Boggle08

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.

I reviewed the material upon the creation of this thread, and felt like I didn't have anything to add. There's material for an Eridanian offworlders in here, and the backstory of element of Amon's dreg abducting labs still exists on one of the planets. Those were the two things I wanted to still see around after the update, and there was nothing that struck out as egregious in the material. It's all solid. Upon further reflection, I think I've only ever met one sympathetic Suit, and they're always outnumbered by Dregs. Eridanian lore has always coasted on a bed of thematically accessible and easy to understand cyberpunk tropes, but it's always hurt suits because it churns out extremely restrained, unsympathetic, and antisocial corporate characters. I can see there's an effort to expand upon suits on the page, but I feel like if anything needs more attention, it would be about their social life, culture, and how suits can express themselves on the ship. I adore my dystopias, but not if they come at the expense of characterization. I feel like the hyper-materialistic, cutthroat, and judgmental environment the suits occupy leaves very little imagination when it comes to designing a motivation for a character. We have to consider what would motivate a suit to support and participate in their environment, besides trying to make ends meet, or hedonistic self-enfranchisement. It could come from a place of ideology or principle, but it looks like it could also come from a robust social life heavily sponsored by corporate connections. A Dominian primary, secondary, and tertiary can sit down with you at the kitchen and walk you through their world view, justifying how their society works and how it all fits in together. Speaking anecdotally, a typical suit in my mind would shut down at the topic. I like what you guys have written for the suits already, and I hope you can eventually expand on it.

From what I understand, the map was assembled on short notice. It used a lot of preconfigured assets, but I personally felt like it got the job done, with one heavy asterisk: It was extremely fragile and light on engineering related subsystems in places where it would have been important. The scariest thing about the map was the lack of emergency shutter and vent coverage, and while full reinforced windows are more durable on paper, all you need to do is break the one and you've vented the compartment. We almost had that happen, when one of the SFA characters accidentally blasted a window, partially venting the area. With no emergency shutter to catch it, an admin had to fly over and quickly replace it and the atmos that leaked out. Some more open spaces would be nice, but I think it's equally important to consider the durability of the map, whether or not we want it to break, and either reinforcing it with better materials or putting additional effort into the engineering subsystems of that location. Especially if ballistics are involved.

I was looking forward to seeing this application. There's hardly much I can say or ask that you haven't covered in your initial post. Sol has become a place for a lot of potential narrative, and you're the guy for the job. Your bit about offworlders is sound. Affixing offworlder populations to planets is a good way of doing things, simply because human lore is so planet-centric. I do have some questions: 1. What's your vision for the coalition? I'm mostly asking in regards to Xanu and the coalition's national or "federal" institutions. 2. What are your thoughts on the badlands region in regards to human lore? This can encompass Dominia and Elyra. 3. What are some potential avenues for collaboration between the other species' departments and human lore that you think would be interesting to pursue or support? Human presence in the setting is significant and ubiquitous enough to the point where collaboration is inevitable, or a necessity for most departments. I just realized that Cael kind of already asked this question, but I guess I want something more specific, or concrete.

For the Parapen idea, it might be better to take the normal parapen, reflavor it as magical bullshit nanobots that attack both flesh and steel, and have them be able to perform in the exact same way you're describing. It'd be less strain on the TC that way. Make the prod cheap too, or give it an option that works on people. The sec baton already does the exact function you're describing when you power it up on harm intent, a juiced up version for traitors would be good.

From the discussion in discord that spawned this, it sounds like the problem is the acceleration cap put on the ship, more than anything else. Even if engineering can create a pure phoron pipeline at pressures exceeding 15,000 kPa, it would likely not make much of a difference. Sucks for the bridge, sucks for the backend nerds that are trying to optimize. The cutoff point where all you can do is add more volume to the thrusters so they don't bottom out as fast sounds much closer than anticipated. Even if there's no cap, it sounds like standard operation is too slow.

I've seen round population fall off a cliff after everyone readies for merc, and it doesn't get slotted in. I don't mind the banter, but I don't like what it does people's willingness to stay locked in.

that's ok, I only suggested peridaxon because I thought it was the weaker option

Simple as what the title says. Lungs are by far the easiest organ to bust up out here, whether it's from bullet RNG or someone forgetting to turn on their internals when they step outside. We would have these things on the intrepid, the mining shuttle, and the emergency trauma wall locker in the GTR. Each location would get a small, flat amount, no more than 2-3. This would serve as a few get out of fuck-up free cards for when medical is critically understaffed, the entire ship is lowpop, or so some poor bastard miner doesn't have to cut his run short and fly back choking to death.

For the blood loss, we'd be in a good place if we either modify Coagzulog or create a variant of it that can completely staunch bleeding short of an arterial. Unless I'm missing something with bicaridine and butazoline, we don't have any way except bandages to fix normal bleeding. Coag just slows it. The anti-bleed juice needs to be in auto-injectors, and the auto-injectors need to be on the shuttle medicine cabinet Additionally, I feel like mining's equipment starts off way too sparse. They don't even get lanterns, which really makes a difference in catching Xenofauna before they get the first hit in.

I'm starting to think the larger issue is that most of the maps aren't designed for multidepartment teams, outside of the first or second mission. The biggest obstacles in derelict missions are usually just a bunch of turrets and hostile NPC's. There's no locks or reinforced bunkers that you need to bring an engineer to break into with, since they're either blown wide open or the doors just miraculously open for anyone. I'm already starting to see people in actual intrepid away missions optimize who they bring, because now it's just as many officers as they can pack, FR, and either a surgeon or a physician if they can be spared. We don't carefully and tentatively creep through derelicts any more. Now we just rip through them, taking out as many hostile mobs as we can, and then push all the loot into our shuttles.

Mining doesn't really consult anyone before going out onto derelicts. They just zip out, clean it out, then they're done. It's not blatant gatekeeping, because you aren't directly refusing people on your shuttle, but it's effectively the same thing because you can just fire off and do map content that was intended for cross-departmental teams before anything can be organized. Further more, generalist titles like "salvage technician" implicitly lay claim to these away sites for the shaft miner. All of our awaysites at the moment are derelicts fit for salvage operations. With an alt title like that, that's grounds to tell every engineer that wants to go check out the derelict to go fuck themselves.

I don't see the point of implementing this maximalist policy. Golems rarely come up in gameplay, and the canonicity of artifacts or their properties is usually at the reasonable discretion of the Xenarch. If there is a problem, someone can get talked to. Having to ask every time you want to have your work matter is more load on the staff than vise-versa. If memory serves, development is actually interested in working on xenarch stuff. At some point. Maybe. Eventually. You know how it is. I remember seeing the developer in question talking about wanting to tone down some of the more absurd anomaly characteristics and combinations. Until something happens, we don't need to make the Xenarch's job more Sisyphean than it already is. Captain Gecko said what needs to be said about this. Golems are another matter. If I could describe most golems I've encountered, they would all be annoying, stupid, and disruptive. We took out the random rune spawn for this reason. As they are, I wouldn't miss these things if they were straight up taken out of the repo and lore. On the other hand, I would prefer and love to see these things redesigned into a more interesting extra-dimensional entity. So much so, I might do it myself.

I see these things used by the crew all the time. The only "pet"(if it's still even here) worth removing is the hivebot locked away in the RD's office. No one messes with that guy. Maybe pun-pun too, because at least half of all barkeeps I see just seal him away or animal abuse him. He just gets in the way. The rest are way too useful to let go. The silly animals bring characters together ICly, and facilitate interaction thanks to it.

I've had a good first impression of your Dionae officer and surgeon. I think you know enough about the game for the position. Abrasive Dionae are more than possible with the lore, though whether or not this abrasiveness is enough to disqualify you from the CMO position, I honestly can't say. What I'm worried about with you is your tendency to hoard work and frontline. I didn't really mind all the times you would take the expedition vessel with a full surgical tray, because honestly, fuck having to cancel expeditions over shrapnel and shit, but I've seen firsthand how bad you can get when it comes to ignoring our model for the medbay. The round in question was the one where you packed on corporate heavy armor, grabbed a surgical tray, and took point with security, going so far as to tell the first responder to step away. I think this was two weeks or so ago, but I'm seeing others in the thread citing this as an issue as of yesterday, which doesn't give me confidence. You have to get used to the idea of delegating work when you can, not just because you're working in medical, but because that's your entire job as command. The work delegation arrangement in medical exists here because whenever someone hoards activity or becomes a super-doctor, they're denying the rest of the department engagement. As a member of command, one of your primary OOC responsibilities is to act as a facilitator for your subordinates, which entails delegation. Particularly as a CMO, since often that means it's your job to ensure no one in your department is encroaching on another person's lane. The same lanes I've seen you egregiously overstep. The CMO position has access to a lot of job knowledge, and command authority. I wouldn't want to see you use this to consolidate most of the traffic coming through our doors. I see the potential for CMO in you, but I want to see you using your co-workers more and putting your trust into them. Until then, I can't really endorse this.

Eh, we can't ignore the utilitarian function of visuals. It's best if I don't have to shift examine just to tell if it's an officer. If something comes of this thread, it's likely going to be substituting a dress code for the uniform mandate. Lol. Lmao. Maybe if it doesn't get in the way of all the body armor security has to wear on code blue onwards. I don't want to see black tango dress officers in heels.

If we do eventually relax uniform standards, I don't want it to happen for ZI units or IRU/ISU's.

As long as I can tell you're an officer before you pack on the body armor, It's fine. I have a regional officer uniform that wouldn't work with the current paradigm. The kind of work security does on green, you need people to understand just who they're talking to. Can't really do that with jeans and T shirt.

You know how there's a thread up complaining about how airlocks take way too long to cycle? Well that only happens when an airlock is trying to siphon air out of a pressurized airlock. Any time a ZAS device or something that works with ZAS tries to pull air out of open tiles and into closed systems, efficiency falls off a cliff. This affects portable scrubbers, PAPs set to siphon, Scrubbers, anything you can think of. We've had to deal with these unreliable devices ever since I've started playing in 2019, and it's deleteriously affected engineering gameplay by creating a situation where the only way to reset a room with heavily compromised atmos is to vent the compartment, seal it, and refill it. This is the only way of dealing with bad air that doesn't involve you staring at an air alarm for thirty minutes while your atmos devices struggle around you. If we had siphon devices we could actually rely on, people would stop fighting their airlocks, and engineers would actually use the scrubbers network. This would be convenient for all parties, and introduce variety into engineering's playstyle, especially for atmos techs.

@Caelphon@Lucaken I've updated the draft, the new material is under it's own header. Nothing else has been modified.

Besides the desire to justify the horizon's engine selection, I was also building this to be a sort of resource for the team to look back to whenever writing technology heavy pieces. This would help us be consistent about a very important technology in the setting, and to have that line up loosely with contemporary ideas about nuclear fusion for the sake of maintaining a solid suspension of disbelief. I don't want us to get into a situation where lore articles contradict each other on how compact, dangerous, or energy efficient these things are, especially when contemporary popular science pieces insist that workable models aren't even capable of melting down. The safe, boring engines are the deturium/tritium combo, the scary ones we can take more liberties on are the ones that use phoron or the cold-fusion hell seaweed. The one thing that has to remain consistent about all these variants is their cost, difficulty to manufacture, and limitations trying to scale them down. The brevity was deliberate, but there's plenty to expand on if it's necessary. I could bring up a few named Unathi/Tajaran plants I didn't include in the original document. I also was considering a segment on the cultural impact of fusion, specifically in human space and their attitudes about it. Lastly, I was considering the inclusion of an energy technology race between the SCC/Nanotransen and Elyra, regarding phoron fusion reactors. I've described miniaturization as a big obstacle for nuclear fusion, If we ever decide to port the R-UST on station, we can tie it into lore as being a consequence of this technology race; It will actually be a pioneering experimental technology that's trying to miniaturize phoron fusion reactors. These things, I can begin work on.

The part you speak of about getting out of mining on your own, there is a simple solution: On the old aurora, many of our doors were programmed to have all access flowing out of the department. The function for this still exists, but none of the doors here are mapped with it programmed in at the start. Getting this reimplemented across the map is worth it's own thread. I don't really see the point of Xenarchs and anomalists separating into their own role, when it sounds like there are so many obstructions to getting your hands onto anything substantial. These obstructions would have to be resolved in my mind. There's plenty of space on deck two, the only solution I can see as being permanent is the eventual creation of a specialized ship just for anomalists. If we map in a small hangar that is port of the science department, and give it a small shuttle with a specialized anomaly compartment. The pod gets in and out of the ship via a massive hangar bulkhead that rests above or below it. A specialized anomaly compartment on the shuttle is necessary. I've gone on one expedition with you before, and we had to leave an artifact behind because it kept EMPing the mining brick. If the shuttle had SMES units and APC equipment like they do now, it probably would have marooned us. A specialized compartment that can keep artifacts contained in a vacuum environment, and down the line eventually suppress their effects for transport, would be a godsend. Another thing that would be good is leaving enough space on the shuttle for a retextured M.U.L.E. rover that can carry one large anomaly and the anomalist's suspension field generator. The longer you're out there, the more chances you have of something going wrong. Having this MULE device will help the xenarch so they don't have to do so much slow wrangling with heavy equipment and big anomalies.

Honestly, you could get away with renaming the science voidsuit to be the new xenarch suit, give it miner damage resistance values, then have the scientists use the department unspecific voidsuits instead. No one else on the science team except really brave telescience guys have much use for these in their line of work. The voidsuit you have sprited looks great, though. If you're thinking about resistance values for it, I don't see why it can't have parallel resistances to the miner suit. You go to the same places and fight the same battles.