Fluffy

They look different because they are different, both in lore and mechanics, ontop of needing to account for the rendering of accessories/suits, inhand objects and whatnot that would be a lot of work for essentially nothing. It would literally take less time to draw new IPC sprites that conform to what we currently expect than to code in all the exceptions to reuse the borg sprites on them. Voting for dismissal.

Merged therefore implemented Locking and archiving

You mean the "militarizing"? Yea, all of that was making sense in a paramilitary structure, where everyone know how to hold a gun and use it, and could be made to become part of the fighting force if needed. It doesn't in a civilian ship where your cook knows how to cook and maybe pull the fire alarm when the space carp tries to make him its meal Now you understand why outcrying the "militarization" etcetera was a stupid thing that was done. We however have the motto "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", people played the game, and are now discovering the prize they won The point is always the same: They are needed. A cook in a random scenario that doesn't involve cooking, especially if possibly unsafe, isn't None of this outweights that it would be throwing yourself in danger without any need nor reason to, which is against self-preservation and OOC-in-IC motivated

You're missing the key point: They're needed to be there, which is why they're being sent there - someone has to go down the depth and build thing is there because there's something that needs to be built, the sailor is there because the ship needs sailing. A bartender isn't there because in the middle of the somali pirate infested sea there's no compelling need to serve a Manhattan, there's no neurosurgeon, there's no pharmacist, there's no a lot of things that aren't needed to be there, there's only what is needed to be there There is no problem sending eg. engineers if you need a long-term base built on Hivebot Prime or whatever, even if there's a (reasonable) risk, they are needed to do something, so they have a reason to be there, protected by Security - that is the equivalent of what you're indicating in your example You can abolutely build a big plot like the one you're describing, you start with "we needs a party thrown, send down people to setup a party house and prepare a party", at which point the Horizon would send engineers to build it, security to kill xenofauna, mining to clear up the soon-to-be frat house, cooks to cook the party things, bartender to bartender, operations would haul the things needed to and from the horizon etc. etc. - After that, you can pop up with Mechafrost escorted by 3 John Sol, ground the shuttle and take everyone hostage or what have you. You can pick this story apart. Don't. It's just an example On the other hand, investigating facility X for possible crimes against humanity doesn't need a bartender, or a cook, or operations or the likes, and it's possibly unsafe, so you would send security, possibly an FR, and science if the crime has something to do with scientific research or similar. You'd not send the cook, or the bartender, or an engineer (unless they have to break something open), or operations, in such a story

If the ship is at risk, yes it would make sense to not send them, but that would mean not sending anyone if your home is under threat; you'd deal with whatever is putting your ship at risk first Aside of that it's a choice between the possibly dangerous situation you could walk into and the ship floating in space that is so far known to be safe, you could split your security half and half or you can consider the ship safe enough (also because BCs have their little armory, you can build mechs with weapons etc.) and send them to deal with whatever mission central needs dealt with Neither Mining nor Science are trained to shoot people, mining shoot the PKA on some xenofauna in areas without atmospheric pressure, science at most tries their creations in the firing range. Security is trained to deal with pirates, terrorists, hostage situations, high stress situations, the various different environments and whatnot - think of it as a SWAT team - and have done so, canonically, often. They are your right arm to punch things with

Again, no, the point is that if you aren't needed to do something there, there is no reason you would be sent there unless it's known to be safe, and there's no reason your character would reasonably want to go there either. Security isn't a deathsquad but they're the ones that know how to use guns, have them, have the license to use them, and deal with whatever risk could be present, that's why you send them. A cook, a bartender or the likes has no reason to go to a possibly unsafe zone possibly to his death for absolutely no reason, as he isn't needed there. If the story was "we need to throw a party down here" you would be right the cook and bartender would come down and security probably wouldn't (and this is one of those boredom MKUltra situations where the place is known to be safe), sending them in other scenarios where they aren't needed is a lack of self preservation via OOC-in-IC reasoning. You can pontify all the rationalizations you can dream of ontop of this, until you see Amazon sending their finance accountants in somali-pirates-infested waters it still won't make an iota of sense, they send the sailors needed to keep the ship running and armed personnel to shoot the pirates. I'm confident you can extrapolate to our setting.

Sorry, but no, people are warned/noted when they disregard self-preservation even if they have a good reason to do so, going to a possible ambush, to be swarmed by xenofauna or in the hands of pirates because apparently the crew is bulimic and can't wait the additional 10 minutes it would take to get back on the ship (not to mention you can just send the food down from it) isn't gonna cut it. People wanted, outcried, the civilian feeling/setting up to the moment it became inconvenient to having fun (as if it wasn't already before) and now are trying to circumvent the logical consequence of that, wanting to have the cake and eat it too

I'd like to point out none of this would be an issue if this was a paramilitary ship, as it would make sense to send as many people as possible on ground to not only do their things (build FOB, provide service etc.) but also to have them ready on standby to help in case situations arise On the contrary, trying to push the narrative of the civilian ship, outcrying the "militarization of the Horizon" and the likes cause issues like this where it would make little sense for cooks, janitors and whatnot to be sent to the ground without first making absolutely sure that it's safe (by sending security and maybe medical to pull them out in case it isn't) Only exceptions to this would be scenarios where it's expectable to be boredom MKUltra (a biesel office, some known friendly palace to visit, a known friendly village [...]) or where shit are so fucked the Horizon needs to intervene on it right now else disastrous things would happen (liidra reappeared and needs to be contained, Sol is about to fire some rediscovered superWMDs on Biesel or similar scenario where you have to deal with it right now and you're the only one around that can do it) A cook, a janitor and whoever else on a civilian ship would have little to no reason to go on a possibly unsafe place, possibly to get mauled by the xenofauna, possibly walking into pirates, possibly walking into danger in general, unless he is specifically needed; if anything, this would seem disregarding self-preservation to do so, for a civilian

You are pointing out things that require some non-basically-nonexistent delay between weapon being known to exist and it hitting you, the holster is visible on inspect, the pockets etc. need you to first move your mouse away to get the weapon in hand (which is visible at that point) and then move the mouse over your victim to click it, etc. etc. My implementation was flawed in that it has no time to react before you get hit the first time in that PR, though I thought it would be fine given the need to keep dragging the mouse (thus very slow to keep hitting). The TG implementation would be even worse than that, not only i can activate the energy dagger pen and immediately give my victim the london subway experience with essentially no reaction time left to avoid it, I can keep clicking fast and hit at full speed after the first hit, something my PR didn't allow (you had to either go back and pull the gun out, or keep dragging, both of which adds additional delay ontop of the fire delay). The reply mentions the first shot advantage which both scenario gives you, and here it's even more egregious (if implemented like TG). Of course, we can modify it however we want and you're right this gives a concealability chance in case you're searched, however the suggestion specifically says "an energy dagger like in TGstation" and that's what I have replied to. Other implementations are possible, but I don't see one like TG being accepted (not by me, I would be fine with it, otherwise I would have voted for dismissal).

Unfortunately I do not see it this way, the boot knife requires you to open the slot inventory, go over the slot, right click, extract, then it prints a large text about you pulling out a knife, you have to move the cursor back on your opponent and click it to stab. The TG version of the energy dagger pen (far as I remember) looks just like a pen, if you inspect the person you see it holding a pen; as the attacker, you would put the mouse over your opponent, press activate-in-hand (Z) and click immediately, which is impossible to react to, giving the "first shot" essentially in an invisible way. It could be made in a different flavour that require some activation windup or to do it by some right click verb etc., but at that point it has little value over a boot knife IMHO.

Unfortunately I do not see this as being accepted, as per maintainer discussion in https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/19572#issuecomment-2208855718 "We don't want "invisible weapons" to be a thing since the first shot advantage in SS13 is a big factor in game balance."

A sensor report would tell you that it's a venator-class civilian ship, far as I remember it doesn't tell you that it has 20 cannons strapped ontop of it; as far as the pirates would know, it's a civilian ship that maybe is armed with something to clear hazards in space (if civilian ships all had good armament, the pirates would also have them, they would be out of business otherwise); not to mention, just giving a piece of equipment to a bunch of random people doesn't mean they would use it effectively or get the chance to use it, a somewhat smart pirate would try to approach the ship undetected and board it, at which point your 400mm gun is as good as useless, and since it's presumably full of civilian that would rather have their lifes spared over defending your Amazon Prime™ package, you would just render the cannon inoperable, pocket your bounty and leave

Yes actually

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/20205

I don't think that's the reason you can't play an ex-SRF, or a primary aposthat of dominia, or one of those investigation religious police dominia use, etc. The headmin can correct me if I'm wrong. This argument works better for my position than yours; if they don't mean anything, and the majority of people who replied either doesn't like them or consider them an active detrimental factor of their enjoyment of the server, we can aswell save ourself the trouble of writing them, doing interviews and whatever else, and just not do them unless it's something actually severe. Also again, you have to choose, either they don't care and the punishment is inconsequential etc., at which point there's no reason to keep them, or they have a chilling effect and do something, at which point you can scroll back and see that that "something" is negative, and we should not do them. You cannot keep both stances at the same time, they are actively contraddicting each other.