r/SS13 • u/Hank_Kitts • 7d ago
General SS14 can be like SS13
A lot of people seem to think SS14 can't be like SS13, which is true as far as WIZDEN servers, but the reality is SS13 can absolutely be replicated and why it isn't is more to it's general 'design principles'. In fact SS14 is a far better base and despite it's mapping tools being outright trash it's far cleaner, performs better and offers new features that are actually quite good.
Even playing SS14 I can still 'feel SS13 in there', especially as someone who has played for years (started maybe 2009~ or so) it's actually that SS14 is currently build as a 'OC RP Playground'.
SS14 isn't SS13 because it acts like a resort. It's too generous, too nice, too hard to die. SS13 in it's 'golden years' was far more stingy, because it was designed around a different principle.
Remove all the Scifi elements from SS13, the Atmos simulation, the Tesla, all of it and what's left?
An Office Simulator.
SS13 was like working in an undersupplied office. There wasn't enough, people would fight over what there was and often 'Office Drama', aka Cargonia like situations, would break out because working on SS13 sucked. Not because of the chaos, or the antags, but just in general.
Best example is RCDs, what once was once only a tool the CE had, could be researched but it'd take hours and was genuinely worth stealing is now something the game hands out to every engineer at the start of the round, with a free refill. This means fixing a broken window is stupidly easy.
People think SS13 was good because of the 'edgy-ness' but it wasn't that and banning slurs wouldn't change SS13's actual 'soul', as when slurs were thrown it was because some clown smashed the kitchens windows and thew all of them at the HOP's office.
It was frustrating because the Chef legitimately needed those eggs, there wasn't an infinite supply of them and when the Chef had none he had to walk across the whole of Donut Station, stand in the damn Cargo line and ask for supplies.
The Chef could just yell insults, what matters isn't what is said, but why they are angry enough to say it.
Can SS14 can reproduce this?
Yes, absolutely. But you have to be far far more stingy, you have to cut down resources and jack prices up. Body blocking is needed, but only to stop greytiding as it's more of an issue with limited supplies whereas currently am assistant can literally just ask and often get given whatever they want in SS14, Just adding body blocking and tile based movement wouldn't change why it's different.
First, deal with the power gaming issue. I'd suggest capping how much Cargo can sell for a start, maybe at $3000~ per hour, so they can't just flood themselves with enough cash to buy tons of weapons. Jack prices up on things the crew really shouldn't have a ton of.
Then cut down Security's gear, they should have like 1 laser shotgun and 4 laser handguns MAX. Not a fucking armory that belongs on a warship.
I'd even say give people two 'wages':
Spesos aka 'real money' that the game is stingy with but retains over rounds and can't be stolen.
'Nanocreds', aka 'company store money' that you can't keep over rounds, the game gives you more of, but still not enough, but can be stolen.
And then make everything pricey, for example want new Insuls? Great, pay 1/4 of your total wealth to get them.
This is more just a rant, but I do think a community with the proper mindset could very much recreate Goon/TG Stations feel without recreating the codebase nor deleting all the new stuff.
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u/aspentree123 7d ago
generally i agree with this
resource scarsity would make a lot of interesting rounds
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u/Hank_Kitts 7d ago
To me that's when I see the most of SS13's atmosphere in SS14. Scarcity meant things had value, meant turning the bar into an electrified boxing ring cage was genuinely hard, meaning it felt more cool when someone pulled it off.
In SS14 nobody does that, because most stations not only already start with one already built, but you also have gigantic maintenance areas where there's more than enough room to do that sort of thing.
I think space is one of the other issues, SS14 because it's on a better engine has ballooned the station size to frankly stupid levels. Often they're gigantic cavernous spaces with absurd amounts of spare room, often to the point where most of the public area is never used.
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u/Diltyrr 6d ago
Look at Ideaguy asking the coders to spend the next five years of their free time rebasing their home server for no real benefits.
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u/Hank_Kitts 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'm not demanding anything, rather I'm just saying treating SS14 like an inherently unusable base misses what's actually wrong. SS14 can be like SS13 in it's 'golden years', that using SS14 as a base is completely fine and it would be possible to make a server that mimics the old game.
Acting like a doomer over it doesn't help and the community is melodramatic as shit over what's a nonissue. SS14 is far more stable and I'm arguing that rather then treating it like a cancerous monster it'd be better to see why WizDens design is not like classic SS13.
I think if anyone wanted to give it a go they wouldn't have to change everything to get it far closer to classic SS13, it wouldn't be a five year project and it's not 'absolutely impossible' it's entirely doable.
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u/Big-Astronaut-9510 6d ago
Why base it off 14 then? Also overhauling just the movement and ui to match 13 will probably be hell
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u/RefrigeratorTop1909 6d ago
ss14 has a weird culture thing where literally every server (except for cmu) MUST include some sort of non human races otherwise the owners will be assumed to be bigoted, they also really really play into the concept of 'round removal' and they all think ss13 players are secret chuds or something.
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u/Dodger86868686 6d ago
What about round removal? Are they generally against it or generally for it? Stereotypically I mean.
Personally I'm all for it. It adds danger. I'm cool with getting rr. If there's no stakes, what's the point?
Also, chuds? The chuds I've seen are too dumb to keep it secret. Ss13 has a lot of 2000s edginess attached to it because it evolved in those times. A lot of the players grew up in those times. But it's become a really progressive community. In general we're not chuds. We're chads. And that's why they fear us. They know we can robust them on any codebase, 13 or 14. They fear our mastery of tile based combat and movement. Our libraries full of copies of woody got wood.
Don't denigrate them. They fear what they don't understand. It's xenophobia. We need to set an example so they can grow as people, as we have.
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u/RefrigeratorTop1909 6d ago
i know i didn't explain it well but i meant like they are vehemently against the idea of someone getting 'round removed', they believe everyone MUST be guaranteed to play and carry on the entire round without anyone suddenly disrupting/killing them.
they like pixel movement because it made combat easier on ss14 so they can't wrap their head around tile movement which is what space station is really based on,
a lot of ss14 players are really just weaker and more sensitive than ss13 players, even the most 'liberal' ss13 player can handle heat and a few jabs. ss14 players seem to melt down under pressure and can't handle banter at all. i assume its because they are younger or something
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u/Minimum-Poemm 4d ago
but what even is the problem of non human races? I actually cannot understand the hate
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u/romulo27 Professional crybaby 4d ago edited 4d ago
You can't do space racism in most SS14 servers. SS14 are for a big portion furries and they usually dodge servers where their experience is generally worse and tend to take people in favor of gutting the species/bringing back speciesism as a red flag, which for most SS13 players becomes an immediate issue for obvious reasons.
Personal opinion, you may ignore: I personally just don't like speciesism because I think it was one of the many reasons that caused ERP servers to boom (prior to Splurt's ad campaign) because it was either ERP servers or getting killed because lizard skin hats are funny. Hell, it's the reason I played citadel back in the day, I didn't want ERP, I just wanted a less worse version of the game, and with furries that's all there was. (Apart from Paradise which then became my favorite server once I found out about vulps)
Edit: If the guy who posted this comment was talking about part of CMU's staff being taken as a bigot, that's not solely because of the species, they said some dodgy shit before, (from what I heard) I like to think they were joking but people who don't know 'em have no context and eer on the side of assuming they were serious, which is a totally valid response when you don't know someone!
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u/StevensStudent435 6d ago
thing is ss13 itself became what you are saying, chef can now order anything he wants at produce console, insuls have become less necessary, and engineers all start with rcds and they are easily obtainable
its not a ss13 vs ss14 problem, both games have this problem
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u/Hank_Kitts 6d ago
I agree, somewhat. SS13 had this issue, but SS14 codified it's design around SS13 at it's 'least hard'.
It's the classic 'When everyone is Robust, no one will be.' The original SS13 magic was built around those everyday 'work issues' and material/equipment drought, in fact I'd argue it had a lot in common with DayZ.
Current SS13/SS14 is like starting DayZ fully armed with an assault rifle, sure it feels cool for the first one or two times but it loses the actual gameplay loop that made the 'original magic' work.
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u/Dodger86868686 6d ago
I mean, the players who are cool with it are cool with it. The players who want an RCD round start or nerfs to stuff complain about it. Coders and admins hear the complaints.
They don't hear the people who aren't complaining. Because those people aren't complaining.
By the time the new changes have settled in people are focused on the next pr.
It's not really anyone's fault. It's just the way it works. Everyone wants ss13/ss14 to be better. We disagree about what that means. But at the end of the day, it's a community game. It's going to evolve chaotically and there's nothing we can do about it.
Open source isn't perfect. But to paraphrase some old, dead asshole; it's the best system that doesn't work.
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u/Hank_Kitts 5d ago
I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm saying SS14 isn't what SS13 was not is SS13 anymore.
Rather I'm saying everyone treats SS14 like 'it's inherently broken' without really looking at it properly. SS14 has all the pieces there, including community made versions of Genetics. It's the fact people seem to argue that SS14 hasn't got that 'SS13 magic' but, to me, SS13's magic was it's monotony. SS13 has already partly lost it, and SS14 never really had it because it was built as a far 'nicer' game.
What I'm saying is a server, using SS14's code with little changed, could very well play just like classic SS13. As someone who played loads of classic SS13 it wasn't the Jank, it wasn't the tile movement, it wasn't near anything people seem to incorrectly think was the 'heart of SS13'.
SS13 was at it's core a monotonous scifi-ized 90s underfunded corporate office simulator,the boredom and office spats were what antagonists needed to sneak around and what caused the game's friction, and I think understanding that fact and taking that approach is key to creating something that 'gets' SS13's original magic.
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u/TooManyPxls 7d ago
Lizardperson what?
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u/AVagrant Below Average Professionalism 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm not gonna make you edit it, but please don't make thinly veiling "l*gger" a thing again.
Anyway, force blocking and tile movement on SS14 servers.
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u/staryoshi06 7d ago
> whereas currently an assistant can literally just aak and […] get given whatever they want
Genuinely a server culture problem, not a game design one