Nanako

what is everyone talking about? I DID code them to only have the access of their master. I DID code the ID swiping feature, and that has been active for a long time. They do not have total access to every door, only the ones their master's ID has. AND i made sure they can only be swiped with an ID that is a DNA match for their master, so you cant just swipe the captain's spare on it. If these things are not true right now, then it is a change, and a bug. Only having master access was the intended behaviour, and that's the behaviour it had when i first implemented the feature

IIRC the vaurca dialoguies had the queens as monarchy-style figureheads and beloved cultural/religious icons. I dont see a need to do away with that personally, i could see queens still fitting into your design without necessarily locking the vaurca into hereditary rule. I'd be quite in favor of not removing queens, but instead changing their role from political and administrative leaders, to cultural and religious ones. Like the role of the emperor in modern day japan, or the queen of england, which also have elected governments. Or like the pope @Jackboot: Personally i dont think lobotomising your own citizens and destroying their minds, especially on a large scale, makes any sense at all, i wouldn't view that as pragmatic, more just being grimdark for its own sake. Chev's version still has the lobotomising, but without the death of consciousness, and allows imo for more reasoned debate about the role of almost-mindless vessels by providing a mostly acceptable justification I'd point to vaurca player numbers too. Their current lore does not seem to make them popular. They're different from humans, but only as a species that lives in permanant existential horror, which doesn't make a great base to build an enduring character from.

I didn't see this linked yet, so here's chev's past work https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?t=5243 The Vaurca dialogues was, imo, an astounding piece of fiction that really spoke to me personally. As a lifelong fan of scifi, it hit all the high notes and sparked an interest in the species for me, though it was sadly extinguished when i learned this was noncanon. Your vision of the vaurca, as a pseudo-utopian society that had seperated the mind from the body, and allowed the majority of its citizens to live in a virtual paradise of purely intellectual pursuit, free from the constraints of mortality and physical bodies. I found it amazing The vision of the bound vaurca as well, being essentially vehicles - empty vessels from which the consciousness was already liberated, i love that too. It has a lot of roleplay potential, and manages to effortlessly sidestep a lot of concerns about why a human corporation would tolerate slavery. I also loved the mechanical potential of that. With any vaurca body being just a vessel, it means they can handle deaths in-character without having to retcon it or get cloned. I really love the idea of a vaurca scientist dying, and then returning to work in a new body next week. It makes a lot more sense than cloning, and manages to avoid the dystopian existential horror that comes with that approach I also really loved your detailed conception of their virtual paradise. Not merely handwaving it away as a vague concept, but indepth explanation o the schools, philosophies and teachings they rally around,. It's kind of an analogue for college rivalries in humans, and i could see it driving workplace conversation - and conflicts with other unbounds. I also loved the idea of mental decay inherent in there. That some vaurca minds - if they don't keep sharp and keep improving, start to wither and get lost in distractions and meaningless games for eternity But above all else, the most important reason i like your work, is that it gives vaurca depth. Depth of character, of background, of education, philosophy, life experience, etc. Theres only so many ways you can roleplay "oppressed bugman" and i feel like i've already seen them all. The lack of room for personal expression - and the inherent ugliness of the species - means that presently, players cannot really identify with their characters, and that results in them simply not being played. IPCs and Tajarans are so popular because they allow so much potential for expression and freedom of personality. Vaurca at present are the exact opposite, and thats why I don't want to play them in their current iteration. Nor does anyone else, unfortunately. I would play your vaurca. Their transhumanist aspects allow someone to be a veteran of many wars, or a scientist with centuries of education, or a mentally broken wreck who's experienced death countless times and remembers them all in excruciating detail. Rather than restricting, your lore opens new possibilities for roleplaying vaurca. They can have life experiences above and beyond what most other species could ever achieve, or more varied. And they can have bodies which are like custom-built machines, specialised for whatever purpose caused them to leave the virtual. Its the first species i've seen that can't really be explained away in a single stereotype, or easily compared to and dismissed as something from star trek. I feel like "Immortal body-switching transhumanists" is something thats never really been tried on a grand scale in sci fi. Or at least, not in any of the voluminous fiction i've read. When the concept of moving among bodies does come up, its usually portrayed in a villainous light, and has completely different implications It is original, and that's rare. In short, i believe your visions would be a great benefit to the roleplay environment of aurora, and open up a wealth of new possibilities in RP, mechanics and gameplay. For that, you have all the approval i can possibly give. I hope you succeed

alberyk has mentioned his own problems with making tatoos, and i fear i'd run into the same thing with skin conditions. Namely concerns with missing limbs It's not impossible to do properly, but its more work than i'm willing to put in for the sake of that feature. So the answer for brittlescale, and any similar skin/scale/fur/carapace conditions is a "not at this time, but maybe in future.".

carp are a low enough threat as is, xenobotany is one of the few places that ever has to deal with them. I am against reducing their power any more. if security aren't killing them, thats their fault. Complain about them and demand assistance

detectives should definitely have security experience. They're trusted with armor, a gun, cuffs, and flash. Theres no question there. Most real world detectives are promoted from normal cops. Forensic techs though, definitely not imo. They're often scientists who simply work for law enforcement, there's no reason they should have ever worked on the beat. Not saying they can't be former police, but that shouldn't be an assumption or a requirement, theres no reason they can't be civilians with no combat training.

i might add this as a xenoarch thing in future. Thats the only place it belongs. Organic technology isn't something NT makes, not sure if even known to exist, this shouldnt be in cargo

A fur allergy wouldn't be too hard. occasional sneezing when around tajarans, dogs, cats, mice, etc. Plus the potential for office conflict with tajarans is something i like. Ill do this one

The door thing is fixed in this PR, awaiting review https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/2160 It's part of a much larger issue and the best solution i could find for it, was to make the evidence collecting tools slightly more fiddly, in order to communicate your intent. So they now switch between storage and evidence collecting mode.

Working on a research station isnt exactly a normal office job, though. Everyone is utterly dependant on the radio for coordination, and sometimes survival. Playing a deaf character in this situation puts a pretty heavy burden on others to work with you. I'm pretty against it personally. At least with a mute, the burden is all your own, you can PDA/write notes to people. without them needing to do anything unusual to communicate with you. The extra burden a deaf employee places on their coworkers falls under the criteria of "your severe disability makes you an unprofitable employee." You cost the company time and money with every interaction

An administrative decision has already been reached on additional balancing measures for cloning, and i will be implementing it during this project DNC orders are more a matter of personal preference than physiological necessity, as far as i'm aware I think i could do this easily enough, it would be implemented as rejection, and gradual infection of the nearest organic parent to the prosthetic will be done This is a maybe. Food does not really track what it was made of, most of the ingredients are just combined into generic nutriment, and implementing this properly would be difficult - at least for ingredients like milk The number of reagents this could be done with is somewhat low. Leaning towards a no due to technical difficulties, unless we can think of some reagents that are sufficiently common and present in final products Mechanical capabilities for these things is another project, they aren't in the scope of this one for now. Ill need to look into how well supported the existing fat mechanic is. call this a maybe Not a bad crop of ideas though

Why would meat help lower blood pressure? Thats the exact opposite of true In any case hyper/hypotension is a no for now, because i have other future plans for the cirulatory system Did you just invent wickermarrow ? no google results for it. im sure brittle bone disease has a more scientific name. its not a bad idea though Epilepsy is good too, i like that one

As part of genetics work i'm currently rewriting the entire mutations and disabilities system, and while i'm at it I was thinking of doing another feature that's been requested - allowing you to choose disabilities and chronic medical conditions in character creation, that would always be with you. Actual mechanical effects, which serve as an aid to roleplaying a slightly broken crewmember. Currently though, i don't have a lot of ideas for what should actually be available in this feature, and hence i'm currently kind of on the fence about whether or not its worth doing. So this thread should not be taken as a statement of intent, but merely informal information gathering. And seeing whether this idea is desired by the community. Anyways, you can help by suggesting suitable disabilities and chronic conditions that could be selectable. This is not limited to pre-existing things, i'm open to coding new ones too, my new system gives a lot more flexibility to make certain things easier., and your new ideas will help shape the expectations of the system and the functionality it needs, even if i don't make them. These effects will be impossible to cure ingame without magic or admin intervention. Medical means of temporarily suppressing them (like taking dexalin for asthma) is a possibility though. Some ground rules: 1. A disability is a disadvantage, this is strictly for things that make you less-able than coworkers, not free buffs. 2. Suggestions should be believable and fit the tone of our game. Tourettes is not being enabled. No being a deformed mutant or farting glitter or glowing in the dark. 3. Disabilities should not be so severe that they stop you doing a profitable job. I'm sure biesel has some discrimination laws, but theres a limit to it. NT can't be reasonably expected to hire hellen keller, or any similar completely-broken person. For this reason, blindness and deafness will not be made available. 4. Some mechanical effect is a requirement. If all a disability does is give RP messages, it's not suitable here, you can already roleplay such things yourself. This makes a lot of mental conditions unsuitable for this system unless you can propose worthwhile gameplay effects from them Currently, i only have three ideas that fit. Muteness, clumsiness, and asthma. That last one is new and ill code it. I don't believe these three are enough to justify developing the feature yet, so more input is desired. Species-specific disabilities may be considered, but ill need some good ideas to justify the extra codework to support that. Post your ideas, desired mechanical effects, and (if applicable) means of compensating for the issue.

The door thing is part of another bug that i plan on fixing shortly. At least, i think it is

Why is everyone suddenly eager to crucify me? I dindu nuffin Gummy bears didn't exist before i touched cooking, they continue to not exist afterwards. I did not add, remove or alter them in any way. no such thing was there to be altered. I did not remove gummy bears

This has been brought up several times and rejected. The various tech items that appear there are intended. Cargo stock serves several purposes including providing a loot depository for antags to raid, a toolset for cargo techs to mcgyver their way out of situations, and - critically here - a few random items which can have a significant effect on the round. A couple extra signs or medkits is largely just window dressing, most people outside cargo wont care. An energy shield is something to care about, something to fight over. something to abuse and get arrested for, and something worth stealing. it works as a conflict driver

One sugestion per thread please. Our current movement speed is higher than intended and will be going down There are several chemical aids to boost movement speed. Hyperzine, caffiene, and inaprovaline are in one category, synaptizine is in another, and alcohol is in a third. One effect (the strongest currently active) from each category will stack and allow you quite considerable boosts in your base speed and/or sprinting costs/speed. Effects within a category will not stack, so hyperzine and coffee has the same effect as hyperzine alone The alcohol effect only triggers when you're slightly buzzed but not overly drunk, you have to drink in moderation for it to work. If you want to go faster, drink coffee. There's coffee machines everywhere

This doesn't really need much discussion or effort, its simply a matter of changing the layer on potted plants, about three characters worth of code to make them draw above mobs

juani is generally right. These tiny injuries do disappear even without treatment, although it takes a longer amount of time. IIRC its about 50 minutes, and i think thats fine. The real problem is just that they're visible on examine, when they shouldnt be. Best fix would be to make tiny injuries only visible from a short distance, and/or if the bodypart in question is uncovered

In future i'd like to implement a Spatial anchor, as a tech device to block teleportation. thats the solution i'd generally like to see for this problem

Some thoughts: I'm definitely onboard with allowing ordering stuff from other places, but only as a supplement, not a replacement, to ordering supplies from central command. Ordering personal items is a good idea but it doesn't make sense to be the only usage of cargo. For most basic supplies it can be reasonably expected that NT would provide them. Ordering from third parties only really makes sense for some exotic items, like advanced weaponry, armor, hats and pizzas As for the whole money aspect, thats more of a longterm project which we currently don't have anyone working on

victory isnt really a thing, heavy RP isnt about winning

I agree with most of what Kaed said Limiting communication is not going to make anyone less aggressive. And player engagement is a very important point to consider. Head of personnel often acts as a defacto First Officer, managing the crew and coordinating between departments, This is pretty important and i wouldn't like to see it diminished

I don't imply that bombing should be used in all cases - a couple of turrets can easily be handled by lesser means. Thirteen turrets crammed into a panopticon room is a pretty extreme case and warrants a more extreme response I believe there is actually. Breach from space via the west side, enter the CE's office and tint the windows. You'll have two layers of vision blocking between you and the roomful of turrets, allowing you to poke your head out and pick them off one at a time. Breaching the area will also clear out most of the ground troops defending them, because cult has no inherent EVA capability Anyways, i have submitted a patch for some subtle reductions in their power, If things persist to be an issue after that, i'll look into options for limiting turret proximity Right now though, I allowed spamming turrets in a cluster because it's a counterable strategy. AOE weapons make short work of clustered turrets. You can even get science to prepare a carefully crafted weak bomb that won't breach the hull, and it will still devastate any pylons in its radius. Ask chemistry to make explosive grenades, those are extremely easy to finetune. A couple units each of potassium and water will get you a little explosion that stuns everyone and shatters pylons in its radius, without significant damage to the station As garn says, the playerbase needs time to adapt. And i want to seee alternate strategies being entertained and alternate tools being used. The station has so many offensive options you can scrounge up, and many of them would be effective. Medical, science and synthetics would be of great help in assaulting this kind of base Go ask chemistry for help. Many chemistry players lives in eternal readiness for the day security will ask them to make grenades, gas weapons and advanced combat stims

Pylons are not crew, they are objects. It's perfectly reasonable to tell ERT to bring ordnance to deal with enemy fortifications.Civilians are expected to evacuate an active combat zone, and cults generally don't take hostages And if the enemy has taken over and fortified a section of your station, you shouldn't expect to get it back easily or without breaking a lot of things. You may need to be willing to blow up one room to save the rest of the station. Trying to have your cake and eat it too is what got all those people killed. I do playtest my work. Ive just gone and tested it again now. Pylons cannot empower themselves or each other. Here is proof In any case, i have submitted a small patch to weaken them slightly. We will see how things go after that. If more rebalancing is needed then it will come . For now i suggest working on adapting your tactics