Shimmer

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.

I will like to make note that using caseless ammunition imo loses a lot of the flare and theater that guns have. Casings leave behind a mess, they create a scene, without them guns will feel like louder disruptors which kinda sucks. Ballistic guns should leave behind casings, energy guns should be the caseless ones.

waves app recently accepted, so i dont think i have access to the thing. id like to have access to the thing!!

Under what circumstances would such a document even be needed, this new provision or not. The Captain doesn't communicate by way of carrier pigeon and letters, if she decides to empower an XO, all it takes is :c Executive Officer is acting on my behalf regarding X, with my authority. Any scenario that you brought up, where a head of staff flat out ignores the XO under this simple circumstance, quite literally stands in violation of a captain's order. What issue does this provision seek to address? That other heads of staff should be obeying an XO if she says 'i am acting on the captains behalf'? This is already a thing, most command players will assume good will coming from another, and not needlessly badger or be a nuisance to them especially when confirmation is really easy to achieve. I an interpreting everything as it is written. And this doesn't change anything. Or introduce anything new to the table. Which you call bad faith. And you use this accusation of bad faith to not engage with any of my other points. I am not going to ascribe anything here, I just want to bring attention to this flat out refusal to engage with anything I said or others said bar what you cherry pick. Zero transparency about this for a whole year. What little communication we have do not address the concerns people are having, but rather call players bad faith actors who should be ignored or be silent. Absolutely hysterical.

One third (if we are being pedantic, 3/10ths) of all XO rounds were played by xenos, to be precise an almost even 50/50 split between Unathi and IPCs. This restriction puts one third of what active xeno XO staff out of commission, and puts the role squarely and solely into the hands of humans. And humans, emphasis on the humans, because as your own statistics have shown, skrell XOs were outplayed by G1s, an IPC subtype. I am almost certain, and only would be with statistics, that the proportional amount of xeno players, especially unathi and IPC, do not come to a 1/3rd of all total humans played. Humans are the most common, the most banal and the default players resort to. What people are pointing out, is proportionally, xeno XOs are more represented than those respective xeno species are. Giving the illusion that they're more played. But I'll set this aside- whether or not xeno XOs are being sacrificed matters only in so much as what they're being sacrificed for. Standard procedures, 1.1: "During standard operation, all Departmental Heads of Staff are equal, under the command of the Captain present onboard the vessel. Should a department find itself lacking a Head of Staff, the Captain is able to either assume direct supervision of the department or otherwise appoint a senior crew member to fill the missing role. During non-standard operation, a specific Departmental Head of Staff may be elevated above others, should the crisis situation fall under the responsibility of their department. At that point, other departments should act in a supporting role." The captain already has the inherent ability to give any member of command explicit authority above others, should the situation call for it. While this specific regulation specifies that this happens when something falls under the purview of a certain department, this shows that the precedent for a captain to elevate other members of command above their peers exists. And that they are ought to follow the word of said command member. This new provision doesn't in any way empower the XO, this simply puts emphasis on another standard procedure, which is the very first one, being that the Captain might as well be god and their word is law. If a Captain orders an XO elevated above other members of command as part of delegation or for any reason, those very same members of command are required to play ball. Them telling the XO to bugger off would be essentially telling 'I am not obeying a Captain's order placing you above me.' Again, Captain's Authority, if a captain orders the XO to be in charge of the ship, and elevates them above others, even without this new provision a head of staff going 'I'm not listening to you stinky' is disobeying a clear and direct order / guideline set by the captain. This is already how command operates, nothing here changes. This furthermore assumes so much bad faith on part of most whitelist holders, that they're petty enough to penny pinch what regulations mean and argue them in the middle of a situation until the Captain threatens them with suspension. How is questioning a captain about whether an XO has their blessing any different now than it was before? Are we placing the expectation on the captain to punish command members that do this? Does this become a whitelist issue? Is disobeying a captain going 'XO has command to handle this situation, obey them.' not already a whitelist issue?? When people are given the prompt 'unless absolutely required', what this put them through isn't to go into a detailed Sherlock Holmes floaty words with all the considerations coming about and 'oh am i allowed am i not', the words unless absolutely required are tantamount to saying avoid this at all costs. You've not said 'Unless the XO is most qualified to handle the situation', or 'In cases where others are less qualified to handle the situation', you've said 'unless absolutely required', implying there is no other alternative and that the XO has to take charge. In the example you provided, I, and I am willing to bet most other players, would've elevated the Research Director to acting Captain. That's the intuitive, gut response to the words 'unless absolutely required'. This is the main argument people are making against 2iC even being a thing. Because this is literally what second in command means, that they either have an enhanced level of authority above others, or are second in line of command succession should the first in command be incapacitated. If you wanted to avoid the issue of duplicate roles, you should've pointed this out to the playerbase a year ago. This is not what the community voted on, the XO does not have the authority to give orders when the 1iC isn't present. I think, ultimately, this is a thing people are missing that I find really funny. This doesn't just not make the XO not second in command, this does something far, far worse. This makes Executive Officer a learner role, described ICly as the position captains take before taking the proper mantle of captainship. This makes the XO the role people are expected to play before going for captain. If anything this makes them feel like they have the least amount of authority and are only ever playable when there is a captain to delegate tasks and missions for them. This is not what people wanted. People didn't want XO to become the captain's learner role when they wanted a 2iC. And for a learner role no one asked for, we are retconning, reassigning, or outright pushing out 1/3rd of all XO rounds played since the vote was put into action.

Why is this something a 2iC requires? A 2iC exists to take control over a situation when the 1iC is incapacitated. This is not to mention that all of this is fluff- this doesnt come up in game. Those are all nebulous secrets and systems that arent acknowledged in game bar the nuke, and are usually not something a 2iC needs to know. If we are going by the line of reasoning that the 2iC needs to know of this because they relay that information to an acting captain that they just appointed- what happens to the acting captain that learns of this information? Do they poof out of existence because theyre an IPC? Does the SCC blackbag them? Why any of this?

I concur here. This will put half or more of the executive officer staff out of a job, I'd prefer not to see this change go through if the same species restrictions apply.

It would give characters something to talk about, share, bond over. Antagonists don't involve any degree of canonicity, and they are like most of the engagement players get. It's hard to develop a character when you basically retcon them all the time.

Hi. Hello. Greetings. I need to write in a few words at least even if their nonsense to get my brain going forward. I'll start by just throwing out my thoughts in regards to character recognition, especially in event articles, especially especially ESPECIALLY as it pertains to character retention. Do I agree that characters should be getting recognized for what they do in really important tasks? Yeah! Those are significant events, they have a lot of eyes on them, and there are close to zero named anything on them most of the time. It's rare to see named individuals in event articles that aren't big shots like politicians and military leaders and just people who are at the top of the chain in general. Letting the little everywoman get her recognition here and there is fine, and to add to this, I disagree with Sue that this shouldn't be an ego thing. Fuck this, this is an ego thing, people should feel pride over this, everyone has an ego, everyone will feel pride over their character being mentioned on an article. And its fine, it's normal, its human to feel pride over your fictional little spaceperson baby with their smug little sprite being mentioned in a fictional newspaper. What I also think, however, is that people are talking like this will help or improve player retention in some way or another. I think this is a red herring, characters should be recognized because we play a video game and those characters exist in that video game, and it's cute when those same smug little spacepeople get named every once in a while, or are seen at the helm of an award ceremony. The issue is, I doubt this will affect retention in any way but possibly the most minimal one, in either direction really. Think about it, setting aside the sheer amount of effort required to do something remarkable enough that it can be picked up and outed as special and reward worthy, all of this requires stupid amounts of luck. To be one out of a hundred to receive recognition requires not just skill, but timing, right place, right people around you, and the right environment, and the right job. How is this meant to encourage character retention? What I think really causes problems with character retention is the fact that... Well- There isn't all that much to do on the Horizon. It's hard to interact with people in a meaningful way sometimes, how are you supposed to sit down and have a chat with your doctor colleague when the GTR is full of dying and bleeding people. It's not like you can even discuss this after the fact, you can't bond over this, because none of what just happened was canon. Sure, you may have gotten to know the other person, but now what? It can be really hard for new characters to find conversation topics, and there really aren't that many social spaces on the Horizon that don't just get repetitive, or are structured in a way that it's horrendously hard to follow a conversation or talk to most other people. When the bar is full, how are you really supposed to talk to someone on the other end of it? You can try to strike up a chat with the bartender- and should!- but it's likely someone else has done so before you. It takes a certain kind of person to break out of this, we call them extroverts, and I'm sorry but the vast majority of people that play are not that. If you want character retention, you need to find reasons to give for those characters to stay. And above fucking all, you need to stop pushing some of those characters to leave. I can't overstate how many times I've seen characters be called 'relay only' 'neverplayers', and I can't put to words how utterly fucking infuriating it is to see some players both ICly and OOCly go 'lmao lol lmfao haha i've never seen you above deck'. I'm unemployed, I have so much spare time to spend, and I try my best to play as my characters and interact with others in spite of antag shenanigans. Yet even still this stupid insult was applied several times to me and my characters, it's incredibly easy to have one of your characters catch that title and for people to passively-aggressively hold it over your head. Now imagine if I wasn't employed. Imagine if I could afford only one two game per week. Four hours. Four hours where roleplay, intercharacter connection, all of that, isn't guaranteed. Four hours where the possibility of you being pushed to AFK in a bar are more than they should be. Now imagine if you tried to develop your character on the relay, try to test out their personality, try to see names you can watch out for on the manifest for interaction, and you get hit with I've never seen you sis, lmao, who are you? Who tf are you? Is that supposed to be motivating? Does that not push people away? Would you keep playing a character that is invisible according to others? If we are talking about character recognition, a lot of people, players, should stop doing this shit. More opportunities for characters to connect with one other should be given. More social spaces. More reasons for people to interact that don't get forgotten the next round because it's antag related. Give characters a reason to stay. And maybe some of them will even get recognized on that fancy fictional newspaper, too.

I would like to actually touch on this and my experience with enforcement of this stuff. I've previously asked with the lore team, in particularly Stryker, about my headcanon'd shell model line called 'Edna', and whether or not they can be named that on a planet like NHP presuming of course they follow ethnic appearance guidelines. The answer given to me was a no, specifically because of the issue that IPC players would be able to use this as a loophole to skirt around and ignore ethnic guidelines intended for planets like Eridani, Konyang, NHP, Port Antilla etc etc etc. This would allow in theory a Jane Janeson to come from Eridani just because they're technically an IPC. I'm not certain this is a loreteam issue in so much as errant players slipping or skipping by the moderation of those guidelines, but from my personal experience, IPCs are expected to follow what ethnic and cultural guidelines exist for their appropriate origin, and if they do not it is an ahelpable issue.

I've held off on writing feedback until the very last moment on account of both being lazy wanting to try to figure out what sort of traits Komaeda expresses as a command member. Trying to gauge as a trial member of command and as crew. Saaaadly the trial period does not last NEARLY enough for me to be able to do the latter, however I do think I want to comment at least from the perspective of rounds I participated in as Laura, and of rounds I've ghost observed. Holmes came across to me in a way that an established command member did, at least with my limited experience with the role. They were responsive, and they facilitated something I wanted to give one of my service members. I don't think there was a point where I tried to communicate with Holmes and failed to get across to them. They interacted with the crew I sent over to them in a diligent manner even after not being able to find something on their own. Edit: Most recent round with them me and Holmes were the only command members present during an intense hostage situation. I took lead, but everything would've been a lot more overwhelming and probably impossible without someone else taking off some of that pressure and focusing on tasks they are more experienced in. Something Komaeda did diligently and effectively. Leaving a positive note here, +1.

Hey! Thanks for the feedback. Yeah in hindsight I agree that I probably should have went down to bring back the security officers first, but the decision was made largely out of a tired end-of-the-round tunnel vision, I had been prior to this decision doing most of the negotiations with the ninja, including intentional stalling of the antagonist, which is tiring to do for a whole hour, especially giving I'm new to command. So this was more of a groggy "im halfway finished with this dumb paper, ill just take two minutes to sign and fax it" than giving it conscious priority - by that stage, the situation report did nothing more than notify command of 'we've just been robbed. no one died except for our pride.' Hopefully this explains why I did it, I'll keep this in mind next time.

I've volunteered for almost all of the events of the arc, bar the visit to Point Verdant and the Etna visit. I'll try to give as much of my perspective of both individual events, and the entire arc as a whole. basically what im saying is this is going to be long winded and wordy stars help me I'll start with the events I've actively participated in, starting off first with the exclusionist attack, and then the warehouse + NPP assault sort of mixed into one big bag! I'll very immediately deviate from that with something that genuinely bugged me on in both the exclusionist event and the warehouse assault! Something that annoyed me personally is that at certain parts of the events, I did feel very aimless and without someone or something directing me. It was really badly present in the exclusionist raid, you can see in my recording of it I've sent the occasional ahelp that either never got a response, or was wordlessly closed. I do get that admins and moderators are most definitely overwhelmed with tickets during events, but a simple we can't handle that right now, we have bigger priorities, sorry would go a LONG way in not leaving a bitter taste in your mouth and a feeling of being completely ignored. This DOUBLE stings as a volunteer, because we rely on staff for guidance and when we are ignored or nothing is said to us it gives us a sense of aimlessness. This was, thankfully, not present in the NPP assault. I received prompt responses from the team, and good direction. I wish this could be the standard, because it improves the game significantly for the volunteers. As for the exclusionist assault, a few things. My memory of the entire thing is BADLY rusted, but what comes to mind is that there wasn't that much of a plan it to all. So much so, that we didn't even go to the CiC and instead opted to sit in the bridge, something that killed me in the first hit. That part is on our end, but the intent behind this move was very much to pull punches, to give the Horizon an opportunity. We underestimated the Horizon and it's capabilities, and because of that the space fight felt unimpactful, we were never a threat to the Horizon with how prepared it was. If this was pointed out to us, and we were told to not pull our punches as much, I feel like the space phase could've given the event more stakes. The same applies to the cannon fodder. We were designed to die quickly, but I feel like they didn't have too much of an impact. I don't mind them being fragile, I think it's fitting, but if they had more of a punch to them it would've been better. They were all armed with pistols against a crew fully kitted out in armor, hospitalizing someone, which was the intent of every event, was pretty difficult to do. The improvements I would like to see is basically- don't underestimate the Horizon too much. The volunteers are already pulling their punches, pulling your punches with a weak weapon simply means you do very little damage. Moving on to both the warehouse and the NPP. First, the NPP very clearly learned the lessons the warehouse taught both the mappers and the crew, leading to a very focused and organized final event. I see people mentioning that it felt very unfulfilling at the end, and the reason for that is because the Horizon learnt its lessons, the crew was well armed, extremely well organized, they simply surpassed what the expectations were for the event. What's the solution to this? In cases where the Horizon does a little too well, backup spawners of ghostroles that can dish out good damage should be used. After all, if the crew is doing well, they are up to the challenge. On the topic of ghostroles- I will speak for myself- I did not like the fact that the ghostroles were actual IPCs that had to use weapons. I personally would've preferred if instead they were simple mobs that could be controlled, which does annoyingly require custom sprite work for those to stick out. I think it'd have been worth it, imagine if instead of just random IPCs attacking you it'd have been advanced hivebots for ranged attacks, and really buff and dilapidated IPCs. The only time I see regular IPCs being neat is when the cure went through, in which case you probably can squeeze in a few of them in the final stages to appear out of the woodworks and go 'Huh. Wuhuh. Why am I covered in guts?' - which was fun! The last two things I will touch on was Konyang itself. Point Verdant was beautifully well done and crafted, and I genuinely love the map... However, it was a little too well done. It was big, and it required so many ghostroles to fully staff that outside of events and very specific instances it felt empty, no one went down there, and it's size meant that the server took ages to load. I think if the scope for a shore leave map was scaled down a bit, more areas where the crew can hang out without ghostroles were added, and if they were limited to specific days; they'd see much more use. This is the odd case where in my opinion too much effort was put into it, and it ended up hurting it as a result. As for Konyang itself- I hate it. I hate how much effort went into it and that none of my characters were able to see it because at any point in time it was a combat arena with 30-40+ infected IPCs. There was no reason to go down to Konyang other than to fight hivebots and rampants, and this is bad, because all it does it give security something to do, and they have more than plenty to do. If their A.I wasn't that aggressive, and had triggers as to when they attack, it would allow smaller teams to actually touch down and explore the area without intense combat. I get that the danger down on Konyang was supposed to be representative of what is happening on the planet, and it did achieve this! By preventing people from exploring the place without an armed entourage. So a lot of effort that was put into the map just sorta went unseen- who encountered the trinarist memorial, and was able to have a quaint, cute moment with it? To my memory no one, which sucks, because it's a cool bit of lore no one got the chance to interact with. That's all I can really think of right now. I might add more later if I'm reminded of it. None of my points are meant to start an argument, if you reply to them thinking I will argue back, you're an idiot. They are feedback and nothing more. I speak only for myself here.

BYOND key: shimmeristaken Discord Username: shimmeristaken Character names: Tomine Rosenweiss, Ethnea How long have you been playing on Aurora? I've re-joined Aurora around March/April of last year, meaning my most recent consistent playtime on Aurora is roughly a year or so. I also used to play around 2020-2021 (during the KoTW arc) under a different ckey, Timirald, but I don't remember much of my time there nor anyone from my time there, so I don't really count it as proper play time. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? I have a total of three notes and one warning. One was for spamming ghostroles to try to fix a dead ship. Other two of the notes and the warning related to them was for being snappy/snarky/angry towards other players when their behaviour irritated me, crossing the 'Be nice to others' line. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame? There is no singular purpose for heads of staff in my opinion, as they cover multiple areas and responsibilities that are all different to each other. If I had to put it laconically, it will be similar to how I described A.I; Their purpose is to make the round flow better for both the players and the antagonists, achieving so in a myriad of different ways and using different tools. It's not limited to just antagonist rounds either, command members hold the ability to introduce more activity in extended or event rounds if they have an idea, the will to executive that idea and the creativity to make it fun. In my A.I whitelist, I described A.I as a soft gamemaster, they had the tools and ability to push the round in pretty much any manner they wanted, and it is their responsibility to make it flow better. Going by this comparison, command are more senior players / party leaders, the type you can look up to for guidance, and those who can push their respective departments into action, but don't posses the same overwhelming presence that an A.I does. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them? 'Players' are too broad of a category for me to really stuff them into one, so I'll break it down into four groups I think are relevant to command! New players: The most significant responsibility command players hold in my opinion are to new players. Not just new players to Aurora, but to new players to their departments. Command players are an easy person to turn to when players need help, they have the authority, ability, and OOC knowledge to help out new players adjust mechanically into the server or into a department. Be it through direct tutoring, or through the attachment of another senior player; Command can and should ease new players in. Regular players: With regular players, command plays a similar role to what I described AI do in that application. They exist to allow for better round flow, having access to tools and the authority to organize their department and allow for more convenience and direction. In non-antag rounds, command are able to, if willing, introduce interesting elements to the round, expedition, crew organized events and the like. Command players also exist as a direct line for their department to communicate with others, and ease cooperation between them. Command players: Other command players are in a unique position, and the obligation to them is largely to keep to your lane and not to boss about in departments you don't belong. Good communication and information updates are vital for smooth cooperation between departments, and other whitelist holders are essential for that. Antagonists: What's seemingly the most difficult aspect of command, the treatment of antagonist players. Command have a responsibility to allow an antagonists' gimmick to go forward as best as it can, since they are in the best position to easily and thoughtlessly shut it down early into the round. This ties into the obligation to regular players, just as they allow their round to flow better, so should an antagonist's round flow better with the help of command; either by facilitating it to begin with, allowing leeway, or showing the response it calls for. Explain how the recent events in the Spur changed your character and how they came to be employed on the SCCV Horizon. Laura is a synthetic produced for Zeng-Hu pharmacueticals by Siddhartha Systems Incorporated, Xanu, in the year 2452. She was initially assigned as a pilot for the Keiretsu's security detail operating in and around the weeping stars, especially with expeditions going into the Lemurian sea. Her performance and initiative within those assignments, when it came to negotiating with errant vessels or providing aid to Zeng-Hu assets in distress, made way for her slow climb of the corporate ladder. With the increased pirate activity following the phoron scarcity and the Solarian collapse, Laura's performance with the Keiretsu not only earned her freedom, but also a command position in one of it's vessels, continued by a swift recommendation for reassignment to the SCCV Horizon. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Executive Officer, Consular, and Operations Manager! Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes! Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Currently, I only have my trial character in mind, Laura, who is going to be an executive officer. I am planning on playing a Zeng-Hu corporate representative, and then some kind of operations manager, maybe Nanotrasen? Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes, I understand! Have you linked your BYOND account to the Forums? Yes, I have! Extra notes: None that I can think of!

If you've read what I said instead of trying to just argue, you will note that I said the following; it heavily discourages exploration unless done in large groups, or unless well armed. You can look for any insinuation you want, but let me repeat again, my meaning, without you trying to infer something that isn't there; it heavily discourages any expeditions that are unarmed, and are not going in with the mindset that they will end up fighting something. So what you offered as a 'well you have a solution!' wasn't a solution. So the tools available to say, a BC and a sec off, literally aren't enough. So what you are saying is, you require either command to go explore, so you can get access to more weapons (something rarely granted), or you need to make new weapons with science. Return to my first point; heavily discouraged. So what you are proposing to my issue of the fact that there is too much fighting done on the planet, which hinders exploration in favor of a combat arena is... Give people more guns? Look- People don't go down to Konyang to fight IPCs, and those that do are delusional and don't understand what those IPCs are supposed to represent. The solution to that issue, it being, 'you shouldn't execute dozens and dozens and dozens of curable people to get a shiny rock' isn't 'well allow people to do that and give them more guns', its 'reduce the risk involved with going down to the planet so it's not a game of doom'. Allow me to repeat myself- Most people are not violence inclined, players should not be punished for playing reasonable characters. A reasonable person averse to fighting would likewise also not go down to a planet knowing that fighting might occur. When I say violence averse, I do not mean incapable of self defence, but going down to Konyang requires you to go down to it with the mindset of 'It's CRAWLING with IPCs and I might get attacked', it's too hostile for any reasonable character to willingly go down to it unless heavily defended by others, locking out any smaller, sight seeing expeditions that BCs are able to organize. You can't avoid those zombies is the thing, if they spot you, you have to fight, and if they spawn on a planet they are HEAVILY likely to at some point spot you. Tell me, would you be willing to go down on Konyang, given how frequently attacks happen there, knowing that you have 4 fucking shots to make due with? Or are you telling me you'd want to face one of those things in melee with a machete? Again, you are ignoring my primary issue in that you are giving solutions to be more effective at combat, wherein my argument is that this combat is an issue to begin with. You know another solution? You can get a mech! And then stomp all of those infected IPCs to death! And make a notch for everyone you get. You could just go around with a mech and EMP anything that moves! Or use the leviathan to clear the way for expeditions! : D The fact that those solutions are even proposed or needed proves my point. Konyang as it stands is too much of a combat arena, and the solution to that is moving it away from being a combat arena to something else, not giving players more unique ways to gun down Konyang's civilian population, as zombie as they might be.