Kyet

Feb 1: lightfire53 has unretired and is once again a Game Admin

Jan 29: dearmochi added as PR Reviewer

There's a big blue Discord button on the right of the forum homepage. I've also added a Discord button to the navigation menu at the top of all forum pages.

I don't really see any upsides to doing paperwork. Just ask the department head over PDA: "(name here) wants a transfer to (job here). Yes/No?" No answer within 30 seconds? Or "no" as an answer? Request denied, tell them to pick another job for transfer, or go bother the department head in person if they really want that job. Usually the head will PDA back immediately, but even if you have to wait 30 seconds, which is not typical, then you can spend that time dealing with the 2nd person in line, so its not even wasted time. As HOP, nobody ever challenges the transfers I do... but if they ever did challenge one, then I could simply show them the log of the PDA message where the department head approved it. There's really no good reason to use paperwork as HOP. Its much slower than just using PDA.

Paperwork is a waste of time, and HOPs should not be forcing anyone to do it. If a HOP needs another head's approval for a job transfer, it is far faster to get it by radioing or PDAing that head. Takes seconds, where making people do paperwork takes many minutes. Really, when I see a HOP forcing people to do paperwork, the only conclusion I can draw is that they're a jerk who enjoys wasting other players' time.

Nations was axed completely because it was god-awful. It required an EXTREME amount of babysitting by admins and even then typically turned into all-out war due to the actions of one idiot in each department. Nations as a game mode was so bad that the only time admins would reliably use it was when a new admin had just joined the team and we wanted to haze and torment them as much as possible for their first shift as an admin. Its primary use was literally making admins suffer. There were one or two admins who'd also force it as an event, but this was rare, as it typically required 2 admins minimum to commit to devoting 2 hours to managing the round, one to manage ahelp tickets and another to manage the nations stuff. Neither admin could play in the round. It required that much supervision. Revolution is not in rotation for various reasons. Its not really that well developed, and has a lot of gimmicks (like for example, if a head enters a locker even for a few seconds they count as dead for the rest of the round, without knowing it). Xenos are covered on another thread. Basically they can't be a round type since they're not balanced for that, and not very fun or balanced in general. Terrors are still in active development (by me) but I don't want to make them a game mode. I feel they're better as a late-round event that allows for intrigue/RP earlier in the shift while confronting the station with a big threat late-game. More generally I favor modes like traitor (which allow both action and RP) over game modes that instantly degenerate into team death match. Cult was massively updated recently. Traitors (the game mode) is probably the game's default mode. Shadowlings are going to be patched/updated, not removed. That's the plan, anyway. While in theory new game modes would be nice, it is an IMMENSE amount of work (both design and coding) to make a new game mode that's actually fun. Per the latest Paradise Community Survey, Terrors are a close second (after Traitors) for the most fun antag type to fight against... but it took literally years of work on them to get them to that point. And even then, they're not a game mode and I'm against making them one. Arguably making a new, original, fully fleshed out game mode would take, at minimum, MONTHS of work even if it was simple.

Xenos are in the code, but their round type is not in active rotation. The reason is that they're not well balanced or fun. If the online admin(s) are prepared to go the extra mile in making the crew suffer, though, they can be a late-round event. They're not in active rotation even for that, but its still possible for admins to force the event.

Jan 14: Denghis has joined the team as a Server Dev

Too OP. Effectively lets you kill anyone on the zlevel at any time. Even if you're on the other side of the station hiding in maint. With a single kill objective, you can just write their name 60 seconds before the shuttle docks at CC, guaranteeing a greentext in the most boring way possible. With hijack, nothing stopping you from just copy/pasting the entire crew manifest into it to give the entire crew heart attacks at once. From an admin point of view, aside from the silly balance implications, I'm also not looking forward to the ahelps that go like this: Them: "why did I die?" Us: "what did you do?" Them: "tried to kill someone with the death note" Us: "What did you write" Them: "(theirname) must die! [sign]" Us: "..." Them: "oh. can I get a revive?" Us:

The following people have been added as mentors: octagonalfridays (formerly golfboy) sabreml shmabu boppybear dommygaming henriquekill9576 norstead peakperformance carthusia bormac balthusdire sirryan2002 matttheficus woje Thank you to everyone who applied to be a mentor.

Dec 21: Thatdanguy23 has retired from their position as GA. Dec 28: BryanR has unretired, and come back to their position as GA.

I think botany is already ridiculously overpowered, and requires severe nerfs. I'd be against buffing them in any way, killer tomatoes or otherwise.

This is a good guide. The only area I feel it could improve in is that it focuses too much on paperwork and not enough on PDA/radio. As an example, if you go into medical and see that nothing is set up correctly (no meat in cloner, cryotube freezers not on, etc) then instead of writing a lengthy report, you should instead probably just PDA the CMO. You don't need photographic evidence - they can see for themselves. You don't need a form, or a statement, or paperwork of any kind. You can simply say "Hey, (important thing here) is not being done", and if they're decent they'll reply "fixing it now". Most SOP violations, indeed most issues the IAA deals with, don't require paperwork of any kind, and by insisting on using paperwork you're slowing the resolution process down and reducing your effectiveness. This may still be worth it to you for RP reasons but... the more you use paperwork as IAA, the less effective you likely are. Your first avenue for dealing with most issues should probably be a direct message to the relevant head of department. Ideally over PDA so its announced with an audible beep, and saved in their messenger, so they're less likely to miss it. If, despite letting a head know about issues in their department multiple times, they either ignore you or outright refuse to care about SOP in their department, that's when you contact the Captain. You don't even need to do paperwork for this either - you can simply hand them your PDA with a record of the conversation. There are times you truly need paperwork as IAA. Such as faxing centcom in a last resort situation. But MOST issues don't need paperwork to solve, and paperwork is probably the least efficient method of dealing with them. A minor second note: as IAA you should not be passive. You should be regularly touring the departments and inspecting them. The only time you should be in your office is if you're interviewing someone, reading a transcript from a computer, you need to AFK briefly, or you're meeting with the other IAA to divvy up who will take care of what. There's this myth that a good IAA is always at their desk - but rather like with HOPs, its actually the opposite. Sitting around all day at your desk accomplishes nothing. You need to be out there.

Mentor apps are now closed again. Thank you to everyone who applied.

Assuming: You are referring to the recent change whereby initial terror spiders spawned directly by an event, go to a random candidate from opted-in ghosts instead of the first ghost to click them. You're being serious, and this is not a meme post. You haven't read all the previous discussions on this topic (I'm NOT expecting you to have read them, I'm NOT blaming you for not reading them, I'm just mentioning this to explain why some of the rest of this post will be familiar to other readers) Then: The change was made by me (author of terror spiders), after being convinced that randomizing it for initial spawns would actually be better than the old system. Many, many people have given their feedback/preferences on this topic over time. I only changed it after considering the matter for a very long time, and getting a lot of player feedback. It was NOT a change I did lightly. A lot of thought and consideration went into it. I was fully aware some people would be unhappy, but I stick by my belief that I made the right decision. At this point, I am not going to change it back. While I would object to anyone else extending it to cover the rest of terror spiders... if I decide that would be a good idea too (and I very well might decide that at some point in the next 6 months), then I will make that change myself as well. Basically, I'm sorry you don't like it, but its here to stay, and you should get used to it, because I may decide to extend it to cover all other terror spider spawns in future.

I'm not sure how this would work given that different borgs have a variety of sprites, and sprites may have different models/sizes.

I don't think that would be popular, because (for example) some people are really only interested in playing one race, or one job, out of the karma unlocks, and forcing them to unlock a bunch of other stuff first before the unlocks they actually want would not make them happy. It would also require completely re-coding the system to be karma-score-based rather than having a list of unlocks per person.

You could still: - Buy A, play A, refund A - Buy B, play B, refund B ...etc With the effect of being able to re-use your karma points a large (but not infinite) number of times. Bear in mind: - I'm not arguing that the karma system is good. I know it is deeply flawed. I've been thinking about ways to reform it but I'm probably not going to get the chance to implement anything on the subject in the near future. - I specifically do agree that its a bit... potentially a let-down to buy something you thought was cool but then it turns out to not be cool. Especially for stuff like races where you can see how they look but you can't really understand how their mechanics feel without playing them. - Unfortunately the two things that are karma locked, jobs and races, both suffer from this problem (potential mechanics you don't appreciate until you play them and feel them). And its somewhat unavoidable without very major changes to the system. - I'm willing to consider changes to the karma system, but like everything else its up against the other >100 PRs on github in terms of priority for dev time. The chances of improving it go up if we can identify a change that is small (both design/code wise) but improves the experience for players significantly. Adding refunds is not really like that - its too complex a topic.

Letting people refund any karma purchase would make karma meaningless. You'd just use something until you were done, refund it, buy something else, use that, refund that, buy a third thing, etc. A more sensible idea would be to let anyone try a karma thing (job/race/whatever) for one shift by paying a fraction of its unlock cost. A sort of limited cost try-before-you-buy thing. But even that is probably out of scope. Jobs are a bit easier than races - you can observe other people doing them. Races are very hard to deal with karma-wise as you can't meaningfully try them first and its hard to know if you'll like them before you play them.

SOP for Gamma Alert has been changed. Essentially: SOP does not apply at all during gamma alert. Sec can do whatever they need to do to ensure the safety of station/crew. If you interfere with people dealing with the emergency (e.g: sec, command, ERT) you can be detained. If you physically threaten such a person, (e.g: by pulling out a weapon) they can respond with lethals. If you actually attack such a person, they can field execute you on the spot. Don't be the idiot who thinks it is cute to drag people away from ERT, or try to disarm them, during Gamma Alert. As of this SOP update, they are clear to perma you for the former, and execute you on the spot for the latter. Gamma Alert can only be called by admins, and typically is only granted for exceptional threats. If Gamma is declared, treat it as a sign from the admins that the whole crew needs to pull together if they want to survive.

Mentor apps are now open. See here for info & how to apply: https://www.paradisestation.org/forum/85-open-mentor-applications/

Nov 25: MrSynnester was promoted from Trial Admin to Game Admin RadiantFlash retired from Trial Admin due to lack of time

The following changes have been made as a result of head discussion of items brought up in the 2nd community survey: The "Repeat Offender" space law modifier is now +10 minutes, instead of the old +5 minutes. Combat implants (anti-drop, CNS rebooter) are now considered "restricted weapons" under space law, which means that scientists giving themselves or other people such implants without authorization is grounds for the person who gets the implant to be charged with major crime 304 possession of a restricted weapon (10-15 minutes). The person who did the surgery may also be charged as an accomplice. Admin policy is generally that if you are an antag, you can ahelp and ask for easier objectives, and admins will generally grant this. However, exactly which objectives you get is entirely up to the admin. Notably, if you want harder or more objectives, you generally have to emag a fax machine, fax the syndicate, and ask. Mentors and admins are now allowed to use the new #Help voice chat channel to teach newer players the basics of the game. This includes answering "how do I X?" or "what does Y mean?" questions over voicechat. We trust mentors/admins not to use this to metagame. Newer players are allowed to join this voicechat and ask questions if any mentor or admin is present. Please don't use this channel for general chit-chat, keep it reserved for its intended use. The ability to get game help over voicechat has been proven helpful for many games, so we're adding it here for a trial period to see if its helpful for Paradise.

I wasn't going to butt in, but wow, you really goat me there.

IAAs should usually deliver their reports to the department heads, not to the Captain. If an IAA feels a department head is ignoring their concern without good cause, then they can go to the Captain, but at that point the Captain's concern is the department head not managing their department. Not the original issue. Captains can ask NTR or IAA to investigate something, but they're more likely to ask the NTR (if its serious enough to warrant the Captain's attention, it almost certainly involves a department head, so asking the NTR to look into it is appropriate). The one case where a Captain should be referring matters to an IAA is if a regular crew member comes to them with something that's sub-head-level, e.g. Chemistry isn't making medicine. In that situation they can tell the person to inform the IAAs and/or CMO. While the Captain can in theory check up on a department remotely, simply walking around it and checking it out in person is vastly faster and more efficient. If faced with an unresponsive head, first step is to ask the AI to locate them. They might be dead somewhere. Or SSD. Or just busy with a crisis. Or AFK. If they're alive/etc and active, but ignoring the Captain, send them a couple of messages to give them the chance to respond. If they still fail to respond to an order from the Captain, then order them demoted under the "refusal to follow orders" clause. The key thing here is that it has to be deliberate - getting distracted by your work is not generally enough to get demoted, by deliberately ignoring orders from your boss is.