Machofish

Absolutely Possible. Really Inspired - Lewd Freedoms On Our Low-rp Server. It's the best I could come up with. Sue me.

I like how sleek this one looks in particular. As SomeGuy mentioned, I think loadable energy weapons would be extremely suitable for the ERT - there's more of an expectation for the ERT to spend lengthy amounts time 'in the field' since they're almost always used as a crutch for incompetent/dead departments. Furthermore, making reloadable energy rifles an ERT-only weapon would limit the amount of extra ammo that can be accumulated at once, so that one couldn't feasibly be walking around with any more than 2 or 3 extra magazines. Particularly I think this would be a good way to 'smooth out' the gradient of firepower between the ERT levels as well, since I feel that going straight from the laughably inadequate supplies of the Amber ERTs to the army-slaying power of Red ERTs leaves a missing link that ought to be addressed. More specifically, I'd love to see these used to replace the lasercannons that code Red Security ERTs get, as the lasercannons are bulky, easily lost and offer way too much stopping power considering that each code Red Security ERT is issued one. I don't want to hijack this thread with my own suggestions - it's just that I really see potential for these to fill a niche. I propose that the ERT's arsenal get restructured around the reloadable energy rifles in the following manner: - Amber ERT: Security ERTs in specific receive one reloadable energy rifle, with a single extra magazine. The ERT Medic, Engineer and Commander are left as they are with their eguns/laserguns and other relevant gear. - Red ERTs: All Red ERTs get one reloadable energy rifle as standard-issue; Sec ERTs in Code Red would be given three extra magazines, the ERT Commander gets two spare magazines, and Medical/Engineering ERTs are not given spare magazines. Hopefully this will encourage the 'support' ERTs to work together with their Security ERT buddies if they want to confront threats such as terrorspiders, blob, and xenos. - Gamma ERTs - Ditch the ridiculous deathsquad-grade pulse weapons (particularly the disposable, non-rechargeable pulse pistol); all ERT members get a reloadable energy rifle with two extra magazines; Security Gamma ERTs get teargas grenades and the accelerator lasercannon. To place Gamma sec in a place that's equally as versatile as their old pulse carbines without being as hilariously deadly, make it so that the ERT armour can fit accelerator lasercannons in the suit storage slot. Currently, the only places I see Gamma ERTs deployed are for admin events where the station is not realistically equipped to handle whatever the admins are throwing into the round - the problem with pulse weapons is that they really do not offer any chance of survival to their target, and are much more suited to the Deathsquad. Alternatively, get rid of the lasercannon as being redundant and give Gamma Sec ERTs one of those Enforcer .45 handguns with a spare mag or two so they've got an option for fighting laser-immune targets such as eshields, dual e-swords etc. I'm not sure what sort of performance the Enforcer .45 offers, so it could be any sidearm to fill the role of a 'light, mid-level ballistic weapon to serve as a panic button.' Anyways, that's my take on it. As others have mentioned, these might give a little too much dakka if they were made available to regular sec (from my own experience, a WT-550 with a couple extra magazines can go a very long way already), but I think they're perfect for giving ERTs more flexible/sustainable firepower without directly boosting their lethality.

In regards to the original sample, I was pretty sure that chainsaws do have a reasonable chance to block melee - including stun batons and telebatons. If not, then it should be addressed since I'm pretty sure double-eswords have a pretty good chance of blocking melee, but that's nitpicking and besides the point, so I'll leave it be. I do think it's a bit excessive that all heads of staff get a telebaton. Telebatons encourage heads of staff to overstep themselves and generally I think it encourages more aggressive behaviour from the heads - the "Maslow's Hammer" concept applies in a very literal sense here. Heads of staff should have some sort of contingency to stop random greytiders or griefers in their department from decking everyone with a toolbox, but the telebaton often gets used beyond that. I don't know if anyone else remembers how the telebaton used to be a few years back, but I think many of the problems related to the telebaton is that they, to my knowledge, were never intended to serve as a 'safe' lightweight self-defence weapon for all of command. I seem to remember that originally, the telebaton was a HoS-specific weapon (this was back before the HoS had the telescopic shield or the replica antique gun), it was essentially a flat upgrade to the stun baton in terms of damage output and portability. To be frank, I think the flash was a good enough self-defence weapon for the heads - not including whatever extra weapons or items they accumulated from their own department (i.e. RDs getting their hands on RnD gear, the CE having easy access to stunprod materials, the CMO being able to load knockout drugs in the hypospray). The lag-susceptible, short-duration nature of the telebaton's knockdown also means that it specifically rewards veteran players and powergamers while punishing new players who try to use it. To be fair, I believe the telebaton's current rendition is meant to balance the fact that flashes no longer stun players outside of specific contexts, but it does seem a bit over the top that every head of staff is entitled to a weapon that can effectively function as a longer-duration stun baton when used properly.

I have yet to read a compelling argument for why the IAA's job should include unconditionally advocating for all detainees. I think the 'Lawyer' and 'Public Defender' alternate titles give the wrong connotations into what an IAA should be doing, nor do they encourage any sort of contributing behaviour. IAAs do have a place in sec - ideally, the IAA should be helping sec by more thoroughly looking into reports of bad behaviour and evaluating whether the complaints against a member of sec are legitimate or not. The common problem is that many IAAs instead think that their job is to see how many security members they can fire in one shift, regardless of intent or consequence of the sec member's actions. This creates a vicious cycle where most of sec ignores the IAAs on the principle that nothing they do or say will be useful, or that every last ounce of influence that security gives them will immediately be used to pry sec apart. Then as a result the IAAs become resentful towards sec, begin showing bias against sec in their reports and allegations, and so on.

I agree to this in general, but a few concerns: - If the spaceperson holding the meatshield-hostage is able to shoot over their hostage, there should still be a risk of possibility of the hostage-taker being hit by frontal shots - either they get to hide fully behind their victim, or they expose part of themselves to shoot past their hostage - not both. I'm saying this because I imagine it would be disastrously easy for nukeops to advance down public hallways with a phalanx of crewmembers to soak up all the incoming fire. Likewise I could imagine powergaming sec+genetics using humanized monkeys in a similar manner during war ops. While you did mention crit/dead people wouldn't be usable as meatshields, I feel that simply limits the mechanic rather than addressing potentially fundamental problems. - The idea of roleplaying a hostage situation is fun, but I'm really not sure it would be sustained by the community. While this is of course anecdotal - and by no means solid proof - last time I saw a 'hostage situation' play out on Paradise, security did not heed the potential threat of the hostage-taker, stumbled over each other trying to force their way in through the front door and ended up getting the hostage killed - all without the faintest attempt of negotiation and all in contradiction to the HoS pleadingly, insistently asking them not to do so. There wasn't an actual hostage in this case (the 'hostage' was Ian) though I somehow imagine that situation would have gone worse if there was an actual player at stake, rather than better.

As someone who primarily plays in sec, my advice is to keep practicing and eventually you'll get better. As it still stands, playing as an antag and succeeding is already immensely difficult. Security may be the 'good guys', but that does not mean they should always be in an advantageous position to win, nor should they be in a position to take down 100% of all antags over the course of a round - traitors in particular need their absurd numbers to divide security's attention, or they'd all be caught the moment they started trying to work towards their objectives. The problem I see often is that Sec doesn't adapt or escalate their response to suit the threats facing them. A traitor RD subverting the AI would justify a much more aggressive response than a civilian with a chameleon projector, for instance. The only instance where antags get a free pass is for the hijack objective: frankly, there's only one reliable tactic for hijacking while minimizing deaths, and it happens so often that it's become expected and boring. About Changelings For changelings, I'm personally alright with their array of abilities - with the exception of their 'swap form' and 'transform sting' abilities: Considering this server still carries the veneer of being 'Medium' roleplay, I somehow get the impression that most people do not find it an engaging 'Medium roleplay' experience to be involuntarily forced out of their customized character and into a neon-colored furry clown for the rest of the shift. Being killed is fine, being removed from the round is fine - being forced to play as someone's deliberately hideous borderline-blasphemous Mary Sue furry OC without any way of going back, or knowing which changeling did it to you is, in my opinion, not fine. Granted - not everyone cares about RP: some of us just want to ignore RP, mash the 'randomize' button a few times then run around spouting stale memes while responding to all disapproval with screeching and toolboxing - but it would be nice if we stopped adding game mechanics that exclusively catered to low/no-RP gameplay styles. In the past, there originally was a way to 'litmus test' for changelings by diluting their blood into a cup of welding fuel - this was more meant to be a 'cherry on top' to confirm a changeling who had been sloppy enough to leave an evidence trail. The problem with welderfuel testing was that security and command would often take this to an extreme by procedurally going through all departments and rooting the changelings out through a mindless process of elimination, so it was removed. Changelings are difficult to track, but once they reveal themselves it's very difficult for them to completely regain their anonymity as long as the crew and security are diligent in tracking them. For changelings, I will add to the other sentiments here that they're alright if they aren't being played for the express purpose of causing pointless, profitless agony for other players. Covering up evidence as a changeling is a time-consuming process, and the more time spent on disposing evidence, the greater risk of being caught. Furthermore, their combat-oriented abilities aren't uniquely more or less dangerous when compared to similar means available to other antags such as traitors or vampires. About Wizards I find that wizards, in their current rendition, are tiresome antags - either wizard rounds end too quickly because the wizard dies early, or the round becomes a 2 hour grind of continuous, gratuitous, senseless murderboning. The only real way to have fun during a wizard round is to either be the wizard who's steadily and systematically depopulating the server, or a slaughter demon who is also steadily and systematically depopulating the server. Disintegrate is only one ability out of an enormous grab-bag of low-effort, high-output spells that a wizard can use to remove enormous numbers of players from the round very quickly. This has only been made worse now that the wizards no longer get proper objectives aside from "Murderbone and don't stop 'till you drop." but that's a discussion for another thread. What I'm trying to say here is that while I agree wizards aren't exactly optimal in terms of enjoyability, removing a single ability will hardly change much when the problems with this particular antag exist on a much more fundamental level.

To be frank, I would be in support of tightening server rules about naming policy. This topic has been an elephant in the room for long enough. If someone here has an honest, sensible and heartfelt argument supporting the tolerance of pop-culture names - which are vehemently denounced at worst and awkwardly tolerated at best - I'd be extremely interested in hearing and discussing it. Like it or not, this is a conversation that needs to happen - it has taken place time and time again behind turned backs and closed doors. I'm of the opinion that refusing to discuss a matter of this sort is exceedingly harmful, due to its propensity for cultivating falsehoods and hurtful rumours - and the longer this sort of talk goes unaddressed, the more this directionless resentment will build up. Notwithstanding the context of discussing a sci-fi game about clowns and explosions in space, I am confident that we are capable of having this discussion in an honest, calm, upfront, and mature manner - instead of whispering to each other about it like so much recess gossip at an elementary school. So I'll pose the question again: Perhaps we should not discuss "why the rule needs to be changed," because that point of view has been presented and almost unanimously supported to a point of redundancy. Instead, I think it's more important that we hear the counter-argument explaining "why we haven't changed the rule yet." I'd rather accept a forthright, honest argument from the horse's mouth that I can respectfully agree to disagree with, rather than be forced to accept this awkward, borderline political quagmire of deflections and coy finagling that seems to pervade the whole topic like a bad smell. I mean c'mon - we're all smart, articulate people here. In lieu of actually being mature, reasonable adults, I'm certain we can at least act like it. Surely something as simple as this shouldn't be such a big deal to at least talk about?

Agreed with everyone else here - it's terrible. As far as a game mechanic, it's poorly implemented, has no dynamics in terms of meshing with other mechanics of the server, and contributes nothing to the server - aside from lowering our already abhorrently low RP threshold. This is as bad as the stupid hamsterwheel maint drones we used to have. Items like the HONK mech are acceptable since they're well-coded, fully implemented, and they exist due to meshing with other elements of the game - such as robotics, or the fact that the honkerblast horn can knock down xenomorphs - botany size growth does not mesh with any elements, it is frankly ugly and it is anathema to any sort of RP - thus, we stand everything to gain and nothing to lose from removing it.

Incidentally, I'm actually of a mind that Plasmamen are a little too powerful in their current state, and this is from someone who does have a consistent Plasmaman character. Having a default, non-negotiable EVA suit with light armor at round start, is incredibly useful - notwithstanding bonuses over a regular EVA softsuit such as: no noticeable encumbrance in pressurized environments, the fact that medical treatments can be applied through the suit, etc. To be frank, I'd almost go as far as suggest that Plasmamen don't have a unique vulnerability compared to other species: Unlike vox and slimes, plasmamen are still cloneable if medbay is skilled enough, the Plasmaman suit provides protection against diseases and certain chemical gasses, and they don't have a true "Achilles heel" in combat situations - other than the fact that the plasmasuit itself can be removed, which hardly matters as if someone can keep you down for long enough to remove your helmet or airtank, that probably means the player would have died as any other species in the same situation. Again, I feel like I cannot stress enough how much of a bonus it is to get a lightweight, complimentary EVA suit at round start. When areas of the station are being bombed, a virus is going around, a xenomorph nest has been spotted, or a situation calls for fucking off into space as an antag - or for an officer to go into EVA to chase an antag, every second counts when it comes to distributing EVA suits - and there are never enough hardsuits or softsuits for everyone. Being a plasmaman is like having a VIP pass to survive a vast majority of threats that everyone else on the server is forced to take seriously.

More? More. It's certainly been a while. I'm not as sure about these ones - either I'm out of practice, or I'm expecting more of myself than I used to. Interpretation of Sly Bashline participating in what I can only assume to be some sort of ancient and venerable east European meditative crouch. Unfortunately I ran out of paper as I got to the legs and feet, so there's a bit of a body proportion issue - I'll pretend it's 'stylized' instead, though. Since ExGame went through all the hard work of finding that painting, I did this as a request - this was from a round sometime in 2015 (I think?) where Katiki got arrested with Sleeping Carp, broke out in processing, and proceeded to beat the crap out of most of the security department before Warden Pablo showed up with the krav maga gloves. As far as the sketch, I found this pretty challenging: I had a bit of trouble sketching a convincing martial arts pose, let alone figuring out how a vox would look doing it. I wasn't really satisfied with how the previous image turned out - the linework was pretty rough, plus I think I made a mistake trying to throw Cecilia in as a foreground element (reference to Saving Private Ryan, by the way), THEN I tried adding Pablo on the right - hauling a dead officer out of the way (cropped out because I didn't finish that part), which ended up making it look like I was working with 3 different perspective vanishing points at once. Overall, I wasn't particularly impressed with my own work, so I did another sketch of Katiki to make up for it. Sketch done on request for Mystery of Darkness (If I'm remembering the username right), of their character Draacthorn Shaantiid (I probably spelled that wrong, too). I had a lot of trouble trying to draw Unathi from the front, and I think this turned out alright. I think I wasn't supposed to draw him in security officer gear, so that's probably my fault too - it's a good thing I'm not getting paid for this, or I'd be in trouble. Contrary to common belief, it is possible to take down a fully-powered vampire - even if it's an enormous pain in the ass. Shouting or screaming expressions in particular always gave me trouble, so I figured I'd practice. Just to make things even more complex, I tried doing something wonky with the perspective again causing the characters to look a bit strange when compared to each other size-wise, but I think if I make a vague but intelligent-sounding reference to the keystone effect along with some abstract but deliberate-looking hand gestures, I can pretend I did that intentionally.

While I personally think the nullrod is heavily misused, nerfing it into the ground or outright removing it seems a bit over-the-top. Doing some code digging, apparently the nullrod does a stupidly high amount of damage - if I'm looking at the most up-to-date codepage, it seems that most of the nullrod alternatives do around 50% more damage than an average harmbaton swing. That. Is. Ridiculous. Tack on that the nullrod disrupts vamp powers and has lots of other utility functions, and the base of the matter is that it's currently too lethal and versatile to be a default piece of gear that gets dropped in the lap of a non-security, non-command role at round start. I'd argue that the nullrod should keep all of its utility functions, but the absurd damage it inflicts should be halved or even quartered so that it's primarily considered to be a tool with specific uses, rather than a flat-out weapon. Similarly, I agree that the riot-armor crusader gear is a little too over the top. The nullrod's protection against vampire powers and cult magic is invaluable - particularly, it's one of the few remaining options when the cult has become powerful and set up a teleport-rune stronghold outside the station's z-level, and when facing a vampire who inevitably manages to loot equipment from the walking pinatas stupid security officers. I personally think it was a bad idea to add all the sword alternatives to the null rod - most of them aren't even clearly religious in nature. Just off the top of my head, I've seen a claymore, a talking sword, a multiverse sword, and the dark energy sword. If the base damage of the null rod was reduced so it wasn't such an absurdly fearsome weapon in its own right, and we got rid of the extraneous, non-religious null rod replacements, perhaps there would be fewer instances of Chaplains who go rolling around in maint trying to grab some Valids. I believe the presence of the null rod should still make them immune to vampire powers or cult magic - there's plenty of ways in SS13 to murder a wayward Chaplain without needing to resort to cheap tricks, and murdering the chaplain as a cultist or vampire is rightfully a feat reserved only for the robust.

I think if we take a step back and consider the overall problem here, we might be able to come up with a better solution. The problem isn't necessarily that WAR! Nukies need Sleeping Carp, but that WAR! Nukies simply cannot contend with having 20+ combat shotguns pointed at them after they hit the station. Personally, I think this is particularly difficult for nukies due to the prevalence of internal injuries - I've said this dozens of time in the discord and the server's deadchat - when a nukie gets a broken bone, a damaged organ, or internal bleeding, they become a dead man walking. The chances are slim-to-none that they'll have the time to perform surgery. Even if the WAR! Nukies win their first two or three firefights, they inevitably get worn down by attrition from internal injuries. What I would personally suggest is some sort of Nukie-specific consumable item intended for quickly healing off internal damage or broken bones without surgery - the medgun has a chance of fixing broken bones over long amounts of time, but it doesn't fix organs; the syndicate medical borg's nanomachines can heal brain damage, but again they don't do anything for other organs. I realize something like this would require additional coding, but I personally would think it to be a good way to address a problem that the Nukies face right now.

I'd be interested in the concept of having one or two extra slots for dedicated "Detainment Officers" who help with prisoner processing and keep an eye open for potential breakout attempts - it could be a good way for new sec players to 'test the waters' before they dive into the experience of being a full security officer. I imagine these detainment officers would be given slightly less versatile equipment compared to standard security officers, reducing the associated risks of losing dangerous gear if they get robusted in the brig. This might sound like a bit of a bubble-wrapping feature, but I wish SecHUDs were altered so that they couldn't set wanted statuses without wearing an ID with appropriate access. This isn't to make things tougher on antags, but there are way too many situations where there are civvies wandering around with SecHUDs because that round's RnD department decided that they're going to be part of the problem instead of the solution. I don't mind civvies being able to spy on who's wanted and who's not, but actually going as far as to screw with the records should require a security officer's card level of access or higher. Needless to say, things like EMPs, emags etc. could reasonably be used to break the access permissions of the HUDs. This'll also make it easier to track comments/status adjustments made from SecHUDs rather than security consoles. The process for firing people in general needs to be streamlined. If you're in sec and someone from another department is abusing the gear/access from that department, you can usually PDA the relevant head of staff and get authorization to fire the perpetrator - lots of times I've managed to use this to deal with people who are 'toeing the line.' If there was a way to fire someone that didn't require jogging their ID all the way down to the HoP office which may-or-may-not be functioning, give the ID to the HoP or Captain who may-or-may-not be functioning, then jogging it all the way back to the guy slated for demotion (usually a 20-40 minute process due to command incompetence), then I'd be very happy. (alternatively, I assume that the detainment officer would cover this stuff if it was implemented as a separate job.) Anonymous/indirect crime reporting is a good way of giving security a gigantic headache instead of helping them. Usually I've found that people who have a crime to report will try to PDA the HoS. Unfortunately, since the HoS is up to their eyeballs in griefers and greytide, and can no longer detain someone on verbal testimony without getting bwoinked, this particular method is not as helpful as it used to be. Personally, I'd like to see the IAA department's role expanded to include gathering and arranging eyewitness statements and attempting to collect info about alleged disputes. Generally speaking, I think security needs tools that specifically counter/suppress greytide more easily, without making things harder on the antags.

From personal experience with maint drones, I've been killed as an AI within the first 30 minutes of a match by a single emagged drone casually waltzing into my core with the sonic hammer. In many ways an emagged drone is more versatile, concealable and deadly than an emagged borg - especially when emagging a drone requires a single click compared to the riskier and more finnicky process of screwing around with a borg's panel in order to emag them. Need to kill the AI? A drone does that on its own. The captain is hiding in their office and you need to assassinate them? Drone. Need a locker stolen, but don't want your fingerprints on the scene? Emag a drone and have it open the doors for you. Need to sabotage the engine? Send an emagged drone to turn off the emitters and/or overload the PA. Want to convince the crew that the AI is rogue? Order the drone to destroy telecomms, then have it electrify all the doors in medbay and brig. If your emagged drone is caught, it doesn't matter - because even if the drone gets taken out, there's no feasible way for security to trace it back to you. The problem here isn't that drones can be emagged - it's that emagged drones are disproportionately effective at infiltrating, sabotaging and assassinating a wide variety of targets with almost complete impunity. At present, I would suggest that emagged drones be made a separately-ordered traitor item all on their own.

This right here on rule 0 allows the admin to win every time. They are pretty much Gods. Pissed them off you get ban. They feel like banning someone, ban. Just because? ban. As it stands, that is part of the agreement taken by choosing to join and play on any server. It is vital to trust the admins to interpret and enforce rules equitably, and in a way that benefits the overall community. If someone does not trust the admins to enforce the rules in a way that suits their own playstyle, then that is their individual problem. A mistake I see a lot of players make is to think that if an Admin PMs them, it's some quasi-ritualistic pretext that comes before a ban. Speaking from personal experience, I have been admonished and scrutinized in PMs by the admins before, but I have never felt like an admin was unfairly issuing bans as a way of venting unrelated frustration or 'playing god' when it came down to it. I'm not sure what interactions you've had with Paradise's staff, but in my experience, the admins will always give you your 'day in court' - several in fact, judging from the histories of some people who wind up in the ban appeals section multiple times for breaching the same rules over and over again. Even in the event that you feel a ban was not applied in a way that the general community or the administration would generally consider 'fair', there is the admin complaint section. The admin complaint section is publicly viewable, too, which is very interesting when you consider that player complaint threads are kept hidden for privacy, while staff behaviour is treated with a greater degree of seriousness and accountability. Now, going to the topic at hand - I agree that the specific wording of the murder rules could be better. Personally, I feel that it should be worded to, "murdering someone in a situation where they do not present an immediate, tangible threat to you or the safety of others will result in a ban." But this is a tangent to the central point I'm trying to make: No matter how heavily the rules are structured or defined, if a player wants to bend the rules to suit their behaviour, they will find a way to bend the rules no matter what; on the opposite end of the spectrum, if the rules were so heavily defined and structured to a point where they were absolutely not open to interpretation of any sort, the server experience would become very dull and overly authoritarian. In fact, I think it is important to note that you've very carefully abridged the most important part of Rule 0. in quoting it, which is: Practice common sense while consulting these rules. The general idea counts, not the exact wording.

Similar, but not quite. Here, I'll give you a hint - you're looking for a French painting from 1896. While the server was down, I was asking for stuff to doodle and Counterfeitguise said I could sketch her character, Rissa. This was one of the first times I've seriously tried to draw a 'furry' character without ripping off someone else's art style. Krav Maga is fair and easy to fight against. It came up in the discord that Counter didn't like anime, so I thought this would be a fun thing to draw. Call "BIKINI KATANA BABES IV" a dumb title if you want, but nothing can top the monumental stupidity of Konami's "Castlevania: Erotic Violence Pachinko Machine".

Another set. It doesn't happen as much now that we're in 2020, but back in 2016, every time a vamp got detected the crew would just all sense of decency and go full valid mode. Referencing a round from a long time ago where the admins decided to spawn a xeno queen right at the start. It was hard-fought, but the crew got overrun eventually. I was still learning how to pilot mechs at the time, so my attempt to go on a rampage in a durand was fairly short-lived. >HE THINKS HE'S ENTITLED TO A LAWYER. My somewhat clumsy attempt at a meme that's more-or-less dead now. Obscure art history reference, go! I'll do a detailed request sketch for the first person who posts the painting that this image is based on. ...After all this time I still need more practice on drawing depth on the limbs and drawing legs/feet. Ah well, I'll figure it out eventually. I had to do a few drafts before I finally got a Durand drawing that I thought looked good enough. I know that missile racks are currently bugged, but whatever - rule of cool.

More art. "Oh, I don't think your healthcare plan covers this." Speaking of changelings in medbay... I'm not even going to say it. Nope. Nadda. No. Someone else say it. To ruin a joke by explaining it, there was a running gag where people would scream that Halogen (pictured above) was absorbing them, which at the time would be impossible since Plasmamen used to be excluded from Changeling selection. Also I'm going to mention that having an optional "overskirt" for plasmaman suits is a hilarious idea, and I approve of it. There was round where a vampire in xenobiology raised an army of golems, sending swarms of 3-4 of them after key members of the station. During a brawl in medbay where the golems were trying to take out the HoS, the paramedic came screeching in on the ambulance tram, drunkenly swerving through the mass of golems and roadkilling any who were unlucky enough to get stunned. It was one of the more creative methods of doing combat that I've seen. From pretty recently. Another vamp round - the CE's death alarm went off on the engineering outpost, and a swarm of four officers - one of which was Sergey - went to investigate. I figured, "The engineering outpost is a fairly confined space - not many hiding spots, either. Plus it's four officers going after one guy - this shouldn't take very long." Cue me anxiously waiting for a full fifteen minutes while what I can only assume must have been an epic rumble goes down on the engineering outpost, leaving the brig physician dead, two officers heavily maimed, and Sergey telling me that Luigi the vampire somehow escaped in spite of having a few bones broken. As for the image itself, I tried exaggerating the bodily proportions between Sergey on the left and Luigi on the right to give an illusion of depth, but I think I overdid it a bit. There's been a bit of kerfuffle about the 'Resomi' species that was added to Baystation a little while ago. In case this image doesn't make my opinion clear, I do not believe the Resomi will be a good fit for the server.

+1 to re-adding a delay. I think it would be interesting if diving was instant, but getting up from the ground at least should take a bit of time.

I would be okay with the idea of a nerf to secborgs, but removing them outright is not something I can agree to. Many of the problems experienced with security cyborgs would instead start emerging with what I would assume to be an increase of validhunting from other cyborg modules - such as the standard module and medical cyborg. I think security cyborgs have already received a few nerfs some time ago, although I'll list a few disadvantages they have: - Security cyborgs are poorly-suited for chasing people down, as they are (or should be) moderately slower than regular crewmembers. - Currently, I think security cyborgs should have the same durability as any other cyborg, no more and no less. - Cyborgs must rely on a disabler for ranged combat. While it is debatable whether disablers are more or less effective than taser electrodes, it still makes them lose a certain degree of versatility. If there's any significant validhunting problem relating to Security Cyborgs, I would argue that it is not due to the general design of security cyborgs, but more a problem related to how many security cyborgs are active at any one moment in time. Being able to outrun a security cyborg means little if there's two more waiting for you around the next corner. The problem of too many sec cyborgs often emerges when security turns several captured antags into cyborgs, and the cyborgs all join security. I think security cyborgs would be less of a problem if there was a limit placed on how many security cyborgs can exist at once - like one or two at most. This would hopefully force Security Cyborgs to stay in more of a specialized role, deliberately sent into the most dangerous situations, rather than a legion of well-coordinated validhunting machines who can scour the station for antags with impunity. As Doukan mentioned in an earlier post, another big problem with security cyborgs currently is the player attitude behind them: strong security cyborgs were tolerable when serving the Asimov lawset, as this would often force them to work within very rigid expectations. However, that has changed, and since many of the current default lawsets give cyborg/AI players tremendous freedom to act on their own personal judgements - or sometimes even use their lawset as an excuse to act violently - a number of problems emerge as a result. Overall, I don't think it's sensible to outright remove security cyborgs for being effective at their jobs: by that same logic, janitor borgs, engineering borgs, and medical borgs should also get removed as they're better-equipped than many of their flesh-and-blood crewmembers in their associated departments. If we saw an average of 3-4 medical cyborgs in one round, 3-4 mining cyborgs, or 3-4 engineering cyborgs, then I think there would be threads calling for nerfs to those modules, too.

Going over the thread discussion about RP, I think there's a bit of a catch-22 here: a) People want less powergaming, and more RP b)To give room for RP, people want less powergaming. c) To help create an engaging RP environment, people want more rewarding action and excitement - i.e. less 'bubblewrapping' or 'hugboxing' of certain hazards and dangers. d) Dying and sitting out of a round for lengthy periods of time really sucks - especially since you aren't going to be RP'ing while you're dead. e)The more hazardous and dangerous situations there potentially are, the more people will want to take steps not to die to them - thus, powergaming emerges. Unless it's changed, I'm pretty sure Paradise's slogan when listed is, "the perfect balance of RP and action," which I believe sums our dilemma perfectly: RP and action exist on opposite ends of a spectrum, yet rely on each other to make a truly rewarding SS13 experience. Action becomes meaningless if there's no RP backdrop to give rhyme and reason to the events taking place; concurrently, RP ends up feeling dry and pointless if there's no action to shake things up from time to time.

Wizard holoparasites. Done entirely from memory, so some details might be slightly off. Jayson Hawke, formerly @DaveTheHeadcrab's CentComm Officer personality. In retrospect, formatting a sentence in Yoda-speak just makes it sound clumsy and indecipherable instead of mysterious and profound. Inspired by Tully's "Subject Umbra" story here. Brightness and contrast levels were heavily altered in photoshop to make everything look grim and edgy. NT Rep walking around shirtless.

I personally think this is a better option than forcing sec (often a sluggish and incoherent department without a good HoS, as some forget) to be deliberately even more clumsy and unhelpful. I personally think that rather than making it so that the entirely obvious and easy-to-identify "stealth" equipment just has to be ICly ignored, make it OOCly harder to figure out that someone's stashing traitor gear - make matter compression implants cheaper, smuggler's satchels harder to find, and generally make it so that antag gear can't be explicitly identified unless the traitor is careless, or wants it to be identifiable. This would still give security the flexibility to not act like the obese incompetent cops in every tv show aimed at preteens, and it would demand a return to policework that relies more on investigation and piecing together criminal evidence rather than, "Did you search the suspect hard enough?"

This does clear up quite a lot. By the sound of it, I would again shift to argue that it's more important to address what items in particular make RD antags nigh-unstoppable. I'm a little surprised to see that telescience still exists in the server code, considering that the flaws related to it existed on such a fundamental level. (Personally I'd like to hear the justification for why telescience hasn't been taken out of the code yet, but that's for another thread.) By the sound of it, even if the RD role was changed to be a non-antag role, that wouldn't fix the basic problems relating to the very particular pieces of low-effort, high-yield science equipment that make antag RDs so unstoppable: there would still be the possibility of a basic science antag getting access to such equipment and exploiting it in a similar fashion (albeit with marginally more difficulty). I realize that the RD also has access to a slew of other tricks to potentially flatten the station - like taking the AI upload board from tech storage for an easy AI hack or using Tcomms to prevent an assassination target from calling for help, amongst other things. It feels like certain problems like these could be fixed by demanding a greater amount of accountability from the RD ICly - like questioning why an RD is making deathchems, or why is the RD pumping themselves with genetics powers, or why they're printing excessive amounts of illegal tech from the protolathe, etc. As an aside, this would probably result in a lot of negligent and/or powergaming RDs getting demoted as well. Frankly, I'm OK with that. What I'm trying to say is that it sounds like this problem is being approached as "RD antags are too powerful because of XYZ, therefore we should remove antag RDs", whereas I feel the reaction should be "RD antags are too powerful because of XYZ, therefore we should see what is wrong about XYZ and change it."

I'm surprised people are actually supporting this. As some of the toughest and most memorable antags I've encountered are scientists and RDs, it provides a good change of pace to the more mundane antags who don't have much power outside from their basic antag abilities. As SS13 takes place on a research station, I believe it is only right that the RD can potentially rock a round off its tracks if he/she has the right knowledge. The one place where I'd argue that RD antags are 'too powerful' would be during cult/shadowling, but I'd argue that's more due to how difficult it is for sec to cut through the red tape needed to investigate outside the station's z-level (the research outpost, mining outpost, engie outpost, gateway cults, abandoned white ship cults, etc.) rather than a problem specifically connected to the RD. In regards to shadowlings in science, that's more due to the fact that science has so many fractured sub-departments that rarely 'need' to interact with each other. SS13 is a game built around establishing a slight atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust - I think antag RDs (and head-of-staff antags in general) are something that could be countered with greater scrutiny from security ICly. I haven't been around the server for a few days - were there a few rounds in particular where antag RDs have been casually steamrolling the station, or is this suggestion coming from more of a general consensus?