WickedCybs

Now that we're getting into mapping entirely new ships and away sites, one stumbling block I've always found is that everything is either the same colour (steel/rwalls) or a custom wall type to get past that to an extent. It would be a lot easier though I think, if we could just have our core type of walls be colourable (maybe add a painter?) and it would help with mapping too and making it so things don't need the effort of custom sprites while still still looking different. This is easier said than done of course but as someone getting into mapping, it'd certainly be appreciated, at least.

Now that we have a solution for actually making it so away sites can take advantage of power requirements, I plan on looking into existing overmap ships and updating them. I would also like to change their shuttles so they can actually cycle into space properly like the Intrepid rather than having just a single airlock universally. I'm only interested in looking into what's more popular at first though, since this does take some effort and time. Other than the obvious ships tied to factions, xwhat might be some good ideas or concepts for future away sites and ships?

I'm aware, but It's not really relevant. The reality is still that they had no armour on and only one weapon capable of causing serious damage. Even a gauss carbine slug is still going to hurt them massively. So if just one person in ballistic armour who can just shrug off their mostly weak firepower (smgs and buckshot) fired off maybe two or three shots that hit, it would have been over for the marine being hit. The event runners definitely knew what they were giving out, since like you said, anything better would effectively eliminate any small chance they had of securing their objective altogether. The additional weapons also wasn't what really heavily contributed to their defeat but it did seal the deal by making people more willing to actually engage. The FSF CO and XO essentially critically wounded two or three of the SFA with just their pistols, and they mostly missed. This included the person with the AR, so it was a done deal after that. I personally still wouldn't want gauss carbines being the main weapon even at the start of any event, since even if it's a perfectly serviceable weapon it doesn't encourage action, by design.

I think it would be better to suggest an event might be of differing intensities depending on what happens rather than only marking it high due to the possibility of fighting. So, suggest it could range from medium-high intensity as an example. The event prior to it was completely fair and not really inevitable at all. Despite those "gauss carbines" the crew still ended up being able to defeat the marines after the fact. They are not worse weapons than 9mms either. The marines had no armour on and only one weapon worth a damn vs sec armour (the assault rifle). Security had not one, but two ballistic armour sets available which would have completely shut out the marines, but one wearer was in the bar and too far away which is fair. The other one just ran away during the armoury fight so the rest had to deal with the problem. The "loss" and killing of the FSF members ended up being completely the fault of the crew. Obviously, It's not about winning or losing in the end and nobody really did anything wrong with how it turned out though.

Some guidelines will certainly help with that, though I think as long as we don't let people do more stuff in general, wanting to drag around the "specialized" personnel is always going to be a constant issue as there is a tendency to overprepare without much reason. Another thing is that from what I've gathered during my conversations with people, some just find it unimaginable a "proper" expedition would leave without having a designated engineer person, a designated medic, a designated security member. Since this is their first real experience with the overmap. Other servers don't really have that problem.

This is probably more semantical than anything, but rather than phrasing it as "requirements" I would say it should just be labelled as expedition "suggestions" or "recommendations" so it appears more flexible and allowing of improvisation. To me, there should be no real hard restrictions. There shouldn't be an absolute requirement to take a medical member, or anyone really. Just advising good picks to round out an expedition, but acknowledging there's also zero problem with just a research team heading out themselves. They can always return for additional help if they want it. That's pretty much how the miners work, and we don't mandate they take anyone extra because the reality is, that's really not even needed. In general though, I think we should have it so basic knowledge in each area (engineering, medical and so on) can be considered acceptable for even an assistant going on an expedition to know. I don't think the expedition should need to have a medic in order to use the sleeper for an example, that should be considered easy to use and learn so an entire team can utilize it. If desired, there should also be an expectation expeditioners can know how to defend themselves if they want that. Playing someone without that knowledge could still be fine, for those who aren't into it.

Just an oversight these were not added yet I believe. The Aurora had one way exits in most departments once those were implemented, but it wasn't mapped into most of the Horizon. Only the bridge has one way exits, at its entrance at the moment.

Apparently this is how it is under the hood for the Aurora at least, so at least, your solution would be pretty nice at least as a background element. Other than sometimes IC confusion it would help me out of the game when I map stuff to see specifically what deck is what. So it seems like the most harmless adjustment.

That's why I posted the thread, I want to see if in general there's still problems with it or if people are used to it (except me).

As in. label deck one to be three, deck three to be one.

I keep mixing up whether deck one is the top deck or the hangar deck and whether deck three is the hangar deck or the top deck. In game of course, deck one is the hangar deck (lowest work deck) and deck three is the upper deck (with the bridge). Not sure if anyone else really has this problem though. I'm just used to the way Aurora labelled its levels (1 is the top, 5 is the bottom) and how stuff like the camera program manages it if you go into map view. I also always get slightly annoyed clicking on the map files and having to go from bottom to the top to edit the highest level.

Whenever I think of possible changes to the Horizon map, the main thought tends to be about maintenance. We've lost a significant amount of it, It's mostly small and narrow and it only leads to a few departments depending on the area. The overall map itself kind of makes it hard to add to maintenance as well or expand it, given how It's constrained by the "shell" of the Horizon and I would say the only "real" maintenance sections of note are on the second deck. We also have a ton of windows, leading to space and I kind of wonder if it really needs to be that significantly represented. Overall we could really benefit from more maint, just about everywhere. Challenges aside, I think It'd do the top and lower deck some good.

At the moment, losing power means the Horizon gets rather messed up across the board since any non critical shutter or blast door automatically closes down and then requires some extra effort expended to get them to how the state they used to be (open). However, we don't always have the roles capable of doing that available and so it leads to incredible delays and irritation. It also just looks bad to jump around and see the hangar becoming unusable for research until command is able to divert focus to them or random minor areas closed off. I think it would be best if we default to having every blast door and shutter acting as if they already have the critical variable toggled. I don't think stuff like having blast doors automatically raise upon power returning is a good solution either, they should just be rendered non-useable.

For clarity, I was Officer Szilvia Lestyan during that round. Apologies for any confusion if there was any.

I can't really get into that viewpoint, as I think It's coming from a position where you've had a bit of fun with merchants and want it to happen more often. The rarity is what makes it all the sweeter. I understand some may have interesting gimmicks or might not even be selling game changing stuff. However, we accept stuff like a merchant drastically impacting the round sometimes for now, because it just doesn't happen that often. If it were to change there is absolutely no way their stock would make it out intact, such as breacher suits and the other more interesting things people like to buy. Maybe that could be a plus, though. Either way it causes me to not only consider the constant effect on a round, but how it even makes any IC sense considering the Horizon is supposed to be out on its lonesome often. Meanwhile, there is a constant merchant presence docking to sell it stuff? That aside, it's not really the weapons I care about, but it is still a relevant aspect so I'll discuss it. They can't really be compared to the Horizon's armouries anyway, they're far more easily accessible and often outclassing anything or being a good alternative to what the ship can easily bring out. That the Horizon can bring a lot of guns to bear isn't really relevant. The only important ones are its rifles, the PEAC isn't even a contender because It's a terrible weapon (to anything not mechanical) that only looks scary. Meanwhile, the merchant can provide fully automatic weapons, xrays and a lot more. Good weapons aren't even that expensive and you can comfortably buy a few extremely powerful ones or a lot of on-par or better good ones without really caring too much. Being a massive game changer often, what with the firearms, hardsuits, tools and more. Credits are not even relevant, most merchants realize (understandably so) that credits are useless and It's far more interesting to sell at a massive loss. Then there's considering just how that's going to be used, especially as consistent merchants have a tendency to favor the crew. I do not want the role watered down and believe the current way is the best when it comes to facilitating roleplay, reducing issues and the headache of some tickets/investigations.

The small survival pod should probably just be ditched in favour of a dedicated escape pod/life pod spawn that's been crashlanded or stuck for whatever reason, I think. There's not much point to the role as is for the reasons listed above. You're not doing much.

The thread has served its purpose and Gem already posted a potential solution. Any further discussion isn't really relevant at this point as it's just repeating earlier posts, in an unfortunately increasingly hostile way. Here's Gem's post for reference.

That happens, though eventually the blob tires out so to speak and you get more hits on the core. It's probably more apparent here though, considering we're in narrower spaces. It definitely helps it goes by faster. In the past and even now, I usually see the pattern of two engineers dealing with it, and then the rest of the department helping with the aftermath if needed. I'll say, generally I tended to have the RFD so the main thing was filling a room afterward. Blobs themselves are unchanged since they were nerfed to be less resistant to burn damage maybe two years ago maybe? Not exactly sure when.

Maybe I should time it, but from my experiences blobs still grow extremely slowly, even slower if there's stuff blocking their way that they have to break through. I frequently destroyed them alone rather easily, since all you have to do is stay at a distance and turn on one emitter. Sometimes two, if I joined into a round where it already grew out of control. It certainly can grow to be a challenge, but it doesn't happen as quick as implied from what I've seen at all, and I frequently staff lowpop rounds. In some circumstances, sure it can take a while to secure a good position for an emitter, but I couldn't really say It's usually time consuming unless there's reinforced walls in the way. The only factually true point here to me is that it needs an engineer to handle it.

I take discriminatory comments extremely seriously. So, I was always going to see if you knew exactly what the issue was and that you were able to describe it to me, in your own words. Doing the equivalent of a nod and simply acknowledging what I'm saying wouldn't have prevented this complaint from happening and the fact that your take-away is "I should lie" is interesting. You all but confirmed to me though, that you either didn't care or were trying to cover for yourself and this complaint only really reinforces it. Here's what caught my eye and what triggered people to ask you in LOOC if you were trying to be offensive or not (you didn't answer, as you didn't even care to reassure anyone). Here is the entire ticket log from start to finish. It was a pretty standard set of events. where you tried to tell me everything was in character but perhaps a little borderline, that the fact that other people were upset, was their problem and not really something to concern yourself with. That me asking you to stop with the transphobic comments meant you have to be polite 24/7 and can't play an "asshole character" at all. The fact that's the conclusion you even jumped to said a lot about you to me. Afterward, you complained on Discord and ended up banned there as well for trying to rehash the ticket. My verdict was that at the worst, you're actually transphobic and looking to reflect your views in-game. At best, you're just incredibly self-centered and uncaring about those around you. Both are reason enough to remove you from the community, permanently. While this was actually a staff complaint, if you ever decide to make an appeal, do not waste the effort. I am never unbanning you.

I have to agree with Ping. I don't really want to have the chance at a merchant every round since they can significantly change the round dynamic through what they sell.

Danse has a lot of contributions to the server, from lore additions, volunteering, PR's and a lot of other stuff. I think It's a pretty significant edge over anyone else when it comes to the position and already shows the drive and dedication he would have for the position being applied for, certainly. Things would have definitely been worse off without him too, as I think It's fair to say a lot of these contributions ended up being fairly important to the lore overall, such as Visegrad becoming the first (and pretty much only) proper planet in the wildlands that's affected by those circumstances and controlled by a warlord or the third party ships likely not being used to the extent they are now without his contributions to get the ball going. He has an understanding of the lore, a solid vision of what he wants to do. Some of that stuff, I don't care for but overall It's good. Considering all he's done as just a member of the community, I would be interested to see how that changes as a member of staff.

Points one and two are the biggest thing I think. I of course mean no offense at all here. The map though, it was definitely too simple and undeveloped for what the event was, making roleplay harder and things just a lot harder than it had to be. Two tile wide hallways aren't conductive to getting things going, but that's a commonly acknowledged point already. I believe It's totally fair. It's a key aspect of the event in the end, even if the map is a one-off we are having people in it. Why would it not be held to the same standards as the Horizon or anything else? I don't really think we've had one like this before, where it was just a series of hallways with some rooms from other maps put in. It didn't seem like much of a station, just a more artificial setpiece that wasn't designed for what was happening in it. Considering these events are usually prepared for a while in advance, I don't think It's a bad idea to pour effort into them, even a lot of effort. Which isn't to say the event map used for this event didn't have effort put in, I'm only saying It's not a bad thing to pour effort into these overall. As someone who does map as well, it definitely could have been different and it would have been better for it. if places like the Golden Deep's hotel, the Casino, the beach or the Clandestine had the same issues, I don't think people would have talked about them as much as they did. The map is extremely important to any event.

It's a little hard to imagine an Unathi or Tajara could wear just any pair of shoes/boots found in game because their anatomy is just too different for that to work. On Tajara that's usually represented by their footwear sprites losing a pixel near the heel. Unathi are digitigrade too, though their sprites aren't any different in game other than their stuff typically being toeless because their claws are way more pronounced overall, just look at this. Gloves are an easier sell I think and more mechanically important, so I think that would be more worthwhile to lose if it had to be done. I do like that some of the alien races need these accommodations because it sells the fact that they're different. I don't really see it as being "resolved" by the loadout because why wouldn't you bring your gloves and footwear that works with you to the shift? It mainly affects what you can use in-round but that's only ever really been important for engineering and medical. I'm not too attached to the restrictions in the end though. Those are just the reasons I think they could still have a place. If it goes away, will probably need to give it slightly unique sprites for tajara/unathi though to keep appearances consistent for them.

Temporary memory removal should not be the most important part of your proposal and I simply can't support this at all due to that. I would not want my round effectively griefed by being targeted with an item that has no organic equivalent in this case, because the parapen doesn't do that. The only memory removing thing in the game comes from a voluntary augment or the vamp drain, and the vamp drain is already contentious as many don't find the memory removal interesting. Just having a parapen-esque long stun might be fine, though that's still not particularly enjoyable. For the rest, due to the binary nature of IPCs, I don't really think the rest of your proposal will accomplish your goal as well. Rapid battery reduction can be hard to notice until it's too late, and you are either powered or you aren't. If you become unpowered, you're at the mercy of an antagonist and that's that. These tools won't be used to temporarily bypass an IPC. It'll just be used to destroy them with no resistance and round remove them in other ways as is already done with EMPs. Harm batonning also apparently already removes battery rapidly, so the uplink so could just get a stun baton added if it has none already. What IPCs really need is a rework so they aren't the equivalent of walking terminators a plan needs to hinge on removing. It has to be remembered that they feel no pain, they don't slow down after taking damage, their limbs are hard to hit and even if they are damaged, that don't contribute to the shut-off state (only torso and head damage do) plus the limbs don't even break, they malfunction depending on the amount of damage and that means if the IPC is combative, it will never stop resisting until it is taken offline or stunned. With that in consideration, I don't think it matters if a machinist is on or that an IPC is "round removed". People playing the organic races can't be brought back at all, that IPCs can even come back into the round is a luxury and they rarely pay for the consequences of their damages as is. Despite any additions to mitigate it, IPCs are pretty much always going to be able to walk up to an antag and annihilate them. If they actually bite off more than they can chew and don't retreat? That's on them. They should be more cautious without a machinist on.