Rabid Animal

Nah I get that and all, but I guess the question is more /should/ they be able to self heal? It's just extremely powerful as it is currently. An IPC getting shot 8 times just walks away from it, and rubs paste all over themselves to walk back in and get shot 8 more times. They already have no pain, I don't know why they need the additional buff of being able to "first aid" themselves. Remove nanopaste might have been too harsh of a way to phrase it, I know it's used for other stuff. I just think it should ONLY be used for that other stuff and then you know; make repairs more involved. Incentivise robots to take self preservation more seriously, because you aren't just gonna walk away from it - which seems to be the point of this thread.

I think removing nanopaste or making it only used to repair internal components is a good first step. As is, IPCs will get damaged and just b-line for their magic toothpaste tube and it completely negates the mechanics involved in actually repairing a unit. This makes them feel more like tg med than anything else really. Having a system of components that do different things when damaged (honestly kind of like it is now) could make damage feel more varied. Making it possible to damage the actual positron. Etc.

The PR is up and up to date with changes afaik; https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/19003

I like Cam quite a bit! I haven't interacted with them too much but from what I have seen they're a competent engineer with fun rp backing them up. We need more CEs too......... +1 from me

It can be a little annoying coming from someone who often plays later in the night, I think the biggest thing is you can't just pick up where you left off with interactions or even mechanics because of the server restart. It's not just a five minute break it's an interruption to everything happening. There's times where I would have been down for another hour but commiting to another round of setup and restarting RP tends to be more of a deterrent to me than population. That said; from the other side it can be hard to integrate in a round that's already two hours in, and I've definitely been on the boat of voting to end a round I'm not even watching. I could see it being a pain in the early hours where no one is online. Maybe it's worth testing just to see how it feels? I don't think you can judge what people will do and assuming a wave of people will be logging on just to vote is idk pessimistic. That kind of thing never happened on bay, at least when I last played it. All that said a compromise to me could be to remove the 2/3rd voting in exchange for only allowing players and ghosts (not observers, ghosts) to vote prior to the three hours mark; afterwards let anyone vote.

I kind of agree Aurora is fine. "I was playing on Aurora-" "Aurora lore is like-" These aren't difficult things to say, its how all ss13 servers are identified, but I mean you could easily just say the spur or the horizon instead?

I gotcha, server population ebbs and flows; in general you'd want to make sure everyone always has something to do, things to rp around, to actually incentivize people to play those departments. Security is overpopulated now because they get so much action, while some other departments genuinely just need stuff to do that works for /every/ round. Sometimes thats easy, like engineering. I made a post in the mission briefing thread lightly touching on this as well. This is getting off topic though LOL To bring us back around; I'm 99% sure that robotics was moved to operations to justify the OMs existence, if the OM takes service with the XO rework, then the OM is just the HOP with a different title. Ironically I think you could justify robotics being medical, engineering, or science, far better than you could justify them being ops. People made the current configuration work in their minds, and that's where a lot of these justifications seem to be coming from. That's not bad though, server culture matters for these kinds of changes.

This is something that was 'culturally' removed from science in that, no policies were made, but 9/10 times the machinist DOES do these upgrades. Since I came back from my break I have not seen science ONCE get asked for upgrades, but I have seen the machinist do them, and I like to think I'm fairly active. So while the "don't gut things from science" argument is extremely valid and I've been screaming it from the rooftops myself, it already happened. I don't play machinist enough to be sure, but removing the protolathe from their workshop is the solution to this. Irrc the only thing they need from it is nanopaste, which completely trivializes their job to the point it has no mechanical reason to exist anyways. Also engineerings gameplay loop involves repairing destruction, fixing them is as simple as encouraging people to blow shit up. Engineering has very few problems as a department right now.

Ah I must have missed that, alright

This is a bath faith argument disproven quickly if you watch 80% of regular (not xenobio/bot/arch) scientists play the game. I would hate to see the system replaced by one that executes the goofy sci-fi experimental design of weapons and replaces it with fairly mundane stuff. So yeah, once again if you can implement this in a way that doesn't detract from what currently exists go for it. I don't hate the idea! I think it's cool and some of the stuff you've posted about seems neat; I just don't want the most played part of science to get crippled from it.

I had a thought and it might be a hot take. Would we consider implementing a rule that, outside of extreme circumstance, no more than 1-2 officers can leave the Horizon, and at least 1 officer has to be on the Horizon at all times? This Horizon doesn't exist to crawl into dangerous holes for the fun of it, beyond the idea that if these missions are to be part of the exploration gimmick, the expectation (even if not reality) should be that while these missions might not be the safest thing, they don't need 8 guns following the exploratory / repair / negotiation / what have you teams. Beyond all of that; security exists to protect the ship, abandoning ship does not serve to do that. If this is completely unacceptable; An alternative, to me, would to be allowing ghost spawn pirates to attack the horizon - its no longer a suicide raid if all of the security department is off on an away mission doing whatever. This is an immediate fix to the security ending rounds early, while also providing incentive to actually play other departments, ideally helping the new mode have better, longer, interactions. Also another question; if this role is to be whitelisted, and we run into the same issues of not enough people signing up for the role, whats the plan there? Remove the whitelist? Default to secret when no one is available?

I keep saying the exact same thing so I was hesitant to comment. My issue with this idea is it's not a particularly needed feature, and seems to exist to give security more stuff to play with. They don't need it. If it's reworking weapon development on the science side to allow for more creative and versatile designs, while not particularly taking away from what the currently have, I don't have any issue - but that doesn't seem to be the intention.

Oops no access

Anyone who was interested in this: the set schedule is now the 17th, 24th, and the 1st at 7:00pm central time (-5:00). It's been moved to Wednesdays to better fit the schedules of everyone currently in the discord ❤️

I don't feel particularly strongly about this either way, but I've seen the argument come up a few times that the engineers repair / maintain ship systems and that's why machinist doesn't fit there. A counterpoint to bring up is that the AI, it's borgs, and every company owned IPC are part of the ships systems. Sure that's not all they do, but you could look at it from a corporate standpoint and see how that might be the reason they exist in the first place.

Can we get a hardsuit in the RnD server room? idk if there's really space, but its needed for entering when setting up tech processors - we used to take the one out of telescience but as that's not part of the RnD room anymore it's a bit of a chore to go pick one up. I appreciate sciechem getting some extra toys to make stuff, particularly since its not next to rnd anymore, running back and forth to pick stuff up would suck. I don't see a need for the medkits they have, though I'd like a box of pill bottles for those scenarios where science decides to do a drug trial. The chemical fridge is in an awkward spot. There used to be a fire closet next to the elevator, I see its nixxed, maybe make space for it in the tunnel next to chemistry? Would make sense given the risk of chemical fires. Telescience being viewable from the hall seems odd to me, I'd like to see it swapped with scichem. Realistically, if we're forgoing the testing room for chemical stuff, there should be room for it. Scichem is one of the few stations that doesn't need a TON extra space, and if its near the hallway then you get interaction from that.

It has four more trays if you count the dirt piles in the current map. I recall designing it with the old maps tray count. Xenobotany is not much larger here than the current map, and it might SEEM that way because three rooms were combined into one. Beyond any of that, it was established many times in this thread that arguing against something because not enough people play the role isn't a great argument, you can come up with something better than that - surely. Also I specifically recall putting a disclaimer above any of those images that I didn't think the layouts were perfect, and it was meant to represent the kind of changes I wanted. Could work, would give them more reason to talk so I'm all for it - so long as the actual lab work isn't in this shared space for the sake of, well, actual convenience of working those roles.

It's less the size of it and more the layout, having the 'cleaning room' be in-between the lab and the trays makes working the area kind of a pain. How it was on the aurora station was actually very nice, if you need another reference for the sort of layout I'm talking about. Someone also mentioned to me in DMs that the firing range used to be connected with security, idk if that's even feasible with the current layouts but having them side by side or - yeah - connected, would help with inter department interaction, particularly since science makes a lot of guns. I could see a lot of fun interactions being formed because of something like that. idk, something to consider.

I have no issues with the idea of science getting a redesign, and with the AI moving there's definitely space for it, I just don't see the need to push the machinist PR while we wait for some unknown amount of time for science to get fixed. There's been talk of remapping science for a long time now, I even attempted it at some point with Read, and if the temporary closet RnD becomes a permanent feature because other projects suddenly came up, as has been the case in the past, I'd be pretty upset, as would other science players - I suspect. Without getting into mocking up plans, I have quite a few "wishlist" ideals for science. Not all of them will fit, but I suspect most will. I have no idea what the maintenance requirements are, but there's a huge empty space behind xenobio that could be used if things get too cramped. I'm going to include a few pictures from my first science remap attempt with the understanding its not perfect, and its not what I'm asking for 1:1 but rather a visual example of the kinds of additions I'd like to see. For RnD: RP space is going to be a big one, as you mentioned "does it do anything? No, but it looks cool." An area specifically for assembling machines and doing integrated circuits, as an extension to RnD would be great - along with the existing table space it has now, for organizing materials, documents and just generally sitting around and chatting with other scientists about plans and projects. I'd like to see the RnD server room actually attached to RnD for a few reasons, though primarily it makes the lab feel more coherent and as one. On top of that; having a lobby or having RnD connected to the central hallway is important to me for the sake of bringing outsiders into science for RP reasons. I don't think isolating one of the most isolated departments is a great play particularly if we're meant to be doing RP. For SciChem: I have been trying to get scichem expanded upon for a while now; mechanically. I think having a series of chemicals, and a way to actually test them, exclusive to science would make the addition of the lab feel more relevant. Of course that's getting into coding and we're mostly talking about mapping: this desire can be reflected in a lab design that encourages testing, and has a room dedicated to it. Give scichem the tools and means to make fun toys, grenades, wacky chemicals, etc. Encourage players to make use of those wild recipes on the wiki that we hardly get to see. For Xenobotany: While I don't think Xenobotany strictly needs any additions, having a different layout would go a long way to make it feel more playable. As is, you need to run back and forth waaaay too much to efficiently do much, and the trays are often out of view from the actual lab. Also for the love of god give them a water tank idk why they don't have one currently. Something not included here would be an area to store samples, perhaps stuff gathered from away missions and etc. For Xenobiology: I think this area could use the most love. I think from a QOL standpoint, the removal of the disposal chutes wasn't great and the lack of table space is really felt. Xenobiology, however, has a ton of RP potential that is very, very, rarely tapped into because of the focus on slimes. I'd like to see it expanded upon in the form of an additional pen to hold alien fauna, and an expanded "surgical room" to encourage dissections and analysis of samples. For Telescience: In another thread, there was talk of expanding Tscience to allow for off ship z-levels to be accessed, and something I'd personally love to see as a result of that are Tscience specific away missions: of course this goes back into the realm of needing to code things, but mapping with this in mind could help bring tscience back to the forefront. Having a kind of "staging area" nearby the portal room would go a long way to imply that yes, we can make use of the funny little portals we make, and maybe we even should. ALL IN ALL, I'd like to see all these labs fairly close together, maybe with the exception of the bio/bot labs since they're fairly large. Inner department interaction can be low, but it doesn't have to be - let the guy in RnD see what the guy in chemistry is up to, let that curiosity be fed. I don't have a ton of ideas for xenoarch, mapping wise. There's always code stuff that could tie in, but nothing that I think needs to be addressed in a wave like this. Also fix the window tint on the RDs office plz ty

I don't think complete overhauls are the solution to every problem, as nice as they sound on paper. Science works on most other servers, it worked on bay when they were alive. I get time passes and things change and stuff needs updated, but reworking everything is a big overstep to fix a series of many, many, small problems. Would an overhaul be nice? Sure, but whose gonna do it, when theres a million other projects that need attended to. You know what can and should be done? Keeping the department playable until someone can actually tend to the issues science has. We have suggestions for this already, but how to fix science is off topic for this thread.

This has never been the case in lore, and taking away QOL from departments because they aren't as popular is a poor argument for anything. If anything, science should get MORE love so people feel more incentivized to play it, I just fear its on a road to removal at the rate its going because of how little attention the department EVER receives, and how time and time again I see suggestions pop up that directly, negatively, affect science in favor of a 'popular' role.

The issue I have with this argument is you have one roles area being swapped with three. There's a hallway splitting chem and RnD that extenuates this issue a TON, I don't understand how something like this can slip by with no one saying anything about it. The machinist being downstairs, such as, by the stairs near medical? idk, I'd have to look in detail, solves the problem of needing it to be centralized. Even beyond that though, IPCs are able to be revived, and take damage nothing like how organics do - them being repaired is important sure, but not to the point that the machinist workshop needs to be attached to the central hall so much as easily accessible. and I look forward to it, I don't see how this is a good example of things to come however.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18734 This was done in a way that was a net negative to science in so many ways it has me questioning why I even bother trying to play the role anymore. The machinist workshop did not need more space, particularly at the extreme expense of functionality in science. As is, it is extraordinarily uncomfortable to fit more than one person in chemistry and telescience, and more than two in RnD. I understand science is not a popular role, but shunting them to the corner in favor of a role whose location makes no sense beyond wanting central hallway access isn't the solution. If the machinist role really does need more space, moving it to the ample empty space on deck one would make more sense than what was done here. I'm posting this on the forums after it was merged because I don't hawkeye the github and I'm not on the discord.

That was the intent all along, thank you for the clarification. The discord is up and ready; anyone interested is welcome to hop on. RP wont start until the first event, but I urge people to get their availability sorted so I can get this planned out 👌 https://discord.gg/gdgvXFcm9e