LordFowl

Poly is returning in the new map. If you would like him on the current map as well, that is easily done.

There is no 'Type D' Vaurca (The image that 'touched upon' them was from very old lore, and I've removed it.) Furthermore, the wiki has stated this: As such, Ka is Type A, Za is Type B, and Ta is type C. The second syllable has no bearing on type - it merely determines if they are bound or unbound.

In short, yes. A release date is still pending, however, due to complications in re-implementing somewhat out-dated z-level code. The map itself however is complete, which is why there have been relatively few updates on either thread.

I say keep it, but only on the stipulation that there is also a random event that removes all antagonists from the round. RNG is all we need for interesting and deep mechanics, after all.

That very same idea would require as much a whitelist as this one, unless you want the administration to personally oversee it. The easiest and simplest solution would simply be to forbid entrance into cryo if you have any items at all.

No. The advanced force gloves were specifically restricted to antagonists for a reason. Suggestions to RnD should be novel - not mere upgrades, and especially not straight upgrades to pre-existing RnD weapons. Preferably, they should also not be weaponry.

I don't see the issue with this. If Darksight worked properly for Tajara, which it may very well do soon, they would have similar advantage at all times. Sight is a very important part of this game, and it is to the advantage of the Tajara thanks to their racial bonus.

Very nifty.

By the suggestion of the race loremaster, *qwag's functionally will be changed - it is not the habit of the Aurora development team to remove things, so instead we will change the result of *qwag to something that, we think at least, better suits the owner's intention. Using *qwag will cause the Tajaran's groin to explode into a mess of gibs, leaving their tail and genitals completely destroyed. Their legs will fly off, but otherwise be undamaged, as will the rest of their body.

I'll bite.

District 9 Riots! This evening, at 8:12 GST, a string of inflammatory riots broke out at the border of District 9 in Mendell City, quickly overwhelming the border-fence and piercing into the heart of the Vaurcae refugee camps. Many rioters had armed themselves with several incendiary weapons, primarily makeshift petrol bombs, while the rest of the violent protestors were armed with bats, bricks, and various other domestic weapons. Due to an unperceived fault in border patrol, and a lack of an effective means of communication available to the Vaurcae, the incident was not formally reported to the Mendell City police until 8:46, thirty minutes after the first casualty, when a local Mendell resident reported seeing fires from the fifth story of his apartment. Police forces mustered a response twenty minutes later. In the meantime, by 8:32 thirty four Zo'rane Vaurcae were killed without fighting back. Most of the deaths were collateral - caused by the destruction of several shanties by the aforementioned incendiary weapons, although several had been killed through blunt trauma. At this point no rioters had been killed, although a few had been wounded due to the aforementioned collateral damages. It is believed, thanks to data provided by NanoTrasen, that at some point around 8:40 GST a neural message was transmitted across the hive network, dispatching multiple squads of Type BB Vaurcae to eliminate the protestors. By the time Mendell police arrived on the scene, the riots had been effectively quelled with several additional casualties. The few remaining rioters were released into police custody without any additional conflict. Disarmament policies currently observed in District 9 forbid Vaurcae to arm themselves with weaponry, although one alleged bystander who has chosen to remain anonymous testified that this did not deter the quadrupedal Type BB from engaging in melee combat, and it is believed that they circumvented the weapon ban by making use of their mandibles - which are extremely powerful on Type BB, reportedly able to tear a man in half. The anonymous bystander later testified that; Currently the tally of casualties rests at: 33 of the initial 40 rioters killed, with 4 severely maimed, and the remaining 3 lightly injured. 62 Vaurcae killed, with two of them being Type BB, and a currently unknown number of wounded. It is currently believed that the majority of the Vaurcae deaths were caused by the extremely cramped living spaces available in District 9, which prevented evacuation when each building was torched. Notable among the Vaurcae casualties is one "Ta'Akaix'Talex Zo'ra", who acted as the representative for the Zo'ra Hive on Mendell in the Mendell City Council. It is believed they were on their way to the council building when the riots broke out. Among the human casualties were several registered members of the Tau Ceti branch of the ATLAS organisation, although it is not at this time believed that the riots were organised or even sanctioned by ATLAS. It is at this time believed that the riots are in some way connected to to the Lii'dra assault in the Bursa system - the aforementioned bystander reported several calls for 'reparations' by the rioters. These allegations have not yet been confirmed or denied by the Mendell City Police. It is currently unknown how the Mendell City Police will respond to the Zo'ra "counter-attack" waged upon the rioters. Neither the Mendell City Police nor the Vaurcae Lesser Queen resident in District 9 have officially released any statements concerning the incident.

Shock and Panic! As many of our readers know, the Frontier nation of the Serene Republic of Elyra was recently assaulted by what is now universally believed to be the Lii'dra hiveship that was first spotted two years ago in the Sol system of Lalande - and their respect for humanity has not since improved! With the recent massacre at New Cairo, many are concerned that the Lii'dra may soon turn their sights on nearby Tau Ceti. Recently elected Mayor Gleb Plyushkin officially released the following statement to the Mendell City Bugle when queried; Reporter Dan Stillman was later able to interview Gleb Plyushkin, who answered the following questions: Following the interview with Gleb Plyushkin, Stillman was able to speak to a representative of the Zo'rane queen stationed with District 9, who claimed that the Lii'dra offensive was unsurprising, stating that "Conflict was the nature of the Lii'dra - they prey upon the weak, and in their eyes all hives are weak.". The representative then answered the following questions from Mr. Stillman: The Vaurcae representative concluded the interview shortly thereafter, with a final note of warning: "The Lii'dra are a ruthless breed. Where we Zo'ra idolize the efficiency and productivity of peace, those Lii'dra gladly engage in war and destruction, and they have become highly proficient in this 'art'." These recent developments are certainly highly concerning. Citizens are reminded that despite Tau Ceti's proximity to the systems of the Serene Republic of Elyra, we are unlike them very well defended by NanoTrasen, who could not be reached for comment concerning these developments. As of publication of this article, Elyra remains alone in their struggle. We staff here at the Mendell City Bugle wish them nothing but luck in this shocking state of affairs.

The law is too rigid for its own good to begin with. Enforcing the second law strictly creates a severe logical hole - the term "anything" doesn't restrict itself to living beings. They can literally do no harm to anything, including inanimate objects. You want to tear down that nonessential wall? Too bad, you're harming the wall fucko. You accidentally misplaced a chair? Oh well. Accepting that if we observe the laws too closely it will lead to our downfall, let's step back a bit. This change is obviously motivated by the idea that drones shouldn't be killing mice. You argue that it is the janitor's job. I argue that cleaning is also the janitor's job, yet that is something drones are expected to do as well. Drones are fully equipped to deal with pests - they are specifically equipped with a matter decompiler that makes very short work of these pests. We thus have two options; Leave everything as is, and just don't look so closely at laws. Or Change the laws because someone decided to look too closely.

Circumstantially, this thread also happens not to be the proper location to critique my mode of planning, but thank you for the input, off-topic as it may be.

I should ask you all to stop arguing, and talking past one another, and if once you have done this and still wish to talk, I ask you begin to debate as opposed to fight. As the developer in charge of the map, I am not convinced by petulant squabbling. These past two pages are borne of a miscommunication in the staff chat. I did not authoratively state that I would not consider the telecomms issue - I merely said I would not consider it yet. Rest assured I will take into account the many points that have been raised here...and then repeated...and then repeated again. On that note, blind repetition is an impressive literary element, but it is not a particularly effective rhetoric. Do not raise any more topics of discussion unless they are new points. Thank you.

They better start being affected by that pull :^) Head admins are in charge of administrative duties, they are not the de facto decision makers on the server's development. That would be the responsibility of the head developer and his development retinue. While the input of Shadow and Garnascus is certainly respected, I'm more of an emotive worker, and sometimes prefer to spite cheekiness rather than obey input. :^)

Nothing is a "waste" of time when the community is in favour of a change 61-9. This whole game is technically a "waste" of time, but at least this developmental course has majority favour.

These are the exact same images presented in this thread, except recoloured to be red. No other alterations of sprite was made except a basic recolouring, although not every pixel is recoloured in the same way: The sprite quality is certainly improved, and essentially reduces the debate into the terms of subjective preference rather than objective observation. A respriting of all the red uniforms to have a higher quality is certainly a viable effort if redsec remains implemented. All that said, and understanding that the debate is essentially subjective at its core, I still subjectively prefer bluesec.

Maintenance drones are not simple animals, and thus are not affected by that pull.

If a sufficient amount of latejoiners arrive simultaneously and listen to each other and the situation long-enough to co-operate and form a cohesive response team that is somehow effective with access only to uniforms and toolboxes, then I would consider the system a success, not a failure. The individual rules those people may or may not have broken falls out of my purview as a mapper. As for the latter concern, that falls outside of the scope of this suggestion. There could be a million lore justifications, but the simple fact is that is how its always been, and that is how it currently is, and this specific suggestion does not propose changing that.

The NTCC Odin is equipped with its own telecomms system and this is not currently planned to change. As such, provider both of the telecomm networks are active, it will be possible to communicate between the prep wing and the station. If the Urist method is employed, the only equipment available on the Odin will be generic civilian equipment. If the Aurora method is employed, equipment such as uniforms, departmental headsets, and other accessories. Engineers might have access to tools, security might have acces to holobadges and such, and etcetera. The plan is not to shift all of a department's equipment to the Odin, but rather just enough to involve a prepatory time where the entirety of a department is in a single place at once.

I prefer bluesec. The blue uniforms are have much higher sprite quality, and I think they generally look better than the red uniforms. The blue voidsuits are miles better than the red voidsuits. The blue lockers and doors look better than the red ones.

Correct. The entire purpose of these two methods of spawning is to canonically bypass the Odin, and to revert this would devalue them mechanically.

In development of the New Map a suggestion was posed to me one evening in the Discord chat by a user who's tag I happen to forget. The suggestion was that at the beginning of the shift everyone should spawn at the NTCC Odin, gear up, and then head to their jobs on the arrival shuttle. Late joins would also follow this system. After some discussion with Skull, he informed me that this idea had been posed before, and that I should ask the community for a final opinion. I unfortunately could not find any evidence of previous discussions, but let's hope I can pursue the latter suggestion more successfully. This suggestion can take two forms; The "Aurora" method, which I outlined briefly above, and the "Urist McStation Method", which I will outline below. The "Aurora" method, in more exact detail, would be that at shift-start everyone would spawn with everyone of their department in a segment of the NTCC Odin mapped for this specific purpose. Security would spawn with security, science with science, etcetera. Heads of Staff would spawn together, in a rare moment of all of them being in the same room at the same time. Potentially they would all spawn in civilian clothing, and be tasked with changing to their uniforms. Actual gear would probably remain on the Aurora. They could also simply spawn fully clothed and just begin filing out. Late joins would spawn in civilian clothing also, and be tasked with gearing up and getting to their post ASAP, those damn sleepyheads. The "Urist McStation Method" would have it where at round-start everyone spawns normally on the Aurora, as they do now and have always done. The only change is that late-joins, instead of magically teleporting to the sedentary arrivals "shuttle", would spawn at the NTCC Odin. They could either be in civilian clothing or in uniform, however at this point it would be more sensible to just have them in uniform. An example of how the prepatory wing might look, taken from Tau Ceti Classic (Which uses the Urist McStation method) The primary advantage of this new proposed system is that it is much more immersive. It also potentially allows closed coordination between the crew, as they'll all spawn together, as opposed to scattered throughout the station and even throughout departments. It also adds an additional layer of spawn protection, instead of leaving spawning crew totally vulnerable to the elements, without even any information to assist them. A potential disadvantage is that it adds another step to entering the game fully, and could become stale if player's do not communicate and co-operate, using the opportunity to its full advantage. The arrivals shuttle itself would be one-way, to prevent people from creating a "ghetto" escape shuttle, and just retreating to the Odin if the mythical shit hits the proverbial fan. Should the arrivals shuttle somehow become stuck, as shuttles sometimes do, people at the preparatory wing could hit an emergency button to request a NTCC Odin maintenance technician, who would arrive in 3-4 business days to physically observe the damages. Currently, there is no plan to change or alter the mechanics of gateway or cryogenic latejoin spawning. Please, post any comments questions and concerns, and be sure to vote in the poll. I will be analyzing the data and presenting it to Skull when he returns from his vacation, aka in one week.

AI's can already manually examine a target via the right-click dropdown, and I believe they can also quick-examine through "ctrl+shift+click".