Carver

There are already species with objectively superior mechanics for combat such as Unathi and IPCs, where the difference can't be ordered. I can't imagine someone having slightly better aim will make near as much of a difference as those two.

A shame. I'd hope at least hats might open up.

How will this handle uniforms/loadout, will Command characters be able to don some respective accessories/headwear/etc. from their previous factions?

Is this not also covered by the disparity in numbers? Antags that have the best equipment, have the fewest numbers. Security with it's middling equipment, has numbers in the middle of the road. The crew without science or cargo has low-grade improvised equipment, but vastly outnumbers both antags and security. The only roles to break this are the mass-recruitment antag roles, who traditionally are fairly underequipped compared to solo/small group roles. I never really understood having balance concerns about characters on an HRP server, where the primary focus has been storytelling for several years. Will some people powergame hard, sure, but those who do are almost immediately obvious as they're usually IPCs. If someone is good at wiring doors or the like, then they're already sacrificing time and precious inventory space by often having to interact and requisition gloves and tools from Engineering. They're also cutting away from their own abilities elsewhere.

I disagree, not a single one of my characters even within the exact same role have the same skillset. A number of factors like background, hobbies and the like mean they're all very well different. Plus, if the following is to be believed, those rules will be far less important given mechanics can cover for excessive oversight: In addition, it's nice to have characters that play differently not only in personality but mechanical gameplay as well. If such variance wasn't so important, then every species would function exactly the same.

I do love this, particularly character-based skills, but I'd also hope that antags get some basic boost - even as simple as 'buying anything from the uplink's ranged weapon category gives you intermediate firearms skills'. Integration with those face/species changing machines used by off-station antags would also be handy.

This sounds about as enthralling as thralling. That is, not at all. I'm fine with the current e-mag mechanics of disabling safeties on mechanical parts to make them have more critical effects when heavily damaged.

Be well.

If anything I dare say it would be more interesting to make the current HUDshades a toggle as well. There needs to be a little less thoughtless flash protection around.

I disagree. Sometimes you want the aesthetic of the coloured HUD lenses, sometimes you want the aesthetic of sunglass lenses. Aviators are entirely about form over function.

Just for this alone I support this suggestion. It's annoying to walk off-screen for five seconds, they start to resist and you really have no idea about it even if you're watching them like a hawk upon your return. Rewarding good perception is a fantastic thing.

Make it bright red so it's especially visible too.

I'll just leave an opinion: I like when a story has a pre-determined end, it almost guarantees it will be far better written, but the means to that end should be somewhat engaging as it has to involve the station in some reasonably understandable means. Being on a station presently is what often makes these feel odd, given it's a very remote setting that needs a strong excuse to be involved in anything. I also hold the opinion that people should see far harsher consequences for any remotely stupid actions during events. Let people be more involved, but let them also far more readily lose characters for their acts of 'heroism' and idiocy (and this is including out-of-round means; such as arrests and blackbagging).

While I dig more transhumanist stuff, I question anyone going to their work to get a new augment or limb installed. Going to agree anyways since it'll make more sense by the time NBT rolls around (even then your character would probably be better off visiting a nearby planet to see a better-supplied, proper aug-doc who actually knows how to perform surgery on people). I will say though, I'm concerned about pushing roboticists more toward being surgeons unless the stupidity that is the 'surgery chart' were removed from existence.

Is it too late to suggest it for the NBT holodeck then?

The more eye augments suggested, the more I ponder if it'd break balance to have none of them locked but all of them mutually exclusive with permanent blindness if you get ion'd. Anyone and everyone can bring a specific niche utility of their choice if they're willing to accept eating shit from EMPs.

To explain why I brought up Heph exclusivity for the GPS - it's almost solely to block out potential Research (read: telescience) shenanigans with it. Too much PTSD from that kind of shenanigans being common and quite powerful. It's really the only case where coords can have an impact beyond pathfinding. Medical antag stuff comes with it's own delivery, but the most valuable thing to an antag is efficient inventory management. The more of your kit you can essentially shove up your ass, the more of other utilities and more commonly armaments you can carry. This is also stuff that can't really be taken away from you if captured without intense surgery, which is especially where stuff like welding goggles comes into play as being a real bother. T-Rays are so unimpactful and near-useless that I suggested 2 purely on the basis of 'well it does something so it can't just be 1'. As for NV, I more just dislike giving out more free NV to Security on the basis of hurting stealth even more than it already is hurt. You can presently hide pretty well from human and synthetic Sec, being able to quietly move out of the way of their flashlight radius, that would change fast with freebie night vision. I like your thoughts on the facial aug, a buyable limited/single-use plastic surgeon that doesn't copy the appearance of someone sounds like it has good disguise potential within very sensible bounds. Pretty fair points all-around.

I describe several as being broken because they're equivalent in many cases to free, built-in tools - and stuff like welding protection, night vision and magboots have very potent use in combat and antaggery. In those cases, I instead advise that it should be something antags buy - and the only suggested case here of an augment where it's too broken for the uplink is the intensely illogical 'facial' adjustment that gives you the best part of changeling morphing. There's a good reason the only remotely similar tool that exists is a chemical that randomly shifts your physical appearance for a very brief period.

This forum keeps shooting errors and I refuse to quad or quint post just to respond to all of these fucking augments. Have a pastebin of my responses. https://pastebin.com/dxkS5Yjk As before, I love all of these. Simple, and for the latter two quite packed with flavour.

Post 1 of 2/3 because the forum hates all these quotes. Probably far too strong! While perhaps a cute thing for antags to buy, at a baseline magboots are incredible utility that everyone and anyone wants their hands on. This is not remotely a lower-quality product, nor should it be in the loadout. Weird, but why not. Cute utility for more clerical characters. I was neutral on the thought, though I think drinking fuel for it is a bit gross and implies it's far more integrated in the body than any regular augment. If this were added I'd suggest having you activate the tool and 'tap' a welding tank like a regular tool. Certainly a fitting possibility for a Hephaestus exclusive. This uh.. This doesn't make much sense. Maybe a built-in piggy bank instead would be fine, but the 'flavour' of an ATM augment seems incredibly strange and prone to illegal use. This is very cool but I don't know why it costs so much more than a welding tool. Flavourful stuff should be proportionately quite cheap compared to items with mechanical utility.

I've never been a fan of irrationally stretching my character's knowledge for antag roles. A great deal of other tools were designed with 'an idiot could use', such as the advanced door hacker that does the work itself or the cryptographic sequencer being a debit card of utility. Of course, can't forgot the old syndicate donk pockets that were just 'use to heat up, eat for an oral dose of healing chemicals'.

They're a very cute tool for antag Xenobiologists and Wizards. But, that's all they're really designed to be, a tool for antag schemes. Find a way to lock them only to antagonistic shenanigans and they'd be fine and dandy.

Yet it raises the question of why flashlight eyes are company specific, why would they have a patent for making optics glow brighter? Objectively superior is in strong regard to built-in binoculars, which are such a strong utility that near-every role can get strong use of them, especially if rolling or pressed into antagonism.

I quite like all of these, flavourful without breaking anything.

As mentioned earlier, the binocular eyes if unbalanced probably shouldn't be an augment to begin with. The flashlight eyes are just.. strange. Does Z-H have a patent on making your optics shine or something? The only ones with flavour are the memory/emotional augs and the plate, with the former two making no sense that they wouldn't be on the market given how profitable they'd be. 'This is a roleplaying game' is why their addition at all struck me as dumb. No other faction needed these to get players - if someone truly cared about a faction, they'd play it for the aesthetics and leveraging the lore to make their character a bit more interesting. There is no roleplay in either the binocs or the flashlight. The amusing thing is that I'd seen next-to-no Z-H characters for years. They did indeed flock to it, given there was no population of Z-H contractors before these augments. As for Unathi, that's a poor equivalence given they're renowned for being incredibly unbalanced in their mechanics as a whole. Taj on the other hand are kept in check by both potent mechanical downsides, and a strict whitelist oversight on their behaviour. Skrell advantages are effectively non-existent, and counter-balanced by humans having their own advantages. Factions so far were exempt from all of this. There was no upside or downside to playing a particular faction, barring NT being allowed into Command roles. You did not have Zavodskoi Officers being objectively superior to NanoTrasen Officers, yet now you have Zeng-Hu Medical being objectively superior to NanoTrasen Medical. At the very minimum remove the binocs entirely and make the flashlights available to all. The emotion/memory ones are fair in being RP-only (if unfortunate to be locked as they are), and the faceplate is a stellar example of how faction-locked augs should be - wholly aesthetic and giving a point of flavour to spark conversation.