SkyPing

Huh. Well. Scratch Kidan then. We're all good with the Grey thing, riiiiiight?....Riiiiiiiiaiaaaaaaaaiiiight?

JACOB'S A REAL PERSON, OH MY GOD, CONFIRMED 2560, NOT A ROBOT. I legitimately never knew your ooc name until now despite months of searching. Jacob's essentially the person we name drop in order to gain +2 to argument viability. So welcome, we fucking needed you! [spoiler2]On a side note it's STEAM god dammit, long live Art.[/spoiler2]

It just occurred to me that the Coroners should probably do something with the unclonable dead's belongings. It's surprisingly easy to steal identification cards off of corpses. Maybe some sort of rule that states that the Coroners are to return the ID's of any uncloneable bodies to the HoP, or if need be, CMO? And maybe they'll need to ensure that any job specific equipment that corpses have be returned to their department? Hell, I don't think this rule will be followed all that often, but it makes sense to BE there.

If you play Grey, you know firsthand about how stupid the eye equipment looks on them. It's not inherently a problem gameplay wise, and you can still play and use your glasses/buds perfectly fine, but it just looks plain silly and it discourages greys to play a lot of roles (since a lot of the roles require eyewear). There is also a similar problem with face masks and hard suits. Kidans themselves literally can't wear ANY eyewear at all, which eliminates them from a bunch of jobs as well. It could be possible that they have some sort of custom glasses for each job (the lore for kidan reference the fact that working kidan have custom films over their eyes similar to contact lenses for protecting their eyes from mining; they could have huds installed? Vulps recently managed to have their hard suit Sprite adjusted so their tails poke through. Plasma men all have unique space suits depending on their role, etc. I don't see why Kidans/Greys can't get some love as well (except for lack of interest) I do want to see the Grey and Kidan races become more popular; I personally love both of these races already. I'm not sure how hard this will be to code, but I think that it would be worth it. Is anyone actually interested in this happening?

Introduction Welcome to Botany! This job is one of the most complicated beginner jobs available on the station, but one of the most rewarding to learn. This guide will go over the basics of Botany; how to grow plants, splice genes, and mutate stuff. This is not a guide step by step goes over everything you need to know or learn, but instead teaches you the basics so that you can have a better time experimenting with neat plants. I hope you enjoy! Your job Eh… The job description SAYS that, yes, but chances are you’ll spend very little time doing focusing on this, because of Botanists hidden job description Plants are surprisingly fun to dick around with, and you can do a LOT of really cool things by mutating plants and (creating freaks of nature) splicing together plant genes. For example -Starting a walking mushroom fight club with the winners get to savagely eat the losers -Re-enacting a NightVale episode by creating explosive LSD laced wheat -Summon an army of Killer Tomatos (All named Frank) -Crash the entire station (and the economy) via Money Trees -Start your own Medbay and implement instant heal potatoes Ooooor just get high off the Ambrosia, you fucking loser. Now, I would LOVE to teach you all of this stuff, but I… really can’t, as I’m learning myself. In fact, that’s also the main reason why this guide was so delayed. Unlike my Chemistry guide, I am NOT a master in the field I’m writing this guide in, and as such I would constantly learn new information that made everything I wrote obsolete (This is about my third rewrite). So what’s this guide going to focus on? Firstly, it’s going to focus on making your relationship with the chef SO much easier by implementing badass modifications into the chefs products. Secondly, it’ll introduce how you can begin modifying and mutating plants yourself! However, first things first; we have to make sure our plants don’t die constantly. Assuming you’re entirely new to Botany, read on! If you have an idea how to maintain plants by yourself, skip to the Xenobiology section of the guide. Part One: Keeping Your Plants Alive First off, in order to maintain your plants, you have to…..Groooow your plants! *Gasps of astonishment from the crowd*. All of your seeds can be found in the Seed Vending Machine, and the first thing you’ll notice is damn, that’s a lot of things I can grow. So what plants should I be growing? Firstly, try to limit yourself to maintaining only about 10-ish pods out of your potential 20-ish. The reason being is that if you try to grow too many plants at the same time, you are really quickly going to become overwhelmed. Here’s generally what’s good to grow. 3x Ambrosia Vulgaris, 3x Grass: *For smoking obviously* Reharvestable green stuff for your Biogenerator! All you need to know right now is that you can feed it leftover plants to be transferred into biomass, which in turn can be used to create neat stuff! Botany belts, Robust Harvest, even Monkey Cubes (Every job I do involves monkeys I swear to god) 1x Wheat, 1x Tomatoes: No matter what the chef is doing, they’re going to need wheat. Tomatoes are common ingredients too. But not only are these things good for the chef; they’re also prime candidates for learning about Gene Splicing! Don’t worry about genes for now, we’ll cover that later. 1x Whatever the chef asks for!: I mean, you’re growing food for them after all. At the beginning of the shift, ask them what they want grown. Most good chefs will have a list of desirable plants, but in the case of the ever common shitty chef (Or no chef), you’re on your own. By default, if I don’t know what the chef wants or if we’re lacking on, I just grow Rice and Potatoes as well as the Wheat and Tomatoes I’m already growing; for if a chef joins halfway through the shift or something. Awesome, so now you have a bunch of plants that are growing. Pat yourself on the back! Now you have to make sure they don’T FUCKING GET RUINED. So let’s grab the tools we’ll need to keep the plants A-OK. Hatchet: To kill your plants!....Wait, something seems off here. But no, you need to carry an axe on you for a few reasons, we’ll go over them soon. Find them in the lockers Mini-hoe: These things will remove any unwanted weeds without actually damaging your plant! Keep it on you at all times. Find them in the lockers Plant Bag: Hold all of your plants in one convenient bag! The easiest way to move your plants to the fridge/biogenerator. You can get one from the Nutrimax machine. There’s a portable variety in the lockers, which basically means it’s just a belt that’s awkward to use. Plant bags are better. Wirecutters: Click on a plant with these things and you get a seed sample. Which basically means a new pack of seeds. This means that you can fill up all of the tubs and then some with one seed packet if you keep getting seed samples from the plants. Insanely useful. In the hydroponics crate. Buckets: BUCKETS BITCHES. You have a shit ton of them and they’re used to carry your water/unstable mutagen/robust harvest/whatever you want! They’re literally everywhere. There are five indicators on the plant pods; and those indicators tell you about what’s happening to the plant. Let’s go over what each one means. Green: The plants fully grown and ready to harvest! Just click it with your plant bag and they’ll automatically transfer inside. Clicking on it with your bare hands will cause the plants to fall onto the floor. You’ll notice that some plants disappear after harvesting and some stay put. The reason being is just that some plants are reharvsetable, meaning they can be harvested forever. Through gene splicing, we can make all of our plants reharvestable, but until then we have to plant non-reharvestable plants such as wheat and rice all over again. All you have to do is toss a piece of the plant into the seed extractor, and you get three new seeds. Static Red: That means your plants health is low. This is one of the most worrisome conditions, since you’ll have to identify what’s killing i- OH WAIT, I’M A BIOCHEMISTRY GRADUATE WORKING FOR NANOTRASEN. I HAVE LITERALLY NO ETHICS, LET’S JUST KILL IT AND GET A NEW ONE. Use your wire cutters on the plant to get a seed sample, then bash the plant with your hatchet until it dies. After that, all you have to do is swipe the old dead plant away and using your seed sample to get a brand new plant! Flashing Red: That means we have some unwanted critters hanging out with our plant. They can either be weeds or pests. If you see any pods with the flashing red light, just use your mini-hoe on it. If that fails, run over to your Nutrimax machine and grab some pest-spray. They’re one time use canisters. Yellow: That means that your plant is low on nutriment and will need fertilizer. The best one for you to use is Robust Harvest, because it increases your yield. You can find it in the nutrimax machine, but you can also get it from the Biogenerator. Blue: Your plant needs water. Just grab a bucket, fill it up with water, and you’re done. Easy. Aaaaand that’s about all you need to know about how to grow the plants. You could honestly stop reading the guide here and avoid getting into the deep stuff. You could just be a simple botanist growing plants for the chef. But reading ahead will make your life MUCH easier in the long run, as you learn techniques to make harvesting stuff less of a pain. Also, things get much more fun. Part Two: Gene Splicing In the top left corner of botany, you’ll see two intimidating machines. One’s called the Lysis-Isolation Centrifuge and the other is called the Bioballistic Delivery System. You probably have already seen these machines and thought “HAH, fuck that shit, too hard!”. And perhaps you looked it up on the wiki to figure out what they’re used for, only to find NO INFORMATION on them. So let’s go over what these machines do, because once you start getting into the depths of gene splicing, your life is going to get SO much easier. Here is a list of genes and what they do. Biochemistry: This gene carries the data of the chemicals inside of plants AND the plants potency. Amazing for making death plants flash bang apples NOTHING ILLEGAL WHATSOEVER. I recommend using Glowshrooms in order to extract the best potency (fucking 30, man.) Output: This gene deals with Luminosity and Power Output for Potato Batteries. You might use them for glowshrooms, but besides that you probably won't be using it. Atmosphere: This gene affects how much heat and pressure the plant can tolerate... Jesus Christ, you will never have to care about this. Hardiness: This affects the plants tolerance to bugs, weeds, toxins, etc. A plant with a good Hardiness will live much longer. Metabolism: Affects how much Nutrients and Water the plant will need (The Blue and Yellow indicators). Not something you're likely to mess with. Vigour: Transfers over Production time, Maturation time, and Yield. A great gene to have if you want your plants to grow really fast (No more waiting 30+ minutes for your Strange Plants to grow)! I recommend taking Vigour from Wheat, due to it's low Maturation time and Production time. Diet: Affects how quickly it drinks it's Nutrients and Water. Also decides if the plant is Carnivorous or not; so it can eat it's own pests. Environment: Affects the... ideal heat and light conditions for the plants... Holy fucking shit that's boring. Pigment: Affects what color the plant is. It sounds REALLY useless, but it's nice to have a color differentiation so that you know which apples are edible and which apples will set you on fire, blind you, and teleport you into the nearest wall. Appearance: Affects what the plant looks like; for example a tree, stalks, etc. Sounds useless again, but it's how you can transfer reharvest onto your plants! No more having to fucking replant your wheat every 7 minutes! Take the appearance of apples, tomatoes, or weed, and you can make all of your plants naturally reharvest. Fruit: Affects if a fruit is stingy, juicy, or explosive. Yep. Explosive. If you get an explosive plant, using the fruit gene can make all of your plants explode. You're welcome. Special: This only affects teleportation. Get bluespace tomatoes and now you can make everything be teleporting abominations of nature. Why the fuck am I telling you people this. Let’s have some fun and make some simple modifications to some plants. -You know how annoying it is to replant the wheat, rice, and potatoes? Let’s stop that all together by applying the reharvest gene! -Wheat and Rices production speed, maturation speed, and yield are considerably better than those of Tomatoes, Potatoes, and most other plants, so you can go ahead and get the production gene from wheat and apply it to Everything -If you hack the seed vendors and get nettles, you can then make all your plants spikey with the fruit gene Don’t do this. -Order exotic seeds from cargo and get some illegal plants with weird ass chemicals inside them (Including green vomit, curare, and other weird things) Part Three: Plant Mutations So, you'll notice that quite a lot of the plants you can grow are decently boring. Carrots, wheat, tomatoes, grass.... none of these plants are particularly deadly, or explode violently, or will get you strange looks from passerby's. So where's all the cool stuff? Well, you toss a bunch of unstable chemicals onto your plants until they transform into something completely new (Obviously)! Take a look at the guide to plants. http://nanotrasen.se/wiki/index.php/Guide_to_plants Here is going to list all of the possible plants. Let's say we wanted to get Money Trees. First off, we need to plant a Lemon Seed, since Money Trees are mutated form Lemon Trees. I just realized that the guide to plants is incomplete... Regardless, let's get money trees! Get your lemon seeds. Next step, we need to get buckets of Unstable Mutagen! Unstable Mutagen is a chemical that needs to be created in chem dispensers. Therefore, we to bug either the chemistry desk in medbay, or the scientists. Its generally easier to get Unstable Mutagen from the Med Chemists. Try to get around 3 buckets of the stuff. Finally, pour twenty units of unstable mutagen onto your plant. There a random percent chance of the plant actually mutating; other times, the plant may get stat variations. Keep pouring unstable mutagen onto the plant until it finally mutates! Credits Thanks to Maxwell Edison, Gloria Leos, and E.V.E. for working with me and showing me various ways of working Botany Also thanks to Mijhead (or NYMPH) for basically answering every single question I threw at him with surprising detail. This guide doesn't cover everything, as I still have a lot to learn, but hey; now you can learn with me!

I mean....sorta? It's sort of more like discovery. The way I've always viewed it is that initially, when discovering powers, researchers had to actually find the blocks where the powers were hidden in. By that logic all of the powers and disabilities that you can acquire have already been discovered early on. As to why you keep having to rediscover the powers at the beginning of every shift... I like to think that the human body can't take the pressure of having genetic powers for extended periods of time, and they have to clean their body at the end of the day to not suffer any unwanted side effects. Then, at the end of each day, the blocks get mixed up in the DNA and you have to figure out which block does what all over again. It's not a complete exclamation, I might expand on it... I actually plan to write a short story on how all of these blocks were discovered and I plan to tie it in with my character's (Praxis's) backstory. One day.

OH, that belt looked like a glove to me "And why is there really heavy breathing coming from inside the ro-" "Well where the hells your arm?!" "... Uh.... Carry on."

Is the sec guard missing an arm?

Maxy and Praxy, leggo! I'll pay you in...I dunno. Krokodil?

The underlying problem is that many RDs don't demand the demotion of genetics staff no matter how badly they screw up, and a better fix for that would to make sure head roles, all head roles, know they can, should, and are expected to demote staff of theirs who violate SOP in ways that creates problems for the station and/or harms other crew. Yeah, that's already part of SOP, but I feel most command staff don't follow it. I get the feeling we're using the wrong tool for the job - we're putting all this effort into updating SOP when the existing SOP is often ignored. What makes us think that the updated SOP will be followed any more closely? Sad thing is, I'm not sure what would make heads of staff more effective at handling this sort of thing. Perhaps a more detailed "on join" message when they spawn, explaining exactly what their responsibilities are? Frequent reminders in-game are better than walls of text on the wiki. Back from auditions and TZO already says it, niiice. Yeah, this basically sums it up for me. However, back onto the MAIN topic, I still think that the combat thing should apply on green. That's a decent comparison, yeah, but the difference is that cars are useful for certain things, namely transport. Things such as cold resistance, long jump, heat resistance, and remote view all have certain uses for the crew-mates, but the problem and my main argument is... Power's which are explicitly used for combat (Hulk, Super-Fart, etc.) are like guns. I see absolutely no reason why walking around with hulk on is different than holding an active stun baton in your right hand. Using Hulk as an example again; even competent geneticists can accidentally destroy something with hulk on. It happens. A miss click is more than enough to destroy a wall or table. Most old time geneticists such as Jacob Ryals (of course I have to bring up Jacob's name again) simply just keep the hulk gene in an S.E. in their pocket, or holstered, for when he needs it. We already have laws that forbid security guards to walk normally with their stun batons upholstered on green, and because of how much damage hulk can cause even by accident, as well as things such as super fart, combat powers should get the exact same treatment.

I want to place a long response to this but can't since I'm in between music auditions right now. But I do quickly want to say that I fully agree with the notion that it's illegal for geneticists to have any combat powers (Hulk, telekinesis) outside of the lab, at least on green or blue alert. I have no idea how being hulked is in any way different than brandishing an activated stun baton in your hand. Even the better geneticists I've seen on the station that ARENT power hungry scumbags end up causing station damage with hulk on, even by complete accident. Sorry for going off topic; I just never found an appropriate time to state that opinion until now.

Name: VALKYR Age: 47 Gender: Identifies as Male Race: Integrated Positronic Chassis Blood Type: General Occupational Role(s): Physical Labor (Janitor, Cargo Tech, Shaft Miner, Quartermaster, Paramedic) Biography: [Clearance: Command] The posibrain was created by NanoTrasen in 2513 on the NSS Redemption, and was the first posibrain created that was not bound to the station by laws. Despite being a massive leap forward in posibrain research, the posibrain itself had a significantly low intelligence and poor problem solving abilities, along with having no control over its voice volume. A month after its creation, after going through several tests, the posibrain was deemed unusable. The brain itself was kept in secure storage aboard the station. Over the next few years, the posibrain, was often transported around the universe in conventions for NanoTrasen sponsors (in a soundproof glass box of course). In 2519, the ship that was transporting the posibrain at the time, the NTV Valhalla, was hijacked in a surprise raid somewhere close to the Tau Ceti star system. All of the crew members were sent back to Luna, de-brained, a week later. Further communication and research led the officers to discover that the raid was committed by a Grey space-pirate named “Grey Santa”, and his crew “The Elves”. Today, the crew and the organization behind the initial attack are refered to as ‘The Syndicate’, and the initial Grey that commenced the attack is referred to as Lithos. According to aftermath reports, the posibrain was named VALKYR and was attached to the ship as a makeshift, unbound AI unit. The relation between VALKYR and the space pirates appeared to be mostly positive, and VALKYR co-operated with the pirates during additional raids. The ship was finally tracked and shot down after 32 years of use by the Syndicate in 2551. A damaged VALKYR was recovered from the wreckage, but Lithos’s body was never found. A large court case panned out soon after to decide whether VALKYR should be charged for being a syndicate agent. The trial lasted for nearly two years before VALKYR was determined not-guilty. It took an additional year of re-education for VALKYR to be declared fit to work. VALKYR worked on the NMB Zenith on Mars as a miner, before it’s closure in 2559. In early 2560, VALKYR transferred to the NSS Cyberiad. [End Clearance] Qualifications: -Deemed fit for physical labour, qualifying him for the majority of Service and Cargo roles. -Currently taking courses in Law in an attempt to become a security officer. Whether he’s passing or failing is entirely up to how Ping wants to move VALKYR forward is yet to be determined. Employment Records: -NanoTrasen NMB Zenith from 2554-2559 NanoTrasen NSS Cyberiad from 2560-Present. Security Records: -No criminal records No recent criminal records. -Is believed to be completely loyal to NanoTrasen. Medical Records: -VALKYR has little regard for his own safety and wellbeing, often throwing himself in deadly danger to save a crew member. Whether you interpret this as heroic or stupid, just keep watching him. Personnel Photo (Appearance text): A tall IPC (Appearance pending) Commendations [only to be added by admin]: Reprimands [only to be added by admin]: Other Notes: V 0.9: Lithos'll be developed in the future, and of course I'll keep developing VALKYR. I have big plans for both VALKYR and Dorian right now. I sort of hastily threw this together so expect tha mistakes.

Wait, you can't fire Clean S.E.'s out of syringes guns?... Weird, why not?

Yeeeeeep, I was in the exact same situation about like, 3 months ago. To be completely honest, all you need to have is the attitude to learn. Chances are people will teach you/correct you if you stay positive and don't outright insult anyone. I managed to learn genetics, chemistry, medical, botany, rnd, and a bit of engineering, all from information passed down from more experienced players. In all situations I had no idea what I was doing starting out. Now I'm writing job guides. So don't be afraid to fuck up! Annnnnd welcome!

WATCH THE BLOBS NEXT TIME! -VALKYR <3

That's what that jumpsuit camouflage traitor item does, though. I guess what I'm saying is that I didn't like any of those gimmick objectives at all. Just kind of obnoxious and doesn't really make sense to me, to be honest. How do you think they make the chameleon jumpsuits? By hunting live chameleons of course.

This is gold. "CMO, we have a... slight problem." "Ah, perfect, I'm headed back from the Seminar now, what's the problem?" "We have some... bodies." "... How many?" "Seven." "JENKINS WHAT THE FU-"

That's basically where I was getting at. Right now the game mode sort of just says "Ayo, we're leaving you kids alone, have fun." If people were more inclined to kill at random, this might be more exciting. But save the random one or two greytides that go on a rampage, not much seems to...HAPPEN. Everyone tends to play a character that is somewhat sane, so things tend to work out like a standard extended shift. I'm not exactly sure what's happening with the nation rounds NOW though, mostly cause I tend to just cryo out of them when I see they're in progress.

Each nation leader gets a set of objectives, just like a traitor or other antag. Not sure what those objectives would entail. Might give the game mode a bit more structure. Feel free to bash on the idea, I literally just thought of it about 2 minutes ago.

Oh, found this on the CMO wiki page. Here's the link: http://nanotrasen.se/wiki/index.php/Chi ... al_Officer And here's the excerpt. I feel like it's relevant to the SoP and also the... like, 3 replies above me. I do think that separate SoP's for MDs, Surgeons, Coroners, and Nurses are good overall by the way, it's just that I think that the quote I placed should be put into consideration.

I actually sort of like this and if it was implemented correct it would be nice. I'm comparing this idea to the already existing Blue-Space Beakers. In chemistry, you generally want to finish the meds within 30-45 minutes of the shift starting; 20 minutes if you do chemistry way too much. By the time you finish the meds, patients would start building up needing the meds. However, if you're starting meds late, let's say an hour into the shift, then you're expected to make a TON of different meds in a short period of time to compensate for a possible patient overflow (which appear to be more common later in the round.) To make things easier, you can run over to RnD and get a bluespace beaker to triple your productivity at the cost of using up all your energy in like, 4 minutes. If an automixer upgrade had to be researched and wasn't available until about 30 minutes into the round, it would allow late joining chemists to catch up (If implemented properly of course) I gotta get to class and I can elaborate more on this later, sorry if I'm missing parts of my argument here or if overall I sound stupid.

I don't understand exactly what promotes unfun here, could you specify with a quote or two?

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!! *Pan to every available medical staff member in the virology lab, tossing around and smashing virus dishes to figure out what breaks them*

This is stupid. They're a slot-back item for a reason; if they weren't meant to be carried around, they wouldn't fit on someone's back. if doctor wants to forego his own backpack over having a defib, that should be his own personal choice; it's not a negative impact to anyone if he chooses to have one on him 24/7. Objection! Well, for the negative impact thing at least. The number one question always asked in medbay is "Where the fuck are the chemi-" Wait, wrong one. The number two question always asked in medbay is "Where the fuck are the doctors manning the de-" It's SOMEWHERE, I swear. The number six-sevenish question always asked in medbay is "Where the fuck are the defibs?" There we go! Out of experience, people possessing their own defibs tends to cause problems. The main reason for this is because if defibs are missing, doctors have to spend extra time running around trying to find either A. A new defib somewhere in the surgery rooms or B. Someone that HAS the defib. On two separate occasions, that extra time meant that I couldn't revive the patients within 10 minutes. This was mostly a problem back in Nov/Dec of last year, and it got to the point where CMO's were actually firing people that had a defib in situations where they didn't immediately need it. It seems to have worked somewhat, since this problem really hasn't come up at all [spoiler2]for me personally[/spoiler2] in 2016. To summarize, there is a very prominent negative impact to carrying around defibs when you don't need them: that negative impact being that other doctors won't be able to find defib's when they do need them. The issue should probably be discussed further before any changes are made. Quiiiick edit: This is mostly cause of trolls, but they should probably be something that we should be aware of anyhow.

OH. Masks SHOULD probably be mandatory or recommended for Coroners for the purpose that they handle corpses. Throwing up everywhere isn't fun.