OolongCow

Not two Skrell. Two ROUNDS of Skrell XO. In all of that time someone only readied up with a Skrell XO twice, which is tantamount to admitting that there are 0 Skrell XO characters people actually kept playing.

Thank you for the convenient segway. There's an IR against COMMAND. Not the SCC that failed them at every conceivable level. That gave them nothing to work with and told them to "just go do it lol". No higher ups were fired for putting the Horizon's crew in that situation. The guy who gave us a non-functional cargo shuttle didn't lose his job. Nobody ever apologized for undersupplying and underinforming them despite the danger and gravity of the situation. The SCC, the company, the faceless entity, may as well just be immune to the consequences of its own actions. It will never be humbled, stumble, or fail at a level higher than the Horizon. When, not if, this change goes through, the Spur will just not react to thousands of xenos losing their jobs across the SCC's fleets. Nobody will comment on it. It may as well be declared dubiously-IC, because despite using IC justification of the SCC's racism, the universe and staff will treat it like an OOC decision with no IC consequences.

I should make something clear. I don't think these new restrictions are wrong or inherently bad. I don't think it's bad and admins are bad for considering it. It can be handled well. But I don't think it has been, nor will it. How this has been handled, very frankly, just feels disrespectful. Disrespectful of the time and effort people put into the affected characters. No effort was made to find compromise, or ask for input. It wasn't phrased as "this is something we're considering, give feedback so we can hear what everyone wants to do and try to smooth it along". It's just a dry declaration that really only has two possibilities: either you are just finding out that people are actually upset that their characters will face serious retcons through no fault of their own, or you did know, and simply chose not to address that in any way before declaring this course of action. Both possibilities are incredibly disappointing and make it feel as if staff don't consider player input or feelings important to how the server is run.

I don't disagree on that. I think that's an entirely reasonable assumption to make. But it's very obvious that any IC consequences for the SCC, from factions causing a fuss to outright returning the favor, will not be approved or allowed. The Hegemony is not going to look at their citizens being insulted and told they're lesser to humans and do the same to humans working for Hephaestus. The Trinary is not going to release a statement condemning this as a blatant act of discrimination. The SCC will escape any and all consequences for doing this, because in reality, it's an OOC-motivated decision and not one made with the lore in mind. And people who come here and enjoy playing their characters in a position that before this decision were entirely allowed, are going to get nothing out of it. Either they wordlessly retcon everything and move them to a position they don't even necessarily enjoy, or they get absolutely no roleplay hooks out of the deal and just have to eat a fat IC demotion L with nothing to bounce off of because the universe tells them the SCC can do no wrong and will never get their comeuppance. The same thing happened on Konyang. Will the SCC lose face and be embarrassed because they sent the Horizon's crew in with empty stun batons and non-functional flashlights to disable the warehouse transmitter? Nah. It's just swept under the rug despite being treated like an entirely IC issue despite being caused by poorly-tested event maps and unfortunate design decisions. This isn't an IR where these characters did something wrong, or they're given something meaty to work with for future roleplay. It's not done due to lore developments or with a possibility of reversal. Staff said "we are doing this" and plan to implement it in a completely unsatisfying way both OOC and IC. It's a dry, boring OOC rules change wearing the facepaint of being due to IC reasons while having no IC consequences or hooks. And that's just baffling.

I don't Disagree, Danse, but splitting the thread is liable to reduce engagement with that idea and make tracking who said what more difficult. I think the pros of staying in this thread outweigh the cons. As for the statement on retroactive species restrictions, I have to say it's just deeply confusing. This is an administrative-backed OOC change that will effectively delete the histories and arcs of multiple characters, without consulting anyone or even mentioning it beforehand. You knew this would happen. You knew it would upset people. But you didn't even bother to try and compromise or even inform the playerbase ahead of time? What are the affected characters supposed to do? Just retcon ever having occupied the position? Get what is ultimately a slap in the face demotion IC that the SCC will magically face no consequences for despite it being INCREDIBLY overt rather than subtle now that their hiring practices are racist? Are characters just supposed to ignore that only aliens got demoted and not say a word? Was any of this even considered?

It's also inconsistent with the way every other problem on the server is approached. CCIA has repeatedly made decisions that enable bad behavior on the part of players out of a desire to not limit them or roleplay over the actions of a few (the whole "drinking on duty" saga).

If Kuhn had died in the warehouse assault, caused by enormous, preventable problems with the map, RNG on RNG, and other players just not doing what they should have, only for maybe three people to care and then move on like it never happened, I would probably have left the server due to how demoralizing the whole situation was. Not that he died. There are plenty of scenarios I've thought up in my head where he could die and I'd be happy, but none of them will ever happen, because that would require his death to mean something, accomplish anything, and actually be remembered. Nobody remembers that Kuhn was handed a shitty situation and did the best he could with a nonfunctional lighting system, every department refusing to organize or do their job, and the SCC handing them metal sticks and telling them to save a planet. Nobody cares whether he was a good or bad boss that round. All they will ever remember is that he almost died, and if I don't go out of my way to lop his arm off so he can point at it and say "this is why I have a robot arm" people might not even remember that much a month from now. The only record he was even there comes down to me saying it and anyone who was there actually caring enough to remember who the command team was. So what did I even get out of the event? A story I have to beg everyone to listen to if they weren't there on the same character and bothered to remember me? At the cost of nearly losing months of roleplay and buildup to pure RNG and a map that broke in several places? It just makes me want to not participate in future events except to throw a noname I don't care about at them, especially if that character has an obligation to approach combat in any way. And then I get even less out of the event besides the mechanics of it. Events as they are are asking me to play Russian Roulette for the grand prize of living to play more Russian Roulette. If I say I don't like Russian Roulette and would rather play Chess for a gold sticker, I get told that I'm wrong and Russian Roulette is how I'm supposed to prove how intelligent and brave I am. That people who don't like Russian Roulette just hate fun.

I 100% agree. I sentimentally support a memorial, but if it is added it absolutely needs to fall under the chaplain's authority. It's already one of the most unmaintained, unsupported, no-hooks roles on the ship. Giving it literally anything would be nice.

A big lesson that I really, really, really hope event organizers take to heart: It feels really good to be empowered as a player. Prior events have had consistent problems with making most of the crew feel like helpless schmucks that will get curbstomped if they poke their heads up, by enemies who aren't even that strong, due to this perceived notion that players shouldn't be strong. This isn't even an issue of balance, per se. You could give everyone a bottom 50th percentile gun and put them up against an enemy with pulse rifles and Tup armor and they'd still be happier than if you gave them a wooden stick and told them to beat someone with a shorty and sec armor. It feels like ass to feel helpless, especially when that's at odds with the theming of the arc. Having to scrounge for every bullet and sharp stick we can find might make sense in a "stranded in the Lemurian sea" arc, but the SCC giving the crew non-functional cargo shuttles, empty batons, and only enough armor to protect a tenth of their attendees during a long-planned military operation on one of the most profitable and politically-relevant planets in human space is just head-scratching. The plant assault was genuinely one of the most impressive, "this felt really good to be a part of" events I've been to in the past year, whereas the warehouse assault genuinely had me question how my characters could even justify continuing to work for the SCC. I can understand paring down the availability of weapons like the bullpups for future events, but a standard of okay armor and a decent non-energy firearm for combat-heavy events not taking place on the Horizon, and then adjusting the difficulty of enemies as needed, would be my personal preference going forward. I don't even really mind if events become more lopsided towards the crew's opposition until a good balance is found. It just feels better to be empowered with a weapon to defend yourself and contribute, even if you never fire it or it sucks.

Copied my homework... Unforgivable... In seriousness, I love NM. Such a wonderful roleplayer who really genuinely does the same thing I do of overthinking everything and extrapolating actions and their consequences to make for fun roleplay that feels genuine and aware of the fact that the fictional world we're all sharing exists beyond whatever's on his screen at that very moment. +1

The fact this is a thing is kind of insane. If we're going to give mechanical benefits for playing the "right" age shouldn't it be things like wealth modifiers instead of literally whether you get the slot or not?

Love you for this Lavilla ♥️

As long as it checks for on-ship, active crew, I'm fine with this suggestion. Just checking for 25 players on the server regardless of status is definitely a bad idea, though.

I understand that, but I'm of the opinion that there is no world where an antag absolutely needs these items that isn't covered by existing uplink items, other than them being the end goal of a gimmick, in which case it should be expected of you to actually interact with the captain. Either to rob them or question them about its location. Antagonism isn't about the end goal, it's about the journey getting there. It's why the standards of "winning" here are "did everyone have fun?" and not "did the antag accomplish their goal?" If you get the spare or disk or whatever without interacting with anyone, that's just boring for the crew. It doesn't matter that you intend to involve them later, they're going to be unhappy that they didn't realistically have a chance to interact with you before that, and that you didn't really take any kind of risk due to OOC expectations placed on them. Additionally, having a wrench thrown into your plans can be fun. Adapting what you're doing to the round you're in and the players in it can be fun. You might have intended to take the spare for a gimmick, but if you don't find it, you can always pivot to making getting the spare your main goal, with what you originally intended being a pipedream down the line. Set up an interrogation chamber to question the captain about its location. Disguise yourself and mug them. Perform sneaky espionage and start deducing where you think it might be. Playing antag is risky and scary and always has a chance to go badly. I like owning up to that and having opportunities to be smarter than the crew, or have them outsmart me. Removing a really fun layer of cat and mouse with an unwieldy administrative decision would suck.

Only the uplink implant, Sue, which I think is an entirely fair concern. They already come at a TC penalty compared to other uplink types. This isn't "haha I had a secret freedom implant that I spammed!" it's just insurance their uplink won't be taken from them instantly, which I think is an entirely reasonable and fair tradeoff compared to a lot of other things antags are just given for free or expected to be provided, no matter how stupid it makes other people look. Both sides should have opportunities to "get one past" the other in ways that make sense and don't require the other guy to suddenly lose 30 IQ for them to be justified, and this is one of those. Nobody can fault security for a traitor buying C4 and escaping the brig with an uplink implant, while it starts to get sketchy if they do it twice and yet sec is expected to keep giving them back items they had at the time they did it.

Carver is 100% correct. PV presents a very alluring split to the playerbase that after the assumed first trip by a bridge crew early into the round, leads to the entire burden of "saving my round" falling on one role in a way that's boring and repetitive. I do have an idea, though: Why not repurpose the choice in character setup between spawning in cryo or the residential lift to, for the time PV is enabled, let people spawn in the hotel when they latejoin? You could even put up a quick check to ensure it only works for off-duty/passenger and sends you to the lift otherwise.

The security metacord agrees that Read must go. We extend our fullest support to roostercat in these troubled times.

There really should be an option to adjust the volume of instruments for yourself that isn't a binary toggle. If you could set them to 10% volume regardless of the setting the person playing them set they'd be infinitely more tolerable, I feel.

No, it isn't. As opposed to the fun RP generated by having to figure out a way to get those items? Heads aren't doing it so you can never ever get them ever, they're doing it because it's a bare minimum expected of someone in power, and because it's still very easy to get them if you do need them or want them as the point of a gimmick. Because they want you to actually interact with them in some way before you steal the most powerful singular item on the ship. Adversity is fun. Failing while trying something difficult until you figure it out is fun. Taking things as they go and adapting is fun. Being handed every tool you could ever want so that you can have near-ultimate power over a round as if antags don't already have that with their uplinks is boring. It's the equivalent of turning on Minecraft creative mode and just building a castle for security to attack while flying and invincible instead of gathering the materials while they're looking for you.

I agree with Carver. The spare is not left on the table solely for their benefit. It's a leftover of mapping traditions that not even TG does anymore. It's left on that table only BECAUSE antags don't take it every single round, and because it was more convenient for mappers when the Horizon was being made to leave it there for acting captainship than to code in a new system. You're not entitled to perhaps the most powerful singular item on the ship, that it makes zero sense for an active captain to not take incredibly basic steps to safeguard, just because you ticked a box in character setup. Being handed every tool you could ever want and total power over the ship with no effort whatsoever is boring for antags and boring for the crew. Just buy an emag or door hacking device that you're lliterally handed on a silver platter with bluecrystals if you NEED all access for your gimmick.

You don't even need an emag. If the captain moves things to their safe it's unironically less secure than their locker. You just screwdriver it and spam a multitool, same as the secure briefcase.

So the entirety of the DPRA?

It's a holdover from oldcode that exists for miners to revive simplemobs as friendly pets, something I have seen a grand total of 0 times because either server culture doesn't encourage it, or the code to make the mob friendly was removed at some point.

Nothing you said is wrong, but it also doesn't explain why they can't have a presence. The United States does not maintain an official embassy in Taiwan due to risks of antagonizing China, but it does have the American Institute in Taiwan as a de facto one. Japan maintained an official embassy within the United States for the entire duration of the war. Even states that actively expelled the embassies of other countries still maintain unofficial diplomatic channels, because when you need to send a message to another country that isn't a public address, diplomatic officials are important to have. You can't just email the head of another country. You can't just call them on the phone. You call your people in their country, and have that person talk to them. That's what consulars do. They're representatives of outside forces, not employees of the SCC. This is also assuming that Sol literally doesn't change at all. I don't think the lore team wants them to stay this static, unchanging force whose only defining characteristic is "they don't like us". Putting a Solarian consular on the ship with an excuse of "well someone needs to represent the interests of all the Solarians aboard" and using them as a convenient way to contact the SCC when necessary is a perfectly valid excuse that not a single one of your points refutes. I agree with your points, but not your conclusion. I think it's entirely reasonable for Sol to be antagonistic right now, but still have a consular and maybe go a different way in the lore.

Yeah. This is entirely unnecessary. If the injectors need to be touched at all, it's that they could be reflavored to not be 1:1 copies of other codebases' implementation, or moved somewhere that makes more sense than mining (since the reason they're there is because other servers let miners use them to turn hostile mobs into pets).