Sneakyranger

I'm not really interested at all. I joined right around when Aurora was experimenting with a max SMES at round start, and it made me wonder what the point of playing engineer at all is. If roles are unfilled, then the ship doesn't work so well - that's just how it is. People can call round start engineering setup tedious busywork all they like - I find it to be neither of those, and so do not support this. I would say it would make engineering equivalent to medical in terms of gameplay (i.e waiting simulator), but on any given round you are far more likely to have someone hurt themselves than you are to fix a breach or even notable non-breach damage. I also believe that Cybs is totally correct in saying that several methods for the Horizon to compensate for a lack of engineers - nonideal but functional thrusters, auxiliary solar power generation - is far superior. It's also true that knowledge of the department cuts down setup times immensely. Furthermore, even taking the position that the round start setup is tedious and so on, this is removing actions without replacing them with superior ones. I've already discussed the rarity of breaches and damage, but I would also like to touch on this as someone who has played C.E regularly for some time: department projects are fun, but they cannot sustain a department in the long term. They will eventually become just as tedious and boring, assuming there are people available to come up with them at all. You would then find the department as one without a purpose for most rounds. I'm not sold on trading engineering gameplay for some exploration idea that is likely to be, in my personal opinion, even more tedious once time has passed. I cannot express enough how emphatically I dislike the original proposal in the OP, with the exception of the mentions of basic but inferior function still being possible without engineers listed in #2, though I would prefer the SMES method. In short, my opinion is that while I don't think a lack of engineers necessarily needs to hold the entire ship hostage with no power or even small movements, making them fundamentally redundant is a terrible idea.

I like the council system that we usually end up using in command, but being honest - as LVS said - the XO already performs a lot of the functions of a second in command for the command team. This is primarily because the job has nothing that really needs attention most of the time. You can say that they manage the bridge crew and service, but those staff: 1. Rarely need any intervention from the XO. 2. Are perfectly capable of contacting whoever they will most often need to contact on their own. 3. Do not really need a voice in command to act as a relay for their department (service has nothing to say most of the time that requires a command ear - e.g a C.M.O may need to relay casualty levels and whether medical is being swamped, a chef does not have anything on the same level. Bridge crew have command channel access.) This leads to the XO naturally taking on command duties that require command but don't require a specific member of command. Mediation, department promotions/demotions, and so on. I therefore feel like there could be a benefit to elevating the executive officer to a position where the title would make sense, but also don't feel that that needs to be a second in command (and therefore basically Captain-lite), per se; formalizing them as the mediator between department/department head disagreements that heads of staff can't reconcile on their own, as a sort of advisor to all other heads of staff, and as the general command goon to go around and solve the command problems that don't require department-specific knowledge would serve to both make the name of the role make sense and also bring the job description closer to what the role actually ends up doing. I'm not entirely committed to the idea as I haven't sat down and thought through it seriously, but I felt it worth throwing out for evaluation because I think it's a reasonable middle ground between captain-lite and the currently murky function of the executive officer as it is now.

Played with Zelda. Good decisions, good communication, couldn't even tell it was a trial. Yeah, this has my support.

Speaking as the person who wrote that page, I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. I feel as if the intent of the page is quite clear: you may ask for permission or volunteer to get involved with certain things. The no-command section mentions once again that you don't have any authority over anyone. As for the bold section, it doesn't really negate itself at all. You cannot tell anyone what to do in a vacuum, but you (as the person almost certainly piloting the shuttle if you are on it) may give small commands to Intrepid crew who aren't Research or Operations, who both have superseding jurisdiction over the shuttle unless Command delegates power to you (which is also mentioned). The only thing I felt was possibly confusing was "in lieu of", which I intended to mean "in case of a lack of" but that is not what in lieu of means at all and I will edit that as soon as I have finished here. I ask that you mention any specific problems with the page or comment on why my addressing of your already listed concerns are insufficient.

I seem to recall Lovad's records mentioning that he has a tendency to pick fights with more traditional Dominian staff. I don't know if that was removed at any point as I haven't browsed the records recently, but I don't feel that would be appropriate for a command character. Do feel free to clarify if it has been removed, but even so it wouldn't assuage all of my concerns. Personally, I haven't had much personal interaction with Lovad good or bad, though I have watched Lovad from time to time when I was ghosting waiting for the round to tick over. I feel like the capability to RP is there without doubt, but I would definitely consider the character - based on his records, who he is, and the further objectively true information I have read here - out of place in command. I don't really have anything to say about the other specific events or interactions talked about in this thread since I wasn't there to see them, but if true, it would make me even more wary. Ruben Belmonte and Sameer Nassim emit a few sparks of recognition, but I couldn't really tell you from where since I've seen Lovad far, far more. I vaguely recall thinking Belmonte was okay. For the record, I would like to make it exceptionally clear for both you and anyone who reviews this app that I have no comments on you as a player save that - reciting exclusively from what I have personally seen and not taking in to account the concerning things I have read in this thread - you seem perfectly capable of roleplaying an acceptable character, I just either don't recognize them or don't feel them appropriate for the command position.

I trust Bob enough to where I could confidently make Amara an interim XO and expect them to do extremely well with no supervision. I think that sort of speaks for itself, but to make it plain: I support the application.

I spent the vast majority of my first month and a half coming to grips with Aurora playing with Datru in atmospherics when they played Ichika, and have since then seen Briar Sadar fairly regularly. I have no real idea of how Datru would do as command, but I am certain that they are competent enough both with RP and game mechanics to warrant a trial to see, and can without a doubt be trusted with that at least. Ichika and Briar are two significantly different characters and neither is poorly done, though it does feel from my POV like both characters/the player(?) are a little shy, so it may be hard for others to really comment unless an effort is made to get them out there on the ship.

Now that the arc is finished, I'd like to say - as someone who played and enjoyed most of it - that I echo the common sentiment that it's time to cooldown. Personally, I feel that the biggest issue with the narrative was the short time between investigation and heading off for battle. Because we were investigating this SFA outpost after receiving the tip of a conspiracy against the Orchard Moon, it felt as if we would have been better served by slowly escalating the clues - it would also have given a better feel for the stakes if we had an idea beforehand of what the SFA's motivations for trying to blow it up would be. I expect the lore team has plans to reveal that later, or at very least their own notes for why it was done, but I feel it would have been better served to be released beforehand. If a concrete suggestion of their motivation does exist, I would appreciate someone directing me to it - either way, I have no idea why they did it except to be in-universe assholes. To collect the above thoughts in a more cohesive form, I don't feel two weeks between tip off to pitched battle was sufficient; I feel that more time should have been allotted (perhaps with smaller announcements here and there as the data is processed) between tip off and the base+full plan being discovered. I understand that the discovery of the full plan necessitated a picking up of the pace after that, for the record, and have no objections about the time between plan discovery and battle. The only "negative" feeling (besides the readiness to move forward) I have is that, unless I am completely misremembering, everybody was told several times that we don't know what to expect from the event and that it may not be what we expected. As far as I am concerned, the finale was about exactly what I expected to happen; in fact, I discounted my expectation slightly because of those comments, and then the boarding required to disarm the bomb exceeded my original expectations of just how intense/combative it would be. Ship to ship combat was fun, but I am ready for a break. Even when we're not fighting it out, having the specter of an imminent battle overshadowing all interactions that occur beforehand - while unique and not totally objectionable - is not something I want to have happen again for a while yet.

There have been spots throughout both Dreary Futures in which command have had the only noteworthy interaction, but not only am I unwilling to call them the majority, there were several instances in which the responsibility for this fell squarely on the command players and not the lore team whatsoever. The only complaint in this section with any substance is that events have been largely the same - my response: there have been a great deal of boarding missions; there was also the trip to the Orchard Moon and the SFA phoron hoarding output where the FSF commander was killed. Ship to ship combat is new to the server and therefore I find any complaints about it being stayed when it has only existed for ~2 months and change (and been the intended focus of only three events and the actual focus of only two) to be an odd stance. I've seen events where the crew explores. They generally involve a 1:20 Intrepid departure with 1/10th of the crew while everyone else does nothing. It is impossible to have both maximum feasible crew involvement and exploration. Do you have some alternate solution to the current exploration status quo? No alternative I can imagine is feasible while being interesting. I don't recall us being inbound for Moghes so much as in the neighborhood. That said, I have seen Triogenix preparing to organize high quality relay activities for out of game RP, which makes sense if Moghes is not our final destination in the Badlands. And yet, as DanseMacabre has said, the majority of content has been made by the same group of people. I believe, without referencing it, that six was the number. This is the paragraph that made me decide to actually create a second post in this thread simply because it is so absolutely horrendous. I cannot believe that you actually felt that this was so worth including that you added it in post. I do not know you at all nor can I guess what you are like beyond the screen, but I can only hope that your strong love of the server combined with a bad day made you think that this was appropriate to post. Pot, meet kettle.

I played the chief engineer for the last event, as well as the FSF v Elyra event. I missed the VR event and briefly stopped by the Orchard Moon. I also played several Dreary Futures I events, but don't feel those are relevant to what I want to say. With that context out of the way, I felt the need to make the following statement: I've heard a lot of people say that the last event - and most Dreary Futures II ship to ship combat events - involve even fewer crew than the usual complaint of "events are security and command only". In my experience, when moderate to heavy ship to ship combat actually occurs, the events have involved more of the crew than any other event I've seen. Medical, engineering, non-head of staff command, and last event I even saw Operations working at what I felt was quite a heavy pace compared to their usual participation in events since I have started regularly attending them in April. The only department that I felt was left idle to any noteworthy degree (besides service, the natural odd man out) was security, and even then a few of them were able to participate in an expedition early in the round in the most recent event. The FSF v Elyra event did only involve command, for the most part - even though I would argue it was only a small subsection of command though that is besides the point - but that was because the players on the bridge decided not to actively participate in the firefight. That is a fine decision to make, but I feel that that cannot reasonably be levied on the lore team in terms of player involvement. I am certain that had we chosen to engage, the rest of the ship would have been much, much more active. To sum, I take very specific issue with the claim that ship v ship events involve less crew than the type of events previously complained about and do not feel that it is a reasonable complaint to make. If you have an issue with it anyway, it is my opinion that you might want to redirect your focus to the type of involvement to be had (construction v damage control for engineers, for example). Finally, I feel that I might as well throw in my two cents as well; I am pretty happy with the events so far, and I would advise anyone who is upset by the current direction to be careful before determining themselves the majority. Not necessarily to say that that is not true - I do not know for certain - but it is very easy to have a skewed view in that regard. I would like to see a cooldown period after part 2 is finished, which from what I have been told is the lore team's intent.

Reporting Personnel: Lord Frederick Siebner Zhao Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Chief Engineer Game ID: clc-dcw6, the event round. Commended Personnel: - Darvan Omega, Engineer Witnesses: - Frederick Zhao, Chief Engineer - Willsh-Qabe Juxeq, Bridge Crewman Time of Commendable Act: N/A Real Time: ~2:20 - 4:54 PM CST Location of Act: SCCV Horizon Engineering Department, SCCV Horizon Library Overview: To keep this brief, as I must be getting back to repair work, Engineer Omega suggested and executed the construction of an auxiliary CIC, located in the library, which was essential to the continued combat ability of the SCCV Horizon during its engagement with the FSF vessel Kruger's Revenge. The Horizon's bridge was rendered inoperable due to enemy fire, and bridge crewman Willsh-Qabe Juxeq was able to relocate to the library, the auxiliary CIC, and retain control and combat ability. Given the initiative displayed here, I believe this kind of behavior must be incentivized and rewarded. Additional Notes: None.

I don't really know Kersh, but I have seen their characters, so I should be pretty unbiased. I thought they were pretty good, and most of my interaction is with Wilsh, their bridge crewman. I felt that Wilsh was competent and reliable. I did see a little bit of their scientist Vaurca and thought that it was appropriately played. I will say I personally disagree on what the purpose of a head of staff is, but that's not really super important. I think it's worth giving Kersh a trial, at least.

Works for me.

Hard pass. Holding down a key while doing an action has always been finnicky for me at the best of times, and at this point I'm used to toggle; given that I view this more as a preferences based change rather than a beneficial for all QoL change, I'm going to voice my personal preference as "no".

I played a couple rounds with you today as a chief engineer (yesterday evening, more like) and noticed a few general oddities and issues with communication/confusion about procedure. To a degree I felt it could be chalked up to unfamiliarity with command play alone, but it felt a tad like an unfamiliarity with how things work in a broader sense. Not to say there was nothing good - I appreciated you putting a foot down, so to speak, during the telescience incident - but as an instance of one of the general oddities I was referring to before, the promotion of Donitz from intern to surgeon, with a lack of records no less, struck me as odd given the reasoning you provided to the rest of command at the time, which was simply so that he could perform a facial reconstruction surgery. I am sure you have a coherent line of reasoning behind that, but mentioning it is simply so I can provide something solid for my next paragraph, which contains what I actually want to say. In sum, I think the best metaphor is it feels to me from playing with you like you've got your fingers around command play but it's not firmly grasped yet. I don't really think that that warrants any detraction in itself, but I think you should keep it in mind before you consider making a Captain should you be accepted. I don't particularly mind playing alongside your chief medical officer, but in the current state of things I don't think I'd particularly appreciate playing under you if you were a Captain. Ultimately, I'm not totally sure if this is something that just requires more experience as command or if it's an issue of just needing more familiarization with the server, but whether or not it is is a judgement for the guys who maintain the whitelists, not me.

I really think Gem's statement "'improve don't remove' is a flawed method to deal with things that can't be reworked and/or nobody wants to rework." really cannot be emphasized enough. Even if those who would re-work it exist, not having the skills and being unable/unwilling to take the time to build them is ultimately the same as "can't be reworked". Aside from calling attention to the above, I have experienced the drones and borgs rendering human characters obsolete many times. There is no in-game reason to tell these two to stop working on whatever it is they are working on unless they are doing it purely incorrectly; I cannot imagine all but the most mindlessly anti-synthetic characters or the most vehement workaholics intentionally creating more work for themselves in-character, even though that work is the reason the player probably joined the game as that specific job in the first place. Having an alarm completely tended to and repaired by an all-access super-engineer by the time you finally get to it is just disheartening, and is something I personally find to be the more pressing of the two issues regarding borgs brought up in this thread, the other half being is that this super-job ability is not even in service to a character. Matt sums it up well here: "And to everyone saying that playing a background character is fine: there is a difference between playing a normal background character, and a background character with inbuilt buffs that exists purely to steal your job, as it cannot have meaningful gameplay interactions or even offtime." I also would like to mention that it is my opinion that Viax and cyborgs are not comparable in the topics being brought up here, because cyborgs are far more potent for most tasks, are relatively more common, and - for a slightly subjective statement - have less sensible leeway than Viax vis a vis interaction with crew characters. In short: I not only support consideration of soft-removal of cyborgs, but even Omi's drone nerf proposal.

I support this application on the basis of having seen Jay's performance in both characterization and job performance.

The comment regarding their wiki was 100% true and spurred me to action. I've written up their guide now, which is something I'd been meaning to handle for a little bit. I've gotten tentative CCIA approval, though my fellow wiki maints haven't looked it over yet. On a note as an actual player, though, I try to avoid cancelling expeditions unless we're going to Red or the majority of personnel involved are essential for solving the problem, something you mentioned. I believe most Command players should take this stance in general - whether they do or not, I can't say, since most of my rounds are solo or 2 person command given the hours I tend to play. I am, however, entirely opposed to a minimum requirement for an expedition. As Gecko said, this is going to hurt lowpop trips - a two man survey team is fine, when a skeleton crew is about. I would instead like to put out for consideration a soft minimum: if a four person team with sufficient skills can be raised from volunteers, then command should be explicitly prevented from inhibiting the mission without very good reason, not just because we raised to blue or whatever, and most importantly they can leave as soon as the command channel is notified the minimum population has been reached and everyone is prepared - they do not have to wait for launch approval, which during busy times feels like half the prep time. It is not an idea I have fully worked out, but I feel like it's worth considering and turning over if nothing else.

I took some time to think about it and really want to see Danse make the lore team. I like his ideas, mostly, and even those occasional ones I feel are too harsh I can understand the reasoning behind it. I do want to know your opinion on Dominia at the moment - just your general thoughts - simply out of curiosity given that I've been maining a Dominian recently and have been quite deep in to the lore. I actually considered Visegrad when creating the character, but decided to save that planet for a future character - I quite like your work with it.

Hook me up. Apparently there's important stuff in there.

As the chief engineer in the same round that Dreamix refers to, while I could write up a unique comment, I'll echo that sentiment. +1.

Brought me in once a while ago and showed me their department, letting me watch anomaly testing since I asked and the round was pretty boring otherwise. Had some fun dialogue during a radiation storm as well. Other more minor interactions have been good, too. Consider this some positive feedback.

I've looked over this app a couple times with nothing to say since I hadn't seen any of the characters, but now that I have, I can say for sure a few things: One, this application has my support since he's going for operations manager specifically and other head characters are for a future thing. Two, I feel like Tiberius is trustworthy enough to not play a head of staff roles he doesn't know enough about, Based on: Seeing a good RP conversation between him and Athos this morning. Seeing him work well during a merc round. As a note, however, I specified point two because I don't think he's ready purely on game-knowledge to play some other roles like Chief Engineer. He's not far off, but a little bit more experiences is for sure required for those. This application is for OM, though, and like I said: see point two. So, +1.

BYOND key: Sneakyranger Discord Username: Sneakyranger#8234 Character names: Arvo Mikkola (briefly) Lev Rotnitsky Rajinder Singh Remy Bellegard How long have you been playing on Aurora?: About three months of continuous play, since the NBT's release. I originally joined the server in September(?) or so of last year as Arvo Mikkola, and played for a few weeks to acquaint myself with the server and then lost interest in playing,, as I prefer ship settings and knew one was right around the corner. Notably, I did spend some of the intervening time reading the lore pages on the wiki. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? No. I've never been banned in general, actually. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: The OOC purpose of a head of staff is multifaceted: Firstly, to ensure that the parts of their department required for ship operation and the experience of other players is working to at least an acceptable degree (e.g have power set up as a C.E, ensure security is following procedure as HoS). Secondly, to teach the mechanics of the department to its members as necessary. Thirdly, to act as a mediator for in-character events that would realistically require some sort of authority figure. Finally, and as more of a personal requirement than one I would apply to all other whitelist players, a head of staff should do their best to engage their department in something interesting (be it a purely RP scenario or a departmental project/training) during slow or uninteresting rounds, if possible. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: Foremost, a head of staff character should not be overbearing or obstructionist in a concrete way. With a whitelist comes even more privilege than an unwhitelisted head role, and that should be kept in mind when evaluating how to run a department. In simple terms, don't fuck with people in a way that makes their round worse unless absolutely necessary. It's okay to be a boss that people want to complain about, as long as people are having fun complaining about you and not complaining about you because your interference made their round worse. As a more minor point, I also consider it mandatory for heads of staff to be intimately familiar with their departments, especially given that they are the first stop for teaching new players. With those two things in mind, I won't have an issue following these two points; I have played authority roles before many times elsewhere and am also very familiar with my desired head position. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau Ceti and how it affected your character and their career? I'm going to assume this question is asking about my intended headstaff character, and will split it in to two parts. Firstly, what's happening in Tau Ceti: High prices and low fuel. The phoron scarcity is affecting all points of the galactic economy due to its widespread use, and even rich Tau Ceti is no exception. With manufacturing and transportation costs on the rise, the SCCV Horizon has been commissioned by the Chainlink to secure new sources of phoron and materials for the megacorporations. For my character: Duong Huu Thuan is a Hephaestus heavy hitter. Born and raised in New Hai Phong's Tong Gwai Pei near the Zau Gwai Jyu area, he's been with the company since he was 17 and has worked for them for almost 30 years. Coming up from the bottom of the Hephaestus' planetary shipyards to make his way from a poor worker to foreman to chief engineer and consultant, Duong is an expert at dealing with both the needs of Hephaestus' management and the intricacies of New Hai Phong's endemic corruption. This combination of skills, traits, and background has made him a favorite of upper management on New Hai Phong, and earned him a place as a workhorse of the shipyards – if an area has a problem, call Duong to get it sorted. With that in mind – and with the fact that too much success can be just as problematic for an employee as too little – it was no surprise that he was offered a prestigious position as chief engineer on the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate's flagship as it carries out its vital mission to seek out new Phoron deposits. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Chief Engineer is the only head role I really want to play for the forseeable future. It is possible at some point that I would create an XO or a Research Director after suitably familiarizing myself with their respective departments, but that is some ways off. Security and medical hold little interest for me. Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes, intimately so. Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.: Duong Huu Thuan, Chief Engineer. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yeah. Have you linked your byond account to the forums? Yeah. Extra notes: I'd like to point out that I have developed a persona beyond the job and background for Duong – I simply did not feel it necessary or within the bounds of the question to mention it, and also did not want to basically lay out all the current intricacies of a character through an OOC medium. I felt that would be spoiling the fun a little bit. To paint a general picture, though, imagine the salaryman archetype filtered through New Hai Phong's distinct political/corporate environment and mixed in with seediness expected of someone from Con Seoi and Ton Gwai Pei. I can post more details if required by the application process.

My personal opinion: The A.M engine is barely ever used because it's not well documented and there's limited space, but it's cool to have the option. I do not believe that the antimatter engine is functionally any different from a supermatter engine or tesla, neither of which to my knowledge are on the chopping block. On these grounds, I don't personally think it's worth removing. From what I can ascertain through gameplay and wiki browsing, the supermatter simply uses an agitation source (like a simple high-power laser) and common gas (hydrogen) to generate almost limitless energy. The better the cooling system, the higher the energy output. The tesla ball is in a similar position: it as of right now doesn't even seem to use any "rare" parts, at least on the surface. It is a metal ball on a stick. I imagine the metal is special, but it's never specified as far as I know. A single tesla ball can produce 20+ megawatts and doesn't take up much space in game. It is also even less dangerous than a supermatter. Given the nature of these two other reactors, I don't feel that the antimatter is incongruous with currently existing material or energy crisis themes. I believe that if they wanted to do so the lore team could come up with any number of reasons why each of these three would not be practical in reducing phoron dependency - but ultimately, I believe it's simply because the three engines are still part abstraction, and so it isn't really necessary.