Nations (Not exactly!)

[Leore]

Down the line of playing on Aurora as well as hosting a few events such as nations or colony (if that still happens!), I've noticed out of the two, nations is always the one that either garners the most mislike or trouble - or just doesn't ever have the momentum to make it seem a lot more in the mood and serious. I was thinking of one at one point giving this another go (though not too much IC information as to give it some mystery, as there has to be a more central plot for it all to start and end appropriately rather than let the round go on into boredom or chaos - in a bad way).

So the round starts off as any other ordinary shift. However, one thing is for definitely changed; this shift is part of a workshop month. That means the crew has been living on the station and will be doing so for a month - and we'll say it's been a couple of weeks already.

Communication with Central Command and other telecommunication outposts near the area have always been clear and sound. But something's bound to happen to defy that happy fact, of course.

As the crew soon finds out it's alone - and possibly without help from outer sources for whatever reason - they must come to terms with the fact that every community needs a leader, but should it be the heads of staff and the captain? A sort of Lord of the Flies scenario but not - adults instead!

That's just the gist of it, though. I've a lot more in mind for the event but I wouldn't want to spoil anything. Certain OOC notes;

[*] Respawning disabled for those recently joining. Ahelp to be spawned in an appropriate spot with an introduction.

[*] Due to a glitch in Blue Space, the armory has vanished.

[*] Player actions - especially if they manage to organize themselves - will have both immediate and long-term affects, and may well decide what happens in the event.

[*] A tight leash will be put on those who want to take this event as a chance to gank or sabotage for no reason at all. If there's valid justification, then all is fair.

Any thoughts? Suggestions for the event after participating in similar events? Feedback appreciated!

[Frances]

We ran a "survival" nations event once, it was fun.

Aurora was cut off from the world due to most of Biesel being destroyed by a zombie plague and NT/Centcom being destroyed. We did a timeskip of a few days every hour or so, and admins went around dirtying up the station, breaking lights, and spawning random thrash to give it that good post-apocalypse feel. iirc, people actually got really into it, and some departments had fortified bases and fought for resources and such.

Just throwing some ideas out there, dunno if you could end up using any of this stuff.

[jackfractal]

I think the only way that 'Nations-like' stuff happens is if the idea is that this is a permanent state of affairs starts to sink in. The round today was kind of surreal as it was clear from the beginning that NT was going to reclaim the station. I think it really stifled a lot of potential interesting stuff.

I like the idea of the time-skips but it's hard to make it work without direct admin assistance, same with the disabled spawn. It looks fun, but it needs a lot of manual work from the admins.

[Leore]

Oh yeah, definitely. I was thinking of having time skips but wasn't sure how it'd work, but knowing it worked in that event FFrances I really like the sound of it. And yeah I get you Jack, but I'm willing to put in the work for an event like this, as they don't happen often and it's more of a one time thing, y'know? Direct admin assistance is the key to an event, afaik, and is most always what make the events not alike to that of an ordinary round with player driven things happening. I do agree that the feeling of still being connected to a society outside of the station is what sort of breaks the immersion in nations. I'm thinking less nations and more factions, like something in Metro 2033 but a Space Station. But not a direct change to that. It would be up to the players to organize themselves like that and make these factions as the days go by and we presumably time skip a few days every hour.

[Frances]

Honestly, my biggest advice, even more than good admin execution, is to get a few good players onboard that already have an idea what they want to make of the event.

Nations is pretty much like a large-scale RP-rev. And one issue RP-rev often encounters is that players are too passive - heads are afraid to act like assholes, or no players are willing to revolt. It often just takes a single instigator to get the whole station to follow a movement.

People might not really know what to do, but if they see others start to build forts and gather resources, they'll probably think it's a good idea and start to do it too. Even better when departments get their own survivalist leaders, all Walking Dead-style.

[I_speak_money]

In my opinion, it seems like Security is always the one doing the shit disturbing. I suggest either having them break apart and assigned to different departments, or the complete dismantlement of Security. The only other force that is capable of producing that level of firepower and beyond is Research, but that doesn't happen for a while even with the cooperation of the miners.

Addressing the passive-problem, no one needs to fight wars they don't need to. This isn't Civ 5. No one has to go around killing each other for some uranium. If things can be done peacefully like having ambassadors from different departments travel to other departments to get things done, so be it.

In the off-chance that someone has a bruised ego and wants to declare war on another department, I'd suggest having them declare war before they get their pitchforks and torches out.

[jackfractal]

Hmm... it might be worth thinking about a quick method for doing timeskips.

It'd be hard to code something to dirty-up the station in a realistic way, but there are some things that are important, that would be just a pain to do manually.

Off the top of my head:

 

• randomly break lightbulbs
• assign random amounts of small damage to all crew-members from bumps and bruises
  
• randomize hunger

 

That last one is the big one. In the Nations round yesterday, there were no botanists for a while, and cargo was pretending that they couldn't get food either (they could, but they were pretending they couldn't).

On Aurora, we have our hunger mechanics tuned down so low that nobody really needs to eat during a regular shift, but if you're trying to simulate a situation of scarcity then getting enough food for everyone is something that would be really important.

Another option if you want to make things harder is to blow the large toxins tank, the main one in atmospherics. Have it hit by a meteor or something early on. Normally, that tank never gets touched (unless you're griefing), but in a 'long round' it would make it a challenge to keep the singularity tanks filled.

[Guest]

Those problems aren't as hard to solve as you may think without touching any code.

SDQL2 and Buildmode mixed with some quick proc calls can make a lot of things happen.

[jackfractal]

I will have to investigate those. They look like fun....

[Conservatron]

you'll want an admin-targeted meteor to take out at least one solar array, the station can easily run on solars only if science isn't running pumps (and atmos keeps their turned to lower power levels)