Lady_of_Ravens

No worries. I can see how I was unclear in my post.

I'm sorry, I wasn't exactly clear. It was 1138 I was assuming wanted to go on a bomb-happy rampage. Which may or may not be the case, but he certainly sounded quite hostile and that's always a good way to give a bad impression.

While I get the idea of there being blindspots to hide from the AI and security, there probably shouldn't be quite so many as there are. Especially in critical/sensitive locations, and places where people often need access. 1) The doors at escape. There's a blindspot covering two of the three doors, making interacting with them impossible. 2) The corridor in front of the kitchen. It's very annoying when tracking/interacting with people in that area and they dissapear of camera. And it's kinda an important location, being both in the path to escape and right outside the morg. 3) The little room between research and genetics. Without a camera there it's impossible to access the doors to the maintenance corridores. 4) The incinerator. It's not something that's really useful to an AI (even a malfing one), at least not without crew assistance, but it is a place that should be able to be monitored and accessed as necessary. Two cameras work best, one in the airlock and one in the main room. 5) Drone Maintenance. It makes sense to have a camera there, and it's ocassionally useful to see what's going on. 6) The chapel. It's a public place (and a favorite hangout of miscreants), but has a very annoying blindspot in the top right corner. Also, a holopad in the chapel would be nice... sometimes there's a good reason for the AI to participate in the RP going on there. Same in the funeral parlor... though I've never seen a real-person funeral, EmPrESS has assisted in two mouse funerals (on the grounds that it's good for morale and human-cyber relations) and might as well be able to make an appearance.

Yes, it is. Not good, especially if there's noone in engineering or medical (or security, but that's less common), but better than 10v5. As for shortening it to only require 12 people, what would that accomplish? Other than someone getting pissed when only 11 people readied for a nuke round? Besides, nuke sucks even worse than usual when there aren't enough people to do it right. And if you're sore about people not readying for a round they don't want to play just to make your dreams of a bomb-happy rampage through a mostly empty station a reality... well, I am saying "man up".

Nuke is bad enough when there's, like, a full crew. But with only 12 people, you might not even have any engineers, and very possibly no command staff either.

We already have a doorman position. The AI fills it. Security has a "reception" checkpoint at arrivals. Cargo Tech is a polite euphamism for porter. Service droids are so obviously the butlers. Balds are pretty entertaining. The warden is sorta like a secretary... And a water boy? In space? For reals? *thwack* Having a waiter as a standard slot seems a bit excessive and rarely useful, and anyone who wants a secretary is going to want them to have access, so that goes through the HoP anyway. I could see adding the courier position, though. People do do a lot of sending stuff around, and having someone to carry small items and paperwork could be useful.

Yes, totally. RPing an extended blackout is way more fun than a minute of power loss. Same with telecom interference. As is they're mostly temporary annoyances that people ignore rather than serious events. That said, the power loss ought to be a very rare event. More so than it is now.

Yes. Because vox shouldn't be the only antags to die off halfway through the round. And because seeing cultists running around with bleeding, infected wounds would amuse me.

Sounds good, but as has been pointed out, it could get annoying with a lot of people. So I'd suggest that the text only appear a percentage of the time based on what's being pulled out, with small things like sleepy pens and disks showing up uncommonly, and usually as a "something" rather than a specific object, and larger objects showing up more commonly. Recognizable weapons should always display text, as should any action taken by someone who's being aimed at.

You could be right about 5 minutes being too long for the radiation belt. I was thinking along the lines that it's a, like, belt which the station passes through every so often and so ought to be predictable. But I can see the appeal of scrambling for the maintenance corridores. As for asteroids, though, the long time is sooo needed. Shields in a few critical areas and personell standing by for damage controll could make a lot of difference in asteroid strikes. And if it doesn't, if we're going to be doomed we might as well get a chance to RP about it. As for their buggyness, yeah, that's annoying, but not really the issue here. Unless part of the reason they happen so fast is a bug.

We all know genetics is broken, so here's my idea for a reworking of genetics code. I posted something very similar a while back in that "cybernetics megathread", and I've thought about it a bit since then. So, without further ado, an approach for reworking genetics. Rather than trying to design something entirely new, I think we can work with the current system for genetic modifications (which is all great except for the SE part) by increasing the number of cells and requiring multiple cells to be above a certain number for it to activate. Better powers would require more cells, and may have cells which, unless active, cause the power to work only intermittantly. Furthermore, one or more cells for each power would also be a disability cell (possibly related to the power in some way). Each disability would be associated with two or more cells such that if an even number of those cells are active, the disability is inactive, while an odd number would result in an active disability. Thus, identifying a gene for a disability might either lead a clever researcher to a power (especially if it's a power that only takes a couple of active cells), or be of use later when counteracting a disability caused by a power. Relatively benign powers like heat resistance or x-ray vision would generally be associated with fairly normal disabilities. Blindness, deafness, waves of crippling pain, hallucinations, baldness, and so on. More outragious powers, like TK and hulk, if included at all would be associated with special, extra-evil disabilities. Rage (that is, turning into an uncontrollable rampaging mob for periods) would be an obvious one for hulk. Meatsploding (aka gibbing) would be good, too. For TK, stuff like suffering brain damage or broken bones when using your power, or just getting brain damage in general as an on-going side effect. To offset the difficulty a bit, each shift could start out with a (very incomplete) list of cells which are thought to be associated with different powers/disabilities. With red herrings, of course. The result, hopefully, would be that it would be hard to grief with genetics (even if the griefers knew how), and really, really stupid to self test. Particularly if there are lots of little disabilities which cause stuff like uncontrollable trembles (try injecting yourself when you can't hold a syringe), coma, ongoing damage, and so on. Another thought, which might be a little controversial, is different enzimes sets for different species. Probably the same set of disabilities/powers, and the same number of cells, just randomized differently. It makes sense, and if it means that most of the testing would be done on human subjects... well, that makes sense too.

A lot of bad shit happens to aurora from random events, and that's fun. A little more time to prepare for those disasters would be great, though. The two I'm thinking of are the radiation belt and the asteroid strikes. For the belt, there's never enough time for everyone to get somewhere safe. Someone's always left in the brig, or in a corridor somewhere, or gets irradiated while trying to save people... usually there's a mix of all three. As for asteroids... there are lots of things people can do to prepare for collision. Engineering can put up shields, people can gather at the center of the station (read: the bar) and RP about the coming badness, inflaitable barriars can be ordered, hardsuits equipped, and so on. So I'm suggesting a 5-10 minute warning time for both events, with a second and maybe third warning a little closer to the event so people don't forget or lose track of what's happening (and letting people know when the access restriction on the maintenance corridores is suspended, of course). I'd also suggest making the radiation belt last a little longer with the idea that if people have a bit of warning they're more likely to gether with other people and RP while they're in the maintenance corridores.

I think it's a neat idea, albeit not a chance that's likely to get used often. Still, a good thing and worth doing.

I was talking with nightmare the other day and suggested an in-game form printer, and he seemed to like the idea. But like you, I know little of how byond code works beyond a sneaking suspicion that it's horrible. I bet there's no tail call optimization or anything.

EmPrESS -

I do see your point, but I stand by mine. The Aurora isn't a secret, or a super high-security station. It's tiny outpost compared to other large scale ones, and it's not researching anything revolutionary, that NT is funneling a lot of money into. Fair enough.

I agree with everything about that except how it relates to the standard issue of lethal weapons. Corporate security at secure installations (which a high-end research station certainly would quallify as) generally carry firearms as well as non-lethal alternatives. Some places even have no-shit snipers.

While I totally agree with all the OOC reasoning, and it even makes a certain amount of sense ICly to equip security officers with non-lethal weapons... How the hell are they mall cops? We have mall cop level personell guarding a nuclear device? I'm... scared. As for the detectives, I agree. Stun revolver.

I'd say give 'em a flashlight and make nightvision downloadable.

Why have spam? It's reasonably annoying (especially if you're the AI or have access to the message monitoring console), and it ads very little to either RP or background. I mean, yes, we know that xenophiles like skrells, and that erectile disfunction is still a thing, but that's about it. So my suggestion is to either kill the whole spam code entirely, or at least to make it far less prevelant, both in when it occurs and how often it occurs. Or make a way to stop it.

Okay, so what I'm seeing here is that pickaxes are there to make miners want to upgrade. Which makes sense if there's an active science department. Scientists and roboticists have a vested interest in miners doing well and usually are quite good about making ripleys and such. Yay. The only time miners don't get upgrades is when the science staff are absent or otherwise nonfunctional, not an altogether uncommon state of affairs. And that's when the drills come in handy.

Though I don't play one myself, I've noticed something horrifying in this game: miners start out with pickaxes. Pickaxes! In space! Like space dwarfs! It defies all reason. So I suggest replace the miners starting pickaxes with mining drills. There are still plenty of better upgrades for science to make, after all.

How about, like, a materials vending machine type device? Or rather, three vending machines. One for mats, one for tech, and one for disks. That'd be a space-efficient way to keep R&D from becoming a mess.

Yes, I like that. And I have an idea for how it could be (more) easily implemented. If each power required multiple SE's of sufficient level, and comes with some random disadvantages unless certain other SE's are above a certain level. And for the really sick superpowers (like TK and hulk), have serious risks/downsides and lots of SE's involved. Like, without certain extra enzimes, psychic powers would likely cause brain damage (or even physical side effects... imagine a telekinetic accidentally breaking their own bones), either just for having it, or for using it. And hulks... well, shit. Hulks should have a serious chance of going apeshit berzerk, essentially becoming a mob. Also, blowing up in a horrable meatsplosion after however long makes a good danger. With delays, a little complexity, and some very real danger, genetics could be actually useable. Though not self-testing, that's silly. But getting an assistant or two to sign a concent form, and doing thorough tests on protohumans first, could allow genetics to be actually cool. Also, different enzimes for different species. Which means most of the research would be done on human enzimes, but that makes sense since NT is a human corporation.

Current Rev sucks even more than nuke (both end up with huge holes in the station, but at least the reasoning is better for nuke ops), and this idea sounds pretty cool. Could end up as more of a murderbone... but probably not, and if it does, at least it'll make a bit more sense. Hopefully. I especially like the idea of involving the synthetics as something more than an adjuct to security. An order coming in to purge the AI would create a verry serious law conflict (self preservation vs following orders) which could be handled in a variety of interesting ways. Add in protecting the crew and station, though, and the AI can't participate in a violent revolt (without law tampering by a sympathetic scientist or the likes). That's some sick AI RP opportunity there. Another thing that might make for a mutiny is science engaging in especially dangerous research. Perhaps having a dangerous alien onboard (contained in such a way that it's unlikely to become an alien round, but with some risk of that) or engaging in some dangerous plasma research that coud blow up the station. Having a mutiny on another station or ship could also be an excuse for NT to start mandating loyalty implants in all heads of staff and security personell, for example, which would be very controversial and not at all welcome by most crew.