Kaed

Don't start hiding behind claims of ad hominem to avoid this argument. I haven't attacked your person, just the unreasonable standards you are holding people to. And I'm saying that under some circumstances that's not feasible. I can understand if they walked up to you out of nowhere and flasheyed-hypnoed you and wordlessly enthralled you before telling you to go kill all sec officers, that's a gank, and is against server rules, worthy of ahelp. If you walk in on a murder scene though, or them doing something obviously illegal, an antagonist is well within their means to immediately destroy you before you can squeal on them. Vampires just have the option to enslave you instead of killing you on the spot. The fact that you would rather die than be enslaved in such a situation is a personal issue, not something that affects the quality of the game itself for everyone. I'm fine giving you the option, but don't try and tell me that it was necessary to make vampires work properly. There are people here in evidence in this thread that clearly don't have your qualms about being a thrall (though I will grant that Carver seems to agree with you, so it's not like you're wrong or anything, just not the only opinion in evidence)

"How much roleplay is enough" is extremely subjective between people, and your desire to make people meet whatever standards you think are acceptable (maybe take you out to dinner and tell you about the benefits of being their blood slave and spending about ten minutes getting to know you, idk, some extreme hyperbolic example here, all the while while the prospective thrall can alert security at literally any time, shutting down the antagonist) aren't going to be the same as another persons. It can be very difficult to please everyone, especially when people like to be the center of attention. The way I see things, the antagonists attempts to drive forward the plot of a round are far more important than your desire to have them roleplay enough with you to satisfy you BEFORE they use an ability on you that prevents you from opposing them. You can get your roleplay after you are a thrall if you stick around instead of instantly cryoing in a tantrum that your round or character was derailed. Sometimes enthrallment is just used as an alternative to killing an inconvenient witness who walked in on you murdering someone, and you don't have time to stand around and chat with them as a prisoner for 5-10 minutes, because you've gotta go. tl;dr version: Your standards are too high and it makes it seem like you feel you are entitled to more than people are required to provide you with.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6807 It's up

I'm writing the code for this now, but looking over it, I have one major concern - the choice dialogue doesn't force you to make a choice. It is entirely possible for someone to refuse to make a selection and instead wait for whatever stun the vampire put on it to wear off then try to escape, or to scream for help over the radio. I can very much see this being abused, much like how people abuse a cult conversion by not making a selection and just sitting on the rune. So, I have caused the player to be hit with an abnormally massive 'paralyzed and muted' debuff the moment the dialog box comes up, preventing them from abusing this mechanic and never making a choice, which is removed/replaced upon a choice being made. There is a single flaw to this, in that they will probably remain paralyzed and muted for a very long time if someone drags them away from the vampire without them making a decision, but with the way dialog boxes work there is no other way besides their feedback for them to free themselves from this, and tbh that's kind of their own fault if they refuse to make a choice. I would consider such a small margin situation like this to be ahelpable if it is abused.

As with any new mechanic, people will tend to try and find reasons to use it when it comes out, even if the mechanic logically shouldn't be a common circumstances. As an example, there was a period after the telescience changes that make you explode if you phase into an object or wall, where people were deliberately trying to create a Bluespace Echo (an intentionally rare occurrence that causes a person to die and become a sort of bluespace ghost thing if they are teleported so deep into solid matter that they can't be shunted out) So initially, I feel like there will be an upswing in people who suddenly are interested in chaplains during vampire rounds even though they normally would have told them to go back to their chapel and bible thump alone, and not all of them will necessarily follow logical progression to get to that.

It's actually fairly rare, and the way I have always seen it is that there are sharply limited reasons why the chaplain should be involved with security, such as: There is a clear occult presence on the station, people chanting and doing blood rituals and shit, and the chaplain is summoned for their expertise in religion to help the security team understand what is happening (this is a valid thing, but very rarely happens, because people often think that 'not metagaming' means 'always refuse to acknowledge that the supernatural exists even when it's in front of your face, making exploding blood runes') There is an individual (wizard/vampire) who has openly claimed to be a supernatural entity and is displaying supernatural tendencies (this is also valid but rarely happens, because see above notation) The chaplain themselves takes the initiative, offering their spiritual assistance in these increasingly dark times. (also rarely works because security usually dismisses the chaplain as a civilian and tells them to fuck off so they can get back to validhunting) More often, however I see things like: This vampire bit someone and was dragged into security and put in a cell, and one of the security officers orders the chaplain in and tells them to forcefeed the neck-biter holy water, or to wave their null rod over them, or whatever mechanical process they think is the counter to this.

Absolutely in no circumstances ever would I endorse taking out the enthrallment mechanic from the game. Contrary to your strong, salt-laced opinions on the matter, I find it a very entertaining and fun antagonist power that can add very much to the round, depending on how you use it. In fact, it adds far more to the game than Dominate ever does, due to how limited and vague the terms are of domination (generally, a single action, and they can immediately squeal afterward that they just felt compelled to do something fishy). With thralls, you can have a secret man on the inside if you're subtle, or someone who can get you into areas you wouldn't normally be allowed into, or even, in a pinch, a bodyguard willing to die to protect you. Being able to take permanent control over someone is not as horrible as you believe it is. You are, I take it, in the crowd of people who feel that the most horrible thing that can possibly happen to your character is that they be forced to act out of character due to some outside influence, or that you be required to roleplay your character doing something that makes you in some way uncomfortable irl. I absolutely do not subscribe to this mindset of character sanctity, and were I not making an attempt to be more polite as of late, I would probably have some more colorful words to say about this suggestion thread. So, let's get back on the subject, though. I can agree with a couple things in this thread, first of all that I'm not against there being some mechanical way to remove enthrallment, such as a chaplain ritual, because I can agree that completely uncounterable mechanics as strong as enthrallment is a bit bad. However, this being a mechanic in the game will see a sharp rise in the metagame situation, where people will begin calling the chaplain to splash holy water or whatever at anyone suspicious, unless it can be closely watched. Second, while I'm not exactly fond of the idea of people being able to refuse being enthralled, I can see where it would make things require less admin intervention - instead of them cryoing immediately in a tantrum, requiring an admin to adjust your blood total, they can refuse and allow themselves to be killed. Because make no mistake here - adding this feature to the game will result in a sharp upswing of the number of characters being killed. There are very few reasons to leave someone alive if you have become aggressive enough to try and enthrall them. Even less so than with cultists, because the delicious blood in their body can provide you with the power to fight on farther, so if they won't be a thrall then you can succ them dry instead. Maybe you might think you'd rather have your character die than be a thrall, but it means vampire antagonists like me will have to deal with an upswing in whiny players who looc-salt (or ahelp) at you over killing them because they didn't want to be a thrall.

I understand what you're saying here, but you are again presupposing the 'correct' way to roleplay is the way that you envision it, which is part of the exact problem I'm trying to point out here. I generally don't go into rounds with the desire to experience the 'compelling' roleplay of being a cargo tech doing his job sorting the warehouse and taking orders while chatting with various bland character archetypes like the surly miner #837 and the gruff security guard #729, it's for the thrill of being a cargo tech or other role when things start to go wrong, and reacting to that chaos (or being the cause of the chaos, playing a villain is fun). I went through my phase years ago where I gave a damn about developing my characters into plotlines, but after a while it gets really dull and disappointing when people vanish or a plot goes nowhere, or you start to see player trends in characters that make them blend into a homogeneous slurry. This is a workplace, you're not encouraged to be too unique and different or you start getting questions like 'why is this person employed here?' popping up. Characters like Shane Castralo, who break the mold by being interesting and funny (if annoying at times) are few and far between, and they are memorable. I couldn't even tell you the names of most of the coworkers in my shifts during extended rounds, they tend to blend together. Honestly, I think the greatest enemy to extended being a popular game more is the stagnant quality of every round taking place in the same setting, the same station, with the same expectations that everyone is employees of a supercompany. You can't play anything outside of that demographic category, like a senile old man, a crazy war vet lurking on his porch with a shotgun, a nosy housewife who spies on her neighbors, or any number of other things that are funny and interesting and only exist outside of a corporate setting. Everyone is here to do a job first and be an individual second.

This is hyperbole, I know people do more and extended round than sit and talk, but the rounds do not revolve around a central concept of conflict or danger, like antagonist rounds do. Science Station office work does not interest me, and while some people are interested in in it and that's okay, the problem I'm trying to point out is that the people who do like station office work roleplay are extremely scornful to people who want antagonists, acting like wanting that means you don't like to rolelay.

I myself have disabled all of the group antagonist types, rev/merc/heist/cult, because I've become grumpy and jaded and don't trust people anymore to not be shits. Even my single player antagonist runs have been increasing unpopular with players because I've largely given up on giving people a chance to not screw me over. And yet, playing an antagonist or being the counterforce for them is 90% of the reason I even bother to come on the server anymore. Most of the times that I I'm not a head of staff, I only log in long enough on my throw away cargo guwan to see if I'm an antag then cryo immediately afterward if I'm not. Often times my interest in the round in entirely evaporates the moment I have been caught and I just want to cryo then. I will admit, though, that despite my many faults as an antagonist over the last few months, I have noticed a trend on this server that people act scornful towards people who want to be an antagonist. The increasingly pervasive mentality but you have to want to sit around and talk to people at a desk or bar for 2+ hours as the only way to 'high roleplay' has become somewhat of a problem. Naturally none of them feel that they are the problem, but rather us dirty antagonist people who won't let them play extended every round are the issue. I don't think that adding a cooldown between antagonists just going to help anything, nor do I particularly think the extra week playing on the server mitigates people being bad antagonist, even if it did work. There are definitely bad antagonists, but a lot of the problem with situations where there's a 'bad antagonist' is that they're actually it experienced with the culture of the server rather than the antagonist themselves. There are all sorts of unwritten rules that our player base will try to enforce on you, such as that it's tacky and improper to attack a head of staff or Captain within the first half hour of the round. Or that trying to use your mechanics to dominate or enthrall or convert people is shitty unless you give them a specific amount of roleplay that varies between people first, or accidentally picked the wrong victim for one of these mechanics who secretly hates it and will fume at you in LOOC or even straight up cryo instantly. (The irony that this is an okay response to being forcibly converted or thralled but antagonists who ghost/cryo after being caught are frequently ripped on by the player base is an amusing double standard that hasn't been lost on me) And don't even get me started on the complicated network of secret rules that people make up about when it's okay to kill someone. (usually the answer is 'never because I don't like dying'). Either way in most situations if you accidentally break one of these unwritten rules you get shit on by everyone who can possibly do it, as they completely discard any attempts to indulge you or cut you slack after your transgressions (assuming they even did in the first place). As an antagonist you have to learn what actions will get (or lose you) you the 'respect' of security players and others, and you can only do that by actually being an antagonist and making the right mistakes and adapting to the negative feedback you get. Time not being an antagonist will not let you learn these issues and how to avoid them.

Just dump them on the floor. Unless it has water in it, that's as good as deleting it.

Lol. I can tell you from experience that if you attempt a gunfight with someone who has default rubbers while you have a revolver, you will drop before they do barring body armor. Killing weapons do not need to be slowed down even further.

I don't think that invalidates this suggestion. I think it's a good idea to allow you to buy a PDA that can change its design an appearance, and more importantly, can reset itself to a default state without a name on it - PDAs cannot be changed once they have an owner. The only thing that can change is the job it displays. Probably 1 TC, since by itself it does very little, you'll need the Agent ID to do much with it. The Value-Pak coming with it is a good idea too.

I still think you should be able to crawl when seriously injured instead of just laying there paralyzed.

With the way we have things set up on suggestions, they are supposed to be very atomic: the suggestion is supposed to be about a single subject, and we are supposed to remain on topic. And yet I seen many threads where within the first few posts someone links their suggestion thread that is of similar topic, and suddenly the original topic of the thread to gets derailed with this new information and people treat it as if it's part of the topic now. A recent example is the EMT access upgrade thread, which started just by being about EMTs, and has now devolved into a massive bicker-fest about whether janitors deserve their access or not, with the person who actually took on the pr taking it upon himself to include information from the other thread on his PR, and large amounts of people telling them they want him to leave janitor access on. As far as I can tell no one was even talking about janitors until someone cross-posted their old thread Can we just like ban doing this please? Don't cross post threads to get your old suggestion attention and bring back the dead arguments that should have stayed buried.

No, this thread is only about EMT access. Not once is the subject of janitor access even mentioned in the original post except as a comparative statement to what access level they want EMTs to have. Someone derailed the topic by linking a different thread and suddenly janitor access was being debated about.

... One tapped by an EMT. When has someone ever been 'one tapped' by an EMT. What is this thread right now. They don't even carry weapons. This is about EMTs getting general access, everyone is making it out like it's part of some grand scheme for all access, or it needs to be, and it will 'set precedents' for the destruction of the departmental sanctity we hold dear for whatever fucking reason right now. This is one access change. For one job. Things can be evaluated based on their individual merits rather than because that guy over there has it.

I can't abide this argument because it is a overly sensationalist slippery slope. All of the examples you gave are ridiculous extremes, and I would expect that if anyone made these cases it would not be accepted. Miners don't need to walk into R&D, there's a fucking window right outside it they can talk through. Roboticists don't need AI upload access, that requires them to walk through the bridge, where they don't need to be, to play with equipment they don't have authority to use without command specifically inviting them. EMTs need this access to do their JOB, which is transporting injured individuals. If there's a situation where they can't get to the only person in a department because they're on the other side of a door to a department, injured, that's bad. People dying because of arbitrary access restrictions is a much higher priority fix than 'miner want to walk into R&D to talk to scientist'

I don't understand why this PR is taking away janitorial general access when the entire purpose of this thread is simply to give it to EMTs, who generally benefit from it greatly in their job. We should be thinking less about 'game flow' and 'antagonist balance' in this and more about 'who would realistically need to have general access'. I also don't see why only one job should have this access level, like it's a unique mantle to bestow upon a single job and none other. Janitors do, because they are there to clean and maintian, and messes and broken lights happen in every department. EMTs do, because accidents happen in every department. It's really as simple as that. Concerns about 'antags being shut down' by having an EMT show up to help is a very silly arguement - the only possible way an antagonist could be shut down is if the EMT arrives and beats them up, and they are not equipped to do that. Medical can't even find an injured person unless their suit sensors are on, and if the antagonist forgot to change that, it's THEIR problem, not the EMTs, and an AI can and often do camera spot them and shut them down instantly far better than an EMT. I saw someone mention security general access, and I disagree with that - not because of any antagonist stuff, but because this is supposed to be a workplace, having security officers looming in your department or making rounds through medical/research is disruptive. No long likes a cop standing over them when the cop isn't needed. Most departments ask officers to leave their department if they see them inside without being called, and with the way our security teams usually function you give them general access you'll just get more officers wandering into departments and stubbornly digging their heels in when asked to leave, citing 'i have access tho'

He seems like pretty responsible person, and he's helped out with contributions to the server before and he's bribed me by giving me cool sprites. I don't have any reason to disbelieve he has experience with police work, so I feel like that might help him with keeping his chill during interactions.

The name stems from a misunderstanding by me on their naming structure, I guess I thought somewhere they separate their names with an apostrophe. His surname is indeed Muhurrharl. I don't consider him to be particularly religious, but I suppose having some basic shared familial belief in S'rand'marr would be appropriate. Unlike unathi, tajarans have never struck me as particularly inclined to mysticism on a racial level. Their society is definitely shaped by their religion in how regimented they are, and they might make prayers when stressed, but they don't have the same feel as unathi, who collectively just have a much more spiritual vibe to their person than tajara. I might be wrong, but the key difference between unathi believing their ancestors stay nearby to watch over them is more concrete than just a vague concept of Messa taking everyone away to the 'Forever'. He is in Tau Ceti because he is exhausted with living on Adomhai. He wants a better life, but he left with the plan of coming back eventually, maybe when all the wars and politics are sorted out.

I don't think it really solves the issue at all, it just makes it more obvious that the flow of the round's roleplay is going to be abruptly interrupted, instead of it being halfway a surprise. These end of round highlander events force a 0 roleplay nonsense random deathmatch on everyone on the server at the behest of a majority vote that is already stilted because highlander events are rare and people don't get them very often. The vote is never going to be no, just like with xeno and borer events. I don't really see a reason why this server can't just have scheduled highlander events once and a while instead of it being on disruptive admin whimsy.

I just want to say that I really, really don't like the peacekeeper concept as it was shown. It's theme derives from an entirely different concept of robot/crew dynamics than we have on the server. Generating cookies or trauma blankets, screaming HUMAN HARM to daze everyone nearby, an actual hugging tool all of these are of a much sillier nature than I expect from a machine on the aurora and doesn't mesh well. Our security team does not dispense cuddles or cookies, the robot module should be formed around what they need, other than a bonus officer. A machine can attempt to empathize with a crew member and be kind to them without literally tucking them into bed with milk and cookies like a mommy bot. I would much rather we make our own borg model that fits with security support objectives than port in a module from another server wholesale.

I'm not the target audience for Highlander. I freely admit that I find the entire concept to be incredibly frivolous and stupid. I can understand that some people like the idea as it break from our normal routine, even if I disagree with it. However, some people do still have roleplay that they want to continue or finish at the end around before the reset, and it completely derails everything the people might want to be doing when the round suddenly turns into a memefest grief session and tanks and admin spawned characters with way too much equipment show up to interrupt your conversation by cutting your head off with no preamble. So can we keep Highlander to special dedicated rounds where people know ahead of time that it's going to be Highlander, so that the people who want to be serious can check out before the round starts?

BYOND Key: Kaedwuff Character Names: Ssalashtar Intesski Tazhir Kra'xis Esisshesi Ssreshkor Korassh Guwan Ickthar Slithiss Arizi Ezrsozal Lsizu Roeuses Srkirizi Zusios Akso Slikku Kaozrios Szu Soelilol Ulze Himari Kitaru Sosilok Akhandi Species you are applying to play: Hharar Tajara What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Gray with splotches of orange-brown. Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Initially, I went into this vaguely deciding to give myself the challenge of attaining whitelists for all the races, even if I have the intention of playing only unathi 99% of the time forever. Then I discovered, regrettably, upon taking the time to actually reading the tajaran lore that... I found myself enjoying the idea of playing this character I had constructed in my head while reading about tajarans. ☹ And thus my decent into becoming total furry trash has begun. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: In some senses, the culture of the tajaran species resembles older version of humanity, during the period where many kingdoms in Europe and Asia were all warring with each other over political and religious agendas, except that it diverges significantly in their past because somehow the aristocracy managed to coast along as bedrock solid rulers of an increasingly stilted caste system with hardly even a revolution for over two millennia, despite their abuses of the commoners and the constant suppression of technology and learning while still using it for themselves. In their lore I see echoes of the same European colonialist-american mindset that also plagues unathi lore, Except in this case taken to an even greater extreme, in that their entire world was as frozen in culture as it was in temperature until Mankind and their socioeconomic interests appeared from on high, whereupon their entire unsustainable society immediately shatters and fractures into several large tribes, as if nothing significant could have developed in their society without the intervention of europe humans. In any case, from a mechanical standpoint some of the primary differences between humans and tajarans is their biological tolerances. They evolved to be omnivores on a planet so cold liquid water doesn't even exist outside the equator, and as such, they have heavy fur to keep them alive in the cold, which does not handle well in the heat. Everyone knows this already though, along with that they can claw like unathi, move faster, and rrroll their rrr sounds. Of significantly more interest to me is the effect their long-standing caste system has had on their ethnic profiling. Whereas today - at least in the US, where I live - the color of one's skin has only moderate bearings on one's social status and roles one can perform, tajaran society has stratified their racial differences and colors to an extreme level, with four primary 'races', each of which tended to have a specific role in the social structure. In modern times, these racial roles have blurred slightly, but it is such a recent development that I expect there are still people who consider Njarir'Akhran to be oppressors or rulers, just by virtue of their bloodline, along with other stereotypes, such as that Zhan-Khazan are dumb brutes. In a sense, they've somewhat managed to breed themselves like humans did cats and dogs on earth. I had originally thought that unathi had a lot of languages with the whole two they have, but it seems all this time tajarans have had a whopping 5, an amount of cultural diversity that boggles my mind and makes me wonder why other races don't have this much communication diversity. Oh well, I guess the furries just developed them more out of preferential treatment. :') Character Name: Hraahzau Muhurrharl Please provide a short backstory for this character Several generations back in Hraahzau's family tree, decades before the cultural upheaval that resulted from the arrival of humanity, one of Hraahzau's grandmothers had a highly scandalous tryst with a member of the nobility and produced a son from the union. It was never particularly clear if their meeting was consensual or not, for though it is said his Hharar grandmother never claimed to have been forced into it, there were many that were certain and vocal about their opinion that she had been forced to say that due to the relative difference in social power and fear of being executed. In any case, the Njarir'Akhran blood in his family line was long a point of contention both by nobility, who considered them mongrels, and everyone else who felt repressed by the Njarir'Akhran, who were not impressed with their connection to the upper class. Over time, the obvious signs of their shameful heritage faded as more Hharar blood in their line diluted the obvious signs of noble blood, and his most recent grandfather moved their family decades ago from their original home in Das'nrra to the island of Amohda, where they could begin blending in with the other Hharar and start a new life where they would be less persecuted. This worked well for one generation and through the arrival of humanity and subsequent civil war, and the land that they lived on became part of the People's Republic of Adhomai. Unfortunately, in this climate of anti-nobility sentiment, Hraahzau was born, his body unfortunately marked with a display of recessive genetics surfacing in the form of large splotches of orange-brown on his gray fur that clearly marked his Njarir'Akhran heritage to everyone in their new community. As such, he spent the decade and half of his life after he was born a social outcast to nearly other Hharar his age, along with their parents, who reinforced his pariah status instead of trying to curtail it. Only his own family was particularly supportive of him, though it was clear to him by the time he was a teenager that they found the embarrassment caused by him to be frustrating. When he was 14, whispers began to arise of a new nation forming that promised them a better life, and by the time that the New Kingdom of Adhomai declared its rebellion, much of his family was ready to support the rebellion, and his uncle and two of his brothers left to help fight the PRA, while the rest stayed behind with, uncertain on whether they wanted to commit against fighting what seemed to them to be such an unwinnable fight. The NKA rebellion won part of the island of Amohda north of where Hraahzau's family lived, but neither his brothers nor his uncle returned from the fighting, and the rest of the family became self-justified in their desire to remain with the PRA as a result. Nearly a decade later, the PRA began a draft and a campaign against certain members of their society. The deviancy of homosexuality was put forward as a reason for the concentration camps that sprang up, but it was clear that some of the people sent there were apprehended under false accusations to get rid of political enemies. And so, in 2058, when Hraahzau was in his early twenties, some of his peers who resented him for having noble blood pressured him into getting drunk enough to pass out, then claimed that he had attempted homosexual advances on them while inebriated. Hraahzau was arrested and sent to a camp where he was forcibly 're-educated' against his supposedly deviant nature despite his claims that he had done no such thing and was not homosexual. When the concentration camp project was disbanded a year later, Hraahzau was returned home, but he had not gotten through his ordeal unscathed - he had lost one of his arms due to the terrible treatment he experienced. When the NKA and PRA lost the island of Amohda in 2060, his family was finally forced to relocate. With their soured opinion of the PRA government after their treatment of Hraahzau, the family reevaluated their previous decisions and left for the New Kingdom lands instead of staying behind as the Democratic People's Republic of Adhomai occupied the island. After settling into lands near Dymtris, Hraahzau's family found their quality of life significantly improved due to the more nobility-friendly culture of the New Kingdom territory, and they finally began to develop a sense of national pride. Hraahzau shared that pride, but strongly felt that he did not want to live on Adhomai anymore, at least for a while. After many arguments with his family, he finally convinced them to let him leave for a term of employment in human space, and he left along with one of the many groups of tajaran laborers being contracted to Nanotrasen in the illustrious position of janitorial staff. What do you like about this character? Honestly, I just wanted to explore a character who got blasted by some of the choicer aspects of tajaran culture, without making them a total pity magnet that moans about their fate, along with really wanting to make someone who got hurt by the gay gulags arc without actually being a homocat. Also, I wanted to make a tajaran with a hard to pronounce name that won't change it to a human-style name uwu How would you rate your role-playing ability? High Notes: Someone suggested I add more about his employment history with NT, but I imagined him as a very recent arrival, and assumed that aside from being assigned as a bottom rung janitor after passing his language classes and stuff, he's extremely new to human space and doesn't need a whole lot of employment history. If required I can add more though ;s