Kaed

I can guarantee you no unathi would let you file down their claws or teeth, if that's what you're implying. Also, 'civilized' is an entirely subjective notion, unathi still do a lot more fighting than humans do. You cannot expect them to behave the same way in a fight as a human, and as carnivores, they have a mouth full of deadly weapons that I can't imagine a reason why they wouldn't use in a pinch. However, the only situations I can see them using their teeth in a reasonable matter would be situations where they are unable to do so, due to coding restrictions, such as being pinned down or handcuffed. Due to how SS13 is coded, you cannot take any actions if your hands are disabled, even actions you would realistically be able to do, such as kicking or biting or stomping. Had we a more sophisticated mob code, I would find it hilarious that security officers cuff and muzzle (ala a dog muzzle, not the shitty ballgag muzzle in game) aggressive unathi during arrests to prevent bitey. That aside, I have no objections to things with teeth being able to bite, but I only have interest in unathi as a species.

I would like to see unathi being able to bite. I also don't understand the mentality people have that making races have unique mechanics is 'snowflaking' and shouldn't be allowed. Humans and Unathi are not the same. They will have physical capabilities the other doesn't. If water and swimming were an actual mechanical thing in the game, would people cry snowflaking and powergame potential if skrell could manage it better than anyone else? What makes you think this will appreciably change their behavior? They don't need teeth for that...

Malf AI revisions Wizard reworks Enslavement implants

Not a bad point, but this could easily be mitigated by giving some kind of tell that they are hivespeaking, similar to how radios work. Example: Urist McTator: Alright bug, don't move or call for help! *aims gun* Zlar'blah'duh Zo'ra: Yeckzzz. No call for help. Urist McTator: Right, follow me. Zlar'blah'duh Zo'ra buzzes quietly and twitches his antennae. Urist McTator: I SAW THAT YOU FUCKING BUG BANG BANG BANG BANG Sparkles: Urist McTator is being a very bad boy over by the Holodeck.

Hmm didn't think of that. This turns my opinion on it's head considering at present there's no way to stop a hostage radioing to his ant buds. Technically yes, this is true, you can take away a SBR. But it can also be placed in a great number of awkward places (including inside your chest cavity maybe, depending on if that's still a thing in code) that you have to search, allowing them to call for help long before you can find it, making this mostly kind of a moot point. The idea of a jammer is fine, but comparing something to something else is a nuanced prospect.

I swear to god jackboot Anyway, I'm glad to see a general incline towards support of Making Soap Great Again. Edit: Fuck it, I'm changing the title of this thread now.

There was a time when soap was a tile-click item that would remove blood, dirt, vomit, and other stains from the floor. It was useful, if a bit slower than using space cleaner in a spray bottle. It seems at some point, a decision was made that this mechanic was too overpoweringly clean by Bay, and they implemented a clumsy wetness attribute to all bars of soap. For those unfamiliar with this, let me explain how it works. A bar of soap can clean while it is wet for a certain number of tiles, before it becomes 'too dry to clean with' and you need to walk over to a sink and spend 5 seconds re-wetting it. I do not have access to the code, but from my research on it, it seems to work ~10 times for a fresh unused bar of soap, then once dried out, 3-6 times before drying out again. The number of times you wash the soap is irrelevant - either only the first wash counts, or it resets the wetness factor to another value somewhere around 3-6 uses. This is, as you might guess, a rather obnoxious mechanic, as you spend more time running to the sink to re-wet the soap than actually cleaning the floor. Furthermore, since maintenance drones and janitor borgs are now equipped with bars of soap rather than space cleaner, this means your advanced, automated cleaning machines are having to roll, scurry, or float back to the nearest sink every 10 seconds to re-wet their soap in a sink. Yes, I am aware janiborgs auto-clean floors by rolling over them, and that soap cleans cult runes. One is beside the point, and the other is a bug that is known to the admins and in the process of being fixed. Ideally, I'd like to propose removing the wetness thing entirely from soap, and just making it click-use infinitely like the good old days, but given this servers penchant for finding the strangest things important to balance and not make 'overpowered', I've prepared several alternatives. -Extend the number of uses you get out of a washed soap, to somewhere closer to the range of 10-15 -Remove the wetness thing, but make soap take a while to use, since you have to scrub the floor with it, similar to a mop. -Change how just synthetic equipped soap works in one of the above ways or another I haven't mentioned (presumably something that doesn't require the synthetic to run to a SINK to recharge their soap), and leave human soap as perpetually dry and shitty. Is is also worth noting that to my knowledge, the only soap that even still exists on the map is one in the captain's toilet, and one in the brig bathroom. The janitor does not even get soap. It is, almost exclusively, a tool that synthetics are saddled with.

There's a thing called developmental restraint. Giving Vaurca a psychic network to themselves for no real justifiable reason than "it'd be cool, no one has ever done that" is not a restrained nor reasonable decision. "But why not!" is not an argument for keeping it and maintaining racial differences, then, if you want to argue that the game should not be equally fair for everyone. A game's not fun for anyone if you intentionally fill one playstyle with power and give distribute nothing to anyone else in the same motion. You're making such a wonderful case by utilizing strawmans and personally insulting your argumentative opponents. I really do want to continue listening to your radicalized and emotionally upset-sounding opinions, as they bring intense intellectual discussion to the table. I am sure that the lore team is very much appreciative of you being such a splendid representative of lore writing. Developmental restraint is a concept that has no clear, defined boundaries. How far is too far? The staff doesn't seem to think it's too far. I don't think it's too far. You clearly think it's too far, and are using everything you can to try and undermine my side of the issue, including using buzz words like 'strawman arguments' You seem to think I am attacking you personally with my comments, when I am actually attacking your points about how this feature will ruin the game (in a fashion, admittedly, that is perhaps more disparaging than it could be). This is, in fact, how a disagreement works. To end this argument, however, I will reiterate something that Skull has said previously, in this thread: If you can cite an issue that occurred, an actual issue, something that occurred during an on server round , then it will be considered. But saying that bad things could potentially happen, maybe possibly, at some unspecified point in the future, like they are a guarantee and should be taken into account and prevented, is a very tricky prospect. Is it fair to the playerbase to assume the worst of them at all times, with no actual evidence that they will abuse something?

If I seem rude, it's because I think this topic is largely produced by reactionary paranoia towards something new and significantly different from normal racial loadouts. Nearly every argument against hivespeak here involves wild, alarmist speculation that involves either people being shitlers, or being ignorant baboons who don't know how other races work. I don't imagine the idea that 'hey, vaurca are all semi-telepathic' is such an outrageous concept in a sci-fi future setting that Urist McGreytide will be unable to wrap his poor, dense brain around it. It has a large amount of available oversight by synethics, a number of counters and intercepts that, say, lingspeak does not have. Additionally, almost no one plays vaurca. I am all for giving them an interesting mechanic and telling the random tator who managed to get caught because he can't be bothered to understand the abilities of the species he is trying to attack that he can 'git gud'. It is essentially no different from trying to hold a borg unit hostage and telling it to not call for help over the radio, but oops, it has binary. And synthetics are not even whitelisted, and far more commonly played. Failing is a learning experience, and when something new is introduced, yes, there are going to be people unaware of the new stuff that get caught off guard by it. That is not a reason to remove the feature, it is a reason for people to start learning all the features of the game.

Except, you know, that EMP half-kills them, people treat them like shit, flashes can permanently blind them, they take more damage from lasers, they can't wear gloves or helmets, they don't heal... But, you know. Yeah, aside from those they have no weaknesses and this completely unbalances them. This whole thread is basically another case of 'AAAAH SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT AND POTENTIALLY EXPLOITABLE CUT IT NOW WAAH"

Could you perhaps give actual reasons why this is a bad idea, rather than just going noooooooooooo? Thus far, I've seen vagueness (they have strategic purposes when opaque! (but I'm not going to elaborate on these, because they are self-evident to myself)), inaccurate assumptions (the carp will be able to attack me if he can see through the invulnerable shutter!), and a whole lot of engineering elitism from one person who continues to 'acknowledge' that what I am saying has merit but refuses to accept it because because they want to keep things how they are. This suggestion is about an enhancement. By definition it is taking an aspect of the game and adding something to it. Simply saying 'we don't need it' is not actually a reason why something shouldn't be added or changed. There are plenty of things in the game that work fine, but could work BETTER. Paranoia that people will be dumb, dumb sheep and fuck everything up if you give them access to more data than blinking lights is also not only condescending, but is actively stifling to improvement. There need to be actual, well thought out answers to why this is a bad idea. What problems will it cause, balance wise, that are not based on assumptions of how stupid people will be? I'm giving well thought out replies to refute people's points, and getting short one to two sentence answers that amounts to 'NOOOOOOOOOOO I DUN WANNA' intellectually. If you can't contribute something coherent to the thread, just don't .

This seems reasonable, since afaik the AI can mute any other channel by turning off the intercoms around its core No. AI have a magical captain level headset built into them that they can't take off and toggle channels for, as far as I am aware. The intercoms next to them serve a different purpose. Unless I am missing something, fixing that might be an idea.

I don't have any particular problem with making the round not end as fast. Personally, I rarely have anything to do with the Odin but dicking around, but I know some people enjoy continuing roleplay there.

This is too short-sighted. There are no absolutes in a simulation game. Because life doesn't have absolutes. You can't just say 'If you're not X, you should never Y". Because people want to have fun in their spessman game that lasts 2 hours, rather than sitting alone in a sealed room no one can or will open. And it will always be impossible to hear people you cannot see, unless the entire code is changed. I don't see a compelling reason WHY we shouldn't be able to see the other side of shutters, other than 'noooo change is bad whiiiine'. I'm pretty sure the shutters are already invulnerable, so making it so lasers can't path through them would remove that being exploited. And allow people on either side to communicate, facilitating further roleplay in an emergency.

well being worn as a hat is kind of fun, that's friendly interaction. it can get tiring after a while though Obey these laws: 1. Preserve, repair and improve the station to the best of your abilities. 2. Cause no harm to the station or anything on it. 3. Interact with no being that is not a fellow maintenance drone. Drones should not be letting people make them hats in the first place. Joining as a drone means forgoing interaction with all other non-drones. You are not someone's pet, or hat.

I guess the real question is who would be willing to code something like this. It's a significant re-haul of malf, and possibly the shuttle call system.

I was thinking a few more would be added, and the range of them would be increased to reduce the need for spamming them everywhere. adding the ability to build them would definitely be included. we can't already? No, as things are currently coded, you cannot interact with holopads in any fashion other than to poke them for the AI's attention. You can't use tools on them, build new ones, break or damage them (beyond generally blowing them up with the rest of the room), or in any way disable them by means other than turning off equipment power in the room's APC. To my knoweldge, they have no icon states for 'maintenance hatch open' or 'partially constructed' either, along with no coded 'recipe' for making a new one.

It's a reasonable start for an idea, though some of the justifications for why they can't do things is really shaky. They can manipulate small objects and perform surgery, but can't pull the trigger of a pistol they can pick up? No, I would think it's more written into their code they can't take hostile actions. This opens opportunities for killer holograms during malf or law subversion. There are also not enough holopads on station, or the ability to build/deconstruct holopads. One of the two of those need to be added, preferably the latter. Also, what is stopping the AI from manifesting a solid hologram? Why can you, a tiny isolated computer that can only interface with holopads, do something it can't?

I see a lot of people saying that the way things are now has 'tactical advantages', or 'non-engineers don't need to know anything', and that 'it wouldn't make sense to have windows'. There are problems with all of these things. Let me point out a few. -The idea that only engineers and security need to know about it, which ideally correct, does not take into account general round chaos. What if all of engineering is dead? What if someone is trapped between two sets of shutters, one leading to safety, one to death, and absent someone immediately available to rescue them, all they have to go on is some door readouts they might not even understand? In another situation, I have legitimately killed an entire station during a power outage before because my context of the area outside the place I was trapped in was nonexistent. It would be more correct to say that the atmos readout is only relevant to engineering, whereas everyone else pretty much can and do ignore more than a glance at it if they know the function exists. -The fact is, there is more to the question of 'is it safe to open this shutter' than the readouts on atmosphere. There are extenuating circumstances, hazards not conveyed by atmosphere readouts. You can pretend all you want that we are all logical people who can all glean relevant information from some numbers on a readout, but we are all human (we, the players), and we generally gain more understandable information from visual information than numerical The number of dumb accidents that could be avoided by being able to see an obvious hazard, like a hole in the station, on the other side of a shutter, vastly outweigh the number of situations where someone will see 'nothing wrong' and open the door. -What 'tactical advantage' does closing a shuttle give that would be negated by making it see through? It's already a block to movement. I think being able to see through the shutters opens more opportunities for roleplay than making them a visual block gives benefits. Because of the way the game is coded, if you can't see someone, you can't hear them. You can be two squares away from each other, but if there is something blocking your vision, you can't hear each other (by contrast, you can be on opposite sides of a vacuum and hear each other, sooo) The ability for players to have someone to talk to on the other side of a shutter (it's not at all the same as talking over the radio, trust me) would open all kind of of opportunities, like hostage negotiations where you can't be shot at by rambo security, two civilians being able to talk to each other, being able to tell all nearby behind the shutters civilians to stay back Because, as things are now, if you're in an area with shutters all around you, radios are down, there is no way out, no way to see what is going on outside, no way to communicate with anyone. This is a terrible position to be in, and people are eventually going to log out or ghost, or go play something else. There is a point where you need to sacrifice a little bit of perceived grimdark realism to make things more fun for people. -Structural weakness, Nanako? What are you even talking about. we are in a setting where there is magic purple glass that stops all heat from passing through, and shutters that you can fire lasers at all day without even scratching them. I don't think adding a small, thick window viewing hole is impossible by people who are actually engineers, not people pretending to play engineers. I recommend it be coded to not be laserable through, though, These aren't like big station viewing windows, they're tiny slots in the shutters you can peer through.

This seems unnecessarily complicated when the other topic posted a very succinct alternative that takes every vote into account, without recasting votes a half dozen times. I don't care for it, and would rather have the weighted vote system.

I have been on other servers where someone drew a little tinted window in the sprite for the emergency shutter, and more importantly, made you able to see what is happening on the other side. The value of this feature is immense, because, quite often people on the other side of the shuttles have very little context of WHY the shutter is down, other than some colored flashing lights and a temperature/pressure readout. If one is able to see the giant hole in the hull on the other side, or the raging fire, or team of psychotic red suited mercenaries breaking things, it would lead to a whole lot better judgement in decisions. Please add this as a feature of shutters. Pls.

I had assumed all this time it behaved like this because the coding for storage space was shit and limited. If there's a way to fix this and make it less horrible, I fully support it. As for the concerns about backpacks being too full of grenades or something, I think it would be hilarious for a security officer to open Urist McTator's pack and find like 20 grenades inside it. "HOLY FUCK THIS GUY IS LOADED"

Changelings have a long ranged upgrade though, and also death sting Don't cultists have blood boil? Also they are, you know, still human. They can still hold guns and fire them at people. Cults seem to be drawn to the science department, i'm surprised i dont see cultists with laser cannons more often well these cultists are being bad and not using terrain. ranged weapons aren't much good if you're around a corner and out of line of sight. I've seen plenty of security teams get slaughtered by close range ambushes Is your greatest joy in life actually trying your hardest to find reasons to disagree with people, Nanako? This isn't constructive, and it doesn't even show a clear understanding of what you are talking about. Let's go through what is wrong with your arguments here: -The 'ranged sting' gives you a range increase of exactly ONE TILE, and relies on the person holding still long enough for you to select their name and sting them. That's a minor quality of life improvement, not a ranged attack. Furthermore, the 'death sting' just injects them with a bunch of lexorin, which due to how mobs process poison (you remember how that works right Nanako, you yourself pointed out the problems with it) is only actually dangerous if you don't ever go to medbay. -Blood boil requires three cultists to do and can explode randomly, damaging all the cultists involved. An unreliable, stationary group spell is not a ranged attack. -Saying someone can pick up guns is not a relevant argument. Any player can pick up a gun, and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the antagonists inherent abilities. It is simply part of basic mob code. -What terrain, exactly, are the constructs supposed to be using, Nanako? I am speaking of situations where the construct is in a fight in an open hallway, and the entire security force is kiting them, firing lasers, and it can't even run away fast enough to escape, especially as a Juggernaut. There is also zero non-situational special terrain in the game that protects melee aggressors while providing a restriction to long ranged attackers, it is rather the opposite way around, that is kind of the point of ranged attacks. So, unless the security officer is dumb enough to follow you into a tight maintenance shaft ant allow themselves to be surrounded, they will always win and extended fight, because they have ranged, and cultists DO NOT.

Are you even paying attention to how people use this, or are you actually just sort trying to find some way to refute this? When has 'autismfort' ever been used as a complement to someone's quality of work? It is flat out intended as an insult to people. I don't even... Nanako, even if there is a specific instance where someone is using this as some kind of affectionate insult, that isn't what this thread is about. It is about people who go on long, ranting diatribes about engineering making an autismfort or some nonsense.

Eh. This idea wasn't as thought out as it could have been. Forget it.