.

The unlocked items are:

• The Cursed Blade, again. For cultists, it can be used to draw runes twice as fast as usual, and they can even right-click it to teleport to safety, just like a heretic!
• The Crimson Focus, again. Cultists are twice as fast at carving spells into their body, and they gain a 5th spellslot as long as they wear the amulet. It still causes hemophilia and grants weak regeneration.
• The Proteon Orb. This orb will create a gateway to Nar'sie's own realm, spawning one Proteon every 15 seconds, which ghosts can possess. The gateways cannot be placed close to one another.

Originally, they were going to be able to create a Harvester Shell, but there were some concerns of it being too OP.

The true Bastard sword has been fully deleted. The null rod conversion has been changed to a Bloody Halberd instead.

I'm considering re-enabling Stun Hand on Heretics, with Mansus Grasp stats.

Other

All the items above can be used by both Heretics and Cultists, no matter how they were first created. Hell, even normal crew can use them! This is probably not the best idea a lot of the time, though.

There are a lot of other changes in this PR. A loooooot. I will likely miss some in the changelog, but I'll try to be as thorough as possible. There's probably also some leftover garbo that I didn't find and clear out yet.

Why It's Good For The Game

Cult and Heretics, despite being mortally opposed, have very few interactions with eachother, especially now that the Blade's gone. The only thing of note is just the Heretic's unfair complete resistance to stun hand, which is only marginally better than the alternative. This PR will reintroduce their animosity, and give both sides a very, very good reason to fight eachother.

The Cult will gain a sick sword that keeps the heretic in the game, and unlike with the original implementation, will recieve a cult-wide bonus in the form of a powerful, well deserved, and fun new item to summon.

The Heretic will gain powerful trinkets and knowledge from the sacrifices, incentivizing them to become a terrifying cult-hunter. And if they do succeed in wiping out the cult, they will have quite the rewards to help with their ascension.

The crew, while mostly unaffected, will have a damn good reason to not just Side with the heretic, out of fear of what they may become after the cult is stomped down. They can also use a few of the items here in an attempt to get one up on either side, as long as they manage to stay clear of the side-effects.

Let the heretics eradicate the apostates.

Let the cultists root out the heathens.

The haunted longsword creates an aura of darkness (disabled for the cultist for the image)
Sprites... are not great. Hopefully someone comes by and improves them.

code: Added get_inactive_hand() as an easy shortcut for carbons
code: Wall walker element can now accept a trait for wall-checking
fix: Fixed soulsword component being unable to invoke the post summon callback
refactor: Turned Heretic rust turf healing into an element, given to Rust Walkers and Rusted Harvesters
refactor: Converted Limb Amputation from an element to a component

Blade and Sword sprites by meyhaza!!! I did the inhands though. Cuz im cool

Changelog

🆑
Carlarc, Mey-Ha-Zah
add: Heretics can now sacrifice Cultists for sweet loot.
add: Cultists can now sacrifice Heretics for sick trinkets.
del: Removed Bastard Blade from the game, code, and life
balance: Aggressive Spread now rusts non-turfs next to you as well
balance: Raise Construction cd raised to 7, now breaks rust walls as well, improved autoaim making it actually usable midfight
refactor: Auto-aim code now works on any atoms if configured
/:cl: