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EvadableMoxie

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Posts posted by EvadableMoxie

  1. 43 minutes ago, SomeGuy9283 said:

    While the enjoyment of the antagonist player is always to be considered, they ultimately exist to entertain the other players by being their opponent. If they play as a friendly vampire, wizard, etc., they may have lost sight of this.

    Yes, but the point is they wouldn't be antagonists in this scenario. 

    What I was discussing was the idea of removing them as primary antagonists and making them more like borers in that they are never the antagonist for a round, just something that happens in addition to whatever the game mode is. 

  2. 5 hours ago, SomeGuy9283 said:

    I sense a flood of metabuddy-ing will result. Vampires are hostiles, helping them is helping an agent hostile to your employer, and security should act according to both of these facts.

    Vampires should not be friendly. They should not use 'trust', etc. except for manipulating people to their antagonistic ends. If you decide to help a vampire, you should be able to reasonably expect to either to get stabbed in the back when they no longer need you, or find your head on a pike when the HOS catches you. I don't know about you, but that sounds like good roleplay right there.

    My statements were within a context of a possible change to how Vampires work, so they would not necessarily be antagonists but rather neutral forces unaligned to either the crew or the antagonists. 

    As it currently stands, I fully agree they should be kill on sight and forced to actually antag instead of being 'friendly.'  But since people insist on playing them as 'friendly' perhaps the solution is to change the mechanics to accommodate the way people want to play them, rather then trying to change player behavior. 

  3. I think if we go with Option 2, vampires should not have any protection under Space Law and it should be entirely at the discretion of the HoS as to how to handle them, up to and including on the spot execution.  This is similar to Borers, you can't just walk down the halls looking for willing hosts, you can and will be killed pretty much on sight. At the same time, a Vampire may reveal themselves to people they trust, and those people aren't necessarily required to report them to security. 

    There should be risks and give and take.  On one hand, keeping a Vampire around is a risk.  On the other, if you summarily execute one vampire, you've pretty much forced every other vampire on the station to be openly hostile to you because you've backed them into a corner. And if there is another main antag, they might very well ally up with the rest of the vampires, which is bad news for you. 

    I actually like the idea of 'neutral factions' in general.  Right now it's fairly cut and dry with Crew versus Antags.  Some neutral factions that can lean either way, depending on how they are treated would add a lot of depth and make negotiation a powerful tactic. 

    • Like 1
  4. 10 hours ago, Birdtalon said:

    I

    Hate

    • "Friendly vampires" - I don't see the point in having antagonist options turned to yes if you're going to out yourself as a "friendly" antagonist at the start of the round and let security know it's a vampire round before the 10 minute mark. Antagonists should antagonise in order to make the round interesting for all, not just out themselves straight away and either get locked up or just do their job all round like a normal crew member. I find this happens with vampires most of all.

     

    I can't agree with this enough, or stress how much of an issue it is.  There are too many boring rounds as is without people opting into being an antag and then not antaging. 

    One of two things needs to be done:

    Option 1: Vampires are antags and vampire rounds are a thing.  In this case, Vampires should be EoCs to be terminated on discovery. Outing yourself as a vampire should result in immediate execution IC and a jobban OOC. Someone who selects to be an Antag on a round type where they are the primary source of conflict, and then chooses not to generate conflict are wasting 2 hours of everyone's time.

    Option 2: Vampires are not necessarily antags and there are never any 'vampire rounds' where vampires are the primary antag.  In this case they are similar to Borers in that they have a goals but aren't required to be antagonistic to achieve them.  This would be fine because just like how there are no 'borer rounds', there would never be any 'vampire rounds', just 1 or 2 vampires at the start of the round who spawn in addition to whatever the normal antagonist is. Vampires could be aggressive to get what they want, or take a more diplomatic approach.  There would still be plenty of tension and paranoia since you'd never know what the vampire will do once powered. This is similar to how Borers can be a huge asset, but also a huge risk.  

    The main issue with option 2 is then Vampire is just a special snowflake RP option, a normal crew member with superpowers and a license to abuse them.  I'm not a fan of this approach, but given how many 'friendly' vampires are out there obviously there is a desire for this type of gameplay. 

     

  5. On 3/21/2016 at 11:18 AM, ProperPants said:

     

     

    Surgery I can understand, but why not a body scanner? Many Brig Doctors I encounter when I play R&D end up asking me for a body scanner. They don't specifically ask me for plasteel or surgery tools, though, so I feel like they are aware that a surgery table would be too excessive.

     

     

    Brig docs don't ask for pasteel or a surgery table because they steal the one from the assembly line or old Medbay.  The easiest way to get surgery tools is to just order a crate from Cargo.

    A Body scanner is pretty important.  It locates where IB is, and tells you if they have an infection or organ damage.  Even if the Brig doc isn't supposed to perform surgery, knowing when someone needs to go to medical for further treatment is difficult to do without one.

    Also, upgraded body scanners can be used to check for implants, which makes them a security tool in addition to a medical one.  Maybe that's too much power for Security to have but the alternative is to strap the prisoner down on a table and order the Brig doc to cut them open and check.

    It would be nice if the Brig doc got a Defib, too. Medbay only has 4, and two of them aren't suppose to leave their respective ORs. SOP states one must be near the cryotubes, and the Paramedic often takes one.  As far as I know there is no way to build or order more, either.

    Technically, the Brig doc is just supposed to stabilize people and send them to Medbay for further treatment.  Realistically, if Brig Docs did that you may as well do away with the role. You don't need a medical professional to slap Synthflesh on someone.  A monkey with a Medkit could do that job.  So the Brig Doc is played as the Brig MD/Surgeon so they actually have something to do. Even then, most of the time security still uses Medbay instead of the Brigbay just because Medbay is more centrally located so it's often closer to where they got injured. Still, having a backup for Xeno/Egg removal or deconversation should Medbay be overrun is something you usually don't need, but you're very glad to have on those rare shifts you do. 

  6. Name: Nicholas Rafferty

    Age: 38

    Gender: Male

    Race: Human

    Blood Type: O-

    General Occupational Role(s): Medical Doctor, Surgeon, Paramedic, Chemist, Brig Physician, Chief Medical Officer, Virologist, Geneticist

    Biography

    Born into a life of poverty and destitution on the ruins of Earth, Nicholas faced a bleak future with few opportunities. He was able to escape from his humble beginnings when NanoTrasen funded a select few public schools in low income areas in exchange for permission to issue some ‘aptitude tests’ to students. Nicholas' school was one of those chosen, and he scored highly on these tests, being identified as a possibly gifted individual who qualified for a new NanoTrasen employment program.

    The premise was simple: NanoTrasen will pay for relocation off Earth to pursue education in the field of the student's choice. In exchange, the student, upon graduation, enters a mandatory 16 year tour of indentured servitude to repay these costs, after which they are free and clear to do as they wish… except for a standard non-compete clause, of course.  

    Nicholas accepted the deal, seeing it as probably his only opportunity to escape a life of poverty.  He chose Medicine as his field, as qualified doctors are always in high demand on remote outposts and deep space exploration vessels. He enrolled in Lunar University of Medical Science in 2542.

    After graduating and beginning to serve, he quickly became somewhat embittered by NanoTrasen’s soulless corporate philosophy, as well as the realization that he had sold the best years of his life to a company that viewed him as simply a moderately expensive piece of equipment.  It didn't help when later he learned the 'non-compete' clause of his contract was so expansive that it would all but guarantee he would either work for NanoTrasen for the rest of his life, or never work again at all.

    While somewhat cold to NanoTrasen in general, he takes his oath as a medical doctor very seriously. He will always treat anyone in his care to the best of his ability.

    Qualifications

    Degree and year of attainment:

    Doctor of Medicine (MD): 2546

    Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D): 2548

    Master of Medicine (MMed): 2550

    Master of Surgery (M.S): 2552

    Basic self-defense training.

    Post-placement training in Virology and Genetics equipment employed by NT.

    Employment Records

    Began mandatory assignment in 2553, which will end in 2569. Has served on the Cyberaid for just under 2 months.

    Dr. Rafferty is a skilled physician and surgeon, although there are some incidents of him cutting corners for the sake of expediency.

    Dr. Rafferty is competent at following instructions and working in a team. When no leadership is present, he is capable of working independently. He has the necessary technical skills and knowledge to perform the role of Chief Medical Officer, but a lack of assertiveness as well as a tendency to place the well-being of individual employees above the interests of the greater corporation limits his leadership potential.  

    Security Records

    No incidents on file.

    Medical Records

    2542 - Surgical correction for Myopia. No complications.

    2546 - Blood type alteration: From A+ to O-.  Voluntary experimental program designed to allow doctors assigned to remote locations with limited blood banks to become universal donors.

    Personnel Photo

    [To be added]

    Commendations

    [only to be added by admin]:

    Reprimands

    [only to be added by admin]:

    • Like 1
  7. Taunting like "COWER MORTALS FOR I HAVE COME.  YOU WILL SERVE, WITH YOUR LIFE OR WITH YOUR DEATH!" is fine.  "lol get rekt scrubs." I think shouldn't be tolerated, but then it's only medium RP so I understand the Admins not wanting to open the can of worms that is enforcing RP standards.

    Also, not just shadowings, but all command staff tend to abuse station wide announcements.  Here's a hint: If your station-wide announcement is directed at a single person, it doesn't need to be a station-wide announcement.  Also annoying is when heads use them to bicker, although thankfully I haven't seen that too often lately.

  8. 3 minutes ago, ZN23X said:

    Half the people who play vamps would tell you this is the only way to play ??

     

     

    The other half apparently think the way to play is to be friendly vampire and come to Medbay asking for blood and have the entire station totally okay with that so we end up with a 2 hour snooze-fest.  This is a whole other rant, though.... 

  9. I'm not sure how realistic it is to do this mechanically but the idea is this:

    When you use the Give Karma command, instead of the person being awarded the Karma immediately, they become your "Karma Target." They are not actually rewarded Karma until the end of the round.  If you use the Give Karma command again, the person you target becomes your new "Karma Target."  You can switch targets as many times as you want, but only the last person you targeted gets a Karma point at the end of the round.

    This way, you can award Karma early in the round without having to worry about not being able to give your Karma to someone more deserving later, and you'll never be in a position where you want to award Karma to someone but you can't.

    I think this would encourage people to give Karma a bit more freely overall. One potential problem I can see is if people disconnect or leave a round early, I'm not sure how easy it would be to still make sure the Karma goes through in that case. 

    • Like 4
  10. I'm still fairly new to SS13 but I DMed/Developed for a NWN persistent world RP server for 5-6 years.  Making players fear death was a pretty big issue because clearly people were not on our server.  And after struggling with it for a long time, I've come to the conclusion that you have to pick your battles and this particular hill is not one you want to die on.

    Players don't fear death.  They fear boredom. That's why players are always going to charge into dangerous situations. Because sitting in a locker instead is boring. Safe is boring. A server full of people doing the safe thing is boring. People won't play a boring server.  

    It's okay that people are reckless.  Chock it up to the fact that the type of person who signs on to work at a deep space plasma research station in a world of cults, space carp, vampires, shadowlings, changelings, terror spiders and Xenos are probably not people who shy away from danger. We're all a bit crazy if we decided to be on the Cyberaid in the first place.

    As for Cloning roleplay, the problem here is that mechanics and roleplay are in conflict.  Fixing this problem means putting the two back into sync.

    When I play MD, my patients are real players with their own agendas and their own things they want to be doing.  Now occasionally, you get the guy who wants to RP his trip to Medbay and those players are great and I will definitely take the time to chat with them and tell them what is going on, ask them how they got injured and describe the treatment I'm giving them.  But, often I will have a patient who has things to do and they just want me to fix them and get them back into the round as quickly as possible. 

    And this is why the Cloning versus Treatment debate is more like a balance than treatment being always the correct choice.  Yes, I will roleplay that Cloning is a last resort because it means the person died and a replacement is now walking around.  But at the same time, if I have a player who just wants to get back into the round, and I know I can get him back into the round twice as quickly by cloning him as I can be reviving and treating him, is it really right for me to force my own roleplay preferences onto them, to enhance my experience at the cost of theirs?  I'm not so sure it is.

    The solution to this problem is to change design so that the roleplay motivations and mechanics motivations lead to the same behavior, rather than different ones.  This can be done by either changing roleplay or changing mechanics to bring the two into sync.

    To change it mechanically: if we want Cloning to be a last resort in terms of roleplay, then it must also be a last resort mechanically.  That is, it must be the most difficult and time consuming way to revive someone.  How exactly to go about accomplishing that, I'll leave to people more experienced in ss13 mechanics than I am.

    To change the roleplay: Give roleplay reasons to clone over treating. For example, add fluff about how science proved ghosts exist and migrate to a new body. Or make NT SOP say you have to use the least expense and time consuming methods of treatment and even though we don't like it, we all signed the NT contract so we have to do it. 

    My preference would be to fix it mechanically by making cloning more time consuming and difficult.  When I play MD I want to do more than just throw people into Cryotubs or Cloners. I want there to be a reason for long, complicated surgical procedures.

    That said, it's less work to fix the issue from the roleplay perspective, and while doctors might like longer and more complicated treatments, patients typically don't. 

    • Like 3
  11. Thought on Medical, from someone who mostly plays MD (Although I am somewhat of a ss13 noob, only been playing a few months so take that into consideration).  I'm not a very good judge of aesthetics so my points will mostly be about function and mechanics.

    Traffic is a huge concern for Medbay design. There are something like a dozen medical job slots, plus patients, visitors, loiters, rolling beds, and IVs all taking up space.  I'm not bringing it up just to be critical but rather because hall space is a big deal when you need to get a patient on a roller bed to surgery without having your pull broken a dozen times. That said, we don't want a huge amount of wasted space, either.  I think you've done a good job overall balancing that, but there are a few suggestions I have for tweaks when it comes to space to help reduce choke points and congestion during high pop rounds. 

    The top horizontal hallway, the one leading directly to reception is 2 tiles wide, but the other main hallways are 3 tiles wide.  If anything needs to be 3 tiles, it's the hallway right after reception, as that's where most of the traffic is. Making the break room and CMO's office 1 tile shorter would be an easy fix, or you could just move them down a tile as the lower hallway is more suitable for being tighter as it will be less trafficked.  

    The entrance from reception also seems a bit cramped. On the current map we have 2 entrances that are 2 tiles wide.  One leads to Cryo and cloning and one leads to sleepers and surgery, so the traffic is divided.  On this map, you have a 4 tile intersection between reception, cryo, med storage, and deeper into Medbay.  I expect as is, this will be a huge choke point as everyone coming in or out of the main entrance must pass through 1 or 2 of these tiles.  You could widen the area to 3 tiles, or perhaps extend reception downward a bit and add another entrance on the bottom part of reception, sort of like we have on the current map, only sideways.  The lower entrance would probably be lower traffic since it's only really convenient for getting to the sleepers, but it would help a bit, and server as an alternative way in and out in an emergency.

    The ORs here are 5x6, the ORs on the current map are 6x6, and these feel cramped as a result.  I already think the current ORs are a bit cramped when you have a rolling bed and IV in the mix.

    The ORs have a room behind them that appears to be for storage or the like.  The only way to them other than maintenance is via the surgery rooms themselves, which is a problem because you really don't want traffic through your OR while you're performing surgery. I also don't like having the freezers in a different room, I don't want to have to leave the room during surgery to get more blood or retrieve an organ.  Freezers can be moved of course, but then you lose a tile of space, so the room should ideally be designed around having a freezer if it's going to have one.

    The current map has doors from the ORs directly into maintenance.  These suck as a doctor but are great for antags. I don't know if that makes adding a 'buffer' room behind the ORs a good thing or a bad thing overall. Just an observation, someone more experienced with antagging might want to add some insight into that.

    Other notes/suggestions:

    New Chem just looks way less cramped even though it's only slightly bigger. A little bit goes a long way, and the 3 tiles of table space built into the wall is nice. I don't work chem but I imagine this would be much nicer for them.  Not having to go through a cramped storage room to drop off meds is definitely an improvement, too. About the only possible downside is that it's very close to reception, meaning we only have the high trafficked reception doors plus 1 airlock separating the Clown from his Space Lube. I often see civvies managing to get into the anti-room right before MedChem, with this layout that would put them in Chem itself. Chemists will need to be vigilant. Also, the CMO can't just set the door to emergency mode when no Chemists are on shift so doctors can come and go without leaving Chem wide open to everyone.  I'm not really sure what the solution to that is, though. 

    New cloning is way better, having more space and not being right next to the highly trafficked Cryotubes is going to be extremely helpful.  Logically, it's located right next to the morgue and genetics.  This is sorely needed, the current cloning area gets way too cramped too quickly.

    Given the population on Paradise, I think we should consider having 3 ORs. As it stands, when pop is high we often fill both ORs and have a backlog. If one of the sets of surgery tools get stolen, things can spiral out of control very quickly when you have 1 functional OR serving 100+ people.  Obviously there needs to be room for Antags to mess with Medbay, and a certain amount of chaos is needed to keep the round interesting, so resources should be limited, but I think a third OR is reasonable.

    If the staff feels this is too many resources for Medbay to have, then maybe have an unfinished OR that engineering and Medbay can fix up each shift and order tools for. This way there is kind of 2.5 ORs, and it gives engineering and Medbay something to do. Sort of like how the Brig Physican needs to build their medbay up. 

    In addition to the above, perhaps we could have 3 sleepers instead of 2? You gave us 3 Cryotubes, which is great!

    The Cryotubes are very close to the entrance, which will be inviting for Graytides to just run by doctors and throw themselves in.  It's not any worse than it is currently, but it's something to consider since you're doing a new map anyway. On the other hand, since Cryo is preferred for critical patients, having it near the entrance is logical. I also like that they are near the fridge, so you won't have people dragging corpses/critical patients back and forth through Medbay like currently.

    There are 3 body scanners shown, which is 1 less than there are on the current map.  I think there should if anything be more, again, given Paradise's population. One near the Cryotubes would be nice, since patients admitted in critical condition often go to Cryo first, and those patients are most likely to require a scan for internal injuries. Maybe an extra one in a bad spot no one uses, so the Brig physician can steal it? Just kidding. (Not really)

    I love that Medical gets it's own escape pod. Not only is it great mechanically, but lore wise it makes sense for us to have a pod, rather than having to drag someone who is hurt down the halls on a rolling bed.  It would make sense to have easy escape access to a place that deals with hurt and disabled people. Plus this way I don't have to take the same shuttle as the plebs.  My character didn't go to Medschool for 8 years to fly coach!

    • Like 2
  12. 5 hours ago, ZN23X said:

    I'd be a fan of something different from Metastation

    This.  Please.

    I can't speak for the station as a whole, but I play primarily MD and was part of the test last night and holy shit, that Medbay is horrible.  There is no way it was designed for large populations, it's a claustrophobic nightmare. It's probably okay for an average population in the 30s but definitely not 50+ or even 100+.

    • Like 1
  13. Crime prevention actually isn't a part of Space Law, either, so the AI is not required to think ahead in that way. It might decide to do so, but it's not a law if it's optional.

    On the other hand, it would be valid logic to think the best way to ensure 0 crime is to let the entire crew die.  The rules on Murder, Assault, Sabotage, and Creating a Workplace Hazard would prevent the AI from actively seeking to harm crew, but it certainly could just sit back and let people die from hazards created by others.  After arresting the person who did it, of course. 

     

  14. 13 hours ago, Urlance Woolsbane said:

     Can it rightly enforce space law or protect the crew if there are no engineering borgs to repair the place?

     

    Sure, why not? "Failure to repair the station" isn't a crime, nor is "Failure to make Engineering Cyborgs in case the Station becomes damaged."

    It also isn't a crime for a doctor to leave Medbay in the middle of red alert and ignore critical patients to go play Orion trail at the bar.

    It isn't a crime for the HoP to give everyone all access.

    It isn't a crime for the Chief Engineer to refuse to start the engine.

    It isn't a crime for the Captain to call everyone to the bar to play Hot Potato with the Nuke disc.

    All of these things can and should get you demoted and fired, but they won't get you thrown in the brig because they are not crimes, they are violations of SOP. Security isn't going to arrest the QM for only ordering pizza crates, but the HoP could and should fire them.

  15. I play Medical pretty much exclusively and would really like something like this.  When you have graytide walking right by doctors and then spamming the medical storage as if Medbay is a fucking Help Yourself Pharmacy it's really annoying, but not quite worthy of calling for security to run half-way across the station when you know they aren't going to get there before he leaves anyway.

    Also, when things are hectic, someone assigned to get anyone who isn't a doctor or patient the hell out of medbay would be great.  It's really annoying when Cryo/Cloning turn into a traffic jam because people are either just standing around wasting space or trying to play doctor themselves. 

    As far as SR goes (since it got brought up) My problem with it is that if you have a chemist who knows what they are doing you'll have 300 of them 5 minutes into the shift which means it's more or less unlimited.  It's not just that it's powerful, it's that it's effectively an unlimited resource.  I think making it take 20u per pill to work would make the supply far more limited and keep the Paramedic job valuable.

    • Like 1
  16. Thanks for the answers, guys! I've been playing for about 3 weeks now, almost exclusively Medical but I just wanted to make sure I didn't kill anyone accidentally (If I kill a Vox, I want it to be on purpose)!

     

  17. I know Vox breathe Nitrogen and you should never remove their internals. However, I'm wondering about medication.

    There is one line in the Medical Doctor page on the wiki that states:

    "NEVER give vox Salbutomal or Perfluorodecalin. Oxygen is toxic to them and those chems make them suffocate."

    Yet this isn't mentioned in the guide to medicine, the entry on Vox, or in the description of these chemicals.  Even other guides have no mention of this.

    What about Emergency Auto Injectors (Epinephrine)?  Are those safe? 

    If not, how should you treat suffocation damage on a Vox? 

     

    • Like 1
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