dessysalta

A more feasible idea could be to alter the regulations regarding off-duty crew and volunteers. Some sort of stipulation that off-duty volunteers are still covered by insurance and may receive bonuses, but have some kind of increased scrutiny (AKA "if you do this outside of Odyssey you better have a really damn good reason"). I dunno what exactly would or could go into that, but it feels like a pleasant middleground. That said it still relies on an XO, but we've relied on XOs in the past during canon events anyways. I doubt it'd be a huge deal.

3-5 minutes seems good IMO, yeah. I don't really care how long the loading time takes so long as we have that amount of time to ready up after the fact. Makes it easier to take a break, get food/water, etc.

I do agree with this. Obviously my paranoia for the future is similarly not the ultimatum, and I do agree that going from the Aurora to the Horizon was a huge change for the better (even if I wasn't there for it). I don't have much else to say on the matter of this because I really do take your point—I just feel I would be amiss not to spend as much time on the other side of things as I can, because the worst case scenario is always possible. Similar here, I agree with what you're saying and honestly can't help but reinforce it. With my skepticism out of the way, I also really want people to understand that the NBT is the NBT, and even if not the same as we have now there will still be chances to indulge in it and get something out of it, and I know I'm going to have fun with Aurora even if it turns into something else entirely. This is actually on the roadmap last I checked, which I think is (duh) a good idea. Not much to say other than that. My argument doesn't hinge on knowing how to fire a gun, it's being able to use it specifically in a stressful situation where your life is at risk, where in this same setting you might never actually get a chance to shoot a gun outside of that. Taking classes, owning a gun off-ship, being a hunter, etc. are all reasonable things a character can do, but there's a massive difference between someone who's only fired a gun recreationally versus someone who's done it in defense of their own life; taking a few shots at a shooting range is nowhere near as terrifying as it being the dead of night, pitch-black, seeing a figure in front of you in the darkness and barely managing to hit shots ten feet in front of you in service of that—or being on a ship that's on red alert, where people have died, and some monstrous threat is around the corner. The majority of civilian characters, I think, should be "average dimwit with a gun" and not anywhere remotely near the realm of trained, see again the crew armory etc.

I think, generally speaking, letting the crew have knowledge of gun usage is a double edged sword in which I'm mostly against. My biggest concerns being echoing Popper said; janitors shouldn't be smoking grems with an AK and the like, I'd even take it further by saying it shouldn't even be a last resort. If you're working on a space ship and not either command or security (minus some exceptions like certain med workers etc. depending on background) you almost certainly don't have extensive firearms training, nor should you be willing to fire a rifle at risk of venting or otherwise damaging the huge metal death trap where a lot can go wrong. Most people who would know how to use a gun (minus veterans obviously) most likely wouldn't have used it in a real combat situation, under stress, when they're hungry, etc. and even if we do let people have a general knowledge of how guns work I would like to see a vast difference in them (the untrained joe) versus security/trained forces (people who train in high-intensity situations for a living, with some nuance again depending on corp or background etc). More civilian characters, and I mean truly, "I've only ever done desk work/clerical work/hard labor for 30 years and I value my life greatly" people should exist. Even with the removal of the crew armory there's too many characters in engineering and service that are like "Combat laser rifle? My favorite!" and manage to gun you down instead of being inaccurate or, better yet, roleplaying that out. I didn't like the phoron scarcity because despite its potential for nuance and interesting ordeals, it turned out to be a macguffin device. There wasn't much purpose behind it aside from making an already-mythical space fuel more important and by extent normalizing a conflict that debatably had no reason to exist if not for that narrative foil. It would be fine as a background addition that only occasionally showed up, but the way it was played meant it was the single-most important thing the Horizon was and would continue to be doing. The scarcity had no effect on the players and for that reason it was an intangible, hard to understand and harder to appreciate story beat. It made for some minor interactions—obviously when you salvage a ship and find 50 sheets it's a big deal—but it had no actual persistence whether you found one sheet or ten thousand, with no real price or bonus associated with it. It opened up a couple of items if you involved the machinist or science, but those could usually already be made with their starting supply of phoron or otherwise weren't notable. The phoron scarcity if done right would involve constant changes in the economy, persistent rewards or deficits, and perhaps the most laborious, updates from the lore and gameplay side of things. It wouldn't need to be shown on ship every step of the way, but there would have to be more instances of finding or losing it and seeing real consequences from either. The pirate mini-arc we had was actually really cool in this regard, in that it represented just how serious having that much of that fuel can be, and that the Horizon isn't untouchable- but whether or not the Horizon lost it or kept it was never going to affect it, let alone the Spur outside of bad publicity and maybe a few pay cuts. I actually think that this would make for some really interesting character concepts. We have operations already doing mechanical stuff, so if there was a way to split science among the different departments (hell even in just locations) it would both encourage some really solid roleplay as well as make things like theoretical engineers/machinists, or security weapon scientists who are in charge of gauging the rifles and making sure they're all in shape/in stock for the Warden to use, or bridge crewmen who specialize in exploration and the like. I think the biggest loss would be xenobotany and xenobiology- not sure where we'd put both of those, that and I'm not sure what the Research Director would even become, which makes it a bit of a headache. Being independent, or at least somewhat independent (and not the flagship for reasons that've already been stated) would definitely make for more opportunities to do whatever. Dreamy's suggestion of the Hedgemaze I think has some kinks to be worked out, but ultimately I think would be a net positive in regards to everything from character creation (to a degree) to actual gameplay and events. I do say "to a degree" because the conflict Aurora breeds and the limits you have placed on your characters is important, and seeing it lessened or even just changed would need to be done with TLC lest it become another Shiptest- something I talked about extensively in that thread and that I still like in concept, but I don't like how that server has zero nuance or character limits aside from "you can't attack anyone for the most part". Worst case scenario, we have extremists that don't feel like extremists, and characters that are a hollow shell because nothing actively threatens their livelihood (or maybe I just don't like the gameplay loop there seeing as every ship does the exact same thing and I'm not being hyperbolic). Once again echoing what Popper said about that setting; something with ties to corporate but isn't as hands-on, with an opportunity for independent contractors alongside the rest would be a perfect implementation. Some misc thoughts: Timeskips are whatever, I would rather they not put characters in their early 30s into their mid 40s, but I can't say I care that much about it outside of a few characters whom I know wouldn't be on the ship for more than a few years (see: Ungnyeo, my ZI, hell even Kira depending on what the timeskip entails and what happens to the Horizon). There are some serious concerns raised above about people making new characters over the course of the next 3 ish years and I think those are important to look at if any timeskip at all is going to occur. If a timeskip isn't inevitable, I would start planning as early as now what to do with the Horizon population and come up with contingency plans, arcs or entities that happened or existed in the background, etc. anything that makes even the biggest changes less jarring. I don't like the idea of a military setting, Bay has that covered, I don't want drill instructor characters or military LARP. Ex-military PMCs add so much more nuance and I think have the potential to be less of a powertrip. Similarly, I also don't like the idea of warring nations to breed conflict because I'll be honest man, I'm tired of seeing Solarians and Biesellites/Gaddies quip at or beat each other. If it's going to be the case, I do not want any origin restricted or disallowed for play because of it. The TCFL and Raskara cultists don't often show up or get to do anything, and Exclusionists and Universalist priests fill a niche you can't explore for OOC reasons. If we're gonna have conflict I want that conflict to actually be represented on ship with the major company (SCC or otherwise) not really giving a damn who they hire to a point so long as they do their job; this obviously implies rearranging a few things, and so if it doesn't happen I understand, but please let me play more extremists if this is going to be the case. This particular paragraph of mine was all over the place, so take it with a grain of salt please. I would also like to address this: Okay, so I see your point, I'm agreeing with it- it's running up the flagpole and I'm saluting it, but this absolutely cannot be the end-all-be-all of player-driven characters or narratives. Characters have a time limit, sure, but who's to decide some arbitrary amount of time is ideal or "enough"? Characters are as much the players as they are people, and the appeal of playing those characters for long periods of time is there comes a point where they aren't just a character, they're a person, with actual years of experience, development, or even just income from their job. Sure, maybe some people would feel better about putting their character to rest either literally or metaphorically once they're out of ideas, but others will look at the incredibly, incredibly, in-cred-ib-ly diverse and encompassing setting that is Aurora, with all of its events, lore, other characters, economics, I could go on- and keep going to see how it would affect that person. This isn't a book we're writing, it's setting for a gameplay environment. Some questions are raised by this line of thinking, probably the biggest one being "why would a character with access to premium healthcare, an insane living wage, free room and board, and countless benefits you gain just by virtue of working on the flagship of the biggest megacorporate alliance in the known universe just up and leave? Oh, well I guess their 'arc' is done and they had a couple years of screentime (where they might have done nothing at all notable), time to import a fresh slate without any interactions or reason for being aside from muh new character". And also, that's a huge, huge change if you only play one or two characters. Some of these characters have existed since the Aurora and they are terrifying to be in the same room as because you just know they were there. What are you going to tell those players if it's a choice between changing their character, whom they've developed for a decade, possibly on a fundamental level to match a change they might not have rooted for, or straight up never playing them again? How about characters or even just players who knew them? "Your character's done, make a new one"? I think that your point has merit and I agree with it in broad strokes, but it being phrased in this instance as "wrap up your arcs everyone, you have [x] amount of time" is going to suck no matter what. The arcs of the characters are based on the setting that's being written and its developments, that's how it's always been- there just hasn't been an instance to my knowledge wherein a change supplied some characters with outright deletion or prevention of use. I guess there was that change in Aurora's medieval era where headcanon contractors were disallowed, but I don't think that comes close to the potential of what can be done here. Obviously no matter what, I have hope for Aurora and trust the devs and its players to make something beautiful and interesting (hell they've been doing that for what, 8 years?) and I hope the passion with which I'm writing this conveys how excited I am to see the NBT.

I'd like to say that while I mentioned in game mechanics and events primarily, I mentioned lore first and that counts news articles and the like. Yeah, the game is abstracted enough that torturing or killing a guy isn't that awful, can be pretty comical sometimes, but if you want to know where that guy's from you'll probably read an arc or set of articles that aren't exactly something you'd show to your boss. Even the more "removed" instances of it like IPC zombies on BitByte are pretty harrowing given the implications and way they're written. What about when the DPRA or SRF genocides or executes people in lore? When the TCAF canonically beat the hell out of civilians? Do we gloss over that because it's not a mural of blood and guts? I don't even think the argument can be made about it being "gore" because it's at best a spray of blood, not cat brains and eyeballs and teeth hitting the other side of the trench—if I remember correctly it's not even blood, but an orange flash of the bullet going through the helmet. It's at worst Call of Duty cover art. I understand this is subjective, but considering all the arcs past and present, major themes in lore, player subplots and newscasters, especially when all of those are written off as being "realistic" and requests to change them are denied with the exact argument we see here ("we have darker stuff so who cares", or less related "conflict is good", which I agree with broadly), I think drawing a line at this is more a headache than anything progressive. That and I really do agree with Lily. If this was one of 40 artworks we'd have a very different perspective and I doubt we'd be having this conversation. E: Schwann and Outboard are also correct in the sense that it's not a picture or idea translating directly to someone getting brained, it's a piece of artwork with composition and emotion behind it. You can't look at the focal point of the image and reduce the piece to just that (or worse, in this case, to just the idea). Why is there a catperson here? This is a futuristic setting, how come they're in a trench? Who are they looking at? Why might they be smiling? Why are they getting shot in the first place? Where would they have to be to get shot like that, how did they and maybe even their species get there? Those questions are what get people to look it up and have the confidence to make a whitelist, potentially going on to write lore for them. Can we do it in a softer way? Maybe, but it lessens the impact, dampens the message, and at least in writing there's been darker stuff chosen to be included.

I'm not really sure about this one. Compared to all the things that can be experienced in SS13 proper (as in, the gameplay and plots) being domed with not even a particularly comical spray of blood seems par for the course; we have much, much darker themes and real events that occurred in lore or events and if anything I personally think it's a good primer for what's to come. Otherwise, they're going to be more surprised when they see slavery, drug trafficking, public executions, sexism, speciesism, xenophobia, genocide, police and military brutality, transphobia and homophobia, supremacy, class disparity- the list goes on and on, and we see and experience all this either in-round or in canon events. I personally witnessed a guy get hacked apart during the New Blades, Old Wounds arc, live execution style.

Was the HOS for an ungodly long shift themed around synth liberation. Played it straight with us (the antagonists), acted with appropriate concern for the ship as well as fear for their own and others' lives. Didn't stonewall it and judging by their comms and attitude, delegated properly. This shouldn't really be surprising because it's Cash, but from our side of things they're good. Will edit once I get to play under them. E: After playing a round under them, I echo what strawberry said to a degree. They enable gimmicks just fine, but enforcing the regulations and to what diligence is somewhat up in the air; I was told to get a statement but not to detain them unless they actively tried to run or resist (which means just detain them in the first place?), and I specifically was told to document the changes after the fact when other officers were explicitly told it wasn't necessary, it ended up being glossed over anyway. It got harder when factoring in things I had witnessed first hand being ignored, combined with conflicting orders. On the plus side of things, they didn't let anyone in their team take the fall and backed them up during misunderstandings. I have mixed feelings about the application. I want to say they're just getting the hang of things, and so I would push for an extension rather than a denial. As before, will update as I gather more experience.

Had a fun command set with Aiden this round. Communicated clearly and effectively, and was as intimidating as a captain should be outside of that lmao. +1