[Community opinion on ranged instant stuns and how removing them can have a positive or negative impact]

I'm going to repost here what I posted on the PR before moving on to comment on some peoples insight on this threat.

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Antagonist roles are meant to spice up the round, bring danger and intrigue as security skirmishes with the threat. On both ends of the spectrum having the ability to instantly put the other combatants out of commission with just one shot is both wholly unfun and dissuades people from taking risk. The best stories that I've heard come from paradise are ones that involve people taking risk and ending up having their efforts rewarded tenfold either in magnificent greentext or hilarious failure. Having methods to circumvent putting oneself at risk not only puts those who want to take on major risk (such as taking a hostage to levy for the HOS's gun, bribing a head of staff for their secret documents, or even pretending to be a demon via chameleon projector and some cardboard cutouts to demand tributes of bananas) at risk of losing their entire round in just a single shot but also encourages antagonist to retaliate in kind. Stunning then killing security knowing that if they do not completely finish off the officer they may get up and get off one lucky shot.

In my opinion instant stun combat is one of the worse things to have to deal with on Paradise, it leaves you completely vulnerable to, as mentioned above, have your entire round ruined in just one shot. Yes, if this PR is merged then people will complain about the loss of the most risk free way of dealing with each other in the short run. In the long run though I believe this change will bring about much more interesting and engaging interactions with security and antagonist.

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13 hours ago, Ping said:

 

Ss13 combines gameplay and roleplaying in an insane and convoluted way, and each of these two elements play off each other to make the server what it is.  One important thing to remember that the line is crossed everywhere.  There's a difference between roleplaying being mad because of player interaction, and actually being mad because you had zero time to react to an instastun.  I'd just like to attack gameplay issues as gameplay issues and roleplay issues as roleplay issues, because as we attack problematic gameplay issues, we work towards creating a safer and less stressful environment where perhaps roleplay may flourish.

.

 

The combination of gameplay and roleplay is what makes SS13 such a unique mess experience. Roleplay is what makes us deal with the clunky gameplay of SS13, without it the game would just be a top down team battle with atmospherics simulation. Roleplay is what also turns your run-of-the-mill round of SS13 into a story worth sharing. Taking one out of the equation to focus on the other does not do justice for such a major change and without touching on both this discussion will not be fully applicable to the actual reality of SS13.

[Fastmos: Too Fast? Too Slow? Just Right?]

@GranoddThe issue is that people would grab them 'just in case' anyway, and those lockers are only around arrivals, departures, and engineering. There are a few scattered throughout the different departments and in maint, but considering we have around 60-100 players on more often than not someone is going to be SOL when they need a suit. If it is a balance concern make them about 5 min, any longer the fragile fabric tears and loses most of its functionality. In any case the time you need a eva suit the most is when you find yourself flying down the hall towards a broken window and into space. 

[Fastmos: Too Fast? Too Slow? Just Right?]

Adding in emergency eva suits to the box everyone starts with roundstart could also work as well as putting some in oxygen/emergency lockers. They would be essentially a very fragile but easily transportable soft suit, capable of maintaining a crewman's body temperature and protecting their bodies from the vacuum of space for roughly 10 min. Have it look something like this:

Spoiler

 

I personally love fastmos as it is. No more will people casually walk through a literal breach to space. Something I would love to see is the rate at which oxygen breathing creatures process O2 be increased. Currently there is no downside to welding every single vent and scrubber on the station besides the obvious not being able to re-pressurize a room. Also one oxygen tank (large one) will last a crew member an entire shift without needing to be refilled which is just silly.

Edit: Might want to make this \/ less instantaneous, perhaps make it take a few seconds to light a stack of plasma and give off a big red text to anyone nearby 

Spoiler

 

 

[Screenshot thread!]

10 hours ago, Hawker said:

What are those atmos constructs and what do they do?

The first one is a double TEG setup that put enough juice in the system to insta kill anyone messing with wires w/o gloves. The other one is a supermatter engine in the main engine containment room. 

[Screenshot thread!]

Just a little art stand


Also JRO we should try doing some atmos projects together


 

[NanoTransen Experiment Goobina/Light Blue Slime #594]

Agreed, also amazing writing!

[Clicks Robensin the Doom Marine]

This story is centered around my Kidan named Clicks Robensin, the shaft miner. At the start of the shift he grabbed his usual mining gear: an automatic ore scanner, a shovel, crusher, hardsuit, and ore box. The station's standard meson scanners don't fit on kidans, so Clicks has to rely solely on the mining scanner to find ore. He sets out, crusher in hand to begin stripping the asteroid of its precious metals. 
Mining is mining as always, digging into dark tunnels, dragging a huge ore box around, beating wildlife to death with a hammer. The most you need to know about the hour spent mining is that Clicks was able to fully armor his hardsuit as well as stock up on three stabilized hive lord cores. He also got a APLU Firefighting Ripley (Dont ask me why robotics gave cargo a firefighting ripley) to help speed up mining.
About an hour an twenty minutes into the shift Clicks is dropping off a load of ore, about to go on break to see if the chef had actually cooked anything. The station was mostly peaceful as he lumbered down the halls in his mech, robotics having said they had some better equipment available. Thats about when the AI alerted the crew to a sighted xenomorph. Shortly after comms cut out, leaving most the crew scrambling to figure out what was going on. Clicks made his way quickly from the chef's serving table to robotics, parking his mech on a charger. The roboticist was under a lot of stress, his coworker had just tried to murder an IPC he was fixing. After the man got arrested Clicks made his way into robotics proper, taking note of the various IPC's with notable amounts of damage. Clicks of course offered to help the roboticist, seeing as he was literally ankle deep in damaged IPC's. Comms were still offline, the situation with the xenos mostly a mystery as Clicks and the roboticist worked to repair the damaged IPC's.
Most of the IPCs were repaired and sent on their way when the screaming started. Glass shattered and a xenomorph burst into robotics, slamming a face hugger on the roboticist and attempting to toss one at Clicks. It bounced harmlessly off him, his hardsuit protecting him from the dangerous parasite. The xeno was fast though, getting away before Clicks could attack back. The roboticist lay there stunned as the alien parasite tried to do its best to infect him, though luckily the roboticist was an IPC himself. Clicks quickly pulled the abhorrent thing from the roboticist face, slamming a foot down to squish it. 
With a mighty roar a geneticist burst through the wall screaming something unintelligible before tossing down two syrings labeled 'hulk'. Knowing what he was about to face Clicks took one, his muscles swelling as strength filled his body. He quickly strapped on an armor module and a industrial plasma cutter to his mech, intent on using it as long as he could. The controls lit up as he climbed inside the chasis of the mech, the screams of scientist sounding distant from inside the armored mech. Xenomorphs had overran R&D, the scientist quickly dragged to the ground with parasites latching to their faces. Raising the plasma cutter Clicks charged in, the xenos quickly swarming the mech as he tried to fend them off. The mech quickly crumbled howerver and Clicks was ejected out of it as the mech let lose a final spark. Pulling out his crusher he let out a feral scream, charging into the xenos who had dared to attack him. Bashing, crushing, he swung his crusher at the xenos, some of his colleges recovering from the violation of the parasites. Their chest writhed with the alien embryo's latched within them and some collapsed almost immediately after recovering, their eyes rolling into their heads as they lay twitching on the cold tiled floor.
The xeno queen jumped Clicks from behind, knocking his crusher away as acid splattered against his helmet. Disarmed and covered in blood Clicks looked around at his dying crewmates, a red haze filling his vision as he activated the hive lord core implanted inside him. With a bellowing scream of rage he kicked out at the xeno queen, her body flying through the air as it smacked the wall with a heavy thud. Clicks descended on the stunned abomination to life, the front of his body covered in green blood. Another xeno came flying through the air, attempting to save its queen by tackling Clicks. He simply grabbing the xeno and threw it down beside its queen, alternating in pummeling them both to a fine green mist. The xenos let out a guttural screech as blood spilled from their mouths, going limp as Clicks gave a final kick. 
By now his fellow crew members were far to gone, their chest writhing before with a shower of gore they torn apart. The bloody larvae looked around blearily before seeing what remained of the queen, letting out terrified squeaks as Clicks turned his attention to them. The one unlucky enough to be near Clicks was quickly greeted with a boot, its little body flying before hitting a window. With a quick stomp its body turned to liquid, the other larvae quickly vacating the room while Clicks attention was distracted. 
The death of their queen and the slaughter of their young did not go unnoticed and soon xenomorphs were swarming Clicks once more. He ran at them, smashing through a window as he lunged out at the first one he could grab. He slammed its head against the steal wall of the ship, then again as he rammed his fist into its jaw. Turning from the stunned creature he charged another xeno, quickly bringing it down and beating it to a pulp. His headset buzzed a little as an alert about the emergency shuttle about to leave droned out. He paid this no head, he wasn't going to run. He was going to rip and tear every last xenomorph on the station, green blood dripping from his hardsuit as he released the pulped remains of his latest prey.


Sadly the round ended before Clicks could fulfill his mission, though deadchat and OOC alike praised him. Even the new alien queen said he was a legend. I actually have a copy of the action log for me personally (not an admin combat log, they said they couldnt give those out). It picks up from when Clicks was just hopping in his mech to engage the xenomorphs. Enjoy~ https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gB-5jzTmJOpZgwfhlCwmdafPWwBGrN6jOko-rEVZBt8

[New Station - Ragnarok Station [WIP]]

Adding a emergency nanomed to the gateway room would be nice ;D

[Screenshot thread!]

That was me

[Vinelings - Possible gamemode/species]

 

I was playing on the server early in the morning when a random event spawned some space vines. Curious as to what they did I stuck around a bit and got snared by one. After about five minutes lying there nothing had happened- no damage, no thicker vines wrapping around me, nothing. It was laying there that I had the idea of the vines being able to sow seeds into a living organism, whom over time would turn into a vineling.

A vineling would be basically slender creature composed of vines interlocked with each other that all link up to a central core. This core would behave like a slime's core in that it would control all the functions of the body. In order to survive a vineling would need to be in a pressurized environment with a healthy amount of C02 in it. They would 'breath' out 02 into their environment but it would not be toxic to them. Light would not affect them too much as vines can grow in darkness. They would need to consume water on a daily basis though. Things that would affect plants would affect them also- Easy nutrition would greatly fill a vineling's hunger; Robust harvest would give a decent amount of healing; Plant be gone would kill them quickly.

I'm going to put down few odd ball ideas I have kicking around my head for racial abilities.

(While on Vines) Player gains increased healing and speed, and the ability to communicate with any other vinelings touching the same vine cluster.

(While off Vines) Player has reduced natural healing and normal speed and is unable to communicate over vines

(Random Thoughts) This could be something like xenobiology's shadow people for botany or something of a diplomatic thing for a while. If this were to be a gamemode perhaps give the vine a sort of AI like entity that commands its vinelings.

(Differences between Vinelings and Dionna) Unlike Dionna, a Vineling would be one organism, not a collection of many small organisms. A Vineling would also require a pressurized atmosphere as apposed to the space proof Dionna. Vinelings would not heal in light as Dionnas do. Vinelings would not be lumbering trees like Dionna are.

 

This is just an idea I had but I was talking with some of the mentors and admins about it during the round. It would make for a fresh gameplay experience and possibly be a new karma race/job. It would also make space vines scary again with the threat of becoming one of them. I would love suggestions and peoples thoughts on this!