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Haven't been uploading to forum as often as I used to, I've been drawing a lot and I got lazy figured this one belonged here, though choose your fighter: paradise station medbay lineup (sorry I left out a ton of medmains it was just whoever I remembered the morning I drew this u_u)

after all the years, finally decided to draw my own character

Might add some more later, but here's some of the stuff from my list: Too strong: Flagellant Robes. Mirror shields. Wraiths vs the AI. Cult ascension threshold. (Cultists usually get halos way too late) Might need tweaking: Non-sharpened cult blade damage. Stun spell mute duration. Cult ghosts from manifest runes. Constructs (Once they've died, the player is permanently out of the round). Observer participation in the round. Wraits after they've killed the AI. (Nothing to do, really) Soulstone shades. (Currently useless, maybe could return to the soulstone if they die) Too weak: Cultist summoning. (Very easy to counter if you're paying attention) Nar'sie rune. (Can be denied with a single cleaning grenade, or space cleaner bottle) Holy soulstones. (Maybe let the chaplain bless runed metal for a construct shell) Blood spear. (Cool as it is, it's overshadowed by other items)

Looking at things in terms of a Government has a huge flaw - we aren't a country. The players aren't citizens. They can leave at any time, and come back. None were born here, all association is purely voluntary. We have no control over their lives outside the game. No one can be executed, imprisoned, or fined. We can't tax people. We're also subject to the rules and laws of other countries - we don't have sovereignty, and have to follow DMCA and GPDR and Githubs/BYOND ToS and all that jazz. The comparison is somewhat a irritating one to me, because it belies a certain entitlement and responsibility that is just not there. This isn't a country, it's a gaming server started by some like minded friends. Comparing it to a country starts to bring morality and politics into play in people's discussions, and that taints things. People start to feel their 'rights' are violated. Admins get called Nazis or Dictators or all kinds of shit because we banned someone from a game. People talk about 'freedom of speech' when we tell them not to use slurs. The best term for our form of "Government" is "Online Gaming Server". It's not a form of Government any country has ever had, because countries and gaming servers are radically different things.

Well I certainly did not intend for it to be viewed this way. I was just bored and thought there were some interesting connections between our staff structure and government structures. Perhaps I should have clarified more that this was just me playing around with some ideas rather than defining our server in a negative way and that my view certainly isn't what you think I may have been propagating through this post(even if it accidently comes off that way). I know we aren't a country or "government" but we can certainly draw some fun similarities between the server and body such as those. It just sparked my interests and I hoped it would spark some fun discussion(which it has) :) Clearly I need to be a bit more verbose in my intentions with this post so I've clarified a few things.

I powerpointed it up and tweaked it to how it runs, as far as I know

@MxNimbus433I was unaware of the threat level thing, after reading up, this seems fine. Objection withdrawn.

OOPS some doodles from last night ^__^

Honestly I think the concept is a great idea, Paradise just needs some more tame gamemodes so we can mix and match without causing an extraordinarily amount of chaos every round you put more than two together before we could implement this.

As most of my threads do, this discussion started in the discord. What structure of government does paradise station follow? just to be clear, this is a light-hearted analysis not me dissing our current staff/decision making structure(which is fine as it is) and is more of me having fun(so please don't take any of this in a wrong way). The more I dug into this the more it became clear that it's very complicated to compare a gaming server to a brick and mortar government. I've put a bit of thought into this, there are two(three-ish) main groups that serious authority over decisions for the server. The Host(server/database things), Heads of Staff(all things administration/partially the hiring of staff members), and Maintainers(codebase). So our server is "broken up" into three different branches. Heads of Staff: Heads of staff have the most authority over the server, they have decision making powers as well as control over the docket(a.k.a what issues get voted on). However, they are limited by a few things. Staff hiring is voted on by the staff and not solely by the Heads of staff. They share power over what changes are made to the codebase and can be vetoed regarding decisions towards DB/Hosting. Finally, there are three of them, each limiting each others power. Game Admins and CMs also play a role here but I'll get to that later. Maintainers: Maintainers have the most authority over the codebase and contributions made to the server. However they are limited by Head of Staff vetoes and minorly the opinions of PRRs and Contributors. The Server Host: has supreme decision making over Server Hosting/Database decisions but is limited to just that for the most part. Each of these three branches of our server have control over key parts of it but with tangible limitations in their powers. They are limited by eachother, it is separation of powers, which is a democratic principle. However, I don't believe our server is wholly democratic/republic due to that the decision makers of our servers are put in place by staff and not by decision of the playerbase for the most part. I believe politically we are a "Constitutional Oligarchy" where a smaller group people on top make the decision but are limited by eachother and by server policies.

and to follow up, robust Jade Burnwood! tacticool gang!

Terror spider and a vampire having a chat, thanks for that prince Harold.

Heads of Staff and Maintainers share the same authority/weight in making codebase decisions, with a few exceptions: Heads have no vote on fix or refactor PRs Heads can object on design solely, maintainers can object on design and implementation Heads cannot veto a PR singlehandedly, nor can maintainers unless: The PR has copyright/legal/license issues The PR is going to cause horrific issues to the server down the road due to implementation The server host has no decision in pull requests, apart from an implementation veto regarding technical matters. They cannot veto on design principles. Examples include tooling that runs server side, extra libraries for the server, data storage methods, etc etc The three arms of the staff team (Heads - Host - Maints) tend to govern themselves and subordinates, however the heads have input in hiring/firing in each arm, and can be seen as the general overseers

Have you been reading my DMs?! It's being considered, but how to integrate it well with the server and the other secret project(s) is gonna take a bit. ;)

Med gang!

Name: Rivera Kirkland Age: 42 years old Gender: Female (she/her) Species: Human Blood Type: AB+ General Occupation(s): Geneticist. Can occasionally be found as a Botanist or Librarian. Personnel Photo: Biography: Qualifications: Employment Records: Security Records: Medical Records: Other Notes:

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to call attention to this issue, so if this is inappropriate or out of place please let me know and/or remove it entirely. This is an issue that occurs fairly often but that affects a relatively small part of the server population, namely those who play borg a lot. I bring it up because when it happens, it can make the player feel utter helpless and without much recourse, and it's definitely not a good feeling to have. In essence, MMI brains and robotic brains do not chat using runechat, ie: when they speak there is no text over letting other players know what they say. This isn't necessarily a big issue most of the time, since in the majority of the rounds the player will only be in this situation for a few seconds to a few minutes, while someone is actively helping you essentially get back to be able to play the game. The issue happens when the borg gets blown up, either at the hands of an antag, accident, environment or by remote detonation. For the sake of this specific issue lets leave aside situations where the brain is just stranded in space without means of communication or of being detected any either the AI, RD or crew monitors. When a borg blows up, it's usually messy, and it is often not just caused by the random debris of the chassis. Decompression causes ton of stuff to be on top of each other in a single tile, power lines or lamps being broken by explosions, or just bad luck in the "landing position" might cause you to be hard to spot. Add in that neither MMI brains or robotic brains how up on med huds and even the AI might have trouble locating them even with clear vision of the tile. In a situation where the player is helpless, their only way to save themselves is their ability to ask for help. And with runechat being common place now, as players rely more and more on the overhead text instead of the right side text, it is increasingly easy to miss those few white lines of crying for help on the bottom right of the screen, specially when you are doing something else and not expecting a player to be there. This becomes even more troubling when dealing with new players, specially if they are roboticists. I'm not dissing new players nor anyone who tries robotics without being able to 360 no scope honk mechs, but new players are often overwhelmed with the different tasks and will miss a lot of conversation while they try to figure things out, which is normal and perfectly acceptable and expected. But without runchat this becomes a lot worse, because roboticists might not even notice someone needs their attention, such a new robotic brain ghost or a MMI brain (left at the desk by someone else) while they try to figure out the step 8 of building a mech on the wiki. This doesn't happen all the rounds, but it does happen fairly frequent. I would say I get this multiple times a week myself, and I just get the feeling that is game over for Wrench that round. I often leave the window open in case someone happens to find me but that doesn't always happen. Worse is that we are not even considered dead, so we just stuck ingame, without the ability to move, use comms or speak with runchat. Here is the ticket I've opened a few months ago for this issue: https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/issues/14994 PS: I understand that people volunteer their own time to fix issues and that this might not be the most urgent one, specially as it affects less people than some other bugs. I'm just afraid this issue has fallen through the cracks and most people aren't really aware of it so I figured I would bring some light back to it.

I've been thinking about my strategies for hunting the various megafauna on Lavaland and that got me thinking, I realized there was no real strategy for dealing with the megafauna, I'll be doing that here and now. Ash Drake Suggested Equipment:Fully upgraded explorer suit (or the champion's hardsuit/inquisitor's hardsuit), an upgraded KA (my preference personally is 2 cooldown 1 range), a fire extinguisher, a large empty area clear of hostile fauna, burn meds (brute meds aren't included as getting hit directly by the drake is usually the end of the fight) Optional:stabilized legion souls (if you think you won't be able to avoid getting hit directly), fireproofing potions. In many a miner's opinion this is the easiest of the megafauna to take down and also their first, this is for a very good reason, butchering the body grants access to an armor that rivals the feared blood red hardsuit. To start off, always stand at a diagonal, the drake can only use its fire breath in the four cardinal directions, use this to your advantage to pelt it with your KA outside of it's range, this next part is absolutely vital, never stop moving, the drake will constantly be moving towards you, you do not want to be in melee range ever, after the drake has taken enough damage it will start using it's swoop attack far more often, this is a potentially devastating attack that most likely will end up with your death if you fail to avoid it, the drake will stun you, break a bone, then proceed to maul you to death and eat your body gibbing you and healing it. This next tip holds true for all megafauna, having a group makes fighting megafauna significantly easier as the megafauna will only target one person at a time allowing for the others to rain hell on it in relative safety, but of course, with more people means dividing the loot between you, in a group of 3 everyone gets 1 piece of loot, armor, or the chest the drake drops (I personally always go for the armor as it makes all of the future fights far easier. Ahh the loot from this guy is arguably the best from all the megafauna, of course there's the most vital piece of equipment for all of this, the armor, now this armor isn't quite a drop, rather, you need to butcher the body and craft the armor from its remains, there will be enough material for 2 suits, the armor as stated previously rivals the syndicate hardsuit, being beat out by it only in bullet biohazard, and bomb resistance, the drake armor does beat it out in the energy department however making this set something to be feared, its other features are being completely immune to ash storms and fire proof (this suit is not pressure resistant, do not try to EVA or fight a plasma fire with it), next is the chest, this one's a bit of a dozy, the chest can contain various things, ranging from a potion with various effects, to a spell book and a fireball wand, to a less exciting staff that can create lava and turn it to basalt (very useful for cults as this allows you to cut off access to lavaland entirely). The potion can do many things, ranging from simply making you immune to lava to being able to transform into a lesser ash drake at will. And the very last drop is the spectral blade, this weapon allows you to call ghosts to you and they become visible, for each ghost orbiting you dealing greate damage as well as reducing the damage of incoming attacks, Blood Drunk Miner Suggested Equipment:Drake armor/Fully upgraded explorer suit, fully upgraded KA, brute meds, legion soul Optional:A partner to help tank This guy might catch you a little off guard at first as he does look just like an ordinary miner, though for any slightly experienced eye it's rather obvious of his presence, he will be standing in the middle of a small area with necropolis tiled floors and will visibly be wielding a Cleaving saw, while his attacks may not hit the hardest out of all the megafauna he hits fast, very fast, he'll be able to rack up quite the amount of damage as well as blood loss if you aren't careful, overall this is one of the easier guys but the weapon he drops can be very, very powerful in the right hands. The loot, now this guy doesn't actually drop all that much, his main piece of loot, as mentioned earlier, the Cleaving saw, it has two modes, the first causes a bloodloss buildup in fauna that can deal devastating damage, the second will strike in a wider area than the first, rapidly switching between the two modes effectively resets the attack cooldown and allows for rapid attacks that can rack up damage quickly, he also drops a KA but if you're already hunting megafauna it's almost certain you've got one by now. Heirophant Suggested Equipment: Ash drake armor, upgraded KA, several burn patches Optional: Legion souls, splints, Cleaving Saw This one has significantly less setup than the previous, part of that is because the Heirophant lacks any attack that can ignite you and comes with a pre-built arena, in this fight moving is even more important, standing around will result in you rapidly building up burn damage which will slow you down, this is why you carry those burn patches, some of the attacks can be really hard to avoid and your only option is just to tank it if you can't quite dodge it, the patches will save you from the damage you've built up and allow you to keep going, most of his early attacks are fairly easy to avoid, it's when he gets low on health that the more fearsome attacks come out, you should try and save your burn patches for this phase of the fight, you'll need them, he also has a rather potent melee attack that can and will break bones. The Heirophant drops something vital to beating the next one on this list, his staff is a ranged weapon that allows you to teleport to a set rune after a short channel and damage enemies without gaining their attention, it also functions as a reasonably good mining tool Colossus Suggested Equipment: Heirophant Staff, Drake Armor Optional: Several monkeys strapped to chairs This guy is arguably the hardest boss right now simply due to how fast and hard hitting his attacks can be, this is why most players tend to try and "cheese" him, as stated in the Heirophant section the staff you get from it can allow you to kill the Colossus without even gaining its attention, this is the safest and easiest way to take it out, however, this strategy takes quite a while 5 ish minutes of whittling away at its health while just barely keeping its feet on screen, the other option is more dangerous but much faster, you're going to take several monkeys and buckle them to rolling chairs, you'll then set these monkeys around the area where you will be fighting the Colossus, the monkeys are there to be a distraction for it, while it's busy ruining the monkey you get in and blast it with your KA, you'll need several monkeys as it's very unlikely you'll deal enough damage to take it out in one go, for both of these strategies the drake armor is pretty vital as it is storm proof allowing you to keep up the fight regardless of if there's a storm or not. The loot sadly is a little underwhelming, though the voice of god you get is a fairly fun ability to mess around with, the crystal however tends to be mostly useless as it requires a very specific activation source and a good effect to even be worthwhile. Swarmers Suggested Equipment: Upgraded KA, Drake Armor, at least one other miner, burn meds Optional:EMPs, an exo of any variety Yeah, these little buggers are considered a megafauna, that's for a damn good reason though, these little pests aren't the same as the ones you see on station, for one, they're AI controlled, this basically means perfect aim and relentlessly chasing you, they also have two other varieties now, a laser and baton variation, both are capable of killing, the baton swarmers are colored yellow while the laser swarmers are red, and oddly enough, the blues are entirely passive, the baton swarmers are considered the worst as the make a b line straight at you at full speed and will stunlock you to death, the laser swarmers are just as hellish, they fire lasers with roughly the same damage as a laser rifle from security, one hit will slow you down if you aren't wearing armor with decent burn resist, the goal with these swarmers though, isn't to kill them all, it's to kill enough so you can go kill the beacon that is spawning more, do note that any attack on the beacon will alert most nearby swarmers to your presence, the beacon itself is surprisingly beefy and will almost certainly spawn a few before you destroy it. Worst part about these buggers, they don't drop anything special. Legion Suggested Equipment:Drake Armor, Legion Cores, Multiple Miners, brute meds, a cloner pre-scan. The big, the bad, the one and only Legion, this guy's a pain in the ass, he always spawns at the north most part of the map, this means one hell of a trip to get to him, this fight will go on for quite a while hence the need for the drake armor, getting hit will almost certainly break a bone and require the use of a legion soul lest you die and get turned into a legion, now on to the fight itself, Legion actually doesn't have many attacks, it's essentially just a large version of the typical legion skulls you see, he also has a charge, and spawns said legion skulls constantly, the skulls aren't too much of a threat but will block your shots and can break bones if you let them hit you, once you deal enough damage to Legion it will split into two Legions, each skull will do this roughly 3 times totaling up to about 7 splits, (don't quote me on that one). The worst part about this guy, all he drops is a shitty staff that makes an ash storm, the only use one would ever really have for this is to hijack the shuttle by making it unlivable or deny access to a certain areas while you're doing some nefarious deed. Bubblegum Sadly I haven't encountered this guy yet as he's quite the rare spawn on lavaland so I can't really offer any advice, but I can tell you about the loot he gives, the only drop he has is a blood contract, this item sadly doesn't have much use outside of hijack or ahelping it first as it allows the user to select a target then it gives them a chainsaw, pumps them full of potent chems while also making everyone appear as a slaughter demon the victim is then marked for death by the station and can kill as many people as they have to.