Kintsugi

Ingame I have never seen any of these weapons end up in the hands of anyone except the TCFL. You can argue from a lore perspective, but it doesn't quite work because ingame it doesn't matter. If there's an issue with blue polymer blending into the TCFL's armor, I will change it to be a different color. As far as the argument that wood means low budget militia, I'd argue the opposite - In the year 2462, where there are hundreds of billions of Human beings and only so many planets that can supply a large amount of lumber, wood is almost certainly more expensive than polymer. Couple that with the that wood is far less durable and useful as a firearms component means that if anyone is going to be including wood on their guns, it will be someone wealthy- someone who can splurge on the niceties of life without much regard for utility. With that in mind, I think if anything, the TCFL would be using the cheapest, shittiest plastic possible. Not nice, oiled walnut. Anyway, I don't think laser guns should have wood on them. Wood is second to polymer in the modern day, and this is a trend that won't be reversed any time soon.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/9786 Check out the google doc in the PR for more info.

My most recent Aurora character was a detective (and furthermore I actually attempted to PR this change in the past), all I'll say is that I agree with the proposal at hand. Detective is dreadfully boring unless you somehow end up in a situation that practically begs for your attention, or you invent situations to keep yourself occupied. Interrogations aren't really a lot of fun, to me, because a lot of antags who get captured don't actually fully bake their plan or backstory, and it ends up being a really one-sided conversation ("Why did you do it?" "They made me do it!" "Who is they?" "The syndicate!" "Why?" "I don't know!")

I don’t do memes

Canon told me he looked like the Driver from Drive and I'm inclined to think that's a more accurate resemblance

The thing that I dislike the most about this rework is how unequivocally synth-sympathetic this is. Glorsh fulfilled an important keystone role in our lore before: It was an unempathetic AI that subjugated a civilization. It is IC ammunition for people opposed to synthetics to use, and something that people who are pro-synthetic need to maneuver around. Now, Glorsh is at worst morally-light grey: At best, you can argue that Glorsh was an altogether good entity that was put into a situation where it was forced to do evil things. You are effectively depriving people who want to play anti-synthetic characters of one of their most potent IC arguments- and this is bad. I don't care what your opinion on artificial intelligence is in real life, but we should always strive to have issues of contention within our lore to be morally grey- You should be able to argue from both perspectives. By making it harder and harder to be the devil's advocate, issues end up being one-sided. I could also talk about how I suspect personal bias plays into this, but that seems like poor form. But I do suspect it does play into this. Let me just say this: "People can take advantage of AI and make them do bad things, it's people that are the issue." is NOT AT ALL the theme we should want to represent in our lore. It plays far too much into the hand of "the synths are good boys who can do no wrong and never do no wrong." - it should be "AI as an intelligent entity can be evil, just as they can be good. AI is dangerous when it is treated, managed, or handled in the wrong way. It took over the most powerful civilization we know- and can do so again, if we are not careful." on the other hand, death to wetskrell

Hi, sorry for the long wait for a reply. Let me address your other points: 1. I actually love the idea of tree-sap drinks, and I thank you for mentioning it. I'll be sure to add it to the current draft. 2. The rogatywka is a little funny-looking, but I actually like it a lot, and that uniqueness is something that the lore stands to benefit from. As an aside, I should mention that it is not cultural-wear, but rather just military-wear. The rogatywka is something you would see soldiers and police officers on Visegrad wearing, not normal people. As for the kucsma- I do like the idea of having it be a Visegradian headdress, but I feel like it is something that'd fit more with another Human planet, like Vysoka (Especially Vysoka, really.)

I think this proposal is rather vague, and some more detail is needed - because what they actually do seems rather unclear at the moment.

I’m currently on vacation and returning this Friday. I’ll get back to you then. In the mean time, thanks for your feedback! However, I will address one of your bullet-points while I’m busy with my pre-fishing car ride. As far as a fictional grouping is concerned, the “Poland” of this context refers to the Polish province of Earth in our lore - as opposed to national Poland. The Polish province of Earth consists of the national territories of Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia- which are, of course, three of the four Visegrad-4 countries. So trust me, the V-4 were in my mind while I was writing this! Czechia is just part of Germany in our lore, quite unusually.

Once again, Visegrad is not Polish. Please actually read the document, and I'd also encourage you to look at the one-world-government map of Earth for a better understanding as to what "Poland" means in this context.

Poland *does* still exist on Earth’s map, and moreover Visegrad wasn’t colonized solely by Polish people. There is no lore rule stating that I cannot develop a colony with a specific set of ethnic groups in mind, regardless, and I approached multiple Human lore developers to see if Visegrad was compatible with basic autocanon rules long before I attempted to officially canonize it.

Well, if that's the case, then the requisite number of players needed for five or six mercenaries needs to be lowered. I have never seen more than four at a time on Aurora.

Four is simply too low, in my opinion - during lowpop, four is fine. Usually security won't be stacked and with four people, a mercenary team can control the station if they are a successful team. But if there are sixty people on the server and security is full - they are outnumbered 2:1 by sec alone, not even factoring in ERTs - and some ERTs outnumber them and outgear them. Anyway. I'm proposing we bump the upper limit of people in the off-station baddie teams up to six from four.

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Planet. Describe this proposal in a single sentence (12 word maximum): A contested Solarian outer colony, former gulag, now warzone and military outpost. How will this be reflected on-station? Primarily by on-station characters, though I am absolutely willing to implement Visegradi cultural dishes, beverages, and cultural garments and intend to do so should it be canonized. I also plan to add an accent for the planet. Does this faction/etc do anything not achieved by what already exists? Yes. The most noteworthy aspect being that it'd be the first planet present in the wildlands as part of a warlord state. Why should this be given to lore developers rather than remain player created lore? Player-created lore exists on a limited scale. The player creating it alone is typically the only person who will ever use it, and it is the responsibility of the player alone to have it represented. I believe the variety is the spice of life: Adding Visegrad will add more variety, and furthermore it will allow for representation of aspects of the lore that struggle to be represented on-server as-is - first and foremost among those being the wildlands. As no planets currently exist in the wildlands, Visegrad would be the first planet to be present in the wildlands, and the first under the administration of one of our warlord states. I am very fond of the wildlands and the warlords conceptually and narratively, and Visegrad is the perfect way to tie at least some of them into the server proper. 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. Long Description: Contact Danse Other notes: None!

While certainly a fascinating concept from a real life historical perspective, and an exercise in cultural universals that just about anyone can appreciate - I do not at all support the addition of glowing cats to the Aurora. In fact, I think the concept is quite absurd.

I think the problem with a live infection system is that you will have people who will just play their character but, oh no, they're a ling now! They didn't want this! They're the same person but a ling! That's crazy! That's so sad! We should help them! And then they turn around and rat out other changelings. At the very least, if it is a live infection system, the player should be explicitly told that they are not the same person anymore, merely imitating them.

Hard agree. I think a method to make more lings, or ling-lites, would be a huge improvement to changeling overall, and would do a lot to up the paranoia value inherent to the game. I believe Doxx had some plans related to this?

I would not like to see Taj or Unathi captains. The culture and climate of our in-lore setting simply does not logically lend themselves to this. In fact, I feel quite strongly that we are currently too permissive of aliens in command.

I absolutely detest the notion that Humans should be undermaintained and treated as a secondary species that is unimportant and only exists to facilitate training players to play xenos. It is utterly nonsensical to suggest that we would be better off by not giving distinct lore, languages, and mechanics to Humans - ultimately we play in a Human setting, and by making Human lore as minor and unimportant and easy to understand we would be making our very setting less interesting and enjoyable - because we don't play in alien space. This suggestion is not "bloat for the sake of bloat" . It is to make the predominant species represented in our lore more diverse, dynamic, and interesting. After all, they are the most common race on the server, like you said. And why would we not focus most of our work and attention to what most of the playerbase plays as? It is statements such as this that illustrates why SS13 species have long had problems with elitist and cliqueish behavior.

You misunderstand what meaningful roleplay is. Antags do exclude meaningful roleplay from a round, by virtue of being walking, talking decanonification devices. To have meaningful roleplay - that roleplay must not become a non-entity as soon as the round ends. While roleplay with antagonists can be incredibly fun, it is never going to mean anything after the round ends. Extended is a necessity because it allows the playerbase to go in with a guarantee that everything that happens in that round, unless voided, has long-term meaning.

To be frank, I think this is at best a pointless PR that does not accomplish anything - I do not often see successful back-to-back votes. At worst, it mostly exists to prevent popular gamemodes from being played as often as the playerbase would like. This is a terrible idea for the server's sake. Voted extended is a necessity for our community - especially when we factor into consideration that it is vital for the sake of canonicity. To get rid of voted extended is to get rid of a gamemode solely devoted to meaningful roleplay - and we are, after all, a roleplay server.

While I am sympathetic to the whole "they're overpowered" sentiment and I respect that you have problems with the Aut'akh because of that - Your post doesn't address the matter at hand. Aut'akh as they were before can be nerfed just fine - the topic of this thread is the fact that many Aut'akh characters were completely removed unceremoniously and unfairly. How and why do balance considerations justify the removal of characters?

I don't understand what you're referring to.

As a preface: I have no special love for the Aut'akh. In fact, I don't particularly care for them - they feel out of place to me. But the fact of the matter is that they were recently handled quite poorly - it is important to note that, indeed, the Aut'akh were not removed. They instead experienced a sweeping mechanical change that had repercussions for existing characters (With one of the potential repercussions being "this character is no longer playable.") This is, to be frank, unfair - a mechanical overhaul of how a species works that removes functionality needs to add an alternative in order to facilitate continued existence for characters that rely on that functionality. The recent PR did not provide an alternative, and I can't in good conscience say that the current situation is acceptable or fair to all the Aut'akh players who had their characters removed as a result of this. As a result, I must agree with the suggestion to revert the PR that removed the Aut'akh subspecies. If we want to move them over to FBPs, fine - but let's make that change when the work is already done. Assuring us that it will happen eventually is simply not good enough - and there is no harm in maintaining the previous status quo until the code is ready for the switch. tl;dr +1