Captain Gecko

Not an engineering player so I won't say much.. Just that this ladder in the second pic scares me. I'm remembering the death-hole from the Aurora's warehouse, and I can already imagine a good lot of engineers plumetting through by stepping in the wrong direction. I don't know how it's doable, but I'd either: - Move it to the edges of the room, perhaps that lower right corner with the light tube. - putting railings all around the ladder, except in one direction, most likely the bottom side.

I approve... Let it be unlocked by some nice RnD, and here we go! As far as I know, the Corporate Breacher is absolutely not as OP as the original one, so I'm totally for it!

Nice stuff here... And now for questions! 1) What's Tozan's opinion on offworld Unathi? From what I got, he isn't too proud of having left, and that's not just because of his family ties. So what would he think of other non-Moghesian Unathi? Ouereans, Dominians, Pirates/Spaceborn ones, and even those living in mostly Humans planets (Biesel, Mictlan, etc.) 2) What's Tozan opinion on the Hegemon and the Hegemony? The Traditionalists? The Contact War as a whole? There's no real mentions of where he or his family stand/stood in the Tradition-vs-Hegemonic progressivism question, which is not that bad. A Humble family probably has more to care about than politics, especially in post-war Moghesn, still, I'm curious.

Appealing Personnel: Sezrak Han'san Specific Incident: 18th of September's (2464) Incident - Under NDA Action taken as a result: Demotion from Research Director back to Anomalist (Xenoarcheologist) for Sedition; Suspension from being temporarily promoted in-shift as an Interim Research Director and-or any other command positions. Action contested: Demotion and Suspension from accessing command positions. Reasoning for contest: I am not very good as far as introductions go in such documents, so I will skip it for everyone's sake. I have always believed that I am a useful asset to this ship, whether as an anomalist, or a Director, though I feel like I can provide more in a command position, for the crew's sake, and the mission. I have not expressed myself correctly in my first appeal, however, and I'd like to point something out before proceeding. I stand by the part where I said that all I did on the 18th was done because I thought I was doing the best for the crew and the mission. What I did not express correctly was that I am perfectly aware of my mistake, what led me to this... Situation. I know what I did, and most importantly, I know what this led to. I am aware of the consequences of my actions, and I regret them. And I will not do the same mistake again. Now then, now that I've been given the tools required to fill this appeal, or rather told what I am expected to provide, I suppose it is time for another appeal. 1) First, I need to provide "A clear, nonnegotiable understanding of the responsibilities of a Research Director, such as planning and supervising the safe and productive execution of extravehicular and exoplanetary operations, safe and efficient quarantine of anomalous materials, timely and accurate processing of required paperwork, delegation and explanation of tasks to subordinates, proper and effective communication with department staff, and appropriate but stern exercise of authority." 2) Next, "A clear, nonnegotiable understanding of the responsibility of being an SCC command staff member, and how command presence posits them in a place of scrutiny and authority, and how to properly exercise the latter (authority) in a place that mitigates the former (scrutiny) with both the Conglomerate and crew." 3) I also must provide "A clear, nonnegotiable understanding and acceptance of the expectations of effective management of a working vessel, and how these expectations may come at a social cost to one's reputation among crew and other command staff in the event of a conflict of social or ethical values." 4) And finally, "Willingness and dedication to execute the above criteria and beyond as a representative of the Conglomerate, privileged with the authority bestowed upon them by their benefactors within." 1) 2) 3) 4) Along with showing that I do have the qualities that may be expected of a commander, I would like to point out that some of the best (at least according to me) crewmembers on this ship have vouched for me. These, at least the ones who themselves are in command positions, have these qualities and know what it takes to be a leader, and I know that they wouldn't vouch for me, would they not know about the necessities of these qualities themselves. These are: - Victor Jenkins (Scientist) - Anatolievna Ilyushina (Xenoarcheologist) - Kusherze Ioraks (Chief Engineer) - Adelina Valdemar (Chief Medical Officer) - Malcolm McGulby (Operations Manager) I know what my mistake was, and I learned from it. I am not proud of it, and once again, I see myself as responsible for a part of the chaos that unfolded that day, and the consequences that followed. My choice, that day, did not help, it only made things much worse, today, I recognize this in its full scale. Blinded by a shortsighted urge to protect my fellow crewmen by any means necessary, without taking into account what the long-term consequences might be, I made the wrong choice, and only caused more pain to them. I refuse to cause more damage to my crew and my mission, and I would not be there, writing this appeal, if I didn't think that I had learned. I have learned my lesson. I know that such bad decisions are inconsiderate at best, and lethal at worse. I am here to be a proper command member again, one that is strong and intelligent, one that is responsible, and not one overtaken by chaos. And I know that I can show it, today.

Strikes me as a great idea to be honest, why didn't we think of that earlier...?

I agree with Limette and Redshirt, I don't think we should get the vote to happen earlier. Putting aside issues for antag, off-ship, and any other position that may suffer from this change, something I agree with. In truth, I'm not even fond of the idea of making rounds shorter or voting earlier by itself. It's not rare for me to have to leave early when timing doesn't allow it, and though I personally never really mind it, I can definitely imagine that some people might not like it. But I don't think that making rounds end earlier will guarantee that these people will always get to see the end of a round... That and of course, to try to make it better for a section of a playerbase, do we risk making it worse for a bunch of others (those who play for the full rounds and would like to do so.) what I'm trying to say here is that no matter when we end up doing, a section of the playerbase will like it, another won't, so making things better for one at the expanse of another sounds unproductive to me. I also don't think this will solve the issue of people not wanting to play extended. Most of us do not have the time to just wait for the next round, the fact that it lasts two hours or two hours and thirty minutes doesn't make much of a difference. I think the issue here that there is a difference between ending rounds earlier and voting earlier. It doesn't matter what happens afterward, once a vote is made, it's made. Making votes happen earlier can cause some issues and actually have rounds last longer. Voting earlier means more chances of votes happening during climactic antag action, or during when players are not done with their RP or even jobs, this means more chances of people voting to play longer to make up for that, and round actually ending up lasting even longer than before. IF we really want to do something, though... Well I think Fluffy's idea of just adding a third option in votes is much more interesting. Simply having this option for skeleton shifts where nothing happens or when the ships is horribly damaged (some people don't like roleplaying in these situations) justifying some sort of "emergency jump", feels like a good middle-ground. Of course, we'd have to find a way to make it so it doesn't split the votes of people who just want to leave generally (maybe have a first vote between "continue playing" and "leave", and if the latter option is selected, have a second vote between "standard jump" and "immediate jump.)

honke

Appealing Personnel: Sezrak Han'san Specific Incident: 18th of September's (2464) Incident - Under NDA Action taken as a result: Demotion from Research Director back to Anomalist (Xenoarcheologist) for Sedition; Suspension from being temporarily promoted in-shift as an Interim Research Director and-or any other command positions. Action contested: Demotion and Suspension from accessing command positions. Reasoning for contest: These last four months have allowed me to think about what it meant to be a command member, and believe I can handle such a position more properly. I am ready to prove that I am up to the task once more.

I love the update, it's great, I'm especially loving the DRADIS sounds. It looks nice and all, and new mechanics are very interesting... But in function though... It could get better. Between this and the larger map, we have new issues: The max range on your sensors is now much smaller in relation to the much larger map. While ships do fly "faster" through these maps, sensor ranges are still the same. Taking the Intrepid for instance, the max sensor range of 7 now does not guarantee that you'll spot a planet (we'll come back to the planet issue), or a site even if there were little obstacles around (and currently, in the Badlands at least, there are lots.) Even worse, still on the Intrepid exemple, the average 1.5/1.6 sensor range coupled with the higher speeds means that you'll see VERY LITTLE as you fly around, making flight much riskier... Or at least much slower than before. Coupled with that, is the heat problem. Once again, I'm referring to the Intrepid, because of the previous issue, you will need to sensor sweep much more, which means more heat generated, and even if you were to turn off your sensors and not just lower them, it would take minutes to properly cool off, minutes on top of already slower trips. What to do, then? I don't believe making sensors more power/scan larger areas would be needed... If it is really possible without more massive changes. However, making sensors more heat-efficient would definitely be useful. It would allow crafts to passively scan a bit further, and take shorter pauses between sweeps, already allievating an issue. And now the bigger issue... We cannot find planets or sites anymore. Or rather, it is much, MUCH harder. Between the larger maps, and all ofthe obstacles, finding planets or sites is a long effort. Last round, it took a full hour for an Intreprid with 3 crewmen (who knew what they were doing) to find an orbital station (which also means that the local miner did not bring minerals back.) So we would need a way to ensure that away crews can still find sites/planets to explore, and do so at least without taking an entire hour. The easy solution is just to give the coordinates of these spots directly into the sensor's coordinate list. Not the best choice, sounds a bit too easy to me, but sounds easy enough to implement quickly. Perhaps information could be limited about these places too, with nothing but "planet" or "notable site" as information about what's on this or that coordinate. The better solution would be to involve the player in actually locating these places, make it a game/activity of it's own. There is now this system to actually locate sites and the likes, where the sensors will give you a bearing to this object as it scans when close enough. We could have something like that for planets, so that miners and X-arcs could get a chance to get to their work quickly enough, if at all. List planets (though with little details beyond the fact that they're planets) on the sensors, let the sensor operator select one of them. Once selected, you get a bearing giving you a general direction to a planet. Once again, I'll add that I'm writing this as someone who has mostly flown the Intrepid only, things may be different with other crafts.

What the title says. When Xenoarcheologist was still an alt-title for the scientist, we also had an Anomalist option. Though most people assumed they were mechanically the same, and could have the same set of skills, expectations were different. Xenoarchs were more prone to head out and dig, while Anomalists were better at studying the finds themselves. Xenoarchs handled artifacts and other proper archeological finds better while Anomalists were more specialized in dealing with, you guessed it, Anomalies. With Xenoarcheologist turning into its proper job role, the anomlist alt-title was lost, alas. I'm not the only one wanting that, I've seen a couple of other players expressing frustration at not being able to be an Anomalist and having people expecting them to head out and dig when it was definitely not what they liked doing, or even really mastered.

What Cnaym said. Check how many players are around there, online, even if notplaying. On deadpop, it's not issue... With a proper population, it is. Hell, darkness is often what turns of a lot from latejoining on occasions.

((Sending it in two parts because the forum wouldn't let me send it as a single message)) *** Additional notes: After more than two years working on the NSS Aurora, then the SCCV Horizon, I got the chance to meet many amazing people... And got the chance to prove my worth to them my goodwill and most importantly, my worth for my crew. Over such a long time, I couldn't list all of these names, though over the last week, I managed to ask some of -what I believe to be- the most respectable crewmen I ever had the chance to work with vouch for me. Those are either from the Science department, or Command, to make sure this stays relevant to the current topic. - Victor Jenkins (Scientist), who I've been working with since we first met on the Aurora. The best Telescientist the Orion Spur has ever seen, I am willing to bet my tail on it, and one who got to save the life of many thanks to his skill, mine included. We went through a lot, and I could hardly wish for someone as experienced and talented in his own field to vouch for me. - Anatolievna Ilyushina (Xenoarcheologist), who I've had the chance to train directly on the field, from Laboratory Assistant to proper Xenoarchologist on the SCCV Horizon. She may not have the experience of many, but she has the strength of character, and potential, to be part of the very best in this field... I am happy to see her vouch for my return to the position of Research Director. - Kusherze Ioraks (Chief Engineer), who, beyond just being a friend, is also someone I immensely respect. His unorthodox methods may prove dangerous on occasions (though I suspect that he knows what he is doing all the time and just lets the rest of us doubt for the fun of it), they have always proved advantageous for the crew at large. He is model to many, I included, and it is an honor to have him vouch for my appeal. - Adelina Valdemar (Chief Medical Officer), who I owe my life to... Several times, most likely. I did point out earlier that I got to flatline on several occasions in the past, and even putting aside the cases of near-death experiences, the medical department of both the NSS Aurora and the SCCV Horizon got to save me, over, and over, and over. The medical part of our crew is, and has always been the one I'd respect the most, and having any Chief Medical Officer vouch for me is an honor... Having miss Valdemar do so is beyond one. We have been sharing shifts for years, and over that time, she got to save my life, directly, or through her leadership, on many occasions. It is someone I, and many other, are eternally grateful to. - Malcolm McGulby (Operations Manager), who I've been working with both as Command, and not. McGulby is a man I got the chance to work with as a Cargo Technician, then Quartermaster, where we'd see each other on EVA work on the NSS Aurora. Years later, we worked together in the Command department and got to ensure of the Horizon's safety on many occasions, just the two of ourselves. There are many things McGulby and I may disagree on, but there is one thing we have in common: taking our crew's safety extremely seriously. He's an amazing asset to our crew, a paragon of discipline and efficiency, and having him vouch for me accessing a command position once more is something I greatly appreciate.

Appealing Personnel: Sezrak Han'san Specific Incident: 18th of September's (2464) Incident - Under NDA Action taken as a result: Demotion from Research Director back to Anomalist (Xenoarcheologist) for Sedition; Suspension from being temporarily promoted in-shift as an Interim Research Director and-or any other command positions. Action contested: Demotion and Suspension from accessing command positions. Reasoning for contest: Three months have passed, and I am now finally able to present my appeal, and thus I present it right away. My ability to lead fellow crewmembers or contribute to science -in other words my worth as a Research Director- was never put in question. My ability to follow corporate regulations when put into... More extreme situations was. I do not know how much I can talk about the incident in question, as it is under NDA, though I know that the right authorities have access to all of the details ever gathered, more than I ever got, so I assume that anyone involved in handling this appeal knows what I am referring to/has the ability to know. My demotion came for "seditious" acts. Though I feel like I could discuss it, I was never trained to enforce corporate regulations, and in the end what's done is done. If anything I consider myself lucky to still be on the Horizon at all, considering the fate of most of the Command Crew that worked by my side this day. One thing I made clear ever since that incident, however, was the reason for the actions I took that day, seditious, or not. What I did, I did it for my fellow crewmember. Though I have been working for or alongside Nanotrasen for over a decade, ever since I started my Anomalous Materials Studies course, but my real career, in the field and with a proper crew, really started in August of 2462, when I was sent to the infamous NSS Aurora, in the Romanovich Cloud. The moment I chose this path, I was led by one reason, more than any other, to protect others. One could call anomalous materials a "niche" threat, but they are a threat nonetheless, one that requires niche people to keep them contained. I have changed, evolved a lot since I first arrived in Tau Ceti over two years ago, but my core motivations never changed. I would DIE for my fellow crewmember, and in fact DID DIE, on several occasions, for them, getting the occasion to flatline several times at work, more than once by trying to protect and/or rescue fellow crewmembers. When I chose to let go of my Anomalist function, and become a Research Director, it was still in the name of keeping my fellow crewmembers safe. From a position of greater power, with greater means, I could better ensure of the safety of my crew. And what I did on the 18th of September was done exactly for that. In the utter chaos of this day, more than at anytime in my career, I made these actions, these choices, following these goals of keeping my fellow crewmember safe. Do I regret the choices I've made? Yes. They may have helped, they may have not, but I know for certain that they did manage to damage much more than my own career. My objectives haven't changed, my standards, my purpose, will not change. The way I act to follow such things must, and I hope I can prove, has. Though I hope the Horizon, or any other crew I might have the chance to work with would find itself once more in a situation as chaotic as that dreadful day's, if the occasion presents itself once more, I will certainly handle it way better than back then.

I know that there are still people who just remain in the lobby for entierly different reason than just a lowpop-induced lack of motivation... This won't cure the lowpop Aurora meme, but, as far as the people concerned by this goes, I'm sure a way to signal that some players WILL play, just not nescessarily on the Horizon could help with this specific case.

(Very) Lowpop is bad enough, but it's understandable when there's barely five people online. You can't exactly expect an engineer to come by when next to no one are on Aurorastation at all. However there's few things worse in Aurora than having a crew of ten at the very most, stuck in a powerless ship, and struggling to get anything going while around 40 players are observing. Aurora players not joining rounds is as much of a meme as it is an inevitability, I feel like, and trying to fix this issue in more general term has been done for years and will most likely take more to get fixed, if it ever is, in the end you live with it. However... Some things seem to have made the situation considerably worse, namely, Ghostroles. Now, the new Ghostroles are absolutely great, they bring spice to rounds, even (especially extended) and gives a an opportunity for something different. However, more people choosing to play ghost roles specifically means less player playing... And if not, more playing wanting to see what the ghost roles are means less people readying up. And then you know the cycle... > 40 players online > 4 Ready up > Because of the minuscule number of people readying up, no one else feels the motivation to join > "I'm waiting for ghostroles" go a few > Round start, 2 or 3 extras join > Those that waited for the ghostroles, yet haven't taken one, see the minuscule crew and lose most interest to actually play as proper crew > Those that come in late see the size of the crew, or the state of the Horizon by now, and don't feel the motivation to join > 40 players ghost or wait in the lobby for 2h30, 8 or so struggle and get absolutely zero fun at best, spend a bad time at worst. This certainly won't fix the issue as a whole, but I feel like giving us a chance to see who would play as ghost role directly in the lobby could be a way to get more people to ready up. There may not be that many players readying up for the Horizon proper, but perhaps letting others see that a handful are willing to play as ghostroles could motivate a few to join, as Ghostroles or Horizon crew, whatever. This Ghostrole readying button wouldn't do much since you can't really ready up for a ghost role... But it would simply be a button to show that you will be playing, simply not as the standard kind of Horizon crew, showing the player's name in lobby's ready-up list, in a specific category for that. Alternativaly, letting people see what the round's Ghostroles will be prior to round-start could also help. It's not rare for people to wait ghostroles only to see some that don't pick their interest. Maybe letting us see what these would be could let these players not wait for nothing, and instead get to ready up for the Horizon, getting that ready list in the lobby to grow, and motivating more players to initially join the round.

I agree and support this idea! As a Xenoarch main, it's actually very interesting to see meet Ghostroles during your adventures outside, and having a mix of sites and ghostships definitely encourages this, besides also, you know... Actually letting Xenoarchs avoid the "no sites" kind of rounds, and give us variety in ghostroles.

As the title says, adding a fax machine to the Intrepid and Spark (and perhaps even Ghostrole ships?) Sometimes I just want to send a message to your auxiliary ships, but it would take a long trip to their direction, and you generally can't when the Antag you're trying to warn them about has taken over the bridge. Sometimes you're there, but can't send the message because the only way to talk with them is through the Holopad, and they happen to be outside. A fax machine would work great there, then. Simply send a fax to the Auxiliary ship of your choice, and there we go.

> The new EVA prep rooms are great, though the Xenoarchs cannot access the room that contains the Field Generators, which sucks since they need these to actually do their work. > The Intrepid could use an integrated GPS just like the mining pod.

Oki doki! Character is interesting, but I see no mentions of faith! Spirituality is very important to most Unathi, more than with any other species I believe, and I see no mentions of it here... So, tell me about Azkohi faith, and how he sees it, how he sees faith as a concept more generally. Also cool lizard.

Right, so, so far my main issue is... That I'm not picking any traces about what faith Kalug might be following. Spirituality is extremely important to Unathi, whatever their fate or their origin... In fact I'm tempted to say that they are the most spiritual species in the whole setting. The fact that there's not even a single mention of that in his whole story isn't a great sign. Luckily we have questions to make up for such things (maybe?) So... Faith and Kalug, tell us about it.

That would be real nice! Thanks! Now I wonder, do we get a flavor text when we examine these? If not I'll probably go work on a cheat sheet to read them or something.

Here's a prototype, what do people think right now? Fieldcodes.dmi

The idea is not to go alone and go out of your way to face the dangers, even as a miner, if alone, it's dangerous. The issue is being exposed to such danger in the first place. Having played Xenoarch mainly for the last two years, combat is quick, a carp, or even now, a reaver, can quickly slip through KA or even expedition shotgun fire and get one or two lucky bites that can end your work-day right away before you even started digging. That, and I am not speaking of proper expedition here, but merely of the Xenoarch's base work, so getting security or medical to spare personel for such things is extremely rare. Keeping in mind also that this applies to low-pop players, who will most likely never get access to mining suits because there simply is no one to get them, or security or other miners to follow them for that miners. One again, I absolutely suck in balancing, so details of how armored it is, or how powerful the light is and other things will probably be left to people who know what they are doing if we ever implement this, but still, the idea here is not so much to make the Xenoarchs powerful, but rather to give them an actual chance against most kinds of danger (putting aside Unathi and other tanky things like G2). I can go with the high-visiblity-ish orange of the anomaly suit for these, with a dash of science purple then, yes, I'll work on it and send an updated version later on... Though as far as the other roles go, I don't know. Security, engineering, mining, they would probably rather keep their own suits. As far as how I envisioned it, the Xenoarch suits would be just reinforced science suits for scientists going mainly in EVA, but would probably still be weaker than a miner's for instance.

They did long ago. It was replaced with the anomaly suit, which protects against anomalous emissions AND radiations. However, it is no longer space-proof, that's where the science voidsuit is meant to be used. The point of the Xenoarch voidsuit is not to protect against anomalies, though, but to give a change to science EVA workers. The science voidsuits is fragile, its weak lights have a range of 3 tiles, and it still slows you down. In the end it's not that bad if you're a telescientist wearing this suit just for the sake of protecting yourself. It is however an issue for Xenoarchs who can get exposed to the same hazard as miners. Thus if they are to work without the protection of miner (like, 90% of the time) they will need a more reliable suit. The point of the Xenoarcheology suit is not to protect against anomalies, but to be sort of a middle-ground between the overly fragile science voidsuit, and the much tougher mining one to give EVA scientists a better chance when going solo against Xenofauna and the likes Thank you! And as far as the colors go, it is indeed from the old mining suits. The original concept was just that these are science suits quickly reinforced with bits from mining and the likes, hence the same brown colors... Though that can be changed. What other color palette would you rather have? I was thinking about all-orange just like the anomaly suit, though I was a tad worried that it could then be mistaken for engineering ones.

Now that the Xenoarcheologist is its own job, it's time to resurect this thread! And this project as a whole. I've taken to tweaking these sprites, and making versions for Xeno species so that it can be refitted properly: So, the idea now is that, since we have 3 scientist slots and two Xenoarch slots, it feels only natural to have then 3 scientist voidsuits instead of the four we have now, and then adding two of these Xenoarch suits... And as far as the stats and proprieties go... Well the general concept doesn't change, and the details will probably be discussed with people that can actual balance things (not me.) This here is just to make sure that people here as still onboard with the idea.