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I dont like it

I don't like having an advantage over people because of what kind of monitor I have. Either I see more than my opponent, or I have a more readable chatbox than my opponent. A little extra screen space isn't worth the balance implications.

The hallways on Farragus are awful, but I'm looking forward to Shepard :) EDIT: P.S. it was very thoughtful of you to include the windows in the autopsy room so I can continue to display my plushie collection when I work as coroner

This is my proposal for the revival of the Shepard Station project. @Design Team (I am not sure who to ping, I'd appreciate some help in making them aware of this). I am interested in developing Shepard Station again and getting it added to the game, but I have read mixed opinions on the matter of adding another map to the game from some people and wish for a clear answer on whether or not the design team thinks itd be good for the game. We had a few days of tests on this map a while back now, and it had its challenges but I think the majority of the playerbase thought it was fun and an interesting map to play on. The map has been updated to the latest version of our codebase, and has already been through a meticulous review process, and as a result is basically in a merge ready state. Of the 4 maps currently in rotation 3 are of extremely similar layout, a central box hallway with spurs off it that house all the different departments. The design of Shepard Station was done in careful consideration of the current game's needs, but also with a unique take on game balance which informed its design. My case study was the Cyberiad, which is about 1/3 maints. Originally, 7 years ago or so, the Cyberiad was less than 1/4 maints and with them all being more isolated. Over the years on the Cyberiad the maints have gotten more bloated and more connected, which I feel like is a worse outcome for the game. So antags need maints, as a place to loose people following you, as well as a place far from too many eyes to get up to mischief. Larger and more interconnected maints only serve to increase foot traffic in these areas due to them being more of a destination and a shortcut. This has eroded the efficacy of the maints as a gameplay element, as well as segregated the antags from the rest of the players due to the uncanny effectiveness of the maints. On Shepard I returned to a 1/4 maints ratio, and along with the rest of the station made them a whole lot more separated. This is probably the most contentious design element of shepard, so I took the time to explain my reasoning above. My intent with the design was to balance the smaller and less connected maints with longer travel times (as well as retractable space bridges, which I never got to implementing but would act as a further aide to antags [Can implement if needed]). I understand its a radical step, but I felt good taking it as I believe there isn't alot of difference in playstyles between the maps. And I think maps supporting a different playstyle would enliven the game greatly. The maints are still connected, and you can make a grand circuit from engineering's lobby through science, and service to cargo. Theres a larger maint surrounding medbay and SouthWest Dorms too on the opposite side of the station as the aforementioned grand circuit. And lastly a diagonal cut from service to engineering's lobby through the center. Also there being many more seperate smaller areas of a similar volume to that of the cyberiad means each has a less chance of being searched or traveled through making each do their job better. Anyone worrying about the travel times; I'd argue they are only an ever-present issue for sec, and I've taken the liberty of increasing the segway count to 4 as well as adding a shortcut for them through the command module. For the long travel times of late arrival scientists I've since added another hallway going directly east from engineering for this explicit purpose (but it lead to EVA, and dead ends in science for all other roles) It's a larger map by a bout another 1/6 of the cyberiad's in turf count alone, but I think with paradise's pop its warranted (we might have to consider limiting it from being played on low pops). It also demands a different playstyle out of antags and sec, assigned patrols of areas probably being encouraged, as well as a more high stake field for antags, and the time to perform them in. Last but I think not a small point is that Shepard has more windows, its too easy to forget you're in space on other maps I feel, and with them you'll encounter it more often :P. 4 tile wide main hallway!! Thanks for reading through all of this for those that did. I am excited about the new maptick-threading that we've gotten from the byond devs, and wouldn't be proposing readding shepard otherwise. I think with the new addition of the maints above the station, and the hallway to science from engi the map might play alot better. LMK what you all think, design team especially. EDIT: I also removed all the lattices and nearby-station-areas from around the station, hopefully to drastically cut down on lighting costs.

I love the look of wide-screen, I do not love how it feels in game. I agree with the general sentiment that the chat-box feels very squished and you can get long messages like this: It also feels like it is going to cause so many issues code-wise, I've already run into about 20-30 things that will need to be changed if widescreen is full merged

A follow up suggestion could be to add a crew monitoring computer to lavaland so it's a little easier for miners to look after one-another.

Having to decide between wide screen game and reasonably sized chat area is an annoying trade to have to make. I personally find the chat window size too small with the widescreen resolution but if I were to opt out of widescreen I don't like the idea that I'm putting myself at a disadvantage in vision. I personally feel the old resolution should just be kept as the only option.

I would agree to this only if it is a made as a optional setting not as a mandotary chance as it really doesn't play well on laptop screen.

I would like to point out that every single radio chat message in your screencaps that isn't 2-3 words gets split into two lines. Considering common chatter more often than not is longer than that, you basically only got half the usual chat view compared to before. I'm aware chat highlights exist and all, but those are for specific phrases you definitely don't want to miss. People want to pay attention to the general comms conversations, too. While you could also argue that you can simply lower the chat font size, that's not really a solution either, only an inconvenience for those who prefer a larger font size to read stuff more easily. In general, being able to see a couple more columns of tiles on the sides - which I personally don't really see the usefulness of outside of maybe combat, and we're not strictly a combat-oriented server - does not seem like a good tradeoff for worse UX, on top of creating some other balance/design dilemmas.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A CODER, I AM NOT PLANNING TO WORK ON IT (OR AT LEAST NOT ANYTIME SOON - MAYBE SOMEDAY IF NOONE ELSE TOUCHES IT FIRST) Many, many ghostroles are rather unappealing as of now, bursting with issues. Hermit, while having cooler idea behind it, lacks at some fronts too. Let's first take a look at how a hermit round plays out as of now: 1. You join it as a ghost, choose species 2. You get randomly assigned a backstory (there is like five of those) and gear appropriate to it (for example, backstory of an NT doctors gives you a labcoat) 3. You wake up, all alone. 4. You start playing. You have a couple ways to do so. You could: hunt, focus on botany, look for help (which is silly but people do that), RP something out and get ignored by miners. There are also some other ways but those are the main one I thought of. There is an issue with those however - they all require luck. If you want to grow something more than little you start with, you need to hope RNGesus blesses you with good weed luck. If you want to get help from miners, you need to basically roll the dice for where you spawn. Close to the base? No? If you want some funny gimmick, besides the previous point, finding some cool gear, either from ruins or legion corpses, adds to flavor (technically you can pray for some things however). But truth is, once you run out of ways to play as hermit, it looses most of its replayability. And that's what I mostly want to focus about in here - replayability. What's my idea to increase it? Adding more playstyles and enforcing them through code! Whole idea is as follows: -You spawn as a hermit -A popup letting you choose your backstory appears -You choose your species (it'd be done this way, as it COULD allow banning some species for a few backstories) -You spawn with the gear dependent on backstory, as before, BUT, it is actually changing your gameplay in some way. -You check your chat - what is it? An objective that's also dependant on your backstory. Said objective can be greentexted. Examples of how some backstories would work: Name: lavaland hunter Backstory (simplified): You are a respected hunter with a dream to conquer wildlife. You work for nobody. Starting equipment: fluff clothing, armored vest, a bone axe Objective: Kill 5 Goliaths. Name: syndicate agent Backstory (simplified): You are a syndicate sleeper agent hired to hinder NT mining operations. Starting equipment: fluff and obvious clothing, garotte Objective: Murder a miner and impersonate them. Name: a botanical researcher Backstory (simplified): you are a free researcher, performing an illegal research on NT claims.... but you just need to see flora in here! Starting equipment: fluff clothing, botany belt with gear, bonus seeds (including ambrosia, cotton), some limited chemicals (like a bottle of ammonia and saltpetre, one each). Objectives: -Grow ambrosia Gaia. -Grow ten separate plants. (the ambrosia can be achieved with glowshroom luck, as they contain radium) Name: Internal Affairs Agent Backstory: You are an NT employee who crashlanded on the lavaland. You seek rescue every day. Starting equipment: fluff clothing, some form of communication. Objective: get back to station Other ideas I had include: prisoner (no gear, only objective is to survive, valid to miners), lone ash walker (ashie gear, objective is to protect lavaland from miners), some other survivalist (double barrel shotty with a couple backshot shells, no ideas for lore nor objectives), yet another survivalist (sword and shield, no ideas for lore nor objectives), engineer (RCD, objective is to build something nice [it autocompletes]) The above were written mostly as examples of how I'd like to see it work (and to show the diversity of possible scenarios - NOT only combat focused ones), but I'd be more than happy if someone got inspired by them, or wrote their own ideas down below! Keep in mind, making some hermit a partial antagonist would need an approval of a design team member first, so please limit those for now. But besides that - go wild, sky is the limit. Here, I also believe giving admins an easy way to add/remove backstories would be a good idea, for events. Another cool thing I'd like to see implemented, is giving you a little checkmark for backstories you've completed already. Checkmark would be in the popup that lets you choose them. And lastly, it would need to be documented on the wiki. I could probably take care of that one myself but just throwing it here, as it adds to the complexity of this change. Now, would that completely fix hermit? Absolutely not. But, I believe it to be a step in right direction to make them a fun and viable ghostrole.

So Paradise is known as THE MRP server. Action and roleplay. For the most part, this holds up, even...except when Security and Antagonists interact. Theirs is a very binary, LRP connection. Either you're an EoC or you're not an EoC, and if you ARE an EoC, less talky more shooty. People often say they want more RP from antags, but nothing is ever done to address the material conditions which lead to nonstop, speechless combat between security and antags. The biggest and most significant cause of this problem is that the path of least resistance for dealing with antags is violence in every circumstance. There is not a single kind of antag where the ultimate solution isn't some form of combat. Adding to this is that combat isn't even the last resort or the brilliant climax of the interaction, but the first and last step in most instances, even in cases like with Contractors where most of the threat is theoretical rather than immediate(The baton is decidedly nonlethal, but the idea that they MIGHT survive long enough to get a bunch of TC is impetus enough to kill them.) Space law itself is designed in such a manner that it not only facilitates this process, but streamlines it with simple, black and white rules: If EoC, fighting time. If spicy EoC, killing time. There are theoretical rules for dealing with non-antag lawbreakers, but the fact is that most things that could land you in the brig without being an EoC qualify as self-antagging and thus it's relatively rare for non-EoCs to be brigged. All of these things together create a sort of clarity that makes knowing when you're allowed to bring out the guns clear as day, and thus security does so without hesitation the moment escalation is possible. There is NEVER a benefit to talking to an antag for security, at least not before they're tucked away in perma with little to no leverage. And you can argue that role-play is not necessarily about taking the easiest route possible, but when you have a game with victory and defeat conditions, almost every player in this system will prioritize victory. So to address this problem, as well has bring in a few other side benefits, I propose three things: 1) The addition of 'minor' antagonists, who will be restricted from killing except in defense of their own lives, and who will have objectives such as theft and minor acts of sabotage. They will have enough TC to maybe buy one or two tools from a curated list of syndie gear that only includes non-lethal equipment. They will NOT be classified as EoCs. They will otherwise function as traitors with their own uplinks. 2) Moving the designated gear from the minor antagonists out of class S. This is ESSENTIAL for the creation of ambiguity security must face when determining if someone is a minor antagonist or an EoC. 3)Allow some of the gear from the minor antagonist list to spawn in maints. This creates yet more ambiguity and weakens the 'random searches' sec can do on the people that they OOCly recognize antag behavior in. So, breaking it down point by point: 1)Adding minor antags is primarily intended to create a class of antagonist that forces Sec to make use of the non-perma part of the brig, to spend valuable time and energy trying to deduce who is and is not an EoC. Sec would need to figure out who to prioritize and when to let crimes slip because there's something more pressing and dealing with crime is no longer as simple as shoot the crime until it goes away. In essence, minor antagonists are a smokescreen for greater threats, making it more difficult for security to escalate force legally. It also has the side benefit of adding the sort of minor chaos which doesn't fundamentally impede the station from functioning but does provide more roles and entertainment for players. It's important that the objectives the minor antags are not the sort which ruin the station. GOOD minor antag objectives: Steal a hand teleporter, Steal Secret Documents, bring target to a location. BAD minor antag objectives: Subvert a synthetic, sabotage the RnD servers, steal the X-01. The objectives, whatever they may be, should never be something that hinders a station much, but is very clearly a crime that sec must deal with non-lethally and without the use of Perma. Another side benefit of having minor antags is that players who might be intimidated by being antagonist have a lower-pressure environment to practice crimes. 2) The gear I'm aiming for these minor antagonists to have are things such as access tuners, boxed space suits, storage implants, and other similar items which do not have a direct offensive application. It's ESSENTIAL that these be moved off of class S where they are present, to ensure minor antags don't end up in perma and to give more plausible deniability to other antags who might possess such items. Of course, they will still be confiscated when found, but they won't be a perma sentence, nor will they result in a tracker. Security will need to build a stronger case against someone before declaring them an EoC. This potentially gives more relevance to the detective and magistrate. My overarching theory here is that Space Law does too much to facilitate security's activities, and should instead be more of a hindrance, preventing them from taking the 'easy way' of escalating force. Because that IS the easy way. The more sec is able to escalate, the easier it is for them to fall into that mindset of 'Redtext at any cost'. It's important to note that this doesn't in any way affect security's ability to escalate against biohazards, war declarations, or any such things, because it will still be obvious within space law that such are station-wide emergencies which must be dealt with decisively. This really only would create leeway for changelings, traitors, and vampires who might possess things they shouldn't and get hit with the inevitable meta-knowledge fueled 'random search'. 3)Right now, there is loot in maints that is illegal for the crew to hold, and most of the time the crew has no incentive to do anything other than turn it in to sec or science because the alternative is getting searched and thrown in perma for having a stetchkin in their bag. Illegal maint loot should be a precious treasure hoarded even by non-antag crew members, to further create confusion as to who is or is not EoC, and to facilitate this, and to add plausible deniability to the minor and non-minor antags, more illegal loot should be added to maints that won't land anyone in perma. All three of these things together are meant to obfuscate the process of determining who is and is not an EoC. Certain things like being a Chainsaw Man will still land you the KoS without much fuss, but now, if you're just someone with an access tuner who got caught in the vault, you might be a burglar rather than a syndie, so Sec can't just toss you in perma and call it a win. By making it harder for sec to immediately go to the highest level of force possible, I think this will encourage players exploring other options. Interrogations, playing dumb, and all sorts of speech-based interactions can happen when your local antag isn't rightfully assuming they'll be shot mid-sentence. The opportunity to deprive an antag of valuable TC gear still gives sec some sort of win for catching you, but you have a second chance to complete your objectives even if you're an antag forced to convince security you're a lesser threat than you actually are. In closing, as long as security can be sure that you're either an EoC or not an antag at all, there will not be meaningful roleplay between security and antags. By providing a middle ground, a gray option which allows the possibility of being an antag without being an EoC, it opens a dialogue between security and their targets, a chance to de-escalate and force Security to reconsider bringing out lethals.