FalseIncarnate

I believe the main issue is that our space pod code is incomplete either due to when we merged it being before the author finished, or by admin decision to comment out / remove code. While I would love to see the space pods expanded upon, they currently aren't a high priority subject when it comes to fixes and development. That said, once I get a chance, I will gladly look into working on them. The mechanic rarely has a reason to build additional pods or ever tinker with them, largely due to the lack of upgrades. As a result, the sec pod pilot is somewhat under-utilized as few people venture into space to escape the law / commit crimes. I'm sure this will require extensive discussion, testing, and tweaking, so please continue to offer up suggestions on the topic of Space Pods. (Giant mechs in space probably won't happen, but the idea is cool.)

Drones could fill their spray bottle from the wall-mounted space cleaner dispenser in the janitor's closet. However, I believe they recently had their spray bottle removed and replaced with soap, so they don't out-clean the janitor (assuming the janitor is actually cleaning).

To be honest, I was hoping for more along the lines of tasks that don't wait until round end, since at that point you can't really do anything with the reward. Obviously some things like ultra-clean station or such would be checked at round end, but that's so it isn't considered complete at round start.

Most of you probably have seen the game praising the roboticists (" has done their fucking job!") at the end of the round. This is tied to the completion of their job objective(s)/goal(s). Essentially, for those not familiar with it, they are offered a pay bonus for completing a task. Usually it's something like "Build a Ripley" or "Make a cyborg", and has a reward of 500 credits for each employee in robotics. While this isn't a huge deal, it does give them an incentive and objective to work towards without causing them to stray too far from their normal activities. The game handles the tracking and rewarding of the goal automatically, not the admins online at the time, so the system is in place to theoretically apply goals like this to ANY department/job. I'd like to work on introducing this system to new jobs, and am willing to handle any of the code necessary to make it work. However, the code does not contain any goals for any other jobs, creating an obvious obstacle. So, I turn to you, our players, to assist with coming up with new goals! These need to be fairly straightforward and clear, for the sake of both the player and the tracking of progress. Things like "Steal everything from the derelict" aren't viable for this reason, but "Recover the 'God King Emperor of Mankind' Disk" could be, as this can more easily be tracked. I'd like to request that if you submit ideas, please use a format similar to this: Department / Job(s): Objective Text: Completion Criteria: "Department / Job(s)" would be the roles that receive the objective and will be rewarded for completion. "Objective Text" is what gets sent to the players, and should be brief and clearly worded. Vague text should be avoided, as it can cause confusion or even discourage attempting the objective. "Completion Criteria" is the trigger for completion. For simple tasks like "Build a Ripley", this would obviously be completion of a Ripley mech, while something like "prepare 15 tacos" would be triggered on completion of the 15th prepared taco (not have 15 tacos on the map at one time). Retrieval objectives would have a trigger of "object enters Z-level 1", as this would count as the object being brought to the station. Here is a couple examples that I have come up with so far, to help get an idea of how they might look. Department / Job(s): Chef / Botanist Objective Text: Prepare 15 Tacos and/or Enchiladas. Completion Criteria: 15th Taco or Enchilada produced Department / Job(s): Telescience (Science) Objective Text: Retrieve the disk 'God King Emperor of Mankind'. Completion Criteria: Disk enters Z-Level 1 (Station Z-Level) Department / Job(s): Cargo / Mining Objective Text: Return 100 points worth of materials in a single shipment. Completion Criteria: Return a supply shuttle carrying objects worth 100+ supply points. Jobs can be limited to a single job, multiple jobs (even cross-departmental), or an entire department. Please do not post objectives for Civillians, as they have no responsibility or wages. EDIT: Security does not need a "Beat the clown" objective. They already do that without being promised a bonus.

I've heard stories of past rounds where the admins have actually successfully gotten people to work on the construction site/station. I tried once and unfortunately didn't get many people interested, and was working on a concept for a round-type based around this that involved some minor antags who pop up mid-round (auto-traitor style) with objectives geared towards stalling or reversing progress. As for those atmos tanks on the construction site, I've managed to get most of that station to like 68.1kPa one night. The AI rooms, bridge, medbay, and most of the maintenance tunnels weren't pressurized, but the hallways, library, atmos (duh), and some of the other areas were pressurized. It is a bit time consuming, but gets quite a bit faster for each additional person working on site. Having an active telescience operator helps in the event of emergency return and/or supplies delivery. EDIT: Oh, and I've been playing around with trying to add departmental/job goals to more than just Robotics. Like for cargo/mining, possibly something like "return 100 supply points worth of materials", or "prepare 15 enchiladas and 15 tacos" for the chef and botanist (Mexican Monday/Taco Tuesday). Obviously some jobs/departments like Security would have a harder time of creating reasonable/fair objectives (no one wants "brig 5 people" objective), so I'll be posting a topic for ideas to see what could possibly be added.

I agree that the messages can be vague and easily overlooked in a flood of chat messages. However, assuming you have at least 1 working arm and hand, you can click yourself with Help intent to "examine self" (this mostly gets used by IPCs to find damage) which will tell you things like "Left arm is bleeding" or "Groin is oddly shaped." This obviously isn't a fix-all solution, as you can't touch your chest and instantly know "Hey, my lung is ruptured and my liver is slightly bruised." One problem with internal injuries are that they DO share the "You feel a sharp pain in your chest!" message, which obviously could lead to confusion and thus unnecessary death. Code-wise, I don't think it would be hard to add in reoccurring messages for a ruptured lung. The problem is some people get lucky and are able to tough out a ruptured lung for a bit longer than others due to the probability checks not passing every time, as Fox pointed out. As for lungs rupturing in decompression in the first place, I say the feature should stay. It gives the sense of danger that entering a vacuum unprotected should have, and thus adds urgency for atmos and engineering to fix breaches and re-pressurize afflicted areas. If you really dislike ruptured lungs, unlock IPCs or Slimepeople, who don't breathe and thus are immune to the effects of ruptured lungs.

Armor definitely is important for IPCs, but their head is by far the weakest point. However, their ability to field repair and ignore injuries makes them a force to be reckoned with. Plenty of times I have watched nuke ops crap themselves as I quickly recover from being downed and resume applying wrench to their faces over and over again. Plus walking into medbay missing multiple limbs and not seeming to notice is always funny. "Sir, do you realize you are missing both arms and a leg?" "That would explain why it took so longer to get here."

Streaky and SpaceTime, let's keep this civil and avoid unnecessary fighting. Back on topic: While SpaceTimeNow does make a decent point (which I hear echoed throughout medbay IC) about the knowledge of medical regarding IPC repairs, the main point of why medical handles IPC repairs is simply: Medical handles crew, Robotics handles borgs. IPCs are considered crew, and therefore fall into medical's domain. I've seen a number of roboticists procure the necessary tools for limb attachment surgery and perform them as needed, but this is not meant to be their area of expertise. To be fair, many IPC players don't necessarily care WHO does the procedure as long as they get repaired, but become annoyed and frustrated with the endless bickering of which department should handle it while they are standing their with half their limbs broken and/or missing. While I still don't think a new job or room is necessary, adding some way to quickly transport the new limbs from robotics to surgery might be worth considering. Perhaps similar to a disposal delivery system that only connects surgery and robotics, since a shared desk (like between Hydro and Kitchen) is not possible without re-configuring medical and part of science.

Well, this is a topic I am personally vested in, given my "main" character is an IPC. Giving medical some nanopaste and possibly a spare limb or two in medical storage would be nice addition, but to go as far as to create a karma-locked role dedicated to IPC repair / prosthetics and give medical another room seems excessive. First, karma locking such a role will pretty much guarantee it won't be commonly played (how often do you really see a Sec pod pilot or Mechanic?), so it doesn't effectively address the lack of knowledge... it could actually make it worse, since that duty no longer falls to the medical doctors/surgeons. Second, while having a room dedicated to IPC repair / limb attachment might be nice, it's also unnecessary. Giving them a fabricator would essentially remove a point of departmental interaction, which could be argued as either good or bad. Third, while I do support the idea of making IPC repair and surgery more appropriate, the hurdle is avoiding making it too complex. Currently, they use the same surgery as organics, making it easier for a player controlling the doctor to perform since they don't need to remember different procedures to use depending on if the patient is IPC or organic. Updating the text for these operations would be a step in the right direction ("cuts away the flesh where the hand used to be", IPCs don't have flesh), but I'd rather see the revival and repair bugs fixed before we begin to change the actual system. Finally, IPC death is a very difficult and tricky topic to approach. The distress beacon idea would be cool, though it would definitely need to be blocked by bags (so a traitor doesn't have the IPC ping every time they pass security or something like that), and possibly have a visual indicator of the location similar to pointing's arrow or the laser pointer's dot. This is a good suggestion though, and I look forward to seeing how this thread progresses.

i'd support Defib units, ESPECIALLY if I can use them like this: I believe another codebase actually has defibrillators, though i'm not sure they would work with our medical system. But assuming we can get them in, they should only have a short window of usefulness where they can revive someone, and using them outside that time range will just damage the body (living or not).

THIS is how you do Hydroponics. None of that ambrosia crap... nothing but nymphs. From 1 seed pack.

They are specifically referring to the blue text when you examine someone, like Medusa's "She is a stern woman, but she acts justly." or Fox's "They are a 5'11" red fox." It would be interesting if (for changelings at least, maybe even genetic injectors) when you transform into another player's character, you copy whatever flavor text they have (blank if they don't have it set). This would more or less be taking the original idea a step further, but would make changelings and such more devious. Currently, if I manage to copy your appearance utterly and completely through a UI+UE injector or a changeling absorb/transform, I retain whatever flavor text I had at round start. This would mean copying a player who DOES have flavor text would allow me to be identified as the false one based on the flavor text not matching their actual description (hey, that human isn't a red fox! He must be a changeling, get him!), which is questionably meta. Obviously this would present an issue with cloning mishaps (changed hair color, now a chick, etc), so perhaps the flavor text would be tied to the UE (name) and not the UI (features). On the topic of flavor text, perhaps the flavor text should also be displayed only if you can actually see the body and face of the person being examined. If they would be displayed as Unknown without their ID on (wearing a gas mask, hardsuit, etc), I think the flavor text should be hidden. Not only would this simply make sense (how can I see their scars if I can't see THEM?), it would also help traitors pose as someone else without their own flavor text giving them away as long as they stay covered up.

No, pretty sure he means a conveyor belt system, such as those used by fast-food sushi restaurants in Japan (also known as sushi trains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conveyor_belt_sushi) Essentially, they put the food/drinks on a conveyor that the customers then can grab off of from their seats, negating the need for a waiter. Kinda like the baggage claim conveyors in an airport, except with food instead of someone's tacky suitcases.

Well, I know who I'll be going to for any custom sprites... You're fantastic at spriting. I really liked the Mr. Handy and Mr. Gutsy robots, plus that makeshift armor seems like a cool idea. Keep up the good work!

only a matter of time before a clown loads every spot on it with a banana peel and makes a never-ending slip loop. though i can definitely see this being a neat little addition for the bar and kitchen area. are you suggesting it is placed around the counter (or in place of the counter) between the bar and kitchen? that one typically doesn't get the same usage as the one to the hall

I think this could be accomplished with a very intricate tcomms script, but it is a good idea. Tcomms definitely has the ability to replace words or characters with different ones, so you can definitely have it replace pre-defined abbreviations with full words, but not sure if it can pull your location. You can even set scripts on a per-channel basis, so security channel could be the only channel this works on

Name: Ryder Holdeman Age: 25 (as of 2558 AD) Gender: Machine, Male Personality Race: IPC (Machine Person) Blood Type: N/A (Emergency Ketchup) General Occupational Role(s): Bartender Station Engineer Life Support Technician Mechanic Biography: In the year 2533 AD, the Mark II Advanced Cyborg now commonly known as Ryder Holdeman was originally constructed aboard the Nanotrasen Technical Manufacturing Station 13, one of the 15 fully-automated Nanotrasen facilities dedicated to purely manufacturing. Deep within the station lies the small and often-overlooked Subsector Zeta, a section dedicated purely to the manufacturing of IPCs, or Machine People. All units manufactured on board were built with Loyalty Implants installed, as per the Nanotrasen standard at the time. Following his completion, the unit was assigned the designation of Ryder Holdeman and scheduled to be shipped to a small outpost on Indus Beta, in the Epsilon Indi system. After arriving in 2535 AD, it was here he spent the next 17 years. In 5540, Ryder's Loyalty Implant was finally removed, as was the new Nanotrasen standard for all units manufactured inside NTMS 13's Subsector Zeta, having been delayed by a clerical error during his deployment. When tensions on Indus Beta finally boiled over and the humans rebelled against their synthetic overseers in what is known as The Machine War, Ryder Holdeman was caught in the middle of a fierce war. Viewing both sides as flawed, Ryder actively refused to declare an alliegance to either faction, instead aligning himself with a handful of other like-minded IPCs to form a little known faction dedicated to preserving their own existances above all else. While successful, the faction was responsible for the destruction and deaths of both synthetics and humans during the war, though never as aggressors. Following the end of the war in 2546 AD, the IPC faction was exiled from the system by the Indus Provisional Government for their synthetic nature. Unfortunately for Ryder and his fellow IPCs, the pod they were sent on was struck by a stray meteor, damaging the navigation and propulsion systems, setting them adrift in deep space. Eventually the pod was spotted and recovered by a Nanotrasen scouting fleet, and the IPCs were eventually reassigned to Nanotrasen stations as employees beginning in 2555 AD. It was in 2558 AD that Ryder Holdeman was first assigned to the NCS Cyberiad, and has since declared the station his new home. Qualifications: Bartending Engineering (lacking Supermatter experience) Atmospherics Space Flight and EVA Employment Records: Xenoarchaeologist Bartender Station Engineer Life Support Technician Mechanic Xenobiologist Chief Engineer Security Records: No notable criminal record recorded. Minor cases of trespassing have resulted in little more than verbal warning, which were met with compliance and apologies and/or explanations, thus not being added to permanent record. Ryder is known to be willing to aid security, sometimes without being asked. Cases of suspects being captured and restrained by Ryder before security officers can arrive on scene have been reported. Despite the common tendency of IPCs to rely on trickery or ranged combat, Ryder seems to favor more physical confrontation when provoked, often charging the target with a wrench. Ryder does not typically cause fights, and is quite peaceful normally, often attempting to take a diplomatic approach to conflict resolution first. [Clearance – Command] Records indicate that Ryder has been involved in the neutralization and death of multiple Changelings and Nuclear Operatives during his time aboard the NCS Cyberiad. In most cases, Ryder utilized a wrench to accomplish the task, only to walk away and continue his duties as normal afterwards. He does not seem to view these actions as noteworthy, despite being told otherwise. Medical Records: Reconstructions: Multiple, exact number unknown. Multiple medical staff members have reported patient is willing to provide instruction for his repairs, even during his own surgery, if requested. Due to the mechanical nature of IPCs, medical staff is reminded to use the advanced scanners near surgery to locate damages if patient is unresponsive, as the handheld scanners will report errors when used to scan an IPC. Cloning is not possible for IPCs, and thus should not be considered as an option. Patient has little to no knowledge of traditional medicine, and will commonly bring in bodies for “reassembly” and has been known to offer a welder or cables to treat injured non-synthetics. [Clearance – CMO, Psychiatrist] Patient records indicate a possible mental or personality quirk relating to verbal communication. Patient seems to refuse to utilize inflection despite being capable, claiming a malfunctioning or damaged inflection circuit. Diagnostics, repairs, and replacements do not seem to be capable of convincing the patient that the circuit is operational. Rare cases of brief inflection have been noted, typically during times of extreme stress on the patient. Aside from occassionally confusing co-workers with his speech, this has been proven to not affect his productivity or work quality. [Clearance – RD, Robotics] Subject is known to be strongly opposed to cyborgification, claiming he does “not want to be bound by the laws of man again.” Subject is willing to be inserted into a Spider Bot only if his body is unsalvageable. Personnel Photo (Appearance text): Height: approx. 5’10” (average deviance of +/-13um recorded) Monitor Image: Static, occasionally displays alternate images or text for short periods External Casing Color: Metallic Black Notable Features: NTMS 13-Zeta imprinted on right side of monitor, with a small crack bisecting the text. Commendations [only to be added by admin]: Reprimands [only to be added by admin]: Other Notes: Ryder Holdeman is a generally polite and friendly individual to encounter. His knowledge of Atmospherics has garnered him the respect of many Station Engineers and Chief Engineers, to the point of having been asked to instruct them in Atmospherics. He has developed an incredibly effective configuration for Atmospherics which he uses while continuing to try and further improve.It is common for Ryder Holdeman to request additional Engineering access so he can better apply his knowledge of Engineering and Atmospherics to assist with a wider range of issues, as well as have access to tools and materials. Ryder will procure and wear a full hardsuit if at all possible, and seems to have a particular fondness for the Atmospheric Hardsuits, going as far as to offer to trade Engineering Hardsuits to any Life Support Technicians on duty. He has not been known to attempt to break in and steal the hardsuits, and will always politely request one if he does not have access and feels he is in need of one. Ryder is known to be particularly willing to place himself in danger if he has calculated it as lowering the chances of those he considers "friends" being threatened.

Should turn out to be an interesting character, and I'm looking forward to seeing their interactions with other non-Sovereign IPCs... Nice backstory, or front-story? Eh... good story.

So... make Mechanics more useful/engaging by making them do what they are supposed to do in the first place. That part aside, while I'm definitely in favor of expanding their workshop (way too cramped to build and launch multiple pods should you somehow manage to get the components from science), giving them the fabricators and board printers by default seems like a bit of a bad idea. First off, you'd either want to somehow limit their fabricator to making ONLY pod-related stuff or else you'll have the mechanic suddenly rolling out in a Durand armed to the teeth with lethals, or just not give them one. A similar thing goes for the board printer, because suddenly the AI could find itself with an additional law upload in the Mechanic's workshop. Both of those machines can actually be built, but you will need Science's assistance to acquire the necessary components, and possibly a raid on the Tech Storage with some help from science or engineering. However, giving these machines to the Mechanic at round start presents the same issue as the recent addition of an autolathe for science and engineering or the additional juices in the bar dispensers: they eliminate the need for department interactions. While convenience is nice, taking out the interaction between jobs really hurts the RP-potential of doing your job, since you are missing out on talking with other players, trying to get on their good side so they'll help you out, trading favors, stumbling across a civilian fight outside the bar, etc. TL;DR : I like the idea of expanding the workshop. I like the idea of continuing to develop this job more and add more variety to what you can build. I don't like the idea of making the Mechanic have every machine needed. I don't like the idea of the Mechanic becoming an Electrician, especially since that's already a specialization for Station Engineer you can pick.

Gotta agree with Adrkiler59 and M3hillus, not being able to move the heater and coolers in atmos does limit the design potential a bit, especially if you want to do something ambitious like give Security or Telescience their own isolated/dedicated loops. Chem dispensers aren't as widely needed outside their original positions, so making them craftable/movable is just encouraging theft and grief. Think about it this way: do you really want the clown to break into chem, steal the entire machine, and secretly make thousands of units of space lube in some maintenance tunnel where the AI can't see him, or would you rather he do it in a room the AI can lock down and call security on?

I actually use a design I came up with one day sitting in class. Still haven't come up with a catchy/witty/awe-inspiring name for it, but it has a redundant-capable, dual-cooling loop as well as cooling bypass (redirects straight to filters instead of adding to cooling loop). It eats fires like a pro from what i've heard. I'll try and get a picture of it some time if you want, or any time you see Ryder Holdeman as Life Support, feel free to ask to see it UPDATE: Saw my system in action first hand when some fires broke out. Just barely broke 300kPa on the meter in the cooling loop, and didn't get above 20C on the same meter during that same time. It runs at about 0.03kPa and almost -200C during normal operation, for reference.

Perhaps if instead of a little note, the HoP gets a personal monitor that can be edited from inside the office. This way, should the Captain call a meeting of the heads, or the HoP decides to take a stroll, they can have it say "In meeting" or "On break". Alternatively, they can also use it to say stuff like "Clowns will get no access" or something. You know, because they get enough people demanding access as it is.

First off, just gonna quickly apologize if this turns out to be utter crap. I usually don't do the whole "introduce yourself" forum section pretty much anywhere, but I feel like this is a good exception. So yea, that aside, I'm FalseIncarnate. You might have heard me pop into OOC in the middle of the night (for me at least, your timezone may differ) and probably have passed my characters in the hall at least once. I'm gonna break this down into 2 sections: IC / OOC stuff. [iC stuff:/size] My main characters are Phillip Rowerly (human) and Ryder Holdeman (IPC). I have a third character that is probably going to be either remade or deleted, since I played him for one round before returning to my mains. Both Phillip and Ryder share Xenoarch experience, otherwise they have little intentional department overlap (I say intentional because sometimes I join a job with the wrong character). Phillip spends most of his time in the Medical Department, though he was originally a Botanist. Ryder spent a respectable amount of time as a Bartender before transferring into Engineering, where he serves most commonly as a Life Support Tech, before recently taking interest in Xenobiology. Despite the range of my job knowledge, I try to limit the characters' knowledge to their specific job history. Ryder knows practically no medicine beyond how to repair himself, while Phillip would stare blankly at Atmosia. They each have their own personalities, though they share common traits such as being protective of those they consider close to them. Both of their personalities are based off of how I view my own, albeit with some small revisions in a couple spots. [OOC stuff:/size] Out of character, I'm a college student who is working towards Video Game Design / Programming. I'm a coder and have made a few little things here and there mostly for fun, including a couple games or game supplements for myself and friends. I have also begun delving into the server's code, and recently submitted a pull request on some fixes I've made for Hydroponics. I hope it's the first of a series of fixes and improvements I contribute, but I'm trying not to overwhelm myself between coding, work, and school, so I likely won't be churning out any major stuff regularly. I've been playing SS13 for about a month or so now, and was lucky enough to try out Paradise Station first. I liked it and the players on it, so I've stuck around since, playing at least a shift or two a day minimum. I am typically on late at night (Eastern US Timezone), though if I find myself with a day off, I'll hop on during the day when I can. So yea, that was my intro I guess. Hope I didn't bore the crap out of you with it, feel free to ask me about stuff and I'll try to answer them (or give some excuse why I'm not answering)