Space Ninjas are a special type of ninja, specifically one of the space-faring type. The vast majority of space ninjas belong to the Spider Clan, a cult-like sect, which has existed for several hundred years. The Spider Clan practice a sort of augmentation of human flesh in order to achieve a more perfect state of being and follow Postmodern Space Bushido. They also kill people for money. Their leaders are chosen from the oldest of the grand-masters, people that have lived a lot longer than any mortal man should. Being a sect of technology-loving fanatics, the Spider Clan have the very best to choose from in terms of hardware--cybernetic implants, exoskeleton rigs, hyper-capacity batteries, and you get the idea. Some believe that much of the Spider Clan equipment is based on reverse-engineered alien technology while others doubt such claims. Whatever the case, their technology is absolutely superb.
Welcome to the Spider Clan!
Overview
If you are reading this, congratulations! Some benevolent admin RNG God has decided to turn your ghost into a 25th century agent worthy of the title "ninja". You spawn in a suit of cyberpunk-esque ninja gear, that provides your powers, a special mask, which will hide your identity and provide useful in other ways, two plastic explosives in your pockets, a CO2 based jet-pack, a flashlight, and a ninja name. Your spawn-objective is set by the admin RNG God who ninja-fied you. You are not obligated to follow the physically able to complete your objective yet your NINJA HONOR demands you try.
NUUU I WANT PLAY NINJA
Space Ninjas are currently a rather rare occurrence to anyone with the preference turned on and ghosted. Spawning as one is instant and completely without warning.
The Way of Ninjutsu
Your Suit
As a member of the Spider Clan, your technologically advanced, cybernetically-enhancing suit is everything to you. But that's not all! You are also provided with a pair of ninja gloves, a pair of ninja boots, a ninja hood, and a ninja mask. These three items work in conjunction with the suit and allow for a different set of functions each. The hood, for instance, makes you untrackable by the AI while the gloves allow for special, ninja-like interactions with objects or creatures.
The suit provides most of your special powers, along with several other unique features. Just remember to Initialize it before you do anything, as it takes time to boot up and connect the interface. During the initialize phase you're pretty much helpless but since you are more or less floating in space anyway, it won't really matter. When ready, check the SpiderOS menu. It provides you with the time, your current energy charge (also visible on the status panel), smoke bomb count, messaging service, access to a cloaking mechanism, a built-in medkit and food dispenser, an atmospheric scanner, and some backstory. If you ever download an AI, you will see a menu for that too. Additionally, you may also install a pAI card into the suit. To recharge the built-in medkit, click on a suit with beaker in hand.
Unless something went seriously wrong, you should also start with a ninja mask. If you don't, your character is probably choking to death due to LACK OF AIR as you are reading this. The ninja mask is like a normal gas mask, only on hulk steroids; it has four vision modes and can modify your voice at will. Toggle Voice Changer in the Ninja Equip panel, hit New Name and BLAM! Brand new, randomized persona. Keep this on if you want to talk. Otherwise, your voice will come out a££ me§§ed µþ, £ike th-thi§, and pretty much no-one will know what the hell you're saying. As a special note, the Scouter vision mode allows you to see who has a special role with a unique hud icon: It will detect wizards, changelings, traitors, and so on. Extremely helpful as you are likely to be spawned outside of extended.
LIGHTSABER NO JUTSU
You can do a LOT of cool shit as a space ninja, and that's probably the reason you're reading this article. Know that some of these powers come with a short cooldown (usually a second) before they can be used again. Phase Shift and Phase Jaunt are your bread and butter. Use them, abuse them, love them. All can be found under Ninja Ability panel.
- Phase Jaunt: Teleports you up to nine squares ahead, in the general direction you're facing. Not always reliable, but takes less energy than Phase Shift. Also generates a spark shower, so don't try this anywhere near plasma. You can bring people along with you if you grab them beforehand. Anyone in the destination you Jaunt to will be gibbed (or killed).
- Phase Shift: Teleports you to a specific square on a right click. Same idea as Jaunt but is precise and more costly.
- EM Burst: Exactly what it sounds like. Creates a 4-square strong, 6-square weak electromagnetic pulse. See that guy with the toolbox? He'll still beat you senseless if you're not careful.
- Energy Star: Launches a Magic Missile-esque bolt at a random, living target on screen. Won't work on xenos but has no cooldown.
- Energy Blade: This is probably going to be your most-used power. Spawns a blade of concentrated energy in your active hand. It is a very powerful weapon and can slice through basically anything excluding a reinforced wall. Creates a shower of sparks when summoned and consumes energy as long as it is active. Try it out on a variety of objects, particularly doors.
- Energy Net: Traps a living target in a net of energy that will teleport them to a holding facility within 30 seconds or so. The net can be destroyed so make sure your target is immobilized or unable to harm the net. Remember to trap targets with special roles for MAD FUCKING NINJA POINTS
- Smoke Bomb: Drops a smoke bomb that obstructs vision and allows your escape. You get ten. Use them wisely...or throw a ninja smoke party!
- Adrenaline Boost: This undoes paralysis, stunning, extreme cold, and basically anything else that would affect your movement. Useful for getting away from Security. However, this also injects you with radium so be careful.
Your suit, however advanced it is, runs on outdated batteries. Batteries that do not last forever, especially not while you're running around invisible dual-wielding energy blades (WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME) and tossing electro-shuriken at everyone in sight. However, you can recharge it. To recharge the suit, Toggle Interaction and then click on an APC/smes/battery/mecha/whatever with an empty hand. You can also recharge from an exposed wire and gun rechargers found on the station. Interaction serves as the general trigger for the extra stuff you are capable of doing; for instance, you can replace your starting battery with one of higher capacity by clicking on the suit with a higher capacity battery in hand to replace it.
Your Objectives
The Ninja is arguable the hardest antag to play in terms of accomplishing his objectives, generally you will have to accomplish 6 objectives. Not only that but due to one of your objectives always being a role play centered objective, it is physically impossible to win as a Ninja unless an admin personally ticks off the Objective as accomplished.
When the Ninja appears the Ninja will either be assigned to help or harm the station, this is determined by weather your employer is Nanotrasen or the Syndicate, irrespective of who your employer is you are allowed to engage anyone irrespective of their loyalties, however your employer can influence your objectives to an extent.
The objectives you will tend to have to accomplish as a Ninja are.
- Steal research levels: You will have to steal between 10 and 20 levels of Research from RnD, depending on if the Scientists bothered to do research will influence the difficulty of this objective. To steal the research simply click the RnD Terminal with special intent on and you will automatically download the research.
- Steal a high risk item: Same as the Traitor objective, you will have to steal a random item from the station. Should generally be trivial in most cases. (Then again a Ninja is not a general thing)
- Protect/Kill a Target: You must either protect (If helping the station) or kill (If against the station) a target on the station, assassination is very trivial for a Ninja but protecting someone is something even the best Ninjas can fail at, good luck.
- Capture Personal: You will have to capture a set point limit of people or entity's from the station using the Energy Net, living targets are worth more points than dead targets but either work. You can also capture Aliens for even more points! The points for targets are.
Live Human: 1 Point Dead Human: 0.5 Points Monkeys: 0.1 Points (You fail at Ninja if you do this) Larva: 1 Point Live Alien: 2 Points Dead Alien: 1 Point Live Queen: 3 Points Dead Queen: 1.5 Points
- Survive until round end: Simple, just don't die.
- Role Play Objective: This is where things get hairy, when you spawn you will be given a random Role Play objective to accomplish, the only way to accomplish this objective is if an Admin manually awards it to you, pray to the fucking gods you don't get any special RP objective. Accomplishing this objective will vary in difficulty, objectives asking you to kill witnesses or cause collateral damage are relatively easy to accomplish however objectives asking you to remain hidden are far more constraining and hard to do.
At the end of it all, these objectives are all optional to do and you could simply go on a mass murdering spree. Or you can try to impress everyone and actually win?
Rogue Ninja
As a crewmember, your best chance is to catch the ninja while they're trying to recharge their battery or when they get rad-poisoning from Adrenaline Boost overuse. Ganging up may also work, especially if you have projectile weapons. If all fails, suicide bombing may be your only option. Or hiding in a locker until the death squad shows up.
As the ninja, don't let your fancy-shmancy gadgets cloud your judgment. Aliens(can try to face rape you, however, you are immune to the buggers. The Spider Clan invested well in the mask), wizards, and changelings, all pose a very real threat to your safety, if you are not careful. Do not confront high-risk targets directly. Instead, either await an opportunity for when they are distracted, or lure them into a trap. Mechs are also very dangerous; it's possibly best to avoid anything other than a Ripley but really depends on your battery capacity. Your biggest advantage is your ability to appear announced and the variety of gadgets at your disposal. Always ask yourself, what would Space Batman do in my situation?
Another tactic is to get crew members on your side. This will not always work, it all depends on your talking skill. You can spout out some lie about you being peaceful and that you're here to kill a changeling, or stop a wizard, etc. If you're in a room charging and someone walks in, say "hi" or use the wave emote followed by the smile one. Comfort and smooth talk them(make sure your energy blade isn't out) until they feel comfortable around you. They may also spread the news and you may have a little ninja-army going on.
