Hunter

Hunters, also known as Predators, their inspiration and old name, are alien warriors in the pursuit of honor. They were originally introduced as a launch feature for the then-new mixed game mode back when Mushroom Station was the sole map in rotation, and have since been demoted to gimmick status.

Hunters do not have their own game mode and are not part of any possible latejoin antag rotation. They appear exclusively from the Intruder Alert random event, as one of many possible antag spawns. Because of this, they are quite rare, though the chances of them appearing have increased in recent years, and people are often surprised to see them.

Your Gear

Use the Order Hunting Gear ability to retrieve your items.

Name	Icon	Description
Space Cowboy Boots		Fashionable. But also useful: they work like galoshes in that they prevent you from slipping on blood, gibs, and other wet surfaces. Ice, space lube, and organic super lubricant can still get you though. Cannot be melted by acid.
Trophy Belt		Stores the skulls (and other souvenirs) of your victims. The trophy belt works like any other belt and so can hold tiny and small items, not just skulls. Unlike other belts, however, this includes normal-sized items (e.g. guns) as well!
Laser Rifle		This is the same laser rifle as the one in surplus crates and the like. It does 35 BURN, before any damage reduction, and it recharges automatically, so you aren't dependent on rechargers.
Hunter Mask		Lets you spot people behind walls and expands your vision in the dark, and functions as a voice changer, though since you "snarl" every sentence, disguise capability is limited. It also counts for internals, so you can breathe using air tanks without sacrificing your mask's benefits. Finally, acids such as fluorosulfuric acid and sulfuric acid cannot melt this.
Hunter Suit		Just like in the 1989 Predator film. The plating and bandoleers are just aesthetic, but it is worth nothing that fluorosulfuric acid and sulfuric acid cannot melt this. That doesn't mean it'll protect you from those acids, just that they won't be destroyed by them. If you see a human wearing this, they probably picked it up from a Novelty Clothing Crate.
Hunting Spear		Potent melee weapon, good for throwing. Attacking with it in melee causes up to 8 BRUTE and some bleeding, but it's more impressive when thrown, where it does up to 35 BRUTE and weakens them for 6 seconds, on top of the same amount of bleeding.
Cloaking Device		Same as the cloaking device used by Traitors and their ilk. Keep the restrictions of the cloaking device in mind. Interactions with adjacent tiles, e.g. firing your gun, trying to pry open a door, picking up stuff and throwing stuff (e.g. the spear) etc. all discrupt the cloak. Pulling people around doesn't. If you are on the same tile, you can attack somebody without decloaking. Be careful not to hit yourself!
Microbomb Implant		This microbomb implant ensures that you won't have to endure the dishonour of being captured alive by mere prey by causing a small explosion upon death. Still works if you use *succumb.

Hunter Traits

Advantages

• Significant stamina boost. You also throw somewhat more powerful punches than an ordinary crew member.
• You run faster than humans and cyborgs, ideal for hit-and-run attacks.
• Handcuffs and shackles are not a problem, since you can rip them apart instantly.
  • You can order your hunting gear when stunned and handcuffed, destroying the cuffs and cancelling out all stun effects to boot. Very situational, but it can be a nasty surprise for security if you haven't revealed your true nature yet.
• Almost every door can be pried open, breaking it permanently as if emagged.
  • Wearing an ID card overrides this ability if you could open the door in question normally.

Disadvantages

• You don't have any special melee attacks (aside from the bonus damage) or stun resistance, and you're just as vulnerable to injuries, toxins and diseases as everybody else.
• Combined with the lack of health regeneration, you will probably want to avoid close combat unless you have the upper hand.
• Since you aren't immune to suffocation, don't forget to hook up internals to your mask when necessary.
• By default, Hunters count as non-human for the AI.
• You immediately set off security scanners just by being a Hunter (to say nothing of all the illegal gear you're hunting with), and GuardBuddies will try to arrest/attack you on sight for similar reasons. Securitrons won't do that, but they still consider you suspicious, so if you also whip a gun or some other contraband in their sights, they'll likely go after you. All these can inherently detect that you're a Hunter, so you can't just wear huge clothing or steal an ID to disguise yourself.

The Most Dangerous Game: Playing Hunter

Hunter is a pretty straight-forward antagonist. There are no loadouts, no unlocks, no resources to manage, just good gear and a decent set of traits that boost your combat ability. It's a lot like playing Nuclear Operative with the Scout loadout or a Traitor doing a murder rampage with a cloaking device.

Hunters excel in hit-and-run attacks. Hide in maintenance tunnels and other dark areas, with cloaking device active. When the time is right, throw your spear at them to down them, retrieve it, and follow up with some spear stabs or blasts from your laser rifle. Pick off the crew one by one, and don't be afraid to retreat when the situation calls for it, for it is better to face the enemy later under favourable circumstances than to immediately lose your spear to an assistant and then die horribly to the first passing crew member with thermals. Pry open doors to various areas to gain access and prevent the AI from bolting you in. The mask improves your vision in the dark and lets you see people behind walls; use this to your advantage to spot new prey or evade pursuers.

If you're confident in your fighting abilities, a less stealthy approach may also do the trick for you. There is some room for gimmicks and the like. For example, try using only fisticuffs, or challenge people to segway jousting matches. And why restrict your trophies to just skulls? Why not butts or hearts?

The AI, Cyborg(s), and anybody with thermals are going to be your worst enemies. They can see through your invisibility cloak, so you need to rely on other means (e.g. darkness, lockers) to hide and ambush them.

Tips

• Disguises are worthwhile, but not exactly very honourable.
• Consider obtaining some combat drugs to enhance your ability in battle and counter stuns.
• It's a good idea to find some medical supplies to cover your lack of healing abilities.

Headhunting, Literally: Objectives

As a Hunter, you get an objective to collect trophies, described below. Only Hunters can get it, similar to how only a Vampire can get the "Accumulate at least X units of blood..." objective. As usual, you're free to ignore the objective if you don't think you can fulfill it or otherwise find it more fun/entertaining to do something else.

Take at least [number] trophies. The skulls of worthy opponents are more valuable with regard to this objective.

You need to amass a collection of skulls of a certain total "trophy value", which is the number in the objective. That number scales to server population, but the minimum is 10. As hinted in the objective, some skulls are worth more than others. If it asks for 12 trophies for example, 12 skulls from Staff Assistants would count, but so would 6 skulls from Security Officers. See this section for the precise numbers. This objective counts skulls across your entire inventory, not just your trophy belt, so if you put your skulls in a bag or box, it'll still count for this objective.

Skulls from gibs and skulls removed via surgery count, but you might not need to bother with it, since you have a Take Trophy ability that handles the removal for you. It can be used on both corpses and severed heads, and it will gib the target and drop all of their items (along with the skull) on the ground. Make sure you pick up the skull, the ability does not do it for you. You can Examine skulls to see their exact value, and there's also the Check Trophy Value command that shows you the combined value of all skulls in your possession.

Trophy Value

Some kills are more honorable than others, i.e. count more towards the objective, which means it can be rewarding to single out worthy opponents:

Job	Value
Clown	-1
Cluwne	-1
NPC Monkey	0
Ordinary human	1
Player Monkey	1
Security Officer	2
Vice Officer	2
Detective	2
Head of Personnel	2
Traitor	2
Other antagonists	2
Head of Security	3
Captain	3
Vampire	3
Wizard	3
Changeling	4
Werewolf	4
Hunter	5
Macho Man	7
Omnitraitor	10