New Player Guide - Game Events: IT'S AN EMERGENCY! What should I do?

[Miraviel]

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a chaos? The system announced a level 5 or level 3 biohazard and everyone lost their mind? Or the round has just started and suddenly everyone is a Captain? Then this short guide is for you!

Later as you get more experienced in the game, you can (and should!) switch these tactics. These are strictly for new players.

#1 WE ARE SENDING A CODE _____ EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM. STANDBY.

The station is messed up in a way or another, and either you are under quarantine (biohazard) and cannot leave or command thinks the situation is still solvable. The Emergency Response Team (or ERT) is a group of well-armed and (lore-wise...) well-trained specialists who are here to fix what your crew could not. This includes engineering problems, eliminating hostile lifeforms or anything that the station needs an extreme help with.

This will be one of the most frequent emergency cases you will encounter.

What you should do:

• Stay back, do not interfere. If they tell you to do something, do it
  • Unless it is CLEARLY insane, they can do anything. They can order and perform field execution, they can (and will) overrule your Captain, and they have access to all areas of the station. Don't get on their bad side, try to cooperate with them and they might solve the situation

That's it. The ERT is more often called than you'd think, the best you can do is keeping an eye on the communication channels; and if they say evac, you go evac.

#2 THE STATION IS NOW IN A METEOR SHOWER.

The station has entered a meteor belt.

What you should do:

• Go to Central Primary Hallway (north of Bridge), to the Bar or anywhere around these two. Meteors hit the outer part of the station (Arrivals, Brig, Escape...) and if they hit you, you instantly die
• RUN FROM ENGINEERING - wherever you decide to stall, it should be FAR from engineering
  • Sometimes the meteors hit the containment - it's the thing that keeps Tesla/Singulo, the station-powering, big ball of death there. If the containment fails, the engine escapes and proceeds to destroy the station. Give yourself a chance and don't be close when the meteors unleash it

#3 CONFIRMED OUTBREAK OF LEVEL 5 BIOHAZARD ABOARD THE STATION. ALL PERSONNEL MUST CONTAIN THE OUTBREAK.

This usually occurs around the end of the shift. A level 5 biohazard is a blob. Once you hear this over the radio (or someone screams BLOB!), drop whatever you were doing, it is time to fight.

What you should do:

• If the blob is not found yet, go round in the maintenance and look for it. You are looking for vines, brown, moving things trying to murder you or a big, yellow thing. If you found any of these, YELL YOUR LOCATION and RETREAT
• Go to R&D (window west from the escape area) and ask for a welder and a welding mask. They'll probably have some in the window by then, take one of each
  • If they are stingy, dead or otherwise uncooperative, go to Cargo and ask for the same things. They'll almost surely have them ready
• Go back to the blob, put on the welding mask, turn on the welder and start welding the vines
  • There will be weird gas patches and flying, brown things. The latter will try to kill you but you can hit (and should hit) back. You cannot do anything against the former, just pray that it won't knock you out. Once your character falls into a bad state, GO BACK - don't be a hero, you'll be in the way and do more harm than good
  • If you didn't get a purple (experimental) welder, it'll run out of fuel. Find a fuel tank (big tank with an orange stripe), TURN OFF THE WELDER, then click on the fuel tank. If you click on it while it is turned on, you will blow up yourself and everyone else around you
    • No, it is not a good weapon against the blob
• Listen to what people tell you. They sometimes use more advanced weapons - emitters, x-ray guns, grenades. You DON'T want to be in the way when they do these or you'll soon sleep with the fishes
• If doctors aren't coming to patch people up, your welder is empty or you think it's time to go back, try to bring injured, downed people to Medbay/Robotics. Don't force them to retreat if they break free from your pull, leave them there
  • If they are an IPC (machine people) bring them to Robotics instead, Medbay cannot help them
• Try to go for the nodes (yellow, shiny things)

The blob will sometimes knock over a plasma tank then set it on fire. Then it is game over for you - it'll be too hot, the pressure will be too high, you won't be able to withstand it. Try to stay in the back line and escort the injured. Ask if you can help in any ways. Sometimes the only way to help is staying out of the way - do it and listen closely to the communication channels if you can be of use anywhere else.

The blob is station-wide problem. It is YOUR responsibility too to stop it. Don't run away, take part in it!

#4 UNIDENTIFIED LIFESIGNS DETECTED COMING ABOARD THE STATION. SECURE ANY EXTERIOR ACCESS, INCLUDING DUCTING AND VENTILATION (#1)

People scream SPIDERLINGS! And everyone starts to panic. Well, they have a reason to. Those tiny, harmless, eight-legged creatures will soon grow into big, and maybe into terror spiders (see next section).

What you should do:

• If people start yelling to weld vents: get a welder and a welding mask from Cargo/R&D (see above)
  • Sometimes they are not normal spiderlings, but terror spiderlings. Experienced players can identify them - if they are, start welding vents/scrubbers, they can move around them
    • Start with Medbay if the doctors don't do it themselves
• If you see a spider, don't engage them without a backup
  • Giant, brown spiders can be taken down with a single crowbar in 2v1 but you'll need surgery. Giant, brown spiders with red eyes will mess you up
• If a spider died, help removing the webs
• Look for the injured, move them to Medbay (or Robotics if they are IPCs)

As with every other emergency, listen to the communication channels, try to follow what the heads (preferably the Captain/Head of Security) says. If there is an abundance of weapons (thanks miners!), take one and defend yourself. Don't seek out the spiders by yourself, you'll get dunked on.

#5 CONFIRMED OUTBREAK OF LEVEL 3 BIOHAZARD ABOARD THE STATION. ALL PERSONNEL MUST CONTAIN THE OUTBREAK

If those spiderlings were indeed terror spiderlings, they soon grow into terror spiders. These are the colored ones you absolutely do NOT want to meet.

What you should do:

• Weld vents, scrubbers if they are not welded yet
• If you see any spiders, RUN. Don't even try to hit them in melee
• If a terror spider bit you and you somehow survived, rush to Medbay and ask if you're infected
  • Sometimes they infect you with eggs like xenomorphs and you don't want to burst, do you? Doctors can remove it via surgery
• If it is safe, remove their webs and cocoons (there might be dead players inside)

If all spiders are eliminated or their numbers are greatly reduced, the shuttle can be called and the crew can leave. If the station cannot be saved, it gets nuked - proceed to Cargo or to Security (if they call the crew) to go off-station, so you don't get consumed in the nuclear fire.

#6 UNIDENTIFIED LIFESIGNS DETECTED COMING ABOARD THE STATION. SECURE ANY EXTERIOR ACCESS, INCLUDING DUCTING AND VENTILATION (#2)

Sometimes it is not spiders - sometimes it is borers (we do not deal with them here, as they are not an emergency), sometimes it is xenomorphs. You might know them from the movie Alien: they work almost exactly the same. They make nests, they'll kidnap you, then put a facehugger on your face and your chest bursts, giving birth to another one.

What you should do:

• STAY OUT OF MAINTENANCE
  • There is absolutely no reason to go there, for the love of god stay out. You'll get tackled before you could press enter to ask for help and you just increased their number by one
• Weld vents and scrubbers as stated above

That's it. Each and every xenomorph is lethal, you should never engage them without a weapon (and you'll probably not have a weapon). Let Robotics make exosuits against them and scientists finally putting their high levels into use. If you somehow got facehugged, run into Medbay and plead for your life. They might remove it in time. The timer is very short and mostly RNG based, most often you will not survive it.

They usually nest in the Turbine or in Virology. You especially don't want to be around these areas when someone yells their name.

#7 DECLARATION OF WAR

Loud sirens, everyone screaming, the HOP is suddenly going SSD - and you are only five minutes into the shift. What is happening?

Well, the Nuclear Operatives (or nukeops) just declared a war on your station: and they come in loud. Their goal is to get the nuclear authentication disk and nuke your station. In this case, the usual process for the majority of the crew is the following:

• Everyone goes to security for weapons and armor
• Cargo orders weapons and armor
• The Head of Personnel gives out all access to everyone
• People build barricades

What you should do in the beginning:

• Go to the HOP and ask for all-access (or extended access if they are stingy)
• Try to get a crowbar
  • The reason for this is that the operatives will come in, blow things up, breach the hull and open the station to space. Magboots would protect you from getting sucked into vacuum and get killed by pressure (if you turn them on, you can walk back to safety, crowbar a firelock, walk through, CROWBAR IT BACK) but it is rare you can get one
  • However, you can close firelocks with a crowbar if someone was dumb enough to leave it open and you can save many people by not letting yet another corridor to get depressurized
• Get a welder and cable coils
  • In case of injured IPCs, more below
• Stay around the bar/library and wait for the first explosion

What will happen shortly is:

• The telecommunication channels suddenly go silent
• The nukeops arrive somewhere, most often Cargo, Arrivals or Medbay and blow things up
• The crew either fights them head on or run around like poisoned mice and get butchered one by one
• The nukeops keep bombing the vital points of the station (cargo, bridge, medbay, maybe science)
• The shuttle is called

The crew wins if they secure the nuclear authentication disk (which is needed to start the nuke) and they can bring it on the escape shuttle. It is a minor victory if they lose it but the nuke doesn't go off. It is a defeat if the nuclear operatives detonate the nuke (either with or without them on the station.)

What you should do after the first explosion:

• Try to bring injured/dead crewmembers to Medbay. If Medbay is already bombed, try to patch up those who are still living. You can find medkits here and there. If the crewmember is an IPC (machine people) or Medbay is gone, bring them to Robotics
  • Shift-click to examine someone. If they are alive but on the ground, most often asleep, try to use healing/burnt patches on them (found in white medkits) or inject them with an emergency autoinjector (found in the box everyone starts with) then click on them with help intent multiple times to shake them up. It'll get them back on their feet and they can walk back to safety. If they are very slow, try to pull them towards Medbay, their legs are probably broken
  • If you only see corpses, control-click on them and pull them to Medbay/Robotics and leave it to them
  • IPCs need welder and cable coils to fix. If the damage is not too high, you can simply just use them by targeting their body parts. They automatically revive/get out of critical if you heal them above a certain threshold
  • Try to collect weapons laying on the floor and bring them to Medbay/Robotics. Chances are, people get fixed up and they can go back to fight with them
• Avoid breached areas
• Try to get on the escape shuttle/escape pods and pray that the nuke is not armed

These rounds last 30 minutes at most. If you died early, don't worry about it - you were probably either unlucky or you positioned yourself badly. Try to learn from each nukeops round, then, once you are comfortable with the chaos happening around you, try to grab a weapon and fight them head-on.

For your first few rounds, only take a gun if someone died and left it on the floor. You'll do more harm than good (aka: friendly fire) if you are still new to SS13.

#8 WIZARD!

This usually has no message other than someone screaming "wizard!" then the station going code red. These are the so-called "fun rounds" where one or multiple wizards are spawned and their sole objective is to wreck havoc upon the station.

What you should do:

• If something explodes, someone suddenly dies, run. You cannot beat a wizard with your fists or your trusty toolbox (at least not yet)
• Try to escort the injured to Medbay/Robotics
• Do not stay close to blood - there is a demon called "slaughter demon" that can erupt from blood patches and then kill and absorb you
• Try to find a staff of healing
  • It instantly revives and fully heals people. Run around and revive as many crewmember as you can!
• If the wizard spawned a gun, use it. Preferably on the wizard or the demon. This is the time to learn how to use them!
  • Some players take this opportunity to go murderbone (mindless killing). The rules don't prohibit it during a wizard round but it is extremely annoying; if you get killed, try not to care and most importantly, do not return it. Don't be one of them, nobody likes it

#9 CONFIRMED OUTBREAK OF LEVEL 7 MAJOR VIRAL BIOHAZARD ABOARD THE STATION. ALL PERSONNEL MUST CONTAIN THE OUTBREAK.

One player on the station suddenly got a virus. This virus usually spreads on contact, making it spread very, very quickly. While most of the viruses are not lethal, they are very annoying and one of them can (and will) destroy your brain.

What you should do:

• The moment your character starts feeling bad - sneezes, gets dizzy or starts attracting metal objects - run to Medbay and get the cure
  • The cure will be in a pill form, probably in the public Smartfridge; if not ask, a doctor

Pretty much that's it. The faster you get cured, the less people you infect. If you happen to be patient zero or one of the very first ones, and you manage to reach Medbay without infecting everyone else, Medbay will be super grateful. (Or at least I will be, bless these people.) A widespread virus is difficult to cure, mainly because players cannot be bothered about it until it gets very bad - but by that time, they have infected two-third of the station already.

#10 EVERYONE IS DYING, THERE IS NO SECURITY, THE COMMS ARE QUIET AND IT IS NONE OF THE ABOVE. WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

The antagonists are either successful, security somehow killed themselves or command is exceptionally useless - but most often the first one. The cultists are about to summon their god, the shadowlings soon ascend, one or two vampires became full-powered or a changeling butchered almost everyone but you. In case you are still alive - congratulations! You are to witness the end of the world.

What you should do:

• Stay in the bar and wait for ERT/the escape shuttle/the inevitable doom
  • The bar usually has two or three people, making it difficult for solo antagonists to kidnap you. Try to stay part of the crew, do not reinforce the antagonists' ranks
  • Sometimes ERT comes and saves the day. Sometimes the antagonists succeed - just have a drink and enjoy your last minutes. At this point, there isn't much left to do

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If you have question, feel free to ask them here (or if you are shy, send me a PM). There are more advanced and probably more useful tips than these but I don't want to overwhelm anyone - I believe that if you follow these steps, you'll get a good starting point during extreme situations in the already chaotic world of Paradise Station.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Miraviel
Added level 7

[BottomQuark]

Noice guide. But I would add "Confirmed outbreak of level 7 major viral biohazard aboard NSS Cyberiad. All personnel must contain the outbreak.".

It always pisses medbay off when new players ignore docs, and soon whole station has some weird gravity-virus. It's not maybe end-game-crisis, but still worth mentioning ((maybe in next guide? Since "New Player Guide #1" looks like you wanna make more))

[Miraviel]

On 2017. 12. 29. at 1:09 PM, BottomQuark said:

Noice guide. But I would add "Confirmed outbreak of level 7 major viral biohazard aboard NSS Cyberiad. All personnel must contain the outbreak.".

It always pisses medbay off when new players ignore docs, and soon whole station has some weird gravity-virus. It's not maybe end-game-crisis, but still worth mentioning ((maybe in next guide? Since "New Player Guide #1" looks like you wanna make more))

I apologize, this notification completely went under my radar! You are right, I totally forgot about level 7. I added it!

I wanted to make this into a series but I won't do it and just write department/job specific guides instead... I think.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Miraviel