Sparky_hotdog

This might be because currently those walls are smoothing with the hull of the Horizon. This is my fault, as in fixing how normal and reinforced walls smooth, I messed with how that whole process works, and the new NBT exclusive walls won't have been set up for that properly. If I'm misreading, ignore me, but if this issue persists when NBT fully releases, I'll try to be fast on the fix.

TL;DR Machinists are in the right place, but Research Levels are dumb and should go. I overall I agree with you here. Granted, I haven't actually played Machinist, but the entire situation seems to have people fairly confused. However, as you pointed out here, the main issue isn't even from the confusion or having prosthetics taken from them as a responsibility. The issue stems from the fact they rely on research levels, the bane of science. On the Aurora you could sort of justify an R&D department; The station is supposed to be phoron focused and you do use that later on (If you have miners to get any). But as you've said, the Horizon isn't a research ship. It's an exploration ship. Which I think is the real reason Machinist actually does belong in Operations, even if it's barely been mentioned (Or maybe I'm just blind). It's one thing to have research build an experimental mech for mining or ISD, but building a mech for an expedition down to some exoplanet seems perfect, and Ops are supposed to be all about prepping for expeditions (I may have this wrong, but it's how I see it). Now I have my issues with how Ops currently works towards that goal, but the idea that Machinists are there for that goal makes a lot of sense to me (Also, I kinda like the slight discrimination IPCs get, having to seek repairs on the grimy hangar deck rather than the main one). But on that note, I think that is exactly why the entire concept of Research as an R&D department needs to go. Not only is R&D liked by nobody, it doesn't fit anymore. Research's goal shouldn't be creating prototypes, it should be analysing the stuff the Horizon has discovered on it's journey. Most of the jobs in science either already make sense for this (xenobio/bot/arch) or could be said to be making experimental gizmos to help with expeditions (guns/chems/circuits). Telescience feels similarly outdated to R&D, but as nobody relies on that job being done, I think it's fair to leave it. Research levels need to go imho.

I totally get this, and while having something to do is infinitely better than nothing, I'd rather that something was in addition to Intrepid expeditions, rather than a way around them (Again though, I'm looking at this mostly from a Bridge Crew perspective, so your point probably holds more value).

I might be wrong (I've only seen the mining pod from observing) but it looks to me like it is just a smaller Intrepid. Sure, it only has one tank of hydrogen (though I don't know if its smaller size makes that last longer) but I think it fly on the overmap to asteroids, just like the Intrepid. Otherwise miners could easily get stuck if the Horizon flies away, with no comms to call them to come back. My question was more to do with how we tell before we land. Scanning an asteroid with sensors gives you an atmospherics readout, but nothing else, so the xenoarch might take their pod down alone, discover that it's a dangerous one, and then need to come back. Also, even if we could tell I worry the Intrepid would become a high-pop trinket thing, as it would require: a) At least two bridge crew (I think a solo bridge crew is supposed to stay on the Horizon), b) Enough security, medical, etc. to justify sending one or two folk from each department away, and c) The overmap to randomly generate a multidepartmental away site, which I doubt would be guaranteed. Also also, harking back to my original point, from what I gathered from talking with the anomalist I took down yesterday in LOOC, it was more fun for them as well to go down with a pilot, RD and two officers than to just go outside an airlock (or take a pod down). If the Intrepid became a dangerous site only thing, there's a reasonable likelihood the xenoarch ends up alone all round if they just want to dig up some stuff and analyse it.

The thing here is that having played old xenoarch, the independence wasn't always a good thing imo. I obviously can't speak for everyone, especially those who continue to play it on Aurora to this day, but a role that revolves around a) Going EVA looking for stuff on an asteroid on your own, then b) Sitting in a lab and analysing the stuff you brought back, usually on your own too, doesn't lend itself too well to decent roleplay. Also, at what point does something become a multidepartment expedition? As far as I can tell, there's no way of knowing what is on an asteroid without exploring it, so there would be no way of saying "Oh, we need to send the Intrepid to this one" or "Okay, this one we can just drop off the xenoarch".

Putting my general feedback in a separate comment. First up, the design decision to actually use all of the z-levels is amazing. I do think the lack of a publicly accessible way down to deck 1 other than a lift is odd, especially given that floor is where all of the escape pods are. Right now, if power goes out and the ship needs evacuating, anyone without maintenance access is stuck without someone putting a ladder up into one of the holes. Speaking of the holes, I love them. It might be a little odd, especially given the Horizon was supposedly designed for space efficiency, but I guess call it airflow or something. It really works with the amount of usage the z-levels all see now, not to mention it can provide some interesting navigation options. Of a similar strain are the railings, and again I don't see the problem with them. Even the ones not over holes, as these are usually in maint and help to give it a more 'bones of the ship' vibe imho. One railing that annoys me is the one on the Intrepid, near the stairs leading up to the cockpit. This might be okay once the faster vault times PR is in, but right now there's just no easy way in and out of the cockpit. Leading us onto the Intrepid. I like it generally, though putting less on the ship to start with might be a good idea. Right now it starts with a field generator and a floodlight, meaning there isn't much of a reason for research to bring their own. Also, the empty crates/tanks on the starboard side being off the ship would be nice, even if they're near to the hangar. Reason being that having also played a tiny (and I mean tiny) amount of Hangar Tech, they don't feel like they interact with anything in hangars a whole lot, considering its in their job title. They can't even reach the mining pod to help fuel that, and the Intrepid can in theory just go without any set up. I know it would be busy work for the sake of busy work, but I think it would be fun to help load stuff onto the shuttle to prepare for an expedition. Also, relating to the crates on the starboard side, due to the strange extra seat by the cargohold buttons, you can't put these crates back at the moment once they're out. Finally relating to the Intrepid, the bridge crew don't have access to the small airlock on the port side. I don't know what that's for, but it's odd the folk flying the ship can't access it. Only other critique would be how strange access can be sometimes. There's a windoor in the Intrepid hangar that hangar tech's can't open, yet they can get around to the other side through the cargo corridor. And as I've already mentioned they can't access the mining pod. The chef seems to be able to get into botany through the maint garden, yet cannot use the counter windoor between the kitchen and hydroponics. That might be intentional, but it feels weird. That said, as much as this was quite a bit of criticism, I really enjoyed all the rounds I played this weekend. Keep up the good work.

This is a solution I'm not sure about. On the one hand, I did play a round the other day as xenoarch with no bridge crew, and yeah, it kinda sucked. The actual round was alright because of antag shenanigans, but not being able to do my actual job wasn't great. On the other hand, last night I hopped onto Bridge Crew for the first time and had a blast leading an archaeology expedition. Did it go smoothly? Not at all. Was it fun? Absolutely. For LOOC discussions with the others, one of the best parts of NBT archaeology is that it's no longer a lonely journey onto the asteroid to dig up some artefacts. Now you have friends to talk to while EVA, RP being a clever scientist to, etc. And I'd be really cautious about giving research a pod for fear the expectation would shift and we'd lose this. Sure some players might stick with using the Intrepid on higher pop rounds, but I worry not all. There was a suggestion on the forums a while back about an xenoarch rework (as part of a larger R&D rework iirc), and while that whole project may have been quite ambitious and might not see the light of day for a while, if ever, the idea of giving xenoarch something to do on the ship seems like the happy medium to me. That way you have bridge crew and you still get fun expeditions, but if you don't you aren't stuck with nothing to do. As a very quick side note, one thing I'd like to see is a name for the Mining Pod (and I guess if we get a research shuttle, that too), because right now the fact one of the shuttles is and the others aren't is weird to me.

I agree hatches sound cool and make more sense. Also happy to code this.

Just thought I'd add to this. The argument that you can ghost -> maint drone -> set up the engine -> ghost - > respawn is sound in theory, but I tried it the other day during low pop and either I'm an idiot or it just doesn't work. Now it's highly plausible I just couldn't read the wiki page correctly, as I've never played engi or been taught to set up the SM, but it seems to me you need some atmos tanks moved from storage into the chamber, which drones cannot move (because they're too smol I guess). Of course, you could join as a stationbound, but they feel more like characters to me so I would be inclined to not just ghost as soon as I'd set up, and also you'd have issues with ghost respawn times without some ahelping. tl;dr The solution isn't as simple as maint droning

I meant to post here, but obviously forgot. The sprites are now slightly shorter (1 pixel top to bottom) and the medical one has a white strip.

I already said this on the medical department channel, but these sprites look great, and definitely look more like inhalers to me than the current ones. And something about that little red button/cap on the top for the empty one just makes me happy. I don't have much of an opinion on the inhaler sprites, though I so think there is a good difference between the normal and combat inhalers while still making them both feel like inhalers.

Brighter version of the science radio, and probably the one I'm going to go with.

I took those colours from the headset sprite, but I'll try a version with the GPS colours (if they're any different) to see how that looks. Failing that, I could always flip the white and purple on it.

So, I went back a shaded a few of the other original sprites, and came up with some new colour variations for different departments, and this is what I came up with. Stuck with Sprite F for the generic one, as that seemed to be the most liked, and I couldn't get the shading on Sprite E to a point I was happy with. Edit: Also, will be adding a couple of the science ones to Research somewhere, as it seems they don't have any at the moment, I guess because they can print them, but then they'd be green.

ICly this could just be treated as a safety valve that shuts when empty. Possibly something you could disable with a wrench for antags?

So I've added more shading to design C, given that seems to be the most popular. I also made the buttons smaller (though I added more of them, because I thought it looked nice), and put a border around the screen, though this might be TOO chunky. Sprite E is the modified version of Sprite C. Sprite F is an attempt to use a brighter green closer to the original Sprite A, as the shading made the bright green less jarring. As I personally preferred Sprite D originally, I do wonder if having different coloured radios for different departments would be cool, even if they would probably all function the same as each other.

So a long time gripe of mine has been the current station bounced sprite. Maybe it's just me, but personally I think the sprite is a bit messy and dated, not to mention the fact is barely looks like a radio at a glance (And not in a "Oooo, future radio" way either). If I'm the only one who thinks that, then sure, guess I'll suck it up and use the current sprite. However, I have drafted a few alternatives and wanted some ideas of what people think. They're all based around the same shape, which I aimed to make look more like a handheld radio. Sprite A is the current sprite. Sprite B is a darker colouration, more like most modern walkie talkies Sprite C is something somewhat similar to the current sprite's colour. I found the super bright green a little jarring to look at when given as much surface space as it has on the design, so chose a more muted colour. Sprite D is a personal out of nowhere idea, but I felt that given station bounceds are effective emergency gear (At least I don't see folk using them outside of emergencies), the bright orange colour made sense. C&C is more than welcome, as spriting is really not my strong suit. Edit: PR is here.

On the one hand there is a labeller in the medical lobby already. However, it's not like anyone has ever complained about there being an extra labeller around, and we've got to save our responders' legs for running. I'm happy to make a PR for this later to day.

One of the main things that attracted me to SS13 in the first place was how many different things you can do, and how many different paths a round can take. Unfortunately events often seem to stifle this, as understandably the admins and staff running the events have an endpoint in mind. However, I wonder if events are necessary for these scenarios. If the follow-up news article regarding the event has near enough been written in advance of the round, why bother? Why not just release the article, and say it happened somewhere else for once, as the Aurora does seem to be a strangely underdefended facility considering the sheer number of national news worthy stories that have taken place there. However, I do think events are fun, so in an effort to actually have some feedback around holding them, here's my thoughts. I think we often fall into the trap of mixing up interest and excitement. All events should be interesting; If they're not, they've somewhat failed as an event. But that doesn't mean all events have to be exciting; More relaxed, RP or lore heavy events could also be fun, and possibly make non-railroading easier. Having a character arrive on the station and just talk with the crew, maybe giving the crew a chance to alter their mind on a particular decision one way or another, is something that just doesn't seem to happen. Short of maybe Bad Moon episode 2, players rarely get a chance to simply be exposed to the lore, rather than be a means by which is is moved forward. On that note, exciting events don't have to be risk-of-death and/or murder mysteries, not least because that's a terrible way of involving anyone short of security imho. As Boggle mentioned, a station wide project, possibly with a time limit on completion for some external event, can be a good wat of providing excitement for all. This might also make the occasional railroaded event bearable; The current issue is that nearly every event at the very least feels forced. That all said, I do still hold by the belief that if an event runner doesn't want their major lore character to die, don't send them to the Aurora. Send representatives, don't send anything at all, I don't mind. While the Aurora is a fairly important station, it's not important enough to justify almost every Spur changing event happening onboard, so if something's that critical to happen as planned, don't pretend we have the option to change it.

Love the look of that kitchen/bar area! Very excited now.

Reporting Personnel: Elenadurak Ismatovna Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Security Officer Game ID: cdo-cZr6 Personnel Involved: Kathira El-Hashem, Investigator: Witness Bob, Security Officer: Witness Rain Kato, Security Officer: Witness Max Keppel, Security Cadet: Offender Secondary Witnesses: Allison Wilson, Security Officer: Overheard comments on security radio, assisted with arrest Logan Wright, Head of Security: Overheard comments on security radio, assisted with arrest Mike Bisenti, Warden: Overheard comments on security radio, assisted with arrest Time of Incident: Approximately 19:40 - 22:11 Real Time: Approximately 19:40 - 22:11 GMT 06/08/2021 Location of Incident: Security Lobby, Security Radio, Common Radio Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [ ] - Neglect of Duty [X] - Harassment [ ] - Assault [ ] - Misconduct [ ] - Other _____ Overview of the Incident: A short while into the shift, the cadet woke up from cryosleep, and made his way to the security lobby. At this time herself, Investigator El-Hashem, Officer Kato and Officer Bob were all present in the room. The cadet made a passing remark to the effect of 'Do you see them?', which she, and the others in the department, thought little off. The cadet then proceeded to wait in the lobby for a few minutes, before leaving. Officer Bob called out on the radio to him, asking if the cadet had retrieved their gear. The cadet replied that they didn't feel safe entering the department while the Tajara (herself and Investigator El-Hashem) were there. He then proceeded to make racist remarks over the radio, before heading to the bar. Her knowledge of exactly what occurred there is limited, but she does know that they locked themselves in one of the toilet cubicles, and refused to leave when faced with an arrest warrant. The engineering department had to retrieve him, and Officers Bob, Rain and Wilson brought him to the brig. He was charged with i110 Slander or Verbal Abuse, and the Head of Security suspended him. At this point he then began continuing his racist remarks over the common radio, and was eventually taken into custody until transfer. Submitted Evidence: Would you like to be personally interviewed?: [X] - Yes [ ] - No Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why?: Logan Wright, Head of Security Actions taken: Commander Wright arrested and suspended the cadet Additional Notes:

PR here to remove the random golems. I don't know if technomancer's can, or if people think they should, summon them, and unless xenobio gets reworked they should probably stay there too.

I think this is probably my major reason for supporting this concept. Considering the server continually struggles with people not having antag preferences turned on (and I'm one of those people), I feel like creating an atmosphere of "To play antag you need to have learned every department (Or at least Sec, Med and Engi)" is somewhat counterproductive, particularly given that not everyone is going to enjoy playing every department for long enough to learn the basics.

So personally I agree with basically the entire sentiment of this. I've mostly played in medical and security (disclaimer, haven't played that much of either recently), and thus can see the RP benefit from both sides of that coin. Minor-moderate injuries can honestly be somewhat ignored at the minute, due to the walk to medbay often healing 80%+ of any damage sustained. And in a fire fight, if you're able to duck and cover after taking a hit, you could often let that heal itself too. Usually the only time someone ended up coming into medbay was when one or more of their organs had taken a beating, and thus they were at serious risk of dying, which seems pretty extreme to me to be the minimal 'should probably head to medical' requirement. To address this specifically, while it would make antag stuff harder, it would also mean a solid hit from an antag on a security officer would likely put that officer out of the field for a decent amount of time, which would make life easier on the antag. Not sure if it would balance out, but would definitely help. Of course, there is likely going to be the inevitable complaints about low-pop sec where there's no medical around, and I don't think there's an easy solution to that beyond simply deciding whether its worth the trade off. I've my view on that clear, but I don't tend to play lots of low-pop.

I think a solution to this would be to have the cult make two decisions prior to being able to start any proper shenanigans: Choose a Domain, and Choose a Deity (entirely independent choices). This would circumvent two issues, the first being, as you mentioned, people less great with the lore can still play cult, but also the fact that most Deities can probably be worshipped in different respects based on how you view them (and this typically becomes the case more-so when you get to cult level behaviour.) So you might have a round with a bunch of cultists who choose to worship the Holy Tribunal's Goddess as a Light Cult, then another round where the cult also worships the Goddess, but as a Blood Cult, and then another round where you find some newer players making a typical Nar'sie Blood Cult. I'm on the fence with Nar'sie, though I definitely wouldn't remove her from the code all together. Making her a very late-game (i.e. Most of a high-pop round have been converted late-game) could be an alternative I suppose.