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rrrrrr

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    botanistpower

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  1. got into a fun argument with this character regarding responsibility over interns and that sort of thing. good character, was enjoyable as XO throughout the entire round. +1
  2. Lore Impact: I'd say "small"... planets are big, but this is "small"... Species: Human, synth, although indirectly. Short Description: Additional information on Haneunim system, primarily Huozhu, Qixi, and Shiranui. How will this be reflected on-station? The ship is currently in orbit of Konyang; for characters that are scientifically minded, a point of discussion, maybe. Potentially, places to go, but I don’t know how planet code works or how feasible/sensical it would be. Plausibly, could be used as backstory fodder for a Konyanger character. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists? It adds additional information to a handful of topical (i.e, presently in people’s minds) locations. Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team? Yes. Long Description The current description of the Haneunim system --- the one we're in, right now --- is pretty darn good. I think "more is better", though. Nothing given here would be more than an additional sentence or two on the wiki. Sentences that were originally on the wiki are underlined. Huozhu - Huozhu is the innermost planet in the star system and is uninhabitable due to its close proximity to Haneunim. Unmanned drones have indicated that the planet, which is visible to the naked eye on Konyang, is greatly lacking in any mineral wealth and has no atmosphere to speak of. Hwanung - The second planet from Haneunim, Hwanung, is an insignificant dwarf planet believed to have maintained a thin arid atmosphere before most of its mass was artificially stripped away. While relatively close to Konyang and far cooler than Huozhu, observation and a handful of expeditions revealed that most of the planet's crust had been artificially stripped away, exposing its solid, icy mantle. Konyanger exogeologists continue to survey the planet from time to time. Qixi - The third planet in the System is Konyang, accompanied by its lifeless moon of Qixi. Qixi is noteworthy for housing a large KASF base, the Konyanger government's sole off-planet possession; while more prestigious than working aboard one of the KASF's orbital stations, being posted here is considered boring by some. Shiranui - Shiranui, a ringed gas giant colored blue thanks to its methane composition, is the outermost planet from Haneunim. Prior to the discovery of phoron, private companies operated over three dozen methane-harvesting facilities in orbit around Shiranui. That number has dwindled down to just thirteen in the past few decades; the remaining workers, their families having often worked in the industry for many years, are usually bitter towards NanoTrasen.
  3. orion express engineering uniforms for engineers, atmos techs, and apprentices. basic palette swap using the orion colors used in service/cargo (brown/silver + departmental). credit to whoever made those because these use essentially the same colors. includes rolled up sleeves and that sort of thing anyways my thoughts re: this are that orion engineers would be cool. NT engineers already have uniforms in the game but they don't exactly look "great" (the light blue/orange is not a great combination). if NT engineers were also added i would be bold and suggest just retouching the default SS13 uniform sprites for engi/atmostech? they're v iconic orion engineering.dmi
  4. played two rounds w rozalt as CE. very solid... good player in a role that's often a little underplayed vs cap/xo/hos. +1
  5. damn... no status updates in a year? this forums dead

  6. I don't have any strong feelings on suit sensors because I remember what the game was like without them. Frankly, there's no real difference. People used to be better at calling out their location if they needed help and, thankfully for some, sensors have removed that need. Let yourself go to crit, who cares. The paramedic will arrive with his mix of ten-thousand chemicals that will resurrect the dead, solve world hunger, and bring your ex-husband back. I'm gonna go out on a limb here using the sole example given by Star Dust of no sensors actively ruining the game, destroying his crops, burning down his village, and poisoning his wells. The problem in this example is less "Jim Warden had no sensors because we were on Code Green!' and more "Jim Warden was brutally mauled by a random event mob that's boring to fight before he could call out his location for help." This is because greimorians are a literal chore. They are a chore. They are the game's equivalent of brushing your teeth... and in the far-future year of 2465, brushing your teeth, uh, kills/maims you if you're unprepared. Cool. (Note: I have never died to greimorians! This is because I know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, and know when to run!) Ignoring the fact that the ship is regularly beset with infestations of highly virulent bug monsters that lay eggs inside of people and eat your face, what people should be asking isn't "was removing suit sensors a bad idea," it should be "is fighting greimorians actually fun or is it the equivalent of jingling keys in front of people's faces so they don't get bored?"
  7. not sure whose job it is to fix telecomms when its messed up but in my experience engineering is asked to fix it 100% of the time. they dont have access. the lack of access is a little weirder now that telecomms has been moved to be right next to engineering vs. wedged inside of the bridge. on the off chance it is actually R&D's job to "fix that shit", give scientists access. maybe put the blackbox in a separate command-only room, since that seems to be a sensitive piece of equipment?
  8. Hey, a question I've actually thought about! Here are my thoughts... Harvesting water from planets/asteroids would be pretty inefficient, considering that it'd require fuel. Chances are that the Horizon has a pretty robust water recycling system... off-screen, because dealing with "making sure the ship has potable water" would excite only a small number of people and be a headache to put "in the game." I imagine that the ship is pretty efficient at recycling water, if not perfect, since this is the far-future year of 2465 and that'd be a huge frickin' deal, especially when it comes to a long-range survey ship like the Horizon. Running out of the water in the middle of nowhere kills everyone faster than running out of food, since you can draw lots to eat employees if that happens and sustain a small number of people --- presumably enough to keep the ship running. It'd also make the ship more fuel-efficient. Less crewmembers is less weight. More thrust! That said, I really doubt it's self-sufficient on food. The hydroponics lab isn't that big and I assume that the abbreviated grow times are just so botanist isn't boring to play. There's probably a place on the ship were non-perishables are stored, because obviously, right? You wouldn't send out a state-of-the-art FTL supply shuttle to deliver, like, a single pizza. You can do that, sure... but it seems like one of those silly things that are in the game because it's silly and lighthearted (which is good), not because it actually makes any sense. I have no idea if solid phoron can be converted into gas. If it can be, I dunno if it'd be "worth the effort," i.e, would we get more phoron than we spend hauling it back and converting it?... so I imagine that the ship isn't self-sufficient on that end at all. Very fuel-efficient by design, probably, but it'd run out eventually. i also like pretending that the elevator lightbulbs breaking are both canonical and that the ship doesnt manufacture those in-house so i can say that the company spends an absurd amount of money per financial quarter on lightbulbs. sort of like this
  9. Sorry for the late reply. Real life stuff. 1. On balance, how do you see the Human Lore of the server being different with you than without you; what is something that only you bring to the table as a deputy? Well, I like to think that I'd bring a unique perspective to the whole thing, but that'd apply to every other applicant, too. Subjectively, I like to think that I've read a lot -- and not just science-fiction, either. My favorite authors are, in no particular order: Roberto Bolano (non-SF/F), William T. Vollmann (semi-SF/F), Dorothy Allison (non SF/F), and Samuel Delany (SF/F). I'm not even going to bother putting a disclaimer saying that I'm risking sounding pretentious, here, because I genuinely do love reading and writing... my tastes are pretty broad. I'm also a published (non SF/F, not self-published) writer, as of early this year. Something I wrote was in an anthology that physically exists. I think that's pretty cool. I can provide proof if needed. 2. Something that has brought the Human Lore Team some concern throughout this application is your past body of work, and while you have acknowledged your prior immaturity in this area of things, we wanted to understand how your process in writing now differs from how it way back then. While we have a very broad swath of lore, factions, arcs, and locations, in human lore, we cannot focus on everything and keeping things tonally consistent between our 40+ planets can sometimes be challenging. What do you see as the tone/mood of our setting, what are your biggest priorities from a writing standpoint, and how would you implement them into human lore? It's been just about nine years since I was last involved in writing for this server. I was fifteen years old. My writing process differs heavily, of course, but I'd say that a lot of the immaturity stemmed from me having been both fifteen and homeschooled. A lot of the content I'd agree is inappropriate came from a bad place that I'm going to acknowledge but not go into detail on in public. I subjected a fair number of people to a lot of verbal abuse for things that they basically had nothing to do with. It wasn't really right. As far as tone goes, I'd say that Aurora tries to keep a semi-realistic tone. I wouldn't call it hard SF, but it's marginally more realistic than, say, Star Wars or Star Trek when it comes to sociopolitical subjects. All of the species, in-setting, have a reasonable amount of political, religious, and cultural diversity. There's no equivalent of a 'Galactic Federation' where everyone gets along and everything's just fine and dandy. None of the factions are all good or all bad. If any of them were, it wouldn't be all that interesting. It'd be pretty boring. So, basically, I'd say the tone is dark but realistic. The current overall mood, with the way things are going both on the ship and in the setting as a whole is grim. There aren't any big interstellar wars going on --- no laser light shows or that sort of thing --- but things seem precarious and unstable and, hey, another adjective, uncertain. Uncertainty is presently a big theme in the setting, I feel, and a big theme in the game itself. You don't know what's going to happen in any given round. You don't know who's going to get got --- if anyone! Nothing could happen. My biggest priorities, short-term, would be giving extra love to some places relevant to the current area of the Spur that the ship's in and the Coalition as a whole. Gadpathur's a little one-note, which a lot of people seem to have noticed, and maybe that's the point, but it just strikes me as a little flat. I've already mentioned that there are two major planets/systems listed in the Coalition that haven't gotten any real, uh, fixing up, over the years. Crosk and Zaurghis. (Hope I'm spelling those right off the top of my head.) Beyond that, I'd like to work on some things that'd apply to all human factions --- lore on medical advancements/technology, disease, some stuff on education... as for how I'd implement them, I'm having trouble thinking of an answer other than "I'd workshop them with the team and see where it goes." Nothing is for sure and I've got ideas that probably wouldn't get past a first draft and some that'd end up being pretty different after getting worked on some more. 3. You mention wanting to focus elsewhere rather than Sol and Eridani. This is not an uncommon sentiment among the player base, as while we have a solid collection of people who love Sol and find it interesting, a general trend of opinion within the community is that we should move away from Sol-focused content for a while. The Coalition is a place that you mention as something that you want to see expanded upon, and as of this writing it is one of the lore team's primary areas of focus. Rather than how you may see the Coalition interacting with itself, we wanted to ask how you think the Horizon could interact with and be impactful within the Coalition's future developments? The Coalition is a big. Really big. The biggest. So, so big. It's like a blank check. You could put the Horizon in so many different kinds of situations inside the Coalition that I could legitimately see the ship staying there for, at least, another full year. It's decentralized, there aren't so many space cops, it has every conceivable type of government represented in it... and given how isolated some of the planets in the Coalition are, things could get pretty weird, in terms of who the Horizon's interacting with. So far the Horizon's been near some of the bigger, more relevant planets --- Xanu, Burzsia, near (but as far as I'm aware not visiting, for obvious reasons) Gadpathur... these places are, and I don't mean this as a knock against them, predictable. You know Burzsia's a dangerous hell-hole that mistreats synthetics. You know Xanu's a fairly stable democracy with all the amenities you'd get in Biesel. The further away you get from that, the more you can drive home the point that the Coalition is big and spread out. The Horizon could stop by places where the people have gotten downright strange over the years, colonies that don't get regular visitors, worlds that are settled but sparsely populated --- easier to run events for, since you wouldn't have to map out a whole city and populate it with a bunch of event characters --- it'd be great. The Horizon itself showing up in a system would be pretty significant, in and of itself. It's a state-of-the-art survey ship that's got nearly a thousand people on it. It's not a warship, but it's, as far as civilian vessels go, pretty well-armed. The locals outside of the major planets like Xanu could either welcome the Horizon be really put off by it showing up, since it represents corporate interests.
  10. the real problem is not that the FR hardsuit exists and is good at what it's supposed to be, but that people wear it for the entirety of the round, which is a cultural issue, not a mechanical one. i also find it puzzling that some FRs will wear it when responding to regular calls that do not involve going outside the ship/into a depressurized area, but i guess leg actuators are just that good
  11. (same tune as the monorail song from the simpsons) YOU KNOW A SERVER WITH A GOOD GAMEPLAY LOOP IS LIKE THE MULE WITH A SPINNING WHEEL... NO ONE KNOWS HOW HE GOT IT AND DANGED IF HE KNOWS HOW TO USE IT THE NAMES BOTANIST, BOTANISTPOWER AND I COME BEFORE YOU GOOD PEOPLE TONIGHT WITH AN IDEA... PROBABLY THE GREATEST-- AHHH IT'S NOT FOR YOU... IT'S MORE OF A BAYSTATION IDEA [I THROW MY VOICE] NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE. THIS SERVER'S TWICE AS FUN AS BAYSTATION. JUST TELL US YOUR IDEA AND WE'LL VOTE FOR IT ALRIGHT I TELL YOU WHAT I'LL DO. I'LL SHOW YOU MY IDEA I GIVE YOU THE SIX-COIL SMES I'VE SOLD SIX-COIL SMESES TO ERIS, SKYRAT, AND AVA'S BATTLEGROUNDS, AND BY GUM IT PUT THEM ON THE MAP WELL SIR THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A GENUINE BONAFIDE ELECTRICIFED SIX COIL SMES WHAT'D I SAY? (SMES) WHAT'S IT CALLED? (SMES) THAT'S RIGHT, SMES SMES, SMES, SMES [note: definitely not how it'd actually be changed. second image only for joke purposes. basically just make it start off upgraded. there is consistently five to eight minutes where you need to babysit this thing and upgrade it. very boring. "busywork". i do not think anyone enjoys doing this]
  12. had to call up a friend of mine for his thoughts on this.
  13. 1) What would you say is your biggest flaw in terms of potentially writing for the lore team? Gonna be up-front and say that the lore team would be taking a chance on me. That’s sort of true for everyone, but my history on this server’s been pretty fraught. From about 2014 to as late as 2018, I was: weird, rude, and immature. I find my past behavior embarrassing. My stint as the head for IPC lore was unproductive and next to nothing has survived. The parts that people remember were, honestly, disgusting. A lot of it stemmed from things that I was dealing with outside of the game that happened between 2012 and 2017. It was a horrible period of my life. More detail than that is unnecessary. I listed something from back then as an example of my past work because, honestly, it is. No changing that! I could try and make excuses, but I’ve given it some thought, and honestly, “being fifteen and autistic” isn’t an excuse. I made a nuisance out of myself well into 2018, or almost five years ago. After that, I mostly stayed away from the Discord and never played the game itself. Basically: I was bad. I think I’ve grown a lot as a person over the years. Only the people in my personal life actually know that this is true, so the team would be taking a chance on me. 2) As a human deputy, you will need to comprise a lot, not only with Lain, but with other teams or the LTA to get things you want added. What do you think is the best attribute that would help you reach these compromises? I’m a fairly easy-going person, these days. I’m also very familiar with the reality that sometimes, something you really like in the first-draft might not survive. That goes double for collaborative writing… not everyone’s gonna share your aesthetic predilections, or vision, or, frankly, understand why you think something is necessary. Compromising is a basic requirement, and, honestly, a best-case scenario. On top of that, sometimes, you’re just gonna have to kill an idea that you really like because the other people on the team think it doesn’t mesh well with everything else. That’s life! To be more concise… I’m here to relax, not get into arguments. I’ve also spent the last few years writing and submitting stuff to online magazines, so I think I have a decent idea of what the process here is. 3) Human lore is one of the most oft-criticized sections of our lore and has a large player base as it is the only unwhitelisted species. Given this, do you think there are some topics you'd be nervous to approach due to how player feedback may be massively negative? If so, how would you go about approaching such topics? If not, why? I don’t think there’d be any topics that I’d be nervous to approach, since I’ve got confidence in my writing, but I think that player feedback has to be taken into account. I could go into something feeling confident and, hey, it could turn out that that doesn’t really matter. People could dislike it anyways. I think I’d be careful and avoid retreading things that we’ve already seen; that includes trying not to do something that’s been done already, just with different factions. It isn’t possible to please everyone, of course… it’d be pretty foolish to try. A lot of people play this game. They’ve all got different tastes. Of course, if something’s been set up, I think you gotta follow through on it. Dropping something just because people are voicing their distaste with it isn’t cool, in my opinion. It’s disappointing to anyone who was enjoying it and I think it messes with continuity. One tentative arc idea I went over earlier were Elyran-Dominian proxy wars in the Sparring Sea… at face value, this is similar to what’s been going on in the Wildlands for a while. Something that just ended. The main difference, I think, is that it’d put the spotlight – at least in news articles – on a country that, from what I’ve seen, isn’t played a ton. Elyra. Dominia’s a super-popular origin, too, and it’d drive roleplay from that end. This is also something that’s been set up for a while, now: the Elyra-Dominia smackdown. It’s like golf, I guess. Follow through! Also, anything that ties into our present-day reality has to be handled with care, too. Religion, ethnicity, Terran nationalities, that sort of thing. While I love thinking about (and writing about!) religion, dealing with the major ones in anything more than broad strokes and the specific, localized variations that’d crop up a few hundred years from now would be pretty fraught. 4) What are your thoughts on the current size of human lore? Is it too much? Is it not enough? With reasoning. Like you said, humans have a fairly large player base – probably the largest – because they’re the only species that isn’t behind a whitelist. It makes sense to me that human lore, as is, is pretty large... I think it could be a little bigger, but mostly in the form of expanding on things that haven’t gotten as much love over the years. Any major additions, like a new faction, that’d be super excessive. I think I’ve gone over the stuff I’d like to give some attention if I’m accepted and I don’t think any of it represents a major addition, just adding more depth where there wasn't so much before. 5) Lastly, what are your thoughts on article arcs vs in-game events? Is one better than the other? Which stories should be told using which? Articles themselves do a lot of fun things. For starters, they can be the set-up for an in-game event, like the ones that preceded Steel on the Horizon… they can provide flavor, since they’re sort-of-kind-of connected to the game itself, via newscasters… or they can be whole arcs, in and of themselves, like the Mictlan one that’s going on right now. Generally, I think that the last one – article arcs – should only be for things that aren’t directly effecting the Horizon at the moment. They’re there to drive roleplay, and that’s about it. That’s what this is all about, anyways. Roleplaying! I’m a sucker for in-game events. I have yet to meet an in-game event, canon or non-canon, that I didn’t like. I love ‘em. I think everyone does. That’s why the player count jumps whenever there’s one going on. In-game events are for things that are going to effect the Horizon directly. For instance, way back when, you couldn’t just drop an article about the 35th Fleet besieging Biesel and have that just be an article. You’d have to an event – that’s the main course! Articles about a fleet moving into Tau Ceti and panic in the streets the closer it gets is just flavor. You need both, I think.
  14. I would really prefer it if people looked at the application on its own merits and didn't just say "+1" because I accidentally found out people were backbiting. It's unfortunate, yeah, but it doesn't really have anything to do with this thread. I have a reputation. A lot of the stuff I wrote as IPC lore head was, frankly, weird and gross, mostly due to some personal events in my life that I was dealing with. I was fifteen. I put it in the OP because I think someone called it "interesting" around the time I started playing and talking in the main Discord again. I understand why a fair number of people would have reservations about this application and I think that's fine. It's just unfortunate that some people weren't willing to voice them publicly. can someone post something about like, elyran phoron shipping lanes, this has all taken a very strange turn
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