LordFowl

This is not the thread for discussing total removal of the bar. This is the thread for moving the bar to the surface level. Furthermore, I will not consider removing the bar at all - no matter if it's the loreteam that asks me to or God that asks me to - unless some serious consideration is put into the request by the requesting party, and that consideration presented to me in a logical and serious manner.

I've conceded only that IPCs having genes is an ostensible oversight. Furthermore, the idea that player freedom ends because if we had player freedom we'd have fuzzy pink-haired bluespace princes is ignorant of context and expectations. The expectations of a worker aboard the NSS Aurora are different than the expectations of an antag, and if we did not have to mold our gameplay against that nebulous and unjust concept of balance, I would definitely support antagonists having expanded permission powers. Even now antagonists bartering with admins introduces new and often-times unique experiences, because expanded freedom grants expanded opportunity to create a better and more unique story. Ultimately, this imposed standard is one I argue against because it adds nothing. IPCs wizards does not detract from the roleplay experience, the roleplayer detracts from the roleplay experience. An IPC sufficiently justifying their abilities is just that - sufficiently justified. At this point, it starts to look like the players are serving the lore, and not the other way around. The lore should be in service to the players, but the players should not be chained and fettered by it when there is no good reason for such entrapment. The idea that vampire, changling, and heist have a baseline and thus this creates precedent is also not exactly true. Vampire has no baseline, and even with Skull's new vampire code you could easily spin your powers in whatever way you like. It's not as if you spawn with a label that says "This is a Vampire, Homo suckerini, and they have a highly segregated society centered around how long your teeth are." Heist and Changeling especially are a little more difficult, because they are arguably team antags, and it's not exactly easy to get your story straight. This is especially prevalent in changelings, who tend to resort to vagueness to maintain consistency with their fellow 'lings. Heist seems to be going in the exact opposite direction of the suggestion proposed - once it was Vox-only, but now it's essentially a free for all. I don't have any specific examples for Heist, but it's parallel Nuke Ops has had plenty of enjoyable rounds where the antags were not syndicate operatives nor even strictly hostile mercenaries. If you are concerned about not letting IPCs and Vaurcae into your 'Wizard Federation', then the simple arrangement is to forbid IPCs and Vaurcae from being in the Wizard Federation. Do not exclude them from the entire antag opportunity.

I could give less than a rat's ass if a stupid Vaurca or IPC wizard accidentally EMPs itself. We don't antagban them from Heist even though Heist has EMP grenades. If you're phrasing your entire argument around the fact that wizards have an EMP spell, then that's perhaps even worse than your initial stance. The difference between the DNA argument and the Wizard argument is very simple - IPCs being wizards can easily be explained away with the proper perspective. IPCs having genes is more of an oversight. You're the one that considers IPCs and Vaurca having access to wizard powers to be an oversight, and I'm the one that considers that perspective erroneous. Shall we also ban people with cybernetics from being wizards also, since we're apparently constructing the entire lore for antagonists around one single ability? Finally, I see no problem with "indulging" people who want to spin their own story. Isn't that the point of this game? To spin our stories? When did Aurora start being less about players creating the story, and more about a few individual people deciding what stories can and cannot be allowed, with a much weightier "cannot" category. Soon I imagine we'll leave ALL stories to be created by the lore-developers, for surely we cannot trust the base and impure playerbase to exercise even a modicum of creativity. As to the position that we should punish all players over the mostly harmless actions of a few; that sort of ultimatum should be handed out only lightly, and I don't consider this the proper venue for it. Flippancy with the wizard role will not end with the eradication of options.

You can start placing heavy lore orientated restrictions on antagonists when antagonists become white-listed. Currently there is no mandate stating that antagonists have to abide by any lore except the lore that comes out of their assbrain, and this tends to work very well. Instead of restricting our players to abide by linear storylines constructed by crusty old farts with purple names, allowing them to create their own antag story allows for on average decent rounds, and sometimes moments of greatness. As Nanako has alluded to, these 'nonsensicals' of yours are only nonsense when you look at them from an exclusive perspective. They are nothing more than obstacles easily surmountable with a bit of creativity, creativity which lends itself well to creating a cogent story. Who says the IPC even has to be a wizard? I myself have roleplayed as a prototype combat droid using the wizard powers. If exhaustive antag lore is to be our aim, at the very least do us all a favour and don't design lore with restrictions in mind. If your lore cannot possibly tolerate even the slightest about of player freedom, cannot even trust a little bit the player to take something and run with it without hammering them down with pointless mechanical restrictions because you yourself cannot at the time of writing fathom an explanation, then perhaps you should take a moment and put a little more thought into the work. I typically agree with that rule, but I don't understand how it's being used in defense of Kaed's position. In fact, I would argue that it could be used against his position - that IPCs CAN be wizards merits explanation, not restriction.

Locking any species out of an antag is unprecedented and in my mind abominable. The lore can exert itself on the game in many neat fashions, but I see no reason to force people out of playing an antag they want to play it. Antags, unlike race whitelists or the like, do NOT currently need to abide by their 'established' antag lore, and I say this is a good thing and should stay. While the other ideas posted in this thread bear merit, I am strongly opposed to blacklisting races from antags.

The Hive Network language will be exactly what has been promised since it was first considered; a hivemind language, if possible tied to the Vaurcan's neural hub organ. Mechanical distinctions between the warriors and the workers will not likely be happening. All warriors on the station are assumed to be of the lowest, most 'civilian' tier, devoid of any of the complex biomechanics of more advanced types. The only distinction between the two is player-driven, namely that workers should not be frequently engaging in combat except for self-defense. These distinctions are of course more severe for the Bound and less severe for the Unbound.

Bump to reflect development on Vaurca Batch 2.

Login > Spitroast Password > ** Access Level > User Net Access > Granted Welcome What the fuck kinda security does this place even pack? It seems like half the fucking posters are goddamn "ERROR oh look im such a cool hacker!11!". Jesus Christ, can't you gits just sign up for an account? Or do you all just register under the name "ERROR" to look fucking cool? It really throws a bad first impression, and that's coming from a fucking mercenary.

Login > Spitroast Password > ** Access Level > User Net Access > Granted Welcome I'm not better than anyone else? You're the one on the fucking high horse, buddy. Why don't you calm down a bit, fucker? Who lets kids run black ops these days anyways? Does your mum know you're killing to satisfy your skewed sense of fucking 'morals'? All you're doing is bringing crazy catfucks to human space so they can get fucked over by humans. You're wasting your time, and more importantly you're wasting lives. Forget throwing good money after bad, you're throwing good men after bad. Shit organizations like you turn my gut, not because of the shit you do but how fucking wide you grin while you do it. So wide ya don't see the fucking excrement dripping from your molars. I'm done here. Hope the self-righteous high was worth it, you self-centered fuck.

Login > Spitroast Password > ** Access Level > User Net Access > Granted Welcome Bah, there's no point to this shit. What are you even trying to achieve, except to throw good money after bad? This isn't some sort of high-ideals low-results fucking non-profit, and I can't imagine how you convinced any shitstain gunners to go on a mercenary operation against a fucking militarized government on its own homeworld just to rescue some fucking furballs. This shit ain't even 'bout 'humanity first' or whatever the fuck, this is just common fucking sense. Bah, this sort of shit will be the downfall of this 'new' organization. Ideals get you nowhere kid, and that was known in the old days. Fuck, this explains why shit on the NanoTrasen net has been so quiet. All you fuckers are wasting your lives saving god damn aliens for no fucking reason.

After some consideration and review, I have found this application to be acceptable. While it is by no means exceptional, and on it's own merit would likely not succeed, the player has shown a pliable willingness to adapt to the lore and to maintain the behaviour that I expect of all whitelist-holders of the Vaurca race. With this in mind, I formally accept the application. Please note that despite being whitelisted and having your application accepted, your evaluation does not end here. I will be keeping a watchful eye on you and all other Vaurca whitelist holders, and I hope that you do not disappoint my expectations.

Hello. I've recently taken over Vaurca applications and lore, and I've noticed some peculiarities within this application that cause me to hesitate, because I don't want to set a bad precedent by accepting an application containing said peculiarities. Vaurca, as you probably know if you've been paying attention to their existence on this server since their conception, have been considered a 'meme race' for essentially their entire lifetime. This is a result of a few unfortunate lapses in moderation, and a few bad eggs. Thus, I am very concerned with developing a respectable image for the Vaurca, and this means that whitelist applications for the Vaurca may very well receive weightier review than applications for other species. Vaurca players need to be trustworthy to repair the Vaurca image. This applies to ALL Vaurca whitelist holders, not just Datberry. Now, how does this apply to your application specifically? Well, we discussed this a little over Discord, and I'm very interested in you making the changes I suggested: -A less "memey" backstory. The core storyline is acceptable, provided that a little more justification for the continued existence of a mentally deficient Unbound Vaurca is provided. I also have heard you refer to the Vaurca as "the perfect greytide species". This, coincidentally enough, is almost directly contrary to the sort of respectable image I want to establish for Vaurca. Comparing the Vaurca to the assistant Greytide, the baldies, is not something I want to become prevalent, and it seems your backstory, what with its whole mental deficiency shtick (And it's obvious name), seems to be trying to emulate the baldie. If you have any questions, or want any clarification on what I mean, please feel free to ask. Otherwise, I will reserve my final decision for after the customary wait period for peer review, and then review it myself.

Sure.

Photography album updated to reflect recent map revisions.

Medals of commendation already exist in the code, and I think there's even a NanoTrasen research medal.

Giving it a longer timer won't give people an extra chance to escape, merely an extra chance to weldertank their way into the AI core and beat it to death with crowbars.

Telescience used to have penalties and risks for operation. However, these risks were removed to facilitate a powergaming elite class - those who understood telescience should not have to suffer the malice of RNG. The simple fact of the matter is that telescience is an extremely experimental means of pinpoint bluespace manipulation. That we tolerate a risk less telescience yet argue we have a cohesive universe is laughable. Esoteric mechanics are not enough, and every time a 'good' telescience player comes about they always cause problems, because much like how it was with genetics the mechanics of the occupation were simply not enjoyable unless you were causing problems. Telescience is boring as unless you're stirring up shit, because it is mechanically stale and there are no repercussions for its operation except hypothetical and vague administrative action - IC or OoC.

Are CCIAs biased on account of race, or do they treat every IR with bland equality?

Humans already have two unique hardsuits. The Heavy Asset Protection hardsuit and the Combat Hardsuit.

http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=5997&p=59671#p59671

50 kT according to the end cutscene when it is detonated.

The discussion of what to name the new map has actually been a bit of a heated debate. The problem is that Aurora is our brand name, so changing the map name has some issues, and if the suggestion was anything but Borealis I would probably be greatly opposed. I cannot speak authoritatively on the matter at this time, but I will definitely bring this to the attention of the rest of the mapping team.

http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5493 Information concerning the new map is freely available, and I've been perfectly transparent with its development since I took charge of it , so the common misconception that it's still a planet map is a bit confusing.

Updated the thread to reflect the removal of Vaurca's ability to gib mice.

Greetings, fellow Aurorans. Over the past two days I've been contemplating deeply the Vaurca situation, as I now have a vested interest in their development and play-ability. I will be working on their lore come the end of May, but I've decided to get a healthy head-start on their mechanics. After two days of hard work and praying to the codegod RNGesus, I have produced numerous interesting miscellany. I have tested ALL of these changes, and have confirmed they work. Now that the first Vaurca batch has proceeded smoothly, I prepare for the second batch. It is planned to include these things, and more: +Custom vaurcan vowels. +Properly working name generator. +Implements Vaurca Hive Network language +Unique sprites for K'ois +Expanded K'ois recipes. +More? Please also feel free to comment on the prior changes, since they are now available: