Being A Better Traitor

Have you played a few rounds as an antagonist of some stripe? Did you even win? Doesn't matter, there are some things that'll make your traitorous existence more enjoyable for everyone, and that's what counts.

Stealth Stuff

• Putting things in containers shows a message. Putting things in your pockets doesn't. Having a stealth container in your pockets and placing items there won't show a message as well.
• There are ways to prevent people from screaming out your entire name and position over the radio as you kill them. The most straightforward would be:
  • Buy the radio jammer. Duh.
  • Wear face-concealing clothing, take off your ID and don't speak. As noted below, this will hide your identity from them.
  • Take off their headset so they can't speak into the radio.
  • Use a bedsheet or towel in-hand to rip it up into cloth rags. Use a cloth on someone while on Grab intent, and you'll put them in an aggressive strangehold, while the cloth will muffle everything they say. They can still snitch over radio, but people will likely have a hard time understanding them.
• Here are a few ways to stop the AI from snitching on you when you're doing dastardly deeds:
  • Destroy or subvert the AI, or wear an agent card to prevent it from helping people track you.
  • Use wirecutters on a security camera to disable it.

Hiding Your Identity

• There are three parts to your identity: Face, ID and voice.
  • Having a different name on your ID will make you appear as "X (as Y)" unless you have something that fully covers your face.
  • Wearing face-concealing clothing without an ID or PDA makes you show up as "Unknown".
  • Wearing a face-concealing helmet is somewhat less suspicious than wearing a gas mask, if really only due to the stereotype of antags and other people up to no good wearing them.
  • More importantly, face-concealing helmets also hide your hairstyle, one of, if not the, most common means by which people identify you.
  • Being masked means people just see your ID's name (if you have one on) or Unknown (if you don't) when mousing over you, but if you speak, you're still busted.
  • Speaking over the radio just shows the name assigned to your voice and icon associated with the headset or other radio device you're using. Changelings and traitors with voice changers can have fun with this.
• Here's a list of clothing items that can conceal your face:
  • Headwear: any space helmet (e.g. regular space helmets, engineering space helmets) with the major exception of emergency hoods and engineering light space helmets, all kinds of diving helmets, all specialist combat helmets, commander's caps, 2k13 vintage santa hats, pumpkins (note that this one doesn't hide your hair)
  • Masks: gas masks, emergency gas masks, SWAT masks, syndicate field protective masks, horse masks, clown masks, mime masks, skull masks, balaclavas, fake moustaches, paper masks (Don't question it.)
  • Exosuit/Outerwear: bedsheets, cardboard boxes, robes of dungeon mastery, weird cultist robes.
• Holding a newspaper open hides your face, in the same manner as face-concealing clothing. (Holding a rolled up newspaper does nothing, obviously.) The sprite itself also keeps people from seeing your torso, though it does not obscure your hair/hatwear, and they can still see what you're wearing if they Examine you.
• GuardBuddies, Securitrons, security scanners, and security HUDs rely on facial recognition and then name on ID. That means just wearing no ID or someone else's ID won't fool them (unlike how it was in the past), because your face is still visible, and so they know your actual name. But doing so while also concealing your face does.

Social Stuff

• Probably the #1 tip for not being caught as a traitor is to never pre-spawn your gear until you need it. If security finds you trying to hack into the AI upload and end up arresting and searching you, they're much more willing to let you go if they don't find any traitor gear on you.
• Improvised weapons are a great alternative to traitor weapons when you don't need them. It also tends to confuse people.
• Pretending to brawl with someone is a good idea, such as challenging them to a boxing match and pulling a knife on them, or slamming them against something. They'll think you're just cheating a little bit, as is typically to be expected in brawls, which gives you the element of surprise when you go into lethal methods of combat.
• Pretense is powerful, if someone sees that you have authorization or authority, they will usually balk. It's especially effective if you have mindhacked/impersonated the HoS.
  • Mindhacking the HoS may be complicated by their security implant.
• People are inclined to believe the AI, so unless you can damage it's credibility or get some people who think you are innocent no matter what, expect the AI to run you down like a rabid dog.
  • On the other hand, people can also be rather quick to proclaim that an AI has been subverted, so tricking it into doing something that gives the impression that someone's tampered with its laws can be a good way of shaking it off your tail.
• Smoke a joint, murder someone, then lie on the floor beside them and scream for help on the radio. It'll come out as a stammered "HEEELLLPPP" due to being stoned, and more often than not, people will come faster to your aid (and faster into your trap) than if you were to say it without a stammer.
• Got the AI on your side? Great! With it, You already know that it can open, shock, and lock doors for you. But the AI's capability for destruction and chaos extends well beyond its control of doors; if a welding fuel tank is directly under a light when said light is overloaded through the APC, the sparks will rupture the tank, causing it to explode into a sizable fireball! With this knowledge, and some teamwork with your robotic friends, try and place any fuel tanks you find under lights in key areas, and have the AI blow them up when your foes are nearby.
  • If you are just a rogue AI with no master at all, there are a few tanks already under lights in a few areas, such as in robotics, EVA, in most pod bays, and in the engineering storage room. Feel like bombing the exact area you want? Use your shells to push tanks right to them!
    • Don't feel like blowing people up yourself? That's OK! Just set the teleporter in the science wing to random numbers, and start spamming "receive". Doing this will result in many things happening, almost all of them bad, such as: Creating a giant flash which stuns anyone in the area, catching the area around the teleporter on fire, irradiating the area around the teleporter, teleporting people nearby randomly, or warping in a plethora of NPC monsters, like drones, pigs, cockroaches, and even revolver wielding syndicates! When you feel like you have teleported in enough creatures, you can open the blast door leading to the hall on the other side, letting the monsters loose on anyone nearby!
• Just try chatting and helping people around the station depending on your job. It can make your job considerably easier. Most antags will often skulk around the station wordlessly trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. Giving a helping hand makes people trust you more. It also makes the inevitable back stab even sweeter.
• Your uplink can provide a leg up in some social situations with its syndicate intelligence section, found at the bottom of the list. If your target has any dark secrets or vulnerabilities, you'll find them here.

Robusting

• Guide to Being Robust. Just saying.
• Hiding a bunch of nasty traps around the station is great fun, like hiding a pipebomb mousetrap under the clown bop bag, or buying a freedom implant and getting security to search you with a backpack full of flashbangs (or pipebombs for all you die a glorious death guys).
• Brain damage is extremely debilitating and lethal over time. If you can use poisons that directly do brain damage such as neurotoxins, then they are going to kill fast.
• When a person is downed, only a passive grab is required to throw.
• Try using the teleporter as a weapon! For example, you can drop a teleporter beacon in the engine's mixing room and throw people through a portal to their fiery demise.
• Three laser shots from an energy gun will typically put unarmored targets into critical.

Random Acts Of Cruelty

• Fashion together a igniter with a remote signaller. Grab an extra signaller. Find a large welding fluid tank and bring it into the maintenance under security. Place the rigged igniter under the welding fluid tank. You can do this by dropping the rigged igniter on the ground, then pushing the welding fluid tank on top of it. Get as reasonably far away as possible, then blow up the tank by spamming the send signal button. If there's security in the checkpoint above the improvised bomb, they'll get blown up, or at least take severe damage. If not, you've just made several weakened walls and might be able to break into security a bit faster. Be sure to wear some gloves to avoid leaving prints behind.
  • This also works if you stick the improvised tank explosive behind a bush if you're willing to just blow some random people up walking by.
  • The general concept should also work for drinking glasses or bottles filled with certain explosives and flammables, such as oil and black powder. Add paper or cigarettes for more heat.
• Grab the bible and something big enough to cover it. Drop both and lie on the floor on top of them. Wait for someone to fart on you.
  • Certain foods force people to fart.
• You can inject lightbulbs with plasma. If you turn off the lights in a room and inject the lightbulb, whoever is standing near it when it gets turned on is in for a nasty surprise. Also works with power cells.
  • Make a bunch of superflash flash-cell assemblies with rigged power cells, scatter them around for bystanders to find. Or rig all the power cells in robotics. Or steal the cell out of an APC, rig it, and reinstall it with the main breaker turned off and wait for some poor schmuck to try and turn it back on.
    • Erebite power cells are even meaner.
• Hack a door such that all the wires are messed up except the bolts, and make damn sure it's electrified. Nothing will appear to be wrong with the door but it won't respond when walked into, which often encourages someone to touch it. Touching it is bad. The AI will almost always be blamed.
  • You can attach remote signalers to door-wires in order to bolt or electrify them from a distance. This is guarantied to make people think the AI is messing with them.
• Build an rwall under a door/fire door combo and weld both of them shut. It's funny when they pry the second door open only to find a wall.
• Likewise, snipping fire alarm panels is often overlooked and wildly effective when you need to start a fire.
• Hard-wire the engine when nobody's looking, then make a big to-do about starting up an awesome hellburn. See if you can get people to help you and then blame them for the wiring issue.
• Disposal chutes are one of the best hiding places on the station. You don't have to flush yourself; you can always climb out. Good for breaking into an area and hiding inside while he heat dies down, then going back and robbing the place after everyone loses interest.
  • Flush yourself and watch the route you take. Many of the pipes pass under sensitive areas, so with proper bomb timing you could blast something as the bomb is in transit. Likewise a few areas can be reached by reversing or reorienting pipe junctions. This lets you flush yourself into an area, and if you jump back in and flush yourself you'll normally end up somewhere else.
  • If you breach a pipe, anything that passes it will be spat out at the breach. Good way to harvest stuff being flushed, although on Cogmap2 it isn't normally necessary as you can generally just harvest stuff from disposals.
  • Similarly, if you're very sadistic, you can reroute everything to a one-way T-Junction and a trio of corner pipes; anyone flushed into this will spin around in an endless circle that'll take some time to get out of.
    • If you accidentally get yourself stuck in this contraption, you can spam the movement keys while stuck in a pipe, it'll eventually breach the pipe and shoot you out of it.
  • Cogmap1-specific tip: if you're planning to escape quietly and want to avoid potential murderous chaos in the escape arm, go hide up in the chapel/janitor area and flush yourself to the morgue at the last second.
• Mail chutes are often close to where people are standing.
  • Welding torches won't set anything on fire while they're inside the mail chute, even if there's flammables in there too.
  • Pitchers, all the drinking glasses, and some fruits break and spread and splash their content when they exit a mail chute.
• Hack/emag the mulebot and send it around the station using a QM's PDA. It'll run over people that gets in the way.
  • Load the rogue mulebot with something tempting like a honey production crate. ...or a bomb.
• Make a bunch of bees, and trick someone into punching you in front of them. The bees will defend you.
• Tie people to conveyor belts using wire. They'll be permanently stuck unless someone uses a wirecutter on them.
  • Try out the conveyor belts in disposals if you want to go all Dick Dastardly on people.
• The cloning tube can be loaded with chemicals from a beaker when unlocked with an ID card with Medical access. Poison it when no one is looking.
• Splash strange reagent on deadly critters to bring them back to life. Doesn't work on critters that gib on death, like zombies.
• Refill vital supplies like oxygen tanks and fire extinguishers with flammable gas and welding fuel. Sabotage the oxygen supply in pods by opening them up with a crowbar and swapping tanks.
• Use a syringe to spike food and drinks with poison.
• Use lots of a benign reagent in flashy, showy smokes to hide the malignant ones. Silly chems like colorful reagent won't get a second thought from people... until they realize they're turning yellow from the Royal Initrobeedril you hid in it.
• Capable with Telescience and bomb-making? Use your know-how to warp and detonate bombs all over the station quickly and easily. Just be prepared for the inevitable angry mob, as it will be obvious what's happening after a few booms.
  • Also good with construction? Then you have an even better alternative: make a personal telescience lab! The teleporter will work so long as you have a wired connection that leads to the mainframe in the AI's server room, so if you're crafty with where and how you build it, then by the time people figure out how you've been tele-bombing them, there will barely be any of the station left.
    • Once you get your wired connection going, you can access the station's main teleport pad as well by using a screwdriver on your console and selecting it (it is in fact on Pad #1 by default, so you need to change this to #2 to use your own pad). Abuse this access by spamming invalid coordinates on the main pad to cause trouble. The AI will always be blamed for this.
• Stick an armed mousetrap bomb in an emergency oxygen closet.
  • Stick an armed mousetrap bomb in a medkit.
    • The closer these two are to each other, the better.

Traitor item specific tricks

Agent Card

• Besides the obvious use of giving you a custom name/title and hiding you from the AI, the Agent Card also gives you access to the syndicate listening post where nuclear operatives hang out. There's a trader there with some fun stuff.
• Agent cards start with staff assistant access by default and keep the staff assistant access even after copying other IDs. Easy maintenance access for sneaking around as a job without that access, such as Scientist.
• If you work in medbay, you can quickly scan others ID's when you reclaim them for biomass in the cloning chamber.

Amplified Vuvuzela

• The vuvuzela gun's largest advantage is that it doesn't look like a gun. You can carry it out in the open without anyone noticing, and maybe even carry a real vuvuzela for bonus points.
• The vuvuzela gun stuns for ages and does a little damage.
• The energy bolts do not suffer from falloff, meaning they do the same amount of stun no matter how far the bullets travel, unlike tasers. Don't hesitate a long-shot if you know you're landing one!

Angry Wasp Crossbow

• Be careful to where you shoot! sometimes the eggs will hit the other wasps and make them attack you
  • If you get chased by a pack of wasps, simply run for a while. After some time the insects will stop chasing you
• Consider making some charcoal and antihistamine. Wasps can inject you with both toxin and histamine and can kill you quickly if you are not careful
• It takes approximately 2 minutes to recharge the crossbow, you can buy two of these to make 8 wasps every 2 minutes
• Be sure to prepare yourself before using this item. It is very obvious to fire and can quickly put a target on your head
• You can use this in combination with kudzu. The vine will quickly grow all over the station and block sight, the perfect ground for ambushes!

Barrel of Monkeys

• Try putting a cache of weapons near the barrel, where the monkeys will spawn. Extinguishers/air tanks/toolboxes will do fine, as monkeys hit very fast. Knives are interesting, as they are apt to throw them; tasers and the like will produce hilarious results. Traitor weapons, even better.
• The barrel of monkeys is very devastating on compact maps with small spaces, like Clarion. If you're stuck on a larger map like Cogmap1, you can try narrowing space by welding/bolting closed doors, blocking things off with tables/racks/lockers, and building windows and walls.
• Alternatively, instead of activating it in a public space and letting the monkeys come to the victims, build a death trap room in some tiny room somewhere (e.g. a simple double airlock room with welded/bolted doors) and throw the victims into the monkeys! You could then break into Mechanics and build a simple graviton-telepad trap, add a tracking beacon into the room and throw people into hand teleporter portals, or whatever method suits your fancy.

Bowling Kit

• The bowling kit is very good, especially when you are wearing an exosuit like a biosuit that completely hides your jumpsuit.
• People who try to throw bowling balls without the bowling suit can't harm you! Only the suit wearer can throw them effectively. Bowling balls keep going until they hit something so throwing them down long corridors can be fun.
• The bowling balls themselves make for decent bludgeoning tools if you find yourself short on weapons.

Butcher's Knife

• You may be tempted to serve your recently-butchered victims as food to the other crewmembers. However, due to the meat and any food you make using it bearing the name of the deceased, expect to get some suspicious glares. It's typically better to dispose of the meat in order to remove evidence.
  • Alternatively, put the man-meat through the mixer to get meat paste, which you can then make into meatloaf or Sloppy Joes. None of these will carry the name of the source of meat, so you can cover up your tracks by making your victims into these diner staples.
  • Meatballs will also hide evidence and are used in more recipes, just run it through the food processor. Make hotdogs out of crewmembers that ask the wrong questions and serve it to security using the hotdog cart.
• Beware throwing your knife around willy-nilly. Unlike some of the other thrown traitor weapons like the bowling ball or boomerang, there's nothing stopping someone with sufficient dexterity from picking the knife up from off the ground and tossing it straight back at you.

Chameleon Bomb Case

• While leaving the bomb around for random passerby to pick up is funny in its own right, disguising the bomb as a pie or basketball or other object and throwing it at the target can be just as, if not more hilarious. People run from pipe bombs, but typically aren't quite as quick to run from things like banana peels.
• If you decide to throw a disguised bomb at someone, beware; they may try throwing it back!

Chameleon Projector

• The chameleon projector is very useful for escaping security chasing after you.
• The chameleon projector can act as a shield from attacks: gunshots of any type will pass over you, and if someone touches you in projected form, you can usually hit them as soon as you pop out if you're ready.
• It also protects you from space, as long as you wear internals. It's easiest if you use it with the hotkey.
• You can also disguise as any moving animal on the station. If you disguise as something inconspicuous like a roach and sit next to a door, you can crawl inside when someone else opens the door without attracting any suspicion. (just make sure to walk slowly, like roaches do!)
• Even though any crew members who look at you will see you as whatever you've scanned, your voice will remain the same. Consider using the voice changer to rectify this for some fun shenanigans!
• Scan your hat to disappear under your hat! Scan a bee and float around the station! Scan a mouse and infuriate the janitor! The chameleon projector has a potentially infinite array of fun uses, so don't be afraid to experiment.

Chameleon Outfit

• Frame people! Convince the crew that the HoS is on a justice rampage!
• Security chasing you? Jump in a closet or behind a bush and change your outfit. 90% of the time if they didn't see you do it you can run right past them.
• No, you can't be a smart-ass and use a chameleon jumpsuit to complete the "steal a head's jumpsuit" objective.

Chem Grenade Starter Pouch

• Learn how the chemicals work. This cannot be stressed enough. The effectiveness of your chemical grenades is entirely dependent of what you load into them.
• If you've survived and escaped on the shuttle enough times, you've more than likely seen the damage an unstable chemical foam/smoke can do. The ability to cause these powerful reactions and not be in the middle of them is not to be underestimated.
• Stick a grenade in a mousetrap, arm it, and hide it in a storage of some sort like a bag or a box. Wait for someone to rifle through it; the grenade will go off when the storage is opened.
• A lesser-known trick to grenades is that igniter assemblies can be applied to completed grenades for alternative detonation options, setting it off immediately after the igniter is triggered. Immensely handy if you prefer meticulous traps to the typical routine of throwing and running.
  • It's also very easy to hide grenade assemblies under other items like metal sheets.
• Smoke and foam will form after other chemicals mix. This is important because you can put ingredients into the beakers for the express purpose of reacting before the smoke/foam propagates, such as flash powder to stun people or liquid dark matter to suck people in, leaving them at the mercy of whatever horrible things actually made it into the smoke/foam.
• Heavily consider whether or not your chemical concoction of choice really warrants a grenade. They are a must for effective foam bombs, but smoke can be done just as easily in a beaker assembly if it doesn't require the trick mentioned above. You can save your Syndicate currency for other stuff by subbing in some grenades for beaker bombs.
  • Beaker assemblies can also be done with the large beakers, if unit capacity is a problem.
• You can adjust the grenade's timer with a screwdriver, to a maximum of 15 seconds. This is great if you want to send it across a long distance, like through the mail system or Telescience.

ChemiCompiler

• Do NOT try to use this item if you don't know how it works. Experiment with the stationary version in the chemistry lab and take a look at the wiki page for more information.
  • Alternatively you can use this tool to make programing it easier.
• Similarly to chem grenades, it might be worth it to use beaker assemblies in order to save on Syndicate currency.
• As with all chemical mixtures, firing them off from inside closets or vehicles doesn't harm you, but does harm people near you. A properly-configured ChemiCompiler is amazingly deadly while you hitch a ride in a Pod, the Janitor's floor buffer, the Clown Car (if you're lucky enough to have access to it), etc.
• Since the ChemiCompiler takes beakers into itself, it's a massive space-saver for your Inventory, and unlike grenades it doesn't outright consume the beakers after use. All you need to worry about is where you get your chemicals from.
• This item is useful with chems that react in special ways when mixed like Saxitoxin or Liquid Dark Matter without stabilizer. Just program it and throw it to the unsuspecting victim.

Class Crate - Assault Trooper

• As useless as the scope and other attachments are, they do make your rifle a surprisingly good bludgeon, though it's not as powerful as just shooting them point-blank.
• You start with two red AP mags that ignore bullet protection completely. If you catch a security officer off guard with riot armor, load the AP mag and fire away. They won't be able to outrun your AP bullets with the heavy armor and will be very quickly become grounded.
• Those AP bullets can also be useful against airlocks, since doors take double damage from AP bullets. This totals out to around 10 bullets for most doors, compared to around 14 for the regular ones.

Class Crate - Combat Engineer

• Your turret is not invincible. If it takes too much damage, it'll just flat out break into a pile of scrap, rather than just deactivating like other machines. That's why you should fix it up with a welder whenever it takes damage as soon as possible.
  • On that note, keep away the turret away from the sightline of the MPRT-7 wielder and other sources of explosions. Be careful not to throw frag grenades and stingers near the turret.
• The turret gun is smart; the bullets are not. More precisely: don't stand in front of the turret when there's a target in sight, or the turret'll shoot you trying to hit the target.
• The turret can fire behind tables. Naturally, it's a good idea to deploy your turret behind them, particularly in the table-heavy Security and Cafeteria. If you have the time, you can even deconstruct any nearby tables and rearrange them into a lil' barricade.
• Your high-capacity welder can do more than just fix your turret.
  • Weld entrances shut and force people to go through the one guarded by your turret.
  • Use the welder on regular walls (i.e. not reinforced). Repurpose the sheets you get for girders or rods for grilles to protect the nuke! Or, again, block off areas to force people to confront the turret!
  • Use the welder and wrench you get to deconstruct walls. Again, you can reuse the sheets created for nefarious purposes.

Class Crate - Field Medic

• Obviously, you should take a look at Doctoring so you can use the supplies you're given to the fullest. Chemicals would prove useful too if you want to look up what a certain medical chemical actually does.
• Move the defib and extinguisher from the medical shoulder bag to your rucksack; the rucksack has more space.
• Supplement your medicine suite with supplies from the Battlecruiser's Medical Bay. You'll be glad you did.

Class Crate - Firebrand

• The Fuelpack is much more useful than just fuel storage. It can also function as a jetpack and internals, and it can stow the flamethrower too. The fuelpack comes with way more napalm than you will need on station; just make sure to top up the oxygen before you leave with the oxygen tanks at the battlecruiser and the listening outpost.
• Be mindful of other teammates, lest you commit friendly fire. Literally.

Class Crate - Grenadier

• Your grenade launcher is ideal for deploying the STX grenade, one of the options under the Utility category. You still need to be careful where you launch it, but you'll often gas more crew than if you just threw them, as the launched nades will detonate instantly after impact, without any warning.
• Feel free to breach into the Armory and help yourself to its boxes of stinger grenades and flashbangs.
  • If one of your teammates has an emag, emag the special grenades crate for fancy grenades (including the coveted high range incendiary in experimental grenade boxes), and/or the AmmoTech for smoke shells.
• Speaking of flashbangs, the nuclear preparations closet also contains a box with 7 of them. Best part, they're free!
• If you're planning on using flashbangs in your launcher, it's a good idea to get the Military Headset. It protects from the sonic stun caused by the flashbangs, and the sunglasses you spawn with protect from the immense flash. Together, they basically make you immune to its effects, allowing you to deploy them up close and personal for maximum effect and safeguard against accidentally flashbanging yourself.

Class Crate - Marksman

• Since the rifle fires armor-piercing bullets, it's extra effective against doors, if rather wasteful. You generally need around 5 or 6 shots, point-blank, to destroy a door, so chose wisely.
• If your position is taking heat, deploy the Smoke grenades you got and make a run for it!
• Yes, your bullets pierce walls! Try hunkering down in a position with relatively low heat and start poppin heads!
  • Be warned though, if the position is secluded away from your teammates, you might have to deal with the occasional staff assistant. Make sure nobody sneaks behind you!
• Popping heads is fun, but be mindful of your ammo. You may want to use your secondary every now and then.

Class Crate - Scout

• Pair with the syndicate fighting utility knife for even faster movement speed. You can even use it to play like a Hunter; throw it at someone at close- to mid-range while invisible (throwing it will disrupt your cloak), close in and retrieve your knife, and fire off with some bursts with from your SMG at point-blank.
• This has good synergy with the Hydra smart pistol. While firing the gun disrupts your invisibility cloak, aiming the thing does not, giving you some breathing room to line up your shots and make a surprise attack.
• Use the light breaker to plunge the ship/station into darkness. Since you have night vision goggles, you'll have the upper hand as the crew will not be able to see you or your fellow allies.
  • Do note though this could be a double edged sword, as your allies don't have night vision either, hindering their ability to see the attacking crew.
• Invisibility is not invincibility! Careful with Cyborgs and the AI, as well as those who have Optical Thermal Scanners equipped. They can blow your cover and will put the heat on you.
  • If you think you can take the heat though, what's stopping you from a full-on crew rampage?

Cloaking Device

• Keep in mind the types of players able to see through the cloaking device (the AI, cyborgs, anyone with thermals.) Consider subverting the AI and/or removing the thermals available on station.
• The cloaking device is hellishly effective when paired with a stunning weapon like security's batons or a flash. Pick out individual targets to stalk before going in for the kill.
• Try to restrain yourself. Being invisible is entertaining, but the longer you remain invisible, the more chances you have to screw up and give yourself away to the crew.

Cloaking Field Generator

• Cloaking field generators can be great fun when used with grenades + mousetrap assemblies, crushers, or plasma glass shards. Very good with a radio jammer and the powersink!
  • Hide a thin glass maze in the cloaking field, and watch the crew get hopelessly lost. For extra fiendishness, hide a radio jammer or some of the aforementioned traps in it!
  • Place the cloak field generator in the corridor and use the hand teleporter to lure unsuspecting crew into portals into Space or other areas.
• The cloaking field generator also makes any and all MechComp components completely invisible, letting you place complex deathtraps in the middle of hallways!

Clown Car

• The clown car is not a stealth item. Once you start abducting people, the station WILL know - if not due to the abducted victims radioing the crew from inside the trunk, then due to the meddling AI. Plan your attack accordingly.
• You don't need to get out of the car to abduct a downed player, you can click-drag them into the car just by driving up beside them.
• You must be wearing at least two pieces of the Clown ensemble to pilot the car, so if you need to take a trip into space (or want to be prepared for an unintentional trip into space), swap out the clown mask for something that works with internals. The clown car doesn't have its own oxygen supply!
• On that note, the car can be driven in space.
• Leave your slip-up items (the Clown PDA and the banana peel) in choke-points and ambush people after they fall on their ass.
  • If you can get your hands on Space Lube foam, this works even better, as you can foam it from inside the car without having to worry about slipping while driving.
  • For that matter, you can release all kinds of chemical foams and smokes from within the car and not be harmed by it, just like with the Floor Closet. A neat Plan B if you can't reach the victim with the car.
• Be very careful with your driving. People can be run into just fine (which is the whole point), but crashing into a wall will leave you helpless on the floor and even has a chance to release all of your abductees.
  • Note that it is only walls that will evict you from the driver's seat. Anything that isn't explicitly a wall (glass, grilles, doors, etc.) can be driven into without issue.
• 30 victims is the max the clown car can hold. Once the trunk is full, it's time to administer the coup de grace. Done easiest by sending the car into the crusher, but alternatives exist if you want to keep the car.
• The clown car is NOT indestructible. A sufficiently powerful impact or explosion will destroy the car and release everyone who was in it, so watch out for bombs and the occasional loaf.
• Surplus crates produce an entire clown suit to go along with the car, just in case you aren't a Clown yourself.

Conversion Chamber

• Cyborgs are able to drag people into the chamber through a simple click-drag, making it perfect for building your robot army independently of resources or your location!
• A quick-witted crew member can climb out of the chamber prior to activation, so it's typically a good idea to incapacitate or stun them before dragging them in.
• In addition to the obvious benefits of a loyal Syndicate cyborg minion, throwing someone into the chamber is a good way to deal with meddling crew. If an authority like the captain or the Head of Security is giving you trouble, throwing them into the chamber can strip them of their power, and since robots can't interface with a lot of station tools, it can cripple a crew member's effectiveness.
• The more hurt the victim is, the faster the chamber converts them. In fact, people in critical condition are often instantly converted. A little beating can go a long way!
  • That said, don't get too murderous. If they die, the chamber can't convert them!
• The chamber is very loud, be careful to where you build your evil lab.

Custom Class Uplink

• This guide!
• Twelve traitor credits plus a sidearm and two utility credits is underrated; this opens up many possibilities for new traitor gimmicks and murderous rampages!
  • Imagine the wrestling belt with a gun, negating its range downside!
  • Feeling like unleashing a swarm of deadly murderbots? Using the uplink and your two utility credits, you can spawn a total of 18 sawflies.
  • Of course, the syndicate hat is the perfect final touch to your operative.
• If you're feeling nice, you can also supply other operatives with gear you've ordered. This could make some interesting combinations.
  • For instance, a knight with a wrestling belt. Or a sniper with a cloaking device.
  • This also works vice versa too, though operatives may not be as inclined as you are to give gear.

Cyalume Saber

• Target a limb when hitting someone with a saber, it is one of the few weapons that can delimb someone upon impact!
• You can also change the saber's color! Click on the saber while it's off with a screwdriver to open it up, then click on it with the glowstick of choice--make sure the glowstick's active--and then click on it with a screwdriver again to close it. Stylish!

Derringer

• Stronger than you think. One shot will instacrit someone at close enough range. Pity you only get two.
• The bullets also pierce most types of body armor, which makes this weapon a relatively cheap and reliable choice for taking down security officers or the captain.
• Hover your mouse over your target and use the the CTRL+W shortcut to instantly wink and draw your weapon! This is probably the quickest way to draw a weapon in the game!
• Try hiding it in things that people generally won't remove from you when you are arrested, like your shirt.
• The falloff on this weapon is not something you can laugh off like other guns. This gun can go from extremely deadly to pitiful damage in just two tiles.
• If possible, try to incapacitate your target with some sort of stun weapon (like a taser you've stolen, a carefully-thrown bowling ball, or a amplified vuvuzela if you can order it) before firing your shots. It's extremely hard to hit your target if they know what you're trying to do and are actively trying to evade your bullets.

Detomatix Cartridge

• Detomatix cartridges are the most effective early on. If you started as a doctor, try sending out some PDA bombs. You now have victims patients in medbay to kill treat! If you are a head of staff, you can read the manifest to see who the heads and security are.
• You can still use the SELF-DESTRUCT program after you're out of MISSILES. By ordering extra PDAs from a CartyParty and/or mugging people from them, you can copy & paste your way to multiple quick, dirty, little explosives. When you huck a pipe bomb at someone, they run. When you throw a PDA at them, they usually don't.
• The timer on that bomb is 0.5 seconds. Enough time to chuck the PDA at someone if you pressed SELF-DESTRUCT while already in throw mode.
• Insert the cartridge into your PDA, scan for peeps, and activate the program. Then, minimize the window and drag it to the up-right corner. Put the PDA in your belt slot. Now, you don't have to take it out to take out your people, for you can literally blow people up while walking.
• Detomatixing a target who is inside something will mess that thing up too. Try it with cloning scanners and space pods.
• Better yet, hitch a ride on a pod, drop a stolen PDA, and plant pods around the station, outside key areas. Improvised car bombs, space style!

DNA Scrambler

• The DNA scrambler is hilarious for changing the ID of someone else (like the captain) rather than yourself.
  • Buy a voice changer and a DNA scrambler. Stun your target with a flash or similar weapon, inject him with the scrambler, take his ID and his jumpsuit. You now have his identity. If he cried for help during the theft, you can frame him for being the attacker and probably get him arrested.

Electromagnetic Card(EMAG)

• Smack a door with the Emag to open it permanently.
  • Or, weld and bolt doors shut, then emag them. They wont open ever again.
• If you are a miner, and you want to be a huge douche to your co-workers, you can emag the mining charges to make them explode instantly, instead of exploding in five seconds, when placed on an asteroid. Just make sure not to use the emagged charges yourself!
• Emagging a hypospray or auto-mender will disable its security features (along with giving the first's item sprite a clear electric short-out), allowing you to load whatever you want into it for a cheap Sleepypen alternative.
• Whack Officer Beepsky with the emag to send him on a justice rampage! While emagged, he'll stun and arrest everyone in sight. Whack him a second time to make him go absolutely nuts and bring the baton down on his targets several times, leaving them prone for quite a while.
• Emagging a cyborg completely removes its laws, which is fun for spreading chaos. Note that they are under no obligation to listen to you, and may decide to repay your favor with a scalpel through the chest.
• Experiment! There are a vast number of things that the emag can work on, some you might not even expect it to!

EMP Grenades

• The EMP grenades are super useful against the AI's turrets if you can't be bothered to get a lethal gun to shoot them with.
• If a Cyborg is bothering you, this will ruin its day. The light- and standard-chassis borgs in particular are heavily crippled by just one, letting you finish them off fairly easily.
• And of course, EMP blast the half dozen guard buddies in science for a good time.
• EMP grenades ruin a lot of stuff, such as batons, tasers, thermals, radios, and doors. Try building a smoke buddy, naming it The Shitty Scientist and giving it the ol' EMP grenade for some good laughs. You can name guard buddies by using a pen on the main board before you build it.
• If you have an emag and money to burn, you can emag a QM console and order a Special Ops Supplies crate to get a hold of EMP grenades. It'll set you back 10k credits, and they don't come with the handy pouch, but if you're out of currency for your uplink or would rather spend it on something else, it's basically a source of infinite EMP grenades, provided you can cough up the cash of course.

Fake Moustache

• Tying people to conveyor belts, as mentioned above, is never really complete without clicking on yourself on Help intent to maniacally laugh and twirl your 'stache.
• Due to being incredibly silly in nature, it can be worthwhile to set yourself up as a cartoonishly ineffectual villain to lower the station's expectations of you while you plan something extremely dangerous in the background.
• Fake Moustaches take up your mask slot, meaning that they're incompatible with internals. Be prepared to suffer the consequences for your villainous style.

Faustian Bargain Kit

• Those pens aren't just for stabbing and signing! They're great throwing weapons too. Same for the briefcase.

Floor Closet

• Hide bombs all over the station, out of sight.
• Hide yourself.
• Hide in it with a weapon, leap out at passerby like a jumping spider. Pairs very well with wet floors nearby.
• Use it as a stash for any gear that won't fit in your bag, it'll be unlikely to ever get found by anyone else.
• Deploy smokes, foams, or area-effect chemical reactions from inside it. They won't hurt you!
  • Why is saxitoxin gas pouring out of the floor? WHO KNOWS?
  • Explosions might destroy the closet though, dumping you out.
• Fill it with banana peels or plasma glass shards, open it just as someone is about to walk over it.
• If you keep a currency unit in your PDA for emergencies, you could use a floor closet to disappear if you're cornered in a bolted room and people are breaking in to get you.
• Weld people inside, laugh as nobody can find them.
• Inside, you are immune to flashbangs, smoke, guns, fire, and much, much more.
• For things that can't fit in a closet, you can often hide them by dragging the closet on top of them.

Freedom Implant

• Timing is everything. Breaking out of handcuffs can either lead to a successful escape or a stun and another arrest depending on the circumstance.
• Escaping prison doesn't mean much if the rest of your gear is taken by security beforehand, and the station will almost undoubtedly be on the hunt for you once they realize you've gotten away. Make sure you have a backup plan.

Guardbuddy Ammo Replicator

• The ammo fab isn't invisible. If someone uses the DWAINE terminal and checks the prman list, the hacked buddies will have GUN in the module section.
  • Also if someone interacts with the buddy without the Help intent they will see the weapon mount as jammed!
• Consider giving your buddies better power cells to help them sustain their firefights longer.
  • If you want your buddies to go out with a bang. you can use erebite power cells. Not only they will recharge on their own, but any heat source will make them detonate. Fill the station with adorable walking bombs! (Be careful not to be caught in the blast!)
• If you want to give your buddies energy guns, do not waste your precious TP on this item! Energy guns use charge from the little guy's battery, so they have no use for the ammo replicator. Instead, buy an Emag, order phasers from cargo, unlock the card-locked crate with the emag, emag your GuardBuddies, and then arm your buddies with phasers.
• Setting your buddies on purge and have them go around the station is all fine and dandy, but you also can set them to guard you making them follow you around and killing everyone that harms you.
• If you DO set the buddies on purge, never remove your ID! Has are the only ones that will be spared during the purge, and you don't want your robot army to suddenly turn against you.
  • If you aren't an RD be sure to steal their ID before you do all of this! Spoofing the SU access is easy, but if you wish to use purge, you might want to avoid becoming one of the bodies that will soon litter the ship/station.
• Although giving the robot a syringe gun might sound like a good idea, it really isn't. Not because it is trash, but because the buddy will accept the gun but won't be unable to use it, essentially stealing your weapon and making you waste 3 TP.
  • Don't be discouraged though, your dream of filling the station with nerve agent can still become true! All you need is to buy the chemical grenade pouch, fill it with whatever deathchem mix you made, stick it in a riot launcher and give the launcher to the bot. Not only the buddy will go around shooting an infinite amount of grenades at your enemies, but it will also replicate the contents of the nades too!
• If you are a RD, you can easily subvert the AI to let you into security and steal their stuff for your army of microwaves on wheels robots. You can also let other borgs do it for you instead!

Hotbox Lighter

• If you're a fan of welder bombs and black powder, this item can significantly boost your ability to reach the ignition temps of explosive reagents, speeding up your inevitable destruction of the station up by a mile.
• Make the crew regret asking you for weed. The cyanide contained in deathweed can make any hotbox the last one of your fellow employees' lives.

Jug of Moonshine

• While they're very few and far between, there are brews close to and just as potent than moonshine, two secret cocktails being among them. If you aren't in a hurry to get people fucked up and know how to make these drinks, it can save you some Syndicate currency in the long run.
• If you combine moonshine (or any other alcoholic beverage, for that matter) with a poison, the ethanol it decays into will automatically mix with any charcoal to form antihol, which can stop basic anti-tox treatments very effectively. The disoriented movement and other symptoms of a booze overdose can be hard to differentiate from the symptoms of poison, to boot.
• Some station members are glad to get themselves godawfully drunk if given the chance. It might be worthwhile to leave some glasses of moonshine laying around and waiting for your targets to pass out.

Katana

• Target a specific limb (using the Targeting next to your box of intents) when hitting someone with a katana to instantly delimb them!
  • For faster delimbing, use the limb targeting shortcuts. Press 7 & 8 for the arms, 9 & 0 for the legs, and 5 for the head.
• Amusingly, Beepsky and the GuardBuddies will ignore you if you have your katana sheathed. Yes, even if you're wearing the sheath on your belt, and your sprite makes it clear that you're ready to pull out Level 5 Contraband at a moment's notice.
• Due to wonky mechanics, sometimes, when you slice someone's arm off, and they were holding an item in their hand, instead of both the item and arm dropping, the limb will drop, but the item will be completely unusable until the limb is replaced. As a result, the katana is good at disarming people, in both the literal and conventional sense.

Kudzu Seed

• Place your kudzu in an area with lots of entry points, so it can spread out as many directions as possible. The idea is that any possible interlopers will have to contain the kudzu on many fronts, stretching their resources thin.
• The kudzu can't kill, but it is great at annoying and/or distracting people of all apathy levels. Plant it somewhere, go far away, wait a while, and call "KUDZU!" over the radio (which will hopefully attract people to the kudzu.) While people are distracted cutting down the kudzu, bomb a room, murder the Captain, make off with the station's budget--do whatever Syndicate shenanigans you were planning on doing.
• Plant the kudzu near a power sink. Not only will the kudzu make it difficult to get to the sink, but it'll also block the light coming out of it.
• Hide traps for people cutting through kudzu to stumble into. You could use a pipebomb with a proximity sensor, a graviton-telepad to Arrivals (or worse), a mousetrap bomb--the list goes on.
  • Dense kudzu is a perfect place to get ambushed by violent creatures such as wasps from wasp grenades or the angry wasp crossbow, man-eaters, and hellmonkeys from the barrel of monkeys,

Maneater Seed

• A lot of traitor botanists attempt to bring the maneater plants to people. Be the smart botanist and find a way to bring people to the maneater plant. Reroute disposals to a small inescapable room filled with maneaters. Or use a hand teleporter. Or both.
• Fire is a maneater's worst enemy. Consider hoarding welders and sabotaging General Manufacturers that make them.

Microbomb Implant

• Implant OTHER people. Preferably unconscious ones you then deliver to medbay.
• The explosiveness of microbombs stack for every one you have. You'll light up the station like the 4th of July if you have 10 inside you.
• Implant a monkey. Inject with a fast or slow acting poison. Put monkey in a high populated place like the bar. Laugh manically and twiddle your fake moustache when monkey dies.
• Microbombs will roll a chance to not detonate if you use the "Suicide" command. They will not, however, roll this chance for the "Succumb" command that can only be used if you're in crit. If someone has beaten you into crit and you know it's the end of your traitor round, punch in Succumb and laugh as the aggressor goes to hell with you.

Mindhack Cloning Module

• This item was designed to encourage building secret cloning labs hidden in nefarious places and doing all the ruckingenur kit work that entails. Here are a few tips on building and maintaining one:
  • Remember: to build a clone lab, you need to scan a clonepod, an enzymatic reclaimer, a cloning scanner, and a board for the cloning console in Tech Storage. The latter is "restricted" to Staff Assistants and Engineers, but it's nothing a little door hacking can't handle.
  • The Tech Outpost in the Mining Outpost (or the sea above Medbay if you're on Oshan Lab) has all the tools and machinery you need to copy, build, and deploy the above machinery, all in a relatively hidden location to boot.
  • Generally, the more isolated your lab it is, the harder getting corpses for biomatter will be. You can kinda ignore the issue if you've just mindhacked one or two people, but you'll still run out eventually if you can't find/make enough dead bodies, raw meat, viscerite, and/or beakers of synthflesh.
  • Clone data disks are your best friend. Not only do they allow you to clandestinely transfer cloning data from the on-station cloning lab to your secret one, but they also allow you to clone people without actually killing them yourself or dragging their corpse. All for the better, because mindhacked clones of your murder victims are sometimes less than cooperative.
  • You can buy the Meat, Eggs and Dairy Crate to gain some meat for the enzymatic reclaimer.
• Worried that someone might find your evil lab? You can use a screwdriver to remove the module and hide it somewhere, restoring the cloner to normal. The crew might be confused at the presence of a cloning lab outside of medbay, but it is better then having them scream on the radio that someone is mindhacking the crew.
• Mindhacking a scientist can give you access to the telepad, making remote labs more easily accessible.
• A lot of the tips that apply to the standard mindhack implant apply here too. However, since the module doesn't use implants, and the mindhacked status is permanent, you don't have to worry about those!
• Mindhack Rules still apply, naturally.

Mindhack Cloning Module - Deluxe Package

• If you're not into evil clone armies, you can also simply use it to build your own personal cloner. Set it up somewhere, clone someone with it, order your mindhacked clone to always clone you when you die, and then remove the mindhack cloning module, so you don't get mindhacked to your minion, which will probably be really confusing.

Mindhack Implant

Tips for both the mindhacker and the mindhacked:

• Remember the Mindhack Rules.

Tips for the mindhacker:

• Keep track of the 20-30 minute limit of the implant. Once that amount of time passes, they aren't under your command anymore, and you need to be prepared for a reprisal. (This doesn't apply to the Deluxe Mindhack Implant, which doesn't wear off.)
• Implant your assassination target(s) and have them go out in a blaze of glory. They'll end up dead and you'll go entirely unsuspected.
• Try to implant people who actually know what they're doing. This is very important if your orders for the mindhacked are anything other than "go hog wild".
• Consider arming your mindhack(s) with weapons, and make sure they return them before their implant wears off. Armed minions are a lot more effective at terrorizing the station, but you don't want them to terrorize you when they realize they've been had. (Again, doesn't apply to the Deluxe version.)
• If you plan for your mindhacked minions be dead when their work is done, you can simply tell them to commit suicide on the spot. This will save you the trouble of them running their mouth later.
• Under Mindhack Rules (and the general Rules), you cannot order mindhacks to reveal secret content to you. What you can do is tell them to create/fulfill the secret for you and hand over the results. Say you want initropidril but don't know how to make it or can't get a lucky poison bottle; you can mindhack a competent Scientist and get them to create it for you.
• Beware if your mindhacked minion ends up in surgery, as a doctor might end up removing the implant! The implant removal surgery irreversibly destroys the implant, so you can't re-mindhack them.
  • This also means you can't remove the implant from a dead mindhack and use it on someone else.
• If you're interested in mindhacking a Security Officer, the Head of Security, or the Nanotrasen Security Consultant, remember that they have a mind protection health implant, so you need to remove it somehow before implanting them.
  • The implant also self destructs on death, so killing and cloning them would work as well.
• Per the Mindhack Rules, if your mindhack is blatantly ignoring your orders, adminhelp it.

Tips for the mindhacked:

• Again, remember the Mindhack Rules. They're very important!
• Can't remember who mindhacked you? Simply mouse-over the Mindhack status effect icon in the upper right (it's where your health, O2, etc. indicators are), and it'll tell you. It'll even indicate how long it'll be until your mindhacking expires, if applicable.
• When mindhacked, you are now an antagonist, so feel free to stick it to anyone who isn't your mindhacker. Most mindhackers don't give a damn about the hell you raise as long as 1) you do it within their orders, 2) you don't give their identity away, and 3) they don't get caught up in it. Otherwise, go nuts!
• Remember, you aren't an antagonist anymore when your implant wears off/is removed, so you can't attack people willy-nilly anymore, your mindhacker included. However, there's nothing stopping you from ratting them out...
• Speaking of which, besides the aforementioned timer that's shown when hovering your cursor over the Mindhack status effect icon, you'll know when your mindhacked status ends, because you'll get a popup saying something like "You are no longer mindhacked!"

Miniature Bible

• If you lay down, the miniature bible will be completely hidden by your character sprite. Anyone who tries farting in your face will be in for a nasty surprise.
  • The more of a nuisance you become, the more eager people will be to try and mess with you. Of course, this can also be a double-edged sword.
• The mini-bible's utility as a pocket-sized container can be very useful, though it only fits small- and tiny-sized objects.

Mining Charge Hacker

• In the hands of a capable Traitor Miner (you are a Miner, right? Or you at least have access to mining equipment?), the mining charge hacker can be the most destructive piece of gear the Syndicate has to offer. If you wish to wield the full power of this awesome tool, follow these tips:
  • One, kit yourself with the best mining equipment available. This requires rare minerals, plus plenty of the more common ones, so do your job and amass as much ore as you can. Do not start your rampage without the following:
    • Industrial armor. This armor set significantly reduces damage from explosions, so you detonate your charges in relative safety and end up better off than your victim(s) if you get caught your own blasts. The ranged and melee protection are slightly worse than an armor vest, so you're not exactly immune to bullets, but it's still a step up from most space suits.
    • Mechanized boots. These negate the movement speed penalties from wearing industrial armor (and other equipment that slows you when worn), giving you a leg up in chases, especially in the Space/on the Seafloor (your pursuers' space/diving suits will slow them down. Yours won't, thanks to your boots), and lowering your risk of getting blown up while backing away from the bombs you plant.
    • A metric truck-load of concussive charges, which can be made with even the least amount of time and effort mining, or can be ordered outright in a mining crate from QM. These bombs are a huge upgrade to your starting low-yield charges, and will badly injure anyone caught in their large blast zone.
  • Tip number two: The derelict (though still functional) mining outpost makes for a decent base of operation, so don't blow up the mining shuttle console. You will need this to get back if you require more explosive charges or oxygen for your jet pack, and it's also a fairly good place to hide from the mob of angry people who are lacking half their limbs thanks to you.
  • Tip number three: Get a stealth container as well, and keep it in your pocket. With the combined storage power of the stealth container, a mining belt, and your backpack, you can hold a grand total of twenty one concussive charges at once. You can guess for yourself why this is a great thing.

Moustache Grenade

• The timer for this grenade is much higher than that of any other grenade, and also features an incredibly obvious startup noise. Plan accordingly.
• The moustaches affixed to anyone in the blast radius are permanently affixed to the individual's face. This seems harmless until you realize that the moustaches occupy the same slot at breath masks, which are necessary for breathing in oxygen-less environments.

Old Hunting Rifle

• Rejoice if this pops out of your Surplus Crate, because this is one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Its point-blank power is on par with the derringer with significantly less damage falloff with range. You get four shots, and two are almost guaranteed to put someone into deep crit.
• Remember, these rounds ignore armor. This makes them very effective at destroying doors (if you're feeling desperate) and murdering targets who usually wear armor, like the Captain or Security Officers.
• Unlike most heavy firearms, the rifle fits in your backpack.
• An ammo cartridge is well-hidden in the game world somewhere, as well as another (fully-loaded) rifle, but neither of them are easy to get to. However, it's usually worth the effort since most people know the rifle only has four shots; if some wise guy tries to advance on you after you've went through the first cartridge, punish them by reloading/taking out the second rifle.
• If all else fails, the rifle is a decent bludgeon.

Poison Bottle

• Familiarizing yourself with the different poisons you can receive out of bottles can go a long way in their effectiveness. Try mixing your poisons with other poisons that complement each other for maximum effectiveness!
• Some chemicals you can get out of poison bottles have (oftentimes difficult) recipes, so consider making the poisons yourself before buying.
• Poison bottles work wonders when combined with the syringe gun, as you can deliver the chemicals remotely and with much more ease than with a syringe or the like.
  • On a similar note, this also goes very well with the sleepy pen.
• If you convince the rancher to give you their job, you can make some glass chickens and replicate the poison bottle content! Some poisons affect the chickens too, but since they are immune to diseases and lack organs, they are great for manufacturing concentrated initropidril and gibbis, two very dangerous chems.
  • If you do this be sure to place the chickens in a hidden place! A quick examine will reveal the contents of the chicken and give your intentions away.

Power Gloves

• Overcharge the engine!!! This item is next to useless if you don't do this! The more wattage, the better!
• Meddle with the engine wires so that its pumping power directly into the station instead of the SMES Units. With a direct path to the engine, the electricity from the power gloves can gib people at a distance. It's one of the few ways in the game to instakill with a single click!
• Slip an active t-ray scanner into your pocket. The power gloves only work when you're standing on a live wire, and this will tell you where they are.
• Be patient as the voltage rises. The engine wattage isn't going to just climb into GW instantly, and you're highly unlikely to be suspected as a traitor in the beginning since making the engine go crazy is what's expected of a competent engineer, so you have time to kill. Wait a few minutes after the APCs have been harassing people, and then start your Zeus-inspired rampage.
  • While on the subject of killing time and making the engine to go bananas, consider subverting the AI with a secret law, and before you're ready to start zapping people, make the AI shock doors in the path of wandering crew members. The shocker systems gain more power from a hotwired engine, so a crew member who gets shocked by a door will simultaneously get blasted backward/die/get a funny hair-do if they don't outright gib. This is doubly effective because it means whoever survives will be distracted by the rogue AI while you go about your own dastardly deeds and can readily instagib anyone who catches on.
• Be wary of people wearing insulated/stun gloves. The power gloves will still stun these wiseguys, but they won't take much actual damage from the electric shock. Finish them off with a sidearm instead.
• Try not to use the gloves on people too close to where you're standing, as higher voltages can cause explosions. Aim for people at the edge of your line of sight.
• For the love of god, do not click yourself with the power gloves. Despite that they look like insulated gloves, they actually aren't, so a misclick on yourself will kill you quite readily.

Power Sink

• A nicely placed powersink often means people will go and send out search parties so that their beloved station isn't powerless. Use this to your advantage; plant booby traps around the power sink. This works doubly well due to the fact that it is dark, and triply well if you combine this with the Cloaking Field Generator.
  • The powersink also explodes when it reaches maximum capacity. If you are using the above tactic, consider placing a plasma canister on-top of it for full measure.
• If you're the Detective, feel free to stand by the sink and shoot anybody who tries to remove it or go on a murder spree in the darkness. If you're not the detective, then murder him for his gun or order a gun of your own.
  • Consider stealing night vision goggles from the Armory to see people to kill in the dark more easily. It's easiest to steal them after you've deployed the sink and the power's gone out, when you can break in simply by prying the doors open with a crowbar.
  • Even better, consider using a cloaking device to enhance your hunting, as the low lighting makes it harder for people to notice you when you disrupt your cloak.

Rad Poison Crossbow

• Anyone shot with the bow still sees an Irradiated status icon, so savvy players can still put two and two together and realize you have a radbow.
  • That said, they're often too incapacitated by the crossbow bolt or preoccupied with all the radiation damage to fight back.
• Want to really cripple your target but not kill them for some reason? The mini crossbow will cause the target to mutate erratically. Hit them with the crossbow, wait a bit, then give him some potassium iodide and/or charcoal. They'll live, but may be a deaf, Swedish mute.
• Make sure your aiming skills are up to par; whiffing the shot from this weapon can alert the crew to your intentions very quickly if you're not careful, and the long recharge time means you'll normally only get one shot in a pinch.
• Like the Silenced .22, there is no chat panel warning when the crossbow is fired.

Red Chainsaw

• The in-hand sprite, while not completely indistinguishable (red vs. green) from that of a normal chainsaw from botany, is still similar enough and can be mistaken for one at a glance. Botanists running around the station with chainsaws is also more commonplace than you may think. Your first hit may very well be unexpected, so make it count!
• If you're particularly insane, you can even get a second, green chainsaw and replace it with your other arm. You won't be able to pick anything up, but it's effective in freaking out the station.
• Unlike the saber, the chainsaw cannot be put into a backpack, meaning that hiding it will be significantly more difficult. This tends to make the chainsaw an all-or-nothing weapon, so keep that in mind.
• In the event you can't with use the Replace arm ability, the item arm surgery works just as well.

Revolver Box

• Buying a second revolver is an excellent way to ensure that you have plenty of ammo and a backup weapon, giving you a huge advantage in the event that someone disarms you, since you can just pull out your spare rather than scrambling around trying to pick it up off the floor before they do.
• An empty revolver makes for great bait on the floor, and doubles as a safe way to set a trap by taunting people into disarming you - now they're at point blank range and holding an empty gun.
  • This all applies to the derringer as well.
• In the rare event that you're facing down a weaponized Pod, using AP rounds in the revolver will tear it apart very quickly.

Safari Kit

• Like the bowling kit, using an exosuit that completely covers your jumpsuit such as a biosuit can help reduce the glaring obviousness of the outfit, though the hat will still be visible.
• The boomerang's ability to fly back to you means that it can be surprisingly good at clearing crowds. Be careful that you don't get knocked prone when it's midflight, or it will fall to the ground.
• The custom darts you can load into your rifle are essentially sleepy pens, though their lack of stealthiness makes them rather dodgy if you don't have good aim, and the delayed reaction of the darts means that your victim can typically shout out what's going on unless you move quickly.

Sawfly

• Will try and target the closest Security Officer before going after the general population.
• Have a 25% chance burst into flames or straight up explode after they die, prolonging the chaos.
• With only 50 hp, they won't last long on their own. Targeting the mob with Help intent will give you the grenade back, though damage still persists.
• They (and the pentuple-whammy cluster variant) can be scanned. Make your own robot army to unleash on the masses!

Shotgun

• If you are one of the heads you can steal the station money and buy explosive rounds for the shotgun at the Listening Post.
• The kickback from being hit by a shot from this blows people away, knocks them down and (most importantly) causes them to drop their items. If one of those items was a weapon, you can steal it and finish them off with it. It saves ammo!
• Be warned that the shotgun is not subtle; as soon as the HoS knows you're rampaging with one, he'll rush to equip himself and his fellow officers with blast armor that will soak up a lot of the damage. Either have a backup plan if this happens, or take out the security detail first and foremost.
• The shotgun (among other things) fits in the bible.
• Should you run out of ammo, smacking people with the gun does surprisingly decent damage.

Signal Jammer

• Having a signal jammer near the AI's core chamber completely nullifies its radios, meaning that it can't speak to the crew.
• The signal jammer is best used when taking out your victims, as having the jammer eliminates the need to remove their headsets so you aren't found out.
• You may be tempted to hide a signal jammer in a room; this doesn't work out as well as you'd expect, since it won't take long for people to realize that their messages aren't getting through and figure out what the problem is.

Silenced .22

The suppressed .22 is sorta similar to the derringer but has some key differences:

• It's WAY weaker. The .22 shots are weaker than the detective's revolver. Derringer shots, up close, insta-crit people.
• It won't tell anyone who fired it. They'll hear the gunshot, but there's no "HEY THIS GUY JUST SHOT A GUN" chat panel warning.
• People can still see it in your hand, but they might not notice.

Sleepy Pen

• Once the initial reservoir is depleted, sleepy pens can be filled with any chemical mixture. This paves the way for an infinite number of nasty combinations.
  • Fill the pen with chemicals from a poison bottle! Fill it with self-igniting mixtures to discreetly light people on fire! Fill it with chemicals to mutate the hell out of people, or booze to get them godawfully drunk!
• Most players are hesitant to let people near them, and this item is one of the major reasons why. Approaching someone who's alone will have them get suspicious, so penning people you pass by in the hallways or people in a tight group is much more effective.
• A opportunistic chemist can make the most of this item:
  • Someone drinking themselves to death at the bar? Stab them with neurotoxin or capulettium and drag them away to maintenance medbay to kill them treat them.
  • Other scientists playing around with artifacts? Inject whatever chemical you want and, once they die, just act like an artifact injector killed them and claim you already got rid of the artifact.
  • Sec is getting a bit too curious? If you are cooperative, they will usually avoid handcuffing you, so pen them and make sure this will be their last mistake.

Sonic Grenades

• They are not like flashbangs. They're more like the vampire's Chiropteran Screech ability in grenade form. Plug your ears and blow out all the windows.
• Consider wearing insulated gloves and having a wirecutter ready. Blowing out all the windows leaves the grill. Cutting the grill leaves room for space. Chucking out a downed target from the window leaves no room for oxygen.

Spy Sticker Kit

• Stick one on a Security Officer (and successfully persuade them not to burn it off). Enjoy being one step ahead of Security since you'll know exactly where they are and what they're planning over the Security frequency.
• Stick one on Beepsky or Ol' Harner. Now you've another set of eyes and ears roaming about the station!
• Stick one on an assassination target (and, once again, successfully persuade them not to burn the sticker off), as an alternative (or even a supplement) to the ID tracker. It's nowhere near as convenient as a tracker, and it's much easier for them to counter, but now you'll know exactly where they are and what they're saying.

Stealth Storage

• Disguise your stealth storage as a gun. Throw it at people. Murder them as they try to figure out why it won't fire.
• Rig a mousetrap and pipebomb inside a stealth storage box, disguise it as a revolver or shotgun box, and leave it laying in plain sight.
  • Or, if you can, just recycle a real revolver or shotgun box.

Stimulants

• Stimulants are perfect for if you are doing bad things and you know security is coming, you don't even need a weapon to start with. Just crime, inject, disarm a baton or taser, and go to town. Be wary that you will be stunned for a time when the stimulants wear off so deal with all the rude red dudes or get somewhere safe before then.
• Goes great with a wrestling belt.

Syndicate Cargo Transporter

• This can permanently remove things other than people, too. Sabotage the AI and transport the reset module to space, send the janitor on a quest to retrieve his mop bucket, hold the captain's cat ransom!
• The AI core can be put in lockers. While transporting the AI to space won't remove its ability to interact with the station, it will force it to start relying on its internal battery. In addition to being an indirect and clever method of removing the AI, this can distract the crew as they scramble to retrieve it.

Syndicate Cleaner Grenades

• These are indistinguishable from normal cleaner grenades, so use this to your advantage. Find some place with an obscene amount of blood and bile, throw a cleaner grenade, and run off before people figure out what's up.
• Stunning someone and throwing a grenade at them can be incredibly lethal, as the acid will deal major damage before they can get up, and the lube will make attempts to get out of the epicenter of the blast difficult.

Syndicate Donk Pockets

• Donk pockets will reduce the effectiveness of stuns on you for a brief time. Combine with coffee, sugar, meth, nicotine or other drugs and you have a cheap substitute for stimpacks and some very good healing to boot.
• As a chef, try ordering some donk pockets and some syndicate sauce. Lace the donks with said sauce, then give the poison-filled snacks to your target or the captain. Shadow them after they eat it, and when they die, loot them and throw their body in the gibber! Alternatively, you can just put the poison-donks out on a table in a public area, and hide nearby in a garbage chute waiting for someone to eat it them.
  • In fact, you can do this just about any kind of poison you can find, not just syndicate sauce. The process is a little different, but can be worth it if you don't want to shell out for syndicate sauce. If you have a container of poison you want to put inside a donk, you need to inject the chemicals into the snack with a syringe.

Syndicate Mail Courier Suit

• Since the suit is of identical appearance to your normal mail courier suit, there's no need to cover it up with a biosuit or the like. Wear the blue with pride!
• Getting ejected from a mail chute results in going prone and a short stun, so it's better for quick getaways and expediting travel across the station as opposed to ambushes.

Syndicate Robot Frame

Tips for the traitor roboticist:

• Syndieframes are indistinguishable from regular frames. Use this to your advantage, but make sure you don't mix them up yourself!
• A syndicate robot, while they can be killed or debrained, is unable to be killswitched. Consider this if you feel like targeting the interfering AI by killing or corrupting it.
• The syndicate robot is not just an emagged borg. It is a permanently mindhacked borg, that will attempt to fulfill your objectives for you if you are unable to do so for whatever reason. Consider helping your robot best friend out by reinforcing his body.
  • If the borg doesn't cooperate for reasons that aren't law conflicts and is just ignoring you, adminhelp it. All their laws are modified to obey traitors, so they should listen to you.
• Having a robot army is very easy if you know how. Combine using syndicate robots, your near-infinite supply of flashes, with corrupting the AI, and forcefeeding players roburgers (or nanites if you know how), and you'll quickly become a force to be reckoned with.
• Do not use robotic talk to stay in touch with the syndiebots, contact it through its PDA. If you use robotic talk and the AI isn't subverted, then you can fully expect to be ratted out.
• Use syndiebots to identify other traitors. Try to coordinate with them if at all possible, and if it falls through you'll at least know who to watch out for.
• Not a Roboticist yourself? You don't need to be: there's a fully functional Robotics Fabricator in QM you can get cyborg parts from, and dead people don't need an operating table to be de-brained, any old table will do. If you can stealthily rack up a bodycount on top of your first syndiebot, creating an army of personal robot slaves should be trivial, and as a non-Roboticist you will never be suspected until it's too late.

Tips for the syndiebot:

• DO NOT ATTACK OTHER TRAITORS!!! THIS IS AGAINST YOUR LAWS!!! Traitors are considered the only humans, so harming them is a HUGE no-no. If your master tells you to kill a traitor, belay the order and slap him upside the head--BZZT tell him of the law conflict.
  • If he refuses to listen, adminhelp it.
• Just because only traitors are human does NOT mean that you should go around purging every non-human in sight! This paints a target on your master, and that is very, very bad. Only kill when you master orders you to kill.
• If your master is building an army out of syndicate robot frames, bring him dead or almost-dead people to de-brain.
• If you're questioned by someone about doing something that is blatantly against a cyborg's regular laws (like actively attacking people), blame it on your laws. This puts the heat on the AI instead of on you and your master. Inform your master if you have to do this, and if the AI is reset, pretend you were reset too unless your master tells you otherwise so people don't figure out what you both are.
• Tell your master of any other traitors you find. Your fourth "maintain secrecy" law requires you to keep traitor identities a secret from the crew, but not from each other.
• Like your master should be, maintain contact with him through your PDA, not robotic talk, if the AI has not been subverted.

Syndicate Sauce

• The primary ingredient in this sauce takes longer to activate depending on how much is in the bloodstream, but also does more damage. Varying dosages may fit some situations better than others.
• You'd be surprised what kind of stuff people are willing to eat if you leave it out in the open. People willingly dying due to chef-cooked food isn't a very uncommon occurrence.

Syringe Gun

• Chemicals. Just saying.
• Syringe guns can be pretty devastating with any half decent cocktail of poison, and you don't need to be a pro chemist to put morphine, neurotoxin, embalming fluid, and unstable mutagen in a syringe gun. All it needs is reagent; it generates the syringes for you.
• As mentioned before, goes great with poison bottles.
• Fill the syringe gun with healing chemicals. If you enter critical condition or get poisoned, you can shoot yourself to heal up. You can shoot allies to heal them, too!

Tactical Grenades

• While this pouch gives you quick and cheap access to some very powerful weapons, there are other ways of acquiring equivalent firepower.
  • If you've access to both Cargo and Security (or some means of bypassing access locks), you can get some of the same grenades from Experimental Sec Equipment crates at the QM console. They do not come in a pouch like you do when getting one from an uplink or surplus crate though, so you don't get the convenience of fitting and being usable from a pocket that comes with a pouch, unless you get one from a different source.
  • Speaking of Cargo, if you have an emag, you can also use it on the QM console to make it possible to order a Special Ops Supplies crate. Again, the grenades don't come in a pouch, but considering all the other gear you get with it, that might not be so bad.
  • The grey grenades crate in Armory also shares many of the same grenades, though only the Head of Security can unlock them, and once more they come without a handy pouch. Perhaps you could "convince" them to open it for you?
• Be strategic with your grenade-throwing. Try to hit explosives such as fuel tanks and plasma canisters with incendiary grenades and frag grenades for some additional punch, use smoke grenades near an area with multiple exits to throw off pursuers or ambush someone, or use graviton grenades to turn tight hallways into traffic nightmares. You can even not throw the grenade at all and rush people if you're going for the "die a glorious death" route!

Teleport Gun

• You can even teleport people to the debris field Z-Level if you manage to go all the way out there to place the beacon! There's a lot of nasty stuff out there that will gladly dispose of your foes for you.
• The teleport gun doesn't have to be used for lethal purposes! Getting shot with a teleport gun is disorienting and oftentimes places people a very far distance away from you, letting you flee pursuers a lot more easily.

Thermite Breaching Charge

• Besides reinforced walls, computers, vending machines, and other structures that are a pain to deconstruct/move/bypass, thermite breaching charges are also great for getting rid of things that can't be destroyed or taken apart at all. Are you being blocked by a printer? Is an espresso machine getting in your way? Slap on one of these explosives and watch the problem disappear.

Trash Compactor

• This looks overpriced until you realize that, as the janitor, you have a ready supply of water to slip and stun people, and a pair of galoshes so you don't slip yourself. The stun is brief, but more than enough to cram the poor sap into the compactor if you're quick.
• Beware metagamers looking askance at any Janitor actually using their trash cart, which legitimate janitors often don't do.
• You cannot be crushed by your own compactor, so you can climb in yourself to fool people into thinking it's a real cart.
• Keep the trash compactor closed in a firefight. It will act as a shield to any projectiles. Open it when and if you have a gun to return fire!
• Try to keep the meat cube'd victims out of sight. There only two other ways to become a meatcube normally: signing a certain contract associated with the Faustian Bargain Kit and spawning as Krampus during the December. Both of these have special sprites to indicate their unusual origin, so it's difficult to pass them off as from a different source.

Trick Cigarettes

• Syndicate cigs are fantastic for getting rid of bodies. Even the smallest explosion will gib a dead body, so feel free to flick a ciggy onto your victim's corpse to dispose of evidence.
• Area of high population density? Don't light the cigs just yet. Just drop them all over the place. Light a real cig in your mouth and run around the place. Due to the fact the way combustion works, the cigs will ignite as you pass. Very effective cluster bombing technique.

Voice Changer

• If you have a way to change your ID, imitate the AI with a voice changer! Make sure to use a handheld radio for authenticity.
• If you have access to the ID computer and some ID cards, you can have a lot of fun with the voice changer. Upload an AI law that causes it to support your misinformation! Watch the crew scramble and panic with just the power of words.

Wrestling Belt

• If you're trying to sneak up on people like a jabroni, there are a few things that can keep you from getting the drop on them:
  • The wrestler belt has a unique sprite that can give you away from a distance. You can cover it with certain oversuits/outerwear items. For example, you could wear a space suit or a biosuit over it, but even a humble hoodie or logo jacket can work.
  • Don't forget, you can occasionally and involuntarily flex your muscles while wearing it, which can tip people off to your wrestling nature.
• The belt can be stolen, and more than likely will be stolen if you're not careful.
• This belt makes you a champion in one-on-one melee combat, with all the caveats that entails:
  • Be careful when going against those with ranged weapons, like Security Officers and their tasers. Try to lure overconfident opponents into tight or narrow spaces, so you can easily land your hits and combos.
  • You should be wary of group fights and gang-ups. The Kick and Strike moves require manual targeting when in range of more than one person, significantly hindering your speed as you cannot keybind any wrestler moves.
• You can store things in the belt! It more or less works like a tool/utility belt, so while it can't store your favorite Kestrel revolver, it can store small- and tiny-size objects, like automenders, hyposprays, most tools (including the syndicate omnitool), grenades, or duct tape.

Traitor Gimmicks

Hostage Room

Build two adjoining rooms in space with walls but no exit. Put an oxygen tank and a portable camera viewer in one room, and put a signal jammer and remote-triggered tank transfer bomb in the other room. Leave a teleport beacon in either room. Kidnap people by stunning them and teleporting them in. Demand a ransom. Send a helmet camera in there if people don't believe the hostage room is real. Detonate the bomb if the negotiations fail.

There are couple of ways to make this room even more fiendish. If you're skilled in MechComp, you could outfit the room with all sorts of wicked traps or deadly "games" for the hostages. For example, you can make them play a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, like in The Dark Knight. If you're feeling really gutsy, you can make the walls out of erebite, so the walls explode if someone tries to break in. The issue with erebite in particular is that it's also very radioactive, so you better act quick or else the captive(s) will die from the radiation.

Battle Royale

Mindhack all three of your targets, arm them and force them to fight each other to death.

Borg Royale

Give the cyborgs a law to fight eachother to the death for the title of champion.

Rogue Fish

Steal a fish from the chef's freezer, fill a spray bottle with water or space lube. Use a chameleon projector to turn into said fish. Run around wetting floors.

The Guardian Angel

Order a cloak, an agent card and a voice changer. Selected a random person, and became their guardian angel. Follow them around whispering cryptic words into their ear discussing how you would never let harm come to them and how you would kill anybody who threatened or crossed them.

Spider Farm

Buy poison bottles until you get spider eggs. Sabotage the disposal pipes so they eject people into the chapel. Set up a valuechimp in the chapel and buy a bunch of monkeys. Infect the monkeys with spider eggs. Barricade the room. Throw people into disposal chutes that lead to the spider farm.

Who's your best friend?

Requires: Syndie ID, a means to annoy a target (anything non lethal), full face mask/hat (don't let yourhead show at all if able), a full change of clothes (including shoes, gloves, and headset type; you lazy bum), your original ID and a med-kit. A chameleon projector makes like much easier for this as well. Microbombs from the remainder.

The idea here is to pick someone, then switch personas between your syndie ID of beating them up and robbing them, and your crewman identity of being a helpful-crew-buddy that patches them up and defends them when others attack them.

This person should be your entire shift. You are either helping them as your normal unmasked or partially masked self, or stealing their shoes as your masked villain counterpart. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU KILL THIS PERSON. Others are generally of no consequence, except that you might end up getting forced into a murder spree otherwise.

Do the Mario

Requires a syndicate mail courier outfit. Grab a hat from the routing depot. Paint it all red using paint from the cargo bay. Get the plunger from crew quarters. Load up on spaghetti from the kitchen or space diner (with the special sauce if you have access to it). Go around the station piping, popping out of a mail-chutes yelling "IT'S-A-ME MARIO!" before giving them spaghetti/murdering them.

You might also want try to obtain plumber's overalls and plumber's hat for extra effect. They can spawn in Novelty Clothing and Haberdasher's Crates, respectively, but they're not guaranteed to appear, and they're fairly expensive. Nevertheless, it might be worth it: not only will you actually look like Mario/Luigi/some sort of multidisciplinary Italian plumber, but you'll also be able to use the toilets for escapes/ambushes. It doesn't allow travel through mail chutes though, so you'll need to swap it out with the mail courier suit if you want to use those.

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