Skyglazer

This is absolutely a +1 from me, no questions about it, your understanding of Unathi culture, the themes presented in the lore, and how the views of the species affect the character are all clearly well-demonstrated in your post. I only have one-question though, and it's more of a curiosity/clarification about your character than anything else. With the last name "Szek'Hakh," you'll be playing a character that is directly related to the matriarch of the Queendom herself, Lazak Szek'Hakh, being in the same clan as her. Perhaps I missed it in your application (I swear I read the whole thing!) but I didn't pick up on what their actual relation to her was. A direct descendant? A cousin? A very estranged relative that just happens to be in the same clan? So on, so forth. And with this in mind, how does being related to such a controversial figurehead impact her?

Sleepy, thank you for your post in this thread and the update in the Unathi Discord. I know we spoke briefly about the same issue in this Discord prior to me making this thread, but I made it because I wasn't too assured by your reply. Seeing what you've said here and in there all together gives me some peace of mind. I may not agree with what you're doing or why you're doing it, but the important issue I meant to raise with this thread is more of communicating exactly what it is you intended to do openly and honestly, which I feel is what you've done now. I hope that the solution you eventually implement is good enough to win back the players that have been alienated by the changes as they are now.

This is not intended to be a retcon. This is a problem with a pending solution when there should be no problem to begin with, that is all. Lore retcons/etc. are completely separate from what is at play, no matter how much your opinions may differ from ours, they are not what we are talking about. The lore has not changed. Only the mechanics have. Fully augmented Aut'akh Unathi still exist in the lore, but you cannot play them in the game.

Consider also in the same passage where it lists their limited population that it also says that they are all locked into work contracts with NanoTrasen because of the debt that they owe. A limitation frankly seems a bit petty to me because you don't see such a thing with any other race or subrace. If a certain number of people want to play specific characters, and they are all plausibly under NanoTrasen's employ, there's no reason that they shouldn't be able to work at the same time. And again, part of the problems is that terms like this should've been negotiated and discussed among the community before the change to remove them was made, so we could all have a fair say. If you aren't fond of seeing too many at once, so be it, but keep in mind there are many ways to justify it. Perhaps they negotiated with NanoTrasen to be staffed in groups so they would not feel lonely, as loneliness is a big problem for Aut'akh that aren't connected to OSS. Perhaps they are staffed around the same time because they all live on the same planet and the work-days are the same there. There are many ways to play-and-let-play, and there's going to be some major tweaks to their lore by Sleepy soon, so this line of discussion may end up proving obsolete in the future. Try to consider the ways of handling things that make the most people happy, as that's how we keep the most players on the server. We do. See Alberyk (again, the initial author of the PR)'s statement here (there is a full conversation in the Unathi Chat Discord which goes into more detail, you can either take my word for it or look for yourself): In this same discussion, Alberyk states that he is against reverting the removal of the subspecies because it would create "more work" for this future PR, with a lack of regard for the players these changes have inconvenienced. As IAmCrystalClear states, you'd never see this happen to a subrace of Tajara characters. Alberyk already has all the work done of removing the subspecies. I'll admit I'm not an experienced coder, but from what I've briefly looked through in the PR before drafting this post, there doesn't seem to be any real reason to me that undoing it and then doing it again at a later date should be particularly difficult, as the majority of the lines of code used are just removing referrals to the species in stuff like job code. If he really does not want to do it, I (and others) would be ready and willing to buckle down and try to get the subspecies back in without undoing some of the other stuff that he has added.

What it says on the title. The removal of the Aut'akh Unathi subspecies has only served to do harm to lore and gameplay. Changes made to the code should coincide with changes in the lore, or at the very least adhere to what might exist in the lore. The removal of the Aut'akh Unathi subspecies has effectively removed all characters that had full-body prosthetics from play, which includes a long list of characters that existed before the change that cannot play without another way to play with a full-body prosthetic. To my knowledge, a solution to this issue is not being worked on and is not close to being implemented. With that being the case, I propose that the following changes be made: Bring back the Aut'akh Unathi subrace. Not only will it allow previously existing characters to continue existing, but it will also allow for any off-station roles (ERT, Antagonists, other special roles) to be Aut'akh characters. The current implementation of the prosthetics systems does not support ghost/antagonist roles adding prosthetics to their character through the use of the auto-surgeon or any other in-game character customization option. As there is no full-body-prosthetic solution close to completion, this is the fastest way to remedy the complete nullification of characters that the removal of it caused. Currently, any players who would want to play as Aut'akh off-station roles only have the option of playing a non-augmented Aut'akh, which are uncommon. Keep the current way the prosthetics and loadout items work. Aut'akh with only a few augmentations and implants should exist as per the lore, and non-FBP Aut'akh being able to use Aut'akh implants/prosthetics instead of the other brands is lore-friendly and simply nice to have. Keep the community updated on intended changes to code and lore. Especially when a multitude of characters are concerned, suddenly wiping several characters out of existence with a change that wasn't properly telegraphed is unacceptable and frankly unprofessional. This pull-request by Alberyk reads: In my interpretation and likely the interpretation of others, this language does not in any way state that the full body prosthetic will not be an option. "Players can control how augmented they want to be, instead of all being FBP," implies to me that there will be an option for SOME of them to be FBP. But no such option was included and this was not made clear in the PR or the announcement of the PR by Sleepy in the Unathi discord. The community should be made aware of the impending changes so they can prepare accordingly, be it through character retcons or switching existing characters off of the subspecies onto regular-Unathi so they do not need to be remade. If a character is saved to a species which is deleted, they are defaulted to human and lose a majority of their customization options including colors and languages. The lack of ability to prepare or adapt to these changes has left me completely unable to play my Aut'akh character, Siansi Arkha, and I would have loved to be informed of the steps that needed to be taken in order to avoid such a fate. From what I can tell, there would be very little issue with re-adding the subspecies. The Aut'akh loadout items can be made unavailable for selection by Aut'akh in the loadout menu, or Aut'akh players can simply be informed not to select them, as they will not be necessary as the full-body prosthetic includes all of the features that the currently-selected items can provide (except for the graspers, which needed to be manually selected by Aut'akh anyway.) It will (likely) not break anything, cause any inconsistencies, and will work fine as a stand-in. The subspecies should be removed after and only after there is a way to continue playing as already-extant characters or a lore adjustment removing said characters from play is published. Doing this before just leaves players (such as myself) feeling angry, confused, and gypped. Some people have expressed their desire for Aut'akh to be removed from the game entirely, but removal should take the proper methods and should be a decision that many people take part in. I think my request is a humble, reasonable-to-accomplish change that shouldn't upset anyone. I quite miss interactions between Aut'akh characters and my own, and indeed my Aut'akh character's interaction with others. Make changes to the code when they are ready, not half-done. Thank you for reading and potentially considering my request, please leave any questions/comments/concerns/other discussion below, I am welcome to hear it.

We had a brief discussion about this in the Skrell Discord but I'm going to leave my thoughts here as well for completeness. I very much oppose this suggestion, and as for why, I'll break it down into (perhaps too many, but I like to be complete in my explanations) points: In the Skrell lore, all Skrell are psionic. They are born with this, it is inherited. The genophage was species-wide sterilization, and relative to a Skrell's lifespan there hasn't been a significant amount of time to justify any sort of evolutionary loss of psionics either. Slimes are also passive to Skrell because they are Skrell, though I will concede to you that the reasoning is left ambiguous enough to where one could possibly make it for some other reason. Even other, lore-friendly "cons" in exchange for the lack of whitelist is a bad idea: the whitelist is not in place because the races are too strong. Skrell psionics as they exist now are not very strong, only allowing for telepathy and psi-pinging, and if these "cons" were trying to gate off powergamers from jumping into Skrell... Well, humans are already perfectly well-rounded enough to powergame with. It's not a problem of the race, it's a problem of the player. Powergamers are going to powergame. Going forward with the idea that whitelist isn't about the race's power: it's entirely about lore understanding. We shouldn't add in a subrace like this for the same reason we wouldn't allow a subrace for Unathi/Tajara/etc. for characters that were "raised by humans." Could they exist in the lore? It'd be weird, but they could absolutely exist, they could even have the "cons" of not being able to know the species languages, and maybe even not be as tough or whatever, akin to what you suggest here. But it would never happen, because the entire reason we have the whitelist system in-place in the first place is to make sure that players understand that they are playing a character that exists in a unique universe, that will not lead a simple life of "oh I'm just a weird frog dude," and even playing a character that comes from outside of their race's homeland requires the same amount of understanding of the lore that one would get from... well, getting the whitelist anyway. This change will not attract people to the race, especially in the form you suggest. If people want to play a skrell character, even one with the very specific lore background that your change would suggest they have, they would absolutely be better off just applying for regular Skrell in the first place. They do not need this "free trial" version of Skrell to play. This is merely a band-aid solution to the problem this is meaning to address: In-lore, Skrell are supposed to be nearly as common as humans, but this is not well-reflected in the station demographic as Skrell are not very commonly played: generally, you'll only see a few compared to the overwhelming human majority. I do not think this is a limitation of the whitelist system- I just don't think people are very interested in playing Skrell characters. I think this is perfectly fine, and if we need to garner interest we should stick to more organic methods like canon events and lore publishing-- Paradox is still new to the seat of Tentacle Tyrant, but I have no doubt they would be able to make Skrell more relevant if they even deem it a problem that needs addressing. It's not too hard to just suspend our disbelief and imagine that Skrell might be quite populous in other Nanotrasen installments, and there just aren't many staffed on the Aurora for a variety of different reasons. After all, the lore is a gigantic setting and the Aurora is one very small place with comparatively very few people. Frontier Skrell already exist in-game without this change. This should be enough said, but for the sake of clarity I will provide further explanation: People do not need mechanical limitations to play limited characters. Within reason, obviously-- you need stuff like the disability system to reflect a character is missing an arm, because an entire damage part, a lack of hands, etc. etc. is a majorly game-changing character trait. But on a more diminutive level, like a Skrell not being a very good psion, or a Unathi not being very strong, or a Tajara not liking lasagna not having very sharp claws, and so forth-- you can show these small quirks without any sort of mechanical restriction in place. Specifically, I have seen a Skrell roleplay being bad at psionics by making their telepathic messages seem a bit jumbled, or incomplete- and then they explain they are not good and why, and the message is conveyed completely and perfectly: no mechanical intervention involved. And even though my Unathi character could technically break handcuffs as per the code, I prevent myself from using it because it is not appropriate for the character: again, neither myself nor this other Skrell player particularly need harsher restrictions put into place. Not only is it more work for the coders to implement things when they could be working on other stuff, but it's just not necessary. There's a very old adage: if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Perhaps this is restating, but I feel the need to say it again. If people want to apply for Skrell, then they should apply for Skrell. The application process is painless and really doesn't require that many people vouching for you: the person reading any given application is a completely reasonable human being that probably wants people to be playing the race that they put so much effort into maintaining the lore for. Not to mention all the resources required to research into any lore you'd need to know for one are in completely easy-to-digest forms on the wiki which you can quickly use to put together a solid character concept in only a couple of hours, which is about the length of your average round on Aurora, so not a very large investment of time. Community members are also always willing to provide help and answers to any questions, and so long as people display an honest effort and an aptitude for roleplaying within Aurora's high-roleplay standards, they will easily pass an application with no problems. In summary, the idea as-posed doesn't make any lore sense, doesn't provide a sensible solution to the problem that it sets out to address, sets out to solve a problem that doesn't necessarily need solving, and goes against the whole logic behind why alien whitelists exist on this server in the first place. People do not need a stripped version of a race to want to play it. Believe me, I wish there were more Skrell on the station too, but this isn't the way to go about it. There are better ways, and we should give Paradox the time to try them if they even deem it necessary.

After having experienced what Siobhan Verity is like during particularly chaotic situations- namely, a Tower Defense round where all of the antagonists were ran-sacking the bar, I found it to be quite lacking. Hectic rounds should be where Command players try their hardest and stick out as paragons of the round, but on behalf of Siobhan as captain, it felt like they were not making much effort to interact with the antagonists' gimmick. The context is as described previously: They were the captain when a group of raiders, mercenaries, and a ninja had all taken over the bar to host a convention, where many syndicate agents get together and socialize in a NanoTrasen establishment as the ultimate middle-finger to the company. Announcements were made about this, though I think Siobhan might have been a late-join to the round, I am not sure. From the logs I'm examining, she mentions that she was going to go down to the bar to find out what was going on, but we, as the antagonists in the bar, never saw her. What we did see, was a quick jump to red alert and a distress beacon launch. Now, I'm not saying that it's necessarily bad for her to have done any of this. Reasonable, even. However, this lack of interaction compounded with prior concerns of validhunting behavior (especially how they describe in the app how they "maintain something they were warned for was IC" and proceed to justify it) gives me the impression that they have not really taken the initiative to listen to how others view their actions, a reluctance to learn to play differently, and an inclination to still engage in this sort of behavior. Especially later in the round, it was worrying (later being 1:20 in, as they had called the shuttle very quickly after hearing that somebody had been mugged by one of the raiders) because the captain still spoke very little- no attempts at diplomacy or even attempts to establish any sort of understanding with what the raiders want was established-- all they told people was to focus on getting to the escape shuttle. Furthermore: their character is an elderly woman, described as being in her early seventies, who even walks with a cane for support. This elderly character's response to imminent danger was to arm and armor up to defend herself- the first time me and most of the other antagonists had seen her was not before she had gotten fully into her captain's hardsuit... meanwhile, another Command member, the Head of Personnel, was leisurely interacting with the antagonists in the bar in her normal outfit, and had even agreed to be disarmed-- which facilitated further interaction with the round's antagonists and their gimmick. Speaking of gimmicks, the wording of this app (combined with the experience in this round I am presently describing) concerns me, and I quote: "so we all kicked the hell out of them and stomped their gimmick at about 1:30-1:45." This is the wording in the same section of them "justifying" their warning about (what I assume is) validhunting behavior as security-character-visitors. "kicking the hell out of" and "stomping their gimmick" sounds like glorifying winning over an antagonist and denying them the right to exist and try to do something out of the ordinary. Gimmicks should not be stomped out, or ignored. They should be combated, yes, but refusing to engage with them doesn't create much fun for either party. Lastly, the believability of this behavior is even worsened when you recall the fact that the character is 70+ years old and supposedly frail. During the round, as a solo raider, I walked into red dock and confronted the captain, who called for help. I gloated about getting to use a clusterbang, which I then threw and was promptly gunned down by the many security that were there. It was hilarious-- and exactly what I was expecting-- but what I got afterwards confused me. After I had been downed by laser fire, the captain (again, an old woman, after having blasted me with a laser gun) whipped out her telescopping baton and started wailing on my body to make sure I was dead-- even though the only hostile action I had taken was the clusterbang. After cracking my ribs and wailing on my chest for a good minute with me still not dead (still unconscious the whole time though), she elected that enough was enough and dragged my dying body over to the emergency lockers in red dock. She then hid it inside where it remained for the rest of the round. I apologize for the length of this feedback and its negative nature, but I think a command whitelist is something that should be taken seriously as many people look to command characters for leadership, for interaction, and for an example, and I think there's a bit more to Captain than making sure the antagonists are combated and stay dead. I think that Red Alert -> Distress Beacon -> Emergency Shuttle is pretty standard for a Tower Defense round, but that shouldn't be all there is. There was all the opportunity in the world for the captain to make a stand to the raiders- make announcements instructing the crew how to act towards them- try to negotiate more agreeable terms with the occupying force-- but none of that was there. And the "beat the antag when he's already been turned to swiss cheese and stuff his body in a locker after" bit just seems like plain validhunt-y behavior to me. This got way longer than I intended it to be, but I prefer to err on the side of being exceedingly thorough with the amount of context I provide so it does not seem like I am just writing an opinionated hit-piece. Given the concerns others have about validhunting behavior in security, and what I've experienced first-hand-- and as someone with a Command whitelist myself-- I feel the need to oppose this for now. I would like to note, however, that I'd really love to be swayed on this. You express a desire to facilitate RP on your app and I'd love to see that realized- and we all make mistakes, so I don't think your behavior in this round or wording in the parts of your app that I pointed out-- or, indeed, concerns others have about validhunting behavior-- none of that should doom you for failure- but they're legitimate concerns that I think should be addressed before your whitelist is made permanent. TL;DR: -1, frail old ladies should not be going for the baton beatdown kill and stuffing bodies into lockers. They should be wise and willing to cooperate with hostile forces, not call every emergency response protocol they've got available without a word to the invaders. This is all my opinion, though, and I invite you to change it. Especially consider that, from my one perspective- I don't have all the context. I invite others who participated in this specific round to add to this story and share their thoughts as well.

How can I not leave my support for Aticius? The time between meeting them and considering them a great friend was quite possibly among the shortest of anyone I know-- that is to say, we were exceptionally fast friends. Aticius' characters and play left a lasting impression on me, and after getting to meet the person behind the lizards, we just clicked. Aticius is friendly, highly knowledgeable of the game, devoted to RP, and would provide a new kind of energy that I think the current Command pool might need. People have listed valid concerns, but I have faith that Aticius will be able to overcome the negatives that have showed themselves in the past. If they struggle-- well, it's my duty as a friend to hold them to it! Give Aticius a chance, and I promise they won't let you down. +1.

The years of excellent content and wholesome energy really serve as a testament to his ability and what he can provide for our community. Although I think it goes without saying, as Marlon is a good friend of mine I must say I would love to see him back in the Command role, especially with all those fun and interesting ideas he has listed! It's clear that he's a player who loves to take the initiative to make rounds more enjoyable for people, which is exactly the kind of mindset we need for Command players! We all make mistakes, and it's clear that Marlon wants to demonstrate that he has learned and wants to move on. Give him a chance-- especially since, by the way he tells it, his mistake was an honest and unintentional one, and his loss of whitelist has nothing to do with his ability to play good command. It's an easy +1. I wanted to give my support when I first saw his app- but I didn't think he needed it. Eventually, I just resolved to provide my support anyway.

Let me just preface this with an apology, as I'm about to rip into this PR. Keep in mind that this is geared purely towards the contents and how they compare to what we currently have. I absolutely appreciate the artists as people and think they could make something that looks great. It never feels good to harp on something that has clearly had so much time and effort spent on it, but I have to agree with a lot of the detractors in this thread: I think the facelift sets out to solve a problem that isn't there, and in the process, has created a few more. A lot of the points I was thinking of when I first saw these changes have already been brought up, but I'll list a few of my biggest ones here for convenience. 1) The dark, muted color scheme is bland and inoffensive. The brighter colors and simple designs from before helped what make things that needed to pop, well, pop! Others in this thread have already pointed it out, but a lot of the colors are so dark they just... blend together. 2) As well, some things pop that aren't really supposed to. The stark differences in detail between the AI holopad and the floors make the holopad look like an item that was dropped on the floor rather than a pad in the middle of the floor. 3) Some of these sprites seem to lack polish or feel even unfinished. I'm not sure if this is intentional and is going to be fixed in a later PR, but a lot of these sprites seem to be lacking- or like they're placeholders or something. As an example, I'd cite the air alarm, and reinforced walls. As for the air alarm, the light the bounces back-and-forth is juuuust barely off-center, as is the text that says 'AIR.' Not to mention that he bouncing light doesn't have any real borders and just bounces back and forth seemingly against the wall... Reinforced just look strange with that dot in the middle rather than looking reinforced. This was a problem in the old style, but it's made more extreme by having said dot being the only major detail (with the rest so faint and greyish that they are too difficult to make out). 4) I don't think the station's aesthetic needed a change, and while I applaud the authors of the facelift for making the PR, I think it is a bit too ambitious and falls short. I invite everyone to keep in mind that we don't need our own custom-made sprites to be our own distinct server- and if we're going to majorly overhaul the look, it shouldn't be only half the artstyle. The new-style tiles clash majorly with the old ones, like windows, airlocks, shutters, pipes, lockers, tables, chairs, etc. that were made in the old style. In my opinion, it's probably this style consistency that's the most important. You can't make a solid artwork by painting half of it and finishing the rest with crayons and markers. 5) But my concluding remark will have to be that just because the old sprites are old doesn't mean they're necessarily bad. To echo something said at the beginning of the thread, I feel like most of the floor-equipment sprites (scrubbers, vents, holopads) are just straight downgrades from the old versions, just made a little fuzzier, greyer and less detailed. That all being said, I don't see this PR not going through no matter how many people are against it- I just hope that when it does inevitably get pushed through, that some concerns of people who are fans of the old style will be addressed. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing the final versions of these sprites when they get implemented.

Is the goal of this to eventually resprite everything? I would tentatively support it if not for how much the dark, muted new tiles clash with the comparatively very bright airlocks/windows/disposals/etc. I think that makes it look pretty bad. And I'm not sure if making everything so dark is a good idea, especially when a lot of the clothing items are from the original, bright artstyle and will make characters pop out waaaaay more and look like they don't belong in the scene.

1. Mikau, having lived on Jargon IV for most of his life, has only ever had exposure to human media during his studies. It has always fascinated him, but he's never been able to experience it authentically. That is one of the things about his life that will change during his extended stay in human space: he'll be able to experience this media in a more natural habitat! No doubt, when he is on the station he will be asking any interesting humans that he meets what their favorite genre is. 2. Firstly, he would reminisce about all the time he spent with the Doused, from his humble beginnings as a child interested in music all the way to the band getting back together when he is a man. Depending on who is asking for the autograph, he may give out a lot or a little information. For example, he may not tell a very pro-Federation Skrell about the incident that persuaded him to take flight into the stars. But, in general, he'd mostly be happy to discuss his musical career and give out an autograph to a fan. Even when he was still planetside and fans were much more numerous, he was always passionate about entertaining anyone who recognized him. The same is true in space! Thanks for such a quick reply, and I'm glad my interpretation was suitable to your standards!

I've seen Leudoberct do a fantastic job portraying lore-faithful Skrell, Unathi, and Vaurca, and I'm sure the rest of his characters are just as good. As you can clearly see from reading his app and what should be obvious from his vast server-experience, he understands the Tajara and would do a great job playing one of those as well. His app clearly displays a character with a compelling goal and distinct reason for being aboard the NSS Aurora, and... Well, most importantly, if this application is accepted, Leudoberct will be whitelisted for every role and thus time will collapse. +1

BYOND Key: Skyglazer Character Names: Hazel Delano, Drarak Lezakh, Siohazk Arhaziik Species you are applying to play: Skrell What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Blue, or possibly green. Some color that's somewhere between neutral and bright. Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, and I tend to have such pages open when I'm playing. Even months after I've gotten my Unathi whitelist, I'm still always making sure what I'm saying and doing syncs up with the lore. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: It's a combination of a few reasons! I've been playing on Aurora for a few months now, and I've had quite a few positive interactions with Skrell players, and, in honesty, Skrell seem to be some of the most consistent characters out there. The lore seems very solid and there are many things about it that fascinate me, such as psionics, how a character might struggle with the genophage, the authoritative nature of the Jargon Federation that we've seen in the recent Skrell events... there's a lot going on, and I'd like to be able to explore it as more than just an outsider. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Where to start? Beyond the obvious aesthetic differences, Skrell should be, on average, much more mature than your average character. Years of life experience from well-beyond double the lifespans of other creatures fills them with wisdom, but their culture also keeps them lighthearted and open to new experiences. Not only are there all these cultural differences, but there's also psionics and the Wake, and specific actions with federation and non-federation Skrell. Character Name: Mikau Quolu'lulu Please provide a short backstory for this character (It's kinda long.): What do you like about this character?: Well, as you can see, I got a little carried away in writing it... Skrell have such long lives, it felt like a disservice to not include a whole bunch of information about such a long time. I'd like to play this character I played out (possibly tweaked: I tried to incorporate a lot from the lore but I can tone it back if I went too far with it in some places). As I stated above, I've been consistently impressed by the ability of Skrell players to accurately represent their species' unique and interesting lore, and I'm excited to try to set a similar example, with a friendly, deeply empathetic character that could be played as a Bartender or a Counselor, which are very social roles that I feel would be fitting a very social Skrell. What I'd most like to do is take the lesser-known parts of the Skrell lore, like the music, and run with them. I was really glad to read on the wiki that there was so much information about the music, as it all really fit-in well with the vague idea I had originally, which was just "Skrell musician of some sort." I think you can see here that I've expanded beyond that, and that I'd like to expand it even further by playing with it! How would you rate your role-playing ability?: I would only rate my role-playing ability by degree by which most people enjoy it. Thankfully, I tend to have a blast roleplaying with people who also seem to enjoy my company- I enjoy putting lots of thought into characters and ideas and I think I can pull them off with some level of competence. Overall, I'd say I'm prrreetty good. Certainly not a master, but always aiming to improve. Notes: Thank you for taking the time to read my application! I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

You know, I've actually been meaning this to support this for a while. I agree with NewOriginalSchwann that your answers to their questions were quite good, and we had a great back-and-forth during a round where you displayed a clear understanding of Aurora lore and how to engage with players in a unique and interesting way! I trust that you will be the type of head to really talk things out and get people riled up in the right ways. I promised I'd give a -1 for each time that you left and rejoined the Unathi chat discord, but I have to break that promise and give you a big ol' +1.

Venty's friendly out of character, fun in character, and they clearly put a bunch of effort into making a neat character concept that I'd love to see realized on the station. +1, nobody should have to play more than one human before they get their glorious lizard whitelist.

Leudo is always going out of his way to create interesting RP for people using his Consular, from what I've seen so far. Vaurca or not, Vizq will interact with anyone while simultaneously doing a great job of showing off what their group is all about and forwarding their interests. A few days ago I was observing as he was doing a great job of taking responsibility for a revolutionary Vaurca's actions- trying to talk them down, and such. I'm not super in-the-know with Vaurca lore, but it was an interesting interaction that wouldn't have happened without him. Leudo should definitely keep his whitelist, so here's my second word of support: +1!!

Well, I think grabs are great in unarmed combat, it's specifically the bit about blue grabs forcing you to drop your items and the ease of landing said blue grab being the main problems. You should be able to wrestle people-- and hell, it can even possibly be somewhat viable, maybe a neck grab forcing people to drop their items might be something reasonable to go for if you have someone trapped in a corner. Here's an idea I had while writing: perhaps aggressive grabs can prevent you from using an item in your hand-- or if you try to shoot a gun, it shoots off in a random direction- stuff like that. Like, if you're holding someone back, they probably can't get a full swing of their toolbox on you, but they also don't immediately drop them. This way, if people don't want to drop their items and realize they're getting grabbed, they can put/throw them away before it gets upgraded to a red grab, but will still make aggressive grabs good to go for, as they'll prevent people from smacking you full-force with that sword or whatever. Maybe such a change would encourage people to use smaller weapons, like knives, which could potentially still hurt someone who's got you in a grab, because it doesn't require a full swing. I realize that these are all lofty dreams without a coder backing them, but... well, someone coded the way things are now, I hope someone can eventually code a way things could be made better. Just throwing things at a wall and hoping they stick: as was my whole hope in making this thread, basically. With Brainmed and adrenaline, people have plenty of leeway to get a grab off even if you're actively hitting them. With the time it takes to get an aggressive grab (like a second), it's pretty unlikely you'll have already gotten a knockdown by then. Again, it all varies.

Val is a name I see all the time, and though I never get the chance to interact with them personally, I've heard nothing but good things and I've seen a very positive attitude in OOC from Cybs as well. Give my man a trial. +1.

As expected, Waff-AI's performance as head of security has been great. Their head of security is good at communicating and in general, being on top of the station situations and the department as a whole, while providing ample interaction with the other heads and rest of the crew. Knew I had a good feeling about you, my guy. Here's my second +1, having now seen him in action.

Hi, this is a post about combat, but you'll notice that I'm not mentioning a whole lot about brainmed! How is that, you wonder? Well, see, there's this little thing that's been confusing me lately, and I haven't been sure as to what. I'm not the most robust in Aurora/Bay-styled combat. A long time ago, I used to be real good in /tg/-combat, so I consider myself a fairly robust dude. I'm good at clicking on people, I can manipulate my inventory quickly, I know what most items do and how to get 'em, all sorts of stuff. In recent times, I've mostly abandoned the whole "be really robust in combat" mentality because it's not very conductive to a high-roleplay environment. In most cases, I find myself playing characters that would rather surrender instead of going toe-to-toe with dangerous antagonists, however, recently I've been playing in some antagonistic and special roles. Namely: Ninja, Mercenary, Traitor, and ERTs. Now, a lot of the RP goes well, I find that I'm pretty good at roleplaying an intimidating presence, I give realistic threats, I escalate situations well... but something has been skeeving me out about these combat roles. I often find my ass getting kicked by unarmed people-- well, that should be happening, right? This isn't /tg/ or something- you can't just disarm spam! Well, no, you can't. But you can do something way better, way more consistent, and way easier to spam: Grabs. Specifically aggressive grabs. If you don't want to read the rest of my preamble, just skip to here: Grabs in their current state are ridiculously spammable for how effective they are. They are VERY slow to register that someone has actually left the effective grabbing range when you upgrade from passive grab to aggressive grab, which can be disastrous when combined with the fact that upgrading to an aggressive grab- or simply being the target of an aggressive grab-- which requires no effort from the aggressor except clicking on you with an empty hand, will cause you to drop your items. Unlike disarm, which is an RNG chance, grabs are highly likely to be at least passive. This has led to some very gamey encounters where, I'll be a highly armed antagonist with a means of defending themselves: mercenary with an energy shield. Kataphract with a barrier. Ninja with their sword. But then, someone just runs up and lands a grab on me. Then, the game doesn't register that I am moving or trying to resist out of the grab-- or, if I do, there is a cooldown before I can resist again, while the grabber can simply grab again. The only thing they have to do to upgrade it and disarm me of my item is spam the "use item" hotkey. Once they get the aggressive grab, I drop my item and they use it against me, kicking my ass? Now, am I unrobust for having this happen to me? Absolutely. Should this really be happening on a high-RP server, though? Probably not. I recommend someone with way more coding knowledge than myself look into this, because it's very frustrating and video-gamey to have a Visitor run up to you and grab you, take your shield off the ground, throw you, grab you again, take your weapon, and then kick your ass with it. It's hilarious and an absolutely deserved death, from a pure skill perspective, but it is unsatisfying and immersion-breaking otherwise. It's a sharp downgrade to what should be legitimate threats. Why would you be really scared of an antagonist if you could have their gun in a second if you sprint up to them? And the reverse: You don't really feel like you're threatening someone by pointing a gun at them. If anything, you're putting yourself at risk by even holding it in your hand. Do you guys agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts on grabs, disarms, and the non-ranged-weaponry of the current combat and medical systems? I, for one, think grabs should either more effectively keep someone in range for them to work, or more accurately detect whether or not someone should be ABLE to be grabbed-- i.e., shields/barriers should block grabs. Also, the grabs should check if the person is still in range before allowing the upgrade to a higher grab. I've seen some particularly atrocious examples where someone will get passive grabbed, run away, then the grabber not only will upgrade the grab from a passive grab to an aggressive grab, but also use the aggressive grab to throw the person back into range to be grabbed again. It's a all a bit silly in my opinion.

Leudoberct is so flexible in his roleplay it's astounding. His ability to be consistent and stick to each of his many characters and their roles is exactly what you would expect and want from someone in a Command position, adaptability to many situations, which would include different crews and roundtypes wherein Command plays a critical role. I have no doubt that Leudoberct would set a stellar example in a Command position, and his wide variety of fleshed-out characters shows just how much he has to bring to the table. +1

A short yet sweet application, but clearly displays understanding of the lore and a desire to get invested in the ideas that can be created around it. He shared this on Discord and fixed an error I pointed out in like 0.0001 picoseconds, so it's a +1 from me.

I have had some lengthy interactions with Chiamaka and they have never disappointed, an insightful and scrupulously made character that has a solid basis in the lore and interacts with others regularly, I have no doubt that Devildabeast would do well in a command position. +1.