Minor adjustments that encourage RP

[Scones]

I've been thinking about this a bit, lately. It's nice to have not necessarily incentives to RP, but more things to encourage it among the crew.

One thing I thought of would be actually informing Traitors of their employing company: They do, in fact, have a bit of background for each (http://www.ss13.eu/wiki/index.php/The_Syndicate)
It opens a few doors for explaining your objectives, and which fellow operatives you should/should not work with.
Ex; If your objective is to steal an AI, and you are a S.E.L.F activist? You're liberating an oppressed silicon life-form! Waffle Co, need to kill the Chef? He knows the secret... And must not be allowed to spread it.

Anyways, put ideas here.

[paprika]

MI13 employs traitors. Gorlex Marauders employs nuke ops. Tiger Cooperative employs lings. Donk Co/Waffle Co employ double agents.

It's really as simple as that.

[NikNakFlak]

Where does it say that?

[paprika]

The nuke op armor is property of the gorlex mauraders. Waffle/donk hate each other. MI13 is for covert ops. Tiger Cooperative is probably more of a cult thing considering their history but the cult gamemode are worshippers of nar'sie so it's probably just another fluff organization. I have no idea why lings bother stealing the captain's medal/jetpacks/etc though unless they're being employed by the syndicate, but those steal objectives for lings might have been removed.

[Scones]

MI13 employs traitors. Gorlex Marauders employs nuke ops. Tiger Cooperative employs lings. Donk Co/Waffle Co employ double agents.
It's really as simple as that.

Is this what you're suggesting, or purporting as established information?

Validity of the rest of it aside, Donk/Wafle co's eternal battle is/should be waged via double agents

[NikNakFlak]

The nuke op things make sense but alot of those statement you said are not absolutes. They make logical sense but so does the tiger cooperative having double agents too, because nothing says they can't. Nothing is a fact, so don't state it like it is. If it's not written as an absolute then it isn't.

[paprika]

All of these entries were originally made as 'roleplay' objectives for traitors, just like the ninja's. They aren't necessarily canon because they were never implemented. But I like some of the names so we should keep some, axe the rest. Gorlex maurauders being a merc corp formed from ex donk and waffle agents makes a lot of sense and MI13 being classy bond-esque stealth agents is cool as fuck too, but the traitors on our servers are usually a lot more deadly than covert. That can easily be changed with gear adjustments in the uplinks of our traitors, rather than making roleplay objectives.

No need to get so butthurt about things that have already been discussed ages and ages ago niknak.

[NikNakFlak]

I'm just saying, if it's absolute, it's gotta be absolute. Changing the code or descriptions doesn't sound like a bad idea, but that has to be done before really defining which corporation is messin with Nanotrasen.

[paprika]

Donk and waffle co are MUH /TG/ CULTURE and nuke ops aren't necessarily gorlex marauders atm, because their corporations are completely randomized at roundstart. You can get "waffle co. agent" at roundstart as a nuke op and your entire team is waffle co agents, which is cute so it's not marauders every nuke round but i think all of the agencies having the same gear for nuke ops is blech.

[NikNakFlak]

Well, I haven't done to much research into this stuff, but I know the syndy soap is supplied by waffle co I think. Any code changes with alter fluff could be discussed and if objectives could be tinkered with that would be great to. I don't really care how the fluff is altered to much, I just always had a great interest in enemy corporations.

[paprika]

Look at the description for the flamethrower in the nuke op uplink, I always thought that was a good indicator of the nuke ops' motivation. WHAT IF THE SYNDICATE ARE THE GOOD GUYS??

[Stickymayhem]

Many more covert options would help

[paprika]

What about good ol fashioned cloaking devices? I mean, the chameleon projector is already that, maybe a decrease in price or something. Disguises and shit should be way more viable, you shouldn't have to murder/lolemag you way into everything. I'd love it if traitors could buy insolated gloves because it's fucking hard to be uber stealth hacker if you leave trail of fucking emagged doors in your wake. Also, hacking open lockers when? Shit, I should add that, seems easy. Emags are basically necessary for some steal objectives and it's mad gay.

[Steelpoint]

A proper cloaking device might be interesting, however I'm 100% sure SS13 used to have such a device a long time ago/on goonstation right now? I think the only counter was the Detective's Thermals, however since the Detective does not have that, there's no counter to it. So it would take little effort to follow the Captain to his room/HoS to the armoury.

Also there's nothing stopping us from writing up a proper lore entry on the different syndicate factions and implementing that in game.

[Cik]

add a door interface to lockers paprika

you could make it unique if you wanted but it's not even required

traitor engineers should not need emag kthx

in fact lots more stuff should be hackable, including perhaps medbay equipment and fire alarms.

add more wires to station PLX

[DemonFiren]

A proper cloaking device might be interesting, however I'm 100% sure SS13 used to have such a device a long time ago/on goonstation right now? I think the only counter was the Detective's Thermals, however since the Detective does not have that, there's no counter to it. So it would take little effort to follow the Captain to his room/HoS to the armoury.

Also there's nothing stopping us from writing up a proper lore entry on the different syndicate factions and implementing that in game.

Perhaps allowing EMPs to permanently fry the cloak and letting mesons or NVGs see through it could help.

[paprika]

How about HUDshades or medical Huds still showed up on people regardless of cloaking devices so at most you could slip by people who weren't paying attention but you couldn't just walk into the armory

[Loonikus]

Add a small chance that a traitors only objective besides surviving is "Observe the station and its crew, and return any intelligence to HQ after the end of the shift. Engage targets of opportunity at your own discretion."

In other words, free greentext as long as you get on the shuttle/pod. Perhaps people will use this as an opportunity to be creative with their uplink and not have to worry about their objectives.

[WeeYakk]

Changing security's uniforms so they look more friendly :^)

[DemonFiren]

How about HUDshades or medical Huds still showed up on people regardless of cloaking devices so at most you could slip by people who weren't paying attention but you couldn't just walk into the armory

I never expected a reasonable idea from that corner, and damn if that idea isn't reasonable.
doit.jpg

[Vigilare]

How about HUDshades or medical Huds still showed up on people regardless of cloaking devices so at most you could slip by people who weren't paying attention but you couldn't just walk into the armory

this already exists, I think
whenever admins make an invisible person you can still see them with secHUDs/HUDshades/medHUDs

it'd be a good counter to people getting into the armoury with it; and the AI can see too because hud overlay (possibly AI can't see w/medHUD if your sensors aren't maxed though)
mesons and thermals seeing through would be good too, I think some servers have a t-ray scanner as a ghetto invis-counter

there's invisibility in-game already with those new genetics powers, it'd be good to have a counter to those too

[kosmos]

Every gamemode has been tweaked A LOT except the most common one: traitor. It definitely needs factions, or at least many objectives more. Or just remove antag greentext and give them very vague objectives like "kidnap person x", "teach person x a lesson but let them live", "set part of the station on fire", "hand out loadsa drugs" etc.

And we have seen how much people will do shit to get their greentext, we should give the crew ways to get unitive greentext as well; random assignments from NanoTrasen like maxing out R&D, getting a certain amount of materials, high-end tools or all the crates sent on the supply shuttle and such.

[DemonFiren]

What Genetics has can by no definition be called invisibility last I checked.

And don't throw in too many counters, else it's going to be bloody useless.

[Ricotez]

Crew objectives have been suggested so many times over the past years, and they were always refused because you're there to do your job to the best of your abilities. That's your objective.

[DemonFiren]

Also, for glorious Cargonia.

[miggles]

What Genetics has can by no definition be called invisibility last I checked.

And don't throw in too many counters, else it's going to be bloody useless.

>stand still
>youre are now incapable of being seen
invisibility

[DemonFiren]

Well, I only checked it very shortly after implementation.

So it works more like Mimetic Skin now, which is probably better.

[Loonikus]

Add disabilities/augmentations to your character sheet like EVERY OTHER DAMN SERVER HAS HAD FOREVER NOW.

[Timbrewolf]

What about good ol fashioned cloaking devices?

No god no.

We had cloaking devices before and they didn't encourage stealthy gameplay one bit. They were the cornerstone of murder rampages the likes of which we'll never see again.
If you want to ecnourage stealthy gameplay the cloaking device is the exact opposite thing you should be thinking about introducing.

Those were dark days my friend.

Being invisible doesn't reward you for hiding, it enables you to walk right out in the middle of everyone and start slaughtering everyone. If you want more cloaky style gameplay, you need devices that work better in the dark or help and reward people for hiding. Look towards changeling powers and ninja tools. Some kind of regenerative stasis belt you can buy so you can make guerrilla attacks on parts of the station and then retreat to heal yourself up for the next raid might encourage people to be less Rambo.

[paprika]

Just because old coders didn't know how to balance cloaking devices doesn't mean the idea is shit. It's really hard to be a stealth antag when all you have is the chameleon projector for stealth.

[specyalic]

what about a simple character history page

[Timbrewolf]

Just because old coders didn't know how to balance cloaking devices doesn't mean the idea is shit. It's really hard to be a stealth antag when all you have is the chameleon projector for stealth.

Point taken. You'll have to excuse me for hearing the word "cloaker" and recoiling in horror given that item's history and the impact it had on traitor rounds.

what about a simple character history page

This has been suggested numerous times and while I can't say it would hurt, I don't expect it will go very far in encouraging people who wouldn't otherwise be communicating and roleplaying with others to start doing so.
It would be a good tool for people who are already doing these things to embellish themselves and interact more with others who are doing the same.
For people who aren't already doing it, though, I'm not sure how much of a draw it would have? I guess the hope would be that they see something that inspires them in someone else's profile text and it sparks them to want to try doing the same.

It couldn't hurt and it would be neat for people who are already there, already doing it, so yeah why not?

But whether it would encourage others to get into roleplaying and whether it would only require a "minor adjustment" to implement I can't personally say.
It's a good idea for other reasons, but I'm not sure it's the solution to this problem.

There is a minor danger to roleplay in that putting important character background in there that is true about your character but not everyone should know might play out poorly. Someone you've never met on the station before walking up to you, reading your history and then immediately saying like "Oh hey so you used to be a Syndicate operative that's cool." or whatever could be handled awkwardly. It's a great challenge of roleplaying I've seen in plenty of pen and paper games I've played. You can write a great and wonderful backstory but that's not roleplaying, that's just chargen. It's what you do with it and how you shape your interactions going forward, the impression you give people, that ultimately matters the most. Just writing out "my character did all these things in the past" doesn't accomplish anything.