Kyet

February 11, 2016

Here's the code thus far:

https://github.com/Kyep/Paradise/tree/spiders

To look at the changes from base:

https://github.com/Kyep/Paradise/compar ... ep:spiders

Please note that none of this code is final - there are many things I still want to change/add.

I am definitely looking for people to help playtest it with me, though.

Ideally I'd like to get these spiders into a state where I could submit a PR for them and get them added.

BUT I realize that doing that will require:

1) Finalizing the design of the different spider classes and how they interact

2) Doing at least one, if not two, balance passes on everything (requires playtesting everything again)

3) Adding some specific anti-abuse features, like checking ghosts to make sure they're not antagbanned before allowing them to control a spider

4) Doing code cleanup - I realize there are places where it needs to be improved, obsolete stuff removed, etc - this is the dev branch

5) Getting an actual spriter to make sprites for them

6) Probably several more things I discover along the way.

February 5, 2016

@tzo

Borging someone when cloning/transplating is an option is akin to murder, and you deserve to be charged with murder every time you do this.

I don't do it. Nor did I say it is the best option. My point was simply that it isn't the only option.

You say yourself "when cloning/transplanting is an option", implying that it isn't the only option.

Talk of borging is a distraction, though. Heck, even talk of humanized monkeys in general is a distraction.

It does not matter in the "should genetics be reclassified as a non-joint subdepartment of science" question.

R&D, robo, etc already provide services to the station at large. I see absolutely no reason why genetics shouldn't be a sub-department of science that provides services (such as humanized monkeys) just as R&D, robo, etc do.

IMHO, the fact that people are seizing on humanized monkeys as "the" important thing genetics can do, suggests there really is no good reason why genetics is a joint department with medbay. That's a very weak reason to be the go-to defense of the status quo.

On the contrary "genetics spends >95% of its time doing genetic research, thus they belong in the research department, just like the people doing R&D, chem research, xenobio research, etc" is a much stronger argument, because it is based on what they spend most of their time doing. Every job has one or two things they spend the majority of their time on, and a huge list of things they do sometimes. Jobs should be classified based on what they spend the majority of their time on - not what they might do sometimes. No matter how important the "sometimes" stuff is. A botanist can sometimes save the station from a blob single-handedly. Important? Sure. Lifesaving? Sure. But less-common stuff like that doesn't define their job.

Genetics has a direct impact on medical.

It has no impact on science.

Again, that's a terrible reason for it to be part of medical.

Xenobio, scichem, etc usually have zero impact on the rest of science, but often impact on medical (people die in accidents). Yet, they're properly classified as part of science, because their job is research. Genetics should be exactly the same.

On the flipside, station having air, power, etc make a huge impact on medical - but nobody thinks medical should get control of the engine, atmos, etc.

To take an example of another department: everyone depends on security to be able to do their jobs safely, but nobody thinks that security should be part of every other department.

Robotics, R&D, etc field far more than 6 requests a shift, while remaining firmly part of science. I see no reason why genetics should not be the same way. Actually, the burden on genetics would be less in this setup than R&D/robo already have, because genetics' desk would open just to medbay, thus they would take only requests from people in medbay, whereas anyone at all can walk up to the publicly-accessible R&D or robo desks.

February 5, 2016

The point in making genetics be under CMOs rule is that sometimes they are REQUIRED for medbay to work, such as when you need a humanized monkey for a clone or want to do some genetic shenanigans on a person that isn't about research but actually fixing their UI.

Genetics researchers do a lot more genetics research than they do preparing humanized monkeys.

Suggesting that genetics should be under the CMO is like suggesting that engineers should report to the HoS because they kill carp with welders, or that R&D should report to the barman because they're sometimes called on to install arcade games in the bar.

Yes, it is something they do sometimes, and yes, it is helpful, but it is NOT their primary job function and they spend a tiny amount of time doing it compared to their actual job (genetics research). Sub-departments should not be assigned based on what they spend a tiny percentage of their time doing - they should be assigned based on what they spend the majority, in this case the vast majority, of their time doing. For genetics, that means they should be a sub-department of science, because they spend the vast, vast majority of their time doing genetic research.

Also, as to the point that creating humanized monkeys is "required" - it isn't. Other options (e.g: borging) exist.

Even if it was required, medbay needs power, air, etc, but nobody is suggesting making engine setup, atmos, etc fall under the CMO.

Hell, everyone requires a safe station to function well, but nobody is suggesting giving other departments control of security.

Clearly, X being "required" for a department to function well doesn't justify giving control of that thing to that department.

Sure, it sounds logical to make them fall under the RD, but during actual gameply they'll be taking a TON more orders from the CMO.

There's a huge difference between orders and requests. R&D, robotics, cargo, etc, get requests from all departments, but they get orders from the RD. The fact that genetics gets some requests from medbay is not significant in determining who they should report to. If it was, then cargo would end up reporting to every other head of staff.

There's also the matter of the relative importance of orders. RD might only give a single order "don't distribute powers", but that single order is round-altering. Whether you fix someone's UI or not, sure, probably matters to them, but to other people? Not really.

The way I see it: 95%+ of geneticist time revolves around genetic research. They are a sub-department almost entirely dedicated to research. Hence, they belong in the research department, along with the other kinds of sub-departments dedicated to research, like xenobio research, chem research, R&D, etc.

Of course, they can and should still provide services to the station at large, just as robo, R&D, etc, do. They just belong in the research department - because research is what they do.

If looking to improve medbay, a better starting point would be fixing virology (which is obsolete due to radium) and psychology (which is sidelined).

February 5, 2016

Avast mateys! Replyzilla has been sighted off the port bow! Batten down the hatches! The wave of words approaches fast!

There's no point to keeping Genetics in Research.

Yay or Nay?

Nay.

Hell no.

"Hell No" plus "they should be entirely a sub-department of science, with no medical role or access, just a window/desk thing in their wall so they can service requests from medical".

The argument for Science only: They primarily just do research on genes, and cloning is easy enough that the MD's generally just do it themselves.

Better arguments:

Over 95% of their time is spent doing genetic research. They do little if any cloning in a typical round. Giving a clean SE is a 5-second operation that takes less time than a R&D scientist printing someone a console screen from the autolathe. Genetics is a "medical" department in name only. The idea that they're equally split between science and medical is a sham. They're not. They're pretty much entirely a sub-department of science already - we just pretend otherwise for some reason.
Doctors are often bored. I've seen entire rounds with almost nobody entering medical. Frankly, doctors could use more to do in most rounds.

The whole multiple bosses idea just doesn't work in practice. The CMO/RD disagree at times. It would be better if one person (RD) was in charge, and there was clear accountability.

The argument for Medical only: They're currently the easiest source of monkey cubes for us chemists, and in addition their powers are based off the human body anyways, which may sort of relate to medical somehow? Maybe? In addition, they ARE supposed to provide Clean S.E.'s, and the few geneticists that are good DO hand them out.

MedChemists should just get a blood pack in their lab by default. It is a basic reagent they need for core healing chems. Failing that, at least give them one of the smaller monkey cubes that can be expanded into a single monkey. The medical chemistry lab isn't mapped very well - it is too small, and the item placement is such that the fuel tank is always getting knocked out of position. Really, medbay chemistry needs a remap. None of this is relevant to the question of whether genetics remains in medbay, or actually gets recognized as the sub-department of science that it is.

"Sort of relate to medical somehow" is not a good justification for something being a sub-department of medical. Engineering fixing doors "sort of relates to security somehow", but nobody is arguing for engineering to be a joint job with security.

Mutadone is superior to clean SEs in treating genetic issues. It is fast and easy to make, pills of it are stackable and can be put in pill boxes, you can produce 12+ pills of it at once, rather than clean SEs one at a time on a delay. Even if for some reason, people still want SEs from genetics, the best way to solve that is to have a window in the wall. Not keeping genetics as part of medical in any way.

The argument for keeping both: The RD should be holding onto the research aspect, but the geneticists are needed when medbay goes to shit and a ton of people need cloning (Blob and similar disaster rounds come to mind). If MD's have to focus on other things, geneticists become a huge help. I can personally attest that the genetics guys make medbays job a lot easier when they're around. Of course, SoP has to be cleared up.

I fail to see why medbay should be treated differently than every other department.

If there's a security emergency, sec can, should and sometimes even *gasp* does ask for volunteers to fill out the ranks so they can deal with it.

If nobody is starting the engine, command asks for volunteers with eng skills to get it done.

If lots of people need medical treatment, why does nobody ask for volunteer triage docs at medbay?

"Oh gosh it would could helpful in a major emergency" is not necessarily a good reason for medical to operate that way all the time.

Genetics provides Clean SE's (presently broken as mutadone accidentally fixes all blocks, oops), Humanized Monkeys, and subsequently identification fixes to brain transplanted/injured parties.

They have a direct, and active role in medical functions.

They have no direct, or indirect role in science - science already has medchem, xenobio, an outpost, deathmechs, deathlasers, and the ability to build entire departments, I fail to see why they have ever also required the ability to demand geneticists hand over powers on demand.

This is not to mention that geneticists powergaming (and they do) has absolutely no impact on the science department but SEVERE and major ramifications for the medical department (greater patient influx, not to mention to expenditure of time to make mutadone smokes and the CMO being expected to chase after hulked geneticists with syringe guns).

When I played medical religiously I'd always encounter the issue that I was unable to fire geneticists who blatantly abused their position and refused to provide basic services when directly ordered to do so (such as farwahumans), or decided they were entitled to steal every last toxin kit for their tourettes abominations because they'd fall back on the fact that the RD is their boss, and the RD will generally always side with the geneticist because they're not accountable to genetics at all, and siding with the geneticist has the advantage of the geneticist sharing their superpowers with the RD.

Having genetics moved solely to be in the confines of medical is a good first step, and a good second step would be to move the genetics consoles up a tile and replace the walls adjacent to the cloner with glass windows.

No other job straddles two departments like this, and there's realistically no good reason that this one should - it just creates a lack of accountability and headaches for a sub-department that's already renowned for not doing it's job and causing trouble.

Mutadone should fix all blocks. Its entire purpose is to be the drug that fixes mutations.

Humanized monkeys, ok, that's a valuable service that genetics can provide, but being able to provide a service to a department is not necessarily a good reason to be part of that department when 95% of your time is spent doing research completely unrelated to that department. Most rounds nobody even asks genetics for this, and even when they do its simple for genetics to provide one over a counter.

Genetecists powergaming isn't an argument for them to be part of medical - even if it has effects on medical. ANYONE hurting anyone else, powergaming or not, regardless of department, is going to result in the injured person probably ending up in medical - that's almost universally the case. Saying that "well, medical is in charge of healing, so it should also have jurisdiction over genetics, since genetics can make things which harm" is total nonsense - because the same argument could be applied to everything from engineering's welders to security's guns. "Sorry, prisoner processing in sec should be part of medical because people can get hurt there and we have to deal with it" sounds ridiculous, and it is just as ridiculous when applied to genetics.

When I am RD, I will make a mutadone RSG for the HoS and specifically state over command that I am OK with the demotion/RSGing of any genetecist who abuses their powers, including handing them out willy-nilly. If the CMO asks me "can we please demote this genetecist, he took all the toxin kits and refuses to return them" then I will very likely agree. Genes should know that they need to ask robo for a medibot to keep them healthy. There is no reason to deplete finite resources when you can instead simply tap infinite resources like medibots. Also, disobeying your head is not something crew should be doing without a very good reason, especially when the head is telling them to stop doing something that might negatively impact other crew.

Having genetics be confined to medical is a terrible idea - the claim they're a "joint department" with science is already a blatent lie given that they spent >95% of their time doing science stuff unrelated to medical. No, genetic research is NOT medbay's area, any more then R&D research, chem research, xenobio research, or any other kind of research is medbay's area. All those kinds of research, genetic research included, belong in science, the "research department".

I would definitely support the window, however. The wall makes it unnecessarily difficult for medical staff to ask them for things when needed. Every other service-offering sub-department of science has an outward-facing desk (robo, R&D) and I don't see why genetics should be any different.

There is indeed no good reason why genetics straddles two departments, and it does indeed create a lack of accountability. However, taking an existing lie (that genetics is a 50/50 medical/science department, which it blatently isn't) and doubling it (by making genetics medical-only) doesn't fix anything, it just results in a bigger lie.

I play the CMO and RD alot and I can tell you the only reason genetics is currently shared between departments is to give the RD easy access to medbay.

I don't think so. It would have been easier to just give the RD access to medbay than reclassify a whole sub-department for that reason. Also, RDs can get into morgue (copied from robotics access). They might be able to get fully into medbay from that alone. Plus, they'll generally be let in whenever they ask to upgrade stuff. Overall, this is a terrible excuse.

Incidentally, I would think that every CMO out there would WANT the RD to have basic medbay access, since medbay benefits so hugely from the upgrades that typically the RD provides. Why would you want to keep the guy who upgrades all of your critical equipment, out of your department? Makes no sense. When's the last time a CMO had to ask the RD to leave their department because they were messing up stuff? I can't remember that ever happening.

I agree it should be part of MEdical, they're in charge of far more medical related tasks then Science, and frankly, Science doesn't need superpowers in addition to all the other OP shit they get.

And for everyone saying "lazy genetics never clone nobody or give out SE's, they're barely medical"

Genetics CANNOT SEE into Medical. Unless I stumble into the X-ray powers, I can't SEE what's going on in the cloning lab, because there's a fucking wall in the way. The view throug hthe glass airlock let's me see the very upper part of Cloning, like I see the door to the morgue and that's it.

Genetics having some responsibility to medical does not, in any way, constitute a good reason for having them be a sub-department of medical. R&D is expected to make items for every department. They're not a joint department with everything else. Robotics is expected to make cleanerbots, secbots, medibots, and all kinds of mechs, yet they're not a joint department either. Cargo is responsible to every other department that exists, because all the stuff they do is in service to another department - yet NOBODY has ever argued that cargo should be shared with any other department.

There is absolutely no reason that genetics couldn't be a science-only job which has a window+desk facing into the room where the cloner is currently. That way people can still ask them for stuff if they want, but this whole split-department nonsense goes away.

Genetics doesn't effect Science, but it helps Medbay a ton

Toxins doesn't effect the rest of science, except when it screws up.

Scichem doesn't effect the rest of science, except when it screws up.

Xenobio doesn't effect the rest of science, except when it screws up.

Genetics doesn't effect the rest of science, except when it screws up.

The first three are strictly sub-departments of science. The fourth one is a joint sub-department. Clearly, the fact that a sub-department is largely left to do its own thing isn't the deciding factor with regards to what is, and what is not, strictly a sub-department of science. What is? Whether that sub-department spends its time doing *research*. Genetics spends >95% of its time doing research. Therefore, by the criteria in actual usage, it should be a sub-department of science. Whether it provides things to other departments is irrelevant.

As to "helps medbay a ton", you could make that argument about anything. Security shooting spiders with eguns "helps medbay a ton". Cargo ordering medical supplies "helps medbay a ton". Engineering keeping the tesla contained "helps medbay a ton". This argument doesn't work for genetics - because it doesn't work for anything else either.

Genetics used to be medical but now it's a shit science department home to the worst kind of powergaming I've ever seen. They literally do nothing but sit in the chair spamming the blocks the whole shift until they get TK or Hulk. I can confirm this as I have observed Genetics as a ghost quite a few times.

If they wanted to treat people, why wouldn't they play doctor instead? Doctors, like geneticists, can clone, but they can also treat a bunch of other stuff. If they wanted to treat patients, it would be more logical for them to just select doctor rather than geneticist.

The fact they're picking geneticist should be treated as evidence they prefer doing genetic research, over treating patients, and expecting them to behave otherwise is not realistic, especially with the wall between them and the rest of medbay.

Who cares if they get TK or hulk, so long as they use it responsibly? I've seen many times that hulk was used to stop a malf AI, for example. If on the other hand, someone is misusing hulk/TK, then I don't care whether they've been treating patients too, or not. If they abuse hulk/TK they should be demoted out of genetics, and shot with a mutadone SG/RSG for good measure.

Perhaps the solution there is simple: make it abundantly clear to geneticists that if they act like jerks with their powers, they will not only be stripped of them, they will be demoted out of genetics entirely.

This whole debate isn't even about genetics. Not really.

This debate is about one thing: the fact that some players consider science OP, or at least OP relative to medical.

To this, I would say:

Yes, science is OP compared to medical. Part of that is that medical is the department in charge of healing people, and science is the department in charge of making dangerous and often explosive things. To expect them to be equal, power-wise, is just silly! It would be like comparing medical to security, and complaining that security gets guns and medical doesn't. It is like choosing to work as a doctor rather than an explosives researcher - then complaining that you don't get access to explosives. No, it isn't even like that, it is that.
That said, assuming you want to reduce that power disparity, there are ways of doing it without being blatently illogical by trying to make genetics a sub-department of medical when there's no good reason it is anything but a science sub-department to begin with. There are actually several sub-departments of medical that are completely broken and/or underused to begin with, and investing effort into those departments would go a long way towards addressing the disparity, whilst at the same time improving jobs that right now, are not that fun to play. For example, virology is hopelessly broken right now. Radium obsoletes their entire job. Fix that - and make the virologist capable of producing really powerful viruses. Psychology is never played, despite the fact it should have the power to have *anyone* detained for evaluation (with CMO approval), and if they prove unstable, demoted. This includes heads, even the captain. Give people a reason to play psych - and make sure they know they can actually do something. Given the amount of crazy people in the average round, this is a very, very powerful ability. The CMO, in principle, can decide who is cloned and who isn't. This is godly powerful if they start to decide "no, that person is not worth cloning". CMOs have decided the course of rounds many times by simply refusing to clone murderers. Science may be able to kill you, but it takes a CMO, most of the time, to make you permanently dead by labelling your body "DO NOT CLONE".

On a related note, I'm very surprised by medical players wishing science had less ability to hurt people and make things go boom. Much as I may curse scientist stupidity when I play medbay, they provide many of the injuries that give me something to do, and nothing is less fun than boredom, or, worst of all, feeling like you just aren't necessary.

On another note, I think we're neglecting perhaps the most important factor here: fun. If science is seen as "the fun department" because you get to play with toys, then perhaps we should ask "what can we give other departments that would qualify as a fun toy?" I'd like to see the CE get an advanced RCD, for example, for this reason. Nerfing science to remove fun doesn't magically make the other departments more fun. It just means everyone has less fun, together. That isn't progress.

February 4, 2016

No one uses the service channel much these days.

Because there is little that requires radio communication amongst the service-department staff.

Kitchen and bar might want to co-operate, but they're next to each other.

Kitchen and botany need to co-operate, but they're next to each other too.

January 31, 2016

Re: faxes

If replying to faxes is a pain for admins to do, have you considered options that might reduce the effort required?

If composing a fax is a lot of effort, perhaps just send that two-sentence message direct to their headset. Avoids the lengthy time period spent messing with formatting and codes. If determined to use a fax, why not make the standard fax reply screen/form auto-populate a standard fax template, so you can do basic faxes without having to dig up the formatting instructions each time?

Why not have one-click-standard-reply options for the more common fax responses? "Your station is already equipped with the crew and resources to handle this. Please use them to resolve the issue", could be one. "We will only declare gamma or send ERT for xenos if we believe there to be a serious xeno infestation - one or two of them does not count" could be another. "IAAs should only fax CC as a last resort, in cases where the chain of command on the station has proven they are unable or unwilling to deal with a major problem. Please work with them before resorting to filing a complaint with CC." could be useful too. This type of message would clearly set expectations without being super generic (as "follow SOP" is), and would still be faster to send than typing out replies manually as happens now.

Even better would be some guidance being placed on the comms console / fax machines as to what is, and what is not, a valid reason to message/fax CC. Heck, putting some on the keycard auth device, such that it appears to anyone trying to call an ERT, could be useful too. This would require little more than displaying some text in the UI, and it could potentially reduce silly faxes/requests a fair bit.

January 31, 2016

I personally dislike the Laser Cannon for the simple fact that it's bulky as all hell.

The laser cannon is a good weapon if (A) you have a bag of holding, and thus can carry it safely, and (B) you have access to rechargers and © you're going after a non-slime monster, which requires lethal damage, and has to take time to break through windows to get to you.

If (A) or (B) is false, an AEG is probably better, because it self-recharges.

If © is false, because you're going after crew, a stun revolver is probably better.

If © is false, because you're going after something that will not be stupid enough to stand behind glass, but can still easily kill you if it closes the distance (like a player-controlled xeno), then it is time to adapt.

As someone who plays Medbay often, I can assure you that you are the exception to the rule. It's been literally months since I've seen anyone carrying around more than a small syringe of Omnizine.

Most of the omnizine I get comes from warm donk pockets, not mechs. I pretty much never ask science for an ody as medbay chemist. I find I never need to. Most rounds, medbay sees little use and it is rare that I will need more than that quantity of omnizine.

personally I'm a fan of general job objectives in order to nudge people into actually doing their jobs (such as "Make X of Y" for MedChem or "Set up the X Engine" for Engineering).

I would like it if all jobs had job objectives like that.

90% of faxes we receive deserve no response.

I strongly disagree. This attitude really makes my blood boil.

Faxing CC about an emergency only to have it ignored because the message was formatted poorly is rather like calling 911 only to have your call ignored because the operator doesn't like your accent, or feels you're talking too quickly. My gut reaction to either situation is: "WTF are you thinking?".

If you can't read what they're saying at all, just say "Sorry, we could not understand that, please re-fax with more clarity". Once sentence! Takes a few seconds to type.

If you can, but just can't be bothered because the formatting makes it hard, that's bad, but at least you could adminpm the sender and say "Sorry, too busy right now dealing with stuff to try to decipher that - when faxing CC it is best to be clear, concise, to the point, and finish with a clear request. Try again if you like.".

If you can read it, even understand it, but choose to ignore it just because you happen to not like the formatting... that just makes me furious.

Have you ever seen SOS calls in real emergencies?

Real emergency distress calls are not well-formatted essays. Grammar is ignored completely in the interests of efficiency. They sure as fuck don't have official stamps and time spent aligning text in margins or applying corporate logos.

They are short, brutal messages consisting of key codewords, like "fire at 11th and 4th, 3 down, need assistance" or "active gunman at hallwood, send swat".

I would argue the exact opposite: if you get a well-formatted message, that's actually evidence it is NOT a real emergency.

Real emergencies aren't things people send calm, well-written faxes about. Real emergencies produce short, abrupt SOS messages.

If the IAA asks you to sentence someone for hitting someone else with a crowbar, and you ignore it, they'll probably do it again. If you reply "No. The fax machine is not a toy, and is to be used only for SERIOUS issues. Someone being hit with a crowbar is not remotely serious enough to fax us over." then they might actually learn something and you just might have less shitty faxes to read in future. Also, fewer IAAs will get disgruntled over being "ignored" because although you did not give them what you wanted, at least you proved you bothered to read and reply to their communication.

If the captain says "we have xenos", I would *assume* he's asking for either an ERT, or a code gamma. Those are the standard response options a captain might expect. Actually, in that situation, I'd assume he's asking for gamma, because he could have requested an ERT with the swiper. If he's messaging/faxing instead, either most of the command crew is dead and he can't use the swiper, he specifically wants gamma not ERT, or he's just panicing in what he considers an emergency and it might just be one guy in a friggin' xeno suit.

A good reply, assuming you planned to send no help might be: "If they start to overrun the station, request gamma or an ERT. Otherwise, we assume your trained sec force can handle it once you verify the threat and equip them with armory weapons"

That sort of response takes 20 seconds to type, rebukes him for sending a useless message, trains him if he's clueless, and sets the standards for when he should be contacting you. In two sentences, it does a heck of a lot to ensure better conduct from him and less stupid messages for you. I would call that a "teachable moment" you can reap rewards from later - if you use it. No, you're not obliged to teach people, but it's very, very helpful if you do, both for you, and for them.

EVERYONE panics at some point during an emergency. Everyone is new at some point. Not everyone is used to Josiah Young running around in a frigging xeno suit every single round and tame xenos in xenobio. Some people genuinely do flip out when they see alieums or a blob in their spessmen game. Standard admin procedure when dealing with faxes/messages should account for this. Arguably the people that need help most are the ones who don't know what they're doing when they ask for help. "Help" doesn't just mean "ERT". Sometimes, perhaps even often, a simple reminder is all they need.

I actually do deny ERT requests with a reason whenever the request is not necessary. 99% of the time, this reason is "You have an active Security team, we're not scrambling an ERT because one person died".

That's a good response! I wish admins used responses like that more often.

At the end of the day, properly written faxes get responses. If my initial mental reaction to a fax (and I know this extends to the Administration as well) is "You should fucking know how to do this yourself, we're not your babysitter", you're not likely to get any help

I wish that more admins actually SAID that in response to stupid faxes. Perhaps they'd get less stupid faxes.

A big part of the problem with faxes, IMHO, is that NOBODY is ever told their fax is bad, let alone punished for misusing faxes, unless of course they send a faxed copy of their own ass or something so blatent as "fuck CC! Long live the syndicate!"

I'd love it if admins were much more responsive to faxes - and that included coming down much harder on people who misused faxes, either due to ignorance (sending them a reminder of what is acceptable or not), or malice (sending a team to "deal with" a command crew sending "fuck CC" faxes). If you never bother to tell people that what they're doing is wrong and annoys you, how can you expect them to change their behavior? You can't!

To be perfectly honest, this is mostly to do with round balance. Yes, it can be an amazingly detailed fax or communication, but it's tremendously unfair for a 3-person cult to suddenly have a 5-man Amber ERT hunting them down.

That's fine. That's normal, even. Often, things look much worse to the command crew than they really are, because the command crew has limited vision/understanding of the situation, and tends to see only the problems.

There are a ton of things admins could say in this situation to say "no" fairly whilst remaining IC, such as:

"Sorry, all ERT teams are currently deployed, we have none spare right now"

"We tapped into your camera feed. So far, only 3 cultists have been observed. Our standard team is currently dealing with a xeno outbreak on installation 3847. We cannot re-route them for 3 cultists. If the situation becomes a dire threat to the station, swipe for ERT again."

"3 cultists (we checked your sec records remotely) is not a valid reason for ERT. Your sec force is expected to deal with that."

"If you have them in custody, administer holy water to deconvert them. If you don't, capture them, then do that. If you know exactly how many there are, we assume one of the above two situations applies."

None of these break immersion or screw up the antags' round. Actually, I'd say they enhance immersion.

That said, I've been handing out detailed "no" responses more and more lately. Command has an unfortunate tendency to only call ERTs when they're not needed, and completely forget to call for one when it's actually necessary. Panic, I guess.

Or, they already had their request ignored once, and they assume it will be ignored again, because they don't see any of the admins' reasoning, and just assume admins will ignore them no matter what they say. I've seen people make that decision a fair bit.

We actually have something similar. If there are no Game Admins online (so, only Trial Admins and below), eventually all ERT requests default to Code Amber and get sent automatically.

That is a solution to the problem of "what do we do when there are no admins online to handle this?"

That's a completely different problem to the one I'm mad about.

The problem I'm mad about is what I perceive to be admins deliberately ignoring command crew SOSes for what I believe to be absolutely shitty reasons.

I am not saying admins don't have good reasons for making the decisions they make. They do.

The decisions are fine. Sending an ERT for a 3-person cult is overkill, no doubt. It would take most of the fun out of the round.

I am saying their reasons for failing to communicate those decisions with the command crew that has requested their help are shitty.

Perhaps not all of them, but "the message wasn't formatted correctly" is seems very shitty, and "we're not babysitters" seems arguably shitty, depending on how likely it is that you think someone who sends one shitty fax/msg will send another because they were never told their first one was bad in any way.

That said, a lot of it is due to the fact that the ERT request is hilariously easy to miss, since it's the same colour as 50% of the chat box.

It should be a one-line change to make the ERT request a big, flashy color, or trigger a sound file for admins so they never miss it.

Hell, even a new sound file is not required - just make it play the "boink" sound twice to indicate that an official request from the command staff has arrived and just like any ahelp, it should get some form of response, even if that response is "You're expected to handle that yourself. Let us know if _____ happens. If THAT happens, and you tell us, we might send help."

Not meaning to tear you apart here, Tully. From your replies, it seems you actually do answer faxes/ERTrequests more than most. The lack of admin response to CC faxes/messages just makes me madder than anything else I see in SS13, with the possible exception of clowns being given all-access.

January 30, 2016

Three different issues here:

1) Antags not realizing they're antags.

The best way to solve this would probably be a special antag sound effect that plays, say, 30 seconds into the round. And/or a reminder text message 5 minutes in, in case they missed the original message in the chat box.

2) Antags not liking their objectives.

Perhaps we could add a "reroll objectives" button?

Better someone get new objectives than do nothing because they feel their objectives are impossible.

3) Antags not wanting to be antags.

Perhaps a reminder at round start that "If you do not wish to be an antag this round, ahelp it and we'll give it to someone else instead".

Or even better, a way to drop antag status and have it automatically transferred to someone else? Say, via a "Drop-antag" verb?

Only usable for the first 5 minutes of the round, and so long as you have not used any TC. (If you have used TC, it may remove the items, and/or the new antag always gets killing you as an objective)

Heck, it could spawn a 'syndicate beacon', an object that turns whoever uses it into a traitor. Make it anchored, too, so sec can't just hide it. That way you could be reasonably confident that whoever DOES find/use it would like to be an antag.

January 30, 2016

Either would be great.

January 30, 2016

Ideally, sure, sec could be counted on to handle all of this - but in practice, this is usually not the case.

I have to say here that I completely agree with you. Security's performance can be inconsistent, at best, and even when they're decent, they're still spread thin covering the entire station.

However, this is where our viewpoints differ. You recognize that yes, there is a problem in practical terms, and you'd rather work around it so it doesn't cause more problems. This works.

I, on the other hand, would prefer to take the, uh, lengthier and harder route of trying to fix the underlying problem. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but it's something I'd like to try anyway.

Fair point.

Good luck. That will not be an easy task.

A single Saber SMG can quite easily handle pretty much any threat that can come out of Science and is cheap to make and maintain to boot. Not to mention you can still ask for it in Code Green. Just expect the Head of Security to raise their eyebrows a bit more than usual.

SMGs (and projectile weapons in general) are better against players, as they break bones, etc.

High-damage laser weapons, like the laser cannon, are (IMHO) better against monsters, because of their high per-hit damage and the ability to fire through glass windows with them.

As RD, when I need to deal with most monsters, my go-to weapon is the laser cannon (if they are few) or dual AEGs (if they are many).

Security has no reason to be using body armor on green.

I disagree immensely. Someone who's out to hit someone with a crowbar isn't going to politely wait until the Color Code is increased. Those things hurt. Brawls and scuffles happen on Code Green all the merry time.

That was intended as a satirical example of the "we don't need it right now, so lets not equip it" thinking. Not a serious claim.

Docs don't need to walk around with sedatives, enough omizine to kill a horse, and strange reagent that can gib the body.

You severely overestimate the amount of times Omnizine and Strange Reagent is even produced at all, at least outside of Sleepers for the former. Not to mention Sedatives are useful for races that can't receive regular anaesthetics.

I make both pretty much every round I am CMO/medchemist, though usually I don't need to use them.

I admit I may be the exception to the rule. I have not checked how often others make them.

Science is entirely based on the idea of research - ie: do work, make better stuff. They're the only department that actually has to research items to get them. Everyone else gets theirs from round start.

Linear Station, Quadratic Science. Much like mages, you start off small, then end up massively outclassing everyone else.

I actually like this.

Then again, I like linear warriors, quadratic wizards in D&D as well.

I like facing the choice of "kick ass now, or later?" I feel it adds depth if the balance changes over time.

SOP is meant to be a sane IC window into the game world (...) SOP should be built on IC presumptions, not OOC metapresumptions.

I don't think it has to be exclusively one or the other.

A SOP based exclusively on IC viewpoints risks being ignored because it is often useless, and in some cases, actively detrimental.

A SOP based exclusively on OOC viewpoints risks being ignored because it is artifical and in some cases, very alien to natural RP interaction.

I feel a balance can be struck between these.

That said, making Bananium something like a Gateway reward would be a nice idea.

This nerfs it so hard you might as well remove honk mechs entirely.

HONK mechs should be constructable IF you want to reward a clown, but difficult to construct otherwise.

Perhaps the best solution is to make HONK mech chassis lockboxed, locked to RD/Captain access.

it still baffles me that Science can make self-charging Advanced E-Guns, Decloners, X-ray Guns and bloody SMGs... but not a simple E-Gun.

Actually, I like it.

Think about it: it prevents R&D weapons from being confused with weapons stolen/borrowed/lost from the armory, and actually enforces more accountability for both loss of sec weapons (can't claim you got it from R&D) and also science weapons (you know where it came from).

The point isn't to ignore other research. In fact, it's not even a rule, it's a SOP Guideline that, as I said, is malleable. It's there because, technically, it's their mechanical job objective, and the main source of "power" for Science and the rest of the Station.

Mechanical job objectives are almost meaningless - they don't exist for most jobs, and even for science (the only major department that has them?), they don't even begin to cover the things you should be doing. Doesn't mean they should be completely ignored, it would be awesome if every job had job objectives - it just means they're not very important in the grand scheme of things, and aren't a very good justification for anything.

I feel that the science players who are trying to legitimize the notion of the RD gaining lock box access on code Red are forgetting that there are plenty of other elevations that can be brought upon the station and that centcomm can still send more men in.

I am not arguing that the RD should be able to open weapon any new kinds of weapon lockboxes themselves.

What I am arguing is that if the HoS/Captain see fit to give the RD a weapon, or weapons, other people should not be complaining on the grounds of SOP, because if things have got to that point, there's probably a good reason. Essentially, the same point as Tully makes: SOP can be ignored if the situation requires it, as SOP is standard operating procedure, IE what you do when everything is going well, NOT what you do in the event of a major disaster.

CC might send more men, but that is rare. Usually they just ignore your request completely.

'Wait what? It's code red? Sec lost two guys and centcomm has not responded to the fax sent thirty seconds ago?...

THE SITUATION IS OUT OF CONTROL. Quick, print Saber Smgs and incendiary rounds to combat that one confirmed ling'

CC often completely fails to respond to messages/faxes. Butt-faxes almost always get a response, but they're the only kind of fax I've seen that does. I've seen people fax in about confirmed xenos, almost-winning blobs, etc only to be met with total silence, yet butt-faxes about CC being comdoms get almost-instant BSAs.

Many bad command decisions could be avoided if admins made a point of responding to EVERY fax/commsconsole message, and EVERY ERT request, even if the answer is "Sorry, we can't authorize an ERT because one guy set off a bomb near bridge, security is expected to handle that, perhaps you should consider going code blue, checking prints, etc". Ignoring the command crew's pleas is a large part of why said command crew panics and does stupid things - they don't get any guidance during the moment about what they should do, even when they specifically ask for it. So, they assume they're on their own in a hostile situation, and overreact.

ERT requests are the worst. CC often decides whether or not to send an ERT based on factors that the command crew has no possible way of knowing IC, and never says anything about the request. IMHO, something like an ERT request should always, without fail get an official response. The biggest factor I've observed as a ghost influence whether an ERT request gets an ERT actually sent is... deadchat. Which the command crew has literally no possible way of knowing about. That makes ERT approvals/ignores seem totally arbitrary to command teams.

If I could make any one change to SOP to address a grievance in SS13, it would be: "admins must grant or send an official 'no' response for any ERT request sent by the command team within 5 minutes. If they fail to do this, the ERT request should be automatically granted by the code, under the presumption that they are either AFK, do not care what happens, or are otherwise unresponsive. If the answer is 'no', a brief note about why should be included, so the command team learns what is, and what is not, an acceptable situation in which to request an ERT, and future invalid ERT requests are less likely."

You may joke, but saber SMGs are not the best weapon to use against lings. And I have seen plenty of shifts late at night where one or two lings get the run of the station because there is ZERO security staff and nobody wants to be one. The context can be very important. "Let security handle it" is all well and good, but what if there IS no security? That actually happens quite a lot, late at night. Yeah, more people play at peak, but how things operate in the middle of the night should be considered too.

Come on, if you want to use guns so badly, play some security and try on the big boy boots of station responsibility rather than sitting in Toysrus all day.

I play security regularly. Just yesterday I was sec officer, and took out 3 spiders in science before I even asked the HoS to issue me a basic egun - and even then I'd have preferred to be in the action, but talking was all I could do at the time because I was stuck waiting outside OR1 for surgery to fix the bones the spiders broke.

Science is not "toysrus", and that attitude pisses me off. As RD I frequently find myself cleaning up after characters with that attitude who are responsible for blown up rooms and letting rampaging monsters go free. Security is a stressful job, I know, I play it quite a bit. Still, every job needs to default to treating the others with respect.

January 29, 2016

Mostly because the Reactive Teleport Armour is a highly expensive, experimental one-of-a-kind piece of armour that shouldn't be worn unless there's a darn good reason for it. A baton, by comparison, is a stick.

Doesn't matter. The telebaton is robust. The armor isn't. The armor being expensive, prototype, unique, etc doesn't matter when its not useful, and thus most RDs refuse to use it. Having something that most RDs completely refuse to use at all, because they feel it is useless, be more restricted in usage than the more useful thing they spawn with, does not make sense.

the Research Director is probably the last person who should packing heat.

Disagree.

Science has an ungodly amount of maint tunnels, where there are often carp/spiders/etc.

Science is the only department with the experimentor device, which spawns hostile mobs.

Science is the only department to breed dangerous aliens, like slimes and "tame" xenos.

The RD is directly responsible for making sure robos don't make rogue combat mechs.

Science is the department where a traitor can walk in with an emag and walk out with a lasercannon/teleshield in under 30 seconds.

Science has, or gives access to, several traitor theft objectives, and many other things useful for completing objectives.

The RD is responsible for all of this, and is likely carrying at least one theft objective (hand tele) on his person at all times.

They deal with a bunch of threats (often monsters, which, unlike the crew that sec deals with, are immune to stuns), and have a huge target on their back, both on their department and on them personally.

Science is also far away from sec, and thus prone to lengthy response times.

RD also doesn't have much in the way of protective gear. No hardsuits, no damage-resistant armor, etc.

Ideally, sure, sec could be counted on to handle all of this - but in practice, this is usually not the case.

RDs can and should take responsibility for what happens in their department, like any head.

RD is still not security - but it is their job to manage a department with lots of dangerous things that can eat you.

there's no real logical reason the Research Director should have as much firepower as the entire Security Department

Aside from the above, they're the head of the department that produces the dangerous objects and regularly has to deal with various kinds of monster out to kill them.

Expecting the RD not to carry an appropriate weapon for these sorts of things within their department, is like expecting the CE not to carry metal/rods to deal with hull breaches.

It is already hard enough to get the standard weapons unlocked - getting permission to make something that must be brought to the armory, very slowly and conspicuously, seems like it would reduce the practicality of mechs to the point where their use-cases would be nil, similar to the impressive array of hand-held weapons from the protolathe, that never get used due to the logistics of both producing and unlocking them.

Pretty much.

I believe the HoS should have the knowledge of dangerous weapons on the station and at least should at some point make a decision as to whether or not post a guard to make sure that the items aren't stolen.

No sec player is going to stand guard over an empty room all round. Won't happen.

The Durand, Gygax and Phazon are incredibly dangerous Exosuits that can carry incredibly dangerous equipment that should not be in the hands of whoever built it just because they had the resources to do it. Not to mention, aside from extreme emergencies, there's no reason to use those mechs anyway.

Engineers have no reason to make stunprods, cablecuffs, etc.

Security has no reason to be using body armor on green.

Docs don't need to walk around with sedatives, enough omizine to kill a horse, and strange reagent that can gib the body.

Cargo doesn't need to order an igloves crate, basically giving them the ability to hack into anything.

None of these people need to carry around the interesting stuff they carry.

Yet they do.

Every round.

As is, Science is broken. There is no argument against this. They are 15 minutes and a half-decent Cargo shipment away from getting hilariously powerful weaponry and fully-equipped military Exosuits, while the rest of the station basically has what they had from the start, plus whatever they can scrounge up from Cargo. Science is very much at an advantage when it comes to their power level, and can be very easily abused.

Science is entirely based on the idea of research - ie: do work, make better stuff. They're the only department that actually has to research items to get them. Everyone else gets theirs from round start.

Making mechs is a little trickier than you suggest - it requires mining to make/deliver minerals, someone to do R&D, someone to upgrade machines, someone to build them, and then either getting permission or accepting the fact you're probably going to get shot to ribbons by sec. Oh, and firing back with lethals as a non-antag in a mech will get you boinked.

Yes, science is powerful, but it takes work to get there, and even once there its very easy to screw up, lose all your shit, and get demoted/killed/banned.

TL;DR: there's literally no reason why a Roboticist should be walking around with a military Exosuit unless there are Nukies/Blobs/Shadownerds/maybe Wizards, and playing around with Deathmechs shouldn't be the primary reason Robotics is staffed.

Sure, but the fact is, it is.

This is actually a misunderstanding. I did not mean AI Lawset Boards. I meant the actual AI Core Board. Will change to make it more obvious.

This is already in the RD's office by default. If we want to go this route, perhaps lockboxing the AI core board to RD access would be an idea.

I'll be absolutely honest, I was struggling to reach the 9 Guideline total for Genetics.

General rule: the more rules you have, the less attention each gets.

Personally I would aim for the absolute minimum number of rules, so they have a good chance of being memorized easily.

Technically speaking, Telescience isn't gone. You can still make the equipment if you get the materials for it, and it's not exactly expensive either. Hell, you can remove the ExperiMENTOR and rebuild Telescience in its old place quite quickly.

Nobody bothers.

That said, I've had situations where Command was favourable to a Honk Mech, usually when the Clown isn't being a shit. So it's not entirely impossible.

This is why I did not advocate for their complete removal from the game. Clowns need *something* to encourage them not to just be assholes who slip everyone. Just as clowns who make the crew miserable by slipping hallways need to suffer more, clowns who make the crew happy need to be more rewarded. I could definitely see giving a HONK mech to a clown who does a really good job, making the crew happy, or say, robusting multiple traitors, as a valid reward. It can always be destroyed with an ion gun if they abuse it - but for a clown to get one, they probably have to be so responsible that I doubt they would abuse it.

IMHO, the best way to nerf HONK mechs is actually unrelated to science - reduce the value of bananium ore in mining to zero. Thus, miners no longer have an incentive to gather it, and its very unlikely to be acquired in quantities sufficient to construct mechs out of it.

I applied a bit of common logic

Logic + SS13 = Danger Will Robinson!

Well, technically, the Science Department is there to do Science, and one of their job objectives is to literally max out Research.

R&D is one kind of science, out of the 6 kinds (robo, telesci, scichem, xenobio, toxins, and genetics).

Making a rule that RD must max one kind of science, ignoring all others, is weird.

(snip)

Good points, however:

1) I believe that medbay is very under-utilized as is. There are times medbay is lucky to get a couple of patients in the whole shift (I know, I've played medbay a few times over the last few days, and not once was there any substantial action). Aside from chat/hang out, there's not a lot for them to do most shifts. Frankly, I think docs could use the extra work of handling the cloner. It would give them something to do.

2) There's nothing stopping genetics research from providing their products to medbay even if they're made a proper sub-department of science. Heck, I support the reinforced windoor/desk-in-the-wall thing to encourage this. At the very least though, CMO should have exclusive authority over cloning, and RD should have exclusive authority over genetics research.

January 28, 2016

Nothing.

When I look through the karma shop, I don't see anything I want.

Most of the stuff in there I wouldn't play, even if it was a default option accessible to everyone.

January 28, 2016

Research can be brought very close to being maxed (and for all intents and purposes for what the parts do, may as well count as being maxed) without any help from mining.

What useful things can you do with that level of research, but no minerals?

January 28, 2016

Updates:

Added new spider type: green terrors. Think weaponized nurse spiders. In normal spider infestations, they're the primary method for spiders to breed. In games with a queen, they function as early nest guards - and decorators.
Adjusted balance for reds and purples. Reds are no longer guards, they are now the generic terror spider attack class. Much more dangerous than regular spiders, but without any special AI or abilities from the other terror spiders. Their stats have also been reduced, since they'll be more common. Purples, on the other hand are most definitely guards for nests - they're only created at nest sites, and have AI that makes them serve as bodyguards. This includes returning to the nest if someone tries to kite them away to strike at the queen. Yes, they detect some common player strategies and adapt to them.

Made new sprites. They're still bad, but at least they're getting better. I really need a spriter to volunteer to help me with this project.

Added in two somewhat-hard counters to the terror spiders. One is a science item that, when used on a spider, deals huge damage to them and turns their regeneration into degeneration, ensuring the death of that spider once enough time has passed. I'm not sure exactly how to balance this, but suffice it to say the laser cannon will NOT be the best way to fight these things with maxed R&D - there will be another item which is substantially more effective against them. The other method is medical-based. Yes, there is actually a counter to white spider venom now. No, it isn't charcoal, calomel, or surgery. None of those work against white spider venom. The solution is both more creative and more powerful. Used right, it becomes not just a treatment, but also a defense - and even a weapon. Yes, this opens the door to the possibility of farming whites for their venom to weaponize it... but bear in mind this is exactly what the syndicates were doing when they breached containment and killed the whole crew. Good luck if you go down this road, xenobiologists!

On the subject of hard counters, I am trying to design the terror spiders so that no department is useless in fighting them. Sec is obviously the most important right away, because they have the ranged weapons which can actually kill the terror spiders without their wielder dying (melee weapons generally can't). Cargo is vital too, because, like in a blob, running gun crates through cargo during a spider infestation can save the crew. Medical and Science have new counter options being programmed in which take time/resources to develop but are very effective once you do develop them. Engineering, of course, has perhaps the most powerful ability - welding the vents, which limits spider movement greatly - but it is risky and requires manpower to execute.

The queen's AI and survival chances continue to improve. She's not as skittish as she was before, now uses nurse spiders, makes less noise when setting up the nest, deals with cameras properly, no longer creates breaches to space, and has better handling for her ultimate attack.

What I'm considering now:

Just as purples are tier 2 reds, and whites are tier 2 greens, I am considering adding a tier 2 black spider. Tier 2 spiders are not straight upgrades of tier 1, they have specialized roles that are filled by small numbers of dangerous but specialized AI spiders. The tier 2 black would be the infiltrator, and its function would be to go around the map breaking open welded vents. It would be the sort of spider which is spawned only once, in queen mode, late in the game. I'm still unsure if I want to add this. I don't want it to be OP.
Where I can find a sprite-maker who can make decent sprites for these spiders.

How I'm going to balance all their stats so they're killable if you approach them the right way, but very hard to kill if you do it wrong - yet still feel like a fair fight in either case.

The various ways they can get into the round. Currently I'm thinking I might have the normal spider event have a small chance to spawn a red/black/green trio, a new major spider event (rare) that spawns 3 whites (when it happens, again, this would be a rare event) and the queen be in the code, but never spawned except via admin spawning her in. Assuming this is finished at some point and included, I can then ask the admins to run an extended round, spawn the queen, and have it run while I watch. This would give me insight into how players approach them, and let me do more balance tweaking before I finalized the various events. Dunno if the admins will go for it, but I figure something like that where I watch some rounds with my spiders in them would be a very quick way of checking they work in reality.

January 28, 2016

-TZO, THANK YOU. With your permission I'd like to cut down that little blurb of yours into something a bit more concise so I can toss it onto the guide.

Adapt however you see fit. Since you already covered "what do I make?" I sought to go after "what do I distribute?" instead.

The two are quite different questions - there are lots of things that you make as medchemist which you don't distribute freely.

The SS13 equivalents of prescription drugs.

January 28, 2016

Bluespace artillery fire detected. Brace for impact.

The Research Director must make sure Research is being done. Research must be completed by the end of the shift

I would add "assuming mining delivers adequate minerals, including diamonds" to this. Otherwise, RDs will get blamed for not maxing research when their department doesn't have adequate minerals to do so. Even if it is possible to scavange parts from other machines for levels, you'd be breaking those machines, and it would still be pointless because lack of minerals would still stop you building anything with those levels.

The Research Director is not permitted to authorize the construction of AI Units without the Captain’s approval. Exception is made if the station was not provided with an AI Unit, or a previous AI Unit had to be destroyed;

Good.

The Research Director is not permitted to carry their Reactive Teleport Armour on their person;

They can carry a weapon (baton, etc), but not a defensive armor? Weird.

The Research Director must work with Robotics to make sure all Cyborgs remain slaved to the station’s AI Unit, except in such a situation where the AI Unit has been subverted or is malfunctioning

Another good rule, as it is annoying when people meta and make unslaved borgs just because they know ion laws / malf AIs are a thing.

The Research Director is permitted to carry a single weapon created in the Protolathe, provided they receive authorization from the Head of Security and/or Captain

This is a bad rule because it constrains the RD to one weapon, even on red alert. Competent, armed RDs never carry just one weapon on red alert. They might have a tranq RSG or stun revolver for crew-based threats, a temperature gun for dangerous slimes, an AEG/lasercannon for carp/monsters, and/or a bluespace portal gun for utility. Whatever combination the situation requires. All of these have completely different uses, and you can't replace one with another - stun weapons are useless on monsters, you don't want to use lethals on crew, and temperature guns are bad at everything except slime control. Restricting the RD to one weapon just means they're more likely to get killed (because that one was ineffective against what they faced) or, more likely, they're always going to choose the "best" weapon (AEG/lasercannon) and be more aggressive with it, because they know they have no backup.

Second, it is an unnecessary rule because the RD can't unlock weapons (except the bluespace projector). Only Cap/HoS, and maybe HoP if they elevated their access, can. Presumably if Cap/HoS unlock a lockbox for the RD, and let him keep the resulting weapon, they're giving him a weapons permit to carry it. Since the RD already has to get in-person permission to carry via lockbox opening, what's the point of having it in SOP? There's already the lockbox mechanic, which is a far stronger way of enforcing the need for Cap/Hos permission.

Third, why exactly do we have restrictive SOP on red alert? Red alert is do-or-die time in the face of a major threat. Crew understand this and often throw SOP (and anything else that gets in the way of surviving) out the window because of it. If I was playing Captain, and I saw an RD only use one gun against a blob, when more were available, because "that's all SOP lets me carry on red" I would view that as total incompetence on their part. Surviving is always priority #1, and SOP should serve that goal, not get in the way of it.

The Roboticist is not permitted to construct Combat Mechs without express written and stamped permission from the Captain and/or Head of Security. This refers to the Durand, Gygax and Phazon. If permitted, the Mechs is to be delivered to the Armory for storage;

[*]The Roboticist is not permitted to construct Combat Mech Equipment without express written and stamped permission from the Captain and/or Head of Security. If permitted, the Mech Equipment is to be delivered to the Armory for storage. Exception is made for Equipment made for research purposes

These rules completely gut the use of combat mechs, to the point it is no longer worth building them except to be nice to security.

Sure, some kind robos will continue to make combat mechs, despite knowing that they'll go to security and the robos themselves will never get to have any fun with them. That's the kind ones, though. The majority might not bother.

As RD, I frequently give sec whole lockers full of improved gear and watch in sadness as the warden/hos lock it up in the armory and refuse to distribute even the basic non-lethal items like stun revolvers and crew monitors to their own trusted officers! Typically, after giving HoSes science items, I get a group of sec officers at the R&D desk asking them when I am going to give them stuff - because the HoS never even told them there is equipment waiting for them. If sci gives sec mechs, they'll either rust, unused, for the rest of the round, or a nervous HoS will parade around in his own personal mech "for protection", never using it effectively and ensuring his team can't sneak up on ANYTHING.

Worse, the majority of hazards which really need a mech to help deal with them (blob, xenos, etc) are fast-growing ones. If you wait until red alert is declared to even think about starting to build one, its probably not going to be very useful by the time it is done.

The relationship between science and other departments has to be one of give-and-take. An excellent example is Cargo. Cargo supplies science with minerals. In return, science upgrades the ore machine (meaning more points for miners) and gives them upgraded gear.

Under this SOP, however, science can't do shit without permission, and even if they do get permission to build cool shit, they probably don't get to USE any of it because it gets locked up in the armory where they will never see it again. That is not a give-and-take relationship.

The Roboticist is not permitted to transfer personnel MMIs into Cyborgs without express written and stamped consent by the Head of Personnel, in the case of a willing Cyborgization, or verbal consent by the Captain and/or Head of Security, in the case of a Cyborgization sentence. Exception is made for Civilians, who require no stamped permission, but must still fill a consent form;

The HoP should not have any authority over people not in the civil department. Second, all he really needs is to be *informed* that someone is getting borged. Getting his permission shouldn't be required, and seems like 100% pointless paperwork.

The Roboticist is not permitted to construct AI Units without express consent from the Research Director and/or Captain;

This directly conflicts with the earlier rule in the RD section which states that ONLY the cap can authorize new AI units.

Scientists are not permitted to construct weapons (IE, anything that comes in a lockbox, such as firearms and laser weaponry, in addition to the Portal Gun) in the Protolathe without express permission from the Head of Security and/or Captain. Exception is made for the Plasma Pistol, as it useful for completing Research;

Does this include temperature guns? Those are very helpful for xenobio. What about if a sec officer asks for something? What about if the BS asks for something? What if the HoS asks for something? Can you turn down the HoS' request for ammo because you can't reach the captain and you're interpreting it as "and"?

Scientists are not permitted to create AI Boards without express permission from the Captain and/or Research Director

Not even for R&D purposes?

Scientists are permitted to construct weapons in the Protolathe at their discretion, but these must be delivered to the Armory prior to being unlocked

If science has less incentive to make these things (because they never get to use them), then a lot less of them will be made.

The Geneticist is not permitted to grant Powers to non-Command Staff without express verbal consent from the Chief Medical Officer and the Research Director;

IMHO, make the CMO the sole authority on cloning. Make the RD the sole authority on genetic research. Having them share joint authority just sets up conflict when they don't agree.

Or, better yet, just make Genetics a solely science job, and give the doctors authority over cloning. They already do 90% of the cloning anyway, and pretending that genetics is a joint department when its staff spend >90% of their time doing science is a obvious fiction. The only thing medical that genetics does is clone people - and not only do they not usually do that, doctors could frankly use the extra work to do officially, seeing as they're usually the ones doing it anyway.

The Geneticist must keep Genetic Research recorded in a format of their choosing;

Why? So people can break in and quickly hulk themselves with notes the geneticist was forced to keep? That does not sound like a best practice at all.

If the Geneticist wanted to keep notes for others' benefit, he already would.

If he doesn't want to, this rule won't force him to. He can keep his notes in his head, write them in a format only he understands, etc, any of which would make the notes useless to anyone else.

Why does anyone even care to look at a Geneticist's notes, given that any powers they develop can be reset with a syringe gun and a few units of mutadone, regardless of what they are? You don't need notes to reset powers.

Telesci/Xenoarch

Realistically, I don't think there is much chance of either of these jobs coming back. When/if they do, I will happily eat my words, but in the meantime I don't see the point in having 100% unnecessary extra words in the SOP document which is already going to reach godzilla-sized proportions.

The HONK Mech is not to be constructed without full approval by the Research Director and Captain

The word "and" there is quite important.

It means the RD can say no to a HONK mech even if the captain says yes.

In practice, this means that unless either:

A) The captain and RD both agree on making the HONK mech (unlikely)

or

B) The captain wants a HONK mech so badly they're prepared to fire the RD if they don't say yes to it (unlikely)

- that no HONK mechs will be made.

RIP HONK mechs. I shed no tears for their loss.

I was not aware they could only make Advanced E-Guns.

If you don't regularly play science, it might be worth pinging the regular science players you see, and see what they think of this new proposed SOP.

January 25, 2016

I kinda like it.
I think if they got fleshed out enough, I'd almost prefer these to the Xenomorphs as a replacement, given how fucky Xenomorph infestations go (Either they lol destroy or they just get asploded at the start.)

Though, I doubt that'd ever happen since most the server based likes Xenos so much.

Still it'd be a neat alternate infestation alongside Cortical Borers and Xenos.

As written currently, there are two different types of terror spider infestation.

The first kind is a major event, like blob/xenos/etc that can happen late in the round. Here, some of the spawned spiders can generate new spiders by interacting with crew. However, they can't grow unless they can interact with crew.

The second is queen-based. Basically the queen spawns, finds a nest spot, makes a nest and starts spawning spiders at regular intervals, until she is killed or the station is evacuated. This is intended to be more of its own game mode than a random event, because if left alone the queen's brood will definitely overrun the station.

Either one has the potential to whelp, loldestroy, or everything in between, just as any random event does.

That said:

1) In the first case, this isn't such an issue, because its a major event that happens at the end of a round. Shuttle was going to arrive soon anyway. Also, the spread of the spiders is directly determined by how the crew interacts with them - a crew which behaves stupidly is going to have a much shorter life expectancy than a smart crew.

2) In the second case, there are actually several mechanisms built into the queen's AI specifically to stop her being zerg rushed and killed 30 seconds into the round, as wizards and blobs often are. She will destroy lights and cameras nearby when she starts nesting, so AI can't track her and crew can't normally see her since she lives in the dark. She will put up defensive webs, to stop people scouting her area. The first spider eggs she lays are always praetorian guard spiders, so she has some defense early on against a quick zerg rush by the crew. I am debating giving her AI which means she will only nest in out-of-the-way places - crew should really never find her nest early on, crew should have to look for it, and when they do find it, it should have defenses. It will still be possible to single her out and kill her... but I am trying to prevent her dying in 60 seconds because she spawned in the middle of medbay, as happens to blobs who spawn in the science server room.

Also, important note: I love xenos too. These terror spiders are intended to be their own thing, NOT a replacement for xenos.

They're intended to be different enough to xenos that they can stand as their own thing.

I just wanted a lore explanation for their origins, their use of combat tactics, and a way to explain them by referencing what players already know and I can compare/contrast against.

A lot of how they act was drawn from various kinds of real-life spider. The black spider, for example, isn't just called the giant black widow because I thought it would be cool (though, it is cool . She has a red hourglass on her abdomen, her bite causes vomiting, pain, trouble thinking/moving due to headache, muscle cramps, etc. The previous version of the Queen spider had her carrying her young on her back, like the Wolf spider does in RL.

January 25, 2016

Spider xenos? Hmmmm, no arguments here but I don't want rehashed xenomorphs

What is it about xenos you don't like?

What is it about xenos you like?

Or are you just saying they need to be different from xenos?

These things have many differences from xenos:

They have a variety of attacks. Some, like the red, simply bite you to death. Some, like the black, want to poison you and watch you die from a distance. Some, like the white, have other things in mind for you. Some, like the queen, don't want to fight you at all. Some, like the praetorian, just want you out of the nest. Unlike xenos, whose attack pattern is always disarm-facehug-drag, each of these types has its own thing.
Right now, they're all ai-controlled. If I enable player control of them, I am only going to do so for some classes (probably the attack classes) - because nobody wants the queen to do a suicidal attack in the first 60 seconds, or the guards to leave the nest and not be there when needed. Basically: enable player control only of the interesting roles, and leave the boring ones to AI.

They don't have a "creep" mechanic, the xeno flooring, which buffs them in certain territory. Instead they spawn eggs, webs, etc, which hurt others rather than buff themselves.

They don't use ranged attacks, like the xeno spit. I might add a range spitting spider in future, but it will be only one class - the rest don't use ranged attacks.

They don't acid walls, though they do break glass. They spread out of vents, rather than from room to room.

They're not designed to abduct crew. They'll bite, yes, but managing prisoners is not something they do. They're much more get-out-there-and-hunt then that.

Their reproduction isn't based on killing people. It is possible for them to reproduce without serious harm to anyone.

Their young don't "evolve" between classes like xenos do. Instead, spiderlings have a defined type when they're created (usually from queen's eggs) and they grow into that type. Sure, the queen can lay eggs of one type rather than another (and will, according to what the nest needs), but once a spiderling is born a red spiderling, it will always grow into a red spider.

January 25, 2016

The above is all IC.

The OOC version is:

I've long been disappointed with current space spiders for being both unrobust and not particularly spider-like.

So, I'm coding new kinds of spiders, called Terror Spiders, which have the following attributes:

Much more dangerous than regular spiders.
Designed in such a way that they reward thinking, tactics, strategy, and appropriate gear selection - but will wreck anyone who decides to try to take them on in melee. (realistically, its a giant, venomous, 8-legged bioweapon, wtf are you thinking trying to melee it?)

Cannot be ignored - if you ignore these they will breed, and ultimately take over the station.

Open up new gameplay options, such as extracting the Black Widow venom for traitor use, or providing new ways to use existing items.

Ideally, I'd like to make them playable, either as mini-antags (the first three) or a full blown game mode (with the queen infesting the station rather like a blob or xeno queen does).

AI that is worth a damn. They should choose their attacks and targets tactically, flee when necessary, remember friends and foes and treat them accordingly, etc.

Right now, I'm testing them locally (yes, I've written most of the code for them already).

I'll probably put up the code soon so others can test them.

In the meantime, I am looking for ideas.

What cool ideas do you have for spider types, or spider-related things?

What sort of questions would you ask if these things were added?

I want these things to be fun to play as, and with, but I also want them to be challenging. They're an infestation, like blob or xenos, which could be a random event and/or its own round type. Getting them to be both is going to be tricky, but that's what I am shooting for.

January 25, 2016

We've been getting scattered reports of new kinds of space spiders terrorizing NT and Syndicate outposts.

These spiders are thought to be the result of a Syndicate bioweapons project involving crossbreeding space spiders with xenomorphs.

The experiment went horribly wrong, the Terrors breached containment, and are now loose, with an instinct and ability to kill far beyond that of normal spiders.

From the scattered reports, we have been able to identify five types, henceforth classified the "Terror Spiders" due to their effects on NT crew.

They are, in ascending order of lethality:

1) The Red Terror Spider

Also known as the "Crimson Terror" and "Bloody Butcher" spider, this is a juggernaut of a spider. A weaponized version of the familiar red-eyed guard spider, this monstrosity has nasty, big, pointy fangs, and a vicious streak a mile wide. It moves slowly, but don't be fooled - its bite rends through flesh, bone, even armor as if it were paper. No humanoid has ever survived melee combat with it. It is not the smartest of the terror spiders, and it moves slowly, but woe to anyone who gets within reach of its jaws.

2) The Giant Black Widow Spider

Also known as the "Black Devil" and "Shadow Terror" spider, this is a tricky spider. Thought to be the results of experiments to weaponize hunter spiders by endowing them with venom derived from syndicate scientists, and intelligence from captured xenomorphs, these spiders produce an incredibly deadly neurotoxin that has effects similar to Tabun. Unlike Tabun, however, it scales with the amount of venom in you, thus multiple bites lead to fatality in under a minute. This spider is sly, moving quickly to strike and inject its venom, then retreating, relying on its potent venom to finish off its prey. It is also known to hunt aggressively - using vents to travel throughout the station to seek vulnerable targets. It is known to switch targets mid-fight, to hide in dark areas where its black coloring gives it a natural advantage, and to generally display tactical awareness.

3) The White Death Spider

Also known as the "White Terror" and "Ghostly Nightmare" spider, this creature is perhaps the most deadly of the three basic types. Its speed is unknown. Its size is unknown. Its appearance is unknown - though it is rumored to be deceptive. It is the unholy offspring of spiders, xenomorphs and nightmares. Never engage this spider in melee. Your only chance, if you cannot shoot it from afar, is to hide and pray it does not find you. Just one of these spiders is believed to have resulted in the death of the entire crew aboard Syndicate Weapons Research Outpost Gamma-4.

The only thing known about it for certain from the fragments of Syndicate data we have recovered, is the fact its attack is absolutely horrific. Worse even than the Black Widow's, it was termed "the most evil, insidious, downright horrifying way to go I've ever seen" by a leading Syndicate chemical researcher, shortly before contact with their outpost was lost. The only records we did recover revealed that its attack is very difficult to treat, medically.

In addition to being the most deadly, it is also known to be the smartest of the three standard types, being known to adapt its attack based on its target, to flee when tactically appropriate, and to influence the behavior of the other types. Any sightings of this beast should be reported to your command staff immediately.

4) The Praetorian Spider

Also known as the "Violet Terror", this spider is believed to be an offshoot of the Red Terror, specifically adjusted to serve as a guard for spider nests. While Red Terrors will wander far and wide in search of prey, this spider will not. It stays close to the nest it was born in, protecting the spiderlings until they grow and are ready to hunt for themselves. This kind of spider is very rare - no more than two have ever been seen on the same station, and even then, only in the presence of a Queen Spider.

5) The Terror Queen Spider

Undeniably the most deadly of all the five types, this spider is classified as a level 5 biohazard by NT, similar to a blob or xenomorphs in terms of threat level. Initially, it is harmless, avoiding people and seeking a quiet, isolated area to build its nest. Once it finds such an area, however, it behaves much like a queen xenomorph, fortifying the area, and laying eggs. These eggs hatch into Terror Spiders. The newly hatched spiders' first instinct is to hunt for food - which they do by using vents to track down and kill isolated crew members. Once enough eggs have hatched that the queen is confident of her brood's strength, she deploys a pheromone throughout the ventilation systems, one which causes all other spiders to become incredibly aggressive, actively seeking out any non-spider life on the station in order to exterminate it. She is dedicated to egg-laying rather than combat, but she is always accompanied by at least one Praetorian to act as a guard for her nests.

NT intelligence reminds its employees that these things are called TERROR spiders for a reason. If you attempt to greytide them, you will die, and serve as a cautionary tale for others. An armed response by station security, preferably with laser rifles, is required to deal with these monsters.

Report any sightings immediately, and remember, stay vigilant!

January 25, 2016

IMHO, here is what you should/shouldn't distribute as medchemist:

0) ACTIVE PURE CHEMICALS:

Don't distribute these at all, with the following exceptions:

ONLY give Radium to the virologist (if he asks, there is probably a virus, so consider it your top priority!) or people you'd trust to try to cure a virus. Put this in someone with a virus, and they'll take lots of toxin but probably cure the virus in that person. This will result in their death unless you also give them potassium iodine and/or throw them into cryo at a moment's notice.

ONLY give Sulphuric Acid to robotocists/scientists (even then, they should get it from scichem if they can).

ALWAYS give people iron pills if they ask - but make note of anyone who asks. Iron restores blood levels. It is useful to bleeding victims, and to you yourself if you use a syringe to extract your own blood for the purpose of making synthflesh. No more do you need to ask for monkeys! However... iron is also extremely useful to people deliberately donating blood to vampires, which happens surprisingly often. If vampires are reported, and people are asking for iron pills, that's very suspicious.

1) COMPONENTS:

Don't distribute these at all, with the following exceptions:

ONLY give Ammonia or Diethylamine to botanists, and other people growing plants.

ONLY give Sulphuric Acid to robotocists/scientists (even then, they should get it from scichem if they can - asking you is lazy).

2) CORE HEALING MEDICINES:

ALWAYS give these to anyone who asks. They save lives, and can't be used for anything bad. As chemist I usually leave a bunch of 45u saline pills in the medbay lobby - a single one heals most injuries. You can also give them to Sec, who take them before fights for much improved robustness with no downside.

3) SUPERIOR HEALING MEDICINES / UNIQUE HEALING MEDICINES:

ONLY give these to patients who need them, other medbay staff, and the medical fridge. It is very possible for incorrect use of these to be harmful. Omnizine, Morphine, Ether and Strange Reagent deserve extra caution. Omnizine heals very effectively below the OD threshold, but above that it KILLS very effectively. Morphine and Ether are often used for sedation/kidnapping. Strange reagent is capable of gibbing corpses when used incorrectly, which renders the victim much harder to revive. Be wary.

4) NARCOTICS

NEVER make these. If you use or distribute them, that's a crime under space law. If someone you give them to overdoses/suffers, that's arguably negligence on your part, a further crime. More generally, meth is often used by criminals to escape/resist security, and security will come down hard on you if you distribute it.

5) PYROTECHNICS

NEVER distribute these. They're only useful for making things explode and/or die and/or catch fire. Medbay has no use for them. Generally only traitors intent on causing chaos ask for them. The only people who should have these are scientists, and they should be making them in scichem, not asking for them from medchem.

6) FOOD RECIPIES

Despite playing chemist regularly, nobody has ever asked me for these.

6) TOXINS

NEVER distribute these. Their only purpose is killing people. All of them are dangerous, but Tabun, Formaldehyde, Neurotoxin, Cyanide and Capulettium / Capulettium Plus deserve special mention as being especially dangerous, due to their killing, silencing and stunning potential. Even a single syringe (15u) of Tabun can kill someone, and even 5u of Capulettium is enough to determine the outcome of a fight.

7) OTHER RECIPIES

In general, ONLY distribute these to someone who has a good reason to need them. "HONK!" is NEVER a good reason. Worth particular mention are:

NEVER give anyone space-lube, especially the clown/mime. This stuff is so ridiculously effective in combat, I am surprised it is not classified as a chemical weapon! I have personally seen entire nuclear strike teams taken out by medbay staff wielding this!

NEVER give anyone FluroSulphuric Acid. Its most common use is throwing on someone in order to burn their face/skin off - or destroy forensic evidence. Either way, very bad.

NEVER give anyone Condensed Capsaicin. It is pepperspray - a weapon. Sec can get their own from their brig dispenser.

NEVER even mix "EMP". It shuts off your headset, screws up equipment (including cameras and doors, yes, including your doors!) and is a right pain in the ass to deal with.

ONLY give metal foam in grenade form, and even then, only to people like engineers whose job it is to plug breaches. Expect them not to actually use it when it would help, even when they specifically asked for it.

ALWAYS offer to give the Janitor Space Cleaner. It allows them to clean without slipping anyone or having to put up signs. It is a miracle in a bottle. The only reason Janitors don't use it is that they are grumpy assholes who WANT their crewmates to be miserable.

ONLY give out thermite if the AI is malf and people have to breach its core to save the station. Thermite's primary use is in quickly destroying reinforced walls and breaking into maximum security areas faster than anyone can react. Be especially wary of mimes who ask for this - any mime asking for thermite has >50% chance of committing a capital crime in the next 5 minutes.

ONLY give Unstable Mutagen to botany. Anyone else who asks doesn't need it and is probably going to hurt someone with it.

ALWAYS give holy water to anyone who asks. You will need wine from the bar to make it, but it is very useful against antags, and super-easy to make. It only shows up as "Water", so be sure to separate it from normal water.

NEVER give Colorful Reagent to anyone. It turns SS13 into an episode of MLP. Hideous.

NEVER give "Life" to anyone. High chance of it leading to people dying.

8) OTHER ITEMS

NEVER give anyone the medbay's syringe guns. It is classified as a weapon for a reason. Chemists and the CMO are really the only people who have any business carrying it, and both of those two jobs can pick one up from storage if they want. Anyone else, probably wants it for nefarious reasons.

ONLY give out other medbay items if the situation seems to really need it. The assistant does not deserve to get that medical HUD when there are doctors who still haven't found one. If medbay is almost unstaffed, though, maybe it is time to give someone who hangs out in the bar a healing kit. You can't be everywhere. Lots of people dying of toxins, with no doctors around? Maybe time to start handing out toxins kits. Be careful, though - other people can't be trusted not to run off with vital supplies, and non-medbay staff can't even be trusted not to waste a whole toxins kit healing 5 points of toxin damage because "I gave it 5 seconds and I still felt sick!"

MISC:

CYROMIX:

It is a VERY good idea to mix cryoxadone and mannitol in a 40/60 ratio in cryotubes. It makes the cryox last long, and it ensures people in cryo have their brain damage healed as well. If hulks/etc are on the rampage, it can even be a good idea to use a 40/50/10 cryox/mannitol/mutadone mix.

SELF-DEFENSE:

In general, you shouldn't need it. You're right in the middle of the station, in a highly-visible area right next to the bar. If you're blown up, people will notice and clone you quickly. If you're attacked, people will see it. If someone is breaking in, merely radioing "; breaking into medbay chemistry!" will usually have sec on their ass in seconds - sec really hates antags with chem weapons/bombs/etc.

If, however, the situation has gone to absolute shit, its code red, cult everywhere, etc, and you're fighting for your life, there is one very simple thing you can do which will get you out of >80% of most fights: load up one of the medbay syringe guns with neurotoxin syringes. NOT the chemical neurotoxin. This is a different neurotoxin - you get this by mixing ether (which you mix) with Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (a bar drink). Mix the two together to get "Neurotoxin". 5u of this in a syringe in a syringe gun is an instant stun, much like a taser. Great defensive weapon - just don't shoot someone with a bunch of 15u syringes of it, because that could be harmful.

EDIT: Bartender Exceptions:

I have been told by an experienced bartender, that sometimes bartenders want:

iron (for the drinks Amasec and Beepsky Smash)
sulphuric acid (for the drink Acid Spit and the food Diona Roast)

ether (for "Neurotoxin", different to chem neurotoxin, an extremely strong drink and stunning agent)

epinephrine (for "Suicider", a drink)

radium (for "Singulo", a drink)

blood (in a syringe, for Demons Blood, Devil's Kiss, and Red Mead, all drinks)

silver (for Patron, a drink)

January 15, 2016

Often times not told what is happening (no security comm access)

Check in with people over command radio.

which sometimes leads to a fresh body in the morgue delivered by security and not a name given to avoid cloning when we see green

Aforementioned anti-cloning implants would be great.

Hell, once or twice I've seen the CMO competently ignored when a crime scene happens WITHIN medbay by all security once they actually show up.

What would you like to happen? Arresting criminals is sec's job, not the CMO's.

Medical SoP is often forgotten or dismissed when not believed (concerning genetics mostly).

Control of genetic powers falls to RD, not CMO.

RDs can and should demote them if they give out powers to everyone, etc.

It is one thing for a new doctor to screw up or not know the medical mechanics very well but it is another to see them constantly do it and harm their patients as they fix them.

Teach them. Hold training classes for docs.

If you see them messing up, show them the right way.

If they keep screwing up and refuse to listen, demote them. You have the power.

There are also some cases of patients being zig-zagged across multiple doctors. I'm not referring to Patient-Stealing (another problem during mid-treatment/surgery) but some doctors dumping their patients onto another.

Better they give their patient to another doc, then guesstimate a treatment.

That's not even going into how some chemist hand out whatever that is legal freely or the virologist stepping out of his lab and freaks everyone out by having a virus inside him. Though that might be just my gut reaction to seeing the sick icon, I'm pretty damn sure there is an SoP regarding all this, especially when not informed.

You are the CMO. You manage medbay. So, manage it. Don't let people do bad things in your department.

All par for the course and these are just ramblings of a madman or do I gotta kick things up a notch?

As a head, your job is to keep your department in order.

Be an adviser, a teacher, a disciplinarian, and a 'nope squad', in that order.

At that point I just "Nope." and baton and drag them to the HoP's desk.

I too have a 'nope threshold', when playing as a head.

Once someone crosses that threshold, they will be demoted. It doesn't matter if I have to stun them, cuff them, and drag them before the Captain himself to make the demotion happen. It will happen.

January 15, 2016

Are you imagining something like this?

http://www.tiikoni.com/tis/view/?id=9ab2d88

A big room designed for things like a second engine, or other major construction on-station?

What exactly would you build there?

I'm curious. Usually when I am CE I only bother building small hidden rooms.

There's already a construction room next to the drone control unit in north eng.

What would be big enough that it would really take all that space, except perhaps a second engine?

January 15, 2016

Ideas:

Delete everything about the recruiter. Doesn't exist anymore.
Delete the bit about asking for a custom title. Most custom titles are terrible, and people should not be encouraged to use them. Even bringing up that they exist is unwise.

Divide the rest into the three reasons people play assistant: new players, greytide, and casual RP.

For new players, add info about how to do basic things, links to help pages, and info on how to find a department who would like a helper.

For greytiders, add a section on how to greytide responsibly. This would include how to acquire items without theft (maint, asking, etc), how to stay on the right side of sec, how to make autism forts in maint, guidelines for vigilantism, etc.

For RPers, give tips as to public areas they can RP in. Bar, civil sector in general, acting surprised when you see xenos in maint, etc.

January 15, 2016

I wish we could be automatically listed whenever pop <40, and unlisted otherwise.

I know it isn't possible, but I can dream.

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Kyet

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Posts posted by Kyet

Terror Spiders!

Make genetics have only the CMO's authority

Make genetics have only the CMO's authority

Make genetics have only the CMO's authority

Give ALL CREW service channel on comms

Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

Antag Reminders

Add a case of pill bottles to the Science Chem Lab

Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

What was your last karma unlock? What's next?

Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

Terror Spiders!

Praxis' Medchem Power Guide

Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

Terror Spiders!

Terror Spiders!

Terror Spiders!

Terror Spiders!

Praxis' Medchem Power Guide

A CMOs Plea or Rant

Remove the Incinerator/Assembly Line for Workshops

Assistant Page

Less people more chaous

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