(also, forum rules forbid us from going all "yo nigga mah homie how ya bin?" around here)
Really? You are saying this? If I understand my FRC lore correctly, you are the one that tests the rules to find out how strict they really are, and it sure took you a lot of work to get banned in the first place. Or is this more a rhetorical nod to the fact that the rules are, in fact, largely suggestion as opposed to Rule of Law?
This is the difference between running cables underground instead of hanging them up on toothpicks underneath trees.
Actually, where I lived, the cables were underground, but the massive transformer areas were exposed. A strong enough lightning bolt even a mile away could tweak out such a station due to the electromagnetic burst. European countries at least values infrastructure and try to fix that shit when it happens; privatized electric companies can take their time until they start losing profits. Someday I might like to live in Switzerland...
My main argument against persistence is that it's infeasible. Example, some asshole blows up the station with a nuke. Killing everyone. Nothing is left of the station safe for some scrap metal (that should be useless). What are you going to do?
I actually addressed this hypothetically in a previous post. It wouldn't be MMO-style or FPS-style character persistence (because then everyone respawns and it has no meaning). It would simply be station persistence until station goes kablewey, reset station. But as for the rest of your paragraph, I would have to agree for the most part.
It would help if people read how SS13 is done first before making wild guesses as comments.
I think the best way to innovate and get away from a complete clone, for which people would say "Why bother doing the same goddammed thing?" (e.g. Project DORF vs Goblin Camp), is to bring in some people who are familiar with the thing being cloned and some not. Those who are not familiar will make suggestions that those who are familiar might not have the wherewithal to think, due to being boxed in by the original thing's mechanics. Those with the familiarity know what worked, what didn't, and how new ideas might (or might not) fit. It does require that new ideas are accepted, or else it can be nothing but a clone. That being said, I am looking into playing some SS13.
I think we need to take a lot of influence from the Paranoia RPG, but the key is determining if we are going the gimmick route or the super serious route. [video]
That seems like something out of Portal almost.
When you have traitors (or revolutionists, or aliens sucking off people's faces, etc) running around the ship, sometimes, either randomly or by admins invoking, strange things like meteor storms or ion storms or worse happen. Fucking up the hull or the AI or even the characters that got themselves exposed to heavy doses of radiation. SS13 is neither fully scripted, or fully non-scripted.
The wiki on game modes makes it sound pretty clear cut that you vote in for game mode X, Y, or Z. Anything the admin adds or random environmental effects do is a nice addition. Option 2 makes the latter the norm and the former a result of the latter.
play some rounds of SS13 and see how the game works.
Making it run faster and on all platforms. Fuck BYOND. Also, deviating at a later point is always possible, and starting with the idea to make something better also attracts attention.
The wiki on game modes makes it sound pretty clear cut that you vote in for game mode X, Y, or Z.
No we don't vote. Fuck that. The game is mostly set to 'Secret' mode, which just picks randomly one of the modes that are available (not all of them are available for secret mode).
It would simply be station persistence until station goes kablewey
And I'm telling you that it goes kablewey every other round. If you knew Cuban Pete, you would understand. Station? What station? And he didn't even have nukes. Just regular bombs.
those who are familiar might not have the wherewithal to think
Except that such stuff already happens by people suggesting things for /tg/station.
That seems like something out of Portal almost.
The "Evil AI" trope is not something that first was thought up with Portal you know.
Working on it.
Do you have/hate BYOND yet?
Really? You are saying this? If I understand my FRC lore correctly, you are the one that tests the rules to find out how strict they really are, and it sure took you a lot of work to get banned in the first place. Or is this more a rhetorical nod to the fact that the rules are, in fact, largely suggestion as opposed to Rule of Law?
i liek dunno dood. maybe i do tempt maibe im just a vitcmi of teh system. we like cant asy ur wrong and shit. and we cant write worng aether. its fucked up maaaan
The wiki on game modes makes it sound pretty clear cut that you vote in for game mode X, Y, or Z.
No we don't vote. Fuck that. The game is mostly set to 'Secret' mode, which just picks randomly one of the modes that are available (not all of them are available for secret mode).
My point here was that each game mode runs discretely, whether voted or chosen at random. I'd prefer if game modes were less hard coded to be mutually exclusive and more emergent from missions, assignments, and objectives. Crazy AI (mode X) does not happen during Traitor (mode Y). Yet there is no real reason not to allow traitors and a crazy AI at the same time; I gather you said admin sometimes force this to happen but I'd prefer if it didn't need forcing. That is Option 2.
(also, forum rules forbid us from going all "yo nigga mah homie how ya bin?" around here)
Unless it is relevant to your argument, don't admonish other forum members about their grammar or spelling: our moderators will handle that.
Then again, I suppose it is always relevant to your argument EDIT: Andrew, as a moderator, had the opportunity to both admonish me and hit up my post with some red markings. So you really didn't have to go out of your way.
Yet there is no real reason not to allow traitors and a crazy AI at the same time
It overwhelms the normal crew on the station. Yes, sometimes admins (affectionately called 'badmins' from here on out) do mess about and force the AI to be rogue, changelings to spread their lethal mouth-to-mouth all the while some red spacesuit wearing assholes try to find a nuke authentication disk to activate their nuke and blow up the station. That shit is awesome for any of the mentioned parties. Then there's the barber who gets killed 10 minutes in by a changeling because they need his DNA, meaning he has to sit out for the rest of the round, which can take a while (thank god /tg/station for letting us become personal AIs). I agree that there's no great problem to sometimes have two problems at once (I think a single changeling is sometimes added to whatever the other problem is because changelings are very undercover in their activities and those rounds benefit from having more over chaos). Your idea is probably not hard to add, but again, very likely to overwhelm the non-traitors. It's highly dependant on how many people are playing.
Then again, I suppose it is always relevant to your argument
My argument is my dick. It is made of flesh and grows when I put blood in it. Give me your blood!
EDIT: Andrew, as a moderator, had the opportunity to both admonish me and hit up my post with some red markings. So you really didn't have to go out of your way.
Scrym are also reading this thread, they can do it just as well. They however realize both of us are just taking the piss.
Your idea is probably not hard to add, but again, very likely to overwhelm the non-traitors. It's highly dependant on how many people are playing.
Yeah, so this is a definite possibility. My gut reaction is to say "create numbers to auto-balance via algorithm!" Of course, that is only possible through experimentation and so forth. I think the key is to start with discrete scenarios (e.g. Traitor(s) ), but keep in mind that perhaps the specific scenario constraint might be eased in the future.
That begs the question of what game mode is the player favorite? Again, this is looking for something to focus on in the short term while still considering long term goals.
They however realize both of us are just taking the piss in their pool, because they added that mythical chemical that turns blue.
When you're dead, gibbed and/or otherwise out of the game, R&D; can make personal AIs, pAIs. Which you can then load up with a personality. This personality is played by a human being who gave himself up to be a pAI. It's great if security was too slow to stop the chef from gibbing your character early in the round, giving you a chance to get back in the game as a personality on a chip. Sure, you can't walk around, and you have some more limitations, you can however chat and do a few other things (it's still fairly new so there's not a way to spend all of your resources on only a few packages to download so just buy everything), but it brings you back in the game from a new perspective. And it's a way to have fun. The other way would be to ask an admin to spawn aliens, but I personally don't like aliens.
EDIT: It's like a cyborg, only you trade autonomy in for not having to suffer strict interpretation of laws.
do a few other things (it's still fairly new so there's not a way to spend all of your resources on only a few packages to download so just buy everything)
Could you elaborate on that?
EDIT: and/or make suggestions as to what you'd want to see in that situation?
There's always the wiki. What I meant was, there's not yet enough software packages to run out your 'memory' resource. So you can just buy them all. Then activate packages on demand or if you feel like it. I prefer to enable the universal translator and medical HUD (allows a pAI to see the health of his master, very useful). That universal translator is of great use if you're a geneticist that turned himself into a chimp for !!SCIENCE!!, or so I speak from experience.
Some goonsay for thought. Goons discussing why there is a lot of random greifing and people not doing their jobs. Maybe we should take this in consideration. How do we make "jobs" fun?
There are three quartermasters. Three. Three fucking quartermasters to do virtually nothing all round. There are two chemists, two roboticists and two geneticists (even though only one geneticist will ever spawn at the round start) but these jobs are hard to do as a team since they can easily be done by one person so you end up with no extra ground being covered and a lot of stepped-on toes.
There are three engineers and a chief engineer to start the engine and calibrate the SMES cells, which can be done by one person inside of five minutes. Fixing structural damage is extremely tedious and time consuming and even after Nannek increased damage done from space exposure most breaches can just be ignored. Rounds don't usually last over an hour so what is the point spending almost all of that time fixing a huge hole just in time for everyone to evacuate the station? There is also no way to fix or replace APCs so if one is busted what is the point of even repairing the area?
There are three scientists and they just sit in front of computers all round or occasionally near a gas chamber. Their research helps the score at the end of the round but beyond that they contribute nothing positive to the station and the job is pretty boring. Unless you're a traitor or revolutionary don't expect to get much use out of your labors.
Doctors could pretty much just be replaced by medical dispensers. They rarely even use cryo but that isn't really necessary since you don't suffocate while critical and you can either succumb and be cloned (which is usually faster) or wait til someone gives you CPR for like 5 minutes while it somehow magically heals all your damage. Anyone can give first aid and anyone can give CPR. People are really paranoid about letting you get near them so even if a doctor had a mind to patch people up they would just recoil from your presence.
Electricians are fun and can be useful but the station doesn't really need anything built (much the same way that nobody ever needs to order anything from the quartermasters because the station is very well stocked). They can reproduce a lot of things but most of the fun stuff is dangerous and few people would be willing to let them scan it willingly so they have to steal it, This often results in arrested/killed electricians. Also anyone that asks for a job change to electrician is a traitor, since the only thing that ever really needs to be copied is whatever they need to steal.
Despite all that stuff I just said I think botanist and electrician are the two examples of good jobs. They can be done in teams to get more done without getting in each others way, they can contribute positively to several other branches of station staff, and botanists even help the station score. There is always something to be done for them. The only thing that lags electricians back is that they aren't really needed often. They're more fun than useful, but it's a game and fun is good! Miners get an honorable mention because their ore and artifacts and other various space goodies can contribute in many ways, including round score, but they're so distant that playing as one makes you feel completely irrelevant to the station.
My gut reaction is to choose professions in game and be able to readily change them. That is considerably different than SS13, but if there are too many XXX, then you will probably know it (or find out quickly enough) and choose YYY instead.
Playing as an assistant, you basically get that flexibility. I almost became a doctor as an assistant, but I couldn't figure out how to rescue the ID badge from the braindead doctor. The CMO even gave me permission to do so.
Of course that can't be the 100% solution. Certain roles must be filled and are singular. Outside of that, I'm not sure there would be much issue.
I remember one round I chose to be a botanist to find there were at least 2 other botanists running around the f'ing botany lab and it was pretty hard to keep track of what was what. I had no idea how many (if any) of anything there was when I signed up. That alone might be an improvement.
My gut reaction is to choose professions in game and be able to readily change them.
Join just after round-start and you can pick a job that's available and you like. Join before round start and you get assigned a random job, then you go to the Head of Personnel and ask for a job-change. The one problem is that the HoP is often a cunt and leaves his post for no reason. He should almost always be on the bridge, working the computers and keeping track of personnel, not patrol like a moron. Security is for that. Same way the warden shouldn't be running around either, HoS should though, coordinating and leading security to trap and arrest traitors and the like.
That is considerably different than SS13
No, that's exactly SS13
I couldn't figure out how to rescue the ID badge from the braindead doctor
Click on corpse and hold, then drag onto your character and release. You get an equipment interaction screen showing you everything being worn by the victim you chose. Click what you want to remove, or put something in your hand and click on an empty spot to put it there. Not like you should do that.
The CMO even gave me permission to do so.
Awesome for asking. You then should have asked the CMO to write a note for the HoP, telling the HoP to transfer Assistant Bryan to medical as Medical Doctor, stamp it and hand it to you to deliver to the HoP who would then take your ID, update it and you'd then be Medical Doctor Bryan. You would also bring the dead doc's ID for the HoP to clear so that no random clown or mime could suddenly run into the Medbay fucking shit up. Running around with someone else's ID, or being dressed entirely unlike the clothing your job requires is suspicious and sooner or later you will get robusted for it.
I had no idea how many (if any) of anything there was when I signed up. That alone might be an improvement.
Listing how many people there already are of the jobs that still have vacancies-not-counting-reassigned-assistants? There's little benefit to that. There are no crucial jobs in the game. There's only 1 requirement: There must be at least 1 head of staff. The rest matters little. Low-pop servers where half the station is made up out of the mime, clown, bartender, chef and chaplain can be very hilarious.
As for the Goonsay from Andrew, the guy calls the most boring jobs 'good'. Botany, Goonserver's electrician and mining are the least fun jobs (besides assistant, it starts with 'ass' for a reason). They are jobs that hole you up in your corner of the map for the entire round with nobody but heads of staff being able to come along and say 'hi'. Cargo is similar if you make good use of the M.U.L.E.s. The more exciting stuff in the game is when you come across the traitors. Something which engineers, security and doctors are far more likely to do than botanists, miners or cargo technicians seeing as those are jobs that require patrolling of the station (fixing holes, arresting traitors, helping wounded crew in the field).
Join just after round-start and you can pick a job that's available and you like.
The list that shows each "job that's available" doesn't indicate if anyone actually has that job. If there are already 2 botanists, the botanist job is still open. We'll have to agree to disagree that showing the numbers isn't important.
Click on corpse and hold, then drag onto your character and release.
Braindead, not actually dead. Disconnected. I think there is a way to steal from people who are not dead, I couldn't figure it out. I tried the drag'n'drop without success.
Running around with someone else's ID, or being dressed entirely unlike the clothing your job requires is suspicious and sooner or later you will get robusted for it.
I still need to figure out this aspect of the game. As far as I could tell, once you rescue someone's ID, only a finger printing device or something like that can show you aren't that ID. Unless you did something suspicious (like I suppose wearing the wrong clothes) or a corpse is found, it seems unlikely carrying someone else's ID is grounds for suspicion. Seeing the head of personnel makes sense (I'm a newbie), but yeah, generally it seems like if somebody has that position (i.e. not dead) they are running around doing something else.
Anyway the game really does run like shit and between that and not knowing all the ins and outs of the game, I have a hard time following what's going on.
For example: when gunfire goes off, I'd like to run away, but I don't ever know where the shooting is coming from to know what direction to run away to. Another example: when 30+ people head to the escape shuttle and there's no way to tell where the fight displayed in text is happening in the scene. It is hard to know what to do besides largely ignore these things.
I tried being pAI a few times before playing the game to follow someone and get a better feel for what was going on. Yeah you can follow peeps as ghost, but this seemed more engaging. It seems like being pAI on tg station is pretty useless at present. The best I could do was radio in when my master was killed by some guy. Problem was the guy was dragging my laying down master for quite some time, but the medical scanner didn't indicate any problems (such as unconsciousness, etc). There was also no red fighting text. I had no fucking idea how this guy was dragging my master, so I had no idea what to say about the situation over radio until the master was killed.
The list that shows each "job that's available" doesn't indicate if anyone actually has that job.
You're replying to the wrong quote here. That one was just pointing out how you can pick a job that's available and that you can change jobs in-game by the HoP desk. Note how what you're replying to I actually discussed paragraphs later.
If there are already 2 botanists, the botanist job is still open.
Correct, and there's nothing wrong with that.
We'll have to agree to disagree that showing the numbers isn't important.
Or you could actually give an actual argument to back up your opinion so that we actually can agree to disagree. You're just disagreeing without explaining an alternative. I told you that jobs aren't crucial in the game. If there's 3 active botanists or not a single one changes nothing significant on the station because jobs aren't crucial. You say "SHOW NUMBERS!", why? Why would that benefit the game? What service does it give to players? So there's 2 botanists, who the fuck cares just pick what's available and what you want to play. Hell, I just came to the conclusion that openly advertising crew numbers and distribution is an easy to way to meta-game and find out what round it is. If you want your numbers, provide an argument please.
Braindead, not actually dead. Disconnected.
I know. I read that the first time. No need to fucking repeat it. Note how anyone that is brain dead in real life is considered dead. I told you how to strip characters of shit, no need to nitpick semantics where it adds nothing to the conversation and there's no joke in it. It would be infuriatingly fucked up if stripping a dead guy used a different mechanic from stripping a non-dead guy (saying 'non-dead' here because you're being a semantics nitpicking cunt). Guess what, there's no, as in NONE, fucking difference between looting from another player, whether dead or alive. If you failed doing a simple drag and drop, you fucked up. On that note, the same works for other containers (yes, PCs are just containers of other objects). Drag a toolbox onto yourself and you can grab stuff out of it instead of picking it up, then digging through it.
As far as I could tell, once you rescue someone's ID, only a finger printing device or something like that can show you aren't that ID.
Or you know, talking without a voice-changer (note how the chatlog says "[your character's name in bold] (as [person you're impersonating])" when talking with a wrong ID on), or simply not covering your face. Fingerprints are pretty much never used because the round won't be long enough, and there's easier evidence (like getting robusted) to arrest someone. Also running around without an ID is suspicious as fuck. It's not that hard to go to the HoP desk, show your face and tell him someone stole your ID.
it seems unlikely carrying someone else's ID is grounds for suspicion
In that case, go mug Steve Jobs of his ID and walk into Apple HQ. Not suspicious at all, eh? You have his ID after all so obviously everything is okay. The only reason to wear someone else's ID is to hide your own identity (with a mask on and keeping your mouth shut/using a voice-changer) and/or gaining access to places you're normally not allowed access to. I hope you agree that both of those are suspicious situations, after all. You can just head over to the HoP and ask for your access rights to be modified. Sure, there's the meta-reason of the HoP being a patrolling cunt instead of being at his desk and/or the player being too lazy to walk over there to get his access rights modified. But that should not change IC opinion of someone running around with a wrong ID being suspicious.
Anyway the game really does run like shit
It does, thus the suggestion/idea to make a better version. If not SS13, there's the similar idea of Pressure. That being /v/'s idea for a game of a research lab underwater. The only difference then being that when you open doors water will rush in instead of air out.
when gunfire goes off, I'd like to run away, but I don't ever know where the shooting is coming from to know what direction to run away to
Just run. Secondly, know who is who and look at the chat when someone fires a gun. The game will tell you if you can see the shooter. Thirdly, look at which sprite is holding a gun. There's in-hand sprites for that reason. Same way with flashes, which allow you to spot potential Revolution heads. Fourth, just run, it's not like you'll survive because combat is pretty realistic in the sense that the one who attacks first will most often win in 1-on-1 combat. In the same vein, bringing a group will likely result in you winning (this is the core concept of Revolution rounds).
when 30+ people head to the escape shuttle and there's no way to tell where the fight displayed in text is happening in the scene. It is hard to know what to do besides largely ignore these things.
Escape shuttles are always chaos. Traitors are probably hiding amongst the group and security often takes the safe route and just stuncuffs people once on the shuttle. Don't worry too much about that, just get on the shuttle. Most people often make a dash for the sleepers to climb into safety.
I tried being pAI a few times before playing the game to follow someone and get a better feel for what was going on. Yeah you can follow peeps as ghost, but this seemed more engaging.
Being a pAI is more engaging. You can put in the OOC information that you would like to learn a job by asking questions as pAI etc. And then just keep asking questions.
It seems like being pAI on tg station is pretty useless at present.
Not really, pAI's just aren't very versatile yet. As I said, you can buy all the software without running out of resources currently. It is however a great help to have a medical or security HUD by proxy, and someone who can page people for you (can't read logs from a pAI afaik), or keep track of your health, or inform the station of things happening around or to its master are awesome. It's an extra pair of eyes, or just a small digital friend. There's been pAIs who told nothing but jokes, or narrated the exhilarating adventures of its master. So yeah, not useless, just not very versatile to be useful for everyone.
The best I could do was radio in when my master was killed by some guy. Problem was the guy was dragging my laying down master for quite some time, but the medical scanner didn't indicate any problems (such as unconsciousness, etc). There was also no red fighting text. I had no fucking idea how this guy was dragging my master, so I had no idea what to say about the situation over radio until the master was killed.
That guy was probably pulling him along, or grabbed him and started walking (same difference really, one just uses up a hand slot). As for no combat text, who says there was combat? Nobody but the victim notices something as small as getting pricked by a sleepy-pen or para-pen. This was possibly a para-pen, paralyzing your master making him incapable of doing anything. Sneaky way of dragging someone into maintenance and choking the life out of them. Or maybe he was a changeling that used its paralysing sting with the same effect. Or just an evil traitor that used Chloral Hydrate to knocked him out temporarily. You could have always just shouted on the radio that person X assaulted and is abducting your master, named Y, dragging him through/to location Z.
Comments
Then again, I suppose it is always relevant to your argument
That begs the question of what game mode is the player favorite? Again, this is looking for something to focus on in the short term while still considering long term goals.
EDIT: It's like a cyborg, only you trade autonomy in for not having to suffer strict interpretation of laws.
EDIT: and/or make suggestions as to what you'd want to see in that situation?
EDIT: lol AVG decided that one of the DreamXXX programs was malware out to steal my identity.
Playing as an assistant, you basically get that flexibility. I almost became a doctor as an assistant, but I couldn't figure out how to rescue the ID badge from the braindead doctor. The CMO even gave me permission to do so.
Of course that can't be the 100% solution. Certain roles must be filled and are singular. Outside of that, I'm not sure there would be much issue.
I remember one round I chose to be a botanist to find there were at least 2 other botanists running around the f'ing botany lab and it was pretty hard to keep track of what was what. I had no idea how many (if any) of anything there was when I signed up. That alone might be an improvement.
As for the Goonsay from Andrew, the guy calls the most boring jobs 'good'. Botany, Goonserver's electrician and mining are the least fun jobs (besides assistant, it starts with 'ass' for a reason). They are jobs that hole you up in your corner of the map for the entire round with nobody but heads of staff being able to come along and say 'hi'. Cargo is similar if you make good use of the M.U.L.E.s. The more exciting stuff in the game is when you come across the traitors. Something which engineers, security and doctors are far more likely to do than botanists, miners or cargo technicians seeing as those are jobs that require patrolling of the station (fixing holes, arresting traitors, helping wounded crew in the field).
Anyway the game really does run like shit and between that and not knowing all the ins and outs of the game, I have a hard time following what's going on.
For example: when gunfire goes off, I'd like to run away, but I don't ever know where the shooting is coming from to know what direction to run away to. Another example: when 30+ people head to the escape shuttle and there's no way to tell where the fight displayed in text is happening in the scene. It is hard to know what to do besides largely ignore these things.
I tried being pAI a few times before playing the game to follow someone and get a better feel for what was going on. Yeah you can follow peeps as ghost, but this seemed more engaging. It seems like being pAI on tg station is pretty useless at present. The best I could do was radio in when my master was killed by some guy. Problem was the guy was dragging my laying down master for quite some time, but the medical scanner didn't indicate any problems (such as unconsciousness, etc). There was also no red fighting text. I had no fucking idea how this guy was dragging my master, so I had no idea what to say about the situation over radio until the master was killed.