Kaed

Since he was an antagonist, he was within his rights to shoot anyone he wanted, so yeah. This complaint was made on the assumption I was the only antag involved.

Most of them are not going to be shitty or OP, it's just going to be one of the spells from the other books. It's just a way to get spells outside of your spellbook, with some gambling and risk involved. Wizard gambling. Like how the traitor uplink has a 'get random' button.

When I say secret, I meant 'spells that aren't normally available' not 'spells that no one knows exists until someone gets one'. I'm well aware anyone will be able to look at the open source code and see them, but that's not the point.

... Would it be too much to ask to not make the item a jokey aluminum foil hat gag but something a little more serious, like a psi dampener or something.

Could this be a method for captured skrell to communicate with their comrades? Like, they're tired to a chair in the merc ship and use the Sleep command, then tell another skrell in the Srom what's going on and where they are? Also, if you haven't already, could you make this tied to the Commune verb rather than by species, so, if by some method someone gains it, they can enter the Srom?

You should also, if you are making organs more than a token object, make the liver's removal not cause instant death by toxin damage, but rather a slow, painful buildup of body toxins that can be stopped by a liver replacement. Possibly an artificial one.

you made me choke on my soda, you dick. Other that, sounds fun.

This feels like policing people's antag activity choices, which is sort of a no bueno. If they opportunistically killing someone - without breaking the ganking rules - drives some kind of story, then it shouldn't be a problem. I really don't see how this could reliably be policed, either, because it depends entirely on the intent of the person doing the killing, and people can lie about their intent. It's not really a moderateable scenario like 'did they kill you randomly without any leadup' (ganking) is.

I'm not sure that this... suggestion thread... really suggests something? You're just kind of... commenting on the rules and saying how you interpret them. What are you wanting changed? You want a clarification on 'no opportunistic kills?' What measure is an opportunistic kill? How do you determine it, should someone ahelp claiming I was randomly killed by le antag. If they were ganked, that already falls under the rules, and we don't need extra clarification.

More like burger just sort of slipped it in.

When?

Why would it become more acceptable to kill people while cloaked in low pop. Or high pop. It's pretty much universally bullshit, it doesn't become less so because there's more or less people around to kill.

I had idea for something fun I could do with wizards, thought I'd run it by the crowds here. Instead of buying the normal spells in any given spellbook, you can opt to purchase a 'Tome of Ancient Lore', which is an item that effectively will give you a random spell, from a (possibly long) list of spells, and thus can allow you to learn spells outside of your spellbook's choices. Some points to consider on this: -Since it is a purchased item, not a spell itself, it cannot be refunded. In fact, I'm probably going to look into a way that will prevent you from unlearning Ancient Lore spells during point refunds/relearning. You buy it, and you have to keep what you get. I'm thinking it will be 2 TC, roughly. though I probably will weight it by spellbook, so spacial mages can't get more than anyone else. -The spells will be weighted in probability, with weak spells being highest weight, stronger spells having less weight -There will be some spells I will make or port in (and probably modify) that can only be acquired through Ancient Lore. Secret spells. Some of them will be very strong and not necessarily conform to balance.

It has not been made in the least bit unviable with this change. You just need to have some skill now. All the ninja has to do is steal the captain's ID access, disable the turrets, and then hack their way into inner vault. The AI can't turn the turrets on because of a firewall so if they're fast enough they get it even without the teleport. Or they could just breach a wall and walk in. This ideology about skill should matter more could also be applied to the ninja cloak. A powerful antagonist should have tools that allow them to be powerful if they are skilled. They should not be there to allow people who are shitty at combat to get a free pass on murdering whoever they want simply to create fake difficulty for solo antags. An aware ninja already has the tools to escape from any combat situation they want. They do not also need the tools to win every combat situation they want. Compare them with the wizard, which also can be a highly mobile opponent, but has also had their instant no counter gibs-you spell removed a long time ago, and lacks the ability to enter combat without a way to be countered.

Well, I lack the ability to delete this post, so from what I gather there, people think it would nerf ninjas to unusability. So here is why that is wrong: A stealth mechanic is there to keep you from being detected. It is intended to hide you from sight so people cannot find you and you escape danger, or sneak in somewhere without being seen on cameras. The heavy drain it has on your energy it is somewhat of a joke excuse for balance these days, now that ninjas have a module to give them ~1000 power instantly upon clicking a button with a fairly low cooldown, and they've always had the ability to swap batteries to a 30k cell and make power drain a negligible thing. And it only takes like 10-20 seconds to kill someone when they have almost no way of fighting back, so stealthing right before you attack is all you need. When it becomes used to kill people with no risk to yourself, there is a serious issue at work here. I saw suggestions like 'fire at the tile you know they are in' or 'throw a shoe at them to find where they are'. Here is the problem with those non-solutions. A ninja is constantly moving while stealthed, and most likely, is firing their gun at you over and over, or swinging their sword at you. Attempting to use tactics to find where they are means that you are probably already dead before you can find them. They are perfectly capable of still killing someone by striking them from stealth, decloaking, and continuing the fight. (They could also withdraw immediately and recloak for another attack). As the one who got the first strike in the combat, got a significant advantage already - but that should be their only advantage. A ninja with a sufficiently powerful gun (which they can now get, I should point out, due to there being native TC in the station vault after a recent update, making machine gun toting invisible ninjas viable), could, with things the way they are now, kill an entire security team from stealth by machine gunning them down, and potentially not take a single hit, because no one can actually see where they are to target them, and while laser beams are pretty much a line pointing out the source of your attack, ballistic weapons are just small black dots moving across the screen, and not always easy to tell the source of, because they make your screen shake when you get hit. Stealth can and should give you an advantage in a fight, but not this much of one. This is just awful.

I swear I saw a PR about this once, but apparently it's not in play anymore. Ninjas shouldn't be able to shoot you to death with a revolver, or chop of your head, or any other nonsense, while being invisible and unable to be easily targeted. Attacking should just decloak them, with any weapon.

Yeah, I can see that. I really like the idea of attaching mech weapons to them for ridiculous but not very energy efficient defenses, rather than just not allowing it entirely because '2 OP no way'

The crawl and hit method only works if the turrets are set to nonlethal. Lethal turrets will shoot you to death if you are present in the room, regardless of your body position. I don't really get how they are coded, but they only stop firing when you are dead, not just floored. The other two bits could use some work though, yes. I'd prefer the shield AND the faster deployment to be something that only malf AI can do, though, honestly,

I don't personally agree with most of the stuff said here, but I also don't have anything further to say. If this barrage of 'but I like Faysal's roleplay' is more meaningful than my bleating about balance in station roles, then I guess this thread can be considered concluded. I'd just like to reiterate that I don't understand why Faysal doesn't just play a head of security. His character just effectively plays like one during any applicable crisis.

I don't have the energy to argue with your longwinded point by point argument style right now Delta, but I will point out you make a lot of assertions with no actual backing yourself, considering I just finished a round where the crate he ordered had a value of nearly 30k credits and contained three pump action rifles, two bayonets, at least one mini uzi, and a silenced pistol. He also claimed he was planning to arm the crew with it, but none of the command staff had heard anything about the order when I questioned them in game, which to me speaks that he simply did it by granting himself the authority on the spot. The events I mention were ones I was in rounds to experience myself, so telling me I am flat out exaggerating or lying to people is a little rich. You yourself have experienced a situation where you were executed for expediency in the past, and brush it aside as it such things could not happen when people claim they still are. I don't expect anything about this complaint to be 'actionable' in as much as alberyk is punished, but I'm trying to encourage him to shift his focus from this playstyle. It sort of feels like this is a popularity contest right now, though, what with you slipping in things like 'considering the source (myself)'

The problem is you play as both a HoS and a HoP at the same time. The head of personnel has access advantages that make him very powerful as an ally, and the head of security has command of a group of people who are presumably supposed to wield a lot of collective power as an opposing force to antagonist. When both of these roles are invested in the same person, it is a problem. I frequently see you walking alongside security with a gun on your back, and this effectively is exactly what a HoS does. It should not be what a HoP is doing. The fact that the HoS was absent or died shouldn't be a justification for this behavior, and there are ways you could still effectively support security as a HoP without being on the front line with them and issuing tactical orders. The military backstory is being used an excuse and justification for this behavior, when we are supposed to be actively discouraging people outside of sec from playing characters like this and claiming to be ex-black ops commandos now working in cargo or behind the bar or whatever. You could also, you know, just play Faysal as a HoS and do what you like doing, just without also having infinite free guns on demand without having to ask anyone else for them.

BYOND Key: Kaedwuff Game ID: This is not based on a specific round but general behavior over many rounds. Player Byond Key: Alberyk Staff involved: N/A Reason for complaint: This is more of a general complaint on the playstyle of the character Faysal Al-Shennawi. For those of you unaware somehow of the character, this is a tajaran Head of Personnel with a storied history of military command, who tends to, whenever there is no active HoS, due to death or lack of staff, insert himself into control of security. Among the pervasive behaviors exhibited by this character you can find: -Self-promoting himself to unofficial Head of Security without consulting the security department or attempting to find an interim or replacement. -Directing the movements of the security department during these crisis times, without any general consultation from the rest of the heads. -Using his access as HoP to order piles of guns whenever even slightly justified (i.e. there are group antagonists), usually with bayonets and pump action rifles included, (which I'm sure it's only a coincidence were both added to the game by himself). Sometimes, this weapons simply sit unused because security was perfectly well armed enough to deal with the problem, and he does not seem to consult with the rest of the heads before ordering these things. -On several occasions has become some kind of antagonist terminator, relentlessly hunting down and gunning helpless/wounded/fleeing/otherwise no longer combative antags to death with ruthless efficiency. Usually there will be some justification thrown in like that his friend was killed by the antags, or it was an accident and RNG he managed to shoot them in the leg then blow their head off while they were lying bleeding on the ground. It's surprisingly difficult to make any administrative action stick to him when you ahelp him, for some reason. To be perfectly honest though, most of this stuff wouldn't even be a problem, if he was actually playing a HoS. Most of his behavior fits in perfectly well with the role of someone commanding security. I would frankly like to consider moving this character to the HoS, because it's just not believable to me or balanced in the game sense that someone like this has a desk job and control of cargo up until it's time to become Wartime Cat General. Battle-oriented characters shouldn't be placed in the same department that supplies the extra guns, because suddenly they have access to everything they could possibly need without having to go through any channels or communicate with other heads. It's practically powergaming. Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes. Action is not normally taken due to extenuating circumstance within the round itself. Approximate Date/Time: N/A

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5685 you're welcome

I'm of two minds here. On the one hand, reducing the time to fire would make turrets way more dangerous and hard to deal with. But then, the way they are now they're laughably useless against anyone who has the right tools and armor and barely have time to fire off one shot before being emp'd to death, IF they're lucky.

A series of ideas: -Allow people to swap out the weapons installed inside completed turrets (not sure if this is already possible, never seen it done). Presumably when they are unpowered only, so people don't disassemble things shooting at them. -Allow mech weapons to be put inside turrets. Is there a compelling reason why only handheld lasers and things can be put inside a giant turret? Make death turrets with gatling lasers, weee!