stev

Seems like a fairly solid app! I have a couple of questions, though feel free to respond minimally to them - they're not deal-breakers, more parts that it'd be cool to see fleshed out some more. What lingering mannerisms and views does Malika carry with her from her upbringing in the Parivara, if any? Does she have any conflicted feelings about the disparity between the PRA's atheistic political doctrine and its support and backing of the Parivara? How has her later service in the People's Army shaped her views on the PRA (and other factions)?

Agree with pretty much all of this, get rid of Resident in favour of the far less IRL-coded Medical Intern/Assistant. Also worth noting that since Physician age was lowered to 25 to account for qualifications other than MDs, both Residents and Physicians have the same age restriction of 25 which is pretty wacky.

Sinta'Unathi and Sinta'Azaziba currently have near-identical text colours, making them functionally indistinguishable unless you get a signs aggressively Azaziba emote. I suggest tweaking the colours so one's at least lighter than the other. Also it'd be nice if Azaziba showed accents, as it's primarily a spoken language with signed elements rather than a pure sign language. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

It's specifically the IAC beret - it's limited to Medical roles to stop random people on the station claiming IAC volunteer status and magically have every medical skill as a Janitor.

Probably want to put em both in an IAC headgear selection, since the beret's got some role restrictions.

certified Zhan moment

me That's an extremely unproductive response to criticism, especially on a feedback thread for something you're making, my dude.

[scathing personal attack veiled as shitpost]

I don't really understand the 'turn it all into biological research' angle? If it's not added alongside a load of new systems for biological research, it seems like all this'll do is invalidate... Basically every current Medical character, since they'd now all have to be retooled as 'biological researchers' rather than just medical practitioners. This also makes it kinda weird in that about 0% of the department's mechanics/function in a round is about - or has any real room for being about - biological research without the addition of enough new mechanics to base half a department around. There's also some weird dissonance with having 'Rescue Technician' under the biology department, as that's both the role most explicitly about medical care while also being the least qualified for medical care. And to try and make sure my point's clear, my problem with it isn't that it's change or that it's a move away from 'realistic' medical job names; rather it's the fact that, unlike every other department, this fundamentally changes the theme and purpose of the department as a whole rather than just the titles within it. Imagine, for example, if we turned Engineering into Banking because they maintain the station's power and in-lore Idris runs both the power stations and the banks. It's a bit of a silly comparison, yes, but I think it's on a pretty similar level to what's being proposed here - it completely changes the soul, theme and intent of both the department and most of its jobs to be about something only tangentially related (Medical care -> biological research, energy production -> credit management) and not yet present in any meaningful capacity in the game.

Suggestion: To discourage pulling the nuke out over random threats, make the nuke spawn on the merc base rather than the shuttle. This'll make it an active choice on the part of the team to make it part of the round, rather than a panic button to use if your round isn't going well.

As much as I hate to be anti-change, I really don't see why this is necessary. Them being a broadly federal authority is quite well-rooted in the lore, especially in regards to the federal military and Eridani's partial autonomy under the Sol Alliance; something like a 'trade zone' kinda runs counter to the super predominant theme of dystopian, horrific levels of control and surveillance over its citizens. A number of aspects, including citizenship and the authority of whatever job-federal corporate government is decided on, will need to be reworked according to the kind of governing that's decided on. I think it's also important to note that it's specifically the Eridani Corporate Federation, rather than simply the Eridani Federation. While it does sound a little silly, I think it pretty clearly signals that it's not merely a bog standard federation. Have 'corporate' right in the name of a nation pretty effectively communicates that it's gonna be a dystopian hellscape, probably its most central theme.

I'm kind of concerned that the HoS is gonna be even more of a dead role outside of antaggery with this, as they won't even be interacting with their own department much as they'll be tied to random departments.

That's fair, it's just nice to have the sprite look alright without the accessories. Maybe you could put some reflective strips under where the vest will be so it'll cover it?

Something like that, yeah. Just looks a bit odd with the featureless chest imo.

I like these a lot. Only thing I'm not keen on is the apprentice's blank chest region, looks a bit weird with it all empty on the base sprite.

Sorry for double-posting but something occurred to me. Assistants will need to be officially put into a department (probably Service) or the only person they can legally take orders from will be the Captain.

I'm backing Nantei and people on this one. This has a lot of really stupid implications, especially given this will force heads of staff to ratchet up alert statuses and claim acting captaincy just to be able to order people to not do stupid things without committing a chargeable offence.

One possible justification for this is that they're designed to block nonconsensual psychic intrusion from Skrell and that the defence against the supernatural is simply another form of mental intrusion blocked by this.

I honestly can't believe this suggestion is being seriously considered. Adding milrp on station is an awful, awful idea that will attract the worst sort of players and practically invite shittery. A million times no. I don't want this server falling the way of Bay.

klhjalfed is cringe

It's not a bad thought, that's why it's suggested so often; it's just that it's impractical as a primary means of distributing lore. Having things like that in game is great, especially if it's sorta hanging around places, but really isn't enough to rely upon.

This argument has a few flaws in it, the same every time it's brought up. 1. There's already a shitton of lore in the library mixed in with everything else. Nobody reads it and nothing can make people read it. 2. Most characters have little reason to roll up on the library and brush up on history and current affairs; most people don't do that even when they're not at their workplace. 3. This doesn't help people making characters, it relies on people doing the above in-round rather than having it on-hand at chargen. It's also not helpful for this particular suggestion either, as it has no bearing on pushing players, especially newer ones, toward themes and hooks supported by the lore.

Your clarifications have cleared up a lot of the concerns I had. While I still want places like the Frontier to be left as free-ish space to explore weird backgrounds, I think this might be a step in the right direction. Might want to clarify about your meaning with themes, stereotypes and the like; talking about themes, to me, generally has the implication of it being quite specific rather than the broader kind of stuff you're going for.

The thing is, I agree with a lot of what you're trying to do and the motives behind it—it's totally desirable for more characters to build on themes in the lore. The issue comes when you choose which of the themes must be represented, because in doing so you more or less make every other part of that area of the lore inconsequential in character-building, when the secondary/side details are often what provide the most inspiration for interesting characters. To name an example, I made an Unathi character for my app who was greatly inspired by the theme of gender discrimination among Unathi and the idea of someone of one Unathi gender role being born into the opposite body. This is, at best, a tertiary theme for the Unathi but one that ended up inspiring a character that represents the lore quite well in that, with the Unathi primary theme of duty being explored some but not a core theme of the character. That character, and many other totally valid characters, wouldn't be possible under a measure like this, depending on how it's implemented. Another issue is that, to be honest, that a measure like this could easily end up making the game far, far more boring. Imagine if every character from the Sol Alliance was to address the issue of anti-xeno prejudice every round. How tiring would it be for ~half the station, every round, to either stir shit about xenos or defend them vehemently? If every Sol character has the same or similar core motivations, shit's gonna get stale quick, especially with how quickly people get bored and annoyed by the same arguments happening in-game. I think that forcing focus on a single theme isn't a good idea. I think it could do a great deal of harm for character diversity and give an excuse for people to make dull, cardboard cutout characters harping on the same trope over and over again. I think a better option might be to, in character creation, explicitly lay out, say, the three or however many core themes of a background/faction/whatever and encourage people to use them as inspiration. Forcing hugely fundamental motivations or conflicts on characters just isn't conducive to an enjoyable roleplay environment.