FalseIncarnate

Karma stuff is not meant to be a "pay-for-power" deal, which is why most of the karma races have some significant weaknesses (IPCs have EMP vulnerability, Vox and Plasmamen die without their respective internals, Kidan... can't wear glasses (okay, this one is a bit lame, but still), etc) to balance their strengths. Additionally, karma roles are not meant to have elitist or severe power bonuses (NT rep doesn't actually get any real power, Barber even less so), so the idea of being able to essentially buy antag rounds would go against that philosophy. While it would be nice to have a use for all that karma you've built up, I don't think that antag rounds are the best way to address it. Perhaps something less impactful, but still fun would be better. I know Baystation or somewhere like that had load-outs you could customize on character setup to spawn in with a fancier pen or other things like that. A "rental" of such things might be something worth investigating the feasibility of implementing, since that could be easily tied to the karma shop and still avoid powercreep.

Just want to point out that, while this is definitely a good looking guide, it is slightly out of date. Not by much, mostly the xenobotany stuff since we removed the gene masking on the machines. However, a few suggestions on how to improve this guide even further would be to cover some of the different reagents you'll (want) to handle in hydroponics such as Left 4 Zed, Saltpeter, and Diethylamine. Also, Unstable Mutagen and Radium operate off of "thresholds", with different amounts having different effects and base success chances, so this might be something worth covering a bit more since I've seen countless botanists waste buckets of mutagen by pouring only 10u at a time trying to get a species shift and having no clue why it's not working. Very thorough regardless though, feel free to hit me up if you need more info too, since I've done a lot of our hydroponics code.

I like how these look, but am concerned they may be too buff for station clothing. If they don't have clipping issues with clothing sprites, I definitely support this.

I made it gated behind upgrades for a couple very simple reasons. 1. The prize costs are all rather low, meaning a couple games should be plenty to win nearly any prize you want (with the exception being the bike). The gating helped keep the prizes "limited" in the sense that the higher tier prizes would remain more uncommon at least early into the shift. This would give a sense of progression across the round (in theory) by having more prizes become available as time goes on. In practice, this doesn't tend to be the case because science rarely does progressive upgrades and instead opts for "all or nothing" upgrades. 2. The prize costs were entirely made up and admittedly total BS. As it stands, they are all on the low side, which means a discounted price from upgrades would end up with things costing laughably low amounts and a single game being able to win you multiple prizes. While discounts were something I had considered, I still was unsure of it and felt the "gating" would give science a better incentive to actually upgrade the machine (for new toys / to appease the angry masses bashing in their windows). As for the comments about the bike... that's the point. Go to nearly any arcade and you will see some sort of "grand prize" (typically hanging from the ceiling / top shelf) that costs a seemingly absurd number of tickets, typically in the thousands. The cliche standard grand arcade prize is some cool looking bike, costing upwards of 50,000 tickets easily. When you actually do the math, you actually will typically end up putting more money into the machines than that prize is probably worth, which is how arcades really make the money. The in-game prize counter has the bike set at a similarly high price for the reason of giving people a (typically unobtainable) goal to aspire to, and as a homage to real-life arcades and their grand prizes. The bike costs 10,000 tickets (exactly 1 full stack + 1 ticket) and is meant to be the ultimate tease. (Fun fact: I nearly made the bike completely non-functional / a model bike to be a major troll. Luckily, I decided to actually put a little effort in to make it ride-able.) In summary, I agree that the upgrade-locks are not ideal. If there were a better way of doing things, I'd be open to suggestions on the matter. However, I didn't lock it simply for the sake of being able to do so, I just couldn't think of a better (yet balanced and fair) way of making upgraded parts matter.

For clarification, you mean visible cooldowns for the Vampire, not for the people around them, right? Like, for example, a greyed out spell button or something on their HUD so that they know when glare becomes usable again based on it regaining color?

This could be a reasonable compromise, perhaps taking over the northern airlock above escape? I could also definitely see tying the white ship back to the Derelict with a wrecked (but able to be selected) docking point there. Perhaps it was all that escaped the nuclear explosion there, but was busted up in the process?

No, that'd still be vandalism. Less cared about, perhaps, but vandalism pure and simple. Back to the subject at hand though, please keep this thread on the topic of improving or removing the Experi-MENTOR, rather than anecdotal arguments dealing with the users and effects of the Experi-MENTOR on the surrounding workspaces.

Vehicle code is an absolute un-standardized atrocity. The janicart and secway use different code than the ambulance, for example. Allowing the vehicles to open doors would require not just relaying the movement of the cart to the player (to make it look like they are in fact riding it and not controlling some freaky bluespace-teleporter RC car), but then also relaying the ID information of the rider to the janicart so that it can utilize the bump() proc of doors to scan for access and open/flash accordingly. It would be a nice quality of life thing, but I wouldn't expect it to be a high priority addition due to a reluctance to mess with the tangled pile of code known as vehicles.

As a counter proposal, perhaps a chemical compound would be a better way of reviving brains than hand-waving with MMIs... One person mentioned strange reagent, which might work okay. Though, if dead brains is as common as this suggestion leads me to believe, it might be a bit too difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities. Maybe a new chem made from something like sterilizine (to clean the germs), synthflesh (to replace decayed/damaged cells), and mannitol (to re-establish/repair neural pathways) that would effectively "reset" the decay of a brain when you splash the reagent on it. Could call it something like Gray Matter (brain jokes?) and make it so it returns the brain to a usable state until it gets covered in germs and dies again if not transplanted quickly enough.

I don't see a reason to remove nutrition. If anything, it should be expanded, not reduced. Nutritional reagents (protein, plant-matter, nutriment) all have chances to heal damage when metabolized, so eating is beneficial for more than just keeping speed up. If we removed hunger, there would be pretty much zero need for half the vendors or the chef role outside of pure roleplay. And based on the average time someone signs up and actually plays as a librarian or psychiatrist, high/pure roleplay positions tend to be only taken by those who are unaware of the role or intend to completely ignore it anyways. Obviously this is not always the case, but the vast majority of the time it is. Chef would join the ranks of librarians in terms of a role that can produce something that is entirely unnecessary for operation should hunger be removed. Botanists would see a hit to their usefulness, but they would manage to remain relevant due to their ability to produce chemicals and other resources. A more meaningful hunger system would make the chef a more contributing role, but then comes the careful balancing act of making sure he doesn't become a VITAL role.

Could be a replacement liver, something like a small ethanol-fueled generator that converts the reagent into nutrition. Wouldn't make much sense for an organic to utilize, but perhaps you can bullshit that with some hand-waving science.

This is why stuff gets posted to the forums for suggestions. I honestly came up with all of that in like 5 minutes at most, and am not particularly attached to any of it. That said, I do think that targeting the arms and hands should have a better chance of knocking things from their grip and less or no chance of knocking them down. A slap on the wrist isn't gonna drop you like a shove to the body or a leg sweep. Likewise, an attempt to trip someone is unlikely to force them to let go of something in their hands. The rest was mostly just flavor and alternate stuff that probably is overpowered, but perfect for getting discussion started. Which, it seems, it somewhat has.

Preface and Suggestion As you probably already know, generally disarm intent tends to do one of three things: miss, actually disarm, and push over. Undoubtedly, this is kinda boring, and also not fully logical. How would a slap to the wrist knock someone over completely, or a swipe to the legs make them let go of their wallet (ignoring flinching)? Disarm tends to be a common sight in petty squabbles around the station, because generally the one who lands the first push tends to gain a massive advantage in the conflict. Also, how infuriating is it to need to spam click frantically to make someone lie down in a crowded escape pod so you can climb inside and let the door close before you all suffocate? I suggest expanding the disarm intent to be more impactful without overly increasing it's undeniable power, by factoring in zone targeting to the resulting action's effect. Further, for flavor, adjusting the resulting message of the action so that it reflects the variety of crew on board the station by referencing the target more accurately. Suggestion Details Effects by targeting zone: Head: Low chance of making victim drop held/pulled items and grabs Low chance of disorienting the victim (causes confusion/randomized movement) and causing a short deafen effect (ear clap / discombobulation, blocked by earmuffs / bowman headsets) Moderate chance of missing [*]Mouth: Chance to silence/cut-off victim for a brief moment (maybe 1 life cycle) Blocked by things that cover the entire face/head [*]Eyes: Chance to remove and drop eye-wear of victim (smack the glasses off that NERD) or cause blurry vision if no eye-wear is present Blocked by things that covers the entire face/head [*]Chest: Low-Moderate chance to knock downvictim Low chance to knock victim back one tile (if possible) Moderate chance of causing stamina damage Low chance of missing (largest target) [*]Arms: Moderate chance of forcing victim to drop held/pulled items and grabs Moderate chance of causing stamina damage (elbow/funny-bone hit) Low-Moderate chance of missing [*]Hands: Moderate-High chance of forcing victim to drop held/pulled items and grabs Moderate chance of missing [*]Lower Body (groin): Moderate chance of paralyzing the victim in place briefly (low-blow) Low chance to knock down victim Low-Moderate chance to miss, blocked by armor and hardsuits, but not soft space suits or aprons [*]Legs: Moderate chance to knock down victim Moderate chance to cause stamina damage (knee-cap/shin hit) Low-Moderate chance to miss, obviously won't work against wheelchair-bound targets [*]Feet: Moderate-High chance to knock down victim Moderate chance to miss, obviously won't work against wheelchair-bound targets Effects/Message by Gender/Species Male: Groin hit messages can be true "low blows", but can also be kidney strikes [*]Female: Groin hits are probably just kidney strikes Chest hits might reflect the female figure more (hit in the boob)? [*]Tailed Species: Groin hits might be tail-yanks instead of kidney shots? Groin hits might also have a chance to stop wagging tails in addition to their normal effect? [*]IPCs: Head hits would become monitor smacks Silencing strikes would become mute buttons Groin hits would be wire pulling / servo sticking? Gender messages are unisex [*]Diona: Gender messages are unisex Groin hits messages might be less prominent (due to being plants) [*]Vox / Plasmaman / Grey: Gender messages are unisex (can't really differentiate the genders on these) [*]Slime People: Groin hit messages are unisex (but chest hits might not be) The gender/species bits are obviously less impactful and more for flavor. Downside is, they'd be the more snowflakey side of things and less meaningful from a gameplay perspective, so I kept them separate so as to make it clearer that they are easily left out should we want to actually add any of this.

This seems like a reasonable thing from me, given how powerful the medigun is in the right hands it makes sense to give it a downside (in this case, make it not available for your hands). I can support this suggestion. This makes the Odysseus able to actually treat some injuries in the field better than just shooting people with omnizine syringes and scooping them into the sleepers for transport.

Just use disposal pipes and chutes to accomplish the atmos-sealed doorway you wanted. Far easier than needing to get all sorts of parts, and there are 2 disposal pipe dispensers on station at round start and another 1 on the engi outpost. Also, unrelated to the suggestion, but Vox breath N2 (aka nitrogen gas), not NO2 (nitrous oxide a aka anesthetic gas).

Stream time, no clue what's going on this week. http://www.twitch.tv/falseincarnate

Netspeak is fine for: - PDAs (netspeak on effectively mobile devices, which are a large reason netspeak exists. perfectly acceptable) - Papers (prepare to have even the clown make fun of you for this, and the HoP to demote you to "Incompetent Waste of Life") - Newscasters (prepare to be ignored and/or taunted for using a newscaster in the first place) - Deadchat (u salty bro?) - OOC / LOOC (yea, u salty) Netspeak is not fine for: - IC says - IC emotes - Being taken seriously.

This seems rather plausible as a new game machine. I've coded blackjack in java before (at the time I wasn't very good with stacks though, so it used an infinite deck rather than a finite number of cards), so I definitely know it is possible to do this. I'll look into it a bit down the line once I finish up my current project(s).

DZD and I have been somewhat brainstorming / collaborating on a potential new replacement for the Vox Raiders. Let's just say it involves sound, beards, and pillaging.

Initially, based on the title, I thought you were suggesting a format for suggestions. That would be some kind of deep meta... but in a good way. Then I read your post and realized you meant adding line breaks to character records whenever you enter a new line. Why this isn't already a thing is beyond me, but I suspect it's probably just a newline parsing that was either accidentally forgotten or doesn't play nice with the sanitization. I can support this if for no other reason than readability. Ironically, your suggestion to break up the records so they aren't just solid blocks of text is in itself a solid block of text. Well played.

Looks good, though the double APC / double air alarm bugs me since logically that is now just one room, but is invisibly (from the player view) divided into two areas. I understand your intent, but given that clone shunting is maybe a half-second of power loss, the cryotubes would be largely unaffected (short of possibly needing to be reactivated). Would need to actually look into that to be sure, but keeping it a singular area throughout would PROBABLY be fine.

There had been a suggestion for departmental guards that would effectively do exactly what this theoretical job you described would entail. I think it got lost to the annals of time rather than actually fully being shot down, but effectively was a door-man / coordinator for each department that acted as more or less their go-to man for tossing people out of their department, but didn't have the clearance to actually arrest people and such like actual officers. Back on topic though, I kinda like the mock-up design shown here, since cloning and cryo is a very commonly cramped area for the docs. I'd consider going a single step further and removing that little bit of wall where the middle air alarm is (and that alarm, since this is now one area and not two) and placing an empty locker there (there used to be a wardrobe in cloning, but I'd commonly dump it out and use the locker for moving cloned people's stuff to near the cryo tube they get put in). The lower wall (with the intercom) can stay, though maybe rotate the intercom to be on the north part of the wall instead of the west side so it is more accessible from both cryo and cloning sides. The doors to contain cryo patients is actually nice in my opinion, because it's a pain to have to chase around the mentally damaged clones streaking around medbay after I go to grab mannitol and mutadone from the chem fridge to finish their treatment. If the docs want the openness of the old cryo, asking the AI, a borg, or a bored engineer to bolt open those doors is hardly time-consuming.

That is literally the reason for the SHARP and EDGE flags for weapons. If it isn't SHARP and doesn't have an EDGE, it's probably safe to assume it's blunt. Or a coder error. It would be a bit messy to make them receive bonus damage from SHARP / EDGE weapons but not all forms of brute damage, but technically feasible. The root ability does sound like a neat racial feature. A self-inflicted snare/paralyze of some sort that trades mobility and action for healing. Effectively, forcing them to sacrifice the ability to react to threats in exchange for regeneration definitely would avoid this becoming a "powergamer's dream" since you wouldn't be able to just root mid-fight and continue to wreck faces.

I came into this thread expecting ice skating. I was disappointed.

This week starts the rather anticipated BIG TEAM BATTLE boss fight, in which Team 1 and Team 2 join together to take down Octum. A rare occasion where each player has TWO active characters on the field, this is sure to be a fight that will go down in legend. http://www.twitch.tv/falseincarnate