Scheveningen

Only if xeno shells are somehow tied to antagonist exclusivity based on the synthetic infiltrator sha-bang. Otherwise, I do not think it's not a good idea to reintroduce what was, for a long time, just adding robots in fursuits.

That's mostly due to the part where it's not enforced into most people's heads "do I fight or flight" because it seems like people are more comfortable making split-second decisions based on whimsy, which isn't really good in terms of decision-making. If it becomes the accepted standard that acting on whimsy can have negative consequences on the OOC side, people will be more motivated to think before they act, even in a bad situation.

What I think would be ideal, in order to resolve some issues; 1. Start taking complaints of cases of the following with a larger degree of seriousness, and evaluate them with more of an intensive lens: Situations including hostages, situations including lethal escalation against anyone, situations including common communications heckling of antagonists, situations including non-combat roles being in extended conflict for reasons other than self-defense, situations involving gank. Anything else not mentioned in the locus of conflict, should be focused on, because I see a lot of really bad decisions being made in the heat of conflict and despite that people report when somebody makes a really bad judgement call in conflict, the staff do not seem to even make an invested effort to correct any wrongdoing and instruct the person what they could've done better. Conflict is crucial to the server's longevity, and it needs to be in such a way that people are making reasonable decisions. 2. Heavier minimum penalties regarding powergaming and metagaming, as well as overescalating/breaking character when engaging in conflict. The first two are not acceptable on the other servers, yet it should be punished enough to the point where people actually think twice in-game before making a decision that needs more than just rolling over your keyboard to solve a problem. Escalating appropriately with the proper means of force is a major locus of how gameplay works here. 3. Regulars should not get special treatment because we've all been here longer. If there's a problem to their behavior, and it's damaging the quality of rounds in such a way that it's also going against the principles of heavier roleplay standards, then their behavior needs to be reigned in with warnings and timed bans. If they refuse to change it, taking additional steps to pressure them to actually follow the rules and roleplay properly will serve as more than an adequate wake-up call. In the inverse, though, neither regular nor new players don't need to be soullessly crushed, though. The level of enforcement of the rules is not even close to "Firm but fair", but it should aspire to be that.

I was gonna say "I never thought I'd say this" as an tongue-in-cheek opener, but it's not really a case where Fowl as a candidate for Skrell Lore Developer is a bad idea in any timeline. To easily run it down in terms of his qualifications, they've already been listed but I'll repeat them anyway; He single-handedly revived the Vaurcae from an undue development death and also fixed their lore to be more appropriate to the setting of Aurora. There was initial BLEH to them existing merely because there was not a lot of initial interest in them from the start, but the past doesn't matter as much as the current state of the Vaurcae. Which is outstanding so far. If Bygone is responsible for the current era Vaurcae, Fowl was responsible for creating the basis that Vaurcae, as a concept actually survived the drawing board limbo and became Aurora's own unique quirk for once. Yeah, sure, some other server surely has bugmen, but they are not at all like the distinctness of the Vaurcae. He's also been, while a controversial and shitpostyy developer, a qualified developer nonetheless. Remember that he also headed the Auroroid map project, as numap is hardly applicable anymore. He's certainly a valued member of the development team in my opinion and Fowl is not without his capability to write an interesting narrative on any account. He also 'overachieved', his words, not mine, and wrote two essays which, in my mind, blew my own writing material out of the water. That's definitely twice as much dedication right there. There is no question in my mind. Despite that you drafted the "remov Krell" PR in the first place, if you are presently motivated to be what the Skrell race needs to be relevant in the current state of the lore and regular gameplay right now, then I believe you are more than qualified for the job. No, really, I'm not just shining your shoes here, I mean exactly what I've written. +1, definitely has my endorsement, though I can only really speak for myself here.

Let me put it out there that I'm going to voice a few frustrations I've had lately trying to play more regularly again, and also some issues I've noticed hadn't changed since I became inactive up until now where I've started to play more frequently again. This is not a slam against staff because of them personally for non-staff related reasons, but because their methods of enforcing the rules is hardly satisfactory and not really keeping with any principles I've seen staff held to in the past. This is, for all intents and purposes, Delta's Manifesto. Brand me with a hammer and sickle if you dare. https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=111&t=2193 Let also me put it out there that there is precedent with certain conditions pertaining to engaging in conflict with someone with a gun. Like, 'previous administration'-type precedent. The head admin that few today can even remember that wrote up this policy. The rules from that era that have basically not changed very substantially since 3 and a half years ago, but their enforcement has radically changed since then. While I do not mind that an armed gunman in certain cases is getting plinked from a half screen to a full screen away either by a rifle or by a sniper being wielded by a trained professional character who was ordered to be in that position to neutralize the hostile gunman and has a gameplan to get that job done, but I absolutely mind when the administration staff apply an inconsistent, laissez-faire, "I'll enforce the rules when I feel like it"-type attitude in regards to situations where the gunman gets charged down by somebody making that kind of neutralization decision only in the heat of the moment, fearless of any consequences and without concern of their own loss of life until either they die or the gunman goes down. That kind of shit should be discouraged, but we all hear stories all the time of that crap happening and the staff doing very little about it. And it is not even the fact that certain people do this that is so much the problem that it is the administration staff that outright choose to defend them and refuse to even to give them a brief warning on how to properly escalate and take reasonable in-character risks. That's all I personally ask for (Because hey, the first year I played here was a lot of rule-breaking, and these concepts are drilled into me through various kinds of reinforcement), because for some players they need to be reminded that they need an actual in-character motivation, and not whatever comes to them OOC as a good idea. You know, "Put your character's interests before yourself", "If your character has the capability to walk away right now, they should do that over putting their own life into serious harm's way"? If you've ever seen the staff complaints board before you will see almost nothing comes of those discussions besides "the player is wrong, the admin was right", because that's all that matters, right? Issues about staff members and the enforcement of the rules 90% of the time get derailed into a moral grey quandary where people pretend the issues are more complex than they really are. Have any of you also seen how nebulous, time-consuming and tedious it is to file out a staff complaint, and how the resolution of any complaint is more heavily bent on having exact-precision proof of wrongdoing than the US federal court systems are? How about when a staff complaint boils down to a 4 page crap-shoot where the only thing that ends up mattering is personal character assassination. If you see a thread where a staff response to a player is formatted alongside the lines of "your tone seems very pointed right now so I'm not gonna pretend like you have good points here" as a 'rational' rebuttal, you're either on reddit or on the Aurora complaint subforums. Basically, it's easier to be the staffmember being accused in that situation than it is to be the person who has to do all of the accusing, because the person making the complaint has to put forward more effort and arguing on the offensive than what a staff member really has to do in order to clear their name of wrongdoing. It's genuinely really sad that I've been suggested by certain players and staff here that the only way I can deal with this culture the admins seem okay containing in our little community, is to either deal with it and never bring it up as an existing problem because they think that debate will never get anywhere, or to simply try another server. I am hoping to God on my knees that they were exaggerating, and this thread exists to hopefully prove those people wrong, that something can be done about this issue of apathy. Should we just remove the rules regarding gank and et cetera and assume that if you have a gun, that nothing in roleplay tangibly matters in you holding it except for your own ability to use and survive with it? Because that seems to be the current impression regardless of the standing rules. All it takes is the use of disarm intent or the targeting of the hands to completely neutralize the risk of a gunman anyway, because melee combat is so hilariously overloaded with the ability to punish another character with much less inputs and skill than what someone with a gun has to contend with. The fact you can get away with powergaming on a roleplay server with supposedly 'higher standards' than other servers is pretty ridiculous. This is pretty much how I see staff judge these cases: Gunman gets charged by rambo, gunman kills rambo: "lol moron rambo, he got what was coming to him" Gunman gets charged by rambo, rambo disarms and neutralizes/kills gunman: "Wow the gunman had a gun and he did nothing with it, SO BAD" It is extremely rare that you ever see staff moderate cases like these when they're reported, in a fashion that isn't hands-off. All that seems to tangibly matter in relation to how these decisions are enforced by the server staff is mechanical positioning of either party, not whether or not a character has reasonable enough justification to be sanely knocking over someone to grab their gun and turn it on them. What's the point to roleplay being the guy with the gun if virtually any character outright refuses to respect the kill pressure someone has with a gun in a roleplay sense? With the risk of literally anyone being a possible bulldozer to completely end your round because their character suddenly gets fearless, wouldn't it just be better to remove the rules regarding gank/rushing down someone with no personal regard for safety, since the staff don't seem to care enough to enforce those two rules more seriously anyway? Here's another good question: Why do we have staff members if they don't want to enforce the rules that they volunteered to enforce to provide a better experience for everyone? If any of you staff members think I'm referring to you and feel insulted by that, I'm not saying that you should step down, but you should probably take a long look in the mirror if you feel like anything I said applies to you. I'm also not asking that staff need to be emotionless robots, I'm asking that administration hold themselves to a certain level of principle and motivate themselves to enforce the Rules-As-Written so that the players can be provided a fairer and more fun roleplay experience. This server is only fun when everyone plays along to the same tune of respecting the rules and RP conventions not only simultaneously but with such a synergistic rhythm that roleplay comes way more easily. But for that to happen the rules gotta be enforced to some tangible degree that even the players can see and appreciate the admin staff for. I get it, no one joins staff to ban regulars from the server until they "get it." But the rules should be enforced seriously here, or else none of being a mod/admin even matters aside from the social status and the powers that the title gives you. I would be perfectly happy with any resolution that comes out of this as long as it isn't upholding the current status quo of doing nothing about the biggest issues of this community. If the Rules-As-Written were also Rules-As-Enforced and we dropped to Medium RP all of a sudden, it would be a much more honest and productive resolution than staying in this joke of a 'Heavy RP' definition, where the conditions of when and where you can start conflict are so nebulous that you can maul someone for a verbal slight.

As it says on the tin. Traitor AIs get literally nothing special as an antagonist short of validsalad status, which is mildly disappointing. Making them automatically turn malf as a result of their traitorous-ness would lead to more interesting rounds during extend-a-traitor-mongoose.

At that point, wouldn't you just use a sniper rifle with a scope if you want to hit people at a distance? (Which I buffed, btw) I'm not sure what you're asking for here.

The laser mini-gun has exceptions already to its burst accuracy. I didn't touch it as it's somewhat designed within the niche of a suppression weapon. It sprays all over the place due to dispersion, so accuracy changes wouldn't help it any.

Bullets actually already have independent chances while in flight to still contact with a target irrespective of the gun's accuracy but it still becomes a coinflip (metaphorically). Sort of why ballistics are on paper superior to lasers. In practice this is not always the case, due to how averages vs. displayed reality in confrontations work. The concept of bullets becoming 'safe' after it flying a maximum distance is actually fairly close to reality, as a bullet can lose enough velocity to basically be ineffective on impact. Or rather it loses enough velocity to not be lethal.

Not particularly, I'll keep to my word and retract.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5434 I say 'rework' for the lack of a better term.

Instead of average lethal mcshooty gun being par for the course of a weapon being suggested in the S&I forums, I have a weird idea for a close-range crowd control gun that, when used well, can be the epitome of a in-game bullying technique. Basically it's a cannon that fires close-range shockwaves that are capable of knocking people off their feet. It's similar to the PEPS gun from Deus Ex but it's proximity-based with a low range. It's a pump action that takes 2 seconds of pumping to regenerate another shot. If it gets EMP'd it will never recharge and is basically broken. It'll knock people off their feet and propel them 4 tiles away. If they reach the end of their launching without hitting a solid object, they only take a brief 1 second stun before getting back up. If they're propelled into a solid machine or object, they take a 2 second stun and a mild bit of damage. If they're propelled into a wall or airlock they take damage proportional to the material type. Getting launched into an airlock or steel wall will hurt substantially but about the same as one another, but getting launched into a reinforced steel wall will definitely hurt, most likely break some bones. Also, if you get launched near the proximity of a chasm or hole you'll always fall down the hole first rather than landing on a spot on the other side of the hole, due to gravity. R&D can produce this for the one shot variant and antagonists can buy the double-barreled version to either store two consecutive shots to fire one at a time or use the double-shot feature for amplified range and force in propelling nerds across a hallway into dangerous situations.

There's also no Bosmer marriage partners. REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

1. The major distinction between the Skrell and the other races is largely due to the lack of rewarding gameplay or distinction from simply playing a human. It's difficult to be motivated to roleplay a race that is supposed to be differentiated from the rest, yet its mechanics are barely any different from the rest. I do plan on trying to get Skrellepathy kickstarted back up again, which was Skull's project at some point. 2. The what now? Just kidding. I fully intend on consolidating all information on a single page, and barring that, it will be hotlinked in a Skrell info bar on the main page so that nobody misses anything. The small systems will, of course, get a bit less coverage than the more important systems through the newsposts, but they'll have occasional relevancy when the situation calls for it. They will be shown as much more distinct than how the Alliance does things with its Senate. 3. The Jargon Federation would be described to me as a meritocratic pro-intellectual republic where the officials in the government are typically your model sentients that contribute a lot to their communities organization-wise and also are responsible for advancement of social propriety in addition to pursuits pertaining to the various Skrell tech industries. 4. Pretty much yes to all of that. Aside from the Skrell empathy stuff that I just mentioned I don't want to spoil all my ideas straight away, I do want a bit of splashdown for excitement. 5. Ten-foot-pole rule for anything that slightly looks dramatic or bait-yy. Plus I'll avoid taking complaints about the lore if they aren't directly filed to Direct Messaging.

1. Very possible. I want to mix it up in terms of who actually produced it, ranging from stories supporting the claim that it was produced by the intellectual elite of the Skrell to try to place blame on Glorsh solely for producing it. 2. They'll certainly be a little more active in the grand scheme of participating in various discussions that would reasonably be in their best interest to be active in. In other cases they'll fall back on their neutrality so as to not get involved in an issue with a lack of ethicality on either side to be on. 3. It will be a lot less black and white. Or just less black, rather.

I've seen at least two of those heisters before. What a fantastic end.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Scheveningen Position Being Applied For (coder, mapper, spriter): Skrell Lore Dev Past Experiences/Knowledge: Past work includes work on human lore, creating frameworks to facilitate change for future human factions (well ok I can't take all the credit), a relatively substantial story built off of the origins of the Sol Alliance and how megacorporations managed to consolidate power from the very beginning. Examples of Past Work: I worked on the rewrite of the Alliance's history and some stuff on Eridani before it was reworked by Zundy. Check "Timeline on Humanity." Link to Essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AAr-SlTWk1hNwVXGJdpy9JJLUoMYE2KLdXmd3D0nH18/edit?usp=sharing Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Discord, Scheveningen#0188 Additional Comments: This is more of a reactive application for lore dev and if there was virtually any other person wishing to step up to the plate right now to be a Skrell lore dev, then I'd withdraw my application after seeing someone with better narrative conceptualization accepted onto the staff team for lore writing. This wasn't something that was pre-meditated, if Skrell didn't have a lore dev for an amount of time in days among two digits (102 days if the next dev merge of Nov 3rd comes along), then I'd otherwise have no interest in rejoining due to my history as a staff member bouncing around, and my tenure being a controversial one, to put it lightly. However, I genuinely care for the narrative Skrellements (Fowl takes credit for that pun) regarding the aforementioned race and I would not like to see them go the way of the Tajarans as they did on Baystation before they were removed from gameplay over in that community. It would be an absolute shame to witness that happen again especially to a race that has a substantial amount of weight regarding inter-sectional viewpoints on synthetic rights and the paranoia regarding them. It is to my understanding that Nursiekitty hasn't stepped up to the plate to full lore manager for Skrell due to their disinterest in the role and the implications regarding having the role. Regarding the question of build vs. reform, my policy will be heavy on reformation with occasional construction of new Skrellements when necessary. Likewise I'll also try to slightly push the developers to bring unique and interesting mechanics to the race in addition to technology that they will bring onto the station that fascinates and brings new innovations to both roleplay and gameplay. Specifically so that the Skrell have some actual narrative use in the known Auroraverse. I do wish to evolve them past being squishy synth-haters. I want to add a level of moral greyness to the Glorsh situation and re-write the Skrell genophage to be a bit more sensible, yet difficult to really track in terms of its overall justification and "whodunit", rather than giving every Skrell full IC reason to validhunt synths. I find fluff to also be important, but it'll come secondary after some of the glaring issues regarding consistency and the black-and-white nature of the Skrell get resolved as non-issues. Furthermore I fully intend on promoting game mechanics for Skrell to give them unique gameplay and interesting mechanics compared to humans, or compared to any species. They'll be innovative and on occasion might be gamebreaking at first. It's best to make some things a little overtuned at first and then hotfixing them a little later after the initial data and experiences are pulled.

i'm actually genuinely glad you put forward the effort to post this

What's the point of the security team if the only roleplay they can respond to you with is a quick death? While I'm for removing riskless instant applications of stuns I'm not very much down for adding more stun immunity into the game. The balance needs to exist. The issue with lings is their unsatisfactory progression system and their uninteresting abilities. That and they only exist to take other characters out of the round simply to progress, so...

IS IT ERP BOBSIZE?

if you descirbe bob size, is that erp?

No. The less arbitrary rules to suit uncommon cases, the better.

I disagree with this. If it was escalated prior that rogue bots were already murking people, I think it is permissable for them to endanger the escape shuttle. The escape shuttle is not some magical safe space that wards off all conflict, especially since the rules only try to drive off gank and not merely having combat near or around the departures section.

Too bad, I do it anyway

I think it's impressive that you link something without precious context pertaining to it and trying to dress it up as something really bad. This community's fantastically understanding.