Captain Gecko

So long as we still keep some kind of way to choose a random game mode, or do as Boggle said, if you believe that this might draw more people to the game, then I'm all for it.

Right then, how about at least lowering the limitations? My issues still stand about this part: Once again, it's horrendously hard to get a merchant round, and even if you get one, you better hope that there's at least people you can play with and not a 4-men skeleton crew. We are still having many ghost-roles to interact with, which are often played... Which is great! But the point is, one round you get TCFL visitors, on another you meet adhomaian refugees, an Orion express ship, or even Ex-Solarian forces. One of the great things about being on the Horizon is that, while only the merchant, events, and admeme fun could make add something "special" to the round. By now? We have potential to do so on nearly-every round... So why making the merchant so limited on the Horizon? Not only that but from what I got, merchants from the Merchant role have some kind of special agreement/permission with the Horizon, since they can practically freely dock with the ship, differenciating them from the average ghost-role chracters. It wouldn't be too far fetched to have merchants appear a little more, then, would it? I disagree. As I already said, the Horizon's crew has access to more options than back on the Aurora to defend themselves against threats. Even without the Security armory, even without engineering or science doing unpredictably robust stuff to assist the crew, we still have the crew armory, coming with weapons (which certainly are more decent than makeshift ones), armors, ammo, and even a god damn one-use rocket launcher of sorts. It isn't guaranteed that the merchant will even get the occasion to bring weapons to the Horizon, and most of the case, will have access average/mediocre guns (sidearms, bolt actions, things like that). While it is technically possible to buy something much more powerful, these generally cost 4/5k+ credits, meaning that with the current starting funds you'll be buying this and nothing less... At least as far as weapons go... And of course someone has to afford the gun once the merchant tries to sell it. I don't believe that merchants would make that much of a difference to the round's dynamic, or balance or whatever, at least on the Horizon. At LEAST if we're not removing the limit on playing merchants, could we at least lower it? Perhaps make it 1/3 - 1/2.5 rounds instead of 1/4.

BYOND Key: Captain Gecko Discord Username: CNEGecko#9618 Character Name: Ankala Ahzi *** Item Name: "Unathi fleet flag" Item Function(s): Works like any flag. These are the one-tile-large ones. Item Description: "A flag bearing the easily recognizable inconography of Unathi fleets, this one depicting a Sinta slain by spears under an omniscient, uncaring eye." *** Item Name: "Unathi fleet banner" Item Function(s): Works like any banners. These are the two-tiles-large ones. Item Description: "A banner bearing the easily recognizable inconography of Unathi fleets, this one depicting a Sinta slain by spears under an omniscient, uncaring eye." *** Item Name: "Unathi fleet armband" Item Function(s): Works like any armband, equipped as an accessory on uniforms and suits, can be flipped. Item Description: "An armband bearing the easily recognizable inconography of Unathi fleets, this one depicting a Sinta slain by spears under an omniscient, uncaring eye." *** Why is your character bringing this item to work?: Ankala is a member of the Ahzi Unathi pirate fleet. These are the colors of the Ahzi fleet, and she both displays them with pride... And for utilitarian reasons. See, being a Unathi pirate doesn't prevent you from working in or with the SCC, most of the time (see the notes below each fleets, for instance)... Most of the time. A handful of fleets still are on hostile terms with the SCC for openly engaging with their assets. Considering that the Ahzi fleet hasn't done such a thing yet, however, openly displaying their their colors, showing to all her allegiance, Ankala shows to all that she is indeed part of a fleet that isn't in bad terms with the SCC (yet?) and thus is allowed to dock as a merchant, or even work on the Horizon as a representative of her fleet. While being openly a pirate might draw security's attention, with suspicions of smuggling and other illicit activities, she's still allowed to dock and trade, and that's what matters to her. Also, naturally she's a proud member of her fleet and loves bearing her fleet's colors, even if it was to draw trouble her way... She wouldn't have it any other way. How did your character obtain this item?: Being part of said fleet, she could easily get one of each, to bring with her in her workplace. What value does this item have to your character, and what story does it tell?: Naturally, this reminds her of her origins, of what her loyalty lies in... And of her duty. See the Ahzi fleet is, while a brutally efficient fleet, a relatively small one, hence why so little know of these illusive pirates... Due to their small size and quite unique way to handle their raids and boarding actions, the Ahzi cannot entierly sustain themselves from actual piracy, and thus, rely on a smaller caste within their fleet known as "transporters". Ankala is one of these, fortune traders (and possibly smugglers), who's task is to leave the fleet to find profitable trading partners, and make a profit, may it be in credits or other interesting resources, to bring back to the Fleet, which can be done through direct or "indirect" trading. These flags, this armband, are more than just a reminder of home, they are a reminder of her responsability. Such flags may also make her status much more open, roleplay wise. It already is, with records openly stating her nature, and Ankala never hiding her origins (why would she? Ahzi fleet isn't looking for trouble with corporations... So far). But most players don't actual realize her origins. Not only would these items make her more unique, but these would also tell her story a tad cmore clearly, visually too, without having her find an excuse to dump exposition on very customer she finds. Sprites: - Ahzi Armband.dmi - Ahzi Flags.dmi Additional Comments: None so far!

Yes it's me with another mildly-rant-level kind of suggestion! So we still have the emergency pod ghost role, that's great. Issue is finding them now is a matter of luck, really. We just spend a round exploring two of the three bodies and found no one, meaning that whoever played the pod peeps on that round basically spent something like 3 hours alone. I love rescuing these pod players, but we really can't with how little info we're given. I think we should probably be given informations, else we generally tend to miss them, and in truth, as I've often seen, ignore them (since it now means moving the entire ship to explore things just in SEARCH for this pod, which may deny an expedition or a mining trip!) Let the announcement give us some coordinates, directions, or the name of the body they land on, something to guide us, please!

I've been trying to play merchant recently, it's quite nice, I like it... When I can actually play it. The thing is you cannot play as a merchant whenever you want, on some rounds, there is a slot available, on some rounds, there is not. Firstly, I don't get why merchants are not allowed on every round. I assume that the reason is that we don't want people possibly trading weapons with the crew on every rounds, so that antags would have more of a chance. It might've made sense on the Aurora, but on the Horizon, even the crew gets an armory, if anything a merchant selling weapons is redundant. Worst case scenario, lower fundings for the merchant at round start for most rounds to prevent them from spending it all on guns. Secondly, that means that we get rounds where merchants can't even properly trade. The two rounds I got to play as a merchant were all low-pop, since I created my character two weeks ago, NEVER did I find a round with an over-20 souls crew where the merchant slot was open. There may have been a planned probability on when one could play merchant (I remember someone telling me it was 1 out of 4 rounds a while ago, not too sure about that), but in practice it's MUCH LOWER than that considering that you barely do actual merchant work on lowpop. Here's my proposal: Simply remove the limitations on playing Merchants, let the people play merchant on any round. Worst case scenario reduce fundings on rounds where they wouldn't have spawned.

I agree. While I don't want vampires to feel forced to drain people to death, having stealth-vampires 99% of the time until they decide to go full antag at the last few minutes. a RNG-based forgiveness system could work, we could also have the Vampire being unable to tell if that guy has been affected or not mechanically speaking (and only having to rely on their victim's roleplay to know)... Or we could make it a very blood-hungry ability, meaning that the Vampire ends up being very limited in how much people they can drain.

Agreed as well. On the science side, makes me think of a few anomalies that would be much more manageablewith a move like that. The Statuette for instance, is so hard to manage not because of the monsters and all, but because of the constant blood-drain, leaving you with something like a minute or two before you're too dumb to press a button, and be able effectively try to study/contain it. +1

Okay I just thought of something else. Meals with the new Xenofauna meat. Could be anything... The only issue is that we would need these creatures to drop meat in the first place, I don' tink any of them do, besides the carps.

As far as I went I never expeceted Psychs to actually do medical work, so I'm kind of surprised about that part. I wouldn't be pissed if a Psychologist simply didn't save my wounded character, but I've never really played medical, so what do I know. As far as I go, I don't know if you do it often, but seek medical records, and don't hesitate to go out of your way to contact people that might be in need, either from events during the shift, or from things you might've learned about their past (IE: by reading the records). Last time I saw Mobius in game he was just standing here in the medical lobby. I pass by an hour later, he's still there. Go out of your way to see who might need help, because there are, and you might get even more patients!

Okay, this is NOT a shitpost... ROUNDMEAL. Maybe not EXACTLY Roundmeal; but basically something so god damn full of protein you literally cannot finish this alone unless you're actually starving. The idea is that this thing could be a favorite among explorers, miners, Xarcs and all who are going to be away for a while and will probably not have access to food and vendors.

Putting aside the antag reasons, I don't like this, I think this doesn't make much sense. I can see why they wouldn't be mandatory on lower/lack of alerts, but why would they be disabled? It's basically a possible lifeline. You don't need to be on alert to have a workplace accident. You can very easily freeze yourself in the science server room, irradiate yourself in front of the supermatter, etc. And your best chance of survival might be someone picking up your vitals because you thought about setting them up prior to the incident. And yeah, these wouldn't be too common of an instance, but would the SCC take chances, lore-wise? Putting aside gameplay/antag reasons, which can be debated (I agree with Carver), setting-wise disabling sensors on any alert level makes no sense to me.

Do they still serve the Sweet Burger(tm) with the white sauce and the bit of honey in it?

Right so, after yet another grief I have decided on my end to try making an alternative. This is a Discord equivalent of the Manifest, it's goal being to be as easy to use and retain the original goal, all the while remaining as safe as possible against possible Griefs. The idea is that each player gets a role for each of their character (two characters max per player, safe for possible exceptions), in which they make a profile of their character to pin, then, make a section for each character they want to write on, giving opinions and the likes. Perhaps the main difference with the original manifest is that it is NOT updated monthly, and instead, can be tweaked and updated whenever you want. This also comes with it's own room to discuss the manifest and all OOCly, of course. All of this is mostly a prototype, and time will tell if it will work. Here's the link: https://discord.gg/V75CHhZQgB It's in no way officially endorsed by the staff, since it's closer to just a personal project, also.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Captain Gecko Discord Name: CNEGecko#9618 Position Being Applied For: Spriter Past Experiences/Knowledge: I draw for fun, been doing so since I was 12. Other than that, I've been handling the Metal Crushers chirper channel for over a year now, and made a LOT of sprite work for it. Examples of Past Work: - All of my Metal Crushers work - Sezrak's custom items - WYVERN's custom shell - The science holotapes - Solarian Combat Drone A few other custom items for people that never ever made their apps anyways, and maybe some other contributions I can't remember... Additional Comments: I've been spriting for a while and only now did I think about applying for developer when I said I'd sprite flora and fauna for the coming exoplanets and all, and Matt told us to also apply as developpers so... Here I am.

Oh nice. That's a cool explanation, I idn't really picture it this way. And yeah the elevator part I'm mostly messing around but... Hmm... I mean it's still a VERY small space for everyone's quarters, but it's better than nothing! I am satisfied now. My thirst for knowledge is quenched.

You come into the round, the take the elevator. You leave the round, you take the elevator. When not on shift your character is in their little quarters it's great and all... BUT WHERE THE HELL ARE THE QUARTERS? Putting aside the fact that elevator is on deck 2, yet we don't see a continuation of it on Deck 3 or 1, where the hell even are the quarters? There's no sign of them anywhere on the on the ship! If you look at pictures of the Horizon from outside, it's clear that what we've got on the ship's map is ALL of the ship... Is this really an elevator? Or is this some kind of bio-construction machine deconstructing people and rebuilding them as the SCC sees fit? Perhaps it even is a Bluesapce rift sending us not to rooms, but to spaces allocated in pocket dimensions, just like with a Bag of holding... Big Corpo is hiding something from us! Ok more seriously though, putting memes aside, is it just game balance going over lore, which is fine, or is there really an explanation? I'm just curious.

Oh yeah, I guess I'll ask for it too then...

Taeko Mori is a good Bridge crew. Does his job well, engages well enough in his job and in the roleplay around it and all. Solid +1.

I support this idea too!

I remember complaining about this multiple times. Science teams get hit even harder since they generally don't come with any ranged weapons/tools (so no way to kill most creatures before they actually reach you) and come with a paper-thin void-suit with a 3-tile light. Most importantly, though, the largest issue was the increased lethality, not really due to the new fauna or site, but due to the fact that we can't get quick rescue. On the Aurora you were still on the same stellar object. You could still limp your way back to the airlock and get picked up there. Hell, a rescuer could still pick you up outside at times. Now you have to head back to your shuttle, fly back to the Horizon, dock, then get picked up, and try to not die on your way there. If the Horizon isn't literally above you, that whole process can take up to ten minutes at worse, two at best. Two is still more than enough to bleed out for instance. To this, add the fact that hauls are generally not worth it. Not counting this week since I'm on RD trial, but since April when the NBT dropped, I have found exactly 5 anomalies. I have taken part in dozens and dozens of round on the Horizon, and I got 5 anomalies. It's not rare, I've seen, for miners to arrive on rocks and find nothing the basic materials to make steel and nothing else. I get that the in-lore phoron scarcity is a thing, but we don't have a scarcity for other materials, do we? One solution would be indeed to upgrade our EVA workers' equipment. I've been working on the science end of that issue here, but Mining could definitely need some extra gear. Pest guns, for instance. Why not having an emergency tool to be sent back to the Horizon? Like a Fulton-Teleporter device, which has the miner be teleported back to the Aurora, once he stands on the mining pod's fulton-teleporter-pad, but turns comatose for a bit afterward, still giving them a chance to survive, and not changing the fact that the trip outside is failed (since the mining pod now remains down there without a pilot). Really there are a lot of solutions out there.

That doesn't sound too bad... I'm not entierly against it, and it would also give some all-new roleplay option... Assuming that it can't be abused too much, you never know what people can come up with...

((For those not in the know: Old refers to... Late 2020/Early 2021, roughly. Around KOTW. We had a stable team, in the sense that we had mostly the same people playing regularly in science, then, on european hours that is. From this time, there indeed only Ayo and Sezrak left, most having changed characters or stopped playing entierly.))

So that might be good but I have several issues with this. On a gameplay perspective this is a tad redundant, first with the usual off-ship merchant, and with the operations department. We can already ask Hangar Techs for stuff from the warehouse and get some for free (and if not, by doing our job and filling bounties), why would we pay for a merchant's gear, let alone go through the hassle of heading there and doing the whole transaction when you're working, need something quick, and cargo can send your stuff straight through the delivery chute? Worst case scenario, science can print all kinds of gear for you, advanced or not, for free as well. Whoever is going to play this on-ship merchant is going to get very bored, very quick I imagine. On a roleplay perspective, it makes literally no sense. I've been questioning the reason why some chefs and bartender would make you pay for products that the company already pays for. I mean there's no sense in paying the bartender yourself if they are already paid by their company to be there, right? But most of those doing this were Idris so, you know what, it's Idris, they are weird, they have a different way to work with money, and hey, perhaps it's just character ripping ours off. It however makes no sense for the SCC to add a merchant on their ship that is no only paid via a salary, but also... Does transactions with people paid by the same companies. It also makes no sense for them to do the same for an independant, because they would be wasting room and resources for a merchant that actually stays there and take room in this unique exploration vessel... Unless I assume the merchant was paying a fortune for that, but even then it gets very... Weird and to me makes little to no sense.

Now that's a tutorial I highly appreciate! I've been considering mapping for a while now. Thanks! - I've got two questions now, one, we're speaking of having sites stand apart from others, it makes realize... What are the limits of what we can do? How out there some of these sites can be? And are we looking for specific things? - Do these sites have to be ruins/derelict/other things to explore (IE a big dionae gestalt like we had on the Aurora as an away site) or can we also map more lively areas, sort of like the space bar and civilian station we currently have, even if it doesn't feature any ghost roles (could've been only recently abandonned for instance) ?

So long as science keeps their excavation gear, even if it's another room, like in the Xenoarcheology atrium, I agree with the idea.