kyres1

There's no need to apologize - seriously. It's a whitelist application, I'm not holding you at gunpoint here. With your response, I think this app's definitely acceptable. Have fun! Application accepted.

Hi, I'll be handling this as it's been sitting a while. I have a concern with the application itself and I'd like to ask a couple questions about them before I make a decision. Firstly, while it seems to have a lot of up-front lore crammed into it, the backstory itself concerns me. Here, it says they "skirt the border of human and robot." Why? This isn't accentuated in the backstory beyond the "slip up" which gave them their name. While their conflicting opinions can be explored through means of their support of the SIM, what is explored in their similarity to Humans? Being 3 years old tops, I'd assume they aren't free - though this isn't quite mentioned anywhere on the application. Are they free? If yes, what had them pay themselves off that quickly, and if no - then, moving on. This in many cases fits characters like Ioraks, but one needs to understand the line between erratic character-breaking behavior and acceptable light-hearted roleplay. I've never been one to enforce a super serious tone with anything, though an unmistakable issue with an alarming amount of whitelisted IPCs (namely older whitelisted folks) is essentially turning their own characters into what most people see as jokes and nothing more. Gimmick characters is not something we desire, and understand that I'm not criticizing your take on this or even deeming this part below expectations. Just let it be known that, as funny as quirky and hilarious joke IPCs can get, it's frequently a whitelist issue we've got to deal with in the end. I trust you as a player however, enough so that I believe you'll be able to moderate this yourself. Looking forward to your response.

Taking this app seeing as it's been sitting for nearly a month. Hi. The questions are certainly acceptable, and any concerns I had regarding your character's backstory were quickly remedied in discord. On top of that, the feedback's good and the response to that feedback is better. Application accepted!

What the title says. It's a super simple change that would make drills a bit more relevant and a reasonable upgrade from shovels rather than shovel/pick>accelerator. Also makes them handy more than being a savage and using shovels for engineering projects.

Up to whoever takes it, honestly. If it were up to me, it'd be slightly weaker than an Odysseus, which is slightly weaker than a Ripley. Mechs have armor that deflects most small objects based off of a damage threshold from my experience. Some things like toolboxes go over this deflection threshold, and thus are wonderful at robusting puny durands. There's not much to do in that regard as all mechs are vulnerable to it.

But that's false. Mechs are much more resilient, even in their weakest forms. One hundred percent of incoming damage is absorbed by the mech save for AMRs which you'll rarely see if ever in normal circumstances. RIGs can't carry ten crates, outrun M'sai in a sprint, or delete reinforced walls. They can't plow down blast doors, and ironically they have much less efficient modules in comparison. The RCD on RIGs uses nearly a quarter of your RIG's power when used, whereas an RCD from a mech takes hardly a tenth. All of that disregards the robustness of mechs in combat as well.

Why?

The sprite itself is made for two circuits, which like the Odysseus and Ripley could be peripherals and central control boards. These can be at higher tech levels than normal to prevent what is effectively roundstart spam of these, and it could consist of more plasteel than usual. However, there's not much that *can* be done about spam of mechs - as I've demonstrated before, making 12 Durands is pretty easy even with one miner. The situations these are used in should be moderated enough already to crack down on abuse, however, just like combat mechs. Exact tech levels are pretty unnecessary as well, since maximizing levels can be done with in-lab equipment nowadays and a sheet of every material that'll fit in a lathe.

Mechs are in a bad state. There is nothing beyond being horrifyingly robust that mechs can actually field to a round as it stands. Shockingly enough there’s fixes to this that don’t include entire reworks! Let’s go through some simple things. Give robotics a protolathe and extra steel/glass. There’s no reason they don’t have one. They are still excessively reliant on R&D, requiring their research for any upgrades or levels. This just gives them something to do in that they can upgrade their machines themselves, and provide themselves with minor things like ICPs once scientists do their job. This also gives roboticist antagonists more room to work with since they can make the necessary components for combat mechs without getting shut down immediately in the brief transaction between them and R&D. Ripleys need accelerators and slight speed adjustments. Currently, APLUs are very bad for what their usual purpose is ; mining. They’re slow, and their drills are not fast enough to warrant not just getting a RIG in six minutes and an accelerator with absurd power that clears entire screens at a time. Two things are necessary: making them slightly faster, and giving them a bonkers accelerator to make up for their REALLY slow speed. Odysseus’ desperately need maneuvering jets while rescue RIGs lose their actuators. Also remove the Odysseus’ ability to use passenger compartments. There is no reason to make an Odysseus! The rescue RIG is better in every conceivable way. With the leg actuators readily available as it’s always being worn, no matter what, just wearing the RIG is always better than climbing into the mech. More importantly, the RIG has two means of traversing Z-levels or holes entirely, making them able to actually traverse the asteroid in its entirety. For the most part, Odysseus mechs can hardly leave a twenty-tile radius from any given airlock before hitting a dead end with either rock or open spaces. Simple solution is removing the rescue RIG’s actuators and giving the Odysseus maneuvering jets. There’s not really any complexity to this. On top of that, their ability to hold passenger compartments makes them effectively easy-use clown cars that can carry 5 people that are basically immune to any external damage. Firefighters need flamethrowers for blobs. That’s… all they need, and it’d make them great for engineering. There’s otherwise very little reason to make firefighters. The presence of fire on station has massively diminished in recent times. Ironically, giving them flamethrowers will give them more reason to exist from their original purpose. The final part of the suggestion is the addition of a personal/duo transport mech to go in fabricators. This could fill in the gap of personal safe-ish transport that making the Odysseus more specialized would create. I’ve sprited everything necessary (I think) to put this in the fabricators. The most reasonable way to implement this would be giving it less health than any other mech, slightly slower than Odysseus speed, and leaping/landing actuators like hardsuits receive. It would be able to fit any utility module except for clamps and drills, but only have one or two spaces for modules. This could be a cheap easy-to-make mech that gives roboticists something to make and specialize for almost any department’s use, be it for transportation or utility. Depending on how hard it is to add new mechs to the fabricators I would totally sprite new ones so long as they make sense and hold a purpose like the one mentioned here. The sprites are seen above. Minor adjustments and color changes can be done pretty easily but reworking the entire sprite's front/back shape would be a pain in the butt. This was the only color I could pick that felt utilitarian, and could be seen operating under something like security or engineering at the same time. Feedback on them in progress was provided by the general discord. Combat mechs are fine as-is. They’re scary robust and both fill in their respective roles in security, being speed and resilience. Let's not have RIGs continue to phase out robotics' biggest thing by making their biggest thing useful compared to the cost. Mechs aren't especially difficult to make, but often roboticists are stuck with nothing to make or do to help others. It's not tedious busywork like repeating R&D every round, instead consider it more options for a relatively limited role. Also maybe Smog will finally enjoy it. Credit to them, Schev and Ziy for some of the ideas mentioned. Also remove cable layers - smog

yeah this gets annoying quick and doesn't contribute anything, but i don't see the purpose of removing it entirely. i've done interesting things with the last bit of radio contact mercs have had with the station.

Please get rid of it. There is unironically nothing that can be said in defense of the gamemode in its current state that outweighs how awful it is.

Apologies for the delay, Christmas stuff took up the last few days. Application accepted.

I look forward to seeing what you can do. I'll check on this again in a day or two and come to a ruling depending on how that goes.

One does not need to worry about the antagonists getting to the distress beacon itself - because regardless of turrets, doors, APC distance, etc, an EMP grenade and an RCD can get you anywhere. One needs to worry, as an antagonist, about tripping the alarms in place. It's much more difficult to stop a motion alarm than it is to stop a room literally full of turrets. With that said, disabling the beacon may need to take longer than just whacking the beacon until it breaks - maybe do something like the SAT and have a 12-step process with tools to move/dismantle/disable it. In this time security would have plenty of time to run there and secure it.

I'll be handling this application due to IRL stuff and a sizeable delay. While I'm inclined to process the application immediately after such a long wait with either denial or approval I'm left with concerns about it. Namely the behavior I've personally seen in game from Azzam that have amounted to things I'd worry about from an IPC whitelist perspective. While the stuff I've seen can be brushed over, the application can not, and I'll point out that it's odd to say the least. Firstly, This seems not just generic, but almost going out the way to do so. I understand you wish to play the species for every reason you've listed, and this much is pretty obvious upon applying. Don't be afraid to think out of the box and try to come up with different reasoning for these answers - they're purposefully "overviews" of sorts for this exactly. This is a red flag in my mind. Rarely does it contribute to add the resilience of synthetics in your application, and pointing this out makes me believe this will amount to something along the lines of, "I did it because robots are strong" as an excuse when handling issues later in the future. While this can be pictured in the sense of "hesitation costing lives," it may also be pictured as leading to silly excuses for misinterpreting escalation rules. Being a robot, everything down to the speech patterns may be completely different from how you operate as an organic. Hesitation, once more, is a factor which needs not mentioned and brings up concern on my end. Onto the backstory, With such an amazing robot, how could something as essential as laws be turned into something detrimental? Would this not be considered in the design phase for such an intricate intelligence, and if not, what does unbinding it from its laws contribute? On top of all that, while NanoTrasen has robotics divisions, what prompted them to fabricate this immensely complex AI when they could just as easily have purchased through a rival megacorporation with better products? It should be noted that there isn't a single NanoTrasen place on the Synthetic Origins page, and such is intentional. good pick This is again going through generic loops, with very brief explanations as to what causes the positronic to come to any of these conclusions if at all. I'm sure some of this can be done better at least and I'll let this sit for a few more days before coming to a decision. I encourage you to rework the application in that time.

Due to IRL stuff and a pretty big delay I'll handle this application. It's a strange concept with a fresh new take on some synth ideas that haven't popped up in a while, especially in a whitelist. I've seen your characters in game and they are wonderful to interact with, and most questions, such as how doorbell obtained its freedom in the Frontier of all places, were answered with pretty good responses over discord. Application absolutely accepted, have a blast. It'll be marked as processing as perms have been messed up and someone with said perms will handle it later tonight or tomorrow depending.

Due to IRL stuff and a pretty big delay I'll handle this application. As previous feedback has said, improvement is a huge thing with you. I've seen P.A.T.CH. a lot and they get better with each interaction I have. The application is great and you've clearly put plenty of positive effort into this. I look forward to seeing what you can bring to the field with this whitelist - application accepted. It'll be marked as processing as perms have been messed up and someone with said perms will handle it later tonight or tomorrow depending.

they're meant to be heavily underequipped compared to other real military forces. they are equipped with outdated equipment across the board - a refitted ripley fits this aesthetic perfectly. also a durand is bonkers overpowered.

yes probably though if you consider this suggestion there will be no need for faxing

they dont exist independent from the vest itself like the armory ones. picture tactical armor - it functions much the same way, and spreads the resists over all your limbs through attached leg/arm armor. these however do not stack as if someone was walking around with 80 resists on their arms/legs you'd start to wonder what you could possibly do to incapacitate them if they are in a group.

okay God doesn't want me to edit my previous post, so - The gear is as follows, starting from hardsuits/armor, working into guns/ammo/melee weaponry, then vehicles, and stopping at the miscellaneous objects. Mapping is still in progress so specifics of how much there will be is being thrown around still. Armor Armor consists of two things - hardsuits and not-hardsuits. There is no voidsuit presently. -Retrofitted Military Hardsuit - Relatively cheap offshoot of construction exoskeletons predating the second interstellar war. Mostly two hundred year old surplus with occasional new models and the Republic fabricating new variants for usage by the TCFL. Pretty sizeable slowdown. Description - An incredibly heavy hardsuit with a striking blue color scheme. Seems to be an old repurposed construction exoskeleton redesigned for combat, sacrificing much of the original armor for the ability to stand up to modern RIGs. Its colors and insignias match those of the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion. Stats - (melee = 60, bullet = 50, laser = 30, energy = 15, bomb = 40, bio = 100, rad = 30) slowdown = 2 (about half?) It is equipped with... Hardsuit leg actuators, Mounted drill, Net launcher, Mounted cooling unit (for IPCs) -Bulletproof Suit Set - A set of bulletproof armor with leg guards, arm guards, helmets and vests. Operates like tactical armor in the sense that it’s all one piece and has a built-in holster. Really crappy resists but overall better than the hardsuits for the speed. Description (armor) - A set of cheap composite armor with elbow guards, shoulder and knee pads. Description (helmet) - A large helmet meant to fit some pretty big heads. It has a ballistic faceplate on the front of it. Stats - (melee = 50, bullet = 30, laser = 30, energy = 15, bomb = 40, bio = 0, rad = 0) Ranged Weaponry Ranged weaponry consists of two types - energy blasters, and a single type of gauss rifle. - Bolt Slinger - Energy bolt blaster. Long, bulky scoped rifle that needs to be wielded to fire accurately. Has twenty shots. Equal if not slightly worse damage than a laser rifle. Description - A long blaster rifle which seems to work by accelerating particles to an absurd speed and flinging them out in destructive bolts. It has a tiny scope with a laser sight attached. It’s covered in the colors of the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion. Stats - 35 burn damage (5 more than your usual laser rifle), 20 shots, fires projectiles that do not go through windows. Scoped, needs to be wielded to fire. - Blaster Carbine - Energy bolt blaster. A normal sized item, twelve shots, doesn’t fit in holsters. Has a two-shot burst setting. Seems to miss a lot. Equal damage to an energy carbine with no stun setting. Description - A short-barreled blaster carbine meant for easy handling and comfort when dispatching of problematic smugglers. It’s covered in the colors of the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion. Stats - probably 20 burn damage, can't find the stats. 12 shots, fires energy projectiles that do not go through windows. - Blaster Pistol - Energy bolt blaster. A normal sized item, six shots, fits in holsters. Has a two-shot-burst setting. Useful as a quick-firing expendable sidearm. Equal damage to an energy pistol with no stun setting. Description - A tiny energy pistol converted to fire off energy bolts rather than the low-powered lasers it probably would produce. Probably meant for self-defense. It’s covered in the colors of the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion. Stats - 15 burn damage. 6 shots, fires energy projectiles that do not go through windows. - Gauss Thumper - Bulky, ballistic, fires tungsten slugs. Useful for its cheap model, simple construction, absurd durability and capability to be operated in any condition possible, from vacuum to crushing pressure. Zero penetration but applies heavy brute upon connecting. No shell casings. Holds seven slugs. Description - An indescribably old gauss weapon which sees sparing use in modern times, usually found in the hands of undersea mercenaries or raiders. It’s covered in the colors of the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion. Stats - 30 brute damage. can be loaded with ion and tungsten slugs. one does minuscule brute, the other does the normal amount. does not leave shrapnel. 7 shots, semi-automatic entirely, magazine-fed. Ion slugs act like shotgun haywire. Ammunition Pretty simple, only ammunition is for the gauss thumper. - Tungsten Slug Box - A box of seven tungsten slugs. -Tungsten Slug - A heavy tungsten gauss slug. Doesn’t match any modern gauge. -Ion Slug Box - A box of seven ion gauss slugs. -Ion Slug - A heavy ion gauss slug. Doesn’t match any modern gauge. Melee Weaponry Hopefully good enough to allow the TCFL to stand up in melee and help in fending off the terrible, terrible speed+melee plague. Energy Utility Knife- literally just a slightly better tactical knife Description - Some cheap energy blade, branded at the hilt with the logo of the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion. Energy Barrier - A large deployable energy shield meant to provide excellent protection against ranged attacks. Description - A collapsing energy barrier with a very heavy power source. It doesn’t seem like something you’d want to hold for a prolonged period. Vehicles Some transportation to get the TCFL where it needs to go, be it through a wall or across five kilometers of barren asteroid. Combat APLU - A standard APLU refitted for prolonged combat and skirmishing. Equipped with a laser cannon, two passenger compartments and a drill. Probably equal or slightly better armor than a Gygax considering the speed. No EMP protection. Still being debated whether this is openly available or locked behind a heavy armory. Description - A large APLU unit fitted with specialized composite armor and fancy, though old targeting systems. Odysseus - A medical response Odysseus fitted with three sleepers and a passenger compartment. Description - its an odysseus lmao Retrofitted Speeder - A speeder bike meant for usage in low-pressure environments and vacuum. It's just a reskinned spacebike. It'll hopefully make EVA a tad easier, being that the massive slowdown on the hard suits does not mean ERT gets lost in a corner of the map and stuck there for half an hour going in circles. Description - A short bike that seems to consist mostly of an engine, a hover repulser, vents and a steering shaft. Seems like it’d work best in low pressure, but can easily hover and navigate in normal atmosphere. Miscellaneous The first two of these are designations to differentiate who is who. There will be otherwise no distinguishing traits between the hardsuits/gear worn by specialist personnel, standard personnel and the team lead. Seniority Ribbons - A chestpiece accessory for the hardsuits used by the TCFL. Handy for distinguishing who’s top dog. Description - A long ribbon meant to attach to the chest and sling around the shoulder accompanied by two medallions, marking seniority in a Tau Ceti Foreign Legion fireteam. Usually seen on the suits of the guy in charge.Non-specialist troops will not hold these pins. Specialist Medallion - A chestpiece accessory for the hardsuits used by the TCFL. Handy for distinguishing who actually matters. Description - Two small medallions, one worn on the shoulder and the other worn on the chest. Meant to display elevated authority in a Tau Ceti Foreign Legion fireteam, usually in the case of specialist troops such as medical personnel or engineering dispatches. Non-specialist troops will not hold these pins. More individual items are in progress and will be added to this as things progress. These however should be mostly everything, as simple gear such as flashbangs and zipties don't really need to be differentiated for the foreign legion. The exact numbers for how many spawn are not set in stone and will be decided once the deployment zone is mapped.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5779 PR can be found here.

i'd say no if the only instances i ever saw security antags weren't disastrous and played by awful players with awful intentions. security being antagonists, especially wardens, just completely trashes most rounds because security will be actively working against a situation and suddenly "Ohohoho im tator now" and you get revolver headgibbed or esworded by your buddy. don't get me wrong, i don't think balance is an issue here, but security plays a very strong role in serving as an obstacle against antagonists just doing whatever. turning this obstacle into even more antagonists is always annoying as they're the most well equipped force on the station at any given time with zero effort or even counter play (and rapidly powercreeping to be something even more crazy with the addition of full body bulletproofs/riots/ablatives with stats superior to most any armor in the game). begone sec antags

Fancy new emergency response teams are getting coded and ways to implement them are in the works right now. The TCFL is currently our alternative to NT ERT as it stands.

With the incoming ERT rework I figured I'd bring up this old idea again. Currently, calling emergency response is as simple as two keycard swipes. While that is fine in its own right, it calls the response instantaneously and initiates the gear-up phase for the ERT. This means that, given there are two heads, or a head and the spare ID, or even any stationbounds active (including the AI), calling ERT can be done in a matter of minutes or less and the actual process is instant. It's a bit crazy that it requires a degree of mass murder, ID shredding and bot killing to prevent the huge looming threat of emergency response. A better idea in my mind is a distress beacon, added somewhere relatively secure on the station. This distress beacon requires two card swipes to activate, however, instead of instantly calling the response it makes an announcement stating a ten minute charge up has begun. Once the charge up finishes, the beacon discharges/fires or however you want to word it and then players may spawn as the team that responds. During the ten minute period, the beacon can be disabled by antagonists. This makes it a valuable asset to be defended by the crew. To prevent antagonists from just rushing it at the start of every round, it could be invincible until the timer begins or otherwise difficult to disable preemptively without alerting the crew. What the beacon could actually call, or the percentages for what can be called is probably best left to developers to figure out. For example, standard NT ERT could respond on a lower chance than the less equipped upcoming Tau Ceti Foreign Legion (the weaker soon-to-be addition to the emergency response the station sees), or an unexpected hostile response could occur as raiders try to get to the Aurora first.