ImmortalRedshirt

Alright, so I don't exactly know where to give feedback on the current hardsuit sprite PR that's open, but it seems the topic is gearing towards it, so here goes. I really like the new engineering and hazard suits. There's little details that make them feel really industrial, which is a style I like seeing on this server. These suits look like they were designed to get stuff done, and keep the inhabitants protected from the elements while at it. Other than a bit of over-reliance on one specific color on the hazard suit, I have no serious complaints. The Chief Engineer's suit, on the other hand...now, I never fail to be impressed by the effort that goes into these sprites. The CE's hardsuit just feels kind of weird in comparison to the other two I just mentioned. For one, the color is a bit too close to the regular engineering suit, but still feels too bright a shade of yellowish-orange. Other thing is the sprite for the head for humans. It kind of looks like there's a hardhat there(with brim.) This honestly feels rather silly and a bit cartoonish. As a whole, the suit just doesn't feel as down-to-earth as the other two I mentioned were, and even with the advantages it provides, I'd still rather wear the engineering hardsuit over this. In essence, just plain remarkable skill that you're showing off here, bring the CE's hardsuit closer to the other two's more industrial theme while still giving it a way to stand out.

I don't know, have a hard time believing that people would actually drink something that has the word "Phoron" in it.

I will say that I'm usually not really a fan of this aesthetic in general. That's not to say this is bad, on the contrary, I think these are well-done, it's just that the "everything is an Apple product in the future" ranks near the top of my least favorite sci-fi aesthetics list. That isn't to say that these new sprites have some...interesting implications. Simply put, these look like they're not designed to be put through battle after battle. Of course not, this is a security department for a rather insignificant space station, after all! These weapons look like they were designed to look fancy, first and foremost, functionality comes later. Basically, interesting idea, good execution, don't let my aesthetic preference get in the way of this feedback.

Ooh, I really like the tanks!

Throwing in my +1 too. Done quite a bit of roleplay with them, and I feel that they would be a great fit for CE.

As soon as she saw the shuttle leave without her, Rebekah knew she had a major problem on her hands. Her time on Biesel didn’t start out like this, though. In fact, it had gone great up until this point. Ever since she had left her home way out in the Coalition, she had rarely ever set foot upon a planet in her time here, with the notable exception of Mars, but one could hardly consider fighting a group of bandits on a planet that was just set on fire a good time. And so, the days went by, with Rebekah waking up in a tiny apartment on the Odin, being flown over to the Aurora, spending a few hours working there, then being flown back to the Odin so she could repeat all this the very next day. With each passing day, the desire to go down to the surface of any habitable planet became greater until she decided that there was no more time to wait and made plans to go down to Biesel. The plan was simple. Book a place to stay for the night, go for a hike the next day, then drive back to the shuttleport and be back on the Odin before her next shift. As soon as she was outside Mendell City, she immediately knew that this was not a decision to regret, even more so once she got to the point where the trail started. When the day was done, Rebekah rode back to Mendell, satisfied with everything that happened that day, and for the first time since Mars, felt truly happy. There was only one thing she failed to consider on the way back to the shuttleport: the traffic. Thus, the current situation. And so, standing at the gates to an empty landing pad on a cool, rainy night in a city far larger than anything she had ever imagined, Rebekah was lost on what to do. Her first instinct, after trying to process what had just happened, was to run to the nearest terminal and see what else she could get on. Too bad every shuttle leaving tonight in her price range was already full. She paid for and reserved a spot on a shuttle for the next morning and then began to leave the port. Pulling the hood of her Ceres University hoodie over her head, Rebekah walked out into the night, trying to find somewhere to stay. Or at least somewhere to eat, she thought as her stomach growled. As she shuffled forward in the rain, Rebekah took in the sight of the city surrounding her. No matter where she looked, there were buildings all around. She looked up and into the distance and saw skyscrapers towering over the city. It was truly inescapable. Her mind drifted towards a small town on Vysoka, numbering little more than about a thousand residents. This mental image gave her comfort, but as with all thoughts about Vysoka, the spectre of those last few days at home loomed over this moment, too. The silent animosity between her and her parents over the decision to accept that offer to attend a Solarian university had been palpable. The last conversation Rebekah had with them had not faded a bit in the years since her departure. That day, the sun shone brightly over their farm, and she had been repairing some equipment, trying to put her mind off things. Her father walked in, and just watched for a while. Knowing what he was going to say, she looked up and said to him, “You’ve tried to convince me otherwise every day to confine myself here for the rest of my life, what makes you think it’ll work this time?” She quickly realized that she may have been exaggerating, but by then, he responded with his argument, and so the conversation went as it had gone so many times before. They went on like that, arguing over the same points over and over until Rebekah decided to storm off. That night, she packed up everything she had and drove on to the nearest shuttleport. The memory played out in her head until she found herself standing before a convenience store. Whatever was in there probably wasn’t the best choice, but it was probably the most affordable to her. In a strange contrast to the rest of the city, the store was eerily quiet and devoid of any appreciable amount of people. Rebekah grabbed something off the shelf without much thought and paid for it at the counter. She walked outside once again and found a secluded spot to eat. Afterwards, she leaned back against a wall, letting the rain fall down on her. It was a light yet noticeable shower, and she could feel the drops as fell down on her. The only place she couldn’t feel their impact was on her right arm, replaced after an unfortunate and painful accident. Eventually, Rebekah decided that it was probably a good time to find somewhere to spend the rest of the night. Knowing not to bring her ID with her to pay for everything, she had withdrawn a certain amount before coming down to Biesel and placed it on a temporary card. There should be enough on here for something cheap, she thought as she got up. She looked around and noticed that the streets were almost empty. Everyone must’ve gone inside. All of a sudden, someone grabbed her from behind and dragged her into an alley. An intimidating blade flashed into her vision and she heard a voice whisper “Your credits. Now.” There wasn’t much of a choice here. Rebekah had never received much in the way of training for a fight, so there was only one way to get out of this. With a defeated sigh, she reached slowly into her pocket and pulled out the card. The card was quickly snatched up and Rebekah was shoved away. She turned around, only to find no one there. And so, with nothing on her to pay for anything, she wandered, looking for any shelter. Despite the risks she was all-too familiar with now, Rebekah eventually found an alley with a few sheets of scrap she could take shelter under, away from any prying eyes. Just like how it was during those days where she was stuck on the Aurora. As she tried to get comfortable on the cold, hard ground, her thoughts once again drifted towards Vysoka. When she had arrived at Ceres all those years ago, her excitement was immeasurable. Finally, a chance to see the wonders of the Spur! No longer would she be chained to a planet with nothing significant to speak of, far away from where all the action was! And then, after all that had happened, the attacks on the station, the war that broke out, and the horrors of the ravaged Red Planet, she found a small part of her, wishing that she could go home again, hoping that she would be accepted once again. But thanks to the phoron shortages, it’s possible that she might never go home, ever again. The sound of the rain hitting the makeshift roof relaxed her, and not too soon after, she found herself drifting to sleep, hoping for no trouble as the night went on. She knew that soon, her alarm would wake her up, and she would head back to the port and back to the Odin. Her life would continue on as if this never happened, this infinitely minor event in a galaxy where major events happened all the time.

Some minor grammatical hiccups aside, this really drew me in. Absolutely nailed the distinctly non-human point of view, and these snippets make for a whole lot of potential to explore.

Throughout just about every server, engineering often feels like a very weak department when it comes to mechanics, and current Aurora is no exception. The common loop is "set up this engine in the first 10 minutes and spend the rest of the round talking(from my POV, talking and roleplaying are two entities with slight overlap) while hoping for something to break," and that's if you can't think of an idea for something to build that hasn't been done to death already. Will this NBT bring about an engineering department that provides new and interesting mechanics?

Well, yesterday, I came back to play a round, and I have to say, the system has substantially improved since I last saw it in action and it feels at about the same level of quality as other servers that use it(yes, I know full well about one specific server that uses it and no, I haven't played there.) My only issue is that the indicator for someone walking outside of your view looks a little funky, but that's just how I feel.

Well, between my last post and now, I've gone on a few adventures. Recently, I managed to join a little server called IS12 for a round. While I do love the gameplay, interface, and aesthetics there, that's not what I'm talking about. Instead, I'd like to point out that yes, that server does use a vision cone system, and it works well. The default alpha level of the cones there works very well with the darker aesthetic and when someone moves outside of your vision, there is an expanding circle "soundwave." Maybe it was the lack of polish when I tried it out here, or maybe it's the fact that vision cones work best when paired with an interface like IS12's(where it's a solid block surrounding the bottom and right sides of the game view, instead of buttons disconnected from each other), but I've decided that I don't particularly mind a well-implemented vision cone system.

What I think engineering needs is an engine that can't go forgotten after roundstart and a reason to leave their little fortress and interact with the station at large if there's no hull breaches or anything like that happening. I don't think any other server has that, though. Well, maybe one does but "human sacrifice engine" doesn't really fit our setting well(I'm not invited there so I don't know how it really works). But I may have an idea. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for: ImmortalRedshirt's Bad Idea of the Day! Currently in the setting, there is a phoron shortage going on. What can happen is that instead of starting the round with phoron, we get diluted phoron instead, since Nanotrasen/Tau Ceti are trying to extend the lifetime of what they can extract from Romanovich. It works, but it provides nowhere near enough power as pure phoron. You will not be able to power the whole station on what you have and will have to decide, whether by debate or decree. Fortunately, engineering has a small supply of special high-capacity prefilled power cells which can be inserted right into a substation that gives it a good couple minutes of power. But wait! There's phoron in the asteroid! We can use that to power the engine! That depends on the miners, though. In order to use the phoron from mining, it must be inserted into a giant, unmovable machine in cargo. This machine will require "Phoron Vaporisation Chambers" which can only be ordered from the shuttle and have a limited lifespan. In order to balance the operating costs of this machine, cargo may require something from engineering, encouraging a system of barter. Once the engineers have enough pure phoron, they can flush the engine loops and do what we're already doing. There may possibly be some flaws in this plan and critical details that need to be included, but I can't think of them right now.

First off, I'd like to apologize for my conduct on the Discord. I had plenty of grievances to air, and a desire to make them heard. Space Station 13 is a highly abstract game. We can only see seven tiles in each direction, we see the world from above, and we see equally in all directions, unless there is an obstruction. I'm not trying to make an appeal to tradition here, but it's worked very well for all servers. My first issue is one that is very subjective, and may be a non issue for others. Having played a round where this was testmerged, I can see this as a constant issue despite the bugfixes. That issue is the fact that turning in a direction completely wipes out every person behind you from existence. For lack of a better word, it's disorienting. The OP mentioned how it would impact stealth, but SS13 has a different and I feel much more interesting definition of stealth. Simply put, it's less like a typical stealth game and more about your surroundings and your social skills. This creates a much more unique and interesting approach to stealth, that relies less on someone else's lack awareness and more on your skills. Trust is the best method of stealth. My last point is more of a question. Does this, in the round-to-round experience, enhance the enjoyment of the game, whether through gameplay or roleplay? I, personally, do not think it does. If anything, it makes the game more frustrating when that is not the intent of the developers. Change, in of itself, is not a bad thing. Often, it provides even greater benefit to us all. But wherever there is positive progress, there is progress that provides no benefit. It is often a habit of SS13 players to decry any change made, but neglects that those changes are what got us to such a fantastic game. In that same time, however, some things have remained constant because changing those mechanics would not be beneficial to the players. And that's all I have to say about that. I hope it made sense.

If Rev isn't removed, there's still the aforementioned issue of joining such a revolution not making sense within the context of having a consistent and reasonable character. The only way to circumvent this is by no longer making the character consistent and reasonable, and at that point, you can only do that with orbital handheld mind control lasers lightbulbs. It works on other servers, but is it HRP? I don't know, actually.