Nikov

Someone outside of Security needs to be deciding on "hold until transfer" and other severe penalties, preferably someone without Security radio access. IAA needs to have the power to protect employee's rights, and a Hoss who throws out an IAA from the brig should fear for his job. If this third party moderator (say Captain) heard out arguments from a Security agent and an IAA defendant and weighed them for his own verdict, we'd have a huge improvement. But be careful before you place the IAA at a higher level than the Captain on that grounds that he is a corporate official. This is a terrible, terrible idea. The Captain is God Until God Relieves the Captain. If you do not have a point of absolute authority and absolute responsibility on a ship, you have a civil war between mobs breaking out nearly every round. Oh, we have that already?

Playing as a detective I made a point to talk and chat with the IAA on duty because I had presumed Internal Affairs had some bearing on my job. Say, I gathered my evidence of a crime and presented it to IAA, or argue my case for a conviction against the IAA before the Captain's desk. Obviously this was a waste of time, I should have been out trolling people into insulting/assaulting an officer and then brigging them to the absolute maximum of Nanotrasen regulations on every conceivable charge. Since there's literally no oversight except internal quarreling among officers, and this gets solved by a quick bloody mutiny in favor of Hoss Hardass, why bother with due process at all? I am absolutely all for 'lawyers'. I've been on a server with a Magistrate and lawyers, and it went well in my opinion. I even made a point to play Magistrate, establish a court procedure and demand physical evidence be laid before the court, fingerprinted and in an evidence bag, before I'd accept "he had an emag hes a tator". The detective played prosecutor while the lawyer rendered a defense. It was good roleplay for four people, and falsely accused or not, a half-hour arguing a murder trial beats getting stuffed in the solitary confinement cell and logging off. If we follow this pattern, with detectives/investigators presenting evidence and witnesses against the Internal Affairs evidence and witnesses, arguing a case before a non-Security authority (not the HOS but the Captain or HoP), we can develop some due process. As it stands there is no process but "surrender to get a shorter sentence if your arresting and unsupervised officer isn't a complete jackass". I've actually been brought in and brigged for a crime because the AI said "Arrest Hayden for vandalism". No evidence. No organic witness. No officer decision making. No oversight or questioning the god-machine's judgement. Just goose-marched into the brig. I've also been stuffed in the insane ward, without comms, and only avoided being straight-jacketed and muzzled by harm-stabbing the guard with sleep toxin. I had to beg and plead and scream for twenty minutes to get an IAA to show up, and then she wasn't sure she could do anything. Even as I'm covered in blood from my beating. Golly, it looks like security dropped the ball but I'm not sure I can pick it up... Something definately needs to be done. I'd like IAAs and Captains empowered more than a new job.

Having been open for a month, I would like this application either moving forward or any outstanding issues raised so I can address them before the weekend.

First, changing nothing on the RCD doesn't make it overpowered. It would already be 'overpowered', although given the nature of the tool I think there's always been a fair price on it. Antags who need to build things will need to steal a few things or get a loaded toolkit via an uplink.

Presently a few sheets of metal can be used to build about anything, without tools being required. I suggest this be changed with some intermediate objects being spawned, then deleted and replaced with their tile type. To repair a hull breach; Rod in hand, click space tile. Floor tile in hand, click rod lattice, then plating. Breach repaired! Mechanically, this is space map square / space map square with lattice object / lattice object deleted and replaced with plating map object / plating tile replaced with floor map square. Suggestion; Rod in hand, click space tile. Welder in hand, click unfinished lattice-work. Floor tile in hand, click lattice work. Wrench in hand, click unsecured plating. Floor tile in hand, click plating. Screw driver in hand, click unsecured tiles. Breach repaired! Mechanically, this is space map square / space map square with unsecure lattice object / space map square with lattice object / space map square with lattice object and unsecure plating object / plating map square / plating tile with unsecure floor tile object / floor tile map square. Similar changes can be made to walls, reinforced walls, and wire grilles. Basically, look at how windows are installed; place an object, secure the object, finalize the object. In this however, finalizing the object deletes the object and replaces it with a different map tile. This creates three effects. First, a full toolkit and several steps are required to build walls, floors, grilles, etc. This slows down construction to the same pace as deconstruction (the primary effect), and creating the two other effects. At present, it is entirely possible to repair hull breaches without a hardsuit or even so much as a screwdriver. It appears to be power-gaming to some, and I can't say its unwarranted. However if repairing a hull breach required two or three times the amount of time per tile, all but the smallest breaches would be impossible to manage without a hardsuit. Lastly, without easy access to a full toolkit, your average non-engineer will have difficulty trying to build and modify the station. Again, the primary effect is to slow construction to the same pace as deconstruction. Secondary effects are making damage control more intensive and restricting construction to those with access to both tools and materials.

Ever see Cinderella Man? Literally, a cargo technician knocked out a professional boxer.

I get pissed at people who play my ethnic background badly, and I'm white as Robert E. Lee.

As Manfred said to Zahrina; "You'd think the cloning machine ran out of toner." That said, who cares? Players will play what they want. I imagine most don't want to play a different race because they'd feel racist to do so. If the average PC gamer is white, it follows the average 2D Spessman is white. Whatever we do, lets not start some artificial attempt to inject diversity by having people play crummy stereotypes of other races.

Shall I insert r/K reproductive theories here? Tajaran are a species of apex predators which evolved on an ice-age world with all the pressures of that environment. If a pack or tribe of cave-Tajarans took the opinion that they should be happy-go-lucky swingers, it would be a very fun summer before they all starved in the winter with pregnant females and starving children in the cave and frozen males trying to find something to kill and drag home. Population growth is very deliberate in species like this. Consider northern species of wolves; reproduction is a right to be earned because the alternative strategy of everyone breeds will doom the pack. Just as with humans, agriculture and herding relieved these pressures to a great degree and today we have people who would starve if not for legalized bread stealing. But I digress. There would definately be a strong conservative element, particularly among rural or poor or built-themselves-to-power Tajarans, that frowned upon libertines. Libertines could expect shaming akin to the 1900's, because not being able to support your children meant someone else would support them out of charity. Just like today, only you don't have to physically beg for a check in the mail so there's no social stigma. But I digress yet again. Children require a very large investment of resources in an intelligent species or an apex predator. Long pregnancies, slow development to adulthood, and huge investments of resources into the next generation. This is why they tend to pair-bond or operate as an extended family. Some human societies had fathers and brothers and their wives gathered into the same household or cluster of houses, Athens for example. I can only see this being exacerbated by a very cold and hostile climate where warmth and fuel had to be husbanded. If you want some very interesting notions of family life, read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in which humans on the moon live in marriage arrangements that got the main character arrested on a dozen separate blue laws when he visited Kentucky. This was half to adapt to the harsh enviroment and half held-over from when the Moon was 90% male political prisoners. I can see Tajarans having line marriages quite easily, in which the whole family selects the next spouse, male-female alternating, resources are shared and children are able to be taken care of in a household complex with eight or ten adults of various ages. And, if you get absolutely sick of someone, you've got a whole family trying to keep the peace instead of two people splitting and children starving. Its kind of an interesting idea. Or course I'm not a qualified source on Tajaran anything. I'm only qualified for science fiction speculation.

What are the odds a chuckler from [sERVER REDACTED] will read our lore pages at all? Versus the odds roleplayers have read the lore pages? What percent of griefers can we honestly expect to lawyer their way out of brig time or bans claiming 'woe is me and my pitiful disability'? At best, a griefer might argue himself from the brig to the insane ward or long hours buckled to the psychologist's couch. But what we do gain is a way for roleplayers to deal with these chucklers rationally, rather than having to ignore all the signs of them. Consider that right now a bald-headed character with black eyes and 30 years old can't be looked at funny because it would break the fourth wall. You would be metagaming to ask what was up with that hairless assistant. But if its a known sign of a genetic defect, security can be tipped off to a potential liability. Other characters can not trust him on sight. He gets referred to the psychologist or visited in the looney bin. People can roleplay with him, even as he babbles incomprehensible meta-speak from his unfortunate delusions that he is a simulated 2d space man. Such sad, sad people. Death would be a mercy, Captain, and this man is likely to fall out an airlock if we turn our eyes... And, if regular players roleplay Greyshirt Disease from time to time after a bad cloning, we have a reason to fear death. I roleplayed Greyshirt's once after a hasty cloning by a nursing intern, and the other parties seemed to enjoy dealing with Manfred's raw Id.

I would limit this to smelling blood, extreme traces of plasma, and corpses or gibs. "Something smells coppery" "Something smells acrid" "Something smells foul". You can get this as soon as you enter an area (code area) with the given odor. The exception is plasma, which you would detect in the air. Ideally someone paying attention could notice the plasma smell before it reaches the toxin-warning state. I would also reject species-based smell ability with the exception of synthetics having no sense of smell, naturally. Knife-fingered monsters don't need another special power.

Paragraph 4 is intended to address this, providing a directive for Security to monitor greyshirts with scrutiny. "Due to binding precedent, such employees cannot be terminated without violating corporate regulations", ie, admins can't ban a greyshirt unless they're breaking a rule, and security can't abuse a greyshirt unless they break regulations. It is possible that a greyshirt is just a new player who doesn't know anything. It is also likely they're screwing around. A lot of this is sympathetic corporate responsibility legalese; it means nothing at its core. This at least puts a lampshade over greyshirts. We have some reason why they exist, and people can roleplay sympathy or disgust at the disease. Furthermore it reinforces the fear of death; you may wind up like him next time. The net negative, that a chuckler greyshirt is somehow IC-justified, is the other side of the coin. However, he's not going to be absolved of anything, but at least the bystanders won't have to ignore the character outright. Instead they can be straight-jacketed and poked at by Medical and Science roleplayers once terminated. I think the balance is largely positive for this.

As a true writer, I found fault with it. Ordering of ideas changed in paragraph 5.

1. This is a good thing, resembling the lock-out tag-out safety measures in modern workplaces. 2. Physically smashing the lock with a fire axe or shooting it off with a ballistic or laser weapon should be possible, if arduous. 3. The lock in the image seems overwrought; a smaller device should be enough. It needs to clamp down on some anchor point on both halves of the airlock and trigger the "beep-doop" failure to open sound. 4. Engineering and Security should both be able to lock down the same door, so the locks can be off-center. 5. The locks need to be applied to one side of the airlock or the other, so you could have your escape route locked off by an officer on the other side of the door. 6. If it doesn't fit in a backpack, Engineers won't carry it. See the inflatable barrier boxes. We just grab one or two and stuff them in our backpacks.

The only reason I'm for this is thigh-highs, knee socks and panty hose. Upon reviewing the thread I deeply question the public acceptability of my heterosexuality.

Yes. We get to clean up overpressure. Joy.

This might already be seven tiles, but I would make the radio jammer work clear to the limits of line of sight, and only in line of sight. It should not affect intercoms, as these are hard-wired, but should also affect suit sensors, every roleplaying antagonist's least favorite feature. And I am completely for a low cost of 2 telecrystals. Its a utility item for stealthy traitors, not a weapon or stun. We want to encourage such things. Remember the parapen is a pretty long knockout while this device doesn't stop anyone from running, breaking line of sight, and then screaming.

Mostly because its horrifying. I do want to say concerns that a Mar-O-Mat is a magic device that solves all medical problems stands mute next to the cloning tank.

Attach an igniter and a health anaylzer to create a dead man's switch bomb. Perfect for tense negotiations in a room full of hostages.

Cargo when you need a lot of blood. The Mar-O-Mat when you need a little of a particular blood. Donors when Cargo is breached and the botanist is a stoner. Hydroponic nutriment plus chemistry iron would be acceptable to me but I really am against this being a chemistry-input-only machine. Speaking of the organs; Viscera-Vend 3D organ printer. Uses nutriment and animal protein slurry plus blood. Re-Memberer 3D limb printer. Nutriment, animal protein, blood and milk. Bones need calcium! All of which require a given time to produce their products.

Oh I'm well aware a good RNG is vital, but... the hell are we going to do? Its not in the scope of this thread.

I'm not sure what to say to that other than "fix the RNG", and I doubt thats in our power. If we accept the RNG is too bad to use for this voting system, then its too bad to use elsewhere. Yet we do, so the RNG is good enough to use here as well.

Obviously its hooked into the station's plumbing, like the sinks are. There is nothing magical about this machine, its actually somewhat plausible. Why not come up with ideas on how to make Cargo more useful in another thread?

Cargo just pushes the magic off-screen. They probably have a Mar-O-Mat at the Odin.

I believe it is easy to fiddle with the soft crit/hard crit numbers, which more or less determine how long you spend screaming in agony. My view is that the code should tick by just fine, its just means and methods to stop taking more damage should be more readily at hand. Cable coil tourniquets anyone?