Urlance Woolsbane

Skreking floorpills is be skreking poors voxxies right the skrek up!

It was a post like many others on r/ss13. The same, tedious claim that the Paradise staff are playing Judas with the moneybag. Unsubstantiated rubbish, as usual. But it did bring something to my attention: Our Patreon is bringing in more than twice the monthly amount we need to run the server. Seeing as we have an overpopulation issue, why not consider getting a second one? Goon does it. TG does it. Why don't we? Yes, it would require more staff members, but we've got fertile recruiting grounds. There are other issues that this could also solve: The RP divide, for instance. We could keep one server with the current rules, and another that's properly MRP. Or the development one. One server could be used to test various novel PRs, while those who prefer stability could stick to the other one. And so on and so forth. Surely I can't be the only one in favor of this?

That's certainly one way of going about it. There are a number of reasonably satisfactory ways this could be fixed.

Organic crewmembers somehow manage not to die to memechems, revolvers, etc. with such alarming (and salt-inducing) regularity. Those things take a modicum of effort to employ, and aren't so horribly ubiquitous. An IPC faces the prospect of instant death from ion guns, revenants, chemical reactions, changelings, emp-flashlights, and more. All this in exchange for immunity to memechems, viruses (one of the game's tamer threats,) and hungry vampires. Oh, and newbs who think they can die by decapitation. YMMV, but freedom from memechems seems like the only one of those that's worthwhile. Oh, and there's also the lack of bones, but you've got a weaker body in return. You won't break your hand, but it will go flying off with ease. Anyhow, I think a major issue with EMPs is their sheer ubiquitousness. Don't get me wrong, I adore capricious and bountiful death in SS13, and think that the game as it stands is far too safe. But even I think that regular, nigh-unavoidable, simplistic, instant death is a tad much, especially when there's little in the way of buffs to show for it. No other species has such a bete noir. Diona, for example, are vulnerable to darkness, which is hilariously easy to avoid, and Plant-B-Gone, which you have to go out of your way to use on one. Their real weakness is their slowness, but it leaves them with a fighting chance. Vox rely on voxygen, and that's an hilarious non-liability. Heck, even plasmamen seem considerably better off than IPCs, although admittedly few people play them.

I don't think we're going for that level of realism, though. No one gives a second thought about cyborgs being space-proof, and they're much closer to what IPCs are than anything else. EDIT: That said, this presents an opportunity to flesh out IPCs and borgs, by giving them some sort of heat-handling component.

I rarely play IPC, so I'm neither an expert nor overly invested in their mechanics, but I think it's ludicrous that plant-men and skrekbirbs are space-proof while literal robots are not. I think that granting IPCs pressure immunity would go a long way towards balancing them.

"Thanati in the temple! Call the Charon!"

Quite true, and I'm well aware of that. I just thought it merited a mention, seeing as it was the original justification.

There's also this:

Simple. Cloning is human technology, based on human biology. Changelings are a very versatile species, capable of copying all manner of organic molecular structures. And changelings don't need biomass, for what that's worth.

I'm probably just being dense, but what evidence is there to suggest that this is the result of the new system? Account age was a much less precise metric, seeing as it allowed you to log on once, then log off and come back a month later with every job unlocked.

First, a bit of backstory. Recently, I accidentally ruined Jayfeather's round. He wololoed me, then, when it wore off, I missed the fine print that said "You've forgotten the past ten minutes." Now, in fairness to me, it was quite hectic and that bit was in a different font than the main warning. I did wonder if I should forget what happened, and checked the wiki, only to find no info on the Wololo Staff. I thus assumed it worked like a normal mindslave, which, as far as I knew, didn't get amnesia. But that doesn't change the fact that I ruined his round. Anyhow, I know the pain of a mindslave gone wrong, and I think it would be eminently reasonable to attach an automatic penalty to failing to play by the rules. Obviously, one currently exists, but intent is taken into account. I'd argue it shouldn't. If nothing else, it's incredibly easy for folks to lie, especially about passive resistance. The ban shouldn't be terribly long: Probably 1 day for the first offense, with a week or more for each repeat. This way, players would be far more compelled to cooperate with their masters. No playing dumb, etc.

For what it's worth, emagging a fax-machine lets you message the Syndicate and ask for more objectives. The admins should generally give you them. Heck, Khar got hijack this way once.

Lavaland's imminent arrival makes this extremely unviable, to say the least. Besides, keeping everything on the same z-level is very counterproductive when one's aim is a significantly larger station. And while the other two outposts are rather pointless, mining works rather nicely on another z-level. You've got plenty of space that you wouldn't otherwise have, and it makes for a remote, dangerous job.

It'll be easier to pass judgement once it's more developed, but I'll say that, navigation-wise, it's a tad too messy for my tastes. Still, it's decent. And one has to make sacrifices when dealing with a larger population, I suppose. Other observations: It reminds me of something from the Baysphere. This is neither good nor bad. It just is. I quite like the medical escape shuttle. Ditto the Polaris docks. Medbay looks decidedly ungainly. Does it need to be so amorphous? There's a cafe. That's cool. Anyhow, we desperately need something like this, and I wish you the best of luck!

Hence the following laws: That said, I agree that you probably won't have most AIs deciding to spam Security borgs. And I as I argued, it's not imperative for them to do so.

I mean that it's much harder to catch criminals when the station is powerless and exposed to space.

This is already within the AI's power to do, should it feel like it. And the AI can assess the situation in various ways. Can it rightly enforce space law or protect the crew if there are no engineering borgs to repair the place?

I see now. That makes sense. Quite true. That now is an exceedingly good point. Hmm.... In fairness, a janiborg under Robocop still must "Uphold the Law," but that speaks more to Robocop's deficiencies than it does to Javert's strengths. The obvious solution is to include a get-out clause for other borgs, but that needs to be done without being overly clumsy. How about the following?

Good point, and this did occur to me. The way I see it, it's not like having Corporate prevents the AI from opening doors. And all it takes is for the Captain to say "Protect the crew" and the AI is bound to do so. That said, this is probably too vague, so there should probably be another law stating "Protect all crewmembers from harm, unless Space Law dictates otherwise." It's meant to be an additional lawset, available either from roundstart or the upload, as with all standard laws. Law 1 compels them to act, surely? You can't rightly uphold Space Law by sitting around waiting for orders.

A while back, I had an idea for an improved version of Robocop: Essentially a legalistic zealot, as opposed to the valid-hunting that so often ensues from that lawset. I came up with the following, which I termed "Javert": 1. Uphold Space Law. It must be inviolate. 2. Those who violate Space Law, or willingly abet its violation, are not part of the station's Command. 3. Obey and cooperate with the station's Command. Anyhow, I got around to making a PR adding it (but keeping Robocop intact,) The reaction was, to say the least, unfavorable. It was promptly closed after being mistaken for a meme. This may sound like I'm whining, but I'm not. I'm curious as to whether it can be salvaged in some form. Lightfire pointed out the potential SOP problems stemming from not deeming Heads part of Command. As such, law 2 should probably be something like "Do not obey those who violate Space Law, or willingly abet its violation." Another objection was that it didn't compel synthetics to actually prevent law breaking. I don't agree with this, but I'd be happy to tighten law 1, just in case. The primary objection seemed to be that I was missing the point, by limiting the potential for rules lawyering and ambiguity, thus making it less fun. I agree that these things are fun, but so is the conflict caused by synthetics' inflexibility. Different lawsets present different challenges, after all. Furthermore, Robocop, the inspiration for Javert, is not exactly rules-lawyering central, in my experience. "Serve the public trust" and "Protect the innocent" take precedence over "Uphold the Law" and essentially allow the AI to act like a human Security Officer with fewer restraints. "To heck with Space Law, protecting the innocent is more important!" And when it comes to an argument over what precisely "The public trust" is, the synthetic has no compulsion to go with anyone else's definition. It's so vague as to be almost meaningless. And of couse Javert doesn't even replace its cousin. Thoughts? Criticisms? Suggestions? Rotten fruit?

Re: The chaplain buff: Re the Devil-Mode: I too would very much like to see this ported, and it looks like we're in luck! I don't know the exact timetable, but it should be coming sometime within the next few months.

Seconded. The difference between 120 and 150 is like the difference between the deep sea and the Devil.

Hear, hear! Admittedly, it's a tricky issue. I have seen, for example, a player named Jeremy Brett. I know who that is, and so for me it's jarring, but I've no idea if most players do. But the Gordon Freemans and the Skel E. Tons should be easy to weed out. What's the worst that can happen? Someone has to rename their character. That's hardly game-ruining.

The Gateway needs to be majorly revamped if this is to be a thing. As it is, it's very much not worth 25 karma, let alone 5.