Boggle08

Meddoids get weird about the machinist doing shit, because it doesn't cleanly fit into the mechanism that is medbay delegation. If medical is fully staffed, the machinist is butting into a role whose entire existence is clicking people who are on the table. If it's just physicians, they're bound to feel the same way. They're here to click people who are on the table if a surgeon can't do it. The whole delegation thing came about because medical used to fight over the traffic that comes through their doors, so seeing something that is not bound by those laws confuses and frustrates them. It doesn't help that the Machinist exists outside of the medical department. They don't share access with medical, and at least to my vague understanding, they don't share a commline either. Because their surgery chart is so narrow, anything that isn't a simple organ fix is going to require someone from medical to be standing in the room with them, or else the patient is going to roll off the table incomplete. They can't fix bones, shrapnel, arterial, or brains. The surgical operations they can perform are extremely intrusive and grossly inappropriate depending on the severity of the injury. The machinist also has a plethora of tasks and responsibilities outside of just medicine that I haven't even brought up yet, which further divides their attention away from being a dedicated medical role. It isn't impossible for the roboticist to be asked to help out in medical, but they have always been at the bottom of medical's queue for consultation, outside of organ printing which I don't think counts; or they shine on lowpop. If a paradigm needs to be outlined for them with respect to medical, I see this as being the one. The one thing I believe that should always be brought before the roboticist is limb installation, however. It's cooler that way.

There's a lot of ways to peel this banana in the long term. We could make it so you need two free hands in order to insert a new shell into the PEAC, requiring the operator to either drop the weapon to load it, or have someone stand next to him as a loader. We could allow the shell to retain it's momentum and penetrate through certain objects. Hell, it could even be used as a tool for breaching reinforced areas using special shells. I saw an officer several months ago try to bore through telecomms using the PEAC, and it barely did anything four rounds in. I agree with Kyres, a gun like this shouldn't feel impotent, and it'd suck if turned into a planetside 2 situation where trying to use the AP/Anti-personnel option on people is a stupid idea, only because the resistance tables say so. We should be balancing it around being a mobile emplacement weapon that uses collateral damage, clunky logistics, and a need for coordination to offset it's sheer power.

I feel like the environmental damage when the shell detonates needs to be more consequential. Using a PEAC inside of the Horizon is like getting into a rocket launcher fight aboard an aircraft carrier. It shouldn't easily break floors, that would be too much of an advantage, but it should absolutely eviscerate any consoles, engineering subsystems, machines, windows, walls, and airlocks that get caught in its wake. If every impact results in a damaged section of the ship, the thing the ISD is supposed to be protecting, then every shot made will require more thinking, precision, and care on the part of the user. This is a gun that should be balanced around shooting once, with a specific purpose in mind. If regular use of the PEAC is consistent with what OP is describing, it sounds more like a primary weapon that starts and ends fights the same way stun combat works on other servers: Instantly, and with no hope of retaliation if you get tagged even once.

Engineering has the Leviathan. Between it and the demands of the new guns, optimizing the ship's power and subsystems will become extremely important. This is what I look forwards to as an engineer main. As for damage control, Matt explained to me that the position for shells when they spawn into the local map is fairly randomized and inaccurate. Lots of 50/50 chance shots. Damage control is something I'm concerned about myself, one because our means of dealing with it has always been limited, and it can easily become tedious or overwhelming if it stacks up too fast. If it does become a problem, easiest thing we could do is map in a bunker with better damage control equipment for emergencies. RCD's and metal foam grenade launchers. Alternatively, we could get some new stuff, or change the way shots are calculated. Bottom line is that can develop contingencies to remedy this problem.

You're assuming that overmap combat won't increase the demand or appeal of playing in the roles needed for it. All of our antagonist roles are shipside, and because of that, security and medical are consistently populated to meet the opposition. Perhaps something similar will happen for cargo, engineering, and bridge crew roles. We won't know if there aren't going to be opportunities to use the new ship weapons. Just because of how manpower intensive the new ship combat looks, it'd probably be wise to bump up the required readies for the antag change I'm proposing.

Maybe this suggestion is a bit premature, but the point is that this gamemode should get the priority to be overmap worthy, if or when we decide giving antagonists and hostile third parties access to ship-to-ship combat. Comparing raw equipment and resources, raider has always been a shittier merc on paper. This'll give them a niche distinct from that.

I would be more comfortable with this being a privilege granted by an overseeing admin, rather than something that runs autonomously; If at all. Part of what the whitelisting process does is hold people accountable to not abuse the species' mechanics of whatever they're applying for. This suggestion operates outside of this paradigm. While it might be nice to get more uniform offstation antags, I think people will stop appreciating it once we get round after round of offstation antags mysteriously picking certain species' with mechanical proclivities towards combat, and pushing them beyond what's acceptable.

The core issue is that borg characters fly against the convention of job knowledge, access restrictions, and several different mechanics that most of the playable mobs in the game have to contend with. In order to facilitate them without absolutely ruining the experience, They operate with their lawset, but also numerous unspoken conventions that reduce the experience to playing an appliance. Borgs have shitty characterization because there's actually incentive against characterization. I've spoken numerous times about it with synthetic lore and the mods, and there is a general disdain seeing borgs that have a personality and form attachments. It ends with them violating the principles of the job, or their lawset outright in the pursuit of the relationships they form. Cyborgs and bound intelligences deal with some interesting themes, but there is very little wiggle room to actually explore them, and no investment from most of the station because they expect you to just be an appliance. At this point, you can better tread over the themes presented in the station bound role by playing certain IPC backgrounds, or even do what I did and play a heavily, heavily augmented human. The only way for stationbounds to have a real future beyond removal or stagnation is if they are rebuilt, practically from the ground up, to cut back on the omnipotence/omniscience the job currently manifests, and yet still have it so they can be of some use in their niche as department vacancy fillers.

Someone needs to look at the guide to surgery on the wiki then. I used that for this discussion, and it insists the only thing roboticists can do now is cyborgify and affix limbs. I've only seen roboticists interact with medical in two ways: as stand-ins on lowpop, and consultants on highpop. If you're talking about making roboticist a member of the medical department, I don't see it fitting well. Medical already has friction in delegating work between people, the roboticist would continue to function in an auxiliary capacity. Specialized roles in the department will continue to have priority when it comes to their area of the med game. It adds more cooks into a department that constantly debates with itself if it has too many cooks.

Research needs more than just the machinist to solve any of its problems. RnD is the one thing that allows them to contribute to rounds, but it's a shape matching game with only half the pieces. Most rounds I see RnD just being a nanopaste dispensary that occasionally passes out tools. I can understand moving roboticist back if just to make the population numbers less miserable, but that's just trading out the current status quo for the old one. Roboticists will still have the same dependency issues, science will still be an anemic, underutilized department. The entire department needs a big rework, but that's outside the scope of this thread.

Operations is an appropriate department for what the machinist does. They may have many areas of expertise, but the bottom line is that most of, if not all of the equipment they make is supposed to leave their hands. Moving it back into science won't change the way machinist plays, and it just means they have another commline to yell at someone do research. I'm actually in favor of giving the machinist a destructive analyzer instead. Science as a department is anachronistic in its design, and has been gutted over the years for it. Robotics going back to science just feels like a step backwards. Moving the department into medical is a rough option too. They've lost their ability to work with mechanical organs in surgery steps by default; any additional medical knowledge a roboticist posseses is "extra" rather than "intrinsic" to the role. They print organs, nanopaste, limbs, and then deliver them. Moving the machinist around to different departments won't fix anything about the way they play, nor their dependencies in the slightest. The Machinist being off the main level is a problem, however. It's a role that can get more traffic and requests than even the cargo desk at times, they could stand to benefit from either a relocation, or ladder/stairs access. They're actually in a half decent spot, it's just not on the main level.

Aurora will continue to be far away from Magnum Opus status, so long as it is bereft of a fishing minigame.

You know how you can teleport into the Intrepid from the Horizon at a certain range? Well, the idea is that you have the exact same thing except going the opposite direction. Why? It would give the crew a lot more flexibility when it comes to expeditions. There doesn't have to be stress about sending away valuable personnel, or not being able to allocate them evenly when you can go back and forth at a moment's notice. The catch? The Intrepid's teleporter is extremely power hungry, eating 10-20% of the SMES unit's charge each time it's used, and has a long spool up period between each use. Not sure how everyone would feel about it, though, hence this thread.

I have a few concepts. The Iron Eternal comes to mind. I definitely want to extrapolate that organization's relationship with IPC's, particularly the Trinary. There's one other potential thing I'd like to try, but since it comes with it's own mini-arc, I'd rather not divulge on it here. Otherwise, I don't wanna get too crazy or ambitious with it just yet, simply because there's so much to consolidate for the other backgrounds.

Apologies for the delay, the past few days have been very demanding From my anecdotal observations over the years, the Titan Prime strain of Dionae have been one of the most popular and consistently played backgrounds, and I think much of that has to do with the fact that it's one of the few places in the lore where there is active, personal tension between dionae themselves and another party within the Orion Spur. Vauca and Dionae are very similar in that they overlap heavily into the same spheres of influence; Think places like the Nralakk Federation, Moghes, and Biesel. Part of my focus will be to expand the interrelationship of Dionae and Vaurca, relative to these locations, and determine if there ought to be conflict or cooperation. Of course, this is something I hope to collaborate with your team on. Besides what I mentioned relevant to the Nralakk Dionae/C'thur dynamic, something concrete I definitely would like to tackle are Dionae's involvement in the Refugee aspect of Skrell lore, and the outcome of the second Warbling act. I think this will manifest mostly in the form of retroactively writing in a Dionae minority in the Starlight Zone, as it's feasible for some to be there. About your second question, I believe that being literate and involved in the doings of other departments is the key to success. Rather than having a close relationship with just one species, like IPC's are, Dionae at varying degrees of involvement with nearly every species in the setting, with the only exception really being Tajara. I started up this application with the expectation that it requires much more breadth in terms of knowledge across the setting, and if that I don't collaborate, I'm essentially failing my task.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Boggle08(discord: GrandMasterChef) Position Being Applied For: Deputy Lore developer Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yes Past Experiences/Knowledge: Most of my work comes in the form of lore apps I've contributed over the years. I'm responsible for the initial draft of Burzsia, and a subsequent addition for it. More recently, I've written lore for fusion technology in the setting, and I've started making minor contributions on github. Although I can't take the credit for writing it, I feel confident enough to claim that one of my characters led to the inspiration of a dionae mind-type: Mourning mass. This was the same character I used to procure a whitelist for the species, so I'll be linking the application below. Examples of Past Work: https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/14011-the-system-of-burzsia/#comment-138744 https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/15144-acceptedboggle08s-dionae-application/#comment-142670 https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/17095-technology-page-nuclear-fusion/ https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/13682 What do you believe is the strongest aspect of Dionae lore that you’d like to keep pushing forward? Mind types opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for development. The relationships between the mind-types, and how they manifest differently throughout the spur. Dionae already contest the crown for the most alien species in the game, but it takes it to a whole new level when the psychological profiles of dionae can vary so immensely to the point where they're practically alien to each other. How do you feel about the changes made to the species over the past year or so? Good and bad. We've seen the addition of a new subspecies, mind types, and I think some work was done with Xrim. While Dionae lore has significantly more resources for building characters and playing them now, I feel like their overall involvement in the setting has stagnated somewhat. Is there anything you would like to change or specifically work on regarding the species? Dionae have had much work done for them at the individual player, RP interaction level. However, what the species really needs is overlap and activity with elements of the canon that non-whitelistees could find interesting. Dionae lore suffers from a problem of feeling isolated from the rest of setting. Much of the character backgrounds for them are from isolated collectives that are in a position to stay out of worldly affairs. Because of this, there's not much incentive for people to pick up on dionae related lore beyond knowing the bare bones. Meanwhile, other whitelisted species have people that will vicariously follow developments, yet never touch a whitelist application. I feel like dionae lore is written for dionae whitelistees, and focuses on the species' niche of being the most otherworldly alien you can play here. I think for us to grow, we must concentrate on expanding the species' involvement in galactic affairs, and piquing the interest of people who would otherwise not bother with a whitelist. I feel like it's about time for Dionae to get more involved in the setting. We ought to expand upon existing backgrounds nested in the setting, and push ones that are too far away closer together. Article Arcs would help foster interest and investment in the species, and it's something I look forward to doing most during my tenure. The other thing I'd like to do, or at least account for in writing, is the mind types for dionae, how they manifest across locations in the setting, and their inter-relations between different clusters and gestalts. The way these mind types manifest, it is enough to have sociological consequences. Finally, I'd like to do work regarding the biological feats dionae are capable of. Biomass, and other constructs that dionae are capable of forming. I feel like there's a lot of potential here for this. How do you feel about Dionae relations with other species? I'm very interested in doing more with Dionae in the Skrellian and Unathi sphere of influence. Humanity, however, is really where there must be investment. I have some ideas for Biesel, but eventually, I think we would do well with a few more locations in the setting with integrated dionae populations. Do you have an interest in working on more small scale or larger scale content? Like, major overhauls or retcons? Not really, what's written for them is solid. There's not much reason to completely change direction. Down the road though, I think we ought to introduce a big dionae faction into coalition space, as a politically involved constituent of the nation What is your overall availability for writing, proof reading, and general coordination? I'm available most of the week. I am a college student again, so there will be periods where I have to prioritize academic crunch. Do you believe you would be able to work on anything outside of lore regarding the species, sprite work or coding, ect. I can do spritework, use github, and code a little. I feel confident enough with my abilities to make item or clothing PR's.

I think maybe I'm only trying to remedy a symptom of a problem in this thread: Expeditions headed specifically by bridge crew have no precedent in the regs. They don't have any CCIAA announcements about shuttle use, unlike Xenarchs and Miners. They don't have any written policy for anything else. Their wiki is still empty. On paper, it's extremely easy to blow them off from anything away-mission related, because what they are supposed to do is one big inference. Otherwise, this thread is attempting to address the current culture in bridge crew ran expeditions regarding personnel standards. In that I find them too high, and it often stonewalls expeditions.

I never suggested that security should be mandatory. The opposite, actually. I've seen a lot of expeditions miscarry because "not enough officers or medical." I feel like a lot of expeditions never get off the ground, because the shuttle refuses to move with anything less than a well rounded compliment of specialists. Defining our operational minimums, then setting them as the standard will reduce hesitancy. If medical doesn't want to go, people do their first aid the same way a miner would. If security doesn't want to go, the BC doles out shotguns.

I'm not clingy to the idea of a crew limit at all. We could just knock down what officiates an expedition into something that command or a BC starts. About away missions having different objectives, I'm totally okay with that, it's just I'd like our overmap generation algorithm to kick out at least one or two derelicts that can be done with the bare minimum. The Hazard analysis mechanic I've described is already half present in the descriptions provided by printouts from the sensors console. Hell, it could even give recommendations on away-team sizes.

So picture this: The Horizon finds a derelict, and command greenlights an expedition. You find more than enough willing volunteers, and you've actually been timely about getting your shit together. Everyone's buckled in, when suddenly, all the officers in the shuttle silently get up, and start running for the elevators. Blue alert is called, someone took the spare. Command shitcans your expedition. You sit around while the people relevant to the alert do shit. Imagine another scenario. The population is tiny, but there's plenty of places to explore. You and maybe a few others would be willing to go, but command/bridge crew decide against it, because there isn't an optimal ratio of surplus personnel to man the intrepid. Or there just isn't medical. Contrast this all with mining, or even Xenarch. They don't need to consult anyone before going out, they don't even need other people to go out. A miner is theoretically the best man to start up an expedition, because all he's doing is just bringing people along while he does his job. They can go out into the over-map, into asteroid areas that are even more fucking hostile than most derelicts, because they have policy ensuring they can. What I propose is a minimum requirement for group expeditions ran by bridge crew, based upon qualifications rather than being from a specific department. All expeditions must at least have one person competent at first aid(Think about as competent as miners have to be to do their job), and everyone must be EVA certified. These expeditions require a minimum of four people, including the pilot/bridge crew. Expeditions should not have to be outright cancelled on blue alert. Personnel can be recalled before an expedition starts if their department is relevant to an ongoing crisis(think sec or medical), but it shouldn't outright shitcan it, and other personnel should be found to make up for the absence. To help facilitate this policy on development's end, some changes that would be good would be to introduce a hazard ranking system, or something like it built into the scanning console that allows us to detect how dangerous an away mission is, and make it so the laser shotguns can fit into any suit slot, and can be crank-charged. I think there's also a trend right now of reducing the hostile mobs in derelicts, and it suits the policy I'm proposing by making it so the crew/command doesn't feel like they have to min-max and be ABSOLUTELY 100% PREPARED for expeditions. I realize there's a thread in policy suggestions right now that is kind of asking for the same thing I am in this thread, but frankly, it did not begin with concrete, goal focused proposal, hence this thread.

Most of the issues that our current system needed to fix seem absent. My only concern is superdoctoring at this point. Merging the two roles together will reduce a large chunk of concrete rules for delegation into just informal etiquette. It'll be less cut and dry when someone is being greedy, and more circumstantial. I think most of the playerbase can be trusted to play fair, but there will always be people that take what they want if there's nothing stopping them. These changes could be fun to try, but they will lead to issues that'll need policy to address.

Going from top to bottom is apparently in-line with naval nomenclature. Really, I feel like the deck numeration is liable to throw people the fuck off, no matter how we arrange it. If we change it, it comes at the expense of a month or two of adjustment. If we don't, people fresh from other servers with ships are going to point at the elevator and scream at the buttons. I prefer things from going from top to bottom.

It's so simple of a suggestion, but it opens up a ton of possibilities when it comes to having control over what you want to do as an antagonist, or even how we design antagonist types to begin with. A feature like this would definitely hold hands with dynamic's intensity voting style, with certain options being made available or greyed out as you go up and down the chain. What we might see is antag variety die. Even more than it already has. No one is going to pick raider over merc, unless there's a specific reason for it. In fact, we'll get a lot more merc. Allowing antagonists to choose the gamemode is kind of like having a different demographic to appeal to, in my mind. Whether or not a gamemode has variety, is fun to play, is powerful, or can carry a decent narrative will become significantly more important.

I think you can do this just by keeping secret, but allowing the game to announce the mode when the round starts. It establishes expectations just as fast, and people can decide if they immediately want to cryo or not.

The best way to approach any incorporation of proto-Eridani culture is to present it as something that the corporations of the system have gutted, commoditized, and restructured into an entity that controls the population. Something that wasn't forcefully torn away from the population, but subverted to the point where it's about as cynical as being a member of an expensive fandom, or gatekeeping identity with a hefty price-tag. We can have these things without having to compromise Eridani's themes.