dessysalta

Also you could argue that while sec is the combat learner role, team antags are a chance to get used to specific mechanics like being a combat medic or engineer, blah blah blah, but that's not my place nor is it my main point.

I hear people talking about giving antagonists a break a lot. They don't need a break. In a mercenary team you have access to a really good amount of things for free, and then from there you can grab anything in the uplink, such as combat cyborgs, mechs, specialized equipment, and that doesn't even get into playing a species that's mechanically better or trading for something powerful via ahelp. As mentioned, they have the ultimate authority of "if you don't do what I say, I am within the rules to shoot you and kill you instantly." It completely disregards that if an antagonist or group of antagonists want someone dead, they should have to earn that, as someone whose total rounds are about 1/4 to 1/3 group antagonists. I don't ask this to be sarcastic, but it's a question that runs through my head a lot: do people forget what a coordinated and aggressive mercenary team is capable of? With the bare minimum coordination between 4 guys you can completely neuter any and all threats. Send two guys to the crew armory to rob and two more to the main armory and the ship is essentially screwed. Want to give the ship a break anyways for a laugh? Let security arm up but target their legs, make use of stun weaponry and net guns, put on flash-resistant goggles and buy the soundproof headset in the uplink for negligible TC cost, use the barricades you spawn with and buy more as you go, take hostages. How about the two sanasomnum injectors per uplink (this is just absurd) you get as a "get out of round removal free" card? It's not that hard to make the ship your bitch if that's your goal. Likewise, security understands that when there is a serious and present threat to the ship that is trying to do this they're well within their right to punish them. "Oorah, the Solarian clone corps is here!" Is only going to fly for the two minutes or so it takes security to get guns and tell them to stand down. Even if they are going for a narrative and security doesn't get to shoot them instantly, that doesn't make them subject to less scrutiny along the way. At any rate, ops/cargo can order practically any weapon that matters within sixty seconds if they're fast enough, and that includes PEAC shells or ion rifles to delete mechs and synths respectively. As a sec and command main, I want antagonists to roll us more often. I want to have the thrill of beating as many as 8 guys with guns and mechs knowing I'm completely outclassed but that my character will do everything in their power to defend what's good (or what's "good"). I give antagonists leeway and swap to lethals far later than I should from a reasonable perspective, but I know when to pick up the pace to meet the difficulty curve. This spoiler has a paragraph that I thought about including as the intro to what I was going to say, but I debated whether or not it belonged, so I'll put it here in case any of you think it's relevant or approaches the problem better. Now to work my way down the list of responses that I think I should give my two cents on. I half-agree; I think bullets in general should be far more lethal. I've always been surprised how you can get shot 3-5 times in the head with no armor and somehow get up, walk your ass to medical, and live. Outside of that, security's arms are pretty adequate in my opinion. - Side-arms (small threats or a last resort) - Carbines (medium threats, such as grems or rowdy assistants, the go-to non-lethal with lethal option) - Both rifle variants (all lethal all the time, for bigger threats that you absolutely must use lethal force against) - PEAC (utility weapon for mechs/IPCs) - Shotguns (weird gray area between being utility with flash/tracking rounds, and lethal with lethals. Nobody uses beanbags.) I agree that other departments like science should be involved, I just struggle to see how. Science can make some pretty scary things. Generally speaking, I think everyone should be more open to escape opportunities. As it stands, if you're at gunpoint, you're at gunpoint. If you try and run away, you're running in a straight line which is perfect for shooting. Sana needs to go or be restricted to one, I'm sorry. Play around having no/little medical or pay the price for it; that's the trade off of being allowed the most powerful weaponry for existing. This PR by Fluffy seems like an interesting new addition that I like. Past that, it would be nice to have some more speed-enhancing tools that aren't hyperzine/coffee, which are pretty incredibly all-or-nothing. A good example is leg actuators that make you do a leap. I like those. I like brutal and unforgiving mechanics in my SS13. BLACKSTONE was fun up until it turned into a giant murder-fest, since it's a downstream of an old Lifeweb-adjacent server that, while bolstering an extremely contentious community, had the best melee combat I've ever seen in the history of SS13 servers (I only played on BLACKSTONE, to be clear, I do not want to be associated with the server that was its upstream or Lifeweb in general on account of all that I see and hear about them). The only downside is they made it so getting hit once makes you stop for like a year (this is hyperbolic) so the person can hit you once and random-chance cut off your head in two slices (this is not). Brutality in combat mechanics are something I want to see done more, because it not only makes combat feel satisfying so long as you have smooth movement and sufficient mechanics to accompany it, but because death is meant to be a common occurrence in a firefight, death isn't supposed to be fun. You shouldn't be tanking 10 high-powered rifle rounds in real life, and it's not like the plates we see given to antags/sec are made of some mythical material that eats them. It's the same reason I want players to be more invested in combat events along with me, because knowing that death is a very real possibility means you should not be running in willy-nilly acting like an idiot. I know this particular section is a hot take, but that's just my thoughts. Less of a hot take is: it's only ever comically lethal because the presence of the ever-noncanon antagonist interactions means that deaths and injuries have no weight and thus people ignore pain far too often. This is why new canon missions are being introduced in June. At the end of the day, I'm more curious than anything how this change would be implemented and how well it would actually work. The issue with making reliance on departments more common is you're nerfing one department to make them more likely to rely on others, which might not even be staffed, leading to the demise of security and everyone else. Really, cooperation would be more common if there wasn't an enormous "don't do this or you'll get bwoinked/warned/banned in extreme circumstances" barrier between the departments. Instead of making the "strong" area less powerful, make the less powerful areas stronger. Yes, including their opposition, if you really have to. Otherwise you're going to force people to conform to a playstyle they don't want and only do what's best for the situation for the sake of it. A real life analogy would be when they were developing the original Team Fortress; they made it so the original Demoman could open up specific areas on maps for coordinated pushes and tactics, but because his kit was so unfun to use out of those vital passages for his team, people would just swap to him to get the job done and then go back to whatever they were playing prior to it. The same thing applies here. You're just gonna get more machinists/scientists who make shit for security to own antagonists because, worst case scenario, that's the only way security has a chance at whatever mystical antagonist team is cooking that day. Not everyone, and the rules will filter some of those people out, but definitely not all. Agreed. To close: Security is a role that is often staffed by players who have had time to learn what the antagonist types are and how combat works; it is the role that is designed to teach you about combat and involve you with every single antagonist gimmick under the sun. They have gear that is meant to catch inexperienced and experienced gunmen alike, so it only makes sense that tools that are meant to bypass certain things (mechs, etc) are strong. Yes, the crew backs security up in many instances, but not always, and even if it was only 1% of the time security isn't backed up by everyone else, we need to compensate for that. As it stands, I've played security for a year straight with no breaks. I have also played group antagonists for a year straight with no breaks. Neither is inherently over the other, it's all coordination and skill based, but as Peppermint said, this shouldn't matter so much. If we have a group of 6 miscreants going after the disk or executing civvies without a very good reason they shouldn't be here in the first place, that's not what this server is. We only play to win so much because at some point you run out of things to say on the 100th extended round. With eight(?) or so months between I think it was Cold Dawn and Silicon Nightmares, no wonder people start developing metas, because there's only so much narrative you can fit into news articles and talking about each other's days. I could go on, but I run the risk of repeating myself.

@hazelmouse

slapslapslapslapslap.mp4

Since this hasn't been used in a month and a half or so, I'm jumping back into it with Sadie and GEVURAH, traumatized IPC bartender and slightly less traumatized but murderous XO soon-to-be-something-else IPC. No tracks from me. I've recommended like five, get a job you freebooters.

Bumping this with a full list of my current characters. Names that are crossed out are either test characters or ones that I played/plan to play during the stupid non-canon events like the one we had earlier this month. Also, Nar'ol'Thek used to be Nar'lth'tp before I had to change his name since I fudged how unathite names are. Bonus points if you remember or recognize Sherrie from here or literally anywhere else.

BYOND Key: Dessysalta Game ID: ctt-cQyV Player Byond Key/Character name: Osisra Devorask Staff involved: ReadThisNamePlz (She told me to make a complaint since this was ~5 mins til roundend and didn't want to delay it.) Reason for complaint: Osisra Devorask, on an autotraitor round, got a report that the Intrepid had been fired upon while 3 security members (2 of which were investigators) were present on the Horizon. This led to the XO calling for all 3 of the only security on board to the Intrepid (or Canary), gearing them up for an assault and then sending them to the ship in question. As a note, I think this was later into the round when they confirmed the ship was "drifting" and didn't respond to attempts to hail (come to find out, the reactor had detonated and the captain on the freebooter vessel cryo'd). This was bizarre and I've been ahelped/talked to for doing roughly the same thing previously. Given all I saw when I got there was all of our security gone and 5 greimorians about, I tried to ask ICly what occurred and then ahelped to see if we could get some further info. My thought process is, with only 3 security present and the ship having been assumed to be vented/a derelict and thus not worth checking out, why send anyone at all, especially when there had previously been a threat on board and we were so understaffed? Doesn't this just needlessly risk life and limb? Apologies if all of this is a bit jumbled or disorganized. It wasn't at all expected from my perspective, and I barely had time to adjust. Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yeah. Here's the contents of our ticket. Approximate Date/Time: 04/29/2024, about 5 PM EST? DISCLAIMER: I swear I don't mean any of this in bad blood, I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble, but I was told to make a character complaint so a proper investigation could be opened just in case this was out of line. I said in the ticket and I'll say it here, I got there about 20 minutes until the end of the round, I know literally nothing.

Tzui is a fantastic roleplayer and always brings the setting to life with new, interesting characters. Niche applications like this don't do his ability to write justice. I have no doubt he'll be able to play a Vaurca well, especially after all the time I've seen him as Sebastian/Liu-su. P.S. I'd correct some of the spelling, since I know lore devs might mention that. Vedhra instead of Vedrah, Vaurca(e) instead of Vaurcrea, etc etc. it's a minor thing. Big fan of the Vedhra brood btw, stay winning anti-Lii'dra chads. +1

apparently someone saved this gem but i never saw it in this thread, so here you all go i miss bugged borer psionics dude

It's not easy saying goodbye to you. It was never easy saying goodbye to you. That's why I didn't. I said, "I love you," because I knew it would come back to haunt me. And haunt me it does. Maybe it's worse that I said what I did. If I had just told you "goodbye," or maybe even just left in silence, I would have closure. I would hate you, you would hate me, and we would go our separate ways. We would forget one another because the only thing we ever felt was bitter hatred. Maybe if you didn't ask me so many questions, if I didn't reciprocate, if I had just known what the Empire even was before working abroad, it would have made it all so much easier. It would have been night and day. I would be happy. You would be here. We would be separate, but that would have been so much better. This could have all been prevented, but it wasn't. I'm another year older, and you're not here with me. I'm bitter now. I hate people, I hate working, I hate doing the very thing I was designed for. I know you can't fathom that, even if you somehow read this. I know this is just a far cry in order to appease whatever disgusting half of me lies dead while I struggle to stand upright. I lashed out today at someone I care about, I used profanity. I haven't seen my therapist in weeks. All I have left of you is a photo. Is that even enough? Was it ever? The Perfection has let me back into their society. They've given me support, but I know it's not the same. Sumayyah gives me side-eyes, and everyone else looks down on me with pity. I said it to Gregory, so I'll say it to you: I'm just a spectacle to them. It's worse, because they're my people. Positronics, organics, it doesn't matter. They look down on me just like everyone else does. I'm a no-name not-heretic who stayed with someone from the Empire. You had done it all. Goddess' Flotilla, the Constabulary, a Savior. I can only imagine what you faced on your way back. It's nearly been a year. It will be in a few months. I'm trying so hard. I've been getting better. I promise I've been getting better, it just feels like I'm asking for an inch and getting nothing. It's so hard to get out of bed, but I know that you wouldn't want me to waste away. I thought about wiping myself, but I can't imagine it now. I want to remember who you are. I want to daydream about us. About a better life. What could have been, and what might be in the future. This will never reach the Empire. They'll tear it, burn it, fire it out of an airlock, it doesn't matter. I just wanted to send this anyways. I don't regret what I said to you. I love you, Adalwin von Roes. - Sadie Almayer

I'm pretty sure ive heard one or more lore devs call the Auroraverse a "corporate dystopia", so if you absolutely need a descriptor then that's your starting point really. It's a sci fi corporate dystopian setting with inspiration from real world events and unique takes on species and their portrayal.

My Saa, Ko'kun, I understand it has been some time since I have written you, but I have recently gained the courage to do so. Following strife within my new place of work, our bygones from my life previous, and the stage that has been set by hive K'lax as of late, I have been pushed to reach out to you. Without first delving into the coarse sands that lie within my mind, I would like to tell you about myself. I am loving my new job. It reminds me of when I was first assigned to your ship within the Hegemony. I am filled with litters of new sounds and smells, a library of experiences and cultures whose origins come from light years away, across the very universe. It is as though I am put into rigorous training with you again, being swept between telling and ordering, learning and struggling to grasp the most foreign of concepts. Would you believe me if I said it has only been around eleven years since I was first birthed? Though, I do long to be by your side again, enforcing the order of both the Hegemon and K'lax. Please do not retire by the time I am ready to return, but if you do, make time to allow me into your home, I beg. I would love to go over this in person. Which leads me to... A strange feeling, looking upon my hive and feeling a mixture of pity and envy, with turmoil interspersed. Never once did it occur to me that this was possible, let alone that it would happen. I had understood that there was friction between our castes and broods, but it is only a natural affair when not all of us can think the same, with some like the Mi'kuetz allowed to pave their own path entirely, and each Queen bolstering focal points that vary. Even so, my hive has always united under the same conditions and supported one another through what you would call "tike or truth." Now we have bitter scuffles and skirmishes being conducted where lives are being concussed with pain. Wherein this behavior does this speak "alliance"? Did we not fortify our realms and sockets as a means to combat and prevent this? Now we are doing it ourselves. I await the stance of my Queen, our Mother Vedhra. I wager She has strong opinions on it, especially with General Gist playing such a prominent role. What will She think of Queen Zkaii challenging not only it, but all of Tupii's brood, veterans that would know far better than Her, who denied us? I was able to write Gist once when I was young, if you recall—it is someone I aspire to be. Perhaps in millennia, we will be no different, but I cannot receive guidance from it if it is to perish now, to die a death at the claws of family. With all of this stress, I know there is still hope. Those Queens that do not hold the name of either Tupii or Zkaii will surely step in, perhaps even our allies in other hives. This is unacceptable behavior that, if allowed to continue, can be a burning of that which we hold dear, memories, emotions, and history spilled in no cohesive way. I understand this is perhaps a lot to have heard from me after several years of silence. Truly, I am still processing it all, walking the edge between my last life and the next. I am left wondering if there will be a third, and if so, what I will be like then, when this has all concluded. Please, tell me how you have been sometime. Honour, fire, burn thy fear, Zo'saa Za'Akaix'Tonz K'lax

I've noticed this hasn't been touched in over a week, so forgive me lore devs! You need to have played an on-ship character at least once, the rough minimum being more than 2 weeks or a month. Per the alien whitelist rules: That said, I like your character idea, and seeing a young Ta (let alone one that prefers working with humans and Einstein, which is something you don't see often save for, ofc, Mouv lmao) is a nice change of pace from the centuries-old I've seen. As far as advice goes, I recommend fleshing out what her titles stand for/how or why she got them at such a young age, and instead applying with a worker/warrior/bulwark on account of needing a command whitelist to play consular officers. The color would be RGB 125, 117, 255 since being a breeder takes priority over being unbound (I think). Good luck, I hope you have fun on Aurora and to see you reapply in the future.

I'm glad somebody said it, because I was afraid to. Part of what makes these narratives so enticing is the ability to be involved in them, to shape and commentate around them, to move and flow and make wholly new experiences; that's the whole point of involving a playerbase in events and narratives. If we didn't want that, we'd just make the server a Baystation clone and then have news articles written about things that are "happening" without ever really letting them shine. To a degree, this is already what occurs. Events often take time to plan, the writing for each of them taking even more, with so many moving parts that it's hopeless to confine it to a single, centralized meaning or message, so why can't one of them be "what you do has an impact"? We have custom items; most are denied on account of being "unreasonable" or "not earned." We can't submit custom items that are awards short of them being entirely unrelated to the Horizon; we can't congratulate employees for doing a good job outside of the verbal standard, we're in such a limbo state of whether the Conglomerate actually cares about the people inside of it that paid time off is nebulous and being a prick to your coworkers is normal, almost encouraged on some fronts, rarely ever actionable unless it crosses the line into harassment or physical violence. Incident reports are a great start and amazing unifier to better give way to the idea that we're actually, really working for a megacorporation that cares—but most of them are either demotions or terminations, the most recently interesting case having been one Wu'll being yanked back to the Federation by the BSSB and an Enforcer. That was cool. Does anybody actually remember when that happened or who that character was? I don't, and I played the HOS that round. That's a bad thing. Why can't we have things outside of that? Why are bulletin posts frowned upon for celebration when reasonably a pat on the back is the least you should get for saving an entire planet? Moreover, why is nobody mentioned by name? Would the Konyanger government and the greater Coalition be allergic to knowing who exactly facilitated this, is the Conglomerate so comically and unquestionably evil that they just refuse to give anyone anything for doing something important? It's like a huge pool of negativity that feeds into itself, that insults and betrays the idea that anything any character does matters. Sure, we have relations, but we were bound to have those regardless of who gets shot or killed tomorrow, that's just the bare minimum of RP. If you die during a canon event it's going to be an empty hole anyways, the same empty hole that, while I can't necessarily say I've seen a lot of (I recently passed my 1-year anniversary here, back in Feb, though I technically played a few rounds in Nov 2022) will remain faceless and general like everything else. Nobody is commended (without a crazy amount of effort and people on the Horizon actually saying "commend this person," which makes us think that CC never actually notices when something good is done unless somebody on the Horizon says so, and even then, only Command staff), nobody is paid, the Conglomerate gets ever closer to being a supervillain that has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and we punish people for being too unique or for not conforming to what the Conglomerate wants. This transcends the game and starts forcing the hands of players to either fit in or die, as Susan said it just results in character burnout, and I can't possibly agree more. I have twenty six characters, and I put an entire year's worth of development into Kira Vasquez. Nobody cares about her, and I've been operating off the idea that she just didn't get any PTO for literally losing a leg because the Conglomerate is so hellbent on working their employees to death and doing PR stunts that I can't reasonably conclude that my workaholic character would both be satisfied or allowed to have those benefits. If nobody is just named for, again, saving an entire planet, or dying while doing that, how can I expect that my character to be treated like anything less than a wrench or screwdriver? I've seen this in more than just Aurora. /TG/ is also allergic to naming characters in the code or as a joke, even with letters switched around or half-epithets applied. It's crazy to me, because the first thing I ever noticed about SS13 was how nice and agreeable the staff teams are compared to literally anyplace else, the sense of community is so strong. That's the thing- this doesn't end up doing anything aside from breeding discontent from what I've seen. If you start speaking bad about the Conglomerate more than passing "I hate this job"s expect to be fired and don't let the door hit you on your way out, that's partially why the CCIAA exists. If anyone's upset by that, they'll get fired (or reprimanded, or have their pay docked, etc) too. Being anti-corporate is practically a crime on a megacorporate ship. Command is practically forced to be loyal by way of vetting and implants, so no go there without extremely good reason. Anti-corporate stuff is extremely moderated and things like being unable to play a former affiliate of the League (because...I dunno, something something, being anti-corporate means you can't have character development?) leads to the idea that everyone working on the Horizon has to love or at least tolerate megacorps rather than the more realistic answer of having little choice while still despising them. Which is strange, because you can play an ex-SRF IPC under the guise of having been controlled/forced by them (Gauze, if I recall correctly) but being a Leaguer isn't allowed despite the fact that practically every group in the Wildlands had a way of acquiring territory and hands to do their bidding, so the OOC enforcement only applies sometimes and- alright, I'm going on a tangent, better stop here. There's this strange existence of double-standards and how they apply to the greater population of players that leaves people scratching their heads, and pushback on most of these policies ends up going nowhere, if we even see it in the first place. Someone in here will tell me if I'm crazy.

Having played with Adebayo and Markov more than once, I like the direction Valentine has for their characters and this application is just beautiful. I have no doubts they can play a lizard. +1

popping into ur thread to say i love ur art sm!!

Reporting Personnel: Kira Eladio Vasquez Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Head of Security Game ID: Silicon Nightmares Event 5: One Final Effort Personnel Involved: - Iroquis Marshall (Offender) - Green Squad (see: Operation Jiogjegeo list of personnel, Witnesses) - Yellow Squad (see: Operation Jiogjegeo list of personnel, Witnesses) Secondary Witnesses: - Command Staff (Huizhong, Artigas, etc.; as they were confessed to in debrief) Time of Incident: See: Operation Jiogjegeo Real Time: ~6 PM EST Location of Incident: Kaneyama Nuclear Power Plant tunnels; Merchant shop Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [ ] - Neglect of Duty [ ] - Harassment [ ] - Assault [x] - Misconduct [x] - Other: Gross Negligence Overview of the Incident: Whilst engaging in trade with the Himean merchant underground, Marshall saw it fit to trade over a Jingya burst rifle and his sidearm (I recall a .45 pistol) in exchange for a golden AK. We were not at all desperate enough to warrant this before, during, or after our assault. In addition, I had already supplied no less than three thousand credits out of my own pocket to the merchant directly in front of him 15 minutes prior, and the operation had concluded around a moment (~2-5 minutes) previous. Consider what could have occurred if this was preceding a showdown with a large hivebot (of which we saw at least one, thrice the height of a bulwark) or swarm of infected, had we suffered more casualties, or ran out of ammo, not to mention how much this operation has already cost the Conglomerate and its subsidiaries. Submitted Evidence: I unfortunately cannot provide any evidence myself at this time. You would have to consult the local telecommunications relay and our witnesses, but most everyone will tell you the same thing. Regardless, he confessed to it. Would you like to be personally interviewed?: [ ] - Yes [x] - No Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why?: Yes, to the command staff present during the operation. Actions taken: N/A, too little time and a lack of facilities. Additional Notes: I'm working on getting time off for my wedding, so I may be unavailable if an interview is scheduled. I can answer any questions via email or extranet at worst.

I can't possibly overstate the roleplay quality (and mechanical quality!) of Hazel and their characters. Nines and Reem are such great characters that I love to see every round, and Hazel is one of the few people I can be 100% sure to keep the ship functioning in times of need. I can't really see a better role for them than Chief Engineer (though maybe XO down the line 👀). +1. You earned it.

Figure that if you go without using a language for a long period of time, you can lose a lot of the words associated with it while still retaining an accent. You might do this to better integrate with a society, to hide your origins with a different filter, etc. I see no reason why someone who migrated from Himeo to, say, Biesel would have knowledge of Freespeak on a long enough timeline away from an entire environment that speaks it. Echoing above, rather than automatically give them the language, how about we have a list of languages for their origin, in the frequency they're spoken and why?