Vampire

Do you suddenly find yourself vanting to zuck ze crew's blaad? Maybe you're a Vampire. Bleh!

In addition to regular objectives, vampires also have to acquire a certain amount of blood. This depends on the quantity the vampire has acquired in total, ignoring how much it has spend on spells throughout the entire round.

Vampire Abilities

Vampires tie in with the blood mechanics. Doctoring may contain useful information for you.

First and foremost, vampires thrive on drinking blood - their main way of doing this is through a bite attack. To bite somebody, you must be on Harm intent and target their head, and click on them with a free hand. Any sort of hat or mask will prevent you from doing so.

Once you start draining, you will earn 10 units of blood per tick if the victim is alive (20 when draining a fellow vampire), or 5 units of blood if they are dead. You will continue to suck blood until you switch hands, move away from the target, or the body is drained. A healthy victim can provide up to ~260 units of blood. Corpses that are too badly damaged will yield very little blood, so while feasting on the dead will slowly power you up, there's only so much you can get.

There are other ways to gain blood - drinking blood found on the floor (or elsewhere) is possible with the aid of a drinking glass, but it isn't very potent compared to biting. Be aware that drinking blood from a glass or blood bag doesn't unlock new powers automatically. It should also be noted that biting a chaplain is an extremely bad idea. The blood of a holy man will not only burn you quite badly, but will actually weaken you!

Vampires gain a number of different abilities and spells as they accumulate more blood. Once unlocked, the vampire keeps the power for the rest of the round, even if their blood level dips under the point they unlocked it at. None of these abilities can be used while unconscious, nor can they be cast while standing in the chapel.

Unlock	Name	Cooldown	Blood Cost	While stunned?	Description
0	Rejuvenate	60 seconds	0	✓	Removes the effects of being stunned, replenishes stamina.
0	Glare	60 seconds	0	✓	Briefly stuns the targeted victim and confuses the movement of others over a 3x3 area. Blocked by eye protection (sunglasses etc).
0	Hypnotise	2 minutes	0	✗	This spell requires a couple seconds to take effect, but KOs the victim for a long time.
200	Vampiric Vision	N/A	N/A	N/A	Permanent thermal vision.
200	Diseased Touch	3 minutes	50 blood	✗	Infects someone with grave fever. Transmission mimics the Help intent shake.
300	Mist Form	1 minute	0	✓	Similar to phaseshift. Allows you to walk through walls, but only works when you aren't within visual range of somebody else.
400	Summon Bats	2 minutes	150 blood	✓	Summons four angry bats which will attack non-vampires.
400	Chiropteran Screech	1 minute	0	✓	Crowd control spell which confuses the movement of all nearby humans. It also shatters nearby windows and light fixtures. Blocked by ear protection (earmuffs etc).
600	Rejuvenate+	60 seconds	0	✓	Restores 40 HP in addition to removing stuns.
600	Cloak of Darkness	N/A	N/A	✗	Automatically cloaks you in dark areas, can be toggled on/off.
800	Enthrall	3 minutes	400 blood	✗	Turns your victim into a loyal mindslave (special guidelines apply). Note that, unlike an implanter, this spell doesn't work instantly! Synthetics, i.e. the AI and cyborgs, can also be enthralled.
1000	Full Power	N/A	N/A	N/A	The chapel no longer causes harm or blocks your abilities. Permanent x-ray vision is gained.

Vampire Weaknesses

What would a vampire be without really shitty and bizarre weaknesses? Read Twilight if you want the answer. Or better yet, don't.

Vampires are unholy beings and as such are weak to holy things. The mere act of being in the chapel will slowly burn them, gradually causing more and more damage until they die. The chapel's aura also prevents the vampire from using their abilities on holy ground. If you're being harassed by one, you could try to seek refuge there. The vampire will likely stop chasing you unless it has attained full power, in which case finding a safe spot is probably the least of your worries.

Another holy thing is the good chaplain. The chaplain is immune to most of the vampire's methods of disabling prey, but has no special defense against swarms of bats and can't see an invisible vampire. Vampires who try to suck the chaplain's blood take quite a lot of burn damage and are weakened. A suicidal or unwitting vampire who tries to enthrall the chaplain is in for a very bad time, as well. Splashing holy water onto a vampire will cause it to act like acid, horribly burning them. It does nothing to non-vampires, so this is a good way of finding out bloodsuckers among the crew. One bottle of holy water is available in the chapel, and more can be mixed or extracted from garlic. Syringes or IV drips can also be re-purposed as a testing device, given the fact that drawing blood from a vampire is impossible. In addition, while it's rather hard to force, vampires who try to pick up a bible have their hands burst into flames and keel over in stunned agony for a very long time.

The last weakness of SS13 vampires is sunlight or, more accurately, starlight. Vampires cannot safely venture out into space, even when properly equipped. The light of the stars will burn them incredibly quickly, much faster than standing in the chapel will. This essentially means vampires are confined to the station and anywhere a shuttle can take them. They could probably survive very quick leaps across space, but not on a regular basis.

In the unlikely scenario that security has managed to capture a vampire alive, using a blindfold and muzzle as restraints will remove their ability to use some of their nastiest powers.

Vampire Strategy

• Try to KO your victims to remove their headsets. A stun will incapacitate them, but they can still speak and will start screaming for help once they realize what you are. Also choose your targets carefully - glare (your bread-and-butter stun spell) is completely ineffective against sunglasses and welding masks, which are often worn by security officers and other members of the crew.
• You don't need to aggressively grab your victims to drain their blood, and it may be better not to, lest the AI mistake you for a changeling feeding on someone. It's better to be thought a dirty traitor than an alien. Someone who spots you feeding in person (rather than on camera) will immediately recognize what's up though.
• Darkness is your ally. If you start with a job without maintenance access, rush to the Head of Personnel before he disappears and beg for an upgrade. With a blunt object you can smash lights in hallways, making your cloak of darkness more effective. Replacing light tubes is a huge pain, so few will ever bother. Watch out for people carrying flashlights and other portable light sources.
• Keep your cloak of darkness off unless you need it, since it may tip off the AI and anyone with thermals as to what you are. The detective and Head of Security have access to a pair of those each, and so can see through your cloak. The detective's .38 revolver (when loaded with lethal rounds) also does straight-up brute damage instead of a stun you can resist. Consider avoiding him until you have the improved rejuvenate ability that lets you negate the damage somewhat.
• You don't have to kill (fully drain) your victims. If they live and get healed up, that's more blood for you to drain!
• Enthrall is a major investment, yet enthralling the captain or HoS can provide you with prisoners and access to guns without raising much suspicion, in other words repaying the blood cost many times over. Remember that enslaving somebody doesn't work instantly, so the target should be incapacitated and out of sight before you start the conversion.
• The AI and cyborgs regard you as non-human and will try to ruin your day if given the opportunity, access to its upload is therefore desirable. Synthetics aren't immune to being enthralled either, so you could go down this route if you're brave enough.
• You start with a job and all the access it comes with. Being A Better Traitor may have some useful tips for you.

Supplementary Video

{{#widget:YouTube|id=mCUW4SwmfGc}}