PR ACTIVE, UNKNOWN TO HOW ACCURATE THIS IS.
¶ Changes
¶ Removal of standard objectives
The Cult does not have "Convert" or "Sacrifice" objectives anymore, instead they now have rituals
¶ Rituals
Both personal and faction-wide rituals are available for cultists to complete, rewarding them with additional devotion. This gives cultists something to work towards other than just summoning Nar-Sie. Many of the old classic cult objectives have been reworked into this system, such as:
- Spilling blood over a certain surface (you can now easily track how much more is needed)
- Sacrificing the Captain if there is one
- Reaching a certain amount of cult members
But also some new ones such as:
- Preparing an altar with appropriate paraphernalia surrounding it.
- Blinding a certain number of cameras
- Attacking a certain number of crew members with cult weapons
¶ Cult Comms
Since there is no more Cult Chat Ability, Cultists will be able to use :x to communicate as long as there is a Spire on the Z-Level. In practice that means cult-wide comms should become more readily available since the Spire can also be built right away.
¶ Cultist Roles
The cult thrives when its members cooperate, and although we've experimented with the idea of a Cultist Chief, it being randomly assigned means that over half the time the designated chief is a newbie, or someone who cannot lead the cult for other reasons. I've long believed that leaders should arise organically among the cult, and for now a new system has been introduced:
When they spawn or get converted, Cultists can pick a role that serves to signal to the rest of the cult how they want to play
¶ Herald
The role closest to what regular cultists were. They can do whatever they think will help the cult best (even if that means just doing their job as crew member). Ideally they would keep the crew and security busy enough to take heat off Acolytes and Mentors.
¶ Mentors
Expected to train Acolytes, and cooperate with other mentors to give the cult some purpose. When the cult does well, it's in general because some cultist takes the lead to give other cultists some strategy, that's basically what is expected of this role. There's no more objectives in Cult right now, so they're also gonna require some creativity.
¶ Acolytes
The newbie role, for people either new to cult or who just want to toy and experiment with runes and stuff. The game will automatically tries to assign them to a mentor, informing both that they are now part of a mentorship.
¶ New player Tips
Acolytes have an extra button on their UI that lets them read some laconic basic tidbits on what cultists can do, so they have some idea about their role even if no mentor is available to take care of them. Obviously it's by no means a tutorial, but it should do its job at giving players motivation to want to learn more about it, and it is by no means a replacement for Mentors to do their job, but most new players should appreciate not being completely on their own.
¶ Deconversion
Deconverting has been changed significantly. Now holy water only prevents them from using cult structures and they must be deconverted using a bible.
Cultists can however decline being deconverted which costs 100 blood so they can die to blood loss this way, however occult muted cultists (holy water, implants, etc) slow down the eclipse rate until it eventually stops. This can be used by security in place of deconversion to stall the eclipse start while they look for cultists, at the same time giving cultists time to rescue their captured brethren.
¶ Cultist Cap
Cultists can no longer have more than 9 human players. Further conversion attempts automatically cuff the target instead, you get a warning message during the conversion.
The first construct of each type do not count toward the cap, but subsequent ones do. So if you create 2 juggernauts you reduce the human cap to 8, but if there's no artificer you'll always be able to create one.
Both Human, additional Constructs (as explained above) and Shades take up one slot, but only when they’re alive! If a human cultist dies and doesn’t turn into a shade, the spot is freed for conversion.
Furthermore, if you sacrifice a crew member (or even a cultist) at an altar with an empty soul blade, they WILL be converted regardless of the cap, and won’t take a slot toward the cap as long as the gem isn’t separated from the soul blade. Exploiting that and the Reincarnation rune, cultists can more or less bypass the cap, although it requires some time and effort.
Cultists can soulstone players regardless of the cap, but they won’t be converted if the cap was reached. Those shades will still have to obey their master however.
¶ Rune Writing
Cultists have a new UI on their screen that lets them write and erase runes. This UI can be moved anywhere on the screen by holding its button on the right.
Cultists now have access to the full rune list from the start. There are two buttons you can choose when you want to write a rune. One opens a dial that lets you write words one by one without delay, the other opens the list of all runes (like the old Write Runes spell would when holding an arcane tome) and selecting one opens the dial and highlights the words you have to press, both allowing you to write runes faster than before without having to hold a tome, AND to memorize patterns so eventually you may not even have to waste time opening the list at all.
Runes have new enhanced sprites and animations when created or erased. Runes now look much more like Blood splatters, until you activate one and the black marks appear on them.
Runes that haven't been activated yet (and don't have the black marks) can be cleaned off like any other blood splatter can (soap, mop, space cleaner). Activated runes still require salt, or holy salts.
¶ Rune Drawing
Runes are no longer an action from ritual blades, and are instead made up of words. Drawing a rune causes some damage and drains blood, holding a mob or bloodbag causes the held blood to be used first.
¶ Talisman
Talismans act as a replacement to cult spells, these are one time use papers that contain a drawn rune, things like Fu'Majjin were moved over to this.
To save a rune onto a talisman simply click a valid rune with the talisman.
¶ Sacrificing
Sacrifing is no longer handled through a rune and is instead done on an altar, this is done by putting a mob onto the altar, using a cult weapon on the altar, then channeling the sacrifice.
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¶ Eclipse
The Eclipse happens after a set duration which cultists can vastly reduce by both converting more crew and having each members perform occult activities. Occult light sources such as pylons, blood candles, and spires, do not have their light dimmed.
During the Eclipse, if it has at least 8 members and/or prisoners, the cult has the opportunity to perform the Tear Reality ritual which will spawn a single blood stone, and a bunch of creatures across the station. If the Blood Stone is still standing after a 6:66 timer, Nar-Sie rises, a shuttle comes and the round ends shortly after.
The Eclipse changes the outside area to be blood red, runes start appearing in space, and the lights across the station start to break.
¶ Occult Muted
Cultists that are occult muted by Holy Water or Holy Implant slow down the progress toward the Eclipse, giving the crew an incentive to keep cultists captured alive but subdued.
¶ Devotion
Introducing “devotion”, a value that cultists generate while performing all sorts of occult activities. Devotion serves a few purposes:
- At certain thresholds it unlocks some Tattoo Powers
- It increases the rate at which the Eclipse arrives
- Cultists on the scoreboard at the end of the round are sorted based on how much devotion each of them generated, enabling a leaderboard of sorts.
Both the acquired devotion and unlocked powers are tracked by a new UI panel on the right. You can move this panel around as you want.
¶ Cult Panel
A Cult Panel that tracks a lot of information about the cult. Such as:
- Listing everyone who’s currently part of the cult
- The current cultist cap, and free slots provided by constructs and soulblades
- The available rituals
- And most importantly, the time left before the next phase.
Most of the elements have tooltips displayed upon being hovered.
¶ Construct Changes
¶ Artificer
- Artificers can now instruct each individual Hex they summon to either guard a specific tile, or to follow them around like add-ons in a shmup.
- They can also instruct them to go passive and stop attacking entirely. (displayed by the green lights on their front)
- However, Artificers can only sustain up to 2 Hex at once.
¶ Cult Tattoos
Tier 1: Blood Pooling (previously known as Blood Communion) (at 100 devotion)
Increased blood regeneration, reduces blood costs for rituals, and blood costs are shared with other members of the cult automatically.
You can now click the button on the new UI panel to remove or re-add yourself from the pool at will. When removed, you no longer get the other benefits, and the tattoo no longer appears on your chest.
Tier 2: Blood Dagger (at 500 devotion)
Same as it ever was. Deals more damage than a ritual knife, and also steals some blood from targets you hit. Can be thrown to pin down targets.
Tier 3: Runic Skin (at 1000 devotion)
You can fuse a talisman with your skin, enabling you to active it at will, even knocked down, but not if you’re occult muted.
Tier 4: Shortcut Sigil (at 2000 devotion)
Touch a wall to draw a sigil that lets you pass through it. Costs some blood.
¶ Tear Reality
Once the aforementioned rune is activated during the Eclipse, 8 circles appear around it upon which cultists or prisoners must stand.
Prisoners cannot escape the circle until they manage to resist out of their cult cuffs or someone else pulls them out of the circle.
Once every spot is filled, the participants start dancing, the dance will continue as long as one member keeps dancing, but will progress slower the less people are dancing. On the other hand, it will progress faster if the cultists participating are wearing cult robes, and/or holding a lit blood candle.
Upon the dance's end, with all the stones around the circle lit up, a Blood Stone rises in its center.
From that point onward, every cultist has their role revealed by both the smoke they emit, and the halo over their head. The halo’s appearance changes based on how much devotion that cultist generated, which also signals to the crew how dangerous a given cultist might be.
Furthermore, all observers become visible “dark ghosts”, and can write in blood.
Also, a bunch of Obsidian Spires spawn all across the station, pointing toward the location of the Blood Stone.
Some of those pillars also spawn some cult mobs, so crew members should group up, and carve a way towards the blood stone to destroy it before time runs out.
¶ Victory and Defeat
If the Blood Stone fills up completely with blood, Nar-Sie Rises, sinking the station in pure chaos as even more abominations continue to spawn.
If the crew manages to destroy the Blood Stone however:
- the ritual immediately ends
- the Eclipse ends
- all visible observers progressively become invisible again
- all the cult mobs across the station die
- all previously written runes are erased
- cultists lose the ability of accessing a guide to write runes
- the cultist cap falls down to zero
- and most importantly the halo stays visible but turns black, betraying them