Boggle08

I can put in quite a lot of time for it, right now. I'm a stage in my life where I have a lot of disposable time to burn. In the initial half of this year, when I was processing the rework, writing lore and contributing here was a fun hobby that I was having to constantly put off due to a busy, disorganized life. This has since changed over the summer, however. If I acquire this position, it will be something that I will really take ownership of. Lore developer is a huge responsibility beyond managing and contributing lore. It is organizing events, managing whitelists, coordinating with others, mediating the occasional dispute, and being a figurehead in the community. If life becomes busy again, I will make time for it. Despite how direct I come off here, it isn't a deal breaker if people interpret things differently than I do. Lore, thematic analysis, and inspiration are not top down. I do not want to institute rigid orthodoxy. I make my fun on the server by trying weird character ideas, or selling whitelist applications off of characters that cross-combine different elements of the setting together. I hope to be inspired by our community as much as I hope to inspire them. In that first section, I was more or less describing the broad trends I see when it comes to how we interact with the material and setting, consciously and unconsciously. My views regarding the setting are shaped from the realizations and perspective of others as much as my own. Getting mired in our own ways is a recipe to make the setting stale. All of my talk regarding these specific thematic elements in our writing will not affect the process of acquiring a whitelist or holding onto it. It is just observation. Purpose could become relevant again, especially given our setting change. Maybe we could tie them together with the hivebots somehow, or even have them show up as an occasional ghost role. I kind of want to make them a little more than just an event faction, even if it ironically means doing another event arc involving them once we're on the space boat. As for the other factions, I could see the trinary branch out into other systems or nations, merely as a consequence of our setting moving away from being Biesel-centric. Regular shells would still be prominent across all of human space, and Biosynthetic shells would initially start off as incalculably rare, and almost exclusively corporate property. Given our setting's current technology level at a macro scale, mass producing synthflesh shells for the domestic or commercial market wouldn't really seem all that feasible initially. Even before these shells are released out, I feel there needs to be technological build up in the form on an organic replaceable parts revolution. The bioshells would be the culmination of this technology. I'm particularly interested in getting something out for The CoC(more specifically, their "federal" government or Xanu), Elyra, Hephaestus, Zeng Hu, maybe Idris's non-ISU/IRU units, and Nanotransen itself. Our setting will get only more pluralistic after the NBT leaves port, and so how these companies and nations handle their IPC's and offer them freedom will become more important. I really enjoy making canonization applications, so the last thing I'll ever do is cockblock proposals out of misguided principle. A lot of interesting ideas come from the community; it's a great way for people to get really invested in the server and get their feet wet with contributing. The way this department has handled and integrated them in the past has shown me that lore flows bottom up as much as it does top down. Aurora is a collective community project foremost, and so is our lore. The lowest Nadir of our setting will not dominate the lore. Severe levels of destitution or slavery, the cruelty of contracting companies, and Burzsia are in a lot of respects optional elements of our setting that players choose to opt into and impose upon their characters. Making the lore too tyrannical and controlling absolutely destroys character variety. All of the evil elements of our setting are neatly contained within their respective spheres, as they should be. The opposite end of this spectrum is designing characters or lore with the deliberate intention of negating all of the trials and tribulations synthetics must face in our setting; Happily ever after is hardly compelling, and is liable to make things stagnant, in my view. Some struggles must be universally shared or considered, while more severe elements are up to the discretion of the user. All that being said, I don't think we have much cause to make our setting more dark for machines than it already is. In fact, I sort of want to expand upon free positronics, how they acquire the means from their parent corporation if applicable, and the path to citizenship from nations that offer it.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Boggle08 (Discord key: GrandMasterChef) Position Being Applied For: (Wiki Maintainer, Lore Developer, Deputy Lore developer): IPC Lore Developer Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes. Past Experiences/Knowledge: I am presently in college for an English major. Reading and Writing is my passion and purpose in life, and something I have done ever since I was 18 months old. In high-school, I've led projects in the Technology Student Association, and therefore posses a history when it comes to collaborative projects involving programming and sprite-work. Prior to discovering HRP on SS13, I spent my time on a now-defunct ARK Survival Evolved HRP server, and have always maintained an interest in role playing games similar to here and on the table top. I have contributed planetary/IPC lore to this server in the past, which I will link below. Examples of Past Work: IPC lore as it is: IPC lore is in a particularly healthy place right now. Most of the questions regarding their hardware or "rules" have been defined and settled, and the lore we've given for them is exceptionally chunky; owing to their relevance and associations with broader science fiction, they have many avenues for character direction or narrative exploration from the perspective of a player. Underneath all that is written for them, I see broader themes for the search of purpose and belonging; Rootlessness clashing with fate that's been preordained by others. Nearly every faction in our setting has a take on where synthetics belong, and synthetics themselves rest in the center, left figure it out if they are able. Nothing about these thematic conditions should change, as it is a wellspring of conflict for synthetics, at both the small and large scale. Our responsibility as lore people is to propose our setting to the player base in such a manner that they can think deeply on it, catching upon the broad themes and setting elements and work with them. In the context of IPC lore, this would be asking those questions of fatalism, rootlessness, belonging, and purpose through our material, and then the players giving an answer, a subversion, or a refutation through their characters. There is nothing that egregiously needs to be fixed, meaning that we are in a prime state for us to expand upon our setting, To ask different questions, in a way. It is my hope that I can provide some. What the future entails, and what I would like to change: NiennaB ran a tight ship regarding plans for the future, looking over past announcements(in particular the roadmap), there is still much to be completed that was initially proposed. For the most part, this roadmap will carry over into my tenure. I have ideas in particular for how Biosynthetic shells can progress into our setting, especially regarding the potential cross-applicability of the technology that would be required to make them. One thing I am certainly interested in expanding on is the Golden Deep. Introducing some cultural elements, internal beliefs, and a little bit of factionalism would do them nicely. Of course, this would done in such a manner that it would not be at the expense of the Deep's unknown, secretive quality. There will be no excessive de-mystifying. The issue with them is that there's a little bit too much unknown. I think with the approach of the NBT comes the concern of how characters on the ship will be able to reasonably maneuver towards a path to citizenship, and all of the intricacies and clauses when it comes to that. Many corporations and organizations involving IPC's can give a definitive flat "no" on the matter of freedom, but the ones that can potentially grant freedom to their machines need clarification. This could be complicated further as the ship moves between borders, or if it projects it's own sovereignty as it travels. I hope to at the very least have consensus and a basic plan by the release of the NBT. Additional Comments: Comments and questions are very much appreciated.

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Rework Describe this proposal in a single sentence (12 word maximum): Improvements for IPC characters from Burzsia. How will this be reflected on-station? These revisions alter a core element of Burzsia's lore for IPC's, and grant additional supplementing information in regards to character concepts and background information for them. Essentially, it will give players more to work with. Does this faction/etc do anything not achieved by what already exists?: My intent with these revisions are to flesh out the Burzsiean method without violating the rules of the setting, and increase the character variability for Burzsiean IPC concepts. Some material has also been added regarding Burzsia's supply chain. Why should this be given to lore developers rather than remain player created lore?: This significantly alters how the Burzsiean method itself works, which is one of the large central elements of the star system's design. Such a thing cannot remain player canon. Do you understand that if this is submitted, you are signing it away to the lore team, and that it's possible that it will change over time in ways that you may not forsee? Yes. Additional notes: Each section I have modified from the wiki is in the linked document below; the text highlighted in yellow denotes the new material I have written for the page. Long Description: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11jWCEkJN1oKZitFtSzadLdCvBiZ69PmkIStNHEXZqHM/edit?usp=sharing

I like Danse's take on the crew armory. It actually isn't very hard to get your hands on good weapons on the aurora as it stand now, between people loading up from the existing armory, ordering from cargo, using the protolathe, or even just building makeshift. If we get an emergency armory, it should exist as an intermediary that doesn't make the crew absolutely defenseless, or buys them time to get a better weapon and organize. This is a small thing, but in addition to removing departmental break rooms, we should place a lot of focus on having every department having a lobby, and that lobby being designed to function as a micro-social hub. Medical and the kitchen are fantastic examples of this, because the workers of said departments have their workstations jutting out into the public area, and the public area itself surrounds the work area in an L or U shape, creating an effect where it's easier to face towards and talk to more people. Like a circular table. On highpop, where there is a chef and a barkeep, more congregate around the kitchen. On lowpop, where there is no service at all, The medical lobby becomes popular to all people. I think how I feel about exploration will change as we accrue more away sites and mechanics, but I really want science to be heavily involved in some way with these. The entire department, as it is now, is the same powergaming mechanic dispenser that classic space station 13's always had. The difference is that there's no plan for it right now, and it's been gutted and defanged through a mix of PR's and policy. It isn't fun or rewarding. I would not really miss science in it's current state if we only ported over full research robotics to the new ship. As of now, and only as of now, I feel like reorienting science around away-site missions and anomalies is a step in the right direction. Perhaps even having it so specific research levels/types require anomaly testing in order to unlock.

Security definitely has a place here, without question. Command can't regulate the station without them. The corporate law might as well be toilet paper if we removed them. From a setting and lore standpoint, it makes perfect sense and incentive for our soon-to-be spacefaring ship to have asset and crew protection. It's a crucial part of maintaining the HRP atmosphere. From a gameplay standpoint, they are still unhealthy. We do not have a problem with security and command players being psychologically wired to be dicks that keep all the fun in a box away from everyone else, the design of the game and In-Character incentives encourage the playstyle. Isolate, Control, and Contain will generally be the motto of a station with a healthy, well staffed command and security department. Keep the station together, Keep the crew from dying. Exceptions exist outside of this framework, but the station is in perpetual orbit of this meta-outlook. I generally follow this outlook whenever I play command. Because all of our gamemodes are geared towards direct physical violence, and our station crew generally observes and respects the regulations/chain of command, we have this paradigm. When it breaks down, you suddenly get a game that includes more of the crew in the action. I know we're HRP, but some of the most engaging times I've had on the aurora came from cult, revolution, and revenant rounds where everything goes to shit and command/sec throw away the regulations in favor of just trying to weather the round and survive. It's surprising how the hatred against sec instantly evaporates when people get to stand shoulder to shoulder with them to tackle a dangerous problem neither could've taken care of on their own. Besides introducing gamemodes that are more balanced around other departments/not violence, Like Zundy suggested, we should also consider the implementation of systems that include the crew into more of the round's shenanigans. New gamemodes are a good idea, but they require coding, time, testing, and investment from someone. Inclusive policy changes only require just that; policy changes. We need security, and command, to say "No" less often. New policy aboard the NBT sounds like it will dabble into this. Unreliable ERT summons coupled with a potential new system and infrastructure for crew militias means that command will have more incentive to levy from the rest of the crew instead of summoning a thematically uninvolved kill team to mop up the problem. For this, I hope the policy regarding militia operation revolves around a dichotomy of department crew holding their workstations in a static defense, and occasionally some joint operations with the remainder of the ISD whenever it is deemed situationally necessary. The militia should be there to help supplement or even directly contribute numbers to security, and their default equipment should focus more on keeping them alive and less on killing. Anything with a magazine larger than 1 needs to be in pistol cartridge. Anything larger than a pistol caliber should be a single-shot breach loader, or if we're feeling really generous, bolt action. To finish and summarize up my thoughts before this post gets more bloaty than it already is: I don't think every round should be oriented around direct conflict and violence, and more of our round design in the future should be interesting without needing the classic idea of an "antag". I don't think we should exclusively blame command and security for the way they act, when our rounds are designed as they are. I think that security should still be the first and primary means of dealing with violent gimmicks and antags, because it makes sense. I anticipate the potential for a militia system, only because almost all of our gamemodes are designed for, and often create, violent outcomes.

There's actually a complete list of what works and what doesn't somewhere in the repo. I remember the list being very small, and very stingy. Most of the junk items don't sell, so there's no utility there either.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Boggle08 Discord Name: GrandMasterChef Position Being Applied For: Unathi Lore Deputy Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page: Yes Past Experiences/Knowledge: I'm in education for an English major right now. Prior to this, I dedicated most of highschool specializing into computer science, but it didn't really work out. I did lead a few projects for a STEM club relating to programming. I can read code, and am in the slow process of figuring out github. I've always had a fixation on worldbuilding and fiction regardless; I have pages and pages or art and design documentation for ideas and concepts I've created in my spare time, but never actuated. Prior to the Aurora, I've had experience roleplaying on HRP Ark Survival Evolved servers, at least five. I've participated in table-top RPG's, but never GM'd. Examples of Past Work: I've contributed Burzsia I also have my Unathi, Dionae, and IPC whitelist applications, if you need more direct examples of my writing ability. Additional Comments: I have everything in a google doc. It's a three parter, discussing the structure of unathi lore and what I would like to achieve, Some miscellaneous ideas of what I might contribute in the future, and the writing exercise requested by the lore developer: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IYzdcyFBC0X1xJGk9M2nxEXfStoBJQR-FGWjPkHEnAQ/edit?usp=sharing

I keep my antag prefs off because there's such an inflated expectation from the people who play regularly to create a decent gimmick, be robust enough to pull it off, and involve everyone. If you are very successful, people talk about it for 30 minutes after the round ends and then it goes straight into the memory hole, because it isn't canon. Your effort is fucking gone and swept away. If you fuck up, or never escalate because you got drafted with no idea, you get treated to people grading your performance like you were a piece of meat that wasn't cooked to their liking. The effort isn't worth it because it just poofs away. When we design this new gamemode system, we need to design it for the lowest common denominator. People who are unrobust, have no fucking gimmick or direction, are terrible at improvisation, or maybe are even completely new to the server. Maybe, we can have lots of heavily prefabricated setups and motivations for you to choose from, more so than selecting a few faction gun and armor boxes in the uplink. I'm noticing a trend for our antag picks, they don't seem confident at all about what they should do, sticking to their gimmick, or even escalating. We need a structure or support system that can help turn around bad rounds. The Ghost role system works wonders. It leads to interesting scenarios as multiple events and ghost-types spawn in and emergently bash into each-other along with the gamemode selected. It was one of my favorite parts of the Sol arc, because it gave other job departments besides sec something to do, and it made rounds unpredictable. It is by no means a cure-all for our gamemode's ailments, but it is a component that should be integrated and developed for our future system, I feel. I don't think making everything canon is a cure-all either, and our current rules for canonization are pretty solid. Whenever people talk about our gamemode designs, I get the impression that most people just want more staff ran event rounds, or at least something similar in structure to that. There's a thread similar to this one talking about gamemode concepts, and someone's already suggested a pseudo player controlled game master for this purpose. I'm not against the idea, I just have concerns about there being a greater dependency on staff being available, and even more demanding expectations on players who boot in to manage these pseudo events. Events work because things have been preplanned out by the lore team, everyone shows up on the date requested, and there's enough staff and players to make things work. You get optimal conditions because a time and date is put out. If we want to develop a system for player ran pseudo-events, we have to keep in mind that there won't always be staff, there won't always be a roster, and there won't always be optimal, preplanned conditions. Especially given that you're going to be randomly drafted into these roles, unless that eventually changes. Whatever solution is developed, It isn't going to be one idea or PR that magically makes everything better. Creating a gamemode system that is self sustaining whilst mediating everyone's interests and reasons for playing will take time and testing until the final product reveals itself. We should ponder the trees before we can see the whole forest, we should start with small, constituting elements of our round design before a massive overhaul happens.

I think I remember several months ago Skull musing over the idea of phasing in more ghost roles to help supplement and/or replace our current antag-oriented round structures, and this whole event feels like a prototype run of that idea in action. I haven't played enough rounds to give feedback that can reflect the entire finale arc, but the business of ghost roles is something I think works. The way they're structured and designed means that sec doesn't have a monopoly on interaction with them, which has been a common complaint in the past. It also takes a lot of pressure off of "antag" roles to keep the crew engaged; I feel like being an antag often entails that you and a handful other people have to come up with a decent gimmick, be robust enough to pull it off without getting shitstomped by the ISD at the wrong time, somehow getting a decent chunk of what could be a +50 crew manifest engaged in the action, and somehow doing all of that for two hours. Fucking up in too many of those fields, in my experience, leads to LOOC, deadchat, and Discord all grading your performance like you were a piece of steak that wasn't cooked to their liking. But with these ghost roles, "antags" don't have to carry rounds by themselves, they don't even need gimmicks that last the whole round and can end early, and I've even seen ghost events bash into antag gimmicks to create interesting scenarios. My one ghost-event related complaint right now is against the Coalition Resupply event: The Rangers aren't obligated to have an internal chain of command, It's fuzzy if they adhere to the Aurorastation's command structure, and they usually end up terrorizing anyone that has an accent or nationality they don't like. All they get is a spawn-in blurb that tells them "you are supposed to be a helpful agent aboard the station." It doesn't help that The coalition resupply is a 6-8 man team replete with RIG's, armored voidsuits, and Gauss thumpers. In a worst case scenario, they end up being too numerous and well equipped to say no to, far too caught up in their own rapture to listen, and are held accountable to no one. Managing them can be fun, but having it be like Syndie-Con every time they show up makes them less "helpful agents" and more "station liability".

1) The Gestalt is set heavily in it's Th'akh ways. The Continuity has placed a lot of burden upon itself regarding the death of Ulzka and continuing his legacy. Being on Moghes exacerbated dissociative traits within The Continuity, and so it had to leave in order to pursue it's quest with clarity. On Biesel, however, the methodical, unavoidable hum of the spire serves as a continual, omnipresent opponent to the faith and conviction of The Continuity. It remains extremely hesitant to merge with other gestalts, moreso than others, for fear of losing sight of it's quest, and views the enthusiastic followers of The Eternal as a test of patience at best. 2) Not actually anything formal or official like a degree, yet. OOCly, this is because I don't actually know enough about Pharmacist to put the gestalt into the role right from the get-go. Through the IC context of this character, it's because it never actually had formal training in medicine, only what it could gather from the siphoning of Ulzka's blood and his ramblings. Which is quite a lot, but nothing tangible like a degree or university time. The Gestalt is still interested in healing, however, and it will pursue a career in medicine to that end. Nanotransen was made aware of The Continuity's aptitude with medicine very early, and decided to partially subsidize it's formal education/training. However, all of this is if only if I'm allowed to job-hop between pharmacist and Shaman. If I can't do it, The Continuity will likely remain as a Shaman, except with enough knowledge to behave like a Physician that can't do surgery. 3) The Continuity's upbringing and the circumstances of it's creation have led to it to being able to relate much more with Unathi in general. The entire gestalt actually goes out of it's way to mimic Unathi body language(Literally extending a portion of the gestalt behind the Continuity for a tail thump, as an example), and adheres to general honor and cultural customs of the species. It is fervently Th'akh, having spent a decent chunk of it's life literally being a shaman's leg. It remains cordial yet aloof with other clusters, and if it were to ever merge or fraternize with another cluster, it would only be with one from it's clan: Dorviza.

BYOND Key: (Boggle08) Character Names: Markos Rakt Tankred Horace Thratch Norman Species you are applying to play: Unathi What color do you plan on making your first alien character: GREEN. Like a good forest green. Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Why do you wish to play this specific race: I find the setting for Unathi to be very interesting. I like the religious elements to their lore, as well as all of their concept of honor and various traditions. I was initially turned off to Unathi by the fact that their lore for the most part exists in a vacuum outside of the broader themes and narratives presented through much of human lore. However, after reading most of the wiki for this race, I feel like the information for Unathi is extremely optimized for interesting and fun character concepts. The Wasteland in particular is my favorite. I liked the lore so much here, I'm actually using to sell a Dionae application, which I will link in notes as supplementary material. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Displays of emotion and cultural/spiritual incentives are what make unathi different from humans. The internal monologue or psychology of unathi is not specified in-lore, and from what I have discerned from talking to the lore maintainers on the matter, the differences between them and humans in this regard is inconsequential. Therefore, cultural incentives and values sit at the forefront of an Unathi's mind: Tradition, honor, and religion. The Contact war also has a massive impact when it comes to unathi characters: any character realistically aboard the Aurora has to have been affected by the war due to the closeness of the dates. The unique expressiveness of Unathi is also a nice addition to the species. While it doesn't make them totally alien, it introduces that friction of incompatibility that is important when it comes to designing alien races. Character Name: Grastorza Kathagamataz Please provide a short backstory for this character Before the bombs fell, the Karkakahan Clan existed. It was a a proud clan of metallurgists, industrial craftsmen, and engineers. This clan foundry was situated in a bustling Izweski mill town, primarily Sk'akh, and several hours away from the closest major city by truck. Grastorza was hatched to this clan in 4630, the youngest of four brothers and three sisters. Despite being female, she was shown to have an aptitude for machinery. Her father, a man known for being more shrewd than traditional, allowed her to exercise and grow her talents in in secret alongside her womanly duties. Mechanisms and workshop quota began to flow out from the back of Father Karkakahan's workshop over time, inscribed with the letter G in addition to his usual mark. The rest of the village thought none the wiser, and the trucks that would come by to collect the village's product cared little so long as quotas were fulfilled. When the bombs fell in 4639, the closest city was struck, brightening the day and shaking the earth. Realizing what had happened, the mill town began to rapidly pack everything up and move before the fallout could truly affect them. The Karkakahan Clan took the initiative, organizing everyone and everything they could carry into a caravan of vehicles. Travelling from town to town, they added more vehicles, people, and resources to their growing convoy. Though Grastorza was little, she was given the responsibilities and expectations of a man, fixing tractors and trucks so that the caravan would move. Once the caravan numbered 50 strong, they did the only thing they could think to do: Move their caravan through the wastes, east in the direction of the Izweski Capital, Skalamar. Little did they know, they were travelling through dangerous regions. Those who would be later known as The Punished saw the Izweski banner at the front of the motor train, and set themselves upon it. The caravan repelled the attack, but at grievous cost: half of their own were dead, and they were down to 34 vehicles. Grastorza lost two brothers and a sister in the attack. When the convoy reached the walls of Skalamar, They were asked to camp outside. An official from the Hegemony government rushed out to meet them after a month of uneasy waiting, and informed them that the government had a new task for them: They were to go out into the wastes, and salvage as much as they could from the dilapidated settlements. The government would pay the convoy a stipend plus the worth of whatever they could bring back. Weary from their journey, the "council" of individuals heading the caravan insisted to stay, only for the official to inform them that they had no choice, and there was nowhere for them to go or work in Skalamar regardless. With no alternatives besides dishonor, the convoy accepted a hefty initial payment from the Hegemony and lumbered to the city of To'ha'dat. There, they purchased provisions for their new task. Fuel, weapons, tools, parts, and plating. As a final act of conviction, all members of the convoy, once from different clans, renounced their old lineages and formed one new clan: Kathagamataz. This would be Grastorza's life for the next two decades. From here, Grastorza and her humble clan grew. After one decade, What was once a convoy of armored trucks and sorrowful Unathi had eventually grown into the ideal image of a Reclaimer Clan; replete with a landcrawler and a fleet of armored vehicles and trucks interred within it's bay. Grastorza grew with the clan, her technical expertise proving to be an immense asset to the crew. Concerned primarily with the internal operations of the crawler itself, only herself and four others truly understood the behemoth in it's entirety. Her conventional, womanly duties constantly fell to the wayside in order to meet the engineering demands of the clan. Things continued to prosper for Clan Kathagamataz for five years, before their usual stomping grounds for salvage began to dwindle in supply. The crawler had to cut deeper and deeper into wastes, deeper into danger. After several bad runs and very little salvage to show for it, The Izweski Hegemony revoked their stipend, which was a sign that the clan's way of life was over. Seeing no other recourse, the clan rolled their crawler to the outskirts of To'ha'dat once more, and removed the engine from their crawler. Clan Kathagamataz, still holding together, would join the numerous other laborers working within the city. Some of Clan Kathagamataz joined the masses of unskilled labor, while the more technologically savvy sought out work from the guilds. Grastorza, however, found herself at odds with the social convention of the Izweski: Due to her common birth, no ties to the guild, and the fact that she was a woman seeking a profession deemed unsuitable for her sex, she was turned away from all engineering and machinist guild halls within To'ha'dat. With no other alternatives, Grastorza sought out Hephaestus. She accepted a contract, took a job placement test, and recieved training to become a station engineer. She would be taken off-world, to Tau Ceti. What do you like about this character? I felt like sticking to what I gravitate to when making this character, mostly in regards to her engineering-centric backstory and character concept. On-station, this one will be be optimized for speed running repairs and breach call-outs. Grastorza herself isn't necessarily disdainful of Unathi tradition as much as the backstory would imply, rather, found herself and her clan drifting away from it as a consequence of the contact war. She passively contradicts it, rather than opposes it. Confronting these ideas on station with the character is a good source of conflict and interaction, I feel. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 8/10 on a good day Notes: In my Dionae application, the backstory for it uses the same setting elements, concepts, and themes presented through Unathi lore. It's more focused on the spiritual aspect of it as well:

BYOND Key: (Boggle08) Character Names: Markos Rakt Tankred Horace Thratch Norman Species you are applying to play: Dionae What color do you plan on making your first alien character: N/A Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Why do you wish to play this specific race: I have a character concept I want to explore specifically geared towards Dionae. This concept would be impossible to do using any other whitelisted race we have on the server. Besides this reason, I really like dionae purely on the basis of them being one of the most alien playable races on the server. The psychological wiring of an alien race is what truly makes them alien, as it affects the internal monologue and rationalization of characters beyond whatever cultures have been instilled into them. You can't take the alien out of a dionae, and it doesn't matter what culture you introduce them to or how much you inculcate them into it. It's internal monologue and ways of rationalizing things will always be different. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: The internal monologue of this alien species is drastically different compared to other alien races in the setting. It is perhaps the most different and alien out of the whole bunch. A Dionae cluster is a swirling gestalt of thoughts and ideas, that come together to create a zeitgeist of being. The collective being or ego of a gestalt is an idea formed by the sum of its parts. The Gestalt's sense of self is constantly affected by top down/bottom up variables as well: The Zeitgeist of the gestalt influences the nymphs below it, and the nymphs below it can introduce new thoughts from the bottom up in contrast. This is before you even get into the physical biology of the gestalts themselves. They likely aren't even capable of sexuality, due to their unique internal monologue and the fact that they reproduce gracelessly through asexual budding. Why would such a being require to be capable of romance? Character Name: The Continuity of Ulzka Dorviza Please provide a short backstory for this character: There once was a man named Ulzka Dorviza. Ulzka was an Unathi, A Th'akh Shaman of the Dorviza clan. In life, it became his task to travel from his home settlement to tend to the medical and spiritual needs of remote villages from his clan or otherwise. When he started, Ulzka traveled with a company of warriors to brave the wastes, but as his knowledge of the land and intuition grew, the size of his company shrunk until he began to make treks alone. As years turned into decades, Ulzka accrued a reputation as a local legend, braving the wastes alone, showing up to villages with exactly what they needed, and only leaving once the people were well. The years of dangerous forays into the wild did not leave Ulzka unblemished. Besides chipped horns and scars, in one particularly bad run, Ulzka had to return to his home settlement after getting crushed under a rock-slide, cutting one of his legs out from under the rubble and crawling back on his bare hands. Being a member of the clan Dorviza, his clan mates were able to grant him a Dionae gestalt in the place of a leg, so that he might continue his work in the wastes. This small gestalt became a treasured companion to Ulzka, as much as it was extension of his being. He would allow the gestalt to siphon blood from his leg-stump, and would monologue to it in the long journeys between settlements. His final journey was spurred under dire circumstances. One of the villages furthest from Ulzka's home sent signals into the sky, requesting help for a massive plague, and a shaman to perform burial rites. Once more, Ulzka readied his provisions, and journeyed into the scorched outback. The skies were clear, and the wastes were silent, save for the wind. About midway through his journey, thunder echoed through the wastes, but there were no clouds. Ulzka hit the ground, and blood began to pool from his midsection. A rush of footsteps followed, and Ulzka felt his pack ripped from him. He never knew who killed him. As the life faded from Ulzka, he rolled onto his back and looked to the gestalt affixed to where his leg once was. With pleading eyes, he begged the gestalt to continue his mission, no matter the cost. Every nymph in the gestalt shifted their gaze towards the dying shaman and the collective spoke it's first words before Ulzka finally died: "It shall be so." Thereafter, the Gestalt affixed to his leg decoupled itself from his nervous system, and began to tear into his flesh. In the end, Ulzka Dorviza was no more, and a new being reared it's facsimile head to the sun, beginning anew it's old master's journey. Armed with the knowledge it had absorbed from it's host over the span of decades, The Continuity of Ulzka Dorviza completed it's journey, healed the sick, and buried the dead. When it returned to the Dorviza settlement, however, it was met with mixed reception. Although Gestalt had managed to complete Ulzka's quest, it potentially might have damned the venerable shaman spiritually: He was not given a proper Th'akh burial, and the consumption and internment of his body within the gestalt was borderline desecration, even if it was the final wish of Ulzka. Due to these spiritual uncertainties, a compromise was made. Because the Gestalt fulfilled the shaman's dying wish and completed his quest, it would be allowed to continue Ulzka Dorviza's legacy, being allowed to carry his name and remain as a member of Clan Dorviza. However, due to the egregious breach of tradition, The gestalt was banished from Ulzka's old home, never to return. With the dead shaman's old understanding of Th'akh, the gestalt was also tasked with bringing peace to Ulzka's soul. The Gestalt resolved to wander through the wastes, in much the same way Ulzka once did. As it wandered, it's sense of identity grew muddled and confused. Sometimes, it would imagine the presence of the dead shaman. Other times, it thought it WAS the dead shaman. After months of enduring this cognitive obstacle, the gestalt decided to leave Moghes, in the hope of finding peace for itself, and perhaps Ulzka. After one very awkward visitation to a Nanotransen recruitment center, The Continuity of Ulzka Dorviza would begin a new chapter of it's existence in Biesel. What do you like about this character? I wanted to make a Dionae that is grounded into the setting, and invested in the doings of other organic life. I wanted to give it strong motivations to participate in civilization, and the obligation it has placed upon itself to continue the mission and legacy of its previous host is just that. As for what job it will do, I want it to show on the station as a Th'akh Shaman, and maaaaybe cross-job into Pharmacist down the line if the admins are ok with it(The gestalt is a Medicine Man, after all). How would you rate your role-playing ability? 8/10 on a good day. Notes: HooH

I cringe every time the poor hydroponicist's nutri-vend breaks whenever engineering is busy, lazy, or absent during a round, because it entails them losing all of their soil bottles since they break on impact. Since the vending machines start from the top and work their way down, medical probably gets fucked over too, since the dylovene and innaprov bottles are close to the top of the screen IIRC. RBI gives engineering something to do, maybe just having it provide a less intrusive effect would be better. I don't like seeing a department's stock of crucial equipment slowly disappear because it's all stored in glass.

I feel like this could be done just by altering the loot tables in the warehouse to contain more chems that are beneficial to medical, rather than just the lukewarm sea of bicardine, ATK's, stasis bags, and kelotane that I see on a regular basis. The whole point of the warehouse shipments, in my view, is to give cargo busy work that helps other departments by making them more versatile and self sufficient in regards to their material needs. Having that happen automatically is in my view equivalent to having a portion of the warehouse pre-sorted and shipped out to medical. The inconvenience of cargo needing to ship everything out before you have it is the price to pay for the increase in versatility when you have no chemist to brew things. Having everything in medical already makes a department that is infamous for doing nothing but kicking rocks in the warehouse have all the more reason to just kick rocks in the warehouse.

Multitools come out of the plumbing here. They spawn very often in the two tool storages we have, and can be mass produced off of an autolathe. The multitool is a +1 from me, just because it fits what the character is and does, and the object is extremely common. I have seen tools and welding helmets get approval, but they're usually locked off behind a job role. They might rig you up such that the multitool only spawns in your inventory when you play engineering. The coin? It should only be for flavor, and should not be able to fit into any of the vending machines, if you're going to do what I think you're going to do with it.

Rev at its highest apex behaves like a small, self contained noncanon event, with AOOC buzzing with activity about where things should go next. These rounds are typically mixed round types, with merc + rev being the best pair, since the mercs can act as destabilizing agents to force action, are well equipped enough to take on the station, and are versatile to fit the narrative of nearly any gimmick. A lot of our canon events are pretty similar to Merc + rev, come to think of it. Rev is a gamemode that benefits greatly from being mixed into other roundtypes. The other valids can be used to facilitate the progress of the narrative, and therefore, incentivize people to choose sides. Pure rev has the problem of hideous complacency: escalation and manpower is almost completely out of the hands of the rev heads. You can win rev by not playing; saying no to every join prompt, refusing to escalate along with your rev head even if you have a sizable presence on the station. Ignoring the centcomm announcements as they come, growing more servile with each passing update. Four things could potentially be done to remedy this issue, in my view. They do not necessarily have to be all adopted together, this is brainstorming: 1. Remove rev as an unmixed gametype from the secret rotation, due to how people treat the gamemode at a meta level. Having additional antag types back up the rev heads would make it so you can't really ignore them. 2. Introduce new policy regarding converts. Choosing the rev role means that you've now devoted yourself to whatever the rev head is proposing. Similar to how a cult convert has their priorities re-ordered to service nar'sie, a rev will acquire similar, strong convictions to the rev head or whatever ideology/plan they're following. I've seen so many rev rounds where the participants will sign on to a faction yet shirk away once things begin to escalate to violence. 3. What Zundy said, except maybe even include other server-shaking abilities. How about being able to deploy a signal jammer that prevents faxes/distress beacons from being sent, like what we see in canon rounds? 4. Introduce force-conversion tools that can be taken from the uplink, but only once the station has hit a certain % of total crew converted. maybe even expand the concept further and have a whole side progression tree based off of % crew conversion. As for overall goals? Besides whatever gimmick the rev team devises, I think the solution will come with the NBT: When the revolution on the Spaceship has domination over the crew, they will begin working towards some kind of endgame construct, device, what have you, that will conclude the round with the entire corporate fleet going mutinous and turning their allegiances towards whatever gimmick the revs were doing that round. With cute cinematics and shit.

I get what you're putting down, but I dunno about losing out on the spare, because of the dreaded solo command lowpop CBT power hour. That thing is your golden ticket, man. And that's if the antags haven't already decided to swipe it for themselves. Station bounds are a thing, sure, but they're not always on, and they're not always on the station's side. Especially on lowpop. I would be cool about losing the spare if we had a new system in place that encouraged variety in playstyles and antag stratagem, like what you are proposing, but the spare is an immense utility to the crew when we don't have enough command members, stationbounds, or just personnel in general. It's useful even on extended rounds. It is too much utility to lose for both parties without a suitable replacement system.

The rollback would allow people to fit in more lore into the setting pertaining to IPC's, and, as the OP stated, provide a more natural flow for what we currently have within the lore. I do not think this is inconsequential for character backstories at all. I feel a lot of character backstories for IPC's have to be extremely compressed, especially when it comes to the younger models. People are either incapable of not fitting in enough and keep it brief, or they have to stack and overlap events in their backstories in order to cram everything together. On the matter of IPC rights, I do hope that the unique vulnerabilities our robots have in-setting are preserved when the date rollback happens, and that the justification from the powers that be is strong. I'm certain the lore team will account for this, however.

Thanks man, this'll probably remedy my problem, but I really hope we do get the Zelda lock on or "aim intent" down the line as @Myazaki described it. Something accessible and intuitive for new guys or people that don't engage in mechanics/combat enough to commit to making macros. I think the new sight cones have the potential to add a lot of depth to combat or even new mechanics based around such(i.e. turning away from a flashbang to negate some of its effects), but it also has the potential to become a severe injury upon QoL. Aim intent would be a perfect compliment for the new system.

I'm fighting the camera just as much as I am fighting my opponent. I wouldn't mind the vision cones nearly as much if I could actually look at what what I'm doing. I feel like I'm playing 2D Epic Mickey. People pulling sneaky shit and slipping past my vision's fine if I can actually control where I'm looking independent of movement keys. Maybe have It so I just hit a key and then my dude is facing the cursor and strafing. I've been playing a shit ton of Darkwood lately, and the experience is something like that except with terrible controls and latency. And before we put out the vision cones, Fast characters were kind of a meta thing in SS13 related combat. Going fast and not getting hit is better than being slow, getting outmaneuvered, and then getting robusted. Hell, even if you have the advantage as a slow cunt, if you can't out range or trap your opponent, they can simply run away and fight you on their terms. Just the nature of things.

I considered the cones something I would just tolerate until I tried to step into combat with these things PR merged. The "camera" isn't controlled by the player's cursor, and if we had that implemented, that's the only way I could see something like this being feasible. Gun fights, you could probably manage just fine, but melee is a confusing, frustrating exercise where people dart out of your field of vision and hit you in the back of the head before you can react. You can't strike people in your blind spots, you have to click twice in order to look at them, then hit them. It gets worse the faster they are, and the slower you are, since movement speed now controls how fast you can look at things while staying mobile. Now we really can't anticipate what people will do, and when you're lagging to shit, it just makes it worse. Trying to walk around to dodge/fence with someone WHILE attempting to keep your camera/sight on them is a fight in and of itself, and it is never a good thing to have your players fight the camera, in any game. If this came bundled with a mouselook, or maybe even a targeting system like a zelda game or something, this would be better. Right now, it just isn't working out.

Honestly? Construction projects are usually hollow efforts. Most of them start off with a CE backing them, end thirty minutes to an hour after completion, and then get ignored by the entire crew for the rest of the round. There after, the transfer happens, the shuttle sends everyone back to centcomm, and then the server purges your progress. And this is if you don't get interrupted by carp, blobs, or station antaggery. We have so many lounges, break rooms, and hang out spaces, adding another one does not matter. Regardless if we are HRP or not, mechanical complexity is one of the selling points for SS13, and having a mechanically complex engine in a relatively tame server is perfect for mechanical experimentation and exploration. The best part of the SM, and why I think it is superior to our other engines, is it's reliance and interaction with atmos mechanics, allowing for a lot more creativity when it comes to unorthodox coolant setups, pipe reconstruction, delamination strategies, and engine restoration tactics. I really like what you are proposing. If I had a suggestion, it would be to add beneficial effects to the crystal, depending upon if certain conditions are met. For example, put in a certain gas ratio at a certain temperature? The Crystal is now outputting Hawking radiation, and you can gather that with radiation collectors. Do the same thing with a different ratio of gas at a different temperature? The crystal is now generating an new compound of gas with unique properties that can either be utilized by the crew or sold to cargo for a decent sum.

Having LOOC around to shoot the shit with is a feature that adds to the game.. In moderation, it can be used to introduce variety with how you can interact with people on the server. I think it actually mitigates burn out, because the alternative is endlessly desk RPing until you run out of things to talk about. If we restrict LOOC to a local mentor help channel, people are just going to tab out of the game more than they already do to talk about other things. Merely having the client screen open in front of you and inputting text into the game is engagement. I don't mind admin intervention if someone makes it a bad habit of spending the whole round in LOOC as a station character, but I also don't wanna see more alt-tab zombies. My real concern with LOOC starts when we get off extended/slow rounds and some real shit is going on. Mostly just for ghosts. If were were to add more policy, I would be 100% ok if we had a policy on ghosts using LOOC in proximity to locations with high round activity(i.e. Delaminating engines, busy medical staff, shootouts, or even antags trying to be sneaky.) I think ghosts giving tutorial advice in LOOC, even if it's to remedy a bug, teeters on borderline round involvement, especially if what they're advising on is the byproduct of antag shenanigans. LOOC also has a surprisingly large radius. If I'm operating the cargo desk, I can hear people talking in LOOC all the way from the chapel. Say I'm an officer looking for a merc team silently moving through the tunnels, and Ckey: Chucklenuts, who I know loves trailing antags when they ghost, says something as the team is sifting through the dark. I now know that there's a valid there, and that if I act on it, I'm entering a dangerous grey area of rule violation because meta information was disclosed in proximity to me. I think the above is already enforced as a general infringement of disclosing meta information, but It wouldn't hurt to make this more obvious to people when they step into the ghost role.

My question was answered in discord, but I am going to also make this question a forum post for others to see: Does this mean every new addition to the coat, hat, and jumpsuit slot in the foreseeable future has to be tied to a specific setting or culture in the lore, until the loadout system is in a happy place?

That could be counteracted by separating multiple sections of the rafters with maint access doors/reinforced walls, and limit the number of locations you can use to travel up and down the Z-levels without a ladder or jetpack. The goblin rafters should only extend over specific departmental lobbies(if at all), customer areas of service departments, and the primary halls. The rafters themselves should be skeletal, very linear, and easy to dismantle like the ones pictured in in OP, and there should be very little or no maint loot up there. If a secman catches you on the rafters, you'll be out in the open unless you're close to the airlock, build yourself some ground to work with, or able to leap onto the lower Z level safely. I could even see the rafters being useful for departments that are not directly involved in the antag cat and mouse game. As a cargo technician, I've delivered crucial supplies to medical via the rafters in the OP's pic during the finale of the last Tajaran lore arc we had. EMT's could use the rafters to get to people separated by hazards or atmos related obstuctions. Engineering can use the rafters to quickly get into breached parts of the station, or even lay additional vents and scrubbers up in the rafters to make refilling areas easier.