Captain Gecko

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.

The last bit of"METAL CRUSHERS! "lore" I will (porbably ever) post. Either stuff laid out in the chirper, or things essential to Metal Crushers that fans can refer to, and perhaps make their own content from. Rules and fights: - METAL CRUSHERS! Currently has five mains "leagues" for their fights: > Heavyweight Exosuits (1v1) featuring the heaviest and generally more expensive machines. Due to the cost of the machines and teams to maintain them, heavyweight exosuit fights are done by the wealthiest of teams, generally meaning that they also feature the best of pilots. Obviously it is the most popular of leagues, and seen as the "original" METAL CRUSHERS! show. > Lightweight Exosuits (1v1) featuring much lighter exosuits happening to be slower, weaker, and more fragile. Either baby-pilot's first league, or simply a way for poorer teams to access METAL CRUSHERS! the lightweight league is less popular than its heavier counterpart, but is still full of drama and surprise, with many legends beginning their career there. > Team Exosuits (3v3) featuring exosuits, both heavy and light (although there is a total tonnage limit for the whole team) fighting against another whole team. Generally rarer than most other fights, team exosuit fights are especially expensive for most teams due to the fact that they now need to maintain three machines. It's not rare to see team fights featuring fighters that tend to fight alone banding together just for this one. > Hardsuits (1v1) featuring any kind of hardsuit, so long as they fit within METAL CRUSHER!'s criteria of safety and fairness, of course. Frowned upon by some old school fans due to how different fights, there, are compared to Exosuit ones, it still enjoys a great deal of popularity, especially with newcomes to exo-mechanical sports, generally more used to more classic wrestling. Hardsuits tend to be cheaper than exosuits, but the main difficulty for teams is to find a good fighter, and not just a pilot. > Team Hardsuit (3v3), the team-version of hardsuit fights, comparable to team exosuit ones. - Athough the afformentioned five leagues are considered the main "rulesets", there also countless other different types of fights. From basic variations of normal rules (2v2 or 5v5 team fights, hardsuits against a single light exosuit, etc.), or more exotic ones (such as hardbowl, a METAL CRUSHERS! variation of basketball with players in hardsuits and a lot of punching involved). Additionally, some events will have special fights such as (more or less accurate) historical reenactements. - Every year, the METAL CRUSHERS! championship happens. Fighters try to qualify for it all year long by getting a victory-loss ration of at least 2 to 1, passing a qualification fight, and ticking a few boxes as far as the teams economical and material situation goes. The championship features five tournaments, one for each leagues, and is divided in 3 phases: Elimination, where randomly chosen fighters of the same team fight once a week, a single defeat meaning outright elimination, a Tournament phase to keep only the 8 best in each league, and the Final Phase which is actually organized like a tournament, featuring these 8 best fighters against each other, until only one remains. Special fights with special rules can be organized between phases to "save" the best of the eliminated fighters and given them a second chance in the next phase, if they succeed in this special one. Championships happen all over Biesell, during the summer, with each phase lasting a full month. - Any team wanting to join METAL CRUSHERS! needs their machines to respect a load of performance and safety parameters in order to keep fights safe and fair, something a considerable ammount of fans and even teams tend to frown upon. The people: - Frederick Marksman was basically the head of METAL CRUSHERS! from the start, and a pilot too. Although he quickly left the arenas to focus on his leadership role. He is also the most famous, and beloved host in all of the franchise. - Bast Kitskos, pilot of the Fatboy Exosuit, is by far the most famous fighter, and probably the most respected one too, in all of METAL CRUSHERS! 8-times champion of the Heavyweight leage, he is however not respected just for his skills, but also for his sportsmanship. He's seen by most as the hero of the franchise, and the best fighter to ever enter the arenas. People also tend to make fun of his mustache, something that Kitskos himself laughs about. - Edvard Stenbeck is a mysterious Biesellite billionaire who dedicated a considerable part of his fortune to indulge in his passion, exosuit fights. However, the man didn't just buy himself a place in this competition, and proved to everyone that his skills weren't to be questioned. He became Kitskos' rival very quickly once he got into the Heavyweight league, although he has yet to win once against the champion. How it goes: - People aren't quite sure how much exactly Zavodskoi interstellar controls in METAL CRUSHERS! And METAL CRUSHERS! tends to avoid the question, so does Zavodskoi Interstellar. - Most of the fighters are Human, and generally come from around Biesel. As the franchise got more and more famous, however, fighters from all horizons have started to join, with the first Xeno champion being a Unathi, in the 2460 hardsuit championship. No species are barred from entering, although some biological factors lead to some teams simply being unable to take part in some fights, such as Dionae in Hardsuit fights, as they rarely ever fit in these armors. - METAL CRUSHERS! Broadcasts ALL OF ITS FIGHTS on its website, along with many articles, interview, etc. On TV, METAL CRUSHERS! Broadcasts on TCTV 24 for people in Republic territory, and Venus Sports Channel II for people living in Solarian (and ex-Solarian) territory. People wanting to follow from other places generally only follow through the website. - Fights are not pre-planned, contrarily to modern wrestling, what is displayed on the Arena is actual, genuine combat and competition. HOWEVER, METAL CRUSHERS! tends to add some scenarios, and most fighters generally eagerly take roles, with Kitskos becoming a sort of fatherly and protective figure to most new fighters and a heroic pilot for instance, while Stenbeck takes the role of a mostly chaotic character, but somehow still full of sportsmanship, searching for a good challenge. Stories of teams and fighters involved more or less based on reality are told along the very real fights, and most fans seem to enjoy it.

Coming back to it, I just thought about something... What should be the population required for the game mode to start? With just two antags (and one being mostly passive), I don't think this should require a lot people around to play it, right? A handful or readied players at least? 5 or so? (Just something I'm interested in since I mostly play on deadhours).

I approve as well. What I'd like to see is something that would also "adapt" clothes to crippled characters. If you are to, say, remove a character's arm, the jumpsuit's sleeve (taking jumpsuits for the sake of exemple, but it applies to most other clothes if not all as far as I know) would then still be present. Having something that simply cuts off that part of the cloth sprite would be quite nice... I don't know how that could be implemented, but there it is.

While I don't want to go over every single detail in Metal Crushers, I feel like having a set story for it, as well as some sort of main characters could be a good way to bring Metal Crushers fan together (characters on the station/ship, I mean), things they could speak about... New rules, events, personalities, their favorite fighters, etc. I'll send, later, a more basic list with what's basically set, the most famous fighters, the main rules, the main personalities... But so far, have a short history of METAL CRUSHERS! METAL CRUSHERS! was officially created on the 16th of January, 2435. Created by a small, lousy team of a dozen of freelance exo-suit pilots and engineers (to not call them mercenaries, something that tends to be left out and generally avoided by what is currently METAL CRUSHERS!'s old guard), it was a bet made by their leader, and one of their pilots, Frederick Marksman. The team bought a plot of land to build stands and a fortune arena near Ashton where they could host exosuit fights between the same two modified Ripley-model powerloaders, as well as a permit to host such events. By extent, they created their own franchise, naming it METAL CRUSHERS! but these were pilots and engineers, not businessmen. While METAL CRUSHERS! certainly drew attention from the nearby cities, it failed to bring enough money to cover the expenses needed to keep the show going. Eventually, in debt and out of options, METAL CRUSHERS! was at the edge of bankruptcy. Things changed when a Necropolis Industries Liaison on his way to a Nanotrasen facility saw one of their fights in late 2438. Interested in the concept, and aware of the current mess METAL CRUSHERS! was in, the Liaison made some offers... And Marksman, who at this point was basically the leader of this whole crazy project (and one of their two pilots) answered. None know exactly what was said in their meeting, but Necropolis bought the franchise while guaranteeing near-absolute creative freedom. The megacorp gets a small cut of their overall profit, as well as having their team be more represented as far as the shows go (this doesn't mean that they tend to win most of the time, though). Some have theorized that Necropolis, now Zavodskoi, uses METAL CRUSHERS! as a testbed for future military-grade exosuit and hardsuit technologies, but such a theory has been dismissed both by Zavodskoi and METAL CRUSHERS! multiple times. The brand quickly grew, and most importantly, god more and more famous, as, with Necropolis' blessing also came professional businessmen, economists, PR specialists, anything needed to guarantee that a business can become successful... And successful it became. The arena near Ashton was ditched and a proper HQ for METAL CRUSHERS! was bought in District 1, Mendell City, and permits to host fights in various arenas and stadiums around Biesel were acquired. By 2440 enough pilots and teams had joined METAL CRUSHERS! to allow the very first Championship to be organized, with a single Exosuit league. Ridiculously small when compared to today's championship, it only featured 16 exosuits and their respective teams in a standard tournament. still, the event drew attention, with an attendance of over 10 000 spectators, a record for the franchise at the time. Marksman himself became the first champion Things took a dramatic turn in 2441, with the first death to ever happen in a METAL CRUSHERS! Fight. Incidents can happen, some more tragic than others, especially when near heavy machinery like Exosuits, it many accidents did, and would happen in hangars and paddocks, but on the Arena? Before thousands of spectators? Mendell City's leadership quickly took notice of the tragedy, and so did Tau Ceti's association of Sportsmanship, which was basically the biggest, non-governmental group in the world of sports, at that time. METAL CRUSHERS! got very nearly canceled during this affair, but it is Necropolis Industries that, through many talks (and perhaps some bribing) managed to save the franchise. Things wouldn't be without consequences for the franchise and its fights, however. While machines were inspected to make sure fights were mostly fair, there were next to no rules about what an Exosuit could back, beyond making sure it couldn't harm the public (which meant no firearms). Even after Necropolis acquired the franchise, rules were next to non-existent, and it would be rare to see exosuits fight with bare hands (or manipulators) generally using grotesque melee weapons, from flail to drills, hammers, and crude blades. Such things were outlawed after 2441's tragedy, and new, strict rules were implemented. Since then, METAL CRUSHERS! Exosuits and hardsuits, follow strict parameters and standards, both to ensure that the fights remain as fair as possible and that their pilots be as safe as they can be. Some fans look at "pre-tragedy" weaponized fights with some fondness, however, for their over-the-top nature, even on METAL CRUSHERS! standards. Frederick Marksman took this incident very personally and blamed himself for it. He'd stop taking part in fights, and would retire from public life, focusing on leading the Franchise from the dark. A deal with Tau Ceti TV 24 would see his grand return to the public scene, five years later, in 2446. While they already had a website, METAL CRUSHERS! Would truly become a franchise known in most of the spur after this deal, as they'd start holding and broadcasting fights on a near-daily basis on this channel, from 20:00 to 22:30 (Tau Ceti time, Mendell timezone), a timeframe they have been keeping ever since. Beyond just being the franchise's leader, Marksman's return marked the beginning of his new identity, as host of the biggest of shows, his eager attitude, energic behavior, and experience in the field quickly made him a personality adored by many fans. Year after year, the franchise would grow. With Exosuit science evolving, new generations of machines would be introduced to the arenas. New leagues would be created, the original fights being considered "heavyweight exosuits" while a new "lightweight" league would be introduced, popular amongst rookie fighters and small teams that can't afford the biggest and meanest of machines. New "Team fights" would be introduced as well, with teams bringing exosuits of any weight in 3v3 matches. By 2453, Exosuits would be also introduced to the world of METAL CRUSHERS! with their own 1v1 and 3v3 leagues. Exosuit fights have been, and are still, frowned upon by some fans, as they consider it to be nothing but regular wrestling in armor. Although in practice, METAL CRUSHERS! treats these like Exosuit fights most of the time, mostly since each team not only requires fighters but also full teams of roboticists and engineers. As time went on, new "mechanized sports" (something that would be soon rebranded "exo-mechanical sports") franchises would be created, inspired by the success of METAL CRUSHERS! One of the more notable ones would be Bent Steel, the Solarian knockoff, or Titan Federation, which handles fights in various CoC and even frontier worlds. Many smaller franchises and groups exist in worlds far away, may it be in Dominian, PRA, Hegemony, or even Jargon territories, and METAL CRUSHERS! tends to organize events in collaboration with these groups, generally in the form of "face-offs" with METAL CRUSHERS! best fighting their best. Despite the usual rivalries and the politics of their nations, most of these franchises have warm relations with each other. METAL CRUSHERS! is still the biggest and most famous of these franchises, however. 2457 would see the creation of the Hercules Aid Foundation after yet another death in a fight (the third). Mostly funded by METAL CRUSHERS!, the Foundation is dedicated to financially helping wounded and crippled fighters, as well as their families in cases of death. As of recently, the Hercules Foundation has started to expand to cover 0-G sports, space-based sports, and general motorized sports, to name a few. Early 2464 would also see the opening of the Museum of Exo-mechanical sports in Mendell City, another initiative mostly founded by METAL CRUSHERS!

Yeah this could be interesting. Agreeing with Carver, some funny effects for when it inevitably breaks down either from damages or EMP would be amusing too... If it doesn't just make the implemented character outright mute.

Down there is a link to a drive where I'll send METAL CRUSHERS! Custom sprites. Files for various other creators will be added as more creations are added! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xan6uh3voN-cVKlscqL1gCZ2zZW0CPuw?usp=sharing That's pretty much it!

I'm a bit confused. It's not bad, I just don't know what this is for. What is this mostly? Is this for something lore-related? Something for the gameplay? To be used on our ship, or perhaps other? If this was to be implemented, I mean... What would that be in game?

Myeah I agree, it makes sense. I never found self-destruction to be comical by itself (it's generally the surviving brain's reaction that is). In any case I support this idea!

I agree, I'd like to see this in game. Such an effect, although at a much lighter scale, could also be applied to the sort of fluff medecine we have, like the antidepressantants we can get in our loadouts.

I always thought that the Skill tab in the character setup menu was exactly for that, since it had no effect gameplay-wise, to allow you (and admins since they can look at this, iirc) to get a proper idea of your character's skills, all the while making sure they aren't overpowered. As far as what skills you should be able to select well... So long as it doesn't make your character overpowered as said above, you can choose anything that makes sense with your character and his story, this is a mostly roleplay-based sever after all! This may also explained by past actions on the station/spaceship too, giving your character a sense of progression... Roleplay is the limit! Or your actual in-game skills, at least. Since I'm not so good with explaining, you can have an exemple here, you'll see my thought process behind giving my character skills: Sezrak Han'san being in his thirties, he should have some experience in various field already, while still have some more to learn, hence why I went for (15) which is Average/near Above Average (Above Average range from 16 to 20). Unless your character is some kind of genius or the opposite, age should be your scale for the overall skill level of your character, as it basically dictates their experience with everything in life. I also see these individual skill levels as what they represent and not what they are. IE: A character might have been professionally trained in a field, but due to the rare use of this skill and/or the character's lack of talent in this field, it is still in the "Amateur" level, as in, it is practiced at a level comparable to an amateur's. "Trained" would mean a character is that used to this field, may he be professionally trained or not, and can practice an activity from this field with relative ease and will be able to avoid most incidents (IE: badly setting up the engine and causing a delam). Finally, a Professional skill level would mean that the character is not just well-trained in this field, this is what they excel at, this is beyond what is evne required for the job. - Command - Amateur : Explained by Sezrak's experience, notably with expeditions. For a little while in late 2462, Sezrak got to partake in a lot of consecutive expeditions, generally with tiny teams of up to four crewmen max. With him being the most experienced in this field and/or being the only NT had Sezrak be the leading element in the team... With more or less success, but in any case, this was experience. Coupled with his desire to become RD at some point, and his work to become one, Sezrak got some experience in leading crewmembers, at least on a smaller scale. Since this is a mostly RP-based skills, this translates to Sezrak basically making himself the leader of operations involving his field, may they be science-related, or EVA related like exploration of shipwrecks; unless the team features an actual command member... To that, you can add the way Sezrak will tend to turn bossy whenever troubles are on their way, and you end up with a fortune, self-proclaimed leader in some situations. - Cooking - Amateur : Before joining the Han'san fleet, Sezrak's parents made a living of hunting, on Moghes. His father would hunt the game, and together with his wife, they would handle the whole process, from skinning to cooking the meat. Now on Moroz, they still practice this, although in a more recreational way, and so does Sezrak. Both from his practice, and his paren't teachings, Sezrak, thus, knows a fair bit about cooking... At least, so long as meat is involved... And that you're not asking anything too elaborate from him. - Close Combat and Weapon Expertise - Amateur : Sezrak grew on the Malediction, a ship who's purpose, in the Han'san fleet, was to carry as many raiders as possible (and their family). He was surrounded by guns, blades, and a bunch of big, grizzled Unathi warriors, thus, as far as he can remember, he was exposed to weaponry and fighting from the start (although he never took part in the fighting himself). On Moroz, he did his military service, which was also a good source of knowledge as far as knowledge about the more elaborate kind of weaponry (guns, mainly) went. For Melee, however, most of what he knows comes from pactice. His carp kill-count must be in the hundreds by now, and this is not even counting the various cosmic horros some anomalies can gift him, and to face all of these, his go-to weapon has always been the hand-held drill. Needless to say, while he never got proper training, he's got a some experience in this. In game, this means that Sezrak will be able to handle and operate most guns, although his skills with them is far from being ideal, and in melee, he'll be able to handle most hostile xenofauna, and should theorically be able to hold his own against your typical human... Actually trained fighters, though, that's going to be problematic for him. - Construction - Amateur : While his military service, anomalist course, and overall life experience may have granted some basic knowledge about construction, most of what he knows in this field comes from practice on the Aurora. As a scientist he's had to build various machines, from tech processors to consoles, but most importantly, his activities in EVA had him learn how to set up some basic structures. Exploring derelict ships and outposts means that sometimes, you have to force your way in, generally by deconstructing a wall. Sometimes he may also encounter anomalies and other finds that have to be contained right now and NOT be touched (such as supermatter shards) which means that this will generally end with Sezrak building a whole wall around it. In practice, this means that Sezrak will be able to build most of the machines a scientist is supposed to know about, as well as being able to build and deconstruct walls, although in a much slower and clumsy way than your usual engineer... Anything more complicated like wiring power networks, setting up pipe systems, or handling atmospherics is something that he knows next to nothing about. Finally he could... Theorically, hack doors, if he's told EXACTLY what wires to cut, but don't expect him to do the whole procedure on his own, unless you hand him the tools, the protections, and some time... Even then, though, Sezrak hacking through doors is an extremely rare sight, and he'll generally choose the alternative (breaking through a wall) if he really has to pass. - Medecine - Amateur : First aid, basically, that's all he knows, both taught during his military service and his anomalist course, and he had to practice these countless times on station, both on fellow crewmembers and himself. Ask him to do anything other than CPR, or applying gauze, bandages and kits on a booboo, However, and this won't end well, because he knows next to nothing about this... Nor do I, in truth I don't know much about medical. As a side note, I kept chemistry at minimum even though he can be seen practicing it in science, in some rare cases, this is because science PDAs get a Chemistry Codex by default, and Sezrak relies on it. If, say, he was to lose access to said codex one way or the other, he'd be unable to do pretty much anything Chemistry-related. - EVA - Professional : By this point, Sezrak probably knows the rock like the back of his scaly hand... Or would if it wasn't for the caves being constantly regenerated every shift. Due to the fact that he spent half of his childhood on a spaceship, his intense training during his anomalist course, and practice for way over a year now, it's not a stretch to assume that Sezrak is beyond used to working in the void, it's basically HIS SPECIALITY. This translates in game to Sezrak generally volunteering (if not being selected outright) for most activities involving EVA such as exploring sites (if he didn't find them himself), picking up people from crashed pods, rescuing wounded or dead crewmembers outside if no first responders are aviable, and teaching fellow crewmembers about EVA procedures... Hell, he even wrote a book about EVA procedures! - Science - Professional : This comes off as no surprise considering that Sezrak is an Anomalist, and by extent, a scientist (technically speaking Anomalist and Xenoarcheologist are just alt-titles for the scientist). With 8 years of formation, a PHD, several books written about theories and such, and several years of practice, Sezrak knows a fair bit about Science. Of course, "Science" is a broad term but it can be anything so long as it does not infrige on the other skills in the Science category... What the "Science" skill refers to exactly is mostly handled in RP! In Sezrak's case, this means that he'll be able to handle various science-department related operation such as RnD, and upgrading machines with more or less ease. His speciality, however, is 100% RP, just like his job, which generally involves creating theories about various finds, or perhaps even (sometimes antag-related) events happening directly on the station. With the right reasoning behind your character's skill, the very reason why they'd have them, all of that while making sure you don't turn overpowered, I believe that any out-of-skill actions can be reasonably explained and allowed. A roboticist knowing about how to hack a machine or door (although with a larger tendency to burn their hands off) due to their experience with wiring up synthetics; A botanist knowing a few things about animals and assisting a xenobitanist due to their experience with life in a farm before working on the station/spaceship; A miner being a decent shooter due to his experience with Kinetic Accelerators, anything is possible, really... So long as it makes sense (and that it's not abused, as far as gameplay goes.) EDIT: TL:DR, all of that to say that yes, I agree with Johnny. IN FACT, as someone who mostly plays on deadhours, I think having a flexible skillset for your character (as long as it makes sense) is NESCESSARY, because you're never going to get that engineer or that physician to save you... And while you shouldn't be able to set up the engine or do surgery without the proper training, if you end up all alone, you better know about the very basics of the powernet, how to survive vents and breaches, and how to do first aid... Else you probably won't live to see the shuttle most of the time.

YEAAH THERE WE GO! Goolies playing a lizard, finally! ...That is... If you pass the WL- Okay I'll stop. If it wasn't clear enough, that means that I see you as a great roleplayer. And the character looks good, I can't wait to have mine meet him... Anyways, let's go with the lore and the questions. 1) Hephaestus doesn't engage Botanists, at least not on the station, as far as I know, and won't on the Aurora/Horizon. So firstly, how did it go with Hephaestus? I assume Eku didn't get a free lift off Moghes, he must've worked for them, how did it go then? 2) And thus, since Hephaestus doesn't engage Botanists, who is Eku working for as a Botanist on the Aurora/Horizon? How did they get hired by these people? 3) Anything noteworthy that might have happened between the end of your backstory, and his first day on the workplace, that wasn't covered by the two previous questions?