Welcome to the 2020 Year End Wrap Up thread. In this thread I combine all of the features, fixes, and updates that we did in 2020 to improve the game both for the players and for the admin. This was a BIG year for us, with a huge amount of changes to to the game. I want to thank everyone in the community for contining to put efforts into making Sindome the best game it can be. This goes for the players who are driving the RP, the GMs who are driving plots, the Builders who are making new
and interesting places and items, the Coders who are writing new and interesting code, the Publishers who are keeping the website up to date, the Support GMs who are taking some of the day to day tasks off the staffs plate, the Chief Justice Johnny for driving us in a great direction, the Head Builder Glitch for running a tight ship and keeping us on point, the Quartermaster Kard for balancing things and being into math and whatever else is involved in that job, and YOU for your
individual contributions. Thank you all so much. Sindome continues to be a source of inspiration and pride for so many of us. It feels really great. Happy Holidays, and happy new year! I can't wait to see what we do in 2021.
Notable Changes
Stat & Skill Adjectives Changed
We've updated almost every adjective you see for your stat and skill ratings. We hope these new adjectives will provide you with a better understanding of your character's progress. Some key points:
- Ordinary is now Questionable. You don't start out as an ordinary person from 2020. You start out as a ragged, unwary, weak, repulsive, dumb, slow, and tragic immigrant from 2105.
- It's going to take you a few adjectives past Questionable before you start climbing out of poverty. But don't worry -- everyone else will too. Even though you're a naive plebian, you're still better off than that perplexed urchin.
- Now that you know how much you actually suck, stop focusing on stats and start RPing!
- We're also communicating to you in @assign when you spend UE on stats or skills and it causes you to achieve the next adjective. We hope you like the new detail when this happens.
APPEAR COMMAND
We have been looking for ways to reduce meta around disguise, and also increase the ability for players to present their characters to others in our coded systems the same way they are presenting them in roleplay with other characters.
As such, we spent a fair amount of time scoping out and discussing a system for changing your physical appearance and presentation so that things like your gender or your short description were more fluid based on the roleplay you were taking part in, or how your character has been developing.
Syntax: appear / appear (option)
The 'appear' command is used to slightly alter your appearance and demeanor. It is an IC command that you can use when your character is affecting a physical change such as hunching, trying to appear taller, sucking in their tummy to appear skinnier, pushing out their belly to appear fatter, or appearing more feminine, masculine, or androgynous than they typically are.
Appear is available to everyone, but some of the abilities it offers are only available when the character has a high enough disguise skill. Appear is a powerful command that can enhance your roleplay in a variety of ways. It can be coupled with disguises to make you increasingly unrecognizable amongst the sea of people in Withmore City.
Appear physically changes how your character is presenting themselves to the world. If you appear taller, your short description will change. If you appear shorter, your short description will change. The same goes for your gender.
Grid 3.0
GRID 3.0 Launch
The time has finally come and we have launched Grid 3.0! This is the culmination of Slither writing a node application that migrated all the accounts, nodes, gridmail, forums into a new database structure from the old Ikonboard flat file database, and many years of Johnny spending time on Grid 3.0 in what amounts to a vacuum, when he was able to make time.
We worked THROUGH the town hall to ensure that the Grid would be launching at the end of the Town Hall, and thankfully, despite some hiccups and panicked moments, we hit this goal we quietly set for ourselves a few months ago.
LONG HAUL COURIER SERVICE
Your friendly badlands settlement has a new long haul courier service NPC (you'll have to find the new NPC) which offers deliveries to various badlands businesses. These courier runs have a longer amount of time you can take to complete them, take you across the badlands, and pay better.
Currently the shops you'll deliver to are limited but we'll add more over time.
CORPSHARE STOCK MARKET
Corporate employed characters get corp money to buy / sell stocks for their corporation. Stock prices can be manipulated and affected by in character actions and plots. Corporate employees can win prizes based on how well they do for their corporation with their trades. This provides another avenue for RP topside, and a long term mini-game for folx to plot, plan, and play with.
CORPSHARE MARKET TERMINAL
CorpShare Market is open for business for Corporate Employees to take part in. Find out more info ICly.
Clothing Changes
TAILORING GENERICS AND TYPOS
Admin fixing typos in generics for tailoring material no longer sets that material's value to 5 chyen.
If you see obviously wrong pricing, please xhelp us to check and don't try to abuse it.
BIOHAZARD PROTECTIVE GARMENTS
Garments made of vinyl and the biohazard gear were not appropriately protecting from pathogens. This as been corrected.
CLOTHING DAMAGE & BLOOD TRANSFER
Similarly, there was no accounting for bullet holes and knife damage to your clothing items when considering whether blood transmission was possible for pathogens. This has been addressed as well.
AIRTIGHT CLOTHING
Clothing, upon inspection, will show if it is airtight or not.
CERTAIN THINGS UPDATED FOR AIRTIGHTNESS
We've updated some armor and other gear to be airtight. Certain helmets, bodysuits, etc.
Admin Facing Updates
@PRUNE-LOG
This is a new admin command for when admin have 1:1 or in person conversations with players. It strips out all the channel content we get like OOC Chat, Game Help, Bit Chat, etc. Making the log cleaner for saying and review by other admin.
GROUP PUPPET UPDATE
Admin have a command that is akin to 'puppet the snake nearest to Bob' and this command was finding the nearest but if they were already puppeted it would stop. Not it continues on until it finds one that is available.
AUTOPRUNER UPDATE
Added the $mutex datastore to the autopruner. This should prune out bad mutex locks.
CAR CRUSHERS PERMING ADMIN
Car crushers can no longer perm staff members.
NPCS WITH BIG MOVEMENT QUEUES
There were two NPCs who were suffering from the same movement bug that causes players to get stuck sometimes. Except they kept trying to move, over and over. For a while. One has 170,000 entries of trying to go south east.
These were taking up about 10 megs. They've been pruned and a nanny has been created to monitor for this in the future.
AUTO PRUNER UPDATES
Delivery Giving NPCs had a property called .users which wasn't having dead people pruned out. Added an auto pruner for this which will prune them out over time. Saves about 200k.
@END-SIT
Updated this admin facing verb to allow staff to better fix someone who's stuck sitting.
SONIC GRENADES AND STAFF
Sonic grenades no longer knock out staff / admin bits when they go off.
TAXI NANNY
There is now a nanny program running that warns the admin if there is an NPC taxi driver not in their cab. This is important as sometimes cabs wont show up if the dispatcher tries to dispatch a cab without an NPC driver because the system isn't aware they left their cab.
MEMBERSHIP GRANT
Fixed a bug in membership grants where if we manually applied the membership previously and didn't add the expiry time to the key, a new membership grant would apply from the previous expiry date, since the key wasn't deleted. Should save time for these cases (though they are seldom).
ADMIN RULES REMINDER
The admin rules reminder will now display 2 times at 1 week of playing and 2 more times at 1 month of playing. Hopefully this better informs people about these rules!
SERVICE REQUESTS
There is now an Agent+ service request option when you need to speak with an Agent (high permissions admin). Mostly useful for Admin requesting other admin to do things they don't have coded permissions to do.
@NPC-CONFIG
I've created a new set of verbs that let a builder or GM better view the current status of an NPC, and configure them more appropriately. It can be overridden on children, meaning we can have a special verb for bartenders that makes sure they are set up correctly, or other special NPCs, while also allowing the generic config to run as well.
MOO CLEANUP DAY 03/21/20
Size of MOO at Cleanup Start => 131.18 megs
Objects in Market at Cleanup Start => 2926
Objects at Cleanup Start => 73111
Size of MOO At Cleanup Finish => 130.09 megs (-1.09mb)
Objects in Market at Cleanup Fin => 2866 (-60)
Objects upon Cleanup Fin => 72264 (-847)
- We cleaned up our bits, our homes, and others bits and homes.
- We cleared out puppet and service requests
- We reviewed and updated SIC and TV ads
- We cleaned out drugs from a number of places
- We identified 75% of vehicles owned by dead players and towed them for auction
- We cleaned up the recycling bin & the recycling chute
- We pushed players to update their @Nakeds and @description
- We reviewed all NPCs look places
- We reviewed all NPCs chyen
- We reviewed all NPCs inventory
- We reviewed NPC auto payments
- We reviewed all employed PCs for those that should be fired
- We reviewed all NPC / business owned vehicles and made sure only the proper people were auth'd
- We checked all factions to make sure the right people were members and removed those that shouldn't be
- We recycled all the resumes on resume taking NPCs
- We cleaned up all alumni admin bits of the random crap they had on them
- We organized all our generics that had been added since the last clean up day
- We updated our @who tips
- We updated the Sindome Credits
- We did a bunch of other odds and ends!
Thank you all for the help everyone!
DEATH QUEUE ADMIN NOTICES
Admin receive mail when someone dies, they will now receive it when someone is resus'd as well. Good for tracking who may or may not be breaking the ganger code and things like that.
@PUPPET NEAR
The GMs can now @puppet group members based on their proximity to the character they're responding to. They can now respond faster to your actions.
CODE SCANNER UPDATES
We have a code scanner which runs when a verb is programmed and warns of common issues and patterns we try to avoid (or expect people to use). I've updated this to catch the case that caused the EMP grenades to not be working. Basically missing a ! before a $recycler:valid check to see if an object is still valid. 99% of the time we want to check if an item is NOT valid, so not the scanner will alert us that we might have missed it and hopefully prevent these kind of bugs in the future.
IMMY GREETER ATTENTION
We have a system on the admin side that alerts us at various times when things need to be done. I've added a new section to this system which will remind the GMs that we need Immy greeters if there are more than a handful of open positions, or the positions that are currently held, are held by people who haven't signed on in over a week.
This is a role that is crucial to providing a good new player experience from an OOC standpoint, and keeping it filled with active folks, is important. A lot of the feedback we have gotten on the new player experience is that more immy greeters would improve the new player experience so we shall give that a shot.
ADMIN RULES REMINDER
I've added a reminder pointing to 'help admin' which will be shown after 1 month in the game. This points to the admin rules, so that folks are fully aware of what additional rules admin are under.
FIXER QUOTES
I've added a new command for GMs to more easily calculate the quotes they provide to fixers. This smooths out the rough edges of this process, better standardizes it, and makes it much faster for GMs. It includes things like 'should this cost more because it is illegal' and 'what kind of discount is the fixer getting'.
VEHICLE REPAIR QUOTES
I've also added a new command for GMs to more easily calculate the quote for fixing a vehicle via an NPC. You can assume the price you've been paying is going to change. I will adjust this command based on feedback from the staff. In general it was a huge hassle to calculate the repair costs, this simplifies it and takes into account things like the sector the repair is being done it.
Off-Moo Improvements
BABBLEON SCRIPTING UPDATE
I've promoted the getsub command on scripts to the generic is script. It was previously used on $sic_script but there are more uses than that.
Scripts can do: @script-syntax / @script-syntax --docs
Details on command:
getsub {variable, prop} = args;
handle allowing a script to dynamically build what it's saying
similar to how handle @quote
usage: getsub "%archetype" "archetype"
this will set %archetype to a random archetype
available subs are: gang, person, street, penis, action, corp, bar, drug, cloth, archetype, archetype2
BGBB MODERATION
I've updated how moderation is handled on the BGBB. Previously it was based on admin object and now the user record has a moderation flag instead. This means we can provide anyone access to our moderation tools. This could include a non-staff member, or a staff member who is just a BGBB moderator.
I've also taken initial steps toward a world where players can edit their own posts, at least for a period of time after they have been posted. This is not live yet, but I have a decent path to making it possible.
As always please report and wonkiness.
TUTORIAL VIDEO: CHARGEN
I've re-recorded the chargen tutorial video, updated the playlist on Youtube, and updated the website as well.
WEBSITE @WHO
I've updated the CSS for the website @who so that on smaller screens it scrolls appropriately instead of just being cut off.
Vehicle Changes
JURY-RIGGING FEATURE
Vehicles can now be restored to operating condition outside of garages by juryrigging them. These patch jobs will not fix a totaled vehicle but will get disabled vehicles back on the road and to a repair shop.
REPAIR OVERHAUL
How parts are repaired has been completely overhauled. It can now be done outside of garages, and has been made more difficult. Additionally, it is now possible to repair ruined parts.
JUNKYARDS
Now have many hidden treasures. They are worth a .. search..
HOTWIRING OVERHAUL
Vehicles now also require a consumable kit to be hotwired that is specific to their vehicle.
CAR CRUSHERS
A car crushers have been added to the game. For crushing vehicles.
MOTORCYCLE SPEEDING
Motorcycles now truncate room descriptions as cars do when driving excessively fast.
WEAR AND TEAR MESSAGING
Vehicles now add some flavor text when cruising around depending on the condition of their various parts.
KRO'S JUNKYARD NOW A MAZE
MOTORCYCLE MESSAGING
Motorcycles now display a modified message that give the shortdesc of the riders when they leave or enter a room.
PHOTOS FROM WITHIN VEHICLES
Snapping a photo from within a vehicle should now properly show the vehicles interior description instead of the 'just a plain vehicle' thing.
PHOTOS FROM OUTSIDE VEHICLES
Snapping a photo of a vehicle from outside will capture it's outer description, it's license plate, any graffiti on it, and it's damage, now.
CAR CRUSHERS PERMING ADMIN
Car crushers can no longer perm staff members.
MOTORCYCLE PART DESCRIPTIONS
All motorcycle parts now have descriptions. Enjoy the mechanical flavor.
BADLANDS JUNKYARD
There is now a junkyard in the badlands. You must find it IC.
VEHICLE DAMAGE
The number of parts damaged and the amount of damage will now scale more with vehicle speed. Additionally, damaged parts will affect your ability to control the vehicle to varying degrees depending on what you have damaged and how badly damaged it is.
VEHICLE HEAT
Vehicles of all kinds now generate and dissipate heat based on their parts. This serves as an analogue to exhaustion for vehicles and will have future impacts. For now, listen to your vehicle. Pushing for too long, too hard, can have consequences.
As part of this change, all vehicles have been retroactively given a radiator.
VEHICLE PART REBALANCE
A bunch of parts needed a balance pass. This has happened. Additionally, many parts also now confer penalties the more damaged they are.
NEW VEHICLE PARTS
Over twenty new vehicle parts have been added to the game. Discover them in game.
PART FIXES
Radiators have been given messages when they are damaged just like other parts. Additionally, some properties on parts have been adjusted that were missing from the initial imports.
VEHICLE BLOCKADES
It is now possible to blockade exits with ground-based vehicles. This mechanic allows for territory control and the ability to block streets for other vehicles.
MOTORCYCLE TEMPS
You can now look at your running motorcycle to see if its getting too hot or not.
VEHICLE GAUGE CONFIGURATION
Vehicle garages capable of repainting a vehicle can also be used by authorized users to configure the color of the gauges in the vehicle. Examine your garage.
VEHICLE HORN CONFIGURATION
Vehicle garages capable of repainting a vehicle can also be used by authorized users to configure the sound of most vehicle horns. Examine your garage.
VEHICLE WINDOWS
Vehicles now have them and they go up AND down. This has a number of implications, but among them ...
THROWING FROM VEHICLES
While windows are down it is now possible to throw things out.
VEHICLE VMOTING
And it is possible to give your chum the bird with the vmote command, which works like emote except you do it through the open window of your automobile.
MOTORCYCLE HONKING
Honk those tiny motorcycle horns!
CRASH DAMAGE
You will soon take damage from crashing your vehicles. Some vehicles have been upgraded with safety systems. Some have fancy automated seatbelts, others have potentializing foam dispensers that activate when the crash happens, much like airbags. Motorcycles do not have safety systems but wearing armor can provide protection in a crash.
Any vehicle that can have a safety system, has been given one. We are holding off on activating the damage element of this to give y'all time to get ready!
MOTORCYCLE STICKERS
Stickers on motorcycle parts now properly show in the vehicle's description.
VEHICLE JUNKYARD SPAWNING
A bug that prevented vehicles from spawning has been fixed. Additionally, all junkyards will now spawn vehicles.
ORBITAL TRANSPORT NEXT STOP MESSAGING
The 'next stop' messaging (like you see on Mag-Levs) has been updated for orbital transports to be less 'train' specific and more orbital transport specific.
VEHICLE SAFETY SYSTEMS
Can now be installed instead of saying they have no place to be installed.
VEHICLE HEAT NERF
As part of the continuing testing of new features, we decided to adjust and nerf how much heat vehicles produce. We'll continue to monitor and make further adjustments as necessary.
MOTORCYCLE HORNS
Honk your tiny horns in joy!
CRASH DAMAGE
Thanks to an amazing tag-team effort, crash has been upgraded to ALSO do damage to people and occupants inside of vehicles! This new mechanic countered by safety systems which have been retroactively added to vehicles.
This system is temporarily disabled and will be slowly brought online within the next couple days.
VEHICLE BLOCKADES
It is now possible to blockade exits with ground-based vehicles. This mechanic allows for territory control and the ability to block streets for other vehicles.
MOTORCYCLE TEMPS
You can now look at your running motorcycle to see if its getting too hot or not.
VEHICLE GAUGE CONFIGURATION
Vehicle garages capable of repainting a vehicle can also be used by authorized users to configure the color of the gauges in the vehicle. Examine your garage.
VEHICLE HORN CONFIGURATION
Vehicle garages capable of repainting a vehicle can also be used by authorized users to configure the sound of most vehicle horns. Examine your garage.
VEHICLE WINDOWS
Vehicles now have them and they go up AND down. This has a number of implications, but among them..
THROWING FROM VEHICLES
While windows are down it is now possible to throw things out.
VEHICLE VMOTING
And it is possible to give your chum the bird with the vmote command, which works like emote except you do it through the open window of your automobile.
VEHICLE DAMAGE
The number of parts damaged and the amount of damage will now scale more with vehicle speed. Additionally, damaged parts will affect your ability to control the vehicle to varying degrees depending on what you have damaged and how badly damaged it is.
MOTORCYCLE PART DESCRIPTIONS
All motorcycle parts now have descriptions. Enjoy the mechanical flavor.
BADLANDS JUNKYARD
There is now a junkyard in the badlands. You must find it IC.
It may or may not be bigger on the inside.
CARS AND EXPLOSIVES
Certain explosives now damage vehicles. Which explosives do what is a FOIC situation.
Note, I have no basis for balancing the damage for this on a large scale, lacking any previous data from the live server for coded vehicle damage. The damage values may change dramatically as we tune this to be fair while also holding to our design intent.
To clarify the previous post, you can't 'attack' a vehicle with explosives directly like a player, explosives detonating in a room will now damage vehicles.
MOTORCYCLE MESSAGING
Motorcycles now display a modified message that give the shortdesc of the riders when they leave or enter a room.
KRO'S JUNKYARD:
Kro's Junkyard is now a maze. More on why soon, but this is a notice that there's more there and the way to the Parts shack is ever so slightly different now.
Don't get too lost. Thanks the Fix-It folks for the junkyard descriptions. :)
MOTORCYCLE SPEEDING
Motorcycles now truncate room descriptions as cars do when driving excessively fast.
WEAR AND TEAR MESSAGING
Vehicles now add some flavor text when cruising around depending on the condition of their various parts.
VEHICLE DAMAGE UPDATES
How damage is done to vehicles has been updated to allow for many more systems to integrate with vehicles.
VEHICLE ELECTRONICS
Vehicles now require their electronics in order to start! ..Maybe some don't though, so you'll have to FOIC to learn more. ;)
These systems are on the path to exciting new things coming along the pipe. Keep an eye on this space.
256 COLOR SUPPORT IN REPAINTING GARAGES
Based on feedback from RedSteelButterfly (thank you for understanding our miscommunication), we've brought the vehicle repainting garages up to par with the xterm-256 support. The way you select your color choice is a little different from before.
First, you pick the color family exactly like before. This hasn't changed.
Second, you pick from a much shorter list of colors. We've pruned out all the BS choices that were present before. The list of choices here is dependent on your skill.
Finally, in the new third step, you'll pick your finish. Again, the list of choices is dependent on your skill.
Each color family shares a common set of finishes except for the last few finishes in each color family very strongly relate to that color family. Only the most skilled painters will be able to repaint vehicles with these.
GHOST RIDERS
We had a bug where, if you were riding a motorcycle then accidentally unmounted a motorcycle in the same room that you were not riding, it would let you walk off and a ghost rider would remain making the motorcycle unusable. This is now fixed and you will be told that you can't dismount a motorcycle you are not on.
MOTORCYCLE ENGINES
There have been different sizes of motorcycle engines in the game for a very long time now. Which engine was which was, however, fairly obfuscated. You could not just look at the engine or evaluate a bike and know how good the engine was. Past mechanics had to experiment by swapping parts and testing max speeds or by checking for the value of the engines (more powerful engines have always been more expensive).
To make bike engine types a little more transparent we have renamed them so that you can look at one or evaluate a bike and see what engine it is. This is a quality of life improvement that makes bike engines function a bit more like other bike parts. This should make mechanics' lives a bit easier. Which engines come stock in which bikes is still IC info and will need to be learned ICly.
As it has always been possible to know which engines where which (albeit with more IC effort required), I intend to leave things as they are. Whatever engine is in your bike now is the engine that stays unless it is replaced by a mechanic.
VEHICLE ALARMS
These have been updated so if a vehicle is in a room that is EMP'd the vehicles security system will not react by sounding an alarm or broadcasting on the SIC if the vehicle is EMP'd. This is actually a new feature, as we didn't account for this previously.
VEHICLE HEAT
Vehicles of all kinds now generate and dissipate heat based on their parts. This serves as an analogue to exhaustion for vehicles and will have future impacts. For now, listen to your vehicle. Pushing for too long, too hard, can have consequences.
As part of this change, all vehicles have been retroactively given a radiator.
VEHICLE PART REBALANCE
A bunch of parts needed a balance pass. This has happened. Additionally, many parts also now confer penalties the more damaged they are.
NEW VEHICLE PARTS
Over twenty new vehicle parts have been added to the game. Discover them in game.
@OPTIONS TEMP C
You can now display temperature units in Celsius instead of the default Fahrenheit.
PART FIXES
Radiators have been given messages when they are damaged just like other parts. Additionally, some properties on parts have been adjusted that were missing from the initial imports.
NPC Changes
NPCS TATTOO REMOVAL
There was a bug with NPCs trying to overwrite tattoos / blank out tattoos. This has been fixed.
SHOPKEEPER NPC BUYBACKS
Fixed an issue where some NPCs failed to return items back to a player if they were disguised in any form.
SCAVENGER NPCS
Scavenger NPCs now appropriately identify that you have a disguise on.
Note that we are still working on a known bug where some NPCs fail to ID some disguises.
DISPATCHER: ANTI CORPORATE TROUBLEMAKERS
I've added a new scheduled ambiance feature for the dispatcher. It will dispatch an anti-corporate troublemaker to VS or NLM (if there are corpsec agents online), and have them start trouble. I won't get into what that trouble is. It can be found ICly. Then someone at the corp will report the troublemaker, and ask for corpsec to get rid of them.
This should be a good training opportunity for corpsec agents, and a nice challenge from time to time.
NPCS USING DRUGS
When we added the delay to using a drug to prevent abuse a while back we didn't update the code that causes NPCs to hold and use drugs and then put them away, thus they would hold the drug, attempt to use it, but put it away before using it, causing it to never get used, meaning the NPC would never need more of it. This should be resolved. Thanks for the bug report.
NPC BEST WEAPON SELECTION
Fixed a bug where some NPCs were picking the wrong best weapon because of the way we ordered weapons + hand to hand attacks. NPCs should properly select between their best weapon (or hand to hand) now.
BARTENDERS DISCRIMINATING ON DRESS
Bartenders now can be set to discriminate based on how you are dressed. You may find you are unable to order drinks in certain places while shabby, or naked, or filthy for instance. It can key off anything that can be dress-related in your short descs.
This is rolling out, and all NPCs are not yet fully set, so this is kind of a "rolling update" thing. Don't be surprised if you shabby fucks start getting rejected for drinks in certain places over the next while!
Cyberware & Medical
POST INSTALL SCRIPTS
* cyber ear * cyber eye * echo location * amplified hearing * mindseye * studdly * telescopic lenses * thermographic vision * minds eye
VIDEO TRANSCODER CHIP
This no longer requires a HUD / overlay module to function, but you won't get any usable feedback from the things you attempt to do without the HUD. That doesn't mean it won't work, you just wont know it did or didn't. Kinda advanced mode, working without a GUI.
You'll still need an overlay if you want to SEE anything with the chip, but if you just want to be the OUTPUTTER of what you see, you don't need the overlay.
Issues with this should be flagged over xhelp and in @bug.
POST INSTALL CYBERWARE EXPERIENCE SCRIPTS
These scripts will run after you wake up with new cyberware installed and are similar to drug experiences scripts. They give you an indicator that new ware is in your system, and how your body feels about it.
This is useful for flavor, but also if someone kidnaps your ass and installs something in you!
SKINWATCH UPDATES
Got a skinwatch?
All these commands are now accessible through /watch
/watch weather
/watch deathball
/watch stocks
/watch kotm
SIC RIPS
These were too common. It's supposed to be dangerous, difficult, and expensive. I've made them 5x as hard to successfully rip out. We really don't want every ripper doc capable of doing them. It should be high level, discrete docs, doing it for a LOT of money.
POCKET DOC ANALYSIS OF OBJECTS
Objects with blood on them can be analyzed by the pocket doc using 'scan with pocket'. This was broken at some point, I think when we switched skill checks to the new $checks system. It has been resolved. Thanks to the players who helped me test it.
CYBERWARE INSTALLATION
You can no longer install any kind of chrome in yourself. As you can clearly see by the messaging you get when installing these things, they were never meant to be self installed. We simply forgot to add in the check to prevent it codedly.
HARVESTING CHROME IN CLINICS
There was a bug preventing ripper docs from harvesting chrome in clinics due to a bad variable. This has been fixed, you may now harvest in clinics without tracebacks.
NPCS ORDERED TO ATTACK
If you order an NPC to attack while you are grappling/being grappled, it will no longer fail due to using the 'player' for the 'can attack' check.
Appearance
@GENDER & APPEAR
When we added appear, we added a flag for 'original gender' which was causing people who had gender changes by admin (forever, RP driven) to be reverted because the original gender wasn't being updated everywhere it should be. This is fixed now.
APPEARANCE & CORPSE FIXED
Starting now (not backwards compatible) corpses should be created as if the 'appear' changes were not present, the assumption being that when you die you stop trying to appear as someone else and appear as you are. So if you were pretending to be female or male, your corpse will be your original gender and such.
Terminals and Names and SIC
TERMINALS & NAMES
Up until now we have been showing the player's name in the employment terminals. This was meta, and with disguise changes allowing folks to adopt new personas and names on a semi perm basis, it was becoming game breaking.
I've made it so the SIC name (your 'real name') shows up in terminals now.
The IC reasoning for this is that terminals are using your SIC to determine your identity.
TERMINALS REQUIRE YOU HAVE A SIC
You MUST have a sic if you want to have gainful employment through a terminal. There exists multiple jobs in the game that are paid directly by an NPC, thus I do not feel bad making this change since it is mostly corps and factions that use terminals, and those folks are expected to have SIC.
SIC RIPS & TERMINALS
If you get a sic rip, your file in the terminal where you work will show up as NO SIC for players. Admin can still tell who you are. However, expect this to have repercussions on your job, because a sic rip is basically like you DYING as far as the city is going.
SIC RIPS AND REINSTALLS
If you get a sic ripped and then get a new sic, the terminal WILL UPDATE TO YOUR NEW NAME. This is an edge case and will not come up much. If you are getting a sic rip and are currently working somewhere, you'll want to let the GMs know if this is going to be a problem. For some folks it won't be a problem. The assumption being that when you show up at the terminal it has a secondary way of detecting who you are and it updates your SIC record and moves forward, however be aware your 'real name' will change on the terminal and be revealed to people.
REAL NAMES AS PUBLIC INFO
We are moving to a world where your 'real name' IE the name you gave when you walked into the city and got your SIC is more and more public knowledge. I think folks should RP this as such, as we will be presenting this information in more and more places as we continue to move away from using the 'display name'.
TERMINALS & BEING PRESENT TO BE HIRED
You must be present in the room with the employment terminal to get hired. This is so the terminal can capture your SIC information.
GRID 3.0
GM FACING UNREAD GRIDMAIL ALERT
Johnny wrote an API for querying the grid for unread emails and I wrote moo code to bring that in and incorporate it with our routine GM alerts. We had alerts on Grid 2.0 for accounts with unread gridmail from the past 5 days -- but this is better as it is close (~30 minute cache) to real time.
PLAYER GRID MODERATING
We are moving closer to player grid accounts having the ability to moderate forums on the grid. This may look like someone in Gridworks or PR at NLM being a 'moderator' and making sure the 'legit forums' aren't devolving into anti-corp stuff.
PLAYER RESTRICTED FORUM POSTING
Players in specific jobs (think NewsDesk, WJF) can now be granted the ability, on their char grid account, to post on restricted forums like the Globe and the WJF announcements. This removes the need for a GM to take a news article or WJF post and add it via the NewsDesk account.
ADMIN LOGGING INTO ACCOUNTS
GMs no longer need passwords to log into NPC grid accounts, as the system authenticates them via their admin session. This also makes it more secure as we don't have to reset 427 passwords when someone leaves the staff.
Justices can now log into ANY grid account including player characters, without a password. This allows us to audit issues and also test things more effectively as players (like their ability to moderate a specific forum).
GRID ACCOUNTS AS ICLY HACKABLE
Our intention is for grid accounts to be ICly hackable, meaning your account could be compromised. Imagine hacking a specific WJF account with access to the Justice Force Announcements and throwing propaganda up, or hacking an NLM Moderator account and throwing shade at another corp to affect the corpshare market.
We are moving in this direction slowly, with the tools and processes we are putting in place. The steps above make it more and more useful to hack an account, though hacking an account is not yet implemented.
(Edited by Slither at 7:04 am on 8/22/2020)
GRID 3.0 PENDING FIX
There is an unfixed bug where you can't post if a title is longer than 44 or a subtitle longer than 80 or so. It will just refresh the page. I'm working on making this show the error.
GRID 3.0 FORUM MODERATION
Forum mods: Seven/Eight/Nine can now moderate topics. They can pin/delete/edit description.
Super Admin accounts can do the same and are able to unpin/undelete/move (though I haven't tested move yet).
This opens the door for IC moderation of the IC forum by Gridworks. And Globe and WJF employees can moderate and post in their forum if they are granted permission.
MODERATION CRASH
I also fixed a crash where mod actions caused a crash even if they worked.
GRID PASSWORD RESET
I've fixed a bug where this wasn't working for some folks. Moving forward it should be OK and work 95% of the time as long as you haven't gotten a SIC rip!
UNREAD MAIL INDICATOR
I've changed the unread mail indicator in Gridmail to be more clear it will now say [ UNREAD ] instead of ^
GRID ACCOUNTS WITH SPACES
Any NPC Grid account with spaces in it (Kro Kar Kare, WJF Operator, Saedor Krupp HR, La Femm) have had the spaces removed. They are now KroKarKare and WJFOperator. This will allow gridmails to be sent to them.
Critter-Dexes
CRITTER-DEXES
We've heard your demands for pets and companions in Sindome, so we've added a new video game. Comes in a variety of colors, some rarer than others. Comes packed with features, and a number of sindomely-thematic critters for you to raise, love, and so on.
Raise them all.
CRITTER MICROTRANSACTIONS
Microtransactions have been added to critter-dexes, enabling people to spend chyen on their virtual pets.
CRITTER BATTLING
Has been tested and enabled for all critter-dexes. The help file has been updated to reflect this, and the conditions that must be met to proceed with battling.
CRITTER CONNECTIONS
Have been enabled. Before they were adult-only, now any baby critter and up can connect to friends.
CRITTER ITEM TRANSFER
It is now possible to send items to friends you are currently connected to.
CRITTER ID
Critterdexes now have unique IDs exposed to players to help with identifying them.
EXPERIENCE AND LEVELING
Battling critters now produces experience and can level critters. Leveling makes your critter better, faster, and stronger.
CRITTER ITEM TRASHING
You can now trash items you no longer need in your critter-dex.
ADULT CRITTERS
A critical bug was fixed that prevented critters from growing up.
CRITTER POISON
Added to the critter shop and scannable items. Does what you think it does.
CRITTER HATS
Have been added, as well as other accessories to add unique flair to your critter. Try and discover them all.
CRITTER ENCOUNTERS
When scanning with a battle-ready digi-critter, you may now find other critters who want to beat you up when you would otherwise find nothing. Fret not, these random encounters have some unique rewards...
CRITTER DEX CONNECTIONS
I've resolved an issue where you could get connected to a lot of folks because y'all were in locations not in coordinate space. This includes a lot of apartment rooms. It's why sometimes you could connect to folks who were in different sectors and what not. To counter the now void of your apartments, we're attempting to use apartment smarts to find the hallway outside your room and use that location, which in most cases should have coordinates.
Basically, you should be able to connect to those near you in some fashion.
We'll continue to iterate on it until we're happy with what we're seeing.
This is the December thread for updates and bug fixes!
Starting it myself otherwise the others will never stop adding to the November one
Typos be gone!!
We're down to 72 listed typos that still need to be fixed. This is the lowest we've had this number in a while since I've started torturing myself fixing them all.
CRITTER NEEDY NERF
Critters are now less needy.
CRITTER REVIVAL
Added a microtransaction to revive your dead critter. If your critter was already dead when this update is released, the option may not work for you.
CRITTER SCAN COOLDOWN
The cooldown limiting you from scanning the same item multiple times has been fixed. You'll find you can't scan the same thing again immediately after scanning it once. You'll have to wait a while.
CRITTER SCAN COOLDOWN
The issue preventing you from scanning the same item ever again has been resolved.
QOL Changes
VOICE ACCENT DRAWL TONE
Small QoL improvement I saw in the shower this morning:
Accent, Tone, Drawl, Voice, Rasp and Cadence are now valid ways to end your voice's description.
Say things in heavy French accents, say things with a slow southern drawl, an disturbing arrhythmic cadence or an ominous tone!
Go nuts!
LABEL photo WITH text
You can now label a photo with up to 100 characters of text. This will show up as hand written text on the back of the photo when you look at it.
You can append to labels up to the character limit.
CACOPHANY NOTIFICATION OPTION
A new @option has been added for disabling notifications when a room is too noisy. Toggle it for your convenience and personal taste.
RED - GOLD & GOLD - GREEN EXPRESS TUBE SIGNS
Through painstaking and tedious effort, I have added colored holographic arrows to the express tubes for red/gold/green which point you in the direction of the level you are trying to go, when you hit a turn. This should reduce the OOC frustration and annoyance that I think we have all felt.
@STATS & LUCK
Your current @luck toggle will now show in @stats.
SLEAZE AND DISGUISES
Wearing certain disguise items while sleazing will cause your sleaze attempts to fail.
SPAMMY BGBB TOPIC NOTIFICATIONS
You can now permanently mute or kill topic notifications for specific threads that you aren't interested in.
@forums-kill last will stop notifications from the last thread you were notified about. You can also specify the title of the thread you don't want to hear about if its not the last one.
If you want to stop getting notifications about new threads or new posts in an entire forum, you can use the existing command @forums-notify to change which forums you are watching.
CROWDED
You'll now get a handy indicator in the room title if the place you're at is so crowded that you might have trouble being heard by or addressing everyone. Additionally, the number of characters in a room can raise the ambient population, pushing what may not have been a crowded location to now be crowded.
I have also fixed a bug where socials (nod, smile, wave, etc) directed at someone were not adding the person to the list of people you are addressing. This has probably been broken for a number of years.
Finally, as you miss things, you'll periodically get a message about having missed things.
RETINAL DOOR CLOSING
I've made it so retinal doors, when closed manually and then reopened will not close again when the original close timer hits 0. This could cause wonkiness if I missed something so please xhelp if you notice any weirdness.
DELIVERY CRATES
These will show the store name and not the title, thus you won't see [CROWDED].
AUTO CLOSING DOORS
These will no longer close quickly after being opened and closed manually and opened again.
NPCS IN SHROUDS
These were spawing far less often than we wanted due to how often NPCs were retiring-- I've resolved it and these should be happening more often.
SURVIVING WITHMORE GUIDE
There is now an in character guide which new players will be able to get when the arrive in the city. This guide strives to point them to important stuff early in their journey and help them get acclimated to the city. It is designed to be a companion to the Immy Greeter role, something they can point Immy's to, and a stand in for immy greeters when they are not around. Only new immies can get it to prevent bloat.
Thanks to Hale for writing it, and all the GMs and Admin for their edits, and to Johnny for taking the better part of a day formatting it so it looks great.
HELP ALIAS
This was the most requested missing help file by a long shot. I've created a help file that covers what I think people were probably looking for. If you can think of other use cases that I missed, please add your thoughts in the feedback thread.
TAXI UNLOCKING
I have updated the code so that taxis should better unlock when they arrive after being called. Keep in mind that JUST BECAUSE a taxi is sitting in a location, does not mean it has an NPC in it ready to take you where you need to go. There are player taxis out there.
AUTOCLOSING BOOKS
In order to prevent bloat, we've made it so Surviving Withmore (and the Book of Law) will now automatically close to reduce the amount of data in active memory. If you've found yourself a copy of either and previous had it open, but when you connected (after this post) and its closed now, it closed on its own.
The MOO is an in-memory database, with all code and active game content loaded into the server's RAM. Objects like books, that contain a lot of static information, are designed to work with files stored on the hard drive, only loading the information from disk when you open the book. If the book has multiple chapters, only one chapter is loaded into the MOO at a time. Closing the book will clear the information loaded from disk from the server's RAM, freeing up that resource and helping keep the game nice and slim.
@REVIEW-CLOTH
@review-cloth now shows what kind of material a piece of clothing was originally made from so reviewers can weed out things that don't make sense. Please remember to always make items out of appropriate material!
@REVIEW-CLOTH
This now includes the dtease_msg.
ROOFTOPS AT NIGHT
You can now see neighboring rooftops at night again as long as the neighboring roof is lit up. There are places where rooftops are dark and unlit, and places where rooftops are dark but lit, especially at night.
Dark but lit rooftops will still show up. Dark but unlit rooftops will not, at least during the night.
POSE ECHO GIBBERISH
Sometimes when you are using pose echoing it will show you gibberish for your speech, similar to if you don't understand the language. This is due to how we show you what another person might have seen. It's not a big deal, and not a bug per say. Just ignore it. You know what you said :) I've updated @options pose to mention this.
KILL COMMAND SPAMMER PENALTY
I have added a penalty multiplier to the existing evade attack penalty (where an attacker chasing a victim might spam the kill command to repeatedly roll against the victim who is already moving through an exit) such that if you spam 'attack' or 'kill' too much, it will multiply the victims awareness more (the penalty basically multiplies each time you get busted for doing this). The new penalty shows up in your @stats with a flashing red @ and notifies GMs when you've earned the penalty. It will go away after 24 hours. It will only affect your ability to succeed at spamming attack when the victim is 'swiftly fleeing'.
ASCII ART WARNING ON ART
This warning was showing up on a LOT of art, because of the way colors are written on art (with %) and the way color codes are stored in the MOO. I've updated the code to strip out colors first before checking for ascii art. It should reduce a TON of places this message was showing up.
PLAYER RENTABLE VENDING MACHINES
Upon being rented, these machines were not recording the character number of the person renting them meaning they could access some functions with the 'code' but not others like cashing out. I've fixed it.
General Updates & Fixes
WIRING HUB RESET GLITCH
Has been fixed. This happened when security devices were recycled, as they did not properly clean up after themselves. Additional guards have been added in code to protect against this as well.
WHITEBOARD ERASING
You'll now take a moment to look at the whiteboard and be prompted to confirm you want to erase it before you do.
WHITEBOARDS IN ROOMS
If a whiteboard has more content than will be visible in the room's description, the visible portion shown in the room will end in an ellipisis (...) to indicate there is more to look at.
FLEE TB
Has been fixed, you should no longer receive a traceback.
BIOLOGICAL CURES
There was still an issue with state not cleaning up and thus people were continuing to get the scripts even after they had finished. I've made a change that should cause these to all clean up over the next day, hopefully.
CHANNEL GENDER
Use @xgender [gender] to specify which pronouns get used when it matters on ooc channels. By default, everyone is 'unspecified' and defaulting to the androgynous pronouns.
BIOLOGICAL CURES .... AGAIN
Okay, there was STILL issues. I think I have pinned them down and I've tested and scripts are slowly falling off. Apologies for everyone who has continued to get cure scripts the past few days. I -think- at this point within the next 24 hours or so they should fall off for good depending on how much you play.
INSPECT ON WEARABLES
Some how the generic wearable object's inspect was not +x which means that it wouldn't respond well in situations where there are multiples. I've fixed this, pending Johnny telling me it had to be the way it was for a reason. For now, you should be able to inspect things like bio-hazard suits when there are multiples in a room.
CORPSE BLOOD SAMPLES
I've fixed the issue that would cause errors when working with blood samples from the corpses of fallen gangers and other temporary NPCs. If the temporary NPC has been recycled from the game world before the blood is drawn, the blood will not be scannable (and used to generate a traceback).
Existing corpses that generated bad blood samples, and those bad blood samples will not be fixed. You'll experience an error message informing you the sample is bad when you scan them.
GATE CONTRABAND CHECKS
Have been tightened. Before it was possible to exploit the code with multi-room vehicles. This is no longer the case, and all vehicle rooms are now checked for contraband when going through the gates.
METRO SOMEWHERES
The bugs causing characters riding the metro and recycled puppets to be reflected as being 'somewhere' on the @who population footer have been resolved.
CURE SCRIPTS
Some cure scripts were repeating infinitely, and that has been fixed.
CURE INOCULATIONS
Cure scripts were finishing and removing the cure from the player because that's what we do for infections, but cures should stick around forever, and so that has been fixed to not remove on cure.
ENCRYPTED SIC CHATTER
Merry Christmas ya filthy animals! Encrypted SIC 'chatter' - where you don't have the decryption key, will no longer be shown to you UNLESS you want that sort of thing.
@options encrypted will let you toggle this behavior. It is OFF by default, turning it ON will show you all encrypted SIC traffic.
You'll get up to 3 warnings about encrypted sics being a thing you can keep tabs on. Using @options encrypted will silence them before you reach 3.
THERMO ASCII
Thermographic goggles, helmets and cyber eye modules will now respect the @access STRIP_ASCII accessibility setting.
GET EXPLOIT FIXED
It is no longer possible to fill your pockets with drinks by overfilling your hands.
BIOLOGICAL CURES
There was a problem with these where you might not have been inoculated at the end of the script run. I've fixed that.
CURE SCRIPT EXECUTION
There was a bug introduced 5 years ago with the way cure scripts executed such that if you got the cure when you had the disease and the disease ran its course before you finished the cure running its course, the cure would stop executing and the script would stick around forever. This has PROBABLY been resolved. You may see some cure scripts for cures you got months ago start executing now.
NEO Terminal Concourse
And we've also added a new low budget watch with stop watch functionality equal to the rolex's stop watch functionality that communicates temperature too!
Some watches and wall clocks were purposefully left out of this.
SCAN FIX
It is no longer possible to scan devices to themselves.
CLIMB FIX
Fixed a problem with processing movement queues when climbing fences.
JUMPING & ROOFTOPS
When walking, if you try to jump while still walking, you will get a message saying you can't jump while walking.
DISGUISE NAME & DESC AFTER APPLYING MORE DISGUISE
Previously if you were disguised and you had a disguised name set, and then you applied more disguise, be it a wig or makeup or whatever, your disguise name would rest to your shrouded description, and you wouldn't be able to set your disguise name again. This was a bug and it has been resolved. If you apply more disguise and it clears your disguise name/disguise desc, you'll be able to @disguise-name again.
ART TITLE & SIGS
Art now requires a title and signature for finalization.
WHAT TIME IS IT?
Time pieces of various kinds have been updated to communicate temperature. Skin Watches Rolexes HoloCals
REQUISITION TERMINAL PRUNING
Requisition terminals will now prune orders with 0 items when attempting to deliver them.
CLEARING SECURITY DEVICES
All security devices(cameras, hubs, etc) can now be cleared of inputs and outputs, so stuff found in the markets isn't useless anymore, and if you're wanting to sell one you can preserve your own opsec.
It requires tools and a skill check, which are FOIC.
NEWBIE TIP DATASTORE
I've done the ame thing I did with delivery giving NPCs and have pruned out any dead users from this datastore, dropping us by another 3 megabytes.
GRENADE NOT HELD MESSAGE
Grenades no longer try to tell themselves that they're not held when used, and instead tell the player that they should hold the grenade.
PHOTOS FROM WITHIN VEHICLES
Snapping a photo from within a vehicle should now properly show the vehicles interior description instead of the 'just a plain vehicle' thing.
PHOTOS FROM OUTSIDE VEHICLES
Snapping a photo of a vehicle from outside will capture it's outer description, it's license plate, any graffiti on it, and it's damage, now.
GOLD SECTOR HOTELS:
In response to rising tourist levels to the city's high class attractions, hotel rates have gone up across the Gold Sector.
@QUOTES / @RANDOM AUDIT
Hale spent, I don't even know how much time, reading through all 1300+ random quotes we have stored in the game, updating them to fit with our current theme, removing duplicates, removing modern day call outs, and adding additional ones. This is live now, after being in progress for 6 months. BIG THANK YOUS TO HALE.
NLM TV STUDIO UPDATES
The following applies only at the NLM TV studio. The list of programs at NLM has grown quite large and there was previously no way to create folders or categorize the content. You just had to look at it all. The system for looking at all content is still the same but there are now two new commands for navigating content that have been layered on top of the existing system.
FRAGRANCE FIXES:
The Deadly Honey and Hack.Sex fragrances were somehow out in the game without having their own short description modifiers so everyone wearing either of them was smelling 'fragrant', which is the default smell for any fragrance. Opps!
From now on, Deadly Honey will make you smell 'killer' and Hack.Sex will make you smell 'shameless'. Consider your reality adjusted. Reapply your fragrance to update.
HELP SEX / HELP FORBIDDEN
We've updated these helpfiles to better clarify what constitutes rape rp, as well as the nature of sexual rp on a game with heavily adult themes that include lies/betrayal/murder. Please refresh your understanding of these help files.
REMINDERS FOR HELP SEX / HELP CHASTITY / HELP FORBIDDEN
I've added a new reminder for new players to check out these help files that they will see starting at day 4. You'll all get it twice, and then you won't see the reminder again.
WALLETS HOLD TICKETS
Wallets now accept and can hold tickets.
SECURITY LIST ALIASES
Wiring hubs will now show the device number and the device's current alias when using the 'set' command.
HELP CHEFS ISLAND
Have you ever found yourself being confused and scared, faced with the impossible task of figuring out how to use a Chefs Island? Well, worry no further!
Thanks for Crashdown for writing this help file for us: Help Chefs Island
SLIP PHOTO UNDER DOOR
When we upgraded the original photo object, the new one was a different parent and thus, stopped benefitting from the slip code allowing Wallet Cards (the parent of the old photo object) to be slipped under doors. So you can slip your photos under doors again.
OOC LOUNGE VERSUS OOC BAR
The OOC Lounge was still showing character names and not BGBB/OOC names. This has been resolved.
STOP FOLLOWING / STOP ESCORTING
Stop following and stop escorting now say the character name and not the OOC name if someone is OOC when you stop following/escorting them.
HELP READ
This was the missing help file requested most often. It is missing no more.
HELP REPAIR
This was the second most requested missing help file. It is missing no more.
CORDOBA ROOFTOP PARKING B1
The area was described as if you could drive through it or park in it but that is not the case and the description has been updated and the room renamed.
CHARGEN TYPO
Fixed a typo in chargen. Thank you new player for reporting this! FYI, now that you are a player, you can use @typo to report typos.
@PAGELENGTH HELP FILE
Updated this help file to better call out that it is a deprecated command that we have kept for folx who really want it but that we do not fully support and have no plans to support its usage with things like menus.
JUMPING IN COMBAT
No more jumping off/across things just because you stop attacking first while still being attack by someone else.
7.35MM MAGS
These are no longer 2.1 meters long. They are a more appropriate height.
YOU CAN SELECT EURO IN CHARGEN NOW
If your character is smart enough you can select a secondary language in chargen. Technically you could already select Euro, but it showed up in the list as selected by 'E' but when you typed this it would select English which everyone already is fluent in. You had to use your IRL int to realize Euro would be selected with 'u' even though the game didn't tell you that. Now it tells you properly.
RIPPER SUCCESS MESSAGES
Rippers will now see a success message when they rip cyber successfully.
AMMO PRICING
The prices for a few of the weapons in the rifle skill line were out of whack with what they should have been.
This has been corrected: some ammo pricing has lowered, some has increased.
SICLESS INDIVIDUALS IN VEHICLES
Characters without a SIC chip are no longer allowed to ingress or egress through the Omega Gate without a SIC chip in a vehicle.
They are still able to ingress/egress on foot.
NEW PLAYER REMINDERS
New players are now reminded they need an approved history for a job. They are also informed what it means if they are asked if they have their immigration papers.
UPDATED 'NEWS' NOTIFICATION ON LOGIN
The 'news' notification on login is something many people just ignore because we haven't had new news in 4 years mainly because we use the BGBB. I've made it so people won't get a 'there is new news' reminder when they login if the new news is older than a year old.
NEW PLAYER REMINDER: NOTES
I have added a new reminder that starts at 12 days in, which lets folx know about @notes/@add-note and encourages them to use it.
HELP FOIG
I've updated helped FOIG to better state the responsibility that older players have when helping newer players, and what is/is not expected.
FOIG/FOIC REMINDER FOR OLDER CHARACTERS
Older characters will get a reminder at 3 months, 6 months and 1 year that states: "Do you spend a lot of time on Game-Help? If you are answering questions and you find yourself saying 'FOIG' or 'FOIC' and that is it. Please stop. Read 'help foig'. And understand that giving reasonable, empathetic answers, even if you are unable to provide the information someone needs, is how you do your part to help new players. Thank you!"
Hopefully this will help to adjust the culture around this, and reduce some of the frustrations that newer characters encounter when they are told FOIC.
CRED CHIPS AT CORDOBA
All stores at Cordoba now accept cred chips. I've also asked the builders to audit all topside shops to make sure these are setup properly to accept cred chips.
If you are unaware, attempting to purchase something from a shop that accepts credit (visible from looking at the shelves and seeing the price in 'credit' instead of 'chyen') is possible with an unlocked cred chip on you.
FEE CHARGING EXIT UPDATE
If you own a fee charging exit that points to a room with a bar, your funds now go into the bar and you cannot cashout the exit. If you try to cash it out it will tell you to use the bar.
HEAVY BOLO MACHETE DAMAGE
It was discovered that the heavy bolo's damage was incorrectly set due to a bug. This has now been fixed.
CUBE DOORS DO COLOUR AGAIN
Someone brought to our attention via Typo that Cube Doors didn't do colour on the message that displays when locking the door. NOW THEY DO! HUZZAH!
@UNTRUST UPDATE
I've updated this so if you enter an unspecific name it doesn't tell you all the possible people you might mean since this kinda leaks IC info.
FALL DAMAGE DEATH / WAKEUP MESSAGE
For a while if you took serious damage and were KO'd possibly from a fall, and then died, you'd see a message about jumping back to your feet, except you're still dead. This should be fixed. Thank you to all the memento corpies that were jumping to your deaths to help me test this.
LOOK TB RELATED TO CYBERWARE
Sometimes garbage objects make it into the cyberware matrix of people or PCs. This was causing a tb when you looked at them. I added some logic to deal with the garbage so it doesn't cause future TBs.
MULTIPLE GRAPPLING HOOKS IN SAME ROOM
I don't know how this went unreported for so long-- but there was a bug where if you had two of the same grappling hooks in the same room you couldn't ascend either. It was a simple fix, but super weird that it's been like this for 10 years and we didn't notice.
DRUG DISPERSAL GRENADES WONT STACK
To prevent someone buying a bunch of the same kind of grenade and throwing them in all at once on a group causing them to all OD from stacked affects-- drug dispersal grenades do not stack. They only affect someone once an hour no matter how many you blow up in a room. These are not intended in any way to be used to KILL someone by causing them to OD. You can inflict changes in perception on people but if I see anyone find a way to kill another person with one of these by some fuckery, I'm going to be annoyed. If you find a loop hole, report it.
DRUG DISPERSAL GRENADES ON SALE
Drug dispersal grenades for the major drugs are in game, on sale now. They are grenades, and thus, illegal, so you'll have to figure out where to buy them.
@SKINTONE ME LOCKED DOWN
The time has come, and @SKINTONE is out of beta. It has been locked down so you can set it once and only once. No changesises.
COMBAT POSTURES LAST 10 SECONDS AFTER YOU STOP ATTACKING
From here on out if you are attacking, and you stop attacking, and then you rejoin combat within 10 seconds, you will restart in the same posture you were in previously.
This code exists for two reasons:
1. For people who stop attacking and then attack someone else right away to change targets, you will now maintain your posture which is preferable.
2. People who were stopping their attack and starting again in order to change postures quickly since you start combat in a different posture than when you left it, can no longer do that.
If you want to stop attacking and wait ten seconds while your opponent(s) get free hits, to resume combat in a different posture, go ahead. That is now fair game.
WAI 984r SHOTGUN DAMAGE
It was discovered that the WAI 984r's damage was bugged, so the weapon was not performing as expected.
This has been fixed, the WAI 984r will now do it's correct damage.
STICKER REMOVAL FROM OBJECTS
Stickers are now removable from 1-handed objects that you can hold. You will require a can of solvent(also held) in order to accomplish this.
2 handed objects, and objects that only are in rooms(cars, etc), are not currently able to have stickers removed(this is in progress and is SoonTM).
EXIT CHARGING
You will no longer get the 'you cannot start walking while charging' and fail to move after successfully charging at a guarded exit.
NOTE: You do still have to pass the "charge" skill/stat check, obviously.
INTRA BANK TRANSFERS
There was a nasty little intra bank transfer that has thankfully only happened once. Basically, if you transferred money from a personal account to a business account under certain circumstances it would overwrite the business account with the wrong data (data from the personal account with the same index in the list) and that would break a bunch of stuff and also the account would be gone.
This has been fixed and the one player it affected has been sorted out.
INTRA BANK TRANSFERS
When you transfer to a business account (which you can do with transfer to ) it will now prompt you with 'are you sure you want to transfer to business account 'blah blah'' instead of saying sic alias.
EMPTY PAINT CANS
Cans of spraypaint that some how get below 0 paint remaining were not showing they were empty when you looked at them. I've corrected this.
STOP ESCORTS
You can now stop all your escorts from escorting you with the 'stop escorts' command. Useful when someone goes idle or there is a bug.
SIC TRIANGULATION UPDATE
No more will you be able to sit in your locked apartment and locate people on the SIC over and over forev3r.
After a certain number of traces your local sic node will catch on to what you are doing and the tracker won't work, meaning you will need to change locations. To prevent you from simply going from one room of your apartment to your closet, a log of all the locations you've tracked from is kept, and old locations are only pruned occasionally.
The end result is that over time, you will need to get out and be walking around, or at least somewhat vulnerable when using your highly illegal and expensive tool.
SYNTHETICS COOKING LABS
These can explode if you crit fail while tending them. There have always been ways to prevent this (using them in a room designed for cooking) but it was also unforgiving enough that we decided to make it more forgiving.
These (and really all production kits that can explode) now have a counter for how many critical fails before they explode. I'm trying out 3 fuck ups. If you crit fail your batch is still ruined and the counter goes down. You then get 2 more chances before it explodes.
Also, the value of the item is decreased if you fuck up, because you're like, messing it up. So if you start seeing cheaper ones around, like say in the market, it's because they've taken some damage from previous fuck ups.
DISARMING WHILE DETAINED
There was a bug that allowed someone to attempt a disarm while fully detained / grappled / restrained.
This has been fixed, and is no longer possible.
TREATING IMMYS GENTLY REMINDER
Based on feedback in the treating immies gently thread, I've added a reminder that shows up about a day and a half into playing Sindome which points to that thread. This should hopefully point new players to a useful piece of material.
E-PRINT VALUE
The value of an e-print now lowers over time as it runs out of paper.
TOW TRUCK XHELP CONFIRMATION
Players who are able to tow vehicles using a tow truck have a lot of power to avoid skill checks and such around stealing vehicles. To offset this, we require these players to xhelp and make sure a GM signs off on what is happening. This can cause interruptions int he scene but is needed so that someone doesn't do something game breaking just because they can (like tow all the cars in the game to a locked garage).
I've added a confirmation to the tow command which asks the player to state they xhelped and got permission to make sure folx are doing it.
ROUGH SIZING
'help stats' and 'help skills' have been updated for greater clarity regarding how to rough size stats and skills. Keep in mind that most everything involves stats and skill so consider both when trying to decide how 'good' you RP your character to be. It's generally safest to limit yourself to the lowest stat or skill that might apply to the RP.
TERRA GEAR
1. TERRA gear has always been made of a smart fabric type stuff that tightens when you wear it. Now, it remains tight and wont let a person wear it unless they are TERRA. This goes for the boots, the jumpsuit, and the gloves.
2. The markets will no longer buy TERRA gear. The same way they won't buy WJF gear.
This should reduce the number of people farming TERRA agents (especially player agents) for their gear and selling it to the markets.
These changes have been made because the consensus (one I have felt for a while) is that TERRA, even when played smart, has a target on their back because they are walking around with 50-75k worth of gear and they are often newbies or close to newbies making them easy targets. We don't want them targeted because of their gear. At least not to the high degree they were-- as it seemed to me like it was unfun levels of no RP killings just for the sake of easy farming and the easy excuse of 'i am a mixer and i hate the law and terra is the law'.
-- S
RUNNING OUT OF TICKS
I've implemented a new handler verb for when tasks run out of ticks from the $scheduler, this should help us track down things like TV stopping for one reason or another.
WIG & LENS CRAFTING
I think I have tracked down the lingering issue with wig/lens crafting breaking and resolved it. If it continues, please let me know.
POSTERS W/ GRAFFITI
Fixed the traceback preventing them from displaying w/ graffiti.
ART WITH LOTS OF GRAFFITI
Art with lots of graffiti was not showing the actual art. This is still the case, however you will now be able to see the actual graffiti covering it.
REAPER TRUSTS
If a character is reaped they will now be properly removed from peoples @trusted so you will not end up trusting an mRc capsules and such.
GENETEK JUMPSUITS
These no longer cover your hands. It was weird that they did.
BOUNTY COLLECTION ROOMS & COMBAT
I'm not sure how this escaped notice for as long as it did, but the bounty collection room would not allow 'combat' in it, due to having a 'recombination tank'. This has been corrected and the bounty collection room is no longer safe from combat, and it never should have been.
BLACK SPRAYPAINT
This should now show up in a more silverish color, so it is readable. I discussed with Johnny and we're going to create an unreadable translation property so we can auto match things unreadable on a black background to colors that are better suited for it-- but for now, this specific instance is resolved.
EMP GRENADES
In 2013 a coder updated the check for if a room was EMP'd and messed up a check, so it was always returning NOT EMP'D. This didn't affect the SIC, which is a primary use case for EMP grenades, but it did affect a lot of other shit. This has been resolved.
Please keep in mind this means that GSDs will now be properly affecting a bunch of shit you might have previously thought they didn't. Like vehicles, some cyberware, other shit as well.
BOB IS SLEEPING HERE. BOB IS LAYING IN BED. BOB LOOKS TO BE SLEEPING.
You'll see one less Bob now.
We remove you from the sleepers list if you're sitting and let the sitting description express your @sleep_place instead.
LOOK PLACE DOUBLE SPACE
Some well meaning person put a double space after your @look_place is expressed when someone else looks or enters the room. This has been corrected. (We don't double space because we use a fixed width font where the double spacing is excessive.)
UNREADABLE COLORS
I've added the unreadable translation table for colors, so we can automatically translate 'black' to a color that is readable on a black background.
GRAFFITI
I've updated the graffiti code to support the unreadable color translation, meaning if you were using black or blue or some other difficult to read color spraypaint, it will now be an easier color to read automatically, instead of being hard coded into the spraypaint viewing code.
PHOTOS & GRAFFITI
Graffiti is now captured in photos of rooms. This is not retroactive.
VENDING MACHINE ITEMS
Items in non-autostocking vending machines will now use the proper 'name' so things like food items wont show up as %recipe cup-o-joy, they will show up correctly. These were using .realname instead of :name because some vending machines are not actually stocked with items, they create them on the fly to reduce bloat. Code handles this better now.
AUTOPRUNER VOTING
This now uses the appropriate BGBB name.
UNREADABLE COLORS & GRAFFITI
Last month I updated graffiti on rooms so that if it was 'black' you'd see a readable color on a black background instead of just... black text.
I neglected to remember we have like 42 other places that use this same system. These have been updated:
- Corpses - Photographs - Carts - Bikes - Art
GEL CELL CHARGER NTH ISSUES
These will now properly deal with nth issues if you try 'place gel on charger'.
