/tg/Station 13

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youngbuckliontiger wrote:My only wish was that the centcomm didn't tell the coordinates of the pilot but just the z-level where the pilot is at. It woulda been more fun searching that z-level for the pilot instead of telescience knowing the coordinates and just beep boopity poppin the pilot into the station.

ICly, the idea was that we would recover them because of our 'advanced' telescience facilities - In general, walking them home through z-levels would be pretty dumb because what's to stop them from floating to the next passing ship or whatever

Anyways, we need more events like that. The pilot didn't even say too much: They let the crew play it out, and it was really goddamn fun. (Not sure what my AI was thinking, in retrospect. That's clearly an evil act.)

I would kill a man for an Alien: Isolation event. That game may as well have been set on SS13.

(Seriously, I will send you a man's heart if that's what it takes. I'm ready. Let's do this.)

It would not be that hard to be honest, all you have to do is spawn in a single Hunter or Chestburster.

While its not a bad idea, I think admins may not do it because it's giving all the ""fun"" to a single player, and admins are discouraged in giving a single player a lot of power outside of gamemodes like Blob or Wizard. It's why you never see a admin spawn in a Space Ninja.

I'd actually like having an admin or someone reasonable play an unkillable alien hunter, provided they actually ROLEPLAY an unkillable alien hunter and not murderbone erryone in the first 5 minutes.
Come to think of it, I'd even enjoy an unkillable alien hunter/mob murderbone event. I remember something similar on /vg/ or something, the crew ended up mass driving the offending monster out of the chapel after many were killed. It was pretty fun.

Whoisthere wrote:I'd actually like having an admin or someone reasonable play an unkillable alien hunter, provided they actually ROLEPLAY an unkillable alien hunter and not murderbone erryone in the first 5 minutes.
Come to think of it, I'd even enjoy an unkillable alien hunter/mob murderbone event. I remember something similar on /vg/ or something, the crew ended up mass driving the offending monster out of the chapel after many were killed. It was pretty fun.

I do that on basil/badger sometimes to spice things up. Low pop means low visibility. Never actually killed anybody, just ruined virology, busted a couple windows and tackled the hos and started dragging him a bit so he'd scream.
They finally caught me after like 40 minutes of paranoia, tried to debrain me and found a birthday cake in the skull instead.

It'd be way too hard to pull that off on Sybil.

Oh man birthday cake in the skull is genius. Kinda reminded me how a HoS somehow started birthing clowns after a clown got gibbed and its blood flew into the HoS' mouth or something. It was horrible but also amusing.

And I don't know about Sybil. Shadowlings generally work well there, even when there are many people on.

What is the most difficult part of setting up events? Are you limited with the choice of events because of players bitching that you "ruined their round" or something else?

Whoisthere wrote:What is the most difficult part of setting up events? Are you limited with the choice of events because of players bitching that you "ruined their round" or something else?

Setting it up without being seen setting it up.
Building things takes time, and I really hate when people see me spawning things in because muh immurshuns and whatnot.
Like even if I manage to spawn it right as they run off screen and come back to "what the fuck, this wasn't here before" its fine. They still lost visual contact with the spot I was working on.

Then its a matter of "if I build it off-station, how do I get the players to find it safely?" Centcom announcements work, but if its too big of a hassle most people won't bother. You'll just get one guy who dashed to EVA to grab a suit and he gets all the loot.
The loot is another one, what is too much? Too little? Generally costumes and small arms are fine, everybody loves the tacticool lockers. Maybe a stetchkin or esword or who knows depending on the type of event. I've thrown modified miner hardsuits to remove slowdown before in xeno asteroid crashes.

Sometimes its about the consequences, spawning xenos during something like malf or blob is just plain dumb. Did watch a queen ventcrawl into the AI sat and just dunk the AI once.

Whoisthere wrote:What is the most difficult part of setting up events?

Predicting and guiding player behavior.

Almost all really good events share the common element of "And then the players took it and made it great", and the trick to eventing is to provide a framework that the players can play off of to reach the desired result.

Just out of curiosity, do events happen more often on Badger/basil? I have a lot of fun with them, so the more I get to experience, the merrier.

On the topic of high-population events, the whole 'Build your own shuttle' thing was so much goddamned fun. A little autistic on the button-pressing near the end, but the construction and initial launch troubleshooting was great. Events that encourage the crew to do something grand, together, are coolio.

Cecily wrote:Just out of curiosity, do events happen more often on Badger/basil? I have a lot of fun with them, so the more I get to experience, the merrier.

A little less i'd say, people there enjoy their RP so it doesn't get stirred up as much. Though extended does roll around and after 4 hours people are ready for -something- to happen.

Also, events that give people objectives they can view in their notes. It's a nice touch, and makes people feel a lot more involved.

For example, going back to the pilot event: Give a couple involved players some related objectives, pro/antagonistic or just vague. Things like...
- 'Ensure the pilot escapes alive with a false identity to protect them from Nanotrasen'
- 'Remove the pilot as per the Central Command transmission'
- Or even just 'Resolve the situation with the downed pilot, peacefully or otherwise'

Yeah, that'd be nice. Half of the time when there's an event going on I want to participate but don't know how to do that and not ruin in.

Actually, why not run an event where the only admin intervention is giving objectives to people?

Those are a really good kind of event. Especially if it is a very strange objective. Keeps the focus on the players rather than the admins and allows for interesting things to happen you may not see. Just avoid the classic trap of "pray is your traitor power." If you want to give out unusual magic get good at var editing instead. I have done really neat things with var editing up "artifacts."

Another good point is the idea of "ruining" an event. If it is possible to "ruin" your event you shouldn't do that event, because it likely means you made a scripted storyline rather than a real event.

I recall a event a month or so ago that I was involved in.

Essentially a admin spawned in several ghosted players on CentCom. The other four players were convicts whereas I was a Warden. A message was sent to the station that the prisoners had taken the ship and I was being held hostage. Admittedly this event was hastily put together and the prisoners were quickly captured, however it was secretly revealed that I was not in fact a Warden but a hidden syndicate agent with several objectives.

Essentially, more organic events that encourage role play make for better events most of the time. Hence why I really like the above idea of a spawned in Alien who role plays as a big bad monster but does not mindlessly kill people.

Here's a fun one that I came up with: It involves the clown and explosions.

Basically, the Clown would have a bomb implant, a special one that is activated by either attempting to remove it, or a Manchurian Candidate style code-phrase.
Clown planet would call up Central command and warn Command Staff that the clown is an escaped experimental biological-prank-of-war, and that for our safety, will not tell us the phrase to avoid.

However, The Syndicate have picked up on this, and have hidden clues all over the station, under the guise of a contest. The winner would receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Space-Vegas and a one million credit gambling budget.

However, in order to "win" (explode the clown), you have to say the codephrase EXACTLY AS INTENDED. Any word misplaced, improper punctuation, etc. would cause weird effects to the clown. Could be anything from uncontrollable vomitting to the clown being launched across the station in the direction he is facing.

Its the command staff's, and Security's, job to find the clues hidden around the station, and stuff them into the vault, because the Clown Planet Secret Honkers want the Bio-Clown back, and will pay in a shit-ton of gold.

Staff wins if they can keep the clown alive for long enough for the CPSH to research a deactivation codephrase and use it. Crew Wins if they can get the phrase right.

Oh, and if anybody kills the clown, the secret biotech will leap to the murderer, and then THEY are the one that has to be kept alive.

I've taken to making little mini-events to reward well-done or well RP'd departments. I saw a chef a while back in a long-running 'ling round who had a whole redone dining front and a steady stream of diverse food on the counter. I then spawned a ghost as a "food critic" to go and pester the chef. The chef brought out about 3-4 courses with equally nonsense/RP descriptions (including drinks) up until the whole thing was "ruined" by the chef being eaten by a giant spider that smashed through the critic's table.

I also remember sending a "test sample" to science which was just a simple clown mob. This mob was killed inside its containment by a "clown hunter." Through a series of voices in his head and Centcomm messages I convinced the RD that he was probably getting fired (into the sun) and all hope was lost. He spent the rest of the shift coughing up butterflies.

The little stuff is always fun because as an admin I can tell when players are playing along and feed it. And I can use things players are already actively doing (or doing right) to encourage them to do more of it.

I remember a really good round Jesusmod did back in the day.

Centcom called and said they wanted to store a new prototype mech called a "Metal Gear" in the armory for safekeeping, and after it arrived they sent two guards led by Revolver Ocelot to help Sec guard it. Revolver Ocelot ordered the entire Sec team to only patrol in really obvious repetitive routes and begin any report with "HQ! HQ!"

Than he sent Solid Serpent to destroy Metal Gear, who had a silenced .45, a cham. projector set to look like a cardboard box, and a few bricks of C4.

Solid Serpent actually managed to destroy it by creating a diversionary explosion in front of the brig and sneaking in through the side maintenance door using the key card he got by knocking out a Sec Officer using CQC. He than planted C4 on the Metal Gear, got in a running gun fight with Revolver Ocelot, and fucked off back to Centcom.

10/10 event

Thread necro, because the alternative is making a new thread.

I want an event that really brings the crew together to the best of its abilities, and I've thought of one.

At the beginning of the round, Centcom announces that this station is not a research station - it's a trap for unwitting problem elements within the organisation, and in one hour's time, the station is going to be forcibly purged of all life, one way or another. Thanks for signing up to isolate yourself from the herd, fucknuts! Have a secure day!

Luckily, a disparate faction of the Syndicate intercepts the signal and recognises the opportunity - they'll provide cargo service for you as normal. Everything else is down to the crew. You've got one hour to prepare to defend the lives of every single crewman. Go.

I imagine that much frantic mining and researching and mech-building would ensue, as well as reinforcement of walls, blockades in corridors etc. At the end of the hour (which is counted down and announced by an overly-confident Centcom), waves of nonsense are sent at the crew - deathsquads of various flavours, shuttles seeded with alien eggs, space ninjas and wizards hired to cause some damage. So on and so forth. The crew has at least half an hour's worth of ordeals to pull through before a hijacked shuttle sent by the aformentioned Syndicate faction leaves the station to head towards a reclaimed former Centcom station.

Imagine seeing the crew actually work together in their entirety for once. It's the reason why I liked meteor rounds so much.

I've been thinking about this thing for a bit. What if, at round start, some random non-antag crew member was a sleeper agent. Let's say it's a cargo tech, for example. At round start, he would have no idea, and would just go about his job as normal. The captain and the HoS would know who the sleeper agent was at the start of the shift, and the secret word to activate them, but they're only supposed to be used in extreme emergencies. Nuke ops come and start tearing shit up, so the HoS runs to that cargo tech sleeper agent and says the secret word. The agent gets a new objective, "Defend your crew and Nanotrasen assets at all costs." Maybe it activates an implant that pushes a continuous stream of hyperazine and synaptizine, maybe tricord, and maybe he'll do more brute damage with hits.

Maybe it's a dumb idea! I dunno, I've been thinking about it and it sounds kind of cool but definitely needs some work.

DonkeyTeeth wrote:I've been thinking about this thing for a bit. What if, at round start, some random non-antag crew member was a sleeper agent. Let's say it's a cargo tech, for example. At round start, he would have no idea, and would just go about his job as normal. The captain and the HoS would know who the sleeper agent was at the start of the shift, and the secret word to activate them, but they're only supposed to be used in extreme emergencies. Nuke ops come and start tearing shit up, so the HoS runs to that cargo tech sleeper agent and says the secret word. The agent gets a new objective, "Defend your crew and Nanotrasen assets at all costs." Maybe it activates an implant that pushes a continuous stream of hyperazine and synaptizine, maybe tricord, and maybe he'll do more brute damage with hits.

Maybe it's a dumb idea! I dunno, I've been thinking about it and it sounds kind of cool but definitely needs some work.

I've actually been thinking of different ways to have crew objectives that aren't just 'do your damn job'. One idea was for someone to be given a 'jester' role. Unlike a clown who's job is to be annoying, the jester's role is to get himself lynched in the most amusing way possible, and use any means necessary. Someone who's extra robust and has to defend against a threat is another, they get 'activated' during more blatant rounds to robust the wizard/aliums/newcop. Theif would be another, tasked with stealing a number of medium risk items, like a space suit, gloves, or gold card. Nothing that poses a real risk, don't want them getting confused with traitors. Backstreet surgeon is a good idea, tasking them with performing a certain number of augmentations/implants, tracking it by who has them on shuttle so we actually get to see surgeries other than brain removal and the occasional appedectomy, and the makeshift tools for a change.

Having roles to do when you aren't antag that don't pose a threat to the station would keep people from getting bored on longer extended rounds.

What about a round where the crew is given an hour to prepare for incoming waves of enemies?

Or a Berlin Wall round?

There's still an event topic on General.

Merged a topic from general chat with this thread to keep everything in one place.

Snakebutt wrote: -snip-

I really like this idea, enough to where I'd suggest making a thread in the ideas forum. Giving crew little objectives like that would be pretty nifty, as an admin event or otherwise.

Small events inside departments are fun as well. I usually run out of things to do as RD, so I always message Central for something. They send me a subject, hijinks ensue, I write a long report and send it back. Good fun. I almost wish I had the power to run events but there are already 10 gorillion trialmins and I don't want admin-level responsibility.

Clowns vs mimes. Everyone spawns as either a clown or a mime with the objective to kill the other faction.

DEAF SQUAD

Alright, everyone ready?!
What?!
What was that?
Hey, let's go on three!
What did you say?
Hey! I didn't say we should go!
What?!


Spawn in squiddies like normal but vv them to be deaf. Easier way is to spawn in humans, inject them with deafness dna, then vv the players key into it.

'Officer Trunk Beefchest points forward three fingers, and slices them down in a chopping motion.
Officer Thump Hardskull cocks his head, and shrugs.
Officer Trunk Beefchest sighs, mimes firing his pulse rifle, and points to the shuttle airlock.'

make them mute, like mimes but permanent
they gotta work for their team communication

A sokoban-puzzle as an away-mission would be awesome. Maybe with grilles and players only able to try one at a time.

Corporate housing:

A message from CentComm tells the station that a visiting group of potential corporate investors will be visiting the station in a few hours. The crew must pull together and create a luxury accommodation, bar, pool area and relaxation rooms for the guests.
When NT officials arrive they will inspect, except one of them happens to be implanted with a xeno... Xeno's take over accommodation and sip fine wines. Ok maybe not that last part, but still, a build round with objectives, maybe a plot twist somewhere.

Any event really, even a simple deathsquad can be fun if proportioned (*) properly. Gives some players shooting fun, let's some assistants make a name for themselves by stealing Pulse rifles and defending station, stuff.

But then there will be always this one "arr-peer" who will hate the event beacause he died while making autism fort, or ERPing in Medbay, like that is impossible to do any other round. I mean, holy shit, why everyone hates those events. If you're dragged into one, then go with it and do whatever you want other time. Hell damn, I enjoyed Antonkr accidental NarSie, I enjoyed Hbl.ogg, I even enjoyed getting killed by Deathsquad because I knew I did everything to stop them, inflicted some damage and I didin't cried because it stopped me from making Cargo autism fort and having some pizza with people.

The only time when it's bad, it's proably when Admins create Mary Sues (Sticky, i'm looking at your "invicible-exploding-on-touch-Dave") that you can't do anything against.

(*)By that i mean it's one short round, not ten Deathsquads in a row.

Kot wrote: The only time when it's bad, it's proably when Admins create Mary Sues (Sticky, i'm looking at your "invicible-exploding-on-touch-Dave") that you can't do anything against.

Yeah but Dave can't die... it's Dave... the legend (and Im not talking about no ripoff shirtless wannabe)

I was a tater with Dave (just 'Dave') as my objective once

got a phazon, lasered him to death with a solaris heavy laser; hid the body and stripped the jumpsuit/PDA so the sensors and identity wouldn't show

end of round, redtext, "you failed to kill TIME DAVE the Assistant"

;-; dave cannot die

Kot wrote:The only time when it's bad, it's proably when Admins create Mary Sues (Sticky, i'm looking at your "invicible-exploding-on-touch-Dave") that you can't do anything against.

Mary Sues are a necessary evil during events a lot of the time.
How can you create a horrifying beast or anything that even resembles a threat, when an assistant just rocks up to it and it dies faster than you can say chelp.

Remie Richards wrote:

Kot wrote:The only time when it's bad, it's proably when Admins create Mary Sues (Sticky, i'm looking at your "invicible-exploding-on-touch-Dave") that you can't do anything against.

Mary Sues are a necessary evil during events a lot of the time.
How can you create a horrifying beast or anything that even resembles a threat, when an assistant just rocks up to it and it dies faster than you can say chelp.

There's a very real difference between "Admin powertrip Mary Sue" and "Credible threat".

Hippie Commune.

Only if we name it Hippie Station.

.. Then I realized I can just be a HoP and open a fuck ton of botany slots.

Remie Richards wrote:

Kot wrote:The only time when it's bad, it's proably when Admins create Mary Sues (Sticky, i'm looking at your "invicible-exploding-on-touch-Dave") that you can't do anything against.

Mary Sues are a necessary evil during events a lot of the time.
How can you create a horrifying beast or anything that even resembles a threat, when an assistant just rocks up to it and it dies faster than you can say chelp.

There is a difference between horrifying beast and something that makes you explode when you touch it, makes you explode when you shoot it, makes you explode when you say bad things about it. Make it powerful, but for fucks sake, there should be a way to get it down.

AI-is-captain round. With appropriate lawset. Just to hear the tortured cries of all the shitters trying to law 2 it.

This is why all custom lawsets should have Law 2 be set to 'You must swear loudly about the sanctity of the mother of anyone who mentions this law on radio

An event featuring a radio station making announcements and the like that are SS13 themed, but based on the format and absurdity of http://youtube.com/welcometonightvale

Something I called Outsourced.

Nanotrasen has decided to outsource it's plasma research to the Lizard Planet. The station has a set amount of time to research parts of the tech tree and provide samples and items from all departments for a Centcom VP and his entourage that are appearing in a set period of time. If they fail, the crew is Fired. The Entire Crew. They are then to be evicted and moved, probably to centcomm for processing and receiving their severance packages. Oh, and any clone backups are to be erased.

An implication will be given that the station cannot, or will not exceed the cost effectiveness of the Lizard station, who paid little better than slaves.

What will the crew do? Openly revolt and declare independence in the imminent loss of their livelihoods? Try to keep their jobs by meeting the objectives? Plan for the VP's arrival then take him hostage? Openly defect to the syndicate and call for their help?

Also, to encourage people to be nice to the local lizards(and have them side with the station rather than their brethren) state that the station lizards are considered unsuitable for transfer due to being on the station and will be fired like their human crewmates. Something about Being "used to humane, safer working conditions."

Honestly, this sounds basically to me like "Hey send deathsquads at the crew" But I feel like it could still be fun in a DER TERK ERR JERBS kind of way.

Not with the lizard population, who will, with months of experience, collaborate in a more efficient manner than the crew could have expected to sabotage any effort these warmbloods might be making.

I make that distinction in order to keep the crew at least somewhat unified rather than inciting an immediate lizard pogrom.

DemonFiren wrote:Not with the lizard population, who will, with months of experience, collaborate in a more efficient manner than the crew could have expected to sabotage any effort these warmbloods might be making.

You're the only person I actually know who does lizard solidarity (unless the captain declares a race war, at which point basically it turns into a rev round)

It's usually a very quiet thing, done and not talked about. I've observed lizards I've never seen before on Sybil helping me, going as far as shielding me from Security and giving me info on where they are and what crimes they pinned on me, running food and supplies my way, just because I'm another lizard.

Yeah but if you didn't only play lizards you'd know that the 1/2 of tg culture that isn't viciously tracking down antags is hiding criminals from sec. Nothing scaly here.

Literally I've been revolvering people in the halls but as long as the AI doesn't see me (can't deny the eye) random people will hide me or claim to have seen me in the locker room when I'm in maint at escape or whatever.

Now that is something I've never encountered the few times I've played human.

Mind you, that was a while ago, but in those couple months not that much could have changed...curious.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Yeah but if you didn't only play lizards you'd know that the 1/2 of tg culture that isn't viciously tracking down antags is hiding criminals from sec. Nothing scaly here.

Literally I've been revolvering people in the halls but as long as the AI doesn't see me (can't deny the eye) random people will hide me or claim to have seen me in the locker room when I'm in maint at escape or whatever.

/tg/station is just space detroit

no snitchin'

Scones wrote:

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:Yeah but if you didn't only play lizards you'd know that the 1/2 of tg culture that isn't viciously tracking down antags is hiding criminals from sec. Nothing scaly here.

Literally I've been revolvering people in the halls but as long as the AI doesn't see me (can't deny the eye) random people will hide me or claim to have seen me in the locker room when I'm in maint at escape or whatever.

/tg/station is just space detroit

no snitchin'

snitches get toolboxes

Drynwyn wrote: snitches get toolboxes

Talkers get toolboxed.