jackfractal

It is clearly a cuddly bunny rabbit.

Why not port the tg's makeshift stun prods and spears? The really nasty thing about stun gloves is that they're invisible. The stun prods are easier to make, but they're a two-handed item. They're impossible to overlook. Spears are the same. Stun prods act like security shock sticks, but they have really crappy energy conversion. You make them from metal rods, an energy cell, and some wires. Spears are just relatively good melee weapons you can throw, and are made from rods, a shard of class, and wires. Just remove stun-gloves and take these.

I realize that I'm rapidly becoming 'the robot guy' but any implementation of this needs to remember our tiny robot pals. No hands mean that they can't use one item on another, and they can't directly drop metal sheets to use them on the ground. I do really like the idea though. I've seen a ton of 'lets make construction more interesting' idea threads on various SS13 forums, and Jamini's idea is the most functional I've seen.

Isn't it lucky for everyone then that one does not have to agree with one's allies of convenience, merely to find ones goals temporarily aligned?

It would, but wouldn't it be more interesting to see them struggle if all four were players? GAIA needs either the Workers, or Utopia, to get a majority. Either will do. ATLAS needs BOTH to win a vote, but if they get both, then they can overrule the leading party. In this case, the two smaller parties have a lot of power. A coalition just destroys all that juicy bickering and backbiting.

Except you know, they agree on everything except foreign policy. Hmm... Domestic: Agree on Education as a Priority Foreign: Major disagreements. ATLAS is jingoistic, GAIA is isolationist. Economic: Minor disagreements. ATLAS is statist, GAIA is isolationist. Trans-Stellar: Major disagreements. Both agree that mega corporations are a problem but disagree on why and in the key issue of the Nanotransen scuffle with the Unathi, they are completely opposed. I'd say that it's more that they have a few points of similarity, mainly in Domestic policy. For the rest... not so much. Also, if they merged, they'd almost certainly have to make concessions to the other party due to their size, and the more extreme elements might split from both parties weakening the coalition. It would be better to take a weaker party who has less to offer and more to gain, and completely absorb them. But this is ultimately up to Jackboot.

Couldn't Gaia form a coalition with any of the other parties to get a majority? GAIA and ATLAS don't seem well matched politically. They disagree on almost all policy points. Wouldn't it make more sense for GAIA to try to merge with the Worker's party? They'd still be up by four points, and their views seem far more compatible.

I imagine they don't care either way, it's just that synthetics are generally round-start roles and the rounds go on so long that the average Griffon McShitlorde can't be assed to wait 2-4 hours to get his hands on them. That is also a very good point.

As someone who mains synthetics, I have an idea of why this might be the case. Synthetics have laws. When you agree to play as them, you're already agreeing to limitations on your behavior. The laws are (fairly) simple, both for the player and for the admins. There isn't a lot of wiggle room on this server. With Azimov laws, things are a lot hazier, but Aurora's laws are designed to limit ambiguity. When you break them, it's pretty obvious. Limitations on your behavior are something that rule-breakers, by definition, don't accept. This makes playing synthetics pretty unattractive.

I still think you could have done this even with the different backstory. It sounds like it would have been cool!

I'm not disagreeing with any of what you're saying. I'm really not arguing that people shouldn't be able to hurt other players. I have no particular 'story' planned out for my character, and I don't think that the Warden in the example did either. Your perception of what I have been saying is inaccurate. I'm disappointed that my metaphor's failed so dramatically to convey my point. The example of the thirty minute downtime in Call of Duty is to highlight that the punishment for failure is unusually high in SS13. Call of Duty balances the lethality of it's combat by it's fast respawn times. SS13, as a rule, does not. It is possible to die or be captured in arguable less time then it takes to die in Call of Duty, and with less responsibility for the person dying (atmos deaths anyone?), but the punishments are much higher. Asking what Call of Duty would be like if nobody could shoot anyone else is a non-sequitur. It's not at all related to the point I was trying to make. That would be bad game design. Nobody would argue that. But Call of Duty with a 30 minute respawn timer would also be bad game design. You're generally arguing with a stances and opinions that I'm not taking. I don't think that the penalties for failure should be removed. I said as much in my previous post. You'd lose a great deal of what makes SS13 interesting if you modified the penalties for failure too significantly. And, as I mentioned, the examples are mostly hypothetical. This is not my personal mode of play. Everyone has to choose where they fall on the axis of 'taking non-optimal actions in favor of interesting actions' scale, and I try to head more toward the 'interesting' end myself out of personal preference, but I understand where the people who choose the opposite end of the spectrum are coming from. I believe that most people who choose optimal play over 'interesting' play, know that failure is always an option and that they should have no expectations of success. Those are, after all, the rules of the game. The choice that players on the optimal end of the spectrum take is to attempt to avoid fail states by using all the mechanics that they have available. They prioritize the avoidance of fail states, over other things. That seems pretty reasonable to me. How am I defining failure here? That's a good question. 'Failure' in this case, specifically regarding the prioritization of 'interesting' actions over optimal actions, involves the loss of the ability to engage with the game as an active participant. This can usually be summarized as the ability to act towards ones goals. If your goal as an antag is to steal everyone's shoes, then something that results in that goal becoming impossible is 'failure'. If your goal is to have a good pint down at the bar, and swap some salty space stories with the other rough fellows who gather there, then something that prevents you from doing that would be considered 'failure'. Thus, death is usually 'failure' and imprisonment, especially indefinite imprisonment, is also often 'failure'. The combination of the primacy of stuns in combat, and the fact that downed players are extremely vulnerable to players who have not been downed, means that SS13 rewards blitz style attacks, that give the opposition no opportunity to react. That's why you don't see people talk in combat, because everyone knows that getting downed, even once, will often mean a complete loss of agency for an extended period of time.

Not true. You get thirty minutes of "penalty" after which you can join in with another character. So no. You cannot use those three damn hours as an argument against narrating an intriguing story instead of trying to come out on top of every situation. What if I don't have another character I want to play? (I do, this is a hypothetical) What if I play mostly synthetics (this is not hypothetical), who are only available at round-start as an option? Even if I didn't, thirty minutes of downtime, in a videogame? For something that can happen as quickly as being shot with a taser? That's harsh. Can you imagine getting shot in Call of Duty and having to take a thirty minute timeout? Or losing a StarCraft game and not being able to re-up with the same race until three hours had passed? Or dying in World of Warcraft and being unable to respawn as that character until you'd spent three hours as a ghost? SS13 has nasty failure penalties. They're part of what makes it an interesting game, but they exist, and pretending that they don't doesn't really help anything. Of course, admitting them doesn't really help anything either. I have no solution to this problem that doesn't involve fundamentally redesigning the game, and doing that would involve sacrificing a lot of what makes it unique and interesting. And while I get that some people have a sort of enlightened attitude towards play, it's pretty clear as the warden in the example demonstrated, and as all the examples in the Valid-gaming thread have further emphasized, that most people don't. Most people like to not die or get caught. I'm arguing that this is because of the steep penalty for failure. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but unlike most other people in this thread, I'm not saying it's a bad thing or an inferior thing. Everyone has to make a choice where they fall on the spectrum. Do you take purposefully non-optimal actions because you find them more entertaining? Awesome. More power too you. But if you truly do not care about dying or losing, then you should not care that there are people for whom staying active in the game is more important then being interesting.

It can be fun, until you get murdered. Then you're out of the game. My experience as a prisoner has been pretty abysmal as well, but I admit the possibility that I have simply been unlucky in that regard. I like observing SS13, but I prefer playing, and so I'd consider 'things that stop you from playing' to count as a loss. And while nobody is keeping score, we do often have goals, and being murdered or detained indefinitely tends to throw a wrench in them, unless your goals are pretty esoteric.

Precisely. Because losing sucks worse in SS13 then in almost any other game. In fact, I can't really think of any game that it sucks worse to lose in then SS13. It pretty much takes the cake on that.

Is it really bad to use the mechanics? I mean, the warden was panicked and shooting wildly. That's what you saw happening. The fact that they didn't *me it isn't necessarily bad. The problem with this kind of situation is that those who act the least honorably win, and winning in SS13 is enormously preferable to losing. Losing gets you dead, for up to three hours, or detained, again for up to three hours. Being dead, or being in jail, is boring. This isn't quake, where you respawn in five seconds. There are significant consequences to getting dropped by an opponent. This isn't just a problem on high-rp servers. I kept running into a variant of this on Paradise while playing security, where people would ask me to tell them what they were being arrested for, then, while I was typing, they'd bash my head in with a toolbox. Those who play the least fair tend to win. Until someone solves that, or finds some way to make losing equally interesting to winning, this is always going to be a problem.

I have no particular affection for the chef, bartender, or any other civilian role. I never play them. I almost always play synthetics, so I get to be involved in most things. But, I mean seriously, if we're talking about the service jobs, when has anyone involved in negotiations with a squad of mercenaries ever listened to the chef? The bartender? One of the doctors? Someone in science? Pretty much never. They almost never listen to the captain. Negotiations are hugely ineffective at the best of times because, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this conversation, it is very hard to communicate effectively in SS13. Still, it should be pointed out that butting into a negotiation as someone unqualified (read: Not the Captain or the Head of Security) is a good way to get arrested for misuse of coms. In fact, while I agree that forsaking the station is done a too hastily, we should take into consideration the three things we see far more often than that: Urist McSecurity [148.0] says, "I'm tired of hearing people talk about inane nonsense. Clear the coms!" Urist McCaptain [148.0] says, "The janitor dropped a bucket. We are on code blue for the rest of the shift. Everyone stay in your departments!" Urist McERT [148.0] says, "Anyone in the hallways with a weapon will be shot. Anyone in the hallways without a weapon will be detained." So yeah. Civilian staff do not get to participate in most antag rounds save in very rare instances: they are made into an antag in Cult or Revolution they are specifically targeted by an Antag in traitor, nuke, changeling, vampire, or wizard. they are asked to provide a very specific and very limited service, typically with no explanation, such as ordering guns or loyalty implants as Cargo, or making thermite as a chemist This is why security is the most overstaffed department. You get to participate in 'the thing' that's happening that round, every round.

So, wait. You're arguing that, as the chef, I should grab my knife and go after the nuke ops, rather than running away to the mining station? Or else, if I don't do that, because that's insane, it's my fault when security can't find the nuke hidden on the exterior of the solars and it explodes and kills absolutely everyone? I... disagree with this. Mining drills stop nuke's how? Protect against lasers how? Nobody arms assistants ever. Have you ever seen security hand out guns to assistants to fight the badguys? I haven't. Would that ever be a good idea? I'm thinking no. And how is cleaning up AFTERWARD going to help prevent a nuclear bomb? The janitor has no way of interacting with these rounds. So yeah. I refute your point. Security and engineering get to play with the antags, the rest of the crew cowers or flees. That's theoretically desired behavior given the 'validgaming' thread earlier this weekend.

Most of the civilian staff has no way to interact with MALF or Nuke. That's solely the domain of engineering and security, and mostly just security for New Cops. The stakes of losing the station having teeth is all well and good, but it's really crappy to 'lose the game' when you have absolutely no way of impacting the outcome of the situation.

This is a good idea. Pull request up: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora/pull/593

But isn't that a good thing? I mean that non-sarcastically. I'd think it would be a good thing for people to spread sensitive information because it's interesting.

I like the idea that they get de-antagged but lose their memories. Just put that in the description for the loyalty implant if you're a rev/traitor/cultist and this problem goes away.

That is really good to hear!

Nothing. But it does change gameplay. People hide in lockers to escape pursuit and to avoid the AI. Limiting their sight will change that dynamic. It will become less optimal. Are lockers overly optimal now? Is there a good gameplay reason to do this? In my experience on this server, antags, especially lone antags, who are the ones who would use lockers, are extremely ineffective. Traitors and changelings are almost always caught, and caught quickly. I have a feeling that taking away one of their tactics will just make that more likely.

Because you're blowing things up and taunting people about it on the radio? Being in a locker prevents the AI from jumping to you directly from radio speech. If you're a known antag, it's one of the only safe places to talk on the radio from. Also there's the whole Gameplay > Aesthetics > Realism thing. Just because something is realistic, doesn't mean it's the right decision. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, I'm saying it has implications beyond just 'this doesn't make sense'.

That's the big one. Lockers are a strategic part of antag play.