Fiskap

i'm going with a -1 too, mainly because they have stated several times that edgar is literally a self-insert, and that they have tried to roleplay as something else multiple times but failed. that really says something about their roleplay ability, i wouldn't trust a player with a head whitelist if they refuse to play anything but self-inserts. especially if their head whitelist has already been stripped once. my opinion of them as a player might change if they finally learn to roleplay as something else, and ideally make a new, fresh character from scratch. but it's a problem if people on discord try to give them roleplaying advice for new characters and they just ignore it all in favour of their self-insert.

i still don't like this because it honestly still sounds dumb, and don't support sol common being split at all. for instance, it's dumb to assume that a non-chinese asian would adopt mandarin considering that mandarin is mostly unrelated to other east asian languages. it doesn't happen today, it won't happen in the future. it doesn't even happen in the PRC, where even ethnic chinese will stick to their chinese variety languages with millions of speakers. if anything a non-chinese asian still living on earth would probably speak their ethnic language + the version of modified english that you mentioned, which is practically what happens today. languages will hardly fall out of use for no reason, even less if they're already spoken by millions of people with a strong cultural identity that has no reason to disappear once a world government is formed. trying to swap a system that makes no sense with another system that also makes no sense solves nothing, it just confuses people and makes them laugh at you for even suggesting it.

You could make the meeting room smaller and expand the command substation which contains the shield equipment.

A simple suggestion, add a room using some of the space of the command substation, meeting room or bridge that starts out with installed but not configured bubble and maybe hull shield generators. If this is deemed to be too much of a robust feature for roundstart then we can just leave the shield equipment laying around in the designated room for it, and have an engineer wire and wrench it later. Which is sorta what we already have for the engine and solars. The station canonically gets affected by meteors every other round (since meteors aren't an antagonist-motivated event of conflict and the rules imply that this is indeed canon) so it's dumb to not have a designated location for this. Instead engineering has to move all shield equiment from storage to the bridge (and not every person has access to it) or maybe command substation every round, and I'm honestly sick of this chore that really makes no sense for the setting anyway. It's not like the engine or solars that already start out with designated locations and partially set up, the station not having a designated shield room again makes no sense, even for SS13. Imagine if we had to grab solar panels from storage and build the solar panel arrays from scratch, or manually build all the piping for the engine and then put the supermatter core in: absolutely ridiculous. The shield room should be restricted to engineering personnel and not require anyone to pass through the bridge first, this is so engineering can activate it whenever a meteor storm is about to affect the station and no synthetics or command personnel is available. The room would run off the master grid, the command grid or have its own SMES much like the AI subgrid. Engineering is fairly annoying to play right now and this would only enhance fun for everyone and bring realism that doesn't affect anything else. It can't really be abused in any way since the etiquette for shield usage would remain the same, only turn it on whenever it's needed.

Have you ever tried to expand a character's skill set ICly, or perhaps start them out in a new field from scratch via the apprentice jobs? That's what I tried out with my current main character, Fumiko Murakami, currently a 18yo engineering apprentice (formerly a cargo technician), with arguably worrisome results. This character started out as a cargo technician with 8 skill points: perfectly average, according to the system. All her skills were plausible so no one ever questioned this. For possible further analysis I'll just put them here: Command: Amateur Cooking: Amateur Close Combat: Trained EVA: Trained Construction: Amateur Heavy Machinery Operation: Amateur Amateur command comes from past personal experiences prior to NT employment, amateur cooking is a basic life skill and she has some pre-NT job experience in that field, trained close combat comes from training martial arts for 5 years, trained EVA is because she wanted to get her license before coming to work in space, amateur construction comes from high school subjects and minor projects at home, amateur heavy machinery operation comes from being trained to use supply exosuits before being hired as a cargo technician. Again, this seemed plausible enough to me. No one cared either. After playing this character for a month, she got tired of her current position (despite that I love cargo OOCly) and wanted to abandon it forever in favor of engineering, to potentially start a career in that latter field. After gathering information on available station apprenticeships she starts out as an engineering apprentice on the 1st of November, as there are no real requirements for these positions. Since this character had gained some renown over the course of a month, some people reacted to this job change but after a couple of days, no one cared again. This had become the new status quo. On the first shift I inform the rest of engineering that I only had EVA training, basic exosuit operation training and basic knowledge to use most hand tools along with some skill in carpentry. They seemed to be okay with this, and almost immediately pushed me to expand my skill set. That same shift she is taught how the engineering outpost works, specifically being taught to wire solars at first. Following the engineer's instructions, she manages to wire the solars with a few OOCly intentional mistakes, but it ends up well. Would it really be that easy? Be taught how to lay down a bunch of wire for the solars, and be expected to know it well enough to do it by your own the next time? Then comes the computer to configure the solars, she's taught how it works, how to use it and that's it. Then come the outpost SMES. ICly that seemed to be more complicated which was reflected by her reaction, but she's taught to just adjust a few settings on it and suddenly, she's supposed to know it well enough. That's probably when I really started to question the plausibility of all this, so I started to write down her new learning history in a textfile. I started to question if operating a SMES is really that simple, even if it's explained. Outpost atmospherics come later, which was basically more of the same: adjust the potency on this digital pump, adjust a few settings on this computer and little else. Questionable for me, but she was trained by a skilled crewmember of the engineering department so I just went with that. The engine came up on the next shift I believe. Of course I wouldn't have had her try this out on her own with her very limited engineering knowledge, so she gets synthetic help for this. She's just told that she needs to grab protective gear, connect the gas canisters to their ports with the supplied tubes, configure a few digital valves again. Press a button at the monitor room to turn on the emitter, then turn it off again. And suddenly she's supposed to know the engine at a basic level? Arguably "easier" stuff came later in the form of hacking, being taught how multitools work, how to access airlock wires, airlock functions and the such. The same knowledge was passed over to work with other equipment such as air alarms and APCs and eventually I decided that this knowledge was good enough to figure out hacking the rest of electronic devices on the station via trial and error. Really the most realistic stuff I had encountered. A bunch of stuff comes up later during the course of almost 3 weeks, like being taught how to do the engine again since I roleplayed confusion the first time, installing shield generators, doing more basic atmos like pipe laying, sealing up minor hull breaches with metal and more. Basically, engineering as a whole. For all this time I had considered to this be at least partially implausible, but today I really wasn't able to endure this and felt the need to talk about this on the forums. By being taught ICly how station systems and equipment work, along with extensive practice on the station, she has been able to nearly gain the entire practical skill set of your average engineer. More often than not, she's even more competent than these actual engineers when it comes to some stuff. Again, an 18yo apprentice that is nearly as good as a normal engineer by now. Most of the station by now knows that she's just 18 and an apprentice, but she has never been confronted about it, people basically don't care about it. People in engineering don't care either, believing that she's qualified enough to work with most of the station's systems just by being taught how it works and tons of practice. This might be a failure at roleplay and character development by my part, for assuming that someone could potentially learn these skills that fast, even if experienced engineers teach her how everything works. Or perhaps the fault is not mine, and the rest of the station, particularly engineering is to be blamed for assuming she's capable enough to do that work after being taught a couple of times and working a few weeks? Again, no one cares: chief engineers, other engineers, anyone in command, no one at all. She just works, while no one questions anything. Mind you, I did try to limit the gaining of new skills over all this time. Basically she has never touched anything without being taught how it works yet, for instance: upgrading a SMES or learning how to repair a wall for the first before asking for guidance or a lesson would be nearly unthinkable. And I tried to keep her out from anything involving too complicated wiring, telecomms or advanced construction (thankfully she still doesn't know that at all). Thing is, how difficult are the ingame skills really supposed to be? I believe that this is mostly a mixed bag, stuff like robotics or surgery would definitely be insanely difficult and practically impossible to learn after just a few lessons. Weapons expertise and close combat can be learned but it takes time to get good at that. Same with cooking and botany. Medical as a whole is difficult too. And I'm certain that chemistry/virology/genetics/R&D isn't just "pushing a few buttons and getting results". But engineering? Another mixed bag. Basic atmospherics like using air alarms, air pumps, repairing basic piping and using the gas ports could be as simple as the game depicts, while using some of the more advanced atmospheric equipment could be supposed to be more hard. Or basic wiring for the station and solars being that simple (despite that only a few electric components are present in the game), while wiring more complex stuff like computers or advanced machines would be clearly harder to get right. Stuff that involves consoles (shields, SMES, RCOn), who even knows anymore. How much of that could be learned on your own, and how much of that can be mastered easily with someone's help and a lot of practice? Who knows, since this type of information is never really specified anywhere, other than assuming that some of that practical stuff is supposed to be complicated than the game depicts. "But Fiskap, why does this matter? You're only playing her in engineering right now.", is probably what many of you are thinking by now. Thing is, what if she wants to work in another department? Thankfully she doesn't want to go back to cargo or even consider security/medical, so there little room to expand now. But imagine how much this could be exploited if she did decide to get new skills in security, medical or research. Within a few months I could end up having an absolutely ridiculous, overpowered Mary Sue with +20 skill points. Any character could exploit the apprentice jobs to become a ridiculously overpowered Mary Sue and have the perfect IC justification for it. Imagine your average doctor suddenly deciding that he wants to learn some practical knowledge in engineering and joining as an engineering apprentice, then ends up being just as skilled as a normal engineer after a few weeks or months. The rules do try to limit this somehow, but what if it makes perfect IC sense and returns back to medical forever after that? I do know that these positions are for training, but I'm not sure if the pace or results of this training was sensible. Currently like I said, she has good knowledge in engineering after only 3 weeks while no one in engineering or the station cares too much. Only I really care enough. You often see security cadets getting IC training for close combat and weapons expertise which might be fine, or people getting EVA training, lab assistants learning how R&D works etc. People then don't seem to care too much if that crewmember ends up sticking with that new knowledge, which is similar to what I did, but really not the same. Engineering is also very obviously harder, but it narrows down to the same thing: new skills being acquired ICly. Currently she has 10 skill points, above average. I added one to atmospherics and electric engineering and should probably add more to engine and construction, which would already get me to to the Exceptional range. Wow, clearly bordering overqualified Mary Sue status by now. The character was not designed to work in engineering, this is basically character development gone potentially wrong. So, thoughts? Did I fuck up by unrealistically getting her to learn too many skills, despite that people often pushed her to learn? Are other characters being unrealistic by thinking that she would have no problems in sticking with that new knowledge and getting the work done decently right, with some OOCly intentional mistakes to reflect that she's not an expert? Really, just post your thoughts here because this isn't something you see way too often.

The problem with current combat cyborgs is that they're still very spammable if you have the required materials, so yes, limiting it to just one could improve things.

Part Six: Hard Training

the speed effects of this just aren't noticeable enough, and you become hungry after sprinting for just a while. basically to me it just seems that you risk getting hungry for nothing if you use this. if you're going to keep this, remove the hunger debuff at least, since that is surely absolutely ridiculous. or adjust it significantly.

Is he's balding, does that mean he's a half-griefer?

1. What are the requirements to become a citizen of the Republic of Biesel? 2. What happened to those Sol Alliance citizens who were living in Tau Ceti space when the RoB was founded in 2452? 3. Would it be possible for someone to hold dual citizenship in the RoB and SA, or another government? 4. Do future citizens have to take an oath of citizenship?

good meme +1

Part Five: This Is Too Sudden

Roughly how many Syndicate Cells are active in Biesel, specifically Mendell City? Are the relevant parts of the planet of Biesel controlled by a few major cells, or are there countless of local minor or medium cells doing their own thing, with some infighting between cells every once a while? Could I just make up a feasible minor or medium cell for my character without going through the canonization process first? I assumed antagonist stuff would be a sensible issue (especially for fairly inconsistent stuff like this), but then what I had in mind didn't seem relevant enough to warrant a whole thread and wiki entry.

Part Four: For No Reason

yes please, I don't want people all the time saying "it's fake, don't worry" whenever we get any random event. It's pretty meta.

9. whine as you inevitably get EMPd or blown via the console by any competent antag during code red

I love anime

Part Three: Special Delivery

No need to remove this entire mechanic, just write up some proper rules on how they should act.

you know very well that this is ridiculously overpriced and a terrible idea unless the server seriously needs that money to stay afloat right now, and even then it's still ridiculously overpriced. just no.

Part Two: Perhaps This Isn't Good

Part One: Reckless Behaviour

This will be a thread for short stories about past (mainly off-station and pre-employment) events about my current main character, Fumiko Murakami. Currently I intend on posting stories in a chrononical order starting since 2453, but eventually I might want to write about events that don't follow the usual chronological order. To deal with that, I will probably end up adding these as special stories. I plan on writing at the very least 30 parts of this, so I won't include them all in one post. Instead, there will be one post for each part. That way I will never have to deal with any character limits for posts. After a certain amount of parts, I will start to indexing this here. Since we're still at the beginning, I see no real need to do this yet. The name of the thread and parts are still up to change, I never put too much effort to it in the first place. Maybe I'll come up with something better soon.

lmao you're unironically calling this the worst fuckup ever??

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