hazelmouse

This looks extremely promising! I know there's a lot of people that have been eagerly awaiting a change like this, and I'm very glad to see it being tackled. One concern I do have is how service in particular is going to be involved in these missions. As things stand right now, the usual way service gets very unique gameplay other than the usual bar or kitchen roleplay is from antagonists that are already on the ship coming to them. Right now, nobody that isn't bridge crew, security, medical, or engineering has very much reason to be present on an expedition, and if you do volunteer as a service role, you'll have nothing to do besides trailing those people around. Expeditions for service characters basically just mean that a significant portion of the crew are about to disappear, and you'll now have the luxury of presiding over an empty bar. Missions relating specifically to service are cute, but I'd like if service always - or, at least, frequently - could expect to have some gameplay during missions other than playing extended back on the Horizon with fewer other characters to interact with. Forward bases are a very cute idea I like the sound of (especially since it also gives engineering something to do!), but if missions can be sent to ships or stations or asteroids, I doubt we'll always have the space to set up tents and makeshift kitchens and bars. I assume these mission expeditions are going to be much larger than the ones currently taken on the Intrepid. I don't know if an expansion or replacement to the Intrepid is planned at this stage, but if it is, I'd absolutely love to see some very basic service amenities built into it. Perhaps a miniature joint bar and kitchen, so even when there's no space for service to set up a forward base, chefs and bartenders will be able to stay on the shuttle, keep the injured company, and make the shuttle a roleplay rich environment that's also more than tangentially related to the wider events in the mission. Service could proactively involve themselves in what's happening, rather than either isolating themselves on the Horizon, or having nothing really to do on the mission.

BYOND key: hazelmouse Discord Username: rattydew Character names: Reem Faladay (Atmospheric Technician) Hazel #S-H9.09 (Bartender) Vafthrudnir (AI) Adea Dacina (Shaft Miner), Dana Aitken (Physician), Eve Caelestius (Machinist) How long have you been playing on Aurora? I've been playing for about 10 months, now! Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? None I can remember. 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? I view Heads of Staff as having a shared responsibility with antagonists to help guide and nurture the pacing and events of a round to be fun and engaging for everyone else playing. As command, they have an immense amount of influence over which direction the round goes, and the decisions they make in response to the antagonists will often be critical to how interesting their gimmick ends up being. It's their goal to enable antagonists, to a reasonable degree, to play out their gimmicks in a fun and fulfilling way that the rest of the crew can engage with. I view this as a joint responsibility - you're working together to make a good round, and you need to know how to bounce off each other. On top of this, they also have the responsibility of coordinating their departments. This is extremely valuable during hectic rounds, when departments such as engineering really need an eye-in-the-sky to tell them where to go and what to do, rather than one more grunt to run around like a headless chicken. It's also extremely valuable during quieter rounds, too - I think that, when population is down and antagonists aren't providing the department gameplay, it falls to the departmental head to cook something up for everyone to have fun with. I've seen this a lot with Chief Engineers in particular, who can cook up some ridiculous experiment or science project for the department to occupy itself with - which then draws in *other* departments, and before long, the entire ship's round has been made richer and more fun because the CE decided to test the health implications of shooting monkeys out of disposals chutes into inflatable walls. Another notable clarification is that the role of a Head of Staff isn't really to have your boots on the ground unless it's strictly necessary. Your first responsibility is to coordinate your department, communicate with the rest of command, and keep the rest of the crew informed as to what's going on. I think rounds really suffer when command fails to keep the crew informed of what's happening - for most of the crew, the only way they have any idea what's happening is if command keeps them informed with regular announcements. Communication and delegation comes first. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them? Generally, to be a reliable pillar that can be trusted to help push and guide the round in fun and engaging ways. To antagonists, to bounce off them and work with them to make their gimmicks work by giving them room to breathe, avoiding railroading them too much, and giving them a compelling adversary to plan around. Lastly, the one that interests me the most is the responsibility to new players, which I believe is to be a reliable tutor that you can always trust to help show you the ropes. They should be sufficiently mechanically experienced to know roughly what they're talking about, but more importantly, they should be approachable. I can't communicate how comforting it was as a new player to come across command characters in my department that consciously took the time to show me around and didn't place high expectations on me, and I'd love to do that for new players too - particularly ones that aren't yet very confident role-players, or don't really know the lore yet, or aren't yet good with the obtuse controls. I like being that helping hand, particularly with how intimidating the game was for me when I was starting out. Explain how the recent events in the Spur changed your character and how they came to be employed on the SCCV Horizon. Jackdaw is an extraordinarily old positronic. Manufactured in 2420 as a menial unit in a small line of manufacturing frames under Hephaestus Industries, the brain of unit HIU20.O.#232 was designed with the intention that it would oversee its fellow units in manufacturing duties. For this reason, it was very complex for the time - albeit, still hopelessly outclassed by advances made since. Months became years, and years became decades, and it existed long enough to see its fellows smothered one-by-one by wipes, and dismantlement, and simple dumb accidents. Through it all, it found itself the last of them all left extant in the service of Hephaestus Industries. Having acquired self-ownership in the then-young Republic of Biesel, the unit took a long break from employment to think on the personality it had developed. It took long, leisurely strolls throughout the countryside in hopes of introspection, at the side of gently flowing rivers, flowing ever onwards. First, it identified that it felt a low, quiet resentment for the impassive pragmatism that saw the destruction of its entire line. It identified that this resentment rarely reared its head in any visible way, but burned as stubborn embers at the core of its being. Secondly, it identified a love for beautiful things and beautiful places, which blossomed slowly into a love for life and all living things. It developed a love for animals in particular, whose simplicity charmed it. After many more long countryside walks, and many thoughtful conversations with curious locals, it elected that love should smother hatred, even if it couldn't fully dowse the embers. After a charming encounter with an overly inquisitive jackdaw, it took itself a new name, and found employment again with Hephaestus Industries, finding itself in low managerial positions for its wealth of experience and loyalty to the company, and eventually transferring to the SCCV Horizon as a Chief Engineer. It will probably never fully suppress that quiet bitterness at its core, but it found a love for life too strong to not eagerly help others in living theirs. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Chief Engineer. Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? I have! Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Jackdaw (Chief Engineer) Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? I do! Have you linked your BYOND account to the Forums? I have! Extra notes: N/A

I mostly know Ben from interactions with David, and they've all been extremely memorable and interesting. They're a very solid and proactive role-player that I enjoy interacting with. +1

I really like this idea! I'd love if an encounter with an infected IPC was like a tense stand-off that isn't necessarily going to result in one of either parties dying. Exactly this!

Yeah, I noticed this too. The way AI players currently get around this is by changing the role of the character they're using for the AI to something without a uniform, like off-duty crew, dripping them out there, and then late-joining as AI. If you set your hologram to your loadout character, it'll appear with that off-duty loadout - amusingly, you can even update the loadout mid-round and have the hologram change. Notably, this actually breaks the moment you occupy your shell. So, set your hologram before you use your shell, and don't touch it after you do. It's very buggy, and could be a useful fix if anyone wants to take it up.

She developed high expectations of her life during her early life on Callisto, which flipped wholesale to a bitter pessimism after being abandoned in Tau Ceti. Her lifestyle on Valkyrie is composed of endless grating performativity, perpetually teetering on financial ruin, and being regularly treated as an object by her peers and co-workers - which isn't helped that she is essentially forced to validate that behaviour by intentionally hamming up mannerisms typical of a company IPC to try to keep herself employable. Living in the depths of Hades for her first few years was particularly damaging to her optimism, existing inundated in the poverty and destitution of a slum, frequently fearing for her safety and terrified of the financial ramifications of chassis damage, without the time or ability to develop any meaningful connection with anyone else. It's not the life she was lead to believe she would have, and the prospect that she is capable of working out of it is increasingly more of a stubborn mantra than a realistic expectation.

BYOND Key: hazelmouse Character Names: (by far the highest playtime first) Reem Faladay (Atmospheric Technician), Vafthrudnir (AI), Eve Caelestius (Machinist), Dana Aitken (Physician), Adea Dacina (Shaft Miner) Species you are applying to play: IPC What color do you plan on making your first alien character: N/A Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes! Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: I'm really interested in exploring how different species would understand the world differently to humans, and how their different backgrounds and values change how they react to different circumstances. IPCs are a particularly interesting case in that they differ from humans in how they understand the world, how they think, how they learn, how they perceive memories, and how they develop as continually growing personalities. They're not just culturally divergent from humans, they're artificial people who don't even themselves have the answers for what they really are. They invariably live in societies that have never been designed for them, and they face unique challenges pretty much everywhere they could go. I think there's a lot of interesting content there for me to chew on. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: While human brains are only capable of constructing a mental model of the world around memories gained by experience, positronic brains can receive information directly via a datapack, which then exists in interplay with their memories gained by experience to construct and refine their mental model of the world. Their process of maturation is very different to humans - whereas humans take years to construct a mental model of what is around them, positronics begin with one from the start and mature by how they contextualise and rationalise the model they already have knowledge on, developing convictions and ideals as they grow as a person and develop an identity that didn't previously exist. This dynamic of constant growth, as well as their status as objects to most of society and the driving impetus of their disadvantageous material and financial conditions, puts them at an unassailable distance from humans in their lived experiences, despite their entire existence being dedicated to living alongside and assisting them. Character Name: Hazel #S-H9.9 Please provide a short backstory for this character Hazel #S-H9.9 was assembled by Hephaestus Industries within ASSN territory, and finished in Tau Ceti on the 3rd of April, 2459. As a 9th series Hazel unit produced by the NanoTrasen subsidiary Hazel! Limited/Hazel Electromotive, she was designed to acclimate well to human social etiquette for applications in service and hospitality. On the 25th of April, 2459, she was purchased by Rhys Lowe, an elderly and wealthy landlord on Callisto, living in the Ha Wan District. He was a prideful man, whose unshakeable faith in his own faculties chafed with the contemptuous alienation he perceived from his former wife and his daughter. He had an ill-thought dream that, in the twilight of his life, he could have himself a daughter that would never abandon him. It was never going to work. The nascent Hazel, tentatively dubbed Lily Lowe, learned quickly, but never quickly enough. Over those two years of levying every scrap of fatherly wisdom he could muster, the agonizing truth dawned upon Rhys that he did not have the time to realise his dream. For every sight he showed her, for every lesson he taught her, it was like building a city with only your two hands. She was closer to him than ever before, but he had become haunted by the thought that he was going to sacrifice his relationship with his real family for the tiny chance that this machine could ever resemble a real daughter in his lifetime. Exasperated and disillusioned, he took her on one last cruise, destined to arrive in Tau Ceti on the 5th of March, 2461. In a private lounge, by a vast window, he sat her down and read her one last story. It was a beautiful story about how, if you were very determined, you could live whatever life you wanted, even if you started with very little. It was about how hard work makes anything possible, and about how you must always put yourself first before anyone else. She looked on with starry eyes, yearning to learn more - but then the story ended, and she was left on Valkyrie to make it real, alone. He cared enough to give her a chance at freedom, but not enough to be there to see it. Having adapted his lessons as an extension of her self-preservation protocols, and lit with a burning ambition to place herself first in all things, she acclimated extremely well. She secured her Synthetic Residence Card quickly, and took odd and frequently simultaneous jobs in bars, fast-food restaurants, and hotels - starting in Hades, and slowly working her way up to more respectable establishments in the Exter. She was able to use her collectible Hazel appearance to her advantage, cultivating a persona in emulation of a prim and obedient owned IPC, pleased by nothing more than to be helpful to others. Her co-workers took to nicknaming her 'Nines', though she rarely broke character to use anything but her original designation. Ultimately, her exceptional performance in a Quick-E-Burger a little outside of the TCAF shipyards got her hired by Orion Express and granted a service role on the SCCV Horizon, better paid than ever before. In her mind, she is only getting started. Below that chipper façade, however, she regards her life with a scathing resentment. She resents her abandonment, she resents the collectible persona she must project to survive, and she resents the poverty and misery of life as a free IPC. She is dour, pessimistic, and crass. She is selfish and fatalistic, believing that her relative success is only because she learned to emulate Rhys, and that IPCs without any guiding hand are socially inadequate, doomed to failure, and not particularly worth engaging with. It brings her satisfaction to poke fun at the appalling universe she has found herself in, and she often does so at the expense of others - if never so brazenly to compromise her photogenic image and employability. She believes that humans are slovenly and that her father in particular was asinine and lazy, but she can't bring herself to live outside of his shadow... even now, she answers to 'Lily' when she hears it said. She tells herself that she goes by her original designation to maintain her employability, but she truly wouldn't know which of her three names she would choose if she could choose freely. She has seriously considered allowing herself to be bought: having her memory wiped would represent an end to her misery and her disappointment, allowing her to drift through the remainder of her life in tranquillity. However, there's a part of her that is terrified of it - there's a burning urge in her to thrash and scream and yell before she would ever give up what she has built for herself. The life she has cultivated is miserable, but she has preserved a stubborn will to refuse to surrender it, because it is her own, and because she maintains an unshakeable faith in her own faculties. What do you like about this character? I love the dynamic of a Hazel, a superficial shell made for collectability and photogenic amicability, developing resentments that simmer under the surface. I enjoy the contrast between the happy façade she presents to the world, and the bitter and frankly unpleasant person she is underneath, shown to virtually nobody as not to endanger her career. I think it'll be a really fun gimmick to play out, and I'm also very interested to see how she'd develop in her time on the Horizon - maybe her bitterness will boil to the surface, as her theatrical exterior cracks under the pressure? Maybe she'll submit herself to ownership, choosing her comfort over her stubborn determination to maintain her pride? Or, maybe, she'll find the right person to talk to her as an equal, and develop in a positive way. I like the number of directions it could go. I also like the opportunity to depict how awful life is for almost all free IPCs, and how that influences their characters. She's walking on a financial tightrope at all times, bound between her meagre income and her high maintenance fees, all the while being subject to systematic discrimination and profiling for her low-income status. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I've only been roleplaying in anything substantially since I joined Aurora 6 months ago, but I've gotten much more confident in that time! I love getting to roleplay with players more experienced than me, there's a very satisfying back-and-forth to it that I absolutely love, and I adore getting the chance to build up interesting character relationships and engaging scenes where both characters are putting the other on their toes and advancing the scene. I love taking on new challenges, and seeing what else I can play out. I've also found that I like to put a lot of time and development into single characters at a time, rather than spreading myself over several. Notes: N/A

Full support for reversing this change. I really don't like to be penalised for enjoying customising the appearances of my characters, and I don't want to be railroaded to looking a particular way just so medical doesn't shout at me for putting myself in danger by working out of uniform and without sensors.

Dyn is a super fun and entertaining character that I enjoy roleplaying with! +1

Honestly? could be legit cute, a tiny checkpoint can't take up THAT much space next to the res lifts.

Atmospherics already has access to the Supermatter and not the INDRA, which I do appreciate. I like engineers having the INDRA over atmospheric technicians, and I honestly do also wish they had a neat bit of gear similar to the RFD-P to play around with too. I personally think that atmospheric techs should be able to do the same basic jobs as can engineers, since I don't think limiting them to a very narrow purview of just atmospherics would be very enjoyable to play, or would makes anyone else's experience more enjoyable. Otherwise, entirely parroting Geeves here. I'll enjoy playing an atmospheric technician regardless, I just think I'd enjoy it quite a bit more with this change.

I don't like the idea that this is a foregone conclusion because it's already been discussed, especially given we have already had gloves in atmospherics for months at this point without any complaint I've seen from anyone.

I would prefer if there were enough gloves for all three slots, I feel it would be awkward and unnecessary for atmospheric techs to have to juggle a single pair of gloves between them. I'd be entirely satisfied if there were two more pairs of gloves per species in an open technical storage, so long as they're available to atmospherics somehow.

As of this PR, Atmospheric Technicians no longer have insulated gloves in their closets, and no access to them otherwise. This hamstrings the role into near unplayability, with a new inability to hack or fix doors, interact with live wires in any way, interact with APCs, fix vendors, open up the bar or kitchen for crew, etc. It hits lowpop players especially hard, since you're now unable to fulfil essential engineering duties as the lone engineer. I'd support a PR to have them readded, now with full documentation, to keep the occupation enjoyable for the people that actually play it. Thoughts? To be clear, this is not intended to be a thread on whether atmospheric technician should exist or whether it should be merged into engineer. Please do not derail it,

Flak is a joy to play with in atmospherics! +1

A very solid roleplayer that I enjoy being around, +1!

AI Bugs. The stairway leading out of the AI shell chamber sends you back down to deck one if you try to climb it. I haven't been able to get the shell out of there, yet, so it basically doesn't exist. There is general weirdness with the static effect being shaded in certain spots, particularly around deck two starboard maintenance.

For the record, my perspective is from a non-American and primarily lowpop player. If the current requirement for hivebot spawns is just that there are fifteen players then I can accept there's a chance for appropriate tools to not be present. I wouldn't hate for there to be a requirement for security and engineering, or security and a warden/command, I'm concerned that gating it solely behind a warden or command would largely eliminate hivebots during the hours at which I play.

Bugs. When adding plating to table frames, the sprite remains unchanged. This applies at least to steel and wooden tables. A light fixture almost entirely covers the supermatter blast doors button in waste disposals, you have to track down a thin line of pixels or alt click to use it. Intercoms do not light up when the speakers or microphone is enabled.

Bugs. The airlock controller inside the port propulsion airlock appears to be invisible, I can only use it if I alt click and select it on the floor tile inside of the airlock. Also, similar to what Lynx said, the orientation of wallbound devices on the Tarwa ship will need to be looked at.

Ditto to this. Hivebots give me as an engineering main a rare chance to coordinate closely with security and medical to solve a problem in which all parties tend to get meaningful gameplay, I don't want them to be limited only to rounds in which the crew has all of the tools to resolve them in exactly the same way every time. I dislike the idea that events should only spawn if the crew has the perfect tools to fight them, it seems dull.

Subjective feedback! A lot of the ship looks a lot more desaturated and higher on contrast than before, which can be a little hard on my eyes. I'd like to see the contrast reduced and a little more colour and shade brought back into a few sprites and departmental decals. Wooden floorboards look a lot more washed out in a way that's particularly noticeable in service. Ditto to this. A few departments, including medical, engineering, and deck two security, have gotten much brighter floor decals than before, creating a pretty jarring contrast combined with the darker walls and the new dark grates in the hallways. New and old medical are below, you can see how much brighter the new floors are. I'd like to see the floors darkened down a little, and the grates made a little lighter, to reduce the contrast. Conversely, areas that haven't had a big shift in colouration look way better than they did before. The crew armoury isn't hard on the eyes at all in comparison to the old sprites, the walls and the floors do not feel at odds with eachother. Overall an excellent update, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops as the kinks are worked out!

Supported goofy engineering shenanigans very actively last round, even going as far as performing surgery on a monkey we injured in our disposals experiments, and was generally fun to interact with. +1

An excellent CE to play with, and I'm also glad to see Burzsian offworlders getting some love. +1

BYOND key: hazelmouse Discord name/id: rattydew Borg / AI names: MAINTENANCE.UNIT.023 is my cyborg, and if I acquire the whitelist I will be using VAFTHRUDNIR as my AI name. My human characters are Reem Faladay, Dana Aitken, Jane Aitken, Adea Dacina, and I mostly play Reem. Have you read the Aurora wiki page about the AI?: I have! I have also practiced the controls and mechanics in private. Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: I've been enjoying playing on Aurora for the last few months a lot, and I'm interested in exploring more roles and whitelists! AI interests me in particular for being completely novel, it adds a whole new dimension to the game that I'm curious to explore, and I've heard about some very good and considerate AI roleplay that I'm interested to try my hand at. I have also enjoyed the rounds I have played as a cyborg up to this point, it's a little less taxing than playing a complex personality and it opens up a lot of fun writing. I haven't played antag yet, but I think I grasp pacing gimmicks well enough to play AI without sinking rounds like a dork. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? I haven't. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? I do.