OolongCow

Schlorrgo already provide lard when slaughtered, based on their size. It wouldn't be hard to add a smaller amount for other animals, if the desire is there, but then what mechanical benefit do Schlorrgo provide?

There is quite literally nothing wrong with antagonists choosing not to shoot security or kill someone. If they provided fun for even just three people (including themselves) that round and had someone talking about the round in the relay, it's okay. They did their job. Rounds should not be predicated on them doing something to be enjoyable for most players. This is an RP server, and if you can't have fun here unless John Sol pulls out a shorty AR and destroys the sec team on green, then I really don't know what to say. Murderkilldiehell merc rounds will still happen. Ninjas deciding "let's just kill sec over the smallest slight because it's 1:30" will still happen. Let people have rounds where the antag justs mugs people in maintenance, gets arrested, and then has a rowdy fistfight in the bar after they get out. It's okay. Not every conflict has to have enormous, crew-destroying stakes.

Okay, I don't want to disappoint all the people who want Commander Kuhn, but I think I'll follow the advice of my older and wiser peers here and do my trial and a bit after with a fresh HoS so I can judge if I feel comfortable playing him in that role.

I've gotten the same advice from others and am heavily considering it. I can always just say his paperwork's being slow during the trial, and I already have a good, blame-free IC reason he might be declined that doesn't reflect on his ability and is 100% believable if I chose not to have him promoted.

Medical moment

BYOND key: OolongCow Discord Username: maybelle Character names: Jedrzej Kuhn, Security Officer Marisa Warren, Engineer How long have you been playing on Aurora? I've made several attempts to play over the years, but this time it's truly stuck. I've even started mapping and bugfixing (thanks, Matt)! I told myself I'd wait about a month before applying for any whitelists, to be sure, and that self-imposed waiting period has passed. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? Minor clarifications by admins, no actions. I once wore a cowboy hat as a security officer on deadpop in the middle of that kerfuffle about security uniforms awhile back and got so scared by an automated CCIA announcement that I didn't play for several weeks, though. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame? OOC, it's to hold players to a soft-handed set of standards of roleplay, guide newer players who don't know better yet on how to behave, and use your IC position as someone in a position of authority to manipulate the round to be more enjoyable for everyone. That is especially true for roles like Captain and Head of Security, who might also have to interact with antagonists and take their enjoyment into consideration when making decisions. No one wants a captain that shuts down the mercs trying to do a gimmick at 00:30, but nobody likes a captain who gives those same mercs an unrealistic and exhausting amount of leeway either. It's a delicate balance that can wear on people, but it's one of the things I enjoy most about the game. I enjoy putting pressure on antags who forgot to do paperwork, only to believe them at the last second and let them wipe their brows. I enjoy pointing out little flaws in peoples' IC arguments to push them to close those gaps in the future, and then reward them when they go that extra mile to be convincing. Being a head means being willing to give much more than you necessarily take from a round, because as a head you have the ability to do so much to influence a round's flow. Every security player who's given the role more than a few rounds knows how much dread comes from a no-HoS, no-warden round with team antags and no communication. As a head it is your job to turn that round that otherwise might have turned people off a role, or ruined the one round they had time to play that night, into something fun. Ultimately this is a game and people come here to have fun. Being able to give up a little of your own fun by not always "winning" so that others can enjoy themselves is a cornerstone of collaborative RP and something I've held myself and others to for the years I've been playing SS13. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them? Similar to my points above, it's to maintain an environment where those players can enjoy themselves. That requires the ability to identify what would be best for the round and act on it in the most believable, agreeable way possible. It requires an understanding of everyone's fun being more important than your own, and being willing to accept that without complaint. It means not abusing your IC position to take actions that harm people's experiences "because it makes sense" or "because it's what my character would do." Throwing the book at someone because of a distinct, harmless quirk of their character because you don't like it, or prescribing to an absolutist view of the rules and regulations makes the server boring. As does turning an eye to what someone's doing, despite it harming other peoples' experiences, because "that's just the way they are" or because you're IC or OOC friends. Heads have more than just the basic expectations of courtesy placed on most roles, they have responsibilities as characters and players when compared to the idealistic guidelines for everyone else. They have an obligation to not be "ugh them" characters to more than a few outliers. They have an obligation to just, in essence, make a round better by simple virtue of being in it. And they're given the tools to do that. Tools I think that I'm able to handle. Explain how the recent events in the Spur changed your character and how they came to be employed on the SCCV Horizon. Kuhn is a someone I really struggled with when I first made him. First he was going to be a weird cowboy-loving Vysokan, then Visegradi, but as I worked the kinks out and started genuinely playing for real this last while, I've come to a point and some arcs for him I really enjoy, and that I hope, from what I've heard, others appreciate. Jedrzej Kuhn was born on Vysoka, in Sloboda. Nothing but homesteads, packed together like sardines to form an odd pseudo-city. Big for his age, and somewhat successful in school, he made a natural fit for the VNDF. Noticed by a medical sergeant who needed someone as large as Kuhn to help him move stuff around, he eventually picked up enough to replace his mentor once he retired. Serving his time idly in a time of relative peace, in 2459 he was picked up as his military contract was expiring by Zavodskoi's offices on the planet. Due to his medical certifications, he was offered a very generous contract, which he happily accepted, citing he'd be "stupid to refuse." Sent through a variety of corporate training courses on Biesel, and rapidly exposed to the spur he'd never particularly known as a lower-class child born to a single mother on a planet that hadn't been politically relevant for decades, if not centuries,, the young man went through no small number of changes. The ideas of "democracy" and "self-rule" he'd never really thought much of as a younger man were abundant and suddenly appealing in the newly-formed Republic of Biesel, and yet... Tajara, and Unathi, and Vaurca, and more. They were all so foreign, so different, so alien. He'd heard whispers about them. Stories on the schoolyard, and in the barracks, about what happened to human freighters that strayed too far... And then the invasion of Biesel happened. Frost's actions were appalling, sure, but he was human, and Kuhn was still technically Solarian, right? They had to be on the same side. Surely the situation would resolve itself, and Biesel would once again be free, with some minor changes. And then the Violet Dawn disaster happened. The desperate actions of a strained alliance had caused an immeasurable tragedy, but surely it was no one's fault? Sol would recover, and it would be alright. And then Szalai happened. The de facto dictator of her own little kingdom, the SSMD. She seized control of a leaderless, lost Visegrad, desperate to be free and once again rule itself as it had long ago before the yoke of Sol had been placed on their necks, and for just a moment, to an outside observer, there was a glimmer of hope for something better. Of something greater. Klaudia Szalai drowned that light in the flames of Sloboda as it burned, along with many of the people Kuhn had known his entire life. In seeking to "save" the Solar alliance, she betrayed the people of Visegrad and damned them to subservience once more. She damned his home. It was a husk. A puppet in the games of people who'd shown the spur their true faces. He couldn't go back. He wouldn't. Not to the burnt out ruins of Sloboda, where only his mother and the memories of friends now-dead waited for him. Szalai could have been the human Na'ted. A regular Cincinnatus. But she wasn't. And Visegrad was gone. Gone, gone, and never to return. His only home, now, was here. With a new people. A people who'd already fought back against bullies and crooks, like Szalai, who'd chain them to a nation doing whatever it took to survive. Who despite being so different from each other, who despite being comprised of peoples and races from every single walk of life imaginable, stood up, fought, and had won. Kuhn burned his Solarian passport and applied for citizenship with the Republic of Biesel the next day. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Head of Security, Chief Engineer (once I get about ~20 hours of atmos tech experience with ShakeyJakey's tutelage and then do some solo experimentation on a local server) Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes. Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Areum An for the trial and for a short period afterwards, Jedrzej Kuhn as Head of Security if I feel he would be a good fit after this trial and trial+ period Casey Boudreaux, Chief Engineer Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes. Whitelists being something that can be lost due to abuse is an important part of why they work. Have you linked your BYOND account to the Forums? Yes. Extra notes: I'd like to blame Matt and Danse specifically for both giving me a reason to stick around, and for somehow convincing me to start mapping and coding again. This is all you two's fault and I will not forgive you.

This is literally never the case in any server that tries it. Suddenly combat becomes a game of "gotcha"s where you try to do any slimy trick possible to click the other guy and instantly kill him first. Literally nobody wants to play a game where the first person to aim hand (which currently and even after this will not have ANY non-antag armor) with a rifle-sized gun and shoot the other guy instantly wins because now 70% of guns in the code are unusable until the person gets a cybernetic replacement due to instant ashing/exploding into gore. I would not qualify "the only way I can win and not get permanently killed due to the buffed damage is if I shoot him first" as conducive to roleplay.

I don't think many people are taking notice of what I pointed out earlier. You can currently ash unprotected heads in two shots if the person is redgrabbed. And that's only a 2.5x modifier. You can likely ash someone's head, from range and through a helmet, if this is testmerged. Which is an instant and permanent kill that medical has no interaction with. Why is anyone even entertaining this idea if something this obvious wasn't addressed?

Also, a reminder that currently red grabs give a 2.5x multiplier to damage done, and ashing people's head is consistently done in two shots with a standard laser rifle. This proposition as is would add instant, permanent kills if you click someone while aiming head twice.

As is, pointmed is basically irrelevant (and possibly? on the way out), while quadrupling damage numbers could severely warp things that actually matter to combat like organ damage, delimbs, etc, in unforseen ways. Sec having their totally unarmored hands shot into gore by the first bullet larger than a pistol round that hits them, REQUIRING a surgeon and mechanical limb replacement and utterly gimping them from fighting back, for example. I personally feel like combat is fairly balanced with the possible exception of how much pain wounds cause. It feels like the first few hits do nothing, until you hit a critical threshold of pain and just become a useless ragdoll. I'd honestly suggest smoothing out that curve, with more "tiers" of slowdown and distress. Maybe make injuries cause a higher level of pain, and nerf (easily available) painkillers so John Sol on 10 units of perconol doesn't run around with five sucking chest wounds until immediately dropping to the floor and quickly dying of 10% blood oxygenation. Also yes, this change would be a very bad idea to implement without armor buffs, for literally everyone.