Bug

Reporting Personnel: Nathan Wall, Uriel Evans, Cloe [Something] Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Roboticist Game ID: b2Y-aMAC Personnel Involved: (Name, Job Title: Offender/Witness/Other) - Nathan Wall - Security Officer - Uriel Evans - Captain - Cloe [Something] - Research Director Time of Incident: 7:13 AM Real Time: E.g 0200 EST 8/29/19 Location of Incident: Medical Bay, Brig Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [ X ] - Neglect of Duty [ X ] - Harassment [ X ] - Assault [ X ] - Misconduct [ ] - Other _____ Overview of the Incident: So the research director, Cloe something (She cryoed before I could get a name), repeatedly told me to go to my department with threats of being fired. The thing is, the situation is a code green, and nobody needed any urgent care. We were investigating a visitor who claimed to be a necromancer, and as part of the science team I saw it important to investigate. In fact I was investigating him already before the Research Director arrived and showed interest before hijacking my investigation and telling me to basically fuck off. I refused because, again, code green. You're not allowed to force people into their departments on a code green. After following this investigation to medical for a while the Captain barged in about an issue with the status display. To be fair, I assumed that I had fixed the status display with the cartridge in my PDA, but later learned that this was not the case. Rather than asking me to fix it though, the captain demanded me to give them my ID so they could fire me with the purpose being "I don't like you", in a sense. The research director appears to have been telling the Captain I wasn't following orders to do nothing in my department, which resulted in the Biomech Zolazli to punch me with some electric gloves. That was a bit uncalled for, but it was minor compared to what the three listed did. The captain took the time to steal my ID, put it on suspended, and then hand it back. I was still stuttering from being electrocuted, but was able to leave to try and get some food. I thought that was all and that I'd be able to file a report in my own time on the shift, but that was sadly not the case. Shortly after I was told to follow Mr. Wall to the brig. He claimed he was just following orders, so I went with him. Apparently I was supposed to be sentenced to thirty five minutes in the brig for "not following orders", "contraband" (a knife in my boot, for self protection), and one other charge I can't recall. They took all of my things while the Captain threatened to shoot me, which nothing was done about. I was then forced into a holding cell while Mr. Wall tried to force me to strip into an orange jumpsuit, despite my Hephaestus jumpsuit not being their property and held no objects inside, accompanied that the others said I was fine to stay in my jumpsuit. I was beaten and assaulted until I went unconscious. When I awoke I saw Mr. Wall shooting at a clown in a wheelchair, which was honestly surreal. I thought something was going terribly wrong, so I ran. This resulted in more beating until I was dragged to the shuttle for a transfer. Overall the three names listed were incredibly unprofessional, overstepped their bounds repeatedly, and overall seem very corrupt. I would hope that the CCIA agent working on this is fair enough to understand the nature of these charges, otherwise I would like to have a representative from Hephaestus Industries with me on my case. Did you report it to a Head of Department or IAA? If so, who?: No, the only heads of the department were Cloe, Uriel, and a Chief Medical Officer. Two of the names were involved with the situation, and I was not at liberty to convince them what they were doing was wrong. Actions taken: No actions were taken, I was powerless in this situation. Additional Notes: Being put into a brig for thirty five minutes because you don't want to sit in your department doing nothing, only to then be put into the brig for 35 minutes is not fun. This is not what I signed up for, and if need be I will return my services to the Odyssey rather than stay at this station.

I'm wondering how many Aurora players would like to be made into FBPs (Basically like IPCs but with MMIs) instead of borgs, that way if they can only recover your brain you won't be force lawed to an AI. Alternatively, having IPCs able to be made could come along with this, perhaps a borg doing so well to earn their freedom and an IPC? Lemme know what y'all think.

Remember in other servers (might be just Bay) where you ate/drank something and it'd tell you what it tasted like? I noticed when you do the same here, nothing really happens. I think we could really use some flavor text to make cooking and bartending worth it. Heheh.

Alright, first let's start off with this little section here. Don't worry about giving me criticism as long as it's constructive and not a barrage of personal attacks, which yours isn't. I want to hear feedback and potential flaws that I may have missed, that's why I made this. Now that that's out of the way, let's address some of the concerns you posed. The first/second(?) issue. What I found interesting about your phrasing here is the extensive use of the word "insanity". Yes, joining a cult is insanity, and people who witness such horrors go insane. However, think to current cult. If you see some constructs or crazy cultists going around saying weird shit, you're usually not gonna go insane. You're gonna go "The fuck is that? Someone call security" and not really do much. Sure, some people may RP some PTSD, but usually you can get away from a cult with a fairly sound state of mind, considering you're facing eldritch abominations. Adding some actual insanity would make more sense, no? This system doesn't remove "Join or die", cultists are still going to want people to either join them or be slaughtered, it just adds an effect to a cult's presence. For current system, sure. You can resist cultists once they put you on the conversion rune and die, but it doesn't matter in the end. They're going to shove you into a shard anyways and put you in a construct. It's not really a matter of "Join or die", moreso "Join or join as a construct", and I personally haven't found this too fun. As for resisting insanity, of course there is going to be drawbacks to it. You start losing your mind. You have a choice of either giving into the madness because your will is weak and you want to end the torment, or you can power through these troubled times like a trooper, but it won't be easy. Neither will curing your insanity. I'm not too sure how it would be "abused" per se, so if you could give me some scenarios that would be great. This is...true. Communication isn't the best in these kinds of gamemodes, but that's not really my job to make players talk to each other when they're an antag. All I can do is provide the resources and facilitate it. I can give someone a tool, but only they have the choice of using it or not. I believe progression would definitely help curb newbies from having their killing sprees being too overpowered. An idea that came to me while reading this was having a "Head Cultist". As I've never played as a mercenary or raider, I can't say this for sure, but there likely would be someone to lead the antags and instruct them on what to do. Having one or more of the beginning cultists, the ones who signed up for it and know what they are doing, have the resources to communicate to the other cultists (Perhaps add an ability to all standard cultists that acts as a private communications line similar to changelings, and an added ability to high tier Mind specialists that allow their text to be bigger, thus allowing their word to be more prominent and listened to [similar to Squad Leaders and COs in CM]) telling them what to do and what not to do would be good. Rather than relying on an OOC mechanic to talk, having an IC means to communicate would likely improve this. Trust me, I have been there. Back on Bay, I would try to be akin to a 'peace cultist', offering people power from an old book "me grandpappy used to have, where he'd heal people and do amazing magic tricks". Everything was going fine until I put them on the rune. They screamed into comms and ran off the rune. I tried to bring them to medical to heal them, they clawed at me while I was doing it, security came down and beat me within an inch of my life. They then took me back up to security, where I told them what was going on truthfully. They then tortured me, put me in a straightjacket, and locked me up for the rest of the round while the other cultists went around murderboning. After about three tries to be a "good little cultist", I swore off ever doing it again, that peacecultist was the stupidest fucking shit ever, that it was not worth it, and I would simply force others to be a cultist or die because I'd get meta'd the fuck out of and abused if I tried otherwise. That's one of the reasons I want to bring about a better cult. I like cult. I want it to work. But currently, in an RP setting, it's just not made for it. Bringing a new face to cult that would be fun for both cultists and witnesses is what I want. Giving cultists different ways to approach their situation, keeping the station on their toes, and giving the crew an actual chance at fighting back at Nar'sies influence, rather than going straight to cryo when you're converted or leaving the game when you're put in a soul shard. That is what I want from cult, and I'm hoping this rework will give us the first steps to get there.

I've always heard complaints about cult being a force antag gamemode. That's why things like rev are so hated. I tried to make this system of conversion give you a chance to resist conversion. For current cult, if you get captured you're either becoming a cultist or dying and becoming a construct. If the conversion is distant, then you can continue to RP (even if you're insane), and try to find a way to cure yourself of the corruption. I'd like to hear more of what you think about this system when compared to the current one. You bring up a very good point. We wanted to use some of the wizard abilities reskinned because it would be easier to program, and it would be something the playerbase would be familiar with, but I can see your concerns. I'm all for hearing the community's ideas for better abilities and powers: That's why I made this post. Dark Dream: The downside for the cultist using this is that yes, you do lose your cult items and tattoos. I'm wondering if this ability would be used more for a scouting/subversion thing, or if it would be a last resort to escape your body and start anew as it's phrased on the current wizard. For the person in their body, they wouldn't really know how to use the abilities, and being inside a cultist's body with such mindbending tattoos and equipment would leave lasting corruption on that person's psyche. Subjugate wouldn't exactly get the same effect, and adding it to the cultist's roster would just make it closer to Wizard, so we'll probably not make it a booze ray. Overshadow: While it does sound very powerful, it seems like a unique ability that could be useful for a one on one chase. Could have some interesting uses. Spirit Sight: Thermal vision but with blood. I like it. Spirit Shift: A new take on Teleport, which doubles both as a scouting ability and a movement tool. Sounds pretty good. All in all, some good suggestions. I'll try to work these into the doc.

Just confirming your thoughts, ye, devs won't look at this from an implementation standpoint until ~a month from now when new map meme is done and we've figured out what direction we want to take next. I don't expect them to be thinking about implementing this for some time; I know they're busy, and I don't wanna overload 'em. I'm just posting this here to get some community feedback and criticism. So far the responses are positive, and I'm hoping to see some more comments soon. Maybe we'll have a finished system prepped by the time you guys are ready to implement something new!

So uh. I came from Bay, and back in the Hay day of Bay kill me, one of their big complaints was the cult gamemode. So, me and two other dudes started up a rework for Cult that would be big, brand new, interesting, and would accommodate different playstyles. We came up with the following ideas: Corruption: We proposed an added system called corruption, which would be the new way to convert as opposed to forcing someone onto a rune. It's gained by seeing culty things and being the poor guy who is subject to their trickery, and it drives you mad. You can give into the madness to become a cultist, or just stick through it and become that raving hobo on the street. Mind, Body, Spirit: To give cultists some choice in how they approach things, we divided cultists into three different paths of magicks, being Mind, Body, and Spirit. - Body: Body was made to appease those who like to brute force things, stuff dealing with blood, pain, etc. - Mind: This one appeals to those who like to mess with people's heads, strategics, and magic stuff. - Spirit: Finally, spirit was for the scouts and sneakers, and was intended to give ghosts something to do. Unfortunately, interest was eventually lost in the project, and it died in it's tracks. However, after some talk in the discord I rediscovered that I still had the doc. Here it is, with mine and two other Bay nerds' comments. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19c_AT6_gqa8KA13LfMtJmKccWYY4cvYy3PUj1y_YyLo/edit?usp=sharing Let me know what you guys think of it. I know that staff is busy implementing new map, and this won't be even thought of being implemented for a long time, but I would like some feedback on it if we ever do want to make cult more original and fun.

I remember this was a thing on Bay, you could put a little blurb about your goals as an antag that would be displayed at the end of round. I don't know why Aurora doesn't have this, as it's a good little exposition tidbit at the end, and usually results in a fun read and offers the antags a solid, personalized goal to work towards. It gives the other players an idea of what that antag was trying to accomplish. Can we get this?

After playing as a pAI and having a talk with skull and a Dakota Lloyd, I think I may have heard some conflicting ideas. The software interface of pAIs says the following: Recall, personality, that you are a complex thinking, sentient being. Unlike station AI models, you are capable of comprehending the subtle nuances of human language. You may parse the "spirit" of a directive and follow its intent, rather than tripping over pedantics and getting snared by technicalities. Above all, you are machine in name and build only. In all other aspects, you may be seen as the ideal, unwavering human companion that you are. However, I was told that pAI are like programs in a phone, and not carried in positronic brains. Then, on the wiki for the positronic brain (https://aurorastation.org/wiki/index.php?title=Positronic_Brain) I found this: The Positronic Brain (Posibrain) is a type of processing unit used for most complex robotic devices in the current age, from simple posibrains found in Personal AI's to massive networks of interconnected positronic masses used for military level calculations such as used by the Sol Alliance military. So, pAIs use positronic brains according to the wiki. Wouldn't that put them on par with androids? Could the same personality of a pAI also occupy an android, and vice versa?