FalseIncarnate

inb4 everyone gets clumsy and sec kills themselves.

Kissing and cuddling likely will be dismissed as "ERP material", and I'd rather not dwell on explaining why. Instead, I'd like to focus on that speaking softly idea. I like that, since some people just WON'T STAY STILL when I try to lean in to whisper things.

Could be an interesting mid-ground between our current hardsuits and the bay hardsuits. Only real advantages I can see however is if they have some really special gear available to be hooked up to them, like a mech-mounted RCD, pipe dispensers, or a mech-welding tool that doesn't run out of fuel (maybe drains the battery faster while active). They'd of course be space worthy and maybe have better handling in zero-G / vacuum? Finding some really defining capabilities for the new mechs would be the difficult part.

Well, last week wasn't as exciting as hoped, but this week will be! Stream is up again, watch us kill shit!

Not necessarily. Overdosing is from having a lot of the reagent ACTIVE in your body at one time. An addiction is from having a lot of the reagent having been in your body over time. With the bath salts example, an overdose of 20 units is a guaranteed Stage 2 addiction, however if you take 20+ pills of 1 unit each over the course of a couple minutes, you'd get a Stage 2 addiction without ever risking an overdose. The addiction tracker is handled entirely separate from the active reagents list, and decreases at a lower rate than what the chem metabolizes at. Addiction stages are dependent on the addiction tracker list, while overdoses are on the reagents list. You won't overdose on a chemical if you take frequent low dosages, but you will become addicted due to the habitual consumption. An overdose can prompt an addiction (assuming it surpasses addiction thresholds), but an addiction does not cause an overdose by itself. Overdosing is taking too much at once, not taking too much over an extended time frame. A tolerance tracker would be a potential next step, however the intent is not to force people to risk overdoses nor to make the chems useless. Alcohol addictions could definitely be a thing though, though tolerances would make the code very messy and a pain to maintain / make additions to.

Foreword and Background When we ported Goonchem, we returned the addiction and overdose system to play. Simply put, using too much of certain chems can cause a number of adverse effects ranging from minor annoyances to full on death. While realistic in some regards, the way it is currently handled is definitely not. Further, the ways of handling them from both a mechanics and a role-play standpoint are less than exciting, and far from dynamic. How It Currently Works Currently, both addiction and overdose operate off of preset thresholds. Exceed these thresholds, and you will become addicted and/or suffer an overdose. However, it is fairly easy to game the system and toe the line without actually falling in, as it only cares about the amount currently in you. For example, let's say the chemist makes a whole bunch of Bath Salts, and hands it out to the local greytide. Bath Salts carries an addiction threshold of 10, and an overdose threshold of 20. As long as Baldie McBlackeye has no more than 10 units of Bath Salts in his system at any given point, he will not develop an addiction, no matter how frequently he actually takes it. This means if he takes 9 unit doses and tops himself off whenever he drops below 1 unit in his body, he can effectively remain on the drug indefinitely without ever getting addicted. As long as he remains below 20 units in his system, he will never OD on it. However, should he accidentally OD, he is now suffering the effects for the entire duration that even a fraction of a unit is left in his body. My Proposal The current system is clearly flawed in that you can take hundreds of units of a given drug and not become addicted, as long as you manage your dosing. Further, an overdose (which is entirely avoidable) will last the entire duration of metabolizing ALL of the chemical in your body, not just the time in which there is an excess over the safe dosage. I have begun designing a new way of handling addictions, and have also been suggested to adjust how overdoses work. I am posting this proposal for review and feedback by the community before implementing such a system to ensure that the players are aware and in support of the changes. The rework of these systems will not only make the system more realistic, but also more dynamic, promote roleplay and meaningful choices, and offer grounds for new additions. Part 1: Addiction Overhaul The way an addiction truly works is not taking so much of something once, but rather the developed habit and dependence caused by repeated exposure. Ask any coffee drinker, energy drink fanatic, or smoker: the addiction didn't come from just a single cup/can/cig, but rather the continued consumption over time. Currently, addictions are something like a soft-overdose in terms of mechanics. You take more than X amount, and you get bad effects. However, there is no change in severity between someone who takes 0.1 unit over that amount and someone who takes 100 units over (aside from effects of overdose and the chem itself, obviously). This means all addictions are equally easy to gain and lose, and punishes even the smallest miscalculation as harshly as what was clearly an intentional choice. My suggestion is to track addiction "progress" in a manner similar to how chems are currently metabolized. Every time you ingest an addictive chem, it would be added to both your reagents list (for metabolizing) as well as the addiction tracker. If it is the first time the chem has been taken, it will generate a new entry on the list, otherwise it will be added to it's existing entry. The amount of the chem taken will be tracked, and will decay slowly over time. This means if you take 10 units, then sit patiently for a few minutes, the tracker will have decreased from 10 to a lower number based on how long has passed. Taking more of the chem will then increase the tracker by the amount taken, and halt the decay for that chem until all of the chem has been metabolized/purged from the body. As the tracker rises, each chem will check it's addiction tracker against its defined addiction thresholds to determine if the user is addicted and the severity of their addiction. As the tracker decreases, the user will slowly overcome any current addictions until they are free of the effects. Every multiple of the addiction threshold indicates an increase of severity, up to a Stage 4 Addiction. Each stage can (and currently does) have different effects on the person suffering from it, but currently starts at Stage 1 before increasing up through Stage 4. This seems backwards, as the Stage 4 tends to be the harshest addiction, which would have the withdrawl effects felt most during the first portion of overcoming an addiction. Using a chem you are addicted to would cancel the effects of the addiction/withdrawl for the duration that the chem is in your system. After the chem has been fully removed, however, the user would re-enter withdrawl at the appropriate stage based on their tracker. This means it is possible to offset the effects, but you run the risk of worsening the addiction by taking more. Part 1 Example: The same chemist as before makes Bath Salts again and hands it out to Baldie McBlackeye again (seriously, where's security during all this drug-dealing?). Baldie takes 9 units, and his addiction tracker for Bath Salts is now set to 9. He goes on his way and the drug wears off, and he spends the next few minutes punching the clown. Since he has gone some time without Bath Salts, his addiction tracker has slowly decayed, we'll say it's now at 5. Security is finally waking up since he assaulted the clown, so he pops another 9 units of Bath Salts and starts running. His tracker now reads 14, meaning he is now over the 10 unit threshold to enter addiction and is suffering a Stage 1 addiction. Before security can corner him, he pops another 9 units, this time not enough time has passed to decay his tracker, so it now reads 23, qualifying him for a Stage 2 Addiction since he has now doubled the threshold. A sec borg takes him down and they confiscate his drugs and dump him in perma (shitcurity!), leaving him to sweat out his withdrawls. He now suffers through his Stage 2 Addiction, then through a Stage 1 Addiction before finally managing to overcome his addiction (with whatever side-effects those stages carry). He's sat in the brig for quite a while, so his addiction tracker has finally hit 0, removing Bath Salts from itself. Parolled for good behavior, he is released a new man who has overcome his personal demons. However, during his time in the brig, he took up smoking, and now has an entry on the tracker for Nicotine (we'll say 2), meaning he is slowly on his way to being addicted to that. He then heads back to the chemists and asks for Meth. He's not that bright... This example should hopefully illustrate how the system would work. Taking a drug increases the tracker entry for that drug, and going without long enough will decay it over time. Addiction stages work backwards, meaning a Stage 1 addiction is the last one you suffer through before kicking the habit, while a Stage 4 addiction would require suffering through Stage 4, then Stage 3, then Stage 2, then Stage 1 before kicking it completely. This would signify the addiction being easier to break if you catch it early on, as well as it becoming gradually easier to manage as time goes on. Part 2: Overdose Currently, overdose occurs when you surpass a threshold, then lasts until every last drop of the chem is out of your system. While somewhat realistic, it's rather suppressing to gameplay. This portion of the proposal is significantly smaller and easier to implement: overdose only occurs while above the threshold. Bath salts carries an overdose threshold of 20 units, so an overdose on Bath Salts under this proposal would only affect you while there is at least 20 units in your system. As soon as you hit 19 units of Bath Salts left, the overdose effects cease as the body is capable of processing the remaining amount "safely". In some regards, this would make overdosing less dangerous, but would not punish someone as harshly for being 0.1 units over the limit. Simply remove the excess and the body is able to function properly again. Part 3: New Additions With the proposed changes to addictions, there would be a prime opportunity for new chems, both of the medicinal and addictive varieties. Specifically, however, I would like to offer two new medical chems for consideration with the changes. The first is being called "Fixer" (yes, that is a Fallout reference), which would offer respite from withdrawl effects for the duration it is in the body. It would be an addiction-breaking aid, designed to help stave off the harsher effects without taking the addictive chem and undoing your progress. The second is being called "Cold Turkey" (working title, may change), which would speed up the decay of addictions at the cost of unpleasant side-effects. This could be given to help break addictions faster, but comes with a list of possible side-effects including brain damage, stamina loss, toxins accumulation, vomitting, diarrhea, loss of vision, flatulence, loss of motor skills (confusion), and in rare cases death. Both of these chems would be mixable via chemistry (recipes to be decided), and the Psychiatrist would also start with a pill bottle containing a couple doses of each in his locker. This would give the Psychiatrist a new roleplay opportunity as an addiction counselor, which should help them feel more useful in an actual mechanical sense. Feedback and Comments are appreciated!

The segway is currently broken (no known plans of fixing it), same for the snowmobiles on the old clown planet away mission (now removed). I would assume that ATVs would be a reskin of the snowmobile in terms of functionality, and thus would suffer the same issues. The vehicle code is horrible from my understanding, and most if not all discussions about it tends to result in "it's not worth fixing" or "SS13 wasn't meant to work with vehicles properly". Look at the ambulance cart of the paramedic: it simply acts weird and isn't really "better" than walking.

Today, we're in for a real treat! I am streaming today's Pathfinder session, STRAIGHT FROM HELL! Link: http://www.twitch.tv/falseincarnate

You have no idea how much it bothered me to see myself getting karma when i was still a fresh admin. I had already pretty much unlocked everything I truly wanted (IPC and mechanic), plus then got everything else with my admin rights. It was somewhat sad to see that people were giving me the karma instead of someone else who could really benefit from it. I'd give that out if I could, but I can't.

These areas actually already have "coated reinforced walls" which gave them a far higher threshold (if not outright immunity) to being melted. That said, the wall melting was a very annoying mechanic that I am not sad to have seen removed. Further, wall melting won't really give you the excitement you want, since there simply just aren't many fires to fight that aren't outright grief (plasma flooding/fires), so bringing back wall melting won't really change that. That aside, I do want to see fuel tank wrenching re-introduced, as it was largely removed due to ZAS and the wall-melting (both of which are now long-gone) and was a "slightly" less destructive source of fires.

People should be attempting to play their selected/given role to the best of their ability without the incentive of a reward. Failing to even attempt at this simply means you are knowingly and intentionally wasting the position. Many rather crucial jobs such as engineering and medical simply will bring the station to it's collective knees should they not even bother trying to do their job, so there is already an expectation that they will rise to the demand. Awarding players karma automatically simply for doing what they should be doing in the first place would water down the system and truly only end up rewarding the long-term players as they will have the obvious advantage in pure number of shifts played. While rewarding a player who does an exceptional job at their role would be a nice thing for admins to do, it still is a matter of determining what is "exceptional" for that admin, same as it is for any given player. As multiple posters have previously stated, Medical tends to find themselves on the receiving end of karma VERY often, simply because people are grateful to the competent doctors for keeping them in / returning them to the round. Security faces the opposite side of this, since an officer doing their job is temporarily (sometimes permanently) removing a player from the action of the round, and many people don't feel inclined to reward them for that, despite them doing their job just as well if not better than the doctor who just sewed their body back together in surgery. I would like to see the admin team awarding karma to players more frequently, but the difficulty is doing so in a way that prevents people from doing things specifically for the karma. The system is indeed a bit difficult to get going with, but establishing a consistent character with a defined roleplay tends to help immensely. Also, as previously stated: Don't set out with the goal of earning karma. Set out with the goal of having fun, helping others have fun, and teaching people new things. If you ever find yourself with someone new to the job (or the rare assistant who actually wants to learn and assist with jobs), be kind! Teaching someone a new job not only earns you their respect and gratitude, but also is a decent way to get karma. The largest reward, however, is that you have helped someone else enjoy the game better, and likely have just earned yourself a loyal IC-friend, and a very grateful OOC-friend. These seemingly small relationships help cement you as a good player, one deserving of the recognition that karma brings, and also can be incredibly useful when it comes to pulling off antag deeds. TL;DR: Don't set out to earn karma. Set out to have fun, help others have fun, and teach people new things. The karma will come to you if you do.

I don't know why the ratios are as they are, perhaps a port, perhaps keeping true to the real drink ratios (where applicable). Tweaking the numbers is possible, though we can also adjust the result amount like how it is for some Chems. 30 units of ingredients could result in 25 of the end-result, for example. Alternatively, pad the remainder of the glass with water/ice/booze and they will only know if they scan the reagents. Though most people won't care if they get 45u of a drink instead of a full 50u, as that is one fewer sip that they likely will spam anyways.

EFTPOS stands for Electronic Funds Transfer (at) Point Of Sale. Effectively, just a card reader like some associates carry at various retail stores to handle payment anywhere. There is nothing in Space Law OR Standard Operating Procedures that states the crew does or does not need to pay for services/goods from other crew. Most people don't do payments simply because it's a hassle, and that it usually results in the person demanding payment getting robbed of their goods/machines and/or robusted. In the past, I have attempted to run the bar as a "cash bar" as a bit of an economic "experiment" where I charged something like 5 credits per glass of non-alcoholic drinks, 10 for alcoholic, and then like 25 or 50 for a bottle of booze. One time, the heads drained everyone's accounts, so no one could afford to buy drinks (pretty sure they dumped it all in their own accounts), so the experiment failed and no one could buy anything from any vendor (i think Engineering ended up hacking all the machines to spit out their contents so people could still get chips and such). The other time, the station exploded because of a very successful nuke ops. I haven't played bartender much lately, so I'm not sure how it would go over now... Giving the chef an EFTPOS wouldn't be a bad addition, could easily sneak it into their kitchen crate in the freezer, right next to the box of mousetraps and sundress.

More Gateway maps is definitely something we want to look into adding, which will provide both new excitement and help reduce the chance of missions like the beach being selected. Largely, the issue is a lack of suitable maps that provide an interesting yet balanced challenge vs reward. For example, the beach is literally a perfect example of low risk, low reward. The swimsuits and a freely accessible mini-bar area are the reward, and the only significant risk is that an admin possesses a crab and makes it MAD, or that someone comes along and bashes your head in with a bottle of booze. The higher the challenge of the map, the better the reward should be. However, the challenge also needs to be balanced, which the ironically named "Challenge Map" was not. Most people would rely on exploits and other "cheap" methods to complete it for the reward, which was largely useless to the general crew since you weren't supposed to go around gunning people down with the LMG as a non-antag in the first place. I have somewhat discussed/joked about making gateway missions that are effectively boss fights / arenas. Upon arrival, you'd be safe until you "opt-in" to the fight by pressing the start button or something to that effect. This would give a large challenge that could be balanced towards a multiple-man team or smaller ones designed for a solo combatant, as well as a place for science to LEGALLY use all those guns, mechs, and maybe even bombs that they've been stockpiling all round (we all know you're doing it, science. you're not fooling us!) in non-validhunting or self-antagging ways. I'll talk with some of the other coders/mappers/admins about developing/finding some new maps to add into the cycle, because the gateway missions are definitely beginning to get rather stale.

It's an interesting idea, but my main concern is that it would be TOO simple to get something like this. Given the utility of this proposed fish, it would need to be fairly uncommon/difficult to obtain, to avoid people simply rushing one in the first 30 seconds of the round. Perhaps if/when we return xenoarch, the eggs for this fish could be a potential find? Would make it less commonplace, and actually be a usable reward.

I may increase the amount of rice you get per unit of plantmatter in a rice stalk when you grind it in the reagent grinder. Currently, a standard (round-start, no mutations/modifications) rice stalk, when ground, results in 5 units of rice. This same stalk, before being ground, contains 1 unit of plantmatter, meaning you get x5 the amount of plantmatter as rice. Boiled rice, a simple recipe using rice, requires 10 units of rice, meaning you need 2 stalks to make a single serving of boiled rice, which is then in turn used to make a single serving of sushi. Should you be wanting to make Tamago or Unagi sushi, you will also need more rice in order to produce the needed sake which is used to cook them. This quickly adds up to needing quite a bit of rice, and as such, number will likely be adjusted (either via a higher multiplier for grinding rice, lower requirements for recipes, or more plantmatter in rice to begin with) in the next wave of food additions.

As a frequent medical player (probably my most played department after atmos), I can say that the operating computer definitely could use some love. About the extent that I use it is to quickly check the blood type of whoever I slapped on the table in the event that they have a low blood level so I can hook up an IV while I slice them open. It also can tell you if they are unconscious, which seems kinda useless when you can just examine them. A stationary anesthetic pump or a console listing steps/active surgeries would be far more useful.

Deep fryers weren't made construct able like the rest of the kitchen machinery because (at the time) it was an old machine with little true use. Prior to my update which made the grill, oven, and candy maker operate like the microwave, only microwaves were construct able. Now that the deep fryer is beginning to get some meaningful uses, I'll look into making the deep fryer both construct able AND upgradeable. Processor too, if it's not already. A completely buildable kitchen should let civvies/engineers really repurpose maint bar or whatever... Assuming the science nerds give you the parts!

So much Italian, so little garlic on station! Some great suggestions, I'll look into seeing which of these would make good additions. We already have a rice pudding recipe actually, though it's rarely made. A number of these recipes would either need decent tweaks (berry instead of strawberry, or coffee instead of espresso, etc) or new items/reagents, but that's not a huge issue!

Great suggestions! I'm already planning on changing the raw spaghetti item into a generic "pasta" so you can make things like macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, and eventually more such as fettuccine Alfredo and so forth. I definitely encourage more suggestions, recently we added sushi (with plans to add more). Chefs having the option to cook more in a "theme" like a Japanese sushi house, an Italian restaraunt, and so on would be great opportunities for RP.

Rice stalks will grind into the rice reagent, not plant-matter. The grinder has a special override where each unit of plant matter in a rice stalk becomes something like 6-10u of the rice reagent. All sushi recipes currently should be requiring the boiled rice food as an ingredient, I believe he was getting and grinding fried rice for the rice reagent. This is not an ideal source, but an alternative should you be stuck with 420 dank botanists. But as Skittles pointed out, grinding rice stalks does result in rice.

Additional ambiance tied to specific areas is definitely possible, though as Spacemanspark mentioned it would significantly increase the downloads for players as more are added. However, ambiance tied to situations is much more difficult, as those are far less concrete and code-able. For reference, your example of high-effort jobs would be quite difficult to handle. A paramedic is able to be considered both a high-effort and a low-effort job (depending on shift), same goes for security. It's much more reliable to tie the ambiance to an area (see: space and maintenance tunnel music/ambiance). The extra download time/size, however, is a valid counter-point.

Actually, whenever the chef messes up their recipe and creates a burned mess, that contains carbon among other things. Hydrogen is definitely a more difficult one to obtain though. I definitely can support salting the salted pistachios, if only to make things actually sensible.

Committing crimes is not against the server rules. Murdering and other self-antagonizing crimes (like grand theft, which typically covers stealing antag objective items) are, though on the grounds of breaking the rules regarding excessive violence and self-antagging more so than because you broke an IC law. Back to topic though... The implementation of an entire system entirely centered around the bathrooms would be best designed for a much higher RP server than ours. The bathrooms are there, and if you want to roleplay needing to use the bathroom after a particularly long time enjoying the bar/kitchen, that is your choice. Forcing players to use the bathrooms, however, begins to border on the potty-humor side of things (especially if you were to punish failure to do so with "accidents"), which is a topic which we have dealt with in the past when it was decided to remove things like poo and fart sounds. The bathrooms, in their current state, are left included more for the sake of roleplay options, antag use, and generally to help the station feel slightly more habitable (and less empty). A system designed around them would be, while realistic and so forth, a poor fit for our playstyle and community.

The bathrooms actually function fairly well for nefarious deeds, such as hiding bodies, stolen loot, or the clown. Toilets can be used to hide items, and a locked up bathroom stall tends to go unnoticed. It also has a rubber duck.