Kaed

Alternatively, crazy idea... Maybe add support for more blood to the blood code?????? If someone machines guns you, you should be painting the floor and walls behind you with blood, not lightly sprinkling the floor. Similarly principal here.

I'm into it. I've never been a fan of early ERT calls happening because the crew was shit at fending off antagonists and so command hits the 'kill all antags' button and an army of salty ghosts gets to come back for a validhunt after failing the first time. Punishing antags for doing better than the crew is not something that should be inherently 'owed' to the command staff.

I don't think it should be something that you can game in a round, though. I'd much rather prefer a very slow climb that spans multiple rounds. I really hate using 'xp' as an analogy, and would really prefer something a little more appropriate, like 'psionic expansion', but for the sake of making this explanation simple, I would rather you can only earn so much 'XP' per round, and it's added to your pool when you finish the round alive. Leaving early, dying and not getting cloned, similar situations cause you to forfeit your progress in psionic growth. So you can be a big hero and save the crew with your powers, if you want to, but be aware that if the antag then murders you for fucking with them, you're not going to get anything out of the round, psionic progress wise. There should definitely be a functional cap on how much a non antagonist can have, and while you can 'obtain' more cool and powerful abilities, stuff above a certain point is 'locked' behind being (certain types of) antagonist. (You could explain this away with the mandatory psi dampener implant concept I mentioned earlier, like they do in Starcraft) This way, you don't have to hassle admins to give you powers as a psionic character when you're an antag. You've already unlocked then, and they're just accessible now. There would probably be some kind of trade off for choosing to be a psionic antagonist, so you don't have your powers ON TOP OF your current antag mechanics (example: -15 TC as a traitor), but that can be workshopped.

What if you are that cruel, though.

I think you're fixating a bit too much on warhammer psykers and space magic, Sytic. A system of drawbacks for benefits is a workable format, and I'm sorry, but your definition of magic there excuses itself from what we want to put it in by labeling it 'myserious and supernatural'. Psionics does not need to be a mysterious thing, and it could very well be a part of the science department to study and research it. It would be like calling a laser beam 'magical', Sytic. We aren't cavemen anymore in this setting, we are capable of comprehending the idea of latent psionic powers without screaming 'SORCERY!'. And as for a time skip, not needed. There's already precedent in the game right now for telepathy and telekinesis in the game right now. If we still had genetics, no one would be blinking an eye at them, they would just be eyerolling at another power abusing geneticist who gave themselves all the powers. This is just fleshing out the concept into something somewhat less abusable.

I can see where you're coming around, but I still assert it could be possible to make it work as a concept, with careful thoughts towards the concepts that you introduce in psionics. The one of the key points is they never should be something that can overshadow an antagonist, and should be something that can introduce an interesting scenario, rather than a powergaming validhunt. Some of the stuff that Fowl came up with, like a 'null beam' can that penetrate walls and people, would have to either be not very strong, have a very high cooldown or penalty, or just not be in the game for the most part outside admins gifting it to antags/event characters. Stuff that turns you into a hulk or makes you invulnerable or murders a guy shouldn't be a thing in psionics. There should be things that curtail the use of use of psionic powers to brief spurts or limited uses or risk hurting yourself, rather than it just being 'something you can do all the time because you're a magical special snowflake now', as genetics encouraged. Things like being able to constructively use telekinesis for a limited period in an interesting fashion, such as pushing a dropped gun down a hole unexpectedly, or forces open a door with his mind during a critical situation to save his coworkers, would be a lot more interesting to see than some twat who just shot himself up with a gene code and spends the rest of the round moving around objects to fuck with people until security arrests them for some regulation about not using powers outside of genetics.

I dunno, I think I and butters introduced some ways that it wouldn't become a ridiculously overbalanced thing, it's not impossible to do. Something being difficult to manage doesn't mean we shouldn't even try it. 'No one is allowed to be special unless they're an antagonist' is kind of a tired concept, I'd like it if the server would try and stretch it's legs a little bit out of the self contained antagonist round being the only thing that ever happens. Why must the server be only defined by the current round type? There's nothing that says we can't roll it back later if it's a nightmare, like genetics apparently was. Hell, we could even rule that you can't 'progress' (how would you even level up? xp mechanics? Something more abstract?) in psionics unless it's a canon (extended) round, or something, to stagger out things. That might be too restrictive, though. Dunno.

I hadn't actually even considered the idea of it being a metaround thing. It sounds really cool, but it opens up a whole can of worms on how it would even work. Most whitelists require you to show some basic aptitude for lore or behaving yourself, roleplaying well, etc, and once you're accepted, you can just BE the things you were whitelisted for. A psionics whitelist would only be an opting in to potentionally become psionic, if you are really lucky. Some people might never even GET a psionic character even after applying. And what criteria would you have to even meet to be approved to be a potential psionic? It's not a race or position of power, it's just entering the superpower lottery, p much. And I'm not super sure how you can manage something so tangible between rounds when any round that has antags in it can largely be considered noncanon. Does your character just handwave all the times he learned something new trashing a wizard with his mind powers? Also, how would we deal with power creep? If it lasts cross-round, we may eventually have a situation where everyone who has been playing for a long time on the server is psionic now, and all the new players are turned off because they're surrounded by X-men and are out of their depth. Personally, I think the best idea for limiting that is to have a cap on psionic character that can actually be in a round. like, 2-3 tops. There could be some sort of vague regulatory mechanic in place, where only so many employees are permitted to have active psionic powers at a time (this should only come into play after there are enough psionic characters that it becomes a problem, because why would Nanotrasen make such a regulation when it's still a theoretical branch of research?), and everyone else has to have a psi dampener implant or something (that is illegal to remove for that shift) from round start if they want to play that psionic character for that shift after all the slots are taken. There should be an option to opt out of joining on a psionic character if you can't be psionic so you don't just have to cryo immediately in a huff because you didn't get to be one of the psionics on shift.

After thinking on it, I actually have more input here. Rather than axing the racial affinity for psionics thing entirely, what if certain races were better at some things than others, and worse at other things. For instance, Vaurca are generally not very assertive, so they might have almost no affinity with stuff that is overt or forceful, but would be good at subterfuge and telepathy sort of things. Skrell are very cerebral, so might have little ability with psychokinesis, but be good at manipulating energies and so on and so forth. As for 'becoming' psionic, I honestly after thinking a bit am very keen on the idea of a new 'psionics' department, as a potential replacement for the oft maligned genetics that keeps being thrown in the bin for being awful. Here's the summary of my spitballing for how it would work. -The psionics department is not an active branch of research by default. It is going to be, by default, a very passive and theoretical section of research. Much of the time, it will sit collecting dust, because: -Finding an unawoken psionic individual should be a special, moderately rare event. The way I visualize it is that nanotrasen knows honestly very little about psionics. There is some tangential research data they have that provides them with the gear to detect someone on station that is capable of awakening. There should be a distinction here between 'unawoken' (potential of awakening) and 'nonpsionic' (no chance of awakening under normal circumstances) -What this means is that psionics is usually going to be a sort of 'radar' device that is turned on at the beginning of the shift, and occasionally checked on. It picking up someone that is worth investigating should be a cause for great excitement in the science department. There should be some sort of new variable that is created for every character at round start, and they are only 'unawoken' if they meet a very special criteria (something like 5% or less of the time) -Even if they have detected a viable subject on the station, they still have to figure out who it is. There should be some method of locating them, but it should not be precise. Somewhere along the lines of how finding artifacts works in xenoarch. What I'm imagining here is a scenario where some rando janitor cleaning the floor suddenly has a posse of excited scientists swarming him and scanning him with weird devices while he blinks confusedly and tries to hide behind his mop, then they try to whisk him off to science to experiment on him. -There should be tools to experiment and try and awaken someone's psionic powers. I feel like an array of different options should be open, from the benign and gentle like certain chemicals to 'expand their awareness' (you laugh, but you've probably heard the stories of LSD being used in psionics experiments) , to brutish, questionable things, like electroshock therapy. Some of these are safe but have a low chance of accomplishing anything, others have a higher chance but might have Bad Effects, like shorting out their psionic potentional entirely, or making them have a catastrophic psionic overload and blowing up all electronics for a distance. Maybe even causing the test subject to die unclonably in the process because their brain became jelly. (This should not be something that the science department just gets a slap on the wrist for, if they took a risk they should be punished for harming someone like that, unless some sort of wavier was signed by the unawoken that stated they clearly understood the danger) -Once someone is successfully awoken, IF it happens (which should not be a guaranteed thing), there should be some sort of progression mechanics for their powers. I'm not going to speculate too much on it right now because I already wrote a fuckton here that needs to be picked apart.

I think chief among my critiques for this idea is making certain races better or worse at it. If you were going to create something with this much potential to be cool and fun, making it much more likely to happen on certain races creates an elitist scenario for them. I personally would be offended as an unathi player if I never got these powers because of an arbitrary decision that says unathi have low willpower. Skrell and vaurca would become snowflakes with more superpowers by contrast. That aside, do you want this to be a non antag mechanic that anyone can theoretically get?

Last time I did that, they whined to the internal affairs, who bitched at me about self-defense regulations. Though that's slightly off topic here. I just want to head off the entire thing if I could thank you. Thank you for being willing to add them though!

As long as it's in the game and capable of being acquired, I'd be happy. I would even take the time as head of security to personally buy a set of these from cargo and apply them to the Armory by hand. I could care less about antags raiding the armory, they can even have a traitor pin if they like. I just want to be enforce not using lethals as a HoS because the officers never fucking listen to me when I tell them not to kill a suspect.

I would like the standard firing pins in security Armory weapons to be revised. As far as I am aware, they currently operate on a binary functionality. Either the pins are in the guns work, or they are out and they don't. I would like it to be expanded to the following three settings: Secure: no Armory weapons may be fired. This is the standard setting for green. Non-lethal: the Armory weapons that are capable of performing non-lethal attacks are enabled. If they can normally toggle to a lethal setting, that setting is locked. The ion rifle is an exception, and is enabled on this setting. This activates automatically on Code Blue Lethals enabled: all guns in the Armory be used on any setting. This setting is enabled by default on Code Red. However I would like certain individuals such as the head of security and the captain to be able to change the settings regardless of code level. I would also like the firing pins that are currently inside guns to announce that their settings have been changed if it happens ("Lethal override enabled."), so that security members can be aware that they can now use or cannot use their guns in a certain way.

As much as I definitely appreciate your tone in calling everyone who is resisting the janitor department change whiny and ungrateful, I feel like you're sort of missing the point of my argument in your rush to defend the dev team from my cruel words. I like the buffs to the janitor, and I like that we now have a main floor cryo chamber finally. The rejection of a single portion of an update does not mean we hate everything the developer team does, nor that we think Lohikar Fowl is some sort of garbage person for changing janitor to engineering. It is also clearly not 'only menown' that cares about this, or this thread would not exist in as contentious a state as it does right now. What my point was in the argument there is that it should not be the sole decision of the dev team to decide to restructure the IC responsibilities of people on the station, regardless of what their 'vision' was for the station. Mapping changes, sure. New gear and loadout options, fine. But when we started adding more authoritative power to the captain, it was not the dev team who made that decision, it was the CCIA people, who make regulatory change decisions. I'm pretty sure unathi did not become unable to drink alcohol/have cactus juice now based on an internal decision by the dev team, and that Jackboot was heavily involved in it. My point is that it is not a mechanical change, and it should have at least been run by the people outside the internal dev team, It's only a knee jerk reaction that you are receiving right now because it game right the heck out of nowhere, with no context or warning to anyone other than the dev team. If it had been made available for public discussion, there would already be some sort of consensus about whether or not it should be done. There would actually be a valid reason then to defend it under the sacred aegis of the holy 1 month grace period. I don't even necessarily 'demand' you throw aside your '1 month wait' period (though I point out Skull has already said it does not apply in this case, and would like it), so much as try and stratify some kind of clear delineation of responsibilities and authority.

It might be a bit hacky, but could you chain the flash to happen several times in a row based on circumstances, to make it look like it's longer? I don't really know how that would work, just an idea.

Wow, thanks! I honestly didn't expect to turn someone who didn't initially agree around to my way of thinking on this matter. Maybe I should make that thread about replacing all of sec's gun with cap guns, like you mentioned.. Anyway, yeah. I never so much wanted the flash nerfed into the grave as changed into something that allows counterplay in some format.

I dunno, I don't like binary states where you can or cannot do something based on a status that doesn't resolve itself. I would advocate that it should be harder (take longer?) to get out, or maybe even give you a bunch of halloss for doing it, but creating an artificial straight jacket situation is no bueno for me.

If I use strong language at the part about stunlock batons, in is in this case because that was exactly the language that was used in the forum arguments back then. I am paraphrasing, yes, but I distinctly remember the term 'antag hugboxing' coming up, and complaints that security was being crippled in favor of the antags because batons couldn't insta stun. So those are not necessarily my words, they are ancient forum-goers who might not even be on the server anymore. I actually LIKED the change, because I hated the old batons. And I don't know what else you want me to call it. Complaining? Moaning? Whining is as good a term as anything, it was flat out 'noooo they changed it now everything is ruined' mentality that happens in a lot of major patches Also, when I use the term 'you' in regards to the old server code, I an directing it to the 'you' (multiple) meaning the general server base that you (singular) are part of. I never assumed you (singular) made the code. I understand the english language struggles with differentiation between singular you and group you, which is why sometimes I wish I spoke a language like french, that handles that sort of thing easily. Anyway. I admit I might have been a bit aggressive in my previous post in regards to your argument. But I still stand by the point I'm making. Even if we dismiss the part about 'how does it work, magic?" and 'well, you can just handwave it as futuristic psuedoscience, we have ftl and stuff what's the big deal?' part of the debate, because it's feels clear that isn't really going to really go anywhere (I don't mean this in an insulting way, incidentally. I just don't think that we're going to find any common ground on why it could work in canon beyond the two of us digging our heels in over it), let's stick to the gameplay and mechanics side of the argument. In regards to 'the whole point of the flash being de-escalation', I don't really agree with you there. It is currently being used as a way to shut people down, yes, but I do not think that is what it needs to be. Yes, it burns out, I'm aware. But in the grand scheme of things, the chance flash burning out during an altercation with anything except a borg is almost nil. Two flashes are pretty much all you need to have time to cuff them or have someone else cuff them. Or hell, if you are an antagonist, a couple flashes is probably sufficient to keep someone down while you beat them to death/grab them for succ. It is currently a conflict 'de-escalator' (in that it stops all conflict dead as long as you are able to flash them), but I think it needs to be shifted over to 'combat mitigator' (in that it prevents the target from effectively targeting you or others with harm, but doesn't stop them dead). The problem, in my eyes, is that you - and Scheveningen, I guess - seem to have this expectation that the game needs to have this item, which completely disables anyone not wearing sunglasses, in order to 'keep the flow of escalation intact'. The only reason, in my opinion, why this is even an issue, is because you are both used to the idea that 'batons come out only when things are serious.' This is like it is now because flashes exist in their current state. There is no need to TRY anything else when you can just flash someone down instantly. Batons cause no actual damage to people if you aren't using harm intent, it's purely a crippling shock that will down someone with a couple applications. Pepperspray can also down someone, but not for long enough to cuff them, and it has only four uses before needing to be refilled. Tasers can be fired after someone who tries to run, and can down them in about 2-3 hits, again without physical harm that needs medical treatment. There is no reason to treat these things as 'serious business for last resort' These are all just fine tools of the security department. They can use those against someone, and rely on team members to help them. They don't need the ability to singlehandedly down someone and cuff them for not wearing sunglasses. This item is toxic to any sense of danger or conflict in a situation, or any particular display of skill for in game combat, because it just shuts it down and removes it. Wearing sunglasses is not something that requires finesse, or luck, like having a brawl, baton vs metal bat. It is just something you either are or are not doing. It is a binary state. By making the flash a blinding mechanism, it becomes part of the finesse and skill of combat, because tactical blinding gives you an advantage over the opponent, rather than just taking them out instantly. Flashes, in my opinion, should be something that facilitates your retreat, or helps you win combat (not just wins it the end) by disadvantaging the opponent, I would even advocate that sunglasses should reduce the blind duration to a second or two, rather than completely negating it.

Nope. I haven't forgotten that people besides security have flashes. And I completely reject your assertion that 'how it is now is how it needs to be'. I remember a time like Jackboot mentioned when we transitioned from your old code to bay. And instant stun through any armor batons were lost for halloss batons. There was much whining about security being crippled for antag hugboxing. It's the same situation here. This tool is so iconic and potent that it seems unimaginable to a traditionalist. It's such an iconic part of the game, changing it feels like it would ruin everything. But I say: why do we need to give people this ability? You say being blinded makes people act more erratically, and yes that makes sense. I don't see the problem with that. Being blind makes people panic. Is that a less interesting alternative to you then the research director standing over an antagonist flashing them every 5 seconds until security arrives or a nearby engineer can cable cuff them? Because that's what this item encourages in its state. A free, easy and repeatable stunlock. It's not fun for anyone except the people holding the flash. I would much rather have a blind gunman firing wildly into the room trying to hit someone, or running into a wall because they just got blinded, then them sitting helplessly on the ground being flashed repeatedly for the next 30 seconds then being carted off to security in cuffs. As for Borg, they just need some retooling to lessen thier reliance on flashes. Lower the ridiculous energy cost of batons and tasers. And blinding a dangerous threat so they can't shoot crew is very viable. If people really feel the desperate need to have an instant stun method, stun gloves and makeshift stun prods still exist in the code. They just require knowledge and resources to make, and have sharply limited times they can be used, instead of an infinite use easy to find item that almost every department can get.

I don't think they need to be removed, they just need to be altered so they stop filling the 'powergamer' niche by being usable for stuncuff combos. It's sort of ridiculous that everyone on the station is expected to either wear sunglasses all the time or just eat shit whenever they provoke anyone holding a flash.

I'm probably going to get nowhere with this, but I think flashes are too powerful an item. The allow you to instantly stunlock most player species, and the only way to block it is with a pair of sunglasses. Yes, you can spawn with sunglasses, but that's not really my point. It's not so much their counter that bothers me, it's that they don't really make sense from a logic perspective. You flash a really bright light at someone, and they collapse... because... that's how the game mechanics work? I don't really understand the precedent for this working this way other than just 'because we wanted a cheap, easy disable'. Really, they should just cause temporary blindness, like they already do (maybe for longer?) but not make people magically get stunned by them. Is everyone on the station born epileptic? Security has other tools to stun people, like batons and tasers. They don't need yet another that requires almost no effort and can't be dodged or miss, only be blocked with a specific worn item, and is fully effective with a single click. Being able to blind someone who is attacking you for like 5-7 seconds is a perfectly reasonable self defense measure, which is really the intended purpose of the flash anyway - not an aggressive take-down weapon, like it's currently being used. I still think they should overload borg, though. That is reasonable, and always has been, they're machines and can only process so much with shitty optical sensors or whatever.

There is currently an exploit in the game mechanics where you cannot break out of handcuffs if you are laying down (but not buckled to a bed or something) where you cannot attempt to resist out of cuffs, which allows people to dislocate your legs and cuff you, making it impossible for you do do anything to free yourself. You can't fix your legs while cuffed, and you can't stand to resist out of cuffs while your legs are dislocated. This allows them to combine the two to make an inescapable situation, and I don't think was the original intent. I want to emphasize you can resist out of buckle-cuffing while you are strapped to a bed, but once you are off the bed, you just can't do anything if you can't stand. This is an oversight, not a feature, I don't think.

Arrow, if a department in an organized group or company oversteps their authority, especially if their entire reason behind it was 'oh, our bad everyone in here was okay with it, so we forgot to ask anyone else if it was okay', you don't just point to the client base and say, they don't care, I don't see the problem. The player base at large is not necessarily an indicator of whether an action that a department took should be okay. Either the issue in question needs to be resolved, or more clear staff team boundaries and responsibilities need to be stratified prevent future issues. Ideally, both. Even if you stand by waiting a month for this to be changed or edited, you (this you being the higher in staff team who makes the major decisions) need to make sure this kind of problem doesn't occur in the future. I realize that this is sort of deviating from the original topic of this thread, and I'm sorry. If you want me to make an entire new thread about revising staff policy for the dev team I can do it. But since I've already gotten my point out here, and the original topic of this thread is largely bunk, I feel like some closing statements are in order.

When jackboot came to direct me to this thread, I was under the impression that this was a proposed change. I do not actually hop on the server that frequently. Maybe three or four times a week at most. So I admit that I was not aware this was already an implemented change, and I probably would have reacted differently if I was aware of that. However, I really do want to express my irritation that the dev team apparently has evolved from updating the mechanics of the game, too also restructuring the IC departments based on personal preference, apparently without consulting the head of the lore team in any fashion. This is not a mechanical change. Is a purely aesthetic and in character concept that you are changing, like allowing executions again. If the dev team pushed something like that through, somehow, I woke up one day and signed into the server to find out that you had made that change abruptly, without letting anyone know it was coming, I would be pretty miffed just like I am right now. It should not be the responsibility of the dev team to make decisions on how the station functions, or the responsibilities of the crew members.