Kaed

I think it might help to have disarm not be quite so spammy. It's a very powerful intent, possibly the most powerful as far as instantly shutting someone down, and capable to allowing you to steal the weapon of even the most armed and armored individual while being an unarmed civilian. Rather than changing a bunch of variables about the chances of disarming someone, put a 1.5 second or so delay before you can disarm someone again. That way, it's more about getting lucky in the heat of combat than 'how fast will your ping let you click on that guy"

Last time someone said to remove or make cloning harder, Alberyk complained that 'death is cheap' was a core mechanic of the game. I don't expect his viewpoints have super changed. But I don't know about the other admins feelings on the matter.

This is sort of derivative of two threads I recently posted, https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8775 and https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8774. These threads also offer some more precise solutions to discuss other than 'buff plz!" Though, you do admittedly cover the other spells problems in more detail.

Bumpint due to recent relevance.

Bumping due to recent relevance

Nope. I just tested this, banged the window about 50 times. Not even a crack. Now, it might be different if they are holding an object, but if they are, then we can hardly damage their hand because they're hitting a window with a shovel or something. If you're just wanting to punish people for being annoying and spamming window bangs, that's another thing. I could even get behind that. But you can't break out of glass with your bare hands, unless you are in the Hulk state.

Nah, that's easy to work around, if we just alter how merc (traitor) communication works. There isn't a particular reason WHY you should be able to 'intercept' every channel but somehow not be able to talk on them (that I know of), other than 'that's just how it was designed'. Make mercs and Raiders have captain-level comms access, and give them a tool, perhaps on their special PDA that they keep around to open and close their ship (and just provide something similar for Raiders to start with), that lets them hack into the station general broadcast network to make station announcements about their hostages and demands, similar to how heads and AI can do (but not centcomm announcements, that's a traitor purchase thing). It should definitely have some sort of glitchy header to make it clear someone is broadcasting this that is not supposed to be in the system. This would gain more attention than them getting lost in a flurry of people talking in common channel anyway. And since anyone can communicate with them, everyone can still participate. There are like, ways around any use of common channel that would just require you to think outside of the lazy halfhazard box that is its existence.

As amusing as Daleks might be, I don't think the should be put in the game as anything more than a discoverable easter egg, like digging one up in Xenoarch. They are the intellectual property of BBC, and I don't think it's really right to do more than make a knowing wink towards them. Making an entire game mode based around a primary antagonist of Dr. Who without even a pretense of flavoring it as something else seems like it shouldn't be a thing.

Make a new topic.

I don't particularly see a reason why they need to remain extra relevant somehow. Either you turn on your suit sensors or not. The mandatory minimums thing has always seemed to me to just be there to give crew antagonists an excuse to not have their sensors on so they can lurk in maintenance or go places they shouldn't. By the time suit sensors are mandatory, people probably already know who they are so it's irrelevant. No one is going to single anyone out for not turning them on, because regulations aren't changing regarding sensors. People might have to change how much they ignore them, though.

resists urge to roll eyes I feel like putting a few more strategic intercomms in, particularly next next to desk positions might help a bit with the people who are going to be sitting in place all round, might help with the feelings of barrenness. They'd be next to a form of general communication for everyone else who is also sitting at a desk or intercomm. It would basically replace the common channel, by making it location based rather than global.

Half pop for us is still over 20 people. That's more than enough for a good round. And I still think that assuming you know what percentage of people will hate something before it's even trailed is presumptuous. Maybe everyone will hate it and it gets scrapped. Maybe most everyone loves it and we just change.

Counterpoint on the calling for help: Suit sensors. Medical keeps telling everyone they need to turn them on. If you keep ignoring medical, it's your own fault if you end up somewhere you can't call for help. The suit sensors can even convey your location far better than your pain-stuttered wails for help, since it provides coordinates. It's an incredibly valuable tool people should put more attention to it, instead of just sullenly leaving them off forever and relying on common for literally all communicative effort ever. Once again though, I have to point out that you're not going to be living in total silence without the common channel. If not being able to hear a dozen people's random conversations at all times that you're not even participating in makes you feel miserable and lonely, I don't know how you get through life. But I feel I should point out DatBerry mentioned we wouldn't be doing this mechanic every round. You could just play in the normal comms round if it makes you deeply uncomfortable, and the people who like it can play in no-common rounds. I also don't know how this mysterious IT department is going to work. It seems like integrating anything else into it before we even have some kind of release information on it is a bit preemptive.

????? -Xeno(x)ology jobs tend to be some of the most mechanically engaging jobs on the station. Often they go off into their own world and don't talk to much of anyone the whole round because their job amounts to a round-long minigame. Or they die to a slime or hole. -Talk to your coworkers -The crew in general is going to be far less interested in your bluespace slimes and artifacts than your department -You can talk to anyone you want without going to the bar, just use your PDA. -Talk to your coworkers. And paramedics are the ones who are SUPPOSED to leave their department to fetch wounded, I thought? Along with engineers who need to fix things? I don't understand your complaint here. All you're losing is the ability to gab at everyone on the station at once from any place on the station.

On the one hand, this is Zaun's player wanting to be an unathi. And she's written, in this application, the implication that most unathi are quick tempered and violent. The relaxed and chill unathi is not a new thing. I myself have two unathi head characters who are pretty chillax. Jackboot has at least one of them. I'm not super keen on that being the driving point behind the character application. Also, Ourere is, was, and remains a fairly recent colony. It's less than 30 years old, I believe? (I'd have to look at the time table later and maybe revise this bit for accuracy) How old is your character? The 'grew up on Ourere' thing is something that should be considered carefully when creating a character. On the other, I dunno. It doesn't seem particularly bad as a character. Tell me a little about how you plan to address these issues, and how you feel playing an unathi who is apparently notable for being non-aggressive would be like.

[mention]Diggey[/mention] I don't think you're fully understanding the concept of the changes I proposed. You can't create a new common channel if no one's headset can reach the range of other departments. There wouldn't BE an emergency/new common channel. And frankly I feel like just because something has always been there doesn't mean it should stay there. It is incredibly hard to enforce the common channel when it exists. People bitch and whine and become surly and rebellious if you tell them to stop abusing it. Sometimes they flat out ignore orders to stop. Having to spend all round tediously arresting screaming crewmembers (because they will scream about being oppressed or whatever) who won't shut up on common is not a good use of security's time. And you can't just keep them in prison forever. You can take away their headset, but getting a new one is incredibly trivial. They also might need to communicate with their department, and NEED a headset for work.

I don't see any particular reason why it has to be something that is always on all the time even if people like it enough to keep it past a trial stage. I'd love it on during rounds I'm playing in, because to me, the common channel is an irritating appendage, and I rarely if ever use it. But I understand that a lot of more filthy casual players might want to treat the game like a chatroom with some game aspects thrown in. You could call the restricted communication rounds Hardcomm rounds or something along those lines, and make sure that everyone joining in pre-round is aware that the next round is going to be Hardcomm or Softcomm (and what that entails) so they are not caught off guard. (Maybe that could even be a second vote after the round type? idk)

Maybe if someone can split the frequency ranges in half, 145.9 (common) and lower is for SBR and intercomms, 146.1 and higher is for headsets. You can't hear the ranges of the intercomms/SBR on headsets and vice versa. Have some of the misc channels at 146.1 and higher (randomly?) nonfunctional at round start, so people can fish around for an alternate frequency to give to friends if they really want, but it's not just /there/. ~edit~ Alternatively, after talking with lohikar, we could mess with how encryption keys work. Remove standard encryption keys from the game, leaving an empty slot on every radio (did you know they are a fundamentally pointless item? They literally do nothing, taking them out does not change anything), that you can put an encryption key on (have a native supply of them available in-game), that lets you listen into a specific channel(s for a command keys). Also, nothing says every headset has to share the same generic frequency range. You could lock the frequency of a specific headset model to default to that department's frequency and only a small range outside of it (without having an encryption key), preventing them from toggling to common but still giving them room to have 'private' channels. The assistant headsets would just have like, 146.1-147.1 or something. A small range of channels that they could use to talk to other assistants if they wanted to play around (this would also create a special scenario where assistants themselves, strategically placed, could form another channel of interdepartmental communication) This would also possibly let you replace the two hackey keys (traitor and binary) with 'suspicious' (black and red) and 'mysterious' (green and gold, like a circuit board) encryption keys rather than just false 'standard encryption key' which we wouldn't have anymore. See, you don't have to remove the common channel, just people's ability to access it outside of intercoms. You can always stand next to an intercomm if you want to listen into a radio show on the entertainment channel.

Alright. I'll start off with acknowledging here that maybe the situation with the piano being the cause of the blackouts. I was told that you were responsible for it IC, and took that at face value. Whether you are misleading me here or not, I am not sure. I don't recall a power event announcement happening, and they don't usually cause multiple blackouts that go in and out, hence the term 'rolling blackouts' But I'll take this potentially questionable explanation at face value here, to address the two other issues. First, the comms. -I warned about continuing the conversation several times over the common channel. It was either everyone's collective lack of awareness that they were being warned by me or deliberate ignoring of the warnings that caused me to use a much firmer station announcement. It is not my responsibility if you become so absorbed in your conversation you don't notice people telling you to stop. -The common channel is a privilege, not a right or requirement to function on the station. If your character disagrees with that IC, that's one thing. You appear to disagree with it OOC though, and I have to take exception with that. You have a vast array of other methods you can use to keep yourself safe in the five minutes or so I would have turned off the common channel, such as: --Turning on your suit sensors --Using your department channel to ask the AI for help --Using your PDA So, telling me that you would be moderately inconvenienced for the several minutes I would have turned off the common channel is reason enough to violate an injunction a head set up is baffling. You're right, edgelord is definitely the wrong word to use. I'm going to revise that to self-indulgent. Which brings me to the second point. The piano (Minimoog, in-game, even though everyone calls it a piano still) -I want you to think about what you actually did here, without only considering the mechanical aspects of it. You dragged a minimoog all the way across the station, disregarded the numerous safety ordinances involved in opening up the supermatter chamber for what was certainly not an emergency, and shoved it into this dangerous death crystal that could literally kill your character so quickly and completely that no one would have ever been able to clone you. Had there been any kind of pressure differential that caused Jones to be shoved into the supermatter, they would have died. If Jones had somehow slipped or gotten a hand too close to it, they would have also died. Had there been anyone in your department in a supervisory position, they probably would have fired you for this. Did spending your time on this actually accomplish any purpose in character, or was the challenge entirely based on your OOC desire to self-indulge your desire to destroy the minimoog in what probably seemed like an incredibly hilarious way to you, at the time? You tell me the situation was harmless and didn't actually end up inconveniencing anyone, but if you continue this trend of pressing against the forth wall to perform memey acts while disregarding how actually dangerous what you're doing is from an IC standpoint, where are you going to end up eventually? Are you going to end up ramming a wheelchair into a head of staff because you wanted to play with fire extinguishers? I guarantee you they aren't going to find it even remotely as amusing as you do. What if the next time you open the supermatter to throw something in, it ends up delaminating and/or flooding the engine room with hot phoron fires? There's a line between having fun and just doing whatever you feel like because you think, out of character, it would be really funny to do it. I would just like you to actually think about what you decide to do with your character, and if it would have repercussions IC during a normal workplace.

Yeah, that was a big pat of what made that round terrible. The other officers were even threatening to go to internal affairs over his conduct. He also didn't take my take in the brig into consideration for my sentencing time (which was a long time, as I'm sure you remember). And honestly, I should of been able to guess he would plead to do the arrest himself. He was already super antagonistic to me the round, he may have done it in hopes that I would of fought back so he could attack me, which he obviously did. Coincidentally, the person who was yelling 'FUCK ZAUN' when they were arrested for assaulting me (Anthony Radic) was the person who removed the glass panel from the bar to allow the warden entrance to attack me. It should also be worth noting the only thing I did to Radic was open a crate he was pulling. I figured since he put the piano in the bar against my will to annoy me, I would minorly annoy him, which he responded by decking me in the face with a security officer standing nearby. I think this also the round where Ketriss (forensics that round) and Sakaei spend the entire shift bickering with each other like hatchlings children, to the point where I was getting ready to literally pull them both into my office and give them a grown up equivalent of a scolding and time out. Things kept coming up though, and I didn't have the time to indulge in Papa Lizard Is Disappoint. If you felt unnecessarily antagonized by Sakaei, I urge you to make a complaint yourself. I don't know enough about what happened to do more than pitch in my two cents if you make it. While I don't super like that Zaun tends towards BLUH BLUH HUGE BITCH I feel like this discourse has given some insight into it. Haven't heard much from Jones, though. other than someone thinking that part should be split off into an IR?

This could be one of the functions of his Mantle item.

It is weird to me that the AI can only project holograms at the holopads that are low quality flickering images, when we have a fully functional holodeck that can even create hard light objects. I'm sure it would be difficult to code and thus has never been done, but frankly the AI should be able to actually manipulate the holodeck, create avatars and objects inside it that they can control.

This is part of the reason I had been considering including the Warden into the complaint here, but I decided, at the time, that I should keep my irritating focused on a less broad list of individuals. During this round, the warden was primarily my go between for issues with the crew and officers. As a player, and also generally as my HoS character, I don't have a lot of patience for the common channel, and during long rounds with lots of inane chatter in it, I tend to tune it out. I also tend to play a moderately more administrative HoS than the kind that goes around patrolling the station constantly like a better equipped officer. (It's also worth noting that this round, I say this for context so you will understand when I say that often times I defer to my warden to explain the points of the latest issue that I have missed. Regarding the warrant, then. Here is how it happened, with some commentary by me based on post-round consideration. When Jaylee first began threatening to shoot someone in the bar, it was about ten minutes after the actual fight between the vamp and her. I was not particularly aware that it was the chef with whom she had previously fought. Like many unathi, my HoS character (and myself, ooc) sort of blends together human names unless they are particularly memorable for some reason, like because they got my attention for being prats or are strange and exotic (like Jaylee Zaun). There was some talk in security chat about having you arrested at the time for threatening to murder a crewmember, but that was mostly from Sakaei (the warden). The officers disagreed mostly, since your shotgun was largely nonlethal, but no one actually brought up at the time that you were barring the person who attacked you from the bar (I feel like this would have been important context). Either way, though ooc I sort of agreed with Sakaei about workplace conduct, my HoS as a character couldn't be bothered enough to write up a warrant for her unless she actually performed the attack (I'm fairly certain that in unathi culture threats of violence are sort of passe, way more than the sensitive humans), so that went nowhere, but I did make a note of it. When it came to the events with the piano, we questioned the individual who had the piano first, because they had been arrested on assault charges against Zaun. They told a story of you antagonizing them for some time, by doing things like opening the crates on their trolley so everything spilled out, and taking their piano, until they snapped. They were screaming 'FUCK ZAUN' for some time when they were dropped into my lap in the brig, and I had to calm them down enough before I could even get an account. As such, I issued a warrant for you to be brought in, mostly so I could have a talk with you about your behavior. Depending on how that talk went, harrassment/hooliganism charges may or may not have been placed against Zaun. As I'm sure you're aware, it never happened, because vampire domination caused its interruption. Here is where I think some communication lines broke down. -The first issue here is that the warrant forms have, for reasons I cannot fathom, no portion of them that you can fill in to indicate why you are being arrested. It is simply "Name of offender, their position, sign here". -I handed the warrant to Sakaei, the warden, and told him to convey it to an officer. -He pleaded to be allowed to do the arrest himself, and I permitted it. -Evidently, I should have been more clear about the reason for the warrant, because at the time I thought it was fairly evident that you were a troublemaker, not a thief. At no point did I actually hold you responsible for the piano's theft, other than as a spectator egging Jones on. I was not aware until this post that you were told the arrest was due to theft. I too would have objected to being told I was being arrested for a charge I did not commit. -Apparently following my chest being beaten in the Warden took it on himself to charge you for the same crimes he arrested you for? I don't know, but by the time I got back he was going full Bad Cop on you, dragging you around in cuffs and throwing you into chair until I told him to go do something else so I could convey you to the shuttle in a civilized fashion.

What if we created two roles for cultist rounds. Cultist Leader and Cultist. The cultist leader starts with 3-5 of the words known, cultists only know one. This would cut back a lot on the tedious period where someone inevitably goes to hide in a bathroom for 10 minutes playing with words until they figure them all out. It's just not a fun mechanic. We don't want to spend ages figuring out all the words just to be functional. The cultist leader also -Is ostensibly supposed to be in charge of the cult. There is only one leader, and they have a special cthulhu with a crown icon rather than the regular cultist icon. -Is a separate antag opt-in position from regular cultist, like loyalist and rev, but shows up on the same round type. Newbies should only pick regular cultist, so they can learn, instead of bogging everyone down while they fumble trying to lead something they don't understand. -The cultist leader should know the names of his cultists at the start of the round, and they know the name of their leader, but not necessarily each other, until they meet. -Has some sort of item, like a talisman or mantle (or the former than can generate the latter), that they start out with, and they are required to have it on their person to call the Geometer. (someone else can wear if it they die or are captured, but the one with the Leader item has to be standing in the middle of the 9). It should be something you can wear, providing a benefit that grows as it becomes more powerful, but early game you will probably keep it hidden in your pack in public, due to its power being weak and discovering being likely. -Their talisman or mantle gets spookier and more overtly evil as the cult grows. At some point close to where the cult is big enough to summon Nar'sie, they start creating either red light or negative light such as a juggernaut does. Similar to how other cult items work, non-cultists can touch it and pick it up, but it gives them very clear messages that this thing is Very Bad, and attempting to use/wear it regardless of said warning will harm them. -Perhaps the Talisman/Mantle can be used to create a leader specific Communicate Rune effect, that is a different color from the regular purple, so everyone knows the Boss is talking. -Three extra leader-only rune ideas: --A rune so leadership can be passed onto someone else, should the leader need to leave or be forced at swordpoint want to abdicate. --A rune that lets you summon your mantle, if it gets taken by sec or something? Might need to sacrifice someone to make it work, since it's supposed to be important and not just easily duplicated. --A special Gathering Rune, that when the cult leader (or someone wearing the mantle) stands on it and activates it, alerts all the other cultists visibly that The Time Has Come. The gathering rune takes a period of time to charge and generates a Bluespace Anomoly announcement from centcommm to alert the station that Bad Things are coming. Cultist can gather around it and chant with the cult leader to reduce the time by clicking on the rune (something that is on a timer so you don't just spam it). Once it is charged, 8 other cultists or constructs need to stand around the Gathering rune to get Nar'sie. This replaces the Summon Nar'sie rune, and cuts out the Surprise Nar'Sie Eats The World ending that happens sometimes on stealthcult rounds. I feel like this would also be more engaging? -Generally is a much higher profile target than the others, being in a leadership position, but also has more responsibility. They are required to complete the Calling of The Geometer, or at least their mantle is. And I know this is sorta a separate suggestion, but while we're at it, could we also just make using cult powers take blood, rather than deal micro-damage to your character? Pleeeease.

BYOND Key:Kaed Game ID: bQh-aU9y Player Byond Key: kyres1 and trazz666 Staff involved: N/A Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? This was, primarily at the time, an IC issue. I considered for some time whether this should be an IR instead, but I'm making this a player complaint for two reasons. First, this was a moderately active round, and several parts of the issue involved an antagonist. Second, some of the behaviors in question involve what seem to be a more ooc issue with attitude than the characters themselves. Reason for complaint: The main subject of this complaint involves the character and player of Jaylee Zaun, but Yahir Jones and their players is also involved in it, for reasons I'll get to eventually. So I'll give a brief summary of the relevant events. One of the first events in this round, which was a voted vampire round, was the chef-vampire trying to attack Zaun. They failed, and Zaun trashed them, but that wasn't really the root of the problem, just the start. It was followed up shortly after with Zaun announcing the results of the fight, and expressing at length about why the chef should kill themselves. Through the course of the round, Zaun continued to be increasingly, almost irrationally aggressive towards various crew members, frequently threatening to attack them with the bar shotgun if they set foot inside or said bar. At one point, there was some sort of incident involving her and Yahir Jones, where they decided they did not enjoy the sound of the a piano one of the crew members was playing with (and okay, musical instruments in this game are really annoying I get it but come on) and as a result, Jones spent a large amount of effort dragging that piano all the way to engineering to shove it into the supermatter, disregarding a rolling power outage in the process of pursuing their ridiculous meme challenge to annihilate the piano in the most excessive possible way. As a result of all that, a fight broke out between Zaun and the individual who had been apparently very fond of the piano. She was eventually summoned to the brig via a warrant, which was presented to her, and rather than just going, opted to cock her shotgun like the turbo edgelord their player evidently thought it was cool to play and tell the warden who had gone to fetch her (on personal request and permission of the HoS) that she wasn't going to go. (The warden won) I am unsure of what happened between her being brought into questioning and the end of the round, because one of my officers got dominated and interrupted us beat my chest in so I had to spend time in surgery. I will bring up Yahir again here, because they were also involved in a minor issue at the beginning of the round, where there was a disruptive conversation on the common channel about some stupid stuff that I frankly can't remember the contents of. Something about gender roles, maybe? I had several complaints from crew about it, and didn't want to listen to it myself, so warned them (Yahir and the others involved) to little effect several times to stop abusing the common channel. Eventually, I had to deliver an ultimatum over the HoS announcement broadcaster that the common channel was restricted to vital communications only for the next five minutes or I would have it turned off. It stopped at that, but I got a PDA message from Yahir shortly later that amounted to "You can't do that, if you have the AI turn off the comms, I'll break in and turn them back on." I largely ignored that, because I had no interest to getting into an pointless argument. The point of this scattered summary is that both of them display the behaviors of someone who is almost adolescent in their desire to make their character anti-authoritarian and full of disdain for anything resembling logical behavior. Zaun is aggressive to the point of being nearly psychotic, and Yahir seems to think it's just fine to do whatever the hell they want and anyone who says otherwise is just an obstacle to get around. I think they might also have some kind of metabuddy thing going on, because they seem to be involved in each others shenanigans a lot? I've had other express their OOC irritation with the behavior of both of these characters too, and I think they should really curb the amount of edgelord they have invested into their characters. Maybe even design a new one that seems like it would actually fit in a structured work environment where publicly threatening to fire a gun at your coworkers or telling the head of security that 'they can't tell you what to do' would get you fired. Approximate Date/Time: 9/3/217, about 1-3 AM CST