flimflamm

Ive taken to grabbing a communication rune and sending out a single message early on with my identity my word and instructions not to blow cover until we have words, also to reply with their identity, their word, and to not use PDA messaging, which they always seem to fucking do . But I hate having to do so because it wastes one of the precious starting talisman points. If my cover isn't blown by an anxious mask popping lights ontop of me or randomly dropping construct shells on me, then it's another cultists PDA'ing me. Cover is extremely important for cult until they get research and some numbers, and anxiety runs high in cult members because they always (at least me) feel so disconnected from everyone else even if you have a stack of coms talismans in your pocket. The mask is seldom on the ball enough to actually coordinate, and has a good chance of not knowing how even if they had the mental energy. I wonder how hard this would be to pull off code wise.

When people see glowing runes, they tend to blabber. Once the cult is discovered it's not so easy to get away with conversions. Mind shield implants are being used by valid-hunters. Just last night after a failed conversion attempt (due to mind shield), the dude stood up when the stun wore off, pulled out a signalling device, and blew up the toxins bomb in his bag, killing myself and two other cultists (which ended the cults chances of success due to widespread incompetence within the cult) You say cult is the easiest to play but it's actually the hardest. 1/10 players at most seem to know how to do cult research, and most people cannot read the wiki fast enough to learn it in a single shift. Don't get me wrong, cult is probably the most powerful antag group because of the ridiculous shit they are able to do with clever magic station tech combinations (see: infinite golem cult army, humanized monkey cult resurrection, rune teleport network, etc...), but they are pretty much the most complex, making the learning curve the biggest challenge facing any cultist. The real reason why as cult you cannot 'rule the station' with only the convert rune is because everyone you convert is more likely than not going to not even want a tome, and if they take one they are likely to have no idea how to use it properly. Better communication is actually probably the very best solution for this, as even mentors and the mask can hardly be arsed to consistently tutor novice cultists up the curve. This would also enable group research (two cultists working on the same word discovery from opposite ends of the tome notes). How many times have you seen the cult dominate the station without using nar'sie to do so? Constructs remain ineffably underused, advanced tech and open cult warfare seldom appears, and when it does is lack luster. All because people are ignorant of the possibilities.

EDIT: I wwanted to see how hard it would be to actually pull off the coms network bit, so I have attempted to rework the pray to nar'sie ability into a communicate with cult ability by adapting it along with a piece of code from the communicate rune. Here are the results (a coder who could look this over would be much appreciated (the red is the shit I added or changed, the light blue are my minimal annotations): I'm not positive, but I may or may not need to include this line which comes from the communicate rune (not sure if i grabbed the line that actually produces the message) : I'll try to keep this short and sweet. I heard tell that cult is being reworked by someone, but until then these two suggestions could drastically alter how cult rounds play out, possibly for the better. Suggestion 1: Make "Commune with other cultists" (communicate rune) an inherent spell available to all cultists. Reasoning and justification: other antags have dedicated communication and they still have trouble organizing. At the beginning of rounds when organization is most important, cultists have a laborious and costly mechanic to communicate, or else must go off hunting for other cultists on foot or do do cult research somewhere alone. This way strategy can be discussed, coordination achieved, early words will surely be shared (instead of a noob cultist not sharing their words cause of ignorance), and essentially this gives cult a really big leg up to help them act more quickly early on and achieve more complex stratagems. rather than just get 9 cult and summon nar nar. I have little doubt that this change would be simple code wise. Suggestion 2: Instead of only three cultists at the start, the number of starting cultists could be a formula based on population. 3 cult against 120 crew members is a very tall order. Up to 80 players 3 cult would be enough, then for every additional 20 players, there could be one extra starting cult player, but without any additional unique words (so they still only get three words to start). This change might not be so easy code wise, but i reckon it's far from impossible. In summation these two minor changes could drastically impact how the cult plays out. Infinite communication would allow experienced cult players to directly tutor novice cult members as well, which in and of itself could tip the scales. Thoughts?

You make some really great points here... There are a bunch of mechanics that leap to mind that ideally I would like to build in to the box items I'm attempting to create: - boxes would be created by applying an ID card to a special item named "compressed personnel box" (or something), which would apply the job tag to the box sprite and name and title tags to the box object name, perhaps making them track-able on camera networks as well. - cardboard boxes currently have 10 hp, making them very easy to destroy (normal closets have 100 hp). I would increase the hp of the personnel box to at least 40 and have it be made described as constructed from plasteel or metal - When an electricity based stun or tazer bolt hits the box, it should electrify it and simulate a stun by rendering the occupants temporarily immobile - When these boxes are examined, an "external bio-sensor display panel" should relay the same information on the occupants that would be displayed if they were examined normally in full sight - Doors could be opened via the access of the box's occupants It's an interesting challenge right? This thread makes playing as a shadow in a box seem way more OP and functional than actually trying to play as a shadow does... Indeed being inside a box does not make shadow people heal, and to be honest I am worried that if they did then they would begin to lean toward the OP side. I'm still working on learning how tiered object codes and functions work in BYOND code, but if I can figure it out I will try to implement this function to the custom box code for testing... To be honest I mostly wanted to see how people would react to the idea. I've made some pretty questionable suggestion threads in my sparse SS13 career.... Realistically I think I'm hoping for a re-work of shadow people and or for possibly the implementation of these boxes (as an admin spawn only item most likely) because even though they are snow-flakey as hell, I find them entertaining and it would be neat to have possible access to them as I live out my own shadow-box gimmick RP lifestyle... Regarding your final objection about OPness in maint, you're ignoring the fact that even in dark environments, simply having a flashlight turned on and in your pocket is enough to absolutely dominate a shadow person. You can chase after them and what can they do except use some sort of ranged weapon on you while fleeing? If they chase you, you simply run and they will continuously take damage from your light sources. That said, the other day a vampire wasted me in maintenance with incredible ease. He handily used his vamp abilities to disable me and beat me to within an inch of my life and then spawned bats on-top of me to ensure my death. He foolishly ran away, not finishing the job entirely, and the bats flew off chasing someone else, and I slowly convalesced in the dark maintenance area that I was left for dead in. After about 5 minutes of regeneration, I was able to stand up and continue on with my shadowy existence... That is about as OP as the regeneration will ever be, which is to say, not very OP.

Moving boxes certainly is a bit silly... Maybe more than a bit silly... Years of SS13 has likely warped my understanding of what even constitutes "silly"... That said, a tiny bit of silliness never hurt SS13. They key point here I guess is "tiny bit", given the fact that most people would not want to inflict boxed life upon themselves, let alone pay 100 karma to do so, it's not as if you would see them very often at all... Logically speaking, sure a suit of armor would keep you dark, but regrettably if we coded that in then shadow people would basically be too strong given that they could walk into maintenance at any time and take off their armor in order to regenerate; there is no cost/risk. Lore wise this could also be answered with some invention; shadow people are able to heal in darkness because they constantly draw energy from dark space in order to survive, not simply because it is touching their skin. When they have no dark space around them at all then they cease to draw energy and their body degrades. Boxes provide just enough dark space around the shadow person that they are able to draw enough energy to maintain their current condition, but not enough to improve it. As for why NT would even hire shadow people in the first place, I was thinking that lore wise they could be explained to be entirely unnatural creations of NT's science department, composed of a collection of once test subjects, and therefore already having been employed...

Depending on the job, not everyone would play "normally", furthermore shadow people don't require every light to be broken, all they need is at least one tile of darkness for regeneration fi theya re unwilling to go to maintenance, and if they're alone in their work-space then this is no grand issue at all... Some or even total vision is not a balance breaking buff... Did you know that once injected with shadow mutation enzyme the resulting condition known as "shadow person" is genetically irreversible? After so many years of foolishly greedy Xenobiological research a small population of permanently disabled employees has amassed, and finally in an effort to recuperate monetary losses on all their years of training, they decided to use decorative plasteel boxes in order to enable them some capacity to perform work. So what you're saying is that shadow people are going to spend all their time valid-hunting in maintenance? LOL just like vox players right? except, no, vox players dont do shit to roleplay it outside a few minor vocal quirks. Clearly you've never heard of the inviolate... I'm faxing the Arkships about this... Well aside from cuffing them and then putting them in their own box for dragging, there's this for the holding! I guess if a box person wants to break the law then they risk shit going wrong for them. There's no reason that you have to work in total darkness... The boxes are what enable this to be the case... Obviously nobody is going to expect a majority of their co-workers to suffer to serve only one person... If a security guard winds up killing a shadow person in the process of arrest due to light exposure, then so what? Clone it? Anyone who spends a crap ton of karma on a disabled character is going to be capable of accepting sudden and tragic round endings. Firstly there are light switches located everywhere, secondly a shadow person can endure more than a few seconds of light. I'm quite confident I would set up the engine, albiet in a longer period of time, completely by myself, leaving all the lights on, and with only a box. First of all, you can move 20 corpses at once with a box if you want, you simply put them in the box with you, secondly, if a shadow person surgeon wants to do surgery on me in a dark environment, then great, i don't really give a shit, I'm just thankful someone is there to fix me up. A paramedibox would be downright effective. I've maxed research on my own, with the lights left on, all while doing the cute hello kitty style RP such as you have described about a dozen times, with zero complaints, and no need to smash out any of the lights in science. If people want to go through all the hassle of being box security or box command then let them. It cannot be any worse than the rampant incompetence that is already widespread on the station. Until you've experienced a no-legged blind one armed epileptic captain, I'm not sure you understand how frustrating some people can be as it is already. I'll take a 100+ karma earning box person RD any day over one that doesn't know how to complete research. When it comes to being a box security person, step one, open box, step two, shoot tazer, step three, cuff subject, step four, put subject in box with you, step five, deposit in brig. It's doable if you know what you're doing... It might be partly my own gimmick, but really it's just a combination of two pre-existing gimmicks, boxes and shadow persons. It's a kind of compound gimmick, you see! Your doomsday predictions of mass light smashings and robust maintenance valid-ing are not the totally cute and cuddly vision that I had in mind, Tee-hee~

My reply would be: "Stuff happens you know? That's really an IC issue, hurry up and run into maintenance and break a light bulb! Guess you'll have to live out your days in an old cruddy plain cardboard box that you can make for yourself". IC'ly though, all the shadow person needs to do is inform the crew of the theft and I'm sure they would be more than eager to assist in recovering it. I plan to make it have the name of the original occupant labeled on it's item name and in the description as well. Having a very high karma cost would also ensure that people aren't yoinking boxes left and right and that the players who do choose to inflict boxed life upon themselves would likely be more competent than your average grey-tider and much less likely to want or need to get admin assistance. In the dozen or so rounds that I have made myself into a box person, I have actually had a surprisingly easy time not being box jacked and even in the one case where it did occur, I easily survived and simply made a back up box from maintenance cardboard. To be honest I enjoy the challenge and thrill of such risks, but I can see how not everyone might feel the same. I guess it's important to note that this race is very mechanically challenging to simply survive with. It's honestly simply a curse which challenges your existence and functionality in exchange for an affinity to darkness and a pretty pretty box.

I'm guessing you're referring to the ability of boxes to conceal identities and move around corpses. In a way I agree with you, that boxes can be used for nefarious deeds, but so too can closets, and the boxes that already exist in-game. Concealing your identity is as easy as a borrowed, stolen, or fake ID of any kind and a face mask of many kinds. While I can envision a scenario where a boxed race would make boxes less suspicious and therefore more exploitable in one way, more often I end up envisioning the fact that anyone can open a box to check it's occupants at any time, and whenever a door needs to be opened, or anything interacted with, the box must also open. The most likely avenue of exploitation that I can think of would be people murdering box people in the maintenance shafts that they would all likely frequent in order to simply enter their box and impersonate them. What kind of exploitation do you envision? Perhaps a solution could be that when these fancy boxes are examined, their description would display a list of humanoid occupant visible identities? Keep in mind that this hypothetical boxed race would not be very common.

Flattery will get you EVERYWHERE with box people . Their vanity is surpassed only by their emotional fragility! It's evolving into a bit of a pet project of mine. Currently I need to figure out a way to adapt the existing box code in a way that does not involve copy/pasting it for every job. I'm thinking of creating a new item called a compressed box that shadow people would spawn with in their hands and when activated would read their job tag and spawn the appropriate box on-top of them, this way i can theoretically get the boxes in game on a locally hosted station without having to hardcode shadow people as a spawn-able race... I'm totally new to BYOND code so it's a headache at the moment but i'm making progress!

The sec box is one that I'm iffy about. I used the color pallet from a security closet and until I actually see it brought to life in game, I'm not sure whether or not it will clearly look like a sec box or not. I will see what I can do about putting a hat on it. (actually I tried to find a siren sprite but i could not, and I also need to swap the wardens box with the actual wardens hat decal) I made a lot of these sprites in a relatively short period of time, and as a result I think some of them are un-refined and inadequate. Don't hesitate to point out any box that is not up to the fancy standards i have aimed for with some other boxes, I want to improve them and so I need to identify the unappealing ones. If you have an idea to improve a box, like a sec hat on the sec box, please share your idea! Right now I'm slowly digesting how the existing cardboard code works in order to figure out a way to efficiently adapt it to accommodate the new skins. Any advice or assistance in that regard would be highly welcomed. P.S, regarding the over-the-top fancy-ness of these boxes, given that shadow people must interact with most other people through a box, it needs to really be visually appealing in order to give the player a feeling of prestige. For this reason, don't hesitate to tell me if a box, or even all of them, look ugly. It won't hurt my shadowey feelings!

Somehow I managed to finish the sprites for every possible job (I think) and managed to format them into a DMI file. Here's a paint image of them all : Can you identify all the jobs related to the boxes below? How do they look? (if anyone wants the DMI file to look at, ask or send a PM) It's a fairly enjoyable to me so i reckon I'm going to try and write the code that would make these boxes working (pretty sure it's a matter of copying many times the code of the original cardboard box and modifying it for each sprite). Seriously though, how do they look!?

It's actually no biggie, that's right! If you think passive brute and burn healing in total darkness is the be all and end all of buffs, try actually playing as a shadow person (it's not very fast healing). If a shadow person robusted you in maintenance or something, i don't know what to say man. Turn on a light? I'm confused now. Is it that shadow people are too strong or is it that they are too useless? In reality shadow people can get away with spending stretches of time in the light, taking damage all the while, and finally retreating to darkness to regenerate. In these periods of time, just about every job becomes feasible. For the jobs that would be very difficult to perform mainly from a box, there is a light switch in just about every room on SS13. For instance, as a box person yesterday, I had to get surgery. The good surgeon darkened one of the surgery rooms for me and we had no problems... Currently boxes function as they are described in this thread, yes, even for shadow-lings. Did you not know this? Furthermore, night vision is not an extremely powerful mechanic. Many races, such as vulpakin, have natural degrees of night vision. Giving natural night vision as one of the solitary boons of this proposed race is really not that impactful balance wise. To conclude, you wildly over-estimate both the strength and the weakness of shadow people. They are not completely useless in lit environments and they are also not over powered in darkness. Sure they would win a fist fight in a dark maintenance shaft, or could convalesce from some surface wounds, but if you fight with a weapon of any kind against a shadow person in maintenance then you are going to kill them as easily as any other humanoid. When it comes to light exposure, yes it can be fatal, but you can open and close the box for actions and not be exposed to light for long enough to take any damage at all, or only take absolutely minimal damage, making most jobs I can think of capable of being performed. The point of Box People is not to spend your karma on something powerful. Giving up the 100 karma proves that you're capable of playing such a difficult race to survive as and would be more likely to engage in the kind of RP that makes Box People interesting, mysterious, and enigmatic.

It seems that the vision impairment is not functional on shadow people when exposed to light, which I won't complain about! I started doing some sprite art for boxes for fun, how do they look? (probably hard to see cause of pixel ratios or something)

Shadow people - A race (currently available through xenobiology) which takes brute and burn damage when exposed to any light source, and is healed for brute and burn when exposed to darkness. (http://nanotrasen.se/wiki/index.php/Shadow_people). They are underused and in some ways unfinished, and so they are prime for re-appropriation. Shadow people are a cool race as a concept, but they are pretty much unplayable (or so we thought) for several reasons. The main reason is the constant need for darkness, which results in the smashing of lights, which in turn pisses off the rest of the crew. The solution to this problem is boxes (hence "Box People", which sounds cooler than shadow people). When a shadow person is in a box, they are neither exposed to darkness, nor light, and so they take no damage while being able to move freely in any well lit areas. Boxes can have names applied to them with hand labelers, and can also be colored by colorful reagent, which is useful for identification and roleplay. The second main issue with shadow people is that they have no natural ability to see in the dark. One simple solution to this problem is optical meson scanners. Mesons give shadow people the ability to see perfectly in darkness making them able to navigate freely in dark environments... With only a box (or cardboard sheets for a box) and optical meson scanners as starting items, shadow people would actually be highly playable, albeit more difficult than the average race. They have a narrow and singular advantage of healing brute and burn in darkness, and aside from that being forced to live in a box is a cute but debilitating vulnerability. Balance wise being a box person would be more of a burden than a boon, but roleplay wise it is fun, challenging, and interesting. Using meson scanners and card-board boxes as spawning items would make them instantly playable with a very low amount of coding required. But additionally they could be made more desirable (difference between a 40 karma cost and a 100 karma cost?) by giving them a natural ability to see in the dark, and by somehow modifying basic box technology to make it spawn pre-named and pre-colored. Thoughts?

My proposition is for a new type of constructable and intractable "teleportation" pad which when paired with another telepad in range creates a two way instant transit system. However, this should only be able to function over a very small distance (5-7 tile maximum separation). The purpose I have in mind for this is to create an air proof door system between rooms with different atmospheric conditions. For instance, if a Vox wants to fill an area with no2 so that they can breathe naturally, they will constantly need to worry about no2 leaking out into other places which is a hazard. If a plasma-person tried to construct a plasma only environment so that they could remove their suit, the first time the seal is breached and the tiniest amount of oxygen let in, the plasma-person would burst into flames. In order to construct these things, it could be done through RnD similar to how the cargo telepads (for the RCS device) currently are deployed, just have them require more research and cost more resources. Pros Aside from being an enabler of more tightly secured a-typical atmospheric condition type rooms, the basic mechanic itself might prove to be versatile and worth-while to have. If emagged, could increase the range from a maximum of 5 or 7 tiles to something much larger. It would use a pairing or frequency system not unlike existing mechanics. The sprite could be a recolored telepad, I'm sure nobody would suspect a thing Cons Requires coding that I don't know about. The reward might not be worth the space on the hard drive or the time to complete it. But hey, one of you badass coders might be interested and be able to just bust it out lickity-split!

maybe not permanent, but lasting awhile so that the gun is useful. a stun baton, a multi tool, a lazer, anythign electric, can disable the portal and make it dissappear. Plus only two portals can exist at once per gun.

Since telescience was removed I was thinking about what sort of functionality was lost and what could replace it. The answer is a two way portal gun! In order to keep it pricey, make it require max research and an anomaly core to complete. It has a toggle to create portals of two colors. (would look like hand tele portal). When both portals are open they teleport to one another. The gun can remotely remove individual portals in order to place new ones. Multi tools, stuns, lazers, also disable portals. Otherwise the portals could be ???permanent???. I would use this late round for rescuing people and sending them to medbay, or if i was a part of a group of antags, for shenanigans. Thoughts? How could such a device be heavily abused?

Yea I touched on this in my OP. (had to look up validhunting though, heh) But in all honesty, I think traitors have it far too easy. Committing crimes in front of active cameras is foolish, and traitors have more tools than ever before to use skill, intelligence, and creativity to accomplish their objectives. More AI nodes would mean that crimes committed on camera get caught more often, and that doors will be quicker to bolt or become electrified. It's certainly not anything insurmountable. To be honest I'm more concerned about the ramifications of a malf or subverted AI with nodes. Their ability to launch a mass assault on crew would be much greater. Perhaps as was suggested, server population could determine if and how many nodes are recruitable. For instance, at 50 players, one AI node could become available, and then an additional AI node for every additional 15 or 20 players. That are connected. (something like that anyway). This should create a scenario where AI presence and response times scales with server population. While the changes to AI balance might be a ramification to think about, it could turn out to be an interesting one, and the effect of increasing AI helpfulness to crew (which is generally the job i view them as fulfilling) would probably be very satisfying (and IC time saving!) in the long run.

Closets and crates are very easy to open, there are many ways to crack them... Lock boxes on the other hand either require command access or an emag. This is so for good reason though. If lock boxes were at all openable by science then every round you would have a horde of annoying and over armed powergaming griffers who run around tazing everyone and their corgi. Trust me, I used to lead them...

"AI, WHY YOU SHOCK DOORZ?" "AI IS ROGUE!" "AI SABOTAGED GRAV GEN!" "AI IS KILL SINGULO" Two words: Emagged Borgs. Point taken. Borgs having remote camera access wasn't my first choice anyway

I like the idea of the node application process being like that of a pAI. Node applicants will fill out a form with their name and a brief description of their experience, habits, and personality. Initially nodes should only be allowed to speak with the AI and have no actual access upon recruitment by the AI. Once the AI decides to test the node or to accept it then they can allow access camera network access and if desired the ability to speak over coms.

So it seems the main objections are that recruiting from ghosts is dangerous (griefers) and that AI's might not get along. I can certainly understand how ghosts might be risky, so instead the recruiting of nodes could be enabled by the AI which would open a slot at lobby screen. Alternatively AI node could have a karma requirement in addition to requiring the existing AI to allow or enable node recruitment (like posibrains). As far as AI's not getting along goes, I think things would play out similar to the way borgs interact with the AI, which is generally a very obedient affair. Given that they would all have the same laws in addition to a "you must obey the main AI" law, there would be very little IC arguments between AIs and their nodes. The idea of allowing borgs to have partial AI capabilities and view things over cameras would serve the intended purpose as well. Regardless of how it gets implemented, my desire is to render assistance to those AI's who sit around thanklessly opening doors all day long and the like. I know some AI's are very competent, but I'm sure we've all died waiting for a door to open, or had the HOP tell you "ask the AI to open it for you" only to have the AI be busy for 15 minutes. The reduction of AI response times would be significant, and the multi-tasking potential would potentially make for a very interesting change to way AI's currently interact with crew.

My idea is to allow the AI to recruit ghosts to become something I'll call an "AI Node". An AI Node player will essentially be a secondary AI, bound to obey the main AI. At first any nodes will not be able to speak to crew, but if the main AI decides they are a competent Node, then they can give them the ability to speak. If the AI deems a node is faulty or incompetent, they can lock it down or purge it from their systems. If the AI is killed, all their nodes which co-exist inside of it also die. The point of this is to give the AI a much more omnipresent feeling and to greatly enhance response times and action capacity. In real life an AI can converse with many people at once, perform simultaneous actions, and basically just be really quick and fast at what they do. If a main AI had one or two or three helper nodes who could respond to emergencies in the same way a normal AI would,, open doors, make responses, etc, then the strength and usefulness of the AI would be drastically increased. The only real negative impact I think this might have in terms of gameplay could be during a malf AI round, the AI might simply become too powerful, being able to do too much at once. All antag rounds would be slightly affected by the increased potency of the AI, but personally I think avoiding the AI is a fundamental part of antagging, so I welcome the increased challenge. Thoughts?

I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible, because if given the chance I could write endlessly about my xenoarch experiences. Instead I want to cut directly to the chase of what I think ought to be preserved from the old xenoarch code, and also what can be forgotten. Large anomalous artifacts: Some of the objects that could be found through xenoarcheology were quite interesting and useful, others not so much: Wish Granter - this has been repurposed from super-villain creator to hero creator. I'm not up on the details, but this is an example of what I want for some other things. Hover pod - this is a white mech that cannot hold any equipment. It's only benefit is that it has air thrusters which can allow it to move in space or a gravity-less environment. The main problem is that it is incredibly incredibly slow. I'm talkin slower than durand slow. If it could be given a speed boost, and then inserted in somewhere as random loot in some of the hidden rooms, or in some other fashion, then a very interesting but useless piece of xenoarch could be brought back and given a new life and some utility as a viable transportation vehicle. Making it around the speed of an ody would make it very collectable. Healing artifact- this was a random configuration of the lesser anomalous artifacts. It would either throw a healing wave on a regular basis to nearby people or it would heal people when touched. Whenever I found one I would bring it to medbay, despite their chagrins, and they proved to be quite wonderful. Creating a healing artifact out of some of the old models and inserting it in as random loot, hidden room variety or otherwise, would give miners a way to share their discoveries with the crew in a very productive way. By creating a unique artifact for the job we can do away with all the old code that is required to randomize them. Ninja crate - this was a super rare find for xenoarchs and therefore not a balance issue (you could go mad hunting for one), but there is something special about a regular crew member happening upon a ninja crate, who has no malevolent objectives of any kind. The crew tend to take a liking to them, and they gain a protector if the newly formed ninja in question is up for the task (If found, I would encourage admins to send out a real ninja, with an objective to kill the one who stole their technology!). Not sure how it should be inserted RNG wise, but it should be mega mega rare. One in several thousand rolls rare. Mob spawners -These are unique artifacts, sometimes fun, sometimes useful, sometimes dangerous. Perhaps somewhere off in deep spess, in some closed and hidden room in some debris field, a random mob spawner could appear (along with some other space goods of some kind) and when someone finds it, there's no telling what manner of creature will burst out at them. Would require the spawning timer to be reduced to once every ten minutes or so, this way there would be no real lag cost. Not really the best idea, but a potential way to re-purpose some code. There are some other small artifacts that I would like to see preserved. Claymores and katanas, even though they sucked for the most part, were some satisfying rewards for scouring the asteroid, along with a few others. I know any xenoarcheology that might emerge in the future will probably be nothing like the old one, so my only hope is to pay homage by suggesting the re-purposing of some of the old RNG rewards as rare additions to the current RNG system that is in place on the asteroid.

I'm 100% for poly being able to perch on shoulders or ear slots, similar to how diona do. It's a parrot essential. But being that poly already has some really potent features like being able to fly over tables, pick and drop items, and use some of them. There is even a steal from mob command that lets you straight up rob people. So for these reasons when it comes to poly actually talking i am not sure it would be fair to the other pets. If poly could record one line that he/she hears and then parrot it back that would be fun and harmless, or if poly could make sound effects it hears, as if it learned them, that would also be neat but not broken. I really do wish for perching though, poly is already my favorite pet which seems to be against the general consensus. Also on the subject of sprites, the poly perch position for consoles might work for left and right facing shoulder perch sprites.