Gang

This page is under construction. The following information may be incomplete. This article is currently being rewritten to reflect the changes in https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/18236

Multiple rival gangs are battling for control of the station, tagging and claiming territory, stockpiling drugs, guns, and cash, busting up opposing gang members, and parading around in silly outfits trying to be menacing.

The game will automatically calls the shuttle at the 55 minute mark, which is accompanied by a unique message: "Centcom is very disappointed in you all for this 'gang' silliness. The shuttle has been called." On the Roleplay servers, both autocalls are disabled.

RULES

Warning! The game mode "Gang War" has some special rules. Make sure to follow the regular rules as well!

Gangs

• Gang members may freely kill anyone dressed in another gang's clothing (or part of their clothing).
• Are not required to wear their uniform.
• Are considered antagonists.
• Can harm and kill civilians unprovoked.
• They may stun or harm security, but if they do security is allowed to systematically kill every member of the offending gang.
• May use bombs or other measures that harm the station if there is a very good reason to do so and a general consensus is reached in the gang that it's a good idea.

Security

• Security should treat gang members like normal antagonists.
• If a particular gang is responsible for stunning or murdering an officer, security may freely arrest or kill members of that gang.
• Security's main role in gang mode is to keep the peace, not 'win' against the gangs!

Civilians

• Are allowed to clean away gang tags, with the understanding that doing so risks retaliation from the gang members
• Can attack and kill gang members at will. ("Gang members are now considered antagonists and can kill or be killed by the crew.")
• Can use bombs in dire situations. For example, if a gang has defeated security and is roaming the station heavily armed, murdering people, it may be OK to bomb them as long as collateral damage is kept to a minimum.

The Gang Leader

Who can spawn as a gang leader?

If you have "Gang Leader" checked in your preferences, you're eligible to spawn as a gang leader when the game mode is gang. Security Officers, Security Assistants, the Detective, and the Heads of Staff (including the Head of Security) normally cannot spawn as gang leaders. However, under extreme circumstances, it may make the Detective or one of the non-HoS heads a gang leader, which can lead to some...interesting situations. That said, a Head of Security gang leader is still impossible (barring admin shenanigans), as are Security Officer and Security Assistant gang leaders.

How do I know if I'm a gang leader?

It's pretty damn obvious. On round start, you are clearly informed that you're a gang leader by both a big chat message and a pop-up informing you of the basics of the game mode. Also, you have a blue G over your head. You get to choose a gang name from a randomly-generated set. You also gain access to the Set Gang Base ability which can, well, set your base, as well as pick your gang uniform. Gang tag is picked at random.

Set Gang Base

Use the Set Gang Base ability in your top left to set where your gang's gang locker will be; the gang locker is where you get gear and stash stuff for gang points. Using the ability will also let you set the gang uniform. You can't change locker location or gang uniform once it's set, so pick wisely!

A good location is important and should reflect on how you want to run your gang, while simultaneously keeping the gang locker safe and secure. The more public your locker, the easier it'll be for for all gang members to stuff it with drugs, guns, and cash. However, rival gang members can bust open a public gang locker with bombs and brute force, so your chosen location must strike a balance between accessibility and security. Furthermore, gang members wearing their full uniform while in an area they own get passive healing and stun-reduction effects that drop off the farther they are from their gang locker, so there's survivability aspect too.

Note that the room your locker is in will permanently belong to your gang.

Your Job as a Gang Leader

You are told, very clearly upon round start, that you must capture territory for your gang and eliminate other gang leaders. The winning gang is the one with the most kidnappings completed/prevented and most turf, drugs, cash, and/or guns owned.

The Gang Member

Initiation

When you spawn as a gang, your headset automatically gains access to the gang radio channel, which uses the prefix :g, like so.

say :g Got loads of meth and guns ready. Let's bust some bustas!

Now, go over to your gang's gang locker; you can check its location with the Notes command. Don't be afraid to ask for directions over the gang channel. Once there, click on the gang locker to claim your spray can and gang uniform set. The former is essential for claiming turfs for the gang. The latter is technically optional, but it offers some excellent buffs.

Gang Uniforms

Gang uniforms can include a variety of silly hats/masks and jumpsuits, from horse masks to purple butts, from rainbow jumpsuits to Fallout Vault uniforms. You can claim yours at your gang locker!

Wearing the whole gang uniform is usually a good idea because the full set offers many benefits. For one, it greatly reduces the time required to claim a turf. Secondly, wearing the full set also grants +5 stamina regeneration, +60 max stamina, and +30 max health. Furthermore, if you're in an area you control (i.e. it has your gang tag), you also sometimes heal BURN and BRUTE, and you shrug off certain stuns faster. The maximum range of this buff is 50 tiles, and the closer you are to your locker, the greater the health regeneration and stun reduction. In practical terms, this means you can tank a few more taser shots than normal, and it'll take three stun baton hits to down you rather than two, greatly boosting your endurance in combat.

The main drawback is that the uniform clearly marks you as a gang member, so anybody, especially rival gang members, could attack and kill you at any time, hence all the combat bonuses. But let's be honest, why wouldn't you wear it? Just look at the man in the page image. How could you not want to emulate a man of such high fashion?

Other benefits

• Alongside the uniform benefits, gang members also gain a unique ability to pull members of their own gang who are on the ground without being slowed down, allowing a hasty retreat if things are going south. Though, this does not apply to grabs.

Rollin' in the dou- erm, points

Whether you're a gang leader or a regular member, your main goal is to earn points for your gang by claiming turf, stockpiling your gang locker with drugs, guns, and cash, and, occasionally, preventing or conducting kidnappings. You can find out your total score so far simply by Examining your gang locker. You can use these points to buy special items that'll help you take on rival gang members and other foes.

Taggin' up turf

Use your spray can from your gang locker on any wall or floor in just about any area to take control, but be aware that rival gangs may spray over your tagging job to claim the area for themselves. The whole process will also take about 15 seconds, but it's reduced by 3 seconds for each piece of the gang uniform you wear. Having a JankTank implant active reduces it further.

Each turf owned generates about 15 points every minute or so.

You should, obviously, tag as many areas as you can, especially the high-priority areas that get announced on the gang radio channel every ten minutes by [vague but ominous organization name]. If your gang controls these turfs 5 minutes after the announcement (10 minutes for the Roleplay servers), you'll get a cool 1000 gang points. The bonus is permanent, to boot; no need to worry about other gangs stealing your metaphysical loot.

If you want to tag an area, but don't have access to it, try tagging it from the maintenance area around it. In fact, tagging from maintenance is a great way to claim a lot of areas quickly and usually quietly. Be on the lookout for rival gang members who try to do the same!

Money and guns and drugs oh my!

The other main way of earning points is by stashing money, drugs and/or guns in your gang locker. You can load items individually by clicking on the locker with the item in your hand and stuff multiple items at a time by click-dragging the sprite of one of them onto the locker sprite, as if stuffing a crate or satchel.

Score Table

Name	Score	How to obtain	Notes
Bath Salts	1/unit	Chemistry	Can be made with some Discount Dan's and a sufficiently large container.
Cash	0.005/$1 (Amount/200)	ATMs, Bank terminal, Other crew	You spawn with some in your pocket, put in the locker for a quick point boost. Can only be deposited in $500 or lower increments.
Cat Drugs	1/unit	Hydroponics	Refined from catnip via still or chemistry
Crank	1.5/unit	Chemistry	Creates an explosion on mixing.
Guns	300/Piece	Easiest way is through Construction	You may want to use some of these yourself.
Krokodil	1/unit	Chemistry	Also occasionally found in particularly shady areas.
LSD	0.5/unit (1/2)	Chemistry	Needs space fungus that can be scraped from maintenance walls or grown in hydroponics.
Methamphetamine	1.5/unit	Chemistry, Hydroponics	Much safer to make than crank and also quite robust.
Psilocybin	0.5/unit (1/2)	Hydroponics	Needed for making cat drugs without a still, though if you have it you probably also have a still.
Space Drugs	0.25/unit (1/4)	Chemistry	Easy to mass produce, though storing it might be hard.
THC	0.125/unit (1/8)	Use a reagent extractor or still with cannabis.	Cannabis is trivial to mass grow, though there might be issues extracting and storing all the THC from so much weed.

Kidnappin'

Sometimes, the mysterious gang announcer may also request that the gang with the highest score capture a randomly-chosen crew member who is not in a gang. Every other gang must try to prevent them from doing so. If the chosen gang successfully kidnaps the target within 8 minutes (15 minutes on the Roleplay servers), they get a whopping 20 000 points. If the other gangs prevent it by protecting the target and keeping them alive, the OTHER gangs EACH get 20 000 points. If the target dies before being kidnapped, NOBODY gets points. The person is notified with an ominous message if they become a kidnapping target, and won't know which gang is coming after them.

Kidnappings can be messy, but once you've secured your target and have them close to your locker, the process of actually claiming your kidnapping bounty is pretty straightforward. You must have them in a strong grab (click on the person with Grab intent, click on the grab to upgrade it) and then click on the locker to shove them into it. This kills them, but this counts as a successful kidnapping rather than a target dying before successful kidnapping, so you still get your points.

By its nature, preventing a kidnapping is a great way for gangs that have fallen behind to catch up. For struggling gangs, it's often to good idea to ally with rival gangs or even Security, at least temporarily, for that sweet, sweet twenty-thousand bounty.

Locker Raidin'

Occasionally, it's sometimes a good idea to raid the enemy locker, it may contain items shoved in the locker by its respective gang. In the process, the enemy gang will have their points almost decimated when the locker does break open. When a locker is being raided, the gang announcer will notify the gang that the locker belongs to, notifying them of the raid. Thus making it impossible to raid a locker in absolute stealth.

The gang locker does not have that much health, usually it only takes a couple hits from a toolbox to bust the locker open, or be blown up with a bomb or two. However, the gang locker can be repaired with a welder with a sufficient amount of welding fuel. The low health usually encourages one or two gang members to guard the locker, and if they are wearing a gang uniform, they could be tricky to take down, so it may be wise to bring friends along to the raid.

Gang Items

By clicking on your gang locker, you spend your Gang Points on variety of weapons and other items for fighting rival gangers and other opponents with. Gang Points are shared across all gang members, so purchase wisely.

You've probably also noticed that each item has a category like "Space Gang" or "Ninja" and a sub-category like "Misc" or "Weapon". These currently mean nothing, for all gangs can buy all of the gang items listed, but they are part of a plan to implement themed gangs with unique items in the future.

Item	Image	Cost	Description
Rat Stick		900	A basic melee weapon that does as much brute damage and almost as much stamina drain as an fire extinguisher, while also causing a fair bit of bleeding.
Throwing Knife		3000	A cheap throwing knife specifically. When thrown, does almost fire extinguisher levels of brute damage, drains a fair bit of stamina, and causes a bit of bleeding on whoever's unfortunate enough to get hit.
Shuriken		1200	A pouch (i.e. its fits in pockets) of four shuriken, or throwing stars. When a shuriken is thrown, it does up to 11 BRUTE, inflicts Knocked-down for 2 seconds, and causes some bleeding. It also embeds in the victim, causing it to sometimes inflict a little BRUTE and briefly stun them; embedded shuriken are removed through the same procedure as shrapnel and bullets.
Sneaking Suit		3000	A stylish exosuit inspired by Metal Gear. Does not make you invisible, but unlike the cheap costume version, it actually does provide protection, specifically the same amount of melee damage reduction and ranged protection as one of Sec's armor vests.
Phaser		1300	Your run of the mill RP-4 phaser gun, an energy pistol that does rather weak damage.
Laser Gun		20000	An energy weapon that, well, shoots lasers that do a fair bit of damage and can ignite certain objects (but not people).
Colt Single Action Army		7000	A 7-shot revolver that can send unarmored targets into crit with three or four shots. Between shots, it must be activated/clicked on in-hand to recock the hammer so it can fire again.
Colt .45 Speedloader		700	7 extra rounds for the Colt SAA. Obviously, you can reload the SAA with it, but you can also shove it into a zip gun.
Faux C-Saber		8000	A d-saber, a melee weapon that creates a hot blade when activated in-hand. The blade does 18 raw BURN, which translates into 5-6 hits to send people below 0 health. Inactive, it causes 8 BRUTE. Generally inferior to the c-version; the d-saber cannot fit into pockets, does not stun on hit, and does not provide special abilities when blocking. You can still wielding a d-saber to "parry" hits from other d-sabers and c-sabers, reducing the attack to just a fair chunk stamina damage; this goes both ways! You can also open the dsaber with a screwdriver and pop in a glowstick.
Discount Katana		7000	Specifically a reverse katana. Actually does more BRUTE damage than the Syndicate version (18 vs 15), but it can't cause bleeding, and it only has a very rare (1%) chance to delimb when targeting a specific body part. Its special attack makes you charge a few tiles...reverse of the direction you clicked in; good for getting into melee range...or nope-ing out after you've bitten more than you can chew. Also, if you're wielding a reverse katana in your hand and get attacked by someone with a regular katana or another reverse katana, you'll "parry" their attacks, deflecting them at the cost of a fair chunk of stamina. This goes both ways.
Stolen Cop Car		20000	A security patrol car for on- and off-station travel, complete with a control scheme you might not be used to. Equipped with a pod taser system that never runs out of charge. Could work as a getaway car--if you've a good driver.
JankTank Implant		300, rises.	Offers healing, spraying, and combat bonuses but has crazy withdrawal effects. Click on yourself with the resulting implanter to give yourself or, with a delay, someone else the implant inside. When the implant is active, it provides the following buffs, at the cost of occasionally (10% chance) making you jittery: Provides healing: every few seconds, it also reduces bleeding and misstep and heals 2 BRUTE & 1 OXY, with a good chance (60%) to also heal 1 TOX, 1 BRUTE, and 1 OXY. Lessens some of the slowdown from being injured. Cuts down spraying speed by a few seconds. Reduces the duration of incoming Stunned, Knocked-down, and Unconscious debuffs by 40%. It lasts about 6 minutes and can be extended to 18 minutes by giving yourself more of them. When the implant runs out, you enter withdrawal for about 10 minutes, and you sometimes (20%) visibly and violently twitch and become more jittery, semi-rarely (15%) gain 1 TOX damage, and occasionally (10%) suffer 2 seconds of Stunned. Lore-wise, the drugs are going straight into your synapses, which mechanics-wise means there's no chems to extract from your bloodstream. Starts at 300, but price increases to current price * 1.1, rounded to the integer, with each purchase (i.e. 300->330->363->399, etc.) Price increases for every gang.
Stimulants		15000	Just like the Stimulants the Syndicate uses. Basically, if you jab yourself with this, for 15 minutes you're immune to all stuns and have godlike stamina, granting you a significant edge in fights. Once those 15 minutes are up though, expect to pass out a lot for a while. Beware of tranquilizer rifles and anyone else armed with haloperidol

It's gang WAR for a reason

When you're ready to bust up some bustas, you need to be ready to take on those unrobust rival gangs. Cause sooner or later, war will inevitably break out between gangs, and it's your job to come out on top.

Violence

You may want to read up on Murder and check out Guide to Being Robust to better know what to do on fighting other people.

Violence is your best option for dealing with those who stand in your way, as flowers rarely work against someone with a mean looking bat.

Shit Security

Early on, security is going to be your biggest threat to your gang, as at round start they have access to stun weapons and other gear, while you only have toolboxes. Though, security probably won't hurt you or your gang unless they have a good reason to. You should try to avoid attacking security until you have weapons or manpower to take them on. Security are usually seen trying to keep the peace in the hallways, attacking a civilian or rival gang member would probably get you thrown in the brig in accordance with space law. Remember that you are an antagonist however, so security could arrest and kill you unprovoked if a member of your own gang has been involved with the murder of a security officer, so it is best to stay out of hot water early on.

If you wish to take down security, your one strategy you could use is outnumbering them. By rushing them with either gang weaponry or improvised weaponry, they may become overwhelmed and succumb due to the amount of hits they are taking, though this strategy only works if the weaponry used does considerable stamina damage, such as the toolbox. Another strategy you can use is if you have already taken an officer, you can easily use their own weapons against their fellow officers, and loot their gear until you have taken down every officer.

If you successfully manage to take down security, you get access to almost all their gear, as well as armory gear if you can break inside. This gives you a significant edge over other gangs, and by knocking down a third party, you can focus more on the protection of your own gang as well as the war against the rival gangs.

Civil Civilians

Normally, you shouldn't be going after the crew, lest you may provoke security's wraith if you have not taken them out early. You should only kill civilians if necessary, such as for the kidnapping objective by shoving them in your locker or if they are getting in the way of your gang flow. Most crew members would turn a blind eye if you're bustin' up a rival gang member, so you shouldn't worry about them too much. Going on a full genocide on the crew is generally frowned upon by the community, and is one of the reasons why gang does not have the best reputation in the community, so don't be apart of that problem!

However, the crew does still have beneficial items or access that could help your gang.

• Medical Doctors usually have a belt full of healing goodies, which could be used to heal you or your fellow gang members during or after a battle.
• Scientists and the bartender both have access to a Chemical Dispenser which is useful for making drugs and meaner stuff
  • The Botanist also has access to weed
• The Quartermaster has access to the QM console which can order useful items.

Civilians are usually easy kills, provided they do not have any stolen, improvised, or just straight up weaponry. It's a good idea to try to kill when there is the minimal amount of people around the person you are trying to kill, lest you risk a random staff assistant interfering with your gangsta style. As stated before, they are best to be left alone unless they need some gangsta beat into them for messin' up a fellow gangster's style or are a kidnapping target.

Rival Gangsters

Rival gang members are going to be what you are inevitably going to be fighting, whether it would be over territory disputes, revenge murder, or locker defense. It is good to be prepared for the fight, as you will not be given nor obtain anything too overpowered. Instead, you will be seeing gangster gear. Gangster gear is gear that is moderately powerful, nothing syndicate gear powerful, but better than the average improvised weapon. It's important to know how to deal with bringing a melee to a gun fight or even a basic fist fight, rival gangsters will not hesitate to kill you.

You can loot valuable gang loot if you do manage to kill a gangster, as well as have one less person rivaling your gang, make sure they don't get cloned however. You can also access a rival's gang's communications by using their headset, which is automatically tuned to their respective gang channel. Hilariously, you can probably trick them by calling for help on the other side of the station, while you bash a lone gang member's head in.

Killing a rival gangster can get tricky, they can call for help over the radio, forcing an unfair fight. They also have access to the weapons you do, thus making you have less of an advantage over other gangsters. Though, if you are making the most points out of any gang, you probably will have the better weapons. You should try to kill the rival gangster as quickly as possible, utilizing stun weapons or weapons that have high stamina damage to quickly knock out the rival gangster. When knocked out, you can switch to a gang weapon that has mean amounts of BRUTE or BURN to quickly get the gangster into critical, usually debilitating them in the process. Once the gangster is finished off, you can loot and dispose of the corpse.

Usin' the gangsta' style with the gangsta' weapons

The Rat Stick

• The basic bread and butter of every gang. Early on, you'll often find that almost every rival gang member carries this weapon. Occasionally, you might even see civilians wielding this, whether because they stole it off a gang member or a gang has bought so many there're rat sticks just lying around. You can save points by stealing another rat stick instead of buying a new one, provided you can fend off whoever you stole the weapon from.
• The toolbox actually does superior stamina damage compared to this weapon, so if you want to knock someone out, it is better to use a toolbox instead, which also saves points.
• If you hit someone with a rat stick, they bleed. If they bleed out a bunch, they move slower and may randomly keel over, making it easier to hit them, causing them to bleed even more, they move even slower and have a higher chance to pass out...so on and so forth.

The Throwing Knife

• This throwing knife does not instantly knock down on hit if the target is at full stamina, make sure you know your target has used a bit of their stamina before throwing to knife to get that sweet knockdown!

The Shuriken

• Very useful if you need someone knocked down to steal the weapon they are currently holding.
• Since the shuriken embeds itself into the victim, they are good for debilitating those who are attempting to run away.
• Yes, the pouch that holds the shurikens can fit in your pocket.
• One shuriken is slightly higher BRUTE than one shrapnel shot from a slam gun, so it may be better to use a slam gun instead if you have the time to make one.
  • Though, the slam gun has a slower firerate and worse range, so it ultimately comes down to preference and choice.

The Sneaking Suit

• Useful if you are going beyond or close to the 50 tile limit your gang uniforms have, as unlike the gang uniforms, the Sneaking Suit does not give weaker buffs depending on the distance from the gang locker.

The Phaser

• These can be found deep space. Usually, it's better to find one than waste your gang points.
• If you plunder one of these off a corpse, it may be a worthwhile idea to shove it in your locker instead, boosting your gang by a free 300 points.

The Laser Gun

• This gun is obviously better than the phaser, dealing double the damage a phaser would. However, you get two less shots than the phaser before running out of charge, so make them count!
• Good for shooting someone who's chasing you, the 45 BURN shots will slow them down quite a bit.

The Colt Single Action Army

• This is basically a slightly worse version of the detective's revolver, instead having to primed in between every shot with C.

The Colt .45 Speedloader

• You don't actually need the respective revolver for this to be useful, since you can load these into a Zip Gun. If you have 7000 points and are confident in your shots, you get more bang for your buck if you buy 10 speedloaders (70 shots) and load them into Zip Gun than if you buy the whole revolver (just 7 shots).
  • Keep in mind the penalty of being cheap. The zip gun has a maximum capacity of two shots, and that is bound to slow you down.
  • If you plan on going this route, make sure your backpack is already open with a few speedloaders ready to use, so you can quickly reload without fumbling with your backpack.
  • With zipguns easy to make, what is stopping you from giving some to a few friends to turn up the firepower?

The Faux C-Saber

• This is the most powerful weapon you can get out of a gang locker, featuring great burn damage that could send someone into critical condition.
• Like with any melee, mind your stamina. People will try to shove this weapon out of your hands. Be ready to quickly pick your weapon back up in case there is a successful shove.
  • You can always carry a backup weapon in case things go south.
• You can use C to quickly activate and deactivate the saber.

The Discount Katana

• On the off chance you face against someone who is also using this weapon, you'll parry their attacks, costing a bit of stamina. It's best to bring a weapon of equal power if you do not wish to risk having your weapon parried off your hands.
• This weapon is one of the few weapons that has a chance to delimb on hit. Make sure you're aiming for a limb.

The Stolen Cop Car

• This car comes equipped with a taser, which is actually more powerful than the handheld version, with more range and bullet speed. Use this to your advantage!
  • You can use the car to chase and fire upon those running away.
  • You can also ram into people with the car, dealing a minor amount of BRUTE.
• The car only has 110 health, slightly over a basic minisub health and slightly less than a pod with light miniputt armor.
• Remember you can repair the engine with a welder, and the car is not a total loss if the engine does blow up, rather it requiring a new engine.
• Of course, it is vital you sound the sirens whenever possible for style points.

The JankTank Implant

• Hog as many of these as possible! When the price of these go up, it goes up for all the gangs and there is no way to bring the price down. Better to get these cheap rather than spend all the gang points on a single JankTank.
• Don't inject this as soon as you get it! Instead, wait until you're about to do something to then give yourself the boost. Every second of this stuff counts!

The Stimulants

• Good idea to look at the being a better traitor page for this weapon.
• Goes great with the JankTank implant if you are going to be facing OXY for whatever reason, as stimulants do not heal OXY while the JankTank implant heals two OXY.

Gallery

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