Doc

If a traitor buys a bunch of crap and just attacks security, they should be adminhelped and probably antagbanned. That just shouldn't happen, regardless of if they have 20 or 200 TC. That's not the point of being an antagonist. The antagonist is supposed to drive roleplay, and I definitely think having access to a more flexible supply of equipment would significantly help some people in doing so. As said in the OP, nerfs are not the right way to go here.

I did read your post. You're saying that other inventory management, besides armor, should also be affected, for the sake of balance, and I'm saying that the imbalance is fine because it's completely reasonable and would open up unique situations. /shrug That said, having read superior's post, I'm beginning to come around. On the note of combat/non-combat items: If the system is going to be implemented at all, you might as well have it affect other items as well. Why not? It might take a total of one minute of time through-out the entire round, and then there doesn't have to been some sort of check-list of every single item in the game to see what does and doesn't need to be affected.

I think the primary difference between armor (or perhaps anything in the outer-wear slot) and weapons is, specifically, that you need to put it on. You don't need to put on a gun to use it, or meds, or any other item you would use in combat that I can think of besides armor. You just take it out and pull the trigger. That is, at it's base, quite different from the idea of immediately slipping on an entire armored voidsuit while running down a hallway. This would essentially only apply to the outer-wear slot, and I don't see it as unreasonable at all. It's completely realistic for someone to be able to pull a gun out of their bag faster than someone else can zip open, slip on, and re-secure an armored vest to their person. In fact, I think that could to fun RP scenarios- it's significantly easier for an antag to deal with (and therefore RP with) someone they know they have the upper hand on than someone that could feasibly become a complete threat to them in a literal instant when they decide to put on combat armor. Assuming the antag doesn't just gank them anyway. Of important note is the fact that this essentially doesn't apply to security or command for a majority of, though certainly not all, situations. When the code goes red, I'd expect most security officers and command staff that have armor available to them to keep it on them just about all the time, and therefore this doesn't necessarily impede them in any way as it'd only tack on 3-5-10 (whatever is decided to be reasonable) seconds while still in the armory. Therefore, this mostly impedes cheesy non-security validhunter vigilante (and at times antag) tactics, as well as actually giving antags the ability to reasonably take hostages/rob someone (I don't think I've ever seen anyone get robbed, ever, unless it's a disarm-steal maneuver) without just beating the victim to the ground and then doing so.

[mention]Kaed[/mention] Anywho, this seems completely reasonable and not very complicated, though I can't say I know if that's true for the actual code behind it. +1

BYOND Key: TheDocOct Character Names: Lily Kadel, Halogen Species you are applying to play: Integrated Positronic Chassis (Baseline) What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt): --- Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question Why do you wish to play this specific race: I believe that synthetic crew-members offer unique and, to me, very interesting role-playing opportunities compared to other races available. The idea of a sentient being that isn't quite human-like, yet as capable of as advanced thought processing and decision making as a human might be, offers plenty of opportunities to explore differences in prioritization and methodology. This especially comes into play in regards to the unit's directives that it may not be able to 'work around' as a human might be able to, notably in situations that call moral or ethical issues into play, which I just find fun and interesting to explore. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Positronic units face a multitude of differences compared to humans in everything from basic thinking to their politics and life styles. Based entirely on a generally rigid system of weighing set values to come to a final conclusion, IPC's don't get 'emotional,' 'biased,' or otherwise swayed from their standard points of view unless they're specifically designed to do so, leading to interesting reactions to the situations the Aurora finds itself in compared to most organic characters. The loaded layer of politics surrounding IPCs is also quite unique, given that their very existence as anything more than law-bound androids is contentious to some, and will certainly drive interesting role-play from Skrell or members of ATLAS and other anti-Synthetic groups. Character Name: Halogen Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs Halogen was conceived in 2437, in the Hephaestus Robotics Division's initial strives for positronic AI development following the release of Skrellian algorithms, by the elderly Doctor Kirkland Manning. One of the myriad researchers assigned by the industrial giant to work out quick, easy, and profitable designs utilizing the new, 'true' AI designs, Manning worked extensively on a multitude of experimental and commercial variants of positronic units as Hephaestus established their dominance in the field of robotics. Named after elements, astrological formations, and periodic groups, early designs were rapidly developed and just as often tossed out. Halogen became one of the Robotics Division's earliest 'stable' builds, personally spearheaded with Dr. Manning's work. Consequently, it was promptly improved upon, side-lined, and a limited number were ever actually produced. As development went on, Manning's notes became his journal, a constant thread of improvements, theories, and experimental results to apply to his work. One of the original members of the Robotics Division, Manning quickly became the oldest, the ones having worked with the most basic positronic systems finding themselves dropped in favor of those more attuned to the advancing march of progress. The doctor, now well in his seventies, eventually withdrew from the project himself, spending too much time dwelling on the past, and not enough time considering the future. That dwelling, slowly, became an obsession. Halogen units were hardly mass produced. While effective, they were created in a period of rapid improvement, and were quickly supplanted by other, more advanced units. Some were made for experimentation purposes, several were shown briefly in expositions and research conventions, and others were rented off or sold, one of the multitudes of different positronic units distributed in the 'boom' of AI development of 2437. By the year 2459 few remained, and of those that did, some began to show the symptoms of their comparatively long 'lives.' With his entire retirement fund, consisting of a sizable sum of hundreds of thousands of credits, Manning had no issue conducting a search for one of his dearest creations. Finding success in that search took time, but in the coming months, a corporate contact from Tau Ceti replied to his inquiries. An aging security unit registered as Halogen was found. In his obsessive state, Manning immediately made an offer. For a sizable portion of his life savings, the doctor bought out the android from NanoTrasen and dedicated himself to restoring it to the glory he had held it with in his mind. By this time, Kirkland Manning had been aging well into his tenth decade. Advanced medical technology maintained his life for a great time, but his health was beginning to catch up, and he could feel it. The doctor knew he was not long for this galaxy, and he sat there with one of the most important advances he had contributed to it. Having restored its systems to the peak of his capabilities, he saw an opportunity in the positronic brain sitting in front of him. While he may fade, he had created something that might be able to last far, far longer. Replaced in a newly-bought Hephaestus integrated positronic chassis, Halogen was put through a gauntlet of civic paperwork, interviews, and citizenship examinations at Manning's behest. Though not the most emotionally developed positronic personality, the unbound Halogen could certainly pass these well enough, a machine greatly experienced in the tenants of law and order, servicing itself only secondary to others, and undoubtedly able to contribute to the Republic. Within a few months, Halogen constituted a fully fledged Bieselitte. The final step, in Manning's eyes, was the will. His apartment within the confines of Mendell City and what savings he had yet to spend would fall to Halogen when he finally passed, a final release for the newly liberated unit and, in the doctor's mind, the beginning of a new life for the unit his age-addled mind had come to view as a sort of child. What do you like about this character? Halogen seems to be unlike most IPCs in that it is quite apathetic in regards to itself and, instead, is near-entirely focused on its commitment to its service to others. This had previously manifested in the form of lawed-ness, but now creates an interesting situation of a liberated IPC that doesn't particularly expect anything from it's liberation, something that I think would be quite interesting to see interact with other people on the station, especially other IPC units and generally anyone involved in their politics. I find that sort of play enjoyable myself and hope that this new turn provides more opportunities to explore it. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I'd like to think I'm rather capable, with around 8 out of 10. I definitely try my best to give others an opportunity to RP given my security departmental focus, even in tense situations, and actively try to role-play more than fight. I enjoy role-play heavy roles as well, such as bartender, as well, because of the opportunity to interact with a majority of the station's crew for most of the round.

I don't see how this is any different from the AI being able to follow anyone on the station, with the exception of being able to see into maintenance. AIs can already use borgs for the exact same thing. Sure, the HoS can too.. so? That doesn't sound gamebreaking at all, considering it relies on either the AI or the HoS just sitting on officer cams, which I'm sure both have better things to do usually. The strength in this is that the HoS COULD be watching at any time... the exact same way the AI could be watching at any time already. EDIT: Additionally, if it's truly too invasive for a grand total of two (three if the Captain is bothered to just hang out in the HoS' office) individuals to be able to see sec officers all the time, this could be applied to security helmets only (much the same as the Merc helmet cams), meaning it wouldn't happen during code green or possibly blue depending on the situation, and the lack of a camera could be as easily handwaved as "I didn't have my helmet on at the time."

I support this option. It seems significantly more user-friendly than booting the player out of the round/into a job they didn't intend to get because they didn't see, or just didn't understand the meaning of a single red asterisk in the creation menu.

This seems, much like the 'lock characters to their departments' suggestion, more like something that should be reported to admins rather than hard-coded in. I very much doubt NT would hire anyone who was ICly a part of any sort of criminal or mercenary gang that might be a threat to them, and feel like that would already be something worth admin-helping.

There's no reason for this. If there's an actual issue, you report it to the admins. That's all. This is unnecessary.

I definitely agree with giving both wizards and ninjas new abilities when it comes to stealth or 'peaceful options', though I would personally prefer solutions that are more 'true' to the antagonist's 'theme.' The wizard is particularly in sore need of some sort of initial contact softener. A possible solution that is 'wizard-like' could be to give the wizard a spell that creates a station wide 'illusion' that gives the wizard a complete manifest entry, job, the standard equipment/clothing for that job, and identification card with all the information necessary and in place to represent any other true member of the crew, including access to whatever job it is (perhaps randomly selected from any civilian/supply jobs, preferring jobs that are open first). However, this illusion is temporary. I'm not sure how long would be considered reasonable, considering many different people will role-play more extensively, be it the wizard or the person the wizard is talking to. I would also suggest that the illusion 'fade,' rather than simply disappear at once. This might start with minor things no one but the HoP would notice, such as fingerprint hash, to their crew manifest disappearing, to their access- however, their physical ID and all the information on it remains, to avoid the wizard suddenly becoming an unknown and getting jumped as a result (but again, without the access the ID may have had to begin with). I'm unsure as to how or even if the equipment- uniform, shoes, gloves, headset, and so on- should fade, however the wizard's former equipment could be placed in a 'personal belongings' box much the same as the autodrobe on the Odin does, furthering the 'realism' of the illusion. I feel like this is reasonable for a wizard ability, and not at all overpowered, considering it would be limited to very low-access jobs. I also believe the Ninja could do with some more 'stealthy' options, though I don't particularly agree with giving them any ID-related items, considering they already have an agent ID and the capability to immediately teleport into the Captain and HoP's office at the beginning of the round. The idea of being able to camouflage the suit module, but not allow the ninja to place any items over it even when camo'd, is very appealing personally, but I'm not sure if that should be taken to a new thread rather than this one.

I'm very supportive of this idea. It's a little silly, and perhaps even lore-breaking for supposedly combat-worthy equipment to only have a fire-fight or possibly two's worth of charge before requiring a specialized charging station hooked up to a facility power supply to recharge. Regardless of the lore, I still think this is a good idea, particularly for antags who don't have a reliable source of recharging unless they are lucky enough to work security or command. Even science, the highest-tech department of the station, doesn't have item re-chargers, only cell re-chargers (to my knowledge, at least- I don't usually play science personally). That all said, it is also very reasonable to keep this limited- the inventory size of a power cell sounds reasonable to me, as well as being able to place them on security or military belts and webbings. I also agree with the concept of limiting the reload speed somehow, and to that I propose the screwdriver, a reasonably small item that can be easily kept on even a kitted-out person's inventory, even on their ear. Using a screwdriver to un-secure the old cell and re-secure the new cell isn't a particularly difficult task, but still essentially doubles the actions needed to reload. While this may still be a little unwieldy for a supposed combat weapon, it's significantly better than having to completely disengage and return to base to reload your primary combat weapon. I'd also like to suggest that, like power-cells, higher-capacity weapon cells can be made by RnD, perhaps a level above their corresponding power-cell capacity. How many shots each level would grant is beyond me, however. Another interesting addition I agree with from earlier in the thread is the concept of ammo 'types'. They could be severely limited in actual shot-capacity, like down to 5 or so, but have effects like EMP or fire-setting.

I have input regarding Hikmat Jawdat, played by Prospekt, as I have just got out of a round where I had a rather unpleasant encounter with them. I had been playing a Ninja who, basically, had just been a huge pest to try and get security riled up for the hell of it, breaking into places like the armory and vault and spacing their equipment. Eventually, RnD started producing Lawgivers, laser gatling guns, and it was clearly getting out of hand for an antag whose gimmick was more supposed to be a little shit than a massive threat to the station- focusing more on talking and interacting with the different departments regarding the items she planned to steal and had stolen, to stimulate RP, rather than just going and fighting them. In the end, she ended up making a deal with the Captain at the time, Raymond Hawkins, to try and tone down the drastic amount of force that had been brought to bear, with all-access Sec officers with high-explosive weapons running around looking for her. The Captain agreed, with the stipulation that he would have one armed guard, and my ninja agreed as well. They met, they talked for a minute or two, and the Captain decided they could comfortably talk alone, asking the armed guard, Hikmat Rrhazkal-Jawdat, to leave the room. Of importance is a bit of context. While the ninja had stolen armory weapons, vault weapons, the Captain's laser gun, and even the nuclear authentication disk, all of that had been returned. Every single item. She's a little shit, but she's not suicidal, and that was what was necessary to keep the situation from spiraling into a murder-fest. As far as anyone on the station knew at the time, she was completely unarmed, as every weapon she had held at any point was now back in security. Her only capability would be to teleport away, run, and hide- possibly try to steal back those weapons, however, they would all now be under heavy watch as they would know that's the only thing she could do. Hikmat was asked to leave the room, and proceeds to turn around and ion blast her, shoot her with a high-explosive Lawgiver round, then open the door for another officer with lethals to come in so they can both begin shooting her to death. Given broken bones, massive trauma, and the obvious intent of the security officers to kill her, she activated her self-destruct and blew half the room apart. Hikmat did this against the Captain's direct orders, attacking and killing an effectively unarmed and completely compliant perp sitting at the Captain's own desk in the middle of negotiations. To be quite honest? I found it interesting. It was interesting to see Raymond get upset, to see the repairs and the effect the explosion had on the round, to see how security felt about the way their intruder was dealt with, and just to see the rest of the round following that event. I wasn't upset at all with actually dying. The issue isn't what happened, it's why it happened. Hikmat claimed that he "didn't want her to escape again," after they had just had an extensive discussion about how neither of them intended the situation to escalate to such a point, how neither of them wanted to continue the escalation, and how she would be open to conversation with trying to deescalate the issue, after she had already taken multiple steps to deescalate the situation herself, and after the Captain had already explicitly told the security team that he intended to fix the situation peacefully. That's just bad roleplay. I can't imagine any rational individual hired as a security officer being able to come to the convoluted conclusion required to think that killing an unarmed and compliant serial burglar who had peacefully presented herself to security and the Captain, doing so against the Captain's orders, in front of the Captain himself, ever being a functional member of security. At best, it's staggeringly bad roleplay, at worst, it's incredibly blatant antag-hunting to the point of ignoring absolute heaps of IC reasoning in order to kill the antagonist. Edit: Also, later in the round, while I was ghosting, Hikmat was boxing in the holodeck for about five-ten minutes as someone was bitten to death by a space carp in arrivals over live comms, as another person asked security to let her out of the security maintenance she had been accidentally locked in, ignoring both pleads for help over general and the Captain asking people to respond to it over security while he boxed with someone. After he had already been put on extremely thin ice over the ninja killing.

I've seen and played alongside Resilynn in numerous rounds, including as both an antag and Quartermaster, and on all occasions they seemed to be an adept roleplayer and competent member of the station. From what I've seen of their actions as a quartermaster, they seem to have a plenty of knowledge as to managing a department and ensuring that it functions smoothly, and would make a good head of staff.