triogenix

Furthermore, while this does affect Zavodskoi Lore and therefore can be considered under the purview of the Loremasters, I've decided that the lore implications for Zavodskoi are limited enough that this application can be handled by the synthetic team alone.

Hi. I'm once again reworking the new player lore guide. Learning from previous attempts, this time I want to get more community feedback while the page is still in its rough draft period, as I am a lore writer and will inherently have a different perspective than the person who this page is actually designed for. This topic exists as a place on the forums to give such feedback, recommendations and similar. Also I'm splitting up the New Player Lore guide into the New Player Lore Guide and a Setting Summary. The goal here is for the new player lore guide to be the BARE MINIMUM of information needed in terms of lore to hop on the server, while the setting summary goes more into depth on the the politics, worldbuilding, and other large-scale parts of the setting, as the latter parts are "opt-in" lore that can be considered functionally irrelevant to a new player. I'm still working on the setting summary page, so for now, here's just the refurbished new player lore guide page to give feedback on. https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php/Sandbox-Scarcity:NewPlayerPublic

Application retracted - archiving.

Application denied.

We have plans for this we cannot reveal yet - but it is unlikely they will be out of limbo anytime soon. The work required is great, and there are a ton of other projects that take precedence. Given that, I am archiving this application.

Uncertain how I feel about this - would like @NM_ and the rest of the synth teams' thoughts on it while I also take the time to mull it over.

As of now I am heavily against this. I am fine with the idea that the Alliance is seeking autonomy in arms production/defense, and I'm also fine with Zavodskoi getting booted out of the Alliance. I not okay with this reading like the alliance just snapped its fingers and had no adverse effects from completely removing a megacorporation from a market it dominates. We are a megacorporate setting - for better and for worse - and this feels as though it's in a completely different setting instead. However, I don't just want to shoot down the idea, so I will point out some additions that may make me change my mind. 1. You need to have there be a tangible, explicit drawback to not having Zavodskoi manufacture their arms and weapons anymore. In other pieces of lore my go to has been just - Zavodskoi makes the most advanced stuff - so not using Zavodskoi means using less advanced stuff. However, given how intertwined the Solarian Military and Zavodskoi should have been before the reclamation mandate, I'd like to see alot more, I.E, things like loss of expertise/brain drain, difficulty with supply chains (stuff needs resources to be built), possibly corruption, and more. 2. The amount nationalized needs to correlate to the difficulties experienced by the Alliance. Zavodskoi was gutted and basically has zero presence in the alliance now? That's fine, but the alliance difficulties need to be so severe that they can't viably fill the gap for years (not just however long it's been since nationalization). 3. You're neglecting all the other war equipment Zavodskoi makes - AIs of all types, radios, EW and ECM equipment, Radars, Exofighters, Armored Vehicles, Scanners, Drones, body armor, hardsuits, cyber warfare shit, and countless other pieces of equipment necessary for the advanced battlefields of the 2460s. All this stuff mentioned is incredibly difficult to manufacture, requiring workers with expertise, extremely convoluted and long supply chains, extremely advanced manufacturing centers (think what TSMC uses to make their chips), and extensive industrial knowledge that makes the things I first mentioned look simple in comparison. Zavodskoi has all of this - how does the SNA also magically have this? In conclusion, right now, this reads to me like it's not taking place in the same setting as everything else, and everything is working out perfectly with little to no flaws despite how many there should be. As long as it reads that way to me, I will not accept this application or allow it to be accepted. P.S: I assume you didn't know, but megacorporate lore, such as Zavodskoi, like a large chuck of this, falls under the authority of the Loremasters. So this application should really say; Species: Human and Loremasters. But that's not obvious - I might change the format for applications given that.

Approved. This will be implemented shortly with some minor modifications that will not change the new content being proposed in a meaningful way. Thank you for this application.

When it comes to persistent money, a solid way to solve this issue is just to have it reset every month or so. I had a design doc somewhere with a general idea on how to implement a persistent money system so lmk via discord DMs if you want that.

Hi. So, Kermit and I made the decision to release the scarcity piecemeal for a variety of factors, but two interconnected factors stand out among the rest - the possibility of NBT2 and changing priorities. When I first began work on the scarcity rework, the way I went about it assumed that it would be the driving factor of the setting over the next at least five years if not longer. Therefore, much of my work was done to try and keep the situation carefully balanced to be bad enough that it gave more opportunities for things to happen, while not being so bad that it would hinder the current setting, keeping it somewhat resolvable for the future. This is a very time-consuming and difficult task. I worked under this assumption for about six months, and much of the groundwork was laid with this in mind. Then - Matt pitched the idea of NBT2 - nothing specific but just the idea of a major setting change. I want to be clear that this is something I fully support; the scarcity, even reworked, is nothing more than a bandaid needed because of an inherently flawed setting. That said, just the idea of NBT2 meant that all the groundwork I had laid under the assumption that the scarcity would be the “thing” for the next five years or longer was no longer relevant; worse, it was incompatible with the idea of a major setting change, therefore, it all had to be ripped up. This meant almost all of the work I had done went “down the drain”, so to speak - AND I NEED TO MAKE IT CLEAR, THAT IS A PRICE I WILL EAGERLY PAY FOR A CHANCE AT SOMETHING LIKE NBT2 THAT CAN FIX FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS - and needed to be rewritten with new priorities in mind. That said, a decision had to be made. The scarcity rework was no longer the long-term goal, but a short-term one, a stopgap before a bigger change that should set the groundwork for it, and I had to essentially start from square one again (albeit under easier conditions). I estimate it would have taken another five to six months or so of new work to get back to where I was - given how I was going about it at the time - something that would have delayed the rework until the summer of 2026, which I wanted to avoid. The best option was to salvage what I could from the original rework, restart the work but only focus on the LTA parts - and let the specific teams each handle their own aspect at their own pace. Is this a perfect solution or even an ideal one? Not really - but it’s the best given the situation and all the factors at play - of which there are many more than the two discussed here which I won’t get into.

Given my discussions with them on the general discord - mostly about the Aurora setting, its problems, and similar - I've found TCJ to be very easy to communicate with, I can't think of a better way to phrase it. They handle critical feedback very well, learning from it rather than lashing out, and will seemingly take the extra time necessary to make sure something they're working on is solid before moving on to another project when it comes to devwork. I think they'd be a nice addition to the team. +1

That is an incredibly valid point I had not considered.

*disclaimer - this is not from a game play perspective - I will defer to others who regularly play rounds for stuff like that; this is merely from my perspective as the loremaster and what bodyguards mean from a setting/representation perspective. Putting aside what @DatSamTho said about how the role will be played extremely rarely since that's not something I feel I can weigh in on, diplomatic bodyguards give us a justification to represent entities from within the larger Aurora setting on board that we otherwise would not have. Great example is the Solarian Army as an entity, since they're bodyguards for Solarian diplomats, they can now be represented on board and interact with the "primary game setting" aka the Horizon. Without bodyguards, that wouldn't be possible. It's a minor thing, but something I think is still somewhat important - not enough for the final decision to be made off of, but something that should be considered. It wouldn't be the end of the world if bodyguards were removed and these possibilities along with them. I just wanted to add another consideration into the mix that I hadn't seen mentioned yet.

Hi! Kermit and I have decided to accept this application. Congratulations!