Mobile ship setting NBT suggestion

[kyres1]

NCV Aurora

AKA “Bruh whos gonna CODE this” the suggestion

Setting summary : 

The Aurora and its crew moves to a fully mobile ship setting, with all the benefits it can gather from it.

Why tho? What’s wrong with the current selected NBT proposal?

For the most part we can explore the same ideas (like mobility, a changing setting, and a fluid exploration system) through a ship setting. A colony ship, as cool as it sounds, runs into several problems, the largest of which being the “persistence,” of which we have yet to actually successfully work around even in the idea department. Considering it has been quite a long time since the initial suggestion, I still have yet to hear of any specifics about how we intend to handle things as critical as persistence, antagonists, or even how the departments will change outside of xenobiology.

To continue on that, we should honestly not be trying to bend the gameplay and rework every single department. It will simply take far too long and it is far too much effort on everyone involved to rework every single department to fit a completely separate purpose, and have a month of effort learning it squandered at the end of it as it rotates.

 

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Lore

TL;DR on lore: 

Shockingly different from baystation. We go wild with the lore here, and the ship is effectively the flagship of a megacorporate fleet dedicated to finding phoron. It is super duper powerful and carries the very best of the best, and its presence generally marks an important event of its own despite its size. Specifics can be found below.

The optimal lore change

Right now our setting is very generalized, with no specific overarching goal to pursue mostly because we are unable to pursue much literally as we’re immobile. “Phoron research” and “mining” is about the best our station can really do, and it was chosen for a reason. I intend to see the same reasoning used to its best in a new setting, so here we go.

The ship, the NCV Aurora, is the flagship of the NanoTrasen corporate fleet. It is unique in that it willingly welcomes the presence of all six megacorporations alike, as its initial purpose is to work towards a goal that all megacorporations are after. This goal, of course, is finding a new source of phoron to be seized by NanoTrasen specifically so that the market does not collapse in the coming years. As the galaxy would be plunged into chaos if this happened, this is essentially the most blanket and arguably good goal that we can get in my opinion. It would be apparent as the ship’s prime directive and everything it does is secondary to this. It is not alone in this hunt, so it has an excuse to deviate from its mission for secondary goals (such as diplomatic missions, hunting other ships, going to specific places, etc.)

Every megacorporation has their stakes on the NCV Aurora, and every department generally sees the best of every megacorporation. While it’s under a NanoTrasen label, it may very well share ownership between them all.

Expect Necropolis security, Hephaestus robotics and engineering, Einstein engineering, Zeng-hu medical, with NT in command and sprinkled everywhere in between alongside Idris.

Why a flagship? Won’t the players be able to screw themselves over easily with canon choices, and freedom in movement?

Being a flagship is an important factor here. It will be our excuse for shoving the players directly into major galactic events, and basically making their journeys famous. Rather than just being some dumb old station with disposable captains, the players become something akin to Kirk, and the ship becomes something akin to his Enterprise. Everyone’s opinion matters on any given subject, and their presence on board the most advanced, famous, and impactful vessel in known space would give them significant leverage in the long run.

Contrarily, the players themselves would not be able to simply run rogue one day on extended and screw over the fun for everyone else. A central command heirarchy will still be in place where lore developers can reel in and guide the hand of the players in the event they do not want to take control, or their decision is exceedingly fucking stupid.

For absolute maximum freedom, it would be best to cut any communications to an all-powerful central command and have players mostly have to resort to nearby resources in the event of emergencies. This way, player majorities can choose really risky decisions. For example, you are stuck in Dominian space. There is one NanoTrasen asset nearby, and fifty Dominian fleets. Do you have the balls to roll the dice on a distress beacon, and lower your shields?

How far can the players specifically travel within a shift?

Nominally they would be unable to leave a system’s radius worth of stuff and would automatically default to a random point in the radius’ grid squares to simulate moving across canon rounds.

Who decides where the ship moves from area-to-area, and how does the setting get dictated?

Head admins, lore master, and head developers nominally decide this. This would not be a player vote so as to keep the mission and any overarching storylines stable and not suddenly cut off players from developing lore. Player votes for setting changes can be held when major lore arcs are finished.

How/when does the setting change?

Whenever developers feel like working on a new setting, they will. Lore outlines and agrees on where to go. In event of a disagreement, loremaster overrides. Head developers decide whether it’s possible, head admins advise the whole process. In general, “whenever the heck we feel like it.” It will obviously come with warning.

Why should the NCV Aurora be so darn strong?

We will need an excuse to explain why the ship is the focus of a story, and especially how it can survive so much stuff. The best conclusion is to make it be very fast, powerful, and stealthy if need be. This way, players always have a means to escape scary situations, and canonical choice resulting in the majority of the ship’s destruction can easily be solved with “The automated repair systems restored the ship’s integrity. It is limping but getting along just fine.”

A big issue with our current setting is, “Why does this stuff happen to the NSS Aurora, and why does it happen so darn much?” This is a way around that in a sense, because things like infiltration and whatnot are no longer the failings of an entire megacorporation, but simply day-to-day life in regards to being a ship of importance. Constant events are simply unavoidable in the nature of the setting, which will pay off significantly in the long run. How it goes around that is simply factoring in exactly who does and does not want to fuck with the NCV Aurora. The question for the hyper powerful faction you end up in the space of becomes,

“Do we want to risk chasing the Aurora and most likely fail, screwing with the megacorporations, potentially getting beaten in an engagement against them?”

Instead of,

“Do we really want to infiltrate the NSS Aurora with no strings attached?”

Suddenly the stakes get higher and the purpose of messing with them becomes so much more clear. You’re after them because they’re important, and minor things like stowaways are entirely just as possible as an eldritch deity finding you, or pirates trying to fuck with you. Now, all that power just keeps galactic entities from saying “screw you” and deleting you when you go into their space.

Is the ship alone?

No. It will have an automated cargo shuttle in a hangar bay, and a docked, larger shuttle only accessible to new pilot roles and command staff.

The ship itself will be accompanied by a hub vessel that will serve as an off-station escape point and transfer point to end rounds or serve as a getaway like the current shuttle does. It will have a cloaking field and be extremely fast, so it may escape in the possibility the NCV Aurora is just fucked lmao. It would be piloted solely by an AI, with little crew on board. Incoming transfers go through it first before boarding the NCV Aurora and processed accordingly with VIPs bypassing it entirely, meaning you get whatever docks and the safety checks are handled by crew, not some external force.

Why isn’t there an NTCC Odin equivalent? Where will we get our ERT from?

Simple reasoning is that the NTCC Odin’s presence removes a lot of player involvement from the equation. You are not calling upon a NanoTrasen fleet to do your bidding, nor instant-access bluespace artillery from a nearby fortress among the stars to decimate anybody you’d like. Unless you’re nearby one, of course.

Players will be able to utilize the cargo automated shuttle to send off goods for trade. There is no magic deletion point where you send off dangerous assets, meaning you either jettison it, or keep it. That marauder in cargo is yours. That bulky equipment you found on the planet is yours. The alternative is wasting it entirely, which means things will hopefully be treated with more importance, and kept more often, rather than sent to the NTCC Odin for money.

Furthermore, ERT will now be either slow, or a gamble. The ship itself is expected to be more than capable of defending itself, and in the event of emergency, is expected to run away first and ask questions later. With that said, distress beacons are the prime route to go down here, as calling for response would become a gamble of sending a myriad of faction-sent deathsquads or loosely affiliated pirates.

What about money through cargo and ship funds?

If the crew needs money, it will need just that - literal money, and it will need to conduct trade through cargo to accomplish this. The ship funds will be much more loosely used than current station funds and have no need to be persistent or have any fancy system or changes. Money will need to be a deciding factor in a lot more things than junk food and the merchant.

What happens to CCIA?

Nothing. CCIA will board the station by being a pursuing vessel that joins the fleet as long as it’s needed, and then departs again. That’s all, really.

How does the current crew end up here, and what happens to the old Aurora?

Players decide themselves. As for the Aurora II, it explodes, nobody knows why, as is our tradition. In all seriousness, I'm sure lore can come to a conclusion easily.

 

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Mechanics

TL;DR on mechanics : 

The station is now mobile in every sense except code-wise, which explores different mechanics to mimic movement that don’t slaughter our poor server.

On movement and z-levels

Mechanically speaking, the setting would be set in a station-esque environment in the sense that there is no particular “movement,” outside of changing the bottom-most Z-level for atmospheric flight, landing planet-side, or simply being in space. To utilize as much map space as possible, this ship would need to be very vertical, and have a thin base to ensure as little stress as we can with the bottom of the ship being the only part that really moves. The properties of space itself could change between three states, where the ship is mobile, the ship is stationary, and the ship is in bluespace. The location at any given point of the vessel is determined by command.

The ship itself could technically navigate through sectors of nearby space, sending all undocked nearby vessels to their standard Z-level, or just open space when it moves. The movement system can be an entire subsystem dedicated to tracking where the ship is at any given time, and have a large simulated grid separate from reality that determines where everything is. Command would now have the purpose to view this grid, and would be able to explore mechanics directly related to it. From scanning grid square by grid square searching for that pesky mercenary shuttle with varying power levels and scanning arrays, to literally shooting it out of the sky with the ship’s guns, anything is possible with this.

The off-station Z-levels consists of two levels. The “Central Command,” or pseudo-OOC level is things like faction prep, antagonist prep, and ERT prep. The central command aspect of this, or where the majority of people go when the round ends, is the nearby cryogenics vessel. Minimalism and good map design is pivotal with off-station elements, as there will need to be a lot of condensed areas to make things work. The merc base would optimally be a single room connected to their shuttle on the pretense of being a larger mothership OOCly, for example.

On current jobs, and new ones

For purposes of retaining all roles possible, various things such as deployable bomb ranges, a reachable asteroid and so on will be accessible. In the case of shaft mining, we have the choice of expanding it to a blanket prospector role so that they can be seen in planetary landing helping around and doing their job there. The same extends to niche roles such as “phoron researcher,” or other things that can now be fleshed out.

New jobs would be obvious ones, such as helmsmen, bridge staff, shuttle pilots, and more. An automated shuttle could lead to the asteroid z-level while a larger shuttle can travel freely between any.

On cryogenics/arrivals and transfers

The ship itself would be in a small fleet, with unconnected auto-shuttles replacing the CC Z-level and a “hub-ship” used for crew storage and providing an external spawn point like arrivals does. On-board cryo could exist too.

 

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In summary

X (Edited out for clarity's sake.)

As Skull put it,

        “Aurora itself is half a decade old, and has been running the same general flow for all of it. So one of the purposes of this project is to effectively step away from that formula and to try something new, while maintaining the general goals Aurora has: to provide an engaging roleplay experience within the framework of SS13.”

Whether this suggestion actually covers that well enough to be considered is up to you to decide. I will work on this over time and try my best to fill in the gaps that appear as they come, as I’m certain I have not covered every base here. I am mostly posting this now to get across the general gist of what I mean.

Edited July 18, 2019 by kyres1

[furrycactus]

Kyres, your ideas are always really good and this one is no exception. Turning the Aurora into a large ship, as opposed to a space station, strikes a perfect balance between people that want a heavy exploration setting and people that want on-site RP, and it also fixes a lot of the weird problems and inconsistencies that a persistent colony development thing would cause. 

Massively great idea that I support fully.

[KingOfThePing]

I made a very similar suggestion, even when less fleshed out, some months ago. It was just said "so it's bay". Maybe I talked to the wrong people. I fully support this idea and would contribute to implement this in whatever way I can.

[Chada1]

The parallels between Bay and Aurora can be avoided by simply not being a military ship, if you think about it.

[Bygonehero]

My original suggestion included what it did because it seeks to take the gameplay loop of SS13 and make it something new. The questions faced with its development are the problems one would see when you spend effort into making something new. In the end, I feel this suggestion is a stop-gap, and ultimately not what the NBT was scoped to be. I will leave you with this.

 

 

[kyres1]

@Bygonehero

But we still don't have a solid idea of how persistence will work with antagonists, nor have the issues of escalating usefulness (such as people being useless at day 1 and being useful 5 days later for each month) will occur, as well as how we'll deal with a restricted timed map rotation. It's like bonking the wheel with a hammer and not bothering to put anything back together with it. Also comes into the question of exactly how developers can deal with the flow of adding a new colony setting every month, or every two months, or three even - it doesn't fit anybody's time in my opinion, whereas this suggestion implies the developers are given total power over their schedule. While Skull already said once before that developers could easily handle a month-by-month rotation (I think? I don't want to put words in his mouth) I really don't believe that it can go on for years in that same fashion.

[Bygonehero]

2 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

@Bygonehero

But we still don't have a solid idea of how persistence will work with antagonists, nor have the issues of escalating usefulness (such as people being useless at day 1 and being useful 5 days later for each month) will occur, as well as how we'll deal with a restricted timed map rotation. It's like bonking the wheel with a hammer and not bothering to put anything back together with it. Also comes into the question of exactly how developers can deal with the flow of adding a new colony setting every month, or every two months, or three even - it doesn't fit anybody's time in my opinion, whereas this suggestion implies the developers are given total power over their schedule. While Skull already said once before that developers could easily handle a month-by-month rotation (I think? I don't want to put words in his mouth) I really don't believe that it can go on for years in that same fashion.

Core mechanics are what are being discussed in developer circles. When that changes, it will be handled one thing at a time. 

[Carver]

I've seen ships done. Never liked it, not against it seeing as stations are stale, but I still find the current NBT proposal to be more stimulating. My only question is, if this is expected to be self-sustaining, will we be seeing massive buffs to the power of the departments (Security, Medical, etc.) to accommodate a ship intended to fully defend itself against antagonistic forces? Or will it go the Bay route of a ship meant to seem important yet being ridiculously and immersion-breakingly unarmed and undefended?

With the current NBT proposal one could realistically expect a base level colony to lack the resources to defend itself for lack of initial storage of said key equipment. With yours, I'd expect the armoury to be loaded with x-ray lasers and bulldog rifles accompanied with military-grade hardsuits. A ship so very important should have the very best that NT can provide in equipment, and having seen what ERT teams field, I'd expect similar quality on-hand.

In short; by placing so much emphasis on the importance of a vessel, you open up the need for it to match the expectations provided. The best of the best equipment for all departments. A ship loaded to handle all problems and threats to itself decisively and without hesitation.

[kyres1]

1 hour ago, Carver said:

I've seen ships done. Never liked it, not against it seeing as stations are stale, but I still find the current NBT proposal to be more stimulating. My only question is, if this is expected to be self-sustaining, will we be seeing massive buffs to the power of the departments (Security, Medical, etc.) to accommodate a ship intended to fully defend itself against antagonistic forces? Or will it go the Bay route of a ship meant to seem important yet being ridiculously and immersion-breakingly unarmed and undefended?

With the current NBT proposal one could realistically expect a base level colony to lack the resources to defend itself for lack of initial storage of said key equipment. With yours, I'd expect the armoury to be loaded with x-ray lasers and bulldog rifles accompanied with military-grade hardsuits. A ship so very important should have the very best that NT can provide in equipment, and having seen what ERT teams field, I'd expect similar quality on-hand.

In short; by placing so much emphasis on the importance of a vessel, you open up the need for it to match the expectations provided. The best of the best equipment for all departments. A ship loaded to handle all problems and threats to itself decisively and without hesitation.

There would likely be balance changes as far as who gets what is concerned, which is apparent. But, this can largely be turned into an "NDV Icarus" situation. Presently, the reason security is not armed to the teeth is because the Icarus is projected to defend it from all immediately apparent threats. Security is getting what they're meant to be trained for in event of emergency, plentifully enough to arm everybody in the department with at least one weapon and a sidearm with lethals. Like this, we can just do a similar thing and say "The ship doesn't need extreme on-board security due to the tiny chance of actually being boarded," be it due to it having defensive batteries, a cloaking system, the ability to go really fast, etc.

With all that said, overarming security shouldn't be much a concern. The current armory could be utilized reasonably depending.

[Carver]

10 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

There would likely be balance changes as far as who gets what is concerned, which is apparent. But, this can largely be turned into an "NDV Icarus" situation. Presently, the reason security is not armed to the teeth is because the Icarus is projected to defend it from all immediately apparent threats. Security is getting what they're meant to be trained for in event of emergency, plentifully enough to arm everybody in the department with at least one weapon and a sidearm with lethals. Like this, we can just do a similar thing and say "The ship doesn't need extreme on-board security due to the tiny chance of actually being boarded," be it due to it having defensive batteries, a cloaking system, the ability to go really fast, etc.

With all that said, overarming security shouldn't be much a concern. The current armory could be utilized reasonably depending.

The current armoury would be rather pathetic for a ship of such stature. If you opted for a smaller, more insignificant vessel then it'd make more sense. But I believe going big is just setting up the setting (redundancy unintended) for contradiction and disappointment.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Why do you need more guns for a mobile ship to be fun?

[Carver]

33 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Why do you need more guns for a mobile ship to be fun?

Why would a flagship find itself anything but well-armed and well-defended? I need to feel immersed in the setting, more than anything.

[MoondancerPony]

On 02/07/2019 at 04:14, kyres1 said:

Considering it has been quite a long time since the initial suggestion, I still have yet to hear of any specifics about how we intend to handle things as critical as persistence, antagonists, or even how the departments will change outside of xenobiology.

This seems to be mainly an issue with you not looking for it. We've discussed it extensively. I had an extensive Engineering update planned which is still in the works, Drago did part of it as well. Geeves and I are doing lots of stuff for Medical to make them more self-sufficient even with limited supplies. Mining is going to either work like Wurm Online where you have large, slowly-mined ore veins that persist, or work as it does now with randomly-generated non-persistent mining Z-levels, likely a cave. Jackboot has a Research update planned.

Persistence is likely going to work one of two ways.

1. Localised antagonist activity disables persistence in its immediate vicinity. Large-scale antagonist activity disables station persistence entirely.
2. All antagonist activity is canon and there are limits on what they can do, probably some sort of private application process as detailed in this thread. This would probably work best in the long run, but requires more work on the administrative side.

Either way, areas outside of the station without a designated area will not persist. New areas can be designated even if not contiguous to the station.Temporary away missions will probably still exist, as well as persistent ruins on the main area and random ruins in mining areas.

It would be nice if you discussed these things with us or even asked before making statements like you did in this post.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

8 hours ago, Carver said:

Why would a flagship find itself anything but well-armed and well-defended? I need to feel immersed in the setting, more than anything.

I dont think exploration vessels are warships... id lose all my immersion

Edited July 18, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[kyres1]

The part about my view on antag persistence has been removed for clarity's sake.

[Carver]

On 17/07/2019 at 16:22, Marlon Phoenix said:

I dont think exploration vessels are warships... id lose all my immersion

When exploring the unknown, be prepared for any unknown obstacle. There's a reason the exploration vessels in Star Trek could level entire planetary civilizations if they truly needed to.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

It seems like you want to milsim more than you want to plucky frontier explorer rp

[Butterrobber202]

I think it would be cool if we had a big interactive ship that explored the Cloud around the Aurora, but the Station be its base/supply port. That way the jobs on each side could mingle.

[Code2200]

Not sure how feasible it would be, but a rather easy test of persistence could be disabling a round restart. And allowing the shuttle to return to the station after a debrief. The station would then persist through the 'new' round with the returning crew fixing any damage.

Of course this is my assuming that a server restart isn't necessary and is just use to reset the map. This also assumes that shuttles and other advanced equipment could be rebuilt by players.

I assume that admins use 'Game IDs' to investigate certain things. Thus, generating a new ID each time the transfer or emergency shuttle is called, would be the bypass for such an action. 

 

Pros:

• Would allow data to be gathered on how a persistent 'world' could function in a SS13 setting.
•  The standard transfer/emergency shuttle would allow people to leave the round - essentially finishing their duties
  • Would also allow new crew to start from scratch (the starting screen would then be the station that the crew transfers to Odin(?)) 

 Cons:

• Would need Admins on 24/7 to initiate a server restart should something RP breaking destroy the station. 'RP Breaking' meaning that you don't send an entire station crew if the entire station is gone. 
  • This could be replaced with a majority vote to restart the server. 
• Could cause potential headaches for players now that we all have to cleanup our own messes.
• Risks player numbers after tough 'rounds' that leave a station crippled. 
  • Would also cause some hard feelings to one that always would stick around and get the station up and running again. 

 

Additions: 

•  I think it is reasonable to assume certain resupplies would be needed in order to return. Engineering, for example, would need additional metal and glass to get the station rebuilt (if needed) 

 

Of course, I am not a programmer, nor do I know how such dark magic works. It could be very possible that a server restart is required to function. 

[Carver]

10 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

It seems like you want to milsim more than you want to plucky frontier explorer rp

Then you assume wrong. You don't need to be a military vessel to have ship weaponry (In fact no spacefaring vessel intended to go long distances should be unarmed), and a well-equipped suite of departments. I simply would rather not have my immersion broken when Danny Antag shits all over the underequipped departments every other round; which is semi-tolerable for a station, expected for an under-construction colony, and completely unreasonable for the 'best of NT's best' ship.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Carver
As an addendum, being on the frontier would even further demand a vessel capable of protecting itself. Seeing how hostile the setting is.