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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Nov 10, 2010 15:17:32 GMT -5
So, there is a lot of information that the factions should have but isn't exactly written down anywhere OOCly but should be ICly. For example, the rocks have probably been already analysed, off-screen, but there isn't anything in the database to say so. Also, everyone in a faction should have access to files about their comrades, and depending on clearance level, they should know more or less detailed information. Everyone in a faction should also have some information on all enemies that their faction has encountered thus far. These kinds of things.
So I'd like to do some faction FAQ threads. The answers will likely be at least half IC and half OOC. For example:
Can my character look up profiles of his/her comrades?
Yes. All characters are assumed to have datafiles in their faction's database as soon as they've passed the security interview. For S2 introduction characters and characters that skip the security interview, this is basically as soon as they show up in a thread other than their introduction thread. Some parts of a datafile may only be accessible by those with higher rank. If in doubt, ask that character's player what your character could look up.
So... what are some questions that seem critically pressing to be answered? I'd like to talk to the other admins and do a first batch of questions all in one go, and then further questions can be added as they come up.
So... what kinds of questions do you guys want answered? They can be faction-specific or apply to both factions; please note if a question is faction specific. Otherwise, I'll assume it applies to both.
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Post by Springer on Nov 10, 2010 15:56:27 GMT -5
Weapons and abilities, can apply to both factions. Depending on these, and some other info, maybe files on opposing factions can be given threat levels?
Perhaps medical records of big injuries/illnesses, upgrades, etc, accessible to higher-ups and the medical personnel. Faction-specific, unless it's like some big thing that's noted by another faction member - then that would go on a general profile. (Example - Kup and Perceptor both noting that Spinister got hit with Blight.)
Room assignments, division assignment, and reality of origin, faction specific. The opposite faction could probably use the origin info, if they can determine it.
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Post by Victoria Raines on Nov 14, 2010 10:08:53 GMT -5
How does energon rationing work?
All new arrivals on both sides receive an extensive medical exam after their security interview. Usually these are off screen because the engineering folk are sick of them; however, with good justification, the interview could be onscreened.
Medical determines the appropriate size ration for a character and inputs the requirements into the system, along with the number of draws allowed in a set period of time. Neither side is doing well enough that energon is free-flowing (Perceptor's brewing skills aside) and lack of proper energy will come into play at various points in the game.
Sure, it's possible for a player to manage to snitch extra rations or tinker with the system some how (requires admin approval), but that is considered IC consent to getting in serious trouble if/when it is found out.
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Post by Emirate Xaaron on Nov 14, 2010 11:18:51 GMT -5
Anyway, my idea is basically, once I have about 10 questions, I'll check on the answers with the other admins and then put the answers in the faction databases. As more questions come up, the answers will be added.
So please, if you have questions on things that should be obvious ICly but aren't obvious OOCly, please ask them, so they can be added!
Here are a few others I have noticed:
What is Rock Watch? What do characters do with DOAs (dead on arrival)?
In any military, there are a number of different watches. Rock Watch happens to be a particularly unusual watch particular to this RPG. On Gillanan III, the starting planet, there are several sites, space out in the shape of the Matrix, wherein characters can potentially arrive. In the middle of this Matrix-design, there were remains of rocks that seem to be of Cybertronian composition. On Gillanan III, no one ever arrived in the middle; it was not an arrival site. However, it was discovered than when some of these rocks were taken away from the middle of the design, the rocks became mobile arrival sites.
Thus, since friends or foes could be arriving at these piles of rocks, there is a watch to inform friendlies who arrive as to the situation here and to contain and deal with enemies. There is a forcefield system in place to contain unfriendly or aggressive arrivals. On Ship, this forcefield system can be cranked up to be painful, because Hook is vindictive about drill tanks wrecking up his lovely work. On the Event Horizon, there are decontamination kits in the rock room, because sometimes, radioactive zombies show up.
Sometimes, Transformers will arrive who only have a few seconds left to live. There's not much that can be done for them. Those on Rock Watch can call the on-duty medic for a pick-up, and if something seems dangerous about the body (such as being on fire), they especially should. Alternatively, they can wait until the end of their shift, when relief has arrived, and put the body on a hover-sled or carry it to Medical themselves, where the parts will be recycled.
Why isn't there a medic on Rock Watch full-time? Because everyone's spread thinly, as it is, and medics tend to be more needed in medical or out in the field.
My character is oddly shaped/large/small/lacking on proper hands. How does he open doors/work buttons/whatever?
The Event Horizon was built to accommodate everyone from Spy Shot 6 to Skyfire, with hangar bay space for those larger than Skyfire (now a moot point). Ship is much the same, built to accommodate everyone from Frenzy to Lugnut, plus a bit of change - Constructicons tend to err on the big side. Most exits and equipment probably have encrypted, password-locked wireless capability, so someone short, like Holi, can wirelessly open doors where he can't reach up to the keypads. Most equipment probably also has plug-in capability, such that someone who has a gun and claws instead of hands, like Omega Supreme, can just jack in directly and control equipment that way. This begs the question of why everyone doesn't just control doors and equipments wireless or via direct jack. One possible answer is that the kinaesthetic feedback of actually pushing buttons, for those with proper fingers, is pleasing. Another is that there are cases where the wireless signals might be jammed. Another is the case that there might be a chance of catching a computer virus off wireless or direct jack, whereas manual operation reduces the chances of getting a compuer virus. The main answer, though, is that characters, even characters with claw hands, are often shown typing in canon and rarely if ever is anyone shown using wireless or jacked-in operation.
How does my character know what he/she should be doing?
After arrival, each character is given a schedule. There is proper time for defragmenting, refueling, and free time, but there are duties and training sessions assigned, as well. If the character is being punished, the amount of free time may cut down or eliminated. For the most part, we are OOCly flexible about these schedules and don't want to rigidly nail them down. However, it is ICly very easy for a character to look up when his/her duties and required training sessions are, what they are, how to do them, and where to get the supplies he/she needs to get the job done. For example, if a character is assigned to a cleaning shift, he/she will be told what room, what time, and how to check out the necessary tools. For the most part, the supplies needed to do a duty can be assumed to be in stock. If, for some reason, you want to be out of some supplies, check with, in this order: the logistics personnel in your faction (such as Long Haul in the Autobots or Swindle in the Decepticons), the Med/Sci/Eng 2nC, the Med/Sci/Eng head, and an admin. If one is not sure, move up to the next. Basically, claiming that Med/Sci/Eng is out of a certain supply makes that division look incompetent. If it is something rare, like rheanium gas, it may make sense to be out of that supply, and IC supply shortages do happen, for various reasons, but please check with those indicated contacts first to make sure you aren't blind-siding anyone with anything.
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Post by Starscream (Movie) on Nov 14, 2010 17:15:29 GMT -5
How much can a character be reasonably assumed to know about events from before they arrived in Deadzone? Is there anything like the OOC archives of the forum for them to read, or can they not know such fine details of what went on before without explicitly asking someone?
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Nov 14, 2010 21:34:32 GMT -5
A lot of that depends on the event itself. The more people involved in a particular event, the more specifics will be recorded in the database. Things like the Power Plant battle and the DZ-3 business would have quite a bit of information in the database, while Springer and Perceptor's zombie battle in the swamp? Not so much. It's also worth remembering that information in the Autobot Database that goes back to before the destruction of their city-base is probably going to have some holes in it - they had some of their database archived on datapads, but there still would be losses.
At any time, when in doubt, ask either an admin or the player of a character involved in the particular scene, but the general rule of thumb is, "The more people involved, the more information."
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Nov 21, 2010 19:43:41 GMT -5
What are the room layouts?
Through cosmic coincidence, both ships use roughly the same three-person room layout as 'standard', although there may be exceptions in individual rooms. There is a berth, a desk, and a storage unit situated against each non-door-containing wall, and a single exit, assuming there have not been any drill tanks going through the room recently.
What are the berths like?
They actually do not use recharge berths in the individual rooms (such as the one you see in Attack of the Autobots), because typically, they get their fuel via their energon rations. This is done for the IC reason that it makes the rationing easier and because installing recharge berths in that many rooms would have taken a lot more construction and for the OOC reason that drinking energon is inherently more social than recharging through 'sleeping.' So why would they bother with berths at all? 'Low power' periods exist in some canons, and their reason, to conserve energon, is valid in all canons. Also, they can use those down times to defragment their mental hard drives, so to speak, which helps explains why Transformers are shown in some sources to actually be able to dream. In short, Transformers in Deadzone don't typically sleep to recharge so much as to conserve charge and to defragment, although the 'conserve charge' portion sometimes leads characters to call it 'recharge' as shorthand.
There are actual recharge berths centrally located in the medical bays. These are for those who are injured in such a way that actually drinking energon is not a viable option, and to provide security and code updates, such as, say, the newest grouping of encryption keys for the factional frequencies.
Small sized characters are just given normal-to-large sized berths, because 'one size fits all' makes for easier building and a small character can fit a large berth better than the other way around. Simpl r amps are installed to allow them to get on their berths as necessary.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Eternal Foe of Kitsch
"Truth is revealed in the smallest detail."
Posts: 453
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Post by Nightbeat on Nov 21, 2010 21:46:12 GMT -5
How many people does it take to run Ship and the Event Horizon? They're both big ships, (Ship has been described to me as comparable to an Imperial Star Destroyer). What all is required to keep them in working order? How big is a bridge crew?
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Tarantulas
Minor
The not-so-friendly neighborhood spider-man
Posts: 398
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Post by Tarantulas on Nov 28, 2010 19:35:42 GMT -5
What's the procedure for how peoples' schematics get into their faction databases?
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Nov 28, 2010 21:32:31 GMT -5
How many people does it take to run Ship and the Event Horizon? They're both big ships, ( Ship has been described to me as comparable to an Imperial Star Destroyer). What all is required to keep them in working order? How big is a bridge crew? For crewing the ship as a whole, it takes about as many as we have around. At the moment, both ships are probably are running on just over a minimum number, and they manage to do that because quite a few of the processes are automated. We don't really want to give hard numbers here, as we'd prefer to keep it flexible for plot reasons. Think about it: you may know off hand that the Enterprise has a crew of around 450 and the Enterprise-D has a couple of thousand on it, but even in a universe as well-detailed as the Star Trek continuities, it takes a fair amount of digging to find the 'minimal manning' numbers, largely because writers like to keep their options open when given the chance. As for the bridge crew, during normal underway operations, they can get by with just a single bridge watch who's up there keeping an eye on the sensors, making sure nothing goes wrong. You lay in a course, and the ships fly themselves. That changes if there's a battle or some other emergency, and there are several personnel who have 'battle stations' on the bridge (really, however many seem nice for the scene). It's notable that, if need be, Mayday can plug directly into the Event Horizon and control it as he would his own body, although to keep from being overwhelmed, it would probably still be preferable for him to have gunners and the like.
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Post by Rodimus Prime on Nov 28, 2010 21:54:44 GMT -5
What's the procedure for how peoples' schematics get into their faction databases? Everyone gets routine physicals, mostly offscreen, wherein they give the medic a copy of their schematics, if they have one, and the medic does a check-up and some scans to make sure the schematics are correct. After this is done, they upload the schematics and lock them to the appropriate level. Unless there's a good reason not to, probably all medical personnel have access to most people's schematics, because it'd be harder to repair them otherwise. There are exceptions to this - for example, Shockwave's schematics are locked to himself (and possibly Needlenose). If you want to be an exception, please speak with the appropriate faction leader/medical division leader's player.
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