Vampire

Do you suddenly find yourself vanting to zuck ze crew's blaad? Maybe you're a Vampire. Bleh! Originally added for the Halloween 2010 update, Vampires have stuck around since and crop up occasionally. They play somewhat like a blend of Wizard and Changeling, having an array of various innate powers they can use. Unlike their counterparts however, Vampires must earn their powers as they go along by drinking the crew's blood.

Vampires have normal traitor objectives, but they also always have the objective of exceeding a certain amount of blood drank. This is based on how much blood the Vampire has stored, not how much it has consumed throughout the entire round. If they drink plenty of blood but then blow it all on expensive spells, they will fail their mission! Another important difference is that unlike all other antagonists, Vampires do not get a large pop-up window to alert them to their status- your indication will be a message in the chat window.

Vampire Abilities

First and foremost, Vampires thrive on drinking blood - their main way of doing this is through a bite attack. To use the bite attack you must be on Harm intent and target the head, and click on someone with a free hand. This does a small amount of brute damage and earns 10 blood at a time if the victim is alive, or an amount starting from 10 down to 1 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. Corpses that are too badly damaged will yield no 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. You don't have to worry about the sanitation of such an act however, as Vampires are nigh-immune to disease. It should be noted also 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. It should be noted that Vampire abilities cannot be used while stunned, nor can they be used while standing in the Chapel.

Unlock	Name	Cooldown	Blood Cost	Description
0	Rejuvenate	20 Seconds	None	Removes stunning effects
0	Glare	30(?) Seconds	0	A creepy, albeit brief vampire look that stuns the victim and others in a 3x3(?) area for a bit of time.
0	Hypnotise	3 Minutes	10	A scary vampire stare into your victim's eyes! Stuns the victim for a long time.
100	Shapeshift	3 Minutes	50 Blood	Randomises your identity (includes any ID card you are wearing)
100	Vampiric Vision	N/A	N/A	Permanent thermal vision
150	Diseased Touch	3 Minutes	100 Blood	Infects someone with Grave Fever, mimics the "help" intent shake
150	Cloak of Darkness	N/A	N/A	Automatically cloaks you in dark areas, can be toggled on/off
200	Rejuvenate+	20 Seconds	None	Heals in addition to removing stunning effects
200	Summon Ghosts	2 Minutes	75 Blood	Summons three spirits which will attack non-vampires
200	Chiropteran Screech	3 Minutes	None	Stuns all nearby humans, shatters nearby glass objects
300	Mist Form	1 Minute	None	Identical to wizard's Phase Shift spell, turns you non-corporeal for a moment
300	Enthrall	3 Minutes	300 Blood	Turns a victim into your loyal mindslave
500	Full Power	N/A	N/A	Chapel no longer causes harm or blocks your abilities (currently bugged). Permanent X-Ray Vision

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.
SS13's vampires do come with a few weaknesses they should take care to avoid, however. First and foremost, Vampires are unholy beings and as such are weak to holy things - the mere act of being in the Chapel will cause a vampire to slowly burn, gradually taking more and more damage until they die. The Chapel's holy aura also prevents the Vampire from using their abilities on holy ground. If you're being harassed by a Vampire, your best defence is to run into the Chapel. 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 himself. If the Vampire is foolish enough to bite him, it will take quite a lot of fire damage and be weakened. This will also be visibly noticeable, so the Vampire will give away his identity by this act. There is also Holy Water in the Chapel - throwing this on a vampire will cause it to act like acid instead, horribly burning them. It does nothing to non-vampires, so this is a good way of finding out the identitiy of vampires - the only drawback is the limited supply of Holy Water. More can be made if you know the recipe, however.

The last weakness of SS13 vampires is sunlight - or more accurately, starlight. Vampires cannot venture out into space, even with space suits - the light of the stars will burn them incredibly quickly, much faster than the Chapel will. This essentially means Vampires are confined to the station and anywhere a shuttle can take them without touching space - they could probably survive very quick leaps across space, but not on a regular basis.

Vampire Strategy

Vampire is one of the toughest enemy roles to play, because you start out with almost nothing-- Well wow! Thanks to an update, you can now use Glare to knock out some early targets. Use it! Vampires had it hard for ages, so why not use those newly-tempered vampire eyes of yours to steal some blood?

Some (general) tips:

• Get a weapon that can stun people. A heavy melee weapon can knock folks unconscious in a single hit if you're lucky, which is great, but a flash or scavenged security gear is also good for this purpose. Your victim, if not rendered unconscious, will start screaming for help once they're stunned, so get their headset off and get them out of sight quickly.
• 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.
• Your first few humans will be the toughest to get, so consider finding braindead players to begin with.
• 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 lightbulbs is a huge pain so few will ever bother. Watch out for people carrying flashlights.
• The Detective has thermals which can see through your cloak and a weapon that does straight-up brute damage instead of a stun you can resist. Consider avoiding him until you have the improved rejuvenate that lets you shrug off the damage.
• Keep your Cloak of Darkness off unless you need it, since it'll tip off the AI and anyone with thermals as to what you are.
• Your Shapeshift ability will alter the name but keep the rank of whatever ID card you have equipped, so don't use it while carrying a unique ID (like the Captain's).
• You don't have to kill (fully drain) your victims. They may vouch for you if you spare their lives, or if not, you can always drain them again once they've healed up.
• Enthrall is a major investment, but enthralling the Captain or Head of Security will let them bring you brigged prisoners without raising suspicion and will repay the blood cost manyfold.
• The humanity of Vampires being debatable, the AI may very well look the other way as security attempts to laser you to death. Play it safe by cutting cameras around your feeding spots and stay away from cyborgs.
• Try to accumulate an extra 50 blood more than your goal so you can get one last shapeshift in before boarding the shuttle.

Supplementary Video

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