Dreamix

The point of the suggested Advisor role, is that they could be played by heads as well. So a captain character could be a Captain one shift, and then go Advisor the next one, to help a different captain with things. Consulars and Representatives cannot be be heads, or switch to other jobs. You can't be a CMO one shift, and a Zeng or NT representative another. Also, Consulars do not even get bridge access, and I've seen people say they should not, because they are not trusted to work in the interest of SCC, but rather in whatever nation they are a consular of. Representatives might also possibly be aligned to their own corp, and not SCC. I've seen captains or heads of staff just outright kick consulars and representatives out of meetings and the like, or not be allowed to attend in the first place. That is indeed potential problem that I don't really have any solution to. Hopefully the command whitelist would filter out such people. And like as I wrote above in the first post, Advisor would get no authority, and no access beyond basic bridge access, so like the potential of powertripping is pretty small I think.

What: - A backseat kind of role. - Expectation that they provide advice to the rest of command, and other crew, and help with whatever command matters there might be. - No authority. Can't order anyone around. Answers to any and all heads. - Only actual active heads of staff can be this role. But maybe could also allow retired heads or the like. Not sure about this one. - Needs a command whitelist. - No uniform. No office. - Single slot. - Maybe the slot would be unlocked only if there is at least one head on shift. Why: I've noticed that heads of staff are sort of a "binary" thing. You are either on-duty and fully in command and in the center of everything, or off-duty and no one cares about you. You can't really be somewhere in the middle, or switch between command and non-command if you want a calmer shift. Can't really be invited into the bridge, because you are off-duty like anyone else. That's in contrast to non-command roles. An engineer or a security officer can sprint first to every callout, and be in the center of every situation, or they can take it slow and sit it out, and let someone else handle it. A role like this would allow command chars to be in that middle point, between off-duty and on-duty command. It would also allow heads in the same job to meet each other and share thoughts or observe how they work. Like an XO meeting another XO who is an advisor. The purpose of this thread is to gather thoughts and opinions, as I am not sure myself if this is a good idea, or a solution to a problem that needs to be fixed.

Ehh, dunno. Science is kinda. Lots of people advocate for removing parts of it, or reworking it as a whole. The tech levels are pretty bad, and do not really fit out setting. Personally, I would love to see science reworked to be mainly about expeditions, with the tech levels and the "supplying" part being removed. Same with xenobio and the funny materials slime core spam. With the possible proposed changes, science wouldn't really be supplying anyone with anything. But that's hypothetically I guess, when or if the hypothetical suggested changes actually get implemented, which might as well be never. At the moment, I do not really see science supply other departments with much. With the exception of supplying mechanists with tech levels I guess. No one really needs anything from science, and everyone has all the tools they need to do their jobs. The most common that I see lately, is science producing translators. Honestly, not sure if this is a serious reply. Ops supplies departments with things that these departments require for operation and doing their tasks, or at least help with such. Security might need to order guns or ammunition, engineering might need materials, medical might need a surgery tools kit if someone stole those, etc. And pretty much any department can use a hardsuit or an exosuit to make their jobs easier or more efficient. Bartenders and chefs do not really "supply" departments with drinks or food. Like for example, security as a department does not need a glass of vodka to function. But individual officers might get drinks or food in their free time. (And in case you *are* joking... Let's move everything to ops. Engineering supplies other departments with repairs. Medical supplies everyone injured with gauze and ointment. Security supplies antagonists with bullet holes. Command supplies others with IRs and the consequences of such.)

Personally, I would like borgs soft-removed from the ship. Meaning that borgs should exist in the lore, and could be constructed on ship from MMIs, but players should not be able to spawn as a borg, and there should be no free posibrains in the mechanist workshop to build borgs with. - Borgs do not provide much roleplay, in my experience. They are equipment, not crew. There's not much reason for crew to care about borgs, and not really much mechanical ability for borgs to do meaningful things. Barely anyone that I see actually like, roleplays with a borg. - And if borgs do provide any roleplay, it's not really anything that a proper crew role could not provide. Everyone can talk about their backstories or the news in the lore or whatever. But a borg can't do actually meaningful things, like buy a gift for another crewmember, lead a team for an expedition, crush an antag in a organized militia, really engage in any antag-related stuff, any command matters, or really anything at all beyond doing their job. - "But Viax Vaurca and dumb IPCs exist" - Yes, but they are actual crew, and can do the actually meaningful things as above. They also don't have all-access IDs and an expectation that they do their job and nothing else. - Borgs take other people's jobs and tasks. Medical and engineering borgs especially. Basically I echo what other people have already said. Additionally, as a command player, I see borgs do things like, open up areas for crew, like the kitchen or the bar, where I would prefer to do it myself, maybe upgrade that crew's access or something, or have to decide if they deserve that access at all. - "But you can just tell a borg to leave and fuck off" - Yes, but it kinda sucks to do that, cause an actual player is behind that borg. If you tell a service borg to leave the kitchen and bar, it might as well go to storage and get cryoed, and it sucks to cause a player to do that. An actual character that gets told to fuck off, or gets suspended or something, might wander off to do something else, go to talk to other characters, and get involved in all kinds of things that a borg could not, or even just drink in sadness, or get angered at others, or start a rivalry/hatred character arc that gets built upon in future rounds. A borg can do none of those things. I would also like AI gone for the above reasons, and many other AI-related reasons as well. And also maint drones, but that's not the topic here.

Played a burglar (Detective chasing The Skinner) round as my skrell XO, with Hailey Wise as CMO. They did alright. Kept control of the medbay, seemed capable, involved themselves in command matters. No red flags or anything. Edit after a few days: Played many more rounds with their CMO. No red flags still. Okay stuff.

In that case, I think it'd kinda, very much suck to remove machinists from ops. Leaves Orion with only two jobs then, hangar tech and miner. Also Heph not doing the thing they're kinda the most famous for, and that being robotics. Also just echoing what was said before. Machinists supply other departments with stuff, so they should stay in ops. They have no place in medical - the most medical-adjacent thing they can do, is fix mechanical organs and libs. They also have no place in science - machinists do not really do any research or development, and do not invent or discover any new things.

I have no real opinion as I don't play machinist, or really ever need anything from machinists. But. I do think it makes very much sense for them to be in ops rather than elsewhere, so they can coordinate with mining (even though mining departs at like 00:10 without informing anyone where they are going), go to the warehouse to get materials (machinists do have access to it, just need to go through the mail room, lol), etc. Machinists are supposed to supply other departments with stuff (organs and limbs for medical, mechs and hardsuits for everyone). Sort of like the operations department as a whole, which is its main and only purpose really. As for communication... Just use the common channel. I don't really see machinists talk to medical or science much, to warrant giving them these radio channels. And like, you could say the same about ops as a whole - give medical radio channel to cargo techs so they can resupply medical better with warehouse and ordered stuff.

I've played some rev rounds lately. Usually, from what I've seen, things are nicely brewing up and slowly escalating. Security is probably loyalist, with a part of command with then. Engineering is probably the revolution central, most likely with their local himean anarchist as the leader. Security is harassing some part of the crew for whatever reason. Engineering is quietly building their crossbows and pipe guns. Someone somewhere is conspiring against command, spreading the news of what is going on. And then after a while the actual loud confrontation beings and... The uplinks get fired up. Maybe one party gets some meme gun like the LMG or gatling gun. Maybe the other party distributes energy shields around. Maybe either of them buys more deadly guns, or heavy armor, or something else. Or frag grenades, for the extra murder-effectiveness of shrapnel flying around everywhere. The moment uplinks get opened, is when it all devolves into shooting the other party to death, with everyone including the soft-spoken bartender or the random off-duty crew just taking a chill break, going all murderbone anarchist/loyalist, and it all escalating up and through the roof. There is no tale of outnumbered security taking control back with riot gear. Or the underequipped militia defeating security with their makeshift weapons. It's chaos and murder, with more guns around than actual hands to use them. And I don't really like that. I'd prefer if the uplinks were removed, or somehow nerfed, so they're more of a boost to get some tools that might be missing, but did not have enough TC to arm and armor everyone up. Currently rev/loyalist heads get uplinks with 40TC at start. That's a ton of TC to buy meta powerful gear. There is a lot of potential in rev, and I just don't like to see it going full LRP murderbone after the first confrontation.

The problem: There's an event. We are no longer a station, but rather a ship, so it'd be nice to make use of that quality, and have Horizon go out to meet other people, instead of people coming to see Horizon. But expeditions take approximately 236 years to set up during events. Some time for roundstart setup and everyone to get on. Then command needs to talk to whoever other party. Then crew needs to assemble at the Intrepid. No matter what expedition this is, probably not everyone can go, and some crew is forced to stay on Horizon and not participate. The Intrepid needs to actually fly to the other ship or station or planet. It is maybe something like 00:55 by the time Intrepid arrives at the other ship/station/planet/whatever. Only about an hour at least of actual event things happening. The other, related problem: There's an event. But it's not happening on Horizon, but instead on some event-only map. It's probably made on a short notice, by a limited number of mappers, and probably not fully functional. Even if that map is perfect, it's likely not going to accommodate everyone, and someone will have to sit in the bar or whatever and do nothing because they can't do their job as usual, and there's only so many people that can participate in the action. See the Episode Two: Redocking event. Horizon docks to a thing. As simple as that. Whether it is a space station or some other big ship or whatever. ...the thing has a free-use elevators or shuttles. Same as previous thing, but! What if it had some free-use elevators, or shuttles, or even an actual space elevator? So crew could freely use them, to go to some other place and back, without needing half an hour to prepare Intrepid crew, and allowing more than just one expedition team to participate. Elevators or shuttles could be used to go to a bigger station or whatever, on a different map/z-level, so it wouldn't all need to be crammed on the Horizon map. And an actual space elevator? Very cool and scifi concept. Basically a super huge and long elevator, connecting a planet's surface to some space station above it. This would allow people to just freely go down to a planet, and back to Horizon. Awesome. Wouldn't transit time be super long, since it's like a million kilometers ride? Handwave it with bluespace or something. ...teleporters??? Wait, did I just say bluespace? Teleporters use bluespace I'm sure. So... Why not like, have a big teleporter to go down between the planet and Horizon? Say it's very cheap, cause it's calibrated and specifically made to go between a space station that Horizon docked to, and that planet. Why couldn't big ships dock to us? Imagine the Episode Two: Redocking event, but instead of it happening on some random station, FSF and SFA would instead both dock to Horizon, with their whole big ships. The stakes would be infinitely higher, and security definitely would put up a fight at the environment they are very familiar with, instead of just letting the SFA march past them without putting up a fight Using the hangars bays as docking ports. Just like remove the Intrepid, temporarily, and set up some kind of staging or resupply area, or whatever else. Or maybe have the thing dock to the other hangar bays, where the ops shuttle docks, or the two others. Really wild idea ahead: Horizon LANDS on a exoplanet. This is really wild, yes, I know. Maybe jetpacks would have to be removed so they are not absolutely breaking the balance. Technicalities: Okay so like. Relating to Horizon docking to things. There's no need for new mechanics to make Horizon work like a shuttle, and move to navpoints on other maps or whatever. The Horizon map could just be remapped to have added new "static" things, with Horizon itself being "grounded" and immovable. Or even, it could be "reversed" - Everyone is told that Horizon docks to a space station, but actually, in the mechanics, the space station is actually a ship that has docked to Horizon itself. But just that admins emote Horizon approaching to the station, and we roleplay it as so. Also the images above are mockups and super simple examples. But why Dunno tbh. I've been thinking about ideas like these for a while now, but they're like, too big to discuss on the discord.

Having read the summaries, I don't really think anyone was portraying it all as wrong to occur OOC'ly. At least it read to me as just an objective recounting of events, and even the IC summary kept things strictly to the facts. It might sound bad, but yes, disobeying the orders of a Captain and installing an off-duty one in his place is mutiny according to the regulations, so to describe it as one OOC'ly isn't saying it was wrong, so much as it is what happened. I do not want to derail this thread, but. I played my XO, and I do not believe I have participated in any mutiny or sedition. It is not mutiny to disobey orders of a captain. That's also not sedition, either. That's just failure to execute an order. - Mutiny is to try to violently get rid of the captain. Command did not do that, except maybe the HoS very late into the round, but I am not sure of that honestly, as I was in surgery at that time, or heavily injured, or etc. The point is, no one from command has tried to get a gun and murder the captain. - Sedition is to try to peacefully get rid of the captain, by conspiring against them or the like. Command did not do that either. We did vote, twice, but that is allowed by the procedure/regulations, and is not sedition. There was no grand conspiracy to dethrone the captain. - Ahkam was also not reinstated as a captain. I have only gave him an all-access ID to fix the evac. I specifically named the ID "ALL ACCESS" and not "Captain". Not a promotion by itself, same as like, giving a random crewmember access to the custodial closet to clean something, is not promoting them to a janitor. The summaries did not keep strictly to the facts. Whether CCIAA sees the mutiny/sedition/promotion as being an actual thing, or not, and who exactly has participated in them, we should wait until the investigation concludes. -------------------- (don't want to quote the whole post and make mine huge) That's... Actually a very good idea I think, and I have not thought about this idea at all before. After each event, could ask some players (as their characters) to provide their POVs and thoughts on how the event went, and what was going on. Like we have so many possible backgrounds, that pretty much everyone is going to see and portray the things differently. Dunno though. I see lots of potential good things about this, but also like, dunno.

My thoughts on... Episode One: All Aboard: I played my XO on this one. I feel like the reason for the failure of this event was the absolute beast of a miscommunication between command, about what is going on, and how we are supposed to do it. I cannot really pinpoint who or what specifically could be blamed for this, but just like, it happened. I don't really have much to say here tbh. Episode Two: Redocking: I played my XO, but have lost the roll and went as off-duty, and ghosted shortly into the round because I realized there would be nothing for me to do except to sit in the bar. The worst event imo. I would not like to see a similar one, ever. Specifically one where the map is changed to an event-only map, that is not Horizon, and such map is, to put it bluntly, just bad, unfinished, barely functional, done on a very short notice, etc. I have already talked about this in that event's feedback thread, so yeah. On Horizon, even if the event involves only a small part of the crew, everyone else still can be doing their own jobs, as on every normal round. On an event-only map like this one, everyone non-involved gets to sit and do boring roleplay. Of course, here people who were not security, or were security but off-duty, could pick up a gun and fight as well, or form a militia, and they did these things. But really, there is only so many guns for a militia, and not every character is combat-capable or even willing to fight, and not every player enjoys it or is willing to potentially lose their character to death. If the map was like, more complete, I could see it going much better. There's also other issue that other people have mentioned in this event's feedback thread, like Horizon getting weak weapons (even if only just being perceived as weak), or FSF getting no security of their own to protect their officers. Episode Three: A Forceful Introduction: I played my XO here. This was. Dunno. Mixed feelings. This was definitely railroaded, with the FSF aiming their guns and torpedoes at many critical areas of Horizon, and our residental deck also, which we have no way to defend or rescue people from. It could have been a bluff of course, but we had no way to know that. There was no way anyone was going to choose fighting the FSF. Also only the captain was involved in negotiations with the FSF. Not "basically pretty much only", but literally. I as XO was not even involved in paying them, and afterwards when I asked, I was told that it was already handled. But in general, the base of the event was very cool I think, and served to turn the crew against the FSF, even if railroady. Episode Four: Close to the Sun: I played my XO on this one. This was fine. Though, all of command was forced to be in the meeting room, and it was clear not everyone enjoyed that, like the Tajara CMO who I think was prety much the least qualified person to talk to Elyran diplomats I could think of, especially since the Elyran "interstellar relations" page literally says, Elyra does not care about Adhomai. So basically, I don't think anyone should be like, forced to attend to any meetings or talks or whatever else. Episode Five: Eclipse Protocol: I played my XO there. The best event so far, mostly because of the mutiny, which I consider myself to be one of the main reasons for it happening at all. The mutiny was awesome, was played out well, had great escalation, was believable, and will continue to have much greater impact than any character's death. However, I do not appreciate the summaries and the like mentioning a "mutiny" or "sedition", or command staff "bickering", or that Ahkam was made interim captain. I think it's really shitty to portray all of this like this, as if it was wrong to play it out like that on a OOC level, while the investigation is still going on and CCIAA might see it differently. It is very one-sided, and influences how people are going to perceive it, both OOC and IC, and I do not like this. OOC summaries should be impartial and objective, and IC ones should not be provided until the investigation actually concludes. My thoughts on... Elyra: I am just really sad that we are most likely not going to go there. Lots of people were looking forward to exploring Elyra I feel. It is cool, and could meaningfully involve lots of characters. It was fun seeing people talk IC about shore leave, getting the tourist visas or whatever. And I feel like we have had some new Elyran chars being created just for this. It's sad, overall. FSF: Some event runners/participants were/are trying very hard to justify or explain the actions of FSF, or make them seem like actual characters to care about. But like, that's just not going to happen, sorry. No one is going to remember or care about Corporal Vlatko Markovic or Commander Pieter du Plessis, and I see no reason why they should. I've also seen people to push the idea that siding with the FSF was the only good choice, as if it was an undeniable fact, and making it seem as if anyone choosing differently was wrong or ruined the event. Also forgetting or omitting the fact of FSF threatening us with death and destruction, and that the whole "escort" was actually extortion, and the "mercenaries" were pirates. Also I think, lots of people are getting mixed signals and confusion about FSF as a whole. Is this FSF ship completely independent from all the other FSF ships? Or is FSF actually an organization? Which is it? If all FSF ships are independent from each other, then why is there a FSF at all, and why are they not just, random independent mercenaries instead? I've seen people many times say OOC and IC that everyone is going to hate FSF now, and then someone else always comes by saying that it was a single FSF ship and does not represent FSF as a whole, and no one is going to care or remember this. Involving mostly only security and command: All of the events here did that. That is the truth. I was playing my XO, so I did enjoy the events and was involved in the them, but I could see non-command non-security chars being almost completely left out of the whole thing, barely getting any meaningful interactions above what they get in a normal low-action round. And even then, not even all of command got involved in the things. See episode three and four. Please don't hit me with the "but not every event can involve everyone!". That is true, but this however is feedback as asked. Everyone wants to be involved somehow, no matter what job they are playing - and not everyone can be command or security, or enjoys these roles. Exploration: There was none, unfortunately, in this event arc. It is very unfortunate how an exploration ship does basically no exploration, and in the end, we have not ever investigated the phoron deposit that we were teased with in the first event. I was hoping for us to get some boots on the ground on some huge asteroid with lots of phoron, and that would have been a nice resolution to the arc - something like, nice, for characters to remember. Overall: As I said, I was playing my XO, so I did enjoy this. But I could see many reasons for why other people with different characters, would not enjoy it. Outside of my own enjoyment, I also think this was a good arc overall, even if a bit incomplete, and with some rougher edges.

Crayons? Not scifi enough. Name it something like uh. Emergency Visual Aid Device (EVAD). Dumb brainstorming ofc. Would be cool if everyone got those in their emergency supplies boxes that they spawn with. These could be used not just on expeditions, but like. Imagine an engineer marking a room as depressurized.

stars above... Field codes are a awesome idea. Another related concept is the Spacer's Runic, an ideogram language. Honestly, ideograms are like, very good in general, and pretty big part of hard scifi. Semiotic Standard as posted above by Wow, is also awesome, but it's more for like, informative posters or icons used INSIDE a spacecraft. Spacer's Runic looks like this (there's many more than just these eight):

I've played some rounds as my XO, interacting with Fros, surgeon. I did see Fros kinda, sitting in the medbay lobby idling some times, but I think it was mostly at lowpop or when literally nothing was happening, so that's fine I guess. When we did actually interact, they were cool. I think I've also promoted Fros to interim at least once, and they did alright. Cerriq Koh, cadet, is kinda goofy but I think they're fine. I have a sorta goofy skrell sec officer too. But Cerriq is not going to be a HoS so that's all good. I've not interacted much with their other characters. I know, uh, this is not very extensive feedback, but I've not seen any red flags, so I think wouldn't hurt to give them at least a trial.

JJ is very cool and has lots of very cool characters. As for command, Bright, Operations Manager, is cool too, and I have seen them be proactive and the like, managing cargo stuff, as well as command stuff. +1

Same as last time I guess, I am still supporting Diggey. I do enjoy their characters, both off (Supsa, Zach) and on ship (Theth, Hezk'ata), and I think they're fit for low-stress roles like operations manager (at the very least). I support this app +1

An alternative that I have seen suggested many times, would be simply to have away sites, and ships, to be different pools. Afaik, currently, they are the same pool. Not sure what are the numbers exactly, but it's possible for it to generate something like, 3 ships and 0 sites, or 3 sites and 0 ships. If they were different pools, we could have it so it is always (for example): 1-3 ships and 2-4 sites, independently from each other. So it could even be 3 ships AND 4 sites, or something like that.

Played a round with Francis Kelly as HoS, as my orange XO. I can see you are quite capable, and you can coordinate your security staff, in that revolution round, investigating many people at once. BUT. As I have told you IC, a HoS also is supposed to keep command informed of what is going on. And also the crew in general, via announcements and the common channel. You were basically silent on command comms, and when me and the captain went down in person to get an answer of what is going on, we stood there for like 15 minutes, with you either not noticing or ignoring us. If I have not noticed you randomly mention "espionage" on sec comms, and mentioned it to the captain, then the captain would not know of any of this until maybe very late into the round, really, as he had sec comms off. So, uh. Sorry, but I am not really impressed, to be very honest. But hey, at least you did apologize when I told you that IC, and noticed the flaw. Most HoS' who are not communicative go defensive when I bring that up, going all "oh, fuck off, I was busy with security stuff", so there is room for improvement, and you see it yourself. Good luck with the trial and everything.

Played a merc round as my orange XO, with them as HoS Mara-Lucius Volvalaad. Seemed alright, communicated with command (me), we have both arranged negotiations with the mercs (or at least tried to), communicated with their security team, coordinated an attack from two angles against the mercs, at the right moment when crew got the advantage. It was a fun round.

Well, yes, but also no. Every shuttle should fit inside the 9x9 square, but it doesn't mean every shuttle needs to look exactly the same, and have exactly the same layout. Below, a few of the possible shuttle layouts I had just made, that all fit in the 9x9 limitation. ALSO, it doesn't have to be exactly 9x9. It could be a bit longer (expanded to north), or something. It's just that 4 shuttles that are 9 tiles wide can very nicely fit in my proposed dock areas.

Firstly, standardize the shuttle layouts and sizes. A shuttle should face south, meaning the pilot looks south, and the engines point north. So it is same as the horizon, basically. It should also be 9x9 including walls at most, but could be smaller of course. Secondly, add these docking ports, on the top deck. Either west side ones, or both west and east. Even just on the west side, four standard docks (S1, S2, S3, S4) is more than enough (if somehow were to have 3 away site/ship shuttles coming in + merchant or something). With also E1 for the merc (if they were not remapped to the new standard). And E2 for, uhh, something I guess. That should be enough, but more is always good, for variety and stuff. There's also enough space for security checkpoints, on both east and west sides.

I think a lot of the away sites/ships have a very sad lack of airlocks. They are all in one direction iirc, too, east. Just one airlock universally as you say. Makes it so only a single ship can dock to the site/ship, and anyone else has to "dock" in space and spacewalk - even though the single airlock might be occupied by the first shuttle. As for suggestions for new ships: - I would really love an offworlder ship. Maybe some kind of a salvaging/mining ship. Like the freighter, but with less focus on trade, with more engineering and mining tools, and less crates with the random items. Offworlder only crew, with the ESS suits and RMT pills, mismatched gear (like for example, three different EVA suits, instead of all being the same). And no gravity I think would be cool, with rooms and corridors being small so you can't get stuck in the middle - they would be offworlders, after all. - Not sure if we would want it thematically, but I think a small SCC ship would be cool. Like, freighter-sized. Or even something like our intrepid, but rearranged internally, maybe with some kind of attachment or expansion for fuel storage or something. Its crew would not really be supposed to abandon their own ship to help horizon, though, obviously. And horizon would have no authority to order this ship around, as well - it would be an independent ship. Maybe it could have no security crew, and be something like: captain, engineer, scientist, and two general crew that can help with anything. It could be a scouting/exploration ship or something like that. I think it would be cool, and this ship would show that SCC actually exists, and has actual presence, outside of the horizon. As for my favorite ships: - freighter - orion - tajara migrants - militia Generally, ones that have the freedom to interact with stuff how they would like to. The freighter is the best ship imo, as you can make a ton of different cool gimmicks with it. Like you can sell stuff from the crates, or try to trade or barter with horizon's crew, can invite someone to your ship, you can mine as it has mining gear, can also just chill with your freighter crew - which can be any species iirc, and any background, so that's cool.

The announcement, for those who did not save the logs, or have not played the round: Thoughts on the event: I played my XO. I have enjoyed the event - it was alright. I have also enjoyed the effects of the last event on the server and Horizon, despite my "no impact etc etc" from my previous event feedback thread. I am curious to see what happens next, and also really love to see people discussing the events in game and on the relay. It's nice. One thing I think was not ideal, was the negotiation hell, with the captain stuck with the FSF for quite a long while (around half an hour at least? not sure honestly). But that is hard to predict how negotiation will go, or organize to make sure it can go quick, I imagine, so this is not a huge negative point here. It also does not really engage many players at once, and leaves a single player (probably the captain, with maybe some other command member, or maybe two) to decide the direction the whole event and the arc might go. Not sure how to make that better though. Thoughts on the expectation that we would attack the FSF: Based on the announcement above, I did not think for even a second that attacking the FSF was an actual option that we were supposed to consider, or even actually pick. Torpedoes, railgun batteries, aimed at a lot of critical areas, including the residential deck, with a ton of people which we had no way to actually defend or rescue. And the boarding pod array with who knows how many armed marines, ready to rip and tear. A lot of potential damage and casualties, which is only worse when it is our character's actual homes that are being threatened. In my eyes, as command, we had about three options: - give in to the demands - we live another day, lose some phoron, maybe have to "renegotiate" again later - and that is what we did, and I thought was the only reasonable option - tell FSF to fuck off - they go back to their ship, leave, and fire at us - very dumb option - try to arrest the FSF during negotiation - they obviously fight back, there are casualties on both sides, including maybe the captain, then they send the marines, or maybe we negotiate to give the hostages for safety - really the worst option, we give the hostages (or not), and then we are blasted by torpedoes If we were supposed to call out the bluff, that they do not actually have a million railguns and torpedoes and marines aimed at us, then, well, we had no way to actually tell it is a bluff. The announcement looks, uh. Like we are going to all absolutely die, with no way to prevent it. And if they were hired by the SCC to escort us, then they probably were actually armed for actual escort duty. There was no reason for us to think it is a bluff, basically. If we were supposed to actually fight them, then like, horizon is really underequipped for things like that. We are an exploration ship, not military. We have a small security department. Not really a lot of weapons, even including the crew armory - and crew militia is not really something that should be relied on. We also have no ship based guns, or point defense cannons, or actual armor, or shields for anything other than tiny meteorites, or any evasive ability, or anything like that. A military ship threatening us, is a huge imbalance of power. If we were also supposed to tank the damage and repair it afterwards. That's a lot of damage to repair, and in critical areas too, atmos, the bridge, engineering. It could not be repaired in a single round, leaving us stranded and vulnerable. Really bad idea. And we are a ship in the middle of nowhere, and not a station in tau ceti space anymore. We live on the ship, on the residental deck that would be blasted by torpedoes and railguns. Escape pods are probably useless in this situation. Intrepid and mining shuttle can only go so far, to the nearest asteroid or exoplanet. If we were supposed to make use of some of our OOC intuition, and assume that the admins will *not* just bomb the bridge, atmos, engineering, and science, and will *not* send solarian ultramarines to kill everyone, then uh. That's kinda metagaming, and roleplaying is all about reacting to IC events in plausible IC ways. If some random security officer or someone was supposed to break any orders and common sense, do some dumb shit, and antagonize the FSF into fighting, then, uh, really. Not even really sure how to respond to that, honestly. "It literally happened in KOTW/whatever, years ago, in past events." But this is current event, now, in the current year and playerbase. I have not played in the past events, KOTW or the like, but I am sure the players from now are different than years ago, especially since the NBT and Horizon, which I would assume got us a ton of new players. Or even if the players are the same, I am sure they playerbase has matured a ton. "It happened in the past" is a non-argument imo. And really, relying on someone to do something dumb, or someone to step out of line, or to break character and act with no regards to their safety or whatever, just leaves a bad taste. We should be expected to act in HRP manner, and reasonably respond to actual threats and the like - and it should not be surprising when we actually do. So, uh, basically: If fighting was supposed to be an actual option, it should have been apparent somehow that we have an actual chance to win the fight. Or it could have only been a boarding party, and not guns and torpedoes as well. Or something like that. I can see how some people could think, that we were railroaded into the option of paying the FSF again. Some free suggestions now. Or maybe, they could have fired 6 torpedoes as a warning shot before the negotiation, with 1 passing by the bridge, 3 falling apart mid flight, and 2 not even leaving the torpedo tubes - so we could know that their armaments are in bad shape and the weapons lock to not be trusted. Or something like that, potentially.

I don't really play med much, but I am against this, just because I hate to see more jobs getting removed. It makes everything more boring and bland, and removes potential characterization and specialization for characters. Won't really be able to play an ordinary medical doctor who does not know surgery - surgery, uh, which myself I really dislike and find boring, personally. I am against removing atmos tech as well, for the same reason. And also chemist/pharmacist, since I did see some people argue for removing these as well, and allowing any physicist to make chems, since chemists are kinda rare. Or something like that. I don't really care all that much, but I guess I just wanted to voice my opinion somewhere. Job bloat is bad, but so is abundance of responsibilities or expectations for a given job.

I just call the top, middle, and bottom decks... top, middle, and bottom. No numbers, and no long names (operational deck? 😩), please.