Blob

Originally just a random event with notoriously bad AI, the Blob was revamped extensively and carefully with new abilities and improved AI so that it actually posed a threat, and ultimately became a playable role and round type. The basis is simple: you are a blob that intends to have Space Station 13 as its next meal, and must expand over as much of it as you can, devouring and destroying everything in your path. But beware of the more robust members of the crew, as they will come at you with all the fire-based weaponry they can muster.

Note: Blob rounds won't occur if less than 15 people have opted to join the game before roundstart. It doesn't guarantee Blob as the round game mode; it just puts blob into the pool of possible round types. However, there are no such minimums for Blob to be picked as mid-round/random event antagonist.

Getting Started

In essence, playing as a blob is quite like playing an RTS (Real-Time Strategy) tower-defense game. When you first begin, you'll be the incorporeal Blob Overmind pictured at the upper-right of this page, with these commands on your HUD:

Icon	Name	Description
	Deploy	Creates your first blob cell in the form of a nucleus. Choose carefully, your spawn point can make or break you!
	Change Color	Lets you pick your color before you deploy, fancy!
	Tutorial	Don't have any idea what to do? Click this before you deploy, and you'll be warped to a big empty room for the game to instruct and familiarize you with the fine art of blobbing. You can exit the tutorial and deploy on the station proper whenever you're done.

The Blob Overmind is functionally a Ghost: it can go wherever it wants, it can see and hear everything in its field of view and sees through walls, and it gets its own "Blobsay" chat channel to converse with any other blob players in the game. It can be moved with the directional keys or by left-clicking the tile you want to go to. But a ghost can't eat anything, so your first order of business is to pick a starting point with the Deploy command for the physical blob on the station. Remember that you cannot expand on space tiles, so picking secluded areas in the middle of nowhere will only end badly - make sure you at least have a path to the interior of the station!

Once you deploy, you'll be an itty-bitty Blob Nucleus surrounded by a sizable amount of blob tiles and special blob cells; letting the nucleus be destroyed means death for the blob, so protect it! At the beginning you'll be no bigger than a little splotch of blob, but given time and effort it will grow and cover the tiles around it. You'll also have these important bits of info on your Status tab:

• Bio Points: The points needed to use your abilities, showing how many points you have as well as your current maximum
• Generation Rate: How fast you accumulate Bio Points
• Blob Size: How many tiles the blob has covered
• Evo Points: The points needed for special upgrades
• Next Evo Point at size: How big you need to be to gain a free Evo Point, starts at 20 and increases by 20 each time the threshold is reached
• Living nuclei: How many nuclei you have remaining (letting this hit number zero means death!)
• Unplaced nuclei: How many extra nuclei you have earned, but haven't yet spawned
• Next Extra Nucleus at size: How big you need to be to spawn another nucleus, starts at 100 and increases by 100 each time the threshold is reached, maxes out at 5 extras

Your best bet when starting out is to completely consume the room you start in and work from there. As for what the blob can spread on, the options are plentiful, as there is very little that can get in the way of a growing blob; most objects such as doors and tables can be destroyed by attacking them, and walls and their girders will follow suit with the right upgrades.

If you're unfortunate enough to get discovered extremely early and get your gelatinous ass kicked within roughly five minutes after spawning, you get a chance to respawn and try again from scratch. It's quite rare, but the clutch/"grace period" is there!

Victory is attained either by simply surviving, or as the antagonist objective you're given, achieving and maintaining a blob size of 500 (i.e. big enough to field five nuclei). If it's a dedicated Blob round and all existing blobs have hit size 500 - "existing" meaning they no longer count if they are killed - then the round immediately ends in a blob victory. Let nothing stop you from being the biggest blob you can be!

Blob Abilities

The blob comes with a handful of special techniques to make your life easier and the lives of the crew harder. These are used by consuming "Bio Points" which the blob naturally generates; the bigger the blob is, the more Bio Points it can hold at once, but the slower it spreads. As for actually using the commands, there are two ways:

• The first method is to simply hover your Blob Overmind over the tile you want to interact with, then click the ability icon.
• The second method is to set a macro for a command, done by either using SHIFT+Click, CTRL+Click or ALT+Click on the desired ability's icon; up to three commands can be set this way, one for each key, and they can be changed at will. Once set, <Key>+Click a tile on the screen to use the ability there.

Starting Abilities

Once deployed, the blob has the following abilities:

Icon	Name	Cooldown	Bio Point Cost	Description
	Spread	Variable	2 Bio Points	Creates a new blob cell on a valid tile. Must be used on a tile adjacent to an existing blob cell. If you have unlocked the Build Bridge ability, you can use Spread on a space tile to build a bridge tile, then Spread on the newly built tile for efficiency. Note: When you first deploy, you're given "starter help", allowing you to spread without cooldown until you reach a size of 25. After this threshold is reached, you must contend with the cooldown.
	Attack	2 seconds	1 Bio Point	Slimes up the target tile, in addition to making all the regular blob tiles on the screen lash out randomly. Note: Special blob tiles cannot attack on their own and must be instructed manually by using the ability beside them (either with <Key>+Click or hovering the Blob Overmind over the target tile).
	Consume	2 seconds	10 Bio Points	Removes an existing blob tile, in case you made a mistake and converted it to the wrong cell type or something.
	Repair	2 seconds	1 Bio Point	Heals 20 HP to a damaged cell. Very important, as cells will not normally heal on their own.
	Absorb	2 seconds	Free	Normally, if there's a Human or Monkey on top of one of your blob tiles, you'll passively, slowly absorb them, causing TOX damage over time. If you succeed, you instantly kill them and gain either 2 Evo Points if it was a human or player-controlled monkey or roll a 50% chance to gain 2 Evo points if it was an NPC monkey. If that isn't happening, you'll need to manually use this ability over them. Note that the absorption time is still the same (i.e. around twenty seconds of them being over blob tile), and unlike most cases you can freely spread the blob onto tiles occupied by players and NPCs.
	Promote to Nucleus	120 seconds	0 Bio Points	Converts a cell into an extra nucleus, effectively giving you an extra life. Nuclei are very durable, but require you to break a certain size threshold before you're allowed to create extras, with the requirement increasing each time, and if you lose one, you lose all your Bio Points and regenerate Bio Points more slowly for a short period of time. You can only get up to five extra nuclei total, so use them carefully!
	Build Ribosome Cell	10 seconds	15 Bio Points	Each one of these adds 0.15 Bio Point generation, allowing you to spread more, attack more, build more special cells, and just generally do more things.
	Build Lipid Cell	10 seconds	5 Bio Points	A storage unit that contains 4 Bio Points separate from your counter. If you find that you don't have enough Bio Points to carry out a command, these can be consumed to make up the difference, leaving behind a damaged regular blob cell in the process. Nice to have for emergencies.
	Build Mitochondira Cell	10 seconds	5 Bio Points	Allows cells within 3 tiles of it to recover HP on their own. Works on a cycle system by restoring a certain amount of HP per tick, and recovers more with more mitochondria nearby. This doesn't make a cell invincible though, since it can still be destroyed in between regeneration cycles!
	Build Thick Membrane Cell	10 seconds	5 Bio Points	Basically the blob's walls, these have much, much more HP than regular blob cells and can stop fluid and chemsmoke flow. Perfect for blocking off blind spots you don't want people getting into and countering mass chemical attacks. They also block the line of sight of other players.
	Build Fire-resistant Membrane	10 seconds	10 Bio Points	Your first line of defense against fire, these cells have heavy defense against heat and prevent flames and hotspots from spreading past them. Like thick membranes they block line of sight, however they have much less HP and are more vulnerable to blunt force and other non-fire sources of damage.
	Help	N/A	Free	Click this to turn on Help Mode any time, during which you can click a command or upgrade icon to see what it does and how much it costs. Click the Help icon again to exit Help Mode.
N/A	EXPERIMENTAL: Create Viewport	N/A	Free	So experimental that, instead of being on the HUD as a button, it's in a tab on the right called "Blob Commands", next to the usual "Status" and "Commands" tabs. This is just like the AI's viewport; it creates a new window that monitors an 8x8 area, centered around where your Blob Overmind icon was when you executed this. You can have up to 5 viewports at a time (perfect number for monitoring nuclei), and you can click on a tile within the viewport to jump to it.

Unlockable Abilities

There are also a few additional powers the blob can gain by spending Evo points to unlock them.

Icon	Name	Cooldown	Bio Point Cost	Description
	Devour Item	0 seconds	3 Bio Points	This will digest an item on or adjacent to a blob cell - that is, handheld items that the blob doesn't normally destroy as it spreads. Useful for getting rid of weapons that other players drop.
	Build Bridge	5 seconds	5 Bio Points	Creates a synthetic blob flooring in space, giving you an extra tile to spread on. Prevents you from being totally stranded if you're surrounded by space tiles somehow. Note that blob floors are not actually part of the blob and do not contribute to your size, and must still be spread onto after placement. These tiles are also destructible by fire and heat-based weaponry.
	Build Slime Launcher	10 seconds	15 Bio Points	If a blob is like a tower-defense game, then these are your towers. Slime Launchers will fire weak projectiles at nearby players and pods! Per shot it will consume 2 Bio Points when fired.
	Build Plasmaphyll Cell	10 seconds	30 Bio Points	Most players not using weldingtools will try to kill you with plasma fires. This tries to remove the threat by sucking any plasma out of the air to snuff those fires. This takes a point out of your Generation Rate to run, and returns it if destroyed. Devoured plasma becomes Bio Points!
	Build Ectothermid Cell	10 seconds	30 Bio Points	Negates heat over a small area in exchange for a gradual Bio Point cost. Like the Plasmaphyll, it takes a point of of your Generation Rate to run and returns it if lost.
	Build Reflective Membrane Cell	10 seconds	15 Bio Points	Energy projectiles can eat through blob cells fairly quickly due to their sheer damage output, and these devious cells are your answer to that; Reflective Membranes will bounce energy shots back in the direction they were shot from, giving them a taste of their own medicine. Also blocks line of sight.

Upgrades

Alas, for all the neat cells the blob has, the crew of Space Station 13 is a crafty lot that can surprise you with its murderous capabilities. And that's where these upgrades come in. These are activated by consuming "Evo Points"; rarer than Bio Points, you only get these at certain blob size thresholds or by pulling off a successful Absorb. These are meant to unlock special abilities and blob cells that increase your survivability; the ones you pick determine how you play.

Icon	Name	Evo Point Cost	Description
	Passive: Increase Generation Rate	1 Evo Point (+1 each)	Boosts the Generation Rate of Bio Points by 2. This upgrade can be used multiple times, and costs one more Evo Point with each use.
	Passive: Quick Spread	3 Evo Points (+4 each)	Reduces the cooldown of the Spread ability by 1 second. Can't go below 1 second, though. Can help mitigate longer Spread cooldown associated with larger blob size.
	Passive: Spread Upgrade	1 Evo Point (+1 each)	With each use of this upgrade, whenever you use Spread, you gain an extra 40% chance that another Spread will occur from any of the blob pieces on the screen. These chances can stack as well; for example, say you upgrade three times for 120%, you'll then have a 100% chance for two spreads with an extra 20% chance for a third. 200% means three guaranteed spreads, 320% means four with a chance of five, and so on.
	Passive: Attack Upgrade	1 Evo Point (+1 each)	Increases the damage the blob does with the Attack command with each upgrade, as well as makes it easier to destroy more stubborn objects in your way. In addition, after one upgrade you gain the ability to knock weapons out of a player's hands, and after two upgrades you can tear down wall girders so you have more room to spread.
	Passive: Fire Resistance	2 Evo Points	Reduces the damage you take from fire-based attacks and makes it so hotspots don't instantly destroy blob tiles - this isn't to say you won't still take damage from sustained heat, but the ability to not have your cells oneshotted by fire is nevertheless a godsend.
	Passive: Poison Resistance	2 Evo Points	Reduces the gradual damage the blob takes from getting toxic or radioactive chemicals dumped onto it.
	Ability: Devour Item	1 Evo Point	Unlocks the Devour Item command.
	Structure: Bridge	1 Evo Points	Unlocks the Build Bridge command, allows Spread to build blob space bridges.
	Structure: Slime Launcher	1 Evo Points	Unlocks the Build Slime Launcher command.
	Structural: Plasmaphyll	1 Evo Points	Unlocks the Build Plasmaphyll Cell command.
	Structural: Ectothermid	2 Evo Points	Unlocks the Build Ectothermid Cell command.
	Structural: Reflective Membrane	1 Evo Points	Unlocks the Build Reflective Membrane Cell command.

Blob Weaknesses

Fortunately the blob doesn't have many weaknesses, but the few that it does have are things you absolutely must be aware of and be prepared for, or they will be your undoing.

• Fire. If a tile's temperature exceeds a certain threshold, you won't be able to spread on it, and enough fire or heat reaching a blobbed tile will instantly destroy the blob occupying it if you don't have the Fire Resistance upgrade. This is mostly encountered in the form of weldingtool-wielding and flamethrower-wielding crew members or plasma canisters, or bombs in extreme cases.
• Poison. There are a number of wacky and dangerous, toxic chemicals that wreak havoc with anything organic in Space Station 13, and the blob is no exception. Blob cells that get splashed/sprayed/smoked with poison will gain a grody green discoloration and gradually lose health. Radium is the most common of these chemicals, but some of the meaner Scientists will bring out nastier stuff like acid and sarin.
• Space. The rule of thumb when spreading as a blob is, "If you can see stars, you can't spread there." Unlike with heat the blob can exist on a space tile if its flooring is somehow destroyed while sparing the blob, but it still can't go anywhere without an acceptable adjacent tile to spread on. Blobs can create their own floor on a space tile to spread on, but this ability also comes with a cooldown and is not helped by the floors being easy to destroy.
  • Though blobs are immune to the vacuum of space and can survive, spread, and, yes, evolve without oxygen, any blob tiles near Space are dangerously vulnerably to Space Pod attacks.

In addition, blobs are incredibly weakened by the loss of a nucleus. If the blob loses a regular blob tile, it's simply a biopoint wasted, a special tile, somewhere between 5-15 biopoints, but if it loses a nucleus, it loses all its Bio Points and Bio Point regeneration is halved for a short period of time, severely crippling its ability to attack and defend itself.

Tips & Strategies

• Think carefully about where you deploy. You're at your weakest when you're starting out, so you'll want a secluded area that will give you time to grow to a decent size yet won't be found by the crew immediately; the longer you can go without being discovered, the better. Or if you're feeling gutsy, try blocking off popular sources of welding fuel and plasma such as Toxins and Engineering.
  • There is one space-faring tile you can spread on, and that is the catwalk. If you're feeling bold, you can travel along the catwalks connecting the station, or even deploy in the Routing Depot (if there is one) for some peace and quiet while you slowly creep into the station from multiple entrance points.
• Expand on other blobs' tiles! You'll grow much more rapidly and handle threats much more effectively than you would if you were alone, since you'll both be working on one big collective blob (though you'll still count as two separate blobs with different Evo and Bio Point counts and blob sizes).
• Don't go overboard with your cell improvements; regular blob cells are as important as improved ones since they do most of the attacking. 50% regular to 50% converted is a good ratio to follow.
• Try to force confrontations with the crew in choke-points like one-tile doorways or hallways. The less people are able to hammer away at you at the same time, the easier it is to fight them off. Do not allow yourself to be boxed in.
• Keep lots of lipids in a safe place for emergencies where you need to spend lots of Bio Points at once. They're very underestimated and could be your saving grace in a pinch!
• Only regular blob cells will randomly attack when the Attack command is used. To make special cells hit things, you need to use the Attack command beside it.
• Save your fire-resistant membranes for when the crew actually discovers you. Spamming them before you're seen is pointless and a waste of cells you could convert into more useful things.
• Membranes and mitochondria go together like bread and butter. Stick them together in places that you really don't want the crew to reach, like your nucleus.
• Be aware of the locations of the station's welding fuel tanks and plasma canisters. If one isn't in its designated workplace, it's probably time to start spamming thick and fire-resistant membranes (and if you have them, plasmaphylls and ectothermids as necessary) because it's probably headed your way along with a small army of welders.
• Be very wary of Flamethrowers. These cobbled-together firearms are the blob's worst enemy and can cut entire chunks of cells out of you. Its handheld sprite looks like a longer weldingtool; if you see one headed for you, make damn sure you have Fire Resistance unlocked and crank out the fire-resistant membranes like an assembly line, then disarm the assailant of their flamethrower and digest it as fast as possible.
• If a human is up and able to run, don't try to spread under him right away. Instead, spread around him to box him in; this way you have more cells attacking him at once, and he has less chance of escaping when you spread under him to absorb him.
• Plasmaphylls and ectothermids are meant to be used together! Plasmaphylls will consume plasma fast but will die to a lit fire as easily as any other cell without the ectothermid's help, and while ectothermids can stop fire they'll eat away at your Bio Points frighteningly fast without plasmaphylls to replenish them. It can sometimes pay off to use ectothermids to prevent a non-plasma fire-bombing, but try to ensure you have a good buffer of Bio Points and Generation Rate first.
• Don't use Reflective Membranes right away! Instead, wait for an attacking player to draw their energy gun/laser gun/whatever, then create a reflector; the shots he spam-fired will now all go back to him before he can react, leaving him at your mercy.
  • This also works on most Pods trying to shoot you from space. On the off-chance that the Pod has a non-energy weapon (Rock Drilling Rig, Industrial Utility Arms, Ballistic System or (God help you) 40mm Grenade Launcher Platform), you might have to get creative with Thick Membranes and Slime Launchers.
• Blobs tend to be disadvantaged against cyborgs, especially ones with a Force Shield upgrade that repels all their methods of attack... or are they? If a durable cyborg is harassing you, box him in with thick membranes and surround them with mitochondria. The borg will find that he can't do more damage than the membrane is healing, and even if he has a weldingtool it will run out of fuel quickly; he is now helpless, blind and has no other option but to radio for help, hoping assistance arrives before his battery dies.
• Don't be afraid to make an extra nucleus if things are going poorly and you think your existing nuclei are doomed. Pick somewhere as far away from the action as possible, fortify it and plan your counterattack.
  • If you don't mind wasting a nucleus and tank a halved Bio Point regen rate and loss of all your Bio Points , make one as a decoy in a place the crew doesn't know you've breached yet and direct them to it. A very effective way to buy time, at the cost of resources.

In Summary

Just like any good RTS, surviving as a blob depends on how well you adapt to danger. Pick your spawn location carefully, learn what cells do what and which are most ideal for the situation at hand, watch the crew carefully, and always have a backup plan or escape route if things go pear-shaped. It's not easy trying to stack up against the torch-wielding mob that is Space Station 13's crew, but once you get the hang of it and learn to prepare for the crew's shenanigans, reaching 500 tiles is entirely possible.