Dreamix

After rethinking and rereading all this after a night or two of sleep, I do see I did a dumb thing and got upset for all the wrong reasons, or even no reasons at all. I would like to apologize to everyone involved, for having to waste time reading my post, checking the logs, writing replies, and for my accusations as well. Please close this, I retract this complaint.

BYOND Key: Dreamixpl Staff BYOND Key: WickedCybs Game ID: chU-dBlY, ended around 01:18 UTC+0 Reason for complaint: I believe security play in that round was very bad, coming from tajara sec officer Azhara Shas'kui (I am not 100% sure it was this one - there were two tajaras in security that round, and I've been following the mercs, so if I have confused who this was then I am sorry). I do not like WickedCybs's decision, who was handling my ahelps, that security play there was fine and okay. My first ahelp said, "playing hero without considering the hostage". WickedCybs said, that's fine. My short recollection of the events that round, leading up to the situation: The situation itself: PMs with WickedCybs, starting with my first ahelp: logs that I have recorded as a ghost, from immediately before and during the situation: https://imgur.com/a/cMKkvgj I've been ghosting over Centurion for most of the round. I see no log for Azhara throwing the flashbang, so I believe, they literally ran into the mercs, with a flashbang in hand. "So what is the problem, exactly?" As in my first ahelp, yes, I believe the Azhara was playing hero/rambo, without considering the hostage. Something sec (or anyone) shouldn't do. "Having a hostage shouldn't be an instant win condition for the mercs." I'm not saying it should be. The IC and OOC job of security is to be a counter to antags, yes. But the OOC part is also to not immediately shut down the antag, and allow for roleplay and stuff to happen (ofc within the rules and character believability). Antags were not given really any time to react, or regroup, or talk, or make demands, or really anything. "The antags were out-robusted. As simple as that. They could've had flashbang protection, or positioned better, or etc." Expecting the antags to be super robust and think of anything security could throw at them, when sec can just run in with flashbang in hand. Like, come on. How do you even practice hostage-taking, merc group play, or antag-play in general? Playing security doesn't teach you that. Merc rounds don't happen every day, and they have only four slots for the mercs. Should people who want to play antag, go to other, low-RP servers, to practice? "Flashbang effectiveness." Realistically, a flashbang is brutal, yes... Except that, it is a flash-bang-stun-grenade, not an instant-paralysis-grenade. Not to mention that you absolutely can train yourself to mitigate most of the effects of a flashbang - and special police/military forces absolutely do that. And the in-game mercs probably should be trained in that as well, especially with the gimmick/background these mercs have chosen. IRL police also doesn't run up to the suspects/hostage-takers/etc with literally a flashbang in hand - it's always coordinated and planned action, if there's no other way to resolve the situation. Was there another way? We'll never know, because sec did not really try anything. There was no planning in here, no communication. Evidence/logs/etc: The logs above, I guess. Additional remarks: Security vs antag play has always been an issue, and it's always been a highly discussed topic. With most people agreeing that the issue is actually a thing that is an issue, but also that there's no clear way to fix that issue... beyond ahelping. Situations like this one, I believe this is one of the reasons as for why there's so few players with antag roles enabled. Why bother, if no matter what you do, there will always be a sec officer who can out-robust you (Also... Have I gotten a tiny bit salty from how the situation went? Yes, maybe. I thought the mercs were a bit goofy, in that they were running around the tunnels, playing Solid Snake, sneaking into departments to talk with the crew. I got a bit frustrated when all this was cut and stopped, cause of a single officer running in with a flashbang.) If rushing the antags with a flashbang is fine, then say so, here and publicly, and close this.

I'm not really playing the game to much anymore, but I do have something to add. One, it's kinda bad/dickish to hop departments like this (bartender-captain, for example). There could be a player who specifically created a bartender character to mix drinks and talk with people about their problems, like a true professional. *Or* a player with his captain who is allegedly a bartending hobbyist, and really just wants to goof around with his meta-buddies. Two, the pay gap is an issue. It's not like captains are 20 year olds so live in their parent's basement. They have big apartments and all kinds of shit to pay - employing themselves in an extremely low paying job won't pay the bills. Also, if a captain sees that his job on NSS Aurora is taken, he gets assigned to NSS Whatever or NSS Autilus. There are lots of other stations that NanoTrasen operates, and characters commute from Biesel or CC or wherever anyway. Working with the same people on Aurora is not an argument, as characters change every shift.

what the fuck happened again

1. You were probably waiting 30 mins for mining to mine and process the materials. Usual cargo orders should be fast, unless it's low-population dead-hour, where everything is kinda slow. 2. You don't need to order firing pins from cargo. There would be firing pins in the firing range. You could use them to test your guns in the firing range. 2,5. And even if you need to order them from cargo, it's just 5 minutes before the cargo tech mails it to your lab. 3. That may be a surprise to you, but you aren't actually inventing new things every round. You can't print a firing pin because the NanoTrasen and/or GameBalance doesn't allow you. Lame, huh? 4. And again, the "fun" part is already accessible. Just use the firing pins found in the firing range. (Also, I don't get what's so fun about firing your guns at a monkey or a metal wall. And I don't even see any scientists actually testing these guns anyway.) I'd love it if people stopped focusing on the 'antagging scientists' part so much. It doesn't even really affect scientists that much. They can still test their guns in the firing range, antags get sweet as firing pins from the uplink, security has their guns like usual. It's not the end of the world, people. Firing pins is just another interesting mechanic to add to the game. It allows many new things like stealing firing pins from armoury's guns as a ninja, and hoping the officers don't notice it and make them look like dummies when they try to fire at you. Or a gun that only an antag can use, that explodes when someone else tries it. Or simply ERT-only guns, so the janitor or nuke op can't use it against ERT. Generally personal guns, a paranoid Captain could have his e-gun locked to his ID or DNA. How about sabotaged firing pins that explode your gun after three shots? How fun would finding an unlocked firing pin in maintenance be? Would you carry a gun without a firing pin in your backpack? "But officer, this gun doesn't have a firing pin, it's really just a piece of metal and not a gun in its current state. It could also change a guns "value". Basically, you have as many guns as you have unlocked firing pins. In the time of need, a scientist can't print an armoury's worth of guns and just hand them out to everyone like it's christmas. Now, this scientist has only 8 unlocked firing pins. Does he make the officers wait 5 minutes while he raises research levels to get laser cannons? If he does, will he give all 4 officers cannons? What if they can't wait, does the scientist print them sub-par guns now? What about other 4 pins, will he print smaller guns so the officers have backups? Or does he forget about security and just prints cannons for his science-buddies for self-defence? What if the scientist doesn't have too much resources? Will he print 8 good guns? Or 16 small guns? If the 8 guns with firing pins run out of juice, he could just remove the firing pins and install them in the other guns. I believe, this is why firing pins could be an interesting mechanic, it adds depth or something.

Character handicaps? More like, character complete retardations haha Character handicaps make no sense without a skill-point system. Even if you choose a few handicaps, they barely change the game at all (ex. why would an engineer make chems or do surgery, anyway?) or make your character look like a complete dumbass. No sense to waste your time with this, huh.

That would be nice. A bit restrictive, but actually brings more roleplay. Whether your cargo buddy orders you some firing pins, a warden lends you one for a bit, RD gives you a box, or even if you metagame some from maintenance, you can still cause some trouble. It removes the problem of scientists who stuff their backpacks with an armoury worth amount of ready-to-robust guns, unless they want to do some quick reassembly while they're under fire. It may also discourage some scientists from spending their entire shifts in the RnD lab.

I've wrote about something similar before. The whole emotes thing could be extended to everything, they could also be randomized from a pool of little flavor texts so don't quickly become boring, or even procedurally generated. Like chemistry: "NAME mixes x with y", "NAME dilutes a solution of x with a moderately sized y sample" or "NAME user extracts x from the test tube".

"I guess there should probably be a cooldown between using it, so it doesn't just become some kind of shitty meme."~Kaed If the shitters are going to abuse it, it's only good for everyone. It's better to catch the greytider while he's abusing vomiting than after he abused 5 welder fuel tanks.

Game balance. /thread

What about job-downgrading? Can a paramedic character clone people, if he usually works as a CMO/whatever? What about older MD's who usually work as surgeons, can they do surgery? What about chemistry? Are chemists just medical doctors who took some chemistry classes on how to make tricord and also know the usual medical stuff? Or are they scientists who specialize in chemistry and know complex medicines? Chemistry in-character shouldn't really be dumb pushing buttons (just like research shouldn't). Anyway, these "Do's and Don'ts" seem pretty unnecessary to me, since people were always free to, and did hop around jobs. Like officer-warden-detectives, surgeon-doctors, engineer-enginetech-atmostechs, QM-miners. So unless we entirely ban this job-hopping, nothing will really change. Remember Azande's literally-hitler-like restrictive suggestion? What about other departments, why are not they given restrictions like these? But those are just my observations.

Well, AI is lawed and really has no reason to lie about an anti-NT crime. It should also record everything it sees so it can be reviewed post-shift, so I don't really see a reason not to believe an AI.

And removing assistants/visitors will just lead to the troublemakers joining as security or engineering. Assistant-like job needs to exist. It's a buffer job, the griefers, newbies, noobs, troublemakers all go there. Also, adding even more jobs (entry-level jobs, departmental assistants) will just mean that more people will do less. Departments would be even more crowded during high pop, while dead hours would have more people who do nothing.

Wait until the meta research project is finished, and then you'll have lawgivers 5 minutes into the round. But, yeah. Nothing in research is particularly hard. It's always been a contest of who can powergame the tech tree and get to the fun part faster. Especially now when mining is played by so many people.

I'd be fine with this, but only if I can be the doggie. Or you could add a new playable one-slot semi-sentient race of dog-aliens who can help detectives and CSI's with crime. And then I'm the doggie.

Except that heads of staff are kinda crucial to the progression of the round, especially the CMO. They are expected to know every department at least on moderate level (and one on expert). Wouldn't be fun for everyone to die because the CMO didn't know to cure space aids, or how to clone. Also, to add to my original idea, this would also open up some great rp possibilities. Not everyone is a chemist irl (I'm not) , so they wouldn't know about dilution and whatever you do with chems. But now the less creative and knowledgeable people could mimic these flavor texts and use them in their rp.

But why does this happen? For example, with the job that is chemistry? Because it looks like it's only a push of a button. Tap the oxygen button, swipe for hydrogen, and your whatever drug is ready. Same with genetics, even science, pretty much everything. This leaves the impression of jobs being extremely easy. "You're telling me you studied 5 years just to push these 5 buttons every shift?" or "friendly chemist told me how to make this coincidentally useful drug, look push this and this button..." Solution? Add flavor text to all machines and consoles. Now, it's not just a push of a button. It's "x mixes y with z" or "a dilutes a solution of b with a moderately sized c sample" or "h user extracts i from the test tube". You know, this kind of flavor texts. Quick edit: Or whatever.

Hive you live!!!1! Welcom hom

You are full of shit. Cease immediately. Also, where the fuck is John Doe.

There's no law that makes borgs follow corporate regulations, too. However, it is extremely safe, or even advised to assume that all borgs were given orders to follow the space law and not have any suicidal tendencies. You could argue that the second law applies only to station's crew, but remember about the sane characters rule. A robot that doesn't want to 'live' would likely be examined by NT of f-station and scrapped.

Right, here we go. 1. Financial costs are stupid. They will either force min-maxing the living costs to afford ramboing, or it will make regulars rich and able to afford death while alienating the poor occasional or civilian players, or it won't have any impact on the actual game at all. Also, remember that some people (or most, especially those not active on the forums) don't want to or don't have the time to play around any financial stuff. They just want to hop in and play. 2. Imperfect clones are stupid. I'm not going to believe that a highly advanced machine that grows brains and whole bodies out of relatively basic materials, sometimes forgets to make you a liver or makes you blind, because reasons. 3. Paperwork and regulations are stupid. When cloning happens, no one is going to bother about filling any forms. Also, not canon so no IR's. 4. Neural laces or whatever equivalent would be fine, with some modifications. Only heads have the laces and therefore can be cloned at round start. But, there is one or two spare laces stored somewhere, and more can be made with exotic materials and research. This could be explained by the lace being a brain mapper that allows cloning. There could also be other mechanics like low tech laces that don't require surgery but only work quarter the time. Or cloning not require laces if the brain wasn't damaged during death, ex freezing or blood loss, but not after 5 minutes after death because brain decay, or if the person took the easy way out to the head. I believe, this is especially interesting. For example, a xenoarcheologist can be laced before handling possibly dangerous artifacts, or the station could lace two officers, pump them full of drugs and send them to raid a mercenary ship, while unlaced officers support them with sniper rifles. Or pro-naturalist mercs could be sent to rip laces out of people. 5. Disorientation, dizziness and /or clumsiness would also be fine, as Delta suggested. 30 minutes of stumbling around and not really being able to use guns or machinery would be fine, and force you to roleplay acclimatizing to the new - old body, which is interesting.

Well, as I said before, it's your job to know when your air tank runs out of air, and to do something about it. You switch tanks before one becomes empty, not after. Through, I could see a toggleable hold-breath system being implement. If you're fast enough, you could hold your breath for 30-60 seconds before getting suffocation and/or toxin damage or simply passing out to catch breath. Could be useful in various situations, not just during the hull breaches.

Well, to be honest, that doesn't sound excessive, at all. It's in your own god damn interest to double-check your air tanks before using them. Tanks even have little indicators to show you if they're full or almost empty. Breaches are fine. It's just the nature of our setting. Space is dangerous and all that stuff. - Taken on our test server. That's the starting emergency air tank found in everyone's boxes. It's flashing red, so you better fill it with delicious oxygen.

Allow borgs to move while at 0% charge, that's all. On old code, borgs could only move, slowly, but they could. An ass-saving feature for the times when you got stuck somewhere where people don't walk by, or got your cell drained and have been forgotten. Of course, the view should remain obscured, movement slow and the feature used to get to the nearest charger.

I was there when shells were a thing. And oh boy, that was a fun ride. And by "every single Shell that was non-human[/hr] was an absolute meme" I mean that every single Shell was an absolute meme. Of course, there were some rare exceptions, but almost all people were either abusing the whitelist to play xenos or for the mechanical benefits. That means, both of these groups were just looking and acting like non-IPC's. Your normal, stereotypical, usual shell looked like a cat/human, acted like one, talked like one, and had a normal backstory that just had a deadly accident in it. Not very creative. (Anyone who remembers Katelyn Mcmullen, huh. Or the flirty engineer cat-robot who fell in love with a normal-cat, and could retconn/erase the whole robot thing because it wasn't acting like a robot at all.) What mechanical, in-game benefits you're talking about you doggie, you might ask. Well, back on old-code, shells were indistinguishable from organics. And you couldn't be taser'd or flashed, and maybe other stuff I no longer remember. That means, you could be a little surprise to some less trigger-happy nukeops or security officers. And that's also why IPC/Shell tags were coded in, and why people were refusing to wear them (let me add, these were brilliant and unique to our server, plz add back). But let's just stick to the 'easy to gain, easy to lose' whitelist theme, you might say. Well, okay. But I say, it's not really worth it, I guess? Don't forget about adding clowns and spawn permissions for everyone. These will be easy to lose and totally not abusable, right? But I'm also with Muncorn on the whole IPC thing. All races were always regulated and had their own rules, differences, quirks and unique aspects like language, traditions and play styles. While IPC were just 'do whatever' which I hated. This resulted in there being few robot'ish and emotionless IPC's, and many and tons of IPC's that mimicked and acted like normal organics. So whatever. Also: That's probably because they're broken as hell. At least, that's what an Admin told me when I ahelped about shells in-game. A quick "don't" was the first reply I got.