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[Fayrik]

You mean you didn't memorize how to cut someone's appendix out while cooking a prize winning cheese wheel?

Pshaaaw. Casuals.

/notserious

You mean that you never performed plastic surgery while setting up the singularity engine?

Pshaaaw. Casual.

/notserious

Anyways, I'm on the fence about this as well

My general negativity over games has already set in.

The reason I've enjoyed Space Station 13 so much is because of the game's extreme complexity, and yes, lack of documentation. It's worked really well for it imho. The fact that some stuff just isn't flat out documented means you have to learn it. And I've found that to be the most fun.
That sort of challenge and complexity can only come from such a giant, multi decade, open source project.

I'm trying to come up with a positive side for this, but I'm struggling somewhat. Having the game in early access *so early* makes me suspicious that this game might just be some very successful vapourware.

[Glloyd]

I'm trying to come up with a positive side for this, but I'm struggling somewhat. Having the game in early access *so early* makes me suspicious that this game might just be some very successful vapourware.

Aye, that is my fear as well. I think they're just trying to get the cash quick and then abandon their door simulator.

[scrdest]

That robust door opening action...!

[Draco18s]

Even the dumbest of stumps can hold multiple things in one hand. Like six grocery bags, or a whip and a pair of pliers. Doesn't mean you can use those things effectively.

Its more about the infuriatingly complicated inventory management.  You can't just pick something up with full hands and put it into your backpack simply.  No.

You have to...
Open your inventory screen
Place the item you're carrying in one hand into your backpack
Close inventory
Pick up the item
Open inventory screen
Place the item into your backpack
Retrieve the last item you had from backpack
Close inventory screen

Holy shit dude.  Ever hear of a quickswap command?

[scrdest]

Even the dumbest of stumps can hold multiple things in one hand. Like six grocery bags, or a whip and a pair of pliers. Doesn't mean you can use those things effectively.

Its more about the infuriatingly complicated inventory management.  You can't just pick something up with full hands and put it into your backpack simply.  No.

You have to...
Open your inventory screen
Place the item you're carrying in one hand into your backpack
Close inventory
Pick up the item
Open inventory screen
Place the item into your backpack
Retrieve the last item you had from backpack
Close inventory screen

Holy shit dude.  Ever hear of a quickswap command?

You actually could fairly easily on /tg/code, since E autoequipped to any available storage slot, including backpacks, but prioritizing pockets and clothes, and /vg/station has easy clothing swap code.

[Draco18s]

Hardly the only problem I had.  Closing doors was also a pain in the ass, mostly because the only way to do it was to click on the sprite.  And when 95% of the sprite was transparent (letting the click fall to the sprite behind it) it was actually rather difficult.

Basically, doing anything other than moving around was a pain in the arse in the BYOND engine.  The farther away from that it got, the more stupefyingly complex the instruction set got.

I mean hell, here's how you hack a locked door:

Assuming the wire-panel is open, you can do the following things with the 9 wires:

•     one wire from the ID scanner. Sending a pulse through this flashes the red light on the door (if the door has power). If you cut this wire, the door will stop recognizing valid IDs. (If the door has 0000 access, it still opens and closes, though)
•     two wires for power. Sending a pulse through either one causes a breaker to trip, disabling the door for 10 seconds if backup power is connected, or 1 minute if not (or until backup power comes back on, whichever is shorter). Cutting either one disables the main door power, but unless backup power is also cut, the backup power re-powers the door in 10 seconds. While unpowered, the door may be crowbarred open, but bolts-raising will not work. Cutting these wires may electrocute the user.
•     one wire for door bolts. Sending a pulse through this drops door bolts (whether the door is powered or not). Cutting this wire also drops the door bolts, and mending it does not raise them. If the wire is cut, trying to raise the door bolts will not work.
•     two wires for backup power. Sending a pulse through either one causes a breaker to trip, but this does not disable it unless main power is down too (in which case it is disabled for 1 minute or however long it takes main power to come back, whichever is shorter). Cutting either one disables the backup door power (allowing it to be crowbarred open, but disabling bolts-raising), but may electocute the user.
•     one wire for power assist. Sending a pulse through this while the door has power makes it raise the door bolts. Cutting this prevents manual bolts-raising with a wrench from working.
•     one wire for AI control. Sending a pulse through this blocks AI control for a second or so (which is enough to see the AI control light on the panel dialog go off and back on again). Cutting this prevents the AI from controlling the door unless it has hacked the door through the power connection (which takes about a minute). If both main and backup power are cut, as well as this wire, then the AI cannot operate or hack the door at all.
•     one wire for electrifying the door. Sending a pulse through this electrifies the door for 30 seconds. Cutting this wire electrifies the door, so that the next person to touch the door without insulated gloves gets electrocuted. (Currently it is also STAYING electrified until someone mends the wire)

Playing this game requires an engineering degree, an electrician's license, and a freaking instruction book.

Now, the first step here requires having the wire panel open.  Let me just go get the instructions for that.  Oh wait, there's no link for that.  Let me just search the wiki for that object.

Screwdriver
Glass
Metal
Headset
Howto:Start the main engine
Sandbox Mode
Airlock
Engineer
Howto:Open an airlock (page I was just on)

Screwdriver tells me I can access the wires panel, but isn't specific on how.
The next five are unrelated and simply contained one of the words I searched for.
Airlock does have the info.  Why is this page not linked from the last page?  Why does it not have a link back?

Holy shit.

The wiki is just as obtuse and as unusable as the game itself!  The fuck am I supposed to do, memorize this shit before I play?

[scrdest]

Yes. Yes you are.

Honestly, it is not difficult at all. And it isn't BYOND's fault in the slightest - it's complex on purpose. Because a) it allows for more interaction, effectively being a minigame, and b) it prevents J. Random Assistant from being a master at everything from the get-go without a skill system. Hell, I'm fairly certain I'm one of like three people on the Bay12 server who knows how to open the safe in the vault.

To open the panel, you just screwdrive it open. With a single click.

SS13 is an open source project. This includes the wiki. You want to learn something - ask someone who knows. You see a problem? You can fix it. You can't code? Fix the wiki. There are some BYOND-specific issues, but those are mostly related to some hard-coded things in the engine, like netcode.

[Glloyd]

Yes. Yes you are.

Honestly, it is not difficult at all. And it isn't BYOND's fault in the slightest - it's complex on purpose. Because a) it allows for more interaction, effectively being a minigame, and b) it prevents J. Random Assistant from being a master at everything from the get-go without a skill system.

Exactly. Draco, you're complaining because the game was too hard for you. Okay, but hundreds of other people have played it and found it fine. That level of complexity is what makes it fun, it's what makes it the game it is. The fact that there's so much too it lends itself to experimentation. Hell, last year someone on our server spent weeks figuring out how to make the perfect bomb by mixing various gasses at various temperatures. It's not easy, I'm still shit at making bombs and I've been playing SS13 since 2010 or so, but the fact that you can experiment with it, and the fact that there is an ingame role for every playstyle is the true draw of the game for me, and what makes it better than 99.9% of games out there in my opinion.

Hell, I'm fairly certain I'm one of like three people on the Bay12 server who knows how to open the safe in the vault.

Honk

_{The secret dies with us.}

[Draco18s]

Yes. Yes you are.

I don't mind things being complex.

I mind their documentation to be obtuse, poorly written, badly put together, and obscured for no explicable reason other than "fuck you, it's supposed to be difficult.  You must memorize this game before you are allowed to play."

The game is literally obtuse for no other reason than to be obtuse and difficult to use.

[scrdest]

Yes. Yes you are.

I don't mind things being complex.

I mind their documentation to be obtuse, poorly written, badly put together, and obscured for no explicable reason other than "fuck you, it's supposed to be difficult.  You must memorize this game before you are allowed to play."

The game is literally obtuse for no other reason than to be obtuse and difficult to use.

It is not obscured. It is simply not documented here and there. Because nobody gets paid to do that and nobody volunteered to document how to do X. You know how to do that and got spare time? Go edit the wiki. You don't? Well, somebody knows, even if it's just the coders, ask.

[Draco18s]

It is not obscured. It is simply not documented here and there. Because nobody gets paid to do that and nobody volunteered to document how to do X. You know how to do that and got spare time? Go edit the wiki. You don't? Well, somebody knows, even if it's just the coders, ask.

Compare and contrast SS13's UI to Dwarf Fortresses.

DF's interface is awful and painful to use because not all of the features are there and it's not a good idea to make it usable before then.  There are dozens upon dozens of threads complaining about it, scaring off new uses, and replied to with "we know, it'll happen someday."
SS13 is basically feature complete (AFAIK), but the interface isn't there because apparently people like it not-there?  Reasons?  It exists in a poorly maintained wiki?  When I complain about it I'm told to shut up and deal, despite being a new user.

[scrdest]

There are dozens - literally dozens - of different codebases, including some with entirely different UIs, with dozens of wikis, and there isn't a single developer with power over the way entire game is. Nobody loves the UI, but it is actually being worked at, and if you compared the old UI to the new one it looks way better and is easier to use.

SS13 is not feature complete and probably never will, and it's being worked at by dozens of different people on different codebases, each of which is different and one of which is closed source, and making the interface OK-ish is a very large coding project.

[Draco18s]

Which is hilarious from another perspective:

There is only one SS13.

Only SS13 can be the next SS13

There are dozens of code bases.

There are dozens - literally dozens - of different codebases

I don't know about you, but these two statements do not go together.

As for wikis, I found three.
wiki.ss13.co (Goon)
www.ss13.eu (/tg/)
spacestation13.wikia.com (Maintained by..?  For..?  And for whatever reason, despite being the last wiki listed during a general search is the first one listed for a specific topic search more often than not.  Also had a rather lacking main page, oddly enough...complete with [insert cool image])

Which leaves me with this:
Best idea ever.  Lets fork [popular game] add [personalized features] call it [same name] and make it completely incompatible with any other version!  That won't confuse anyone at all!

[Carrion]

Here I was, thinking this thread was about Centration...  hmm, silly me.

[miauw62]

Yes. Yes you are.

Honestly, it is not difficult at all. And it isn't BYOND's fault in the slightest - it's complex on purpose. Because a) it allows for more interaction, effectively being a minigame, and b) it prevents J. Random Assistant from being a master at everything from the get-go without a skill system.

Exactly. Draco, you're complaining because the game was too hard for you. Okay, but hundreds of other people have played it and found it fine. That level of complexity is what makes it fun, it's what makes it the game it is. The fact that there's so much too it lends itself to experimentation. Hell, last year someone on our server spent weeks figuring out how to make the perfect bomb by mixing various gasses at various temperatures. It's not easy, I'm still shit at making bombs and I've been playing SS13 since 2010 or so, but the fact that you can experiment with it, and the fact that there is an ingame role for every playstyle is the true draw of the game for me, and what makes it better than 99.9% of games out there in my opinion.

I remember helping Andrea build that advanced gas heater. Good times, good times.


Also, draco, the only confusing thing is website names. A poor wiki is not the fault of the game itself. It just means that nobody could be arsed to write long wiki articles. Learn to read DM and find out for yourself, or just play the fucking game and learn through experience. The steps required for (de)construction of certain things IS fairly stupid (especially rwalls and doors, but it's neccesary to have rwalls be hard to deconstruct for balance), but AFAIK the (de)construction of almost everything IS documented on the tg wiki.


Your inability to find documentation on the game does not mean that the game is bad. It just means that there is no documentation. And #coderbus will be able to answer almost every tg-related question ever. And probably quite a few bs12 and vg-related questions too. And sometimes a goon-related question, if there's currently a goon coder (usually drsingh or tobba) hanging out there.

I don't see how "Only SS13 can be the next SS13" and "There are literally dozens of codebases" doesn't go togheter. I think they synergize VERY WELL, in fact. People that want something different from SS13 can pick another codebase, or make their own. Literally every single codebase still being developed today shares the same roots, namely Goon r4407. They all have the charm, the essence of SS13, even if their features and design philosophies are wildly different. One thing all the remakes have in common is this: they are not tile-based. They do not have the shitty graphics that scream SS13. There's just something about BYOND's shittiness that makes SS13 so good.