Shimmer

I am going to echo the quality argument people have brought up before but this time bring up examples, specifically from the PA page and why I think that the generated images gives the page a far worse impression than it'd have without them. For the sake of the argument - please put yourself into the shoes of either a new player, or someone who has never read the PA page before and has gotten a spark of interest in the origins. And think of the impression you get when you see the following: An image where the hands melt into the dress, part of the dress around the waist / hips takes on the color of the woman's skin, random bits of gold on the lower part of the dress that don't make sense. Two different sleeves. Anyone taking a closer look at this will know it's AI generated, and it looks extremely shoddy. Look at this structure. Have you ever seen a building that's got weirdly inconsistent windows like that? A nothing-burger architecture that doesn't convey the culture of the planet, even the clouds are confused, the cloud at the top of the building tries to conform to the structure there of. Then look at the ground level - it looks uncanny, it looks shoddy. What impression will people who have just started reading the page get from these images if they give them any closer look? Speaking for myself - the impression I got when first reading the page and taking a closer look at those images was that of complete disappointment. The quality difference between what is written, and then the images presented is far too grating. To me the impression here is that corners were cut, and that the same effort that went into writing the page and that went into the flags of PA and the cute little FC symbols wasn't put into those particular images. It doesn't give the planet any meaningful further characterization because AI doesn't put thought into it, it just makes what it makes based off of what it cannibalized from other unrelated images. There is no vision here, there is no thought here, none of those images are in any way tied into the actual lore of the planet and it's people. How could they? They weren't made by a human over the course of weeks if not months with actual passion and love for the origin, it was generated by a machine that cannot replicate that same effort. The ethics of AI use can be argued until we are all blue in the face - what can't be argued is that this is not a standard that should ever be set for the wiki. It's low quality, it looks ugly, and it looks low effort. The page would be far and away better without those images than with them; purely from a quality standpoint.

Flag sprites are always going to be a pain in the cunt if you design them with any degree of complexity :p The Callistean banner I had to cut out one of the circles just so it works, with flags I believe the priority should be that it looks competent as a general design, translating it to banners is always going to be a compromise. ...especially when you remember its not even 32x32, the canvas itself is closer to 15x15 because 32 is the size of the sprite file, 15 is the pixels you get to actually work with.

It fits the aesthetic of silversun. It's a planet caught in the vice of a corporate power, so it feeling corporate and artificial while retaining some of the almost vaporwave vibe of the planet makes sense to me. It doesn't need to be designed conventionally, and in the case of Silversun it not being designed so conveys the feeling its meant to invoke a lot better.

As it stands the only departments that I see benefiting from this (and having the slot competition to warrant such a change) are security and medical (paramedics to be extra precise), and neither of those need additional encouragement for playing. People should be discouraged from playing them on Odyssey rounds, at least so that other departments are filled. If we cut out a hard limit you will see an extreme lean towards Security as a department.

Not all that big of an issue if Operations are given additional funds in an Odyssey round to order whatever equipment is necessary. Bounties aren't really a focus anyways, so I feel like it should be a thing already. Even then; the slot scarcity only ever really applies to security and medical, especially paramedics. With the latter, you already have 2 extra paramedic belts in storage, and there's enough hyposprays in medical to outfit the entire ship.

Added a few more elements to the document; specifically a little more on infrastructure. Expanded on public transportation, how people get around within districts, AND how the magtro lets them do that between districts OCEAN FREIGHTERS LORE also added, if only a little. Ships should be on sea not in space! and on that point; added a little bit of a cultural element as to how callisteans refer to space ships. given it's early colonization, i imagine most ships arriving on callisto would be very rocketlike. So, both as a cultural habit, and to differentiate space ships from sea ships, callisteans call space ships 'Rockets', 'Rocks', or 'Rocketships'. Finally, added that Callisteans, because of their distance to the sun and the low gravity of Callisto, should be paler and taller than their terrestrial counterparts. unlike lunans tho they aren't snobs and don't take pride in that fact.

See- I absolutely understand this anxiety. When hush-hush about the NBT2 came down to me via the grapevine, I literally had a similar reaction as ASmallCuteCat, my exact reaction was; 'Is this necessary? This kind of change would make all of my characters unplayable! With the proposed changes I'll have to bin them or change them in such a way that they'd be grating to play!' The thing is, at least insofar as it pertains to me, I am not saying the same applies to anyone else, this was ultimately a kneejerk reaction. Every character that is made, especially one with a lot of effort, thought, and passion behind it, is in it's own unique (and deeply personal) way a lore mini-project. It's headcanon, it's a dynamic, it's themes and personality and time, and literally no one wants to see that either go entirely to waste or have to significantly alter it that changes it in a radical, only barely recognizable capacity. I understand that, I've literally felt the exact same way when I've gotten rumors about the project. The thing is- this exact line of thinking could've been applied to the NBT, the transition from a static setting and into one that goes through the 4 corners of the galaxy? Well, characters that are in some way attached to Biesel, that live there, whose arc and character are built with living on that planet or on Valkyrie or Odin in mind would just not work with our current setting. I've not been a sixth as active of a member back during KoTW, and went under a completely different identity, but I wonder; has something similar not happened before? Have these same anxieties, these same concerns, not been voiced with precisely the same reasons as here? And would you not agree, that ultimately, in-spite of that, the Horizon is a far better setting that allows for a lot more room in terms of character development, and even opening up character creation freedom as a whole? What I'm meaning to convey here is that while this kind of anxiety is absolutely understandable, and has merit- I want people to also try and see the flipside of this. To consider the possibilities that open up, think of concepts and step out of the comfort we currently have if only for a moment. As for this; my perspective on the matter? Because a character, just as a person, would ultimately want to continue their life in some other way. The Horizon is an exploration ship, it's not an airliner, it's not a static station, it's the kind of work environment that is not conductive to settling down. This doesn't apply to all characters, obviously other people will write theirs differently from mine, but I like to see my characters have some sort of end goal or a time limit. A certain point at which they settle down, have a family or similar. The Horizon is just not the environment for that. Ultimately; a change such as NBT2 is impossible to be done without stepping on many toes. Every single player will have an element or two that they'll at the very least disagree with if not outright despise. I'm not happy with all the ideas that the NBT2 proposes either, and some results of the community survey do disappoint me to a degree. But we shouldn't grind ourselves down on the tiny details because lets be honest each and every detail and point is a whole hill you can defend until you're blue in the face and die. I hope people take a step back if only for a moment; see the larger picture. Briefly set aside your anxieties and ask yourself sincerely- If this were to go through, would I enjoy this? How much fun could I have with this? What could I write with this? What could I do with this?

Lore Impact (Small/Medium/Large): Medium Species: Human Short Description: An expansion fleshing out Callisto some more. How will this be reflected on-station?: Characters from Callisto will be able to use the new additions both as a conversation started and for the purposes of character background. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: No, it is an expansion. Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team? Yes. Long Description: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tRZg7ozRuDjX1E5R8m-HAz0nCBtvSHC5H_JjrPPqalQ/edit?usp=sharing The additions are divided into several parts; the document above is a copy paste of the wiki page on Callisto, including everything from it. The first thing I've done is gone over what grammar and spelling errors I've found, and tweaked some wording here and there to make it flow better. Some things were outright replaced, the original text banished to the cutting floor for the sake of better flavor that makes more sense. This includes Callisto being described as 'warm' despite it being in the orbit of Jupiter, and additionally, Callistean cinema is no longer Cytherean but on a budget, instead it becomes focused around theater, operas, plays and musicals. Very british. Very cool. Finally; expansions and addition! Brand new map!!! Included in this post are three files, one krita file with all the relevant layers for people to tweak at will, the complete map with names markings and borders, and a blank map. Immigrant communities received an expansion! Dominians now have a loyalist diaspora to introduce solarians to imperials outside of the horizon and outside of persecuted minorities. And the introduction is done through secondaries, too, no nobility involved. Give a little more fluff as to what happened to Martian refugees, in addition to all kinds of refugees following the collapse. Callisto now has a proper place for them! FINALLY finally, expands on the districts GREATLY, introduces mini-districts called municipalities to the larger districts, and gives many of them relevant points of interest that can be used by Callistean (and immigrant) characters to reference something from the moon. That should be all! Map.kra

Nor can your characters stay on it forever either. Every character has it's eventual time limit, where you explored their arcs, and played out their gimmick. Eventually, just as a person, that character will need to move on somewhere else. Especially within three years.

the EOD special

nine actors nine actors

A full split, unless as part of a content expansion pack rather than preceeding the vague promises there-of, would be worse. You're doing the same thing of splitting hairs in terms of responsibilities but in addition you're placing them in different department. Further development shouldn't be a promise it should be what preceeds a change like this.

This was the case previously, where we had the role split into job titles exclusive to positronics, exosuits and circuitry. No one liked it. It wasn't necessary, it gave less stuff for the roles to do, and got merged for a very very good reason.

The current big issue I would see is departmental distinction. People in engineering still look like engineers, people in medical still look like doctors and medics, people in security still look like cops and mercs. You lose this visual aspect when you eschew a uniform or some sort of distinguishing clothing. For this proposal to make sense (at least to me) it'd have to come with a very generous sprite package to address that. At the very minimum thats what, 5-6 sprites per department, but ideally 5 per department per corporation; its a lot of work.

that required confirmation?