["Space-Life," by Sir David Rattenborough]

"Space BBC: Still (Under)Funded by Space Britannia"

 

Hello, viewers. I'm your host, Sir David Rattenborough, and I've been necromantically resurrected to provide my soothing voice to your nature documentaries. Today, we're venturing into the Epsilon Eridani sector to see the exotic life-forms which live in such a hostile environment:

 

The NSS Cyberiad is home to many unique specimens, including the hostile Tribunus Shitcuritus, the well-meaning Medicus Inscitus, and the dangerous Quaesitorus Validatus. Today, however, we are in search of the elusive Puer Greytidus, which haunts the dimly-lit corridus and Maintenance passageways of the local stations.

Although numerous, the so-called "greytide" is a difficult creature to find, owing to its the poorly-kept state of its natural habitat. Hull breaches limit the creature's hunting grounds, causing fierce competition among its members. Many a "'tider" has been cut down in its prime by fierce competition over key resources, such as crowbars and insulated gloves.

The "'tider" is so named for the grey, unkempt state of its issued jumpsuit. Although technically employed by NanoTrasen to "assist" other personnel aboard its stations, an ongoing expose by Faux News has revealed that NT pays these individuals in carbohydrate packs and water. They are, in effect, paid quite literally peanuts. Similarly, the humble "'tider" must acquire its tools and equipment by scrounging left-behind construction equipment, or by assaulting other station personnel for their own garb. For this reason, among others, the creature is greatly despised among NT space.

While NT stations are as well-lit as one might expect, we rapidly depart these central corridors and enter a blank, unmarked airlock near the Arrivals shuttle. These dull, flat doors conceal the path to the Maintenance areas of the station, piping air, water, and electricity across its environs. Though dimly-lit, dangerous, and frequently unpleasant to inhabit, they are nevertheless vital to the station's upkeep. The 'tider patrols these long, winding corridors in search of food: whether contaminated by space-ants or not, he will seek a free lunch.

 

The 'tider seeks a meal more enticing than his issued ration packs. Although he may have subsisted for some time upon food left over from previous reconstruction and remodeling, those reserves are now empty. The only other options left, aside from waiting for the minimal carbohydrate packages issued through the station's personnel office, is to acquire a decent meal at the Kitchen. Doing so, however, requires venturing from the 'safe' Maintenance tunnels into the light of a central corridor. Donning a face-concealing gas mask and removing his NT-issued ID card, the 'tider prepares to conceal his identity among the masses...

Automatically ordered and charged through electronic delivery systems, food is often left unattended on the Kitchen's self-serve countertop for later pickup. Cracking open the nearby Maintenance door with a swipe of his ID card, the 'tider scans the corridor before quickly dashing across. A swipe of the hand, and the deed is done; a meal originally destined for Science is now in his hands. Sauntering away, the 'tider hides himself in both Maintenance corridors and the comfort of anonymity. Though someone might eventually investigate, who would they prosecute?

Seeing the first's success, another greytider attempts the same feat. Dashing through the Bar, he races for the countertop and a meal left unattended. Yet his timing is poor, and the Chef spots his move. Seizing the creature's arm in a vice grip, the Chef subjects the 'tider to the power of CQC. Close-Quarters Cooking is a dangerous martial art, reserved only for masters of the culinary specialty. Practitioners of this epicurean craft are rightly feared, especially when operating in their own habitat. Pinned and left dazed, the 'tider is easy prey for one of its many predators, the Tribunus Shitcuritus. Dragged off to the far-away Brigston, the 'tider will be left with ration packs and donk-pockets for the forseeable future.

 

Subsisting upon leftovers from the rest of the station, the 'tider nevertheless provides a vital role in the local ecosystem. It consumes waste and scraps from the larger departments, such as reishi from the Servitium regions or old welders from the well-known Cargonia. Greytiders are a tremendous mass of manpower, providing ready material for other departments and occasionally actually "assisting" them with various projects. And when the habitat is threatened by dangerous invasive species, such as the lethal Agentus Nuclei, this mob of bullet sponges forms a nigh-impenetrable barrier to protect the station from external attack.

Yet this same defensive mechanism makes the 'tider a dangerous foe if crossed. While a single grey jumpsuit might be little threat for a well-armed Quaestor Validus, the 'tider is so named for its ability to rapidly congregate in one place. A group of greytiders is termed a "murder," and much like the crows of Earth they were originally named after, a murder of 'tiders will rapidly strip nearby regions of shiny things unless discouraged by locked doors and laser fire.

Although nameless and faceless as a rule, 'tiders may flock to a single well-known personality, with the group even becoming named after this one exceptional fellow. The "Ssethtide" swarmed local stations a scant few months prior to this documentary, and although that particular "tide" is now receding, its marks are still evident on the local habitat.

 

The 'tider has many predators, chief among them the Tribunus Shitcuritas. The "redshirt" patrols the station's central corridors, often ducking into Maintenance passageways to pursue if it sees the flash of a grey jumpsuit. The hard-headed Machinator Osiatum may attack a 'tider on sight, fearing a sudden attack for its own treasured yellow gloves. 'Tiders may often attack each other as well, whether in pursuit of food and scarce resources, territorial disputes, or the local custom known as "iunno man i was bored lol." Yet the deadliest predator of the humble 'tider is the different species of the dangerous Adversarius genus, such as the blood-sucking Aversarius Lamia.

The 'tider is an odd creature, simultaneously revered and reviled by its contemporaries. Although individual 'tiders are collectively given short shrift, all of the station's inhabitants, from Engistan to mighty Commandotozhka, must nevertheless acknowledge the power of the Grey Jumpsuits. Though on the bottom of the local pecking order, through soap, cable ties, and sheer robustness, the 'tider may threaten even the most lethal of predators. Few will acknowledge them, but all must respect them.

[Screenshot thread!]

On 10/20/2019 at 8:42 PM, Rebel0 said:

How to utterly DESTROY Nanotrasen's™ claim to owning you via contract in one sentence:

 

  Hide contents

Boris has also achieved his copyright™ claim.

 

Glad you liked that 'un! There's a balance to sardonic CC shitposts, in between "being an entertaining asshole" and "just being an asshole." If you're up for it, I might use the Sankinovs for more CC riffing in the future.

["Big Ion"]

Soundtrack - "Big Iron"

"To the town of Cyber-iad stomped a Durand one fine day," (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

"Hardly shot at folks around him, didn't have to much to say," (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

"No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make a slip,"

"For the Durand there among them had a big ion on his hip..." ("big ion on his hiiiip...")

 

It was evac in the shi-ift when he rode into the town, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

He came ridin' from the south side, slowly lookin' all around, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

"He's an antag loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip, "and he's here to do some business with the big ion on his hip, (big ion on his hiiiiip...)

 

"In this station lived a Syndie by the name of Louie Red," (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

Many Sec had tried to take 'im, and that many Sec were deeeead...(~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

He was vicious and a killer, though an AI of twenty-four,

And the notches on his turrets numbered one and nineteen more. (one and nineteen mooo~ooo~ooore)

 

Now the stranger started talkin', made it plain to crew around, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

Was a validhunting Scientist, wouldn't be too long in toooown... (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

He came here to take a malf-AI back alive or maybe dead,

And he said it didn't matter that he was after Louie Red, (~after Louie Reeeed...~)

 

Wasn't long before the story was relayed to Louie Red, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

But the Syndie didn't worry, those that tried before were dead... (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

Twenty Sec had tried to take him, twenty Sec had made a slip,

Twenty-one would be the Durand with the big ion on his hip. (~big ion on his hiiiiip~)

 

Now the shift had passed so quickly, it was time for them to brawl, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

It was twenty past the shift change when they met out in the haaall, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

Crew were watchin' from their windows, everybody held their breath,

They knew this stomping Durand was about to meet his death, (~about to meet his deeeeeath...~)

 

There were twenty tiles between them when they stopped to make their play, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

And the swiftness of that Durand is still talked about to-daaaay... (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

Louie's turrets had not cleared cover when an ion bolt fairly ripped,

And the Durand's aim was deadly with the big ion on his hip. (~big ion on his hiiiiip...~)

 

It was over in a moment, and the crew all gathered 'round, (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

There before them lay the body of the AI on the grooound... (~ooo~ooo~ooo~)

Oh, he might have went on livin', but he made one fatal slip,

When he tried to match the Durand with the big ion on his hiiiip. (~big ion on his hiiiiiip...~)

 

Big ion, biiiig iiioooon,

Oh, he tried to match the Durand with the big ion on his hip.

(~big ion on his hiiiiiip...~)

[Admeme Events Debriefing]

Hello, everyone. Since becoming an admin I've run various events of different scales, and I'd like to hear the perspectives and opinions of the people involved. If you have any feedback, comments, or suggestions (or want to suggest a new event), lemme know below.

Large-scale events: (major, round-spanning events which end up dominating the round)

1. "CentComm Defectors:"

Spoiler

Summary:

This event involved two players running from CentComm, with the station alerted of their existence ~5 min. after arrival. The defectors had all-access, some basic gear for hiding (agent ID cards, chameleon jumpsuits, etc) and secret documents they had to keep safe. The station was slowly alerted to the defectors' presence, first with a notice to "find and catch" the defectors, later with their initial assumed names. An ERT was mobilized and sent appx. 15 min after the defectors arrived, and a Syndicate Infiltration Team (SIT) was sent shortly afterwards. The defectors had the goal of getting off the station by reaching the SIT, and the ERT and SIT both had the goal of recovering both the defectors and their documents. Defectors+documents reaching the Syndie base meant a Syndie victory, while defectors+documents reaching CentComm meant a crew victory.

Narrative:

The defectors were caught fairly quickly, appx. 10 min after ERT arrival on-station, while the SIT was still gearing up. I gave the ERT an additional complication by requiring that they safely hold the defectors on-station ("The Syndicate has ships in the area, it's too dangerous to send a shuttle to pick the defectors up. You'll have to hold them there for now."), but the defectors getting caught was definitely unexpected. I gave the ERT a bone by telling them to destroy one set of documents that they'd recovered, although they weren't able to secure the other set since the defectors had hidden them on-station. The SIT was slow to gear up, likely due in part to their need to buy TC and the role itself being unfamiliar. However, by buying a subverted AI lawset they were able to subvert and hold onto the AI, which let them rapidly prison-break both defectors out of the Permabrig and recover one set of documents. The crew never figured out that the AI was subverted until late into the round, and even then they assumed it was malfunctioning instead of just trying to reset it.

With the AI helping and the ERT+station security in chaos, the SIT was able to run wild on the crew. I gave them secondary objectives, including securing the nuke and the AI's own core, which they were able to complete. Due to a scramble involving the Captain temporarily losing the disk, I tasked them to secure the nuke disk on the SIT shuttle (since sending the shuttle home would 'port the disk away again). They weren't successful, but did manage to recover the nuke and AI. SIT casualties up to this point were two out of four, same for the ERT (1 Security member and the team commander).

At this point, with the station an absolute mess and the SIT having the nuke, I decided to end with a bang. I gave the SIT two more reinforcements to replace their losses, gave them a bunch more TC, and sent them in to recover the disk. Meanwhile, I also geared up a Gamma ERT (Security members) to fight them and get more ghosts back into the round. Station Command was a bit shit, with the Captain nearly dying several times in an effort to breach the (deserted) AI satellite, and the Gamma ERT was a bit understaffed. The SIT was able to find and hit the Captain and recover the disk, although they weren't able to get the nuke armed in time before the shuttle left.

Impressions:

Fun for the people involved, I think. I got positive responses from the defectors, SIT, and ERT members, but I feel that it ran roughshod over the crew itself. Regular station Security didn't get enough time to shine, and other departments didn't really get involved in the whole mid-round "spy games" which was the intended highlight of the whole event.

Additionally, I wish the defectors hadn't been caught so quickly. I sent in the SIT and ERT earlier due to a different admin's event (the "Syndicate Base Raid" - see below) killing off a bunch of crew and providing a lot of ghosts, but I think the event could've used a lot more time with the cat-and-mouse of Sec hunting antags whose only goal is to hide and survive. Having them have to make contact with the SIT, a la The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, would likely be a fun scenario to play out.

Running both teams also kept me very busy, and in retrospect I wish I'd planned this out with another admin so that we had one person running each team. It did work out in the end, but things got a bit complicated in the middle. Additionally, I wasn't able to keep an eye on the rest of the crew, so several people from Medbay and Cargo were complaining of being bored in end-of-round chat.

Recommendations:

-Give the defectors the standard Syndie chameleon kit boxes. This'll give them standard agent card+jumpsuits, along with chameleon projectors, which I think they really needed for the role. Freedom implants are also a must-have, and I think a storage implant+smuggler's satchel would also be warranted. I gave them too little gear to hide with, and this resulted in them getting caught fairly quick. Giving them more tools would make them more capable adversaries, and prolong the time they're able to stay hidden.

-Give the SIT a lot of time to prepare. I focused too much on the ERT, but obvs everyone already knows what an ERT is and what's involved in the job. The SIT is weird, rarely used, and needs some time to prep: buying TC, just learning how to use their uplinks (they effectively have to "swallow" any telecrystals you give them), etc.

-Prepare "leader" characters and secondary objectives: I made the mistake of cryo'ing my NT Captain leader after initially briefing the ERT. However, when they caught the first defector, the ERT Commander sensibly radioed in for orders, and I had to scramble to make up some stuff on the fly. I thought the whole "detain the defectors on-station, watch out for Syndie infiltrators" was a solid secondary objective for the ERT, along with offering a good opportunity for the SIT to shine, but the ERT could probably use another objective to keep it busy if they actually catch the defectors. The SIT is easy there, as they can just break stuff on-station, but the ERT's secondary objectives needs a bit more prep work.

-Keep the rest of the crew busy: I ran this event due to the round being randomly selected for extended, but this is obvs a Command+Security+dchat event. I'd recommend meteors, viruses, and similar stuff to keep everyone else from being bored to tears.
 

 

2. "Space Pirates:"

Spoiler

 

Summary:

Exactly as the name implies, a bunch of Space Pirates show up and pillage the Cyberiad. Their goals are to steal everything that's not nailed down, with the pirates receiving additional booty for every valuable item stolen. Their weapons are primarily non-lethal, although they have energy cutlasses because ooooobviously, and they can ransom captured crew back to the station if they want. The crew's job is to fight the pirates when they raid, or to buy them off with really nice bribes. The event ends either with the round end or the destruction of either the pirates or their ship.

Narrative:

I spawned in five pirates in the Syndie Forward Base, with myself as the "Pirate Captain" giving the others orders. Roundtype was Changeling, with appx. 4-5 'lings active. Note: the "Space Pirate" and "Space Pirate First Mate/Captain" loadouts all work p. well here for starters and aesthetic, although you'll want to pimp them out further with nice kit. I gave the pirates sawed-off riot shotties, armed with a boatload of rubbershot rounds in speedloaders, which worked awfully well for hurting+disabling crew without just killing oodles of them. I also gave them some useful implants via an autoimplanter (CNS Rebooter, anti-drop, reviver, welding shield, breathing tube), which let them avoid getting quickly knocked out by Security tasers and also let them keep up the properly piratical look (i.e. they didn't have to wear welding helmets or breathing masks). Additional starting gear was Syndie headsets, emags, and full tool-belts.

I had the pirates use the SIT shuttle, which let them quietly infiltrate the station and spend their time on-station instead of floating to it in space suits (again, letting them look the part of proper Space Pirates). The first goal was a starter one of stealing the backup singularity engine generator from Engineering; they got to learn how to make a falsewall for breaching the station, getting in, and getting out. Their shuttle arriving accidently gibbed some poor Engineer floating by, who became their first prisoner/recruit of sorts. From there, I tasked the Space Pirates with grabbing the secret documents from the Vault; this turned out to be a bit more chaotic due to the lack of space suits for most of 'em, but worked out due to a stolen Engineering hardsuit.

From here, things started to move much more rapidly. I tasked the Pirates with kidnapping the Captain, which led to an all-out brawl on the western side of the Bridge. The Pirates were able to fight their way in fairly well, against some light resistance from rowdy crew (2 knocked out with rubbershot, 1 killed), but ended up in a running gun battle to escape. This led to the First Mate getting captured, another pirate getting killed, and several crew fatalities in the process. The situation was an impasse: the Pirates had raided the station and captured the Captain, but the crew had one of their own in custody. HardHat the regular-Captain was held at the pirate's home base, and RPed wonderfully with the whole event.

As the "Space Pirate Captain," I proposed a prisoner swap to be conducted in Arrivals. The crew eventually agreed, and the swap got underway before being sabotaged by the HoS and another member of Security attempting to take out the pirates. This ended poorly for the Seccies due to some mistakes in coordination, and resulted in a failed prisoner exchange and two Seccies (including the HoS) becoming prisoners themselves. A raid to steal the station's nuke and a second attempt at a prisoner swap resulted in the First Mate getting ransomed back in exchange for the Captain, but due to a mix-up that I wasn't able to spot, the Pirates' shuttle was hijacked by the crew!

I decided to roll with the new incident, and let the crew plan their raid on the pirates' hideout. The Space Pirates had taken several prisoners from regular crew, and they were allowed to work with the pirates in order to let them rejoin the round. I tried to call an ERT for the crew, but too few ghosts were willing to sign up for one, so I gave them a Gamma Armoury instead. After a prolonged period of waiting and preparing, station Security "rolled in hot" with the Gamma Durand mech and a boatload of guns, while the pirates fought back with shotguns and some ion carbines I'd given them. The end result was a win for the crew, due largely to the two Secborgs upgrading to Gamma borgs and absolutely wrecking face; additionally, one of the "converted" Seccies took the opportunity to backstab the pirates, including killing me while I was aghosting lol

Impressions:

Good fun, definitely worth doing again. There was some salt in dchat after the showdown at the pirate base, but it was of the personal variety ("I wuz so robust!" "No u!") rather than reflecting deeper structural issues with the event itself. The whole thing synergized very well with a Changeling round, as it allowed the 'lings to play merry havoc on-station with the crew distracted by ongoing space piracy. As is unfortunately common, other departments had difficulty contributing to the crew victory, although I imagine that this could've gone differently if the crew hadn't been able to hijack the shuttle; without that, they might well have fully armed themselves and waited for additional pillaging.

Recommendations:

-Prepare a series of additional objectives for the Space Pirates, so that there's a clear and linear difficulty scale for their raids. I think my first two objectives (steal singulo generator from Engineering Secure Storage, steal documents from Vault) escalated quite well, while the raid on the Captain was an unsurprisingly brutal mess which ended about as well as you might expect. I think the Pirates should've first gone after a slightly easier target, such as raiding R&D to steal tech levels. That would've stretched out the inevitable blood-letting a little, while still making things interesting for both sides (the pirates having to wait and slowly download each disk, the AI trying to lock them in, etc etc etc.).

-Prepare additional gear to be awarded to the pirates as they succeed. I gave the pirates occasional bits of kit on the fly, but I could've done so in a much more linear fashion...or just given them a communal uplink and let them select their own Syndie kit, lol. Either way, it would've been helpful to have a better plan for both what the pirates needed to do and what they should get as a result (ideally kit which'll prep them for the next thing on the list, such as spawning in magboots and suits for their assault on the Vault).

-Give the pirates agent ID cards, and give them Syndie base access (spawn yourself in as the Syndie Officer, spawn in four agent ID cards, scan the Officer's ID card to copy its access). I had to delete and replace the airlocks to even let the pirates get into their own shuttle, and they weren't able to use vital things like the prisoner cells, which really bit them in the ass later. They can be locked out of the rest of the Syndie base with the blast doors, and having access simplifies them holding onto their eventual prisoners.

-Establish a policy for what to do with prisoners. The "prisoner swap" worked as a concept only due to the crew having taken a pirate prisoner, and without that it's probably worth it to consider prisoners automatically "ransomed off" by CentComm or a similar force. This'll let the prisoners rapidly rejoin the round, incentivize the pirates to take prisoners instead of just murderboning, and give them more fun loot to play with (and be stolen by the crew, lol).

-Two classic elements of piracy that I didn't explore was shooting (i.e. having the pirate ship "broadside" the station), and buried treasure. If the crew's being recalcitrant or won't pay up, you could submit a "Space Pirates Confederation" announcement talking about how they'll chuck some asteroids at the station, and follow it up with a minor asteroid storm. Similarly, one additional objective for the pirates themselves might be to either find buried treasure (smuggler's satchel, etc.) or to hide something on-station. I recommend having them find something in a secure location, such as the Gravity Generator or whatever, with the pirates only knowing the approximate location and having to search for the treasure while holding off the crew.

-MUST HAVE TALKING PARROT WHY DIDN'T I SPAWN A PARROT

 

 

Medium-scale events (large events which have an impact on the round, but don't completely take it over):
 

1. "Colossal Missionary:"

Spoiler

Summary:

The faithful of the Necropolis, having realized that this whole "ripping fleshlings' guts apart and feeding on their souls" thing isn't really winning them new converts, have decided to send their own younglings abroad on missions of preaching and conversion. A particular sect, having learned of the tenets of Space Mormonism, have decided to try out this whole..."nice"...thing. They've sent a young missionary to the Cyberiad, a polite and well-spoken person who means well and just wants to teach the crew about the wonders of the Necropolis. Only thing is, he's a 20-foot-tall Colossus who could kill you just by accident.

Narrative:

This whole event happened as a result of a dragged-out cult round, with an off-base cult spending a lot of time getting ready and making new converts. I asked dchat for a volunteer who might be interested in spreading the Good News of the Necropolis abroad, and teleported them to the Cyberiad with instructions to preach and convert. There were some interesting shenanigans initially, since it turns out that the basic Colossus unsurprisingly lacks a language, but after a couple minutes of incomprehension the barrier was overcome and the Missionary began his good work...

...which went surprisingly well, to be honest. There were a lot of silly things involved, such as the Mime painting a bunch of peace signs around the gigantic Colossus and a Civvie punching the Colossus while demanding headpats, but it seemed like a reasonably-fun time was had by most. The Missionary took a lot of attention, because Colossus and all, but didn't really disrupt the round itself for the most part. They "prayed" and "carried out miracles," (i.e. I var-edited them making a tank of holy water and had them revive someone who died in a bad way), and had a good time preaching to various civvies.

Things got a little more "interesting" when the cult made its move. The cult had absolutely massive numbers, although Robotics was on-point that round and had Durandspam ready to roll; regardless, Command called for an ERT. Riffing off the ongoing events, I created a pseudo-ERT of a bunch of "Goliath Crusaders," with ghosts taking the roles, and teleported them into Arrivals with the objective of rooting out the cult (KoS for actively-fighting cultists had already been authorized by Command, and was justified in-game by the cult absolutely running wild at this point). I supplemented this with a message from the "Followers of the Necropolis" and a 40k-referencing announcement ("Remove the heretical followers of Nar'Sie! Cleanse! Purge! KILL!").

Meanwhile, Lorenzz (the Colossus player) had instructions to remain in his previous persona, and thankfully played it to the hilt. He went around as the liberal hippie-dippy preacher calling for peace and love, while the "Goliath Crusaders" hammed up the 'holy war' references and did the actual fighting. The Durands definitely carried the day against the cult, but the goliaths seemed like they had more fun in the process.

Impressions:

Fun, but difficult to replicate. I should note for the same of completeness that two cult members were extra salty in OOC after the round, claiming that the goliaths were unfair due to their stun/EMP immunity and that they would've preferred fighting a Gamma ERT instead. Personally, I think they were just salty (the cult was sensibly relying on ghostspam, and Manifest Rune ghosts have a big-ass sword and are well-equipped to kill goliaths), but I figure I should mention their complaints for the sake of completeness. The Missionary himself had a great time, however, and the RP and general reactions from the crew was downright hilarious at times.

However, I should also note that this particular sequence of events was driven by the in-game circumstances, and couldn't necessarily be duplicated at will. If this was a regular traitor round, or if the cult was just ineffective, there'd have been no reason for a "goliath ERT" or similar shenanigans, and there wouldn't have been nearly as much late-round fun. While I didn't play the Missionary himself and can't say how that went, I think the role might also have gotten stale if it'd had to drag out for the whole two hours. The cult escalating like it did near the end of the round, along with the ERT request itself, was a stroke of luck for me that let me end things with a bang. Also, lol@Robotics totally carrying the day.

Recommendations:

-The religious overtones of the whole event synergizes really well with a cult round, so I'd definitely suggest running a smaller-scale event like this on a round with an active cult.

-HANDPICK THE MISSIONARY PLAYER. I tried to remove the Colossus's ability to fire deathbolts, but I wasn't able to easily varedit it out. One misclick and the Colossus would've killed a couple people in a single go, although thankfully Lorenzz (the Colossus player) managed to keep from making that mistake. Alternative option that I only thought of later: spawn a simple mob, give it effectively infinite health, and the sprite of a Colossus instead of the real deal.

-When you alter the Colossus's name to "Colossus Missionary," also give it a funny description like "A peaceful preacher of Space Mormonism, here to spread the good word of the Necropolis to all."

-Timing: The Missionary had a good time for 20-30 minutes, but things seemed to slow down for a while after the initial shock of "holy shit there's a giant Colossus here" wore off. It's a good early-round event to spice things up when they get boring, but it might drag out too much later in the round, so I'd recommend either escalating the situation organically (i.e. cult/other antags going wild, and giving new things for the Missionary to RP about) or artificially (if the cult/other antags all die out, add something of your own).

-Suggested option for spicing things up if they start to drag on mid-round: Introduce the "Goliath Crusaders," this time against the Missionary! Have them either verbally denounce the Missionary (stereotypical Black Templar speech, basically), or have the goliaths/some other Lavaland critters do an all-out fight in a more remote area of the Cyberiad, like the north side of the Chapel or the Old Bar. It'll create a big mess without hopefully killing too many people, provide some good entertainment for the players/spectators, and provide opportunities for Engineering/Security/Medical in the inevitable cleanup. Alternatively, have some poor NT functionary (might have to do this yourself) come in and try to take stock of exactly what the hell is going on, including quizzing the Missionary on things like its religious preferences, gender, and if it wants employment in NT as a Chaplain.

 

 

2. "Masked Killer:"

Spoiler

 

Summary: There's actually a "Masked Killer" in the Transformation tab, so one round I decided to run with it. The Killer spawns with a fireaxe, a blood-covered set of laborer's overalls and apron, and has a surgical mask and welding helmet. They roam the Maintenance corridors, finding and "tenderizing" meat (crew).

Narrative: Contrary to what the name might imply, this event didn't involve a lot of murdering (the only death was ironically the Killer himself). I gave the ghost player instructions to try and keep other players alive, and he downright knocked the job out of the park. He ran around hamming up the "butcher" angle, yelling about "MORE MEAT!" and "PROPERLY TENDERIZE IT!" and such, and appeared to have a great time playing up the role. His initial instructions were to grab and cablecuff hapless crew to pipes in Maintenance, and to take a selfie next to them for a "little scrapbook of horrors." I gave the Masked Killer X-Ray vision (because the evil villain always needs to know more than the hapless heroes, ofc), blink and teleport capability, some basic implants (CNS Rebooter, anti-drop, etc.), and a meathook.

The meathook was a key part of this for several reasons: its grab+stun mechanic worked beautifully, it fit the "evil butcher" aesthetic to a T, and it was foreign and under-used enough to also be just a little scary. The Killer would meathook players, cablecuff them, and run around with them while yelling about "TURN THEM INTO CUTLETS," then leave them cuffed in Maintenance. During one rampage, when the Paramedic panicked and ran from the Killer, he ended up stealing the ambulance and creating "THE ROLLING MEAT WAGON." Especially since this happened earlier in the round (roundtype: traitor+1 vamp), these theatrics worked out wonderfully for getting Sec's attention.

Unfortunately, ofc, this also meant a lot of attention. The Killer kept up the chase for quite some time with liberal use of the meathook, and both the CNS Rebooter and Anti-Drop did good work in keeping him on his feet. However, he was worn down and eventually taken out by a very large and well-armed Sec team that was very annoyed about getting repeatedly meathook'd. Several Blink attempts later, along with a cuffing, and the Masked Killer was finally beaten to death in Chapel Maintenance.

Now, since no self-respecting cheesy horror flick ends without some possibility of the Killer escaping, I did my best to ham up the whole show. Sec cremated the body, which worked out well for removing it from display, and I added a local Halloween .midi to keep things fun. I also added random blood spatters, slabs of meat, and the Killer's clothes and axe occasionally appearing around the station (Armory, Bridge, HoS's Office, Maintenance, etc.). My piece d'resistance was the Emergency Shuttle, which I decked out in corpses, blood, gibs, and a bunch of notes reading simply "MORE MEAT." It would've been a perfect end...except that Denthamos haaaaaad to go hijack the shuttle. Still, it at least looked awesome for deadchat.

Impressions:

Fun, but finite. The Masked Killer himself had a rollicking good time, and did a good job of keeping the rest of the crew's attention, but he also might very well overstay his metaphorical welcome if the event's left to go on too long. It fits in well to the early or middle end of a round, before things have gotten too crazy, but if it starts early then it should definitely end in 45 minutes or less. In that sense, Sec catching and killing the Killer worked out quite well, as did leaving open the possibility of THE KILLER'S RETURN DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.

I don't think the lack of actual killing really let down the Masked Killer at all, and in fact, was pretty vital to publicizing the role. People screaming about "AAAAAAH HE'S GOT ME!" is obvs plenty more interesting than someone just dying silently in Maint, and builds tension in a good way. I do think the Killer needs a hidey-hole and time off during the round, though, since like any good horror-movie villain he needs to not dominate the screentime for the entire show.

Recommendations:

-Give the Masked Killer more escape options, especially of the teleportation variety. I gave him the wizard Teleport (+noclothes) under the "Spells" tab, along with Blink and Ethereal Jaunt, which all worked out pretty well. I'd also definitely recommend the implants, along with an adrenaline implant and freedom implant.

-Consider making the Killer faster than regular mobs via varedit, so that he can simply outpace Seccies through Maintenance. This'll have to be balanced appropriately, so that he's not just tearing around like the Flash, but being 10-15% quicker would let him reliably get away and add to the tension.

-Consider giving the Killer a radio jammer to use intermittently when finding "new meat." Letting some radio signals get through, just garbled and incomprehensible, should add to the tension.

-Ham is downright vital for this role. Make sure that whoever takes on the role is good at hamming up the silliness, and knows to play on the whole "butcher" angle.

-The Killer spent his time running around with the welding helmet up, since he obvs couldn't see shit with the thing on. Consider varediting it to remove the vision penalty, as that'll make him look a bit more intimidating.

-Consider varediting the fireaxe that the Killer carries to a medium size, so that it'll fit in his pack when he needs to switch out hands (meathook,=>cablecuff=>back to fireaxe for intimidation purposes). The Killer will need to carry around a bunch of cablecuffs, a meathook, and a camera at the bare minimum, so space is at a bit of a premium.

-Instruct the Killer to hide in side passages for a while during the round, rather than spending all his time "on the hunt." Patience, and giving long stretches of time to build up the tension, should definitely help this role stay scary throughout the round.

-When the Killer's lying low, placing random items from the Killer (blood, gibs, clothing, an axe, etc.) around the station should help to build tension.

 

 

Small-scale events (i.e. events that shouldn't heavily interfere with the major events of the round):

1. "Judgmental Mime:"

Spoiler

 

Summary:

This one's a simple-but-funny idea, courtesy of Savinien Brassheart. A Mime (just use the "Mime Assassin" template), with remote telepathy and several teleport+escape options, with the goal of cruelly judging different members of the crew and playing on their characters' insecurities. For a 'borg, the Judgmental Mime calls them soulless ("Look at yourself, you clanking heap of scrap. How did you delude yourself into thinking you were anything more than a jumped-up automaton?"), the HoP he calls a useless bureaucrat ("Tell me, when did the Rules and the Law take over your soul? How long have you let ink, papers, and mindless bureaucracy run your life into the ground?"), etc etc etc. The Mime teleports away if attacked, but returns to mock and judge the attacker the moment their back is turned...

Narrative:

Savinien specifically asked for the role, so with the lessons in mind from the "Masked Killer" event, I set him up as best I could. Teleport, Jaunt, Blink, and a freedom implant made him all set to run away. He made some pretty solid zingers, and got a couple people chasing him around with intent to murder at one point...only problem is, terror spiders got involved and things kinda went pear-shaped.

Impression:

Simple and easy to implement, but entirely dependent on the player's eloquence. This role absolutely relies on someone being 'gud at rite' enough to write decent insults, ones good enough to piss people off. Savinien did a great job there, but he unfortunately got sidelined by a big overwhelming threat, as is a common problem with minor event characters. Still, credit where it's due, he made a fun and interesting role which I'd definitely suggest for others.

Recommendations:

-Spawn in a regular Mime (new job slot, spawn in yourself, etc.) to give the character the proper Vow of Silence. Unfortunately, the Transformation button version doesn't include this, which complicates things a bunch.

-If you're going to make a gimmick Mime, might as well go whole-hog and give him the "Greater Mime Forcewall" and "Guns" spells. The forcewall's always handy, and the Mime fingerguns make for a good last-ditch weapon if actually needed.

-You might need to draw some CentComm attention to the character if it's getting ignored ("That's not one of ours"), either via announcement, fax, or just character radio. If the round's slow and the Mime isn't getting enough attention, that might do the trick.

 

 

2. "Lost 'Borg:"

Spoiler

 

Summary:

A disguised Syndicate saboteur 'borg has ended up on the Cyberiad, having been hit by a damaging EMP blast, and with most of its memory scrambled. Its one remaining instruction is "Get the disk" - which disk? Where? How? The damaged 'borg is left to cautiously peek around and try to understand where it is and what's going on, with the crew slowly becoming aware that there's a lethal, uncontrollable Syndieborg in their midst.

Narrative:

I can't take any credit for this one, as Kyet came up with and implemented the idea himself, but I did watch it play out. He played the role of the nice, confused Engieborg asking the AI about "do you know where this 'disk' might be?" and the AI slowly twigging to the real threat. The AI was smart enough to keep from just radioing immediately IIRC (Syndieborgs have the usual Syndicate encryption, including the ability to snoop on all crew channels), but the PDA messages were hilariously panicky.

The event ended quietly enough, with the saboteur 'borg shooed gently through the Gateway to "find the data disk to restore its systems" somewhere else. Still, it made for a good localized incident, and would definitely be fun to load up a ghost and let 'em try the scenario themselves.

Impressions:

Good for its size. This is a classic small-scale sort of event, the kind of thing to run during a slow point in the round whether early or late, and could be done with any sensible player in the driver's seat. There's also room to escalate it, with a Syndicate team showing up to find their missing 'borg, and/or CentComm wanting the 'borg brought to CC intact. This event played out quietly in large part because Command and the AI reacted appropriately, but if they'd panicked, well...

Recommendations:

-Have a plan to escalate the situation. If things go pear-shaped, consider who and what will take action next (Syndicate? NT? Solar Federation? Space Russians? etc.).

-Make sure the ghost taking on the job knows not to go full murderbone. This is a lethal Syndieborg, after all.

 

 

 

Will add other events as they pop up. Feel free to chip in with your own experiences or suggestions, though!

 

[A very unpopular suggestion (But needed)]

I'm a longtime Seccie myself, and I'd have to agree with many of the earlier issues raised in this thread. More to the point, I'd argue that quite a few of them are closely connected:

-The learning cliff: Security is an extremely difficult job to learn, requiring both robustness and knowledge of station SOP, server rules, and a thick enough skin to survive a storm of criticism.

-Actual shitsec: While often just undeserved whining, much of that criticism is actually quite fair. I've seen prisoners left in cuffs for 15-20 minutes in Processing, utterly ridiculous criminal records placed (a 15-minute charge for just "resisting arrest," lol), and more undeserved harmbatoning than I can count at this point.

-Poor oversight: Between the HoS, Warden, IAA, Magistrate, and Captain, there should be enough on-station personnel to correct bad behavior. I'd argue that much of the problem preventing that from happening is simply being overwhelmed: the HoS is desperately trying to keep a semblance of order, the Warden's watching over officers in the field, and every officer is desperately needed to fight the baddie of the week NOWNOWNOW. This leaves the IA agents and Magistrate with little to do, and when coupled with the high requirements for Magistrate and low job options for IAA, results in the positions usually being undermanned. This, of course, then worsens the problem of "bad apple" officers in the first place.

-Staffing: All of the above, coupled with the reasonable likelihood of dying to valid-salad, makes Security a chronically understaffed force. Any measure to address Sec's issues must mention its horrible, horrible staffing problem, because everything else is secondary to it. No one's got time or energy to train newbies when they're constantly running after the next threat, and no one's got time to process prisoners properly when there's an officer down in Med-Sci Maint yada yada yada. And when there's no "low-speed" Security role, no one signs up for the job if they want a slower shift; it's either ASS TO THE GRASS BALLS TO THE WALL HARMBATON IN FREEFALL YEEHAW or it's playing Janitor instead.

Note that this is a well-known real life phenomenon, often called a "staffing crunch:" with too few staff members on a job, pressure and requirements increase on the remaining ones, increasing their stress and causing them to quit (further worsening the staffing problem). Poor staffing is the heart of Security's woes; we can put patches over other issues, but none of them will stick unless we can ensure that there'll be more than just the Detective and Warden at roundstart. The term I've heard in RL law enforcement is "paradoxical policing," where inot only are there too few cops, the ones that remain are tired, burned out, and angry - and it shows.

Conclusion: Recruitment&Retention is the key, everything else is secondary. I'd love to see a lot of the ideas in this thread implemented, from 'slings getting another rework to additional Code Red access, but ultimately the biggest problem with Sec is simply that there aren't enough of them around. Any suggestions for fixing Security's issues should focus primarily on getting more people to stay in the job.

 

 

 

Issues and potential solutions: It's very, very difficult for even an experienced player to transition into playing Security. Others in this thread have already covered most of the reasons why, so I'm going to cover some of the issues inherent in resolving the problem and my proposals for addressing 'em:

a) Hostile learning environment vs. protecting the "learner" role: Unsurprisingly, no one in red catches a break. I think there's simply no substitute for a "learner" Security role, a la the cadets that Kyet proposed earlier (personally, I'd go with "Constable" myself to avoid too much newbie stigma; I personally wouldn't mind playing a low-speed Sec role sometime). To separate cadets/Constables from the rest of Security's valid-salad, I'd suggest trying to draw a divide between them and the rest of Sec. Keeping other Sec roles more exclusive could be done with either a minimal karma-lock on Security roles (5 points to unlock "Security roles," a.k.a. the Brig Physician, Sec Officer, Warden, and HoS), or simply requiring a bunch of playtime (6+ hrs) in the "learner" role before being able to play as a Sec Officer.

Combine this divide with limited equipment for cadets/Constables, restrictive instructions, and a limited degree of social protection. We can't entirely stop the low-speed Sec role from being a loot pinata, because they'll still need Brig/Holding Cell access and Security comms to do their job. However, limiting their equipment to less-effective tools like flashes and pepperspray a) forces them to actually use that gear, instead of relying solely on the holy harmbaton, b) limits their ability to get rekt by their own weapons used against them by greytiders, and c) makes them less attractive as a target. Similarly, the starting instructions (and hopefully over time, the basic standard and expectation) should tell cadets/Constables to remain in public areas and to not go patrolling off alone. There's no guarantee that they'll follow it, but it should keep at least some newbies on the straight and narrow. And finally, this divide between "always legit" Security targets and "try not to kill/humiliate" newbie role can be enforced through social interaction. Public shaming for antags, or even greytiders, who deliberately dunk on newbie Seccies can limit some bad behavior, especially if there's a clear divide between who's obvious valid-salad and who isn't.

b) Lack of connection vs. a physical presence: One common problem with Sec roles is that there's no 'belonging' to the rest of the station. You've got antags to fight and greytiders to bash, and there's very little interaction between you and other departments. Even within Security itself, there's very little face-to-face time outside of hanging around in Processing at the same time, and the constant barrage of trouble on the radio means that there's very little of the team-building off-topic conversations which are so common in other departments. This worsens the issue of poor communication between Security and the rest of the station, increasing the divide and allowing for an easy bandwagoning of "shitcurity!" calls, whether deserved or undeserved, which make people that much less likely to play Sec again.

I'd like to suggest departmental offices if feasible, the standard 3x3 (or 2x3 in a pinch) cubicles that come with basic ID access and departmental radio encryption. I'd suggest that cadets/Constables spawn at these offices right at roundstart, and serve as their public face of Security to different departments; I imagine this'd provide a more supportive environment for someone to learn the job, and would in turn provide that department with a tangible Security presence. Having a department to guard and a little Security checkpoint office to call their own would help make the role more than just a "learner" one. Security's currently responsible for the entire station at all times, which in practice means that you're running around pissing on brushfires here, there, and everywhere. Having a single department to guard and a small group to watch over would let someone play Security in a relaxed manner, only dipping their toes into the regular chaos when they felt like it.

c) Lack of education vs. having a designated teacher: I've seen someone previously suggest a "Security Instructor" role, which was shot down on the basis of "experienced Seccies can teach newbies already." Without getting too confrontational, lemme put it like this: I've played an absurd amount of time on Paradise, let alone other SS13 servers, and in all that time I've seen a 'Sec training exercise' happen exactly once. On extended. That was it.

Barring extended all day erryday, we need a framework of regular newbie education. Relying on charity, on someone experienced having the means, motive, and opportunity to take newbies under their wing during a busy shift, is not a viable solution. The poor staffing problem is the root cause of Security's issues, and lack of help for newcomers in the role is a significant contributor to the issue. Other players can certainly contribute, but we need someone whose role is focused primarily around education, to teach newbie Seccies everything from prisoner processing to shooting, and who won't bin all that teaching the moment a 'ling pops up in Sci Maint. I think the previous "Security Instructor" role addressed it handily, and I'd suggest a separate radio channel for "cadets/Constables" to give them space to ask dumb questions like "how do I use a flash anyway?"

The obvious response to the concept of a separate radio channel would be "just use mhelp," but as an admin with access to the mentor channel, I can definitively say that they don't. People often just won't ask for help without some prompting ("hey, I saw that scuffle over in Processing, lemme show you how to take cuffs off a prisoner safely"), and other people just won't offer it without a little push. The "Sec Instructor" role is meant to provide that push, because when you log in to that job, you know that you'll need to step up to the plate to help teach newbies. This doesn't stop other Sec players from helping instruct newbies; matter of fact, I'd argue it would make them more likely to do so. It's the basic "bandwagoning" effect in action, where one person setting an example encourages others to join in. The goal here should be to prompt people towards better behavior, to give them that initial push, and to let them carry it the rest of the way.

Tl;dr version:

Spoiler

 

1. Learner role (suggested name "Constable")

-Starting text: "You are the Constable. Your job is to patrol the station and to keep crew safe."

-Brig, Holding Cells access. No Security access.

-Has access to Security comms. Suggestion: spawns with a regular headset, not a bowman one with its hearing protection (makes them less of a target for antags).

-Suggestion: additional radio channel, limited to Constables, the Security Instructor (see below), and the HoS. This would give newbies a safer place to ask dumb questions than on the Security channel in the open.

-Spawns with flash, handcuffs. No ranged stun. Starts in one of the departmental checkpoints (see below). Additional basic equipment would be available in checkpoints.

 

2. Departmental checkpoints:

-2x3 or 3x3 space, effectively imported from /tg/station.

-Constables/cadets/newbies would spawn in these locations. Would require Holding Cell access (allows newbie Seccies while keeping Command members like the CMO/CE/RD from breaking in).

-Basic departmental ID access and a coloured armband included (purple for Science, blue for Medbay, etc.).

-Encryption key for that department's comms.

-Basic equipment for a newbie: flash, pepperspray, handcuffs, security belt. Would have recharger, pepperspray wall refiller, and similar necessities.

-Would also have Security Records and Security Camera consoles, letting someone contribute and help out without leaving their post.

-Suggested locations: Medical, Science, Engineering, Cargo, Service (in or near the Bar). Would also suggest moving the Arrivals Checkpoint to a similar setup, to let a late-joining Constable take it over if they wanted to.

 

3. Security Instructor:

-Starting text: "You are the Security Instructor. Your job is to teach other Security personnel, and to help them perform their jobs better."

-Basic Sec Officer gear. Only difference is the different name change and a slightly different uniform/hat to differentiate them.

-Has access to both regular Security and the low-acuity 'Constable' comms, in order to answer newbie's questions in semi-privacy.

-Karma-locked role, 30 points.

 

Other changes:

-Increased barrier to entry for other Security roles. Option #1: Sec Officers require significant playtime (6-8 hours or more) as a Constable. Option #2: Minimal karma-lock for other Security roles (5 points unlocks the Sec Officer, Warden, HoS, and Sec Instructor).

 

 

I could go on for ages about stuff I'd like to see implemented: additional minor antags like smugglers or drug dealers to add some early-round shenanigans, renovating IA so that people actually want to play the role, improving antag gameplay so that they have greater freedom to act and are rewarded for interesting or exciting acts of villainy, etc. However, none of those things deal with the basic issue of Security staffing, and there's no point in trying to add new antagonists or tweaking high-level gameplay if we don't address the more basic, fundamental problem of "people just don't play Sec."

I've seen a lot of proposals to reform Security in the past, and I've thought a lot of them had merit myself. They were almost universally shot down, primarily by admins and coders; in my *ahem* years playing on Paradise, I haven't seen Security itself change. I have seen admin policy towards antagonists and on-station troublemakers get more restrictive, however, and much of that is due simply to Sec's inability to handle anything significant. As @Ping mentioned on the first page, there's an expectation of peace and order on-station, which Security simply isn't able to fulfill. The current system just isn't working, and our piecemeal efforts to address it aren't fixing the fundamental problem. Unless we make a 180 on the idea of station chaos tomorrow, we'll need a larger Security force to maintain order.

No matter whether we adopt a "newbie Seccie" role or not, we need to change things up, because the current system isn't functioning reliably. I've seen frequent suggestions made on the forums about antags being too restrictive* and Security being constantly understaffed; once again, everything comes back to Security staffing. Threads like this or this are symptomatic of the larger problem we have downstream of Security's ineffectiveness, not to mention the perfectly valid complaints about Sec misbehavior and general shitcurity-ing. I'd like to think that my proposals above would address a good deal of the "learning cliff" problem, and I'm open to suggestions and trying something entirely different. Ultimately, though, I really don't want us to put our collective heads in the sand, and pretend that the problem can be resolved with a few tweaks - or that it can't be addressed at all. This is a major issue, and adequately addressing it will require a major rework.

 

*Honestly, even as an admin myself, I've disabled most antag roles rather than play them due to being too restrictive. Having to look over my shoulder before doing anything is way too much of a hassle.

[Security cyborg buffs]

On 8/31/2019 at 10:56 AM, Machofish said:

The easiest and least disastrous change I can think of is to give security borgs some sort of 'gun gripper' that would let them pick up and operate a single lasergun or egun from the armory just like any other officer--weapons carried in this matter would need to be visible upon examination as long as they're carried, and the gun is dropped if the borg is ever stunned or the module slot they're using to carry the egun/lasergun gets disabled, and the borg could recharge a carried weapon using its internal battery at the same speed as a regular recharger unit. SoP would demand that they return the firearm to the armory when no longer necessary, as with regular officers. This way security borgs have very little change from how they normally operate versus infiltration antags, but they're not completely shit out of luck any time security is asked to counter one of several threats where non-lethal equipment is useless.

 

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)

[SEC Instructor Jobs, A Remedy to Newsec]

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

[SEC Instructor Jobs, A Remedy to Newsec]

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.

[SEC Instructor Jobs, A Remedy to Newsec]

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.

[Community Poll - Medbay Changes]

I'd also like to expand on the question of the motivations underlying the PR. To quote the rationale given: "Pulls back some of medical's powercreep."

...Medbay. Powercreep. Um. Gents, you are aware that the Science department is A Thing, yes? I'm aware that this doesn't obviate minor powercreep on Medbay's part, but from an outsider's perspective, it seems absurd that you'd focus on cutting Medbay down to size when their next-door neighbors combine ludicrous firepower with negligent responsibility. Even in Medbay itself, Virology is a far worse culprit with regards to overpowering capability than sleeper pods (put three viruses of Toxic Filter/Toxic Comp together, give one of the viruses Self-Respiration, and you can go for a spacewalk in your skivvies).

The rationale given is obviously a bit short, so do note that I'm not getting their explanation in detail. That being said, I would urge the PR's proponents to consider what sort of gameplay you're trying to create by making Medical more difficult to get into, because I see this as generally unhelpful to the cause of making Medbay a decent place to work. I'm guessing that this PR is meant to "make injury more meaningful," in line with the other stated motivation of "making death more meaningful," but if so, then I'd like to offer some advice on the subject:

 

In real-life hospital care, death is pretty easy. Resuscitation (the process of trying to save someone) is labor-intensive and effortful, sure, but once they're dead, things get much simpler. There's no 1:1 care with RT (Respiratory Therapist) hovering over their ventilator, there's no wrangling an ICU bed and getting the trainwreck-patient transformed into someone else's problem, no nothin'. You clean up the room, call in the family if they're around, call the morgue, and hey presto you're off to the races paperwork. If you want to make injury meaningful and limit Medbay's capabilities, then I'd recommend focusing on disability. As it stands, medical care in SS13 can rapidly restore someone to 100% in no time flat; if you want to make people more hesitant of getting horribly injured, then include possibilities for long-term harm which can't be easily cured. Add more long-term diminished capability (even if surgically repaired, a broken leg could mean a 15-minute mobility reduction, or a broken arm could mean occasionally dropping items), make sepsis be an issue for regular wounds rather than just during surgery, add a longer recovery time for pharmaceutical organ treatment (i.e. mannitol and mitocholide will need some time to work if taken in pill form), have severe injury reduce the subject's maximum health, and so on. No matter what element of Medbay we're talking about, if your goal is to make injury a scary thing that people want to avoid, I would recommend focusing on the end product rather than the in-between - in other words, consider making someone leave Medbay at 90% rather than on tossing a few more roadblocks onto Medbay itself.

Concurrently, I'd suggest soliciting more suggestions for changes from the community itself. If you want more community buy-in, just state your intentions in detail ("I want to make [X], because [Y], and I'm currently thinking of doing it through [Z]. What are your thoughts?") and field some questions and comments from the players. A couple test-merges, along with explicitly looking for feedback from the start, would avoid much of the criticisms and similar messes that this PR has generated.

[Community Poll - Medbay Changes]

On 2/15/2019 at 4:16 AM, necaladun said:

1) It seems the nerf to cryo-pods is not really an issue at all here.

I am a bit leery about these nerfs as they relate to newbie doctors. A mild passive heal doesn't mean much alongside an amazing "mito-manni-cryo" mix, but it does matter significantly when someone who's trying out Medbay for the first time tries tossing someone into a pod without first loading them up. Similarly, I feel like the sleeper nerf disproportionately affects newbie docs who don't have stacks of pills on their belts. Neither of these changes will make too big a difference for experienced MDs who can work their way around the changes, but they significantly complicate matters for people who are just starting out.

Regarding implementation, I think the process was rushed without good reason. Compare this change, which AFAIK was merged practically overnight, with the multiple test-runs and rounds of feedback that preceded the Medbay and Security mapping changes. The map alterations didn't satisfy everyone's little desires - I shed a tear at this time for the eternally fax-less Coroner - but they resulted in effective, popular changes which actually gave people the things they wanted. Compared to those "gentle" approaches, this merge feels excessively rushed and poorly thought-out. Given the notably negative reaction it got on arrival, I would guess that the people who merged this did so rapidly with the expectation of pushback - a spessman fait accompli, as it were.

I'm not going to pretend that I have any insider knowledge of forum or coder politics, and I'd urge everyone to take my assessment with a healthy grain of salt. That being said, I would ask the people pushing these changes to better outline exactly what they want. What events or situations gave the motivation for these changes? What sort of desired end-goal are they looking to achieve? What failure states are they trying to avoid? The current environment feels excessively antagonistic on both sides, and I'd like to encourage everyone to put a little more effort on cooperating.

[Community Poll - Medbay Changes]

16 minutes ago, Dinarzad said:

A casual reminder to people that want to obliterate cloning:

You are not the only one who plays the game and the medical department.
Not everyone is a 7 year veteran of Space 'Nam where you did 32 consecutive duties in a medical tent patching people back together with staples and tomato juice as a blood substitute.
New people play the game.
People new to the medical department play the game.
Screwing new people over side ways is not fun, ensures nobody ever wants to learn/play the department, and helps ensure low-pop rounds are a god awful misery festival. An example of this is Atmospherics. Barely anyone knows how that system works beyond a very very basic level of understanding, and so you barely see anyone play it. They take the job slot to be a psuedo-engineer, but do nothing it Atmos itself. Because learning that system is painful and the consequences can be terrifying. (Leaking toxic gases, etc.)

I get WHY you guys want to destroy Cloning forever and make it atrocious. But you are looking at it from the eyes and perspectives of a long term veteran player who already knows all the mechanics and gets bored when not challenged or given a meatier task to handle, has memorized the procedures, knows what chems do what, what is the more efficient way to make those chems/surgery order and what makes species different from each other, like why Diona all have different names for their organs (Even though they are functionally identical to human organs) or that Vox/Slimes need special kinds of treatment.

You are NOT accounting for the new doctor who has no idea what in the ever loving fuck is going on around him, why the things he is doing doesn't work and what to do if the zappy paddles don't work.  Every department has simple tasks that even new players can do.  Engineers can wire up solars, etc.

You must account for the fact that players that are not as skilled and well-versed as you can play the exact same jobs, an account for how badly these systems WILL fuck them up.  SS13 is not new player friendly, there's always going to be some rough learning processes to every system, but stacking the deck against them isn't cool either.

 

That's certainly a good point, but to be frank, I don't recall cloning being much fun for a newbie either. Surgery was the interesting and engaging thing for me when I was starting out in Medbay, because a) it required a significant number of actions, while b) the Operating Computer meant that I had a pretty good idea of what to do, and c) the patient was unconscious and therefore wasn't in a position to complain. Cloning has the issue of being pretty boring even for someone starting out ("put mans in cloner, press button, wait"), and I see the recent changes as being unhelpful in that regard, because they push attention away from the ORs.

The key changes between a newbie and a veteran MD, in my opinion, is less about knowing esoteric knowledge and more about rapidly applying it. A newbie doc would be absolutely overwhelmed if left alone to handle an MCI, but frankly, they'd be overwhelmed with an MCI under any circumstances. Under more-routine circumstances, the older system of "defib, then clone" for newbies worked fine, and my proposed system would still allow for that to happen. There'd be more of a penalty to cloning, yes, but it'd still function as before.

I envision cloning as the backup option, and I agree that we shouldn't remove it entirely. I like the idea of it serving as the last resort, and I believe that Clone Memory Disorder + a mechanical penalty wouldn't make it completely useless. IPCs can still function with 1.5x brute/burn damage, albeit with lots of salt about their EMP vulnerability in dchat, and my proposed changes would still allow for the cloner to function like it currently does otherwise. Newbie MDs would still be able to toss a dead character inside if defibrillation fails, and players would still be able to re-enter the round using it; the idea is to allow for a newbie to start there and to graduate up to knowing the different drugs, knowing how2SR, and so on.

[Community Poll - Medbay Changes]

15 minutes ago, Mitchs98 said:

I agree with basically everything Norwest said entirely, once again someones' said what I've tried to say better than me , aside from the changes to SR being something like fungus or diamonds. Rezadone, Carpotoxin, or Earthsblood would be just fine. Even, perhaps, a minorly higher dose of 5u. Limiting it severely? Absolutely not, considering two races need it to be revived outside of a brain transplant. Also kinda don't agree on making skeletonization take shorter unless genetics can aid to fix it. It'd be fun to go around as a skeleton some rounds but, it'd get old eventually.

Thanks! I'll admit, I know very little about Botany, but making SR dependent on their help seems like a decent compromise. That way, even if all the Botanists are traitors/incompetent/dead, the Garden, Permabrig, and R&D all provide backup options for growing plants in a pinch.

My reasoning with regards to increasing decay speed is because it can be halted completely with formaldehyde. That would provide a sense of urgency, since there's a looming penalty for not getting SR'd or hit with formaldehyde, and would require Medbay to practice triage. MCI (Multiple-Casualty Incident) triage, a.k.a. "walk through the car wreck and pick out the survivors," is pretty fulfilling work in my opinion, so I think it's something I'd like to see implemented in some manner. Defibs provide that to some degree, but with a greater reliance on SR over the cloner, I'd like to see SR have some form of "temporal urgency" (a time limit) which forces the triaging MD to be on the ball. And of course, if all else fails, there's still the microwave cloner to let dead people get back into the round eventually.

While defibs already have downsides, I'm sure you'd agree that brain damage is extremely easy to fix. I'd like to add an element of suspense and danger to the defibrillator, so that the success stories are that much more meaningful - there should be a reasonable chance of failure, even if it's something that a competent player can manage without too much difficulty under normal circumstances. Defibs inflicting a harmful-but-manageable amount of cardiac damage would ideally provide some risk without keeping people from using them. After all, a 10u mitocholide pill can patch up cardiac damage, as can efficient task-prioritization like "patching up the heart along with the patient's fractured chest" that experienced MDs already do. I'm open to discussion here, of course, but I do think there should be some form of failure-state in order to heighten the successes.

[Major Cloning and Revivability PR up on Github]

I'm linking my effortpost on the topic from the 'Community Poll - Medbay Changes' thread, since it seems applicable here.

[Community Poll - Medbay Changes]

Introduction:

Let me tell the story of a round I played earlier today:

The station is full up on jobs, >80 players. Every single Medbay role is filled to capacity...except for Doctors. Previously, there'd be up to five MDs on the manifest, with at least one or two bouncing around the Medbay at any given time. Yet in a round absolutely stuffed with players, with everything from Chemistry to the Coroner all staffed up properly, only two people even bothered to play MD. Needless to say, both of them are nowhere to be found.

Two large bombs go off, in the middle of the station. Casualties are everywhere. Of course, between fastmos and the explosions themselves, it's >2 minutes by the time the bodies are brought to Medbay. None of them are revivable. Previously, MDs would receive them and begin the difficult and dangerous job of trying to SR and revive these players. Instead, they're all dumped at the Cloner like a stack of logs, where a Chemist and the CMO take turns shoving each corpse through like it's a microwave. Cloning was jam-packed, and both surgical theaters were literally spotless. I have a very, very hard time imagining the ORs being clean back when they were still relevant...but when no one's revivable, who needs 'em?

This same pattern has repeated itself almost every single round that I've played during the recent changes, with only slight variations in each one. Reviving and Strange Reagent made for interesting, suspenseful resuscitation efforts, where you had to repeatedly zap someone to keep their heart afloat, do surgery to patch up their many injuries, transfuse to keep them from bleeding out again, clean as much as possible to prevent infection, etc etc etc. The new changes make Medbay - even worse, death itself - downright boring.

The problems:

Speaking as a real-life RN, the old approach of suspenseful, high-acuity action alongside regular, low-acuity fractures or cloning made for surprisingly on-point gameplay. The actual practice involved in treating someone is surprisingly simple most of the time; the issue in RL care is not some Dr. House-esque mystery solving and much more a question of efficiently managing resources. The new medical system, though, is less like working at a trauma center and more like working at a community health clinic (where I've seen nurses downright panic over epistaxis, a.k.a. "a nosebleed"). To try and summarize the basic issues in play:

1. Predictability: Past the two-minute mark, it's over. Boom. Done. Minimize the game and go do your laundry. Needless to say, this does not make for an interesting and engaging experience. There's no question of whether you'll get found in time, because you never get recovered in time for a defib anymore. There's no question of whether or not a competent MD will hit you with SR, because all they can do is to pop you into the cloner like a Hot Pocket and wait for it to finish cooking. Death has become boring; it's now just a question of twiddling your thumbs and watching something on YouTube until the metaphorical microwave has done its work.

2. Lack of human agency: If your corpse gets recovered, you'll likely get cloned eventually. There's nothing anyone can do to speed it up beyond the basic R&D upgrades, which means that there's no point in having anyone competent in Medbay; even the best players can't do anything more than wait for the magic cloning pod to churn through the corpses. Medbay could be crewed by the A-team or a pack of dribbling incompetents, and it has little impact (if any) on patient outcomes.

3. No effect past Medbay itself: Cloning has some new temporary downsides, but those are easily fixed with a trip in the cryopod or a bit of mutadone. It may mean more time spent twiddling your thumbs (yay, such fun, much excite), but once you've done a little more time in the cryopod then you're in the clear. The new death system means more time spent being dead, but it means literally nothing once you're alive again.

4. Lack of alternate playstyles: I've had quite a few games where some whiz-bang MD patched me up in the SS13 equivalent of a back-alley medbay. Rare, to be sure, but being revived even when the original Medbay was a flaming crater made for an interesting round that I can still recall today. The current system prevents all that, because without the cloner or getting really lucky with a defib, you're basically toast. Whoo-wee, such fun, much excite.

Personal aims:

I'm looking to effectively reverse these four factors. To elaborate a little on what I'd like to see:

1. Unpredictability: I don't want death to be the same thing every time. Maybe I'll get found, defibbed, and get back on my feet in no time. Maybe I'll get patched up in a cave by a guy with a box of scraps. Maybe Malpracticebay is in full effect, and the best I can hope for is to get cloned. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

2. Human agency: In keeping with the above, I want a good Medbay to be able to save lives like there's no tomorrow. Sure, make SR expensive and difficult to acquire - that just means it's cooler when the Chemists are on-point and the stuff is available in spades. Make bodies rot sooner, forcing them to be quickly injected with formaldehyde in order to be saved, or put more restrictions on how it can be used...but leave the option open. It makes for much more suspenseful, interesting, and compelling gameplay when things could happen. I don't mind failure, but I want there to be a chance of success in the first place, because having an alternative to failure makes it that much more poignant and interesting.

3. Long-term effects: To put it bluntly, I want the cloning pod to be the failure-state. I want people to hate being cloned, and the easiest way I can see that happening is to put some sort of un-fixable, long-term penalty to being cloned. Having some sort of unsolvable penalty counterbalances the ease of the cloner: it can still be the simple answer, but it's also not the one which people should want to take. The possibility of a full recovery would leave an incentive for good doctors to go through the effort of patching every boo-boo and fixing every wound (and for players to sit around in their broken bodies long enough for docs to fix them), whereas the cloner would still be a potential, if undesirable, option for people to re-enter the round. More on this below.

4. Allowing alternate playstyles: I'd like to give more options for fixing people, rather than a "one-and-done" approach. Maybe Genetics has a a power which prolongs defibrillation time with few downsides; the issue then becomes one of effectively spreading that same power stationwide, or at least to the most at-risk individuals (i.e. resource management). Maybe Medbay is reliant instead on the Coroner or a similar triage person during an MCI (Multiple Casualty Incident), with them running around and moving defib-able people to the cryopod area while injecting the long-term cases with formaldehyde before they start to decompose. Maybe transplantation would remove the cloning penalty, allowing for someone who'd been cloned by MD-McDumbass to get fixed if there were other MDs and Genetics on the ball that round. Overall, though, I'd like to see the game mechanics encouraging more options rather than simply railroading everyone towards the magic cloning microwave.

Suggestions:

A. The defibrillator issue:

-Slightly increase defib times. IIRC the old defib-capable times were up to five minutes, while the current number is two. The current number is far too small, given that defibrillators are rarely ever used in the field; unless you die inside the Medbay itself or near a mediborg, there's no saving you. I'd suggest moving it back to five minutes, to be counterbalanced with a significant penalty (see below). If you're dead-set on reducing defib times, though, then please at least split the difference and make it 3.5 minutes instead of the current "flash in the pan."

-Increased defibrillator times could be counterbalanced by having defibrillation inflict severe damage on the heart like it does IRL. This would require doctors to be careful and sparing about their defib use, and make it a gamble every time you place the paddles. Inflicting variable 10-35 heart damage per shock would allow someone to survive a single defib at a bare minimum, but would make multiple uses of the defibrillator a very dangerous game (i.e. suspenseful). Heart damage requires either chest surgery or mitocholide to fix, so either Chemistry or an MD being on the ball would be able to fix the damage. This'd add additional uncertainty due to the ever-present question of player competence, and would allow for meaningful success-stories to happen, such as "a competent Chemist saves patients from a defib-happy MD's mistakes" or vice versa.

B. Strange Reagent:

I'd suggest limiting SR through:

-Requiring a higher dose and/or more exotic materials. Space fungus might be a good 'un, or diamond, or some similarly hard-to-acquire substance. The goal here should be to make SR achieveable to make, but only by someone who knows what the hell they're doing. Alternatively, it could require help from another department, such as needing a high power draw from Engineering, ambrosia gaia or a similar higher-level plant from Botany, or upgraded parts from Science.

-Shortening the time available before a body begins decaying. I'm not sure how long the current time is until bodies start decaying, but the first stage (i.e. "They are beginning to smell") is the cutoff point for SR. If you shorten that time down, then formaldehyde and good corpse-triage becomes vital to saving them. In other words, something like this.

-I think the current system of "SR revives with brain/genetics" damage is good enough as-is. It allows for revives in the field, but inflicts a serious penalty if you lack access to a cryotube, and also requires that the field medic have remembered to pack along some mannitol as well.

C. Cloning:

As mentioned, I'd like cloning to be the "failure-state" of Medbay. People should have a real, lasting reason to not want to be cloned, and I'd suggest the following mechanisms for doing so:

-Implementing Clone Memory Disorder (CMD) for an in-character penalty. A rule like "you aren't able to remember anything that happened for the past thirty minutes" would allow for some interesting RP opportunities for anyone who's so inclined, and also keep people from being able to easily nail their killers. After all, if someone starts yelling "JOE IS A 'CLING!" the moment they pop out of the cloner, that's fairly bwoinkable. There won't be 100% compliance, and the initial implementation will be patchy as usual, but having some IC penalty for getting cloned should make RP-heavy, powergamey-light players want to avoid it. If possible, I'd like to also include some mention of "You will only be able to retrieve these memories with heavy counseling" or the like, to provide people with an IC reward for visiting the Psychiatrist. Basically, if you sit down and RP out talking through "shit I'm a clone, what happened back there," you can circumvent the penalty (and ID your killer). This should hopefully make the Psychiatrist a little more relevant, while also allowing for a method of dealing with the penalty providing the player is willing to put in enough effort.

-Implement some sort of [was cloned] penalty tag for anyone whose body was cloned. This would have a significant mechanical drawback which cannot be easily removed (that part is key). Options here include a brute/burn damage multiplier like IPCs, decreased maximum health, or a similar significant mechanical disadvantage. The goal here is to provide a penalty which even the powergamey-est of players would have to sit up and pay attention to; even if you don't give a shit about CMD, the mechanical cloning penalty would still make you sit up and pay attention. This could then be circumvented by brain transplantation into a humanized monkey (which would require both Genetics and an MD to be on the ball), or a similarly-circuitous method for anyone who really wants to get around it.

-I don't mind autoprocessing and autocloning, and I'd suggest keeping it in light of the above penalties. This would make prescanning a gamble: do you hope that your body gets found, or do you just say "screw it" and hop into the cloner, hoping that you can find a competent Geneticist and MD to help you out on the other side? (or will you be too busy once cloned, and have to just deal with the penalty anyway?)

Conclusion:

Thank you to whoever took the time to read all this, and I hope this provides some decent food for thought. I agree that the previous Medbay system was definitely flawed in some respects, but I don't this approach is a positive one to fixing it. In lieu of the current changes, I'd like to provide labor-intensive methods to circumvent death, and to make cloning a last-resort option which no one wants to have happen. If you have any questions or comments about my proposal, feel free to make 'em.

[SOP Suggestion: Departmental Tranverse]

3 hours ago, Sihsse Zsak said:

Departmental Protolathes and an ore silo....

Well lets start with the ore silo since that's the easier of the two. Public access to something like an ORM isn't going to solve any problem so much as create a new one, resources don't magically appear within it Miners deposit ore into the ORM to redeem for points. Lets say we remove the concept of the ORM and have a Silo in which everyone is able to access these resources. Instead of having Robotics, Research and Development, and Engineering competing for such things, we've now got a protolathe in every department that needs outfitted with all the possible resources that could allow them to print what they want/need. Now we have Medical, Security, Supply, Service, Science, along with Engineering vying for resources wholly dependent upon the experience and whim of the miners assigned to the asteroid.

 

What this will essentially do is create a massive demand for the resources needed to print whatever is accessible to the protolathe in their department while the supply remains entirely the same. A problem I'm sure that will be written off as "Well, we can just increase the amount of resources that get redeemed at the silo so there's plenty for everyone to go around." or perhaps we should "Open up the mining asteroid so that every department can mine for the resources they need." One of which negates the mechanic of upgrading so that there are more resources available as well as the miner's actual need to work themselves if the amount of resources they bring back is increased while the second one negates the need for the Mining sub-department entirely.

 

Departmental Protolathes is also a flawed concept since it still relies entirely on Research doing their jobs. This is of course, understanding that its just the protolathe itself and you're not throwing in a Deconstructive Analyzer and Circuit Imprinter into the bundle, you're still going to need Science to do the research and to update the servers before they become useful in any aspect. If you've already got a Scientist or two working on Research then there really isn't a need since I've seen scientists more often than not be more than happy to supply anyone who comes to their window, assuming that the request is reasonable, with whatever gear/circuit boards/components that the individuals want/need for their jobs. Circling back, this doesn't do much except remove interdepartmental interaction with Science as well as create an inflated need for resources to print whatever you need from the protolathe located within your department.

 

As for restricting R&D to Science and getting the reaction "Well, people are just going to do it more." Really that also is a flawed idea, the people that did it in the past will continue to do so for whatever reason they wish to justify while individuals who have never done so in the past will most likely shy away from stepping over that line, whether its added as Standard Operating Procedure that the Research Director must authorize any form of Research outside the department or we as Administrators consider the actions of the individual in question in violation of our Powergaming policy. In either case, the consequences outweigh the benefits  Comparing it to the "War on Drugs" is silly since it won't motivate anyone who wouldn't already have the motivation to do so which in this case is just a handful of people who, for whatever reason, decide its perfectly fine to create an entire R&D set-up.

 

That being said, I've seen legitimate cases where creating a separate Research and Development department in Engineering was beneficial to the Station as a whole since the original department was entirely unmanned for the majority of the round but, that's a rare case in which they were working towards achieving the Station Goal as opposed to the usual case of unlocking goodies and centralizing the power of their department by removing the need to interact with others.

 

 

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.

[SOP Suggestion: Departmental Tranverse]

On 2/4/2019 at 6:22 AM, EvadableMoxie said:

Departmental lathes would solve this problem.  Instead of the protolathe being one all in one machine to all the best stuff, each department gets it's own protolathe that can only print things relevant to their department. Each lathe would be locked to an ID of that department, so even if engineering builds a science protolathe it won't do them any good without a science ID. 

It has the added bonus of decentralizing power away from science.  Part of the reason departments do this is because sometimes getting science to actually give other departments stuff is pulling teeth.  Half of science is usually traitors and you're lucky if you can find someone who will be nice enough to actually man the RnD window and not just print all the best stuff for themselves and go wander off blow up monkeys or something.

^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.

 

On 2/5/2019 at 3:48 PM, Sihsse Zsak said:

The whole issue with Engineering being able to build a Research and Development area itself lies in the aspect on ONE and ONLY ONE feature within the game that allows them to do so and this is the Public Research Console circuit board.

 

If that was actually removed entirely from the game, something I wouldn't be sad to see go honestly, then all access to the Protolathe, Analyzer, and Circuit Printer, would be restricted to individuals within the Science Department. The only remaining loophole would be the Mechanic's own console then and unless the Mechanic is up for cluttering their office with RnD equipment they're just shit out of luck in setting one up.

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.

[Tales from Shitcurity.]

On 1/22/2019 at 3:34 AM, Robertruler77 said:

If you want the worst shitcurity round I've ever had to experience (And to be fair, I rarely experience shitcurity myself) it's immortalised on Yogstation's forums, specifically an admin/player complaint that got ugly fast.

Still. Have a couple of stories to tell.

Brig Phys. Scientist prods me to get a surgery table, so I do with his help, and then ask for permission for implants. Both Captain and HoS quickly approve of it. (Neat!) So, I pop over to RND through the power of telespace and ask for implants from the Scientist there, same one as before. He puts them all in a bluespace locker and comes to sec with me to drop them off, and then I ask over sec comms if anyone wants implants. No reply. HoS is busy, Captain isn't really meant to be getting this sort of stuff, and I ask again. Then an officer comes in, no bother, job done.

A Second officer is asked to come in near the surgery room, and I ask if he wants anaesthetic or just to sleep it off. No reply. So i take his backpack off, put him under and quickly implant him. The man gets up and complains about how long it took, which I brush off. Then he leaves. Without his backpack. Womp Womp.

":s Hey Sec? Can we get a big round of applause for [REDACTED] for leaving his bag in my office?" 

That officer doesn't reply. Open up the backpack. Tasers, cuffs, the works. Nothing he shouldn't have, but everything he shouldn't leave lying around. Take the pack and dump it in the armoury, specifically namedropping the officer and where his backpack is. Get back to implants, and have to rush for a screwdriver and crowbar for an IPC Pod Pilot implantation.

That Second officer storms back into my office and demands his backpack. I calmly tell him it's in the armoury, and that I told him on comms. So he is one of those officers. Quietly make a mental note to PDA the Warden about this guy, juuuust in case.

HoS rolls up, and after a quick greeting and puts the tank on himself and lies down on the table. This guy doesn't fuck around. After a very short but pleasant LOOC conversation about Nurses and Biology the job is done and he is implanted, and I see him off.

Outside of that, I PDA the HoS about the above Officer about the muteness on comms, forgetting his backpack and one other thing (can't recall) but the shift ends quietly beyond that.

We had abductors. And *most* of sec dealt with them rather effectively. I might've suffered an EMP heart attack and needed defibbing thanks to abductor implants and might've been dragged to medical by a injured, armless officer, and they might've dropped an egg laying guy in perma at some stage... But you know. Space Station 13.

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.

[Thoughts on an x-ray nerf?]

As a longtime Seccie, I have frequently benefited from X-ray. It is the single most dangerous and effective power I can get, bar none - give me a choice between a roundstart backpack of AEGs and X-ray, and I'd take X-ray in a heartbeat. When I say that X-ray ruins people's fun and makes for less-interesting rounds, I am speaking from extensive experience. Yet I'll still take it if the power becomes available in a round, because the only thing worse than remotely ruining antagonists' rounds with X-ray is having them do the same to me. To try and summarize my issues with X-ray as it stands:

1. Issues: 

A. Combat utility: "Winrate" can be a tetchy topic to discuss, but it's worth noting just how good X-ray's combat utility truly is. Full-screen vision lets you see around every corner and spot every flanker. You know when someone's inbound to bushwhack you, and simultaneously know when your flank is clear to pursue. You know when your target's alone and easy pickings, and when you should fall back and wait for another day. That sort of always-on intel capability is unbelievably powerful, and turns failed attacks into legendary ambushes. That's all well and good for the winner, but we have to think of the losing party as well, and getting thumped by someone with near-perfect intel is not a fun way to play.

B. Cost: Credit where it's due, the X-ray implant is difficult to acquire. Between the research levels and the materials required, it's not something which is easily acquired every single round. Genetics, however, can throw around X-ray injectors like candy should they stumble across the DNA block. I've seen decent Science players get the entire Sec team kitted out with X-ray implants before, but they've got nothing on a halfway-competent Genetics player who's lucky enough to stumble across the DNA block early-ish in the shift. There's no cost other than the slight delay in between printing injectors, and unlike Hulk, the possibility of misuse is fairly low; Geneticists would be insane not to distribute X-ray around.

C. Subterfuge (or lack thereof): Sec getting X-ray capability means that antags have nowhere to hide. It's far worse than 'just' thermal vision, since X-ray lets a competent Seccie spot small clues which can (and often do) lead to a big payoff. Dirt on the ground, a water tank that was shifted, a patch of rust that was removed, and you've got a lead on someone's hidey-hole from halfway across the station. Ditto for antags: it's obnoxious as all hell when an antagonist can simply spot most plainclothes efforts or similar tricks from a distance. And worst of all...

D. Counters: Sec's starting gear can be largely countered with a pair of HUDglasses and a bowman headset. Someone with a pack of implants (CNS Rebooter, Anti-Drop, etc.) beastmoding up combat? Apply EMP, and you can take your sweet time getting 'em cuffed. Most in-game abilities have a hard counter, whose existence provides some real risk to using that ability in practice. Everything from energy weapons to flashbangs have a series of counters, and incurs a certain risk as a result.

X-ray has no counter. Zip. Zilch. Nada. It is a tremendously capable ability, with no real downsides to speak of. SOP restricting it is ignored, because the mechanics are just too damn good. For both Security and antagonists, with thinking and capable enemies after them with murder on the brain, it'd be insane not to take X-ray if it's available. Even thermals, an ability significantly less capable than X-ray, comes with flash vulnerability. It's utterly ridiculous, through and through.

 

2. Proposed fixes:

Plenty of people have already proposed quite a few sensible fixes, so I'll be liberally cribbing from their ideas here. My objective is to make X-ray a more balanced power, something more equivalent to Thermals rather than an exponential step up, without nerfing it to the point of complete uselessness. I'm open to critiques and criticism as to how to alter the changes.

Design goals: X-ray in its current form is utterly incomparable to any other vision booster. If we compare it to Thermals, we see that it provides significantly improved vision without the flash vulnerability. Perfect night vision comes along for the ride to boot, which is just the icing on the bloody cake. In order to make X-ray more in-line with other powers, I'd like to do the following:

I. Provide a significant mechanical tradeoff which would make X-ray less of a 'no duh' choice.

II. Trim 'excess' capabilities (i.e. nightvision)

III. Provide a significant mechanical drawback, which would allow other players to counter X-ray with sufficient knowledge and preparation.

IV. Decrease its availability from Genetics, to prevent it from being handed out like candy.

 

A. Tradeoffs: Several other people have proposed making X-ray a timed capability, with fifteen seconds on and a two-minute cooldown. I would agree with the general idea, but I'd recommend replacing the fifteen-second 'on' timer with a requirement to be stationary. X-ray would still let you see through walls, but you would only be able to do so once every couple minutes from a single location. My issue with the fifteen-second timer concept is that letting someone run around while still seeing perfectly through walls means just fifteen seconds of superpowers, which is plenty of time to work with in a combat situation. Conversely, forcing them to stay still in order to use their superpowers makes it a more balanced capability, and makes Thermals much more useful. I'm imagining X-ray being used in more of an 'investigative' role, which would would let Thermals keep its fast-paced combat utility.

B. Mechanical drawback: The obvious option here seems to be flash vulnerability. Flash vulnerability from Thermals is a right pain in the ass when I'm a Seccie or antag, which I take as a sign that the mechanic is doing its job properly. I really like flash vulnerability because it makes Sec's non-lethal equipment much more viable again: flashes and flashbangs are rendered useless the moment an antag steals some newbie officer's gear, and of course, Sec officers come equipped against their own kit. Making that gear effective again adds to gameplay by providing additional options to victory. The actual mechanics of flash vulnerability also stack on each other (vulnerability is on a sliding scale which is adjusted upwards or downwards by factors like sunglasses), which would further penalize anyone who wants to use both Thermals and X-ray at the same time. It wouldn't be impossible, but it would impose a significant vulnerability which could be exploited by a capable opponent, which I think makes for much more fun and rewarding gameplay than just going "no, bad, can't do [X]."

C. Availability: I don't have as easy an answer here, because my ideal solution would be just 'port over Goon genetics (and hopefully Goon artifact, reactor, and /tg/ research-points mechanics, pretty please?). That being said, some potential solutions for avoiding X-ray spam under the current genetics code includes increasing the mutability of the X-ray gene*, making the genetics X-ray power come automatically with black&white activated**, or increasing the duration of the power's activation cooldown compared to the R&D implant version.

*Increasing the gene's mutation effect would make Genetics X-ray give minor damage and annoying "your skin is bubbling off!" messages even when it's the sole power activated. While not lethal on its own, this should hopefully provide enough disadvantages to turn away 'casual' users, doubly so when combined with the proposed nerfs above.

**While making Genetics X-ray come with black&white, I'd argue against doing so for Science's X-ray implant. Cost-wise, X-ray implants are already fairly well balanced: they require literally tip-top research levels, they need diamond, and they need to be manually installed. My only issue with R&D-given X-ray is the ludicrous capabilities which X-ray itself gives; the actual costs of acquiring it seem fairly well balanced.

 

3. Recap and Conclusion:
Rather than removing X-ray entirely from the game, I want to limit its combat capability and provide some mechanical drawbacks for using it. A recap of the proposed changes:

I. Timed power/stationary activation: Instead of being always on, X-ray can only be activated once every 2 minutes while stationary. Movement deactivates the power.

II. X-ray no longer provides automatic nightvision. When activated, X-ray vision will be similar to that of a camera given an Analyzer upgrade.

III. Similar to Thermals, X-ray increases flash vulnerability. While not crippling in and of itself (a -1 to flash vulnerability a la Thermals just means you can get stunned for a half-second by a flash), this would provide a significant drawback to stacking X-ray and Thermals on each other.

IV. The Genetics X-ray route could use an additional barrier to entry rather than just "hope they don't stumble across the gene in the first five minutes of the round." I'd recommend an additional minor drawback like black&white vision, as others have proposed.

 

Simply making X-ray a timed-activation capability dependent on remaining stationary should significantly nerf its combat utility, since SS13 combat is based around movement. Given the supremacy of stuns in the game's combat paradigm, adding a slight stun vulnerability should also increase the risk of taking X-ray for combat use. I'm open to further suggestions, of course, but I think the above changes should be sufficient to make X-ray a more balanced - and more importantly, interesting - ability to both use and fight against.

[Getting IAAs to do their job]

The Issue(s)

There are two fundamental problems to the IA Agent's job:

1. Everyone hates them, and

2. No one has to listen to them.

Let's call these issues 'unpopularity' and 'lack of authority,' for the sake of brevity. No one wants to see IAA outside their department, because literally nothing good will ever come of it. IAAs cannot reward, only punish, so logically the department members will failing to cooperate with IA and ignore them as much as humanly possible. That's not an environment which will encourage a newbie IA to return for another round of the same, no?

But hey, let's suppose that someone is a dedicated IA fellow and keeps on the job long enough to find a clear example of malfeasance. Maybe it's just something small like Robotics not getting their cyborg forms stamped, or maybe Cargo is setting up another Tesla engine in the Cargo Bay again. Either way, IA can't do a thing themselves; they have to radio and hope that someone listens. Problem is, they aren't really in the chain of command: they don't head up a department, they don't have any underlings themselves, and the best they can hope for is for someone else - the Captain/HoS, CentComm, etc. - to act on the info they provide. Given those circumstances, it shouldn't be much wonder that IAs jump to faxing early and often. CentComm might be unreliable, but they definitely have the oomph to make things happen if they /do/ act.

 

The Fix(es)

IAA has only one job to do, and it's a job which everyone else hates. This is something which can be addressed with fairly minimal in-game intervention: give them a means to commend people. The obvious inspiration here is the SS13-CM 'medal printer,' where a medal's commendation text is displayed on the end-game screen. A commendation system can be implemented without difficult architectural changes, it has no effect on an ongoing game, and it provides a robust means for IAs to give other players a visible kudos (I assume that obvious misuse of the system, a la giving oneself a half-dozen commendations,  could be warned about with some in-game text and would be spotted pretty easily).

The goal here is pretty simple: I want to be happy to see IAAs. As it stands, they can basically never do anything good for me; seeing an IAA heading into my department means that I can expect someone warbling at me over minor breaches in SOP. Having some means for them to commend and congratulate good work would ameliorate that effect a bit. This brings me to the second problem, however, namely of authority. Real-life IAAs have several assets which are missing in-game, and can't be easily duplicated. SOP or its equivalent in real-life jobs is usually taken much more seriously at all levels, and there are fewer distractions like rampaging vampires to keep that enforcement from occurring. Ideally IA would send along their report to Security and that'd be that, but Security generally has bigger fish to tase, shoot, or (literally) fry than an SOP violation or three.

I don't have as neat an answer for the issue of IA authority. My best guess would be to bundle SOP enforcement under the NT Rep's job, so that they're the metaphorical gorilla which an IA Agent calls in when they're getting stonewalled. Unlike IA, the karma-locked NT Rep role commands a good deal more respect from Command, and sometimes from Sec to boot. Between that and their presumed fax-writing competence, I think they'd be capable backup most of the time when an IAA is facing resistance.

 

Conclusion

As it stands, IA is not a fun job to play. In my own experience it consists of standing at the edge of other departments, yelling at people about issues which are important to you and literally no one else, and casting faxes into the void which you're sure will never be read. It's all the irrelevance of being the Coroner (and without the fun detective work of that job, to boot), combined with having to chew people out for not doing their paperwork while the station's literally exploding. If I were to distill the issues with IA, I'd point to their lack of a beneficent side and their lack of authority. As they are now, their job is to be easily ignored.

[Department/Job Goals]

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.

[Security Rework]

15 hours ago, tzo said:

(I re-numbered your points in that quote, so that I can reference them independently)

1. Would require all game modes to be changed to use scaling mechanics similar to autotraitor. Might also require changes to the way jobs are assigned (to prevent people with 'sec' on high never being antag-eligible in this system)

2. Not that hard to do. Would probably be a lot of debate about thresholds.

3 & 4. Adding an alt title is easy, but if I were you, I would push for a genuine 'Security Cadet' job. I know a fair few people, including myself, support it. It won't be easy to get merged but it will solve, or at least help to address, multiple issues if it does. I envision Security Cadet similarly to how you imagine constable / dispatcher.

5. Possible. TG has such a system. Can actually already be done if officers request it at HoP office.

6. Not viable.

7. This is a duplicate of 3.

8. This is a duplicate of 4.

9. This would severely impact Sec's ability to do their jobs, as many, many officers set arrest status on the fly.

10. Headsets don't have cameras. Did you mean helmet? Like the ERT cams? Doable, but I expect a fair few to object.

11. Don't bother having a dedicated dispatcher job, just have a sec cadet do it.

12. If you want to make sec's life better, and say they lack upgrades, then nerfing one of the few genuinely useful upgrades they do have doesn't seem to be the way to go about it.

13. Not great, for reasons discussed previously.

14. This violates our policy of not karma-locking vanilla jobs.

 

Overall, if we're looking to translate this into actual github PRs, I would suggest starting with idea 2 (adding more slots at predefined crew intervals), or possibly the 'security cadet' alt job title idea. After that, the next most promising idea would probably be making 'security cadet' into a real job, separate from officer. I think this has the best chance of being merged as a variety of people seem to be in favor of it for different reasons, which might be enough of a coalition to get it passed.

Personally I still favor the piecemeal approach simply because big PRs can take a very long time to be resolved, and generate enormous amounts of discussion, etc. They're big projects. Still, if you've been specifically told by someone with actual authority over PR merging (ie: maintainers or headmins) that an overhaul would be better - I would take their advice.

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.

 

 

9 hours ago, ZN23X said:

There ARE some problems with a lower impact role in security such as a cadet. First, what gear will they have? Still a headset I imagine, security access, and probably also a Sec HUD. This will still make them a valuable target for antags. And they'll have this special role assigned to them which pretty much screams "I'm newbie sec". Our experienced antag players would have a field day taking advatage of this because they've repeatedly shown they'll take advantage of anything they are allowed to frequently.

On the flip side you'll also have lower impact sec who will quite frankly just still act like officers. IC we don't know if someone is a greytide or an antag half the time. It'd be impossible to regulate WHO they are allowed to arrest. Like if an officer is calling for help from maint because a vampire has them is the lower impact sec supposed to say to themself "Not my job, they are an antag, and I only handle bar fights"? That doesn't make sense from an IC perspective.

This also doesn't talk about the fact that all of these things would help sec deal with EXPERIENCED antags. Less experienced antags already struggle, especially in rounds with try hard sec. All these additions would make it even harder for less experienced antags and lead to even more behavior where newb antags either try to replicate the same strategies experienced antags use (making things more predictable and repetitive) or more of the "Oh, I know this player is robust via meta knowledge so I'll just give them my TC and have them do the work for me" leading to even more excessively imbalanced fights.

There is always gonna be antags and sec who only care about winning, this cannot be corrected, and more frequently than anything the balance of the round is going to be determined by how many try hard sec there are vs how many try hard antags. It cannot be corrected by adjusting game mechanics. As with most issues on this server, its just a behavioral mindset that can only be influenced by how we play. And to be frank, trying really hard is more rewarding than not because you die and are removed from the round less, plus you gain a bunch of fan girls/haters who constantly praise/complain about how good you are.

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.

[More Public Disposal Chutes]

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.

[Security Rework]

55 minutes ago, The Respected Man said:

I just want to note that sec officers who lack a basic sense of self-preservation tend to be killed. Even when i am the HoS and i tell my officers to not enter maint alone and make it absolutely clear they will be killed and spaced, they proceed to do exactly that anyway.  It's a matter of natural selection.

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."

50 minutes ago, ZN23X said:

Traitors are more well armed then security, especially if they work together cuz they can get gear that compliments each other (one with carp one with guns) while sec is stuck using the same equipment as each other, half of which is nullified once a traitor kills one newbie officer and gets a HUD and headset. God forbid if a freaking cling or vamp get thier hands on syndicate gear. Forget it.

Antags are also more likely to be given useful equipment by collabs or meta buddies whereas sec rarely gets anything extremely useful from science.

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.

45 minutes ago, Rurik said:

I don't agree with many of these ideas put forth for various reasons, mostly ones already stated. Some of said ideas also would also adversely affect dynamic balance between sec and antags, which currently is, at best, finicky. That being said, this idea really stuck me as brilliant, and definitely deserving of some thought for it. It would increase rp between sec and crew on green instead of just a instant taze from bot/sec officer. This would increase quality of life for both the crew and sec together.  That, in my book, is a instant plus, and I fail to see a downside to it.

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.

[Power to the people.]

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.