Dinarzad

A fair point, but not one really related to this particular issue. Whether or not an SSD-Bot exists an takes you into cryo, the issue you've described with AFK players being totally unprotected is still gonna be the case. I would be in favor a suggestion to perhaps alter the rules a bit, but that's not really what this current thread is about.

Except it takes more then just a few minutes for Cryo to ghost someone, it's more like the range of 5 - 10 minutes. It can be assumed if you were willing to join the round, you were willing to play the round for it's duration. Real life happens an shit comes up, so you gotta AFK, that's fine. But there's a -world- of difference between AFK and SSD. AFK players don't show up as SSD on examine and it's easy enough to hide in a closet to -go- AFK. AFK players would also be unaffected by the bot, since it only goes after truly SSD players, afaik. SSD are flat out disconnected from the server, and if they are gone for 10 minutes, odds are they are not coming back very quickly, and other people would be more then happy and willing to take that job slot or it's an important slot that needs to be occupied ASAP (Captain, etc.) Bear in mind also, the Bot, last it was discussed would wait 3-ish minutes before hauling an SSD person into cryo, that basically gives someone almost 15 minutes to reconnect to a server. IF you can't make it back in 15 minutes, then you need to let someone else have a turn and try again next round. But NOT taking SSD players into cryo, people are essentially flipping the bird to late-join players. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've logged in mid-round, and wanted to play medical, only to find the slots are all filled up. So I just observe/go Civvie and lo and behold, like 3 of the 5 doctors are SSD and just laying in the middle of the floor. And they don;t come back until maybe 30 minutes later. If accidents happen like a power outage, then let's be honest, you weren't gonna make it back into the round sooner then 20 minutes. If you just have to restart BYOND, you'll be back in the round before cryo is a problem. If it's a computer error that hits that unfortunate sweet spot, well... That's unfortunate, but again, being honest just how common is that? and while unfortunate, there's always next round to join in again when your PC won't be a butt about playing spessmen.

Eyyyyyyyyyy Personal Opinion time: The main goal should be giving Atmospheric Technicians something to even do to begin with. And I don't mean this in the age old "sped linda plz" Because even with that, Atmos Tech would still have no real job to speak of. The short an sour of it is: There is no real NEED for an Atmospheric Technician right now. Vents do a perfectly acceptable job on their own of refilling a room's atmosphere, Scrubbers usually do their job a-okay as well. The only times an Atmos Tech truly NEEDS to leave the Motherland of Atmosia, is in the event of very large scale disasters. A large scale plasma fire needs techs to be out an about, actively moving portable scrubbers and air pumps in order to get an area habitable again before 2018 hits, but a regular ol' hull breach or even small scale bomb? Typically, as long as the pipes are still there, all you need is a regular engineer to patch the wall an then just... let atmospherics take care of itself. At worst you fiddle with air alarms in person, but usually you can do that from the Central Computer. I think we need to figure out if there's even a -need- for Atmospheric Techs to exist as their own job, is there enough reason to justify it's own slot, compared to just making it an Engineering Alternate title, similar to what was done with Xenobiologist. As for ideas to flesh out the job and give it things to do/reason to be, that's gonna be hard without fiddling with Atmos code itself, since unless atmospheric things happen that require a technician dedicated to them, their job is just as easily done by a standard engie. Honestly, the best I got is a random event chance for a fire to break out somewhere (Can say faulty electronics or wiring in a department/maintenance tunnel have started an electrical fire.) That at least lets Atmos techs do their side-job of being the Spess Firefighter, and fires make hot gasses, which would also give Atmosia some work and reasons to make more efficient cooling loops/waste loops.

^ This The null rod itself is fine, but some of the alternatives you can turn it into add other stuff that make it... interesting. Both for good and for ill (No-drop is a double-edged sword for example.) Then you may as well remove the alternatives because nobody is ever going to take anything BUT a Null Rod. Imagine playing Chaplain, making your lolzy gimmick set up and then finding out it's a cultist round. Congrats, you just deleted the only way to clean runes away, just to fuck off a bit an have a giggle. The features of an NR are super important, balance wise. Making the alternative skins, into just that, skins, removes some of the other problems and preserves the Chaplain's intended role of being the guy to handle the spoopy supernatural end of things.

On top of this IPC Self-repair was nerfed recently as it is (Albeit a small one) If they use Welders/Cables on themselves, it is no longer an instant application but has the same use time as someone applying gauze an ointment on themselves. So you not only have to target every single part individually, but each application takes 3-5 seconds. It's not like they can just instantly be made whole once more nowadays even if they have the welder/coils to do it.

Then don't go to space for long periods of time. That's part of your downsides, you're reliant on electricity. Diona also need light to survive and maintenance is full of darkness. And yet it's not really a problem, nobody says maintenance should be super bright, because that's jsut part and parcel of playing a Diona. IPCs can also use a cyborg recharge station, so slap one on the white ship and problem solved

Not really. Think about it, Science nerds research stuff all the time, both in-game and IRL. But it's usually not scientists that bother themselves with production of those items, that falls into the job of an engineer of some description. It also gives Engies something to do when the station isn't being blown apart, work on machines and "Tinker", go upgrade and supe up various departments with better parts. Or just make personal projects and machinery. Science already kinda fucks off an does their own things, Telescience, Xeno-bio, Toxins and would still have the protolathe. Just doesn't pump out the stock parts. Science is the brain, the Research. Engineering/the Mechanic is the Brawn, the Development.

I would argue it's in -addition- to what they do now. Think of it like Robotics. If Robotics was nothing but Mechas, waiting for science to research the circuits and waiting on mining for supplies and competing for them with RnD, it'd be a -way- less popular job. Because unlike space pods, you'd just have mechas you couldn't even really use for yourself, aside maybe a Ripley. Giving the mechanic the job of implementing fancy doodads means there's a dedicated job for it. Scientists rarely deign to give them out to anyone but medical an maybe the kitchen. Mechanic gives them out all over and in his off time works on space pods an shit.

Personal suggestion/preferance would be to use the Goonstation/VGstation version of the mechanic http://ss13.moe/wiki/index.php/Mechanic But that's just me.

pls. 'm pretty good with all these, I think they just need a tiny bit of tweaks. Mostly being, not silver doors. Stands out awkwardly and I could see science nerds running around deconstructing them all for free silver at round start. Normal airlocks, glass airlocks or wooden doors would be preferable. But in either case +1

IPCs in general are in a pretty solid spot. The one spot I have ever felt they are sort of crazy is the EMP issue. There should not ever be a point and click solution to an entire race. Even the Diona, arguably the most powerful species in terms of mechanics, don;t die from a single application of plant-b-gone. They're ROYALLY fucked, but they're not immediately "Shit ded lol" EMPs being an anti-IPC weapon, is fine. Makes sense. But a straight 'u ded nao' button is a little bit silly. You could easily have EMPs be the "Sleepy Pen" for IPCs, which would mitigate some of their near immunity to chemicals and give traitors a viable option to subdue them before doing the work. Or hell just have it do fuck tons of damage, but not an outright death, either one doesn't matter so long as there is ACTUALLY some fucking gameplay involved and not 'i clik mah button so u ded.'

As far as I know, Xenoarch is pretty RIP. I think -some- changes are coming, but as I recall the person who was working on it, came out an said he was gonna release what he had done after Feature-freeze, but the ultimate goal he had in mind either wasn't gonna happen or was gonan be a massive project that was really kind of infeasible. Maybe someone can dig up the threat, but Yea, Xenoarch is -kinda- RIP.

There's a point where you also have to tell those Coders who knee-jerk to grow a thicker skin. There is a world of difference between context of "Easy" in the comparative sense and "Easy" in a definitive sense. To continue the mechanic analogy, The work he did may not have been "Easy" in the sense that he breezed through it. But it was definitely easy compared to some of the other shit he has to do/could have had to do on it. Ergo it -was- an 'Easy fix' Lots of respect to people that use their valuable time an effort to code fancy stuff an bug fix for the server, something I probably could never do even if I took to the time to try and learn how, but I'm not gonna stop using the word "Easy", because that is the appropriate word to use when something is less difficult then another more difficult task.

That would be "cool" ex. if you middle-click on someone while holding a weapon, you point at him and a reticule appears on him? Precisely. Pretty much. I know it was talked about for a bit, but other stuff kinda came up. Last I heard, it was an idea for -just- the target/reticule effect, no aiming. That way in a single click you were basically giving an RP sign, that you were guns out and aiming at someone. But as I said, other stuff happened and it never got traction.

To be fair, in my personal experience, The rest of Science treats robotics like a red-headed step-child. The amount of times RnD actually bothers to come upgrade anything in my lab, I can count on one hand. Hell, they don't even ask me for mech parts to speed research along anymore. They just kinda do their thing, and I happen to unlock blueprints in the process.

Problem there is the time it takes to type that out, and people have a !!FUN!! habit of ganking people while they're typing, especially if it's also gonna fuck over a Sec Officer, cuz how dare they try to have fun. And in a world of 1 hit stun battle changers, that's a sadly big deal. 's not make or break either way, 's just the closest we ever got to a compromise on the feature.

Wasn't there a talk about essentially re-implementing the ability, but with ONLY the reticule effect? So no auto-fire, but a visual reticle over someone for people to more visibly be like "Imma shoot you if you don't settle" RP stuff?

Genetic injectors are not instant application injections. The issue is not the ability to inject people, it's that autoinjectors are instantly applied. You click, and it works. There is no fighting it off. It is a mini hypospray, like the CMO has, only full of epinephrine instead of Omnizine. And anyone who has access to or needs more autoinjectors, is already in a position to have fairly easy access to Medical Chemistry or Science Chemistry, or they just buy an emag and walk into those places or an agent ID and steal the access, etc. Chems are already the single most powerful things on the station. From "Hellmixes" that can bring a character from 100% to dead in about 5-10 seconds, to Healmixes that do everything but mend broken bones. Instant application of those chems is a -powerful- feature, when you can also dictate what is inside of those injectors, one click and getting a shot of perfluro leaves you entirely mute. Means 1 click and a traitor has effectively taken off your radio instantly, long enough at least to either kill you, or click a second time with his sleepy pen/self-made sleepy pen autoinjector full of neurotoxin. It's really just not a good idea.

but what about stuff that don't make items like teleporting someone here or there? Or make them into a prince? Can't claim to know, I don't have much stake in this idea. I', neither for it nor against it. Just wanted to provide a link to a prior attempt at the idea as a sort of baseline on what it could do, and maybe some pre-completed coding (Though it being /vg/station means it would have to be tweaked to work on paracode anyway.)

https://github.com/d3athrow/vgstation13/pull/6300

Also this. There's no real reason to make auto-injectors with anything other then epinephrine.

Yes please! Or even things like trading via console, where the QM gets alerts about nearby ships looking to trade and offering a list of goods and things they'll accept in trade. I'm certain I saw something like that on another server once when I was very new to the game. Goonstation. That's how Goonstation's cargo works/worked. You have a "Station budget" (The same on the HoP is meant to keep an eye on) That Cargo uses to buy items with as opposed to points. Sending minerals and shit from mining, instead of awarding supply points, gives you money which is put into the Station's budget. So Cargo, as a department, isn't so much focused on ordering things for other people (Though that's part of it), but trying to keep the Station profitable as well as well supplied. Keep it in the black. This also runs along side a possible RNG event in the same vein as the power outage or spess fungus, that NT may, at their leisure, pull funding from the station to apply it elsewhere, meaning Cargo and Mining have to pick up the slack to make a profit and keep money flowing into the station's account so that they can still order things and function. Mining also has several minerals that are "Useless" but are worth a king's ransom when sold, Gemstones an the like. We could totally go to goon's style of cargo and I am -beyond- okay with it, but that's a BIG Overhaul and it'd take a lot of work.

Correct. Dionae are Pressure immune and do not breathe, even a PDA light is enough just to not die from darkness. ( I don't THINK they even need that, given how bright space is, but It's been ages since I played plantbro, do not quote me on this.) I think they also move faster when in space, like Hardsuits do, but again, do not quote me on this.

pls pls do this. Because right now, Telepathy being the same generic bluetext that appears whenever anything ever happens in the game, means it gets lost in translation a lot of times. I've seen a lot of people not even realize I was talking to them the entire time. I'm not much of one to hash out balance ideas, cuz Iunno it that well, but just some grammar and format editting on it would be great.

Yeah, all due respect, Fox, but half the things you're saying here, are not words that I said. I never said "Just turn it up lol" nor did I proclaim that "Maintainers don't wanna do it cuz fun nazis" That's putting words into my mouth. What I said was, Slow atmos was not the reason the game was suddenly smooth, it was another very big factor in server hardware upgrade, and that a fast atmos can still run smooth, a la /tg/. In fact I even -expressly said- I don't think Paradise can run LINDA the same way /tg/ does. Not right now anyway. Now, you wanna just make a general statement on "It's not that easy to fix", go for it, you're the maintainer. But don't make it sound like I just lolled on the floor describing how coders are anti-fun. tl;dr: I will stop going around making those claims, as soon as I start making them to begin with.