Noble Row

The team has talked it over and for now we're going to have to deny the application. The character concept was solid and it was entertaining going through the backstory, however our major gripe is the understanding of IPCs and their sentience. It is important to note that IPCs are sentient, they're more than robots and cyborgs, they have come so far that their thoughts are so complex that they have what is fundamentally sentience. It is the great divide between the sentience they have and the spur's acceptance of it is what causes so much strife for synthetics in our lore, and we want to be sure that if someone holds a whitelist for an IPC that they know without a shadow of a doubt that they aren't a human, and they aren't a robot. They are in this weird middle area where they have complex thoughts and feelings like a human, but are plopped in to the world with a full understanding of themselves and yet no understanding of what's around them, and that journey to learn is what defines them as they are, gives them personality, makes them people to at least themselves whether they realize it or not. But that being said feel free to apply again in the future.

Could you clarify a bit in your own words the level sentience of IPCs and how that effects your character? How are they different than a regular robot?

I like this. Adds more life to the immediate setting we have.

Yes, as all whitelists, IPC whitelists need a character and a keen understanding of the lore no matter if it's "Just a ghost role" or not. Ghost roles rely even more on the lore as they expand in to lore beyond the Horizon. Please come back with a character and express understanding of the lore regarding IPCs and their nature.

SCCV Horizon Confirmed to Arrive at Point Verdant, Preparations Underway Point Verdant, Konyang It has been confirmed that the Aoyama Prefecture has been given instructions for the preparation of the prefectural capital for the arrival of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate’s vessel, the SCCV Horizon. The vessel’s arrival time frame is still not fully determined, though work is already underway at the city’s Corporate District, a small zone at the southernmost limits of the city housing the offices of corporations such as Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals. The location was chosen to serve as the Horizon’s temporary base while on Konyang for its relative isolation from the rest of the quarantined urban center, the availability of amenities and the proximity to corporate headquarters. A partial lift of the quarantine will furthermore be put in effect, permitting restaurants, stores and other vendors to remain open and cater to the Horizon crew’s needs. Vetted staff will be subject to behavioral screening to prevent any infected individuals from crossing, while spare officers have been recalled to fully staff the local National Police precinct. The Mayor of Point Verdant has released a plan in the City Council’s press auditorium, pertaining to the protection of the Corporate Sector from the viral Hivebot waves. Positronic members of the council were present via video-call, as only organic persons were permitted to physically attend. “The City has secured the necessary resources for the erection of a number of pylons, equipped with military-grade signal jamming technology that, if placed in a dense enough pattern, are projected to provide enough cover for a good level of protection in the Corporate District. It is important that we do our utmost to assist the Horizon to succeed in their mission, so that we can finally be rid of this heinous sickness. I would also like to ask the people of Aoyama to be welcoming to the Horizon’s crew, who will most likely be of a variety of different species, cultures and backgrounds from around the galaxy. This council, for one, is honored to do so.”

Alright, talking it over with staff and looking through the statements here I have come to a conclusion. Baldos, as an antag you are aware your main goal is to convey a story in some capacity. Due to the lateness of the actions in the round, I understand one can be hard-pressed to make a full story. This can be done many ways, and the required ways are proper escalation and trying not to go overboard. In the heat of the moment I understand it can be hard to temper your actions, and due to your newness to the Unathi's sprint ability, I won't be punishing you for it this time. However, it should be recognized in the future that when you have an ability such as that combination of Adrenaline sacks + The Unathi acceleration, you need to know when to reel yourself back and moderate your actions. The adrenaline sack issue has already been forwarded to a head developer, who mentioned they will be looking in to it. This was a needless mention as this topic has already been ruled upon. Staff has discussed the issue and made a ruling that is recent, not years old. I urge you to drop it. Staff changes as time goes on, you can look in to the history of this server and see several things that are very stark differences to the stances staff have today, both things the server tolerates and doesn't. If it becomes a more persistent issue staff may talk about it again, but as it stands it is reasonable to use a basic game mechanic such as the limb targeting system. Otherwise Baldos, remember you are playing a game that regularly involves a large population of people. Antags for the round are kind of like the 'main event'. We just want everyone to have fun here, or at least the most amount of people as possible. Choose your gimmick, play it to the best of your ability, but try to keep in mind there's a lot of people watching and we want to try to make this server as fun as we can for everyone involved. Thank you both for your time, if nothing else is to be said this thread will be locked and archived within 24 hours.

Hello all, I will be taking this complaint. If @Bolbos could post their end of the story while I grab the server logs I'd appreciate it.

Heya, I like it! I just wanted to note down a couple things to look at for adjustments: The Colossal probably shouldn't be able to phase through people while on the ground. Might be too much health for the colossal when they can hop on to the ceiling and become invincible. Or the regen is a bit too much for them eating people. Either way I'm not too fussed since this is reliant on admins ferrying the colossal over to the Horizon, or else be trapped on the Asteroid. The Colossal probably shouldn't be able to go through girders due to its size. The Grems can speak Basic, probably due to a default thing they're granted. Also apparently there's some issues with the Colossal's sprite, but I personally don't know anything beyond the dead sprite not changing. If you want I can take the sprite and flip it upside down and add a little bit of blood effects to it as a quick patch job stand-in. Other than that I think it's a fun little idea. I know you have a lot of this noted down already, but I figured it'd be easy to look back on while looking through code. Thank you for contributing it!

I stand alone against an army of Cheesed and Havocs. But I'd love to answer your questions! Augments in the terms of stuff you find in the loadout menu are unfortunately a bit contentious on the balance side. I remember seeing an argument in the discord a while back stating that some developers didn't want them there to begin with. However, additional items that may bleed through from the lore in to the game I think would be excellent additions to making people feel connected to articles and wiki pages they read. An overlap between what goes down on paper, and what gets featured in the game the paper is for. The LRPSU is meant to be somewhat of like an advanced Suit Cooler with the intent of military application, and similar to the real world, might get dumbed down and cheapened for commercial use to something that can be featured in game outside of antag uplinks and events. Other ideas I've wanted to explore is detailing the downloadable knowledge packages an IPC would be given when owned by an individual, or purchase themselves (if they have the money). For instance, Idris would more than likely have standardized training packages to get their IRU's and ISU's out in service as soon as possible, but what is in those packages? What can they do? Are there more advanced models with more advanced packages? Does the PMCG on the military side have some expensive combat packages for special units? So on and so forth. I've also been very fond of equipment specialized to certain chassis'. Industrial frames can carry more weight for instance. I've wanted to toy around with the idea of synthetic adventurers that explore the more perilous areas of the spur since they can be more mentally fortified and are deemed as more expendable than their organic counterparts. So in this line of thinking I wanted to design an 'all purpose environment suit', but the idea kept sticking in my head that it's going to have to be bulky, so to compensate for the weight, design a suit for industrials. They hardly get suits due to their size, so specialize a suit for them, one that can withstand the crushing depths of Europa, the dangerous Xenofauna of remote locations, and can cut open lost ships with integrated industrial tools. I'm a big fan of playing to one's strengths, and while that meaning is more ambiguous to us as humans, IPC's are often designed for a task. While their willingness to do that task can be represented in their sentience, the chassis they occupy is still a specialization in and of itself. Additionally I talked a while back about helping design new bodies and such for IPCs. A system of customization that is more than just changing the colors of the panels and the lights. Stuff like swapping out heads for new sprites/models, changing arms, torsos, etc, so the IPC player can truly embrace the variety the spur has to offer. I can sprite, but I personally have no dev knowledge on how it would work. I think Baystation has a system like this, but they also do not have individual chassis' with unique stats, they're all just one single "IPC". Personally, when I play an IPC I try my best to link everything together with a very defined string of logic. Sometimes this leads to funny socially awkward situations that are logical by nature but societally are strange. When people play an IPC I would like to see them be able to trace their reasoning in a series of logical steps. Hormones and mood swings are for organics, you are smart, calculating, able to obtain and hold an incredible amount of information, you rarely get the luxury of just 'feeling' a certain way. Yes you can have feelings, I want you to have feelings as an IPC, it's part of what separates IPCs from Cyborgs and the like. But I want you to know why you have those feelings unless it is a feeling truly alien. What logical string of events and reasonings have lead you to this moment to cause your character to feel and act this way? And in the rare moment when your character can't identify it, identify the symptoms. Identify why those symptoms are happening. Eliza Trin is my favorite character I have on Aurora because she's a psychologist, and one of Eliza's go to treatments is to tell her patient to break down their issue. Why are you Angry? Anxious? Depressed? Step by step she would keep dumbing it down, asking their patient "Why?" over and over until the patient has narrowed down their issue to something small and handle-able. Her treatment is just telling organics to think like she thinks as an IPC. In a similar vein I want players who play IPCs to break down their decisions, step by step, why did your character do this? What is the logic? Make sure you have that knowledge in your back pocket as being able to trace this logic helps you think like a synthetic would. Looking at code you see arrays, if-ands, if-else's, so on so forth, it's all very defined and straight forward. IPCs are like that, but with a database so very complex that they can be sentient, make their own conclusions and decisions, develop themselves and learn, they just have to know to a good degree why. Humans do the same thing, your brain is a very very powerful computer. You have a string of logic running in there somewhere where you can sit down and identify what caused you to think certain ways, and you can trace it back with a bit of self reflection and meditation. With IPC's you just make that logic string a little bit more obvious all depending on how advanced you want your IPC to be. To some it might be near invisible, because your character is grappling sentience much better than other IPCs, or their positronic is more advanced. Other IPCs you might see those cogs flowing more obviously, where it is clear what caused them to behave in a certain way. It's all up to your character and how you want to design them. Just know IPCs know themselves, they can read their part numbers, they can look through manuals and know each and every bit about themselves down to the micron. Organics can't do that, we have an understanding of the human body but a lot of that body are only assumptions, and the rest remain mystery.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Noble Row Position Being Applied For: Synthetic Lore Deputy Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page: Yes Past Experiences/Knowledge: I’ve taken two artistic writing courses and two technical writing courses, I am also an engineer by trade. Examples of Past Work: Nothing I can find that’s both written and recent unless you want to read my college technical reports. What aspect of synthetic lore are you most interested in and would like to work on: I’m going to be honest, my favorite part of synthetic lore is the various methods of integration of IPCs and synthetics in society. Across the spur IPCs are treated differently from culture to culture, planet to planet. Watching society grapple with the idea of synthetic sentience and how much it should be taken seriously I can’t help but enjoy. To tier an entire species on whether they are people or not is one topic in and of itself, but then keeping them around anyway to serve as equipment or second class citizens depending on the planet calls up a conundrum that is just interesting to think about. Humanity has created sentience. The Skrell have seen what rampant artificial intelligence can do. The Unathi, Diona, and Tajarans are wary, but spectators in this circus. The birth of a new type of person and its consequences. I also enjoy Purpose and their societal development, no matter how mysterious, but who doesn’t? I am most interested in focusing on the physical nature of synthetics and how it ties to how society treats them. Currently they are barely considered people by most factions that tolerate them, and machines to the rest. I would like to highlight the capability of the mechanical chassis, the advanced nature of the synthetic processor, and both positives and negatives of their freedom. I do enjoy a good bit of R&D, and I do enjoy the endless bounds that a futuristic setting has to offer. The great deal of creativity that is possible is just a fun thing to think about. What do you think needs improvement in synthetic lore: Current lore focuses on the mentality of synthetics and what sentience means. I think we're lacking in the physical portion. Why are synthetics so useful? How can they be so useful? Why are they terrifying? Are they assets, or are they a threat? We talk about Glorsh and the dangers of a widespread all powerful artificial intelligence. But what about the individual? What asset are they and what dangers do they pose? Why is it so important that they aren't free? Is it mere discrimination? Profit Factor? Or is it a true fear of what they can become? This is what I'd like to explore. The synthetic individual. Synthetics can be unparalleled pilots limited only by their aircraft, masterful negotiators and tacticians, able to hold vast amounts of strategic acumen, or the deadliest soldiers organics have ever faced. I want to bring about the question not of should synthetics be free because of their sentience, but should we keep synthetics under control for what they can become with sentience. Right now in game people belittle and mock synthetics for being machines, and to be fair, if my toaster told me it was a person I probably wouldn’t take it seriously either. But if my toaster claimed it was a person, and I knew out there, somewhere, was a good chunk of toasters claiming they were people who could burn down my house and kill my dog, I’d probably treat my toaster differently. How do you think IPC players should interact with factions unfriendly or hostile to them: A calculated professionalism. They don’t like you, you probably don’t like them. Keep them at arm’s length but close enough to do your job, if required. Present a written work about anything related to synthetic lore so we can see your writing style, around 500 words minimum. It can be anything, from your own headcanon to a news article. Additional Comments: Thank you for your time and for you all reading this. For making it to the end, take something I’ve carried with me as a joke through my academic and professional career that’s somewhat relevant to the topic at hand.

A lot of those votes happened at the same time and the only way to view the results of the vote is to add an additional vote. There's a little chart at the end that shows you when the votes happened.

I tried to roleplay once with Ren in the relay and NM kept writing books to me. +1

Complete support for re adding them to nonstandard uniforms from me. I believe removing them from these uniforms was an unnecessary change. I don't mind about the rest of the PR but one of the joys I have on this server is making outfits. Most of the standard job outfits just don't look good, and telling people to "go sprite new ones" I think is just bad form and not a great way to deal with a community of people who like to put passion and flavor in to their characters. I get this is a corporate dystopia. I get it's not realistic for every uniform to have the sensors. But it's a video game. It's a very silly video game at that. Personally I still don't understand why modifying sensors at all is necessary. Sensors have been in the game for over a decade and antags historically have done just fine with them. Even been saved by them. If sensors were the main issue for antags then they would have been modified a decade ago. Personally I believe this server has an unintended culture of OOCly punishing antags more than their IC nature. I know too many players who don't play antag, or don't want to try to play antag, because they're afraid of being bwoinked, or ridiculed. Hell, the term 'Antag main' is used in a derogatory sense half the time. And we antag ban so many people because we have strict quality rules for antag rp. OOCly is where the adjustments need to be made, and anything IC feels like shots in the dark or band-aids for the much much larger issue.

I would like to point out that miner is the only role on the ship where most of the ship expects you to die and never come back. It is a common conversation in IC to condemn miners to their deaths because of how common it is for them to die on the job. "Powercreep" here is like making a snail slightly faster. The expedition shotgun is easily one of the worst weapons the ship has to offer, but it is infinitely better than shooting yourself with the KA. Especially with how nobody on the dev team wants to fix pain to where having a minor injury no longer gives you heart attacks. And if antags actually cared about getting the expedition shotgun, it is not hard at all to just waltz in to the Intrepid right now and blow open the arms locker. Which is something you can do without TC, because the bridge crew blow open the bridge arms locker whenever there's no command staff around.

Hello all, @ReadThisNamePlz and I have reviewed the issue stated and we will be downgrading the warning to a note. The main purpose of the warning was to gain acknowledgement of an issue while the relevant party was disconnected from the server. Given how late in the night this issue was handled in, it is understandable. We believe Eddy was acting in good faith in regards to the 'clique'-esq issue, but we have not been able to find sufficient evidence that constitutes such action. The Chief Medical Officer however is command personnel, and is well within their right to handle issues regarding their staff ICly. Additionally, we were hoping to find it written somewhere regarding protocol for staff-player interaction and making contact before exacting a staff action, but after consulting Alberyk, we were informed that, while strongly encouraged, is not strictly required.

I believe taking away the EMT hardsuit from first responder would be akin to taking away the Ambulance for their real world counterparts. I just don't see the point. They've already been nerfed, as others have mentioned, and they're exceptionally expensive to make for the machinist. Removing them from the first responder lockers would basically be removing them from the game as it stands, and if you made them cheaper to produce, then they'd just get them anyway. I see this as a reactionary fix, a band aid as opposed to a real fix for a different problem entirely.

Only issue is that the machine shop right now is too small for two people working at the same time, it really can't handle three.

Machinists in real life machine and manufacture. If anything surgery should be removed from the machine shop and all the machinist provides is the cyborg body to an actual surgeon.

Also if we expand the machinist role could we add a learner role for them? The machinist is a role that is in demand nearly every round, and I've seen some pretty lost machinists that are new to the position. To have just one learner slot would help a lot on helping people enjoy the role.

In my time here Gabo has been a fun player to be around and obviously knows the mechanics pretty well of the roles that play. While I have not gotten the opportunity to roleplay with their characters a ton, I think the way they hold themselves OOCly shows the level of responsibility required to at least get a trial. +1

I've talked to Read time and time again, and I am fully convinced she is exceptionally motivated to the betterment of this server. I really started talking to Read when I volunteered for the Liidra event she hosted, and I learned then and there that she had some fantastic plans for player engagement. Learning about her ideas for Steel on the Horizon, and other projects that I am unsure are happening or not, I fully believe Read could bring to the table an incredible amount of care and dedication that few others can. Giving her the position of human lore dev would only provide us with more and better events for this server. Reading articles is one thing, playing rounds involving the lore is another entirely. People can only be so engaged by lore blurbs when they're playing a video game. Read has the passion and enthusiasm to make this server better. I've never given an easier +1

As Greenjoe said above, I'd love to see the science department folded in to Operations, and then raise a new department for expeditions from the ashes of Science. Machinists/Roboticists could have more personnel, or get renamed, or have more role variety. The machine shop can get reunified with its department, and it can be tasked with doing more machining. It'd make sense for machinists to take in the weapon manufacturing aspect of Science, they already make giant death robots, might as well make guns too. Research can be done by the machinists, or be done by a new role adjacent. The chem lab for science can be folded in to the machinist sector pretty easily as well. Again, I believe this should constitute a renaming of the machinist role, or an addition to the department that makes sense. Machinists machine things, build things with their hands. It can make sense for machinists to research things if the lore we have for research is getting things that already exist (How else do we justify researching the same technology every single round?) but otherwise, a role adjacent might need to be created. Other notes though: There is a TON of empty space on the right side of deck two near the leviathan, and that is just asking to be used. The new expedition branch can include a variety of new/different roles to add variety to the branch. From the scientists and scouts themselves, to a possible guard, to other neat and fun little tidbits. It offers up a lot of potential development and expansion. More reason to make off-ship areas. More reason to make little fun things to explore planets like probes or buggies. But I can see expeditions getting boring pretty quickly if this development isn't considered. My only negative comments are that I still believe Xenobotany and Xenobiology can be used. What for? I don't know. But they're interesting departments in and of themselves. Could slot them in to operations, could keep them on the expedition department. Who knows. Either way, I like the idea, fold research as it is in to Operations, and let a new department rise from the ashes.

When this guy first started I was skeptical of his behavior. But over the time, he has done a complete 180. Ublicto puts care and effort in to their work, and puts a level of passion and knowledge that a lot of the player base lacks. They are knowledgeable and outgoing about the lore they know, and I would love to see them get a shot at command. +1

Please, I beg you.

Whatever happens just remember that suit sensors have been a part of this game for over a decade if not longer. They're a tool that has been used to great effect and every medical player is familiar with them. Nerfing or removing them is going to be a HUGE change, and if you are going to touch the suit sensor program, some of the other facets of medbay that have already been nerfed should get another look over if not reverted. Either way, no matter what action is taken, you are modifying a department that people care about a lot. Just be careful. You're playing with the morale of players who have put a significant amount of time in to learning a daunting system. If medbay was easier like it was a long time ago, I'd be more supportive of this cause. However, Medbay is a difficult department, and your actions as a competent member of the department have a massive swing on everyone's enjoyability of the game. I'm also concerned about the side effects of this decision. From what I am anticipating is more people being upset in general. People rely on Medbay to keep everyone in the round. Crew and antags alike. And people already get mad at new Surgeons, and now patients are going to come in even more critical condition (if not worse). Antags also have plenty of tools on hand to cause a lot of damage, and while it is nice for the antags to let them keep more people from stopping them, you have to remember the antags control the story of the round for a population that far surpasses their own numbers. Killing people off and keeping them from the round is what this server has agreed upon is "bad taste" as evidenced by the multitude of rules we have regarding killing. Furthermore, I can already forsee the amount of ahelps and upset players from both the crew and antags alike when they die. People are going to ahelp antags for improper escalation even more now. There's going to be accidental deaths due to just stupid game mechanics. People are going to accidentally kill off antags. All of which is going to lead to more ahelps, more staff action, and less encouragement for people to play antag. People already don't play antag because they don't want to get bwoinked and people ahelp when they're upset, and antags, as antagonists, make people upset as their job. Atleast with medical working at full capacity, with its sensor suite and other gizmos, you can ensure to the best of your ability that players can continue to play and roleplay and look for second chances, escape attempts, and things that keep them in the round. We play on a server that is advertised as Heavy Roleplay, and it's hard to roleplay from deadchat.