Captain Gecko

Hey there! It seems that I'll be the lore-boy mostly handling your app for the time being, and it's pretty much the first time for me so bear with me! I didn't get to roleplay much with you, but the little that I could do with you was certainly enjoyable, thinking mainly of Volvalaad. You seem to be serious and into it, even putting aside roleplaying skills, which is cool... And that app itself is certainly interesting, I know I love Si’akh! Now that's out of the way, the real deal... The lore bits! 1) What's Zezria's Idea of honor, what is it, if she has any? Yes, her name is Guwan, and yes, she spent a good chunk of her life being a thief... Yet, she is still a Sinta, and honor is still something mostly ingrained in their mindset. Is Zezria looking for a way to cope with her actions? Or is it the opposite, and she sees herself with shame? And once again, what's her view on honor in general, does she even minds it (After all, it does happen that some Guwans/Guwandis simply just don't care about honor and such)? 2) Synthetics, AIs, what's her opinion of it? More importantly, how would she react to/act with them? Zezria will surely meet and face a good bunch of synthetics after all... This can extend to people with artificial prosthetics. 3) Does Zezria hold any kind of baggage from Moghes? Anything important to Zezria, something that still matters to this day to her, in Tau Ceti? 4) Zezria's opinion on other Sintas, depending on their origins, is there anything of note? I won't tell you to speak of ALL Unathi depending on their religion or origin because we'd be there forever (but if you're to the task, good luck), but rather, if there's anything noteworthy, the way she'd feel about one particular group or another? 5) Same as question (4) but for other species in general. Take your time. Didn't mention it yet, but so far, your app looks great enough to me!

I appreciate these changes a lot! One question, though, are these just visual changes or gameplay-ish? Like would this have an effect on Dionae then?

My bad, then. The problem still stands for Xenoarcheology, though. Currently there's no way for them to do anything without either someone to drive the Intrepid for them, or a miner to guide them... Which means that they can very easily end up useless on the ship. I'll add that as someone who plays on deadhours, I can tell that this is something that's going to happen a lot to many players. That's my main problem.

My idea is to add a shuttle/pod, just like the one used by mining, not an actual ship (no matter how small it may be) like the Intrepid. As far as I know, miners need to wait for the Horizon to actually fly next to a rock, before heading to it themselves, due to the pod's limited range. In the meantime, the Intredpid seems to be able to travel around mostly independantly. This way, we would have the Xenoarch, without bridge crew, limited to handling smaller sites just like mining, giving them freedom, and a way to do their job (without nescessarily endengering half of Deck 1) without ruining the fun of joining an expedition.

Alrighty, so I've already sent all I had to say on Github, but I'm going to point them out here as well since I'm a only speaking of design matters (and not glitches, such as the Protolathe/Circuit Printers not accepting materials). *** First, the most important to me. In short, Xenoarcheology cannot do its job by itself. Xenoarcheologists, on paper, specialize in extracting finds outside, while Anomalists study these finds (although the two end up doing both part of the job since they are very often without each other), which means that they must, at some point, go out there and dig out their things. On the Horizon, this means leaving the ship and landing on some rock/planet. The problem is that, currently, they cannot do that independantly. The Intrepid obviously needs a pilot, and seems to be more fit for larger expeditions anyways. The only other alternative seems, then, to be to use a mining pod... BUT, the local Xenoarch does not have access to the Operations department, and thus, needs to rely on a miner to reach one of these shuttles in the first place. I do mind working alongside miners, however, in the absence of these people, or at least, absence of miners willing to go out there, the Xenoarcheologist ends up being stuck on station. And I'm not even mentionning the risks of bringing a possibly active anomaly to the Operation departments and needing to carry it all the way to the other side of Deck 1 to finally store it in an isolation room... Needing miners to also leave the Operations department, of course. The best solution, by far, seems to be, simply, to give the science department its own little shuttle/pod to do its job, one that can easily be accessed and lead quickly to the Xenoarcheology department, the same way the mining pods can lead to the smelting room. Until then, giving scientists access to the Operations Department can be a temporary solution, so that a mining pod can be borrowed for their work, if no miner is willing/able to work/share if they are present at all. Issue on Github here: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/issues/13030 *** Secondly, let's speak of the Science Storage room. Located by the conference room, just like on the Aurora, it, however, absolutely doesn't fill the purpose it had to fill back on the Aurora. The point of the Storage room, and reason why we asked for one, was because science needed an area to store the prototypes it created, items it found, etc. (and possibly, somewhere SECURE.) This room, then, also gave new roleplaying opportunities, by turning into an objective for antags, for instance, as an alternative to the Vault. I have made, in the Github issue (find it here: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/issues/13034) a mock-up of a more fit storage room already. *** I don't think that's bad design, I think you guys probably just forgot (no biggie), but there's only nitrile gloves for humans in Science's EVA prep room. You could add Tajara and Unathi-fitting gloves in these excavation lockers, that's how it is on the Aurora, currently, at least. Issue here: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/issues/13033 *** Not the first one to speak of lacking disposals. It seems that it's currently being addressed, I can see new chutes popping here and there, that's good. I couldn't find these areas being pointed out so far, on Github, so I'll had my bit. Deck 1 (The Horizon's equivalent of sub-level), as far Science goes... Is lacking too as far as Disposal Units go. So far I've only spotted one in the firing range. I've proposed multiple spots for extra Disposal Units (https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/issues/13031) throughout the area. *** PS: things barred and in green have been already dealt with. Great job with the fast response, guys.

Been playing Sezrak since September 2019, and it has always been a blast. I love playing this character, and so far, most of what I could get from people is that they seemed to enjoy this overweight lizard's company too. But I never truly asked so... Here we are. What do you think about Sezrak? Anything to say about him?

Coming up with an idea for a chirper post for Metal Crushers really ain't that hard. If you ever lack ideas, it's just a fighter being presented, or a fight being teased. But if you guys have ideas that you might want to see, go ahead!

Ok, so first I need to point out two things: - One, the only round I played truly by Alex was as a Unathi Cargotech who formed a captain comitee with Buck and a Diona, so due to the stupidly cargonian nature on this round, I can't really assess much about her character, so I won't motion her anymore. - Two, I do not enjoy characters for their... Characters. As I said multiple times, on multiple occasions, I do not see roleplaying games, at least most of them, as a story where I incarnate a character, or a story that nescessarily has mine be the center of it all (at least in multiplayer games such as this one.) Aurora is about the Aurora's/Horizon's crew, each character being a small part, adding their bit to the story... Or, lots of smaller stories told by crewmembers interacting with each others. So... Sam Chalegre... Sezrak certainly didn't like her too much at first, her lack of professionalism, and perhaps even talent when compared to the likes of Watari and Andersen in the old times, certainly didn't give him the best first impressions... Although over time, things changed. First she turned out to be one of the only roboticist remaining from "the old times", giving a natural sense of companionship between the two, and by extent, generally the more experienced. Secondly, there's the fact that, well, she helped (IE: sending a remote-controlled kamikaze exosuit to destroy a statuette), something that outmatches by far the IC drama she indulges in. In truth, over time, there's been some kind of redomption arc, at least to the eyes of Sez... In other words, character progression! And that may be why I appreciate Chalegre in the end, an interesting bit of story in the Aurora, simple as that.

Hey there! I don't really handle accepting custom items or not, but I certainly can add my bit as far as lizard lore goes to help the people in charge make the right choice. So as far as lizard lore goes... Yeah it's good, nothing bad to to say. Also good work with that sprite (Getting some good Bionicles vibes from it, I love it) +1

Take what I say with a grain of salt because I am BY NO MEANS an expert in engineering, but from what I've heard you have to use one of these pump things instead, something that, as far as I am aware, is not explained on the wiki. And yes I agree, and I said it already myself, maint-droning just for that is a hassle at best.

I think they are alright, they do their job as a way to show how little power the Republic has compared to the SCC, let alone other powers in the Spur, yet at the same time, show that the Republic isn't entirely defenseless and can still be considered a rather believable society. No real strong feelings with the rework as of now. Also yes, I agree with Danse just above. To be honest I really love the Foreign Legion name because I'm a fan of the IRL one, however it is true that as far the Aurora one goes, the name isn't really fitting. The idea of the Foreign Legion being called just that assumes that it is made out of non-local (in this case non-french) soldiers, usually gaining nationality/citizenship by the end of their service, as opposed to the other more regular commands. While the TCFL is quite comparable to the real Foreign Legion in its premise, the problem is that... Well, it's the only "army" of the the Republic. Changing the name to TCRL/Tau Ceti Republic Legion, for instance, would make more sense... Or we could keep the Foreign Legion name (Because I still really love it), but point out that the name has been kept more for tradition's sake than anything else.

Agreed, hatches is more fitting.

Share your conspiracy theories, make them as wild as you want... You don't have to believe in them yourself (I don't believe in half of the ones I'm going to post, but think of these as things that some of the more or less goofy characters could believe in the Spur... It's mostly an unserious thread, but I'm really curious and would like to see what people could think of... Here are mine! I'll probably post more as I go and think about more stupid stuff to add. Moghes was not (mainly) nuked by Mogheans R E D S P A C E (Ancient) Bluespace Civilisations Interdimensional "gifts" Realspace is not the "surface" / There is no surface BLUESPACE HELL THEORY The original Moroz Colonists were not forgotten but still left for dead Psionics are tied to Bluespace

This is interesting indeed, I support the idea. I think there should be something to adjust the scale of what Deuteragonists you get... Obviously you wont' do the Wargame on deadhours with two crewmembers.

Right so, I remember seeing this thread when it first came out, said that I would need to add my bit at some point, then never did. Now that it's somehow back, I shall do so. Alright so, I'll just get some context about me out of the way, so that I can focus on what I have to say first: - I do not tend to play antag often, the main reason being that I rarely get to play the game, generally one or two rounds a week, during which I'd rather have my main (and probably only) character grow and interact with the crew rather to spend it with an Antag that is basically... A bet as far as good moments go. During holidays and such when I have more time, this tends to change, but generally, yes, I don't play antag often. - Despite what I'm going to say below, keep in mind that as an antag character, I rarely ever kill, let alone fight... For multiple reasons. Firstly, my character tend to generally be more about discussing than outright fighting, may it be because of his personality, or simply his attachement to the crew despite the reasons that pushed him to be an antag (assuming that I don't play an offstation antag); secondly, I'm just unrobust as fuck. Like I'm really, REALLY bad. I can lose a bare-handed fight playing a Unathi against a Skrell, that's how bad I am. - As stated earlier, I tend to play a single character, and have little to no interest to play anyone/anything else. This means that if he dies, it's over for me until next round. Couple with what I pointed out just above, the fact that I only play a couple of rounds a week currently, and you can probably get that when my boy dies, it matters to me. - As an anomalist main, I've learned to take character death... Very lightly. Xenoarcheology is basically offering yourself to RNGeesus' whims, it can be brutal, random, and most importantly, very unfair. You may very well pull an anomaly out and get instantly teleported into oblivion in the FOLLOWING SECOND resulting in an instant death, the "By joining a round you agree that forces will act upon this character up to and including death" couldn't be truer with this job and I've come to accept it very quickly. I've next to never contested a death (with the few exceptions being tied to glitches, such as the statuette originally spawning an invisible mob that could simply not get killed, hurting you, breaking windows and venting areas, and ruining medical as soon as you were taken there, denying you any chances to survive). Now that this is out of the way... I absolutely agree with OP. In fact, strangely enough, I agree with most of the people around here, no matter what side of the discussion they are on. Yes, we shouldn't have to have a 20-minute-long discussion before dying, but yes, being teleported into oblivion out of nowhere isn't right. Yes, it's annoying to be murdered 10 minutes into the round and lost your only character for the next two hours, and yes, it is something that we should expect, as we CHOSE to play a single character in the first place and know what we're risking. Aurora is aimed at roleplay first and foremost, but that doesn't mean that action is to be discarded. I think the problem is that, like with the discussions we've had about how agressive security should be without breaking the roleplay, we can't even agree on what roleplay, or proper roleplay is... And I think we won't all ever truly agree, because it's not just about the basics of not randomly shooting people, but also about how we like to play. I don't think we'll properly all agree on what is roleplay or how we should do it anytime soon, but hey, still, here's how I see things... First and foremost, THIS GAME TELLS A STORY, THE STORY OF THE STATION/SHIP'S CREW. YOUR CHARACTER IS NOT THE PROTAGONIST OF AURORA'S STORY, THE CREW IS. You are part of the crew, but you are not the sole character in it (unless you're playing on deadhours lmao). Whatever Aurora's story may be about; just another day at work, the tale of a dark cult taking over the area, or of a small crew of pirates attacking, you are only a contribution to this story. Read books involving crews and bands as a whole, watch movies and shows... Character may inevitably die to contribute to the story. Your character contributes to the story both in life and death. Now I assume that this story I'm speaking of is at least decent (I'll explain what I see as not decent later). By engaging in a collaborative/multiplayer roleplaying game, you're here to be part of a story, but you are not the story. You are much an actor as you are a spectator. I'll personally feel as satisfied of a good round of extended, as I'll be with a round where my character's death in the first 30 minutes contributed to people uncovering who was the antag and their motives, just as said antag begins the final steps of his masterplan. As much as I love my character and having him interact with the crew, no matter how chaotic or not the situation be, I love to have him be part of a good story, even if this means that he has to die in the first 30 minutes (do note that I am not speaking of canon deaths here, though). We have some problems, of course, the first one is that the story has to be good in the first place. In this case, this mostly comes from the antag. I do not care so much about what their goals are, but rather why they are and how this antag reaches them. A simple murder attempt can be fantastic if the antag is, say, leaving clues for the crew to pick up, guiding them in various spots, perhaps as part as their master plan to trap their target too; while a conspiracy to have a bunch of antags unite to take over the station in the name of their own company for various interesting lore reasons might feel incredibly underwhelming if it ends up being played as just a group of guys sneaking around and backstabbing people around leaving them dead instantly, not giving the crew a chance to follow what's going on before being innevitably murdered as well. Obviously there are also many gimmicks that won't lead to deaths that are as interesting and that must not be ignored as possibilities, but this is not the point of this thread. We might also talk about Security and other obstacles to the Antag playing a huge part in this story, but that's another discussion, and we already have a (multiple actually) thread for that. The second problem is enforcement. We can't agree on what is the acceptable level of violence allowed in this or that situation, if yes or no an antag should kill this guy right now or deliver a 20-page manifesto before pressing the trigger; it is the same for admins and such. You may judge that the story was good enough to warrant venting the room to escape into space while security pounces on you, the sec players may even agree, but the admin that's going to boink you may or may not. This is more of a "how should things should be enforced" discussion, and deserves its own thread as well, but I'm just putting it here as well. In the end, I think the main point remains this however, at least to me: This is a game where you create a story, and the story may include death, your character's death, but what matters is the story first and foremost. Just do your best and make sure that if you die, it matters and only makes the story greater... It may turn a supposedly frustrating moment into an unforgivable one.

AH YES, now that is really good. More Dominia lore is always great (I am extremely biased), and this looks like a great addition to me. Now I have a few notes: - The title names sound a bit goofy. I don't mind them being literal french words, but: -- Nouvelles for “Novice”, is not incorrect, however, it could be... Better. First there's the fact that since French is a latin language with no neutrally-gendered word, we have to choose one. Naturally, it would've been "Nouveau", which is male-gendered (however "male words" are also used in generalities, for when there is a plurality of genders being represented, or when we don't know who's in). Otherwise, we might also choose better words. "Novice" is also french, and is simply more fitting ("Nouveau" means "new" on paper, it could be about anything), there is also "Débutant" which is "Beginner". Finally, you don't need to add an "S" at the end, since as a title it shouldn't refer to multiple people, the three other titles below do not seem to be in their plural form either. -- Classe de Maître, “Masterclass”, is not clumsy, it's nearly wrong. "Classe de maître" here means "class of masters", which is not a title you'd give to someone, it would be like naming someone with a PhD "Class of Doctor". "Maitre", simply for "master", could work, then there is, more fitting for the world of fencing, and I believe, much more fitting: "Maître d'armes" or "Master of arms" in english, which refers, in current year and in the past, to experts and teachers in fencing. - Shouldn't the title "His Imperial Majesty’s Royal Fencer" be called "His Imperial Majesty’s IMPERIAL Fencer" instead since we're an empire? - There's a bunch of cases where Academy is writter Académie/Acadmie, don't know if it's a typo or not, but it just looks at tad weird. If you truly want to stick to the french-sounding names, then Académie is good, not Acadmie. Otherwise I approve of this app, +1

That's all good, I approve of the app. 😛

Right so, first off: - As far as your roleplay skills go, no problems. In fact, I'm actually hyped to see you play a lizard now! I really enjoy having your characters on the same manifests as mines (especially Simon! Simon is so funny!) - The current events unfolding in Ourea do not make anything about it on the wiki invalid as far as I know, don't worry. - GOD DAMN IT, not a Dominian lizard! (I'm mostly joking, don't worry about that) - HELL YEAHYEHEYAHEYAH IT'S A XENOARCH LIZARD! (don't mind this either) - I don't actually own any reptiles and have no experience in handling them, so I'll refrain from answering the terranium question. Now, with that out of the way, let's get to the real deal! The lore questions! Now keep in mind that, so far, your app looks pretty good... - So one of Azerzku's arms was "claimed" by the infection... What does this mean, exactly? Was the arm actually lost? Is there nothing but a stump? Now if the arm is actually gone... Did Azerzku get a replacement of some kind? Sintas get both Synthetic and Diona limb replacement options, although whatever you choose, this would impact the character in some way... Note that I can hardly see a one-armed Xenoarcheologist in game. This is not a lore-related thing, however, so this won't be a problem for this app, but gameplay-wise... Playing with a single arm will be horrendous. Xenoarcheology can be hard if not unfair sometimes, and I can hardly imagine the poor lizard lasting long out there, if he even somehow managed to do his course (that may have included simulations and training) with a single arm. - The inevitable question... Unathi tend to be very faithful, whatever faith they are following, and obviously, working in science may risk having the lizard's professional reality clashing with some of these beliefs. How would Azerzku cope with that? Or does the Xenoarch simply doesn't think too much about it?

Oh yeah, earpieces is good too! Also, this lighter shade of purple is already MUCH better.

looking good enough, although the science ones look a bit too dark... A more pale purple could be good. You might even take the colors from the GPS sprites to keep the whole things coherent!

I agree. Yeah that's pretty much it. Considering how little air there is in these emergency tanks, people ending up out of air isn't that rare... This should be fixed, really. That is if it's actually how it works... I mean I'm no specielist, but yes, if you're still with a mask+bottle you shouldn't get your lungs ruined by the void OUTSIDE. It depends. Just like when you don't have any bottles/masks, or just forget about your internals, if you run out of air, you can either choke, or have your lungs pop under the sudden "venting" of the air from inside.

F is great overall, and yes, different colored radios for each departments, at least from the start (keep in mind that we can still print new ones with an autolathe, perhaps that's where the grey ones would come), would be good... I mean, we have GPS with different colors already, so why not colored station-bounced radios?

I wouldn't say no to new sprite for these. I've never minded the bright green on the original, as a heavy user of these damn bricks, but new colors, especially this new mint-like green on the C is certainly better anyways.

Don't really know what to think of it to be honest... I don't like this, but I don't know what else we could do to prevent to problem discribed. However, I may have an idea, a sort of compromise. The main point of contention here seems to be mostly about lore, not gameplay. However, a Command WL's point is to make sure that a player is fit for the role in both aspects... So let's only focus on the lore. Instead of outright stripping the WL, just lock it. Players have it but can't play Command for now. They have to redo the command WL (or perhaps a new kind of app, like a "Command unlocking app"), so that we can make sure that they are aware of the current lore changes and such, and then we unlock it, skipping the "testing" phase that follows since we know that, if they obtained the WL in the first place, they must know what they are doing in the first place.

It's probably been already said multiple times, but I'm going to add my part. For starters I'm not even sure I agree with the Command Whitelist removal... Although I don't see any other kind of policy to do what this aims to do, so to be frank I'm not going to oppose it either. A year is quite a while anyways... However, as far as species whitelist removal goes? No. Command players, beyond their whitelist, have some responsability as far as playing on station goes. In most cases, disboying a command member is a punishable act for our character, and if the command member in question is giving senseless orders, then the people below will generally (try) to follow. That and remember that the lore doesn't change the same way for each species. A Diona player may not need to constantly look at articles or like a dozen pages of lore on the wiki, while a Tajara player may, so right away this would make this unfair to some species more than others. The main point of interest seems to be lore respect, and as far as species WL goes, it shouldn't be a problem. I've always seen Command WL as a try to get GAMEPLAY permissions, with gaining authority on station and such, while species WL are more LORE-oriented from the get-go; in other words, players with species WL tend to follow more the lore anyways. Finally, we're a generally nice community, we help each other, on the forums on station. Before even getting bwoinked, a player roleplaying a xeno with "outdated" lore will most likely recieve notes and help in LOOC anyways, something much harder to achieve with command members, sometimes (I can easily meet and speak with the lizard botanist, but the Captain himself? That's a bit more complicated). TL:DR: It's not nescessary, bad/outdated species roleplay only affects one or two players, one of them being the "outdated" player, while a command player with said roleplay can lead to bad consequences upon the entire station. There's no need for such harsh measures on Species WL.