[Grey telepathy]

 

I was talking on discord, and what if we added somethign like the Voodoo doll's ability to see through someones eyes? like if you are holding something someone else held, you could see through their eyes, and talk with them using telepathy aswell

 

 

This sounds super awesome. I'm currently saving up Karma to unlock Grey. It seems like it could be fun to play as and I'm encouraged by the talk of improving some of the weaker species.

 

That being said, it's kinda hard to earn Karma as a newer player, so it'll be a bit for me.

 

[It's about time we had a serious talk...]

 

Medbay is Boringbay. If you don't have an EXTREMELY incompetent medical team, you will almost never fall under heavy load, except when bomb will go off in the bar full of assistants watching clown's play while OR1/freezers were stolen, or nuccy oppy. In any other state there is always 2, 3 or even 4 guys who just can't find a job even when code red for traitors is an effect and crew is fighting 2 blobs.

 

 

If this is the case, why is it that if I head to medbay even 30-40 minutes into a round I have to sit in the lobby for 10-20 minutes or until I'm dead before a doctor gets to me? People do their own surgeries so they don't die while Med ignores them. I find the only way to get reliably treated is to find a way past the lobby and into the actual med bay itself and into the path of doctors before I collapse.

 

[Yo yo yo]

 

Hey all. I've been playing as Darrel Addison on here for a couple weeks now, so I figured it's time to introduce myself. I'm still in the process of unlocking and learning all of the jobs, but so far I've been enjoying Cargo Tech, QM, Roboticist, Chemist, Surgeon and pretty much any of the borgs/drones. I figured once I have a firm grasp on everything, I'll start making individual characters for the different roles so you don't see Darrel as a janitor one shift and a surgeon the next

 

I've also tried out Engi/Atmos and I like the start of the round because there's the engine to decide on and set up, but after that I end up just wandering around aimlessly and feel like I'm wasting an engi spot because I don't know what I am supposed to be doing. As an example, I spent an entire Atmos shift trying to super cool the vacant office because some random Drask wanted to turn it into a Drask bar. It was actually pretty fun trying to figure it out without looking it up (we didn't succeed before the shuttle was called), but who KNOWS what other things didn't get done that shift because something that is probably relatively easy took me the entire time.

 

I've tried out sec a few times, but I'm still pretty unrobust and usually feel like I'm in the way when we go to arrest peeps. I'll leave this one alone until I have a better grasp on mechanics and space law.

 

I guess the only other thing to say is that so far this server has been extremely welcoming and everyone I've interacted with has been super accepting of my newbiness for the most part. Some people have gotten frustrated that I get stuff done a little slower than someone who has mastered the jobs, but most have been fine and offered a bunch of helpful tips so thanks and I hope to be around for awhile!

 

[Antag picking on roundstart has been reworked!]

 

Wait, so if I turned on all antags but have AI set to NEVER, I can still be put as the AI? I better check my antag flags. I would have assumed you needed to BE the AI to get Malf AI.

 

Could it also make you Malf AI if you haven't unlocked AI yet because you haven't been here long enough?

 

Malf AI, as an independent mode, doesn't exist anymore.

 

You must be both AI and roll for traitor to get "malf" now.

 

This is kind of how I would have expected it to behave. It likely means less occurrences of a broken/tator AI, but those rounds are pretty rough anyway since you're kinda screwed right from the start.

 

[Need confirmation: Cargo mail by-pass loop]

 

Have you looked at code to see if it does indeed skip Cargo? I assumed the loop was all one big loop. The other night I was playing as a maint drone after I got wrecked and depending on WHICH disposal I climbed in, I was able to avoid a break in the loop.

 

However, if I jumped into a disposal that was in the loop BEFORE the break, I'd get dumped out into maint. The loop seemed to be the same regardless of whether my origin was a trashcan or the mail conveyor in cargo, but I wasn't really trying to spot any difference, so who knows.

 

[Antag picking on roundstart has been reworked!]

 

Wait, so if I turned on all antags but have AI set to NEVER, I can still be put as the AI? I better check my antag flags. I would have assumed you needed to BE the AI to get Malf AI.

 

Could it also make you Malf AI if you haven't unlocked AI yet because you haven't been here long enough?

 

[Improving Jobs: Cargo Tech/Quartermaster]

 

I'll start this off by saying that Cargo is one of the roles I play the most. I actually really enjoy it in it's current form, but can absolutely see how it would get stale fast and I've also had shifts that seemed to drag because no one needed to order much.

 

First and foremost, the QM should have command chat on his headset and the ability to make a station announcement. He doesn't need Bridge access or anything crazy, but a dept head should be able to talk to QM over the radio in a more direct manner to make any of the changes suggested here more expedient. Otherwise, I may have to sit and wait on paperwork, which a lot of people don't seem to enjoy.

 

I think the most useful improvements are those that will INCREASE interaction with other departments. I LOVE the idea of a randomly generated list of items that NT needs send back that shift. This would also mean that the QM would be responsible for sharing that list via station announcement at round start.

 

I also like the idea of being a little more limiting on what supplies are around so that more people need to come by cargo.

 

However, this means that more telepads (or being able to make them somewhat easily) should be around the station because the mail system can be pretty fragile and isn't super easy to fix once it breaks.

 

I also wish there was some incentive for non-cargo people to use the mail room to send packages to other departments. I'd probably be quite happy to man to mail room for part of a shift if people actually wanted to use it. Maybe make it so that you can write a destination on packages with a pen before dropping it into disposals and then we can use our destination tagger to make sure it gets where you wanted it? This would mean people wouldn't need to physically walk to the mail room and might make mailing things more common.

 

It'd be great to have a real, functioning economy in-game but there's some limiting factors. Persistency is probably the biggest one, since we don't have any way of deciding which rounds should be "canon" for any given character that's playing at any given time.

 

If we can find a way to make it work, though, I would love it.

 

Why does persistence matter here? The economy only really "exists" in the current shift, so it shouldn't matter if it's "canon" for the characters. If I'm not mistaken you're not meant to IC remember specifics about shifts anyway, right? I think it would should be able to achieve a pretty basic working economy, but it would likely be a lot of overhaul an testing wokring. That being said, there's nothing wrong with making it a long-term goal and then making short-term decisions to work toward that goal.

 

Given how unsecure cargo really is, it's bad idea to incentivise even more people to break into Cargo to nab tools or goodies from their lathe. This would only lead to lathes having access restrictions like the RnD machines or Cargo ordering terminal, which is also bad. That said I do like the idea of raw or recycleable materials being strewn about the station that Cargo/RnD can break down for metal and glass or be exported for points to give assistants something to do, it'd be like harvest moon except your not searching the woods for honeycombs, your scavenging the abandoned parts of the station for goodies. That might even incentivise people to go to the derelict (aka the most underutilized facility in the game) to cannibalize it's systems to make the Cyberaid even better.

 

I like this. Scavenge and be rewarded. Maybe turning in items to Cargo via a machine of some sort could reward some credits or something? Would promote the greytide to bring us goodies.

 

As for people breaking into cargo to use the autolathe, well, that's why I suggested moving it to the lobby. Let people use it as they wish with part of Cargo's responsibility being to keep it topped up with glass and metal. This will also let them focus on orders from the supply console since nobody needs to ask them to print out a bucket or a flashlight anymore.

 

 

If we're going to increase the things that can be made in the autolathe, is it a good idea to just plop it out there for anyone to hack/use?

 

EDIT:

C) Give Cargo Techs basic department access, so they can hand-deliver items without it being a massive pain in the ass. Also so traitor cargo tech is more viable.

 

I don't really have an opinion on this since the only cargo tech tator I've been was blob and I started in maint near disposals which was a pretty decent spot.

 

D) Allow the cargo shuttle to be sent to a 'black market' trader that isn't CC. This trader would use a different supply point total, independent of the CC supply point total, which would start at 0, and not regenerate. AKA: the only way to order things from this supply source is to ship THEM useful stuff for points FIRST, then, once you have points, order stuff from them. The stuff orderable via this method should be mostly black market items. Illegal knockoffs of good but restricted items. Of course, using this cargo this way should be against SoP, and using it this way to procure weapons should be a space law violation. So should selling rare/valuable items from the station on the black market. However, all this could make for great RP. Smuggling ring in cargo...

 

I love this.

 

E) Rethink the locks on cargo crates. They shouldn't be so hard to break into. Right now, they're basically cargo's version of lockboxes. The only way to really break them with any speed is to order emitters, set up those, and hope nobody notices the giant industrial lasers. Also, Cargo are the storage specialists. Let them order, and sell to crew, "personal crates" and/or personal lockers. Things which, when you swipe your ID on them, only open for you from then on (or Captain). Like the personal lockers in the locker room, but easier to move around. If Cargo is ordering from the black market, let them buy versions that look the same but don't open for ANYONE other than the authorized owner, not even the Captain (of course, they can still be broken into, and are contraband). Let cargo sell storage solutions, like a portable version of the Captain's wall safe. Let them, for a very high cost, order crates that let them set up a permanent teleporter between two locations, like, say, Sec and the Bridge.

 

 

This is actually a big problem with cargo. If I order a crate, I have to hand deliver it if I want to accurately check the contents before stamping the manifest because I can't check what's in it without the right access. It's a PITA and means I just stamp pretty much everything as good and accept the point loss when I'm wrong.

 

F) Let the QM set a "risk factor" for their shipments from CC. At "None", cargo behaves as currently, with no risky events possible. At "low", CC may sometimes send cargo shuttles with, say, a lone hostile russian on board, letting the crew deal with him in exchange for a small supply point bonus. At "medium", sometimes CC might send a cargo shuttle loaded with a "gift" from the spider clan (a bunch of spiders), or a small group of russians armed with melee weapons. At "high", admins should be able to manually initiate high-risk cargo loads, like for example mysterious artifacts that NT has recovered and wants analysed on a remote station where, if they have horrible mind-alerting powers, they can do limited harm. If the artifact is successfully analysed in Science, the analysed version can be returned to cargo and shipped back for lots of points. The idea being that Cargo can, if the QM allows it, become notably more dangerous by indicating that they're willing to take on risky shipments in exchange for a point bonus.

 

This is also an amazing suggestion. I love the idea of NT sending us a message that says they're sending us some ancient alien tech they found and want us to study it. It could even just be implemented as a random station event (like Meteors, radiation fields, etc) at first to test the idea with the players. Doing an MVP like that first would require less coding than making a whole new setting for risk and would be less "wasted" time if the players didn't like the mechanic.

 

If it goes well, you could eventually incorporate this into science to make studying the object more interactive than stuffing it into the EXPERIMENTOR. Once we study it, maybe we could then have the option of sending it back for massive points or keeping it and saying it didn't work (no points) so we can use it for ourselves.