kyres1

Apologies for the wait. While I've seen good things from you ICly, the backstory here leaves a tad too much to the imagination - you brush over exactly what makes the IPC personable and detail it in a totally different section entirely, namely being - "Agnes is an extremely professional "person" that is trying her best to represent her owning corporation," I can glean this from the backstory purely due to lack of other implications, but that's really it. I'm going to need to see some extra work put into the backstory - perhaps a paragraph of exactly what's going on in the robot's day-to-day life, or some events that define its perception of the world, maybe. The answers, outside of the backstory, are satisfactory, so don't worry about touching those up. I look forward to seeing what you can make.

A well-rounded app with some answers I find acceptable. One thing here caught my eye though that I'd like to go over before accepting this - With no definitive dates to work off of here, I can only assume this was relatively fast. Try to keep in mind that IPCs are currently restricted to a relatively slow (compared to other robots at least) rate of learning to balance out their skillsets and rationalize them in comparison with their organic coworkers. This counts only for post-manufacturing, implying that knowledge can be implanted into the positronic as it is constructed, but the wiki explicitly states modification beyond that point would need to be careful and meticulous or not be done at all. I don't consider this enough to go against the app, however, so moving onto the next point. Positronics themselves, as I had informed the applicant in DMs, are not ludicrously expensive. One can assume they are roughly just a bit more expensive than a frame itself, making them an investment for the wealthy without being something absurd to even consider. The wiki will be made to reflect this soon. Application accepted.

I'll handle this tomorrow morning, apologies for the wait.

Move the crusher's lower level camera down one tile so the AI can't see what's immediately behind the door, making accidental crushing more commonplace.

Consider this accepted while I work toward getting it wiki-ready and getting an introduction done in line with an arc that will be announced in around a week.

Probably the best application I've reviewed in my time as a synthetic lore developer. This is definitely accepted, albeit the dates are a tad messed up - I'm not holding it against you here, however, as the required reading for it is on a page that isn't, well, required reading.

Nevermind wait a minute. When I said "peacekeeper," I didn't mean something that is literally a takeaway from another server. It would be similar in overall concept and nothing more.

The part about my view on antag persistence has been removed for clarity's sake.

There are alternatives to this presently being discussed, making me against outright removal. While security borgs can be phased out, they should be replaced with better, more unique, and law-abiding alternatives. Specifically, a peacekeeper module tailored to the specifics of Aurora, and one that falls in line with our lore. I'll get one proposed (perhaps with unique sprites) soon with details on what I specifically would like, and maybe we can build from there.

As said before, mass character reverts are out of the question due to the nature of exactly how many IPC heads there are. The mistake has long been made, but solving it is not as simple as reverting it. I'm looking into ways to organically chop down on IPC rights without doing the following : 1. reverting/ending countless character backstories 2. throwing the entirety of synthlore back into a civil rights story loop 3. pissing everyone off. An arc has been in development for about the last two and a half months that should be announced to the community near the end of this month, or the start of this coming one. This will be tied directly to synth rights in Tau Ceti without delving into what's been seen a million times before. You can expect solid answers on what the arc will result in around that time - though, it depends on how the arc goes and what the team in general wants. On the table are things like preventing IPCs from making IRs, separating them mechanically like Bygone proposed from their organic counterparts, etc. Forcibly introducing discrimination through mechanics is possible but I have no idea how to make this happen. Vaurca are dangerous and annoying to be around due to leaking phoron and generally being stinky giant bugs. Making robots dangerous and annoying to be around is difficult without coming to ask the question, "why was this built, why is it here, and why is it doing what it's doing?" Unless we pull some ideas out of our butt in that regard, the current ideas we're working with generally revolve around out-of-mechanics stuff. TL;DR something will happen to IPC rights no matter what. IPC heads can not be reverted easily, which is complicating things severely. More news will come in like 2 weeks

There would likely be balance changes as far as who gets what is concerned, which is apparent. But, this can largely be turned into an "NDV Icarus" situation. Presently, the reason security is not armed to the teeth is because the Icarus is projected to defend it from all immediately apparent threats. Security is getting what they're meant to be trained for in event of emergency, plentifully enough to arm everybody in the department with at least one weapon and a sidearm with lethals. Like this, we can just do a similar thing and say "The ship doesn't need extreme on-board security due to the tiny chance of actually being boarded," be it due to it having defensive batteries, a cloaking system, the ability to go really fast, etc. With all that said, overarming security shouldn't be much a concern. The current armory could be utilized reasonably depending.

Good stuff, a definite improvement over the last and I'm glad you took the time to reapply. I don't see any major questions that need asking here - everything's solid. Application accepted.

These are absolutely fantastic and I'm always happy to see people expressing their artistic talents in the community. please forever keep this up.

You get thumpers and plentiful blasters to hand to the crew, as well as several situational vehicles and two mechs capable of targeted teleportation (through walls, even) Not to mention, you get a surplus of armor and the same non-combat supplies as ERT. You even get combat chemicals, if you've got a medic to distribute them. A naked bald on oxycodone and hyperzine is scary, now put them in a suit with a thumper and a net projector. They're not that underwhelming - the key here is to be creative, and powergaming with them is basically impossible as you need to seek out nonstandard means to getting what you want. As I said here, Blasters need extra visual indicators. You'd be surprised to hear their blasters across the board only do 5 less damage than laser rifles, including blasters and carbines, with the benefit of having burstfire, the bolt slinger having a scope, and holding onto the traits of shooting through windows/doors. These aren't really something to throw away nor treat like they're useless, but the lack of visual feedback when you hit someone makes it seem like they don't do much at all.

I think you largely misinterpret the point of TCFL as it stands and the points made here would make them, and ERT itself, so ludicrously overpowered they would be undefeatable by even robust mercs. Without going into detail as to why the latter is the case, I'll just say that the TCFL's ingame point was to be a rebalance of ERT in the first place, providing an alternative that has the capacity to end rounds without doing this with such speed or efficiency as to totally decimate the flow of the round for the sake of bringing it to a close. In doing this, I have personally seen TCFL be amazing at what it is. You are not given the greatest gear, but you are plenty robust and able to assume plentiful roles alone, not to mention your capacity for good if you bring spare equipment for the actual station characters to utilize, not yourself. TL;DR ERT ends rounds in a heartbeat with overwhelming firepower and poor characterization. TCFL ends rounds by fading them out and being forced into interacting and roleplaying along the way. Both do this reasonably well and fulfill their designated roles. Major balance changes need not be made.

yes please. It's just ERT but better for roleplay in every single way. They're not even that underpowered, as long as you abuse thumpers as better ion rifles. I will work on getting better hit markers and muzzle flashes made for blasters, as well as better sounds and projectiles.

Hi. I am so sorry for letting this sit, but I guess the title being weird made me miss it whenever I checked. You're a pretty new player - a very new one at that, only having been here for a little over a month. This is the solemn reason I'll deny this for now, as any issues I've seen ingame from you can simply be pinned on that. I apologize for letting this sit for so long. You're free to reapply any time later down the line, give it a few weeks at the least.

Suggestion : Remove stunbatons from officer loadouts, leave three in riot storage. Why? 1. Security's standard loadout is more than equipped to deal with crew threats so long as they are not heavily armed, heavily armored, have atmos protection, etc. The stunbaton simply provides the final piece in this kit, and has ended up becoming the immediate choice for most any scenario. For clarity on this : If you're decently prepared, you can easily take on 1 officer and his cadet buddy with the standard security kit. It's SS13, the ways to kill people are as limited as your creativity. 2. Stunbatons are largely unethical and are not the proper response to most common things seen on station. You ought to have three stages : lethal, less-than-lethal, and non-lethal. Stunbatons easily fall into the lethal category, and if not put the person into severe horrific agony to the point where they're unable to move, often knocked unconscious. The paralyzing effect of stunbatons is a side effect of literally being shocked, so. 3. Stunbatons enable counterplay to highly lethal things seen in game that would normally require the armory to be opened to ward off. No, it is not smart to robust the crap out of the heavily armed mercenary that just walked into your department because you have a stunbaton. Yes, it is entirely possible mechanically. Yes, it will, and has happened more times than anybody could possibly remember. This is ultimately the source of the infamous baton rush that people so despise. It is extremely powerful as an asset and shuts down the following things : Wizard, who rarely has proper armor. Thanks robe reliance. Changeling, who has many reasons to never have armor on. Traitor, who often just can't get armor. Rev, who often just can't get armor. And vamp, technically, but they can hulk out and also generally have abilities that go through cuffs. Finally, literally any IC conflict that could easily endanger the life of an officer between them and another person. No, the 7 and a half foot Vaurca is not intimidating, because I have a stunbaton. No, the potential of this guy having a weapon is not intimidating, because he's not wearing armor and I have a stunbaton. Also, to counteract the fact that stunbatons apparently counter IPCs : They don't. Paralysis doesn't work and, even when active on harm intent, they do less damage than a maglight even with the burn modifier against an IPC. So just use the other thing in your kit normally. Failing that, shoot the thing to death like a normal person because it's a robot.

Ckey/BYOND Username: kyres1 Position Being Applied For: Interim lore master deputy. Probably a better way to word that Past Experiences/Knowledge: Handling almost* every aspect of synthetic lore for the most part since my integration as a lore deputy some time after February 2018. An utterly excessive amount of writing, event hosting, art, spriting. I've worked on multiple development projects with Alberyk which are perhaps my fondest memories of being on the team to this day. For what it counts as well, I'm among the most active players on the server. I consider myself extremely connected to the community and I've made an effort to try to know what's best for them through, well, literally getting to know as many folks as I can. More on this is probably best left on my original deputy app, else I'd be echoing the same. Examples of Past Work: There is no way for me to cover everything I've done in my year and a half on the team namely because the contributions I have presented are so broad. To summarize the big lore things, 14 out of 17 (if you include Rudatek) of all synthetic lore wiki pages were written in their entirety by me, with the IPC page rewritten entirely early on in my time as deputy. Work in every bit of lore, especially Human lore I've been able to get my hands on, including but not limited to Scarabs/Offworlders and spriting for other species. Much aesthetic represented in-game from lore is probably sprited by me at this rate. All synthetic factions barring SLF/SIM/TTP. As big a detriment as some've turned out to be for synthlore, they still have a ton of potential. They're certainly my biggest mistake with all the downsides but I absolutely don't regret them. The (hopefully) well-received Purpose arcs that had their hilariously disappointing finale a little over a year ago by now. I still laugh with Cake about it every now and then. The Virgo Transportation arc, that one time a bunch of merchants visited and we got bumper pods. Few people remember it as far as I know, but they sure were fun in the rare case we got to host their events. An arc building off the mistakes of those two presently in the works with 12+ player volunteers so far and growing. And more that don't really need listing here. As for in-game changes, suggestions and mechanic projects - I've worked on the full aesthetic of the following things spritewise and did most of the mechanic concepts as well to hand to the coders involved (mostly alb.) The TCFL's entire mechanic representation, worked on by me and Alberyk and ran through most of the team as it was developed. Offworlders' entire mechanic representation, worked on by me and Alberyk. Saw extreme supervision from the team as it came about. The full IPC rework was concepted by me, being presently worked on by Drago. I mapped every new derelict with Alberyk doing the code end of things. The Human factions' gear currently presentable to mercenary teams in the uplink. Also worked on by me and Alberyk. Didn't see much oversight from the team, as it was mostly untouched Human lore. Way more unrelated things that were simple suggestions that spiraled into something bigger, such as the roundstart setup reworks that gave engineering their darned cans, and mining magboots. Thank you so much, Joshie. Additional Comments: To me, real world politics, overly complex attempts at realistic parallels and attempts to blur how our players see lore are something that need to become part of the past sooner than anything right now. Better logging, better summaries, easier to read lore and crackdowns on narrative consistency are far from the minimum of what I intend to see done in the immediate future given I have any authority over the subjects. Also, cutting more of my favorite word bloat.

One of those cases where things look terrible out of game and great ingame. Really weird mix. But, it's meant to be seen ingame, so it's good in my opinion.

TL;DR EMPs suck. They presently do a hundred different things, from blinding you to discharging your super advanced energy weapon, to even draining your baton. This proposal removes a heavy reliance on EMP in determining engagements and reworks security's power a bit. Instead of their armory being rendered useless by 1 EMP grenade barring some pistols, security will have the following from their armory : 1. staying power 2. lethal response to extreme threats (boarders, namely, being the main threat you're supposed to worry about) 3. consistency with threat level To expand upon these points and why they're needed, Staying power is different from potential counterplay. Unlike ERT, security largely needs a way to be overwhelmed or some way to be incapacitated that does not kill every character within the department. However, security requires some way to actually stay in the round given the antagonist has taken steps to ensure they remain. It is very easy for the majority of antagonists in their current state to utterly wipe security, and they have little reason not to, seeing as once lethal .45s come into play, shrapnel does, and when shrapnel does, you're fucked no matter who you are. In this sense, this will give security more reparable damage to deal to antagonists permitting them to have their lives spared without their service pistol becoming the primary threat from the armory. Lethal response to extreme threats is necessary due to consistency. To counteract arguments against this requires a simple setting update - we're bordering Sol and Tau Ceti, two major conflicting factions, and are constantly CANONICALLY under threat of boarders, terrorists, and various things that'd require basically the whole crew armed for their own safety. Before jumping to conclusions, no, this doesn't arm the whole crew, but that should put into perspective just how dangerous of a station lore ended up making this place. Consistency with threat level is a big thing. Without heads of staff or engineering to help you out, there should be no final tier of escalation from the armory, period. You should perpetually be stuck with minimally lethal armament until the proper alert level has been triggered, and otherwise stuck with less-than-lethal on green. For clarity : I think non-lethals are things that are functionally intended to minimize risk of injury or death. Rubber bullets are not non-lethal, as killing someone with them is markedly easy. They would fall under less-lethal in this case. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. With the reasoning out of the way, the actual suggestion is this : Add escalating tiers to the armory with the following traits exactly : The armory is separated into three sections. The first two are nonlethal and low-lethality weapons available on code green or code blue. Only a warden and/or stationbounds are required to open the second tier. The third tier involves high-lethality weapons accessible only on code red or by bypassing safety checks with engineering. Best case scenario is one powerful turret and a door that stationbounds can not interface with, to minimize risk of death entering it but dissuading trespassing nonetheless. This section of the armory is surrounded by blast doors on any code except red, in which case, they raise. Only the head of security or captain-level access can unbolt and open the door by utilizing ID-locked buttons to permit access to this section of the armory normally once the blast doors raise. Add additional gear to the armory as follows : More nonlethal measures and replacement gear for officers in the first two tiers. Spare stunbatons, tasers, and pistols should be seen here. Not sure why it isn't this way already, perhaps because our armory is already so bloated with useless crap that should be in standard security storage like barriers, portable flashes, gas masks, biohazard suits, bomb suits and more. The final tier, because of the scope of this suggestion, probably should retain the same stuff barring a rework so there aren't enormous balance changes at first. No, security does not need assault rifles or slugs in the armory based off of this alone. Rework energy weapons to mostly have the following traits : Probably the meatiest part of the suggestion. Energy weapons should for the most part not be hitscan, instead being high-powered blasters with minimal, specialized rechargeable ammunition in cells that is mostly immune to EMP. The primary concern here is making them too similar to ballistics. The counterpoint to that is the ability to go through windows, have rechargeable cells, and different traits in general such as much more limited on-hand ammunition, much higher overall damage, burn damage, and the obvious extreme agony they put you in. Hitscan energy weapons should be not only a rarity, but should be a very powerful addition to the arsenal of whoever has it. Immediate concerns to me are how higher energy weapon damage will mesh with current species resists. While Vaurca aren't much an issue as they die in like one shot already to the current lasers, Tajara, IPCs and some event mobs may meet the same fate as those poor souls on the receiving end of an EMP so many times before. With that said, higher damage ought to be reserved to nonstandard gear seen outside of the hands of normal round-by-round security. Rework armory ballistic weapons to mostly have the following traits : The ballistic weapons in the armory should have varying lethality, rather than "lethal" and "rubber." More simply, tiers beneath the most lethal variant for the armory should not have access to rounds that generate shrapnel. In the red alert stage of the armory, any ballistic armament could be seen, removing this restriction entirely. Lower shotgun slug damage and remove their armor penetrating properties. Rework ballistic weapons in general to mostly have the following traits : Bullet shrapnel should not stick if its damage is reduced enough. For whatever reason, a 9mm can do all of 0.1 brute to a breacher or something but shrapnel still sticks. When shrapnel sticks, it is jostled randomly based on movement, causing organ damage and breaking bones no matter how it's applied. In short, you can go so far as to not even penetrate someone's armor, yet somehow the bullet makes its way inside of their ribcage, tearing apart their insides every time they turn or walk. I'm almost tempted to call this a bug because it's so broken but something tells me it's intentional for gameplay balance. In summary, the means to shut down antagonists early on is mostly restricted to a head of staff's decision or requires genuine effort to pull off. Without shrapnel accessible to your most basic sidearm, the potential for filling the armory with actually believable weaponry can be seen. You can get creative, too - replace the AMR with a spartan laser, give security rapid-fire low-powered blasters, etc. This is, in my opinion, substantially better than the current armory, which has properties that make zero sense. You have non-reloadable hitscan laser weapons that instantly get discharged by EMP, currently. In character, why would NanoTrasen arm its security with such easy-to-defeat weaponry, seeing how prolific EMP is? Mechanically, just like IPCs, they are rendered a game of rock-paper-scissors by EMP. I should not have to explain why "Haha your entire department loses" in one EMP grenade is no fun for anybody involved. This is compounded by the fact that many other things ingame are massively affected by EMP, from APCs, to fire alarms activating, to doors getting shocked and more. The least we can do is make the very things meant to defend the station not be so largely susceptible to them. Important note : If you intend to make blasters more prolific with this, new weapon sounds, muzzle flashes and hit effects are more than necessary to ensure quality. They presently have none of these and they're kinda underwhelming in the hands of TCFL as they've been seen for it. Time to answer the biggest question of all, though. Is this a nerf/buff to security? It's neither, it's a refactor of what we have based off of the assessment I have of security after playing both it, and antagonist, a lot. This should roughly change nothing except what was outlined in the first page of the suggestion in regards to any definitive "power level" security has.

I agree with sleepy, honestly. Make them alternative outfits, not replacements. Mercs should have a reserve of outfits anyway.

@Bygonehero But we still don't have a solid idea of how persistence will work with antagonists, nor have the issues of escalating usefulness (such as people being useless at day 1 and being useful 5 days later for each month) will occur, as well as how we'll deal with a restricted timed map rotation. It's like bonking the wheel with a hammer and not bothering to put anything back together with it. Also comes into the question of exactly how developers can deal with the flow of adding a new colony setting every month, or every two months, or three even - it doesn't fit anybody's time in my opinion, whereas this suggestion implies the developers are given total power over their schedule. While Skull already said once before that developers could easily handle a month-by-month rotation (I think? I don't want to put words in his mouth) I really don't believe that it can go on for years in that same fashion.

It literally doesn't look like dickbutt fucking christ get your eyes checked

The lesser form ability is very weak currently and makes no sense with what little utility it has. The proposal here is simple : make it a simplemob with ventcrawl and an extra ability like a grotesque sting or a stun dart that makes it dangerous to handle alone, but not completely overpowering to more than one person. This, coupled with a spooky ass sprite that I took some spare time to make could definitely be better than a literal monkey that just gets picked up and spamcrushed, or one shot KO'd by a baton. Being a simplemob gives them immunity to conventional stuns as well, so it's two birds with one stone really. Here's the sprites for the lesser form I made.