Shimmer

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?

This is a very serious topic, which is exactly why easing off on the language isn't something we should do. This is a significant issue, and it should be treated as a whitelist one because command has all the tools and means to involve overlooked departments. They don't either because they do the bare possible minimum, harken back to 'realism' as a guiding principle, or are in some other way anemic in their leadership. The same way we treat stonewalling antags harshly and as an administrative concern (afterall, it is disrupting the flow of the round, ruining it for not just the antag but those engaged with them), we should be treating this issue with a greater degree of concern because stonewalling departments is far, far, far worse. When someone stonewalls an antag with confirmation faxes, or 'realism's them to a stand-still where they question their every motive and reason and demand proof and any other number of actionable behaviour, they are sapping away fun from the antag, and those directly around them. Not cool. When someone stonewalls an entire department, they don't just sap enjoyment from it, they choke the entire department. No one wants to be cucked to an empty ship with at most 3-5 characters some of whom are too busy commanding the off-team to engage with you. Why would you play service, or operations, if it's possible for some anemic command member incapable or unwilling to figure out how to include you to simply say 'It's too dangerous! ;)' This is how you kill the drive of players to play departments. This is really, REALLY bad. And much like how we treat stonewalling antags as a whitelist issue, so should we this. As a command member, people look up to you for guidance, leadership... Command. What possible excuse could there be for someone who chose to play that role to act anemic, and do the bare-minimum? You should be expected to show initiative, to involve as many people as possible, that's the whole point of fucking command to begin with.

Thank you Jeff! ❤️ The telescope is simply an existing piece of lore I wish to maintain given it's a unique feature of Ganymede and offers some background for anyone looking to play a Ganymedean engineer or scientist. A more logical explanation for it's presence there could be a combination of it's distance from the sun, Jupiter occasionally providing shade from any light pollution, and then the lack of an atmosphere to interfere with the telescope. But those are post-hoc justifications, really it's there to keep a cool feature about the moon that shapes its character in a way distinct to Europa and Callisto. It being heavily urbanized would resemble the latter, it being underwater would resemble the former. Any massive dome constructions would resemble Luna; a big fuck-off telescope though? Unique to it and it alone.

Lore Impact (Small/Medium/Large): Small. Species: Human Short Description: Brings up Ganymede up to standard with other Solarian worlds such as Novo-Igman and other planets in the SRMs. Most notably, does not give Ganymede it's unique lore-page, seeing as that is currently not allowed. Instead, it simply increases the wordcount from a simple paragraph that doesn't quite set the scene into something people can draw on for characters, including a brief history, and contrast to Ganymede's sister moons, Callisto and Europa. How will this be reflected on-station?: Allows more freedom and background to people who wish to make characters from Ganymede, thus making the Jovian accent a little more meaningful. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: Given it's an expansion, all it does it flesh out the character of something that exists. It does not achieve anything new. 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? Of course. Long Description: The expansion / tweaking itself; "Often regarded as Callisto’s twin, the low-burn rivalry between the two Jovian sisters dates back all the way to their respective founders. In contrast to the Commonwealth origins of Callisto, the Federation of Ganymede was colonized by a combined effort of the European Union in competition with their close neighbour. Initially not as flashy as its terraformed twin, Ganymede ultimately used its more inhospitable nature to its advantage. Ganymede is notable for its extremely dense and efficient architecture compared to barren moons like Luna, eschewing surface domes in favor of large and sprawling towers dotting the surface. Residential towers are a minority in Ganymede, with the Gallilean moon never able to match the population of its neighbour. Instead, the majority of those towers serve as the breadbasket of the Solar system, growing a variety of crops using the moon’s abundant ice oceans. Over the span of 200 years since its initial colonization, Ganymede perfected the use of the towering farmland, optimizing ocean desalination efforts and fielding some of the best agricultural experts in the Spur. Ganymede’s more mechanically inclined infrastructure isn’t insignificant either. While Callisto serves as the gateway for goods entering Sol, Ganymede is a hub through which the system communicates with the wider Spur. Surface not used for habitation or farmland is occupied by massive communication arrays and information infrastructure, free of cumbersome atmospheric interference. The lack of an atmosphere likewise made the Jovian moon a perfect candidate for one of the wonders of the Spur; something many of its residents pride themselves on. The truly massive Hubble II telescope facility covers as much as a third of the moon’s surface and is renowned throughout the Orion Spur’s scientific community for its ability to produce high-quality images of extremely distant objects. Hubble II has even managed some commercial success, with Idris Incorporated producing a licensed year calendar using its images of major planets, and even the galactic core, Sagittarius A*. Unsurprisingly, due to the nature of the moon, Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals has a foothold in its research institutions and widespread farmlands, often employing Ganymedeans outside of the moon itself as astronomers and agricultural researchers. Also of note is the foothold of Einstein Engine, heavily invested in Ganymede's information infrastructure and the maintenance of the moon's massive telescope. Einstein employees on Ganymede are typically engineers and technicians whom specialize in said infrastructure." The intent is to replace the current paragraphs on the Jupiter page (https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Jupiter) with the above.

If you're unsure, you should double check. Because you're wrong, sensor reports explicitly give you a report for all the armaments visible on a ship. Any ship you can scan will show you what guns it has. Not only does it mention being a cruiser, it's mentioned as a prototype, and one with NAVAL ballistic weapons. The description is outdated and still mentions the Levi, but I implore you to still read it; do you genuinely think someone on a small pirate skiff is going to KNOWINGLY attack a ship described as 'a line without compare; featuring naval weapon hardpoints'? Here is a scan of the Canary before anyone says 'Naval just means its attached to a ship!', if it did, why is the canary's "low caliber" rotary cannon not referred to as a 'naval armament'? You cannot approach the Horizon undetected without antag-level stealth tech that only the mercenary gamemode shows us a non-canon example of, and even then it's up to the antagonist party. Any time the bridge is manned (which realistically it would be at all time), BCs and XOs go to great lengths to identify and IFF ships around them. If you approach the Horizon without identifying yourself, you'll be shot. No, you can't approach it undetected, try it yourself. If the ship is too small for the 400mm gun to be effective, it's too small to survive a Grauwolf barrage, which is designed specifically for the scenario you're describing - a small skiff rushing towards a much larger ship. You're suggesting someone charge a horse into a line of pikes, it does not end in the horse's favor and anyone with a will to live (aka all ghostroles) will take great care to avoid being shredded. Out of fear of driving this thread off topic, this is where I'll end the conversation.

Note the wording: by mistake, they didn't have advanced sensor reports that tell you the name, size, and capabilities of a ship. They would never have attacked KNOWING what it what.

The reason most ships do not go toe-to-toe with the Horizon is a difference of size rather than status. Most ghostships are tiny corvettes and modified freighters, meanwhile the Horizon is a cruiser with a massive cannon attached to it (400mm if im not mistaken? its a big fucking gun's the point) Imagine if modern cargo ships had a battleship cannon turret strapped to the bridge, would dingy boat pirates try their luck on it? Same principle.

On paper... But you're rarely alone in those roles and people do want to play those to loot gremlin or explore. If you're alone sure you can use it to practice piloting but if you aren't? Well you'll get sidelined. Additionally, this doesn't exactly teach you. You have no one to learn from, no one to coach you no one to explain you anything, you're basically throwing yourself into the water until you learn how to swim. It's why miner isnt a good role to learn how to BC either imo

Why not give atmospheric technician the jaws of life the AI borg has? That way they can access locked areas in an emergency and pull people out of rooms with bolted but broken airlocks.

Bridge crew are not intended to be a command or a command learner role. That is not their responsibility and it never was. A learner role for bridge crew IMO is a good idea, that way you're not expected to do something like mining or xenoarch, and you're in the proper environment to be taught the mechanics and responsibilities involved.

If Sol consulars come back I'm immediately making one But also, just bring them back. It's time, and Sol is currently the only faction that isn't represented in any way on the Horizon. It's weird, with how many Solarians are aboard, that they have no way to contact their own government.

It would be odd to place the headquarters of the United Nations, which with this suggestion becomes the executive body of the Alliance, in a state that is legally not part of the Alliance. Geneva is neutral grounds precisely because Switzerland is canonically independent. We don't really need to look for a place to put the UN Headquarters in- because we already have an answer! Simply place it in the current canonical capital of Earth - Paris. As for the Security Council, that should be on Luna. Since the SC oversees matters of military, and Sol's lore has the navy headquartered on the moon, it would make sense for it to be there. Ties it into how the military slipping away from the civilian government lead to the instability to begin with, and enforces the fact that both Luna and Earth are so tied together that they're basically the same entity politically. I would also introduce a few other elements, the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly since the general assembly is unelected (member states send their representitives to it, however who is sent isn't an elected position. Think of them more as ambassadors than senators); the former becomes the legislative body and the latter is an executive body. The International (Interstellar?) Court of Justice can be used as a judiciary. im very in favor of this because i have an unhealthy obsession with the blue helmets.

8 range go whoooooooom whoooooom

It informs the bridge of where you are going and for how long. It doesn't take anywhere near long enough to be bothersome- it's not even paperwork it's digitized on your PDA. There is genuinely no reason NOT to do it. A few minutes isn't 'Even Longer', it's barely anything.

I honestly don't understand what is the point of the shuttle manifest if it's optional. I think having it in the regulations that it must be filled, AND that departures shouldn't be impeded if that manifest is filled, is reasonable. At the very bare minimum it gives an IC excuse for bridge crew to seek out miners that have been gone for a while, and gives notice to them.

Prefacing this by saying that I observed the round rather than participating in it, and furthermore that I won't be touching on mechanical issues (the amount of jank it took for matt to give the volunteers gear, i saw all of it, it was funny :p) since the gamemode isn't even in the oven just yet y'all are still preparing the mixture. Watching from the sidelines, I feel the initial fight against the facility guards tunnelvisioned security into not looking at alternatives ways to breach the place. They basically rushed a really heavily defended position and got very obviously killed - a map would solve this, allowing prudent command members to study a layout and be granted clues to avoid situations in which they are significantly outmatched. Engineering built an absolutely beautiful outpost and I am so fucking mad I didn't take a single screenshot of it, the Horizon should be able to do stuff like that more liberally and with more benefit, give engineering and other departments more tools and perks to spending time establishing a presence in an Odyssey site to properly tie the Horizon into it. A new shuttle will need to be engineered. The Intrepid as it stands was just not designed to transport more than 10-15 people at a time, its got poor storage, poor seating, it's a mess to organize and navigate and make sure everyone is prepared and ready. That ship exists for small scale expeditions of around 6-8 people at most, its just not a good fit for Odyssey. An idea I discussed with LVS (btw im so so so sad u didn't mention it, im LITERALLY crying rn ;-;) was a shuttle unique to the Odyssey gamemode. It spawns only when the gamemode is selected, and takes up the merchant dock, it's bigger, it can transport a shit load of people, store stuff conveniently and easily, and most importantly it should act as a spawn point. That way pilots will not have to waste time going back up to pick up late joiners or stragglers, thus reducing unneeded hassle. It's a neat compromise, imo. You won't take away the Intrepid from science, you won't butcher the Canary and take away it's niche, limited, but useful traits (small insert vessel, can pick small groups of people from point A to B quickly and without much infrastructure, like medical evacuation. It's also an excellent trainer craft for new BCs). It being a spawn point also eliminates the calls for a teleporter. Don't need it if you can just spawn where the mission is. Mechanical elements and issues I see aside, time to go off and speak about conceptual stuff. I don't really think this is the purpose of the thread, so I'll keep it brief, but also people are talking about it so might as well. I'll preface this and say something I talk about both with ironic hate and unironic concern. Security, they have enough. They are the primary department in everything, in terms of mechanical features, attention, involvement, playerbase, lore, variety, and every single thing under the fucking sun. It doesn't matter what you do, expedition, antag, etc etc etc it can and usually will somehow go around and round and tie itself to security. They have enough to do, and should not be the recipients of even an iota of attention. This is to say, I echo people's concerns of further militarization of the Horizon, but I will also remind people of the original document about the Odyssey and Matt's stated vision on the gamemode. It's not an effort to try to turn Aurora into colonial marines, that would be stupid, if you want that, just play colonial marines, you'll enjoy yourself more trust me. The way Odyssey reads to me is trying to turn Aurora into something akin to a dungeon runner- you have a party, variable in size, that party receives a stated goal from their superiors, and they go about solving that goal. It can be violent, peaceful, it can involve any department and all of them depending on the stated purpose and the vision of the map-maker or the DM. Assuming I understand it right, it can range from anything to a low-pop round receiving a mission to establish a tiny outpost on a planet for data gathering, no time pressure, no material pressure, you can chill and roleplay while working towards a sandboxy goal. It can also be an intense high-pop round where central command orders the Horizon to chase down a pirate holding Miranda Trasen's second cousin's third sister's favorite dog. Depending on the type of round, those can be canon too, meaning characters finally have some work related stuff to talk about. This does, however, introduce it's own problems. Fatigue. I predict high-pop, more intense odyssey rounds will last longer than two hours, will be much more emotionally involved, and take a significant amount of effort. This effort comes from the players themselves, actors, DMs, and also the developers. You will not be able to out-pace players playing your maps, they will come out slower than people will start remembering them by heart. If you just let the gamemode run without limit how frequently it does, I fear it will wear itself out very quickly and players just won't enjoy it, you'll burn through content too quickly. Solution? Limit it. Say three days a week, high intensity Odyssey, with big maps and big goals, can run. Other days you'll have to make do with smaller scale Odyssey maps, secret, and extended. Make people excited for those few days where the big guns are running and I think you'll get more pop than usual, too.

varthrudnir is spelled wrong : /

Why not just vote to change round? One hour isn't all that much for an antagonist to really prepare a good gimmick, you'll fall into the trap of an antagonist either doing everything last minute or doing an otherwise rushed gimmick that ends quickly. Imo, it's a better idea to just restart the round entirely, at the very least it at least gives people something to do in the warm up until an antagonist arrives, and gives the latter a lot more lee-way and time for a proper coordinated gimmick.

I think some stuff for BCs to do would be neat- and what I like is dreamy's probes that give you fluffy stuff about a planet's general vibe. What if you could include stuff like taking soil samples, rock samples, etc etc etc to bring back to the Horizon for either display or study? Perhaps some way to enhance probing planets that isn't exclusive to xenoarcheology but can be done by scientists and or BCs as well?

No. Absolutely not. And a fuck no to that. This already happens during high-pop hours because they're antagonist oriented and resets aren't that big of a deal. During lowpop however? This would fuck with flow so badly I personally wouldn't bother even signing on to lowpop. So this would achieve nothing in highpop, and just put an arbitrary time limiter on those not playing in American hours. Seeing as this thread have been largely skewed towards one opinion, I feel the need to add my two cents in. I wish players actually playing in the round and not those sitting in the lobby or D-chat had more of a sway on the vote. It happens constantly that someone who has no intention to play, doesn't join the next round, just fires off a vote. And you'd think the 4-6 people that vote yes would at least ready up for the next round but they don't, it just breaks up any flow of ongoing RPs and has the potential of outright depowering the ship if no one is kind enough to matriarch or borg to give the ship power. There is no point to rounds changing if it doesn't serve to reset the ship after an antag round or if such a reset would bring in a bigger pop. All it does it ruin the flow of ongoing RP because now you have to spend 10+ minutes just getting back into it, which isn't a minor inconvenience it can outright cause you to just not bother, pauses like that in a cool moment just ruin the entire thing. Imagine if you were watching a movie and in the middle of an intense conversation a 15 minute ad roll was shoved in with no rhyme reason or thought. That's what lowpop random shift changes feel like. I don't think ghosts should be prevented from starting them, but their vote IMO should count for less. Especially since there's not mechanical obligation on them to actually join the next round, which they frequently don't.