Doc

From the suggestion, it looks like the ninja's individual hard-suit pieces would be able to function like the traitor's chameleon clothing set, able to mimic any other clothing item in the game. This leaves a little bit of a glaring weakness in the lack of being able to change the jumpsuit, but that could either be changed or just left as something the ninja needs to work around. Personally, considering the basis of the antagonist is to be a ninja, I'd support just giving them a cham jumpsuit as well. If the hard-suit requires power to use the chameleon features (on activation/changing it, not constant-as-used, please), then that is only 1 out of 5 articles that is 'free' chameleon changing.

While it would be nice to make the Odin seem like less of a barren wasteland, adding an entire job to it is not the way. Even adding it as a post-death role is not something that would work well either, that I can see. I don't think there particularly is a good way to do this, as much as I would like to see it done. A job or role for anyone to pick could lead to several issues, such as them deciding to get on the arrivals shuttle and leaving, or going SSD without cryoing and potentially in an area no one can take them to cryo unless it was adminhelped. There is also the fact that a large amount of people don't even spawn on the Odin in order to avoid the arrivals shuttle wait. -1.

Apologies, I did have to go to sleep a bit after this round, and so I couldn't reply at the time. To begin with, I'm not entirely sure why he, as a visitor, was conducting a crime scene investigation in lieu of actual security forces, when they were present to do so themselves. This is also considering that at this point it was nowhere near an 'emergency situation' that warranted the recruitment of non-crew to do so given that one of the hostiles was already down and the other on the lam. If he was not conducting an actual in-depth investigation, then it is fine, though given his training you should probably know better than to be poking around an active crime-scene that might have actually been investigated. This was not involved in the ahelp at the time, but doesn't particularly help the case. As for the rest of it, given the circumstances that is all acceptable, if a stretch to be needing to assist the armed and armored HoS and armed and armored officer take down a suspect, though they were attempting to advance on you in this instance. You've really just detailed exactly why you received the warning, so lets talk about the reasoning behind it and the reasoning behind your explanation. You seem to be implying that Halstere had no reason to be concerned because he could have taken care of the threat at any moment, and I just don't see the reasoning behind that. There was a man running around the engineering foyer, leading the two other officers in circles, while you were off to one side of the room. He was wielding a heavy sword that, given your lack of armor, could have mortally or at least severely wounded you in one swipe, and he could have run toward you at any time and you would not have had the sufficient time to drop him before he could easily have killed you. As you already said earlier, the other security officers were already firing on him with shotgun rounds, and he was still running about. I don't see how your .45, lethals included, would have given you a ton more confidence after that. I didn't and still don't see the reasoning behind this, unless Halstere simply has no self-preservation. Knowing that these people have expressly targeted you with the intent to kill should not have increased your desire to put yourself in closer contact with them, much less getting in the middle of an open fight with them. Given this I would imagine most rational people would want to avoid putting themselves near the group that wants to and has attempted to execute them. If the odds were tilted in security's favor to begin with, what good was Halstere doing there? If security was capable of handling the situation themselves, then it becomes an issue of you putting yourself in needless danger just to get a chance at taking down the antag (because, again, you were not a member of security at the time, and were just a visitor who had been given a gun, whereas there were two other actual members of security present to take care of the situation), which seems to have been exactly what happened when you moved up to restrain him while he was down before the officer killed him. Well, it's good that you're prepared for that eventuality, but you being okay if you die doesn't really change the fact that it's against our rules regarding realistic characters to purposefully put yourself in dangerous situations like that. Regarding the blade being cult: all of this reasoning still applies to a madman with a regular old broadsword. You seem to downplay the threat of a heavy, sharpened sword wielded by a madman that is still running around after being shot with slugs a little more than you should.

Bump. I like this- the ninja is not as ninja-like as they should be, in my opinion, and these are good suggestions to counter that.

As it stands right now, ninjas need to spend entire minutes recharging their suits after even moderate use, such as teleporting in and out of one or two places or using their tools to capture, perhaps one person, and secure them. Their stealth field drains power rather rapidly compared to their apparent intent of being a stealth antagonist, where they then need to disable it and go sit somewhere to recharge for quite a while after only cursory exploration or perhaps stealing an item if they have the required access. I don't think this is personally conducive to their antaggery. This has been brought up in other suggestions, but the Ninja just isn't very stealthy given how supposedly stealth oriented they're supposed to be as an antagonist type. The on-going sounds of electrical sparking and power-eating is a tell-tale sign of where the ninja is, and originally, this was the intent- that's how security would catch them with their pants down, and if the ninja didn't do it, they were screwed power-wise. I don't think that's how it should really go, anymore. Ninjas should have more freedom to make use of the stealthy tools and not have to waste minutes making noise and pray that security, or any other passerby, doesn't catch on. My suggestion is to differentiate APC charging and cable charging (power-cell/station-bound charging is so ineffective and rarely used I don't particularly think it's worth mentioning). Charging via APC would become the "loud" option. It would produce a distinct and loud electrical noise, but would recharge the ninja's power cell very fast. This could be anywhere from instantaneously to a few seconds to around 10 seconds depending on how admins/coders/the playerbase feel about that balancing. It would also immediately provide the AI/station-bounds/consoles with a power-alarm notification for that APC when charging begins, something that already sort-of happens at the end of charging now, but would allow the station to see the issue as soon as it happens. Fast enough to respond to the issue, but with the ninja charging fast enough to get out of there. Charging via cable would become the "stealth" option. It would not produce any sound, and would be undetectable as it is now, but recharge the ninja's power cell much slower than an APC. However, I still think this should be faster than it is even now, in order to facilitate the ninja not just sitting around and charging 90% of the time instead of contributing to the round. This still provides security with the opportunity to catch the ninja at an inopportune time, and interrupt the charging process, but not with the loud "come get me!" electrical sparks that it produces now. This, in combination with Kaed's ninja suggestion, would greatly improve the Ninja's ability to contribute to the round in a meaningful way in my opinion. I don't think this will terribly overpower the ninja, either. For one, security still has their instant-win gun, the Ion rifle, which will immediately take the ninja out of the round unless they have RNGesus on their side. If the ninja spaces that first, it's then lethals open-season on them, so, I think this will only really contribute to the ninja that is not the center of security's attention, and aid in them avoiding security's attention, as a stealth antag should do.

Apologies for the late response, I've been a little delayed by personal life. In my stead Coalf has covered several of the points brought up, so I'll cover what wasn't and also explain my reasoning more. This isn't what I had intended when I brought that up, although in the warning I can see how it might be interpreted that way easily. The emphasis was not intended to be on the idea that you "should have called security" before jumping down, the issue was that you hadn't really explored any alternatives before jumping down. Security was one example, yes, and perhaps not the best one, but this could have included stopping and cooperating or, earlier in the encounter, attempting to turn on an intercom or station-bounced to broadcast on a channel they did not possess, or communicating something to the HoP that they were allowing you to speak to. Anything other than immediately jumping into disposals after two attempts at non-lethal restraint could have been put in place of calling security. To be quite honest, even if we did accept they intended to use lethal force, which we have discussed is questionable, your alternative was disposaling yourself from across the station. Coalf covered this a bit already, but I'd like to get into a little more detail. You would be purposefully cramming yourself into essentially a small crate and releasing it into a pneumatic system that propels you through solid metal piping with enough force to slam you into corners and shatter bone at potentially every turn, not to mention what that would likely do to the parts of you that aren't solid bone. This is from perhaps the furthest possible point on the station from disposals, excepting maybe the surface lobby, resulting in a comparatively very large amount of those collisions, and after this is done, you are shot out a twenty feet drop onto solid metal plating, also covered in garbage. The idea that this is okay because medical might get to you fast enough is, at worst, powergaming, but in this instance more of a poor process of escalation when compared to the rest of the situation. It's hard to justify that based on some attempts at non-lethal restraint and the possibility of lethal force that, if used at all, would not likely be more than a method to keep you in line. This is especially considering they showed every sign of wanting to keep you alive and zero signs of wanting to execute you, something they stated several times (and again, noting their attempts at non-lethal restraint even up to the moments immediately before the disposaling). Even if you were aware of the ability for them to get the items through other means, they showed no knowledge of those means and certainly no intention of going that route if they did.

I'm not sure I can get behind flatulence. It's too meme-y of a topic to be put in any kind of automatic form. If you think you can do it well, okay, but, that's just encouraging some random join to pick it for their character and screw around. That said, everything else seems either very good or at the least I wouldn't have an issue with it being accepted. I'm particularly passionate about eye-sight, as my primary character requires glasses, and yet lacking them is basically meaningless because 2 minutes later you will have completely adjusted to the barely-obscuring overlay that appears without them. I feel no real necessity to ever get another pair of glasses except for convenience, and even then the longer it goes on the less of an issue it is. Yes, yes, you could just RP it, and I do in those circumstances, but you could say the same thing for many things and in the end it comes back to immersion. It's far more immersive to play a character that needs glasses due to poor eyesight when they actually can't see without their glasses. /rant Basically, yes please.

Absolutely supported. This won't necessarily reduce sec's access to lethal weaponry (it'll be different, sure, but no less lethal) and would help prevent immediate round-ending of both antagonists and security by each other. I'm unsure if any rifles have them, but I do know machine pistols have rubber magazines. A rifle/smg with lethals, AP, and rubber rounds would be preferable, just as the shotgun has shells, slugs, and beanbags.

I'm fairly sure this would be less chaotic than several other mixed secret round-types we already have (assuming this would be a mixed mode, which seems to make sense to me). If that is the case, then it would have a very low probability of being selected in the first place, making whatever special chaos it could bring a relatively rare and, hopefully, interesting round.

Like the microwaved donk-pocket, wouldn't it make sense for this to have a cool-off? I believe the donk-pocket is 10 minutes after being microwaved, which sounds reasonable for this too.

owo

Swiping the ID you want to give access with while the cover is open might work. Borg-code is notoriously horrible, though, so a coder would have to actually give input on the feasibility of that. Everything else seems perfectly fine, though- even when someone does bother to pick clerical borg, which is rare, I've never seen anyone actually make use of them. Hopefully they actually can and will with these additions.

Phoron is currently the official IC and OOC standard setup, according to the wiki guide (which the in-game book links directly to). Regardless of who thinks what engine is better, the disparity between the presence of nitrogen and guide stating phoron is something that needs to be addressed, and I see no issues for this to be an unreasonable solution.

As a whole, I can get behind this, but there are some issues. For the most part, IC is better than OOC, but sometimes that just can't account for everything. For promotion requests, I could see CCIA gathering "performance reports" from coworkers to determine if they actually do their job in their department well enough to warrant a promotion. OOCly this would just be as it has always been, a player deciding to post with their input, but from the perspective of a character within an official format. However, what about circumstances where all of the positive experiences with another player have been non-canon? What if those experiences are with a character that is not being applied for in the promotion request? How would resume posters, for alien whitelists, get IC recommendations?

That chemical doesn't exist. I think you've misread the suggestion. Because that is the suggestion. So long as this us a relatively complicated chemical to make and can't make it's way into everyone and their mothers bloodstream, I think this is reasonable. It has general utility for multiple departments, and any abuse of it could be as easily curbed as any other chemical, or by a nasty OD effect if it's not carefully administered.

Apologies for the late response. I fully intended to post sooner, but it slipped away from me somehow. I'll start here in saying that, if this is the case, I apologize and that was a mistake on my part. I generally try to begin PMs with an "if you did" not a "why you did" question, unless I directly saw it happen, which I remember I did not. I cannot remember the specific wording, but if that was how it came off, that was wrong of me, and I try my best to avoid coming off with that kind of tone or attitude. Faysal never made any comments related to personnel records that I am aware of, and only referred to the RD regarding the ion storm that had occurred earlier in the round. That does not betray any knowledge about your malfunctioning status at all. This seems to have been entirely based on the assumption that he had seen you delete the records, and even then that could be passed off as an IC error or mistake while browsing the records. That is not a reason in and of itself to attempt to murder him. If you wanted to use it as an IC excuse to murder him anyway, that would have been allowed as an antagonist, but only if you had escalated properly beforehand, the issue of the warning in the first place. In regards to the ion law, they are still completely bound by all of your other standard laws (as far as they are aware), and them suspecting you of having one is not a sufficient reason to begin murdering them with no interaction regarding it beforehand. You jumped to his location multiple times specifically in order to shock him. If that doesn't quite constitute "following [him] around the station," then I apologize for the poor phrasing. What you did, regardless of how its described, is still an issue, however. Preemptively attacking someone does not constitute escalation, unless there is something prefacing it. That'd be similar to saying hitting someone with a wrench is escalation for killing them when they try to defend themself. It isn't. It's actually against the rules, unless some IC interaction beforehand has warranted it. Failing to speak during the shocking would have been fine as well, and the rules specifically state that "the murder scene can be "wordless"," but this once again all relies on you having had interacted before the attacks took place. Escalation does not have to involve the "telegraphing of one's role," it just has to involve interaction to begin with. You could have inquired about the issue of the ion law (reiterating, the ion law is theoretically harmless, if annoying, as all other laws are still in effect), asked how they intended to deal with the ongoing errors, or otherwise simply said anything in relation to the situation beyond immediately beginning attempts to kill Faysal. If you adminhelp with a request such as that and don't receive a response at all, it was likely just missed due to staff being busy with something else, and you're free to send another one after a reasonable amount of time (a few minutes, generally). The issue does not have to be fatal or gank to be improper escalation. At no point (that I'm aware of) did Faysal imply you were hostile or malf until after you had already shocked him, which offers no justification for your actions before then. Escalation does not have to be an explicit warning, it has to be, at the very least, something more than a wordless assumption, and this does not change because the antag is an AI. Regarding the several mentions of seeing this behavior before from other antag AIs and those actions being dismissed, I can't really speak for those occurrences. There are no special rule exceptions for AI in regards to being an antagonist, and they are required to escalate and roleplay to the same standards that other antagonists are. You're free to adminhelp occasions you believe break those rules, and you can post player or staff complaints if you really believe those issues end up necessitating them.

Has bwoinked too many people for not knowing the lore to not know it himself. +1 In seriousness (though that wasn't entirely unserious), he definitely has a firm handle on the server lore and plenty of skill and experience in roleplaying to be given the whitelist. All of his character that I've interacted with are well-played and believable, and I have no reason to doubt that this would carry over to Dionae characters.

There are times, when some of us have to consider, "If I go with this person, I am almost certainly going to die". Now you can make up an excuse and leave, or you can go with them and see how it furthers the roleplay. There are times, when a hall is randomly vented and your lung gets ruptured and there's no surgeon that isn't SSD. Now you struggle to medbay, coughing up your own blood because of some freak accident while you were minding your own business, and then you die. There are times, when players new to the server fall in a hole on the asteroid. They die, they are retrieved, and cloned. Except... no more cloning? Dying is a large part of the game, let's be honest. But people sometimes have hope of being cloned and stick around. What you're suggesting is everyone play Vaurca (who, as we all know, are pretty resigned whenever they die to not getting cloned, and it feels pretty sad every time). No one gets a second chance. The job slot their old character had is filled. It's not a matter of "git gud" it's a matter of inclusiveness. Everyone already gets a second chance even if they're not cloned. There is a 30 minute respawn timer, in which you can play new character. The thread has already included a suggestion to knock that down to 20. Additionally, cloning can easily (by which I mean, in regards to the cohesiveness of the medical system, not necessarily ease of coding) be replaced with more roleplay oriented methods of resuscitation that would avoid this issue altogether. Your concerns are valid, yes- but they're very easily fixed, and I still believe that this suggestion has far more merits than it does issues, especially when those issues can be solved in other ways besides denying this suggestion.

I'll get to the first sentence after I address the rest of the paragraph first. By and large, I think the focus on antagonists in relation to cloning is misplaced. Yes, the method by which medical treats and revives people that antagonists may have killed or need to kill has a heavy bearing on the round and how antagonists will act, sure- but, as you've said, that's their problem. Just as they have to deal with cloning, they have to deal with literally anything medical is going to do to keep another player alive or revive them, cloning or not. Having said that, a majority of the individuals that would be cloned during a round die as a result of antagonists. That's an issue that needs to be addressed. If cloning is removed, are players just expected to be left out of the round? Well, if we left it at that, maybe, but I think there are several ways that the medical system could be changed or added onto in order to ensure that, even with a complete lack of cloning, medical will have the reasonable ability to keep players in the round. Unfortunately, the scope of the OP of this thread doesn't particularly encompass that, so despite it's relevance I'm not sure I should continue with that line. Now, 'how removing cloning would provide better roleplay.' The simple fact is, it would provide roleplay at all. Yes, yes, "clone memory disorder," "your character should be distraught and disturbed by the fact that they are a 'different them'," "death shouldn't be taken lightly ICly." That's all very nice from an IC perspective, and a theoretical one, but the simple fact is that it is a very small minority of cloned players. So much so, in fact, that I have personally never seen it happen in my memory. That doesn't particularly mean much in itself, but this is supposed to be a very standard thing, and yet I see it neglected round, after round, after round. Once again theoretically, this is something that should be addressed and fixed by staff OOCly, but in my experience as a member recently I can simply say that it's unreasonable to expect that to happen to any effective degree. If it is only IC by choice, and a vast majority of player simply choose to shrug off the effects, and, additionally, cannot be effectively regulated OOCly, what other reasonable course is there but to make some sort of change to how the system works in the first place? Important to note is I said change. I don't believe removing cloning and calling it a day is the best solution here, but I definitely think removing cloning and replacing it with a less cheesy system would absolutely add to roleplaying in that serious medical cases will have actual repercussions they will have to RP out. (I guess I'm basically asking for permission to add to this suggestion? It's very difficult to work here when the entire support for removing cloning relies on additional suggestions that would be against the forum rules to add.) This is partially true, yes. The Aurora has many natural hazards to begin with, not even accounting for random events and, of course, antagonists. However, the fact that 'the station is dangerous' should not be an automatic dismissal of this suggestion. Cloning can be removed while still giving medical the capability of keeping players in the round, there just has to be some additional changes. As for permanent death not giving people more pause or tactical thought- in my opinion, how wouldn't it? If dying begins to mean that you are no longer able to play the round, would it not be logical to think that a majority of players would begin avoiding death more actively in order to remain in the round? If you legitimately believe that people will continue to throw themselves at danger despite knowing it can very well completely remove them from the round, I can't definitively say you're wrong, but neither can you say you're right. I just believe that it would be a reasonable line of thinking that some sort of change like that would occur in the playerbase's actions once a change like this came into effect. I'm sorry, but I have to say that this is just silly. This is not a logical extreme. At all. It's actually very illogical. A majority of the player base is, I'm fairly sure, aware of 'canonicity,' especially regarding antagonists. When the round ends, certain things cease to have happened. A great deal of the time this includes character deaths. This input is really just irrelevant.

Having most of my experience with their security characters, Lily Hawkins and Lia Otis, I can support the fact that they have great role-playing capabilities and have well-defined characterizations, as well as being capable of handling the rules and expectations that would come with the whitelist. +1.

The simple answer to this is that the reasonability of character actions will be policed when they break the rules. Now, yes, this isn't an immediately obvious situation when it comes to escalation. With proper escalation, this certainly wouldn't have broken the rules, and this wouldn't have been an issue at all. However, here are the two main issues that caused me to come to the outcome I did: 1. You had not encountered this person (the victim) before. If you had, you mentioned no incident with them that would have caused you to be suspicious of them or given you any motivation to distrust them or believe they are a changeling. As a part of escalation, you're required to have some sort of interaction that leads you to conflict, and someone approaching the window of the security cell and being called out as a changeling with no proof or sign of hostility (no, an insult doesn't count) doesn't qualify. 2. You did not stop, or give the victim any chance to respond or react. Honestly, if you had gone out and whacked them once or twice, that might have been reasonable due to the circumstances of the round. However, you did not give them an opportunity to disengage, and, in fact, they actually appeared to be trying to get away from you as you chased them down the hall of the shuttle to continue beating them. In addition to the fact that you did not have sufficient escalation to initiate the fight, you also had no sufficient reasoning to continue the fight when you encountered essentially no resistance for a significant portion of it. I do not have logs available, but I also believe that they had tried to talk to you, asking you to stop, and that did not deter you either. Given both of those circumstances, I chose to give you a warning. I'm sorry that you feel that this takes away your ability to play your character to the extent you want, but in this circumstance, the extent you played your character ended up breaking the rules based on what I saw and how the situation was explained.

What if you couldn't remove your hardsuit/specifically the boots while the actuators are active? "The rigid actuator system enclosing your legs refuses to budge while active!" This way, people removing their hardsuit and putting it back on later don't slip it off completely forgetting they had actuators in the first place, and still have to turn them back on after putting it back on.

Server Moderator Application Basic Information Byond Account: TheDocOct Character Name(s): Lily Kadel, Halogen AI Name(s): Assistant Preferred means of contact: Discord Age: 17 Timezone: Central Time, UTC-6 When are you on Aurora?: Weekdays I am generally on server around 8:00 PM to 9:00 or 10:00 PM, and occasionally later. During weekends, it can vary greatly depending on personal plans, but I would be on around 1:00 PM to 12:00 AM with breaks, normally. Experience How long have you played SS13?: In total I've been playing SS13 for three to four years (my memory is fuzzy on an exact amount). How long have you played on Aurora: I have played on Aurora for around a year and a half, to my knowledge, but I probably only began playing regularly since May of this year. How much do you know about SS13 (Baystation build) game mechanics?: I'd like to say I have pretty extensive and well rounded knowledge of how the game works and how to do most things, though there are a few roles and therefore mechanics that I've never touched before (such as research roles). Do you have any experience moderating for an SS13 server?: Unfortunately, none. Have you ever been banned, and if so, how long and why?: On this server, I don't believe so. I was given a three day security ban from paradise for shooting someone I believed to be a changeling, who wasn't, around two years ago. Personality Why do you play SS13?: Absolutely one of the primary reasons I play is for role-play. While my standards for what exactly that is have changed (obviously, since I apparently considered it to be paradise at one point), I think that one thing is what has brought me back for these several years. Having an environment to create a unique and enjoyable character to play and be able to interact with so many others is pretty unique to space station- I don't think I've ever heard of another role-playing environment coming within a stone's throw of 50 players, and that alone creates something unique that I appreciate from it. Why do you play on Aurora?: Aurora is, by far, the most enjoyable RP server I've played on yet, and that's not just on SS13. Aurora has a great community and easily the best staff team I've met, and I keep playing both because I enjoy it and because I want to do my best to contribute to it. What do moderators do?: Moderators are there to maintain a certain standard of play on the server they moderate. For different servers, this can mean different things, but any moderator Is expected to be there to help players and guide them in their time on the server, to inform people of and enforce the rules, and to overall ensure the server remains the environment that attracted it's players in the first place. What does it mean to be a moderator for our server?: For the most part, it means assisting with day-to-day questions and ensuring the rules are being followed. This could be answering questions about game mechanics, what a player is and isn't allowed to do, helping a player determine if what they want to do it reasonable ICly and OOCly, or could be more along the lines of keeping an eye on a shady looking assistant dragging a welder tank around, or notifying a player about keeping OOC out of IC and vice versa. In general, moderators on Aurora are there to help people and nudge them onto the right side of the line. Why do you want to be a moderator?: To put it simply, I want to help contribute to the server. I believe I'd be capable of fulfilling the position, and there's be a noticeable need for it, so I'm more than happy to put myself forward for it. Having been on the server for quite a while now, I'd like to be able to give back to it in this way. What qualities do you possess that would make you a good moderator?: I've worked quite well as a member of a group or team in my past experience, and I'm always open to learning new things. I believe I have quite a bit of patience for people, both for those who simply don't understand things or those who are openly trying to argue against them, and in general like to think I have good judgement when it comes to the rules. How well do you handle stress, anger, or insults?: I believe I handle anger and insults well when it comes to maintaining composure in order to deal with an issue. I'm by no means perfect, and can certainly get upset at times, but I like to believe I'm fully capable of being able to see around insults and angry words in order to come to a solution. Anything Else You Want to Add: I'd just like to close by saying that I greatly appreciate the consideration regardless of how this application turns out, and that I'd like to do my best to help contribute to the Aurora community that's given me so much entertainment over the past year or so. Thank you for reading.

i was the most accurate portayal of fear RP in this situation

I asked Cake a while ago about the canon-ness of the occasional Civil Protection team at some round ends, and they are indeed so. The minor change from O-Sec to Civil Proection is small but canonical.