Susan

@Myazaki Footsteps indicators are good. I feel like that would really negate most of my issues with this; it feels, currently, that it's just like you have a wall right behind you and the only indication of anyone's presence is if they speak. Perhaps if you turn away from someone, mobs stay but slowly fade away after a few moments?

I'll say what I said before: patrolling maint is not and never will be an issue. As for taking all the items and putting them locked away in the armory? Powergaming, officers shouldn't do it.

I do not like this. Vision is not anywhere near realistically simulated in this game. You look at it from a top-down perspective with a serious limit on how far you can see (like 7 tiles) when realistically I should be able to stare all the way down the hallway at traitor mcman. There is absolutely no way for SS13 to properly simulate the five senses we have in reality. You don't really need to be looking at someone to know they're there. Humans tend to have a presence, a sort of unquantifiable sensation you get when you know someone is, say, staring at you for too long or coming up on you. You smell people. You hear them. You can sense them. You can't do this in game. None of this game has been balanced with limited visibility in mind.

I find this more palatable. I have no qualms with this revised decision.

I don't particularly agree with this decision; what you've said is basically 'even if you have a degree and the education necessary, you are pigeonholed by what your ID says', and considering 'your character has gone to medical school' is the basis for other administrative action taken despite the fact this ruling means 'going to medical school' has no substantive effect, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Ultimately, if that's the ruling, that's the ruling. I'm not going to drag it out. You can close it; I just won't like it.

Five Dead, Several Injured at Bloodstorm Concert! An impromptu event by the controversial band Bloodstorm turned violent late last night. Performing out of a warehouse in District Six, the crowd numbered well over the building’s maximum occupancy at over one thousand. Mendell Police responded to calls of shots fired in the middle of the band’s performance; by the time officers arrived at the warehouse, the suspected shooters had already fled the scene. We spoke to several witnesses who were present at the concert at the time of the shooting; each described a scene of abject terror and panic as unidentified gunmen stormed the venue, calling the concertgoers ‘degenerates’. Five fatalities were confirmed following the melee and subsequent shooting, with area clinics and hospitals becoming inundated with several wounded civilians. Mendell Police are investigating these deaths as homicides. Our reporters caught up with officers at the scene. While they would not comment on ongoing investigations, Mendell Police Department’s public relations team provided us with this statement: “The Mendell City Police Department takes the safety of its citizens seriously. Late last night, at around 0100 hours, we responded to calls of shots fired at an abandoned warehouse in District Six. While suspects fled the scene, our officers are working diligently to uncover leads and ensure that incidents like this do not happen again. Any members of the public with knowledge of the suspects or the concert are asked to come forward and dial the Mendell Police Tip Hotline. There may be a reward for information leading to arrests.”

Why do the mercs need the nuke replaced to begin with? Giving them a free exosuit negates the exosuit beacon you have to pay uplink crystals for. Not a fan. Nuke doesn't need to be replaced. It had no real combat function beyond using it to powergame and prevent any substantial response from the station.

I've addressed these sort of points in the main post, and I disagree with this take.

I've had a lot of fun cucking Awra Nixon in their attempts to keep tabs on NT's phoron capacity. I endorse Nope63.

BYOND Key: SueTheCake Staff BYOND Key: ShesTrying Game ID: b78-cUzY Reason for complaint: I'd like to start off by saying this is in no way intended to be a shot at ShesTrying or a complaint seeking punitive action against them. They were nothing but cordial to me in ahelps and I have no issue with them or how they personally conducted themselves, rather I have issue with the ruling I was given. I latejoined into a merc round as a visitor, not knowing it was a merc round, and arrived to a station in chaos. An officer, Rhea Haze, was brought into medical and Captain Avery Dawkins put out a request for people with a medical background to try and help, which I did. I arrived, was cleared for operation and tried to fix Haze to the best of my abilities. At the time, there was but a nurse and no surgeon or other specialized medical staff alive to my knowledge. The only surgeon I saw, Wu, arrived later, and I immediately stopped treating the patient to defer to their expertise. It was then that I was bwoinked and questioned about performing surgery. Ultimately, the ruling was made that because my character is employed as a CSI, I am not able to touch living people. I vehemently disagree with this ruling for the reasons I will soon lay out, but I would like to say I distinctly remember this being discussed before and permitted in emergency situations, which it was. Ultimately, I have no proof to substantiate this claim and nothing in my notes, so I don't expect my word to be taken at face value. However, I would like to point out: 1) My character is more than qualified. I put specific effort into my character's education to make them as realistic as possible, all things considered. Formal Education History: - 2443 - GED Equivalent from NanoTrasen Corporate Academy, Biesel - 2443 - TCBSL Certification from NanoTrasen Corporate Academy, Biesel - 2446 - Certification from NanoTrasen Security Academy (Cadetship) - 2450 - Bachelor's Degree in Forensic Science, Minor in Anatomy from District 5 Community College, Biesel - 2458 - Doctorate of Medicine Degree from University of Mendell City, Biesel My character attended medical school with the express purpose of finding work as a medical examiner. It isn't the forensic science that is her specialization, it is forensic pathology, which is the investigation into the cause of death in criminal cases post-mortem. In order to actually be qualified to perform autopsies or even work as a medical examiner, you are required to have a doctorate of medicine degree. Eight years of education and a residency, which the company paid partly for, is the end result. This is why the character remains with NanoTrasen instead of working for, you know, Mendell PD or something - school debt. Lots of it. Crippling debt. This character is intended to be a Zhan who tried very hard to break free of the stigma of being a Zhan (unga brain) but in the process is basically going to be slaving away for NT forever because of student debt. A doctorate of medicine degree with an anatomy specialization is sufficient to perform surgery. Surgeons require a doctorate of medicine and then pursue their surgery specialization during their residency - again, something most medical examiners are required to do. This is not unrealistic or not founded in reality. 2) It was not my intention to deprive medical of roleplay. I do not play my character as a medical character because it is not what they're intended for. Their career is in forensic pathology but they are trained, qualified, and performed a hands-on residency that would allow them to know surgery. I don't waltz into medical to steal patients from the characters there - it was an emergency situation, someone was dying, and the medical team had no surgeons. When Mako Wu arrived eventually and we were discussing what had happened, they told me flat out if I had not taken the steps I did, Haze would have died and they'd have nothing to do but to bag them as a result. Medical characters who are surgeons, to my knowledge, don't require any kind of specialization. They're surgeons. Cardiovascular surgeon or neurosurgeon are not alt-titles of the surgeon job. I think it's a little bit of a double standard, here, to take my character who is fundamentally qualified to perform surgery and say no given the context of an emergency situation with no medical staff actually on shift to stop someone from dying. And even then, in treating Haze, I didn't do it perfectly, and deferred to a surgeon when they arrived. I'd like to reiterate, it is not my intention and never was to deprive medical of roleplay. No qualified personnel were available. EDIT: I was informed that Mako Wu was, in fact, on station, but trying to yank a bomb out of someone on the same time so there were still no qualified personnel available. I, personally, did not know this at the time. Ultimately, I just want to be told flat out whether this is okay or not. I don't personally see the logic here, given I have written the employment records to accurately reflect these qualifications, and I don't see the logic behind 'you're educated to do it, but a CSI so you can't'. I've laid out my reasoning for doing this to begin with, and considering how much leeway is given to antags who are janitors that know how to build bombs and hack the AI all of a sudden it seems to be an intensely confusing double-standard here that characters with education and history grounded in real qualifications are being shut down when they attempt to contribute to the narrative without the big red R for Roleplayer by their sprite. Here are the full employment records, for reference.

Four mercs are more than enough match for a full security team, please do not arbitrarily stack more.

You should let me know if them slots open up b0ss.

Reporting Personnel: Ana Roh'hi'tin Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Crime Scene Investigator (picked up a shift during this incident as security officer) Game ID: b7N-ahgR Personnel Involved: - Bastien LaFlemme, Captain: Offender - Stephen Yates, Trauma Physician: Offender - NSS Aurora, ISD: Offender Time of Incident: Unknown Real Time: 11:00~ Central Time, 6/22/2020 Location of Incident: NSS Aurora Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [X] - Neglect of Duty [ ] - Harassment [ ] - Assault [X] - Misconduct [ ] - Other _____ (Place an x in the box that applies. If other, replace line and specify.) Overview of the Incident: This one woke up from cryo to hear that Max Judge, cargo technician, had died during the course of the shift. She later found out that he evidently overdosed on drugs in the bathrooms. A funeral was held for him in the holodeck; his corpse was dragged around in a body bag and was presumably not prepared by a mortician for viewing. By scouring station announcements, and from the Captain's own input, this one learned that Max Judge was 'coerced' (the Captain's words) into committing suicide by the Head of Personnel Amaya Stone, who presumably had gone to cryo before this one woke up. Equally, there were suggestions that Miss Stone had 'stolen' money from Max Judge. The Captain announced this over communications. At no point was this death properly investigated. Medical illegally took custody of the body and Mr. Yates evidently performed an autopsy he lacked the qualifications to do. An active CSI was aboard; medical members are not trained to perform paralegal autopsies, and Mr. Judge did not die in medical's care, and even if he did his death was a security issue, so there was no need for a clinical autopsy. This autopsy data was then not shared with security, and the body was never examined by investigative staff. The evidence at shift's end consisted entirely of a blood sample taken from the cadaver and nothing more; security failed in its baseline duty to investigate workplace deaths. At no point were these potentially spurious claims made about Head of Personnel Amaya Stone ever investigated; the CSI indicated they believed that Stone used Judge's ID to drain his bank account, but his ID was never checked for fingerprints or fibers and during his corpse's illegal handling by medical they proceeded to lose his ID and PDA. At no point did the Captain or security elect to look at the account database for confirmation of this theft or to see if any stolen credits were transferred; they all assumed Miss Stone was guilty and publicly slandered her without a shred of evidence beyond an account statement by Max Judge showing someone had taken his money. In light of these failings, this one attempted to begin a proper investigation after Mr. Judge's funeral, but Mr. Yates refused to respond to any inquiries about the location of necessary evidence that would have been on Mr. Judge's body. Concluding, security failed to perform its function of investigating workplace deaths properly, and bungled the chain of evidence custody. It is our job to ensure the least culpability for the company in incidents like these, which they could not and did not do. Medical, specifically Mr. Yates, exceeded their official powers by depriving investigative of interaction with the body and by performing an autopsy without the authority or education to do so. The Captain publicly slandered Miss Stone based on nothing but his own feelings, who is a head of staff. In short, this is all a saga that would look very bad in a newspaper, and it should concern company higher-ups about how Command and Security are failing to keep corporate's best interests in mind. Submitted Evidence: Security roster: Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why?: The Captain was involved and a transfer came before any serious response could be handled. Actions taken: Attempted to begin a proper investigation; filed incident report. Additional Notes: In the nearly fifteen years this one has served with NanoTrasen internal security, she has never seen a crewmember death handled so poorly. Max Judge's body was dragged around in a body bag, rotting and decaying while he had a 'funeral' in the holodeck instead of being kept on ice for his actual family members to have an intact body to mourn at a later time. His presence was not necessary; a remembrance could have been held without his corpse, as it was never prepared for viewing to begin with. Thus, it would have started to rot and decay. Freshness is important when morticians at funeral homes prepare corpses for viewing. His family would have standing to sue on this face alone. Internal Security failed in their basic duties of properly investigating the death, apparent fraud, and the Captain provided no leadership or guidance or even cared about this; he publicly shamed Miss Stone without a single bit of evidence regarding her guilt, and his lack of foresight has put the company in potential legal jeopardy if the family of Max Judge decides to involve lawyers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aC2dOwEwkjONRMi5uX99lhYU_p2MlMcAgIjvhkxzZzQ/edit?usp=sharing Google docs is nicer for formatting. Here is my big brain CSI guide, #yolo.

I've observed and taken part in many cult rounds, and inevitably it seems the new meta is to spam the summon ghost rune. This is not very fun to play against for many reasons: 1. Cult ghosts are immune to pain, broken bones, internal organ damage, and practically everything else. 2. Multiple ghosts can be summoned, and the summoner is no longer required to pay a serious price for this. Whereas previously you could only summon one and had to remain on the rune, now you are capable of summoning several and moving with them. Cult ghosts can survive beyond the death of their summoner, as well. 3. Brainmed has made the cult sword stupid. One swipe in the chest and your lungs are broken. Meanwhile, cult ghosts can take an entire laser rifle clip and still survive. This has led to tactics wherein a large amount of ghosts are summoned to wreck all opposition at no risk for the summoners and with no way for the people being attacked to really fight off their summons. People are limited by pain and their bodies actually respond to being stabbed. Cult ghosts do not. They cannot be flashed, stunned, and have way too high health and an abysmal TTK. They are not fun to play against. Also, cult ghosts are apparently immune to having anything embedded in them and cannot be slipped. Why.

I'd also like to mention that Locke told me you were SLF, so your connection to a hostile, radical synthetic liberation group could easily explain the money and the smuggling of the firearm onto the station, as well as your 'allies'. I had photographic evidence of the contraband in your possession. I had my friend in robotics fixing Ticket, and as he turned himself in, he was not a threat like you were as the orchestrator of his malfunctioning. I knew it was you who did it, too, as during your whole interaction with Ticket I had a circuit device in my pocket translating your robot language. We had so much evidence against you being behind so many things. I really don't like the meta-clique insinuation. When you knowingly target characters with friends and connections (be it mine or anyone else's) you shouldn't cry foul when those connections are used in their defense. It is your job as an antagonist to anticipate these relationships, as you did with Locke and Aubrey. This is a heavy roleplay server, where relationships are forged over long periods of time. It is a risk you run targeting well-known individuals. I've said my piece, so after this clarification I'll leave it to the admins; I maintain all the roleplay was very fun and IC and above board that round, and I completely disagree with any notion of 'gank' because there was a lot of IC stuff at stake, a ton of escalation behind the scenes, and realistically this situation is no different than security gearing up for 10 minutes to go shoot the wizard - simply because they didn't see all that roleplay doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I was directly involved in this round, as the target you set for Locke. I witnessed you provide him credits. I witnessed you provide him a lethal weapon. I called him out on these things, and it ended in a tense stand-off in Locke's office where myself and Locke roleplayed extensively as he had a gun trained on me. For about twenty or so minutes we went back and forth and eventually I managed to talk him down by reminding him that even if he was being blackmailed, he had friends (myself) to help him, and that if he wanted to rise above the constraints of a machine he would have to make a choice to do the right thing. My words were something like 'a machine does what it is told, but a man chooses'. My character also has connections to Captain Dawkins; they have an old friendship. After the situation was defused I took Locke directly to the Captain and we revealed the blackmailing plot to him. We offered to protect Locke - my character vouched for them, because she and Locke were close partners, and Dawkins as my friend accepted that I vouched for him even in light of the revelation of the blackmail plot. To that end, the Captain permitted us to use the ion to effect a detainment of you, but it was unspoken that your character was going to get their just desserts for everything that you did. Locke and I understood that allowing you to live put the information you had on him at risk. So, you were killed. Your actions caused plenty of roleplay that round. Had I not been able to count on Dawkins as a character friend, Locke would have killed me. Make no mistake, I sat there with his gun aimed at me for a very long time trying to talk to him and prevent my death. We had a lot of roleplay, and I believe Locke acted as best he could in that situation. Ultimately, because of your blackmailing and the threats you made against him and his friends, we chose not to detain you. Had he not used the ion, I had the revolver you gave him and a lethal weapon and I would have assisted him in killing you. You did try, in essence, to kill my character, who is a known anti-synthetic. Security was cool with it because I purposely helped Locke cover it up. The Captain was aware of what was happening. This was a direct result of your actions in that round, and I believe all of this was totally IC. In fact, I had a lot of great roleplay that round spurred by you as the catalyst, so I am honestly a bit confused at this complaint. A ton of roleplay happened as a result of your actions - you just didn't see it, and it it was in no way RDM. It as planned.

Lore devs are in charge of lore. My concern is game mechanics. Lore should not dictate mechanics; it is a game at its core and balance is necessary. If the lore says Tajaran are immortal that would be an awful mechanic to implement just because it was written that way. I am absolutely entirely unconcerned about Diona lore, it's their ridiculous game mechanics that leave a bad taste in my mouth. Equally I don't know why you think me choosing not to sneak this discussion way into DMs when a public topic has been made is some heinous crime. I don't think anyone made this topic as a BM to Yon or Cael. They are just as capable as reading this topic as anyone else. Why have this forum at all, just contact code devs personally with suggestions? Honestly.

I'd like to also point out that Vox were removed for really adding nothing to the game and having a bunch of broken dumb mechanics. I'm in the camp of 'Diona don't really add anything'. I don't want to get into Nonno's weird tangent about incapacitating - that is not security's only job. If a Diona has a lethal weapon and has used it or is threatening to use it, they will be met with lethal force. Anyone who thinks stunning a man wielding a revolver is a good idea does not understand the use of force pyramid. If Diona are to remain, they need to be fixed. Their health and hardiness needs to be lowered, and they need their click delay back. There was a period of time where there was at least a two or three second click delay on Diona making their place in combat roles like security or merc less tenable because of how slow they were. Now there's nothing restricting Diona from going ham which goes against how they're supposed to be; Diona shouldn't be reacting immediately to things or blind-firing assault rifles down the hallway. Mechanically enforce their slowness by having a delay on them attempting to click on anything, make them susceptible to Plant-B-Gone again, and reign in their obscene health functionality.

Blood magic is a dumb copout. They should expend blood for this magic then, as Carver said.

Vampire bites should inflict brute damage to the person's head; it's just really weird sinking sharp teeth into someone's carotid artery does nothing and causes no bleeding after they're done feeding. The person should, I feel, still keep bleeding after they're done feeding. I also feel like the vampire should have their clothing soaked in blood. It's by no means a completely clean affair, as shown in numerous vampire flicks. At the very least, add vampire bites to the autopsy data so if they drain someone fully there's something there. Changelings have it worse in that when they kill someone it leaves a unique autopsy finding. Why should vampires be different?

BYOND Key: SueTheCake Game ID: The one before b65-dBse. Player Byond Key/Character name: Menown Staff involved: Arrow, I think. Approximate Date/Time: 5/9/2020, 5:50~ pm. Reason for complaint: At the end of a long revolutionary round, myself and several other individuals escaped a bioweapon on the station by using a pod. This included Menown's character, Jesse Armstrong, Anya Orlova, a janitor, an engineer in a rig suit, and the warden, as well as me. In the lead up to the pod launching, Menown kept unbuckling my character from their chair with no provocation. This meant that upon the pod launching my character was thrown into a wall and suffered brutal injuries, as by the time the round was ending my character was bleeding out and would have eventually died. After the pod launched and the people inside were thrown about and wounded, and while trying to deal with said wounds, Menown proceeded to open the pod's airlock and eject everyone out into space except for the janitor, myself, the warden, and the engineer, saved by buckling and magboots respectively. This then lead to the further deaths of the warden via suicide as opposed to pressure and the janitor as he began to run out of air. I would have bled out shortly after, meaning that in a pod of 7 people, Menown killed themselves and five others. Only the engineer was unharmed and would have survived. I asked Menown why he did this. His response was that his 'character was hot and wanted some air'. I am making this complaint because I was told the end administrative decision was a 'severe warning'. I do not feel this is appropriate. Several players died as a result of this, and Menown was not an antag. A sane and mature character does not open an escape pod airlock mid flight to get some air because they know on the other side is space. Five people (and themselves) were killed by Menown and I'm not convinced a warning is sufficient. I believe if it was a new person to the server who tried to use the same response, they would have suffered a harsher punishment. Menown toes the line constantly with silly antics that mostly kill themselves, but in this case I don't think it was acceptable and was fully against the rules. Someone who has been here as long as Menown has should know better.

My major concern with your train of thought, Skull, is that you're way too focused on the 'game' aspect of this. What are we? Are we a heavy roleplay server, or are we a light roleplay server? Are we going to throw away logical and realistic roleplay in favor of gameyness? You're asking people like me to make a choice between playing a game and roleplaying. If I wanted to play SS13 as a game, I'd go to Goon, where there's no expectation of anything serious having to come out of my mouth. I, personally, do not see any issue in these 'problems' you've mentioned. Yes, security can have a stranglehold on things. This is, by your own admission, a realistic turn of events given their role on the station. There is nothing wrong with that. Are you telling me that somebody joining as cargo tech because they want to print knives and stab antagonists is perfectly okay, and we're being overbearing by not allowing gun-toting mercenaries to run rampant and shoot at people so everyone can have their 'sit in the corner and cower' RP they so desperately want? The issues you're stating here are the security department's job at the most basic logic level. Strange person shows up on high security research station - > who dis. My perspective as a security player in the face of all these changes is that they appear to be malicious attempts to browbeat us with no regard for how they personally affect our own gameplay or roleplay, wielding the opinion of the 'majority' as your god-given shield to blunt any type of criticism. I'm sure if you look at it from a purely gameplay perspective, forcing us all to sit in our department offices with no radio, in the dark, it might make things easier on the antagonists. But as a player, I can tell you that it is not going to be fun to do this. It is not going to be enjoyable. You are asking security, its players, and by extension me to make this supreme sacrifice of going AFK in my office so the poor antags can have a chance. No other department is forced to do this. But if I want to see any of my officer friends, they have to basically ask permission to even go anywhere because I have no illusions that people will be eyeballing officers to prevent them from 'coordinating'. If you go to the bar to hang out, "Urist McOfficer, where are you? You're not supposed to leave!" Antags have enough tools at their disposal. They don't need any more chances. I've had to sit through so many arguments about security versus antags for the many years I've been playing SS13, and the tools antags have to use have grown exponentially since 2011. Equally, if people are playing bartender or botanist with the expectation that we need to allow cultists to beat down their door and decapitate them -- this is not a heavy roleplay mindset. I think the reason so many of us are bitter or irritated about these changes, at least in my opinion, is that the heart of what Aurora represents is at stake here. Do we have an expectation of realistic roleplay with believable characters and mature storytelling, or are we just a video game where you sometime write words? I was under the impression heavy roleplay was the former.

Jurors Opt for Death, Not Life in Prison for Captured Smugglers 08.02.2462 Nazir Mo’fazad and his crew should face the death penalty and not a lighter sentence of life in prison, a jury said Wednesday. State prosecutors from the Ministry of Justice had been seeking the death penalty for illegal smuggling linked to the captured crewmen, charging them with transporting weapons and supplies to Hro’zamal and thus enabling remaining rebel cells to continue their futile fight against allied forces. They were also accused of profiteering off the transport and sale of exotic creatures native to Hro’zamal. Just moments after the jury had handed down it’s verdict, Senior Magistrate Muzaam Falal summarily sentenced Captain Mo’fazad and his crew to execution by firing squad for their crimes against the state. He and his co-defendants were found guilty last week, which led to the sentencing phase of the trial today. Captain Mo’fazad was reportedly stunned by the sentencing, and collapsed into his chair in shock when the verdict was read aloud. Captain Mo’fazad’s defense team declined to be interviewed by our reporters. During the trial, Mo’fazad’s lead lawyer claimed that his troubled upbringing - in which his mother and sister were killed in a Republican offensive - left him without the maturity and loyalty that a citizen of the Republic demands. However, State prosecutor Hakim Ch’url painted a much darker picture of the accused, laying full bear the severity of his actions - both against the State, and our citizens. One where the disgraced Captain raped and pillaged and stole to carve out his wretched path with no concern for the consequences of his actions. Representatives for the Ministry of Justice had this to say when asked about the recent uptick in arrests and sentencing for smugglers operating in Hro’zamal’s vicinity: Their executions have not been postponed while the defense team appeals the decision. The Ministry of Justice has asked us to remind citizens that some of Captain Mo’fazad’s crew are still at large after escaping a boarding attempt by the Kosmostrelki. Be on the lookout for Arif Mrrazhughran, Aleksandra Mrrzauraugh and Ruhan Mroven, last spotted in port on the borders of the Srand’marr system. Concerned citizens may find their photos and further information on the Republic’s Most Wanted holonet site.

Not a fan of this in the slightest. What reasoning is there for security to not have maintenance access? Security also has reason to be in the tunnels, considering things like... space carp? A lot of windows are located in... maintenance? Or are we supposed to go let engineers beat them with wrenches and get eaten because something something involving other departments? Like, I'm not gonna have a paramedic lead me around in maint chasing a man with a gun just so they can get shot. That logic is ridiculous.