Kaed

I wouldn't mind the HoP needing to do a review of staff members, perhaps communicate with security to review criminal records too. What sort of report, [mention]LordFowl[/mention]

I don't understand this fixation on keeping things in the game for the purpose of 'memes'. It does not make logical sense in the framework on the setting. Keeping it in for purely OOC reasons is dumb. If people want to 'meme', they don't need a piece of paper to encourage them..

You know, that thing at the beginning that points out subversive individuals from a random list. It doesn't really add anything to the round except about two minutes of jokes between the heads about how one of them is a spy. No one takes it seriously or even acts on it. I also don't really understand why nanotrasen would just finger random people and positions and say they are maybe suspicious?

I don't... And ... ? Having to physically destroy or tear down machinery to make it stop working is terrible design-wise. It doesn't matter if an antag can turn off drone production, because drones normally don't play an integral role in the round. And, counterpoint, if there's an off switch then you can turn it back on easily too.

it was nerfed another lightcode headache to solve by the sounds of it. seems more of a shadowling sort of mechanic that deserves to stay there, i don't think vampires would benefit very much from turning the lights out instantly in a room. nor does it make a whole lot of sense either, considering that's not something they do in VtM/White Wolf documentation. How was it nerfed? You need to provide a little bit more context when you make statements like that. Never mind, lohikar explained it, and it definitely sounds like we need something useful to fill in the mid tier power list now that it's moved to late game. Bats is not useful, and never has been, and most people just ignore Presence. Anyway, this isn't masquerade and being loosely based on it thematically doesn't mean we need to follow it to the letter. Making a cloud of darkness is ~already something in the code~ so I don't think I see why it would somehow be a headache to implement. In fact, I just spoke to [mention]Lohikar[/mention], and he said all it is is a negative light effect. Easy peasy. Even ignoring the part about inhibiting vision of crewmembers who might be trying to attack it, vampires currently have the ability to jump to shadowed places, so creating a large area wherein you can teleport to any place inside, including through a window or door definitely seems like it would benefit them to me.

Counterpoint: mechanics that give them something to do besides quietly dominate the crew constantly as thier primary mechanic means less total reliance on it. Design-wise, giving them an ability is that competes with dominate for usefulness means that they'll actually use something besides dominate. *spreads shadows all over the room and vanishes* is a lot more spooky than *dominates the ERT member to kill his teammates again*, though both options get you out of trouble by providing a distraction.

If that is an actual regulation, I have seen it brought up or utilized 0 times ever. No one holds a vote about antags coming on station. they just go with the flow unless they are security, at which point they usually start sniffing around for valids. Either way, I don't see a huge problem with lowering the heist requirement.

I've seen an emagged drone provide excellent roleplay on account of being able to communicate with the crew, actually. Making demands and threatening people. Everyone there had a load of fun. It's also not like they are invulnerable, they are one of the most soft robots in the game, easily killed with a few shots, a card swipe, or an emp. I also support the AI getting more minions, they are one of the most frequently validhunted to death antags in the game, mostly because they are all but helpless without aid against a prepared force. However, I feel like there should also be an implementation of a way to cease drone production on-station, from the drone control console or something, to prevent further people from spawning in as drones. This would be used once they discover drones are going haywire, and it cuts off people repeat respawning to cause havoc constantly every ten minutes.

Also, cameras right now are either broken or functioning, and malf AI can make them magically start working against with an ability. How exactly do they also remove tape from the front by resetting the camera? It just doesn't fit well with the current setup.

This is intentional, I think if you examine signs visible in the area it explains it better. The pods just eject out into a debris field, but once they're launched they have to await pickup. They're not little mini shuttles, they don't have guidance systems, you have to wait in the pod (ICly) until you're retrieved. Escape pods shouldn't be seen as miniature escape shuttles, especially like they were on the old map where people would just take them because they're closer than the shuttle. Not getting to interact with others is a slight tradeoff for taking the easy route instead of making your way to the shuttle. Characters actually should be taking this into account and seriously considering the matter if they're thinking of taking an escape pod on round end, because I'm still seeing people just doing it because it's closer than the shuttle. Pods are for emergencies. Munks... the only escape pods on the station are available to command staff. It isn't an 'emergency escape option' for crew, it's command's personal escape hatch. There is no reason to jettison the command staff into a debris field. They're supposed to be 'the important people'. It's not even really faster to get there. You still have to go up an elevator just like boarding a shuttle, except there is no ladder alternative. Now, if there were more escape pods around that might makes some sense, I dunno.

Just a way to make an area mystically dark for escapes and such. I know it's mechanically possible, because we have those photon disruption grenades and I think a wizard spell does it? It feels like something that would be useful and thematic with them. I don't think it should be something that's high level or costs a lot of blood. Maybe it's free, save for a cooldown, but you have to get to like, 150 blood or something? Also, their inability to see in the dark confuses me very much. They are creatures literally borne of dark magics. And yet, they get lost in the dark like everyone else??

Can't we just add a neck slot separate from the face slot.

This is the destination of the shuttles when they launch automatically. I don't think there IS another destination, either. Also while we're here, I'm a little unclear on why a company would explicitly design the walls around their station AI to be weaker leading in a path straight to optimal emitter backdoor position. You know, other than 'because we wanted to make it easier to emitter backdoor the AI that we're supposed to all think is largely infallible.

Right now, escape pods dock into unexplained minidocks that lead nowhere, in an field of space debris. Could we get, you know, an actual dock to unload onto, instead of a weird, half-assed debris field?

Under normal circumstances, people who are put under anesthetic are left that way for an extended period, often at least a half hour, because surgery is slow and requires a lot of care. In this game, surgery takes less than five minutes under most circumstances. The higher speed that everything happens in this game sort of discourages an extra period of disorientation after the surgery. I don't see that making someone walk around dizzily for several minutes after the surgery - especially since the surgery itself takes only several minutes - particularly adds anything other than frustration and doubling your downtime, however you implement it. Either that, or you make the dizziness only last about half a minute, at which point it's largely inconsequential. In either case, that's barely enough time to even roleplay the disorientation before it wears off and you waddle away, all better. I expect many people would just sit down and afk to grab a snack or drink during their dizzy period instead.

I'm pretty sure people wanted to be able to know where holes were without bonking into the ceiling one tile at a time for ten thousand years.

I don't care for that idea. It implies that somehow, supernatural forces designed to prey upon the weakness of mortal beings can be thwarted by an instructional course of some kind that somehow renders them unable to be persuaded. Even in 'real life' indoctrination does not produce flawless minions so much as a lot of people who pretend to play along but still have their own feelings and opinions. At least the loyalty implant has the benefit of being a cold, unfeeling machine that does not have the flexible nature of the human mind to worry about.

With the current playerbase environment of the server, i.e. one that actively resists the idea of mind control as a mechanic, creating a situation where it's acknowledged as a serious technological threat that needs to be defended against in turn by technology is creating a gap between game mechanics and lore. At this time, the only things that exist in game that alter someone's behavior and allegiances drastically (without yanking their brain out and putting it in a machine) are supernatural in nature, namely vampires and cultists. At best, I would say that loyalty implants are better placed as a shady proprietary technology concept exclusive to Nanotrasen's relationship with their high ranking officials and not as a sort of standard for the galaxy at large. They didn't create loyalty implants to protect against something they invented themselves, which is why they work as a standalone concept. If you want to replace them with 'mindshield' implants, you by definition also open up from a mechanical and lore perspective that 'enslavement implants' should be available certain antagonists. Now, I personally like the idea of enslavement implants. I had some of my most fun rounds on other servers by using them as a traitor or such. But whereas loyalty implants can exist as an independent concept due to their vagueness, you can't just replace them with mindshields without something that does not currently exist in the game code for them to be in opposition of that isn't supernatural. And I don't think people would support adding that into the game, because they sure didn't when I brought it up before. Even if they did, we're right back to the same argument about acknowledging antagonists. Admittedly, traitors are some of the least canon-obtrusive antagonists, none of their equipment registers as crazy alien or space monster or supernatural, and you don't really have to pretend that you don't understand what an e-sword or rifle is if you see them being swung around. But I should also point out that if you allow people to acknowledge that mind control implants exist by having minshield implants, you are also opening the window for people to demand the crew be regularly scanned for implants once subversive activity is noticed, which somewhat defeats the very purpose of them existing as a secret subversive tool by placing them in open visibility to command staff at all times.

??? What 'slave implants'? There is nothing in-game to suggest that such a thing exists, though certainly not from any lack of effort on my part and more from people being intensely resistant to the idea of adding more mechanics that subvert their character's free will. Nevertheless, the loyalty implant is at the current time not any kind of slavery device, it's a weak plot device to justify their strong loyalty to the crew and pretending that people who have them are intrinsically trustworthy so that during certain antagonist rounds it can come up. It is in no way in canon defined what the loyalty implant does or how it works, or that it intended to prevent them from being enthralled by a vampire or turned into a cultist for an otherworldly being. Sure, that's what it's actually there for, but we can't just go around declaring that in character or we are basically knocking on the fourth wall of the narrative we set up. The argument is not inconsequential, you're just injecting lore that hasn't been displayed in any way thus far (that I'm aware of) to try and claim I'm quibbling minor details. Point is, I don't support this idea. I don't think we should start acknowledging that antagonists exist in the game setting if we are trying to create a self-contained canon where people at large don't know they exist on a round by round basis.

This doesn't make sense to me from a lore perspective. By declaring it a mindshield implant you are tacitly acknowledging that conversion-type antagonists exist and that higher up positions need to be protected from them. This his canonically encouraging metagaming from the perspective of the Nanotrasen administration. At least a loyalty implant makes vague sense from the perspective that they are trying to ensure their loyalty to the company, and it just has the side benefit of helping against theoretical antagonists.

Does making stupid and nonsensical suggestions count is derailing the thread? I'm pretty sure it does, because they sure aren't adding anything to this subject. From my part though, I still don't really think this has much merit. If it's just a random NPC then hardly any one is going to pay attention to it. I mean I guess it's not going to hurt anything to have it there but I don't think that it should be a high priority add this in.

It might be possible to code in vomiting to be context sensitive - if you are standing next to a valid 'receptacle' the vomit does not spawn and a 'SickMan vomits in the X!' message displays. Or I guess in the case of the disposal unit maybe a 'mass of vomit' object is created instead inside the disposal so that it can make the life of anyone who walks into the crusher to retrieve something miserable.

It always struck me as gross and uncomfortable that people just sneeze and barf all over the floors all day. But I think you should be able to 'stack' used tissues into a wad of gross snotty issues so that you can throw it at someone reduce inventory clutter.

Though I hate to be the proverbial pooper of parties, I would like to throw in my two cents here. I can see you are all excited here about this, and while I am largely neutral on this suggestion conceptually, I think it's largely akin to putting some golden nuggets at the bottom of a septic tank The greater problem here with research is that it is mind-numbingly dull in design. You shove random and assorted objects in an analyzer to have them deconstructed for research levels, then repeat several dozen times with more junk you scavenged from around the station until you have the research levels you want to make stuff. Then, assuming mining actually did something this round, you print random toys and play with them or give them to other departments. Adding a thesis paper minigame at the end of all that tedious junk does not particularly enhance the prospect of working in R&D for me. I should also point out that even without my opinions on the bad design of Research, this idea feels half-baked and inconsistent with the thematic of the Science department. Namely that every department presents you with tangible rewards you can interact and play with. Research gives you the protolathe, toxins gives you bombs, robotics gives mechs and cyborgs, xenoflora and xenobiology give you mutated plants and slime cores, and xenoarcheology gives you artifacts and strange objects. This is still a game we are using to roleplay in, and providing a minigame at the end of research that just rewards you with some abstract numbers to spend on.. food? Booze? Random shit from cargo??... is not going to be a particularly consistent experience of time for rewards. You can toot your horn all you like about how "in-universe recognition would be enough of a motivation for people", but that does very little to gratify the actual players who are spending two hours of their day or more to play in this round as a scientist, especially since both the meaningless money and recognition reset to nothing at the end of the round. Perhaps some people can get by on pretend commendations and cash after all that time investment, but I know there are others who would like something more tangible to come out of their work.

I am about 99% certain they are pressure sealed Jackboot. A closed hidden door is effectively a normal wall for all intents. I have literally used them like aj up there said, to infiltrate the station by using double walls as a makeshift airlock.