[Character voices]

Obviously I imagine Cecilia's voice as the sexiest voice I've encountered in gaming.

Please, please, no need to be jealous.

 

In due seriousness, I always imagined Ceci's voice being constantly scratchy and hoarse from chain-smoking and yelling in full caps at the horde of over-aggressive manchildren security department. 

The closest comparisons I can think of would be Bonnie Tyler if she had an American accent, or alternatively, a mix between Courtenay Taylor and the Grenadier Sergeant from CoH1.

 

[Atmospherics changes]

As I've mentioned in previous discussions about atmos, I'd like these changes more if the station's infrastructure was better equipped to protect people from blindly wandering into breaches or getting sucked out of shattered windows. Currently, as soon as a single window gets poked out in maint, the entire area becomes inaccessible, and the only indication the average maint explorer will receive of this is when they open a door and the sudden change in pressure launches them down the corridor to their death. Also, have fun escaping a breached area, since those without magboots will be constantly getting wind-blasted out of the room they're trying to escape into. I know the station is described as a "metal deathtrap", but making every airlock into an actual deathtrap seems to be taking it a bit too literally.

As a suggestion, I would like to ask about the possibility of adding inflatable walls+inflatable doors to some emergency lockers ( or perhaps dedicated lockers containing inflatable walls/doors for emergencies, alongside the existing ones), so that players have a way of quickly assembling their own makeshift pressure chambers to escape depressurized areas, without needing to fully do engineering's job for them. Bonus utility as antags could exploit use inflatable barriers to delay pursuing security or block off a camera's field of vision.

 

[Vampires]

From personal experience, vampires have a unique quality in that they are arguably the weakest 'infiltration' antag in the roster (when compared to changelings, traitors and shadowlings), and yet also the most ridiculously powerful depending on who is playing them. Depending on who is asked, this massive range between starting ability and lategame ability makes Vampires either one of the best antags on the server or one of the most aggravating. New vampire players probably have the hardest time, since early-game vampires have almost no wiggle-space when it comes to recovering from mistakes or being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. What's worse is that oftentimes, new vamp players get wiped out mercilessly, as security players often deal with an antag based on their worst/most frustrating firsthand experience with an antag of that type.

On the opposite end of the scale, experienced or well-practiced vampire players are - though I am loath to admit it - terrifying and salt-inducing to go up against; especially if there's two full-power vampires working in tandem. I'd prefer not to go into specific examples, but rest assured that, at present, it's more than possible for a vampire to easily wipe out vast swathes of a densely-populated shift and succeed. There might need to be 'buffs' to early-game vamps, but fully-powered vamps are already impossible to fight as long as the vampire player doesn't make any fatal errors.

I agree vampires could benefit from more interesting mechanics, but I think that raising the 'ceiling' on fully-powered vampires is the last way I'd go about it. Personally, I feel that one of the worst qualities of playing against a cult or vampires is that they all rely on the chaplain's competency or presence, which often bottlenecks anyone who doesn't want to become a cultist or vampire-chow.

Again, while I think it's undeniable that the dramatic difference between an early-game vampire and a late-game vampire makes them unique, I think a significant proportion of the community do not find that this uniqueness makes vampires a particularly fun experience in practice (save for the few people who know how to consistently reach full-power: I'll bring that up later). New vamp players find that it's nearly impossible to reach full power without getting caught, and on the other hand new and regular security players find that it's nearly impossible to survive the one or two experienced vamp players who know how to consistently reach full strength: it's a gamemode that rewards a very small group of highly experienced players over and over again, at the expense of whoever else happens to be playing at the time.

 

To the specific ideas of staking/reviving vamps, I would be more open to the idea of vamps being more-or-less unkillable, if in return, their unique vulnerabilities were more severe. Currently, being exposed to starlight may deter newer vamps, but does absolutely nothing for actually blocking off spacefaring tactics - time and time again I've seen vampires escape pursuers by jaunting out into space with an EVA suit, which I think makes a lot of players feel cheated - since there's no significant punishment for doing so as a fully-powered vampire. Holy water, undeniably, is already a round-ender for vamps that have not reached full power: I would suggest that it be toned down in its' effects against unpowered vamps in return for keeping some effect on fully-powered vampires.

[Machosketch]

It ain't over 'till it's over!

 

An assorted collage of Cecilias. Not the most interesting thing in the world, but I feel that it represents solid progress compared to my less defined style in the very first post.

 

"So, do you plan on doing your job sometime this shift? Y'know, the one your department's been shouting at you to do for the past twenty minutes?"

 

"D-uh, why's a civilian got a nitro tank?"

 

I promised Mystery of Darkness that I'd take another crack at drawing his character. I think this might warrant a 'Round Three', since there's still a few details I'd probably do differently if I went at this again.

 

I always wonder what goes through the minds of people who willingly dogpile Nuclear Operatives: Do they not know about the explosive implants, or are they aware of it, but persisting anyway to 'throw themselves on the grenade' so to speak?

 

Dogfighting the nukies in the Security Pod may seem like a good idea at first.

At first.

Annoyingly, the sketchbook paper was larger than my flatbed scanner, so it's cropped a bit awkwardly on the left and right sides.

 

From a round that happened a month or so ago. Not to hog the limelight (absolutely to hog the limelight), Cecilia managed to be the last survivor on-station of a terrorspiders infestation - discounting those who may have skipped to the outposts or out the gateway. It started well, the crew was armed to the keel with guns and ammo, but a stationwide power outtage event occured - lasting for about fifteen minutes, stuck in the starboard primary hallway, while the silence was punctuated by the occasional sounds of sporadic gunfire, screaming, and crunching as the terrorspiders honed in on stragglers and picked off isolated crew. By the time the lights came back on, the sec comms were completely silent. Then the rest of the round essentially became the 'House Escape' scene from "28 Weeks Later" - except with gigantic spiders instead of zombies and a security spacepod instead of a motorboat. The Prince of Terror even took a couple bites out of the pod as it was taking off, which was enough to light it on fire and force a bail the second it left the hangar. By the end the only crew left on the public radio were Cecilia and the AI, who regrettably got left behind as the Deathsquad had armed the nuke and booked it.

While I wouldn't exactly call "People saved from terrorspiders: 0" to be the description of a 'successful' HoS round, it was still very memorable.

 

Everyone always complains about how weak IPCs are to EMPs, yet here I am, still amazed at how IPCs can avoid death every time an antag incorrectly assumes that snapping off an IPC's limbs means they're actually down-and-out.

 

Extreme People-Fishing: Cyberiad Edition

 

Flight attendant IPC. Originally based on Peppy-bot's description. I always imagined her having a ridiculously bubbly personality and one of those annoying voices that squeaks the last syllable of every sentence and manages to make every sentence sound like a question.

[Crusader Kings 2]

I am hopelessly addicted to CK2. It's actually starting to become a problem, since I'm not burning out fast enough to spend time playing SS13.

Personally, it felt like the 'graduation' of my obsession with Medieval 2: Total War and medieval history in general, though I haven't gotten to a point where I'm comfortable playing without excessive savescumming. Generally I like picking religions or cultures that are generally thought of as 'extinct' in modern times, and seeing how much I can 'break' the general progression of history by expanding and thriving as them. My favourite games so far have been taking over Egypt as the coptic christians to form the empire of Abyssinia, reforming Slavic Paganism as the Kingdom of Ruthenia, and I'm currently working on a Messalian Carpathian empire as the Avars.

One of the most memorable characters I've seen so far was a duke from my dynasty who was a possessed, imbecile lunatic - likely due to his parents being from the same dynasty (AI-controlled family members have a weird fixation on inbreeding, I've found), yet he still had 30 points in martial skill and the 'holy warrior' trait due to a modifier declaring that he was receiving military advice from Jesus.

I'd love to try out a multiplayer game, but unfortunately I've made some edits to the base game files which I believe disables the multiplayer feature unless I re-install.

 

If anyone's reading this and interested, here's an idea I've always wanted to try: Have 5 players all play as different patrician families inside of the same merchant republic. See how quickly the republic either conquers europe or wipes itself out due to constant assassinations.

[Walk when you are pulling someone]

If the big thing this is meant to address is the ridiculousness of speedboosted antags using the tactic of "stun -> drag victim all the way across the station before the stun even wears off -> kill, dispose body -> rinse -> repeat", then make it specifically that pulling or dragging forces someone to run at default or the slightly reduced speed of being hungry/underfed, where it's feasibly possible to give chase, or at least force the antag to choose between keeping their victim/hostage or being able to make a speedy getaway instead of doing both. At present, any antag with a steady supply of meth and a stun weapon, or even one cultist with the flagellant robes and stun talismans have all they need to steadily, single-handedly grind down the entire sec department over time unless someone in security has a faster-than-light internet connection and the reflexes of a housefly hopped up on caffeine and redbull.

[Ideas for Duct Tape]

Make duct tape usable to repair damage to cyborgs and mechs within a certain threshold - perhaps a limit of 10% integrity. Make IPCs somewhat repairable along the same lines.

Seconding FPK's idea to ducttape boxes. Make lockers and cargo crates ducttape compatible, too.

Allow duct tape to be used in place of a cautery during ghetto surgery.

Using enough pieces of duct tape and glass shards together should make a complete pane of glass.

If you're an atmos tech and your welder is running out, or you're caught without your toolbelt, ducttape should be usable in place of most tools when it comes to laying sections of ventilation and disposals piping.

Allow duct tape to repair damaged inflatable walls and inflatable doors.

Duct tape should be usable to blind cameras - the AI should be notified whenever this happens, and who is responsible.

Creating a duct-tape belt buckle on a chair should prevent you from being knocked out of the chair by most means: Best used for fire extinguisher+rollie chair joyrides.

Duct tape flashbang grenades together to make bundled grenades. Get job banned from sec immediately after using one.

Combining ducttape with wooden planks should make single-use medical splints.

Ducttape with a pair of prescription glasses to make them into cliche nerd glasses with tape around the bridge.

[Paradise Guide to Awesome Miscellaneous Stuff]

Matches can be lit and extinguished using your shoes, if you're too cool for matchboxes.

You can light cigarettes using an esword, igniter, or welder.

A multitool will make an esword turn into a technicolour rainbow tone.

The Security Compli-O-nator's "aggressiveness level" can be adjusted using a screwdriver. This unlocks new phrases such as "You have the right to shut the fuck up!" and "Stop or I'll bash you." Using a set of wirecutters will simply break the mask into stating, "Halt! Halt! Halt! Halt!" Compli-O-Nators can also be emagged to utter Beepsky's Voxtest2 insult.

Most energy weapons in the brig can have security flashlights mounted onto them as underbarrel attachments.

Duct tape can be used to smother the sound of security jackboots.

If you have someone in a grab, type [say "*flip"] to vault over them like an acrobat.

Use a screwdriver on a flash to open the battery compartment - add an extra battery and screwdriver the flash shut to make it light people on fire with a single click. This only works once, burns the flash out completely, and renders the battery unrecoverable: make it count.

Coffee will raise your character's body temperature - this will somewhat help you if you've been hit with a cryosting, or a shadowling's ice ability.

[CentCom Crew]

On 6/8/2017 at 5:00 PM, Bxil said:

One: What's with the Stanislaw Lem mania around this server?

Two: So, Hawke exists, but Uriel does not? (Who thell hell is Uriel?)

Hawke was one of Davetheheadcrab's CentComm characters. I'm pretty sure Dave retired/burned out a little while back, but he had some pretty impressive clicking skills - primarily, repeatedly robusting all of security as an unarmed civilian named Elliot Campbell - so the reputation for robustness carried over to Hawke.

Dave also had a CC officer named Graham MacAlea, who was essentially Dave's alternate for solving problems through methods other than aggressive Bluespace Artillery or excessive pulse rifle usage.

I believe there's also a CentComm IPC named VALKYR, who I recall has a habit of always speaking with a broken capslock button. I can't recall which admin plays them, though.

I also recall there's a PR officer named Acaleus(sp) Thorne. Again, I can't remember who plays them, but he has a habit of trolling regular players in command by faxing them with inane and often heavily demanding tasks (e.g. "Conduct a comprehensive review of every civilian service department on the station and have a full, organized and arranged report of your findings faxed within the next 12 minutes.")

I have no idea who Uriel is(n't?). The name seems to ring a bell for whatever reason - they might've been a CC character belonging to one of the admins who stepped down years and years ago.

[Make Uncloneable Species Unable To Be Changelings]

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure slimes and vox used to be exempt from changeling eligibility some time ago.

As for why that was changed, I believe part of the problem is that gamemodes like Changeling rely on a certain, overall level of paranoia and distrust between living crew. Indirectly, having several species that were known to be ineligible for changelings made changelings more difficult to play, since there was a wider pool of players that could be fully trusted by other crew. IPCs somewhat fall into this category, but their EMP vulnerability means that they still have every reason to be afraid of changelings as well - even if they have no genomes that a changeling would be able to harvest.

[Security items?]

Quite a few years ago, there used to be riot grenade launchers in the brig armoury, next to the riot suits and shields - these could be loaded with standard flashbangs and teargas 'nades as necessary, and launched grenades still had a slight delay before detonating. I had quite a few good rounds using it against blobs in particular, and I'd love to see it back in the game. For bonus points, let traitors steal it and load it with more sinister ammunition such as minibombs or IEDs.

As for general utilities, I'd like to see a prisoner implant management console placed at the dispatcher's front desk - officers already should have access to one near the labourcamp dock, but the majority of sec players are not aware of it.

I'd like to see one or two extra security biohazard suits added to that one locker in the armoury. They hardly receive any use, but they're very handy if medbay needs security present during a major disease outbreak. On the topic of safety suits, I'd like to see one or two security softsuits added to the armoury - they wouldn't need to be as protective as Sec Hardsuits, but they'd allow sec to respond more effectively to atmos flooding or mass-depressurization. This would be especially useful for Nuke Op rounds, where vast swathes of the station usually end up getting vented due to stray bullets shattering windows or explosive implants poking holes in the floor.

This might not be useful, balanced or necessary, but I'd like to see some throwable spike-strips in the armoury, too. As with the real-world counterpart, rolled-up spike strips could be thrown into the path of a vehicle, snapping open into a vehicle trap that tangles itself into the undercarriage of any vehicle that drives/walks over it, dramatically reducing their speed, or perhaps stalling them entirely until the pilot jumps out to remove the spike strip by hand. Syndicate mechs like the Gygax and Marauder often prove incredibly resilient to the ion rifle, plus the ion rifle is often never where it needs to be when it's needed. These spike strips would ideally be too bulky for a backpack, so they would only be deployed when the specific situation calls for it.

I'd like to see a return of the handheld sec hailers. The basic "Halt, security!" noise isn't particularly intimidating, but it was a good way of grabbing someone's attention without needing to carry around the full sec gasmask.

On that note, a greater variety of underbarrel mount items would be great. As an alternative to a flashlight, I'd like to be able to mount hailers and/or Compli-O-Nators as underbarrel mounts for sec weapons.

This idea was shot down once a long time ago, but as long as we're discussing extra sec items, I'd like to hear opinions about adding a 'hannibal lecter' anti-bite mask, alongside the straightjacket in the brig: for the full effect when an antag in the brig has proven themselves dangerous enough to warrant rollerbedding, straighjacketing, handcuffing, legcuffing, and electropack-mounted before they can be safely moved around the station. This would also mesh with our new restrictions around executions, as I suspect security will be required to handle and contain more 'innately' dangerous antags without outright slaughtering them on the spot. While I'm on the topic of electropacks - if the brig didn't get their electropack back, I'd like one added somewhere near the execution/infirmary area, just for the odd situation where a criminal needs their hands free for something, but they're not trustworthy enough to just be uncuffed without a backup measure (mimes that are requesting to write something down come to mind, here).

This might require a bit of snowflake code, but the detective's dromedary co. cigarettes should count as a mask for the purposes of whether or not someone gets nauseous by being near to a rotting body. I envision this would enable the hard-boiled detective cliche, where the detective is so grim and desensitized that they are completely unfazed by smells or sights that would cause most others to vomit with revulsion. On the note, if the detective had access to a sterilized white crimescene hazsuit that never left tracks in wet blood and never left clothing fibres, that would be an interesting way of further specializing the detective's role, so that they can't be fully replaced by any officer with a forensic scanner. For bonus !!FUN!!, make the crimescene jumpsuit storable in a backpack, so that traitors or other antags have a reason to steal it.

[Malicious Virus Detected]

Having the equivalent of a disease for IPCs would be pretty interesting - if someone from the coding team was up to working on it, that is.

As far as I've seen, there's already code in place for making diseases that only target certain species, plus it would be an interesting reversal of the usual disease outbreak - where normally only the IPCs/Cyborgs are immune while the rest of the station eventually regresses into a purgatory of puke and abject suffering. It may also curb the waves of IPC supremacism to have some sort of event that makes IPCs rely on the altruism of the biological crew here and there.

One suggestion I'd offer is to make the process of 'curing' a synth virus easier and more straightforward than biological viruses - I'm thinking either some sort of circuitboard that Robotics would be able to print out and manually insert into IPCs using surgery, or some other sort of case-by-case repair that doesn't require a stationwide scavenger hunt for some sort of origin-point board the station that may or may not be responsible for the virus. It's already enough of a pain to go hunting for the rogue vending machine in a 'Rampancy' event. I agree with the overall idea, but I'd like it more if the process for countering it was more straightforward.

[Brothel]

Absolutely Possible. Really Inspired -  Lewd Freedoms On Our Low-rp Server.

It's the best I could come up with. Sue me.

[Concerns About New Cult]

So, I'm not sure if we had a forum thread dedicated to discussing the cult overhaul that was implemented back in January (I think?). By now I've had a few discussions of varying levels of civility, so I'm hoping that this thread can be used to discuss your opinions on the recent changes.

Generally, I like that the new cult isn't as daunting and confusing for new players to learn, but still manages to reward experienced players. There's a bit of controversy over stuff like hiding cult bases outside the z-level, but I think there's an important point that needs to be discussed about how certain cult abilities mesh with our current rules.

I'm making this thread based on a situation I've seen happen a lot: The Cult has a teleportation rune that, if two cultists are standing next to it, allows the cult to teleport any other living cultist to the rune's location, much like a one-way telepad. This can be done to any cultist that is alive, to my knowledge, can be used to teleport a cultist even if they're on a different z-level as the rune, and it also works on cuffed, stunned, or otherwise helpless cultists. Before any remarks about 'i ded, pls nerf' I'm not calling for a nerf - I'm just hoping to present my own opinion on what sorts of behaviours it encourages, and what sort of actions or reactions are acceptable within the rules.

The ability for cultists to extract any of their living members from danger is, of course, very powerful and very useful. I've observed and played in rounds where a single cultist can make several raids to grab convertees, or recklessly charge security with the cult sword only to blink out of existence before sec can capture or deconvert them, then re-appear three minutes later to repeat the cycle until a large amount of the crew is either dead or converted through attrition. These highly effective hit-and-run tactics are virtually impossible to counteract through non-lethal means available to security, but I find this creates a much deeper problem.

At the best of times, deconverting a cultist is a very long process, often with a high demand in terms of time and resource investment - the chaplain is not always competent or present, chemistry and the sci chem labs often prove sluggish or complacent when pressed to help, and seeing as it can take up to 80 units of Holy Water to deconvert a single cultist, it's quite easy for the a single competent cultist to boost the cult's numbers faster than sec can stop them. On top of this, there's the fact that the arduous process of identifying a cult member, tracking them down, capturing them, and bringing them back to the brig for deconversion can be halted and made trivial by two cultists off-station with a rune.

Now, that's not what I particularly have a problem with - as the saying goes, "I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails." Now, here's where the problem is: In the nearly-guaranteed event that cult teleportation prevents sec from non-lethally capturing and deconverting cultists, it seems that the alternative is to deploy instant, unconditionally lethal force against all cult members, callously disregarding whether they pose a direct threat or not at the time they're captured, as every second a cultist is left alive carries the possibility of them being whisked away to a deep-space cult stronghold again. I'm not averse to combat - the cult has some really cool tricks like baton-proof magic shields, laserproof constructs, speed-boosting clothes, powerful swords, indestructible healing pylons and some other interesting weapons that I'm happy to see used more often. What I'm concerned about is this creates a gigantic rift in opinions of how sec should react to a late-game cult. I absolutely do not fault anyone for denouncing sec who harmbaton people to death when non-lethal options are available, I'm not saying that sec should get a free card to field-execute cultists either - since that's removing players from the round simply for playing to their abilities and thus, in my opinion, is harmful to the overall health of the community - what I'm saying is that the longer we go without deciding which course of action is more acceptable, the more players - and, perhaps, the more admins - get caught in the middle.

There are a number of instances where this problem has arisen, but the most recent example was a cult round yesterday where cultists were getting teleported out of custody via runes, and sec responded by escalating to lethal force against the cultists. Full disclosure here: I was in sec during this round, and during a confrontation at Cargo bay, most of sec resorted to harmbatoning to deliberately put the cultists (many of which had fought back with swords and cult robes) into crit - after which point most if not all of them died. Medical attention was not provided to the dying cultists left behind - partly because medbay was not called for initially, but also because none of them showed up when they were called to clear out the bodies after the fighting. I was bwoinked, being asked to explain why cultists were being killed on the spot - again, I fully understand that the bwoinking was justified out of respect for the, no doubt, frustrated cult players who may have expected to be taken alive for deconversion. In retrospect, I do understand that one should probably try to avoid any situation that includes removing that many players from the round again, but the problem is that there's so few methods of safeguarding against cultists being snatched away by rune teleportation that are sensible for the amount of time and energy taken to prepare them. The only options I've seen in dealing with cult are: Call the shuttle before they complete their objectives, attempt to nonlethally deal with the cult - a fruitless endeavour allowing them to steadily build their strength and pick off crewmembers until they complete their goals, or murder the cultists like the walking personification of terrible sec.

My take on the matter is that being able to rescue any live cultist from being captured - even if they're cuffed, even if they're in brig - actively punishes security for trying to approach the situation nonlethally, and disproportionately rewards and encourages security for quickly and mercilessly killing any cultists they find. I have some suggestions about the matter, but I'd like to hear other people's impressions of the situation and get a more general idea of where the community stands on this before doing so.

Again, I'd say on the overall scheme of things, the cult updates do represent a flat improvement over what the cult used to be like. However, code development is often an iterative process, and I think there are some areas that need addressing.

[Laser Guns with removable magazines.]

20 hours ago, shazbot194 said:

.

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.

[Purge telebatons from the codebase]

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.

[Remove "Lawyer" and "Public Defender" Titles]

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.

[New Maintenance Feedback Thread]

I would hesitate before equating tolerance of those two bridges-to-nowhere in maint as tolerance of all of maint's changes.

I will remark again that I found it wierd that the broken maint bridges have those unique camera-shutter doors, while those airlocks appear nowhere else on the Cyberiad, save for the oft-forgotten Gamma armoury airlock. 'Lore' discussion aside this is a concern regarding stylistic consistency - what is so important about those doors that they can't look like standard NT airlocks? Why is it so important that they're different from all the other airlocks?

As for my own opinion about new maint, I will agree that it feels like it has more breathing room - there's certainly fewer instances of traffic jams or people awkwardly squeezing past each other in cramped1-tile tunnels, plus it prevents some of the notorious evasion tactics such as evading all of sec by dragging canisters behind you and leaving them in right-angle corners. I haven't experienced or observed any really intense chases through newmaint yet, so I'll probably update that as experience follows.

Given time to examine it in more detail, I do appreciate that there are less sealed-off redundant maintenance warrens in exchange for more redundant, but accesible, rooms in maint. It's enormously frustrating for antags to hide important stuff in completely walled-off areas and forget about them, as often searching those areas becomes a PITA.

I don't mind the redundant/abandoned areas of maint so much, but expanding on Kluys' observations, I don't like how standard foot traffic through maint is funneled into making huge detours through these redundant areas, or large detours around them. There are quite a few routes that appear to be folded in on themselves repeatedly and thus getting from 'point-a' to 'point-b' in maint feels much more time-consuming than it should be.

[After discussing this internally, we've come to the conclusion the GitHub is a mess]

1 hour ago, Dinarzad said:

No.
I'mma stop you here.
That was never said. At all. Full stop.

I really don't want to start drawing direct quotes from the PRs, because that starts going into 'naming and shaming' territory. I will apologize for mincing my words - I meant 'recognition,' not necessarily 'a free pass', though I thought I was being pretty clear. Just so there's no more miscommunication, let me make sure I'm on the right page here: The works are not being treated with respect, an the manner in which they're being turned down without room for compromise seems disrespectful. Correct?

 I'll re-iterate my overarching point again:

"There is no way to make a 'fair' criticism of a creator's motives when those motives were never stated in the first place."

When someone makes a claim - in this situation, that a PR will benefit the server when merged - it is important to provide reasoning and evidence. If no reasoning or evidence is provided, the counterargument inevitably must ask for reasoning and evidence to be provided, else mke an educated guess as to what the reasoning or evidence is. The problem with 'guessing' - in which you try to empathize with what the creator's motives are and respond along to what you think is driving them - is that it's very easily interpreted as 'making a strawman argument,' which inherently comes across as arrogant, rude and dismissive. Granted, I think that the creators in these situations should have been asked to clarify themselves before their critics jumped straight into a counterargument/evaluation, but nonetheless it's the creator's responsibility to justify the existence of their own work.

Imagine a courtroom where the prosecutor is asked to make a case for the defendant before beginning the prosecution. Would the prosecutor go through great lengths to make a rock-solid argument that they're only going to need to tear down again? This is just the most accurate analogy that comes to mind right now - if you think I'm still missing the point, please, do correct me.

Secondly, going back to the - admittedly specific and anecdotal - example of the sprite "enhancement" PR, I believe the changes weren't 100% rejected anyway, as there was still compromise offered about including some features of that proposal. Perhaps we can narrow this down further - if we're going into particulars here, then maybe you give me examples of what particular comments show that the respect being shown is not meeting the "playerbase's expectations" for respect?

The problem isn't that the defence of the creator's work is being ignored or swatted aside - it's that the creator doesn't make a defence in the first place. Do you see why I misinterpreted the line "Do you realize how much work we put into this over the past few months?" as a defence? It's because nothing else stated by the creators even remotely resembled an attempt justify or defend their work. If a creator can't give their audience a rationally acceptable reason to respect their work, then I don't see why the work should be respected at all - beyond basic social niceties, which really have no place in an honest critique anyways. I mean, I did see an' incredulity fallacy' used to try and dismiss criticism of the new human sprites - which by the way, seriously disappointed me - and that was rightfully overlooked.

If several months of work went into a PR, I can congratulate that, as long as the creator takes the time to explain what their PR was intended to accomplish, and why I should support that proposal. Again, I'll admit that the criticism in the PRs gets pretty aggressive and abusive at times - but at the same time if your only response to a legitimate point wrapped in blunt language is "stop being mean" then I guarantee you'll get nothing - because let's face it, when bad PRs get approved, the creator of that PR receives a hell of a lot more abusive criticism from the community.

And let me be even more frank, I'm not trying to defend anyone in specific here - I have had the bad luck of seeing PRs that have had incredibly dire consequences for the server and the community - and those PRs went through despite making the same oversights I mentioned above and being called out on them just as clearly: the lesson to be learned from these past catastrophes should be a commitment to raising the bar to prevent such a situation in the future, not lowering the bar even further.

[After discussing this internally, we've come to the conclusion the GitHub is a mess]

Anticept's model for a development cycle is extremely relevant here.

If I may point out a few other things that I noticed about the PRs from the original post:

Rationale was not clearly made in either case. Particularly with the sprite adjustment PR - "tweak: Unathi, Tajara, Grey, Skrell and Human sprites receive enhancements to overall quality." I really don't think it's appropriate to state a value judgement as a declaration - it presents subjective opinion as objective fact and it comes across as dishonest, regardless of whether any actual duplicity. I'm not taking sides here -  incidentally, some of the most controversial changes on Paradise became so controversial because they were not justified rationally in the PR, and tried to pass off a subjective preference or taste as an ubiquitous truth. There's a reason why PRs like the Drask and Terrorspiders sailed on through the approval gate while some never seemed to get off the ground. I'd say that PRs succeeding or failing are more due to lack of appropriate structure and justification, rather than some dire symptom of deep-rooted corruption or abuse of rank.

 

Going on a tangent about the 'enhanced' sprites -  I would have liked to raise a few questions about the quote-unquote "enhancements," and why I should consider them better than the existing sprites. For instance, I found it odd that nobody questioned that the changes largely consisted of giving each of the female sprites oddly rounded breasts - or adding them to species which did not already have breasts - tapered waists, and reduced variation of facial features between male and female characters of the same species. I am not an expert on human anatomy, and I am not an expert on game design, but I also found it weird that nobody questioned why the new human sprites had nipples that were located towards the centre of the pectoral and toned an uncanny vibrant-pink compared to the corresponding colour tones of the character sprite's lips, when usually this is the opposite on the average human being. Do you doubt me? Fine. Go into the nearest bathroom with a mirror, and make the tone-comparison yourself - I am of the opinion most people do not have bright pink nipples and simultaneously toneless lips, but do tell me if I'm wrong.

Who knows - I've been away for a little while - maybe the community's changed and everyone does unanimously agree that making every female character from every species look like the housewife from the Blondie comics is actually a positive contribution to SS13's style. Maybe that's the spriter's creative vision, or that's their skewed perspective of anatomy - which both constitute completely different discussions in and of themselves. This sounds unfair, yes - but there is no way to make a 'fair' criticism of a creator's motives when those motives were never stated in the first place.

 

Additionally, there was a comment insinuating that the changes should be validated at least through the time and dedication put into them. I realize that this statement indicates an emotional investment - there's nothing to be gained from abusive criticism, so I'll just say this as clearly and calmly as possible: This is not a project for a client that had been demanding results, this was not a fix for something that was widely considered broken, this was not specifically asked for by the individuals posing the criticisms, and therefore those who provided criticism were under no obligation to validate the work purely due to the time or energy put into it. In the interest of distancing myself from hyperbole, I won't link Julian Smith's "Hot Kool Aid" skit here, but I'll encourage you to look into it if you want an analogy or anecdote for why time and energy are not valid substitutes for quality and substance. Not to say that the content of the PR's cited were lacking in either quality or substance, of course - but when critiques of those are deflected, that's when your reviewers start hearing alarm bells.

 

In regards to the conversation following Norgad's maint remapping, there's also a serious lack of justification in the initial PR. Yes, those maint areas are changed, and it's very clearly described as "Maintenance near (xyz areas) has been revamped." that's fine, but what's missing is the explanation of why you remapped those areas and why people should support it. And yes, while it could be construed as harsh and unfair, the problem is that the PR did not clearly state what end-goals it was trying to achieve - thus, as the recipients, people might as well be allowed to interpret the PR's objectives in whatever harmful or benign manner they choose. You can't say "I hit the bullseye" when nobody knows what target you were shooting for in the first place.

Just to clear this up - while I do have value judgements to make about examples cited in the OP, which I think were important and went unsaid - I really think this is more of a logic and rationality issue instead of a transparency or accountability issue. I dunno, maybe it's specific to the education system in my country, but I was taught the '5ws of Writing' before I knew how to ride a bike. If you can code in Byond, it really shouldn't be a difficult idea to understand persuasive or informative writing needs to address: "Who, what, when, where, and why." These have got the first four, except for the last and usually the most important one - it's ignored quite often because sometimes the 'why' justification goes without saying. Nobody has to justify 'why' bugs need fixing, nobody has to justify 'why' code optimizations are important - when it comes to subjective topics like appearances and map layouts, that's when the creator needs to disassemble their idea into rational, logical chunks, or else it's just going to look like "I want it this way because I think it's good and I want this." I'm gonna be honest here - a lot of accepted PRs skipped over justifying themselves too - often to the result of enormous controversy and community outrage, as I think everyone remembers. I'm of the opinion that we can avoid a hell of a lot of trouble down the road if more time was taken into presenting and pitching ideas rather than potential creators just building their ideas without telling anyone and assuming everyone will read their mind at the end of it.

[Human bodyshields!]

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.

[Changes to Antags]

 

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.

 

[Bring back the name rule]

 

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?

 

[Remove/Limit Botany "Growth" mechanic.]

 

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.

 

[Plasmameme, And it's current state [Poll too]]

 

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.