Frances

That's the thing, though. I can see people using a blacklist to perpetuate stupid vendettas, aka "I'm just gonna ignore this person because I'm convinced they're an idiot and couldn't ever say anything of value". It's not a healthy attitude to encourage, I think? Like, I can't think of anything that someone could say that would justify them being muted forever, that wouldn't already result in admin intervention. If people are mad at each other they should be able to work out whatever dispute they have. Heck, get a mod involved if it's necessary, but OOC shouldn't be turned into a kindergarten where certain people don't speak to each other because of whatever pettiness. (Can you name me one situation where two people would never be interested in seeing each others' name or comments in OOC, ever again, and both would be considered as acting in a reasonable manner?)

It could be an interesting idea, as long as it was round-specific. (i.e. it was reset at every roundstart.) That should hopefully stifle people's efforts to blacklist people for petty reasons somewhat.

How exactly is one supposed to do this when the flashbang is properly cooked? I can see Brage's complaint. If you don't know how to use flashbangs, they're nearly useless, but just a little bit of practice leaves you with a very effective, large-AoE stun that basically guarantees a disable proven you can throw the grenade anywhere near your target.

Aside from wizards (who have the immense power to do pretty much anything), it's relatively challenging and risky as an antag to steal access to specific radio frequencies. I'm not sure if we want to make it easier or not, but in general, the game is stacked against antags and it would be nice if they could receive a buff in the form of being able to read their opponents better. However, this suggestion thread wants to address a specific problem: that it's hard for security to communicate when comms are down. And given that comms pretty much get taken down to hamper security, removing that seems counter-productive.

Maybe put a timeban on it, then? I mean, the namechange doesn't hurt. But it'd be nice to see all this bundled together in an overhaul of the mode, along with more equipment to suit various playstyles.

I can't speak for Nikov's ability with engineering, though the fact that he was CE on other servers should be an indication he'd know his shit, unless proven otherwise. Anyway, he's an amazing roleplayer, from the little I've seen. And by amazing, I don't only mean he did a good job at pretending to be someone else, I mean he was fun to see and interact with. And that's definitely the kind of character I'd like to see in a Head of staff role. As for Manfred Hayden, he's an older guy who's serious, smart, and well-spoken. I think these are good enough qualities to make him CE, as long as he knows which end of the distro loop the air comes out of. I want CEs that can give a good show while being believable, not necessarily ideal role models devoid of imperfections.

If people don't like it, it could be removed, though in the end it's the decision of the lore team. I personally like having to deal with adversity, but I know some people are bad at it or don't like it. Currently, however, that's how Tajarans are, and how they've kinda always been, even with the very old lore. Whether this should be changed or not is kind of a gray area, and there's a lot of arguments for or against it (if most users are against a thing, should it be changed, even if it goes against the designers' view? And, do we want Aurora to become furry central?)

You're trying to balance this for Metal Gear, when we're balancing for Heavy RP. In stealth games, the player is usually rewarded for non-lethal takeouts. This reward can range from a better game score to additional equipment and bonuses (a soldier you knock out later joins your team or gives you special equipment), or a bonus to your character's moral alignment. It's a basic challenge­­>reward system. (That, and realism.) In SS13, you don't really want to make nonlethal takedowns significantly harder, because there's no reward for them. You get an annoying person that's probably gonna try to run away while you have to babysit them, or an enemy who'll join up the fight again as soon as they get some healing (if you leave them to their own devices). Hostages can be effective to an extent, but they're really, really hard to take. Now, the problem: you're saying people using lethals when they have no business to should just be disciplined. To that, I retort that the game made it right to use lethals where it shouldn't be. Alright, time to channel my inner Skull. Example. Nuke ops. As an operative, do you engage security with nonlethals? Probably not. Why? A sec officer you stun will just get back up, and be hard to subdue if they have a group of friends covering for them. It's a much safer bet to engage people with lasers or SMGs, which cause permanent damage, because you want to chip away at the enemy's health. You can't afford to trade blows for nothing (which is what a failed nonlethal assault is), because unlike security, you've got no fallback. No medbay, or station backup to rely on. Additionally, the utility of a hostage is dubious, when so many hostages just have the capacity (and reputation) to completely fuck their captors over, both in an IC and OOC sense. But above all? Lethals effectively beat nonlethals in most fights. It's not the random stunbaton that's gonna get you down. It's the guy that lasers your butt twice after you've been stunned. If you open with nonlethals, and your opponent opens with lethals, and you land an equal number of blow on each other, you will be at a clear disadvantage. And the issue is security is under no obligation to open with nonlethals. "Uh, highly trained terrorists are attacking my workplace and threatening my life" makes for a pretty valid kill cause. So often, I've seen ops be shot at with lethals simply because they seemed threatening enough, and that it was the most effective way to take them down. At that point, you don't taze back the people shooting at you with lasers. You try to kill them back, because you could be wounded, your comrades could be wounded, and when the fight ends you're not gonna be able to deal with some doofus stuck in halloss for 10 seconds while you have permanent paincrit from actual mangled extremities. And that makes opening with nonlethals a stupid move, outside of the rare niche situations where you're 100% certain you can subdue your opponent with minimal damage (that, and everyday arrests, which we're not too concerned with here, as they don't require a LWAP or anything of the like.) So we're left in a situation where people will fight with lethals, then other people with fight with lethals because people are fighting with lethals already, and so on. The greatest loss? The opportunity to have nuke, cult, and rp-rev rounds that don't end with one party dying five minutes after carbines are distributed. The gain: what is it? That's the part of your argument I'm failing to see, and the question you should seek to answer next: What exactly does SS13, HRP-style, gain from having non-lethals that are significantly more challenging to use than lethals? Because from what I can see, trying to shift the balance a bit towards non-lethals (or changing the balance of powers by giving non-lethal new, different tools) would rid us of some really unnecessary and un-fun bloodbaths, or at the very least make capturing more viable even if your opponent decides to be a dick and exploit your display of leniency by trying to kill you.

By systems, are you speaking of gameplay systems, or code ones? And what would be an example of an "upgraded hardsuit", relative to this issue?

Yeah, that targets pretty well the issue I'm concerned with. It's a gray area. DOs are there to provide a canon resolution to workplace conflicts, but racism against Tajarans is something that's supported by lore. On one hand it would make sense for DOs to ignore minor discrimination against Tajarans (to further the lore and enforce Tajarans' position as a "lesser" race), on the other it would go against the OOC purpose of DOs. Is there a conflict here, then?

That would already be better as it would reward good coordination, something which is shockingly rare on public servers (of which Aurora is one). If two sec officers can team up with expensive, difficult to obtain equipment to neutralize a single antag through proper teamwork, I'd have no issue with that.

So, question, but since this is in-universe racism, how do the DOs want to deal with it? Would complaints pitting Tajarans against non-Tajaran employees see any kind of bias? I get that NanoTrasen has to keep up some sort of public image, but would Tajarans experience discrimination in IC complaints (by being shown less leeway/having their own complaints weigh less importance), or are the DOs completely neutral and planning to curb all reported racism? Basically, I'm wondering how the DOs would react when facing realistic cases. Not people trolling while screaming "fuck the catbeasts" on comms, but say a human and tajaran had an altercation (especially a racially or culturally-motivated one), would the DOs make an effort to favor the human over the tajaran in their judgment?

sage

Why? More interesting situations happen from people being taken alive than outright killed. Edit: I'm saying this, because we're currently living in a context where people who opt for non-lethal takedowns in a fight get actively punished when the other party goes for lethal. On a HRP server, it essentially tends to make nonlethals obsolete in nonlethal-vs-lethal situation, and punishes players for wanting to keep others alive, which is sorta counter-intuitive to what server staff have been trying to encourage.

I, for one, am not advocating lengthening the process of genetics research any further (Garnascus has a point), but I'd simply like to see something added to remove the "coolness" factor of "oh hey look at how I'm a superpowered hero just doing my job as a geneticist lol" while still giving antags a chance to use powers. Basically, make giving yourself powers for a whole round for "testing" an extremely stupid or inconvenient thing, while mostly preserving it for antag things.

I can fully support this, though... I feel like genetics is gonna get deleted sooner than reworked (and honestly it shouldn't be there). Anyway, the big problem is it can stay for antagging, and can stay for [legitimate scientific research], while the biggest issue with it is geneticists giving themselves powers every round to powergame while pretending to be cool. This suggestion would sorta solve this issue, or at the very least turn giving yourself powers for "cool factor" into a minor annoyance. Even better if power side effects display some ridiculous public messages.

Being killed or attacked randomly by a crate isn't particularly fun. I think a big part of the appeal of the armory crate was that it was in a reliable, yet completely unused location, so it made for a nice noob trap or place to chucklefuck (plus it was hilarious to hear about the latest cadet that walked into the armory only to get completely robusted by a simple mob).

Blender is pretty good! In fact it's good to be proficient in blender, because it's the program you're most likely to use when working on indie projects (nobody wants to pay for a full Maya or 3DSmax license.) It's not that hard to transition from a program to another, though. Once you know how one works you pretty much know them all. If you're looking for suggestions of what to model, may I suggest a medbot? They're basically a medkit on wheels, with some gadgets and a syringe arm sticking out. It shouldn't be too challenging and would probably make for a fun subject to model, too.

Then it appears that the ERT's inability to help with the murders wasn't communicated, or something of the like?

Oh, yeah, since I don't really have any particular issues with Gollee and Doom said an exception to the rule can be added for cases like this, that pretty much solves my problem. So you can go ahead and close this.

Oh, hey, a fellow 3D artist! What program(s) are you using?

Sounds like ERT did a bad job there. If you're being called in to solve a minor issue, and a much bigger issue the station obviously can't deal with themselves (the murders) comes up, and you're able to assist, you should. Keep in mind literally any observers can join the ERT, and an ERT team is often comprised of newbies and people who don't necessarily have a lot of crisis/sec experience. So you shouldn't expect miracles from them. However, I do think it'd be nice to have a guide written for ERT, or at the very least a bullet-points-style crash-course. Basically anything that would explain the most essential basics of playing ERT, such as sticking with the team, always moving away from the lead with a specific purpose, what an ERT's responsibilities and powers are, etc. Because it's things that aren't necessarily obvious, even to regulars.

I can see the interest in roleplaying a security or service borg. A medical borg, to some extent. And janiborgs are about as thankless of a role as being a regular janitor is. But are people actually interested in roleplaying a moving crate? Like yes, it sounds hilarious on paper, but it'd probably get boring after half a minute, no?