New facehugger strain: Watcher

[Hopekz]

Super easy to understand:

The watcher loses the ability to hide in exchange for letting them see further.

I don't have a sprite for this at the moment and probably won't for this PR so I have made them stand out by making them more orange because I think marines being able to see if a hugger is a Watcher might be important.

Currently they see 2 extra tiles like the runner but in testmerging I think it may change to 3 tiles (view range 10 instead of view range 9) unless I hit the perfect sweet spot already. EDIT: This number is now 3

the way I see it watcher is designed for 2 main playstyles:

1: Backlining to try to get someone not paying attention or busy (right behind marine frontline like medics doing medic stuff or someone resupplying/playing with inventory) or deep in the backline to try to find someone vulnerable.

2: Hanging around the xeno side frontline with increased situational awareness to be exactly where you need to be for xeno assisted caps. For example as a watcher during the TM I have an easier time watching a warrior fling someone and capitalizing a hug off a fling because I don't have to go out until the fling happens etc

update:

The activation of the view range now works similar to the runner; it is toggle-able

Fixed exploit that allowed watchers to hide despite not having the ability.

Update 2:

The watcher now does not take weeds over time.
Essentially implemented this:

Why:
The damage over time is meant so that the hugger cannot hide under some unweeded item the whole round to hug some random unsuspecting marine. The watcher cannot hide and is meant to be a backlining caste.
This allows the watcher to stalk people outside of weeds and wait for the perfect opportunity to hug when their target is distracted or busy.

Update 3:

Added my codersprite to the watcher.
These were created by me so hopefully a spriter or my spriter replaces these with a better one if they suck.

🆑 Hopek
add: New facehugger strain: Watcher. The Watcher loses their ability to hide in exchange to see further and the ability to no longer take damage outside of weeds.
/:cl:

[github-actions]

You currently have a negative Fix/Feature pull request delta of -19. Maintainers may close this PR at will. Fixing issues or improving the codebase will improve this score.

[morrowwolf]

Honestly, just keep the same sprite. That orange does not look good.

[sleepynecrons]

morrow already mentioned the orange and that got changed but please avoid just doing recolors in the future. it still needs a unique sprite though; something that changes up the silhouette and distinguishes itself from a normal facehugger at a glance.

maybe since they can't hide you could make them bigger and give them longer legs and some sunken areas for "eyes".

[morrowwolf]

Conceptually this is approved. I believe the author wants some time to TM and play with how the zoom works which is fine. We are also waiting on a new sprite.

While waiting on the sprite feel free to ask for TM if you can convince a maintainer to keep an eye on it.

[Angoryskaven]

Found two bugs:

-1: Upon choosing the Watcher strain, if you are have toggled the "Hide" ability, it will carry over onto Watcher, allowing you to hide, at least for the first jump;

-2: When reconnecting, the Watcher's sight range is reverted to that of a normal hugger

[Hopekz]

update:
The activation of the view range now works similar to the runner; it is toggle-able

[Hopekz]

Found two bugs:

-1: Upon choosing the Watcher strain, if you are have toggled the "Hide" ability, it will carry over onto Watcher, allowing you to hide, at least for the first jump;

-2: When reconnecting, the Watcher's sight range is reverted to that of a normal hugger

1: Fixed

2: Fixed; it is now a toggle with a button like the runner so they can just toggle it again when reconnected.

[Hopekz]

Update 2:

The watcher now does not take weeds over time.
Essentially implemented this:

Why:
The damage over time is meant so that the hugger cannot hide under some unweeded item the whole round to hug some random unsuspecting marine. The watcher cannot hide and is meant to be a backlining caste.
This allows the watcher to stalk people outside of weeds and wait for the perfect opportunity to hug when their target is distracted or busy.

[harryob]

tm fine, needs sprite approval

[github-actions]

This PR has been inactive for long enough to be automatically marked as stale. This means it is at risk of being auto closed in ~ 7 days, please address any outstanding review items and ensure your PR is finished, if these are all true and you are auto-staled anyway, you need to actively ask maintainers if your PR will be merged. Once you have done any of the previous actions then you should request a maintainer remove the stale label on your PR, to reset the stale timer. If you feel no maintainer will respond in that time, you may wish to close this PR youself, while you seek maintainer comment, as you will then be able to reopen the PR yourself

[sleepynecrons]

the current sprite is an improvement but it's just a cut and paste of the xenoid hugger head with no attempt at blending it into the watcher sprite. please fix. it also still needs a change in silhouette; maybe do something with the feelers/legs at the front considering they don't move in the running animation.

you could also do something with the tail but it will obviously require some animation work

example

[Hopekz]

Went ahead and removed the watcher sprite entirely because it didn't pass sprite review and I couldn't get it replaced in time for my trip to Poland.
Shame but it is what it is.

Thank you!