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  1. Well, the time has finally come, I’m afraid. Effective September 15th, I will be fully retiring from Paradise. It’s been quite obvious, in the past year, that my involvement has dramatically fallen; it’s been a bit of a challenge to hold on this long. But here we are—I’ve served Paradise for a full 10 years now—an entire decade. It’s been a long journey, and one that I most definitely do not regret—and one in which I’ve managed to earn myself the title of “longest serving Paradise staff member, ever”. I figured it would be fitting to conclude it all with a story of how I got where I am, today, and all the people who touched my life, along the way. It’s a long story, so consider yourself warned! It started in the summer of 2013 with me just being a regular player on a SS13 server known as “BestRP”. It was a quiet little server, mostly focused on roleplay, but it was one of the few places that was generally ok with having someone with my name and my character playing there---that wasn’t just low RP utter chaos with little social engagement. It was there that I met and got to know Necaladun, MKenner, and Kodos MacArthur. They were an interesting bunch and I often found myself assigned curious antagonist task out of the blue by MKenner or Neca with a message of “have fun with this one”, “don’t’ go too wild”, or “let’s see if you can do this one”. I was something of an oddity at BestRP---these were the earlier days of SS13, and very few things about game mechanics were documented anywhere. The basics were, like surgery and setting up the engine, but a lot of other tasks (Botany, R&D, nuanced combat methods, etc.) were not documented, and a great many more just weren’t even discovered yet. As an understatement, I was obsessed with discovering every little mechanic, strategy, or detail within SS13 and was one of the only people playing on BestRP who had a grasp of those mechanics. Neca later confided in me that he and MKenner were “horrified” about my capabilities and worried that if I were a truly rogue player I could “blow up the station and we’d have no idea who was responsible”. It was here that I also met IcedV, Ours, and ABlueFoxNight/AoiKitsune—these were regular players who I formed a fast friendship with and generally hung out a lot doing various shenanigans (Aoi and I became well known for our Virology Xeno hijinks---with one of us turning ourselves into a Xeno to be other’s bartender personal bodyguard. IcedV, Ours, and I became a trio of nerds hanging out in science a lot). Eventually things started breaking down a bit at BestRP. The server owner and founder, Abbey, maintained a stranglehold on the server. She lived in a perpetual state of paranoid fear that one of her admins was going to hijack the server or somehow usurp control of it, through the code. She also developed a fixation on pushing player numbers up---at that time, turning her server into a TG-like server was the path she chose. This didn’t set well with a moderate portion of BestRP’s playerbase, and especially Neca, MKenner, and Kodos. It was at this point that I started bugging Neca to start his own server. It turns out Neca had already had this thought, and unbeknownst to me, Regens and Ponies had started playing on BestRP to boot. I knew of Ponies from the very first SS13 server I played on, Rocket Station 42. Ponies served as the head coder there, at the time. Unfortunately, Rocket Station died and all its playerbase, including me, were set adrift. In either event, I recalled Ponies time there and encouraged Neca to collaborate with him, due to his past coding experience. I was later informed that Regens and Ponies had spoken to Neca and also hoped to form their own server. After a few weeks we decided to finally do it. Several of us broke away from BestRP, held a meeting, and decided to found our own server. In total, there were initially 6 of us: Necaladun, Mkenner, Regens, Ponies, Kodos, El Diablo Shadow, and myself. These are the original founding fathers of Paradise and the original administrative team. The first time that all of us had logged into Paradise was September 5th, 2013, which is the date I consider to be our founding date (there were a couple individuals, such as Regens and Ponies, who had logged on a week prior, but no agreement about Paradise had been established yet). Paradise initially ran off a paid yet shared server hosting service that was specialized for BYOND. It was exciting, but in retrospect, the service was incredibly basic, lacking, and overpriced. There was no database, redundancy, or anything like that. You uploaded a few files and selected which was the executable. No real tools to reset things, no extensive logging---all basic. Still, it marked that we had struck out on our own. Paradise stayed quite small, originally—we rarely exceeded 20 players. IcedV, ABlueFoxNight/AoiKitunse, Ours, and a few others all migrated over from BestRP. I was even able to convince the person who introduced me to SS13, DaveTheHeadcrab, to join. It was also during this time that we acquired some future admins and coders, such as Heroo12, and Tigercat. Over the course of the next few months Neca asked if I’d be interested in also being Headmin instead of just a regular admin ---I accepted and helped keep an eye on the server and its administration. By December we were growing quite rapidly; we reached 50+ players by that point. That doesn’t sound like much by today’s standards, but that was quite large for SS13 in 2013. It was also around this time I started playing on Goonstation, where I was able to form friendships with Cogwerks, Keelin, and ISaidNo (responsible for chemistry, genetics, and botany respectively). It was through this friendship and working with VG Station’s N3X15 that we were able to bring the very first open-source garbage collector to SS13. As a side note, my time playing on Goonstation eventually led me to being the first and only person to discover Goonstation’s “magnum opus” secret chemical, werewolf serum. A few months later, however, I decided it was time for me to step down and retire; SS13 had become so normalized for me that I felt it wasn’t really filling the initial gap it hit when I first started playing. I didn’t stay retired long though, only a few months; I got the craving to start playing against in late July or August of 2014. When I returned, Paradise was a bit on the decline, but I still met a few more great people---it was at this time that I got to know FullOfSkittles. That downturn at Paradise quickly turned into a crash, sadly. Neca retired again, Ponies’ real life and career became far busier, and he had to step away---there were no other Headmins and no Headcoder. Code contribution tanked, and we lost virtually all our admins, save a few (such as Regens and BoneWhite). To say we were on the verge of utter collapse would be an understatement; at times our population numbers sunk into single digits. Neca returned long enough to offer me the Headmin position again and Ponies also returned for a short period to offer me the keys to the code base in addition to all his authority. After thinking about it hard for two weeks, I decided I didn’t want to see this community I helped found and build die. It was a lot of hard work rebuilding what was lost, and I can’t put all that credit on my own shoulders in rebuilding things. I hired FalseIncarnate as an admin and accepted a lot of help from MarkVA to help get us back on track, code wise. A few senior admins, such as Regens and Kluys bumped up their activity or returned. It was also at this point that I got thrown into the deep end of the pool with respect to coding. I was by no means the most experienced at that time, but there was no one else to drive the codebase forward, so it was a sink or swim moment—again, I couldn’t let this community die. Upon having discussions with both MarkVA and DaveTheHeadcrab, I chose to start focusing on balance and leaning into TG for design cues and coding standards, as they were the highest form at that time. To say the least, this decision was a bit controversial. I definitely made my fair share of mistakes along the way that I take responsibility for, but ultimately, I did try my best and always had a mind for trying to make the server better for a larger portion of the community. This meant standardizing the rules, having less favoritism with certain players, and changing some long-loved balance and design aspects into a healthier mix. I knew it would ruffle feathers, but my motivations were always to try to make Paradise better. By December things were looking up again; our player numbers had recovered to a new peak, new admins were hired, and a few old faces returned. We were also invigorated by a lot of new designs, features, and a more balanced codebase. The foundations laid for the garbage collector allowed us to have improved performance, too. It was also during this time that DZD and Tigercat really started coming into their own as coders, with both starting to make major contributions to Paradise. This takes us up to 2015, when Ponies returned, and a new system was put in place for codebase contribution; instead of me making decisions by myself, there would be a committee of Maintainers; initially this was DZD, Myself, and Ponies. We could reach consensus on what we felt belonged or did not. After the dust settled on this new system, I took interest in designing a canine-like race for SS13. FullofSkittles had put a few of her sprites up on Paradise’s forums; I used her werewolf sprite as a basis and began coding and testing it out—I also mentioned my interest in a canine-like race to Skittles and showed her a few screenshots using the werewolf sprite. Unbeknownst to me, she also had an interest in seeing a canine-like race too and had been working on sprites. We continued collaboration which led to us co-creating the Vulpkanin, which I still consider the height of my SS13 contributions (garbage collector being second). The amount of people who played Vulpkanin, only to discover new aspects, traits, or dimensions of their personal real lives and personality and how it impacted them, has been especially heartwarming over the years. The creation of the Vulpkanin, though…unfortunately led to a dark period for me. You see, SS13 wasn’t nearly as open and accepting back then as it was now. It still carried a lot of baggage from its /VG and Something Awful roots; intolerance was high and furries were especially hated. Needless to say, creating such a race brought a lot of extreme hate directed at me. For the greater part of the rest of 2015 and into 2016, a dedicated group of players made it their sole purpose in life to show up to the server and kill me in game, inconvenience me in medical as much as possible, and trump up fake arrest charges. Eventually this graduated into the formation of the “Furry Freedom Force” who would show up and demand I be removed from Maintainer and Vulpkanin removed or the “bombings would continue” …. then 4-6 tank transfer bombs would blow across the station. When this didn’t work, they then insisted I was their secret leader and because the server wasn’t a furry oriented server, the “bombing would continue until the demands of our leader, Fox, are met”. Like most trolls though, they grew bored and eventually left. What didn’t improve, however, was Reddit. Here, vile statements were often made about myself and Paradise---which continued well into 2016-2017 and didn’t really conclude until the famous downfall of Feweh, who, it was found out, developed dozens of sock puppet accounts to parrot points of how bad I was and especially how bad Paradise was. I can’t help but think forming a good relationship with Goonstation’s staff (who were primarily responsible for handling Feweh) helped in this department. The next few years were defined by a continued expansion of our original scope. As Paradise shed a lot of the trolls and haters, it became easier to focus on code developments. Tigercat, Krausus, TastyFish, CrazyLemon, AuroraBlade/Fethas, and a few others all were major contributors that helped us grow by leaps and bounds. We were no longer a fly-by-night codebase or server—we had matured and come into our own. After this time, we encountered some unique challenges with hosting, but thanks to Alffd, we were able to get back on our feet and keep the lights on. It was also here that AffectedArc began his redemption arc---from, quite frankly, an annoying pain in the butt to someone who was a lot more thoughtful and considerate----and he showed great promise in his code contributions to boot; he later went on to become one of our best Maintainers and eventually later still our server host. It’s especially been a pleasure working with him over the years. Our code standards tightened further, we established more well documented standards, formalized the decision-making process for PR approval, involved the Headmins, and established more community input, which brings us to the present. To say the least, it’s been a monumental journey and one that I am immensely happy I was a part of. I’m happy to retire, having seen Paradise grow so much, and I truly can’t thank the community and staff enough for having the opportunity to serve Paradise for 10 years. I could go on and on, with all the people who I’ve met over the years, but those stories could fill a hundred pages. Plenty of people had high impacts, too, even if not detailed here, just to name a few: Kasparov, Tully, ChibiTaur, Denghis, Klees & Shina Hoonkins, RB303, Von Bon, Alex Shreds, Archie, Doc/Evie, Jovan, Lowlander, Paranoid Sofa, Pierre, Ryan/Zan, DarkPyroLord/Valthorne, Skyping, StreakyHadock, DragonSlayer932, SteelSlayer, Elysian Prince, ADRKiller, FlattestGuitar, FreeStyla, Fludd12, Ansari, Exa, DumbDumb/Slade, Jayfeather, Normaly, RadiantFlash, Sassnek, Saywat, SkyPing, GuiltyBeans, Rurik, Toodles, Twinmold, UC Guy, Kitsa, Mochi, Ty Omaha, all the individuals mentioned in the body of this post, among dozens upon dozens of other players and staff are to name just a few of the people who have all impacted my life through this journey. I’ll still continue to be active in the Paradise Discord and will likely even pop on the server from time to time, so don’t worry, I’m not going to completely disappear, so feel free to drop me a line on Discord some time. It's been a truly wonderful experience and ride, and I look forward to seeing how Paradise develops and continues to grow over the coming years. It’s been an honor. Goodbye, Farewell, Amen. - Fox
    48 points
  2. Please see the updated version of the server rules.
    41 points
  3. To put it upfront, life's been busy as hell lately in finding a place to live, going from one end of the state I'm in to the other and at the time of writing, potentially looking in a different state entirely due to the job opportunities available there. I'm finishing off the last year of a Bachelor's degree online and moving on to a Master's program not long after, but as a result of that I'm not able and wasn't able to do as much shit for para from near the beginning of this year till now and a little beyond that to the point I'm not sure if most of you goblins remember me being around! There's been a lot of big shit going on when it comes to staff politics and as much as it sucks to say it, there aren't enough hours in the day to knock that thing out. I'm hoping that others continue the surveys Shadey started (especially as it's nearing that time again!) and keeping up at least the occasional community meeting to let everybody know not only what's been going on on the back-end, but to take in new ideas and feedback from the people actually playing the thing. Para's been a pretty big part of my life for the last 7+ years going from 13 to 20, I could say it's practically raised me in some regard from how much time I spent on it, especially between 2013 and 2018, but at this point I'll likely have to take the longest break I've ever had from it just to make sure things are stable in life. If any of you goblins have questions, feel free to toss em in this thread, otherwise, just try not to burn the place down while I'm out, eh?
    39 points
  4. Hello Everyone! I've kept this pretty under wraps outside of the staff team so this may come as a surprise to some people. This upcoming week I will be stepping down from the position of Head of Staff and handing over my responsibilities over to a new head of staff (yet to be announced). This is for a myriad of reasons beyond just generally being less active in the server, I've taken on a lot more responsibility in my life and am now taking a much more active role in my own professional development as I finish my university degree and gear up for a career in public education policy. I think this will be a very positive development for the server, I've done a lot and I am also a firm believer that frequent but consistent turnover in roles such as head of staff will ensure that someone active and motivated will always be there to lead the way. For that reason I've very excited for our new head of staff to takeover and carry on this role. I would like to note that this is far from the end of my career at Paradise. I will be moving laterally into a role that more directly deals with player/community contributions. I hope to more heavily support the Lore, Wiki, and Development team in whatever ways I am able. These are the things that ignited my passion in this community and I hope returning to them will stoke that flame again. That being said, I've been grateful for the 10 months I've spent as one of your heads of staff and I felt like I built a much deeper connection with this community because of it. Thanks for putting you trust in me this year!
    36 points
  5. As the title implies, I am resigning from Maintainer, as I need to focus more on IRL things, hosting, and my own mental health. I wont go into too many details, but this is the way forward for me to preserve what remains of my sanity. FAQ Are you staying as Host? Yes. I dont plan to resign from Host any time soon. Believe it or not, its a lot calmer than Maintainer for a fair few reasons. Do you have a successor? No. Nobody at the moment has the required skills or etiquette to be a Maintainer. Can we ping you yet? No.
    35 points
  6. Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well as you read this. The topic of this post as you can tell isn't going to be very happy, but it is something I feel the need to actually write a post about. Paradise has been a central part of my life for the past year. Unlike other games and communities in my past, this isn't a place where I could just put it down, shrug my shoulders, and do something else, without looking back. I play all sorts of video games, and Paradise has been the only one that's managed to keep my interest for an entire year. I've made all sorts of friends and managed to properly integrate into a community for a change. Most of the time I'll play a game and almost never talk to anyone that wasn't already in my friend group. Paradise has been a very different and very positive experience for me. I've made so many good friends and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I've grown into a better person for having known so many good people. So why the goodbye? Well, since there's so much making me stay, there's got to be quite a bit pulling me away. I think I'll start with the simplest things and move on from there. The most common reason that anyone can understand is burn-out. As expansive as a game SS13 is, there's always a limit to the amount of times one can play any game before wanting to do something else. It's something I've felt as early as October of last year, but at the time I had just become mentor, so getting a chance to contribute to the wonderful community that Paradise has was more than enough to keep me invested and interested. So what happened next? In early December, I was offered the chance to apply for Trial Admin. I had some reservations about this, mostly due to the fact that it's against my nature to be an enforcer of rules. If it helps you get an idea, I only have a total of 9 hours played in Security, not even enough to play the HoS, as game admin with over a thousand hours. It's really not something I enjoy, but it's a responsibility I've taken in the past before. I don't like turning down opportunity or responsibility, so despite knowing I would not enjoy the work I accepted the offer. Let me take a moment to talk about that work. It's really hard work. It's no exaggeration that admins have to deal with a lot of frustrating, exhausting and thankless work. Moderating a server on a cramped map with over 100 people is really tough. It's really something to keep in mind when thinking about the admin team, it's not an easy job they do. Take some time to thank them for that. While you're a trial admin, you have to put in the work for two months before you can play with any of the serious perks of being a game admin. While the hard work was obviously a reason to not stick around, having the benefits of reaching game admin kept me going through January and February. Unfortunately, once I finally became a game admin, a lot of my spark of creativity had been burned out. I had no interest in making a CC or Syndicate officer. Event ideas that once bounced in my head all the time were suddenly missing. The only real idea left was to mess with people in small ways, like playing silly sounds, spin people around, swap out the models for mobs, and with a small peak of sending a Space Pirate to roleplay with and attack a mechanic and his few buddies on the white ship. However, after only about two weeks of being Game Admin, it finally all fell through for me. One of the closest friends I had made playing on Paradise had left not shortly before, and his reasons are his own, but it compounded yet another reason for me. It was at least time for a break. I've taken some before, but usually I'd come back, after at most two or three weeks. I figured out by mid-April I wasn't coming back at all. Burnout is one thing, but another piece of common knowledge is that every server has it's own set of problems, and Paradise is no different. There's a lot of problems big and small that I could talk about, but there's a very specific one I want to mention. I spent most of my time here as a player, with a player's perspective on things. One of the issues that always weighed down in the back of my mind, has been the rules. Both how they're enforced, and why they're enforced. There were quite a few bans and rulings that took place before my time on the staff but during my time as a player, that I had serious disagreements with and questions as to how and why they happened. The rules as they exist are very vague and ill-defined, mostly by necessity. There's a *lot* that can happen in SS13, it's an huge task to try and be specific with what is and isn't allowed in given scenarios. Ideally in this case you'd want to know the *reason* a rule exists. If you know the reason a rule or set of rules exists, it's much easier to follow along with, and the rules hardly cross your mind. A lot of the time I spent as a player in relation to the rules was that of "walking on eggshells." Some bans would go in place that seemed way too harsh or that seemed to be made arbitrarily. The results of these bans had made the game feel a lot more uncomfortable, and unwelcoming. Overall though, I never knew how things went admin-side. There was no way to know, it was all hidden. I like being optimistic and giving people the benefit of the doubt, so as a player, I always assumed most of these bans were placed with good reasons, and there was simply something I wasn't seeing as I wasn't an admin. Well fast-forward several months and I believe a lot of my doubts I had as a player hold weight as an admin. With a lot of rules, bans, and bwoinks there's not much of a consistent goal or reason behind them. It's up to each admin to decide a reason as why a rule should be enforced. This creates inconsistencies, both big and small. The inconsistencies result in the "walking on eggshells" feeling, or in the words of another player this very month, "im always paranoid im doing something wrong." With individual admins enforcing rules for the reasons they're left to discover for themselves, you wind up with what feels like different rules for different admins. Worst still, it opens up the possibility for admins hunting for potential rule breaks, and banning specific people for personal reasons, which I suspect has happened, though I have no hard proof. Often times dis-agreements among the staff are discussed through, and if a agreement can't be met, a head-admin will make a final ruling both are expected to abide by. Part of the problem is the lack of real list of intents or precedents set for these rules. We only very recently got the Expanded Rules, which you can find on the wiki. The expanded rules were the best thing I've seen in months. It's intended to be a clear cut place where precedents and the intent of each rule exist, and its open for anyone to read and understand. The problem is it's a very weak document. When it was created there wasn't an expectation that we enforce the intent of the rules, and many of the intents within are just as vague and generalized as the main line of rules. Admins are still able to enforce the rules for reasons they see fit, and there's no consequence for failing to enforce, or enforcing for the wrong reasons. I understand that it's described as a living document, but having little impact as it is, I do not have a lot of hope for it having a serious impact in the future unless it's enforced seriously from the head admins. And maybe if this was the only problem, I might be sticking around. As I said, every server has their own problems big and small. A lot of other problems push me away, but this is the one I see as the biggest threat to Paradise's future, and the one I want to call attention to. As for myself, I could have done a lot more. I could have tried to better communicate this problem to the heads. I could have tried to be more consistent myself, and make an effort to call out inconsistencies. I could have tried harder, pushed harder. Honestly, I was too afraid to rock the boat, too afraid to make enemies, and too afraid to look like an idiot for claiming a problem exists that others might not see. As of now, I don't have the energy or the will to fight for it. I still have a lot more to grow as a person. This is an effort to be more authentic regardless of the consequences. The best thing I can do as I go is not leave silently, but call out a problem at risk of making enemies, of making a fool of myself, and of burning whatever sort of bridge might remain with the staff after stepping down. I apologize for leaving on such a sour note, but the nature of goodbyes aren't exactly happy things. I wanted to get a commission to celebrate my time here. I've been gifted numerous good memories from the people here, and I'll treasure them. It also doesn't have to be a final goodbye, my DMs on Discord are always open, and I've already reached out to some of you to remain in contact with. There's a lot of you to remember, so please reach out to me if you'd like to keep in touch! Until then I hope you all stay happy and healthy. See you later, Spaceman!
    35 points
  7. Lately, lots of things have been competing for my time. I need to focus on the most important stuff, the stuff that will make the biggest difference to my life in the long term. Things like my career, relationships, etc. I have a lot of big goals, and I need serious focus to achieve them. So, I'm stepping down as a head on Paradise. To free up some time, and mental energy, for working towards my goals. I might stick around for a bit as a regular game admin. We'll see. In the meantime, I wish you all the best, and remember: never let videogames stand between you and your dreams.
    30 points
  8. Hi all, As some of you may be aware, a few days ago 6 people were banned for metagaming, including two mentors. More bans may follow as we continue to investigate. Needless to say I'm incredibly disappointed, especially with the two mentors we placed our trust in. Not only does this completely violate the letter and spirit of the rules, but is a personal insult to have our trust violated by people who claimed they wanted to help new players by mentoring them. Taking advantage of our trust and their positions to supposedly help the community is incredibly low. This occured on a private discord server, whose owners seem quite upset that someone would reveal that it's being used to metagame. I've seen terms like "metagrudge" and "witchhunt", being thrown around at the people they suspect revealed them, as well as people being put in "quarantine" to avoid further leaks. This is pretty blatent admission to me that they have no issue with said metagaming - just it being revealed. . We will have absolutely no tolerance for that at all, and I personally find it pathetic that they think that those who were "undermining integrity of server" were those who revealed it, not those who metagamed in the first place. The evidence provided to us was concrete, and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity - especially seeing as there have been admissions of guilt from some of the parties. However, if people wish to dispute that they were breaking the rules, they're more than free to appeal. We've acted on the information we are given, but are happy to discuss such things. I'd also like to take this chance to remind you we take allegations like this seriously. If you suspect something like this is going on without proof, please let an admin know - we won't be banning anyone for unfounded allegations, but tipping us off means we can look into it with the many tools we have. As long as you're not clearly using this to attack people you dislike, then it's ok to be wrong here.
    28 points
  9. Warning - This is going to get incredibly nerd in places and I apologise. If you want clarifications in places, let me know. Chapter 1 - The warning shots For the past month or so, the server has been slightly unstable. As you can see here, theres server Watch Dog warnings about a server crash. This isn't good, but I chalked it up to BYOND for the longest time as that was the status quo, with everything recovering fine afterwards. Little did I know of the storm that was brewing. Chapter 2 - The first outage As a lot of you probably remember, we had an outage on the 15th of August 2023. Before making this announcement, I assumed it to just be the game VM itself crashing due to windows kicking up the ghost, with the only real indication being that Corn was unable to login to the management VPN. (For context - the management VPN is what gives access to all the Paradise virtual machines, similar to a work-from-home VPN you might have at your company). The fact that Corn couldn't even connect to this is what made me go "oh fuck its bad", especially with the hypervisor just not responding to stop commands, but after 6 hours and a full machine reboot (which it did itself), I assumed it was just a blip, and we moved on. However, this was indeed the calm before the storm. Chapter 3 - The real catastrophe Picture this. Its 10AM on a Monday morning (28th August 2023). You're lay in bed, enjoying a bank holiday (for the non UK people, we have bank holidays on random days in the year, which is basically a government mandated "ok its not a national holiday but you dont have to work" day), when I get the following message. Unbeknownst to Adri, the entire server had just shat itself, hardcore. A bit of background. Paradise is made up of 8 virtual machines running on the hypervisor (the server that runs the VMs). These consist of: A router for managing internal IPs and a management VPN (Own VM because pfsense + stability requirements) The core server with the database, ALICE, and about 10 internal automation tools (Own VM because its everything else) The webserver with the wiki, forums, and all the backend stuff (Own VM because its such a huge vector) The game server itself (Own VM because it needs windows) A server dedicated to Elasticsearch + Kibana for log & metric analysis (own VM so I can give Denghis the keys and leave him to it) An internal GitLab (Own VM to confine the fuck out of it) A PRTG runner for network monitoring (Own VM because it needs windows and its not going on the gameserver) A VM for Corn to make his stats thing Anyway, I proceed to get out of bed and go to login to the server panel, only to be hit with a page timeout. So my next assumption is "oh its networking", but then I dig further and realise how fucked we are. For those unfamiliar, a segmentation fault is when a program tries to read RAM it isn't allowed to. But thats not all! My next mentality is to try reinstall the Proxmox packages, so we can use the hypervisor again. Thats when I got a kernel error trying to merely run apt update. So as you can see, its already running bad. But wait. It gets worse! I ran the same command (a version check) twice within the same second. One worked, one died instantly. The same also happened with a check script. And trying to list VMs again, it worked half the time. And above all, straight up corruption So at this point, I establish there is something up, and do the logical thing of a memtest. Which it somehow passed. So my next assumption is "Oh the OS is corrupt somehow, lets move the VMs off to get it fixed". This then unearthed a whole other pile of problems. Paradise has ~1.2TB of data, and all that has to go somewhere if you are wiping the disk, and the only backup I had on hand big enough was a storage share in germany, so I started backing up VMs to that. If you do the maths, you can see that this will take a long time. So I then went to provision storage in eastern US, and at this point you can tell I was out of cares to give. I needed fast, dependable storage, so I went to Azure. This helped. Considerably. However, we were now 8 hours in, and the "oh god this is bad" mentality was setting in, especially with the server getting more and more unstable by the second. This dragged on, and we started to run low on time, which is when the "I ain't getting this done in a day" mentality set in, however I had all the VMs backed up, some in Germany, some in the US, and I was ready to reinstall the OS. So I grabbed a fresh copy of debian, the most stable thing I can get, and booted into the hardware console for the server, ready to reinstall. That's when the debian installer segfaulted on me. I rebooted, it got past that, then died in a separate place. The RAM was fine, and neither of these segfaults were at point where a disk write was required, which led to finally point a finger at the CPU being fucked. It would line up with everything else, however at this point it was 1AM, I had work the following day, so I had to throw in the towel and go at it the following day. Chapter 4 - The next day I get home from work, and immediately get shopping for another server. There's another 13900K in stock, and I grab it. OS installs without a hitch, and notice the board is a new revision compared to our outgoing server (not just a different BIOS, a straight up different hardware revision). The main "oh this one is better" point was that I didn't have to blacklist half the motherboard modules this time. For context server motherboards have extra features on them to help with management, such as a virtual monitor+keyboard+mouse so you can control it remote-desktop style remotely without an OS loaded. Its bloody neat. However, to get this board working on the old server, I had to make the OS completely ignore all these modules, otherwise it would hard lock whenever it tried to interface with it, which clearly isn't desirable behaviour. Anyway, I get proxmox installed, setup a basic bit of networking so I have a management VPN again, and then get to deploying the VMs. Which turned out to be a very, very slow restore process. Half of the VMs were stuck in Germany at this point, with a 1 megabyte restore speed, so I then went to move them from Germany to US-E to restore them faster. However: This would take 8 hours. I dont have time for that. However, we have more Azure regions. This helped. Considerably. The final step was to get it moved from EU-W to US-E, which can easily be done with AzCopy, going via Microsoft's backbone instead of my own upload speed. Anyway, enough backup talk, by this point it was restoring onto the new box, and I thought we had the light at the end of the tunnel. I even threw up the gameserver before everything else was ready because people had been patient and not bugged me, not to mention the support thrown my way (bless all of you who pitched in). I launched the server, stability checked it, then went to bed. Chapter 5 - The light? Day 3, I wake up, spin the last VMs up that I had left to restore overnight, did some quick validation, and all looked fine. No pings of downtime overnight, and I think we are finally sorted, so I leave for work and pretend all is fine. I get home, and notice that TD is worse off than before. Like, 15% TD with 80 people, that is not a good amount when we can normally handle 150 people with about 1% TD, so I go to investigate clocks, and notice we are running at 3.4Ghz. Our target is 5.8Ghz, so theres a lot of performance missing here. Fast forward 3 hours of fucking with various power limits both in the OS and the BIOS, and I throw in the towel. I am beat. The server is running, but she isn't running optimally. Shes basically a car in limp mode. Upon investigation, the CPU voltage fluctuates from as high as 1.08V all the way down to 0.72V, which for a 13900KF is very low. With little time to figure this out since I cant change BIOS settings without taking the server down, I bit the bullet and decided we can run on gimped performance now. Chapter 6 - What now? So we are running, but far from optimally. We are missing out on performance, but it runs, and I am in 2 minds of whether to investigate it. Intel 14th gen is rumoured to come out in September/October time, which lines up well with out upgrade schedule given its only a month or two away. There's also the option of RYZEN on the table still, with a 7950X not only being affordable on a better config for us ($200 instead of $300, and with more storage), so I guess we wait for what the tide brings us. People have also mentioned that on kernel 6.2, the intel power state governer was modified, which may be the cause for this, since we were on 5.10 before. I also want to take this to handle some points of criticism that came up during this "Why is it down for 24 hours why arent you fixing it?" Contrary to the stereotype, some of us have jobs, including me. Given I dont get paid for doing anything regarding hosting on paradise, theres a clear priority here to do actual work over para. Remember, I am a volunteer here, as are the headcoders, the admins, and everyone else. No one is paid here "Why dont you have a team of people doing this?" We dont really have an infrastructure team on this scale because its never really been required. I have Corn as a subordinate to manage stuff on the VMs themselves, and Denghis to handle the log analytics stack, but thats where 99% of it goes. Hypervisor management never really comes into play, nor does the hardware itself, hence why I never rolled out a team for it, and probably never will. "Why dont you have a high availability setup?" Simple - cost. Our server costs $300 a month. We are not doubling our monthly outlay for a box thats going to get maybe a days use over an entire year. "Why dont you use cloud?" This is a point I will actually expand upon. SS13 is not designed for cloud hosting, simple as. Most cloud PaaS offerings are for generic business things (See: Azure Logic Apps), and any PaaS hosting is always for webapps with 80+443 being your only exports. Theres also the issue with performance. No cloud provider will outfit machines with 13900K CPUs, its not viable for a multitude of reasons, and the single-core performance on xeon (which is what BYOND needs remember) is laughable compared to a standard Core-SKU CPU. The other big hitter is bandwidth. We use 5TB of outbound bandwidth a month. On Azure this is $426 a month. On AWS this is $460 a month. And no, that doesn't include the server or any other resources. Cloud makes sense for businesses. We are not a business. Chapter 7 - Closing notes I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for sticking through this with me. This is undoubtedly the worst outage in Paradise history, and I do feel responsible since it rests on me, however you lot have been supportive through the entire thing and that has really helped me mentally wise. Thank you to all of you. - aa07 EDIT - Forgot to mention We've been through three of these boxes now.
    27 points
  10. I did it. It's taken a full month, and I think there may still be some stuff in need of polish, but I finally finished making Paradise's Cyberiad in Minecraft. If you want to view it, you'll need a few things: EITHER - the Twitch launcher in order to download mod packs easily OR knowledge of how and where to backup and place Minecraft directories. Project Ozone 3: A New Way Forward Mr Crayfish's Furniture Mod for 1.12.2 (it doesn't come with the above, so you'll need to download and place it yourself) Minecraft 1.12.2 WITH Forge 14.23.5+ (any latest forge for 1.12.2 works, as far as I know) 8GB+ RAM and knowledge of how to allocate it in Minecraft. Trust me on this. Here's the ZIP for the directory itself; save, mods and all: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uan6jdnp5oeqeif/Project Ozone 3 A New Way Forward (1).zip?dl=0 And here's the ZIP for just the save file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ryca3xigbrcehxv/cyberiad.zip?dl=0 I'd give instructions myself, but I'm pretty addled and tired from all the work this took. Help each other, yeah? The only caveat is that you should probably toggle the resource pack to on, because it was built with it in mind. If you have any questions or suggestions of other projects I should build for everyone's' amusement, feel free to share. If you don't really feel like downloading it, I totally get it, so here are a few sneak peeks, and you'll get the picture from these. Security Lobby Engine Containment Locker Room Bridge Medbay Lobby
    26 points
  11. USE A TITLE LIKE THIS: "Banned by ADMINNAME: Ban appeal for [YOUR BYOND USERNAME HERE]" EXAMPLE: "Banned by Regens: Ban appeal for [insert ckey here]" IC NAME: The character name you used when you got banned CKEY: This is your username on BYOND DATE OF BAN: Date you were banned, shown in the ban message you get when entering the server ROUND ID: Also shown in the ban message. May not always be present. Looks like a number, e.g: 12345 DURATION OF BAN: Also shown in the ban message. E.g: "until appealed". ADMIN BYOND KEY: The admin who banned you. Please type '@' in front of their name, so it looks like this: @Kyet. If you don't know which admin banned you, ask one of us privately to look it up for you. REASON FOR BAN: The reason as to why you were banned. Shown when you connect to the server. DO NOT edit this, quote the exact ban reason shown when you connect. YOUR APPEAL: Explain why you think we should unban you. The best approach is generally to read the rules, then explain which rule you broke in your appeal, explaining why you won't do it again if unbanned. If you're truly convinced you never broke the rules in the first place, you could alternatively explain why - but that approach has a much lower chance of success. Try hard to identify which rule you broke. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXAMPLE: IC NAME: Grayman Tide BYOND KEY: Greytide16236 DATE OF BAN: 7/9/13 DURATION OF BAN: This is a permanent ban ADMIN BYOND KEY: Regens REASON FOR BAN: Insulting people YOUR APPEAL: I broke rule 1, and openly insulted another player in OOC. I am sorry I lost my temper and did this, and will not do it again.
    26 points
  12. (Still very much WIP, especially on the design front!) A newborn being of pure energy has come to the station, drawn both by curiosity and the enticing power flowing through its machinery. They desire only to feed, grow, and learn, but the crew may find this interfering with their work... and safety. As creatures of energy, Luminaries are not subject to many physical restrictions, enabling them to travel through the station's electrical fixtures such as lights, computers, and consoles (though only powered and unbroken ones). They are also immune to most forms of attack, and in fact absorb fire and energy projectiles; though disablers, ion rifles, and temperature guns on low settings are effective. Those wishing to stop a Luminary will likely have to use different tactics than a guns-blazing chase, however. On the other hand, Luminaries by default have no directly harmful abilities. Even their melee attack only does stamina damage. They may sometimes unlock deadlier powers as they progress, however... GAMEPLAY Luminary objectives include gathering a certain amount of power from the station's devices and learning more about the things on board the station (via interacting with certain things in certain ways). As it gains more power and knowledge, a Luminary will develop new skills/powers, likely based on what it has been studying/doing. Here are powers as designed so far: Transmission: The Luminary's most basic ability, incorporeal travel via electrical devices. Works similarly to bloodcrawl. Galvanization: Finding a dead creature, the Luminary probes its internal energy pathways and figures out a way to restore the flow, reanimating the body with a surge of energy. Corpses missing hearts or brains receive a couple... improvisations. Reanimating humanoids may count towards a learning objective. A corpse with no owner becomes eligible for ghosts, which creates a new mind with no memory of the body's original life. Such beings may or may not receive objectives (as some kind of reanimated minion, probably), needs discussion. Assimilation: The Luminary feeds itself into various machines and computers around the station, learning how to use/mess with them. For instance, entering an autolathe. Another probable research objective. Network Lance: One of the Luminary's few offensive abilities. Having studied the powernet, the Luminary directs it against a single (or not?) target, causing arcs to strike them from nearby machinery. More machines nearby, more arcs, more damage. Lightning: A non-damaging variant. The Luminary discharges chain lightning, stunning nearby humanoids. Translation: The Luminary gains the ability to pull an incapacitated (or willing?) target into the airwaves with it when it transmits.
    22 points
  13. Looks like the librarian is hosting a photoshoot in the library to create a scrapbook for Pride Month! Stop by if you'd like to have your photo taken for Nanotrasen's UNOFFICIAL Pride Scrapbook, or if you'd simply like to watch and wait for the inevitable chaos once the station falls apart. I'm a bit late, but in honor of pride month: I thought it'd be nice to make a place where everyone can show off their characters for Pride! The theme is Pride, so preferably, share your characters celebrating themselves in some way! Allies are welcome, just be respectful please. :> The little blurb at the top is just for fun, you don't have to take it seriously. Feel free to tell us about your character though! If posting art that isn't done by yourself, please give a source to the artist! Note: I'm not actually compiling these photos or anything. Your characters can roll along with it if you'd like, but out of character, I (Skye) am not personally compiling them. Overall, please be kind and positive! So without further ado, let's show our characters with Pride!! I'll start off by sharing one of my own characters, Rivera Kirkland. :D Since she's a geneticist and constantly looking for mutations, I had her hold up the lesbian flag with telekinesis, haha. The other flags are the polyamory flag (bandana), the trans flag (bracelet), and the flag she's holding is an idea I got from some pride art @SlimeBird did with Chikitita: the Nanotrasen Corporate Pride flag. If anyone else has Pride-related character art to show, I'd love to see it! :D
    21 points
  14. To continue with this character, I drew a second little thing after someone took the time to cook her some PIES. Meat pies. The favorite of many a liznerd. It ended up looking like a talk show...
    21 points
  15. @BonkaiTheRoris streamed Slime rancher for me... and I couldn't get it out of my head that Jasmine was the one ranging these dastardly squishes. So I drew it! I cheated a bit with the background, I'm sorry. Jasmine is a good squish.
    20 points
  16. I don't know what to title this
    20 points
  17. What a year it has been. Honestly this marks around the year mark I started playing space, or at least, very close to. How the time flies, honestly, I’m astounded by how things progressed. From watching a video about a strange ‘Checkers’ guy playing an obscure, low graphics game, to becoming admin of one of the servers said games. It constantly astounds and impresses me, the amount of kindness and welcoming energy this community has. Though some things may have changed, some people have shifted here and there, that sense of gentle joy of seeing so many people interacting and crafting characters and worlds together has not gone anywhere. The art that’s been made, the stories that have been crafted, the people that have been met… it’s all just amazing. I’m not sure what I’d be doing if I hadn’t found Space Station, but likely it wouldn’t have been something that got me so many wonderful, and loving friends. Honestly. You all are some amazing people. Though there’s always a few hiccups, I’ve had an amazing year. Thank you all. Really. Here are some images that have been made for me, it’s really just an honor to have such people around me that’d… well, make anything for me, honestly! Thank you so much!
    20 points
  18. Open letter; To anyone that want to read it in the paradise community - regarding Metagrudging and issues OOCly Hello! Thank you for taking your time to read this. The community meeting on the 25th of September 2021 raised some pointers to me, regarding metagrudging and people struggling OOC due to some aspects of the community or gameplay. This is a nice community, a place that people come to for different reasons. Some people are here for hardcore gaming, some people are here to meet new friends and people, some people are here because they can be whoever they want here, some people are here because IRL is a struggle, and this is their safeplace. There are numerous of reasons to why you chose to be a part of this community and play this game, and all of these reasons are okay - what is not okay though, is to be here to make someone else feel bad - but sadly, it does happen from time to time. Metagrudging or causing someone else issues out of character, due to IC relations is never okay, but it does exist - this phenomenon exist all over the internet, and aswell here in our lovely paradise and community. To any players that feel uncomfortable, having issues with another player IC or OOC, to the extent it makes you feel bad - know that there are people in the community, aswell as in the staffteam, that are willing to take time and listen to what you have to say. There are lots of good guys in this community, and it might be scary or difficult - but do reach out for a hand. Either to one of the Community Managers, or to someone that you interact with well IC. Even just talking about it and getting someone elses perspective on the situation might make you feel better. And if it has come to the extent that there is a reason to ping admins about someones behaviour, you should trust that admins will do something about it - look into it and see what the issue could be and how it could be solved. It is not wrong to feel bad, always remember that you are entitled to your own feelings - it is not your fault. I have personal experiences with have being taken seriously by people in the staffteam, when it comes to these kind of issues - I do hope and I do believe, that the people in the staffteam want what's best for the players, and if someone is actively feeling miserable due to a player, they'd like to know so it can be looked into and solved. It is not your fault for being a victim of metagrudgeing - there are bad people here too, aswell as everywhere. There are people that take advtantages of other people for own benefits, there are people who get a kick out of being rude to other people, there are real life greytiders, even on paradise.. But I personally believe that the good outweight the bad around here - for every bad person, there are a bunch of good ones too! I want to state that there's a difference between not getting along with someone and being metagrudged and harrassed. We're all different people, everyone cannot like everyone. Most of us knows this, we meet someone we don't get along with, and then we move on with our lives. But when it comes to activley being seeked out by someone who wanna play rudely, bother you, harrassing you IC or OOCly, that's when it becomes a problem. And do dare, do dare to talk to someone if this has happened or actively is happening to you. You're not suppose to feel bad or have a bad, uncomfortable experience due to one certain person or player. We're all here for a good time, we're here to get a good experience - if that's playing it hardcore, just roleplaying, getting away from reality for a while or a mix of everything. You gotta have a good time, to create a good time for others. There are so many good people on this server. People have met friends that they will keep forever on this server, people have met new inspiring people that make them feel good - make them feel better, people have met the love of their lives here. There has been creations of unbreakable bonds between people, just due to this communitys existance. There are so many good people here, and I can't stress that enough. .. and with that again, know that there are a bunch of people that have open hearts, that are willing to listen, that are willing to talk. It's never ever okay to harass someone else OOCly for IC relations. OOC and IC are two different things. Sometimes we all need to remember that in the end, this is a game we're playing. A game with the benefit that you can meet alot of new, inspiring people here. Do dare to reach out, do dare to ask how someone else is doing, it could change alot. Stay awesome, paradisers <3 -Autumn, paradiser since 2014
    19 points
  19. Stealing all the berets and replacing them with kitty ears!
    19 points
  20. A piece I did for some SPESS people! The commissioner asked for some interesting looking characters on the poster, but wasn't descriptive on who exactly, so I got to make up some different likely spess adventurers. The little red dots make up the constellation for Scorpio, as it's a project that the commissioner is working on, and I'm wishing them luck! This was enjoyable to work on, I got to draw space which I always enjoy, and I got to draw just some... different sorta characters!
    19 points
  21. It's Pride month, and I was asked to draw a very Cone-ie Vulp showing off some colours of celebration. I was happy to oblige. I hope everyone of all flavors and persuasions are doing well in this tremulous time. I love and appreciate all of you.
    19 points
  22. Hello everyone. As you probably know, I was recently elected by our staff team to be a Head of Staff for Paradise. You may not know exactly what a Head of Staff (henceforth: "Headmin") does, or what my plans are in particular. This thread is going to explain those things. First, what does a headmin do? Headmins have a few responsibilities beyond those of a normal Game Admin: Co-ordination and management of all branches of the staff team Handling Admin Complaints Enforcing staff policy and admin guidelines Moderating interpersonal conflicts, as needed Managing certain back-end things, such as our Patreon Voting on the acceptance/rejection of PRs submitted to our Github (IE: changes to the game's code, features, sprites, etc) Representing Paradise to other SS13 servers Handling anything that doesn't get handled by other people, eventually, for whatever reason Like any Paradise headmin, I will be doing these things, as they are inherent to the position. That said, most staff (including me) who run for election as headmin also have a specific platform that they run for election on. My platform was: Transparency Accountability Better Communication I know those sound a bit vague. So, let me give you some concrete examples of what I intend to do. First, let's take PR voting. Yes, headmins vote on PR acceptance. But I plan to do more than simply vote. I consider every PR author that contributes to our codebase to be valuable - part of the team that makes our server awesome. I want to encourage PR authors and grow the number of people who contribute to our codebase. As such, I will be following a set of best practices, designed to ensure PR authors feel valued, and treated fairly. My hope is this will encourage quality contributions over time. I will not be voting against any PR, any author's work, without first explaining exactly why, clearly and directly, on the PR itself. If my issue with the PR is fixable, I will explain how it can be fixed, and give the PR author some time to fix it, or at least respond, before I consider voting against the PR. In essence I want to be sure PR authors know they are getting a fair shake, that they never feel like they're being left in the dark, and they never feel like they need to guess what they need to do in order to get their PRs merged. If I consider a PR idea totally unviable, to the point it cannot be fixed, I will aim to say so as early as possible, so that the author doesn't invest more time into it under the false impression it has good chances of being merged. More generally, when I comment on PRs, I will aim to be very clear about who I'm speaking for, and what I mean. I will also make myself available to any PR author who has questions. While I recognize that this will give PR authors direct feedback they're not used to getting, ultimately I think (and as a PR author myself, I believe I have good reason to think) they will quickly appreciate it and be encouraged by it. I have also be encouraging other headmins and maintainers to follow these best practices. More generally, I want a more constructive, informative atmosphere on our github and I am working with everyone involved, especially the maints and other headmins, to achieve this. As part of this effort, I have already appointed someone to be responsible for helping to moderate Github, and discourage toxic comments there. Second, let's take accountability. I have already promised to put myself up for re-election in 6 months by the staff team, so, if they don't think I'm doing a good job after that time, they can boot me out and get someone else in. Accountability is for everyone, though, not just me. This includes admins, players, and even visitors who don't play here. If someone has an issue with an admin's conduct, they need to explain the issue in our Admin Complaints forum. It is against the rules to discuss bans and other punishments in our discord server, and for the sake of eliminating toxicity, holding admins accountable under our guidelines, and holding players accountable under our Discord rules, I will be enforcing this rule, and pushing admins more generally to do the same. Consider this your forewarning that under my plan, complaining about being banned in our Discord will not be tolerated like it has before. This also applies to in-game LOOC, deadchat, OOC and similar. This is not a new rule - such talk has been against the rules for a long time. What is new is that I will be enforcing the already-written rule, and encouraging all other admins to do so as well. Third, let's talk about better communication. One of the long-standing issues we have as a server, with our elected leadership, multiple branches of staff, etc, has historically been a lack of unified vision for the future of the server. Obviously, this is an enormous topic to tackle, and progress on it is going to require lots of work, and not just by me. It is the sort of thing that will require lots of discussion over a period of time. Still, I am already taking steps to move us in this direction. The first change you may notice is the creation of a #changes-wanted channel on Github. This channel is the new central repository for lists, posted by headmins and maints, of all features/PRs/etc they want implemented for the server. There are many benefits to this, such as helping PR authors choose a PR topic that's more likely to get merged, triggering healthy debate on server direction, etc. Ultimately though, this is just a first step towards what I really want for the server: a more general development roadmap. I know we're a volunteer project, a 2D spaceman game, and we're never going to be as organized/detailed in our future development goals as a professional game company is. Still, I don't think its unrealistic for us to take basic steps, like agreeing a list of long-term goals, trying to make progress towards them, and tracking that progress. This discord channel is the first step in that direction. I hope I've given you a sense of what I'm about as a head of staff. Obviously, the changes I want to make will require that I work closely with the rest of the staff team. My hope, though, is that I can push the server in the right direction. That I can get people pushing together in the same direction more effectively. And, if not, well, the staff can always vote me out again in 6 months. Here's to the future! -Kyet
    19 points
  23. haven't updated here as frequently as I'd like, but here's my big space station 13 piece to kick off artfight 2021!!
    18 points
  24. As many of you know, it really isn't a secret, staff place a phrase within our rules which we use to verify that a user has read the rules entirely. If you didn't know, then surprise! There's a phrase we've hidden there to do that. What most of you don't know, even though it is a bit of common sense, is why we use this method of verification when its rather easy to by-pass. All you have to do is go to the appeals section and read a few to find the phrase pretty easily, saves time on reading right? Well here's why its a very bad idea to do so. It cheats you, not us. People may think they're pulling one over on us by not reading the rules and providing a phrase from an appeal however, all it does is make things more difficult for the individual. When they break the rules next, which they will, and they're back in the appeals section asking for another chance, we're gonna ask why they'd broken the rules despite having read them (Especially damning if the offense happens close to a recently accepted appeal). If they say they've read them, then we think the individual is unwilling to follow the rules which tanks their appeal. If they said they haven't despite providing the phrase, they lied to us in their previous appeal, also tanking the chances of them getting the next appeal accepted. Either way, it just serves to screw them over and not staff. Anyone caught in a lie can tell you how difficult it is to regain trust afterwards and Staff are naturally suspicious when it comes to individuals who violate the rules, lying to us is just a surefire way of making sure you don't play here. We also will, from time to time, change this phrase in the rules, not only to ensure they're read but to also make sure that individuals who slip up from time to time (Hey it happens to all of us, we're human after all) will refresh themselves on the rules. So don't take the easy way out. Read our rules fully. The easy way is just going to screw you over later and we want you to play here and have fun, not forced to sit outside the party because you were too lazy to read.
    18 points
  25. My real life has become so busy, that I can no longer afford the time to host Paradise. So, over the next month, I will be stepping down, and our resident Java expert@AffectedArc07will become the new host. This means: All-new servers (with higher specs!) will be built. My hope is that the new AA-rated servers will have better performance. Our backend will be replaced. I expect the new backend to be better, and provide better tools. The number of coffee-related jokes in our Discord will increase at least 20%. For the next few weeks, my focus will be on ensuring a smooth transition. That means providing all the necessary documentation, training, etc. Before you know it, though, AA will be running the entire backend of Paradise. Probably with a Barista supporting him. Hosting is a fair chunk of work, so please be nice to him, and patient with him if he says he is busy. To answer the inevitable questions: Exactly when is the switchover happening? => When AA is ready. Don't rush him. He's rebuilding every server we have, using brand new technology. It is important to take our time and get it right. The road towards switching may be long, taking a few weeks, but it arcs towards progress. Will my ping to the server be affected? => No. The new server will be in the same datacenter, with the same great connection, as the old server. Is AA staying as a maint, as well as being host? => Yes. He's doing both now. He might even do the billing paperwork for the servers himself. You could say 07 has earned his license to bill. Is Kyet staying as a head? => Yes. You can't goat rid of me that easily. I'll be around, at least until the transition is complete. After that, it depends on how busy my RL gets.
    18 points
  26. Clickbait title woo. So let's talk about shaming culture. Shame is an important social tool to indicate a societal attitude towards behaviour. Go look up sociology shit on wiki. As crew, comments on your coworkers shape their actions. As admins, it can be our job to shame people for their behaviour. This can be done appropriately some times - but someone shouldn't feel too ashamed over a simple mistake, especially newbies. This needs to be done carefully and correctly to ensure that it stops the behaviour, and teaches people the correct action. You should avoid direct insults to the persons intelligence. This can cross IC/OOC boundaries, where your IC insults are being reflected at the person behind the screen. Several people have talked to me recently about how they've been shamed by admins OOCly and ICly in a variety of circumstances. Some of these times have been appropriate to shame someone for their behaviour. The degree to which this has been done and ways has not always been to my liking - I'd like to take this opportunity to remind admins that even a minor comment from someone with the power of a banhammer, comes across very strongly. Calling them an idiot in front of the entire station can be mortifying, and totally turn a new player off the game. This is something that should be remembered when you play the game too. Everyone has off days, and abusing the CE for messing up the singularity isn't going to stop anyone getting sucked into it or make the shuttle arrive faster. When you criticise someone's actions, try to do it in a way that teaches them what the correct thing to do is, and doesn't humiliate the person behind the screen too much. Over this weekend especially I'll be collecting various feedback etc on this, so feel free to message me. If you're reading old forum posts a year from now, also feel free to message me. It's literally my job to talk to players and the community about things like this.
    18 points
  27. Oh, I forgot, this was an early sketch that was trashed
    18 points
  28. I've been bandying this idea around a bit, I know similar ideas have come up in terms of a one-time-event, but I thought it'd be worth fleshing out into a station goal: The basic Idea is that the goal requires the creation of as much food/drink as possible, of any kind. The intent is to have a station goal that changes things up, and doesn't require engineers (though they can help, of course!), and involves more of the crew: namely botany, chef, bartender, and even greytide going ham on the garden, maint pizzeria, etc. Humanitarian Mission A relatively nearby planet is experiencing drought and crop failure, and thus is having a major food shortage: NT will be sending a special refrigerated cargo shuttle to the station for the crew to load down with as much food and drink as they can prepare. The people of the planet will be sending back local goods as thank you (the more food, the more goods! Similar loot to a Sol Trader, minus any food or beverage things of course). It will dock at the public docks, not the cargo bay, and the shuttle will take scheduled trips (so you can play around with the loot you get, and can join in even later round). Variations: Refrigerated shuttle too much of a pain to code? Instead CC sends (via cargo, like the other station goals) a simple to set up teleporter device that transports the food and drink where its needed, and in return generates points that can be spent on rewards from CC, or it could allow for packages sent from the planet with drought and crop failure containing goods along the lines of the Sol Trader goods as said above. Rewards could also include things like rare seeds or powerful plant data discs, or even unique crop seeds from said alien world (I have a whole bunch of ideas of random special plants that could be created, unique to this goal's rewards)
    17 points
  29. Changing the config option "non_repeating_maps" from false to true will prevent players from voting on the currently played map during the map vote. Paradise has an unhealthy attachment to Box which stems it being the only playable map for the vast majority of this communities life. Our other maps will never updated, made better, or otherwise fixed if no one ever plays them. And when someone does try to fix one of our maps that isn't Box it can be highly demoralizing when those countless hours spent mapping are essentially wasted as it goes completely unused. For me at least I think the most frustrating part is that our other maps Delta and Meta aren't even bad or broken, it's just everyone is stuck in their ways with Box and refuse to vote for anything else. To be honest, this is going to force peoples hands a bit, and there will probably be people complain about having to play other maps, but we've been playing Box for the past nine years, so I think it's about time we give other maps a shot. This monotonous cycle of Box Box Box Box Box needs to be broken and this is one very easy way to do it, it's as simple as changing a config option from false to true.
    17 points
  30. Hostage situations are a rare sight on Paradise, and I imagine most other servers as well. I had only attempted it once before, and as you can imagine, to no great success. This time was different, though. While it was ill planned and rushed, the setup was almost perfect - put the hostage inside the plasma filled turbine chamber, a button press away from turning the slime girl hostage into a Creme Brulè. The plan was to get the CMO there alone, with the hypospray to trade for her wife’s life, but security soon sniffed things out, and I was forced to make it publicly known - any interference would mean the woman’s life would end. Soon after, security was at the door, the Captain too, ready to make the trade. The Captain was to enter alone, but as you can imagine, the indifference to the general safety of the crew that every security officer harbours in their blackened hearts proved too strong - the urge to baton and disable too intoxicating. One officer tried to contain his bloodthirsty colleague, but he could not keep them all back. Forced to activate my adrenal implant, I rush for the button, the room filling with a blaze - only for the hostage to be rescued by an engineering cyborg in the last second. Defeated, I make my escape. I change my disguise and blend in with the crew once more, unsure of what to do next. Passing by the bridge, I spot the heroic cyborg receiving a medal for its actions. As it proudly drags the medal behind it as it leaves, triumph running through its circuits, I hit it with my flash and open its cover, overloading it’s system with my emag. My objectives forfeit, I give it one single task to wrong the right. Kill the hostage it rescued. It has no choice but to comply. It begins its search as I make a desperate attempt to fulfil my duties - leading to my death. From the afterlife, through the salty tears, I spot the cyborg deep in space, broken beyond repair, the body of the woman it saved floating lifelessly beside it. And a carp. There was also a carp. I learned that the officer responsible for the mishandling of the situation had been demoted on the spot, but being the beast of pride that he was, he ended his own life right then and there. There are many things to fear on the Cyberiad. But there is nothing more dreadful than he who believes he can do no wrong - he who’s crusade for justice leaves a trail of mangled bodies in his wake, all in the name of turning a line of text from a green color, to a red color.
    17 points
  31. Hello yes, I've never been an artsy person but I started drawing back in August and I finally feel like I have stuff I can share, now and hopefully in the future
    17 points
  32. First Name: Chikitita Last Name: N/A Gender: Genderless, presents Female Pronouns: she/her Nicknames/Alias: Chiki, of Coffee and Love, Based Coffee Vox, Chickentita, Chicky, Bar Leech, MMI Medium, Chi, Chickentenders, Briki, Voxromancer, Medbay Mascot, CHIKI2TA, ChikititaVox39, Freak of Nature, Wiggly Worm, XENO, Birdie, "Kikeri", Chikorita, the Mad Nurse, Lizard Lady, Narcoleptic Bird Doctor Species: Vox Primalis Blood Type: B+ Height: 3'5", 104 cm Weight: 72 lbs, 32.66 kg Eye Color: Magenta Picture/s: Nanotrasen Issued ID (base by angelictactics) Age/D.O.B: ~27 years, unknown date of creation, documented as the first of January, 2541. Place Of "Birth": Arkship "Survivor of The Fighting Winds of the Star Due North, Bastion to New Ways and Efficient Production" or "Fighting-Winds" Alignment: Lawful Neutral Very dutiful to the shoal, strong enforcer of the inviolate among vox on the station. Her sense of justice is entirely tied to the vox Inviolate. Affiliation: Employed by Nanotrasen. Loyal to shoal. On the Raan-Kirkland-Anide family Spacemas card list. Religious Beliefs: No organized religion, but very superstitious to the point of obsessive paranoia. Also practices almost heretical dedication to vox rules and customs. "Childhood": As a vox, she doesn't have a proper childhood, but she spent her younger years of this host body on a raiding skipjack carelessly learning the skills of a medic through trial and error. After tragedy struck and the rest of her crew were apprehended, she made a very narrow escape by hiding. Seeing her friends carried away never to be seen again through the slits of the locker she was hiding in instilled a tremendous amount of guilt in her, and from then on she resolved to never leave a vox behind again. She laid low for a couple of years afterwards and decided to take the skills she learned on the skipjack to the next level and became a licensed nurse at 20. She was given a full ride to Croxas's Academy of Medicine- the only vox in her graduating class, as part of an alien outreach program. Her arkship suspiciously approved her attendance on the heels of her previous failures, and she hasn't returned to Fighting-Winds since. During her final year of nursing school, her caffeine addiction careened into organ failure, and her heart and kidneys were replaced with cybernetics as a result. Adulthood: After graduation, she tried desperately to get a job at a hospital, but no professional establishments were willing to take a vox nurse seriously, especially with her poor grasp on galactic common. At 21, she took up a contract with Nanotrasen treating patients in the medbay, because the money was good and other vox seemed to thrive there. She now considers most of the crew on the NSS Cyberiad to be her friends, and can't bring herself to leave them even if she wanted to. She appreciates the "respect" and attention from a job well done. Some crew have complimented her skills as a bartender, which she accredits to "being a party girl in nursing school." She swears she was cool. She loves her position in medbay, and has many regular patients she looks forward to seeing (despite the fact that them being in medbay usually indicates something bad has happened). Even if offered in a desperate situation, she will never fill the role of Chief Medical Officer. She feels guilty having others answer to her, especially because of how foreign it is for a primalis to take on such a role. Seeing vox primalis in command positions feels like a slap in the face to the shoal to her, and she struggles to see real authority in them. She has a constant twitch that can't be good for a doctor, but manages it well and doesn't struggle to treat because of it. While suspicious about the fact that her arkship keeps her so far away, she will become defensive and vehemently deny being an exile when asked about her employment situation. She considers her contract honorable, even if it doesn't all add up to her. Currently, she receives 20% of her paycheck for necessities, and the rest of the Nanotrasen shares go to her arkship. She lives on a small station of vox dorms, full of vox primalis sourced from various arkships that need a place to stay for contract work. (pictured top right) "Supernatural" Experiences: Detailed Information Appearance: Stands at about 3'5", a perfectly average height for vox, with uncommon but not unusual greenish blue coloring. Her eyes are a bright pinkish red, and she has her quills styled into a short purplish-red mohawk (whether its her natural quill color is unknown). Her blue sweater is a constant, and it looks old and worn. Rarely spotted without her nurse hat. Character Voice: Loud. She likes to sing, and considers herself musically talented. She is not. Attached is a video from bar karaoke night. chikilowqual.mp4 Personality: In her youth she was more carefree, but losing loved ones because of her actions has made her less selfish. Still, she tends to lose focus a lot, and her curiosity leads her to make very poor decisions sometimes. She hates to lose patients, as most doctors do, but seeing one of her kin die can drive her into hysterics, and she will desperately attempt to bring them to health until something pries her away, even if it is futile. She takes patients dying in her care very personally, and frequently blames herself for their passing. She's developed a more anxious demeanor as she continues to work for Nanotrasen, being subjected to experiences that cause her to be paranoid and distrusting. She fidgets frequently with her nitrogen tank, and you can often find her pacing medbay and talking to herself in her native pidgin. She loathes having to fight, but does what is necessary to survive and protect the ones she cares about if it comes down to it. She feels responsible for the safety of younger vox on-station, and she can get obsessive if she sees them acting carelessly and putting themselves in harms way. For reasons she doesn't completely understand, she finds herself almost instinctively drawn to aiding injured vox. On several occasions she has had to be physically torn away from lost causes. She could never forgive herself if a young first-body vox perished while she was on-station. Once vain and proud of her mohawk when she began working at Nanotrasen, she now cares little about her physical appearance and takes rather poor care of herself- with stray quills lining the shape of her mohawk and dark circles underneath her cybernetic eyes. Character Biography Background: A vox who spends most of her time in medbay as a somewhat respectable nurse. If not in medbay, she is likely drinking a soy latte or getting herself into dangerous situations she doesn't need to be in. Look for her in medbay, the bar, or wherever there are problems. Family: None officially. Because of her lack of real family, she used to believe herself to be expendable. Idunn Raan and her family have taken her under their wing in recent years, and though it's hard for her to admit she appreciates the support and companionship. She's spent weekends sleeping on their family room couch, and 19 year old Tidal Kirkland sets up low-viewership videogame streams for her to star in online. Tidal manages most of Chiki's social media for her, as she isn't the galaxy's most technologically literate. She has a sister-like bond with an engineering vox from another station, Kikeri. Having taught Chikitita to value herself, she's the biggest presence pushing her to take care of herself and not lose herself to her work. While their friendship has had a few rough patches, they've been there for each other through unimaginable circumstances and would both give anything to keep their friend safe. Chikitita allows a runaway vox primalis, Tachaka, to sleep in her dorms to keep him from taking up residence in garbage cans. While she doesn't support running away from your arkship, she hopes she can convince him to return and make amends someday. While the concept of vox having real family is still shaky to her, Kikeri, Takoyakika, and Tachaka have all helped her to value herself and be more considerate of her life's value and she would easily lay down her life for them. History: Reset after 605 years of life for unknown reasons and stored until the year 2464. Her stack as far as she knows is near 97 years old, with 3 iterations currently. Historically speaking, lifespans tend to be cut short. Brought back earlier than most recovered stacks because of a decline in population on Fighting-Winds. Iterations: Other Information - Her usual drink order is two rum bottles filled with soy latte. She claims to like the aftertaste - Enjoys drask remakes of classic films - Secret stoner - Will rarely say no to ultra-lube Faction Relations Allied | Love | Like | Neutral | Dislike | Hate | Enemy Nanotrasen - Dislike. You scare me. Fine. But yer not breaking me. Syndicate - Enemy. A mutual hatred. At least I'll be missed when it finally comes. SolGov - Neutral. No substantial interactions. Shoal - Allied, Love. Anything for the shoal. The inviolate is my duty, even if I.. don't live on Fighting-Winds right now. I miss home.. Personal Relations
    17 points
  33. I've been trying to keep up with the art. Here's a small drawing I did for a HRP server I've been checking out with some peeps, I gotta say I do appreciate the more in-depth character interactions. I'm going to make an effort to use the me verb more often on para... They're basically the equivalent of an Unathi, working as a Corpsman- or military medic. Viola Farin.
    17 points
  34. 17 points
  35. hello forum dwellers you know how this goes by now, there isnt as much as i would like on here since i haven't been playing as much but i thought since today is my anniversary of my birth ill get this out of the way and make the next one far later. press the heart button or leave a reaction plz this takes forever if you haven't seen previous instalments, view them here Atez, the lore so far. Atez, the Second Saga
    16 points
  36. Name: Bubblegum Age: 21 Gender: Male Race: Slime person Blood Type: Jelly: Pink General Occupational Role(s): Command: CE, HOS Engineering: Station Engineer, Atmospheric Technician Security: Security Officer. Biography: Bubblegum was born on Xarxis V to his (late) Father, [N/A] and Mother, Bloopy on the 1st of May 2544. His father never adopted a human oriented name as he was apposed to Nanotrasen and their ideals. [N/A] was aged 72 when Nanotrasen discovered Xarxis 5 so he never could grow accustomed to Nanotrasen's influence. [N/A] Died when Bubblegum was only 6, in a [REDACTED] cooling fluid accident. Bubblegum doesn't remember much of his father except that he was very xenophobic toward the relatively new races to him. Bloopy had to raise Bubblegum alone, she shared her love of mechanics and engineering with Bubblegum from a young age. She worked repairing boats and other marine vehicles in their tribe. Boats were super important on Xarxis V for trade on commerce between tribes due to the vast oceans and small islands. As a result Bubblegum and Bloopy held a high place in their tribe. Because of this, Bubblegum lead a healthy and happy life while he lived on Xarxis V. At the age of 8 Bubblegum had an accident falling out of a tree. He impaled himself on a piece of rebar that was discarded from an NT embassy construction project. His tribe couldn't heal the wound so Bloopy had to take a lone out to pay for his treatment in an NT hospital. Bubblegum still carries a large amount of this debt today. Bubblegum started working for his mother at the age of 10. This meant that when SolGov scouted their tribe, at the age of 18,he was a prime candidate. Bloopy encouraged Bubblegum to take the job as it is would have been Bloopy's dream to travel the stars working with super advanced machines and people all over the galaxy. Bubblegum took the job and began training to repair and maintain a star ship. He was stationed on SDV Tigris. A small destroyer, powered by a supermatter. Its primary focus was point defence - to shoot down missiles and small fighters to protect larger ships, and torpedos - to take out carriers. Bubblegum reports that he enjoyed working there, he learnt a lot of things and met a lot of people. However after 2 years he knew he had to leave. The ship was dangerous, and he had lost many good friends working there. He reports he wasn't cut out for the stress of working on such a vessel, the constant combat was too much for him. Bubblegum transferred himself to the NSS Cyberiad to make a new start. He heard it was a backwater facility that was hiring - what could possibly go wrong. Qualifications: SolGov Correctional Officer (Tier II) - Passed SolGov Engineering Certificate (Tier V) - Passed SolGov Advanced battle repair - Passed NanoTrasen Employee First Aid Basics Certification - Passed NanoTrasen Medical and Surgical Certification - Failed NanoTrasen Security Officer Candidacy Training - Passed NanoTrasen Riot Prevention and Deterrence Certification - Passed NanoTrasen Detainment Management Certification - Passed NanoTrasen Head of Staff Certification - Passed NanoTrasen Basics of Engineering - Passed NanoTrasen Basics of the Supermatter - Passed NanoTrasen Delamination prevention certificate - Passed Space OSHA Workplace safety course - Failed Employment Records: Bubblegum worked repairing boats and other marine vehicles on Xarxis V with his mother. From age 10 - 18 He then went to enrol in the SolGov military as as a Combat Engineer. Was positioned to work on the SDV Tigris, a Destroyer class vessel with the primary focus of point defence lasers and torpedos. From age 18 - 20 Bubblegum took over his mothers debt to Nanotrasen. At age 18 and a half. He then went on to apply at NanoTrasen when he wanted to get away from the danger of the military. Security Records: Bubblegum has accrued many health and safety warnings for workplace safety, listed as follows: Hotwired the engine of the SDV Tigris into the grid during a retreat away from multiple large war cruisers to increase the power to the engines. Was later informed the engines are on a different set of SMES. During downtime, ramped up the MEV of the SDV Tigris' Supermatter to above standard operational levels to harvest additional energy to restore the backups. Pyroclastic anomalies severely burnt the subject. Spaced the entire dormitories in response to a boarding party. The boarding party was jettisoned out of the breach, no crew was harmed. Bubblegum has proven to be an adept combatant. An expert at hand to hand combat, however his accuracy with common firearms is subpar. Medical Records: Height: 140cm Weight: 31Kg Injured himself at the age of 8 by falling on a piece of rebar, punctured his chest, multiple instances of internal bleeding, fatality - possible. MD. Oswald managed to stabilise the patient. Physical examination notes: Mildly malnourished resulted in a low body mass index. Two 3cm scars one on his chest and one on his back - in the same place. Overall Bubblegum is physically fit. Personnel Photo (Appearance text): (art by drakeven <3) (art by magistea) Other Notes: Scared of mice.
    16 points
  37. HAPPY BIRTHDAY @rapaskoti
    16 points
  38. Hi! Check Trello for more example and commission status https://trello.com/b/OBPcf17S/emilitias-commission Contact me on discord: Emilitia Ennehrt#3586
    16 points
  39. this is my magnum opus of space station 13 art i think this was originally made as an art fight attack! though six of the included characters were added simply because i wanted to add them. this was sort of intended to be a nod toward the great times i've had in medbay, though it evolved to be a little more than just characters from medbay. but either way, thanks for all the good times! based on this ridiculous image. i love it so much In no particular order, characters belong to: Me: Rivera Kirkland, Tidal Kirkland Chikitita: @SlimeBird @angelictacticsIdunn Raan: Angel Anide: @punkalope Kikeri: @gangelwaefre Ooom-Vraah Viisk-Hoorm-Vroo: @Sappholopod Fiona Phillips: @Woje Jacob Pearls: @Sixzma S.E.A.G.U.L.L.: @rwn Cure #FF99FF: @Pegasnow Qixxiq Xiqqix: @Wilkson Scarlet Einholve: @EmilitiaEnnehrt Gikikigi: @Drakeven aand a couple others (Embrace Of Destiny Under A Lonesome Sun and Anton Fasani), not sure if their players a forum account. (Apologies for all the pings! There's a lot of characters here so I wanted to make sure their players got to see this. :] )
    16 points
  40. This'll be a bit of a long post regarding an idea I had for a new antagonist, so here we go. General Information: They are solo non-conversion antagonist. The amount spawned in the gamemode would be 1 + (num of players / 8) Antagonist mechanics: Knowledge points: This is the equivalent of swarmer points to sorcerers, they have a starting maximum of 100, are obtained through absorbing items and are spent in abilities. Arcane Torch: This is the only ability that sorcerers spawn with, it has no cooldown and it's effect is summoning/unsummoning an ethereal hand that baps items to drain them, and giving the sorcerer X amount of points depending on the item. A specific sorcerer can only absorb one type of item per game, so you cannot absorb a red toolbox twice. Absorbed items are easily recognizable as they are gray, have a special name/description, and are rendered useless. Absorbing an item leaves your fingerprint on it. Here's an example on how absorbing an item looks like: Leveling up: Sorcerers have levels, you start at level 1 and get the ability to level up when you reach your maximum knowledge points (100 for the most part). Leveling up awards the sorcerer with a couple of goodies depending on the level: Every level you level up, you are given a choice between 3 spells, the effect of these spells depend on the effect of the items you absorbed (if you absorb a lot of combat items, you have a higher chance of combat spells, medical items for healing, and so on). Choosing one of these spells grants you the spell. (all of this spell stuff is explained soon). Every two levels you level up (lvl 2, 4, 6...), you are allowed to upgrade one of your spells, the upgrade depends on the spell. Spells: Spells are the sorcerer's abilities, they are gained and upgraded by leveling up, and these are their unique quirks: Not all of your spells are active at once. Each time you level up, you randomly replace your current active spells with 4 random spells from all spells you own. Only active spells can be activated, the rest cannot be seen / used. Spells do not have a cooldown, but they consume knowledge points to activate and charges, each spell has their specific amount of charges, and each time you use a spell, one charge is consumed. Consuming all charges off a spell removes it as an active spell. Here is an example of the active spell mechanic: The one part I have not come up with yet are appropiate objectives, but ideally they'll be revealed to the sorcerer when they level up to a specific level (10, 15?). Posting this to see what the general opinion is, before I continue coding.
    16 points
  41. Thank you for to Woje for helping me look through this thing and find my mistake I make and help me with things on it! ERROR/NOT FOUND/ SEARCH - FAILED BORG.PROGRAM.DOWNLOADABLES SELECT DOWNLOADS FROM ROBOTICS ERROR ; FILE NOT FOUND SEARCHING... SEARCHING... INITIATE STRING SEARCH : ESTIMATED WAIT : ERROR RECURSIVE STRING SEARCH : WAITING... SEARCHING... FILE FOUND. String.prototype.search(Gotta' get more bandaaaaaids yeaaaaah!) ERROR/NOT FOUND/ var regexConstructor = new RegExp("Come on plushie!"); Const str1 = "Come on plushie!"; const str2 = "Ooooh. Donuts."; const hasplushie = /plushie/ ;hasPlushie.test(str1); // true has.Donut .test(str2); // true FILE FOUND LOADING string.regeneracy.cyborg.acquisitions.search Const str1 = "This is being Mister Plushie! He my best friends in ever!"; const hasplushie = /plushie/ ;hasPlushie.test(str1);// true LOADING (B.O.O.P.).EXE LOADING FILES : FILE FOUND : RESEARCH LOG : ERROR : 2552 A.D.?CITATION? EMPLOYEE I.D. > 534289234-155223THETA ACTIVATE? Y/N Is this thing on? Wow. Okay, so today we are working on the new findings straight out of Haverick. What a literal nightmare that was, yeah? Today's objective. What would that be? Simplify. Okay, so here we are. Subject is a cyborg recovered from the site of the human colony on Haverick. What seemed to be a power and weapons system malfunction quickly cascaded as the on station A.I. began, at first, covertly taking over the systems of the colony. We all know from the reports what happened there. Bloody A.I. lost its mind. The tally is still being calculated, but after the Shellguard Munitions team landed it's hard to really say what happened there. We have some sensor logs, but those are mostly corrupted. Who's to say they're even accurate and hadn't been tampered with? The only thing we do have is this recovered cyborg. Let's see here. Unit designation is hard to make out from the laser scouring, but we managed to get the brains of the operation out. The robot brain. Well, it's supposed to house an intelligence that we're told isn't sentient. Legally, it's not sentient in the eyes of the corporation. Good enough for me. Been going through it for what seems to be days now. The software link was isolated and the code is... something else entirely. Who designed this thing? Best guess we have is a project some colleagues were working on in 2506. Supposed to be an exploration subroutine. Turns out, the beancounters decided it was way less expensive to send people than cyborgs. Still, this little thing was supposed to go out, upload data, and die. Rinse, repeat. A legion of little things with absolutely no programming beyond roboneural pathways designed to gather and assess data. This one... Phew. They may have given it a pathfinding starter set, but the language programming was definitely skimped on. Everything is recursive from the unit's designation. Which, right. We found that data. Who names a robot 'B.E.E.P.'? Seems to be all tied back to that data point. We deleted the designation in a mock up and the program went a bit ballistic. Sentence structure disappeared. Not sure what was going on there. We did manage to pull some data about the incident from the unit. Audio logs, video files, the works. Nothing from the A.I. on site though. Seems that someone had neglected to even sync this robot to the A.I. Video files, right. Those are entirely of the door of a closet. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Audio logs of an unknown person were recovered as well. AUDIO LOG - F2-30402003-B-93949.344 BEGIN PLAYBACK? Y/N And that's it. That's all we have. The video logs that would have ID'd the speaker are corrupted. Voice logs saved on file with the company are inconclusive. Perhaps it was someone in their human resources department? That would indicate the cyborg's acceptance of new identification. Anyway, we're going to keep working on this. No idea what they're going to do with the data, but it is what it is I suppose.
    16 points
  42. Look, it's hard to celebrate pride when you're busy- but there's always a chance to show your colours as you work here and there.
    16 points
  43. I drew bee. Gummy holding bee. Goombee. Bee.
    16 points
  44. This was a commission done for @Esenno who's a wonderful trial of a nerd. It's law. MARSHAL law. Here they are doing some reading on a particularly difficult case. Probably the murder of 4 grey-shirts who broke into the kitchen via the chef who made them into delicious burgers. Trespassing in the kitchen will do that. or maybe not. He's probably looking at something a lot more serious. At least he's got some company to keep him motivated. *chirp
    16 points
  45. Who's THAT PLASMAMAN? It's AKIRA! With their habit of plasma bars and plasma drinking habits that lead to plasma alcoholism (Like normal alcoholism, but more deadly and flammable)
    16 points
  46. @CornMyCob OH NO, MY HAND SLIPPED
    16 points
  47. Certain in-game roles (Captain, NT Rep, IAA, Magistrate, etc) are expected to be played with some level of seriousness. When playing one of these roles, if you photograph your ass and fax it to CC, you're probably not playing the role with the appropriate level of seriousness. It is appropriate for the Clown, or a random Civilian, to try pranking CC in this manner. It isn't appropriate for the IAA, Captain, or other crew trusted with fax access, to be doing it. Previously, we've handled this via strictly IC means, like demotions, or BSAs. Now, I'm going to start considering butt-faxes like this as Captain/NTR/Magistrate/IAA as a sign you're not taking the role with the required degree of seriousness. This means that if I see an IAA butt-fax CC for no reason within a couple minutes of shift start (as I saw yesterday), henceforth I'm going to consider that a good reason to job ban the player from the role, until they start treating the role with the higher level of seriousness it requires. Roles like Captain, IAA, NTR, Magistrate, etc are intended to be taken somewhat seriously. While we understand and expect some antics, treating them completely non-seriously will get you job banned.
    16 points
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