Danny Harrow's Laptop

[BRAINOS]

Byond key: BRAINOS

Discord key: BRAINOS#4903 (i THINk???)

Character Name: Danny Harrow

Item name: "developer's laptop"

Item function(s): it's a laptop. it does laptop things. it comes pre-installed with the standard hard drive and network card. i'm not gonna be greedy and ask for a big battery, processor or anything else.

Item description: "A portable computer, this one is covered edge-to-edge in stickers. Some stand out; such ones from a 2458 Game Jam, 2459 Game Jam and various title logos from obscure holovid series. Printed on the bottom panel is "Hello, world!" in a bright, monospace font."

Item appearance:

i've provided contrast with the O.G. laptop sprites. the top is the original, and i based my spritework on that so it doesn't clash with the existing graphical assets in the game.

 

Why is your character bringing this item to work?: danny harrow is a student, currently working through various classes to obtain an NTSL2+ developer's certification and the relevant licensing. for his main project, he (and i, by extension) is working on making an entire adventure game using the NTSL2+ programming language. yes, i am literally coding an entire, playable game in NTSL that works in-game. it's already 1/3 of the way done. it actually works.
anyway, this project of his requires two things: access to the NTSL2+ cloud-based interpreter service, which is only broadcast to NT facilities (i.e., the actual in-game program only works on the aurora, it does not work off-station), and for him to log so many hours aboard a live NT facility. when he's not working on this project, he's on occasion shadowed Engineering and Research to see NTSL in action for telecomms projects, or Research's integrated circuits.
he brings this laptop to the facility because it's ludicrously expensive to rent one every single day that comes equipped with the things he needs: a standard hard drive, network card equipped laptop comes up to nearly 500 credits. he can't ditch the hard drive options because laptops bloat filesize to an insane degree (64GQ already for the game he's working on, which is only a 12KB .txt IRL. that's literally the entire size of the small hard drive.) and he can't ditch the network card because he needs the NTSL2+ interpreter, which does not work without connection to NTnet.

 

How did your character obtain this item (1 paragraph or more please): danny harrow is a poor student, but he was gifted with at least one nice thing before he started classes: a top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art, bleeding-edge-of-technology gaming and workhorse professional-grade laptop. this was seven years ago. what was once considered top of the line is now... simply standard. the hard drive, once gargantuan, is now considered standard. the network card, once considered cutting-edge tech, is now standard. the backlit holokeypad, is now just... tacky. over time, the laptop has accumulated stickers as danny's participated in various events and done various things and become a fan of various things, just like anyone else.

 

What value does this item have to your character, and what story does it tell? (2 paragraphs here please): this laptop is literally his entire life. it's the most expensive thing he has ever owned in his entire life - even though 1000 credits isn't much to most people, it's a life's savings worth to danny. danny's last four years in classes learning NTSL, and now NTSL2+, have been grueling, and this laptop carries with it his life's work up to this point. this laptop is the only thing, as far as he's concerned, that physically separates him from ending up as a jobless space drifter. of course, he has backups of the files at home, but he can't exactly afford to just buy a new laptop on his allowance. renting one is barely possible, considering it's 500 credits a day, and he's... a poor student, he can't do that every day. it makes no sense.

there's also the sentimental value of the laptop itself, while it's seen some mileage, it's been with danny longer than any significant other he's had, and stuck with him through far worse. add onto that, that danny is from Sol. he's far from home, and this thing being a gift from his family, that he now hasn't seen for a while, it makes this thing extremely important to him. i'll also once again reiterate that he is making an adventure game in NTSL2+ as a project for his classes and professional portfolio, and this laptop is the tool to accomplish that. i literally cannot do any NTSL2+ coding as a player without a laptop, too.

it's a tool, a passion and ambition for danny. it also saves him 500 credits he can then use to powergame ninjas, wizards, newcops and malf AI's.

 

How will you use this to better interact with crew and/or stimulate RP?: danny has asked multiple people on multiple occasions to test out the game he's been working on, which always leads to amazement at first (because anyone touching NTSL2+ code is apparently a fucking witch or insane), followed by usually a good conversation about how most games in 2462 are just different asset flips shoveled out to the masses, and you end up with arcade cabinets being literally nothing but "x the y," or another remake of "orion trail." i can also mention here that this laptop itself is a physical embodiment of leverage for any antag to rob danny of the whopping 500 credits he'll save if he gets this, or coerce him into doing something illegal. he's already had to break into maintenance to get brandy for someone because he was five credits short to rent a generic laptop.

i'll expand a bit more on having danny let the crew playtest the game he's working on: it's an actual game, i'm programming myself, in NTSL2+ that runs in-game. it's a literal, actual text adventure with its own story and choices to talk about and discuss, and getting any crewmember involved to test and bounce ideas with is always fun. it's the easiest time i've ever had making friends IC, and that comes from a guy who plays preston prestoff, who is known for being a friendly, lovable dumbass.

 

Sprites:

see attached file for .dmi.

 

Additional Comments: danny harrow spawns as a visitor. he's poor. he can't always afford a laptop with the equipment he needs for this entire arc of making the game he's working on- usually falling five credits short, or so. i'm actually dreading the moment someone asks him, "why don't you just bring one from home?" because there is no sensible answer for this guy not to own one. the working answer is currently something along the lines of, "i have to get the paperwork through NT before i can bring that kind of personal item aboard."
"why don't you just make danny an engineer so he can afford a laptop and work with NTSL2+ scripting officially?" because engineers don't just do NTSL2+ stuff. they carry around 6,000 pounds of steel sheets in their backpacks and another thousand pounds of tools on their belt. they wear an absolutely asinine amount of gear so they can work eighteen hours a day patching hull breaches, fixing electrical issues, running the engine, etc, and danny is not going to subject himself to all of that backbreaking work for the off chance he might, once a week, touch a telecomms script, which is only a tiny, tiny portion of what NTSL2+ is actually capable of (and i think that specific capability is bugged, anyway!)
"why don't you just make danny a lab assistant so he can afford a laptop and work with integrated electronics officially?" because danny's entire schtick is that he's programming this game as a project. on shifts he can afford a laptop, he will have job responsibilities that get in the way of him actually doing the thing his entire arc is dependent upon. it's like telling someone, "why don't you go work at Apple's corporate office as an executive, if you want to use an iPhone?"

i'm also going to mention, again, so it isn't overlooked:
this game that danny is making is an actual NTSL2+ program i am writing, it is an actual text adventure that actually works in-game, and literally only works in-game. there are some rounds where the NTSL2+ daemon is broken or bugged, and never runs NTSL2+ scripting, but usually this is a thing that actually works, and i can actually develop and test with the crew, in real-time, during slow rounds. the game itself plays a lot like a choose-your-own-adventure book, with a little bit of internal dice-rolling to manage risk/reward in the choices you make. the code is extremely modular, and i've been able to export it to a stand-alone engine i wrote outside of SS13, so i'm also considering the possibility of, once it's finished, writing an engine for the in-game arcade machines to use the same text chunks this game does and effectively port it to arcade machines/downloadable laptop programs. once the game is finished, it's likely danny might work on other projects and visit occasionally with the friends he's met, 

i might also later make a suggestion asking that text files don't take up nearly as much space as they do, considering at the moment you can fit more text into an actual paperback book than you can a laptop with a small hard drive. 12KB of text IRL translates to 64GQ of space in-game, which is the entire small hard drive's space. that's fucking batshit if you ask me. researchers are literally better off using pen and paper to write notes instead of a laptop because paper can hold more data than a fucking laptop in 2462. yeah, huh, okay.

here is the code for the game itself, currently untitled:
https://pastebin.com/78XrW2MC

also if anyone thinks i'm a fucking madlad for writing a game inside a game, yes. i am. ❤️

 

Additional additional comments: if asking for a laptop is somehow powergaming, i'd like clarification as to why. if laptops are available as a loadout item, i will cancel this request, and DM you my physical location so you can slap me. if someone bringing a laptop to a high-tech research station is unbelievable, then... i don't even know what to say to that.

dharrowlaptop.dmi

[Happy_Fox]

I think this is a great idea and I've had a lot of fun already just from a single interaction with Danny Harrow making his game on the station. I love this!

[Sytic]

Alright, gonna actually use some shit from real life.

 

Yes, nerds fucking love stickers. I fucking love stickers. I fucking hated the idea of putting a sticker on my laptop. Then I went to a convention, and there was so many stickers. It was like my sexual awakening. But with stickers. I finally understood. I don't think I'll ever possibly be able to fathom ever not putting stickers on my laptop again. The idea of placing a sticker on my laptop makes me feel unfathomable thoughts and comprehensions too lewd for a MA-15 server.

 

... in short, it's good, and realistic. I'd even go as far as saying give the kid good parts. BRAINOS' work should be commended OOCly, and I will literally preach his work once Danny tells my character ICly of it to the heavens, so people will start a fund to give him amazing laptop parts. Give it to em. +1.

EDIT: I am rescinding my +1 due to BRAINOS sending the attached image. Warning, highly cursed.

Spoiler

/s.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Sytic
fuck you brainos

[Natiform]

the amount of RP i've seen stemming from just one little laptop game alone is incredible. danny so easily sucks people in to his game and it really drives discussion- ive spent entire 2 hour rounds just talking with other people about the game, ideas for it, what we liked, etc- never noticed the time passing.

plus, like, the fact that this madlad is making a fucking game within a game is something to be rewarded. that shit is stupidly difficult, (though i say this as someone who only has basic knowledge of html) and the amount of work he's already put into it is kind of incredible. plus, it's genuinely fun! i once even saw an antag sit down to play it- it just draws people in that someone is actually working successfully with NTSL, something that maybe 2 or 3 people actually know. i've yet to see one character that didn't enjoy it in one way or another. even the beefiest of beefheads like this weird nerd shit.

also- ive been in that poor student life. you know this dude actually having his own laptop would be, like, bare minimum. you cant really live as a student without your own computer and renting one every single day just would not be in a starving student's budget. you gotta spend what little money you have on coffee, obviously.

... anyway. tl;dr, brainos is a good boy, give him the laptop. bls.

+1

[DickFreedomJohnson]

+1 you absolute madman I can't wait to see the game

[Aticius]

+1

 

I'm fucking floored that this shit is even possible.

[Lady Fowl]

Outstanding effort into this application, I feel this shows the dedication the character has to this hobby and feel it can show off more of his character.

Accepted