jackfractal

By almost nothing alas... //anomaly suits give best protection, but excavation suits are almost as good if(istype(H.wear_suit,/obj/item/clothing/suit/bio_suit/anomaly)) protected += 0.6 else if(istype(H.wear_suit,/obj/item/clothing/suit/space/anomaly)) protected += 0.5 if(istype(H.head,/obj/item/clothing/head/bio_hood/anomaly)) protected += 0.3 else if(istype(H.head,/obj/item/clothing/head/helmet/space/anomaly)) protected += 0.2 //latex gloves and science goggles also give a bit of bonus protection if(istype(H.gloves,/obj/item/clothing/gloves/latex)) protected += 0.1 if(istype(H.glasses,/obj/item/clothing/glasses/science)) protected += 0.1

That's putting a lot of burden on moderators to dynamically decide which political discussions are valid and which are over the line. I'm sure that the moderation staff on Aurora are politically active and up to date, but they're also often quite busy dealing with other issues. It's quite a bit easier, less complicated, and less prone to confusion to simply ask people not to talk about Politics or Religion at all in OOC. It's easier on moderators, and a clear and unambiguous rule makes people who are asked to stop talking about a topic less likely to feel unjustly silenced. We already forbid a great deal of things in OOC. In character discussion, for example, is verboten, as is the slagging off of other servers. Those topics are universally banned. There is precedent for the kind of thing I'm talking about here.

No, that's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that the topics of Religion and Politics be forbidden in OOC. Quite a lot of communities do this, especially ones with diverse audiences. It doesn't really hurt anyone, and it neatly removes a common source of interpersonal conflict. Interpersonal conflict between characters is good. Interpersonal conflict between players is bad.

This isn't about arguments. This is about people talking about stuff in OOC that is very charged. Politics is charged, whatever is said. Religious stuff is charged, whatever is said. It brings no value to the point of our community (the playing of SS13 in a high-roleplay community), and it can make people very uncomfortable. Should the people who feel uncomfortable just 'toughen up' or whatever? It doesn't matter. They won't, and they won't fight in OOC, or argue, they'll just leave and they won't come back.

There's a difference between mentioning religion or politics and having a discussion about it. I'm talking about the latter, not the former. I don't know about you, but I don't play SS13 to talk about politics. I play SS13 to play SS13. There are literally millions of other places to have that kind of conversation.

I think it would reduce some of the interpersonal friction we experience if we decided not to allow these topics to be discussed in OOC. It never goes well.

I did intend on adding a "They look robotic" thing to IPC's Examine text when I first did the Shell update. That was an oversight that it's not in there. I can't remember if it's in my bugfix pull that has yet to go live. I can't think of a way to put it in their icons though. 32x32 sprites are too tiny!

Yeah, that's why I'm asking if that's what he plans.

Errr... well I'd guess that the roleplay you'd get from better Alien mechanics would be similar to the roleplay you get from existing alien mechanics... just you'd be having it with working mechanics. I mean, do you want to pull the existing xenomorphs out of the game? Comment out the part of the staff of change that can create them? Disable all the admin features that can spawn them? If so, that's... a bit of an odd decision, but more power too you. That's a creative decision that can be assessed and defended. If not, if you want to keep the existing aliens for those rare occasions that they show up, that's where I get just completely baffled. These aliens are better. Objectively better. Like, they work. So in the event that we have any aliens in the code, why not these ones?

Sorry... what? I literally do not understand. They're free, and they're better. Why not take them? This is, to me, like someone trying to give you a new, free, nicer picnic table and you going "I rarely use my old busted picnic table, and besides, sometime this year I might be getting a new coffee table." Like, it doesn't make sense! Just take the picnic table. Where is the downside?

Wait, what? Why not? We already have xenomorphs in the code, and we sometimes do xenomorph random events. These are just straight up better xenomorphs. The thing that Sue and I are talking about is adjacent to that, tangentially similar perhaps but discrete. Why wouldn't we just do both? The CM aliens are basically free. This wouldn't be a game mode, it's just the mobs. When we decide to have xeno's, we get better ones. There's literally no downside.

Oh they're still dead unless someone revives them. The only difference is that they're dead in a different spot. That spot just is slightly closer to finished then most people believed.

Yeah, this is apparently from two weeks ago. Sounds like Apop is moving pretty fast. Really? Who?

I had a few hours today so I ported the Aliens from Colonial Marines. I mostly did it to use them as a template for another project, but they work so why not take them? I'm pretty sure they're fully functional, but I'm not completely sure because don't play Colonial Marines. They compile and you can play as them and everything looks like it's working but I wouldn't know if something were borked. I need someone who regularly plays there to help me test. I also need an idea what to do when facehuggers attach themselves to IPC's or Dionea, as neither of those species have conventional animal biology. Any ideas?

They're mostly finished in the code already. They have a species datum at least. Not sure about their icons.

Sorry for the delay. This is all good! Enjoy your robotness!

I'll be taking a look at the wiki this week. I think the old AI lore is still up there and might be confusing people. I'll try to touch up the new AI lore page as well, as I think some of the formatting broke when it was added to the wiki.

This looks cool, no problems, and I think an IPC chaplain could be really cool. If there are no complaints in the morning, I'll mark this as accepted.

That's what the lore used to be, but that's been changed. MMI's are no longer obliged to remove memories but the process of being implanted in an MMI, especially from someone who experience violence beforehand, is typically fairly traumatic. Some short term memory loss is expected (do not yell out who murdered you, that is bad form).

It would be pretty easy to let robots turn it off from a code perspective. The trouble is that having an active robot with a disabled camera is a direct indication that they're subverted in some way as functional robots would have no reason to disable them. The issue with robots isn't that they're strong or weak, it's that the strategies that work against them have no reasonable counter-play. If someone has an ion rifle or a flash, you're screwed, if they don't they're screwed. There's no real way to avoid getting locked down or blown up remotely unless you smash or disable the computer, space it's card and the card in tech storage, and wipe the research data, and space or detonate the destructive analyzer. That's an enormous number of non-stealthy actions necessary to to avoid giving people the ability to remotely kill you instantly anywhere, and it's available to precisely one module (the engineering robot). All other robots save the Security module (who can shoot the computer) are just straight up screwed. The ability to survive in any environment is fun, but considering that you're really not encouraged to use the spectacularly lethal things (like atmos sabotage or venting the station) where that would actually be useful to a robot, it means that it ultimately ends up being less important then you might think. The fact that you can be remotely spied on, with no indication that people are watching you and no way of preventing it makes playing a rogue robot reeeally tricky. The ability to then be remotely killed without any way to reasonably defend yourself makes it neigh impossible. I like getting subverted as a robot, but I'm under no illusions that I'll be able to actually do anything.

I hope you have fun wherever you go Xander. Happy trails.

I've never actually been attacked by this thing, but does it have any kind of counter-play? It sounds a lot like you're there doing your antag-thing, and then you're suddenly dead with no way of responding too it. Is that how it ends up playing out?

I don't think it's herd mentality at all. The thought process there would be "Everyone is voting nuke, so I'll vote nuke too! Baaa!" That's... not how it usually works. What it usually is, is voting against the other mode. "I hate nuke! I want to play extended, but if it's a vote between Ninja or Nuke, I'll vote Ninja." I really like the idea of probability-based voting. Votes are hidden, and you vote where you want. Every vote gives the round-type a chance in the dice-roll to pick the round-type. I could see that working really well.

Errr... Hey Critsy! Glad to see you here! Hmm... yes! I think there is going to be a problem with documentation. We'll definitely have to rewrite the guide, and probably the various books around robotics (the mech construction and the robot repair guides). I am going to add that too my list, that is a very good point. How would icons be picked? That is still up in the air. Dreamix has a cool idea that they PM'd me that might be an option (with like, evolving icon sets based on size) but for my first pass implementation I'm going to ignore the icon question and just let people pick any robot skin. It's a problem that will have to be fixed somehow before it goes live, but I don't feel like I have a good handle on it yet. There's a ton of work to make this work properly anyway, so I'm hoping that someone else will come up with a working plan for the visuals while I get the rest of the stuff working. What about a robot with a cockpit and the 'bipedal adaptation' thingy? Well, right now I'm thinking you can't install a cockpit into a robot with a brain. The cockpit would replace the 'synthetic interface component' or something, you basically pull the part that houses the posibrain/MMI out and you put a cockpit in it's place. Maybe afterward you could install a posibrain (or a PAI?) to act as a sort of Jarvis-like secondary controller for the suit, but the default idea with mechs would be that the person climbs in and pilots the robot. This means that your whole UI switches to that of the robot (with some status read-outs for your health and hunger and stuff). If the robot has the 'bipedal adaptation' thing then you can still use your hands and your backpack through the suit (their icons will show up in the UI) but the rest of your body would be inaccessible.

Every time someone asks me to get them bees from cargo, I get them bees. Bees are great. Can you explain your ideas for your change? It's kinda hard to figure out if it'd be good without an explanation of what it would be.