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When you whack someone with a multitool, it'll do some brute damage, but sound like you're just gently tapping someone, have fun with those silent, slow murders

A simple honk can cause a mass domino honk, just like they thought about communism in the US at 60's. The HoP was to be an acting captain since captain got to surprise-cryo. Grin the clown stole a honky amount of captain stuff somehow (don't ask, it's Grin) so sneaky, that Sec suggested that the HoP is an evil traitor giving all accesses for the clown. Processing the HoP led to a downtime at the job line, which resulted in five damn minutes this: Talk about honking the greytide as whole, with just stealing a certain ID and a headset. (In the picture is present the luckily arrived new captain.)

Captain isn't a difficult job even if you hardly know what to do, but, playing captain wrong could get you banned from the server permanently if you aren't careful and thus, I'v decided to create this guide to give players an idea about concepts that are relevant to the captain, but, not necessarily a part of any other guide on being a captain. This is why I call it the "practical" guide. This isn't a guide on how to be socially acceptable, formal, or the likes, but, an intentional mediocre guide as to how to play captain from my point of view in terms of what I believe is practical and the thought processes behind it. First Concept: Crew Enthusiasm Unlike other servers, paradise station has enthusiastic and artistic players that will go around the entire station and redecorate. Because of this, it's easy to decide to run the show a bit differently if the crew is willing to try. Obviously you have to focus on getting the station goal done for the round, but, if the crew isn't too happy as individuals in real life trying to play the game to have fun, the goal will never be completed. If you go code blue or code red, be sure to talk with security and the head of security before doing so, as doing so will decrease productivity on the station because it will make everybody aware that there is a problem other than what they're doing. You can also lie to the crew to make them more enthusiastic. This isn't necessarily against the rules, but, centcom might have something to say and someone might get upset somewhere along the lines of doing this. The AI doesn't have it in their laws to be obligated to tell the truth. Using the AI to give fake messages for the sake of increasing productivity can be a good thing. These things can be the difference between completing that station objective and not completing the station objective. Second Concept: Customizing the Station The station is kind of like a car in some ways. You can customize the engine to the station, get science to fill maint tunnels with sepia tiles to slow down shady activity, get science to create bluespace tiles to speed up productivity in medbay, get new weapons researched or ordered through cargo, have hydroponics create an army of omnizine bees and extra their honey, have an army of phazon mechs to tactically deal with syndicate problems, and much more. Because of all of the ways you can customize the station, you also have to understand when choices are good or bad for customization. Don't try to force the crew to do something they don't want, as most people playing the game are doing it to have fun and telling them what to do could lead to a massive lite rp greytide rebellion. if you have a particular thing you do, be sure it's not seen as metagaming or powergaming. Merely "thinking" something is metagaming could make it so in the eyes of the staff and get you in trouble, so keep your damn mouth shut about what you always do, even if it is to rush science into replacing tiles. Third Concept: Power Choices Unlike power gaming, power choices are decisions which give you more authority over others than you already have. Delegation is telling people what to do. If you don't have someone to tell what to do, then you need to try and get someone to temporarily be promoted so that they can be told what to do. This is useful for head of security, as it's hard to find someone who knows space law enough to play the role without them getting permanently banned for abusing their power. Having someone executed without a magistrate is an example of a power choice, which doesn't require centcom unless the captain isn't on the station and neither is the magistrate. Security officers will sometimes try to commit mutiny against you even if they aren't antagonist. This is because they didn't read space law, came from another server, and believe the rules from one server is the same as another. When this happens, what you've done before this moment and preparing for this moment isn't power gaming, but, preparation for the stupidity of others. Some choices you will make will make people likely try to commit mutiny even if it's something small you did. This is why blueshield exist. Security and the head of personnel will normally not be very dependable beyond the scope of their departments when it comes to these things. Becoming friends with all the heads could allow you to talk about one head you want to fire behind their back and get that head demoted without any resistance from the other heads. This is a power choice. If you demote a head without the heads all being in on it, they will lose their trust in you. Letting the trader dock can potentially be a power choice if done correctly. Changing AI laws can be a power choice. Four Concept: Responsibilities Always secure the nuclear authentication disk immediately and place it on your person. This is legit a rule and part of being a captain. You can get demoted, terminated, or job banned for not doing this. Secure the spare ID and the nuclear disk tracker, then give it to the blueshield if present. If a blueshield isn't present, you don't have to do this, but, you can give it to the head of security or place the items in a secure location. The nuclear disk must always be on you at all times. You're responsible for choosing to go code blue and code red when necessary, but, nobody tells you when and what to do for that. Any head can go code red. Going out of code red in an emergency could get you job banned, so don't do it. You don't have to go code red when there is a threat, but, it can get you reported to centcom which will likely not amount to anything because it will sound from their point of view as a mere accusation. Try to complete the station objective, but, don't micromanage and don't demote people unless the other heads agree. Anything from centcom is mandatory and some things can even get you permanently banned from the server if you mess it up. Delegate at all times and if there is nobody to delegate to, make someone. Tricky Tricks Here are some tricks the captain can pull that could potentially get the captain in trouble with a few staff members if they aren't careful when pulling off these tricks. Mostly Controversial. Trader Baiting: Let the trader dock with the station after having security prevent crew from trading. Make a deal with the trader to tell security the name of anybody who buys class S contraband. Use it to blackmail those crew members into either going to the permanent brig or getting implanted and doing what you tell them as a slave for the rest of the round. Highly likely to piss off many people and isn't against the rules in its purest forms, but, can be in special conditions such as rounds that have an obvious cut and dry antagonist. Black Listing: This is where you tell security and the head of security to purposely ignore a particular member of the crew if they cry for help. Although it's against the rules to let someone come to harm as an AI, it isn't against the rules to let someone come to harm as a security officer and I'v seen it happen many times. The only proof that it's intentional or even hint is going to be the captain chatting with security about it or writing it on a piece of paper. Useful for letting specific undesirable crew members go missing, such as internal affairs, magistrate, other heads, grey tiders, mutineers, ect. Department Proxy Sabotage: This requires you, the captain, to promote another crew member to have extended access, preferably with the knowledge of security, to go on a mission to infiltrate a specific department and purposely sabotage one of your own work stations. The reason you don't do this yourself is because it's not your job to do work; Your a captain after all. This is useful for getting rid of toxin mixing, which can be a huge threat to the station when the mime turns themselves into a monkey and uses the PDA to blackmail you into giving them all your credits or they blow up the station. Be careful not to use this trick on virology, or else centcom will likely create gibbingtons. Surprise Department Raid: How this works is unbenounced to an entire department, the entire security force is about to break into and raid the department to find contraband. This normally begins with the AI locking maint tunnels around the department, including the exits and entrance. Obviously AI law set needs to be changed from ASIMOV before doing this. Once security is in position, security rushes in and the door is bolted shut behind them as they stun and check every member of the department their invading for any contraband what so ever, specifically class S. This is something that can be done in code blue, but, not code green. It will likely piss a bunch of people off. The head of security can also try to set this up themselves. Security Stacking: Here is how you piss off everybody and start a civil war on the station. Not everybody is enthusiastic. You need enthusiastic security officers to have them pull off anything or get anything done. Because of this, it may be at times depending on how poor the security force on the station is, better the hire more security with the head of securities permission. Clown, mime, and anybody enthusiastic on security will normally perform better than players who started as security because they are more willing to work in the position. This doesn't mean they won't greytide, but, if you're having trouble getting anything done, this will certainly help push things along. You may also get a few admin messages as to why you promoted someone to security officer. Customizing Execution: It's not in space law that executing a prisoner must be done in a particular manner, although particular manners are layed out. What is in space law is obviously giving people last words, having the chaplain present, ect. Customizing execution to something unique can be helpful for getting rid of unique antagonist, which is the purpose, but, it can also be something to ultimately piss someone off. The entire purpose of doing this beyond merely killing the antagonist is to give the crew enthusiasm. A boost in morality can increase productivity in many ways and make crew members feel more involved even when they aren't. This can however work against you if the security decides to use your method of execution to begin accusing everybody of being a changeling without any evidence. So there is a few examples of the tricks and concepts needed to be a fully functional captain on the station. Many people will disagree with me on these, but, many of those people will also never play captain out of fear of being permanently banned or losing their real life self control in a childrens game and abusing power.

I know that MedChem, close to my heart, generally isn't the most exciting job on board, but I find enjoyment in trying to optimize my work. Figured I'd start a chronicle here of noteworthy occasions in my efforts towards going from relatively unknown around the server to legendary chemist robust veteran in the lab. At round start, I found that I was Chemist 2 (at least, for convenience that's what I'll call the one who spawns outside the lab), which was a bit disappointing as I prefer the 'southern' workstation which Chemist 1 starts at. When I arrived, my partner didn't seem to be doing much, took a while to respond in talking, and only walked slowly. I figured that SSD might be on the horizon, but he left the lab less than ten minutes in and I didn't see or hear from him again. I was trying to avoid stepping on his toes even while starting to handle the set of medicines I usually stock and handle requests at both desks (Botany, Virology, the rest of Medical). Word of a meth lab being run in SciChem was trickling over comms along with news of narcotics pills being left on the floor in several areas for those foolish enough to take them. Patients started trickling in before long. I was asked to analyze a recovered pill (learning about the handheld chemical analyzer in the process) and found that it contained five narcotics and toxic compounds, then disposed of it by grinding down and voiding the individual components. Other than trying to deal with a spike of overdoses, it seemed like it would be a usual day of making medicine. While making a trip to Cargo, once I'd made most of the general-purpose medicines I usually make a few of before obtaining a bucket, I heard about a gateway exploration which involved spiders and venom and in general hadn't been going so well. I had to make a second trip almost immediately after getting back to the lab for strange reagent components, but once the reagent was made I realized that something might be needed to clean out narcotics and possibly also venom from patients' systems. I started making calomel, which is intended to rapidly purge all other chemicals. Just after I turned on the heater to finish the recipe a doctor came by and said that antivenom was needed urgently. Since the calomel finished during our dialogue I was able to hand it off almost immediately. A minute or two later the same doctor returned and credited me with saving the patient's life by my forethought; this was the first moment of feeling like I'd done something awesome during the round. Once that particular incident had settled (I did have to chase after someone dragging the unconscious detective to the cryotubes, who was also suffering from more than 50u of venom) I settled into my usual work in Chemistry. I made backlogs of usual medicines and occasionally dealt with requests from both the front desk and the rest of the department, getting to run my show solo. At about forty minutes in, I thought about how much synthflesh I should backlog. For reference, my method regarding synthflesh is to make 20u patches en masse, ignoring styptic powder (brute damage) and silver sulfadiazine (burn) since synthflesh heals both with little efficiency lost (though I'll make civilian-grade patches for the public fridge if medical expects an overflow of patients). In the past, I've gotten up to 50 of my 20u synthflesh patches and called it good, since the odds of that many being used in the remainder of the round is fairly slim. Further, making them from my own blood was generally a nuisance though one I accepted as efficient enough. Today would be different. This round, I decided to also improve on my practical abilities by trying the blood-collecting capabilities of an IV drip and a monkey (the geneticist handed me a farwa cube, but I just shrugged and called it good enough). I had seen chemistry partners do this before, including a few whose abilities I admired. The simplicity of setting up the blood draw surprised me. The efficacy of this method surprised me more. Knowing that I would have a intermittent reliable source of blood so long as I kept the farwa supplied with iron and saline-glucose, I set out to make more synthflesh than I originally intended. The process was very much a grind, probably one I wouldn't carry out again. However, since I had relatively few distractions (a few bottles to botany, a few to virology, eventually a request for 'milk patches' in an apparent quest to reanimate a skeleton) and two chemical dispensers, I set out to work at this self-imposed challenge. I ran both chemical dispensers dry, eventually having little choice but to take a break. It was a good opportunity to get hot chocolate, considering that 70 minutes into the round I had made one trip to cargo (buckets, radio), one trip to the bar (wine for strange reagent), grabbed an IV and morphine (for hydrocodone) from medical, and spent the rest of the time in the lab starving while pursuing this project in a maddened frenzy of overachieving. Somehow I managed to find time to make oculine for a fellow Vulpkanin who had apparently been blinded as an eventual result of eating the narcotics pills earlier. As other chemists reading this are probably aware, oculine is relatively involved to manufacture and its components do have to be mixed in a certain order to prevent incorrect compounds from forming. I also watched the doctor who'd asked for milk patches go by a few times with a corpse. While I wouldn't say that he had a true skeleton, the corpse he was trying to bring back certainly was pretty nearly stripped to the bone from all the damage taken. To my chagrin, that doctor ended up using around 20 of my precious synthflesh patches in an effort to restore the body. (Amazingly, eventually he did succeed with strange reagent.) I know that our dear paramedic also picked up a number of patches; in total I'm going to estimate that another 20 patches were used for general medical purposes during the round. Why do I tell all this? Well, my initial goal was to exceed the 'high bar' of 50 synthflesh patches I would usually make. Perhaps I'd even shoot for over 100 if I didn't get too distracted. I reached a hundred somewhere around 80 minutes in and my mania grew even while handling the other requests I've mentioned above. My friend Cath, frequent virologist but this shift's bartender, came through medical around 100 minutes in (I was providing her with certain drink components) and I showed her the fridge, telling her to make special note of the 150+ patches in the first slot. She told me I was mad; I told her that I was brilliant. I was hoping to scrape 200 patches before the inevitable crew transfer shuttle call at 120 minutes, but the skeleton doctor kept using them. Still, by pushing ahead with both the farwa's blood and my own, I eventually got where I wanted to be by the time I unbolted the medical fridge from the floor and dragged it to the shuttle. This is the top of the fridge menu at the end of the round: The moral of this story is that with an IV blood draw on a small creature, the resources of an entire chemistry lab, and a manic desire to overachieve hard work ethic it is very possible to make around 5000u of synthflesh (including the patches that were used up) while still carrying on normal chemist duties and saving someone's life by listening closely to comms. Why would you do this? Unless you're slightly deranged when it comes to self-imposed challenge like me, I have no idea. Also, if you're still reading this, thanks for sitting through my narration. Peace!

A while back, there was a jokey discussion on the discord about what a Tajaran-Human hybrid baby would look like. "Your mind begins to bubble and ooze as it tries to comprehend what it sees." I feel a little guilty over only having one sketch to show after neglecting this thread for so long, so I'm throwing in a bunch of non-SS13-related sketches I did for a D&D campaign I've been DM'ing:

I drew a pink deer

Tie pulling? Here's something not Space related, spoiler, they both end up dying