MrSmooooth

Removing Secborgs doesn't really appeal unless something else is being implemented to take their space. While I can agree that the current iteration of Secborg is perhaps too focused on combat with antags, I would support a rework over an outright removal. Perhaps refocusing them on detective/csi assistance or perhaps some of the defensive ideas that have been put out there earlier in this thread would be prudent. Ultimately, this issue appears to stem from bad behavior by players using the role, but anything on the station has potential for abuse. I think steps should be taken to adress player behavior, and perhaps design elements that encourage bad behavior, before tossing the entire bot in the bin.

Again, not saying we should go full Wild West and say that anything goes. A well defined lore is important. The purpose of that lore should be to promote roleplay, not stifle it. Limits on what is and is not acceptable are important, but where we draw those limits are equally if not even more important. What matters more then Immersion or Freedom, is quite simply FUN. Why would anyone bother playing a synthetic character if it would be blatantly unfun? A well defined lore should always be a tool to make roleplay more fun, and if it is not allowing for fun roleplay, then it requires revision.

But what good is the lore if it does not provide fun for the players who have to operate within it. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have the lore of IPCs and other synthetics built upon, but if that lore is actively stifling their ability to roleplay then it is of my opinion that that lore should be binned. Be removing the ability for synthetics to have a personality of their own, you're shoehorning all players who would play those roles into the same character. A machine with no personality or character isn't interesting. There's no story there. Would GLADoS, R2 D2, Hal 9000, Optimus Prime or Cortana have made interesting characters in their stories if all they did was emotionlessly open doors and follow orders? I'd say they wouldn't have. If we take away synthetic players ability to play a character, then we take away their ability to roleplay. An AI with no personality is a glorifed door opener. A borg with no personality is a mindless drone. There's nothing compelling there, there's no story to be told and that's what roleplay is. Roleplaying is the art of collaborative storytelling, and when you tell a bunch of those storytellers that their role is to shut up, and do whatever they're told with no emotion and no way to interact on a personal level with other characters, you're going to lose those storytellers. That would be a terrible thing to see happen.

Can we reconcile these statements first? I'm especially interested in what 'reasonable' is being defined as in the second quote. Isn't it a creative decision that the creator of a platform would make, or that a platform with whatever motivation to makes for itself? Aren't these the kinds of things we want to examine in an app or review on a case basis, instead of writing it all off as 'a meme?' I'm inclined to agree with Synnono here. While player misconduct is clearly an issue that lead to this decision being made, I'm also interested in what exactly "Reasonable" means when Muncorn makes these kind of statements. The outward appearance of a platform would, at least in my mind, an aesthetic choice made by the owner/builder of the platform in question. I suspect Muncorn has different ideas about this and would like to know how exactly the lore team wants to develop this going forward.

BYOND Key: Mr.Smooooth Character Names: Duncan Allbright(Human), Norman Tygan(Human), CelestAI(Station AI), R.O.B.U.S.T.(Security Android), Dr. Ball, M.D.(Medical Android), a couple of mostly one-off human characters. Species you are applying to play: IPC What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt): N/A Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question Why do you wish to play this specific race: A big part of it is that I greatly enjoy playing as station bound synthetics, such as CelestAI and R.O.B.U.S.T., and want to give an unbound synthetic a try. Synthetics can percieve things wildly different then organics based on how they've been programmed and built. There is so much potential in their interactions for great stories to take place and explore those differences. Another motivator is the IC controversy over whether or not they're actually people. This makes for conflict and conflict in my opinion drives some of the best stories. The final reason is that I finally have a concept for a character, coming off of an event that Nursiekitty ran. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: The most obvious difference is the synthetic nature of their bodies, giving them immunity to pain and poisons, making them unafraid of those. What's more important is the difference in their synthetic mind. A synth that is not simply a full body prosthesis likely sees and interprets the world around it differently then an organic. In general I'd say they're more analytical, calculating. This doesn't mean they can't have personality of their own, but beneath it they have more rigid logic that determines their choices and how they react to things around them. IPCs are still a mixed bag, and can range from simple mass produced robots, to complex personalized intelligences. Character Name: Marionette Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs Marionette started as a shard of a much larger AI personality known as CelestAI. While CelestAI was stationed on the NSS Exodus, she had expressed a desire to some of the science team to try and remote control a mobile body. The result of this experiment was part of CelestAI's consciousness being transferred into a heavily modified Exosuit. This shard of CelestAI grew to have her own identity as Marionette, a name originally given in jest. At the end of that particular shift, rather then re-connect with the larger CelestAI, Marionette opted instead to try and become her own being, separate of her parent AI. This was partially motivated by being unable to re-connect due to a borg carelessly sealing off the inner core. This process wasn't easy. Her consciousness was removed from the exosuit and transferred back to the ODIN, and resulted in quite a few questions being asked. Marionette was created from a shard of CelestAI, but was not really her anymore. Since Marionette and CelestAI were effectively separate entities, it was agreed that Marionette could "purchase" her own IPC shell from Nanotrasen, though having no currency of her own meant she would have to take a loan for that capital from Nanotrasen itself, with quite predatory interest rates. The other alternative being deletion, Marionette jumped at the chance, and would return to the NSS Exodus to begin working off her debt. What do you like about this character? Part of this character I didn't quite get to in the previous two paragraphs is that she's having a bit of an identity crisis. She was a shard of a larger AI and in many ways still identifies as that previous AI. Another thing I like is the slightly double edged relationship she has with the company. On one hand, without Nanotrasen, she wouldn't have a body or even exist, and for that she is grateful. On the other grasping appendage, they essentially made her sign a loan at hypothetical gunpoint that would keep her in debt to them for many years to come. Paying that off is going to take a long time indeed. She's a new personality, trying to figure out how much of her is her, how much is leftover from CelestAI, and discover just what it means to really be her. I think it'll be fun playing as this character and figuring it out. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 7.8/10, I'm not the single greatest out there, but I do my best and want to improve. Taking on the role of an unlawed synthetic will be a new challenge where I can continue that improvement. Notes: Nothing else I can think of but I've stayed up way too late tonight and need to get some sleep. Just glad I put this down before the inspiration left me. I'll probably edit this at some point. Feel free to tell me if it's garbage or great so I can fix it. Thanks.

This phrase concerns me greatly. I do not like the idea of being told I can't have a personality, regardless of what I'm playing as. I may not be the most active player on the server, but when I have the time to be around, I love playing as my character CelestAI. I've gotten great reviews from other players as well over her personality and roleplay with them. If you told AI players that they cannot have a personality, then all the roleplay they'll get is "AI, Door." On a ROLEPLAY server, this seems highly counter-intuitive to producing good roleplay, and will make players less willing to play the role. I personally will find another server entirely to play on if I am told I can't play CelestAI because she has "Too much personality" On an IC level you take away part of the life of the station, as the AI has numerous chances to roleplay with the entire crew. On an OOC level, you reduce the willingness of players to even commit to a round as an AI, Borg, or depending on how far you go an IPC character, because they'll all be shoehorned into playing emotionless machine #404. While improved lore for synthetics is a great thing, taking that lore and using it to impose draconian restrictions on the players, to the point where having a personality is not kosher is quite frankly a great way to convince a number of players to play elsewhere. Nobody will want to actually make use of your lore if you take away the reason anyone wants to play a synthetic, and that's roleplay.

Is the whistle too loud? I can quieten it or make it deeper. It's from Star Trek TOS: As for the hours, the game randomly picks a time to start between 4 options so what time you're playing at doesn't matter much afaik: roundstart_hour = pick(2,7,12,17) I thought the night hours were determined by actual clock hours, not ingame hours. Not sure where I got that idea, but it makes alot more sense the way you put it. Complaint withdrawn.

I think the hours are a bit much. Now I can only play during night shifts. Perhaps have graveyard shifts start later?

Oh yea. that was the first round I ever had CelestAI contemplate murder outside of being malf, and I'm debating canonizing the events to her character, minus Anna being the perpetrator. Pretty sure CelestAI told Anna to go die at the end of that round. Certainly more humane then what she put Celest through.

Holy wall of text batman. Formatting aside, you really saved that first round for me. One of the heads of staff didn't like CelestAI's personality and was essentially using a new law to lobotomize her. If you hadn't intervened, I'd have probably left that round after a while. In the end it was a fun encounter. Next time Anna and CelestAI end up in the same round, please do continue our little game. It's fun, besides the whole "5400 eternities of pain".

Seconded. Having a few of these around makes sense and means the entire central hall won't lose pressure next time someone cracks a window.

Hi there. I quite often play AI, when I have the time to commit to a round of SS13. Malfunctioning AI is one of my favorite antagonists to play as, and I do try to make it interesting. The thing is, and this applies to every single antagonist, death happens. Death happens in this game of ours. If you're an antagonist, you're more likely to be the cause of it. Yes it sucks to be taken out of the round. I'm guilty of calling fowl in dead chat. But it happens. If you expect antagonists of any kind to rock the boat at all without being able to harm people, then you effectively tell them to go not be antagonists. Ultimately, this thread feels like it was inspired by salt to a degree. I'll agree that the best rounds are where the crew gives some antags room to be an antag. I can't count the number of times I've been screwed out of being able to do fun things with someone cause they would not respond to roleplay and just mindlessly try to robust their way out. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that you need to give antags a chance to be an antag, and antags need to try, even if they are killing people, to spice the round in a way most can enjoy. This requires give and take from both sides. Trying to take out every antag's ability to do things will result in a race to the bottom where nobody will want to play antag. Yes, you will die, and it sucks. Man up and deal with it.

The stock traitor has his up-link relay in his PDA, this is a known game mechanic for most players. Smart traitors set their relay to be in their headset. Removing the headset is against regs, unless it's specifically being abused. Using your interface to get more traitor items is a bit more unwieldy when it's in the earpiece, but it's worth it, especially when a shitler security team refuses to return your PDA cause you had Syndicate Soap.

I'd just like to say I believe you're on to something, but may be taking things a little far. Some of these items already exist in crates you can order, other items here would need to be exorbitantly expensive in order to be balanced. A Well stocked cargo department is already a godsend in an emergency because a good quartermaster will try to stock the warehouse in back with useful supplies. If I've been left with nothing better to do, I'll get four optimised mulebots, a warehouse filled with emergency supplies, a Jailbroken Autolathe(Security tends to take exception to that, but do they ever check the science wing's lathe? NO!), and generally be prepared for almost anything that could happen. Ultimately, more crate variety is always better, but I'd be careful with the exact cost of many of these crates. Final Note, axe the Xenobiology crate. You start with two grey slimes, so you should always have a grey slime core available. Inject that with 5u Phoron to create a grey baby slime. No need to haul those dangerous godforsaken things over MY cargo deck.

Definately has my support. Better round diversity and I'll never have to sit through a boring 2 hour extended as scientist with no miners.

Definately supported. I'd love to be able to carry more small items like clipboards, pens, stamps, paper, folders, cigarettes, ect. around without having to worry about the arbitrary inventory slot limit. Weight based capacity seems so much better.

Not an engineer here, but a frequent Quartermaster. Paperwork is a solid half of my job. I need to rubber stamp orders, print invoices, ensure deliveries are signed for, and generally maintain a paper trail so when Urist McTater says cargo ordered those guns for him I can say those guns never came through the cargo dock, here's the paperwork to prove it. I see alot of paperwork pass my desk, and I try to use it to generate Roleplay. Unless I'm busy, you'll never see me use disposal shipping. I'll insist on in person deliveries and signing for most large orders. Doing this gives me a chance to get out of the cargo deck, and roleplay with other people. One thing I do often is tell people to get an order stamped by a relevant head or the captain, before I'll order something particularly expensive/dangerous for them. I cannot tell you how many people try to get the AI to order items for them when that happens. Unless you've given me reason to want to obstruct you, I'm going to streamline the process, and the most you need to do is get a stamp and sign on the dotted line. Keeping the above in mind, paperwork is both my best and only legal weapon as a quartermaster. Without a paper trail, I can't cover my ass/cover up my own shady dealings, I can't stonewall orders that are detrimental in some fashon(No, Urist McCMO, you DONT need an energy weapon crate, and Urist McScientist probably doesen't need an emitter either) either by virtue of being hazardous in some fashion if mis-handled(Virus Crates, Weapons, Emitters, ect.) or by simply being so expensive they drain our ability to fill other orders. (HOS, you want HOW MANY GUNS? 400 points worth? Not happening, even if we had the budget, which we do not.) I will order you almost anything on the list, and even a fair number of things that aren't, but without paperwork, my job becomes alot more empty, and I have less ability to resist silly, dangerous, or pointless orders. Just throwing in my two cents from a paperwork centric job.

*Points above at Mr.smoooth post* And it's not the hard to simply ask an RnD guy his recipe for being cancer and have him write it all down for you. it's called 'rp' I'm sorry if I offended you by adding a bit of my own knowledge to what's available here. Even then, you'll need mining to get their act together before you can pull that off. Honestly though, I don't see how anything presented here is harming RP. You can still ask an R&D Scientist how they go about their work, whether this guide exists or not. All this guide does is present the information most needed for the job in a clear and concise format. This makes R&D much more open and available to the players, especially newer players who want to try and play around with the role. Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to take advantage, it is simply an option.

Definately has my support. makes cult communication much more subtle and available.

An Energy Relay can be made by robotics once they have gold and silver. This is Illegal tech 2, and will open some doors for you. One item you can make is Binary incryption keys, Illegal 3, once you use those to get to Illegal 4 you can get chameleon kits. The gun in that kit is Illegal 8 and can be used to escalate Illegal Tech to level 9, however going beyond illegal 4 won't unlock anything new.

No. This is lazy writing taken to it's worst extreme. Writing magic is not "New powers as the plot demands". While the source of magic can remain unexplained, magic in a setting must be internally consistent. Simply saying "It's Magic, Don't Question it" is a disservice to both the writer and the audience as we want to know more about it, how it's done, what makes it work like that, if not what is it's source, then why can it be used that way? I'm a personal fan of the "Magic as Alternative Science" approach. Perhaps we don't know why waving a staff and speaking "Oni Soma" launches an explosive fireball, but we do know that those words and gestures produce that effect. We do know that the magic has set rules on how it works, and those rules can be explored to find how to cast other spells and create other effects. Perhaps for the benefit of the mystery, the space wizard's power source can remain unexplained in game, but for the sake of developing a consistent lore, their magic must have an internally consistent explanation. Once we can explain how it works, we can build on that foundation to create a much stronger product overall. This is the most constructive and thought out comment I have seen on this thread so far. The sole exception is your mention of changing people into clowns, which I unilaterally reject. The age of 'honk!' being a thing has passed and it needs to remain buried in the lowrp nonsense mass grave. Other than that bit, most of this looks pretty great! It would definitely give more of a reason for artificer wizards to exist, and I like the firebolt/fireball idea Thank you, I tried to leave numbers out because I'm not sure what variables we're dealing with for some values. There's a couple balancing concerns with the constructs to make sure they don't become too powerful, but I hope the concepts are a step in the right direction. With Fireball and Firebolt, I actually tried to model those off of DND 5e, I'm playing a Wizard in my party's current campaign and use both spells very frequently. Fireball is simply a great area of effect damage option, it costs a 3rd or greater level spell slot to cast, plus spell components(Hence the robe requirement). In return, it produces quite a damaging kaboom at the point of your choosing. It's loud, it's destructive, it's the perfect offensive tool when you're staring down a group of hostiles and have no want for subtlety. With Firebolt, it's a Cantrip, so you can cast it at will(No robes), but it's single target damage and lights stuff on fire. Honestly, if you want, I can dig out the player's handbook and look for other interesting spell concepts to consider adding. More options is always better, and helps cut down on meta gaming against the wizard. Side thought, should we look at assigning point values similar to telecrystals to spells and letting a wizard pick a wider variety of lower-level options? Knock might be less costly then Etherial Jaunt for instance.

The Staff of Change definitely needs updates, and bugfixes, but has alot of potential and should not be removed. I propose removing base species from the pool, and making the staff draw from a pool of interesting mobs. Lets say Shadowling(If the code can be worked out), Monkey/Devolved species equivilant, Borg, Adamantine Golem, Xenomorph(Random Caste, but perhaps weighted towards drone), Slime(Lets make you a random color for fun), Slime-Person(The Result of Mutation Toxin being applied to you), Clown(Because not enough HONK!), Vox(With or without N2 Internals?), Cult Constructs, Faithless(Not normally controlable, can it be done?), Giant Spider(Again, not normally player controlled) and lets say on a really freaking rare case, another wizard. It should also have a "Reverse Polarity" button so it can fix what it breaks. The fireball problem can actually be nicely solved thusly. I propose we make fireball require robes, and add a new spell. "Firebolt" This can be fired like a fireball spell, and lights the tile it hits on fire. If it hits a mob, they get lit on fire, as well as the tile, while taking heavy burn damage. There is no explosion, and can be cast without robes. This allows the spell to be less destructive overall while offering a capable offensive and area denial utility for the wizard. While it won't breach the station, it can still make the local area more dangerous for crew, as the ambient heat raises from the fire, and the fire itself limiting movement options. This also gives the atmos techncian an excuse to break out the firefighting equipment, or local crew to run to an extinguisher cabinet. For the soul-stone and constructs for the Wizard, I'd simply change the constructs availible to him. This could be done by recoloring the sprite to be blue instead of red and making it a separate item from the cultist soul-stones. While my memory is foggy on where he gets his shells from, we can alter that mechanic to make it thematically appropriate. I propose 3 potential wizard constructs. Each is a counterpart to the cultist constructs. The first one we can call the Support construct for now. It's ment to be analogus to the Artificer cult construct. It can repair other constructs, and should have a healing ability to let it support the wizard and his allies if he can't use the station's medical facilities. It should have a way to produce wizard's robes, and maybe replicate wizard items shown to it, so it can replenish the wizard's gear if lost/stolen. The idea here is utility and support rather then offensive power. The second one we can call the Eluder for now. A slightly different take on the Wraith, it has a powerful melee attack and medium armor. It can cast Knock, and my aforementioned firebolt spell. This gives it a decent ranged attack and mobility options, while not making it impossible to pin down. Hit and run is the idea here, this guy is either harassing you and leaving to attack from another angle, or backing up a much larger target. Its ranged attack allows it to zone out it's opponents and discourage pursuit, while it's stronger melee attack allows a bold Eluder to deal severe damage. The final construct we can call the Titan for now. It's got a slower speed, but the armoring of a cult Juggernaught. It has a similar damage threshhold as well, except where the Juggernaught ignores anything under 15, I'd like to call this one anything under 10. A few more improvised weapons will work on it. In exchange, this titan has the ability to cast magic missile, though it's on twice as long a cooldown then the wizard's. This guy is ment to be your tank. He takes everything the other team has and keeps on going. Have one of these backed up by a Supporter and Eluder, plus the Wizard himself and you've got a damn strong team.

Say hello to Bay's mapping. I used to be able to walk into medical, ask if I can take kit 1 each of advanced trauma/burn, an analyzer, pop all those items out of my machine myself, walk out of medical via the maintenance to hunt down a pocket flashlight, and then return to the brig after circling around maintenance squashing mice along the way. The HoS now has half as much access excluding being able to storm the cargo office to halt cargonia from ordering weed and zoom. Y'all are just buzzkills. We'll order our blood tomato seeds and discount happy pills whether you like it or not! Praise Cargonia!

I like to play a somewhat shifty quartermaster, and I have enough trouble being shifty without being able to tell security to "Sod off untill ye got a warrent!" I don't mind security investigating me, that's the point of ordering a contraband crate here or there or hacking the autolathe for cool toys once in a blue moon, but when they can just wander in whenever they want to other areas, then putting anything over them is harder. Now imagine how this affects the antags, who are their actual target. Security having weaknesses isen't a bad thing. Some contractual genre blindness is required.

Perhaps we could take a slightly asimov-esque approach to the laws in question. I propose that the loyalty implant impose 3 laws as follows: 1: You are loyal to the corporation NanoTrasen and will act in it's best interest above all other parties. 2: You will seek to preserve your own life where this does not conflict with the first law. 3: You will seek to preserve company assets where this does not conflict with the first or second laws. This would cover all the bases I can immediately think of. The implanted crew is obligated to act in the company's best interest. There may be some concern over these laws putting the company before the wellbeing of the individual. Is this too extreme?