alexpkeaton

Someone needs to pull the old list of crates and dump their contents into a spreadsheet and go line by line to see what isn't in new cargo. Because there still are several items. Ambrosia vulgaris I believe is one that hasn't been mentioned.

For what it's worth, I do think strength in numbers is worth something, and that something is more valuable than a bigger gun. I have successfully converted a merchant. Others will happen. I certainly don't want the result of round after round of merchants being overcome by antags to be "Merchant has access to all the gunz, antagz get them every round plz nerf." I guess we will see what happens. Merchants will get more wise and maybe we won't have them be overcome as much later on. Security will get more wise and increase patrols on the surface. Maybe this will be a non-issue. But I am putting my chip down now that the merchant should not have his wares selection nerfed because his business can get jacked easily. There are other potential solutions too, perhaps a code word implant that immediately launches the shuttle or beams out the merchant when spoken. Or giving the merchant a death alarm implant so that everyone on general comms can hear where and when the merchant dies (won't help for conversion antags though). I think this issue will have to be addressed at some point down the road, but, again, I could be mistaken. The merchant is certainly the most unique and well-polished new SS13 mechanic I've seen, and to me, it is worth ensuring no one can raise legitimate balance issues that might end up taking away some of that luster.

All right. First of all, can we tone it down a degree or two? Second, I am legitimately asking this: what is a lone merchant's defense against a cultist with a stun paper that he doesn't see coming? Within a minute, merchant could be converted. Within 90 seconds, the ship is on its way to the station. And that's if you don't do what I did as cultist and ask for a "tour" of his station and blindside him there with all the time in the world to convert him. How does a merchant defend against a glare or stun paper? I really don't see how they do unless an innocent bystander witnesses the goings-on. The dock is so far removed from a well-trafficked area it is very possible an ambush could be done without anyone else knowing a thing. Much more likely if you have compatriots in the hallway as lookouts/running interference/stalling for time.

It doesn't matter what size gun you have. A stun paper by a cultist is an insta-win, they would have no time to react to draw their weapon. That's why I suggest a second set of eyes. Just having a second person around would provide a ton of deterrence. Plus, it's an opportunity for someone else to participate in a special role slot. The base secluded from everything and its potential for weapons and gear is just too unbalancing not to address somehow, in my opinion.

This was a fantastic read! You are very talented. I particularly liked the flash-forward/flash-back format.

I apologize for being unclear about where the bodyguard could or could not go. I believe they should be able to travel on the ship to the Aurora and remain on board as Wal-Mart Loss Prevention during shopping, but not be able to disembark onto the Aurora (with the exception of recovering a merchant that is dead/ in trouble, or pursuing a shoplifter). Perhaps instead of one fixed bodyguard job slot, one of the available vendors offers bodyguard protection (this should be a vendor always available to the merchant). The vendor can provide differing levels of equipment with this bodyguard: a plainclothes bodyguard carrying a 45 with non-lethal rounds, a guard with a flak jacket carrying a pistol with lethal rounds, a cyborg with a security loadout and merchant-specific lawset, a experimental energy-armored guard with a pulse carbine and a SWAT bodyguard with a machine gun. The merchant could purchase as many or as few of these bodyguards as they wish, but the price dramatically increases with each one hired. The job openings could go to dchat much like xenobio mobs. The option to play as a bodyguard would be a toggleable option in the prefs. The bodyguard can beam in to the pad once a player selects to play him/her/it.

I am still waiting to roll merchant for the first time. That said, I've noticed something about his position: that he can be a huge balance alterer for conversion antags. He has a station that he can travel to any time that cannot be accessed by any other means (unlike wizards and ninjas who get their safe spaces only until they depart them). He has access to the most dangerous weapons and equipment. And, his ship that I could see does not have any door security (as in, a door that only he can access when docked so that he can lock the ship and go onto the station to negotiate without leaving it open for the tide/security to mess with). This would need some input from people who have played merchant already - what if the merchant had an armed bodyguard? They would not be permitted to leave the ship under any circumstances. They would be there to protect the merchant while he is on the vessel, and protect the wares when the merchant leaves the vessel to go stationside. The merchant's station is just ridiculously good for an antag clubhouse, so I think there should be some sort of dissuasion to trying to take advantage of the merchant.

Thank you! With the spreadsheet updating dynamically, does this mean that the updates are immediate but may be reverted after Skull review them? Is there a link to the spreadsheet? Is it on the git?

Pricing is a reason why no one uses cargo. And yet, merchant pricing appears to be entirely different, the merchant can get a ton more for his money and, even selling at a markup, keeps prices cheap.

First of all, if there was simply a prompt to change my name upon rolling merchant that would be enough. Second, and I am legitimately asking, where does it say that a merchant can't be a station character? Are there new rules that dropped recently? Here's the thing. Half of the people who know what's up since the update have merchant set to high, including myself (and yes, it is set to high with other jobs set to medium and low). I haven't rolled it yet. My plan is simply to ahelp on the day the stars align and I roll merchant and ask for a name change. That said, Jack Edwardson is a QM character and doing some freelancing wouldn't be so out of character. All of that said, +1 to making it a role. EDIT/CLARIFICATION: The role should exist in every roundtype but only have a 20% chance to exist at all. Not sure if that is a coding possibility, perhaps that is why it is a job and not a role.

So I guess the main issues here are: Prices need to be cheaper or else cargo will become a barren wasteland where no one will care to frequent Parity with old cargo crates - someone just needs to go crate by crate and conpare what is in old cargo with what is in new cargo - seems simple enough Shuttle times should be restored to 2 minutes Console should charge your ID or alternatively a charge card/acct number and PIN-if so there should be some sort of mechanism for cargo to pay for some/all of a crate at their option Paging [mention]Skull132[/mention]. Can you speak to any/all of this?

Nowadays it would be perfectly reasonable to charge for service as chef and pocket it, if you are paying out of pocket for crates from cargo. 3000 for a cow? Heck yeah I'd be charging for a cheeseburger!

I am appalled by Schev's response. Okay. I'm just going to go right out here and say it. Schev's attitude is toxic and he should be removed as a moderator at Aurora. I want a headmin to explain to me why that shouldn't be done.

BYOND Key: alexpkeaton Staff BYOND Key: Schevenigen Game ID: N/A-forum related Reason for complaint: Staff abuse of forums. He locked a thread just to spite someone who made a valid point (Schev had not paid attention to the content of the suggestion)... in an admittedly rude way Evidence/logs/etc: https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9335 Additional remarks: First of all, let me preface this by saying I'm fairly new here. I cannot recall any staff interaction with Scheveningen before today besides being posters to one or two of the same forum threads. The OP in the link provided made a mild (IMO) comment about Schev's attitude, Schev decides to punish everyone in the forum by locking what was an interesting thread. I am not the OP that Schev was responding to, and my contribution to the thread was neutral, not really siding with one side or the other. I have no agenda here other than that I think what Schev did was childish and an abuse of his mod authority. Just because one participant in a thread rubs you the wrong way doesn't mean you lock the thread to everybody. It smacks of somebody that is getting off on power. What's odd is that nothing in the thread was ridiculously insulting. Yes, the OP made a comment directed at Schev. Specifically, "I really wonder what goes through your head sometimes. But at the risk of being as rude as I'd probably enjoy being, I'll let [other poster mentioning that Schev totally didn't pay attention to the topic] comment answer for me." It wasn't nice. But it wasn't a string of profanity nor ridiculously disrespecting. It didn't deserve the overreaction it got. This isn't the only time I've seen a overreaction by Schev in these forums, I've made a mental note of an unban appeal (Munks) that looked heavy handed (doubling a punishment because someone started off the conversation by saying "BYE" to a ahelp), then rejecting the appeal because it will just expire in a few days - it was a week long ban upgraded from a three day ban. (For the record, I don't know Munks, didn't play in the round. Again, no horse in that race besides basic decency.) I left the server I played on for two years in part because admins were forgetting themselves sometimes. I've never been banned, temporary or permanent. I just didn't like how the community was being led. And you've decided that Schev should represent this community. Beyond being childish (as was his veiled threat of admin action against the OP... for what? Pointing out that he blew by the basic point of the thread for a "gotcha" comment?), it closes the door on what at that time had been an active discussion among several individuals. That's not an appropriate use of his authority.

Great barkeep and chef. I know nothing about xeno races or what level of knowledge is needed for them, but I will say his 7 out of 10 self-rating for RPing is underrated. He's a positive force in the civilian corps as Russo and IMO deserving of a step up in the community for it. +1

There is massive potential for powergamey abuse from chemists who tank on beneficial chems. Should be an uplink item so you can only procure a limited quantity - enough to poison that burger, but not enough to keep 1000u of healing chems on standby.

As QM, my personal policy right now is to give the chef a 50% discount on any work-related purchases. Of course, if they end up with a company card, that discount will magically disappear, haha.

I am almost certain that we have a civilian account for the service department. That counts as department funds under the Head of Personnel, the suggestion is to eliminate the need. I mean, we could be talking something as simple as tossing a 1K credit chip in the chef locker, though I would prefer it be some sort of separate account that the chef can access. Or... perhaps it starts at zero and all vending revenues go to it during the round.

Cargo does get cash4phoron.com. Haven't tried platinum but I expect that would work the same. Without checking the code and having done one (full) round as QM under the new system, I would place the reimbursement around 50 credits per crystal of phoron. I know this system has its detractors. Let me be clear: to me, this new cargo system is a major step forward. We are doing what other servers have only dreamt of: having an economy. It will need a lot of attention to get right, though. So I am going to toss out some ideas, in no particular order. Shuttle time needs to be lowered. Why 4 minutes now (looks like it might be variable)? With the extra time and difficulty to make an order, waiting on a second/third order, plus obtaining payment manually, it can easily be 20 minutes from beginning of browsing for an order to receipt. And that's if everything goes right. With the learning curve on both sides it ended up being 30+ minutes. That learning curve will go down, but some people will stay away, and there will be plenty of new people who will have to learn. So... We need to make this system more accessible. Items need to be cheaper. A paper record should be printed. Shuttle time needs to be lower. New stuff should be added that wasn't in the old cargo system. Something like a "grab bag" crate that would be similar to a roundstart crate in the warehouse. (It would need to cost a shitton) There needs to be a way for people to make their crate deposit back, or earn crate deposits by dragging in crates from around the station. With roundstart money right now being up to RNGesus, people who rely on cargo (namely: chef/roboticist) need a way to make $$. It was mentioned early on in the suggestion that spawned cargo 2.0, but the anti-tamper wrapping and security features should be added/allowed for all orders. If the chef wants to pay double for a crate of kitchen supplies that unlocks only for him, who am I to prevent them from doing that? There should also be an option to pay triple the price or something ridiculous and cargo would not be even able to see what you ordered. Chef should get some sort of account to draw on for food. The HoP (or any department head, for that matter) is not guaranteed for any round. Department funds can't always be used to buy things, and won't in the absence of that head. 3000 credits for a cow is ridiculous. It should be more like 600, and that is pushing it. For that matter, all the prices need to be evaluated and commented upon. Game economies are delicate and will only work if finely tuned. Bonus points if prices fluctuate between rounds or inside of a round. Add collectible hat crate. Add women's dress crate. Add men's formalwear crate. Payment needs to be handled by the console. If a vending machine can do it, the console should be able to do it. The console should be able to be hacked. Contraband crates and illegal guns crates. Other ways for cargo/crew to make money. On Paradise, you could ship seeds and research back for points. If we are going to have the chef paying out of pocket for feeding the station, he needs to have the ability to make $$ too. Like custom vending machines that have preprogrammed prices for everything in the code menu-wise, But can be adjusted by the chef. It simply won't work to have him with an EFTPOS charging per taco. The underlying theme of my comments is this: if we're going to do an economy, it needs to be carefully managed, cultivated and, yes, tinkered with. Prices need to be adjusted outside of devmerges and we need to figure out what works. It's not going to be ridiculously balance breaking if we decide that cows should be 150 credits one shift instead of 3000. It's cows which are useless to everyone save the chef, and it's credits, which were useless prior to Cargo 2.0. We need to take the gloves off and aggressively test prices on a day-by-day basis to figure out what works.

I was wondering why Aurora didn't have this already. Only things that I wonder are: how would you weight the various options, and how this would affect voting for regular secret or mixed secret.

My understanding is that the old aim was something of an "auto-win" for the person holding the gun. Normally, I'm against features that auto-win. For example, on Paradise, the stunbaton knocks down a person when used. Every time - it was an auto-win for sec. On Aurora, it severely weakens someone. Same with the taser. I prefer Aurora's mechanic, but I got robusted early on not realising the mechanic was different. However, I know that the staff are very insistent upon being aware of when you are outgunned, overwhelmed or otherwise dominated. A lot of this depends on RPing situations where you are outgunned correctly, but having mechanics that play into that notion would also be helpful. I get why auto-aim was nerfed, but I think that there should be mechanics that reinforce that if these situations were real life, you wouldn't be charging at your captor with bare hands when they have full armor and a machine gun. However, that is exactly what happens and we shouldn't be rewarding someone who can spam-click faster or aim better. I would expect someone to hit me nine times out of 10 or maybe even 10 times out of 10 if I was stopped and they aimed a gun at me from 5 feet away and told me not to move. That's not unrealistic. I also believe that taking hostages are a good way to add some fun RP to a round without forcing someone into dchat for a half hour. +1 for restoring the mechanic.

There is now no paper documentation for cargo orders. Those stamps are now useless, or at least, only useful for manifests (if there even are any, I haven't seen any shipments delivered). Is there any chance we could get requisitions to print again upon submitting an order? Also, why don't the consoles handle the transaction charge coming out of the requestor's account upon cargo approving the order? Shouldn't we be able to not need the EFTPOS?

No illegal guns. Just sayin'. Whatever happened to the good old days when you could multitool the board to unlock goodies? (Space bike crate is there though). Also, not sure there is a cat crate. It wasn't there in old cargo either, which was odd considering that cat crates would appear in the warehouse every now and again.

With the cargo changes upcoming at some point, this is certainly in need of a bump. A few thoughts, all of which woild be hell to code but I am going to throw them out here: -The lifestyle charges could be linked to the loadout. Size of your house determines how many loadout points you can spend, lifestlyle unlocks different tiers of goodies. For example, mansion can spend up to 8 loadout points, homeless just one. Lavish lifestyles offer unique clothing items and exceptional foods in the lunchbox, perhaps a gold-plated zippo... nothing ridiculously balance altering. Your loadout points and options are based on whether you can afford the payments going into the next round. -You should be paid at the end of the shift, not the beginning. This should be based on time served (alive/not SSD). This to prevent players from joining the round only to cryo immediately to collect pay for a job they never did. Now the manifest is clogged until that player is moved to cryo storage. Also, longer round means more $$. And, you can't inflate your lifestyle for a single round to get the bonus to loadout, because you don't get paid until the end of the shift. Expenses come out at the beginning, revenue (payday) is at the end of a shift. -Bonus for reaching the Odin by shuttle/pod of 250 credits or so. Bonus is zero and your total paycheck cut in half if you arrive under arrest. -Medbay gets paid for all healthcare, by the departments served. This dovetails with the idea of an economy, and that I also disagree about a client pay-for-service model of healthcare. You work for NT and they provide medical care for free... but what if medbay was a contractor or subsidiary corporation that billed NT for its services? So NT is paying itself, really, or rather, departments are paying medbay. So medbay would bill the departments for healthcare given to their staff, with procedures and drugs and whatnot each having a fee. That would open up a new position of "Medical Billing Specialist" (MBS) who works in medbay but reports to the HoP. The MBS would outprocess each patient, using a computer to check (click) each service done, and a virtual Chargemaster (book documenting what each service costs) adds up the total cost. Then the MBS simply swipes the patient's ID, and the department is charged. Exception for visitors, visitor antags (e.g. ninja, mercs) who would need to scrape together the funds or have the HoP waive them. With the new cargo system apparently allowing department accounts to order things, this makes budgeting important for a head of staff. As for consequences of going in the red? I am not sure. Obviously we shouldn't be refusing service. This could be refined further, but the notion of a department being responsible for its medical expenses will affect how aggressive sec is because sec would rather spend the funds on upgraded equipment from cargo/R&D, will reduce chucklefucking assistants hacking their bodies into crit because the HoP will could drum them down to visitor and force them to absorb the cost of care.

+1, Olivia is professional, capable and organized as a Warden/officer. While not relevant to being a head of staff, her robustness as an antag has also greatly improved in the one month I have played alongside Olivia, she is certainly familiar with how to play those roles appropriately. She really puts a lot into her RP and is enjoyable to play with.