MattAtlas

Accepted!

Accepted!

Won't be forced corporate, the current thinking is that each (C) job will have a percentage split between corporate and freelancers. We'll think about it, the main issue is that I believe most people tie the word Corpsman to paramedics.

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Antagonists will be present in Contracts but in a canon fashion. Although most of Contracts is PvE based I do want to implement things like mercenary or raiders back as high-intensity contracts if there are enough people readied up with a certain pref. The traitor uplink will probably be grandfathered in as what Contracts antagonists use to gear up. Things like ling, vampire, and cult are probably going to be sunsetted as... well, nobody maintains them in the first plac,e and second of all they're not canon so unusable in the new gamemode. As for Secret itself, it will be eventually sunsetted as a gamemode yes, since the entirety of NBT2 relies on people playing the gamemode where they can get money. Regarding Storytellers, the short answer is yes, the long answer about that is: find out in another dev diary! No plans for either of these things at the moment, I think the status quo here is fine. It is not physically possible to put everyone under the spotlight in every round and neither should we do that. The Freelancers themselves are all going to work for the group that the Blood Diamond is under, so Avarizia, but overall we are going to try and make it as interesting of a group as possible. I don't really know if we'll have other merc groups on the ship yet; current plan is no, but it's one of those things that I'm still mulling over. Neither of these things are going to be limited I don't think. Just know that corps in 24XX are not seen very well. Either way, your allegiance is going to be to Avarizia no matter what. You might have a bit more freedom in what you can wear but you still have to bring the money home for your employers. Yeah, absolutely. Part of the new ship combat rework that will happen this year or the next is to allow AI-controlled ships on the overmap for this reason.

Here it depends on what people's definition of "grimdark" is. In my opinion, it's a label that gets thrown around too much without the actual definition ever being clear. The way I consider grimdark personally is a world where nothing you do can really ever matter and it's just a constant fight for survival, nothing more. This is absolutely not the case in NBT2. The galaxy is worse as a whole, sure, but things don't suck everywhere. There are areas where life goes on as normal, such as in inner Sol, and there are areas where life is a lot worse than before as well. The sense of scale isn't grimdark, either; the ship can definitely affect a region for good or worse. When I say the setting is more morally grey, I mean that you are not by default going to be the good guys. Sometimes you will have to do some bad things to get money because you're freelancers. And that's part of the conflict - it does not mean that what you do doesn't matter or that things always suck, or that there will never be a chance to do some good in the galaxy. As for the names, like I said, don't focus on them too much. Blood Diamond is just a development name. It's the first one that I came up with because I needed one to use in the first development diary and it is liable to change, same with evilness, it's just a variable to track infamy. Those names aren't really meant to reflect much. If you go back to the first dev diary, it says that none of the names are set in stone and they're just names we use to refer to things without saying "the new ship". Yes, service is planned to be involved in supplying the expedition with stuff like food, drinks, and so on, which like I said will become more relevant. As for involving them elsewhere, people have to realise that there's a logical limit to how much we can involve the department that is, in concept, a department fundamentally about not being involved. We will try our best, sure, but there is no world in any SS13 server where SS13 is going to be involved in the main gameplay loop to the same degree and as much as, say, Security or Engineering. It is just not feasible because the concept of the department isn't that. The bartender is never going to have the same involvement as a security officer because they're a bartender, it's a low stakes role that is meant to be low stakes. Low intensity contracts will take the place of the current extended/traitor/ling/whatever rounds. Whether they'll be boring or not I'm not really sure at the moment. We'll see. Another planned piece of gameplay is forward operating bases and Service setting up there to help out Engineering and whoever else comes back or is working at the FOB with food, drinks, and so on. This is because Bridge Officer is one of those roles that are still up in the air in terms of exact duties (and the name as well). At the moment I want to keep them similar to what they are now, but with more freedom to run around and snoop in other departments as the XO's dutiful assistants. Ship money is not randomized, it's persistent. The only times it gets reset are with the Tithe, and if it reaches maximum infamy and is cut down to size by other off-ships. However, you do use ship money to requisition gear and other equipment, or to pay off pirates or other people, so it's liable to go up or down depending on what people do. Notoriety or infamy are pretty good.

See https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/22307 and contact me on the Discord if you want further details.

We haven't really gotten to the point of drafting the new regulations and SOP so this isn't something I can answer with certainty at the moment, but in all likelihood yes, there will be some sort of mechanism to replace the CO. There kind of has to be one anyway in case they are somehow subverted or incapacitated and etc. As for being forced to do things, it's just a matter of fact that giving the Captain role more power means that they can make people do different things. Like I said in the other thread, the setting is more morally grey, so if you play an unequivocally good character then you'll be immersing them in dilemmas more often. But I think that makes playing them more fun, not the opposite; you have to work from within the system and be a good person regardless to change what you can, which is a more interesting angle IMO. There are going to be discussions about the future of CCIA in the near future, so I'll hold off on commenting on that. As for regulations, yeah, those will exist of course. We don't want every round devolving into massive brawls or mutinies or whatever. I did say several times that things would be more lax when it comes to character conflict, but we're not looking for constant shitfests either, that would be a pain in the ass to moderate and it would ruin the atmosphere. Fully aware we need to strike a careful balance here, so we'll try our best. The problem is I can't feasibly limit the corporate jobs more than I already have, this is pretty much already the least amount of jobs that can be corporate and it's still quite a lot of them. The original version of the department chart had even less, and the feedback I got is that for proper representation we would need more roles to be corporate, also given the corporations we'll probably have. I think it'll just be a fact of the matter that you'll have to play a certain character less if they're a corporate unfortunately, it's the only way to properly represent the freelancer/corporate split in certain roles. Some roles will likely have more of a split than others, in the sense that they'll have more %-corporate than %-freelancer, but more on that in a future development diary.

Has been on my to-do list for a long time. It'll come soon-ish.

Yeah, mainly they'll be effects to force people to not go into expeditions without the appropriate supplies. For the effects of those you'll have to wait a future development diary as we're getting into elements that are still being discussed/theorized at the moment, and that need other systems to be in place first before they can really make sense. It's rest intended as just taking a breather, so sitting down or lying down without combat for a while, eating and drinking, etc. Basically the kind of rest you would have after a lot of physical exertion.

No because that's just too much trouble for no real gain and I don't want that sort of risk. Nothing like that is set in stone, no, what's important is the general idea at this stage of development really. Most definitely yes as the aim is to make every gameplay element canon basically. Most probably, yes. Depends on the time we have. Half of this is is already in game so it'd be pretty easy to make this work, and that's mostly the current idea, yeah.

At the moment the contracts subsystem isn't made for contracts to be given to off-ship spawns, but it's something I thought of too while writing the development diary and might implement it. If I don't, they'll get a flavour message or something saying that they have to go after the Blood Diamond. This would only happen if the ship has reached maximum threat level, which would be really fucking hard. A lot of money will be gone and a lot of persistent stuff will disappear, which will be a Pretty Bad consequence. It'll be canon of course. The crew and so on will survive, but they'll lose most of their resources to pay off the bounty. As for the hostile ships being AI, there will be player spawns for them, but the new ship combat system (more about that in a future dev diary) will support AI ships. The limit is per job. There would be a limit, no more than half of a given role at most, though there can be some exceptions in some roles (most of service could feasibly be mostly if not all corporate, Fabrication would be half corporate half freelancer at most), etc. Unmarked roles are freelancer only, yes.

Updated the department graphic with the new contractors, somehow the new version hadn't saved.

Some things I forgot to mention: interactions with away sites or third parties, and in general with Contracts, will all be fully canon. The exact extent of how the character permadeath rule works with this is yet to be established, though I can say for sure that we do not want people being forced to delete their character over one bad day or one unlucky shot.

Project Anabasis Development Diary #3 The Vision of it All Hello! Welcome to what is probably the most awaited development diary, even though you probably didn’t expect it. In this diary, I will be walking you through the gameplay loop we have designed for NBT2, and the exact reasons why we made these particular decisions. A lot of these decisions are based on a lot of historical context relative to Aurora and my experiences on other servers. As such, I’ll try to fill everyone in on the most crucial details needed to understand the big picture. If there are any questions, as always, you can reach me on the Discord. Without further ado, let’s get started – and find out what exactly you’ll be doing on the Blood Diamond! Why does the gameplay need to change? Whenever you’re doing something, you should always ask yourself: why? Similarly, when it comes to upheaving the entire gameplay loop of a server, first we need to realize why we made a choice so big that we have to rework not only the entire gameplay loop, but also change the in-game universe this much. I spoke about this in the very first development diary as well, but the core problem is that antagonists as the server’s gameplay loop are not sustainable. What I mean by sustainable isn’t that they aren’t fun. Everyone, or most of everyone, loves those high-octane mercenary or tower defense rounds. I do, too. They’re part of what drove me to stick with Aurora, after all – more precisely, in my case it was a Paranoia round that made me decide to build my home here, for those that remember that gamemode. What I mean by sustainability here is that the server’s functioning and population essentially depend on a very, very small and limited pool of antagonists. This pool doesn’t replenish or expand anymore because the server has progressed to a point where the main driving force of what leads you to play the server is long-term character interactions. Logically, you cannot have long-term character development if you are playing an antagonist; you play something that only has an effect in that single round, and then disappears magically. This is without mentioning the numerous contrivances that are a barrier to people picking up antagonist regularly, such as the mass of contrived rules that HRP is, and the general lack of updates that antagonists see. Non-traitor/merc gamemodes are in a fairly sorry state, unfortunately, and this reflects the lack of both developer and player interest in updating those gamemodes. Since the main gameplay loop supports itself essentially on a handful of people, what happens when those people all of a sudden stop playing antagonist? If one, two, or three of them leave, the whole house of cards comes falling down. Because our core department gameplay loops have never been updated and have only been gutted in the past decade, once the sole force that drives a round disappears, nobody wants to join a round anymore because there’s nothing to do. This is the root cause of our regular population droughts. When people have to be absent for a longer time than usual (usually because of exams or the like), this leads to our antagonist pool becoming so small that you can barely even roll autotraitor. Since you can’t roll any interesting gamemodes, people leave, and that’s how we end up in situations similar to the last half-year where nobody was playing the server. It is not a coincidence that population came back only once we started hosting regular events. This means three things: Antagonists cannot be the main source of gameplay. Any gameplay we add must feed into that wish for long-term character interactions. The core gameplay loops have to be made robust and interesting enough to not rely on the presence of a third party. Sounds simple, right? Well, no. Why is the setting relevant to gameplay? The core of this idea is that the gameplay is decided by the setting. Your setting gives you a handful of set pieces in which you can carve out the gameplay of whatever game you’re making. As an example, the Horizon is just one set piece in our setting. Another set piece could be a Zavodskoi installation. Yet another set piece could be a pirate ship in the Weeping Stars. In short, it’s just where the game takes place, but that is a crucial decision, because it also decides what you can add to your game. A dedicated science department on a pirate ship wouldn’t be sustainable, for example, because it just breaks believability. Pirate scientists aren’t really something that’s sustainable in the current setting, at least not without major OOC contrivances. Similarly, the whole of the setting also limits you; a setting where there is mostly no major technological advance because we’re already in a post-scarcity era means that you have very little room to create something like a science department in, or even to justify the usage of low technology tools, just because everything is so available everywhere. Lastly, the political climate of the setting you’ve built also reflects itself on your game. If everything is at peace all the time, it becomes less and less sustainable to have conflict happen. You are limited to the same enemies pretty much the entire time; non-descript pirates, or whatever organisation the administrators and lore writers come up for the new event arc. The lack of risk in the galaxy as a whole means that you are limited in your choice for what events can take place in your game. That is exactly the relevance of the setting to the gameplay. Our setting is made in mind with what was essentially a more advanced office simulator game; that’s basically what the NSS Aurora was. Later on, we moved to the Horizon but kept the same static setting meant for a static game. It’s just not made for the dynamic sort of experiences that a mobile ship should be going about. It’s also not made for exploration as a whole, because the Spur really does not have any mystery to it barring one or two elements, such as the Konyang vaults or the Lemurian Sea. In short, if we want the gameplay to become more interesting, we also need the setting to change. Staying in the current setting limits our breadth of possible experiences too much, and that’s how the Second Interstellar War and Anabasis came to be. For the sort of gameplay we envisioned, we needed a setting where the actors could truly be free of most constraints. We wanted a setting that allowed and even encourage the usage of low technology. We wanted a setting where there was a lot to explore; from post-war empires to ruins of a massive war, where you could unearth forgotten designs and put them to use for yourself. We wanted a setting where you could feasibly meet and fight any political group if you so wished to further your own agenda, and a setting where you could always feel the danger of your choices. And how did we accomplish that, you ask? Gameplay in Anabasis Gameplay in Anabasis is centered around exploration at the core. This means that the entire ship structure, from its construction to its job titles and expectations, are going to be made with the idea that (mostly) everyone will be going down to expeditions. We are intentionally choosing to focus on planetary gameplay because it allows us to keep the gameplay consistently fresh by changing the atmosphere and scenario constantly. One of the important parts of this is that it allows us to inject PvE elements without very complex code contrivances. Indeed, we are planning mostly a shift towards a lot more PvE content than we currently have. As we discussed before, antagonists (intended as players playing something that is antagonistic or otherwise kind of “the jester” for the crew at large) are never really going to be sustainable, so we need to look towards PvE to have a truly sustainable gameplay loop. In this case, the core of Anabasis will be fulfilling Contracts as we’ve discussed before. But what actually is a contract? Contracts We spoke about this before – it’s the gamemode that is meant to supplant Secret as the new flagship gamemode of the server. In short, at roundstart there will be a setup period wherein the Captain (aided by Command), or lacking either of them the crew as a whole, will decide what the contract they will be fulfilling that day will be. A contract is a fairly simple thing. A certain interstellar faction in the region has something they need done by third parties. In the universe of Anabasis, there are many reasons for this: Interstellar nations no longer have the strength or will to carry out continued hostile actions. Borders are still contested and the entire Spur is in basically a cold war, but the road to recovery is long. On the other hand, mercenaries and freelancers are in their golden age, and none will turn down easy money. Interstellar corporations have lost most of their private fleets and armaments, and are now forced to contract 3rd parties if they want anything done. But don’t kid yourself: one thing corporations haven’t lost is their greed and their backstabbing prowess. They will do anything to gain an advantage for themselves, even if it’s destroying a competitor’s headquarters in the region. Local parties will often also be willing to offer money for certain tasks, whether those be resupplying a beleaguered city with food and drinks, fulfilling a shipment order, escorting a ship throughout the region, setting up a reception for an important guest, and so on. In short, a contract can be anything. What contracts are available depends on a few things: Your relations to interstellar factions. The more contracts you complete for a certain faction, the more your standing will increase with them, and the more you might offend other factions that are in competition with them. Pick who you want to get in bed with carefully. The region’s threat level. Some regions are highly dangerous, and as such you’ll not often find very calm contracts there. In these places, it’s kill or be killed, and your survival will be the order of the day. Worry not, though, for it will be very profitable for your coffers. Your threat level. Kill too many people, destroy too many things, and there will be droves of mercenaries willing to cut you down for a price. A contract has its own difficulty and evilness (name pending) ratings. The contract’s difficulty is simple; how difficult will this contract be to complete? Generally, this will be synonymous with “danger”, and the higher difficulty a contract is, the more reward you will receive. Low-difficulty contracts will generally be civilian-level missions, such as completing shipments, resupplying towns and settlements, and so on; things that will be in the ballpark of service, logistics or engineering crew, generally. A high-difficulty contract will certainly require the crew to prepare properly. An extreme-difficulty contract will require the utmost care, skill and preparations, lest several die. A regional-difficulty contract will… well, no spoilers there! On the other hand, evilness determines just how much you’ll make everyone angry in this sector by completing this contract. The higher the evilness, the more threat level you will gain on completion, and the more threat level you have, the more people will want you down. High difficulty contracts will replace current mercenary/tower defense/etc rounds. It’s where the whole crew will be expected to go down to a planet and put their skills to the test. Generally, this will be done by expecting them to go through a regionally-flavoured dungeon, completing various tasks (and probably getting rid of quite a lot of bad actors) to make it to the end and complete their contract. At roundstart, some spots in these dungeons will be filled by players (actors) to take particular spots if they so wish; but this is not necessary for the gamemode itself to function. More on these dungeons will be written in a future development diary, but consider them a hallmark feature of the Contracts gamemode. As your threat level goes up, third parties will be less and less eager to work with you. If your name gets spread for the wrong reasons, third party ships will spawn in with flavour text telling them how to behave depending on your threat level. Even in Anabasis, nobody wants to work with bloody backstabbing killers. And the higher threat level, the more hostile ships to you will spawn. At the maximum threat level, a contract to take you down will be issued, and your position will be broadcasted to every hostile ship in the region. You’ll have to survive to clear your name. Good luck! Once a contract is done, the employer will pay you, and the relations of your ship will update. Simple, right? The beauty of cashless payments. At the end of the month (every month on the 1st) the Tithe will be taken from the ship. If you don’t have enough money… some things may have to be forcefully requisitioned. Departments Finally what everyone was waiting for. Such a big shift in gameplay necessarily requires a shift in the departments: our conception thereof, and also of the expectations of their jobs. Before that, though, I want to talk a bit about the conception of a department in Anabasis. Sorry for the poor graphic, I’m not much of an art guy myself. Either way, the image is fairly self-explainatory. The important thing to keep in mind is that we want to strongly, strongly require inter-departmental cooperation. The Blood Diamond is going to be a machine that can only function at full strength if every department cooperates and fulfills their exploration duties. As you can see, key upgrades for departments will only come from resources/objects recovered from expedition, which then have to be analyzed or processed by the Fabrication department. We also want to have direct upgrade paths for each department with limited persistence (things will break and they have to be replaced, stored resources have a time limit).Supply and provision arrows signify what sort of relationship a department has to another. Without further ado, welcome to the provisional department list for Anabasis! Jobs with an asterisk have their name pending a change as the current name is not entirely fitting. Obviously, everything here is open for feedback, BUT PLEASE DO NOT GET OBSESSED OVER TINY DETAILS. Job numbers and job names are easy to change and will probably change over development time. What I don’t want to happen is a useless pages-long discussion over whether the Commanding Officer should be renamed to Captain or not. Similarly, if a slot number is different, IT IS NOT A BIG DEAL AND CAN BE ADDRESSED. I probably just mistyped a number if that is the case. And if a job is missing, do not panic, I have limited space for the infographic and needed to put down the most important things first. Command Command is generally not changing much in terms of the leaders of each department, other than them being handed more executional powers in the round. Keep in mind that regarding law and order of the ship, it’ll be far less corporate and more practical, so similarly there will be less paperwork and other ball-and-chain around Command’s choices. You’ll get to run your department how you want to. At the top of the Command chain is the Commanding Officer, and this time they have more or less absolute power. Below them is their right hand, the Executive Officer, who – if you’re wondering – will in fact be a true second in command this time around, no questions asked. Immediately below them and equal to other department heads is the Expedition Leader, who is in charge of preparing the expedition and getting it done, basically Command’s eyes on the ground. Armsmen Well, that’s unexpected! Security won’t just be doing security duties anymore. They’ll be the spearhead of any dangerous expedition into a dungeon or in hostile territory, which comes with the expectation that these mercs will use their hands and guns. For that reason, we chose to rename the department to Armsmen to better reflect their new duties. Nothing is that different in this department other than that little © next to the Investigator name. That’s right – corporations will be coming back on the Anabasis as contractors! However, contractor jobs will be limited in amount and in how many contractors there can be per job. The supermajority of the Blood Diamond will always be freelancers, but you’ll be able to enjoy some good inter-branch tension. After all, those are corporates – those are the people that burnt the galaxy to ashes twenty years ago. Investigator is one of such roles, however, investigators will only be able to be corporates. You’ll be the crime-solving and detective type, think a mix between Professor Layton and Ace Attorney… a crossover you could say. About the armoury… more on that later. Fabrication That’s not Science! No, it isn’t. Science fundamentally does not work in the setting and never has – there are too many lore and code problems to make it really work. It works even less in this setting too, so we’re replacing it with something that is more thematically fitting. Fabrication will be in charge of developing and supplying everyone with finished products and tools. The developing part will take place mainly in analyzing artifacts and lost technology from expeditions to repurpose them into blueprints that can be built with materials. Lost technology will be a strong theme in the Second Interstellar War - expect to find things such as old corporate datadisks with corporate DRM to crack, so on and so forth. Technology researcher will be split 50/50 between corporates and freelancers. On the topic of some old corporate data you can find: DRM. Think anything that can store information, and represents breaking their encryption. USB pens, hard-drives, virtual blueprints, holographic projectors that contain information on an away site and also information on how to fabricate something. Collect enough of them and you gain an usable blueprint. This will provide a random technology of low level. Recreating blueprints. Incomplete blueprints can be found around away sites as a sort of “step-up” to DRM. Incomplete blueprints provide the idea of a schematic from the start, e.g. you find a “laser gun blueprint”, but they will need to be processed/experimented with manually with enough materials or through enough experiments. Additionally, tools and equipment will be divided in tiers. Tier 1 The starting technology of every department. Pretty shitty, it’s merc-ship standard. Visually it looks rusty, dusty, or used.. Tier 2 Slightly better technology. If the ship has loads of money, it has a good chance of starting with some stuff as Tier 2. Alright equipment. Visually it’s slightly dusty, but looks a bit shinier. Every department should be able to get some Tier 2 equipment through inter-departmental cooperation at roundstart. Example: medical should be able to get Tier 2 medication through logistics orders OR through botany. Tier 3 Standard, retail equipment. A hand of God for a merc ship. It’s inner ring shit. Visually clean. Not too shiny. This equipment should ONLY be able to be manufactured by Logistics with expedition materials. There will be a way to quickly bring expedition materials to the ship. Phoron usage optional, but shouldn’t be much if any. Depends on the equipment itself. Tier 4 The good stuff. Experimental equipment. Very shiny. It needs to look like what you have in your hands is worth 500 000 dollars per round (sic.) This equipment can ONLY be made by Fabrication, and it should ONLY be at most one or two per round that they make. We want to keep it as something players fight for, and keep playing to find out what they can get. This is the equipment that generally uses phoron, and is thus a limited resource. As such, it should be powerful, but generally have downsides to its usage. All of this is subject to change and is not final, as the department is currently in the theoretical stage. We’d love to know what you think! The Surveyor will be the role that lets you fulfill the nerd scientist fantasy. It’s locked to corporates only and is the role in charge of documenting away sites and anomalies, which can be sold for a good price to collectors and… less scrupulous buyers. Medical For the changes that will take place in medical, see the medical rework. The largest change is the merger between surgeon and physician; this is due to the fact that the shift to expedition gameplay is not compatible with the conveyor loop gameplay we have. We need doctors that can treat more or less everything, or you risk people being unrecoverable because they got shot on an away site and a physician can’t fix their busted lung. Danger and damage will be a lot more present in Anabasis, so that’s not a situation we can afford. Engineering It’s engineering. Regarding the changes that are planned for this department, Batra will have a nifty development diary up for you in due time. Regardless, I can say that we plan for upkeep and maintenance of machinery and equipment to be a major part of Anabasis. The ship’s state (cleanliness, functioning of machinery and etc) will be dependant on how much money the ship currently has, so if there’s little money expect to run around and have to fix quite a bit of stuff at roundstart. Service Service remains mostly as it is, though it’ll be a department full of corporates as the corporations still have a hold on the hospitality sector. We plan to involve service in low-intensity contracts as written above. Logistics Operations is being renamed to Logistics to better represent their job on the new ship. They’ll be in charge of making sure supplies get where they need to, that tools get to their users, and that the expedition is constantly supplied with whatever they need. Expect constant supplies to be needed on expeditions, not just ammunition but also liveries for the crewmembers down there. There will be a big emphasis on needing food, water, rest, and other survival mechanics, so supply will become very important very quickly! Additionally, they will be in charge of one of the armouries of the ship for the expedition. Generally, armouries will be split; we'll have a general armoury for the entire ship, an emergency armoury for lethal equipment, and a standard armoury for Security containing less-than-lethals, non-lethals and basic lethal and tactical equipment. More on this in a future development diary, or in a future pull request. Conclusion That’s all we have to show today. I hope that the shape of what we plan for Anabasis, and why we’ve planned for things to go as they have, is clear to everyone now. Everything in this development diary is still in the development stages and is more theoretical than not (barring the medical rework), so feedback is welcome. All I ask is that you guys please do not focus on extremely tiny details. It really does not help me to see a discussion about whether a name should be X or Y. Those can always be fixed later, they are unimportant details; what matters the most is the idea of what we have, the concept of the gameplay, and other essential parts to developing a game. Thank you for your attention, and I’ll see you in the next development diary!

After a lengthy discussion with the applicant and the developer team at large, we have decided to accept this application. On trial until 10JUL2026.

This is the way things are planned with the upcoming feats/quirks system -- they're just in the skills system at the moment because that way it's easier to test the in-game impact of said features. Otherwise we'd be holding onto them for who knows how long until all of that is implemented. Implementing them in skills might be a bit strange thematically but it's fairly innocuous mechanically, and a good reflection of how these features will work in the future. It will be possible to select how your character interacts with morale in the future through feats, yes. Same case as above, these features being in the skill system is just a test/placeholder for when they'll be put into more fitting system.

Project Anabasis Development Diary #2 The Smell of Ashes Premise “We must put an end to war, or war will put an end to us.” – President Harrlala to the National Assembly before voting to ratify the Provisional War Authority of Adhomai, 24XX (written by @CatsinHD) The current state of Tajaran lore is centered around the Cold War, pun not intended. The three states of Adhomai vie for their place under the Suns as supreme rulers of the planet. There is an underlying presence to all of this. Not simply the machinations of states in a world interacting as states do. Rather, there is a story. The legendary figure, mythical in all aspects, and the acolytes that have warped his vision into mutants. Meanwhile, history incarnate attempting to right itself, to progress out of a foundation of regression. A woman who is set on seeing the words of her former brought to life, and for glory to shine on the lands. It’s easy to forget in the pages of dense writing that there is a story going on. There are characters that are interacting, changing, and scheming. There is a theme. There are many things. However, it must come to an end eventually. It would be tiring for aging zealots to continue their dogmatic march along continually warping paths. So. to answer simply: Mecha-Hadii will not emerge. Super Nated will not manifest. Al’mari’s legacy is dead, his bastard prophets burnt to ashes, souls living on with Raskara Messa. So how, pray tell, does this play out? We’re not telling you. Not here, at least. That is still yet a story to tell in NBT1, and spoiling it would be foul play on our part. So you will simply have to wait, and read, and see what comes about as we march towards the Next Big Thing 2: Tesla Boogaloo. However, what we can tell you, is what to expect for Tajaran lore in NBT2. What factions and ideas there are to look forward to. The curiosities of how characters will fit in new orders. How, when the legacy sits upon its deathbed, the smell of ashes becomes familiar to us all. Credit: NiennaB/laowra Unification “He doesn't like you, and you don't like him, but now we are in the same trench and everything should be done to save Adhomai.” – President Khazdar to Supreme Command Hro’rammhad regarding an alliance between the PRA and DPRA, 24XX An alliance that never should’ve worked. An alliance out of desperation. Enemies, bitter rivals, claimants of the icy throne of Adhomai turned allies in the lowest of times. Then the war ended. And the alliance remained. Fatigue, death, ashes. The damage had struck everyone. The desire for war was gone, burnt down in the flames of Kaltir. Against all odds, expectations, Tajaran nature, unity was found. Security was desired. Rebuilding was needed. In the halls of the National Assembly, a Provisional War Authority of Adhomai was reborn as a federation of republics, simply: Unigov. The old guard was gone, new visionaries were ready. Taking the helm, an aging Ardkhran Hro’rammhad, weary but resolute in seeing Unigov into success. It had to be done. For Adhomai. His compatriot, the Premier Khazdar. Two leaders of two rival states, united with a new cause. Rebuilding. Rebuilding not out of ambition or desire, but for safety. To build the walls and armies needed to survive the menace out west. To thrust Tajara onto the Spurian stage not as conquered servants but stalwart independents. Never again may Tajara be subdued, conquered, exploited. Not by the red banners of that wicked Empire or the sickening logos of corporate greed. But the lands are torn. Those under the spell of Shumaila and her foreign puppeteers. The former lands of juntas and Hadiists alike. Adhomai had rarely known respite from division. So how, dear Hro’rammhad, does one wield such a people? Division of lands, tolerance mandated. Gone are the concepts of the monoculture, the wicked destruction by the castes, the intolerance of ideologues. The lands are divided indeed. And the republics, the titular republics, must bend to such. Adhomai, then, and her colonies beyond the Suns, are rather split. A federation of republics, each a microcosm of Unigov itself. There is a place for anyone, or in absence of such, a place could be found. It is foolish of such dogmatic minds to find intolerance when the Spur does not wait. When the Spur wishes to bring to heel such a planet of potential. Old enemies offered redemption, new friends brought into the fold. Such demands were gone, so long as you beat on the same path, the long road to Tajaran glory among the stars. At the head of the beast, a multi-headed hydra, is the federal government. An endless maze of departments and committees answering to but two Tajara: the Ardkhran, leader of the people, and the Premier, leader of the parties. Sharing equal parts workload, be it the internal machinations and politicking of the Republics or the foreign affairs and colonial mandate. The squabbling of the Congress of Free Tajara, the embodiment of the system. Endless debates, representatives of the Republics fighting for such changes ad infinitum. The State Council, managing the byzantine departments, keeping the mind numbing complexity of the state chugging. Beyond the realms, the snow of Adhomai, the colonies sit. Some new, some old. The steady march of expansion fueled by the companies of Adhomai, led in the light of the pathfinders through the Scar. New planets, new resources, new science. The machine demands more. More land, more people, more resources. More. More. More. It’s mandated. Colonially mandated. Tajara, after all, are destined to conquer the stars. The Fleets “What is Tajaran nature but seeking and failing to achieve ideals?” - FTV Volin Zarkir Kahmanqahrii, 24XX Once fleeing death, history repeating in sick irony, the battered ships of old eek along. Theseus hundreds over, hulls hardly reminiscent of their old, decrepit selves. The inhabitants, infatuated by metal and oil, seeking progress, for safety. Generational trauma, sights no sane being dare see, forever tied to revere the vessels that protect them. Perhaps it was a mistake to step into the Lemurian, foolish and greedy. Perhaps it merely opened their eyes to the truth. To the sanctity of metal. A thirst for technology of all kinds. The vast fleets, endless in numbers, endlessly shifting. Beating on through the stars, wandering from place to place, seeking knowledge, materials, equipment, anything needed to keep the vessels running. Jury-rigged, replaced, modified, expanded. Master artisans of the dear voidship. For what cause? Why, for knowledge itself. For the keys to reality. For mastery of nature, such that even the horrors, the fabled sights of yet living generations, may be truly wielded. The State “We stand on the precipice of reaching the peak, or falling into obscurity.” – Headmaster Harrrdanim Tyr'adrr during his final address on public broadcast before fleeing to Hro’zamal, 24XX Those traitors. Enemies of the state surround, fools seeing a vision of Adhomai in decimation. They stray from the truth of Hadiism. They dare yet imagine a world of unity. A world where the enemies of progress are accepted, reasoned. The fools, the lot of them. Former comrades dead in the minds of the resolute. The totalists. The visionaries. The world is dangerous now. It is only a minor setback that such a retreat must take place. Hro’zamal, pure in its belief, must rise to the task. The colony turned capital, turned fortress. It will carry the spirit of Hadiism on. The schism proved one man right. The Headmaster, derided as paranoid, stands atop the righteous truth. The enemies within are deadlier than the enemies without. Malik was too soft. Khazdar was treasonous. More must be done to secure the Party. Hro’zamal must be built up, control must be extended. We are a collective. One unified body. Sacrifices ennobled, technology progressed. There must be no costs too high. We. Must. Win. For failure will see us crumble. Failure will doom Tajara. The Kingdom “He says exile, she says extended holiday.” - Queen Shumaila to Grand Duke Harqirahm on the exile of the High Kingdom, 24XX They had not started the war. It was an invasion. Their defense was righteous against the tides of the tyrants, seeking to destroy nature’s chosen way. The war was costly, Adhomai was lost. However, hope is not yet dead. The Kingdom lives on. Shumaila, the dear Queen. The mind that saved the Kingdom. The tree around which Tajara will grow. Her throne decimated in the old lands, no bother. Nature will heal. The course will be corrected. King Azunja’s vision cut short by Messa’s embrace, it must be continued under Shumaila’s guiding hand. Bringing the Kingdom to its true nature, correcting the wrongs of greed and corruption. All the while, new lands ripe for taking. Qaraket, the new seat of the High Kingdom, name christened over the blood of a bygone Republic. Serenity was lost on these lands, brought again by Tajaran hands. It would expand. It must expand. In service to Tajara, in service to allies, royalty, the dutiful liege lightyears away on the Morozian throne. Adhomai is not lost, simply deluded. It is destined to happen. The High Kingdom will return, stronger, better. It will bring the misguided planet and her mistaken colonies into the fold. Tajaran banners will stretch across the Southern Spur, Valley to Scar, and truly retake the right of rule, the holy Suns’ light. The Badlands “What can one expect from a place called the Badlands? Bad is written in the name.” - Unknown Lekhtrelkii’s note, 24XX These lands rarely knew peace. Of raging pirate fleets or dutiful patrol armadas, what place yet leaves the desire for peace than that of the Badlands. Yet it is not such when the guns have quieted down, the ammo had run dry. What is left, then, in the wake? Mounds of ash, huddled masses seeking a rising phoenix. Although such implies the tales are true, ignorance to reality. Peace is an ill concept in these lands, then, a rallying cry for those too blind to see their own marching boots. To the north lies the High Kingdom, a land of gaudy cloaks and liberal meads. Sitting on thrones of death atop their appropriated lands. Be it far from the Royalist to be intoxicated by such heroism. Now, they see only their rightful claims. Planets of wealth, ripe for exploitation, along a war path to the jewel of the crown. The jewel of the crown, broken free to seek its own ends. Wisened from its failures, sickened by perpetuous flames of war still yet smoldering on their streets; smoke pushing them onwards, into the frontier. Ever eastward, bringing more into the fold. Preparing for armies of the past, fearing fleets of the future. Expanding in the name of Adhomai. Space is vast, but woefully small. It is only a matter of time before the Rafama meets the other. Heads locked in battle for their right to rule, for the future of Tajara. Then why would such a state, exiled alone, stuck on but a planet so hostile, continue? Because they know the truth. The rest, delusional, treasonous. It is only through the march of progress that the future may yet be bright. United, collective. Urgency is not so poisonous, yet. Time is in the favor of truth. The steady march forward bringing all yet closer to their destined victory. It is promised. The Headmaster knows the truth. However, to sit idle is admitting defeat. In secrecy we work. Subverting those traitors. Guiding, with invisible hands, those who will see us to glory. But Tajara are not alone here. The grip of the Adhomian promise holds so few. The Sinta and Human, equal players in such lands of turmoil. The Pretender sits upon a jewel befitting such lofty delusions, concern to the dear Queen in presence and action. The Karszekan, an ally to some. Comrades oppressed no longer, close now with such heirs of Adhomai. Safety in numbers. Progress in cooperation. Parallel states joined in fear, paranoia yet fleeting of crossing paths and sunken knives. Conclusion “Impossibility never prevented anything from happening.” - First Speaker Kiimro Raghkanhkir to the first session of the Congress of Free Tajara. This dev diary has been intentionally written in overly flowery and, at times, vague language. This was on purpose. As mentioned at the start, it can be easy to miss the underlying story occurring as the setting progresses. The flat, informative writing of the wiki and other such sources will have this effect. This dev diary is less about giving flat wiki information, but rather telling a story. Setting the scene, mindset, and vibes of the factions after all is said and done. Because, notably, we are moving away from the premise of the last decade of Tajaran lore. No longer will we be seeing the schemes and actions of two men chasing after the legacy of a mythical figure, Al’mari. We’re moving into a new story. Hopefully one you all enjoy! So where does this leave players and their characters? Well, we attempted to leave a spot for everybody. Whether you want the loose restrictions of Unigov or the Free Fleets, or the firm ideology of the PRA remnants, or the royalism of the High Kingdom. The goal was to allow plenty of routes for characters to be retconn’d, fast forwarded, or whatever else into the new setting. At the end of the day, the lore is written for the player and their characters. And while we have a vision, at times incongruent with that vision of some players, we also want to leave space for the imagination to run wild. To consider stories and ideas that fuel fun interactions, and ultimately make the experience of being within the setting, being with Tajaran lore, fun.

This is generally a good post that I find myself agreeing with, so I'll bring this up for discussion and see what we can do. At the same time the area with which we can work in is really limited due to the combat/medical system we have, so it'll take some time to figure it out.

This will not be happening. People need an incentive to play different characters, not the opposite, and I don't want to punish new characters.