User:Warriorstar/Guide for Beginners

Space Station 13 (or SS13) is a multiplayer roleplaying game. In SS13, players take on the role of workers on a space station. Paradise Station is one of many SS13 servers with unique roles and gameplay possibilities.

Paradise Station is a medium roleplaying (or MRP) server. If you are new to roleplay, please read the roleplay guide. Should you still have questions, ask them on the forums or in Discord.

The Server Rules

Please read the server rules.

The server rules help create an enjoyable atmosphere for all, and punish users who interfere with the enjoyment of other players, or adversely affect the community and server. Space Law largely dictates what you are and aren't allowed to do while playing.

It is also recommended that you read Space Law and Standard Operating Procedure, especially if you wish to play important roles such as Security or Command.

Joining the Server

A screenshot of the BYOND client with the Paradise SS13 server highlighted in yellow.

If you have never played SS13, you must do the following:

Download BYOND.
Register for a BYOND account.

You may join Paradise in one of the following ways:

Select the server from the BYOND client.
Manually connect to the server by clicking "Open..." just beneath the "Games" tab on the left side of the client. The URL for Paradise is byond://byond.paradisestation.org:6666.

From the "Open Location" dialog, you may also bookmark the server for ease of access.

If you successfully connected, congratulations! You're on the server! Before you charge at the game it is recommended that you set up a character.

Character Setup

The character setup screen.

The Character Setup screen allows you to customize your character. This includes their name, species, and appearance. It is also where you choose which roles you'd prefer to play when playing, which is covered in Occupation Preferences below.

Identity

Name: As stated in the rules, your characters must have believable names. Different names are appropriate depending on your gender and species. If you are a Human, you should have an appropriate first and last name. Your name should not be a blatant joke or reference to a real-life figure. I am looking at you, everyone who wants to be called John Cena!
You can randomize your character's name to receive a random lore-appropriate name.

Gender: Your gender changes your body type and your character's voice when you scream. It's either male, female, or gender-neutral in some cases.

Age: Your age only appears on in-game security and medical records and doesn't change your character's appearance.

Species: The default species is Human. Other species like like Tajaran, Vulpkanin, and Unathi are available. All playable species are listed on the lore page. Not all species are available to new players, and may require karma to unlock.

Secondary Language: The primary language spoken on SS13 is known as Galactic Common, and all crew can understand it. You may choose a secondary language like "Tradeband", "Clownish" or "Gutter". These secondary languages may not be spoken by everyone, and can reinforce your character's backstory. If you choose a different species you will also have a species-specific language. See Languages for a list of applicable languages and how to switch between them.

Blood type: This affects what kind of blood transfusion the doctors have to give you when you almost bleed out again.

Disabilities: Quite self-explanatory, here you can choose different disabilities.

Nanotrasen Relation: What is your character's relationship with the god corporation Nanotrasen? This only affects RP.

Appearance Options: Change the colour of your character's hair, skin etc. This option will change depending on the species you will play as.

Flavor Text: Flavor text is like your physical description, it will be seen when people examine you in-game and should only contain information that could be gleaned from looking at you. Try to keep it short and snappy; a paragraph at most.

Character Records

The Character Records screen allows you to set your character's medical and security records, and have them be able to be read in-game by Medical Doctors or Security Officers, respectively.

This is an RP tool that can be used to help flesh out your character. However, since it appears in-game as an official record, it should be written as such. Try to write it as you would expect from a large company like Nanotrasen.

Do not put your records in your flavor text. Flavor text is meant for describing your physical experience.

There is also the "Employment Records", which can show your character's past occupation history.

Game Preferences (Antagonists)

In this section you can choose to turn on and off preferences to be antagonists in the round, turning these on does not guarantee you will be an antagonist you are simply saying you would like to be one. However, as a new player, you are not eligible to play as an antagonist until you have a few days on record.

The non-antagonist roles listed here are:

PAI: A Personal AI device. With this enabled, you will be able to become a Personal AI when observing the round or after death. This will never happen without you confirming it at the time, so you should leave this option on.

Sentient Animal: This will enable you to rejoin the round as a sentient animal when dead or observing, provided Xenobiology create them.

Positronic Brain: When dead or observing, this option will make you eligible to become a positronic brain- as with becoming a pAI, you will also have to opt-in at the time. A positronic brain can be used to create a Cyborg or Artificial Intelligence.

Saving your character

Clicking the "save slot" button will save your character to the database along with your occupation preferences and your antagonist choices.

Occupation Preferences

The job preferences panel.

Your occupation is by far the most important thing you will choose on the server. It affects your station access, rank, authority, equipment, and purpose in life. The roles available to you are listed in the Occupation Preferences.

Job Assignment

With the exception of Assistant, all job preferences have four levels: NEVER, Low, Medium, and High. These change how likely the server is to assign you that job when it compares your preferences with those of the other players. You may only select a single job on High, but there are no limits otherwise.

Because of the diversity and range of jobs available, there are many ways to play the game. A lot of these jobs, however, require a good knowledge of the game mechanics, the layout of the station, and how to use in-game tools and machinery. Because of this, the following jobs are recommended for new players:

Assistant: The most basic of all occupations, the assistant and its variants have no authority and, generally speaking, no responsibilities. It's an excellent opportunity to learn the game mechanics — but your access is limited, so feel free to ask other people if you can help, and they'll usually be happy to show you around their department and help you learn the ropes. It also lets you practice roleplaying if you're still unsure about it. Unlike all other roles, this cannot be set into the four levels stated above, you can only select either Yes or No.

Cargo Technician: A basic, yet practical job that is easy to pick up and will help you learn the majority of the game's controls. Working under the Quartermaster, you're tasked with ordering supplies and delivering them to the relevant department, to ensure the station is well-equipped.

Quartermaster: Similar to the Cargo Technician, yet they are in charge of the cargo technicians and the shaft miners. Requires very little knowledge and is a great job to get the hang of some command to start with.

Janitor: A simple, if menial job that involves replacing lightbulbs, cleaning up messes, putting out wet floor signs, and then pointing them out to people who've slipped on the floor you just finished mopping. Your only responsibilities are to keep the station clean and well-lit, and it'll help you learn your way around the station and its various departments.

Chef: A fairly simple job that gives you a good introduction to mixing ingredients, and there's even the possibility of cake into the bargain. Recipes are available here, to help kickstart a budding Chef's career.

Bartender: Like the Chef, but with more alcohol. The Bartender's job is primarily mixing and serving drinks to a thirsty crew. The recipes are also available here. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff you can make, so try it out!

If you're interested in other jobs, feel free to browse the Job guides. Try to avoid any security, engineering, and command positions until you get a hang of the game. This is especially true of the Head of Security, Head of Personnel, Captain and Security Officer positions. (Jumping into a position you're not prepared to do is a guaranteed way of making people angry at you, and possibly earning a jobban.)

Playing the game

The joining and setup panel.

Congratulations! You've made it this far. You now have a character with a job and I am sure you're ready to jump straight into your new role! Well, hold your horses cause we got a bit more talking to do.

Starting the round

Each round begins with a short period where people can chat and declare themselves ready for the round, this where your job preferences come in!

However, more often then not you will join halfway through a round. By clicking Join Game! you can see a list of jobs that have not already been taken by other players. You can also click View the Crew Manifest to see who is onboard the station. When you spawn onto the map, you will start in the Arrivals Shuttle and will be introduced by the Arrivals Announcement Computer or the AI. From there, you can either head over to your workplace and get started, or explore a bit first. There is a page on the map if you would like to have a map of the station.

Communicating in-game

Things not to do

While this should already be pretty obvious, do not do the following:

Randomly kill people: While this is stated in the rules as not allowed, and anyone who wished to do this won't read this guide. New players might think that game objective to kill everyone, I cannot stress enough that it is not.
Get a job change: This is fine for experienced players but if you have just joined the server you should not go and get a job change to a role you have not unlocked and don't know how to play.
Report false antagonists: Please don't report people you think "might" be antagonists, unless you have proof please don't report them. You will most likely waste security's time and the person's time you reported.

Things you should do

Have fun.
Talk to other people on the server, make friends with their characters in game.

Gameplay

The User Interface

The Space Station 13 user interface, and a view of the arrivals shuttle.

This is a general guide to the game interface; note that it won't be accurate to all UI styles, nor are all the elements shown in the image at right.

1. Clothing: Anything your character is wearing. Clicking the backpack icon on the bottom left will hide this menu.
2. Hands: The items you're holding in your hands. The hand you're currently using will be highlighted, and you can switch hands by clicking the appropriate hand or clicking 'Swap'. (Keyboard shortcut: Page-Up or X if it's in Hotkey mode.)
3. Pockets: Your jumpsuit has pockets, and anything in them is displayed here. You won't be able to use them if you're naked.
4. Actions:
- Let go: This button appears if you are pulling an object or a mob (ctrl+click). (Not shown)
- Resist: If you are buckled, cuffed, or trapped in a locker, clicking this button activates the process of getting out.
- Drop: Immediately let go of the item you're holding. (Keyboard shortcut: Home or Q if it's in Hotkey mode.)
- Throw: Toggle throwing; you can then throw the item in your active hand by clicking something to throw it at. (Keyboard shortcut: End or R if it's in Hotkey mode.)
- Movement Speed: This will toggle whether you run or walk. Walking is slower but safer, and you won't slip as easily.
5. Intent: This selects how you will interact with an object or a person when you make an action. Blue is Disarm, green is Help, yellow is Grab, and red is Harm. (Keyboard shortcuts, 1 for Help, 2 for Disarm, 3 for Grab and 4 for Harm)
6. Body Target: Shows which part of the body you will interact with, whether helping or harming. To change this, click on the different parts of the body.
7. Weapon Mode: Obsolete, this UI was removed.
8. Status Icons: In the new, lighter UI styles, most of these are only visible if something's out-of-the-ordinary.
- Heat Warning: Appears if the air you're breathing is superheated. Usually shows up near fires.
- Oxygen Warning: Appears if the air you're breathing has too little oxygen. If you linger too long, you'll eventually pass out and slowly asphyxiate.
- Pressure Warning: Appears if air pressure is too high or too low.
- Internals: Shows whether you are running on internals (an oxygen tank and breath mask). If you have them equipped, clicking this will switch them on or off.
- Health: Fades to red as you take more damage. If it flashes with the word CRIT, it means you are close to death and require immediate medical attention. If your character is in serious pain, your indicator will make you appear more injured than you are. The Health Doll (located below) indicates the damaged areas on different parts of your body.
- Temperature Warning: Appears if your surroundings are too hot or too cold.
- Hunger: Fades from Blue to Green, to Yellow/Orange then Red as you get more hungry. Note that the bar will go, Grey, if you overeat, and you may get fat. See Guide to Food and Drinks for more information.
9. ID card slot: This is where your ID card goes.
10. Belt slot: This is where items that can be put on belts (e.g camera) or belts (e.g toolbelt) go.
11. Back slot: This is where your satchel, backpack, or in some cases a large weapon go.
12. PDA slot: You put your PDA here.

Interacting With the World

Interacting with your surroundings in Space Station 13 is mostly done by the mouse. You can click with an empty hand active to pick up items or open containers, click on something with an item in your active hand to use the item on it, click on a computer or device to view its display, and so on. Once you get the hang of managing your character's hands, things will make more sense: you can't, for example, open a toolbox in your left hand if your right hand is full.

A good way of interpreting the interaction system in Space Station 13 is to think of each click as 'using' the object (or hand) on whatever you're clicking on. For instance, to use a computer in real life, you'd essentially 'use' an empty hand on it to start typing. Using an empty hand on an object will pick it up if you can hold it. Holding an item in your hand and clicking on something can result in three things:

If the object in hand is meant to be used with the object you're clicking on, the desired effect should occur. In the case of containers, such as drink bottles or beakers, you'll transfer a certain amount of units (usually 10) of the liquid from the container in your hand to the container you're clicking on. For things like crowbarring the floor, you'll pry off a floor tile.
If the object in hand is not meant to be used with the object you're clicking on, more often than not (and very annoyingly, sometimes) you'll attack the target with the object. This can result in rather funny cases of hitting people with first aid kits, hitting your drinks machine with a bottle of vodka, etc. Or more dangerously, hitting someone with a crowbar, scalpel, toolbox, etc. This happens to be the most basic form of combat, as well (which will get you banned if you go around trying to do without a very good reason).
If what you're clicking on is something that stores objects, the object will be taken out of your hand and placed in or on the target. This can be something like a table, opened locker or crate, which will place the object on top of the target, such that drinks will be placed on tables and jumpsuits will be placed in (technically, on) lockers. Objects like boxes and backpacks/satchels, which can be opened to reveal more slots for storing objects, will remove the item from your hand when clicked on, placing it in a slot inside.

It's okay to memorize those, but playing jobs that involve more object handling, such as Chef, Barman or Cargo Tech, will help you understand how the system interprets clicks, and what to expect when trying to use something.

Controls

To take items off a person, click the person's sprite with the left mouse button and drag their sprite onto yours.

When you have done that, a popup window should come up and by simply pressing the names of the items you want to take off they will be removed from the person you are striping and appear on the floor underneath them.

With the mouse you can perform the following actions:

Pick things up (one left mouse click on the object when having a free hand selected).
Switch hands (one left mouse click on the button that has a picture of two hands).
Drop what you are holding in the selected hand (one left mouse click on the button that says "Drop")
Attack (one left mouse click to attack once with the object you are holding in the selected hand OR one left mouse click while unarmed while having the intent set to 'harm').
Pull (right-click on the item, in the drop-down box select the item and click "pull", to let go of what you are pulling, click the button in the very bottom right corner, the person standing next to a box. Keyboard shortcut: Crtl + Left Click).
Use consoles and objects (one left mouse click when having a free hand selected).
Examine what is on the tile your mouse is on (right-click on the item, in the drop-down box select the item and click "examine". Keyboard shortcut: Shift + Left Click).
Grab (one left mouse click on the person while having "intent" set on "grab").
Use objects on people (one left mouse click on the person while having the object in the selected hand, same as "attack").
Help/Perform CPR (one left mouse click on the person while having intent set on "help").
You can press Shift+(Arrow Key) to change the direction you're facing.
Transfer (Transferring one item into another), choose the hand with an item in and click on your other hand. Useful for putting things in briefcases or your backpack.
See the Keyboard Shortcuts page, for more commands.

Interacting with Other People

Paradise is a medium-RP server, and so your interactions with those around you are going to be somewhat important. You're not expected to constantly roleplay to the highest level or remain completely serious, but try to maintain immersion and don't interrupt people who enjoy roleplaying on a higher level than you do. The commands you will be using to interact with people include:

Say:, Speak to those in your sight. You can prefix your message a semicolon (;) to talk on the general radio channel, if you have a headset, or a colon and a letter to talk on your department radio channel; :h will always broadcast to your headset's main channel. (You can examine headsets to see which channels they can access.) Prefixing your message with an asterisk (*) followed by a specific word will perform the relevant emote if it exists, which may include a sound effect. Type Say"*help" whilst in-game for a full list.
Whisper: Speak quietly, only audible to those right next to you. Anyone farther away will be told that you're whispering something and will be able to see a letter of two of what you're saying. As a shortcut, the say command accepts :w as a prefix, which will have your character whisper instead of speak at a normal volume.
Me: Lets you narrate your character's actions in an emote. This will have your character's make in front of the text. (e.x. Me "shakes his head")
OOC: Speak to everyone currently playing, in an Out-Of-Character way. This can be used to ask about game mechanics and other things not concerning the game. Try not to mention events happening in the game in OOC, as everyone can see it; revealing too much about the current round is a good way to get banned...
LOOC: Speak to people locally, out of character. Useful for asking out-of-character questions to nearby players, or attempting to cooperate to resolve a glitch. Avoid using LOOC to discuss the current events, or using it as an attempt to circumvent IC, for example by threatening to contact the admins if someone doesn't do what you say.

Extra Help

There are a few keyboard shortcuts for your convenience.

Action	Classic	Hotkey	Default
Adminhelp	F1	F1	F1
OOC Text	F2	O	F2
IC Text	F3	T	F3
Emote	F4	M	F4
Equip/Stow Item	N/A	E	N/A
Resist	N/A	B	N/A
Holst/Unholst Weapon	N/A	H	N/A
Drop Held Object	Home	Q	Ctrl + D
Toggle Throw Object	End	R	Ctrl+W
Activate Held Object	Page Down	Z	Ctrl + A
Examine Object	Shift + Click	Shift + Click	Shift + Click
Pull Object	Ctrl + Click	Ctrl + Click	Ctrl + Click
Stop Pulling Object	Delete	Delete	Delete
Switch Intents	Insert	1-4	Ctrl + E/Q
Switch Hands	Page Up	X	MMB, Ctrl + S
Scroll Text	Ctrl + Up/Down	Ctrl + Up/Down	Ctrl + Up/Down
Vent Crawl	Alt + Click	Alt + Click	Alt + Click
Toggle Walk/Run	Hold C	Hold C	Hold C

Many abbreviations are used on the server. For a full listing of commonly used acronyms, see Glossary.

Abbreviation	Meaning
HOP	Head of Personnel
CE	Chief Engineer
CMO	Chief Medical Officer
NTRep/NTR	Nanotrasen Representative
HOS	Head of Security
RD	Research Director
Blueshield	Blueshield officer
Lethals	Lethal weapons from the Secure Armoury
Lings/Clings	Changelings
Slings	Shadowlings

Read up on the other guides there are plenty out there! Or, head over to the discord and chat to the admins and mentors on there, they are always happy to teach you a little extra.

What To Do Now

There's a couple of things to do to help you settle in at Paradise once you've gotten the hang of the game:

Make yourself known on the forums: The server is home to a group of players whom make up the Paradise community and we love to see new faces, so swing by and introduce yourself!

Try advanced jobs: Once you feel you have the basics of the game under your belt, don't be afraid to check the job guides on the other positions available. Not only is it more fun, but you might get to help the station!

Be an antagonist: After you've gotten the basics down, it might be time to try your hand as an antagonist. Here is the best place to learn the basics of the different game modes and how to properly play them.

Help out the game: If you're good with programming, drawing sprites, telling stories or designing maps, updating wikis, we could use your help. Head over to the forums and chat with us.

Most importantly, have fun! After all, isn't that we're all here for?

Welcome aboard the NSS Cyberiad, have an efficient and productive day!

Any Further Questions?

Should you find yourself needing more advice on how to play or whether you're breaking a certain rule, you can also use the Mentor Help and Admin Help functions to do so while playing. Generally, there will be at least one person online who can answer any queries you may have, so don't be afraid to do so. To access this, either press F1 and click Mentor or Admin Help, or click on the tab labelled Admin and click Admin Help, then choose your option and type your message. When your message has been replied to, you'll hear a 'bwoink' sound and their message will appear in the chatbox, with a link for you to click so you may reply if necessary

The two options can be used at any time for any questions however specific things may be more suitable to be directed towards mentors and admins.

Mentor Help would usually be used in a situation where you'd like to know more about something that would otherwise not be able to be discussed in OOC chat without breaking the IC in OOC rule. For instance, if you had just spawned in as an engineer and wanted to know more about construction, you could use Mentor Help to ask a mentor for advice. In this case, they would either answer your question, if it's specific, or direct you over to the wiki page so you can learn more.

Admin Help would normally be the thing to use if you spot someone breaking a rule or if you need confirmation from an Admin about something that you're about to do, to ensure you're not breaking any rules. An example would be if you were an antagonist and you wanted to cause chaos on the station by releasing the engine or detonating a devastating bomb. To ensure that the Admins know about, and are okay with, this it is recommended that you let them know before doing it so that they can tell you not to if they don't feel like it is a good idea.

So, now you know that whenever you're in doubt of something you can always rely on the Admins and Mentors to help you. After all, that is why they're here, to make your time playing on the server is as enjoyable as possible!

User:Warriorstar/Guide for Beginners

Contents

The Server Rules

Joining the Server