Synnono

The expanded backstory is three long paragraphs, I feel totally robbed of a wall of text. Why isn't this person whitelisted yet, +1 for application, +0.75 for scatman. I've seen Fraser doing his thing both indirectly and as a recent lab assistant. I think he's juuuust fine, and that his Skrell is probably no different.

The last time I saw Marc, he casually opened a nearby corridor airlock, flashed an assistant, took a good hold of him, and threw him through it down the hall for harassing an engineering apprentice nearby. I loved it Joking aside, I play with Marc as my IAA on a semi-normal basis, and I think the player and character would do fine in a Command position. No red flags to see, he's a familiar face, a communicative character, and an officer who has a mind for the company's rules. I'd happily support this. Also, I very-agree with this. +1.

Just a quick addition - the post asking about your character's motivation was not intended as a criticism I was just looking to learn a bit more about her. Good luck with this!

[ ] The lounge was full to capacity. Stefanie could drink the quiet energy in the room. At every table, men and women in pressed suits and dazzling gowns sat, whispered, flirted, laughed. Couples on dates, businessmen making their impressions on clients. Tourists, pleasure-seekers. Everyone was here for their own little reason, but to Stefanie, those didn't matter. Right now, their eyes were on the stage. Right now, their attention was on her. A smile crossed her stained lips. Her heels clicked with the sway of her hips, as she sauntered across the dark stage floor to the microphone stand. Delicately, she freed the device from its clasp. It was wired, in the style of old Sol performance houses. Inefficient, quaint, romantic. She looped the wire around her finger, eyes searching the nameless people below as the musicians struck up a slow rhythm. These people belonged to her, for the next few moments. The conversation at the tables guttered, and died. When she opened her mouth, the lyrics came by themselves. "You moved like honey, in my dream last night. Yeah, some old fires were burning... You came near to me, and you endeared to me... But, you couldn't...quite discern me." Stefanie crossed the stage slowly, letting the red satin of her cocktail dress cling to her in all the right ways. She found the eyes of every man and woman who tried to seek hers, and gazed right through them. A wordless understanding, between the singer and her captivated audience. "Does that scare you? I'll let you run away. But your heart will not oblige you. You'll remember me - like a melody... Yeah, I'll haunt the world inside you." "And my big secret - gonna win you over... Slow like honey, heavy with mood." The musicians played to her voice, everything perfectly controlled. Stefanie's eyes drifted to the back of the room, drawn by something imperceptible. She sung to the shadows there, hoping to reach someone she somehow knew was present. "I'll let you see me, I'll covet your regard. I'll invade your demeanor... And you'll yield to me - like a scent in the breeze, And you'll wonder what it is, about me..." "It's my big secret - keeping you coming... Slow like honey, heavy with mood." All sound in the room had died away, save for the instruments, and her lonely voice. She shut her eyes, not needing them to see the audience. "Though dreams can be deceiving, Like faces are to hearts, They serve for sweet relieving, When fantasy and reality lie... Too far... Apart." In the moment, she knew it was Jacob, in the corner. Her eyes fluttered open to find his, and the song seemed to lapse. Her ears rung with the noise of the silence, and then with...something else. ...Buzzing? --- Stefanie woke with a grimace, not quite able to see the bedroom ceiling in the dark of an early Biesel morning. Across the room, her 0330 alarm was buzzing angrily at her. Above it, the message console was alive with pending notifications. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying for one long moment to return to unconsciousness. It never worked. She pulled herself upright, nude and alone on the king-size bed, and slowly roused herself to awareness. Her head ached, like it always did after this particular dream. She dragged herself to her feet, pressed her hand hard into the alarm mute, and fumbled her way into her dark bathroom. Lights, on. Shower, on. As she let the cold water wash over her face, she reminded herself that she'd never owned anything in red.

Did too Also, please go tell me how I can't have a custom welder, now that there are a bunch of you.

I'm not knowledgeable about Tajaran lore, but this player seems receptive to feedback and has been a memorable personality in the game since I first noticed them. I've been particularly endeared to Nisha Dokado since one of her recent Mutiny round adventures. There's a good mix of cleverness and humor in their writing that I appreciate, and I think that if any lore concerns raised here are straightened out, they'd do the species justice. Edit: I have one thing to ask that popped into my head shortly after posting this: For this character, do you have anything in mind for a central conflict or motivation? The backstory is factually there, but since you stated that you like how this character is more than the uneducated Tajaran stereotype, is there anything in particular that drove her to exceed the expectations placed on her by others? If so, is that motivation still in place today, or has something else replaced it?

I can usually count on any Syion I see to stir a situation up. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on the round type and whether or not he's an antagonist. I think (most) of the rounds that Syion's a bad guy are rounds that at least engage the rest of the crew, which is a good thing and more or less the point! When it comes to being a regular crew member though, I wonder how likely NanoTrasen might have been to hire any of these characters in the first place. At the very least, they all have familial connections to the leadership of another corporation. Retired or not, different markets or not, that kind of thing usually represents a huge conflict of interest to human resources, and most hiring managers would pick someone whose loyalty and time might be less split in the event of a conflict. In the case of Richard and Mark at least, I agree with this assessment. In my opinion, these traits are red flags that no powerful corporation with the money to perform internal psych evals and background checks would stand. NanoTrasen's influence is such that they don't have to settle for the genius with the personality complex. They can afford, bribe, pressure or compete for the guy who doesn't come with the baggage. If your character is one who's just filling a regular role, the issue gets even worse. There are probably thousands of Regular Joes or Plain Janes willing to do a common job, and do it passably. All that is not to say that there's no space for violent or narcissistic characters (I actually think they add some much-needed conflict potential) but there needs to be a believable bridge between the 'real' world of the setting and the essence of the character. My IAA has been asked to talk with Mark Syion on about five separate occassions, for issues that would be of valid concern to the company. While I have not yet been able to start more than one investigation (usually due to her office exploding), if he were enough of a sociopath to be able to successfully hide these traits and have a normal career, he wouldn't be leaving so many people with the impression he needs to be reviewed. TL;DR - if you play a megalomaniac, or someone similarly driven in an aggressive manner, make sure the world doesn't notice until it's too late.

You are all apparently soulless capitalists. Glory to the Republic.

Stefanie Matis has seen Yahtzee in multiple rounds, and she and I both think he'll do. On-task, capable of communicating, doesn't lose composure easily, and all-around seemingly well-meaning character. Additionally (since the above should be expected of any security member), I like the simplicity of the application and the idea that he's an otherwise honest man hurled into a position where honest men are put at a severe disadvantage. I'd like to see where he goes from there.

BYOND Key: Synnono Character name: Bridget Bynes (Engineering Apprentice) Item name: Hobbyist Welding Tool Why is your character carrying said item to work? Bridget is both forgetful and ill-equipped at times. She has been forced to weld something without goggles or a mask unexpectedly on several occasions, which has resulted in repeated eye injury. In an effort to avoid strain on her eyesight and her corporate vision insurance plan, she will have started to bring her own spot welder to work. This welder is a consumer model, which incorporates a screen that is mounted between the operator and the flame. This allows for welding without the need for eye protection. However, the tool is compact, and intended for unprofessional spot work. As such, it has a miniscule (five unit) fuel capacity and its tank valve is incompatible with NanoTrasen portable welding kits, meaning a refill at a fueltank is required each time the tool is emptied. Item function(s): This item functions as a normal welding tool, with three differences. 1. Welding without eye protection will not damage the eyes. 2. The fuel tank is one-fourth as large as that of a standard welding tool. 3. The tool cannot be refilled using anything but a full-size fuel tank. Numbers 2 and 3 are an attempt to balance out the positive effect of number 1. Item description: That's a Hobbyist Welding Tool. A screen on top of the tool appears to shield the user's eyes. The Hobbyist Welding Tool contains 5/5 units of fuel! Item appearance: Like a smaller, simplified welding tool, with a screen mounted on top of the nozzle. Maybe colored an exciting construction yellow/black to reflect its marketing as a consumer model. Reference photos courtesy of Amanda Ripley: Additional comments: I have absolutely zero idea how suitable or difficult this would be to implement, and I am very aware that the wait for the custom item backlog to be processed is approximately one gabillion years. I cannot currently code or sprite, but if the item is found suitable I'd be prepared to pick up one or both in an effort to lighten the load on developers. I'm confident I could create the sprites on my own with some time (planning on learning anyway!), and with enough gazing at the mess that is the game's code from github, it may even be possible for me to divine how the tool should interact with the items in question. Thanks for taking the time to read and offer feedback!

As someone who doesn't (typically) kill people and has yet to start a round as an antagonist, the current rules surrounding combat have made me shy away from even trying security, as well as doing anything violent - even when my character might have as the result of a heightened emotional state, or a standout RP situation, or a rare moment of heroism. It seems like whenever one of these circumstances occurs, the complaints board lights up with a victim or spectator's account of that character acting unbelievably or unrealistically. Sometimes these even show up on the Ban Requests forum, which is a thing I find to be a little crazy, and I feel like people might be oversensitive to it. By playing mostly antagonist rounds, we're placing our normal borderline sane characters into extraordinary non-canon situations ALL the time. Characters can and should crack, cross lines, and otherwise behave like their players believe they should in an unexpected emergency, or a moment of rage. Due to the non-canon nature of negative events, most of these players are being encouraged not to develop their characters away from these tendencies without some kind of extra, external influence from a canon source. This is easiest to observe with security, because most often they're the team in possession of weapons and authority, and they're expected to be in the face of the threat. If a security character feels that they NEED to kill someone, or if the character is out of control and actually roleplaying it (that is, not walking up to someone wordlessly and blasting their face in), I think that's valid roleplay and shouldn't be a huge problem. Or a problem at all, if everyone could be aware - maybe onlookers typically aren't. Now for the other side of that coin - dying does suck for the player of the victim, and the point (antagonists and crew alike) is to create/have fun. It's not fun to have to play someone else or wait out 90 minutes of a round because you were harmbatoned to death at the 0:30 mark. Maybe there's an element of power-gaming to be aware of as the character holding the baton. You can render someone critical and unconscious pretty easily when you're hurting them. There's probably a point where the character might be satisfied that they've "killed" someone when that character is actually just in a dying state. Executions that ensure an immediate, unrecoverable death should probably be used very sparingly, and never without some kind of storytelling to accompany it. Doing something like a decapitation or gibbing just to remove a threat from the round is anticlimactic and doesn't entertain anyone. As a last thought, even if that does happen - errybody relax, it's just a game. Like Garn put it in one of the recent complaints:

Greetings, I just wanted to bring some attention so some of the better small studio projects that I've noticed myself during the past year. Most should be cheap (Hopefully less than twenty dollars), and all are worth checking out for one reason or another. Go waste sommodat holiday money! ---------- 1. Freedom Planet - GalaxyTrail - Steam Store Link Originally a Sonic The Hedgehog fan project that was overhauled and converted into its own product. 2D Platforming in the style of the Genesis Sonic titles, with a dash of Megaman X style fighting thrown in. Practically a love letter to the 90s. Excellent level design and low-fi soundtrack, feels like a classic when it isn't one yet. Plot plays out like a Saturday morning cartoon, and the voice acting is meh, but it's all very charming and skippable if you disagree. Three playable characters with two more in the works. Bring a controller! 2. Sunless Sea - Failbetter Games - Steam Store Link A roguelike exploration and resource management game set in the excellently realized setting of Fallen London. Upgrade and maintain a ship and its crew as you seek treasure, renown, and most importantly, secrets and tales of the unterzee. The Lovecraftian narrative and careful storytelling are excellent on a level that is rarely found in a videogame. Very difficult. Get used to dying, be prepared to read forever. 3. Subterrain - Pixellore - Steam Store Link A procedurally-generated survival scenario set on a compromised martian colony. Research, craft, fight and repair your way to escaping the facility while you're hunted by mutants. Manage food, water, hygiene, sleep, oxygen and temperature needs. Interesting for the randomization and time elements - games do not play out the same way twice. UI is unhelpful but learn-able. Also fairly difficult. Continue to get used to dying. 4. 80 Days - Inkle - Steam Store Link A Steampunk take on Jules Verne's Around The World In 80 Days that was ported to PC from iOS. As the loyal valet of English gentleman Phileas Fogg, help guide your master east from London around the globe, in order to win the wager he has made. Another game that is 95% (good) reading, with some resource management thrown in. Outstanding storytelling with several secret branching paths. Elements of the Oregon Trail and the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books from days of yore. Very replayable, easy to pick up and put down. Ideal for when you're actually travelling. 5. Undertale - Toby Fox - Steam Store Link EarthBound-inspired project by the creator of that game's famous Halloween Hack, and one of the main contributors to the soundtrack of the webcomic "Homestuck." This game doesn't need my description - if you know it, you probably already love it or hate it. If you don't, go waste ten dollars and try it blind. My guess is that you'll be happy you did.

Whatever you do, don't get malaria. I hear malaria really sucks. (Travel safe, will miss Joy and TonyWizards)

So, I see that you went and DID this. And while I think that's nice of you (and flattering, thank you for the kind words), it might slightly miss the mark of what I was hoping to achieve with the original idea. My belief is that having everyone in their own special thread where they are always the topic of (positive?) feedback encourages more self-gratifying behavior than any kind of engagement - like those re-posting people who try to hoard fake internet points on Imgur. It also highlights a little more distinctly when someone is not as well known as someone else (why does Skull have twelve posts when I only have two!!1!) and a new player might even feel like they shouldn't have such a thread, because they see a bunch of regulars with the topics made by someone they don't really know. The reason that I imagined the original idea as a forum or subforum with an incident-style layout is that I wanted to call attention to events, and the people in them, and then move on somewhat. Capturing a series of uniquely interesting, fun moments and showing them off would give people an idea of what they can get up to if they look for it, or help create it. As mentioned in an earlier post, even a megathread could get this done, so long as the whole thing wasn't dragged off topic. May I subscribe to your positive passive-aggressive newsletter on this topic? My PM button is just up and to the left, there.

Whatever you do, try not to drink up too much sugar with it, or you will regret your morning more. Haling from New England, I'm a big fan of strong and sour ciders. Avoid the Woodchuck brand though, that's practically soda. If you're venturing into wine territory, try an inexpensive bottle of something red from South America, like a malbec. Lots of flavor, easy to drink, and (generally) not sketchy if priced above ten dollars. Edit: Also, happy goddamn birthday

This is what extended now becomes, right?

And he still has time to talk to us, huh? I don't trust him. Probably a robot.

This is exactly the kind of behavior I would like to think a section or thread such as this would recognize/encourage. All in all, I want people to be excited about coming here and knowing knowing other people, and recognition is a big part of that, particularly for players who aren't yet part of the community. I agree that there's a risk the section would not be used as heavily as others. But I disagree that that should be used as justification not to try it.

This could also suit the purpose, more or less! Right now, I believe Tenenza moved all of those threads to sit in the Personnel Database section, which might be a little more IC-leaning than what was suggested here. A section within that forum, or within General, would suit the purpose too. Also, I agree that the OP was wordy I feel as though if I'm going to suggest something, I'd like to justify it too. Thanks for reading it despite!

I put this in another thread before I noticed this one... Would it be possible to allow Engineering Apprentices to spawn with the Engineering Bandana? Or, is that just reserved for the cool kids? Currently I think only Station Engineers can pick it.

Oxygen tanks of the like dispensed in the hardsuit room start with enough oxygen to run an EVA for the duration of most Aurora shifts. That odd five-hour RP-Rev round might be the exception, but in that instance, I hope we're not spending the whole time outside! This is a complete rider and I'm sorry for not otherwise addressing the OP, but would it also be possible to consider allowing Engineering Apprentices to start with the engineering bandana in custom loadout? I love that thing, and I can't put it on my engineering newbie's head. Edit: I just noticed the custom loadout sticky on this forum. Crossposting that second bit there!

I had this novella written up about sci-fi and fantasy and why Aurora has elements of both, and then I actually re-read the post more closely. THANKS CLICKBAIT TITLE. This is definitely my favorite part of the OP. I'm sort of looking at this from the perspective of a video game's design before the lore we're writing around it. I am a fan of hard sci-fi, typically, and I think SS13 as a base game is lousy with elements that could and should be present in a typical hard sci-fi setting. However, SS13 is also a game at the end of the day, and games by their nature handwave realism and justification in favor of engagement all the time. Games that overshoot the mark of fun in an effort to achieve full realism almost always fall flat for everyone except the most hardcore simulation buffs. Fun gets sacrificed in a design that is faithful to a real world model, and then people playing it rediscover that the real world isn't always as fun as the game they wanted to use to escape it for a bit. Because SS13 is a goofy game of 'Assassin' wrapped up in what was originally supposed to be a fairly serious atmosphere simulator, it has become this strange hybrid of a game that is absurd while trying to look as though it's serious. The station's air obeys the Ideal Gas Law, and yet we're growing monkeys out of cubes with a water dropper, then sacrificing them to Nar'Sie. I don't think that the people curating the lore of the server should fall into the trap of trying to take a setting that has taken so many steps to remove itself from believability and drag it kicking and screaming back to hard sci-fi realism. There are literal wizards, casting literal magic. There is a cult that exists because it touches something our characters cannot understand. I don't want to know why or how, because the lack of understanding is part of what makes these elements impactful. This represents a common-sense approach to creating a world consistent with the game it exists around. Consistency becomes so much easier to achieve when we can determine what things we're okay with taking at face value. Once the tone is established and we're done trying to justify element X and Y, we can build outward and write something richer. I think that creating that tone will also encourage players to be a little more creative with their own writing, as they aren't necessarily fact-checking everything - particularly the things that cannot be confirmed with hard science - with hard science. And if they still do, justifications for the most difficult things to explain are (I am guessing) easier to curate by staff than they are to create from scratch. In short, I kinda like this. And I wasn't expecting to, as thinking up some of those aforementioned justifications is part of what I like to do best. I'll continue to do that as a player, because this sort of approach to lore doesn't necessarily restrict me from doing so. We can still create serious, justified, and realistic characters/plots/concepts within a world less-grounded in reality.

Hello forums denizens. Just something I've been thinking about lately: The forums have a lot of complaints boards. We have public spaces in which to request that people be banned, have their behavior reviewed, and their characters officially criticized, in both IC and OOC contexts. That's fine, and I believe that those functions are important to maintaining a community of quality, but I also feel that it places a spotlight on players having negative interactions with other players. I also believe that it is intimidating to new players to see so much attention placed on these boards. I don't have analytics since I don't administrate the forum, but I feel as though the complaints section is possibly the most active place on the site next to applications, which bothers me from a standpoint of community. Early on when I started to post, I used to check the complaints boards after rounds just to see if someone thought I or my characters should be getting in trouble for some reason. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I don't think that I'm the only one who has that sort of experience as a new user. With that in mind, what I'd like to suggest is not that we modify the complaints boards, but instead put up a subforum dedicated to positive interactions that can live alongside them. Players who have a really good round, or conversation, or experience as the result of roleplaying with others can come to this forum to tell us about it, and give the person who made their time fun a little public credit. It might give us some insight into players and characters we haven't yet met, or some ideas for interacting with people in ways we hadn't previously considered (within the bounds of metagaming rules). My hope is that with a spotlight like this, we can cultivate a supportive environment on the forums that will reward enjoyable roleplay a little, and encourage more activity throughout. I'm not entirely sure of the template, but it would probably go something like: BYOND Key: Character Name: Date: Players/Characters Involved: Description of scene or interaction: From there, the thread can discuss the interaction, or provide additional detail with posts from involved players. Do you folks feel that this is a thing worth doing? I'm ignorant of the time/effort involved, but I think that it would be nice thing to have around.

I have tried to convince myself that I should not post here, but I agree with Lady_of_Ravens' assessment. Seon-rin adds a considerable amount of personality to the station. I believe that she can do that without breaking the server's rules, and I'd like to ask that her player take every effort to adapt the character to the world that is presented to him or her.

This game, along with its sister product Sunless Sea, are both phenomenal. Pay these people money, their writers need food.