NoahKirchner

Just finished up an antag round with Braun as a vampire, and his roleplay was pretty goddamn fantastic. He went loud but kept it HRP, which can be hard to do, and his weird creepy dominating "gonna suck your blood idiot" RP was genuinely intimidating and incredibly immersive. Easy +1, assuming that level of atmosphere building can carry over into normal rounds (which I see no reason why it wouldn't)

Just finished a round with Taps as CMO, and I wouldn't have guessed that he wasn't a veteran head of staff player. Roleplayed wonderfully +1

You're a hell of a guy and I respect you immensely, for personal reasons and for what you've done 'round these parts. Stay safe and strong, Abo.

bump

+1, would make people think about their character's political beliefs a bit more which could lead to some more interesting rev rounds and some more interesting holodeck extended arrpee.

o shit fam i love me some good ol fashioned shitposting on FORUMS instead of in lore_channel or political_thunderdome

Security is necessary for gameplay progression and integral to the SS13 experience because they are the only ones armed at roundstart. Adding a whitelist to this means that a department necessary for round progression now has a higher bar for entry. I think the command whitelist is useful because it's not strictly necessary for round progression and rounds can and often do progress fine without command. Admittedly, the cadet playtime is the lesser of the two evils here. However, security already is a metaclique to some degree. I routinely see the department dominated by the same few notable names in my standard playtime, with the difference made up by random characters who I've never seen before. It may change based on hour, since my primetime is the server's primetime, and if need be I could name the security that I see consistently within this timeframe. Security is important, it might be the writing this at night or something but that was poor wording, regardless, onto the message. The majority of the departments onboard the station cannot operate without power at full capacity. R&D is useless, cargo is useless, the civilian department is largely useless, et cetera. Security being disabled impacts station functions, sure, but it is not a certainty. Criminals rising up is the equivalent to the supermatter exploding due to engineering negligence or medical being unable to treat people because they used all of their chem charges to make space drugs or something. If someone is blatantly attempting to ruin their round, they can do that whether or not they're a cadet. Whitelisting simply moves the problem. If someone is simply an ineffective security officer, they'll just move to another job and be ineffective at that other job. Ineffective players are an inevitability and security is not above it's poor players. Whtielists assume applications, no? This point is addressed later to some degree, but is it really right to put the burden of teaching onto players who are otherwise busy? While it would be great for every engineer to happily step aside and teach the intern how to do wiring, or for every security officer to give security cadets a working knowledge of regulations, how many times can you do that before you just pretend to not see them asking for help? It's not realistic to push the burden of teaching that far because not everyone is willing to teach. I disagree. The whitelisting of security or requring playtime as a cadet would push more people into the cadet role, therefore making it more popular and magnifying the issues already present in the role. I am not offering solutions to these issues, simply commenting that the suggestion does not resolve the issues that it was created to solve, that being poor quality security officers. It is very closely related to what we are talking about, presuming a whitelist. I make comments to both solutions, the cadetship requirement and the whitelist requirement, and this one was directed at the whitelist. This is a problem inherent in community based voting and, since this suggestion is proposing the implementation of a community based voting system (at least one of the two solutions), any issues with whitelists in general should be fair play. Admittedly, three rounds is not the worst, but it's still not necessary. While perhaps a poor way to convey the message, this was essentially a message of stale RP with the same people rotating in and out which has been addressed elsewhere. Again, specifically addressing the downside of using a whitelist based system. Whitelists require time and effort, and it doesn't require much searching around to find people in discord or in ooc abstaining from making whitelists because it requires a time commitment. I am not saying that security is unnecessary, but it is not important enough to require it's own vetting standards. As I said up above, yes, the 3 rounds as a cadet is the lesser of two evils, but cadet isn't a good role for learning security in the first place beyond the absolute basics of Aurora.

If I could -1 this post more than once, I would do it without a shadow of a doubt. White-lists for roles that are both necessary for game progression and are integral to the SS13 experience are unnecessary, actively detrimental to both the game-play and culture of the server, and serve no purpose but to turn departments into metacliques and elitist clubs, never giving the semi-regularly Aurora player who does not have enough playtime as their security character to be recognized and can, by extension, not become whitelisted. Security is not an important department. It is a cog in the machine, and is no important to game progression than Engineering or Medical. Higher quality officers are not required for the security department because, in the case of security, "Higher quality" is directly equivalent to two things: A more thorough knowledge of the regulations, which I will touch upon later, and the knowledge of game mechanics used to disable or take down antagonists. One could also argue that there would be a higher quality of roleplay among white-listed officers, but roleplay poor enough to be considered detrimental to the functioning of a department also is able to be handled by moderation or, failing that, CCIA. Playing a cadet does not remove the ability for one who is roleplaying poorly in security to be be less harmful to the department, because if your goal is to make the round hell for your department, you can easily find other ways to do that. Adding a whitelist for the purpose of roleplay quality or department quality simply leads to the same old, boring and stale officers playing every round, dismissing any applications presented to them by less popular players for reasons that can be summed up as "Well I don't see their name on the manifest enough so they clearly don't know as much about security as I do." Requiring people to play cadet for any amount of time does not fix the issue of regulation knowledge, security knowledge or roleplay quality. Cadet, in it's current form, is a very neutered role. More often than not, cadets retire to the bar, man the cameras or checkpoint, or do menial tasks for the department at large. This is a good way to learn the game, this is not a good way to learn how to play security. To properly apply the IC regulations requires a working knowledge of them, something that can not be gained from a role that is purposefully designed to be unable to make arrests efficiently. There is only so much the wiki can tell you about what constitutes the breaking of what regulations, and the only way to learn that is to be forced to make decisions on your own as a security officer, or to be involved in investigations and processing beyond the scope of your average cadet. Adding this whitelist or timer will simply have people joining the role of cadet, not learning how regulations work because nobody has the time or wants to teach them, and then immediately having to learn from scratch upon their application being accepted or their playtime being above the thresh-hold. An argument I commonly see in support of this suggestion is two-fold, one being that cadets will learn to play security if the role is whitelisted because security will then have the responsibility to help them to become security, and so will teach them. This presents two major issues. The first being that, on any round where the antagonist is worth their salt, or where a security officer does not wish to give the same schpeel over and over again, cadets will simply be left out to dry as they are now, ignored by everyone but the HoS and the Warden who order them to patrol or go to the checkpoint and then disregard them the second that any threat to the station becomes realized. The other issue is that of metacliques. If your goal is to have your whitelist for security accepted by people who are commonly working with you, and you play enough to be taught by the same people, it is only natural that you are going to become IC and potentially OOC friends with them. There is no issue with friendship, but there is an issue of inherent biases brought out when voting on the application process. You are far more likely to +1 an application with somebody who is your friend than with somebody who is not your friend, and this leads to people who are friends of prominent or active security members having a far easier time getting into the department than your average Joe Blow, who works during the week and only has time to play on the weekends for a single round, now unable to play the GAME that he loves and a department which he finds interesting because he has yet to fraternize with the common security players. The other argument I see in support of this suggestion is that security is one of, if not the most important department because they are directly interacting with the antagonist. This is the weaker of the two arguments, since whitelisting security would actively detract from the experience of the antagonist on an OOC level, would result in a smaller overall department size because of the increased unlikelihood for people to attempt to play security because of the effort and time involved, and because the argument is fundamentally incorrect in it's premise. Security is no more important than medical, engineering or cargo. Should this suggestion be accepted, and I hope to God that it's not, the same few people would be the ones interacting with antagonists. These people have clearly defined characters, morals and playstyles, meaning that the antagonists will receive the same response from the security crew every time they attempt a gimmick. If you take mid 2017 security, for example, which was largely ATLAS, every pro-xeno Rev round would immediately be shut down by security because there are no fresh faces. This ruins antagonists. Two address my second point, which is already largely self explanatory, people are far less likely to put in the effort and time to watch the forums and await feedback or to play a severely neutered role in order to play one of the basic station roles, limiting security's size and resulting in validhunting of other departments or ERTs to be called 20 minutes into the round. As far as the last point is concerned, security is not more important than the other departments oocly because defeating antags is not an objectively required event. The engine remaining powered, for example, is objectively necessary for the smooth operation of the station, mining gathering materials for research and development is an integral part of an entire department. Defeating the antagonists is not, it is simply one of many outcomes possible when confronted with an antagonist, and so while important for the IC running of the station, the antagonists being handled less effectively is not detrimental to the station on an OOC level unless specifically intended by the antagonists. In conclusion, none of the presented solutions to the issue of occasionally disappointing security officers are effective or necessary and are actively detrimental to the culture of the server, the effectiveness of the security department as a whole, and only serve to shut down antagonists and perpetuate a sense of elitism throughout the department. I do not think it is reasonable to have a person play 3 rounds as a cadet, a total of at least six hours in a neutered and unimportant role, to play a role in a game which they may very well thoroughly understand only to have to learn how to properly apply regulations after they have been granted access by the hard limit or have been allowed into the hivemind by their peers. This suggestion is one that I cannot more fervently disagree with on a fundamental basis, that being that SS13 is a game made to have fun, and that this whitelist only serves to prevent people from enjoying it.

If it's a rev round, have all other revs (And perhaps loyalists in the case of a tie or something), vote on the announcement that's going to be sent. Either a yay or a nay. If it's a yay, the announcement is made, and if it's a nay then it's not. As for traitor announcements, those aren't even supposed to be from centcom, they ARE actually illegitimate because they're bought from the traitor uplink. It's just good practice to not reveal that you know that by faxing centcom right away.

The only places where I really see this being an issue are chemistry, because of the constant button pushing, giving injections because people always click 3 times in a row, and MAYBE in sleepers because you normally give more than one dose of a medicine at a time. I think the flavour text's RNG for those actions in particular should have more empty rolls so that pressing a button in the sleeper's context menu showing is only likely to happen a few times (If any) after the initial flavour text shows.

Add a recharger to the testy gunney range so people stop robbing the poor library of their recharger every round? or even just put one anywhere in research at all

I played a round today at roughly 3pm EST and the pin still broke with dismantling, is it just waiting to be merged?

+1x10^23

Add test firing pins to the autolathe or protolathe, since disassembling a prototype weapon breaks the firing pin and they're restricted to only working in the firing range, so you're not really putting the rest of the station at risk.

I think this would be better as a loadout item with a low impact sprite (just a mostly transparent visor) for synths to use if they want