Sparky_hotdog

I'll be honest, I've been sceptical in the past about most forms of more junior roles (Obviously not Lab Assistant, I tried to push for that with a PR), but this has potential. There might be some increase in mod work, which I think is important to consider, but is also not a huge deal. Most people playing these would probably be looking to do less, not more. Definitely like the Wait Staff idea, I think it would lead to the main mess/restaurant area being used more, and allow for more private meal RP, without making chefs' lives harder. Also very much agree with keeping regular assistants. My only question (not concern) is regarding departments, and corporations therein. While I think the assistants still being officially outside of the departments they're helping is fine, with the current way alt-titles work I think there would be nothing stopping a well-meaning newbie from making a Zavod Orderly or something (As all corps employ assistants right now). Just a thought,

As is fairly typical of Luthien Pacters, Achiilzhia sees them as beings with pure souls, and feels their treatment and ownership to be morally and spiritually corrupt - Though it hardly surprises her that they are yet more victims of people seeking power. I think she once thought them incorruptible, through being entirely synthetic, but after the Rampancy Crisis on Konyang she isn't so confident in that, more viewing them as the least vulnerable to evil zo'zyola. She sees the Razortails as sort of lost siblings; While she respects their commitment to their faith's ideals, and - having grown up in the Undercity - can relate to their need to survive through illegal methods, she has ultimately come to believe that the best chance for their people is to work with the Corporations, the safety that path offers being worth the loss of conviction. She also finds their unwillingness to work with or trust the other downtrodden peoples of Mendell to be a mistake, and their treatment of synthetics at times to be abhorrent.

Definitely agree. While Arrow is great for getting stuff added to the orders list in a timely manner, its a step that shouldn't have to exist. I'm not sure if there's some code-based reason as to why it's on a DB, but I'd very much like to see it change.

BYOND Ckey: Sparky_hotdog Discord username: _sparky. (Sparky. on the maincord) Character names: Only active on Eris Wyvis at the moment Species you are applying to play: Unathi ------------------------------ General Whitelist Requirements What colour do you plan on making your first alien character?: Azure: RGB 1, 102, 255 / Hex #0066FF (Maybe slightly lighter from Albino heritage, with lore approval) Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?: The main page, history, and relevant regions and religions. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this species?: I've flirted with the idea of making an application for unathi for a while, with their lore being, to me, a perfect mix of Fallout meets Game of Thrones. There is a vast variety of backgrounds the species offers, and a range of religions which interact with each other in quite a unique way amongst our lore. And I'd be lying is the current arc and many rounds exploring Moghes on expeditions didn't rekindle my interest. What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?: Purely from a roleplay perspective, unathi culture is very alien, from the subtle body language tells to display emotion, to them finding pointing or the use of first names taboo, and perhaps most obviously their view of gender. As a species, regardless of their background, they are pretty universally shell shocked from the Contact War, the aftermath of which continues to manifest itself in religious heresies and societal struggles. Mechanically, they are carnivorous, have their signature short but fast sprint, can eat/drink most things safely (except alcohol) and are more susceptible to the cold, preferring the warmth. ------------------------------ Character Application Character Name: Ackiilzhia Leyka Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived to the SCCV Horizon. (2 paragraphs minimum) Achiilzhia Leyka hatched an azure healer in a small, obscure kingdom west of the Kopesh States on 10/03/2436, to an albino engineer, Troka’odoak, and an azure spy, Kreiikzachiti, a pair of outcasts who found each other. When the contact war broke out, their kingdom joined the Traditionalists, but when the bombs began to fall, Achiilzhia's parents saw the writing on the wall. They fled in the night, never again too see their home that would be lost in a nuclear blaze. They spent all their savings to be smuggled to Skalamar across the Moghresian Sea, where Kreiikzachiti then sold Coalition secrets to the Hegemony. For the remainder of the war, however, the three suffered discrimination, and lived as urchins, their only income being whatever Kreiikzachiti could steal. They were living like this when the first Aut'akh to form a commune in the capital's Undercity arrived, and the family of societal rejects made easy converts. Troka'odoak took up a calling as a shaman with their engineering knowledge for their commune, while Kreiikzachiti began stealing scrap and parts rather than coin. The young Achiilzhia took quickly to this new group, who while not immune from their prejudice, were the first people she ever felt welcome among. Their teachings felt true, an explanation for why she had lost her home, and spent her childhood on the streets. And better yet, they offered a way to avoid it in the future. The war ending changed little for their commmune, save they were now busier with more desperate souls looking to convert. On her 14th birthday, Achiilzhia requested her Ritual of Shards, and was sent north of the wasteland to deliver food and medicine to a group of Aut'akh there studying Mador ruins. While the journey was difficult, the spirits saw her through it, and almost all the way home, until she was set upon by Gawgaryn raiders. It was only through the intervention of a Si'akh missionary that she managed to flee, without ever thanking her saviour. For her Ritual of Rebirth, she selected prosthetic eyes, engraved with runes of knowledge and wisdom, and coloured violet like her Fisher parent, rather than her natural red, to allow her to "see the world as they do". A few years later, she received her second cybernetic - A soul anchor. While initially excited, upon experiencing her first baffles she became less enthusiastic about further augmentation. The memories she saw were versions of herself in places she had never been, and as people she only half recognised as herself: A warrior in the Zazalai Mountains; A fisher in the Southlands; A healer in the ruins of Darakath. Scared and confused by who she was, she turned to mentoring under Troka'odoak as a shaman for answers. In 2457, the Leykas were among those to leave Moghes for Tau Ceti, forming what would become the Luthien Pact commune. It was here, as their commune began to develop their differing view of gender, that Achiilzhia stopped rejecting her baffles, and began to embrace them, seeking new ways to channel each part of her spirit. She would paint and volunteer to help with rituals to channel her fisher nature, while she began serving in the TCFL upon its formation in 2459 to draw closer to her soldier spirit (In addition to drumming, which she took up upon arrival in Tau Ceti), serving as a medic while using a Legion scholarship to study medicine at the Biesel Institute of Medical Science. After the Iron Crusades and the arrival of the Akhanzi Order in Tau Ceti, Ackiilzhia began visiting their new temple, disguising her prosthetics, to learn more about Th'akh, the predecessor faith. Through them she learned of the zo'zyola pantheons of the various regions of Moghes, and discovered she felt a stronger connection to those in the regions she had baffle memories of than those from her true homeland. Her studies were interrupted by the Second Solarian Invasion, where she fought in the Legion, before resuming them later. She began her residency in 2464, splitting her time between Legion vessels and Mendell City Hospital. With the formation of the TCAF in 2465, she switched to complete her residency with the Minutemen, being deployed to Mictlan as part of the Peacekeeper Mandate. Her experience there was difficult for her, as while defending Tau Ceti from the Solarians had been easy to reconcile with her faith's anti-authoritarian views, her being complicit in the conflict on Mictlan was far harder to make peace with. Completing her residence in 2466, she made the decision to leave the Minutemen, using PMCG contacts she had gained on Mictlan to acquire a contract with Nexus Security to serve as a Physician. How has the recent events of the Orion Spur impacted your character? Events such as the Phoron Scarcity, the Solarian Collapse or even the Invasions of Biesel for interstellar-wide affairs, while region-specific events such as the Peacekeeper Mandate, The Titan Rises or even Cold Dawn may impact your character. (1 paragraph minimum) The Invasion of Biesel was important to Achiilzhia, as she began to feel that Biesel might be the lesser of all the evil: She doesn't support any state of governance, but at the time she was fighting for people to have a home, and her own home, which felt right to her. The Peacekeeper Mandate broke this idea: Achiilzhia is now certain that all governments and power structures are equally corrupt, and remains haunted by her own assistance in the conflict on Mictlan. While Hephaestus monopolising the guilds on Moghes doesn't directly affect her much any longer, she naturally doesn't approve of the power they now wield. How does your character view the megacorporation they work for? (1 paragraph minimum) Achiilzhia's view on Nexus is mixed: Like her, they were involved in the Peacekeeper Mandate as a member of the PMCG, however their ties to NanoTrasen, one of the corporations she has a higher opinion of through their deal with her commune, makes them someone she is willing to work for, so long as she can continue to support the Luthien Pact in doing so.

At some point I'll look into making it an anomaly that spawns in the same manner as the others, rather than a random jump scare item when you think you're digging for fossils. That would also make it containable eventually, though you'd have to be quiet to actually study it still.

Only way I can see this working is if the vision from the cameras was heavily restricted, as in 2-3 tiles rather than standard 7 tile view. Might still be too strong, but I think that would also give the classic "watching body cams and struggling to get a full picture" vibe. If the entire security team are there, you can probably piece the situation together. If they're on their own, not so much. Obviously limiting them to blue would be a must as well, as would jamming. I like both of Fluffy's extra suggestions about maintainance and lying down too. Maybe also giving them a really obvious sprite so antags don't try to hold up an officer while standing right in front of a camera too.

I'm in two minds over this. Obviously the realism argument is flawed - Ever since the PR was merged it's been brought up countless times that this technology exists today - but I do think that having to sometimes take a longer route isn't necessarily a bad thing; What is a bad thing is that there are places where there is no alternative route, where there is no option to get a crate or rollerbed to somewhere without going over stairs. That needs addressed, there shouldn't be anywhere that's impossible to reach. The hoverbed option I think works because it creates a way to solve the slowness problem, provided you have the people to acquire them. The argument can be made that just having people solving a problem negates the problem existing in the first place, but by that logic we should all have power at round start and R&D should start maxed out. If, and this is a big if, the only issue presented by this PR was the longer routes being too slow, I think it'd be an okay solution. That said, the Horizon needs some significant remodelling to make it accessible enough for hoverbeds to be a nice upgrade rather than a necessity, and so I think I reluctantly agree this should go.

I wanted to get other people's thoughts, especially other research players, on the noticeable uptick in the number of vampiric statuettes found over the last few weeks (with several people reporting finding one up to 4 rounds in a row). I've tried to find why this has happened, but initial thought of it being Uueoa-Esa specific was disproved with similar numbers of statuettes were spawning both there and in the Badlands (~14 per round across all z-levels). Maybe it's bad luck, or something else in the code, idk. There's also the matter that in theory only 1/4 of statuettes should be vampiric, but I don't recall anyone finding a normal one in recent memory. I'm normally in support of improve-don't-remove, but given I can't actually find the issue here, there's two options I see: Disabling the chance of them spawning as a vampiric one completely, or heavily lowering their spawn rate. I'll be frank, I don't find them a particularly fun mechanic to engage with; If you can call something that infinitely spawns hostile mobs with no way to stop it - short of destroying it with an explosion or some such - a mechanic at all. It basically just means abandoning the digsite, and any nearby, because of RNG. I get that it's supposed to be eldritch and spooky, and I can see the appeal, but right now it's showing up too often and I personally wouldn't be sad if it was gone entirely. It's a bandaid solution to xenoarch as a whole needing reworked, but that isn't going to happen in the near future.

Personally I've gotten used to it now, and I think it's fine.

I support the concept, though I suspect it would involve rewriting how speakers work, as right now they just do the equivalent of a visual emote, which can't have a language. But anything to make people ask for circuits more often is a good idea in my book. Interacting with ghost roles or antags where you can't just speak Basic, be it through having a translation device, or a member of the crew, is always fun so I sipport this.

Just going to add to this again after one got loose on the Horizon. Currently the only reliable way anyone seems to have found to survive them is to use mechs, which as greenjoe says are believed to be bugged such that simple mobs can't attack them. This issue here is that they're simple mobs, who all rely on being faster than players to be challenging; Kill me fast or I'll kill you. You can't do that when this thing has the combined damage output of a full security team and more than enough health to tank one. If they could damage mechs properly, I don't think there'd be a reasonable way to kill them in their current form. Capturing them is out of the question too, as they can and will (As we learned last round) just claw through any and all walls to get out.

Other thing to inadvertently nerf it at night, while making it scarier. Give it emissive eyes. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. (But the OP thing too).

Apologies for the late reply regarding this, but I'm slowly working my way through this thread. If you're still interested in adding some new mobs/plants, feel free to reach out via discord ( _sparky. )

I'd support this. I'd even go so far as to suggest some more extra upgrades could be given - Maybe a sort of random selection of components. It does seem strange that the role specifically for repairing PDAs and computers has no actual access to the hardware needed to do that.

Technically the probes do most of this already. I would like it if there were more probe-like devices, but I'm not sure if it should come at the cost of splitting the probe into multiple devices, or just other things that I can't think of right now. But I agree more non-xenoarch things are good.

Working on implementing all of these. Only thing I want to comment on is I have... plans, regarding this, and regarding xenobio. But they're much grander scale than just more models, so will probably be separate to this. Whether anything comes of those plans is anyone's guess though.

So I'm not sure how I feel on this. From my experience playing a Xenoarch assistant over the last few weeks, I've found that the anomaly gameplay is probably my least favourite part. Part of that is the feeling that doing analysis is removing from my ability to go RP with other crew, and this would solve that; I'm not going to be choosing between talking to other characters and analysing an anomaly if there's 2 hours to do them both in. But it doesn't solve the fundamental part of the anomaly analysis I'm just not engaged with: Shooting a machine with the same 7 tests to find that it does one of the same 10 things isn't particularly fun imo. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy analysis. I like coming up with a cool improv story as to what the hell we dug up. But that's just it: It's a story about what we dug up. The minor artifacts and the planet we found them on all contribute to that as much, and sometimes more, than just the anomaly itself. It's what turns an anomaly from "a shield generator" or "a cooler" to "armoury security " or "a malfunctioning terraforming device". On the other hand, this doesn't stop you doing an expedition still and it provides something xenoarch-y to do if you late join at 1:50, so I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I just am not 100% certain it'd be super engaging. To me the issue is how long expeditions take relative to your average round not leaving much lee-way for doing anything else, rather than necessarily having to go on an expedition in the first place. Final note: The solution to this would be to have the anomaly spawn inside a containment device. If you don't put on the suit before opening it, that's on you.

As the author of that PR, it's in it's waiting period. Unfortunately the stairs PR was merged without much thought for accessibility, but there are steps being taken to resolve this. The only part of that PR that has changed was the removal of the starting beds for FRs, as I felt having producible beds in game took priority over that debate. They can still be added at round start later if there is support for that. Speaking of things being worked on, this is another - I coded and made ramps to allow places like the morgue, bridge, machinists and service areas accessible to all. It's currently being held back by a weird map merge issue, but again, this is in the works. It also features a lift to deck 3 medical for extra ease. I do think this PR shouldn't have been fully merged without modifications made before hand - Ideally a test merge, find the really grievous issues, fix, then full merge - and I think that should probably be a consideration in future. But the one month rule exists for good reason, and I do think we can make this work with time, to the benefit of the game.

Blatantly stealing LVS' medical thread idea, so go give ideas there too. Then come back and give me ideas for research. Research as a department is largely roleplay and fluff anyway, and imho expeditions could always use more optional things to do to add some variety. And I will move the ends of the earth for cozy RP stuff. The idea here isn't to add a bunch of new mechanics for research & expeditions, but rather to add some things to use to stimulate that sweet sweet RP. Personally I think technobabble is cool too, if you can think of instruments and appropriately sci-fi-y names. Ideas I've got so far: Tents, of varying sizes. They can be set up to provide some shelter on planets with poor weather. A telescope. Not sure exactly what this would do, but maybe it could generate some fluff description about the constellations when used. A hull-analyser. For expeditions to wrecks, this could work sort of like radio spectroscopy, but for the wreck's hull rather than rock samples.

I'm a big fan of little slice of life stuff like this. +1

The two things I can think to improve it would be: Slow the animation down. Quick flashy things distract the eye, which is the main complaint here Keep the visual noise constant. What I mean by this is, the blue part appears and disappears throughout the animation - In contrast to the vents where the spinning lights are always visible. I think the adding and removal of such a vibrant colour contributes to the distraction, so having it just be movement would be better imo.

I know the sprites for head mirrors already exist, because I found them the other day. I've not idea if the item is coded, but they would be fun.

Not entirely fluff, but an ECG, which would just play an animation and beep periodically, increasing with heart rate. Also very much for a glucose monitor, that'd be neat.

I... Like, I agree with the actual fact here, obviously. But what you are proposing is just swapping out the current choreography of equipping security at the armoury with equipping at either Ops or Research. Which is barely adding much variety (Again, given how rare the research option is, it will almost always be Ops). And while in theory there could be conflict over getting the weapons... If security NEED the guns to stand a chance against the antags, they can't fight them to get said guns. There are a few things you've brought up in this thread that honestly make me question how different two people's experiences can be of this game (I don't mean that to sound like I'm accusing you of not playing or making anything up, it's just really jarring to read), but this is probably the one that stood out to me the most. As someone who's been playing a lot of a xenoarch lab assistant, I have filled the Intrepid manifest with at least five people on almost all the high-pop rounds I played. That might not be loads of people from a manifest of 30, but the Intrepid only has a crew capacity in the region of 10 now anyhow, so half full, and a sixth of the Horizon, seems like more than "barely anyone". I agree here, which is precisely why I think all these suggestions miss the point. Nerfing the armoury, or making security rely on another department, doesn't add more variance. It just changes what "normal" is for a week, before it becomes the new normal. Adding options is the way to solve gameplay feeling stale, not a band aid change to numbers or who can give you a gun.

Long list of two cents being added to previous points ahead. Ye have been warned. This, I feel, is bad. I have mixed feelings on the crew armoury in general, and while I acknowledge that it is probably needed and makes sense, this is exactly the problem it causes. What self respecting chef, in their right mind, is going to go and hunt down a group of mercs with a shitty gauss rifle. Unless there is genuine risk to the safety of the vessel (i.e. Hijacking, scuttling, etc.) I feel like your average corporate employee would just let the Conglomerate take the hit to their phoron profits or what have you. Even in those extreme cases, the fact the response to ISD being unable to handle it is "Give the crew guns" rather than just calling an evacuation is wild. Emergency evacuations used to be uncommon, but present, on the Aurora, and I think them being so rare now, instead focusing on letting everyone "frag", is a detriment. I comment on this later, but if you want to shoot antags, play security. I don't think it is good for a HRP corporate/civilian server to have made crew militias as commonplace as they are. As someone who mains research at the moment... I'm not so sure on that front. By far and away the majority of science players are xenoarch/bio/bot players who just want to be on the Intrepid or in their lab doing their work. Add onto this the fact that, asides from I believe R&D, the rare sight that is a Scientist player can only do one of gun making, chemistry, tele science, circuits, etc, and there's a strong chance nobody in research can or wants to hand out weaponry. I'm not saying it will never happen, but basing the balance of security around something that might happen once a fortnight at best feels bad. Also, current IC regulations stipulate that experiments, including guns, aren't to be taken outside of research to be used; Obviously that can be changed, but that rule is there for a reason - Science is really strong if it does get used. Speaking of: Pretty much. Considering the original complaint was regarding security being too strong, nerfing the armoury and making it common practice for them to acquire gear from other departments is just going to make them too weak to do anything on low pop, and even stronger on high pop. Definitely agree here. I can't remember ever playing a round where things escalated to a gun fight and the conflict between security and antags that was close on a grand scale. As in, one side will win the first fight that happens, and then... the other side is either heavily injured/dead or on the run. There's no chance for an outgunned security to decide they're outgunned and retreat. There's no chance for the antags to realise they're in over their heads and bail. There is only firing a million bullets at each other until one side hits the floor. I really want to agree here, in that committing fully to a fight should be a last resort, "we've tried everything else time for everyone to burn in hell" option that is equally bad for both sides. I think that would go a long way towards really mitigating the fact that in a videogame with two sides with uneven resources, one will almost always be slightly stronger than the other, and incentivise more RP. It would make rounds even more susceptible to one random shitter with an itchy trigger finger, but I think that's worth it. I do worry, however, that by making combat too brutal you reduce the likelihood of it ever breaking out, thereby reducing the workload of medical. I haven't played medical recently enough to comment on if that's a good or a bad thing though. I'm putting these together because I think they are two sides of the same coin. The vast majority of security's job involved antag interaction (It really is this, killing greims/carp/hivebots and preventing battery). Not a single other department requires antag interaction to do their job, so if security doing the thing they rolled the slot to do means that an engineer only gets to do the thing they rolled the slot to do then... okay? I don't want to sound mean, because enjoying playing with antags is perfectly valid whether you're a HoS or a miner, but I think there is a certain level of entitlement where people feel that antags should find some way to systematically check every department for everyone who wants to get involved in the gimmick, which is a load of pressure on the antag and also kind of negates security's role as the primary point of contact with antags. We give a ton of shit (rightly) to officers who act like their character knows engineering, but are seemingly okay with all of engineering grabbing guns and making spears to fight mercs. I'm curious as to which solo antags you feel don't work with the current balance of things. Techno and burglar (not technically solo, but weaker so I'm including it) are both low pop antags intended for low stakes gimmicks. If the armoury is opened either you fucked around and are about to find out, or security haven't escalated properly which is not an issue regarding the contents of the armoury. Traitor is technically solo, but on high pop rounds there's usually a couple, so some AOOC coordination or when to start your gimmicks can allow you to split security's attention, and you can group up as well. If anyone tries to suggest that ling and/or vamp are too weak against security I will fire a PEAC at their computer. Am I missing some other mode? I agree here because we simply can't call it a mechanics issue. We cannot expect mechanics to be able to account for the broad range of variables that go into each and every antag round: Antag skill, Horizon crew skill, Antag mode, Pop count and where it's distributed. There's too much difference between a lone techno who's never played antag and a full team of veteran mercs to not expect the majority of how the round goes to be the responsibility of those playing.