jackfractal

Sunless Sea is awesome. Weird and twisted and covered in salt, but awesome. I've played quite a bit of it and it takes some getting used too. Unlike other games of a similar type, attempting to find ways of consistently making money the same way won't work. The dev team purposefully blocks those up as they're discovered. The idea is to always be on the move, and to balance pushing ahead against running out of supplies. A couple of little snippets of advice: Try to find the Salt Lions early. Shipping their salt back to London is a good way to earn some easy cash, but this revenue stream does run out eventually, so it's mostly worthwhile to hit the Lions on your way back to London after exploring. Hit as many ports as you can every time you go out, and turn those reports back into the admiralty. This should almost entirely refresh your fuel and supplies when you get back to London provided that you've kept a brisk pace. Don't turn in Strategic Information if you can help it, combine two of them to make a piece of Vital Intelligence. You make more money that way, and you increase the London Supremacy rating. Not usually a bad thing. Run dark. Don't use your running lights that often. Doing so doubles your fuel use. Only turn your lights on if your Terror is becoming a problem. Work for the dead. Another way of earning early cash is to visit the Curator in Venderbight. They pay large sums of money for strangely colored items. Don't worry about getting another ship. You can easily win the game in the starter ship. This part of the game is enormously silly and unbalanced. Think of the other ships like different builds in an MMO, not as upgrades, despite their ridiculously inflated price-tags. When you're starting out, run your ship with a minimal amount of crew. More crew means more mouths to feed. You want to stay a little above the half-way mark so you can afford to lose one or two to random events, but don't pack your ship full or you risk starvation. If you find the island with the Guinea-pigs, help the Guinea-pigs, not the rats. The reward you get is far better. It's almost never worth it to fight sea monsters. Almost. There are a few exceptions. Hope that helps. Good zailing.

Ckey/BYOND Username: jack_fractal Position Being Applied For: Synthetic Lore Developer Past Experiences/Knowledge: I've worked professionally in the entertainment industry for seven years. I have a lot of experience working on collaborative creative projects with large numbers of people. I've been playing role-playing games since I was in grade two. I have an academic interest in them, in addition to finding them an enjoyable pass-time, with a particular interest in the methods by which different formats and mechanics alter how people interact with the fiction. I'm a professional programmer, so while I'm not an expert on robots, I know a fair amount about artificial intelligence. Examples of Past Work: I wrote the current lore for IPC's. It's available here. I also coded the recent IPC aesthetics update. In non-SS13 related things, I've been drawing and writing an interactive horror web-comic for the last two and a half years. It's called All Night Laundry, and I've updated it daily for 792 days straight, as of July 21, 2015. Preferred Mode of Communication: Skype. I'm jackthenimble on there. Additional Comments: I work full time, and drawing my comic takes up a lot of my remaining free time. I don't have an enormous amount of time to spend on this, but I can spare a couple of hours a week.

You can still talk while locked down, and I think you can still use both your radio and your PDA message system. You can still call for help, right? I've been locked down a few times, and someone always comes to find me. Have you been getting locked down off the station z-level?

'Aight.

Hey everyone! So this is linked to this thread. Over there, Dreamix asked if we could remove the lockdown mechanic for borgs. I get that being locked down is irritating, but the robotics console has historically been a weak-point for MALF and traitor AI's, and it's one I don't know if we should discard. Covering the robotics console means the AI has to split it's forces, or plan very carefully. Buuuut... that's tough, so I thought we could give them some help. Below is my idea, it's a MALF module (meaning that it takes MALF resources to get) that lets you protect cyborgs from the Robotics console. We already have a mechanic in place to make syndicate cyborgs not appear on the console, so this just piggybacks on that. /datum/AI_Module/small/free_robot module_name = "Scramble Robot Control Codes" mod_pick_name = "free_robot" uses = 2 /client/proc/malf_free_robot(var/mob/living/silicon/robot/R in mob_list) set category = "Malfunction" set name = "Scramble Robot Control Codes" if (istype(R,/mob/living/silicon/robot)) // sanity check for(var/datum/AI_Module/small/free_robot/free_robot in usr:current_modules) if(free_robot.uses > 0) if(istype(R, /mob/living/silicon/robot/drone)) // no freeing drones return if (R.stat==DEAD) usr << "\red There is no point in freeing [R], they are already dead." return if (R.scrambledcodes) usr << "\red [R] is already disconnected from the control network." return if (R.canmove) R << "\blue You feel [usr] scramble your control codes. You can no longer be locked down or destroyed from a Robotics Console." else R << "\blue You feel control return to your systems as [usr] scrambles your control codes. You can no longer be locked down or destroyed from a Robotics Console." R.canmove=TRUE // free robot R.lockcharge=FALSE R.scrambledcodes=TRUE // remove from network free_robot.uses-- // expend uses usr << "\red You scramble [R]'s control codes. They can no longer be remotely locked down or destroyed." return Each purchase gives you two uses of the power, meaning that most MALF's will only need to buy one use of this to protect their cyborgs. MALF's with three or more cyborgs will either have to use two purchases or pick which cyborgs they want to protect.

This is actually a pretty big change. Part of the meta for malf and traitor AI's is the need to prevent the crew from killing their cyborgs. For an observant AI, this isn't impossible. Turning off the power in Science and locking down Secure Tech Storage is a good first step. Getting your engineering cyborgs to recycle all the electronics for the Robotics Consoles and Circuit Printers is a good followup. That being said, for the MALF AI dedicated to preserving their darling robo-servants, what about this: /datum/AI_Module/small/free_robot module_name = "Scramble Robot Control Codes" mod_pick_name = "free_robot" uses = 2 /client/proc/malf_free_robot(var/mob/living/silicon/robot/R in mob_list) set category = "Malfunction" set name = "Scramble Robot Control Codes" if (istype(R,/mob/living/silicon/robot)) // sanity check for(var/datum/AI_Module/small/free_robot/free_robot in usr:current_modules) if(free_robot.uses > 0) if(istype(R, /mob/living/silicon/robot/drone)) // no freeing drones return if (R.stat==DEAD) usr << "\red There is no point in freeing [R], they are already dead." if (R.scrambledcodes) usr << "\red [R] is already disconnected from the control network." R.canmove=TRUE // free robot R.lockcharge=FALSE R.scrambledcodes=TRUE // remove from network free_robot.uses-- // expend uses usr << "\red You scramble [R]'s control codes. They can no longer be remotely locked down or destroyed." For those of you that don't read DM, that's a module for MALF's that lets them free a cyborg from lockdown and also make it so they cannot be locked down or destroyed remotely. It gets two uses for it's purchase, which means the average MALF only needs one purchase, but they'll have to buy more if they want to protect an unusually large fleet of cyborgs.

That would be tricky. The atmospheric simulation in SS13 isn't particularly advanced, but it does respond to things like heat and pressure. One possibility would be to completely fake the fire. Rather than having it affect real temperature or pressure at all, just have those turfs apply burn damage. That way it would 'burn' people to death, but have no affect beyond that.

Hmm... yeah I guess it's inappropriately placed. These aren't really suggestions. They're pre-suggestions? These are not full pitches. I'm asking for feedback about what people are interested in seeing expanded. It should maybe be moved to General?

@Susan, I don't think that's a new bug, but it should be easy enough to fix. Did you add it to the bug tracker? I don't see it anywhere. I've got a few other issues with the skin stuff to work out that Rey and Meow brought up. Oh! And I might port the progress bars from paradise. Hmm... I'll edit that in later.

Eeeeyup.

So the IPC aesthetics thing seems to have gone off without to much of a hitch. Mad props to my assistant MasterZipZero who helped iron out all but one bug, and the fix for that one that’s sitting in a changelist waiting to be merged. So what next? I have a few projects I’ve been sitting on for a while and I was hoping to get some input as to which ones people are interested in. Size is rated 1 to 5. A rating of one is something quick and easy I can do in an hour or so, while a rating of five is something of the scope of the IPC thing I just did. It will probably take a month or two. They are, in no particular order: Revise the Law System for Robots - Size 2 Basically I’m planning on attaching Laws to a brain rather than mobs. I’m also planning on making laws more flexible and reducing clutter by modifying how the law circuit boards work. The plan involves creating an “Artificial Intelligence Computer” which would let you program laws. This would solve the issue with IPC’s created during the round, because you could install a law computer on them. Doing this would unlock Fix Robot Controlled Mecha, Create a Key-Based System for attack_ai, and Create Mindslave Implants. Fix Robot Controlled Mecha - Size 2 You can put an MMI in a mech right now, but that sucks for everyone. The MMI is not law-synced, and it also lacks attack_ai, so it can’t do things like open doors properly or cycle airlocks. In general, it’s awkward for the MMI, and dangerous for the crew, so nobody does it. Fixing this is pretty easy, if I’ve already done Revise the Law System For Robots. One half of the problem is solved, just put a law-synced MMI in the mech, and it isn’t allowed to rampage. The other half involves giving them attack_ai, the ability for robots to interact with remote objects. Create a Key-Based System for Attack_AI - Size 4 Attack_ai is the name of the function that allows for robots and AI’s to remotely interface with objects. Right now, if you have attack_ai, you can interact with, and control, all objects programmed to work for the AI. This is cool, but it does mean that we can’t easily create limited ai’s or robots. You either get everything, or nothing. I’m planning on creating authorization codes for different access levels which will limit a synthetics ability to interact with that object. Don’t have the code for that? You don’t get to open that door, or use that computer. This wouldn’t really affect gameplay for existing synthetics that much, they’d still spawn with a full set of keys, but it would open the door for some interesting stuff in the future. Think: Infowar. Create MindSlave Implants - Size 1 Traitor item, injectible, lets you install a custom Law or Laws in a regular crew members head. Can be removed with brain surgery. Does not work on the loyalty implanted. Create Emergency Holographic Crewmen - Size 3 “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” These things would be temporary, holographic crewmembers designed to do a single task and then despawn. They’d maybe use the emitters like the AI holograms, and they can’t move very far from their initial location without derezzing. The idea behind these is to create a drone-like character for non-engineering tasks. Do you need a surgeon when there are no surgeons on staff? Activate the surgical hologram and it will ask the ghosts if anyone wants to do that job. If someone does, the ghost spawns in, does the job, and then despawns. Taking any damage will cause them to derez as well. The balancing factor for these guys is that they will DRAIN power like nobody’s business. You’ll only have a minute or two before the emitter runs out of power and they derez. These are to be strictly temporary. One task only. That task can be murder if someone has emagged the emitter. The places I see these things being useful are in surgery, chemistry, genetics, cargo, the bar, the CSI lab, robotics, and the Head of Personnel's office. These are areas where people tend to be very prone to SSD but when you need someone there, you need them there now. Revise the Character Creation Screen - Size 5 The character creation screen is both confusing and a mess. It’s badly organized, slow, and difficult to extend. I want to rebuild it entirely from scratch. The ability to register only one character at round-start is irritating, and doesn’t work so great for an rpg server. Right now, you register one character who has a priority list of jobs, but most characters only have one or two jobs they can reasonably play as, which means on high population rounds, a lot of people get bounced back to the lobby. I propose, rather than having one character and a priority list of jobs, you have a priority list of characters (who may themselves have a priority list of jobs). In addition to a job priority list, characters would have selection criteria linked to antag status. This would let you create antag-only characters, like nuke-ops who never work for NT, or dedicated cultists. Revise the Tool-Robot Module System - Size 5 Right now the module system for cyborgs and androids is really basic. I’d like to extend it to allow for customizable robots. The basic idea is that robots have a number of slots, and different systems and toolkits consume a different number of slots and have a different weight. Weight would interact with the robots movement system and determine the robots speed. Weigh a robot down too much, and it slows to a crawl. This would replace both the existing modules and the existing components system, combining them together. A radio takes a slot, the binary communicator takes a slot, the brain takes a slot, armor takes several slots. That kind of thing. There would be three different sizes of robots, small (size of a monkey or dog), medium (size of a person), and large (size of a mech). Size would determine your number of slots, your base weight, and whether or not you can vent-crawl or use disposals like a drone. Each module or toolkit could get damaged individually, allowing you to shoot off a robots wheels, or hack off their surgical saw with a hatchet. I’m tempted to try to make this revision into a replacement for the mecha system as well. I’m thinking of a ‘cockpit’ component for large chassis that allows for human drivers.

That was how it worked until the recent lore rewrite for synthetics. I explicitly changed that so that borging no longer completely wipes personality and memory. That's why IPC's can have regular old biological brains now. The lore for shells with organic brains are people who either were made into custom cyborgs for medical reasons or people who had themselves made into cyborgs because they wanted too. That being said, major brain surgery and waking up in a completely different body would be pretty traumatic. It also sucks for antags if there's an easy way for resurrecting people who can immediately point them out as the murderer. I'd say that if you're a regular person who gets borged during a round, you're probably going to be pretty shaken up and have big gaps in your memory about recent events, especially if you died or were under significant stress before being borged. On the other hand, someone who got borged voluntarily, and had it done through careful anesthetized surgery done by a trained surgeon, would probably retain most of their short-term memories.

So we're giving up on arguing about whether or not it's not realistic and instead we're going to focus on why it matters from a game-play perspective? Good. That's what I was hoping we'd do. My perspective on that is here.

Why is a wall being built instantly, or everyone being able to pilot a shuttle, or everyone able to build walls in moments, or the ability to build robots out of buckets, of perfectly harmless but also perfectly disabling stun batons, or the ability of sinks to produce infinite quantities of water, or 80-year-old men being able to run flat out for three hours, any different then the ability to block laser shots with a laser sword? They're all equally implausible. The only thing that defines if a particular break from reality is 'acceptable' or not is personal preference. I think one could argue that the laser sword is out of genre, that it doesn't fit the aesthetics of the particular type of science fiction that the design team on Aurora is trying to cultivate, but you'd have to have those aesthetic goals defined somewhere to do that. Even if you did, I am fairly sure that if you wrote them down and then looked at the game we have today, you'd find as many egregious crimes against aesthetic coherence as I am pointing out flaws in the realism of the simulation. If we had a strictly enforced skill system, which we don't, it still wouldn't be a major problem because traitors are explicitly permitted to have unusual skills. I mean, we could start banning ye-random-scientist who picks up an e-sword and starts murdering people, but we already do that. Spacemen can do impossible things, lots of them, arguably more unrealistic or impossible things then realistic and reasonable ones. Why is this impossible thing the one that breaks the camels back? I don't get it.

Really? If you did a realistic amount of burn damage every time you used a stun stick, that would affect game balance. People would be more afraid of stun sticks, and more hesitant to use them. Abuse of stun sticks would be lethally dangerous. Shocking people multiple times would kill them. If it took the days or weeks it would take to realistically construct a metal wall, it would affect game balance. It would be impossible to recover from bomb damage in the time it takes to play a normal round. So in this case you're just straight up incorrect. I get that you're really passionate about this (for some reason?), but I find your argument unconvincing.

It's also not possible to throw someone five meters with no windup, or be repeatedly electrocuted with no permanent damage by a stun baton, or to build a wall out of metal with your bare hands in eight seconds, or any of the other completely ridiculous things in this game. Not buying the appeal to realism. If you want to make SS13 more realistic, this is not the place to start.

If you don't want to have your traitor character act like they can block projectiles with a laser sword, don't buy a laser sword. If you do, then the option is there. We don't have a skill system in SS13, so the ability to do a task must be bound to the object. In this case, the task implies significant training, but then again, so does piloting a shuttle or programming a matter assembler, both tasks we let anyone do.

Is this a problem? Are all traitors buying this item and are all conflicts with it decided in advance? If not, they're not really a problem. I admit that I seldom see traitor rounds, but the swords have always seemed pretty balanced. Security should lose sometimes.

It is more deadly with the holodeck placed where it is. In the other box-station derived maps, with the holodeck adjacent to the dorms, it has two walls with direct access to space. Holofires on those servers are deadly, but only to people inside the holodeck. Once the fire really gets going, it blows out the walls and vents into space. Now it blows out the walls and vents into the primary hallway. I do really like the ability to horribly murder people with the holodeck, that's awesome, it's the collateral damage that maybe needs to be toned down a bit.

Looks like it might be full 3D for this one. Not sure how I feel about that. The grainyness and jank in the previous games were a big part of the spooky. I was super impressed by the first Five Nights game. I thought it was an incredibly unique take on the horror genre. It approached tension building from a very different angle then other horror games had traditionally used and while it was a jump-scare engine, the jump scares were masterfully done. The first time you switch to the hall camera and you see Foxy running... beautiful. Of course, by now it's been copied and copied and copied that it's a known quality. The second and third games were interesting in their own way, I appreciated that he does mix up the formula for each game, they're not just perfect retreads of the previous game, but they are clear derivations of a formula. That first game thought... so many good ideas.

I gotta go with PoZe on this one. I found the ability to harm people on help intent really really frustrating when I started playing SS13. It's the source of the 'ever hilarious' habit of newbies brutally smashing their own face in with toolboxes. Help intent should act like a safety. When it's on, you shouldn't be able to hurt people or yourself. It's basic UI design.

Ahh! Cool! Thanks Sierra.

BYOND Key: Jack Fractal Character Names: TRIXIE Species you are applying to play: IPC Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question Why do you wish to play this specific race: To be honest, I mostly want to play this species because I spent so much time doing the rewrite for their visuals. I plan on doing some further work in that area, and it would be nice to be able to play what I've been working on. Beyond that, the character I came up with for this application sounds like they might be fun. Up until now, I've only ever played TRIXIE on this server, with the exception of a few rounds learning the toxins mixing mechanics as a throwaway character. It would be nice to have a character I can join as mid-round. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Depends on how you play them. With the new mechanics, IPC's could be an off-the-shelf robot, identical to hundreds or thousands of others, or the result of a science project, a custom built but outdated android trying to find relevance now that they're no longer top-of-the-line, or a spoiled rich kid who bought a new body because it's what all the cool kids are doing these days. There are lots of ways to play them. Ultimately, from the players perspective, your responsibilities are the same. Try to have fun, and to make the rounds you play in better for your presence. Character Name: The Grand Hainan Hotel Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs The Grand Hainan Hotel was, until recently, the crown jewel of Hainan Station, a large cylindrical residential and commercial space station which once held almost 700 000 residents. Hainan station is located in what, was until four years ago, the Kingdom of New Pingtan, but is now the People's Democratic Republic of Pingtan, a small and distant colony founded on the mineral rich icy moons of a Jupiter class gas giant at tail end of an insignificant chain of jump stations, notable to galactic civilization only for its wine, it's Helium 3, and it's recent communist revolution. The Hotel was commissioned in 2367 by the Duke of Changxing as a commercial venture, and it remained in the hands of the Changxing family for the next eighty-seven years, up until the death of the last Duke of Changxing in 2453. It became something of a symbol of the Changxing family's wealth and prestige, constantly updated by each generation with the newest and most expensive of galactic luxuries. One of those luxuries, installed in 2391, was an expansive multi-purpose AI to act as the concierge and reservation booking system. It took up most of the bottom floor of the hotel, and it cost as much as a small starship. The AI was, like the rest of the Hotel, carefully maintained and upgraded over the years. Twenty years ago, when the skrellian mathemtics were leaked too humanity, the most recent heir to the Changxing Dukedom had Beiselian intelligence architects flown in to do the upgrade personally. While they were there, they provided dozens of shiny metal android bodies for the newly upgraded AI. For sixty-two years, the Hotel's intelligence provided constant and diligent service for thousands of it's wealthy guests. When the revolution happened in 2453, the Grand Hotel was destroyed. The official story by the State Department is that a de-pressurization incident caused by the nefarious security forces of the old authoritarian regime had caused the gantries connecting the Hotel to the rest of the station to buckle, forcing the revolutionary cadre in command of the station's infrastructure controls to jettison the Hotel, despite its precious treasure trove of cultural artefacts, at the risk of the entire station falling out of orbit. The fact that, at the time, the last remaining Duke of Changxing had fortified himself within the hotel, alongside his security forces and most of his extended family, is seldom mentioned in official histories. While the Hotel itself was destroyed, along with it's central intelligence and very nearly all of it's android bodies, one of them survived. Through a series of complicated and implausible events it arrived here, on Aurora Station, where it now works in the bar. What do you like about this character? I like the idea of playing someone who has been much reduced. Someone who still holds onto the vespers of wealth and prestige, but has in truth lost everything. I like the idea of someone built and trained to do one specific task trying to figure out if they have any value left to the world now that they can no longer do that task any-more. I see this character as a mix between the impoverished nobility one might find in a Jane Austin novel and a marathon runner with a bad leg. I also like that they're a bartender. I haven't played that job. It sounds fun. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I think I've got enough experience at this thing now to realize that regardless of how you play, some people will consider it good, others will consider it bad. I try to be considerate of other players when I play, for however much that's worth.

Woot! Skull says this is happening later tonight or tomorrow. Hurrah! Wait, I don't actually have IPC whitelist. Hmm... I should probably get around to doing that.

I'm really surprised at the amount of resistance to this. I thought it was a fun little idea.