Cold Dawn Arc Feedback

[Alberyk]

I hope everyone enjoyed the arc. The main objective of this arc was exploration. It was very experimental since it was the first time we did something like this thanks to the nbt.

Here is the wiki page with the information so far:

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Cold_Dawn_Arc

Tell us what you think of the arc.

[Girdio]

I was able to observe or play in all the events except for the 5th event and overall? I think it was a pretty well-put together arc.

Coming on the end of the previous arc, which caused a lot of people's grievances for the lack of exploration, I feel like this arc did a good job of letting players interact with an environment they previously hadn't been able to. It incorporated the lore more evenly, and pushed it to the forefront for players who may not follow Galatic News stories, or read much of the lore on the wiki. In short, it

The main issues honestly came from the crew acting a bit too goofy at times (primarily the third event), but I feel like that's to be expected

 

[ErshOurHerzog]

Amazing event, though I was only participating in the final one as Rang, so I'm gonna talk about the last even only.
First, other non-tajara or non-vaurca characters should've had more lighting sources available, maybe even night vision goggles. More powerful light sources. I believe lack of light caused a lot of deaths to the Zhan Pit the Abyss.
Second, the caverns should've been a bit more straight-forward. There were a lot of random tunnels and literally NO HINTS to the location of the main tomb. Add more skeletons, maybe some kind of signs or anything like that.

Everything else was great, for a Space Station-based event. I wish there were more decorations in a village, like cool wooden roads or something. The village felt too empty and uncanny, but that's my personal preference. I'll agree with Girdio, the main issue is the crew, but what can you do, ban people? Nah. Love lore team, love spriters, love Aurora.

[Alberyk]

2 minutes ago, ErshOurHerzog said:

Second, the caverns should've been a bit more straight-forward. There were a lot of random tunnels and literally NO HINTS to the location of the main tomb. Add more skeletons, maybe some kind of signs or anything like that.

Yes, I tried to. I kept sending local narrate about wind coming from the area of the tomb when people were next to it. but I think visual clues work better. I decided to just have the geist be chased there.

[Carver]

Please don't map the shuttles with flaps in the future, seeing a flap delete a tank rocket was depressing.

As for what I observed, I wish some of the more careless and suicidal crew who went off alone with firearms were punished by the Geist. Some had seemed entirely ignored (an officer abandoned the group to chase after a Geist alone for 3+ minutes and was never ambushed), which was disappointing and just seems to encourage really overly aggressive and careless play.
For the map itself, I loved the caves and especially how winding and mazelike they were. I truly hope there's a way to download this map for singleplayer exploration, as it's possibly the most atmospheric event map we've had so far. Please also keep that wonderful 'Masonry' material that the walls used, their texture was beautiful.

[Alberyk]

6 minutes ago, Carver said:

Please don't map the shuttles with flaps in the future, seeing a flap delete a tank rocket was depressing.

I will take this into consideration, I added the flaps to stop it from bringing cold air into the spawn area. I was not aware it could stop the tank round. I will probably make it so that projectiles can pass by them.

[Confused rock]

several events where it was dark, and nearly unplayable because it was lagging so much that flashlights didn't work. I almost died from this and anyone who did shouldn't have a character death over that. PLEASE don't do any more dark events, and if you do give people NVGs, instead of a radically worse experience for anyone besides taj or vaurca.

[Dreamix]

1. I observed all events, and did a bit of volunteering in the casino and finale. The events were alright, I guess, and so was the arc. The mapping was alright, the ghost roles were cool, and the lore was fine. I had fun observing, and volunteering. I think the event arc overall was planned well, but...

 

2. Communication between the events basically did not exist. The events as they are incentivize roughly the same command team for the whole arc. The command forum is lacking in any updates or information about what is going on. People complained about this in the previous arc, and the one before too. Like the ALA coming to Horizon to get supplies mini-event, after it ended it was not mentioned how it went in any forum thread (or I am blind). So if I wanted to play the finale, I'd have no idea IC or OOC what happened then, if the ALA did get any weapons, what supplies did they get, etc. I had to ask other players on the OOC discord channels. Same with the negotiations with the ALA in the casino event. Reports like Owen's from the North Pole Expedition expedition do help, of course, but I feel this should be done by staff, giving to command staff a proper report/briefing as compiled by the SCC people.

 

3a. Crew acting absolutely insane and in LRP manner, and going unpunished, is absolutely lame. People on the OOC discords before every event would meme about "event captain skeletons rising up from the graves", or "huboids coming in to ruin the event". But in reality, it was always experienced players with established characters messing things up. First archaeologist event, OM doing some target practice on NKA's farm animals. Event finale, HoS deconstructing tables and looting the inn, as well as other crew looting the whole village and stealing the horses because "the village looked empty". These are just two examples that are the most prominent, and I do not want to be seem to be targeting just these two characters and players. After the first NKA event, I went "this was fun to watch lol, but this should absolutely not repeat again". And then it did repeat again. Crew absolutely does not deserve any bonus pay for this. I do not like crew patting each other on their backs, cause the mission was a success, so it's all cool despite all the deaths and the chaos and mess we leave on Adhomai.

 

4b. As for any consequences, I don't even mean IRs. Crew fucking up so bad like this, it shouldn't even be a matter of making IRs. Crew fucking up the NKA noble's house and farm should worsen the relations of SCC with NKA, and Horizon crew should be blamed for it. Crew fucking up the inn should worsen the relations of SCC and DPRA, and Horizon crew should be blamed for it. Crew angering the local village and the ALA, etc. I would hate to see CCIAA go "well no one reported it so we can't do anything". SCC should absolutely not be proud of crew's behavior on Adhomai, and they should be vocal about it, not give any bonus pay for it, star investigations themselves, and give out appropriate punishments. SCC should also not be proud of losing so many crew on this. I do believe this mission should NOT be seen as a success in the eyes of SCC. Everyone jokes about it, myself included, but I really do not want it to be a trend that Horizon is fucking up every place we come to visit, leaving a trail of destruction behind us.

 

Edit 3 minutes later: Of course, consequences could come later. If they do, I will be satisfied, and edit this post again.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Dreamix

[Alberyk]

3 minutes ago, Dreamix said:

2. Communication between the events basically did not exist.

I tried to handle that by adding what happened right away to the wiki and with updates in the command section:

4 minutes ago, Dreamix said:

3a. Crew acting absolutely insane and in LRP manner, and going unpunished, is absolutely lame.

In the last events, we were away more strict with people messing around. People were even banned for acting like loot goblins. Staff will start to crack down more regarding this.

5 minutes ago, Dreamix said:

4b. As for any consequences, I don't even mean IRs.

It is something I am interested in. I tried to punish them by having the supplies in the north pole event, which depend mostly on the nka, be more meager than I planned. If there is any IR, I will work with the ccia.

25 minutes ago, Confused rock said:

several events where it was dark, and nearly unplayable because it was lagging so much that flashlights didn't work.

This was likely caused by some byond updates (which might be causing the crashes and the lag), but I will likely avoid events with no light unless strictly necessary.

[Kelnor]

6 hours ago, Alberyk said:

I tried to handle that by adding what happened right away to the wiki and with updates in the command section:

In the last events, we were away more strict with people messing around. People were even banned for acting like loot goblins. Staff will start to crack down more regarding this.

It is something I am interested in. I tried to punish them by having the supplies in the north pole event, which depend mostly on the nka, be more meager than I planned. If there is any IR, I will work with the ccia.

This was likely caused by some byond updates (which might be causing the crashes and the lag), but I will likely avoid events with no light unless strictly necessary.

Gonna be honest, the undersupplied medical was fun as hell.

Some feedback though:

1: Just give us hypos, I don't think syringes added anything to the enjoyment, and I mostly ended up trying to find a screwdriver to refill injectors instead.

2: Stethoscopes. Highly underutilized but can do so much so quick in a medmain's hands. Can completely replace a body scanner (if all you care about is fixing heart/lung and in this situation that was about all we could do anyway.) Liver/kidney is just a simple exploratory lower body surgery on a stripped patient.

3: Full FR gear. Just give us a few sets of belts with basic meds. Dexalin Plus (Just O2 kit Dex is fine though) Kelo, Bicard, Morta, coag, perc, stabilizer harnasses. No hardsuit, unless it's justified to risk the ridiculous cost of one of those. Also, if possible, remove requirements to take medical webbing/drop pouches on loadout, or spawn a few. This stuff should probably start in a locker with CMO access so people don't pilliage it.

4: More red kits. They also have a lot of the drugs listed above in pill form.

5: Possibly a small quantity of organ regeneratives like alky, adip, pneuma (probably dependant on exactly how poor we're being during the specific event though)

6: Way more health analyzers.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Kelnor

[Scheveningen]

I feel like in the future the major thing that'll fix the communication problem for more serious expeditions is to make the off-duties into [Departmental] Volunteers. The following being, of course, Engineering, Medical, Security, Research and Support (i.e., literally anyone else that doesn't fit into the Big Four, but can fill in for specific roles or jobs, such as cooking or hunting - the OM would be in charge of them, the captain's the all-authority shot-caller, and the XO functions to help execute and relay the captain's instructions).

You could still keep off-duties for event expeditions, so that a person can join and not be expected to do anything. Alternatively, you might not want that, and you just want flat out workers instead.

The important thing to department volunteers is to lock said departments out of loadout stuff such as medHUDs and the superior versions of webbings/holsters. Events tend to have a LOT of people, so it'd probably be better to nerf the individual strength of what would be the substitute for a security officer or a medical doctor. They're essentially visitor+ except they get departmental headsets-- that should be the only meaningful distinction compared to an actual off-duty or passenger role.

I did not really have many issues with the final round that could not be applied to rounds in the rest of the arc, which I'll describe fairly succinctly and has been described in detail in this thread already: "crewmember skill issue". The softgriefing and lunatic behavior done by certain actors was also fairly irritating, as one would expect. I hope there's precedent to work off of to not only ICly punish people being unacceptably incompetent in-character and ignoring their self-preservation, but also OOCly if the circumstances are especially egregious. It does appear Alb already covered this, but I viewed this as the core problem throughout the arc, which is that the crew throughout this chain of events generally tended to only share one brain cell.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Scheveningen

[wowzewow]

I've only been able to participate in the last event, but I'll share my thoughts, I guess.

1. Permadeath, Risk and Reward

It's a given, and I think it's fine. Maybe have a bit of starter information that will help players gauge the danger they will be putting themselves in.

This has inadvertently led to crewmembers arming themselves to the teeth for justifiable paranoia.

This led to those actually going to dangerous locations and spelunking with less equipment.

Those going to relatively safe locations such as the town had unnecessary firepower.

Which meant that the crew had to have weapons drop-podded in and loot goblining the inn for weapons.

As a suggestion to remedy this, have a brief synopsis of the area - taking the last event's location for example.

Danger Levels :

• None - Ship
• Low - Town
• Moderate - Wilderness
• High - Caverns

This will not really spoil anything, but will give the players a choice to sate their desired appetite for risk and reward.

2. Equipment

The ship was definitely underequipped. The single tile wide hallway to both the armory and medical didn't help either.

It could stand to have more materials and other goods.

3. Department involvement.

Other than medical and security, the other department characters really have left nothing to do.

I do feel that the ability to chop down trees and whatnot is a step in the right direction. Give engineering something to do.

Perhaps have science own the only translator and respective access to artifacts found.

Edited March 13, 2023 by wowzewow

[Kelnor]

10 hours ago, wowzewow said:

I've only been able to participate in the last event, but I'll share my thoughts, I guess.

1. Permadeath, Risk and Reward

It's a given, and I think it's fine. Maybe have a bit of starter information that will help players gauge the danger they will be putting themselves in.

This has inadvertently led to crewmembers arming themselves to the teeth for justifiable paranoia.

This led to those actually going to dangerous locations and spelunking with less equipment.

Those going to relatively safe locations such as the town had unnecessary firepower.

Which meant that the crew had to have weapons drop-podded in and loot goblining the inn for weapons.

As a suggestion to remedy this, have a brief synopsis of the area - taking the last event's location for example.

Danger Levels :

• None - Ship
• Low - Town
• Moderate - Wilderness
• High - Caverns

This will not really spoil anything, but will give the players a choice to sate their desired appetite for risk and reward.

2. Equipment

The ship was definitely underequipped. The single tile wide hallway to both the armory and medical didn't help either.

It could stand to have more materials and other goods.

3. Department involvement.

Other than medical and security, the other department characters really have left nothing to do.

I do feel that the ability to chop down trees and whatnot is a step in the right direction. Give engineering something to do.

Perhaps have science own the only translator and respective access to artifacts found.

I like the danger warning thing, but could be done ICly. We have a spaceship in orbit, or will most of the time, with some of the best sensors in the galaxy. We could do a recon sweep from orbit easily off screen and make a written report, maybe a few screenshots taken from space, and make it available in the hours leading up to the event.

can also spit the recon into two categories. One for command only on the command forum.

One for general crew that’s disseminated… like everywhere. Forums, relay, newscasters, event wiki, event forum… etc.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Kelnor
I don’t know how to grammar.

[niennab]

The biggest piece of feedback I can give is that I think more love needs to be put into the maps we're making for these events. If a map is going to be as dangerous as these have been, players should have roughly 90% of the same tools found on the Horizon.

As an example, one of the events had zero engineering or machinist related supplies. Which meant that after three IPCs took a step outside and were collectively electrocuted along with everyone else by a mob off screen, there was no feasible way to repair them. Equally in the same event there was a fax machine, but no paper. I can understand having a smaller set up but I find it hard to justify my character's willingness to join these expeditions when the SCC is under supplying the crew.

Also I can't help but wonder if expeditionary events benefit from retaining station roles. Personally I found it to be next to impossible to know what was going on due to the radio chatter and wealth of players. Retaining departments would at least ease the burden in that the crew can rely on their respected command member and team. Moreover, I wonder if following authority goes out the window when everyone is off duty. In that the players then have a tenuous feeling of authority or seniority. This is just my best guess however.

In the end, the arc was a good example of the more dangerous stories we can tell.

[Fluffy]

I concur that lightless events when there's high danger aren't as fun as they sound when they are thought of, as others have said.

The danger level of areas should have been known, we literally got a ship in orbit looking down at the terrain (supposedly) and a map of the terrain, but no informations about the threats came from either, not even a "hey guys the ALA with the tanks is running towards you" level, which would definitely be odd.

The lack of departments, and departments radios, is CBT. I saw people in the armory arming themselves up before security members could, including people that have no sense whatsoever to be there, like a psychologist, that is still less pain than the lack of department radios, but if possible both should not happen.

 

On 12/03/2023 at 22:07, Dreamix said:

First archaeologist event, OM doing some target practice on NKA's farm animals. Event finale, HoS deconstructing tables and looting the inn, as well as other crew looting the whole village and stealing the horses because "the village looked empty". These are just two examples that are the most prominent, and I do not want to be seem to be targeting just these two characters and players. After the first NKA event, I went "this was fun to watch lol, but this should absolutely not repeat again". And then it did repeat again. Crew absolutely does not deserve any bonus pay for this. I do not like crew patting each other on their backs, cause the mission was a success, so it's all cool despite all the deaths and the chaos and mess we leave on Adhomai.

This, I do not agree on, people doing funny (but not outright insane) things are the soul and what will be remembered most down the line, should things happen IC for those?

Absolutely, we screwed over a noble? Make them send an assassin in the next event to kill whatever character did it; we detonated the xenoarcheologist with TNT? The DPRA will turn more antagonistic / less helpful, and so on.

Is it something that should be cracked down? I don't believe so, unless the action is insane with no possible IC explanation for it.

 

It would really sadden me if we turned more into an office life simulator, and we already have plenty of it as is.

[Gem]

On 14/03/2023 at 13:07, niennab said:

[...] If a map is going to be as dangerous as these have been, players should have roughly 90% of the same tools found on the Horizon. [...]

i second this. i personally had a very hard time believing that the Horizon and its crew wouldn't bring adequate tools, voidsuits, and similarly with them to a very dangerous planet, especially considering that such is brought on much smaller scale exploratory missions from round to round.

the tools given in the lockers during the last event, for example, were enough for a few people to get lanterns and a pickaxe and that was pretty much the extent of it, maybe if you were lucky you could scavenge tools (or weapons) of anyone that went to cryo.