necaladun

I am so happy a cool story came out of what I intended as a 20 minute murderfest.

Atm, with 0 energy balls, the tesla seems to put out 3.5-5MW. Hotwiring has no real effect above 5MW, IIRC. I understand currently it won't change power being binary, but it'll at least allow power to go down to individual departments. One of the biggest problems is from what I've seen, there's really no effort to get a uniform idea of how much power should be generated and drained. I have no idea what areas drain the most power, and the amount various systems use seems random. Generation is the same, the difference between different engines is just weird. Getting each dept on it's own mini powergrid is just the first step, but would not just be great for sabotage etc, but mainly so that we can start to get an idea of the drains on each place, and variations, such as when cloning is being used, prisoners are running on treadmills, etc. Sadly there aren't that many things that use power in brief bursts that I can think of, except cloning. Recharge rates for chem machines, maybe?

Power! One of the biggest duties of engineering, is currently in a very weird state. There's a lot of sides of this, and I'd like some input about how terrible my ideas are, etc. There's a few parts to this, but my biggest problem with power right now is that it is essentially binary. Either the station has power, or it doesn't. We have all kinds of systems around power drain, amounts used and generated, but that doesn't really matter, because if the engine is up, there's more than enough. Power Storage: 3 Main Engi SMES. 1 Engine SMES. 2 in Electrical Maint, not hooked up by default. 4 Solar SMES. 1 in the Grav Gen 1 in the turbine. That's 12 in total. If they're all wired up to the SMES, that's 2.4MW needed to keep them all fully charged. Total load, once all APCs are fully charged, seems to be around...150KW. Enough for 1 SMES to handle. Once all the SMES are fully charged, then you could probably turn off the power generation alltogether and be fine, as long as it isn't super early in the round. Even then, I wouldn't be surprised if all 12 SMES, fully charged, could keep the station going for 2 hours. Power Generation: Tesla: 5MW. Minimum. Maximum? Well, at the end of a shift with the PA on 2 the whole time, you're looking at 120MW+. Stupid amounts. Singulo: ~3MW. There are all kinds of ways to get more, but there's no real point. Turbine: Maybe 50kw, with work. Lol. Solars: 45KW average I think, or might be 90. *4 is either 360 of 180. Just enough to power the station. The Tesla is off from the rest here by -stupid- amounts. There's lots of other problems I have with it, which i'll bring up another time, but the problem here clearly is that it produces more power than every other method, combined, when it starts. By the end of the shift (let alone with a PA at 3, or multiple PAs), it's producing 30-50x the amount possible from the others. Power Usage: How much power the station uses is hard to get an idea of. The bridge for instance uses 5kw, 4.5 of that being for the 15 computers there, 500w on the lights. Looking at the "load" on the grid with all APCs charged seems about 150kw. This comes back to the "binary" nature of power. There's no real use for it, except for avoiding a blackout. A proposed change, mapping only: Nerf the tesla power output for a start. 10x is the number I'm throwing out for a start. Then, so that a better idea can be gotten of power usage, and how to tweak it - create a small elec maint room for each major area, with 1 SMES in it, that feeds the entire area. (Bridge, Sec, Cargo, Service, Med, R&D). Main SMES units in engi would feed maint, main corridors, and then the department SMES. That'd be the "main" grid, with each other section being a sub grid. This would also allow for a lot more fun in sabotaging individual sources of power, rather than the whole grid at once. Powersinks could be tactically placed, and bombing the SMES for a department would have major effects for them. It'd also be great so we could see what the load from each individual department is, then tweak it for individual machines. If these values are all at the right levels, and there are some better uses for power (Shields, sci machines, cloning taking lots, etc), then we could get a cool system going with engineers rushing around to divert power to shields, etc, as needed. Sabotage becomes a lot more interesting, as does repair and customization for engineers. Bigger changes: This would be best to do after the above one. Create a limit on the amount of power normal wires can hold, and have a "main" loop grid with heavy duty wires, and have the departmental SMES units more like step-down transformers than actual batteries. Have engineering have a main (and maybe another backup?) SMES battery setup. This is mainly to avoid the problem with departmental SMES, which is that you'd be better off just bypassing them alltogether, and wiring the dept into the main grid.

The main downside to defibs, as said, is that they're still generally in a shitty condition afterwards, especially in regards to broken bones, etc. Overkill renders them unable to be defibbed often too, if you see someone with 500+ burn damage come in, rare as it is, it's often not possible to defib them. I do agree though that defibs are a bit too easy - death is trivial enough in SS13, so I'd be behind them being nerfed.

Stopping the station getting nuked means you protect all the heads at once. And honestly, no location except on a person is particularly secure.

I remember one of my faxes for asking new objectives. Had Steal RDs armor and escape on shuttle without being cuffed. Got Steal RDs armor, Hijack shuttle, Protect Jonah Bright (adminbus!) and Someone Violet. Needless to say, i started my killing spree with sec, after 2 sec down and 1 in crit, Hero Teebs the Pod pilot springs up out of nowhere and tasers. It all depends on what mood the admins are in. Ye could get just a simple Steal X thing, but sometimes it can go overboard and max out on the !!FUN!! factor. Believe that was me. If I can't think of anything else, I often just give a protect on every single other traitor, so you know who they are/can help them.

The thing with access is that it's not just about doors. Theft dictates that it's about taking things from areas one does not have access to, hence the blueshield having highly restricted access, because of how they abused it when they had more. I think it would make sense to either specify their access does not mean they can raid cargo/science for toys, and/or that they need the department head's approval for access to their department. You don't want the blueshield having access to robotics as RD? Your call, but potentially your funeral.

Feel free to ahelp me if you see me on for bussing to make it easier, not promising I will be able to or have time to, but if possible i'll help.

Yeah no need to make cameras obsolete. (Also the idea of a PDA that can not only send texts but also take photos? What next, phone calls? Too unbelievable!)

Edit: Some of the AI maintenance laws seem to be for the AI, which seems silly; the AI is of course not bound by SoP and thus defining what turrets should be set to, etc seems useless. I think it's more meant to cover orders here, and thus what people are allowed to order them to be set to. With some lawsets, the AI has to follow said orders after all.

I think they need a higher chance to be traitors.... because they're ANTagonists. please don't kill me

Sadly it would be a lot of work, but I'd really really like it to be a thing, even a palette swap! Having the possibility of different cults would be nice, as it's already mentioned briefly somewhere that cults of Nar-Sie aren't the only ones. Cult of Steve Jobs anyone? (in b4 scientology sue.)

We've been floating ideas around for different cybernetics, with different brands having different features for awhile, but so far it hasn't been properly sorted and balanced, nor coded. I like the idea in theory, but it needs more fleshing out.

The problem here is that the AI controlled ones will have the same limits, and aren't smart enough to go recharge or anything

To the Captain's "Security Duty" Guideline. Raiding all the sec lockers it is! Ooh, and I'll take that sec pod tyvm.

HoP: Something something paperwork not necessary but can be done but shouldn't be excessive?

Joke freeform laws like that I really think should be earned by the clown going really out of their way and taking a massive risk to upload them, not command staff. Apart from clowns, Ion laws are your real source there. Command staff should be acting like they're put in charge of a multi trillion dollar space station, not playing around with the equipment for their own amusement. It can also be a huge fuck you to the AI player, forcing them to RP in a way they want.

As a rule 0 or 1 for the Captain, "As the Captain, you are the utmost authority on the station, and represent NT. The highest standard of decorum is required. Your actions are not to bring NT or the station into disrepute. Captains are picked from the most trustworthy and talented of Command staff, and a Captain lacking these attributes is not fit to lead the station." As for Captain as security...I somewhat have to disagree here. They shouldn't be out patrolling, of course. But especially in low population rounds, the Captain may be one of the only people with brig access, especially if the only other office just got killed. The Captain shouldn't -have- to do security duty for sure, but that often isn't the case. Chasing down a clown for vandalism is over the top when there is a security force, but I don't see anything wrong with them detaining and dragging to the brig someone who has hacked into their office/the bridge, or is committing a crime right in front of them.

In response to the whole "Command having freedom" thing, I think that is too much of a problem personally. Heads of staff, and especially the Captain, are much more of a responsibility to play. Ultimately, the SoP here shouldn't restrict legit playstyles of Captains, but things like uploading stupid laws to the AI, going undercover as a clown/assistant, raiding the armoury so you can explore the gateway, etc, need to all be specifically forbidden.

Some lovely ideas here but that's a -lot- of coding work. Like, a lot.

I'd go one further and say not only should all command have the chance, but after it's done it's mandatory to tell the crew the new laws, and why. As one of the better HoS's, I'd quite like your input here. The main problem I find with the HoS becoming acting cap in an emergency is they're generally to damn busy dealing with said emergency to act as a Captain. However, having the authority is generally really needed then, especially if the RD is a ling, the CE a traitor, and medbay a shrine to Nar Sie. And yes, how -do- you step down a Captain, assuming they're not being charged with a Capital crime?

Revised Chain of Command: Captain-> HoS IF there is a security emergency, such as the Captain being killed, or code Red, otherwise HoP -> Other heads. ...honestly this is a very big change and might be out of the scope for command SoP and better discussed elsewhere

Woo! Finally. First of all - an addition to the forward. "Command roles are among the most important jobs and thus more heavily scrutinized by staff. Captain: 10: The Captain may not promote someone to a Head of Staff position without contacting the rest of Command and receiving their unanimous approval; I'd say majority at least. A single head shouldn't have a veto. 4: The Captain is not to leave the NSS Cyberiad unless given specific permission by Central Command, or it happens to be the end of the shift; Add, "This includes via space or via the gateway. To do so is to be considered abandoning their posts and is grounds for termination." HoP: 4. The Head of Personnel may not promote any personnel to the following Jobs without authorization from Central Command: Barber, Brig Physician, NanoTrasen Representative, Blueshield, Security Pod Pilot, Mechanic and Magistrate; Add: ((This is due to them being karma locked. Do not promote people to these positions without approval from admins.)). 5. The Head of Personnel may not give any Non-Command personnel Captain-Level access, period. Heads of Staff may only be given Captain-Level access if they are the Acting Captain. This access is to be removed when a proper Captain arrives on the station; Replace "period" with: "Without permission from the Captain." 7. Unless they are the Acting Captain, the Head of Personnel detains authority only over the Service and Supply Departments; Replace detains with has. Add: 11. The Head of Personnel has no authority to make arrests. The weaponry and armour is provided only for self defense, not so they can seek out combat. NT Rep: Detain should be has, once again 6. The stun-cane provided is for self defence only. The NT Rep has no authority to make arrests. 7. The NT Rep has no authority to demote or punish, they may only advise that such actions are taken. Blueshit: 5. The Blueshield may be dispatched to deal with lethal threats, with approval from the Captain or Head of Staff. This should only be done in a Code Red situation. AI Maint: The CE is also kinda meant to be included with the RD, iirc. 2. No Law Changes are to be performed WITHOUT full approval from the Captain, Research Director and at least one other member of Command (Blueshield excluded). The only lawsets to be used are those provided by NT. Failure to legally change the laws is to be considered sabotage. 3. Replace clearly with suspected to be. Add: 6. Freeform laws are only to be added with extreme need. Adding freeform laws without proper approval is to be considered sabotage. 7. Any use of the "purge" module is to be followed by the upload of an NT Approved set of laws immediately. AI Units must be bound to a lawset at all times.

Eh. I don't like using SoP for something like that. It'd be pretty shitty to fire someone for using it to do their job more efficiently. A better fix there would just be to not allow buckets in the machine.

New Cops round. War was declared. No gamma armoury, and Code Red ERT only called to help mop up. The MVP? Mulebot. 2 kills.