K0NFL1QT

Tying action success to job role is bad and leads to inconsistencies. Action successes should either be tied to skill level, or left as is and not tied to anything more than 'trusting the player to act appropriately'. I don't see the point of making CPR break ribs; you're just making it more likely the patient will die and increasing the medical workload to fix them. If you want to make CPR realistic, make it an action you have to stand still to perform. As it is I can drag a body behind me and CPR it all the way to medical without stopping. If you make it so standing still is enforced, you can assume that the person is taking the time to do it right.

Please do. You want to stop people making up shitty, snowflake backstories? Make it easier for them to find the information to help them create standard backstories.

I've only encountered Ames a few times. The ye olde english doesn't bother me as much as consistently space lubing the only two airlocks of the escape shuttle. Every. Goddamn. Time.

So why can I play on the assumption something's going to happen that requires me to get a genetic scan? Because you don't -know- for certain whether the shift will be calm and quiet, or hectic and bloody, irregardless of the game-mode. There's plenty of reasons to assume that 'something bad might happen', without pre-planning for anything specific. You're on a floating tin can in space, and in a lot of places the only thing separating you from cold vacuum is two fucking sheets of glass. By the way, cyborgs don't give two shits about opening airlocks into vented areas. Plasma based accidents happen, entire departments or the whole station can go up in flames or vanish utterly when that toxins guy messes up their mix. Engine malfunctions can happen; this used to mean a giant blackhole tears the station in half, but now only an entire department gets vaporised. Some assholes with guns may decide to roll up on Big NT and see how much loot they can skedaddle with. The station might have portions of it utterly decimated by meteors. You may get killed in the everyday requirements of your job, especially if you're security. None of these are specific to antags but are inherent dangers of working on a very profitable space station. Getting your shit backed up should be standard procedure, if not outright enforced by corporate policy.

Really at any given time, there's a nine out of eleven chance that the geneticist is a ling, so it's not like this is actually viable. You shouldn't be playing on that assumption anyway. And even if they are a 'ling, what danger does it pose you to prevent your character getting a standard back-up? Precisely none. A 'lingneticist already has a stackload of monkeys they can absorb for free points without incurring any extra attention due to people disappearing, and nobody really cares about dead science monkeys turning up.

Transform sting is easily reversible if you had bothered to go see your Geneticist at the start of the shift. The scanning process takes maybe a minutes worth of RP and is a sure guarantee against character death, or gene-based fuckery. For some reason people hated going in for a scan despite the benefits. It's why a PDA cartridge for Geneticists that scans a copy of the targets genetics onto the database would have been great. Or start the round with every present crewmembers genetics pre-loaded on the database.

Interesting to know. Another question; are clones only produced at the same age as the person when they are scanned? Again, mechanically, it seems to be the case. The clone of a Chief Engineer who got roasted in a plasma leak emerges as an almost perfect copy of the scanned original, except for the lethally massive burn damage. But outside the game, this would have implications. For example, all cloning will have achieved is the nullification of sudden and violent death. For example; a ninety year old man, when cloned, would produce a ninety year old man; all the memories of the clone would be up to and until the moment the original was scanned, and nothing after. A woman with severe heart disease would, when scanned, transfer that disease to the next clone of her that is created. I'm not sure on the specifics in SS13, but isn't cloning the extremely rapid aging and development of cells along a seeded genetic blueprint? Is there no way to affect the age of the resultant clone, creating a 'younger you' with all the knowledge of a previously long, natural life? Does inhibiting the artificial aging process somehow affect the clones memories? Is it impossible to intervene in the cloning process to create a 'you, without that crippling disease', cleansing known harmful genetic abnormalities?

It's not controversial to say that Nanotrasen has a relaxed attitude to hiring clones. If a person achieves a doctorate, for example, and is then cloned, the memories and knowledge transfer to the clone. But is the clone viewed as equally accredited in the eyes of Nanotrasen? Common sense would tell me yes. If, for example, a Chief Engineer is killed and cloned, the cloned copy is allowed to immediately resume working at their previous station. Does the same apply if there are clones of which the original is still alive? Is that even permitted technologically? We can't create mentally aware clones in game. Is that simply a mechanical limitation, or is that codified as a restriction of cloning that there can only be one living version at a time?

Someone say my name?

How better to have them introduced to roleplay than by having the crew look upon them with compassion and understanding, knowing the average grey is a defective clone who still wants to contribute? Suddenly the perception of random balds goes from 'oh shit, a shady bald, I'm probably about to get toolboxed by a griefer' to 'hey man, are you lost?' or other generally gentle invitations to roleplay. Yes, there will still be bald griefers, but now we can write that off as the actions of a defective, crazed mind IC instead of ignoring it OOC.

You want a -whole department- dedicated to doing nothing but waiting for one particular random event, or a traitor who chooses electronic warfare? There is barely enough to this idea to justify a dedicated role under the Command of an existing department like Engineering, let alone a whole new department of staff. By merging the two ideas I was attempting to make it more likely that -both- might eventually get implemented in some way, because there isn't enough substance for either to really justify being coded on their own, but an amalgamation might just be worth it.

That is not an IT, that's a different field. People who watches over the Comms aren't IT. It's more of a radio guy. Sorry, I don't remember job title... Radio operator? Edit: To those who wanted IT to work on radio comms is not what I had in mind. But, PDAs? Sure. Arrow really had hit the target of what I was hoping. Secondly, that suggestion KON had posted was a different suggestion to what I had in mind. Packaging them together works though, and makes both ideas more fleshed out. One of the critiques of a telecoms role was that it would not have enough to do, and the same with your IT Guy role. When nothing goes wrong, there's nothing to fix. Also, the comms equipment is operated by consoles so it makes sense if the comm technicians can repair their own machines if something goes wrong. And if the IT/Comms guys can utilize the space at telecoms, then there's no need to work space for them onto the regular station map.

If by implant you mean PDA cartridge, then yeah. That'd be perfect.

An IT department has been suggested before, but I don't think it got much traction. I've come around to the idea. Roll this and this into one proposal; the Communication Engineer. At it's basic level, an alt-title with telecom access would probably suffice if not an individual engineering class role by itself. But for this all to come together nicely would probably require adding in a layer of complexity to consoles that may or may not pay off considering the amount of time you'd have to devote to it. I envision something like the difference between airlocks with the wire-hacking, versus airlocks with no hacking. They're both usable, opening and closing as per ID, but the hackable version has other options for those willing to risk it. Random events could affect the console stations in an area and require the deployment of a Communications Engineer to rectify, or the standard operations of consoles could be upgraded or disabled in some way more subtle than total deconstruction. Preferably they'd have their own custom tool for the job, like a compad with a datajack, or something that they either spawn with or find on telecoms in limited supply. Or it could simply take whapping a console with a multitool to access the hackable layer, which would be a similarly simple minigame as airlock wires.

Bumping for great justice. The balds are real and an inevitable part of playing spessmans. This is merely a formal, in character explanation.

Since we've switched to newcode that is completely without Genetics in any form, I've been thinking about a fresh take on the role. The part that everyone hates about Genetics is the chucklefuck who ruins it by rushing for Hulk/TK/X-Ray, the top tier powers, and then goes rogue. Good Geneticists that don't do that get to sit in one spot and press buttons on a console all shift, and then not play with any of the cool stuff they discover. And really, those powers aren't the fun things about a Geneticist from an RP standpoint; it's the potential to take a creature and make it better, but in plausible ways that aren't 'now your eyes shoot lasers'. We do need Genetics in a form, it's mechanically useful for fun things, and for getting players back into a round, and it's thematically rich in the way that it allows deaths to be both canon and impermanent; we don't need 'powers'. We need a Genetics system that still permits creation of protohumans, because protohumans are just so useful. You can use them for surgery shenanigans, greater scope revivals in the cases of body destruction, you can use them for Sciencey weapon testing, you can use them to practise combat moves, setup fake murder scenes, living blood bags and gene sources. Lots of stuff you can do with protocreatures. I also think Skull was headed in a good direction when he implemented the organ printer and tried to minimise general genetic fuckery. The problem was that organ replacements were hardly ever needed. You could already fix damaged organs with surgery, or chemistry. So, how do we combine these ideas and Make Genetics Great Again? The Biological Engineer. The Organ Splicer. You know how the DNA Scanner deducts biomass from a cloning pod and spits out a clone of whoever you scanned? Well, what if you could choose to clone a blank? It consumes biomass, takes the same amount of time, but pops out a bald protohuman with no defects. No monkey SE tweaking necessary, only biomass. Select the race, print out the most bald, generic version of skrell, tajaran, unathi, etc. All mindless and ripe for organ/blood harvesting... or whatever fun things you want a protocreature for. But that's only half of it. Take the old bio-printer, this also now consumes bio-mass instead of metal, but prints enhanced organs. This whole Geneticist idea really is more of an organs expansion, in lieu of stripping out powers. You can have a variety of printable organs of varying biomass costs depending on their effect, and these would cause noticeable changes without being zero-to-hulk. Every organ requires its specific surgery to implant, which means no more self-testing Geneticists on a rampage. It's all about subtly enhancing others. For example, engineered limbs or implanted organs could; give immunity to alchohol related poisoning, for that one bored assistant who keeps coming in with massive liver damage Increase the damage threshold of bones. Increase the natural rate of regeneration, as well as metabolism. Increase capability for seeing in the dark. Permit breathing different atmospheres, or widen the threshold of pressures that can be breathed in. Allow radiation resistance. Increase movespeed slightly. Add the 'jump' ability, at a reasonable distance. There's a lot of possibilities that are slight improvements, but each one is minor and doesn't turn you into an unstoppable hulk. Each one requires surgery to install. You might also need a new way of generating biomass to counter the costs for all of this, but there's usually a lot of wasted biomass in the morgue if you know what I mean. Make a big human blender, mulch that dead guy right up, stick the meat in your protomaker or bioprinter. Monkeys would also fit in the blender. As far as I can tell, most of these ideas should be easily achievable. The only 'new' thing is the manblender actually just a gibber, the rest is copies of things that already exist but with slight changes, like a list of enhanced organs or a cloning pod that only spits out preloaded protohuman blueprints. Thoughts?

This is SS13 in a can, right here.

They bugged out.

This looks suspiciously like another thread by a devilishly handsome poster.

I don't know how long this particular piece of paperwork has been in place, but Research Directors have noticed it and are starting to enforce it. This piece of bureaucratic hell needs to go, or be otherwise altered. "This form entails the construction of the denoted mechatronic constructs, such as mechs, exoskeletons, robots, by the science department of the aforementioned facility for the denoted purpose on the request of the denoted personnel." Mechs, exoskeletons and robots. That's pretty much everything Robotics does, over just printing individual limbs. Even medibots fall under the purview of this form, if the Research Director wants to be super strict about it. The enforcement of this form completely contravenes the Station Directive regarding products of Science being free to create if kept within the Science department, handicapping Roboticists to specifically require Research Director authorization and signature for everything, and then go get someone elses signature too. I know it sounds reasonable, but in practice you have to get a signature from the RD and the recipient of the mech/exoskeleton/robot every time you want to build anything complete and functional. Printing components for RnD isn't restricted by this, which renders Robotics down to being simply the source of RnDs syringe guns, while Genetics can print organic prosthetics.

Meh. Giving cultists their own secret base won't help. As stated, you'll just make it worse. The problem with cult is that, unless they go ham with swords, there's nothing you can do about them without getting screamed down as a metagamer. You don't get mild antagonist build up of chasing bad guys, doing bad things. You get gank after gank for conversions until you either have the numbers or strategic positions to take the station, and then you do it. So for most of the station that isn't cult, or their victims, nothing happens for two hours and then everything ramps up to 60 faster than a Tesla.

Incase it wasn't clear, I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of the removal of the brute resistance. It doesn't make much lore sense if IPCs are metallic constructs, but we could say that the majority of an IPCs shell is instead a form of plastic composite and thus not metal like everyone thinks. Problem solved. Fragility explained. Some of the changes you suggested would make sense, but let's not just turn IPCs into resprited organics by mirroring all the organic systems in functionality and changing the names, please. Let robutts be robutts. Some more internal components to play with would certainly be great; I have no problem with the internal storage change, or that camera 'organs' act as eyes and can be damaged. Coolant and servos would also make sense, if you want to add more 'internal system' vulnerabilities. But that's the thing, 90% of what's proposed is negative for the most common non-human species that already has extreme weaknesses to common weapons and environments. I'll certainly agree that IPCs could use more finishing. Maybe buffing the EMP resistance would help, so that they don't insta-die to one Ion shot but suffer enough damage to cause a system failure or two, if they had some other vulnerabilities like the ones suggested. But none of the developers ever seem to realize how destructive the loss of self-repair was to the IPCs, nor does it ever seem to show up on the table of ideas as potentially ever coming back. What vulnerabilities would IPC players be willing to endure to have back the ability to weld and wire themselves? Probably a lot. Some of them even sound like fun. In what universe does Occupational Health and Safety standards prefer you to be dropping tools, weapons, beakers of acid, oxy-plasma bombs, etc, over a simple self rewiring? An incapacitated employee over a functional one? The removal of self repair just seemed like a lazy way to make IPCs less likely to bullet sponge, gimping all of them for the attitude of a few powergamers.

"You require ten units of my special mix. And I don't have time for a syringe. Open up." Well. Lesbay just got a whole lot more rapey.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora/pull/748 Since IPCs are the most common species by a huge margin this has the potential to impact a lot of players. If you play an IPC, you're probably aware of most of this already. But let's see. Components that act as organs? Awesome. Flash vulnerability? Yeah, that makes sense. Brute resistance is negated? Wait, what? Okay. So robotic limbs are now no longer physically tougher than organic limbs, but they still retain their vulnerability to EMP? If you say metal is as vulnerable as flesh, well then okay. That'd be totally worthwhile if IPCs were allowed to self-repair again. Alternatively, easy 'limb-swapping' so you don't need to deal with tables to slot on a new arm, you just detach the old one and slot a new one in place. Would you consider these an option Skull, instead of 'tweaking resistances''?

No. Cult needs to be visibly doing bad stuff so that Sec have a reason to be bothered by their activities, instead of minimising their cultism so that the Cult has free reign to build up its army unhindered. Otherwise they'll just start cutting each other and painting the hallways with runes because 'lolno it's just ink'. Make the runes visible to AI, because it's stupid that blood is invisible to cameras.