BurgerBB

The greatest illusion that has ever graced Aurorastation is that most people don't know the roundtype. I can hit the observe button, go play a round of something else, and then come back to see what the round type is and join based on that. I get PMs from other users, unsolicited, of what the roundtype is and they're usually right. I can look at the manifest and take an educated guess of what the roundtype is. I can even look in game and make a guess based on station announcements or what people have to say to what the round type is. Hell, if the gamemode is voted for, it can tell us the roundtype. And do you know what? MOST PEOPLE DON'T OUTRIGHT METAGAME. Like legitimate there is no reason not to tell us the roundtype if people want to. Like this whole voting system is corrupt as shit where the only two viable options for a gamemode is secret or extended because for some reason we're still doing first past the post voting and we're still in make-believe land where people think players don't know the roundtype within the first 20 minutes. Recently, Aurorastation has become absolutely unplayable for me and others because of this insistent that we're not allowed to know the gamemode as well as the fact that bad gamemodes are usually rolled because you guys PR'd out my antag requirements PR. People are becoming extremely frustrated with the gamemode system and are fucking off to other servers because of it.

I'm pretty insulted that you think my suggestion is a "Random balance change" and I honestly expect a better post from someone who wishes to become a server moderator. I have news for you, all the posts in here were thought out. My post was thought out as I worked on the flash before and have expressed my disappointment the time when it was nerfed and also expressed concerns of the balance of it, some of which are being said in this thread. The flash is dogshit against humantypes and super powerful against borgs. EMPs aren't as strong as everyone thinks they are against IPCs, and there would be MINIMAL difference if you add an extra ion rifle to the armory in order to defend against malfunctioning borgs. As for others affected by EMPs, there are now two ninjas now and the balance of was misaligned as there is only one ion rifle and double the antags. In the current balance right now, 4 security officers with 4 flashes is stronger than one with an ion because the flash gives an extremely long stun and can be stacked/spammed. And it does. Frequently. The crew love to validhunt with flashes against borgs because no one gives a shit if a regular crew has a flash OOCly and ICly and it isn't really powergaming since they're easy to make and find and a borg who has changed laws makes them valid for it. On the other hand, something like an Ion Rifle, which is a lethal weapon, is something security only use in a last resort and if the borg shows hostility. The Ion rifle is also more dangerous to use ICly and OOCly, so you better have a very fucking good reason to use it. What I find funny is that you can get a box of like 10 EMP grenades with a range of like 12 for 10TC or some bullshit. EMPs are common and VERY easy to make if you're a cargo tech or a chemist. They can also go through walls and can really fuck shit, even killing organics if the RNG hits just right. Despite all that, when security gets 2 ion rifles, everyone loses their minds. Source: Played AI with rogue borgs for a long time and seen crew validhunt with flashes. Played traitor borg several times and seen crew validhunt with flashes. Been here for 3 years almost.

I've witnessed plenty of round as AI where my malfunctioning borgs were valided the fuck out of using flashes. I wasn't traitor or MALF, but I noticed that when tracking them, you'd have people DESPERATELY try to secure valids via flash despite the robot in question not doing anything lethal or bad. Here is what I propose. Flashes do not stun borgs, but just blinds them. Add an extra ion rifle to the armory. If you don't need to shoot a borg with an Ion rifle, then you don't need to flash it;. If it's not a threat to shoot it with an ion rifle, then it's not a threat to flash it and unlock it. There should also be some lore guidelines for what you should do in case of a malfunctioning borg as well that are recommended, but not forced, to follow.

What do the new sprites look like?

As a frequent AI player, I get random interceptions. It's rare that I get something that breaks an antag's gimmick, but in many of instances it has alerted me of potential situations that would've ended badly for everyone involved if I didn't observe.

It can, but it's rare. Rare to the point where you can understand why people don't want to be involved in this. Your optimism is really on par with when an AI, without even saying a word or anything, starts to do a network hack into the system.

No it isn't. The issue is this prevailing attitude that just because someone doesn't want to be an antag's bitch directly at roundstart with little payoff, it means that it's just "I don't want misfortune to befall my character." Consider that players don't want to be a part of a potentially bad gimmick in a gamemode they may or may not like. Like it's a toxic attitude that people are supposed to be forced into roles that they don't want to be in. This isn't about dying or "losing", this is literally roundstart "you're part of the antag and you can't do anything about it." Do you want to know a secret? Right now Aurorastation has a playercount of 47. Right now on the manifest there are only 23 on the manifest. I don't know the current gamemode is, but Aurora is absolutely fucking infamous for having an extremely low manifest to playercount ratio, ESPECIALLY when compared to other servers, and I've checked other servers. Hestia has a very high ratio. Baystation had a very high ratio when it had population . TGMC had a very high ratio when it had population. Citadel has a very high ratio last time I checked. Do you want to know why Aurora has this extremely low manifest to playercount ratio? It's because the gamemodes on Aurorastation are so phenomenally shit, people rather observe the round (either waiting for the next one or waiting to see what gamemode it is) than to risk playing at roundstart. I've literally made a habit of joining at the hour mark in Aurorastation and my enjoyment of the server has improved since then compared when I joined a new round. Things actually start to happen at the hour mark, which means that you can get a very accurate read of the round and determine if it's actually worth sticking around for. Decisions like these legitimately validate my strategy of playing the game and I think more people will do this because of this bad borer feature. Do you want to know why people don't like this borer feature? It's because the feature conflicts with the rules. There is 0 escalation, rp, or anything when you are instantly forced to be a borer's slave for the round. If a cultist came up to you and stunned you instantly at minute 0, and tried to convert you, you'd probably be annoyed and that break rules. Borer is actually worse than that because the powers you recieve are earned and not given by the borer, and you can have some pretty shit tier borer players.

Maxcaps shouldn't be free to mercs, honestly. They're extremely powerful and can easily fuck an entire department with them with very little effort involved. Since cloning doesn't exist, and since there are features that make breaches extremely powerful, and the fact that brainmed now makes oxygen deprivation worse, I don't think it's really fair from a balance standpoint and a roleplay standpoint to have them.

If the Tajaran arc tomorrow is just another faction war between the tajara factions and don't involve anyone else remotely then I'm going to sigh. Like honest to god, the events sometimes feel like advertisements for the race rather than to get players interested in the lore as a whole.

I support PRs that reduce the amount of toxins damage you can get from the scrubber event. I added additional chemicals for the scrubber event when we still had that old medical system, and getting hit with them wouldn't instantly crit or kill you. I support having those chemicals removed or the amount of chemicals being put in you reduced.

Given the history of lore suggestions by players, loredevs aren't really too keen on implementing lore changes unless they are absolutely 100% on board with it. Combine with the fact that nearly every event or whatever needs to be bigger than the last, I can't imagine really a loredev working together with another loredev on something big if it means one species comes on top of another. The Tajara "Cold War" arc might change that or something, idk. I'm expecting some furry on furry racial tension (my favorite furaffinity category) to come or something. Or it could just be another NPR vs BBC faction war.

I don't know what they research, but it probably isn't guns, dangerous alien lifeforms, bombs, dangerous alien gas, alien artifacts, and combat mechs. Again, uniforms are a security issue. I'd agree with you if we're researching things like cures for viruses but this is a space station is space which contains various dangerous devices that can kill or seriously injure people that many factions (See: Syndicate) would like their hands on, You can't read IDs at a distance IRL so uniforms help with identification.

Uniforms are also a security issue. Uniforms are designed to separate workers from other people so things like sabotage and theft don't occur as easily, especially if it's a large workplace that has frequent visitors.

It's interesting playing paradise and then this server sometimes. People are somehow in uniform more often in paradise than they are on Aurora, probably because they have more interesting departmental customization options. And yes, It's hard to tell who is who at a glance. Everyone isn't really wearing uniforms.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/8133 PR 1

I'll be making 2 PRs. I like Naelynn's idea and I like my idea where only ex-cultists can be ghosts.

Like legitimately. It's annoying that every time someone tries to touch gamemodes, there is someone who points out that x was nerfed. It's not really my responsibility here to rework cult entirely or touch other features. I'm nerfing cult ghost spam. This thread is about that. If you want a cult rework or a buff, I suggest you make a thread for that.

Here is the intended purpose of Apparitions: Here is what happens with Apparitions: Apparitions are super tanky, the swords they spawn with deal an excessive amount of damage, and there isn't really any counter to it that a crewmember is supposed to know. They're powerful as hell and there is no fear of death for them since it's a ghost role. They don't roleplay at all, and if they do anything shitty they can just point to the person who summoned them and say "well they told me to kill so I killed" so there is 0 accountability. Solutions to implement (pick one or more). -1. Obligatory "remove them!!!" 0. Obligatory "nerf their stats!!!" 1. Apparitions are meant to be magical cult beings with magical powers. They're supposed to be frail and sickly as they have an extremely strong connection to magic. Given this, they shouldn't be able to use weapons, but just magic abilities. They're like liches in a sense where they're too weak physically to hold heavy objects like claymores but they're mentally strong enough to use magic. (Remove ability to carry weapons.) 2. Apparitions should be harder to summon. You're creating a flesh golem out of your blood. It should use like 10% of your blood to create a being like this, not just a mere droplet that easily regenerates. (Summoning an apparition requires 10% of your blood.) 3. Apparitions should only be a reward for conversions. Apparitions take little effort to summon, and you can summon as many as you want. The more ghosts there are, the more Apparitions you can summon. This literally rewards murder death killing over conversions because Apparitions are literally stronger than crew in terms of them having multiple lives and some good health for what they are. (Apparitions can only be played by ghosts who were previously cultists.) 4. Apparitions are controlled by the person that summoned them. Like similar reasons above, there is really no accountability here for who controls them. (Apparitions spawn as an empty husk that can be controlled by the living, like an extra body.) Reminder that on most servers, there is a similar issue that players hate which involves the xenobiologist spending an hour doing nothing while they farm for adamantine golems and then make a cult army. On some servers, this is removed, but on the others people want this removed because of similar reasons people don't like Apparitions here.

Forgot about mining borg. Mining borg is annoying but okay I guess. You can't really benefit from abandoned crates as a mining borg. A solution to all these problems is to combine various modules into one. Combine construction and engineering into one. Give science more science tools. Combine paperwork into service. Combine rescue into medical.

This has been an issue for several years now. Once a year, a thread like this is made by various people who play borg expressing their disappointment with how poorly designed and limited cyborg play is. Once a year, the thread then falls into oblivion because of poor faith arguments. Lets actually just take a step back and look at the departments and their modules. Engineering/Construction Borg Construction and engineering borgs are a joke considering there are two seperate borgs to fit the purposes of one department. Construction borgs are missing tools needed to even construct or deconstruct things (wirecutters) and the only benefit is that they get a very limited RCD that can't make much compared to other servers. Engineering borgs also have limited construction tools, and both can't really do much unless there is someone tossing maxcaps like candy, which is rare. Security Borg Security borgs no longer exist because of a negative attitude towards security borg players as well as balance concerns. Unironically it was the most useful of borgs as it can actually fulfill its role to what was needed. Medical/Rescue Borg Again, like engineering, there are two seperate borgs to fit two separate jobs, and one of them is garbage. Both modules are extremely limited, and also extremely specific to what they do. Chemistry is a huge pain in the ass to do as either module due to poor controls, and the only job a medical borg would really have is a surgery bot. Both modules are very badly designed because of the nature of medical players and the fact that the only time they get to do anything is when someone is injured, which is extremely rare, so a surgical borg is seldom needed. Science Borg Somehow, defying existing design, it's a borg that can do almost every single science task... except when it can't. It can't make mechs, it can't do xenobotany, but it can do research as an EXTREMELY painful rate and it can do xenobiology. Literally the only reason why you'd pick this module is because you want to do xenobiology or you need to fulfill a roboticist role because you don't want to die. Service Borg It can actually do everything required of the service department. It can cook, clean, garden, and serve drinks. Actually a good module that does the department duties. Janitor Borg Again, a good module, but it's kinda limited to just cleaning things. I don't know how you can change this. Clerical Borg Literally a leftover meme. There is no point to a seperate module existing other than tradition. Half of the modules are bad and extremely limiting. There is literally no point in limiting the versatility of these borgs to subsections of their department. Like most people argue it's for balance purposes so a borg can't do everything in a department, but honestly it's a poor argument since you're only limiting things like "oh this borg can't cut wires at the cost of them having an rcd" or "oh, this borg gets a built in rolerbed."

It's better not to touch the SM but rather touch the solars. Wiring solars is a pain in the ass and literally takes more effort to do than the SM, and also has a lower payoff. It also doesn't make sense that every round, the solars aren't wired.

I didn't even know there was a war lmao

This guide is in two parts. One for people who want to get the most out of the mechanics, and another who want to get the most out of interacting with antagonists. Part One: Mechanics. To lockdown the fuck out of a room, bolt all the doors, activate the fire alarm, then turn off "environment" for the APC. It will be impossible for anyone to break out of the room unless they have explosives, thermite, or a welding tool and a crowbar. A person is dying on sensors but their location isn't listed? Use the camera tracking feature (Bottom left button) to find them. You can use the keyboard to quick find by the first letter of their name. Cameras can also be used to locate non-human antags or creatures, such as space carp, cult constructs, borers, or station pets. Use the keys "," and "." to transition between z-levels quickly. There is a setting in AI preferences called "Toggle Hologram Movement" that disables hologram movement, but allows you to freely move around the station. Useful for when you want to maintain a holocall with someone while doing something else. It's recommended that you have the Crew Monitoring Console open when you're not busy. Heartrate information is very useful, as it can tell you when someone is sprinting or dying. Shift Clicking a door opens it. Alt clicking a door shocks it. Ctrl clicking a door bolts it. You can turn door bolt lights off and bolt the door to confuse anyone trying to get in a room. If someone is hacking a door, you can turn off main power and backup power to confuse the hacker. If you're lucky, it's possible to bolt the door at the same time as them pulsing a wire to confuse them. If you're bored, you can do some basic tasks, such as setup atmos and RCON. If you're really bored, you can go through the crew's records and report issues to security. Don't forget the surface exists. Some new players might need some guidance on how to get to the main level, so it's good to check for stragglers. Also antags like mercs go through the merchant dock frequently. You can listen in on people's conversations using the intercom by turning off the speaker, setting the intercom to AI Private, and then turning on the microphone. Make sure you do this in order, and make sure you go back and reset the settings back to default if you wish to avoid detection. As AI, you can control the air alarms for an area. Make sure you're full aware of the area you're affecting, as some air alarms can control other scrubbers/vents outside the room. Part Two: Antagonism. (This applies to default laws. Some things may not apply with other lawsets. Also, be aware of the server rules when following the advice in this thread.) You should generally never interfere with antagonists as AI unless it puts the crew's well being at risk. Even if you see armed raiders with guns on the station, it's better to watch them closely. If they approach crew, then you should bolt them from the crew. It's good from an OOC and IC perspective to report a hostile presence after antagonists have left an occupied area. (Justification: Screaming "INTRUDERS/HOSTILES" will cause aggression in the hostiles and security.) You should never lockdown a room unless doing otherwise will put someone's life in risk, directly, or someone orders you to. An example when it's okay to do this: Someone has fired a gun and is chasing someone. An example when it's not okay to do this: Someone stole medical supplies and is currently on the run from security. It's fine to do the later if someone orders you to lock them down. (Justification: Trapping a beast will only make it angrier.) You should never shock a door in order to detain crew. This should be self-explanatory, but I've seen it done on default laws. Even if the crewmember is a changeling, you should always attempt to take someone down non-lethally. (Justification: They're still fucking NanoTrasen personnel.) You should only lock your core down if there is a significant and obvious threat to the AI core. If you do not believe that your core will be assaulted in the next 10 minutes, then you should not lock down your core.(Justification: Locking down your core early prevents non-antagonists from entering the area and fixing possible issues.) The best way to know where an antagonist might go next is to think like one. For example, if they are an organic and recently suffered an injury, they will try to find treatment ASAP, so you should look near first aid lockers nearby or medical, possibly. The Captain's office and the Armory is also very common grounds for break ins. You should only do this if you KNOW there are antagonists on the station, but it doesn't hurt to scan everything if you're bored. (Justification: As AI, you are tasked with watching over the station and the crew.) As AI, you are extremely vulnerable to most antagonists and even the crew. Most, if not all antagonists, trying to subvert you or destroy you WILL take the path of least resistance, which usually involves hacky ways to get into your core (building a fuckton of lockers, emitters, maxcaps) or subverting you (printing an AI upload circuit from the science console). Be aware of this fact when dealing with antagonists. In order to not be a dick and not shut down everyone who might compromise you, it's best to only use a fraction of your power in order to make it appear that you're that much of a threat and you're leaving wiggleroom. (Justification: An AI does not need to use an excessive amount of force to put someone down. Your calculations as an advanced unit will guide you to making the right choice.) It's best to be neutral in every situation, but do not act like an enlightened centrist. While yes, your laws state that you must serve nanotrasen personnel according to rank and role, it does not forbid you from providing input or assistance to either side. The law basically means that conflicting orders are resolved in favor of the crewmember with the highest rank. (Justification: Being a friend to many means an enemy to few.) You should make a habit of always using the announcement system whenever a situation requires immediate attention. (Justification: Sometimes messages get lost in comms.) This will get updated as I think of more things.

I'm probably paranoid then.