evandorf

Clarifying Edit- This is just a very short look into Tokash's personal life. I don't do much writing so I wanted to test the waters. Feel free to let me know if you have and critiques, criticisms or advice. Either lore-wise or just writing in general. Thanks! -------- I was stunned. Shocked. I shouldn't be. I had seen this coming for some time but I was still shaken. Slowly, I keyed my headset."I will be in my offissse for a moment. I have busssinesss to sssee to." For a brief moment the desire to turn the radio off entirely flickered in my mind. I could always be reached on my PDA but I also knew that it was better and faster to simply use the radio. This second thought followed the first and quickly grew into a compulsion so great that I simply went to my desk and pressed one of the switches on the underside. The timing was atrocious; this would be much easier to deal with off-duty when the implant was disabled. There was a mild hum as the electrochromatic windows went opaque and the office noticeably dimmed. "Sands... blasted, burning, fucking sands..." I tossed the tablet onto my desk and moved across to the opposite wall. Under the long table of mostly folders, faxes, and papers was a low closet. I took a small glass bottle and oiled rag from inside and then, looking up, I paused. The ancient spear rested in its mount. It had long been an anchor; a reminder of strength; of lineage. Now it seemed diminished. Dull. Dead. I shook the doubt from my thoughts and carefully took the spear from its mount. Isolated from the eyes of the officers I dropped to the middle of the floor, crossed my legs and began my task. "Loyalty... righteousness... courage... mercy... integrity..." I repeated this mantra as I worked. The leather grips and bindings were thirsty and I cursed myself for not adhering to their maintenance last week. The spear, given to me by my Grandfather, was one of my few belongings that were purely Sinta. It shone like a beacon to my ancestors and they came. They guided me and witnessed me. They gave me strength in my battles, gave me wisdom in my confusion, and gave me comfort and succor in my times of need. Now that he was dead my Grandfather, Tovek Tokash XVII, would be numbered among them. I will not dishonor him. The message on the tablet returned to mind as I worked. This other issue, my brother and this crusade to the pole was troubling but it would wait for a while yet.

I disagree. It is very important to show whether or not something is reasonable because that is usually the basis for staff decisions made against questionable player actions. Command has access to their respective station accounts and can use the funds on whatever they wish, so long as it is reasonable.

I still have to agree with @Azande that the amounts discussed are trivial. In the round Kaed references, two hostages were ransomed for 20K. Now, that's 10K a piece. Both were cargo techs if I remember right and their salaries are currently listed at 1,295 credits per week ( 67,340 credits per year ). So in effect NT is paying out an extra 1/6th of the lowest level employee's paycheck to get them back. It also will make sure the company is seen in the right light ( caring about their employees ) and mitigate additional costs ( litigation from family members, ect ).

I'll also say that while this is moslty internal dialogue it's nice to hear Vaurca speak/think plainly. Although, that's probably just bias from my time spent dealing with them as Tokash.

I am woefully ignorant of Vaurca lore but this is well written and I was able to follow just on context. Great work!

I hope so. The Guwans will get elevated in pecking order so they can dish out some hate now.

As someone who plays synth and unathi regularly, I am very excited for what comes next.

How do you feel about tying instuments to approved sound files? Actually, this is a bad idea. I'd rather keep the ability to generate music rather than have another jukebox.

I'm not knocking your suggestion here, but this is pretty difficult to do. Especially in a game where people don't hold anything as truly valuable. Maybe when we have some kind of persistence it could happen.

"In recent news, incidents of command injunctions have skyrocketed."

I think a powerful and established company like NT that does business in dangerous areas of the galaxy probably has some form of insurance on its personnel in the event of death, dismemberment, or capture. Maybe IAA or more stingy HOPs would rankle at the idea of higher insurance premiums because they had to make a payment to pirates, but the cold, logical, and businesslike manner of treating your employees like things to be insured rather than people fits the pseudo-cyberpunk dystopian aesthetic.

Well grenades already fall down zlevels so that can already happen.

As far as the "how" of it goes, I would imagine a verb for it could be made, like when you stabilize a rifle. You have a verb to aim up/down and it gives flavor text to those around you and the one below/above you.

Ladder blocking is, IMO, a legit strategy and not as much a meme as people say but there should be options. Shooting people blocking ladders will get them to move real quick, and enough damage to a locker will destroy it if necessary.

The medical sublevel maintenance door above the new sub-acute wing does not open when radiation storms occur. Not sure why but perhaps they need to be added to the event correctly? Or mapped properly?

I like combat gloves for aesthetic reasons when I play my engine tech. As for the naming convention I believe they're part of a set that includes the combat belt, combat boots, and possibly others. I don't necessarily think wearing them implies anything and they're nice to have around if your character is a veteran or something similar.

I'm posting this because I feel like I've not played Tokash often enough to be a station presence and even in the rounds I do play him I'm not going in the direction I want. Ever since making him HoS I feel like the job requirements and the implant dictate his character more than I do. My initial concept for Tokash was basically young, hot-headed Krogan but as I've worked to make him more command material his edges have been blunted. He's also been aged up, lore-wise, to make the HoS 30 years age requirement. Please let me know what you think of his character recently, especially if you feel like he doesn't interact with the crew enough.

+1 from me. Top notch RP in addition to realistic and responsible actions.

To be clear, the only points of Burger's that I'm not fully on board with are removing game modes and discouraging gimmicks. I agree that command needs to be transparent. When I play Captain or HOS I try at the very least to make an announcement everytime the alert code changes, promising updates to come. I don't think command needs to be discussing things constantly over common however. Changeling is a fine game mode imo and Kaed is actively working on improving it. Even with the old mechanics there are ways to do it right. I think it's also very telling that REV, a mode which is likely the most inclusive antag round, almost never gets played. I see it constantly fail at roundstart because not enough players have it enabled. I'm not in favor of policing gimmicks as long as they abide by server rules. IMO, chair RP and peacetags are completely fine. Taking ninja as an example again I think it could be preferable for the ninja to focus on a handful of crew based on their exploitables rather than trying to make sure they include an arbitrary number or percent of the crew and diluting their focus.

That's understandable, although to be fair this is less about normal syntheic crew benefits and more about a specific antag. I agree with you that cult synths are ridiculous and I wouldn't want to implement vamp synths. Wizard synths can be fine depending on how they flavor it; making it more tech based and less magical. To me, liquid metal changlings are more acceptable simply because of the scifi precedent but I'm not going to make you work on and implement something you don't agree with.

This is a more complex suggestion and I would expect the simpler changes to go through first but I wanted to put it out there. As far as I know Changeling is restricted to organic crew. Makes sense but even though I enjoy the game mode I play synths a lot. Can we open this up to synth players using a kind of T1000/nanite swarm aesthetic? I know it would require changes to the flavor text, names of abilities, and sprites but let me know if you think it's feasible.

A few opinions/observations: I think it's unfair to put a majority of the blame on sec/command/antags for a few reasons. Unless you are an antag team like raider or merc, it is very difficult to interact with the majority of the crew in a meaningful way that is not loud/violent. This is one of the reasons why autotraitor can be one of the better round types. Not only does it continuously add more antags, but the antags are hidden as crew and can interact one-on-one with crew using exploitable information. On the opposite side you would have antags like wizard/ninja who can get around fast and cause a lot of chaos, but usually they don't interact with a majority of crew in a meaningful way past being a present threat that security cannot keep up with. Once the antag(s) go loud and violent it is entirely reasonable that security and command would try to isolate the crew from them. As a non-sec, non-command member of the crew you also have an OOC responsibility to ensure the round doesn't devolve into sec piling on the antag or an ERT/TCFL being called. You can blame sec for clamping down on the round and you can blame command for going to red alert but everyone who's ever knee-jerked into a "Help! Maintenance!" response or run away from a potential antag encounter also shares some of the blame and it happens a lot. This is not to say that you shouldn't RP fear but it varies wildly depending on the situation. Most times you would be well within your rights to stay in an area with an antag as long as they are not aggressive towards you. I enjoy playing with you Burger and you're a creative and competent developer but I do think you also need to manage your expectations. If the antag is taken out early or is content fighting it out with sec and generally being a criminal then there's nothing wrong with simply having a nice extended round for yourself. Take Tokash for example. I play him from time to time to keep him fresh and to make sure people know who he is but I enjoyed extended rounds with Marwani much more than I do throwing him against merc teams or ninjas. In the end the game is about making your own fun and your own stories and you can't rely on or force other people to do that for you.

The pens in xenobiology have pumps to pump gasses inside, but the air alarms aren't set to remote operation by default, only automatic. This means that I can't alter them as a xenobiolgist and can't get the vents to pump the gasses in. Can we change the air alarms to start with remote control on as opposed to auto?

Two questions/suggestions. - with the added duties of watching longtime patients could we add Orderlies as a doctor or intern subclass? - I know that a lot of the mapping has already been done, but stairs already exist for the psych wing and now that the vault has been moved to the main level the space below the psych stairs should be open. It seems like it would flow better and be more accessible to make the pysch stairs run from the mid level down to the main level and continue on into the sublevel. Basically one main staircase for med that is more centrally located. It would mean basically relocating this redesign but I thought I would put it out there.

Hey! I got two votes for best HOS! I'll take that as a personal win.