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Here is the proposed TO-DO list for Paradise, based on the 2nd survey. The goal here is to provide a list of practical, helpful proposals for improvements to Paradise based community feedback. This is based on the second survey discussion notes and data.

Obviously, in our version they'd be separate offices. They'd just be connected to the same "service" corridor.

From an admin pov, my main concern with psych is the fact that a good chunk of the time, it is played by players who are absolutely bald, and decide to kidnap someone, straightjacket them, and force-feed them drugs. Because that's what they think is appropriate for a psych. I've had to ban more people from psych/medical for this than I care to remember. As such, any mechanic which psychs can abuse to detain people for long periods of time, or really at all, is probably not a good mechanic. If we're going to give psych a mechanic, something they can use to make the job more interesting/relevant, then I would suggest: something detection-based, like the ability to use an item to scan for abnormal brainwaves, which could reveal things like vampire thralling, mindslave implants, etc. This would require a unique neural scanner, them to hold still for 30-60 seconds, or something like that. Enough constraints that the psych can't mass-test everyone. something to do with curing psych abnormalities, like for example reversing abductor programming, or effectively giving someone a mindslave implant that makes them loyal to NT (OOCly, this is a reward for traitors, who get to be released 'on parole' rather than sitting out the rest of the round, as such this implant would be extremely limited supply, only one is available and only the psych can use it). have a system where people can opt to give their character mental disabilities, not just physical ones, during char creation (e.g. syndicate-induced PTSD) and have the psych able to dispense unique drugs to help with these... and have a unique HUD that lets them identify people whose medical records show they have these conditions (basically make it easier for them to find rp partners) Really, we should consider just removing the straightjacket from the psych, and giving it to sec's medical wing. Psych is meant to be treating patients on a voluntary basis. Patients sent to the psych against their will should come exclusively from security - not something the psych should be able to engineer themselves.

I've been thinking about a terror spider game mode for ~3+? years since they were added. Right now, I think they're better as a late-round event. We already have enough team-deathmatch game modes (nukies, blob, shadowlings, etc). SS13 is at its best when its about mistrust, paranoia, suspicion, and only a minority of gameplay is team deathmatch (after everything goes to hell). So, terrors are really best suited to be a late-round event which dramatically ups the difficulty, not a round-start thing. Also, from a development point of view... I've put an enormous amount of work into getting terrors to the standard they're at now. I'm really not keen on trying to balance them for BOTH roundstart, AND late-round event spawns. Its complicated enough to balance them as-is.

Hello everyone. Back in April, we paused our Patreon for a month, and instead encouraged our patrons to donate towards real-world charities aimed at helping the victims of COVID-19. Now, with COVID-19 on the rise again, and winter expected to be difficult in many countries, we're pausing our patreon again. Only this time, we're pausing our patreon for the remainder of 2020: November and December. During this time, existing patrons will continue to get their perks, but won't be charged anything. We hope that our existing patrons will consider donating to charity instead. We suggest charities related to helping tackle COVID-19, or help its victims, but there are plenty of lists of good charities online, such as this one by CharityWatch.org, or this one by GiveWell.org. We're sure you can find a worthy cause to donate to. Note that due to the way Patreon works, any new patron who signs up during the pause will still be charged for at least one month. This is an unavoidable consequence of patreon handles pausing. Remember, the coming months may be stressful for many people, but you can help. You can help by donating money to charitable causes. Even if you don't do that, though, you can still help by remembering this is a difficult time for many, so making an extra effort to be nice to others goes a long way.

I've rewritten much of the IAA job page: https://www.paradisestation.org/wiki/index.php/Internal_Affairs The major differences are: Now covers new mechanics, like the recently added procedure radio channel. Now has much easier-to-read format, with bullet points. Now explains that IAAs are perfectly encouraged to wander the station and check up on the various departments, notifying that department's head if the department's jobs are violating SOP/etc. IAAs shouldn't be sitting in their office all shift. Now provides more/better guidance on various special (but common) situations, like working with the Magistrate, NTR, etc. Also about things like faxing CentCom. Now gives much clearer guidance on what constitutes misconduct for an IAA (acting against NT's interests), when you can ignore them (major emergencies, if necessary) and who can demote them for misconduct (Magi and Captain). I'm now volunteering to maintain the page, so if there is anything I have missed, please message me and tell me.

Runechat is now merged, and in the game. For more information, see the Guide to Runechat.

Here is the proposed TO-DO list for Paradise, based on the 1st survey and subsequent threads/voicemeetings. The goal here is to provide a list of practical, helpful proposals for improvements to Paradise based community feedback.

Some tips: Verify command is actually alive. During hectic rounds, they might be dead before you notice. You can check via suit sensors. Think for a moment about how busy the department is. If the brig is under attack, the HOS is probably in a firefight, and not even looking at their chat window. So they won't hear anything you say. In these situations, try again in a few mins. If you need to get the heads to report in, station-wide announcement is best. Partly for the 'ding' it makes. Partly as it appears in large font. You can also PDA message them, which has a 'ding' as well, no large font, but it will stay on their PDA until they look at it. As a last resort, you can send the Blueshield on a mission to find and check on a head if they aren't responding. Another option is PDAing the IAAs or other roles that provide oversight (IAA, Magi, NTR) and ask them to help you check on the heads in person.

I'm not sure this guide is helpful. There are lots of things it says that are just not accurate, at least for Paradise. For example, This is not at all how we look at rule-breaking. Most people who break the rules do so for one of three reasons: They're a new player who never read the rules, possibly just assuming the rules are the same as the last game/server they played They're a less new player who is trying out more serious roles (like command) for the first time, and haven't yet learned the ins and outs of what is expected of these higher seriousness roles They're a veteran who just had a really bad day, was drunk, or otherwise had a lapse in judgement and did something that, in hindsight, they recognize they should not have done. Griefers make up an incredibly small proportion of rule-breakers. I could cover a lot of other things in this guide to a similar level of detail... but suffice it to say this guide says a lot of things that are inaccurate, at least for Paradise.

August 10th: Esenno, Friality, Doc, and Tourte have graduated from TA to full Game Admin Sept 5th: Vargh has unretired and is once again a Game Admin Sept 9th: BryanR has stepped down from the position of Game Admin Sept 22nd: SteelSlayer has joined the staff as a PR Reviewer.

Here is the writeup of the notes from the meeting on Saturday (9/12), where we covered the results of the 2nd survey (Special Issue Paradise 2020 Community Survey). Goals were figuring out: What the survey told us What it means What we can learn from it / improve based on the results This meeting ran from 1:45pm to 6:20pm, or about 5.5 hours total. Notes are from the voice meeting plus editing a day later to reflect opinions in the survey's freeform answers. Please post your commentary/etc here. This thread will run for one week, to enable everyone to have their input, before I look to try to consolidate it into a list of TO-DOs. This time, the meeting notes are color-coded, with various colors standing in for potential to-do items (e.g: green means something we can address with a PR). A legend for what the colors mean is included at the top.

Survey data: here Announcement: here Doc discussing results: here Post your commentary/suggestions/etc in this thread please.

Quick update: New forum skin is now applied for everyone. Old skin is disabled. Discord integration has been patched, confirmed to work, and is now re-enabled.

Update: I've replaced our old custom skin with a new one. The new custom skin should have almost all the same colors and features as the old one, but is from-scratch redone to be 4.5 compatible, and is vastly easier for me to maintain. You might not notice any difference. Extremely observant people might notice some subtle color or styling differences. Discord integration remains disabled for the moment, as fixing that requires an update from the plugin author.

I ended up building a new skin for the forums, based on IPB defaults, but with our colors, and manually importing each of our major changes. With a few CSS overrides, this should solve 99% of issues with forum colors/templates.

test test test

The following issues have been addressed: Logo is cut off Navbar is unreadable When creating a thread, title input box text is unreadable Hidden posts are unreadable

Post your issues here.

The forum has had a major update today. Here's what you need to know. For the next few days, take backups in notepad of any post you are about to make. While I don't anticipate having to revert the forums, it is possible, and I don't want you all to risk losing any posts. For the next few days, Discord integration will be disabled. Due to the new forum software not being compatible with old templates/CSS, you may notice a lot of weird visual artifacts on the forums. Report these (or any other forum-specific bugs) in the 4.5 report thread here.

I don't think Magi+HoS+Captain=>Parole is a viable system. Its hard enough to convince even ONE of those people to grant parole, let alone ALL of them. The reason for parole going off the Magi alone is that Magi is supposed to be the final authority on space law on station... and unlike the HOS, the magi is there to ensure justic/fairness for all, including prisoners. The HOS should in theory do this, but in practice they often fall into the "play 2 win" mentality whereby they'd just never grant parole to anyone ever.

Options for discouraging that include: ICly, specifically say that the EOC must have been caught to be eligible. EOCs that turn themselves in unprompted are not eligible for parole. OOCly, add an advanced rule that says EOCs who turn themselves in at shift start get antag-banned, since if they don't want to be an antag they should be ahelping to get the status removed, not turning themselves in roundstart and giving away the game mode instantly. Either way, it seems like a solvable problem.

From: https://www.paradisestation.org/wiki/index.php/Legal_Standard_Operating_Procedure#Parole Current requirements to get parole: If someone is an EOC, OR has committed a capital crime, then parole is only allowed if authorized by the Magistrate or Captain. They should not authorize this unless it is a serious emergency and the parolee is expected to help deal with the emergency. For example, a non-violent syndicate engineer may be paroled to help fight a blob. For all other prisoners, Magi/Captain/HoS/Warden may authorize parole at their discretion. They are advised to consider how severe the prisoner's crimes are, how co-operative they have been with security, and whether or not they are expected to commit any further crimes. Proposed new requirements to get parole: Prisoners guilty of capital(5xx) crimes are only eligible for parole in a serious emergency, with the authorization of the Magistrate or Captain, and the expectation they'll help deal with the emergency. For example, a murderer may be paroled to help fight a blob. All other prisoners, including EOCs not guilty of a capital crime, can be paroled at the discretion of the Magistrate/Captain/HoS/Warden. When considering whether to grant parole, consider how co-operative the prisoner has been with security, and whether they're expected to commit any further crimes. In parole decisions, the Magistrate can overrule the Captain/HoS/Warden, the Captain can overrule the HoS/Warden, and the HoS can overrule the Warden. What this changes: EOCs who have committed no capital crime are now easier to parole. The idea is that if someone is brought in for trespass and found to have an emag, they can now be paroled, have their PDA/emag confiscated, and get a second shot rather than being guaranteed to spend the rest of the shift in perma. This relies on them being able to convince the Captain/Magi they won't re-offend. Basically it allows traitors/etc to be depowered (stripped of contraband, uplink, etc) but remain somewhat free, rather than always going to perma for the rest of the shift. This isn't automatic - it relies on them being able to convince Magi/Cap/HoS/Warden they deserve parole. The idea is that this reduces the incentive for EOCs to go full lethal against sec, and vice versa, as being caught by sec is no longer a guaranteed round-ender for the antag.

Here is the writeup of the notes from the meeting on Sunday (Sept/6), where we covered the results of the 2020 Paradise Community Survey (the 1st survey, link here) and tried to discuss them and figure out: what the survey told us what it means what we can learn from it (ideas for improvement) Please bear in mind that this meeting ran from about 2:30pm to 9:30pm, and while the last ~2 hours were social, that still leaves ~5 hours of discussion in voice with a huge number of people about every topic under the sun. I wrote up these notes the next day, attempting to capture as much as I could from the meeting (what I wrote down at the time, plus memory) as well as factoring in summaries of what I gleaned from the survey data reading over it again the next day. So, here it is, the survey meeting notes. Post your commentary/etc here. There will be another meeting this Saturday to try to tackle the second survey data.

Per the announcement, this thread here is your chance to post your thoughts/feedback/commentary on the results of our first survey. Please try to be concise, and stay on topic. This thread will run for one week, before I look to distill an action plan from the comments made.