Carver

Then have an alternate method of spreading this information. I tune out any and all AOOC as-is for the sheer uselessness of it past 20 minutes into the round.

I'd lessen it just a little bit to 25 brute but that's my only input.

This is why I'd simply prefer a client-side mute rather than a global mute for AOOC.

I would only recommend that they have an orange tip (on the on-ground sprite, not the in-hand) and be identifiable on examination, seeing as it's a toy and otherwise seeing a crewman holding a seemingly live weapon is a very valid justification for them getting shot. I don't fancy the amount of people who'd bitch that they were shot for holding a realistic visual replica of a firearm, or worse, pointing it at another crewman.

Seems a decent idea. What's the damage on it? If AP properties are added, a very minor damage nerf may be needed to round it out.

Energy blades being the military-grade equivalent of a switchblade does not help their case. Especially when, unlike a switch blade, there's no utility usage and they are intended for outright murdering people. A 9mm can carry any sort of rounds (rubber/flash/live), and is quite notably loud (unless one illegally adds a silencer). It can't be used to cut through walls, and it won't pose a significant threat to equipped/armoured Security personnel (you know, the people who'd actually be protecting a consular), unlike an energy blade. My comparison of 'bringing your golden AK to a foreign nation on a diplomatic mission' stands.

Interesting idea but I think the philosophy branch/tree is a bit.. Unusual, as far as NT-backed 'science' goes. I wouldn't trust any of the current research characters to write up a new Corporate Regulations/Space Law book, or to even be marginally competent when it comes to Diplomatic or Economics-related affairs. The 3 branches from said 'Philosophy' tree strike me as something that, if NT was interested in, would be handled by specialists off-station and discussed by executives alone.

Oh I'm aware, merely stating to Fortelian why 'one minute' isn't short at all. I'd've done 45 seconds but honestly Wizard is impossible to balance and there're much stronger options in their repertoire for efficient and fast murder.

1 minute for what is essentially a powerful disable/'pseudo-stun' (preventing using weapons or really defending oneself capably) is fairly long. It also removes armour values for the duration, so the Secorgi Officer no longer has the advantage of his riot armour or whatever he was wearing. It's generally far, far easier to kill non-human mobs even with 150 health than it is to kill a naked human, possible exception withstanding for Guard Spiders which honestly should have higher than 150 base health, but I can't remember how many shots it'd usually take to kill one (tho they're still weaker than a properly armoured human effective health-wise). In short, a minute is fine. If the mobs were unkillable then I'd support it being longer, as it were even with the buff to polymorphed health 60 minutes is an incredibly powerful disable in a game where one can kill a human in about 10-15 seconds or less on average.

Don't break cameras when you're either incognito or using an Agent ID. The AI can't easily track you with the latter unless you break cameras, and in the former it's better to maintain stealth by not leaving such clues even if there's no AI (Security can easily see when a camera is broken). Having knowledge of camera wires is far more helpful than breaking cameras, which sends out a camera alert. Learning the wires isn't as easy. You don't need to steal a headset if you spend (4) TCs on an Encrypted Radio Channel Key, via your uplink. It will let you listen in on every channel with ease. Stealing an encryption key without being a member of security is far, far harder than one might think seeing as they're all in ID-locked lockers or on active members of Security. Don't speak if you don't need to. Silence is key and unless you're attempting to appear active, people will often assume you're busy/SSD/etc. when you're merely being quiet. Helps if you're a job that tends to be reclusive like a Virologist (aka biochemist who ignores chemistry) or any sub-level based Science role. Bonus points if your character isn't talkative to begin with. If you're adept at imitating the way paincrit mechanically alters the text of someone's voice, you can easily fake your own death with that and maybe a little (of your own) blood. Blood splatters can easily be made by just taking a syringe, getting the tiniest bit of your blood, putting it in a glass or beaker and just splashing it on the floor. The messier the more convincing. Learn the layout of the map, and I don't mean the z-level you're on either. You can readily memorize the layout of z's above and below you to better navigate and create sneaky passages via cross-z travel. This will also make walking to the escape pods/command shuttle trivial if you can apply knowledge of the main deck's layout to your traversal of the surface. Escape pods are your friend for a getaway, but mind that getting to them and launching stealthily is the single hardest part. Pods don't need an emergency shuttle to launch, they can also launch during crew transfer if they're armed. They will launch roughly at the same time the transfer shuttle departs. If you want a free jetpack or proper voidsuit (that can't hold large oxygen tanks on it's suit slot), break into telecomms. It's not at all hard to break into and if you have engineering or security access you don't even need to break in. There's an airlock very close to the area as well that you can use to escape onto the asteroid. E-magging a suit cycler will let you cycle your voidsuit into having the appearance of a Nuclear Operative/Mercenary/Syndicate voidsuit. You can also just e-mag the cycler to disguise as that department's voidsuit, I guess. Stealing the Captain's ID is stupid and obvious, never do it unless you're already revealed and known. If you must get all-access, purchase an Agent ID from your uplink and swipe the Captain's Spare over it (click on the agent ID with the spare) to gain it's access. This should be obvious but I see more people just outright stealing the ID haphazardly and giving themselves away (Security checks the Captain's Office regularly over cameras). Wizards and Ninjas, IIRC, spawn with Agent IDs. Nuclear Operatives/Mercenaries spawn with Agent IDs. Changelings and Vampires cannot get Agent IDs, and if they alter their personal ID, said alterations will show on Security HUDs (if they give themselves captain access then rename their rank to appear as the old, it will show the captain's HUD icon. don't be a lazy fuck, add the access manually), as well as the manifest and records (if they just rename their rank or change to another rank without renaming it to their old one). Thermal Optical Scanners are your best friend for stealth, you'll see anyone coming well ahead of time and will have good opportunity to hide from approaching individuals or prepare for the confrontation. If you have insulated gloves, you can throw them in a washing machine with a crayon of your choice to recolour (and rename) them. It's still fairly obvious to anyone aware of this mechanic when Jon Arbuckle is wearing bright red gloves randomly, so it's mainly helpful if your character regularly wears hideous coloured gloves through the shift whether or not they're an antagonist. This doesn't work for force gloves, I tried, don't bother. Take off your shoes. Bare feet are much quieter (or silent, I don't wholly remember which) and if you stain your feet with oil/blood, you can easily put the shoes back on to hide this. Beware of walking on shrapnel or broken glass. I believe there's a silent set of shoes but I can't immediately recall which set of shoes it is. For the love of God, set your suit sensors to nothing higher than Binary. There's a chance you'll spawn with it higher than this. Robbing the Vault is never something you can stealthily get away with no matter how many fake walls you set-up or how well you plan. Someone will eventually notice over cameras. No, you can't tape photographs over the cameras either, sadly. Subverting the AI will never last and you will, eventually, be found out. It'll take longer than someone figuring out the Vault, generally, unless you're stupidly obvious about it or the AI is fairly obvious about it. The more extreme/unusual the laws, the more likely the AI will be obvious. Keep it subtle and safe. You can hide things in toilet cisterns by using a crowbar on the toilet. It will fit more or less anything, most notably uniforms and weapons. This is very loud and you should remember to close the cistern with the crowbar after doing this. If a member of Security is aware of the mechanic and clever, they'll check the toilets. A majority of players either are unaware or forgot it exists. Tools are very loud. Welders and wrenches are the loudest, screwdrivers and wirecutters follow up, crowbars are loud only depending. Crowbarring a toilet cistern is very loud. Crowbarring a door is extremely loud.

AOOC often kills my immersion when people go 'DO I ESCALATE?' 'WHAT'S THE PLAN' over it an hour into a round. +1

It's also used by syndicate sleeper agents and is considered 'outright contraband' as per this page (https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Uplink). I don't see Arabic dictators bringing their golden AKs during trips to foreign countries, nor would their ambassadors be carrying such.

And yet an energy sword is an assassin's weapon, not a weapon designed for self-defense. Having a concealed pistol is a whole other deal than a weapon that can take an arm off in one swing through full armour. By all means, carry a proper sword that can be seen readily and quite visibly on the hip in a sheathe (no, a lightsaber hilt does not count as visible), but not the type of sword an antagonist would sneak aboard and slit the Captain's throat with.

The blade is still concealed is my only concern. If it's a normal, unsharpened sword that happens to have a switch to electrify it that'd be able to function just fine mechanically in regard to giving a self-defense weapon that isn't inherently lethal and doesn't normalize energy sword-type weaponry.

As long as a skill system isn't tied to role but to character, I'd like that. Having a Head of Security or the like completely forget how to fight because they're off-duty is absolutely fucking retarded and immersion breaking. Simply have skills be something that's 'locked in' to a character, and they get to allocate maybe 1 new point every 3-6 months. Or just not use a skill system entirely because it's a fucking pain and it goes out the window when either a 4'11" 17 y.o. cargo midget assigns max combat skills or the 6'2" HoS forgets how to fight at all because he's a visitor this shift. For balance itself; More ion and EMP-based weaponry, or make IPCs no longer immune to halloss; If they can be shocked by doors, they can be shocked by tasers and batons. Enable crawling to work for downed/injured people and not just people who are resting and crawling to avoid space lube. Make guns crippling but not lethal, that is to say, if I shoot some John in the leg with a shotgun, keep him from chasing me but don't have him die in 3 minutes even though I've already walked off. Broken bones and shrapnel causing pain, slowdown, etcetera over intense bleedout. To the same vein, throw the instant stuns of old out the door or give them counters. Vampire's glare is an AoE stun that doesn't follow the rules of flash protection for some reason, despite the wiki stating otherwise. Similar for things like tabling, door-related attacks and the like, less stuns. To make up for less/weaker stuns, make halloss last longer or have more long-term detrimental effects related to movement. Give more antags the ability to do halloss; such as allowing vampires to chuck people against walls and do halloss (having throws and more unarmed moves doing this would be good), let sword/melee users have the option to 'pull their punches' in a sense of performing attacks that disable rather than cause crippling injury. Less maxcap bombs from malf, instead give them more disabling options (such as a localized backpressure surge of sleeping gas, or some ridiculous short-circuiting of the machines instead causing electricity to arc out and shock someone for ok burn and strong halloss instead of just the wewlad gibbing).

For background/creation; as long as the restrictions aren't inherently cosmetics (X nation can only have Y range of skin colours and Z range of hair colours), I have minimal complaint. I agree with the point that in particular cases a forced language on home system would be unusual because, as an example, some from Sol may not speak Common. I'd perhaps the 'free language' rather be tied to citizenship since it can be assumed that a citizen of X nation would either speak their language, or if they're working on the Aurora, become a naturalized citizen of Biesel (and thus not need to have the language by requirement). For contractors; variety is nice and I'm of the opinion that moving more towards contractors will only add to the options one can take ICly for a character, in a wholly in-universe and lore-friendly sense. I'd like to see more contractors, more support for contractors (contractors and independents being able to be visitors), and generally a greater push for people to play non-NT personnel. An ideal outcome for me would be seeing departmental tribalism be replaced with corporate tribalism, though that's not to say I want the proposed 'Contractor faction specializes in X department only', as having a primary focus that still dips into secondary focuses (Necropolis dipping into Science and Medical; Idris dipping into Security and Cargo; Hephaestus dipping into Science and Cargo; etc.) is a nice bit of variety.

A ceremonial weapon isn't something you'd hide, and a concealable weapon of the sort just straight up isn't allowed on the station (As you otherwise open the floodgate of everyone and their mother thinking it's okay to keep concealed weapons because some random Consular/diplomatic figure is allowed to for some arbitrary reason). The inherent difference between keeping an energy blade and, say, an energy gun or the like for self-defense is that the former is inherently a lethal weapon. It's a blade by design.

Tea was a weak anti-toxin substitute, not an antibiotic or disinfectant.

I'd say it's an element of poor RP that people often ignore the production and distribution of legitimate contraband, or rather that they normalize it in their minds for every round after having experienced 1-2 tense rounds where it was actually needed for them. Regardless, I'd merely prefer that it's not an energy blade and instead something like Zundy suggested (or just a plain wallhanger-tier sword). Anything that makes it at least visibly more ceremonial and less 'military-grade concealable weapon that for some reason is allowed on the station for a consular'.

An antibiotic is not a disinfectant, for an example of the difference: An antibiotic fights an active infection. Ointment mechanically disinfects (that is, prevents the infection of) wounds (which people forget when treating injuries surprisingly often). What that PR would imply is you can use alcohol, space cleaner etc. in place of/for lack of ointment to prevent infection from a burn or similar.

Seems okay. A very non-affective buff to remove tedium, and not inherently gamebreaking unlike the mining buffs.

My only complaint is an energy blade is inherently less showy than the typical ceremonial sword might be, and it starts to fall into the consideration that by allowing such, normal energy swords may be seen as far less immediately illegal to own. I have mixed feelings but I suppose when things are abused they can be reported.

A bit pointless, if fluffy. Having a more in-game accessible form of lore tidbits for the various systems would be nice (and I'd prefer this over record integration since people can just add their home system to their own employment records), but I don't think it should take away any choice in the character creation process. I'd only request that if citizenship/home system gave a language, it wouldn't take up one of the 'player choice' slots currently available and would instead be a free and extra slot limited to languages used within said system (that can be set to none by the player, if desired). One might argue this means Biesel characters would be missing out on the extra slot but for them it could simply be an option of Sign Language, Siik'Tau or the aforementioned 'none'.

I'm going to further this idea once more since I noticed the job refactor PR (https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6786/files), as now would probably the best time and possibility to have such a change made.

I'd be fine with this if the meme of 'running away after being tased and batoned 20 times in a row and repeatedly trying to break out of cuffs' was discouraged. There's a reason people are tased to shit, it's because they insist on trying to constantly run away. Should Security be punished for cracking down on shitters who have yakkety sax playing in their heads? No. I'll simply dislocate their knees if tasing becomes ineffective.