Captain Gecko

I definitely agree. More than anything else, it would make sense roleplay-wise since the Horizon's main job IS exploration-related. Now I have one tiny issue with this. It's going to take a little story, though. Back on the Aurora, there was a time when we played with roughly the same team on most rounds for a full month or so. We were a VERY good team, we roleplayed well, we knew how to do our job well enough, there was fantastic chemistry between characters and OOCly; basically we were the PERFECT team. With our RD (I include her in the team) being quite eager to start expedition, we did a LOT of these, and it was good. Expeditions are REALLY fun. But we had to roleplay it in a very specific manner. See, putting aside mineral rocks/outside of the Aurora's hull and into the caves, sites are not randomly generated, there is not an infinite number of these, evidently. This meant that, with the sheer pace at which we went out and explored, we VERY QUICKLY manage to thoroughly explore all of the away-sites. This meant that at some point, we somehow had to roleplay as if our characters had the experience of constantly going in expeditions, BUT did not explore this PARTICULAR site that we still know about OOCly. It's not that big of an issue, you just have to get used to it, and while we didn't mind at the time, and that I'm sure that there's more to explore today than back on the Aurora, I definitely expect people to get bored and stop caring about exploration. The solution to this is easy really: add more site maps, as well as, perhaps, different types of randomly generated maps (we have our standard mineral asteroids, how about barren-ish inhabited planets for mining, like frozen or desert worldss occasionally, things like that, ones that would still have the ability to generate structures.) On that note, if anyone can teach me about mapping in SS13, or at least for Aurora, I would be making SO MANY MAPS... On another note... There is one reason for preventing expeditions/explorations that would like to bring out: lack of preparation. It's not so much about team-size/composition. A properly geared and skilled three or even two-men team can definitely do miracles, but one that is NOT prepared, one that doesn't feature at least a single member that has the experience to properly handle unplanned situations and guide the team, will lead to some really, REALLY BAD. I'm not speaking "You will die" kind of bad, because you should expect death on away sites, while the few I got to explore so far weren't as dangerous as some I've seen in the time of the Aurora, they ARE meant to be dangerous, and the last one I explored definitely had the potential to kill us all had we not been prepared or cautious enough- but no, that's alright. No, the worst is to be BORED. And there's nothing like having a team stuck in the shuttle with no way to reach the site because no one brought the materials to build a bridge, or no one being able to communicate with no GPS or Station-Bounced radios (I know the Intrepid packs some), or even bad chemistry between players, with some disreguarding cooperation and messing everything up, either for them or the whole team (nothing like explosive decompression from another room throwing you onto an automated turret or a landmine). You don't want to end up waiting in front of a closed door with an engineer unable to open it for an hour and a half, or waiting inside the Intrepid with nothing to do because you're missing voidsuits, this is worse than (in-game) death to me, and to many others I assume. It should be a command member's role to improve the roleplay, use their powers to make the round more fun, for them, and all other players... When the red flags of a very bad time are here, if the command member is SOMEHOW not able to fix the situation (bring an extra, better-trained member, bring more gear for them), then the expedition should be postponed in my opinion.

BYOND key: Captain Gecko Discord Username: CNEGecko#9618 Character names: - Sezrak Han'san - (I have a handful of other characters, but I have not played them yet/since months ago) How long have you been playing on Aurora?: I started in 2017, then stopped. I came back around... Summer of 2020. So I'll go ahead and say that I've been playing Aurora on a more regular basis for 2 years or so now. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: I got a warning a little while ago on the forum, and that's pretty much it. Safe for a couple of harmless boinks, nothhing in the game. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: - Heads of staff are generally more experienced players, both in gameplay, and lore. Through roleplay or not their role extends beyond just giving other players something to do, and also has them act like mentors of sorts, guides and helpers. Heads of staff SHOULD be able to assist their respective workers and teach them how business goes in their department, how to play, basically, if needed. Of course, as far as stuff IN the game goes, heads of staff have the ability to make things move forward. An RD can order an expedition to be made, a CE can demand that an extension to the ship be built, and a captain can define the direction a round can take entierly. Command staff are not nescessary to RP, but they can make it really, really good... And while I wouldn't say that this is obligatory... Not using your Command powers to make a round more fun certainly is spoiled potential! What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: - Heads of staff are experienced players, they also should be GOOD players, not in the "being robust" kind of way, but more importantly in the "know the rules", and "know to play" kind of way. Heads of staff should be exemples for their department, ICLY and OOCLY. Good command members can be great, just like how bad command members can absolutely ruin a round. For instance, an RD may prepare the crew for a great expedition with good preparation and a well balanced team... Or they could know absolutely nothing about what they are doing, dismiss their more experienced subbordinates, and send a tiny unprepared team to their death... Or worse... BOREDOM. Second responsability would be what I spoke about just above, use your powers to make the round even more fun (or fun at all) for your fellow players. Also don't be an authoritarian, micromanager. Please. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career? With the "rogue" Solarian fleet pushed back, and the Solarian Alliance more or less collapsing, one could think that the Tau Ceti Republic would be quite well off by now, but of course nothing can be that easy. The very reason that led to the events of the KING OF THE WORLD arc, the coming Phoron crisis, is now looming over the Republic, and the many corporations acting within. Coming like a savior in these times is the Stellar conglomerate, the union of the most powerful Megacorp in the spur (safe for EE for obvious reasons) bring us the SCCV Horizon, a fantastic, top of the line, high tech cruiser meant for exploration and science, in order to locate new Phoron deposits, discover new planets suitable for colonization, and explore the unknown corners of space... But mostly locate new phoron deposits, most likely. Still, it's a glimmer of hope for the Spur, or at least, the Republic and its friends. Sezrak eagerly moved from the Aurora to the Horizon, most likely to answer the call of adventure. The Aurora gave him quite a lot of opportunities to push back his limits, to contribute to science... And to earn quite a few scars, but now with the possibilities to find MUCH MORE, of course he couldn't refuse such a thing. Did he get what he wanted? Yes, and no, in his own words, "It is a different kind of adventure, but adventure nonetheless." Yet in this new workplace, a question comes back to him... The question of responsability. A few years ago, Sezrak was nothing but a humble, learning Anomalist. Now, he tends to be one of the most experienced in his field, in his department even. It is not rare to have him take over the department, get... Bossy, in ways, when things get dramatic, and actions need to be taken. Hell, even got to be made Interrim RD multiple times. On several occasions now, he got to to question if yes or no it would be more proper for him to be in a command position and leave the responsability of DIRECTLY hunting anomalies down and handling them to others was wise. Ages of questioning later, it seems like Han'san is ready to try and take the mantle. The reasoning behind this is more personal than linked to the current events happening to Tau Ceti, as Sezrak doesn't hold strong opinions about it. Sezrak is a proud Dominian, and doesn't think too much about other nations and their interest, besides dropping some barter on them from time to time. He appreciates Tau Ceti, but if it has to fall, then it will fall. He'll do his best to do his part as usual, though, as an Anomalist, or an RD, and to protect his friends and co-worker, wherever they come from... What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Research Director. Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes. Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Sezrak Han'san - RD Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes. Have you linked your byond account to the forums? Yes. Extra notes: Hiss.

PUT HIM IN THE PR

Right so there are a few things I have issues with and a few things I like. I've been a bit bugged myself at miners exploring derelicts right away, considering it's pretty much the only thing I can do myself with an anomalist. I rarely get to properly work with the current issues (although the allowance of scientists into the Intrepid has made things better for now, that's pretty cool), and the few times I hear of an away site well... It's already been explored. And since away sites don't often hold materials, it's even a proper replacement, and most of science (besides Xenoarcheology since there are often anomaleis been brought back, thank god) don't even get the benefits they would've had with a standard mining mission. On the other hand, I can get why this would happen. As stated above, expeditions don't happen so much, for one reason or another, so... Why not? At least on a gameplay level... Alt-title is okay, since it would indicate a different specialisation, people wouldn't have the same expectation for them, the same way they wouldn't have the same expectation for Xenoarchs and standards Scientists despite them being technically the same jobs with alt-titles. Now, if you've red my thread about this issue in science, you may know my opinion on this issue already, I'd rather have it its own job from the get go... That would also allow them to have access to the Intrepid without allowing all miners to do so... But that would be a thread on its own. Still, alt-title or new job, somethign needs to be done, both to differentiate these "explorers" and more classic miners, and have proper expectations for them. Also, on the proposal of "EVA specialist"... No. EVA Specialist is way too broad. Technically, a Xenoarch is an EVA Specialist. An engineer (or at least some of them) might as well be EVA specialists... Something simpler, more precise, and more importantly that could be understood by everyone, so that we could associate it with the proper expectations associated with it. My proposals would be "Explorer", "Scavenger", or "Pioneer". Hell, we could make them "Scouts", "Forward Reconaissance Elements", their jobs being limited to exploring a site while touching as little as possible, leaving the proper expedition work for when they'll be accompanied by a proper team with science, engineering, security (and hopefully someone from medical too).

There's a fourth reason I thought about, forgot while writing, and now just remembered! 4) There's also a gameplay aspect to the knowledge of anomalies. Now, when I said that "Xenoarcheology is ABSOLUTELY USELESS to the crew", I meant that it didn't contribute to the station's/ship's... Well being. You cannot regularly find easily activating and safe healing anomalies for medical for instance. However, that doesn't mean that anomalies and artifacts can't interact with the crew in other ways... Generally negative. In this case, you need an expert to deal with them. So here's the thing; if you have a gas leak, tainted air, something like that, you expect it to be the Atmos Tech (or some other engineer) to know better how to handle the issue and fix everything. If you have problems with troublesome prisonners, the Warden should be your go-to specialist to deal with that. If your crew is hungry and somehow can't use vending machines, none should be better fit to feed us all than the chef... Each problem has a job to counter it, generally, an expert who can respond to a threat efficiently, or at least, better than his less-trained peers. So what happens if you take away artifact canonicity then? Well, let's take the infamous statuette. Now, first, what does it do exactly? Basically it drains blood of nearby players (And perhaps some other creatures? I'm not sure about that part), and uses its blood to fuel various abilities, mainly summoning creatures. These range from greimorians to passive wraith that will make you pass out on contact, and of course, the dreaded horror that will dismember you in seconds if you're not prepared for a fight. If left unchecked, the statuette can, and will probably, keep on spawning creatures, over, and over, and over again. This can get, obviously, extremely dangerous, and even possibly round-ending. Now, obviously, you need an expert for that, and generally, Xenoarchs are expected to know how to deal with it, or at least, guide/assist crewmates that are better equipped/trained for combat. Except that if you remove the knowledge of prior statuettes being discovered, you basically delete this expert, and you are now clueless against against a possibly round-ending threat. It would be like having engineers forget how to deal with delaming engines, in this very situation. By removing artifact canonicity, you remove the crew's first (and in most cases, most effective) line of defence against active artifacts and anomalies: experience and knowledge on how to deal with them in the first place.

I don't agree, for multiple reasons. 1) Roleplay wise, this is the best way to make Xenoarcheology incredibly uninteresting. Making these things no longer canons means that every time a character meets an artifact, or an effect from an anomaly, the character will be seeing it for the first time. It is terribly boring, and to be frank, annoying to constantly roleplay out the same thing over and over of discovering something new that you already know about OOCly. You will end up roleplaying the same situation, over, and over, and over of discovering a "new" find that you already know about. This is what we did with sites during expeditions back on the Aurora, and it was boring, the only saving grace being that, then and there, you were generally with different people every time so you'd still somehow explore new dynamics with new character, but here? There's only you, the anomaly, and fellow scientists + miners that generally already know a fair bit about the finds too already. Remember that Xenoarcheology is ABSOLUTELY USELESS to the crew, gameplay-wise 99% of time, it is a PURELY roleplay job, making it really boring is just how you end it. 2) About the tone... I don't know. Personally I've never been minding it, and that's probably because it's never been incredibly important to the lore, or roleplay overall. However, speaking of roleplay... I really thing the tone is what the players make it to be. A crab-cloning machine can sure look amusing at first, then you can roleplay out researching into it... How is it working? Where does the matter come from to make these crabs? Bluespace portals? From the electricity it harvests, somehow? Or perhaps something more sumber? Personally I've always loved this "possibly magic" aspect. Aurora lore isn't without "paranormal" aspects, things that transcends laws of physics and the likes, with Singularities being the most well known as far as I know (Literally a being so intelligent it can affect reality with mere thoughts). As far as Xenoarcheology goes, the POSSIBLE ideas of cosmic horrors and the likes that just add spice to the job, and make it so unique! It's science, yes, but we're toying with things are definitively out there... And yet, I don't feel like it goes against the established lore because whatever the Xenoarcheologist says... It's theories! It might as well be machines grounded in reality that we simply do not understand and not death-engines from space hell or something. There IS something that we could fix, however... With so many anomalies being pulled out, how have we not fixed some of the few issues known to the Spur? Like, just on the Horizon, how can we have issues where we're lacking some types of food when we've probably uncovered dozens of cloning machines by now? My idea is that we could add a simple note to this job, lore-wise, something to explain how we're not exploiting these anomalies (at least the safe ones) to their fullest, why they seem to no longer matter post-round... Something as simple as "Due to the toll age has taken upon them, anomalies and artifacts cannot function for extended periods of time after extraction, and tend to break down after just a few hours of use". 3) If anything, Xenoarcheology could use a rework (which if I remember correctly, there was a fantastic, very thorough thread on such a topic, just can't manage to find it back), but until then I feel like decanonazing finds will just kill what little interest there may be for Xenoarcheology. Also on the Golem question, I always thought that the name Golems was the way the crew called them but not an official designation. Sure, we could rename them to something else, and change the runes to "opening dimensional rifts" or something like that.

Oh yeah, let's CERTAINLY NOT separate these two since, as far as the game goes, it's practically the same job with different specializations (The Xenoarch is more knowledgeable about historical artifacts, while the anomalist is more about unnatural phenomena linked to these). What I meant up there was that Anomalists be made, then, an alt-title of the Xenoarcheology job, basically. While I would appreciate a new shuttle, note that the EMP problem is no longer a thing! Back then on our little misadventure, the issue was that we lacked anomaly containers, which were originally made EXACTLY for that kind of situation. Sure it's just another piece of gear to pull around, and something that takes space, but it basically "freezes" anomalies preventing to do whatever they do, from what I got by experience... And by now these anomaly containers have been put back in the atrium, thank god. As far as the idea of a new shuttle goes, however, I leave this to devs and mappers. As far as I know, it's a "no", so far.

Almost two months later, and after the Horizon properly dropped, I come back to this thread! Honestly, I think working with miners is... Mostly a plus? But certainly unhandy at times. I guess we would need output from other Xenoarch players to know how much they like it. Most of my problems are still there however. Most of my suggestions, I believe are still valid, namely: - A Xenoarch would need access to parts of the mining department, at least to access and leave the mining bay on their own. Needing to wait for someone to open the door can be tedious at times, dangerous at others (IE: needing to relocate an active anomaly from the shuttle to an isolation room QUICK.) - A Xenoarch needs to better EVA gear, namely, a better suit. I have created another thread to discuss this matter, and I believe that this is the most important. The Fauna and the likes has been balanced around miners, which is great, but also makes Xenoarcheology even more dangerous than it already was, considering how weak the current science suits are. One... Issue persists too. The time it takes to bring materials back to the Horizon is much shorter than back when we started, which is good. The rate at which we bring anomalies, however, is way too low. I don't play more or less than back on the Aurora, but while back then I would be able to bring an anomaly back at least 75% of my rounds (generally interrupted by antag rounds and the likes). Now on the Horizon, after almost two months of playing on it, I only managed to bring TWO proper anomalies (the big ones counted as major artifacts on your ore scanner). Increased danger and the likes certainly is one of the main reasons behind this, but another one is also lack of access to any asteroids. As stated previously, no miners means no access to the shuttle, and while on rare occasions a pilot will be spared to take just a single Anomalist to a nearby asteroid on the Intrepid, lack of independance is still one of the mains reasons behind rounds where I... Pretty much do nothing. This is pretty frustrating to me, and I assume players in the same situation as mine where we only get the time to play a couple of rounds a week on average, to end up stuck in boring rounds where we cannot do anything due to such factors. As far as I go, I cannot think about an easy solution to this... That and perhaps I just happened to be extremely unlucky and other players got to find anomalies on a more regular basis. I also hope that some other Xenoarch players will give their input too in there.

Back before the NBT (now CBT) dropped, I made this thread about making Xenoarcheology an actual job and not an alt-title. This also came with several other suggestions to improve the overall experience, making it more enjoyable on the Horizon. Among these suggestions, is the idea of giving the Xenoarchs/Anomalists a voidsuit specifically for them, one that would strike a balance between the fragile but light science one, and the heavier, more protective mining one, along with some upgrades such as a proper headlight -with a range of more than 3 tiles-. The current science voidsuit works for any other science job, but with the Xenoarch being so often exposed to dangers that seem to have been balanced to be faced by miners, this just won't do. This thread is to discuss two things: 1) The actual specs of this suit, if we were to make it. 2) The looks of the suit. --- 1) As far as the exact specs go, I myself cannot say much. I do not know much about coding, or development, and don't understand much what all of these numbers in the code represent in actual gameplay. What I will say is this: right now, a human in a science voidsuit will get shredded by an eel, even after the much welcome rebalancing of these beasts. Bloaters can easily kill off a human too (and pretty much anything that isn't a Diona, Bulwark, or Unathi (and since Xenoarchs do not have any ranged weapons or tools like a KA, their chances to evade them are slim to none). Thus, we need to get enough protection to give these workers at least a modest ammount of survivability, and at least give them a chance against most of the common fauna encountered for now. And we REALLY need a better headlight. It wasn't really a problem back on the Aurora, because the rock was riddled with holes, you would still get some natural light, with pitch-black areas being limited to the construction level, and even then, fauna encounters were MUCH rarer. With the Horizon, asteroids are PITCH BLACK, making surviving or even avoiding hostile fauna even harder, especially with the ridiculously small THREE TILES range of the current science suit's headlamp. --- As far as the looks go, well... I can do some spriting work myself. Here's a prototype I made, there's only a sprite for a human version so far, but this is just to convey the basic idea for it, for now, we'll see about different species and details later. The idea is to have the suit look exactly like what it's supposed to be, a middle-ground between Science's and Mining's voidsuit. It is a somewhat heavier-looking science voidsuit (made using parts of armor vest sprites), bearing the mining one's brown and grey tones, simply put.

On the one hand, storage space may get reduced a tad, which... May be significant in some instances (your local anomalist helps you bring back 6 lost crates and tries to store them in the ship already full with minerals.) On the other end, if this ends up reducing the ourageous cycling times which actually did cost several lives, then by god PLEASE let us do that. At least I'd eagerly give it a try, just to see how it goes.

Aurora is just like Star Wars, or Warhammer, or LOTR, etc. It's a fun hobby that also happens to have a setting with a more or less deep lore. Just like these franchise, it's purely fictional and has lots of room for mindless fun. It also has lots of room for people to get hooked into it, follow it eagerly, take part in it, etc. The lore becomes the hobby as much as the... Well, hobby itself. As far as Aurora itself goes... I'd say there's a bit of seriousness at least? In the lore/atmosphere, firstly, there's drama between interstellar powers, wars... There's lore and articles going in details of societies several-centuries old... I mean it's not Hippie where you can fart your ass off, or some ERP server where's we're just here for smut and no one cares about lore... There's stuff happening, and it's dramatic stuff! In the work done, secondly, obviously there's some seriousness... Lore is developped with teams, there's organisation, there's hours spent in there to contribute to the lore... For free, for fun! We wouldn't be there if we weren't having fun (I hope), but there's a lot of work going there, so yeah, serious, I think. As far as the individual player goes, I don't think there's a way to arbitrarily say if something is meant to be taken seriously or not. At least in the realm of hobbies like these. Do you want to get involved in the deep lore? Take it seriously? Do so! Have fun! You're here to have fun are you? Are you not into the lore and just here to enjoy the game without a care in the world for all of the interstelar drama and corporate hell that awaits for you in the lore of the Spur? Go ahead too! (So long as you don't actually go directly against the lore like "Oh yeah, I come from Earth when it was nuked 10 years ago in 3010" or something".) TL;DR: - Is Aurora a "serious" work? Yeah, I think so. - Is Aurora meant to be taken seriously? I don't know. You make it as serious as you want it to be.

Alright how about these ones instead: Cult of the Geometer is the one we have, of course, but I'm just putting it here for comparison's sake. Obviously, the Gimmick is blood and we summon the big bad Nar-sie herself (himself? Itself? I don't know, I always remember refering and seeing other refer to Nar-sie as a she). Thanks to their magic tome, they can do pretty much anything, from bringing equipment to converting people, communicating, fortifying positions, etc. The vast range of runes that can be used means that the Geometer's cult can actually choose from a wide range of strategies. In our context of multiple cult being present, it would be perhaps the "Good at everything - Great at nothing" type of Cult. Cult of the Supermatter with the totally self-explanatory gimmick of radiations and such. Cultists here would be equipped with blessed/cursed supermatter shards or something akin to these in place of tomes. Instead of relying on direct opposition against the crew, they'd rely on various radiation-emitting items and constructs to weaken the crew and diverts its attention (from literally weakening them to causing harm, hallucination, partial blindness, etc.) until they can manage to summon their own Supermatter Demon. This means that this cult would probably be the closest thing we'd get to a stealth cult, despite them actively causing trouble to the crew meaning that everyone would still know that something is going on and start searching. On an extra note, that could be the basis for some funny antag lore about supermatter shards and such being pieces of a literal God. Cult of the Dark Moon which is perhaps my favorite context, and not just because I love Lovecraftian horror and Dead Space... Their gimmick is that they are the most Lovecraft-ish cult, though... But not just that. A planet sized object spawns on the space map, along with everything else generally generated... This planet-sized object is an Eldritch God-like horror that the local cultist venerate. Their goal is either to steer the ship toward it, or draw it to the ship with a large-enough "bait" they can summon in the end. The closer the ship gets to the planet, the more anomalous things get, with hallucinations, messages like "You feel like you shouldn't be here" and other twisted things happening all around, preventing the normal crew from actually giving the Cult a win without knowing it by reaching the planet. Additionally the cult itself relies on a lot of madness-inducing powers to weaken the crew. Gameplay-wise, this strikes me as a much more aggressive version of the Supermatter Cult, only, relying on "debuffing" the crew rather than equipping themselves with better cultist gear like the Geometer Cult does. Cult of the Singularity, a more open version of the Glorsh cult. The overall idea is to end up creating a being that achieved Singularity. Gimmick wise, it's the more science-based Cult although, as we'll see quickly, it doesn't prevent some... Anomalous events from happening. The idea would be to have one member be chosen to become the Singularity, and thus, will basically become the "Chosen One" of the Cult. This Chosen One gets basically plugged with God knows how many cybernetics horrors, rendering them extremely slow and vulnerable, however, they also act like a sort of second AI... Far weaker than an actual AI at first, mostly just being a floating camera, but slowly gaining power as the rest of the Cultist bring gear to empower them, allowing them to cast supernatural events against the crew. These cultists would have a sort of list of things to bring (Phoron, engines, scientific tools, computers, etc. Ideally, they'd have to take from most if not all departments), then, once it's done, undergo a final "ritual" to sacrifice themselves and merge their minds with the Chosen, effectively turning them into a proper Singularity, winning the round. This is a more "defensive" kind of cult, as cultists have to put their chosen one somewhere safe, and then, keep them in one piece until they can achieve their goal. Fortifications, traps, and the crew being on the offensive (for once) is to be expected. Pestilence Cult aka "I love you papa Nurgle" aka "Medical's worst nightmare" aka "I may have super-aids but I can tank bullets". More seriously, the Gimmick is obviously diseases. Now, what's the difference with radiations from the Supermatter Cult, then? Well, radiations are a sort of passive thing... Plant a magic rock, or bring an item somewhere, and let the radiations spread. In here, however, the diseases have to be actively spread. This means that this would be the most aggressive cult. Pestilence Cultists rely on actual combat to generally spread their diseases, melee combat generally. Obviously, Melee fighters generally get annihilated by security's big guns, so they must rely on various diseases to reinforce themselves, causing some debuffs on one end, while making them tankier on the other. But why spreading disease in the first place? With each infected (but living) member of the crew onboard, the cult grows stronger, and can buff themselves with more diseases. This plague that they spread to the crew wouldn't be lethal, but it would severely limit their ability to pose a threat to the cultists, and would need medical treatment to be cured, keeping constant pressure on the medical department and forcing the cultists to not go ham and absolutely kill everything they see (a dead player is not an infected player, there's nothing to gain from a corpse.) The moment there are enough plagued players onboard, the Cultists can start their final ritual to summon Nurgle The Plague God or something. Obviously all of this is concept, placeholder names, and merely concepts as far as mechanics goes.

Quite self-explanatory, really. We have all of these sweet ghost-roles like the Solarian Ship, or the Space Bar that actually spawn in ship/structures that can be seen on the starmap, and even reached. recently I've played my first Merchant round ever and I was surprised to see that the Merchant doesn't... Exist on the map, sort of. The Merchant's station cannot be seen on the Starmap, so I've been told, and the Merchant's ship cannot really be piloted, it just sort of Bluespace-teleports to the Horizon, just like most ships did in the time of the Aurora. It's fine, but I feel like it's lost potential. How about having an Intrepid or Mining Pod flying to the Merchant's base? How about having the Merchant pass by the Space Bar or even the Solarian ship to trade with these, only to bring their stuff to the Aurora? It's not just that it would make sense for the Merchant to be able to fly around and dock with whoever they want (or have whoever dock with their station), it's that it would be really fun!

Nar'sie turns out to be actually canon (hence the Xenoarcheological finds) and, after a pretty epic (and massively lag-inducing) final battle where all living things face the armies of cultists under the Geometer's orders, we ultimately fail and all die.

There's not much else to say other than the fact that I love Cult and it could seriously use an overhaul. I'm definitely contributing to this if this requires help to be made, may it be in writing or spriting... Because it HAS to be made.

Your suggestion is good, and aknowledged! We'll look at it, see what we'll do...

I would honestly love to have some kind of spacecraft for Xenoarcheology, or even just science as a whole, but, as far as I know, it's not supposed to happen, or at least, won't happen anytime soon. Thinking about this, I can certainly see why. I've been told it's to encourage roleplay with fellow miners, which is good, but coming from separate directions didn't prevent such a thing. We could already roleplay together on the Aurora, so long as we're on the same rock, we should be good. But the thing is that minin/xenoarcheology is much more dangerous right now, than back on the Aurora, coming there together, may be the smarter solution, for now. And yes I agree, the Intrepid should be for expeditions only, or any other kind of operation that warrants a small crew of its own.

Then for normal exavations, I'm not so sure, no. While I'm not very fond of having Xenoarcheology depending on other department to practice their job, due to them not having their own means of space travel, I don't think the Intrepid should be taken just for your regular Xenoarcheology excavations. The point of the Intrepid is still to have a large-ish team onboard, and that rarely happens with regular sorties. There's still ways to have the Xenoarchs be a tad more independent, but I don't think that this is the one. On another note, I already had proposed a few things there if this can pick your interest. There's no Intrepid in there, but some alternatives are possible.

I agree...? Yeah I think I support the idea. I didn't get to find any sort of site worthy of an actualy expedition (can we, yet?) but I'm certain it would be frustrating to miss an opportunity like this... Especially since, putting aside the difficulty and probably lethality of the journey (I don't mind, but I know some people do), it's very often tons of fun, gameplay-wise, and roleplay-wise. Outrunning the Gigaspider/Gigaggreimorian through the dark corridors of an abandonned facility, while characters thinking they won't get out of there a live start confessing stuff they would've never otherwise, only to survive miraculously is hardly something you can get in other situations. On the other hand, I generally saw expedition as that one extra-dangerous thing that would actually warrant a full team, and as far as I know, the Intrepid is for that. Assuming that expedition are at least just as dangerous with the Horizon, if the Xenoarch can't get enough people to properly crew the ship, then it's probably not going to go well out there... Still, I think this would be interesting, at least just to test out, see how it goes...

Yeah, you knew that was coming. It's a pleasure to see how far we have come in such a short time, from our very first, very messy first round on the Horizon to today. Obviously, with something so new and different change will have to be made... I feel like some big things should be changed, and I'm far from being the only one, but everyone is aware, and the NBT just dropped, so for now let's focus on something small, yet far from minor. The Eels, the damn Eels, man. Look, I get the idea, of having a rare but very dangerous creature out there. I also, generally don't mind unfair odds and events, I wouldn't be maining Xenoarcheology if I did, however there's a problem when this also means miners getting slaughtered and the ship missing on materials and multiple jobs ending up very... Limited. Once again, I imagine that many problems on the side will be fixed later on, so I really just want to focus on the Eel itself. Here are the problems I'm seeing so far: - They are redundant in their purpose. We already had a "rare but dangerous", Space Sharks. Now, of course, the Eel is much, MUCH more lethal than the shark, but as far as unique roles go, that's pretty much it. They hit hard and can take a lot of punishement. Now, there may be another role that had been planned instead, to be so dangerous that the only proper course of action is to run, which is actually very interesting and nice! But... - You can hardly outrun them. I do not mind overpowered foes if you have the ability to avoid or at least escape them. The Eels go rather fast, faster than a walking human in their voidsuit. This means that you will have to run, and obviously, your stamina has limits. You could try to block the Eel into terrain with the help of a heavy object (my go-to one is the Field Generator because with a wrench you can keep it stuck on the ground, mob can't push it, assuming that you've got the right terrain around, and are fast enough), but so far, most of the rocks we've seen are actually full of open spaces, meaning that hiding in terrain is a pretty limited option as well. And I'm speaking of this assuming that you're a Human. Unathi and Dionae are never going to get a chance at escaping it. - They are HORRENDOUSLY POWERFUL. Yeah of course. As stated, you can hardly outrun them, and facing them is nearly suicidal. If alone, or even with one or two friends, you WILL die, if not from the Eel itself, from your wounds (As it will take a while to fly back to the Horizon... Once again, another problem for another time). Here are a few solutions possible, they could be used together too: - Solution one, nerfing them. I... I'm actually not that fond of that solution, I feel like the next ones would be better... But these nerfs could be used to give the Eel a more precise role... Make it much slower, to that it remains as dangerous, but can be avoided by all; make it very fragile, so that it acts as a glass cannon, that can do terrible damage to the careless EVA workers, but that the experienced ones knowing where to look and how to react have a chance; etc. - Solution two, keeping them around a point of interest. Just like how the Hierophant will defend its spot in the Lavalands of your local Baystation-ish server, one way to make the Eel unique, even more interesting, and keep its level of danger might be to make it defend its own little spot. A tile with something it defends (and maybe a worthy reward that could be an incentive to actually face the Eel, like a phoron-superdense rock that would give a full stack's worth of phoron once mined, very expensive Eel eggs, a literal treasure chest, etc.) meaning that the Eel will never go X-tiles away from it and that the players can still run away, and yet have an incentive to not just ignore and stay away from the beast. It's my favorite solution by the way. - Solution three, keeping them for precise sites. Just like how we had the megaspider/megagreimorian on an away-site with the Aurora (yes I know it was played by a player, but my point stands as far as danger level went), HIGHLY dangerous fauna like the Eels would be kept for special spots, precise sites, ones that players can recognize and know that they may have to at least prepare, giving them a chance to properly engage with the beast, or even just avoid the confrontation. While I'm not fond of the Eel in its current state, and so are many other players from what I've seen/heard, I KNOW that there is potential for something really, really interesting.

OKAY. It's been... Way too long and we're sorry about that. BUT, better later than never, yes? Hopefully? Anyways... The team agrees, these are some interesting proposals, and as far as I go, I do enjoy the idea to actually dedicate a space on the wiki to disabilities and such... Anything to help create and flash out characters, all the while enriching the lore is always good! However, because there's a however, we're not so sure about some of the finer details. Thus, we will see about implementing it, but not without checking and perhaps tweaking and changing a few things first. In any case, your application is highly appreciated! Thanks! And sorry again for the VERY late response!

That I can definitely agree with. And, well, I said it and will say it again, as a Xenoarch/Anomalist main, I really don't mind unfair deaths unless it's from something unintended like a glitch or bad roleplay... Like, stepping into the Xenoarcheology Atrium is basically like signing a contract that says that RNGeesus now handles your fate. That and, as a Unathi main, I can always shrug off some seriously ridiculous ammounts of damages so I don't worry about that... However I still believe that a suit upgrade might be needed, beyond a better headlamp (see below.) Also this. The Horizon is still basically in its infancy. The testing weeks are basically over, but I assume that we're still going to see a lot of updates and maybe even changes the moment it drops, and I'd rather wait for these changes to happen first, and for us to get used to it to speak too much about this part... Plus the fact that it's a whole other subject that deserves its own thread... So I'll be brief. Basically, it's just the idea of being so far from the main ship that makes EVA so dangerous currently. The new fauna, despite how brutal it can be, is welcome... However, the risks to have a "slow death" are much higher. Say... That a shark headbutts you in the wrong spot and your lungs have been damaged. On the Aurora, you might have been able to walk back to the station and have a First Responder pick you up once inside, but out there it's not possible. You have to head back to your pod, maybe wait for your miner pals to come back too, cycle in, fly back to the ship, cycle again, and then get picked up. The whole process takes at least up to (extra) five minutes (compared to how it went on the Aurora) which is MORE than enough to make a difference between life and death. The Horizon cannot hear you from your rock unless you're already in your pod with the long range communicator, so calling the First Responder for a rescue is out of the question, plutting aside the fact that they'd need to get on a pod, cycle, fly to the destination, cycle, pick you up, etc. There's the idea of taking a First Responder with you from the get go, but unless you get wounded it's gonna get boring for you, they might not have the tools for the right operations, and at some point, it just turns into a whole expedition (which had this kind of danger level) just for a random anomaly, or some minerals. There's no easy answer to balancing the added lethality of the new EVA, as far as I can see, and once again, now is probably not the right time to try to answer it, maybe in a few weeks when we'll all be used to this. But anyways yeah that's my reasoning behind all of this, and why science, or at least the Xenoarch, should have a suit armor upgrade of some kind. TL;DR: EVA is much more unforgiving on the Horizon, it's less about getting hurt and more about being killed by things that tended not to on the Aurora.

"Xenoarcheologist" and "Anomalist" currently are alternate titles for the Scientist role. Thus they get the same permissions, same expectations, same limits, etc. I believe that it would be for the better, especially with the Horizon on the horizon (laugh, please). Why should we make Xenoarchs an actual role: - The expectations are way different. Xenoarchs and Anomalists are very often either outside, or in their anomalous dungeon. While they can handle RnD, chemistry, and such, they do not have the same skills as other scientists, and neither do they have the time to do their job. I mean, hell, the "alt-title" literally got its own wiki-page, that's how different they are. - A Xenoarcheologist could use access unique to their own role, such as a limited access to the mining department and the mining pods. Not to go out by themselves (because EVA is currently highly dangerous but that's a discussion for another day so going alone is suicidal), but to move with more ease in and out of the department, and on their own. Active anomalies have to be handled fast very often, and needing a miner or someone else from operations to open the door can often lead to unneeded wounds or even death (IE: radiations emitting anomalies). - Access to better EVA gear. I get the balance between voidsuits, and I perfectly understand why the science voidsuit is so miserable... It's not meant for hard work, nor is it meant for exploration. It's used by your local telescientist to not die in case their portal went wrong, or for your local bombmaker to assess the damages of their creation in person. But this makes Xenoarcheology incredibly hard and dangerous. the EXTREMELY LIMITED view range afforded by the headlamp (3 tiles at most) certainly shows its limits in the pitch-black environments of the asteroids around the Horizon, and while the (light) protection against radiations is welcome, the paper-thin armor means that a couple of carps can very well end you if RNG isn't in your favour once they hit you. (See more about that below in the "intricacies" category) - No more confusion about "Scientists" doing X job. A rare instance, and a minor one, but one that happens nonetheless... Since they are the same job, a "Scientist" can leave and do Xenoarcheology. There's nothing wrong with it, since it's all alt-titles... But I've seen a few instances where Scientists expected to do RnD and the likes get shouted at for doing Xenoarcheology, which they were still allowed to do. Separating the two jobs can prevent such confusion. Intricacies, things to tweak and change and not forget about if we ever go on with that: - The role capacity, or whatever it's called. Currently, I'm pretty sure we can have 5 scientists tops, which includes Xenoarcheology. If Xenoarcheology becomes its own role, first, I see up to three players in this role, I've seen this happen quite a lot on busy rounds, but never more than that. Scientists would then have their numbers reduced to 3-4 players tops, I supposed. - "Anomalist" becomes an alt-title for the "Xenoarcheologist" role. - The Xenoarch's "better" EVA gear can be anything. At first, a cheap solution might be mining gear (assuming the Xenoarch role has access to the mining department). They present different advantages and drawbacks... Better armor and lights, lack of resistance to radiations... It's a choice, to make, but I feel like a Xenoarcheologist in mining voidsuit would DEFINITELY have higher chances of survival. The better solution might be the creation of a Xenoarcheology voidsuit, one that strikes a middle-ground between the mining and science one... But that would be for another thread entirely. Just know that, since Xenoarcheology becomes a role on its own, only they have access to it. - As far as access goes, it would be comparable to a Xenobotanist's or Xenobiologist's, with the added (partial) access to the mining department. With this logic, why not giving a unique role for telescientists, bomb-makers or exploratory chemists?: - Lore-wise, I feel like it would represent the slow, and small, but still noticeable growing interest in anomalies and such. The Aurora was a SCIENCE station, the Horizon is an EXPLORATION ship. To quote its wiki page: "While detecting Phoron is considered the primary objective, there also exists secondary and even tertiary objectives in which the crew of the SCCV Horizon must attempt to accomplish - examples of which are investigating potential colony sites for the expansion of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate and the Republic of Biesel, as well as analysing deep space anomalies to uncover the mysteries of the Orion Spur, and hopefully unearthing additional information on why Phoron exists and why it has such a profound impact within the regions of which it is discovered." - Gameplay-wise, bomb-making and telescience are much less time consuming. On the Aurora, it takes between 30 to 60 minutes to extract a find and bring it back, and I'm not speaking about actually analyzing the finds... On the Horizon, it can take up to an hour and a half (which is WAY too long, but once again, something for another thread.) If people ever agree with such a thing, of course, we would have, then, to see through other thread how it would be implmented, some of the intricacies (IE, the Xenoarch voidsuit if people ever agree with such a concept), but I just want to see if people ever agree about making the Xenoarcheologist an actual role first.

Yes indeed!