Alternative map/setting suggestion

[Alberyk]

Hello, everyone. As some of you might be aware, our code allow us to have more than one map, which is not something we do right. However, I have taken some of my time to work on a small pet project of mine, that grew up to be something far bigger than intended, and I think this would be really cool to share with the community, as an alternative to the NSS Aurora. I present you all:

 

Adhomai station(???) 13

 

The setting:

The main concept is that we experiment another settings, and my choice, was to be at Adhomai. Since I do believe that the tajaran lore is one of the best developed, this could be an interesting opportunity to tie the game and our writing together.

The basic setting is a village in the frontier of the New Kingdom, that was recently conquered by the Imperial forces. Due to the place being in the way of an important coastal city, it sees many travellers and bears an important strategic position of its own. The earth is also rich with minerals and the countryside is filled with fauna and flora. Miners, soldiers, archaeologists, explorers and tourists will all have a reason to be in this place.

 

The main map will be divided in four basic regions:

Fortress: a military fortress defending the north position and the entrance of the region. It is manned by the Imperial army, and it has an armory, living quarters and a small brig of its own.

The village: the village is located at the steps of the fortress, this is the main base of operations for civilians and travellers on the region. You can find shops, houses, traders and pubs here.

The wilderness: the rest of the map, an unforgiving mixture of forests, caverns and icy wastelands, complete with adhomian fauna and freezing temperatures.

The caverns: a large mineral rich cavern complex lies under this place, filled with treasures and secrets.

 

The factions:

There are mainly two different factions:

The Imperial army: those are the soldiers, a mix of the new kingdom levy and volunteers from all around the universe, that guard the fortress. They sole mission is to protect the fortress and the region from external force, they are not expected to act as security, or meddle too much in the affairs of the village.

The commoners: the rest of the inhabitants and visitors of the place, which might include people from any background, or political belief. They have their own organization, and leader. Cooperation with the imperial army might be wise, but not always the best options in the right situations.

 

The roles:

Like in a regular station, there are a couple of roles, each of them has their own expectations and duties. Some of them might be restricted to certain species, and there is no captain to decide upon everyone’s fate.

 

The Imperial Army’s roles:

Commander: As the name implies, you are the commanding officer of the fortress's forces. You should organize, lead and support them in any way you can. You only have jurisdiction upon your soldiers and the fortress, and you should only fight external threats, unless invited by the mayor of the village, or under other extraordinary circumstances. Besides having command of your men, you also have access to all places in the fortress, and to a telegraphy, which allows you to make station wide announcements, contact the Crown and even order an artillery strike, if you know the coordinates. This role is restricted to Hharar and Njarir-Ahkran tajara. There is a single job slot for this role.

Levy: You are the blood of the imperial army, a common soldier, either drafted or a volunteer from beyond the stars. Your mission is simple; obey your commander and hold the line. This role has no species restriction. There are six job slot for this role.

Supply Officer: You are in charge of distributing and safeguard the supplies of the fortress, the armory and garage. Listen to the orders of your commander well, and be ready to equip the soldiers with anything that is needed. Your duties may also include buying things from the village. This role is restricted to Hharar, M’sai and Njarir-Ahkran tajara. There is a single job slot for this role.

Royal Grenadier: You are part of the prized vanguard of the New Kingdom’s Army, you are better armored and armed than anyone in the fortress. Loyalty to the commander is a must, and you should be the first one to charge into battle, and the last one to retreat. This role is restricted to Zhan-Khazan tajara. There are two job slot for this role.

Sharpshooter: You are the skilled marksman of the fortress, tasked with scouting and fighting from afar. To complete this mission, you are gifted the a bolt action rifle outfitted with a telescopic sight. This role has no species restriction. There are two job slot for this role.

Combat Engineer: You are tasked with any engineering related task, such as building defenses, planting landmines and breaching into places. You are given access to a couple of those resources at start. You also have one of the few GPS, that might be useful when setting up artillery strikes. This role has no species restriction. There are two job slot for this role.

 

The village roles:

Governor: You are the head of the government in this place. You should do your best to lead the village to a safe and prosperous future, or maybe you just want to fill your pockets as much you can. But, it is expected that you deal with any administrative and public matters, such as listening to complains, ordering constructions, negotiations with the fortress or holding the court. The mayor also has access to a telegraphy, but he is unable to call an artillery strike. This role is restricted to Hharar and Njarir-Ahkran tajara. There is a single job slot for this role.

Barkeeper: Your mission is simple; work in the village’s bar. Feed the people and serve them alcohol. This role has no species restriction. There are two job slots for this role.

Hunter: The wilderness is filled with many animals, and you are tasked with hunting them, either for their pelt or meat. You are given a bolt action rifle and many different traps as your work tools. This role has no species restriction. There is a single job slot for this role.

Priest/Missionary: You are responsible for the spiritual well being of the villagers. Like the chaplain, you are also given a null rod to fight the forces of evil. You may worship one of the tajaran religions, or maybe you are a foreign missionary trying to spread your faith to the lost souls of this world. This role has no species restriction. There is a single job slot for this role.

Physician: You are in charge of the small medical clinic at the village, expect most of the wounded to be brought to you. You don’t have a state-of-the-art medbay at your disposition, so expect to rely on more rudimentary examination methods. This role has no species restriction. There is a single job slot for this role.

Nurse: You are tasked with helping the physician in the clinic. While not skilled as your boss, some simple things are not beyond your grasp, but your main purpose is to help, not do everything by yourself. This role has no species restriction. There are two job slots for this role.

Prospector: You are tasked with mining, either the few rocks on the surface, or the underground. Your job is dangerous, but it might be rewarding if you know what you are looking for. This role has no species restriction. There are four job slots for this role.

Blacksmith: You have access to the foundry, anvil and all needed tools to craft and repair useful tools and weapons. While you have some starting ore of your own, you may need to rely on mining, or the trader to have access to more interesting options. This role has no species restriction. There is a single job slot for this role.

Trader: You control the shop in the village, and one of the few ways to access the outside world, a trading console. You start with a small stock, that can come with some useful items. You should aim to make a profit, and supply the other members of the village with what they need. This role has no species restriction. There is a single job slot for this role.

Archeologist: Unlike most of the townsfolk, you are a man of science, you have come to this place to explore the ancient ruins in search for knowledge, and may some treasures. You have access to a couple of excavating tools and xenoarchaeology gear. This role has no species restriction. There is a single job slot for this role.

Chief Constable: You are the chief of the small police force of the village, and you are subject to the orders of the mayor. Be sure to coordinate with your constables to keep the peace and handle any hooligan. Major external threads might be the problem of the Imperial army, however, relying on the military might not be possible in certain situation. You have access to the police station’s cells, garage and their small armory. This role is restricted to M'sai, Hharar and Njarir-Ahkran tajara. There is a single job slot for this role.

Constable: You are the police force of the village, your mission is to keep the peace and order in the streets. Listen well to your chief constable as he is your superior. While you may have access to some weapons, it is not expected of you to handle something bigger than a riot. This role is restricted to the tajara species. There are three job slots for this role.

Commoner: You are a simple worker, maybe just an inhabitant of the villager, a tourist or traveller. You are like an assistant, nothing is expected of you, and you are free to follow your own path.  This role has no species restriction. This role has unlimited job slots.

 

Gamemodes:

The following gamemodes are available in this map: extended, traitor, cult, vampire, wizard, changeling, mercenary, conflux, feeding, revolution, siege, veil party, uprising.

New gamemodes might also be possible.

 

Features:

Some new features include:

-blacksmith system, allowing the player to create a couple of tools and weapons

-digging pits/graves

-sandbag barriers

-random forest and caverns

-an entire z-level designated for mining/xenoarchaeology/exploration

 

Since the great majority of our events are designated to a space station, I have created a couple of new ones for this map. They might include: drop pods with supplies or mobs, meteors chunks falling from the skies, a group of travellers passing by, animal migrations or even an invasion staged by the Republic Army. Something new is the events that can incorporate ghosts and observers, allowing them to play the event related roles.

 

I will put the pr open today, and I am planning on running a couple of test rounds in the days 30, 31 and 1 of april with the help of the head devs.

I would also like to extend my thanks to Kyres, for helping me with some sprites, and Jackboot, for helping with mapping.

[Chada1]

Big support. Please do this.
+1+1+1+1

Suggestion rules mean I have to go further; Sorry.

I can already see a lot of amazing roleplay being setup through this. In a place very similar to Crevus where NT has a reason to be, expeditionary forces would likely be sent for research reasons and to work on behalf of the local governments. Really I just can't express how cool this would be -- in general.

I can envision playing my Skrell Xenoarch who was sent on such an expedition, it'd make sense and be fantastic.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Chada1
Going further because my small post was in breach of suggestion server rules.

[Zundy]

Sounds rad, why not make it so it's a frontier region trapped in a three way between all factions? 

[The lancer]

Very cool idea, I suppose the head whitelists would apply for certain positions? Only issue I see would be the presence of too many non tajarans. 

And lastly, would the round times be extended to accomodate for a bigger map?

+1

[Alberyk]

7 minutes ago, Zundy said:

Sounds rad, why not make it so it's a frontier region trapped in a three way between all factions? 

As I said, it is a frontier/disputed region. There is an event that allows ghosts to join as a PRA expedition force, and traitors could easily pass of as members of any of the factions.

 

5 minutes ago, The lancer said:

Very cool idea, I suppose the head whitelists would apply for certain positions? Only issue I see would be the presence of too many non tajarans. 

And lastly, would the round times be extended to accomodate for a bigger map?

+1

Some roles are locked behind a head whitelist too. As I said, I believe that would be possible to justify the presence of any species, due to the setting iself.

The map is not larger than the station itself, and I guess that our actual round duration might be fine for it for now.

[mwhit030]

This is awesome. Can't wait to have to actually do stuff as a doctor instead of just popping them in a scanner and just injecting them with something/handing them over to a surgeon.

Will this be like a random event done occasionally, or will it have a schedule?

+1

[DeadLantern]

I like this.

In the village, it's expected that people have lived there a long time. There would probably be children and be families. How will this be addressed? Are we going to go full lifeweb?

Also, this shouldn't be a separate server. Maybe this can happen three times every week or something for a couple rounds. Also, there should be a limit on how many xenos there are. You would expect that many xenos in a frontier rural village.

I would add another role, the journalist. Can be a xeno. Is there creating a documentary/news thing on the village or the NKA forces or whatever. It would be very easy for any xeno to be in this role.

[Itanimulli]

Hey wait this is just sekrit club

[DronzTheWolf]

I personally can see pros and cons in the setting, but I think there's more pros than cons. 
The ability for both new players and veterans alike to enjoy a new map/setting is the main draw for me. Space station on a space station gets kind of boring sometimes.
Plus it gives me a reason to be armed at all times because you never know when them damn commies will attack.

[LordFowl]

Altogether not keen on this. Its predominant focus on a whitelisted species, its distracting focus by transplanting the players into effectively an entirely different game, and its frankly medieval setting all serve to discourage this as anything but an infrequent, even one-off thing. While I can appreciate the desire for change, this kind of idea is practically reincarnation. It builds off of nothing that already exists, instead basically creating a new game and presupposing it run concurrently to one that already exists. The more I think about it the less keen I become on the idea.

[GreenLightbulb]

So I may have missed it, but what if I don't have a Tajara whitelist? Do I just not play if this ever comes around or are there considerations in place for non-cats?

[VTCobaltblood]

When I come to play Aurora, I come to play the NSS Aurora, not whatever's going on on Adhomai. Tajara lore is exceedingly boring to me, and I wouldn't play on this map. Although this will go through anyway because this is a headmin's project.

[Bygonehero]

3 minutes ago, VTCobaltblood said:

When I come to play Aurora, I come to play the NSS Aurora, not whatever's going on on Adhomai. Tajara lore is exceedingly boring to me, and I wouldn't play on this map. Although this will go through anyway because this is a headmin's project.

Could you perhaps elaborate in a constructive fashion? Just because albreyk is headmin doesn't mean everything he puts out is accepted as how things are. As it is, its a excellently planned event map. in my opinion.

[Alberyk]

53 minutes ago, mwhit030 said:

This is awesome. Can't wait to have to actually do stuff as a doctor instead of just popping them in a scanner and just injecting them with something/handing them over to a surgeon.

Will this be like a random event done occasionally, or will it have a schedule?

+1

Not sure, it is still up to decide, if this projects goes anywhere.

 

55 minutes ago, DeadLantern said:

I like this.

In the village, it's expected that people have lived there a long time. There would probably be children and be families. How will this be addressed? Are we going to go full lifeweb?

Also, this shouldn't be a separate server. Maybe this can happen three times every week or something for a couple rounds. Also, there should be a limit on how many xenos there are. You would expect that many xenos in a frontier rural village.

I would add another role, the journalist. Can be a xeno. Is there creating a documentary/news thing on the village or the NKA forces or whatever. It would be very easy for any xeno to be in this role.

Up to people of how they want to roleplay those things, And I might consider a journalist job too, nice idea.

 

14 minutes ago, GreenLightbulb said:

So I may have missed it, but what if I don't have a Tajara whitelist? Do I just not play if this ever comes around or are there considerations in place for non-cats?

You did miss it, the great majority of the jobs are open to all species.

 

25 minutes ago, LordFowl said:

Altogether not keen on this. Its predominant focus on a whitelisted species, its distracting focus by transplanting the players into effectively an entirely different game, and its frankly medieval setting all serve to discourage this as anything but an infrequent, even one-off thing. While I can appreciate the desire for change, this kind of idea is practically reincarnation. It builds off of nothing that already exists, instead basically creating a new game and presupposing it run concurrently to one that already exists. The more I think about it the less keen I become on the idea.

I believe that those are valid points, what would you suggest to be done about it? 

 

[LordFowl]

My suggestion is that these sort of things be kept to a DL, to be used infrequently a la the prison map on the old map. This framework is useful for event maps but they shouldn’t become official and by no means should they become periodic to the degree suggested here. This idea is far more interesting when considered under the lens of letting any admin load a custombuilt map + infrastructure for lore and adminbus events, instead of us officially having Tajara lebensraum every weekend. These map templates would be designed with ease of creation and disposability in mind, but they could be repeated just like the prison map was.

Instead of “alternatives to the NSS Aurora” these would be events Plus, with a wide range of depth, options, and even timeframe.

Edited March 25, 2019 by LordFowl

[AmoryBlaine]

Nanotrasen-New Kingdom joint venture into mining on Adhomai ((GONE VIOLENT)) FT. Everyone who is staffed at the Aurora.

 

My idea sounds more cool, but this is pretty baller- though, I'd rather it be it's own side server, than something we get only sometimes. No fun if you can't settle in to things and establish characters for the setting.

 

 

[Allakai]

Given how much of a fan I am of Tajara I wholeheartedly am excited for this. Particularly because we are able to do something other than Aurora, as much as I love the station, constantly playing the same three (well five I think) leveled station all day every day gets repetitive and rather boring. It is mostly exciting because it allows for more things to do and would open the door for more unique "Aurora" stations to be opened on different maps/ unique locations.

Though some points people have made that are valid is that it is "Aurora" station. Though Aurora has now become more of a lore and background than a station. It is "Aurora" Tajara that we are exploring. I would certainly like to see this Adhomai colony thing come to fruition as it would involve people more in the lore, especially of a species that is so highly populated as Tajara and could even open the door to other unique ideas such as an underwater station for Skrell, or a jungle planet for Unathi, and so on so forth.

 

To remain on topic I don't have any major concerns for this outside of how command positions will be handled. Some things such as how ERT/ whatever equivalent would be handled, especially things such as Central Command or the TCFL as obviously the TCFL would not be there. Many things come to mind and I would like to discuss more of these things how we can improve and tackle these smaller details.

[Mofo1995]

As Tajara lore dev, I'm obviously biased. I completely love it and wanna play it. I understand the concerns though, not everyone is as in-love with taj team's lore as I am. But it's a nice turn on the common question lore developers face, that is: "How do I bring the lore to the station?" By bringing the station to the lore, we set a strong precedent for feeling less boxed in in our universe. By occasionally, or even rarely, allowing us to explore the lore tangibly in in-game playtime, we really involve the players in those bits of lore that cannot feasibly be brought to the station yet which are still necessary for that great depth they give to our universe. In short, I feel that this would be a complete game changer that would be absurdly beneficial to us. It expands our universe and expands our gameplay experience. 

[Conspiir]

As someone who cares not even a little for Tajaran lore, I'm biased, too. I legitimately don't care about this setting, don't have (and don't plan to get) the Tajara whitelist, and don't want to be forced to care about this setting periodically. It's heavily based on a whitelisted species, which boosts the bias toward Tajara. There's even species restrictions on these jobs just for Tajara. There's a serious issue with that. No job on our server is restricted to a whitelisted species. Humans, the default, get access to everything. This setting takes the default away from Humans (a species everyone can choose) and puts it onto Tajara (a species not everyone can choose) and puts them on a planet very far from the rest of the races.

 

Looking at our starmap, you can see the setting is being shoved hundreds of light years away from most of the lore.

There's a reason Tau Ceti works. All species CAN make it there (it's fairly central), and have a REASON to go there (fairly liberal, relatively safe, plenty of corporations to sell your soul to). Why would any Federation Skrell want to go to Adhomai? In reality, they don't. It's wartorn and Skrell lore states the only Representatives Skrell has for Adhomai is one for the moon and one for the wildlife. Skrell could not care less about Tajara issues. Will Unathi want to go to a place that is literally freezing all the time? Probably not. What's the gain in doing so? Now of course, I can't really speak for other species, because I'm biased toward Skrell, but I can point out this hole.

 

Echoing Fowl's post, the concept of being able to plop in maps for big events is amazing. We should pursue that. Imagine if we could play out some big lore events as some of the major players, but not have it affect our "main" setting of the NSS Aurora. It's a massive undertaking, and every "event" map/structure change would take a ton of effort for only a few rounds of use.

[ben10083]

I do not like this as a permanent map in terms of if we rotate, here is why:

1. Lets face it, not many people on the server know taj lore outside of the newscasters or forum news, should we expect the community to suddenly have to learn yet another element of lore in order to not get in ooc trouble?

2. I am just going to assume that CCIA would act as the crown, and this is yet another authority we will have to look into and determine how to respond for.

2a. Where will the "crown" be based? How do we have the round end? A fade to black? If they need to evacuate, how do we go about doing so? Are we just going to have TCFL, Cat edition when it comes to them needing ERT?

3. The idea that you will need a tajaran whitelist AND a head whitelist for commanding roles makes me worried about if this is a direction we want to go, having people have to trodd through 2 whitelists just to play a role they like.

4. As with others, I play this game for the sci-fi element, if I wanted to play medieval SS13, I would play lifeweb.

Overall, this would be a great event map, but should not be a rotation map.

-1

[Itanimulli]

I want actual rotation maps, something that changes up how things work. Some positions and things, but different map flow and secrets and stuff.

I suppose the idea of a this map is okay, but not one that is in rotation. Event maps, yes, but. I'd want a different station for an actual station map.

[Alberyk]

6 minutes ago, ben10083 said:

1. Lets face it, not many people on the server know taj lore outside of the newscasters or forum news, should we expect the community to suddenly have to learn yet another element of lore in order to not get in ooc trouble?

Same could be said of our main map setting, outside of the station, as in; tau ceti and etc. I think we could incorporate lore more, maybe a small background explanation when you enter the game with the basics of the setting could help

7 minutes ago, ben10083 said:

2. I am just going to assume that CCIA would act as the crown, and this is yet another authority we will have to look into and determine how to respond for.

2a. Where will the "crown" be based? How do we have the round end? A fade to black? If they need to evacuate, how do we go about doing so? Are we just going to have TCFL, Cat edition when it comes to them needing ERT?

The Crown might be admins, to be fair, but the place is meant to be largely independent. Also, instead of the shuttle, the round would end around ten minutes after the vote.

9 minutes ago, ben10083 said:

3. The idea that you will need a tajaran whitelist AND a head whitelist for commanding roles makes me worried about if this is a direction we want to go, having people have to trodd through 2 whitelists just to play a role they like.

The issue is that those roles are pretty much role oriented, same with captain restrictions on certain species or when we had special roles during the Sol invasion.

 

13 minutes ago, ben10083 said:

 4. As with others, I play this game for the sci-fi element, if I wanted to play medieval SS13, I would play lifeweb.

Not sure how this is medieval besides summoning the rustic life in the fields, there will be plently of technology, and tajaran are around the 20-21th century in the tech level. Also, it happens in the same universe as the rest of our lore. Energy weapons and other things might show up as well.

[VTCobaltblood]

7 hours ago, Bygonehero said:

Could you perhaps elaborate in a constructive fashion?

I said all that I think about this, which you probably ignored. I don't want the setting to be changed on a regular basis - I expect a consistent experience when I boot up the server, not whatever the headmins decided the map, or the setting, should be for today. I expect to play the characters I want, on the kind of map, in the kind of setting, that I come back to Aurora for.

Edited March 25, 2019 by VTCobaltblood

[ben10083]

17 hours ago, Alberyk said:

17 hours ago, ben10083 said:

2. I am just going to assume that CCIA would act as the crown, and this is yet another authority we will have to look into and determine how to respond for.

2a. Where will the "crown" be based? How do we have the round end? A fade to black? If they need to evacuate, how do we go about doing so? Are we just going to have TCFL, Cat edition when it comes to them needing ERT?

The Crown might be admins, to be fair, but the place is meant to be largely independent.

Then what will CCIA do during these rounds? Why should Admins be doing what is CCIA's job?

[Scheveningen]

This is perhaps something that would be worth doing were it on a separate server or something. 

I may have misheard how this is set-up, though. By the sounds of the main post this seems like something that replaces the roles and setting completely to supplant with an Adhomai-centric setting. This is not something I'd be interested in because I log on to roleplay in the setting of a corporate space station where chaotic stuff happens and the regular characters have to deal with it.

I'm not particularly comfortable with having to make a new roster of characters that have to suit the new setting only and won't be played outside of that setting.

I support framework in general, but I would prefer this to be an irregular thing sort of like an event basis that you can just choose not to attend when it's happening. (I.e., run this for a few rounds on the weekend) If it becomes a voted map rotation thing, I'd imagine we would end up seeing far more of the Adhomai map initially and that would kill at most 1/3rd of players' interest in the server for awhile, since that is mostly the number of people whom I understand have no interest in Tajara lore at all. But MOST people will want to vote the new map just to see how it goes, regardless of their prior investment in Tajaran lore.

Bit off-topic but something worth considering: If we plan on expanding on the concept of being able to toy with different settings later down the line, we should think about drawing up concepts on how to navigate away from NT and try to storytell with a faction that is just as inclusive as NT to allow for a variation of characters in various roles without feeling like you're at a complete disadvantage compared to what other characters are capable of doing just because they don't have scales 'n tails.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Scheveningen