Norwest

I really like this idea, all in all. It lets secborgs stay relevant against biohazards, while still subjecting them to significant penalties ("1 hand+0 backpacks" vs. "2 hands+backpack o'guns") that allow organics to remain important too. (as an aside, when playing Secborg against blobs/xenos/terrors, I find it's almost a relief to finally die. Whaling on some isolated bit of blob for ages, with literally nothing more than a harmbaton to hurt the thing, is all kinds of no-fun)

I'm a fan. Count me as a yes, please.

I really do like the idea of a "Security Instructor" on the whole, and I think you've put a lot of good work and effort into the concept. I hope this does get adopted in the future, and I hope you don't give up on it yet.

I'd personally recommend the 1980s-copper look, in order to encourage approachability. The student-instructor relationship is a key element of successful education, and while making a Drill Instructor (DI) as the teacher might make for some decent Full Metal Jacket parodies, it also actively discourages new Sec Officers from seeking out help. Meanwhile, the "grumpy-but-approachable old vet" is a timeless and tireless archetype, and would help improve the students' confidence to speak up in the first place.

To try and summarize the issues you're bringing up: 1. Limited supply of minerals. 2. Departmental Protolathes will still be dependent on Research doing their job. 3. Scientists are sometimes at the R&D desk to handle requests. To respond to each of these in turn: 1. I'm not sure what evidence you're basing a lack of resources on, because the only times I've seen a sustained lack of resources is when Mining has had multiple traitors or been completely incompetent. Those incidents are functionally irrelevant to the question of an ore silo, because the issue is upstream of ore distribution. Miners usually end up goofing around on-station with teleportation jaunters or oodles of minebots by the 1-hour mark, because they've so oversupplied the ORM that there's more resources than the station could use. The paradigm of mining supply is "feast or famine:" either the Miners are somewhat competent and rapidly stock the ORM with gobs of resources, or they're terrible for some reason or another and provide nothing. In both cases, distribution is not an issue. Even assuming that mining stocks were depleted, that logically implies that nearly everyone is getting the kit they needed. That's hardly a problem, is it? 2. Yes, I agree that departmental Protolathes will still require Research to do their job. I thought that was the idea, no? Aren't we supposed to be encouraging inter-departmental cooperation and the like? 3. Yes, Scientists are sometimes at the R&D desk. Believe me, they aren't there for all two hours of the shift. Even if someone had the stamina to sit through two hours in a crowded room, they'd be swarmed by oodles of requests - the Janitor wants a floor buffer, Medbay wants IMSes, Engineering wants loaded RPEDs - which are draining and largely un-rewarding to deal with. Why go through the effort of making someone have to do a deliberately-terrible job when you could just make department-specific Protolathes to take the bulk of the work off of them? Logically speaking, having departmental Protolathes would eliminate the regular requests like the ones mentioned above, and cut things down to either greytiders or someone with a very unusual request (an Engineer looking for a crew monitor, for instance). That means many fewer yells of "; SCIENTIST TO R&D I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR TEN MINUTES DAMNIT," and less-frustrating gameplay for everyone involved. I still don't really see where the issue is here.

^This. The problem with Science as it stands is twofold: 1) Science only has a single, easy job to do, and 2) That job is utterly awful. R&D itself is a sad joke, and the actual work involved is completed in no time (there's quite literally a guide titled "R&D In Ten Minutes Or Less" on the forum). The hard part is implementing upgrades, and once you've upgraded the departmental machines, Science's job for the rest of the round is Retail In Space. You sit at the front window, waiting for people to show up, and give 'em what they ask for. You get yelled at for not doing the job, yelled at for giving out the wrong kit to the wrong people, yelled at for being too slow, for using too many resources, etc etc etc. None of that is a recipe for fun, engaging gameplay. It should therefore come as no surprise that Scientists skive off their actual job in favor of dicking around with pointless-but-fun side jobs like Toxins, telescience, or just placing bluespace tiles across the entire station. When your actual, assigned job is such a downer, and when you've got oodles of tools at your disposal, it's understandable that Scientists would ignore Retail In Space in favor of making fartonium. Adding departmental Protolathes wouldn't resolve the issue of R&D being stupidly easy, but it would at least address the issue of Scientists having to man the front desk (and by extension, improve Science's reputation across the station). If I could wave my magic coding-wand, I'd like to see the whole research process overhauled, so that different areas of R&D actually contribute to the station as a whole. I'd argue that much of the poor perception of Scientists and Research as a department is that they simply don't have anything to do beyond answering the front desk and upgrading other departments' machines. I'd like to see Toxins, the EXPERIMENTOR, Xenobio, and Sci-Chem actually meaningfully contribute to research in some way. As with the departmental 'lathes, I think /tg/'s setup is a pretty good model to follow. Still, just having a better system for distributing advanced gear would be a hell of a step forward. I can think of multiple alternate avenues for creating R&D besides that, and under the current conditions, I have every incentive to try one or more of them. Think of this as like dealing with the IRL illegal drug economy: trying to reduce the supply is difficult, because people are creative as all hell and will come up with many different routes around whatever impediments you place. Simply legislating "Don't Do R&D" is much like going "Don't Do Drugs," and I imagine most of us are old enough to remember how badly D.A.R.E. failed. You're better off trying to reduce the demand, via providing other departments with a legal means to acquire the gear they need. The departmental Protolathes and ore silo would largely resolve the need for another department to build their own Protolathe in the first place.

I was HoS that round, and yeah, I think I know the person you're talking about. It's a good thing the rest of the team was so competent, because he and one other officer were...new. Very, uh, new.

Issues: 1. Station goals are a neat idea, but with only three different goals, they get pretty boring in practice. Once you've seen one station shield, you've seen them all. 1(a). More complicated station goals aren't easily implemented due to the extensive coding involved. You can't code a way to evaluate "put on a play" without human involvement in the loop. 2. Station goals require the entire station, which leaves you screwed over if/when Botany some other department fails to come through and renders all your hard work pointless. 3. Station goals also only involve a few departments; when the station's job is "haul some satellites into space," the entire Service department can't do much more than Advanced Thumb-Twiddling. Design Goals: 1. I'm looking to make a flexible system which provides a goal which both departments and individual jobs can strive for. 2. I want to avoid consistency: the system should have a lot of different goals, which ideally challenge people's playstyles in some way. 3. The system should reward both departments and individuals in a way which provides some bragging rights, without incentivizing them enough to make them want to game the system. Design: 1. Each department (Security, Cargo, Engineering, Medical, Science, Service) receives a specific goal from a pre-determined list. Similarly to the station goal form, the paper with the departmental goal would appear in the head's office (HoP, HoS, CMO, etc.). The departmental goal is intended to involve the primary job of the department (Engineers, Cargo Techs, etc.), with a goal such as "send back at least 20 empty crates" or "hold a pizza party." Suggestions for goals to complete are definitely appreciated (see below). 2. Individual jobs which are different from the primary department's job in some way (Geneticist, Chemist, Botanist, Mime/Clown, etc.) receive a role-specific goal which they're intended to implement. A Coroner, for instance, could receive a goal like "hold a funeral for at least one deceased individual this shift, complete with a eulogy." 3. Goal completion is evaluated by IA Agents, who can mark a department's or individual's goal as completed (I'd suggest having a particular form to fax to CentComm or something similar, to avoid complicating things). While this system could certainly be gamed, the low reward potential should keep people from gaming it for actual powergame-y reasons. And if someone wants to bribe or coerce an IA Agent into claiming they've done something good...well, that seems like perfectly decent RP, no? 4. Departments would be rewarded with a plaque or some other commendation that goes on a wall (either shipped in or stocked in the IA's office), and a minor greentext at the end under the Station Goal section ("Science Department Goal: 'Create multiple maximum-capacity bombs' - completed!"). Individuals who completed their role-specific task or contributed strongly in some other way would be rewarded with a commendation from their Head of Staff. Each Head of Staff would spawn with their own medal box in their closet, with up to three relevant medals inside (distinguished conduct for the HoP, nobel sciences award for the RD, etc.) Obviously, some medals like the 'medal for exceptional heroism' would still be Captain-only. This: a) allows for many more goals to be implemented, ranging from more conventional goals like "Engineering: repair and re-open the Med-Maint Bar" to off-the-wall stuff like "Service: serve a full-scale feast in the Bar, complete with a reconstruction of an ancient Viking longship" or "Mime/Clown: act out a scene from a Shakespearean play"), b) gives IA Agents more stuff to do and a reason to visit other departments rather than the usual interaction of "You're doing your job? Cool, keep doing that," c) improves IA's interaction with other departments, since now they can provide something good rather than just being the bearer of bad news, and d) Gives both recognition and reward to a particular department for the work they've done. Expected issues: a) People gaming the system for kicks (IA Agent being a shitter, Head of Staff pinning all their medals on themselves, etc.). I see this issue as a largely self-resolving one, since people being shitheads like this should invite enough public condemnation to limit it. b) People simply ignoring their goals. This is also a fairly self-resolving issue, since the goals themselves don't provide any major risk or reward other than a shiny plaque or medal. c) People mocking a weird goal they're given. This could be addressed by making the goal papers themselves fairly humorous ("Hey Atmos Techs, Comms Officer Steve here. So I know it's normally banned for being 'suicidally dangerous' and similar stuff, but here's what: how about you make a special room for plasmamen? I'm sure the Chief Engineer would commend you for that!"). This should hopefully provide the right tone for the goals, without detracting from the fact that they're a new and interesting thing to try on some slow round. Suggestions for departmental goals: General: -Educate new members of the team / provide public education to anyone who wants to learn about your job Medical: -Remove at least ten appendixes / install at least five MedHUD implants -Get half the crew to maximize their suit sensors / ensure the front desk is staffed during the shift Science: -Destroy the Toxins Testing Range with toxins bombs -Build a quantum-pad network connecting the station -Build and install two additional AIs / build a secondary comms array Engineering: -Complete and pressurize the Construction Site (the one east of the Engineering Outpost) -Build a new room in the Assembly Line area (theater, lounge, etc.) -Repair and re-furnish the Old Bar or Medical Maintenance restaurant Cargo: -Send at least twenty crates on the supply shuttle -Ensure that every order submitted has properly stamped paperwork -Provide every Civilian on station with a Station-Bounced Radio Role-Specific Tasks: Chemistry: Provide every other department with healing grenades / provide Engineering with at least five metal-foam grenades Coroner: Ensure all corpses are disposed of via cremation or mass-driver once autopsied Roboticist: Ensure the station has at least one 'borg with every module type before the shift ends / Build at least two Odysseus Mechs Chaplain: Provide a service dedicating the station to your god / hold at least one funeral service for any person or thing, complete with firing them out the mass driver Librarian: Create a role-playing game in the Library / provide books to all other departments Atmos Tech: Destroy at least one dangerous item in the Incinerator / create a vox-specific (or plasmaman-specific) room this shift (etc. etc. etc.) I'd appreciate any other suggestions you have to offer, especially suggestions for additional goals to complete. I'd like a large number of goals to avoid people seeing the same ones too often, so if you can think of anything else, lemme know! If the maintainers are willing to go forward with this suggestion then I'll be happy to provide the fluff for it like the department/job papers, IA's new SOP regarding inspecting and completing goals, assessing and suggesting new goals, and so on.

Thanks for the input, @tzo; I really appreciate the effort you've put in to critiquing this. Re the new critiques you've added: Overpopulation: 1. Auto-antags: I think you're right that it'd probably be difficult to code, but I put it as my #1 suggestion because I think it'd have an outsize impact on improving gameplay. "Aesthetic" changes like adding an Inspect status aren't any good when the entire Sec team has been facerolled by an overwhelming number of antagonists. @Allfd, I'm sure you'd know far more than me about the coding side of things; any suggestions here regarding either the implementation or effect on game balance? 2. Auto-job creation: Fair point, yes. I've suggested initial job-creation thresholds above, but there are obvious potential issues with regards to job equipment, office space, and the like. This could be addressed to some degree by having late-joining players spawn with additional equipment; a late-joining Engineer starting off with magboots in their inventory, for instance (hardsuits are all well and good, but in the age of fastmos, magboots are a very literal necessity for even minor hull breaches or similar atmos issues). Helping newbies: 3&4. Low-intensity Sec roles: I hear what you're saying, and I'd certainly be happy to see a "Security Cadet" role in some form. However, a separate "Constable/Peace Officer" role or the like also provides a low-intensity role for more-experienced players who want to keep the peace while staying out of the way of antagonists - two birds with one stone, essentially. I don't plan on dying on this hill, but I think it's safe to say that experienced players who wouldn't play as a "cadet" (i.e. an explicitly-subordinate role) might instead play the role if it's renamed as a "community officer" or the like. Improving department cooperation: 5. Comms: True, it can be done currently, but the extra in-game logistics and difficulty involved means that it's fairly rare, no? Certainly, I haven't seen it done myself outside of Metastation (where the departmental Sec checkpoints have encryption keys already). That being said, I imagine that actually coding this might be impractical in practice; having departmental checkpoints simplifies the whole matter by tying the new equipment to a static place at roundstart, rather than to players who'll regularly enter and exit the game. 6. Armorer: Can you elaborate, please? I doubt that having different Scientists assigned to different departments ("Here's a Medbay/Engineering/Service encryption key and armband, please assist them as able") would raise eyebrows, so I'm not clear how doing the same for Sec is unworkable out-of-hand. Making Sec Officers less of a target: 9. Making HUDs read-only: It'd stop people from just doing so on the fly, yes, but even outside of the antagonist issue (i.e. an antag steals or prints a SecHUD and makes themselves immune to Secbots by virtue of changing their arrest status), it also leads to a lot of bad behavior on Sec's part. Part of the reason I stopped playing Warden was having to shout into Sec comms to figure out why the hell someone in custody was there, because bloody nobody ever updated arrest statuses with a note. I can't speak for the people who were arrested, but I certainly heard a lot of well-deserved complaints about "shitcurity" from people who had to wait ten minutes just to get processed. 10. Headset camera: Apologies for the confusion. To clarify, I was suggesting adding the camera to the bowman headset, Aliens-style, so that the player could wear whatever headgear they wanted (and to tie the headset's valuable ear protection to the camera). And while I agree about the potential objections, I'd also point to the issues this was meant to address, namely Sec Officers being valid-salad and being rapidly booted from the game as a result, and the issue of Security gear like flashbangs being rendered halfway-useless the moment an antagonist jumps a newbie Seccie. If anyone can suggest another way of both making Sec gear less useful for an antagonist and making Sec Officers more likely to be recovered when they die, I'm all ears. 11. Dispatcher: I hear what you're saying, but making a cadet do so every game requires both reliable and effective leadership (i.e. the HoS to single out some newbie and demand "Hey, you! Abandon whatever you'd planned and watch those cameras!") and reliable player compliance (i.e. said newbie actually doing so). I've played a lot of Command roles, primarily Chief Engineer, and I've found compliance to be extremely low in practice. Actually getting people to follow commands can be difficult, especially so when the job isn't clearly defined, and the advantage of a separate role is that it provides a clear scope of practice (i.e. "If you sign up as a Dispatcher you'll be watching cameras and updating arrest records") and an explicit choice on the player's part (i.e. the player who's picked the role will be entering the game much more likely to actually carry it out than the random cadet who's been told "oi, get over there and figure out how2camera-console"). This is meant as a "package deal" with the headset cameras and change to HUDs, as otherwise I don't see a clear need for the role, but if those changes were to be implemented then I'd argue that the necessity of a dedicated Dispatcher would rapidly become self-evident. Misc. changes: 12. An "Inspect" status: --- 13. Changes to X-Ray: Fair point, but to quote an anonymous person from deadchat: "The moment I hear that Genetics has discovered X-Ray, I just start killing every Sec Officer I see. Once they can follow me like that, I need to thin them out." I've heard this sentiment a couple times, and although I can't speak for the validity in practice, I've seen two instances so far which seem to back this up in practice (experienced players who switched from non-lethal to lethal attacks once X-Ray began to be distributed). I don't think this behavior is something which can be cut down via admin intervention, as that'd be expecting too much from admins, so, well...*shrugs* 14. Hooligan: Fair enough. Alternatives could include money-dependent vending machines which would dispense desirable but low-availability equipment (insulated gloves, tool-belts/holsters, etc.), with the goal of encouraging a black market or similar low-intensity crime. That being said, I'm not overly wedded to the idea myself, so I've no issue with dropping it. 15. Making the HoS a karma-locked role: Apologies, I wasn't aware of that previously. Thanks for the advice regarding translation into PRs. With that in mind, I'd agree that auto-job creation and the "cadet" role would be good starting points. I'd personally prefer the "cadet" position as an alt-title for the "Sec Officer" role rather than a separate job itself due to the issues that @ZN23X and I mentioned earlier, but I'd be happy either way; anything to ease the learning-cliff issue inherent in Sec would come in handy. I'd point to the "Inspect" status as another relatively easily-implemented change*, and one without many downsides that I can see. *Near as I can tell, implementing it would involve adding a separate "Inspect" status on the Sec computer, HUD, data core records, and the basic human.dm pages ("criminal" subsection). Given that it explicitly doesn't involve any changes to bot/turret behavior or the like, though, it seems like it'd be relatively feasible. Indeed, but at the end of the day, I think the current pattern of "if you play Sec you'll always hunt antags, no AEGs/teleshields, FINAL DESTINATION" is not a workable one. We need some means of easing not just the learning curve, but the round-to-round expectation placed on someone wanting to play Sec. The only Sec role I'll play at this point is the Pod Pilot, because I'm expected to patrol the station exterior and avoid the inevitable bloodbaths when some antag decides they're going to dunk on a Sec Officer or three. I'd like a role which involves not getting sucked into those godawful messes in Maintenance, and one where I'm supposed to actually help crew instead of just hunting down the worst among them; after all, part of the enjoyment of the Pod Pilot role is rescuing people who need a save. Issues of a lower-intensity role being valid-salad can be addressed in large part by where they patrol (i.e. someone who spends their time largely in Processing or public areas is in much less risk of getting slammed than someone who's expected to regularly patrol Maintenance), and also by making their equipment less-attractive to antagonists (please note my previous proposals regarding HUDs and headsets). Overall, I'd argue that there's enough of a demand for a lower-intensity role to justify the occasional in-game confusion and issues that you're talking about. Regarding someone who's going "full murderbone," I don't see much of a mechanical method for correcting it. Admin-wise, having a protocol for discouraging that sort of behavior (a private warning to antags and a CentComm one for Sec, a dedicated ERT or antagonist like a Space Ninja, etc.) might help, and on the Sec side, giving Legal more authority (IAAs, SOP, and the Magistrate) might assist in curbing smaller excesses.

Good idea! Specific areas that come to mind are: -Next to the Kitchen's external window (for throwing away plates and the like) -Near the end of the Port, Starboard, and Aft Primary Hallways (too bloody far already) -In the public side of the Cargo Office -In the public side of the Medbay Lobby -In the corner between EVA and the 'NSS Cyberiad' nameplate, just north of the Bridge There are other spots which come to mind (outside Auxiliary Tool Storage, the southeast side of the Dorms, in Departures near the Sci Maint entrance, etc.), but those alone would do a lot for getting trash where it's supposed to be.

I don't disagree with that, and to be fair, I don't think that any of the proposals I've made have altered that. The change I've tried to make via the whole "headset camera + dedicated camera-watcher" proposal was to increase the likelihood that said dead Seccie would get recovered, and wouldn't be permanently dumped from the round. After all, natural selection here is voluntary; if people keep having unenjoyable experiences while playing as a Sec Officer, they're simply going to play as a Scientist instead and tool around with 5 AEGs in their Bag of Holding backpack. Having a "guardian angel" role like the Dispatcher increases the odds that a Sec Officer will get found and revived, and make them less likely to say "fuckit, time to play Rimworld instead." To add to what you're saying, I should note that "different antagonists cooperating to absolutely demolish Security" is enough of a common event that the term 'carpire' (i.e. a traitor giving the 17-TC Sleeping Carp scroll to a vampire to make them downright invincible) is in common use. There's an active suggestion to ban the practice entirely, for understandable reasons. Thanks, and yeah, I'd love to try and mechanically encourage better Sec-crew cooperation through relatively small changes like these. Having played a solid amount of Security myself, though, I'd add that simple stress and overwork contributes to a lot of bad behavior from Security. Constantly having to put out additional brushfires and fighting murderous antagonists unsurprisingly makes for a stressful time, and one where the Sec Officer is likely to simply ignore the finer points of SOP and just goes for the mute taze-cuff-drag instead of trying to talk things out with some greytider who's breaking windows. I don't want to absolve Sec players here, mind you, but I'd point to additional jobs like the Constable and Dispatcher for assisting with that overwork and improving Sec-crew relations on the whole.

Perhaps before anything else, I think the first question to be asked is simply "what sort of gameplay are you trying to create?" Do you want Engineers running around messing with SMES outputs? Do you want 'em having to tweak and fine-tune power inputs to ensure that the rest of the station is running? Ultimately, what sort of moments and incidents are you trying to create? Saying "nerf the Tesla to encourage people to use the singulo" is fine and all, but it doesn't exactly make for terribly stimulating gameplay one way or another, eh? Let me try and propose a change to illustrate what I'm talking about: "Brownouts:" Rather than the massive Automated Grid Check, every shift a certain number of tiles with power cables on them will be pre-selected to have a brownout problem. Depending on ease of coding, this could take several forms: they only allow a certain amount of power to go through them, they periodically stop working, explode if too much power is in 'em, etc etc etc. Regardless of exactly how the issue arises, the point is that every shift the Engineers will have some bad power cables somewhere which will need to be fixed. In other words, they'll have to troubleshoot the approximate location of the faulty wire based on how many APCs 'downstream' of it are affected, then head out to find the thing and replace it. Much like faulty cameras or broken lights, a certain number of wires would brownout at shift start, and a small number would do so later in the shift as well. The desired gameplay here would be Engineers having to a) know the station's cable layout, b) know what the hell's going on when an area goes dark, and c) traipse around in Maintenance trying to find and fix the faulty wire. Power surge: A negative random event, where the engine SMES cells quadruple their current output and essentially dump its whole power supply into the power grid in a short amount of time. This would lead to the usual power excess-related issues (APCs zapping people, lethally-electrified windows, etc.) during the time the surge is active, and would also lead to a power-supply problem afterwards. The goal here would be to provide a temporary, but nasty power issue that would require Engineering assistance, and also reward extra effort on their part. Engineering teams who went the extra mile to get the solars online and prepped Electrical Maintenance would be sitting pretty, while lazier ones would be in trouble. While I like the idea of making SMES cells for individual departments, I'm also leery of putting that much work and effort on the coders. That's a lot of re-wiring to do, and I'm unsure if it would really affect the actual round-to-round gameplay all that much. Similarly, while I think the idea of having to tweak power levels might be fun in theory, in practice I imagine it'd be a lot of Spreadsheet Simulator without much interesting and engaging payoff for anyone who volunteers to handle the work.

First off, thank you both for the critiques. I definitely appreciate you taking the time to read my spiel. Re the Constable: Making it an alt-title means that a) newbies often won't find the title in the first place, that b) it'll have the same responsibilities and duties as any other officer, resulting in anyone wanting to greytide-wrangle getting roped into antagonist-hunting by simple necessity, not to mention that c) the role would have the same SOP, gear, and duties as normal. It also wouldn't provide an earlier-unlocked role for newbies to dip their feet into playing Sec, rendering that design goal moot. Making it an alternate-title might work for the design goal of "having a lower-intensity Sec role for experienced players," but it'd be very detrimental for the goal of "providing a simpler and easier role for newbies to learn the job." I'd argue for the necessity of the Constable position given how steep the Sec learning curve is, and how many people are scared away by that alone. Re the Dispatcher: The issue is fundamentally one of overpopulation. Having the Detective or Warden juggle watching cams in their free time makes sense with 50-something players on the server, but that's downright impossible with 100+ players around. And as mentioned, the gear rework - making Security HUDs read-only and adding a camera to Security headsets - adds a lot more potential work. Sec Officers having their own cameras by default (as opposed to the kludged-together workarounds like carrying around a Video Camera and having someone watch one of the TVs station-wide, or carrying a GPS so that their body might be found) would be helpful for keeping them in the round if they're attacked, but it does require someone to watch 'em for the rework to actually be useful. Additionally, it provides another "lower-intensity" role for both newbies looking to learn how Security functions and experienced players looking for a slower-paced round; both the Warden and Detective roles are fairly high-intensity in practice. Re the Armorer: I can't speak for people arguing against it, but I would suggest that anyone who has an issue with the job consider the argument I made here. In line with that same argument, a key design goal behind the Armorer role was of improving departmental cooperation and avoiding the "Security island" issue. The Armorer is a Scientist rather than a member of Security, with all the baggage attached to that - they answer to the RD, they're under Science SOP, they aren't allowed to make arrests, etc etc etc. The two key elements of the role are a mindshield and having access to Security comms from roundstart, since the goal here was to provide a Scientist who had clear communication and trust with Security. Re the Detective: Given the original design goal of the Detective (MOAR HARDBOILED) and the issue of a lack of crimes on lower populations, I'd settled instead for having additional 'Forensic Technician' slots open up as the population increased. That being said, I'd hardly be against that myself; I've certainly run my feet ragged when playing as the Detective, and I can't count how many times I've seen cases go cold due to a Detective being overworked, delinquent, or both. Regarding "difficulty cooperating:" I'd be for having departmental checkpoints myself, although the response from the server maintainers was that it was a no-go. On the whole I definitely agree with you there, though, and I'd definitely like to see Sec Officers start with an 'assignment' to a particular department along with the armband and encryption key to go with it. I mentioned that in my argument in the other thread, but forgot to include it here - apologies. I can understand not wanting to include departmental access or Security checkpoints in different departments, but just having comms access - hell, doing the same for other departments too - could do a lot to overcome the recurring "departmental island" issue. Thanks. I went for a comprehensive rework because individual reforms have been shot down on the basis of being "not comprehensive enough." Given that, I figured that I might as well propose a sweeping framework to avoid that particular critique; that being said, if there's one thing I would love to see implemented, it's scaling antagonist numbers to Sec rather than to playercount. I simply can't emphasize that enough: it (should be) a relatively easy change to implement, and one that's sorely needed given the issue of low Security numbers in the first place. In line with your critique about ordering this all into something more compact, here's a more compact framework which should hopefully make the whole mess a little more legible. It's in order of perceived importance, but the goal is to provide ideas and inspiration rather than a list of demands - coders, please pick and choose as you see fit: Dealing with the overpopulation problem: A. Antagonist balance: Make antagonist numbers (Shadowling, changeling+vampire, traitor+vampire, etc etc etc.) scale with Security playercount, rather than total playercount. B. Job auto-creation: Additional jobs in all departments (see above) are automatically added depending on total playercount. Helping newbies: A. Add an alternate "Security Cadet" title to the Security Officer role. B. Constable: An early-unlocking role with fewer responsibilities than the standard Sec Officer job. (will also help with the overpopulation issue) Additional details, including proposed SOP and starting equipment, detailed above. Improving department cooperation: A. Comms: Security Officers start with an armband and encryption key of another major department in their packs (Engineering, Science, Medical, or Cargo), and their starting text would additionally state that "You are assigned to the [name] department to assist them with security-related issues." I'd like to see the same for other departments. such as giving Engineers a department to focus on and the like, minus Security (since without a mindshield, it'd be potentially compromising Sec comms from the start). B. Armorer: A Scientist with a fancy title, a mindshield, and Security comms. Can be trusted with Sec comms from the start. Helping newbies: A. Add a "Security Cadet" title to the Security Officer role, for anyone wanting to indicate that they're new at the job. B. Constable: An early-unlocking role with fewer responsibilities than the standard Sec Officer job (will also help with the overpopulation issue). Meant to be focused on the "protect and serve" side of policing, and to be well out of the way of the usual Sec-antag fight if possible. Additional details available above. Making Sec Officers less of a target: A. Make HUDSunglasses read-only, so that antagonists won't be able to remove an *Arrest* status as easily. B. Add a non-deactivating camera to Security bowman headsets, so that Sec Officers can be found more easily when they're in trouble. C. Dispatcher: the Detective and Warden have their own full-time jobs to do, and can't spend their time watching over the cameras of a half-dozen officers on their lonesome. Therefore, a 'Dispatcher' role can watch the new (and old) cameras, update records, monitor comms, manning the front desk of the Brig, etc. (it'll also help with the overpopulation issue). Misc. proposed changes (low-priority): A. A yellow "Inspect" status, separate from the standard *Arrest* one, so that a cooperative suspect can be brought to the Brig without getting Beepsky'd. B. Making X-Ray less ridiculously effective, so that antagonists have an easier time of escaping Security. Currently, X-Ray provides complete full-screen vision, /and/ nightvision capability to boot. Removing the night-vision power alone would make it less effective, and therefore increase the importance of supporting roles like the Detective and Dispatcher in ensuring that an antagonist is caught. C. Hooligan: A low-level antagonist with miscellaneous goals like enriching themselves via theft, or similar actions. Basically, an effort to encourage low-level crime and an active black market, rather than making antagonistic behavior on the server be just about the big bad antags of the round. D. Make the HoS have a small karma-lock of 5 points. Given how critical the role is to ensuring a good Security team (and how much trouble a bad HoS can cause for the crew as a whole), this should improve the competence of the average HoS per round.

Basic issue: Security is often understaffed, severely enough that it's a major topic of concern. The statistics are pretty clear: most people just don't find Security a fun enough job to play. General causes: A. Overpopulation: The server routinely hits over 120 players, with the map and game balanced for closer to ~50 player size. The population issue leads to moments like this, where the station's regular jobs are rapidly filled, and anyone hoping to join is left to either ghost, go as an assistant, or salt about it on Reddit. Perhaps more pertinent, though, it also leads to a ridiculously large Assistant playercount with little productive work to do (i.e. greytiding galore), and: B. Excessive antagonist numbers: Most game modes assign antags based on the total number of players, not the total number of Security players. Combined with the overpopulation problem, this can lead to a fairly ridiculous Sec-antag imbalance once the server reaches 80+ players as it commonly does. I've often seen hilarious imbalances where antagonists like changelings, vampires, or shadowlings (who are designed to reliably win or tie a 1v1 confrontations) outnumbering Sec members at roundstart. Furthermore: C. General overwork: Between prisoner processing, greytiders, responding to crew calls for "SEC DORMS" and the like, or simple Public Relations requirements (manning the front desk, responding to accusations of Sec misbehavior, etc), there are far too many tasks for the average Sec Officer to handle at once. D. Being "valid:" Regular Security Officers are seen as valid targets for antagonists, which means that they're frequently attacked, killed, and taken out of the round (husked, spaced, decapitated, etc.). This is obviously fairly un-fun for the officer getting valid-ed in this fashion, which contributes to the Sec staffing issue. The two most common reasons for this include reducing Sec numbers, and taking their gear. E. Escalation and capability gaps: Security Officers rarely "level up" throughout a round, despite there being plenty of legal methods for doing so. Few of them get implant/augment surgery, for instance, and the average officer rarely gets even basic equipment like holsters. Much of this is due to the aforementioned overwork, as there's always something else requiring their attention. However, much of this is also due to: F. Difficulty communicating and cooperating: There's a significant lack of cooperation between different departments, and mechanically, there are few methods of encouraging that cooperation short of "Heads of Staff chatting on private Command comms." Scientists, Botanists, Engineers, and Cargo techs all lack access to Security comms and areas, and vice versa, resulting in different departments generally heading off to do their own thing (Cargonia, Engistan-Atmosia, Medistan, Scientopia, etc.). G. A difficult learning curve: There's no "learner's course" for Security, and no way for a newbie to easily mark themselves as one without drawing trouble down on their own head. This is a problem in other jobs, of course, but the high requirements placed on Sec makes this much more notable, and more of a barrier to entry for prospective members. Conclusion: There are some long-standing problems like the issue of Security Officers being whacked for their loot or the learning curve for the job, but the more recent issue is simply the overwhelming playerbase size and the attendant issues which go along with it. Goals: Overall: Mechanically encourage more-positive player interactions involving Security by lowering the demand on individual players, allowing for more-casual participation, and reducing the negative consequences involved with the role. Tl;dr make Security more fun to play. A. Balance the Sec-antag numbers so that Security isn't completely overwhelmed by the threat of the day. B. Add in specialized Sec roles to help with the overwork (and also let people play those specific elements of Sec without getting swept up in the general antagonist-hunt). C. Try to keep Sec players from being taken out of the game quite as easily. D. Give new players more ways to "stretch their legs" by either indicating they're a newbie, or by playing a Security role which is less-intense than the 'frontline' ones. Game-mechanics changes: A. The "AutoTraitor" approach: Currently, the AutoTraitor gamemode balances antagonists with Security Officers, the legitimate antag-hunters. New traitors are generated either from existing players or from new arrivals depending on the number of Sec players in the round, to keep from overwhelming them. I'd like to see this mechanic extended to other antags (changelings, vampires, and shadowlings in particular) to keep Security from being overwhelmed from the get-go. B. Job auto-availability: As it stands, the only way for new jobs to appear in-game is via someone with ID Modification access (i.e. the Captain or HoP) mechanically adding new job slots, or by demoting existing players. The job-slot mechanic is intentionally slowed to a rate of one modification per minute, to prevent ridiculous imbalances, but this leads to the situation above where there simply are no jobs available whatsoever. In order to head off some of the issue of "too little work" and the attendant strain on Sec, I'd like to see the following jobs automatically increase: -Every ten new players above 50 (i.e. 60, 70, 80, etc.), one new job slot for each of the following: Station Engineer, Security Officer, Scientist, Medical Doctor, Constable (see below) -Every twenty new players above 60 (i.e. 80, 100, 120), one new job slot for: Botanist, Atmos Tech, Roboticist, Shaft Miner, Cargo Technician, Janitor, Forensics Technician (i.e. Detective, but starts with a Forensics Scanner) -Every thirty new players above 60 (i.e. 90, 120), one new job slot for: Chef, Dispatcher (see below) New jobs: 1. Constable: A lower-intensity Security role with the duty of handling the non-antag-focused portion of Security. Expected to spend a lot of time around the Bar corralling drunks and greytiders. 2. Dispatcher: A lower-intensity Security role with the duty of watching station cameras and getting officers to where they need to be. Also positioned to assist with processing and prisoners as needed. 3. Armorer: A Science role, but starts with a mindshield and access to Sec comms. Expected to help gear up the Sec team over the course of a shift. Notes: The Constable is a role for either newbies (unlocks sooner, fewer responsibilities) or someone looking to play the non-violent side of Sec (fewer responsibilities). Although you can still play the role as a regular officer if you want, it's meant to let you play as the CSO/SRO archetype without forcing you into the "Sec vs. antag" shenanigans which happen most shifts. Much like the 'Global Antag Candidacy' button we have now, if you want to play Sec without having to 1v1 a vampire in Maint, go play a Constable and smoke a fat blunt with the Botanists before telling greytiders to 'just chill, man.' By contrast, the Armorer is meant to let Sec 'scale' up as the shift goes on, by providing a mindshielded Scientist who can be trusted with Sec comms from roundstart. This is meant to keep Sec Officers from being as horribly outgunned by the usual AEG/teleshield/meth-using Science traitors who could otherwise kill the shit out of them with little effort. The job is meant for the mad-scientist sort of player: you're downright expected to make cool toys, deliver cool augments to the BrigPhys to keep 'em from getting bored, and are trusted enough by Sec that they'll actually let you put cool chem implants in their teeth. The Dispatcher is a role for helping minimize the amount of chaos inherent with Sec: their job is to watch cameras religiously, update records, and to get officers to where they're supposed to be. Although the Warden can help with this, ultimately the Warden has too many plates to juggle at once: processing prisoners, distributing gear, checking in with perma'd prisoners, etc etc etc. The Dispatcher is effectively a second (or third, or fourth) Warden who'll be watching dem cameras, updating dem records, and generally keeping the (un-fun) chaos to a dull roar rather than a full crescendo. Tweaks to existing jobs: As before, these additions are primarily meant to scale the Sec team up with the total playercount per game. One Detective is definitely enough for a 40-person game, but when there's a good 115 players running around, suddenly they're a little overwhelmed. These tweaks are meant to minimize the general chaos going on; they won't prevent people from being dipshits, but they'll minimize the effect of the 'bad apple' sort of rank-and-file Sec players by increasing the numbers to compensate. New antag role: Notes: The goal here is to provide a decent number of low-level antagonists who're causing minor, but measurable, amounts of trouble. This is meant to provide license to perform a little griefing, but less 'Maint murderboning' and more 'steal someone's ID to drain their bank account' and the like. This could be expanded with basic gear that could be purchased with in-game cash (insulated gloves, etc.) to provide an incentive for more low-level crime. While that might seem a bit counterproductive, I think Security would be more enjoyable if their targets weren't always well-powered antagonists and were sometimes just mundane opponents like a greytider mugging someone for cash. Gear changes: Note: The goals here are to make Officers less likely to be attacked in the first place, and more likely to come home alive. With a camera active on them 24/7 and Dispatchers watching those cams, it's harder to just whisk away an Officer for a quick murder. On the flipside, between their HUDs being read-only and their headsets being a dangerous item to carry around, looting them for gear becomes a much less attractive plan. Should an Officer pursue an antag 1v1 into the middle of Maint, then they're still liable to get cryostung/glared/etc. and taken down quickly, of course, but it'll increase the odds of their body being recovered and the player not getting ejected from the game. Quality-of-life changes: A. The "Security Cadet" name: Much like an Engineer can call themselves an "Electrician," I'd like Sec Officers to be able to name themselves "Security Cadets" or the like. This would let a newbie announce themselves as one in a mechanically-simple fashion, without any changes in the gear or access they receive in the process. (I'd also love to see that for other jobs, but Sec has perhaps the worst learning curve, so I figure that'd be the best place to start) B. An "Inspect" arrest status: The current standard arrest statuses are *Arrest*, Incarcerated, Paroled, or Released. This is all well and good for antag-hunting, but when dealing with Code Green-level issues like "Grey McTide might have made a stunprod, please check his pack," there's no way to mark someone for arrest without also sic'ing the bots on them. I'd like to bring someone in quietly like SOP demands, but if they go by Beepsky or an ED-209 with an *Arrest* status active, they're heading to the Brig in cuffs whether I want it or not. A yellow "Inspect" status would mean "arrest this person, but do it nicely," and work in conjunction with the standard one. Conclusion: This is a lot to read through, and I apologize for the length. At the same time, I think that the lack of Security players is due in large part to the job simply being unenjoyable, and I'd like to see the job made more fun rather than just focusing on the antag greentext rate. If you'd like to add to this* or suggest a rework, please keep that in mind. I'd like to see some means of rewarding success on Sec's part aside from just redtext (some way of rating how safe they kept the station...?), for instance, so if anyone's got an idea of how to implement that, I'm all ears. *Slith-Skaar had suggested a rework of the X-Ray gene and implant to make it less ridiculously effective, for instance. This'd let antags get away more easily from Sec and in turn make the Detective's and Dispatchers' jobs more valuable in catching them, which I think is all-around a good idea.

Are we playing the same game? Sorry for my own snark, but the SS13 departments are so siloed that it spawned its own gamemode. "Departments should cooperate" is certainly a nice sentiment, but mechanically-speaking, it's a Herculean task. Let's go over the specifics: -Poor communications: Departments have different radios, and with very few individuals having the encryption keys for multiple departments (Geneticists and the Brig Physician being interesting exceptions). Even Command members are generally restricted to the comms of their own departments and the secret Command channel, with any inter-departmental communication being carried out either in person, via PDA, or over the spammed Common chat. GoodSam the Helpful Scientist might want to give Medbay a hand, but he has no easy means of communicating with them, nor of listening to their issues to know exactly what they need and when. -Territory and territoriality: Departments have their own, well-marked turf, and departmental members are justifiably cantankerous about others stepping foot in that area. ID-locked doors and trespassing laws keep departmental members away from each other outside of emergencies or antagonist activity. Face-to-face interaction between members of different departments is generally rare and limited to common areas (or Medbay, since Mebay gets traipsed over despite doctors' protests nearly every shift). When your only interactions with another department are via yelling at them over general comms or banging on their front door, I think it's fairly obvious why inter-departmental relations might be somewhat strained. -Few means of inter-departmental compellence: As a frequent Chief Engineer, I see this issue crop up quite a bit with regards to the station goals. I need Cargo to send me the BSA crate, or Botany to actually get some plant DNA samples for effing once. I ask 'em over general comms to carry out whatever action I need done, and wait, and wait, and wait...When Cargo blows its points on pizzas and party hats instead of ordering what I need, or Xenobiology dismisses me outright, my options are extremely limited. I can ask 'em nicely or try to guilt-trip the offending party into compliance, ask the relevant Head of Staff to discipline them, or hope that the Captain will take time from every other task they have to address my fairly minor inter-departmental issue. My only other forceful options are downright illegal: refusing medical care to another department as the CMO, cutting power or venting atmos as the CE, telescience-stealing gear as the RD - well, I'm sure you can see how practices like those were institutionalized into the Nations gamemode. It's downright infuriating at times, and it shouldn't be any wonder that more-seasoned players spend extra effort to avoid ending up reliant on other departments in the first place. These are all examples of centrifugal factors, as Hartshorne would call them: social forces which divide people and push them apart. The station has divided physical geography, segregated communications, underdeveloped command structures, and a siloed departmental architecture which encourages strife rather than cooperation. Forcing cooperation, like with the science R&D update a year or so ago (removing Science's autolathe in the hopes that they'd go to Cargo instead) largely just results in players implementing a work-around. In cases where one can't be implemented, such as the station goals, there certainly are interactions, just not good ones. The flipside is categorized as centripedal forces, or things which bring people together, and currently there's a lot missing: -Few shared departmental goals: Engineering keeps the lights on, Medbay keeps the crew healthy, Sec keeps 'em safe, Research powergames like crazy...all well and good in theory, but in practice these general aims don't interact closely with each other. There are a couple exceptions to this rule, such as the station goals (primarily Cargo/Engineering, although Botany and Science get involved in the BSA and DNA Vault), but by and large different departments don't have much reason to go out of their way to cooperate. -A lack of focus on individuals: as a Engineer or Scientist , for example, your remit is (technically) the entire bloody station. You're supposed to either maintain or improve, respectively, the entire Cyberiad - or worse, Metastation - with no guidance provided beyond that. I'm sure you've heard of the importance of singling people out when trying to compel action during an emergency, i.e. pointing at someone when saying "call 911" instead of just asking a crowd as a whole? Consider that same phenomenon here, and how to overcome it; I've got some suggestions below, but I'm sure there are others. -Few means of rewarding good behavior: As a frequent Command player, I would kill for my own medal box - and I'm not talking about that bloody captaincy medal. There's a quote attributed to Napoleon about how "a soldier will fight long and hard for a length of colored ribbon," and as a Captain, I've seen clear positive effects of handing out medals appropriately. I try to do my best by congratulating helpful people via announcements, but I'd love to see actual mechanical, institutionalized means of promoting and rewarding cooperation and good player behavior. You've argued pretty clearly how you want to encourage inter-departmental interactions, and at least in theory I'm not opposed. My issue with that is that not all interactions are good ones, and that the current game mechanics allow unwanted player behaviors while preventing or suppressing desirable ones. Using that as a rhetorical starting point, let's talk about achievable means of encouraging positive behaviors: -Medal box: As mentioned, gib relevant medals plz. Seriously, I would love to be able to decorate helpful people in an in-game way. Other means of giving either individuals or departments an 'attaboy' would always be appreciated - a "Most Helpful Department" trophy that the Captain could hand out, for instance? -More inter-departmental goals: Additional means of congratulating one department assisting another at round end, for instance. Game mechanics like Medbay getting a tally of how many members of other departments were healed or saved during the shift ("3 Security Officers, 1 Scientist, and 2 Botanists were revived inside Medbay this shift/8830 health points were gained back in Medbay," etc.), or everyone getting the option to commend a particular department at round-end ("[Science] was commended the most this shift, by 12 non-Science players"), would provide some means of encouragement for desirable behavior. -Departmental assignments: The generic members of large departments (Scientists, Engineers, Security Officers, etc.) start with an 'assignment' to another department. They get an armband and relevant radio encryption key in their packs at roundstart, along with an initial briefing reading something like "You have been assigned to the Medbay/Science/etc. department. You are to assist them as best you can." This would cut out the issues of a lack of comms and the deindividuation issue of being a single person in a larger department: when someone in Medbay starts complaining about the broken window in the front lobby, Joe Schmoe the Medbay Engineer is positioned to both hear about the issue (due to having access to Medbay's comms) and act (due to having a greater sense of responsibility towards Medbay than any other Engineer). Of course, I'm sure any Sec players reading this are already wincing at the thought of Sec comms being compromised from the very start by some well-meaning effort like this - but if the person with Sec comms is mindshielded, then the issue is moot, no? I'd trace the efforts which led to the Brig Physician and this proposed Brig Technician as trying to overcome the antagonist issue in this same way, and although I agree that the proposed Brig Technician role doesn't have enough to do currently, I do appreciate the effort at making a Sec/Engineering hybrid rather than the usual in-game response of "say ; ENGIS TO BRIG PLEASE and pray that someone actually responds." Certainly, as CE I've blown off Sec asking for help with something in order to deal with some other issue, because I've no particular attachment to dealing with their issues, and no reward for prioritizing helping them. In that sense, I would argue that the Brig Physician is largely a positive force for inter-departmental cooperation, rather than being a "departmental island," as you put it. They have both Medical and Security comms, along with access to both departments, and remit to help patients in both areas. In practice, while Brig Physicians will set up surgery nearly every shift, I honestly can't even remember the last time I've seen one set up cryo or cloning (sometime this past January, perhaps?). Brig Physicians carry out surgery because the two ORs are usually overworked by the massive player population and all the injuries they accrue, but for other issues (making meds, cloning, getting viruses, etc.) Brig Physicians work through Medbay in an honestly-heartwarming example of inter-departmental cooperation. If you want to make them more inter-departmental, then I'd suggest making the BrigPhys a Medical role rather than a Security one, and placing them under command of the CMO rather than the HoS. While they'll still spend most of their time in the Brigbay due to simple circumstance, it'll provide the Brig Physician with more of a reason to be in the Medbay, and encourage them to participate more over there rather than just staying in Sec. You could do the same with the OP's proposed 'Brig Technician' role, too. Rename them to the 'High-Security Engineer' or something similar, and have them start in Engineering under the command of the Chief Engineer; their only Sec-specific gear would be Brig access and a Security encryption key. Rather than being just responsible for helping in the Brig, they'd be responsible for any restricted area that needs a pair of hands (or when there's no engieborgs, again); you could further encourage that by having them start with a basic trashbag and a box of lightbulbs to indicate their role's mundane remit. With a roundstart mindshield, they could be trusted have Sec comms without turning it into a massive RNG gamble of "will they roll antag and compromise Security comms from the get-go?" Without their own office to turn into a fortress, though, and still being otherwise treated as a regular Engineer, the role's mechanics would encourage them to act merely as an Engineer with the goal of helping out Security in particular. Tl;dr version: Departments can interact in bad ways (yelling over comms) as well as good ones. The focus should be on encouraging good interactions, rather than just any interactions whatsoever.

You're right that vamps can just cheeseball their way to victory with easy sources of blood, and I agree that I'd like to see that corrected. The /tg/ planned vampire implementation had a good division between "clean" and "dirty" blood, where only sucking actual players gave vampires points to spend; I'd like to see something similar implemented here. As @EvadableMoxiepoints out, though, the gameplay mechanics don't require vampires to be powergamey shits in the same way they do for shadowlings. And indeed, vampires who use monkeys as a blood source get roundly mocked in deadchat precisely because they're powergaming like a mofo. Ultimately, I think Moxie put it best: it's not just that the gamemode is so unbalanced, it's that it's predictable and boring. I've got my issues with the unbalanced issues of vampires, but I've had plenty of vampires ask me politely to grab some of my blood, versus the ones who cablecuffed me in Maint and took a sip or two, or the ones who just drained me dry. And thematically, the vampire win-mode can be either 'tear a bloody path through Sec and force a Red/Gamma ERT,' a stealthy route to greentext, or a couple different variations in between. Shadowling...doesn't.

Let's compare the two for a second. Yes, vampires are pretty bullshit, and I wouldn't mind some of their more ridiculous abilities getting a nerf (Glare's 30-second cooldown getting bumped up to 60, for instance - I'm really sick of the constant stuns from even low-level vamps I'm trying to perma). But compare vampire abilities to shadowling ones (see my post on pg. 1): A. Stuns: Glare, Hypnotize, Chiroptean Screech. B. Self-healing: Rejuvenate/Rejuvenate+ C. Utility: Vampiric Vision/Full Power, Cloak of Darkness, Enthrall D. Escape: Shapeshift, Shadowstep, Mist Form E. Other: Summon Bats, Diseased Touch Vampires have a shitload of stun abilities; they can absolutely rock a 1v1 fight with all their stuns, and so long as they have blood, can escape countless times. But note the abilities they don't have, because vampires have a couple glaring weaknesses which can absolutely be countered. Vampires lack: A. Lack of heals: Vampires get Rejuvenate - contrast that with shadowlings constantly healing while in darkness (and Rapid Re-Hatch, and Drain Life, and Black Recuperation...). Past the low-key healing and stun removal it provides, vampires are left relying on chems and their own limp pecker to keep themselves alive. I trust you can see where this is going, yes? Even with just their starting equipment and no assistance from other departments, a competent Sec member or two can suss out the not-too-difficult strategy of "grab a shotgun, load it for bear buckshot, aim for the legs." A couple buckshot rounds to the legs and a vampire's down to limping, half-speed if they remembered to grab some splints from Medbay. A couple more to the chest and head, and the vampire's stuck relying on epinephrine autoinjectors merely to stay alive, let alone any bloodloss from internal or superficial bleeding. Vampires can dominate a single fight, yes, but their lack of heals puts them at extreme weakness to the damage of extrended fights. A shadowling who takes the same damage will just run away, passively heal up on the move (or Rapid Re-Hatch if he wants to speed it up), and hey presto he's ready to rock. I should note that Rapid Re-Hatch is also specifically designed to counter more exotic, harder-healing damage types like cellular or genetic damage: hitting a 'sling with a Decloner or somehow glomping them with a slime won't do a thing. B. Crowd-control harm abilities - vamps can stun, but they can't force an entire Sec team to fall back to Medbay based on their abilities alone. Even a newbie shadowling can just pop Icy Veins, with its no-cost, 25-second cooldown, and congrats, you've just incapacitated an entire group of pursuers at once. For bonus points, Icy Veins completely ignores the insulating effects of hardsuits, which means that insulating things like a 'suit are actually a detriment and will freeze you to death if you're not careful. I've nearly died on EVA from a 'sling popping Icy Veins (while they were still inside the station), and taking critical harm during my desperate rush to a warm environment. Boosted 'slings also have Drain Life and Sonic Screech, both of which have no cost other than their cooldowns, to quickly and easily lay the hurt on pursuers and to force 'em to retreat to heal up. C. EMP: A shadowling with an easy-peasy three thralls gets access to an area-effect EMP in the form of Sonic Screech. Cyborgs are your best friend against vampires; they're not a one-size-kills-all, and can of course be countered via normal means (the Cyborg Control Console, regular old EMPs, subverting the AI/getting Robotics on your side, etc.). However, vampires don't have an easy counter to wipe out a pursuing 'borg in the field, which makes Secborgs very effective at countering vampire stuns and assisting in that same attrition-fight which vampires are on the losing side of. Shadowlings? Sonic Screech, get some hits in, run away if necessary, rinse and repeat until you've a dead 'borg. D. Ability cost/cooldown: Even at full power, without blood vampires only get Rejuvenate, Glare, Vampiric Vision, and Cloak of Darkness. Every other ability they have costs them blood, a scarce resource which they have to quite literally fight to get. Along with their lack of easy and effective self-heals, a vampire literally can't keep running forever; I literally can't recall how many vamps I've either killed myself or assisted in killing/capturing simply by chasing them until they were bloodless and forced to fight. Additionally, note the vampire ability cooldowns: only three of them are under 60 seconds (Glare, Rejuvenate, and Shadowstep), and most are considerably more. Their one proper crowd-control ability, Chiroptean Screech, is on a significant 3-minute cooldown and costs 'em 30 blood to boot. Shadowlings, well...let's start off with their complete lack of ability cost. They don't need to fight for blood, wait for their Chemicals to recharge, or do anything other than pop their abilities the moment they come off cooldown. And hoo boy, their cooldowns are positively crazy to look at: 30 seconds for Shadow Walk and Glare, 15 seconds for Veil, 25 for Icy Veins, 10 seconds for Drain Life (an AoE 'heal friendlies, harm baddies' ability, mind you), 30 seconds for Sonic Screech - need I go on? Shadowlings have only three abilities with 60-second cooldowns, (Rapid Re-Hatch, Blindness Smoke, and Black Recuperation), and none with longer cooldowns. To summarize: You can attrite even a full-powered vampire down to the point of helplessness and eventually death. Their large-scale abilities all have significant cooldowns, and cost them blood which is difficult to replace on the move. Keep up the pressure, keep inflicting hard-to-heal damage, don't let them stop to recuperate, and even a god-tier vampire can (and often has) been taken out. I commanded an ERT which did exactly that against a bunch of rampaging vampires a day ago: my two inquisitorial ERT members set their sights on one of the nastiest vamps, and just keep doggedly pursuing him until he was literally and figuratively out of juice. Once he couldn't use the bulk of his abilities for lack of blood, he was vulnerable and brought to a straight-up conflict: 2 chainswords, 1 vamp. Shadowlings are effectively immune to attrition: they don't depend on a limited resource a la vampires or changelings, and they're specifically designed to be immune to lasting damage. With 'slings, the shoe's on the other foot: any pursuer is constantly forced to heal again and again, because shadowlings have oodles of AoE-damage abilities which they can (and do) pop every minute or less. As a pursuer, you can feel like you're inflicting lasting harm against a vampire even if they just mistform away: you're forcing them to waste their scarce blood, and that's a sense of accomplishment even if you don't land a single hit. With a 'sling, you'll be left limping away towards warmth, with the knowledge that nothing will really slow down a shadowling short of a serious case of death. Shadowlings aren't just mechanically difficult to fight against, they're infuriating to boot.

I'm too boring to be much of a good hypnotist/fortune-teller myself, but yes, these would be pretty hilarious roles to see. I also like the idea of merging the clown/mime office into a larger circus office; you could also expand it into that otherwise-unused hallway north of the Clown/Mime office and southwest of the Courtroom if you needed enough space for the different characters. Anyway, my thoughts on the individual characters: 1. Fortune-teller: Absolute gold. Lots of opportunities for silly shenanigans all the way through the round, and routes for different types of gameplay for the fortune-teller (playing it straight and trying to get actionable intel with well-worded prayers, leading people astray with terrible fortune-telling, or just going full slapstick and making up loads of silly prophecies involving the Captain and a couple cans of lube). 2. Hypnotist: P. much the same as above. You could either become psychologist part-II with actual Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, or go the full chicken route. 3. One Man Band: I like it, but there are some issues relative to the other characters. For one, the character's gear makes him a prime target for greytiders to attack and steal; he'll need some sort of skill or ID-locking system to keep his kit from getting jacked. Secondly, he'll be a target role for greytiders, since the griefing opportunities are pretty self-evident. Finally, there's plenty of other musical instruments already on-station; you may need to do quite a bit of work to make the One-Man Band clearly distinct from the other roles 4. Entertainer gear: the Human Cannon sounds p. hilarious, as does the unicycle and the fake cake. I'm a bit worried about the fake poo, though, as that sounds like it's got a lot of unfortunate greytide-griefing opportunities. That all being said, I think the basic idea is pretty awesome. Here's a couple suggestions for additional roles and how to organize 'em: A. The 'Entertainer' position: the Clown and Mime will probably get grandfathered in here, but adding another four more roles (or more, depending on coder stamina&inspiration) could get a bit ridiculous. Therefore, I'd suggest making a catch-all 'Entertainer' role which you can apply for, with a separate option in the menu to select your preferred position you'd want. This might end up being too difficult to code, but if it's feasible, I'd like some method of cutting the number of roles down to a manageable size. B. Animal Tamer: I'd argue the key part of any of these new roles is what specific thing they can do which elevates them above the status of a greytider with a funny name. The Barber's a p. iffy role, for instance, because anyone can change their appearance with access to a mirror at any time. Meanwhile, the Clown and Mime have both gear, tricks, and a general schtick which set them apart from any rando Civilian. Therefore, I'd suggest an 'Animal Tamer' role who starts with the ability to issue simple animal mobs simple commands. 'Go,' 'Stay,' etc. are all in their lexicon, and they'll be able to communicate with player-run animal mobs without needing a Voice Recorder. And of course, their special Syndie kit would be a Guide to Advanced Animal Training or the like, which teaches them the ability to issue 'Maul,' Stun,' and/or 'Kill' commands. Additional roles in this same vein could be fire-twirling/swallowing, juggling, and so on.

I definitely like your idea, although I wonder about issues with regards to execution. Either they'll all have to be on the same hivemind 'net (with all the confusion that'll go with it), or they'll have to be separated into different hivemind comm-nets (which is probably a coding nightmare). Perhaps different slings/thralls would speak on the same 'net, but with a different language so that different 'slings are incomprehensible to each other?

I hate the shadowling gamemode with a passion, because at heart it's just so ridiculously mechanically unbalanced. Conceptually, I can understand where the designer was probably coming from: a Maintenance-bound antagonist who plays on a lot of our fears of the unknown, capable of turning friend against friend and leeching off of them in pursuit of ultimate power. All well and good, at least in theory. Let's talk about the practice: A. Almost no weaknesses for shadowlings. Let's talk about the ridiculous abilities shadowlings can rock right from the get-go: 1. Hivemind communication between all shadowlings and thralls, with no indicators and no limits. Traitors, vampires, and cultists wish they had that sort of capability. 2. Numbers: Aside from being stupidly mechanically powerful (see below), shadowlings come in groups of 2-4. Unlike AutoTraitor, this number is calibrated only to server numbers rather than Sec numbers, so you can quite easily have shadowling equaling or outnumbering Sec at roundstart. No guesses as to how that round's going to end! 3. Cooperation: Shadowlings have no mechanical reason to fight and every reason to cooperate. Traitors and changelings can't claim that. 4. Complete concealment prior to hatching. There's no sussing them out when they're weak, short of dumb luck or admin intervention. 5. Base abilities: Steady wound healing (heal ability #1), stun reduction (equivalent to somewhere between a CNS Rebooter and active adrenal implant), along with night/thermal vision. Compensated slightly by damage from all light sources, and increased damage from light-based weapons. 6. Glare (30 second cooldown): Stuns and mutes for a good 10-15 seconds, because why should a sling's victims have any chance of fighting back? Works while cuffed, tabled, or grounded, just in case you had any realistic hopes of winning 1v1s with a 'sling. 7. Veil (15! second cooldown): Knocks out all electrical light sources in a wide area. We can't have our poor darling antags getting hurt, after all. 8. Shadow Walk (30 second cooldown): Escape ability #1. The shadowling becomes invisible, moves quickly, and goes through obstacles. 9. Icy Veins (25 second cooldown): Crowd-control ability #1. Just b'cuz. 10. Collective Mind (30 seconds): Thematically it's supposed to be the shadowlings reaching into their thralls' mind to leech off of 'em, but mechanically it's completely harmless. Of course. 11. Rapid Re-Hatch (60 seconds): Heal ability #2. Shit, even wizards don't have rapid-healing covered without specc'ing into a Staff of Healing. Shadowlings get this right from the start, of course. But that's just the starter pack, everyone! Let's look at the extra-fun things shadowlings can rock later on as well: 12. Sonic Screech (3 thralls, 30 second cooldown): Crowd-control ability #2, now with extra EMP! Also destroys windows for shits'n'giggles. 13. Blindness Smoke (5 thralls, 60 second cooldown): Escape ability #2. Big pile of smoke which hurts enemies and heals allies without obscuring vision. 14. Drain Life (7 thralls, 10! second cooldown): Heal ability #3, crowd-control ability #3. Causes 50 damage (25 brute, 25 burn) to local non-thralls while healing the 'ling. 15. Black Recuperation (9 thralls, 60 second cooldown): Heal ability #4, also can resurrect a thrall (unlike cultists, no sacrifice needed), also can empower thralls into being even more kickass. Because of course. 16. Destroy Engine (one-time use): Sacrifice a thrall to push the shuttle timer back to 15 minutes. 17: Ascend: Win round, get to shit on everyone for funsies. Yaaaay, so much fun for everyone. Wheeeee. Let's compare shadowlings to other antags to note exactly how bullshit this is in practice: i. Cult: Shadowlings can convert faster, and unlike with cults, mindshields are just a speedbump for their conversion ability. Compared to "load 'em up with holy water (and mannitol if you're nice)," shadowling conversion is considerably harder to remove. Unlike cultists, shadowlings can communicate silently, and since the recent (very necessary) cult change, cultists can't just teleport their way out of the Brig when they're captured (even a newbie shadowling, of course, can just just Veil/Icy Veins/Shadow Walk their way out of trouble and Rapid Re-Hatch away any damage). Unlike cultists, shadowlings also have a shitload of effective healing abilities, and of course they can be absolute combat monsters with zero prep-time needed (whereas cultists are largely reliant on their runes/talismans; sans those, they're no more dangerous than any other well-equipped crewmember). About the only way in which cults are more powerful is their ability to 'snowball' via summoning constructs and individual capability, but that relies on finding and converting capable converts. Unless the shadowlings themselves are gibbering idiots, then they'll just use their god-tier lategame abilities to dunk on any organized resistance and let their thralls mop up the rest. ii. Wizard: An individual shadowling is only slightly weaker than a wiznerd, and unlike normal one-bearded-army wizard games, 'slings come in large numbers. Large games will have up to 4! shadowlings running around, with no difficulty coordinating with each other due to their abilities synergizing well with each other. iii. Changeling: Changelings have a hivemind, but it's nicely undercut by their lack of cooperation. Changelings can probably trust each other, but mechanically they can't be sure since some of them might have an 'assassinate/assume identity' objective against each other. Needless to say, shadowlings don't have the same weakness. And while changelings can regenerate themselves from literal death and have some nasty crowd-control abilities, their abilities are all mechanically limited by a number of Evolution Points and the common 'Chemicals' pool; a changeling can't simultaneously spec into 'being a combat monster' and use all their fun abilities at the same time. And of course, changelings don't have thralls to serve as meatshields for 'em. iv. Vampire: While vampires are also p. bullshit, with a boatload of escape (Rejuvenate, Shadowstep, and Mist Form), crowd-control (Summon Bats), and stun abilities (Chiroptean Screech, Glare, and Hypnotize) to call on, they've got several glaring weaknesses. For one, they don't have a hivemind 'communicate' ability, so they can't cooperate to the same ridiculous degree that shadowlings and their thralls can. For two, they lack the umpty-bajillion shadowling healing abilities, which lets individual encounters do lasting damage against them. And finally, rather than just relying on time cooldowns, vampire abilities all draw from the same Blood pool which is difficult to replenish (unless you're a FILTHY CASUAL who uses humanized monkeys, of course). Even if they don't stand a chance of 1v1ing a vampire, Sec can stand a chance against even a competent vampire with just starting equipment: buckshot and holy-water tranq darts in riot shotguns, group attacks, and constant pressure to drain a vampire's blood pool until they're dry and can actually be taken down. v. Traitors: No. Just...no. Conclusion: Even starting off, shadowlings can outdo other antagonists even in areas they're supposed to excel in. They can hivemind and convert better than other conversion antags, can kick ass on par or better than other 'superhero' antags, and their thematic disadvantages are just that - themes. This leads into a further problem of shadowlings: B. The Fun of Being A Thrall: There's no mechanical downside whatsoever to being a thrall. The one and only time you could ever be screwed over by a shadowling is if you're the one thrall selected to be the sacrifice for the Destroy Engine ability. Aside from that you've got zip, zilch, and nada to worry about. All of that flavor text about 'being a tool of eldritch powers' is just that; the game mechanics simply don't back it up. Let's cover the specifics of thralldom: 1. Night sight: Free night vision, of course. 2. Hivemind comms: No delay, no whispering, no downside. 3: Guise: Can hide in shadows, just b'cuz. 4: Deconversion: Slow, difficult, and requires a complicated surgery with a full set of tools. No field deconversions here! 5: No reconversion penalty: Once you've been deconverted, literally nothing's stopping you from running riiiight back into Maint to get converted again. 6: No endgame penalty: Shadowling ascension = "license to validhunt /everyone./" Of course. Conclusion: As others have already mentioned, becoming a shadowling thrall is mechanically an upgrade. I'd happily kill a few greytiders to get myself permanent night-sight, heh. C. Fun: Fighting a shadowling is quite frankly un-fun, by and large. You're going to get absolutely dunked on in close combat, and unlike with a vampire, you can't rely on building up damage over time on a 'sling since they can regenerate their injuries so easily. There's no way of "thrall-proofing" anyone or anything, and shadowling ascension means getting shit on with no ability to do anything about it. Given all that, is it any surprise that people choose to join the winning side? Furthermore, methods for fighting 'slings are equally un-fun. As a CE, the moment shadowlings are reported I get my hardsuit and RCD and get to space ASAP. I deconstruct every Maint window I can find and carve larger Maint areas open to space, and instruct my team to do the same. This is an effective and capable strategy at boxing in shadowlings, and it's hilarious to watch the civvies "hunting" shadowlings go flying off into space, but it's obviously not fun for them. This sort of escalatory, tit-for-tat bullshit does not make for fun and happy gaming, and I'd like to not have to engage in it. D. Summarized Issues and Proposed Solutions: 1. Shadowling powers: Unlike other 'group' antags (everyone except wizards, basically), shadowling abilities are all just cooldown-based. In addition to the cooldown (to prevent spamming), I'd like to see shadowling abilities actually harm their thralls in some way. Every time a shadowling uses one of their combat abilities (Glare, Icy Veins, etc.) it deals a flat 10-25 damage to all thralls in game. This'll provide a mechanic similar to the one vampires have to deal with, where Sec putting pressure on the shadowling has lasting effects of some way. It should also sufficiently de-incentivize thralldom that people won't blindly charge in to get re-thralled for shits'n'giggles, and provide a boost to the "parasitism" theme which shadowlings are supposed to have. 2. Shadowling area weakness - escape: Remove Shadow Walk (escape ability #1) and Blindness Smoke (escape ability #2). This'll give shadowlings an actual, real area in which they're weak: wizards have lack of numbers, vampires have lack of healing, etc. Mind you, they'll still have Veil, automatic stun reduction/heals in darkness, Icy Veins, Glare, Sonic Screech, Drain Life, and their thralls to help 'em either win the fight or just run away (where the auto-darkness heals and Rapid Re-Hatch will rapidly patch 'em back up). However, since shadowlings can rapidly heal themselves back up, removing their rapid-escape capabilities gives Sec a chance in hell of actually taking one out. 3. Mindshields: I have no idea why anyone thought it'd be a good idea for shadowlings to be able to remove mindshields without surgery, but that's just plain stupid. Want to subvert the Captain? Then do it the old-fashioned way with a table and a set of surgical tools. If Cargo's on-point, this would also cut down on repeat thralldom (thank Christ). 4. Repeat thralldom: No matter how it's penalized, some people are going to love their chance to murder sans consequences too much to give up becoming a thrall. We can't realistically stop that from happening the first time around, but if it's a repeat occurrence, then game mechanics can come into play. I'd support the 'player gets replaced by a ghost' to keep from penalizing the shadowling while still penalizing whichever player is causing trouble, although you'd also have to make sure that anyone removed from game in this fashion can't just re-enter if another shitter gets repeatedly thralled. 5. Ascension: Quite frankly, I'd like to replace ascension entirely with a cutscene a la nuclear detonation, but I imagine that simple inertia and people loving the whole 'god-complex fantasy' will keep it going. Still, an easy way to penalize thralldom without affecting gameplay is to have all thralls be killed on ascension, like cults have. It'll reinforce the "they're actually evil, who'da thunk?" nature of shadowlings, and provide a real penalty to being a thrall.

Earlier today, as the Mechanic I flew back into comms range to find a good chunk of the station on fire. Not just 'breached and blown up,' not the usual busted-up areas vented into space, but a proper full-blown fire - an immovable rod had gone straight through Atmos, breaching the mixing tank and venting the oxygen-plasma Turbine mix into Medbay. Even with some areas open to space, there was a massive cloud of plasma still spreading, and a giant fire brewing in the charred space where OR2 used to be. I dropped everything I was doing, grabbed an Atmos hardsuit (since as usual, there were no Atmos Techs to be had), and charged right in with backpack watertank in hand. The following fifteen minutes were possibly the most fun I've ever had playing Space Station 13. Even with the high-end Atmospherics tools, like a backpack unit that can turn swathes of fiery plasma into inert nitrogen, a major fire is a tremendous engineering challenge to be overcome. You've got to try and either focus on removing the oxygen or the fuel source for the fire, and often have to choose between building firebreaks (with metal foam grenades/the Atmos backpack, or just building walls up) or trying to just beat out the fire by repeatedly dousing it. Do you try and vent the atmospherics out to space, bearing in mind the danger that all the flying debris poses to you? Do you instead try and contain the fire away from anything valuable and let it burn itself out, or try and lower the temperature enough to stop the blaze? During this marathon, you will also be on fire - quite literally, mind you. It is complicated, extremely engaging, and involves wading into the middle of a raging inferno to put it out with a combination of skill, tools, and cast-iron balls. Needless to say, it's kind of awesomesauce. Sadly for Atmospherics, it's also unbelievably rare. I've seen maybe one traitor AI in my whole time on Paradise, and without a hijack objective, regular Atmos Techs are forbidden from venting plasma. Past that there's just the piddly scorcher of the pyroclastic anomaly, Toxins screwups, and the once-in-a-blue-moon abductor plasma organs. Firefighting is easily the highlight of any job dealing with Atmos, yet it almost never actually happens. That round today was the first time I've ever actually had the chance to fight a multi-room fire, and God knows I'd love to dive back into that again. The Atmos Tech job is chronically understaffed, and I would argue that the lack of proper fires to fight is a major part of that limiter. After all, when the most fun part of your job happens once in a blue moon, who would want to go through the trouble of setting up a proper heat exchanger array capable of moving 1,400 liters of gas per minute? When there are no big fires to fight, you're spending 10-30 minutes moving pipes around for no real payoff; being able to empty a room's atmosphere in five seconds or less is pretty awesome, but you need a chance to actually put those capabilities into action. Therefore, I'd like to suggest the following random events to try and add more firefighting into the game without ruining other people's fun in the process: 1. Changing the pyroclastic anomaly: Currently, when the anomaly 'explodes,' it leaves behind a couple slimes. Since people will be responding to reports of a fire with extinguishers anyway, this is kind of a piddly end to a failed anomaly capture. Compare it with failure-states like the massive translocation of the bluespace anomaly, or the explosion and general mess of flux, gravitational, or vortex anomalies, and the pyroclastic one is a bit underwhelming. Therefore, I'd suggest that its failure-state should instead be spawning a large cloud of plasma and oxygen to set off a reasonably large one-room burn. A single-room inferno with a lot of fuel, heat, and oxygen keeping it active would require actual Atmospherics help to contain and extinguish, rather than the current state where the AI can trivially contain the situation with a simple doorbolt+syphon combo. 2. New Moderate Event: 'Plasma Translocation.' The announcement would presumably be something like 'Bluespace abnormalities detected. Plasma-rich atmosphere has been translocated aboard the station. Expected location: [ROOM].' This would involve around a 50-50 plasma/O2 mix being dumped into one or more rooms on the station, which would then result in a high-pressure 30-40-30 plasma-O2-nitrogen mix in the room itself. However, unlike with the anomaly there's no obvious heat source, and the mix wouldn't immediately ignite; it would require crew incompetence to fail at containing it and to set the whole thing ablaze. Since the average Cyberiad crewmember can barely manage to feed themselves without dying, this would happen in a heartbeat the moment some idiot runs in with a lit welder, but the fact that it could be contained safely with prompt and decisive action would make the inevitable failures much more poignant. Regardless of whether or not these proposals are accepted, I would like to make a case for fire and the job focused around fighting it. I often end up playing as an Atmos Tech when I join mid-round, because the position is so deserted normally. Aside from the technical challenge, I'd argue a bit part of that issue is how the coolest part of the job is so chronically neglected. I can't even remember the last time I hauled out a backpack watertank before today, and I'd love another chance to get set on fire. Please, make Atmos great fun again!

I'm bumping this 'un for attention because I nearly had an engine on the loose because of a drone. It took admin intervention (or at least, some guy whose name I didn't recognize and an 'Admin Tool-Belt' around their waist) to undo the damage that a drone caused to containment. If you're interested in causing havoc, a drone is /terrifyingly/ good at it: the crew has no means of stopping you short of physical deconstruction, you get cyborg-level access and ventcrawl to boot, and a pack of tools to cause ten different kinds of trouble. I like having drones around as a CE, but it takes a lot of effort to not just deactivate the fabricators the moment traitors are reported.

Love it. As it stands, there's no way of dealing with a trolling non-emagged drone short of asploding it, and I'd love a way of calling drones to a location. I have to admit, though, I'd really love more ways of interacting between crew and drones like this, especially when the station starts getting holes blown in it and I need hands (or grippers) on the smoking hole where Cargo used to be bloody yesterday.

I was CE MacTavish, and my team was bloody amazing. I remember seeing the initial text about a 'Battle Royale'-esque setup going out, and asking everyone in Engineering to please make their way to the outpost with every bit of gear they could. Everyone went, and I do mean /everyone/. No BS, no temper-tantrums, no random murderboners; it was a coordinated team effort from start through to round end. This shit right here is why I work Engineering. I really wish I had the logs to see how much salt was going around in deadchat, though. The admins made two notices about how we'd set up shop on the outpost, but no one came a-knockin' thankfully (we had our welders and a single uncharged retro laser gun between all of us, lol). Apparently deadchat wanted the admins to BSA the outpost, and given how many people were dead and waiting for a new game by the end of the round, I can't blame 'em for being salty.

Username on Byond is Norwest, and I generally go by David MacTavish in-game (blame the random name generator and lack of an ability to pick a funnier name). I generally go Medical, Engineering, or Security, hope to see y'all on the station!