User:Qbopper

Starter Guide

What is SS13?

Tuterr, the Private Eye says: "Hmph. Fresh off the boat from Nanotrasen's recruitment office, huh? Let me tell you something, kid. You won't last five minutes on this floating deathtrap without help. You're as likely to be left for dead in a dark maintenance tunnel riddled with bullet holes as you are to get out of here alive. Lucky for you, I'm in a helpful mood today."

Space Station 13 is a multiplayer sandbox that has a heavy focus on player interaction. In the year 2257, the megacorporation Nanotrasen has employed you as a staff member onboard their latest state of the art research station. Nanotrasen claims to be researching plasma, a mysterious new substance, but rumors are abound that the station is little more than a twisted social experiment...

Players are assigned a role onboard the station - from a scientist performing research and development of new technologies, to a lowly janitor, there's a ton of interesting ways to play. More importantly than assigning jobs, the game also randomly chooses a round type. Ranging from an all out assault on the station by nuclear operatives, sinister cult sacrificing crewmembers to summon their god, or just some good ol' fashioned traitors, every round on Space Station 13 is different.

Before Playing

It's important to read the rules before connecting for the first time. There's a lot on the page, but for now you only need to concern yourself with the Main Rules. Some common new player mistakes to avoid include:

• Asking questions in OOC that are directly related to what's happening in the round. For example, "Why did I just get killed by the clown?". (It's okay to discuss a previous round in OOC)
• Not following the name format - though there are exceptions, players are asked to use a Firstname Lastname format when creating a character.

The admin team generally tries to give players benefit of the doubt, so it's okay to mess up. As long as you're polite and willing to learn from your mistakes, you won't be in trouble.

This guide is designed for ease of use for first time players, so non-essential information is segregated to expandable text boxes. Reading these isn't necessary to get into the game, but it's recommended.

One last point: please, remember the human. Everyone is here to play a game they enjoy, so keep that in mind before you bash someone's brains in with a toolbox because they took your multitool.

Setting Up

Make your way to the BYOND download page and download the beta client - the stable client is known to cause bugs in game. Once you've downloaded, installed, and logged into the client, feel free to close it - we won't be needing to use it directly anymore. Once you're set up, choose a server to join:

• Server #1 (Sybil): <byond server=game.tgstation13.org port=1337>byond://game.tgstation13.org:1337</byond>
• Server #2 (Bagil): <byond server=game.tgstation13.org port=2337>byond://game.tgstation13.org:2337</byond>

Server Differences

The difference between Sybil and Bagil is often joked about, but comes largely down to player preference. Bagil is on the "hub", the public facing front of BYOND games. This usually results in a higher population count than Sybil, which is only able to be connected to via the IP. Each server has its own regular players, but you can connect to either server and play the same game.

Once you've connected to a server, you'll be greeted by a small popup window labelled New Player Options.

The New Player Options menu

If this is your first time playing on /tg/station, you'll need to create a character. Click on the Setup Character button, and the character creation menu will open.

The character setup screen

You don't need to worry about Special Names, Custom job preferences, Uplink Spawn Location, or Species - for now, make sure you're a human, and edit your appearance as you see fit. There's no difference between clothing/backpack options other than appearance, so pick what you think looks best.

What&#039;s the stuff I&#039;m ignoring do?

Special names are names specific to certain roles - for example, if you're the clown, you may want a funny name instead of your regular one. The name policy is relaxed on these, so if you have a funny idea for a name, go nuts (within reason - this is at admin discretion). The only custom job preference is specific to security officers, and allows you to choose the department you'd like to monitor. The Uplink spawn location is specific to the traitor role, and determines the item you can access your uplink from, where you can purchase different tools to accomplish your goals. The various species options have some effects on gameplay - you can browse the articles for lizards, flypeople, and plasmamen for more info. Be sure to be a human for now.

Once you've finished editing your appearance, be sure to press the Save Setup button at the bottom of the window. Next, press the Set Occupation Preferences button.

Tuterr, the Private Eye says: "You're brand new here, so make sure you sign up as an Assistant. Nanotrasen usually has checks to make sure fresh meat doesn't get to be the Captain, but if you manage to end up in that position, you'll probably be just another case for me to solve."

The occupation preferences window

The game preferences window

If the button next to Assistant is a red NO, click it once so that it says YES in green text. This sets your job to be assistant, no matter what.

What&#039;s the stuff I&#039;m ignoring do?

When the game begins, the server checks each players occupation preferences, and assigns jobs accordingly. You can pick High, Medium, Low, or Never. Each player is limited to one High preference job. Some roles have limited player counts - for example, there is only one Captain. There is no limit on assistants, and it's a role that has no responsibilities, so it's ideal for getting to grips with the game. Some jobs that are critical to game progression are locked off until a certain amount of time has passed since your first login. Check the job selection and assignment page for more info.

After that, press Done, then, Save Setup. Then click on Game Preferences at the top of the character creation screen. The menu will change and have a big list of options.

Make sure all of the Special Role Settings are set to No. (These control optional settings, like choosing if you'd like to roll for a traitor role - they assume you know how to play the game and are important to the round, so we want them off for now.) Most of the options here are relatively self explanatory or irrelevant, so once you're done, click Save Setup one last time.

Joining the Game

Now that you've created your character, you're ready to join the game. /tg/station has multiple maps that the server will occasionally change to. The "standard" station layout is Box Station, but the game can also take place on Meta Station, Pubby Station, Delta Station, or Omega Station. You can visit the individual wiki pages to see the layout of a specific map.

There's two possible menus here - the lobby screen will either display a list that has Join Game! or a Ready/Not Ready toggle.

Join Game!Ready/Not Ready

If the window says Join Game!, there's currently a round going on. This is most likely what you'll see. Click on the button, and a window will pop up asking you to choose a profession. The jobs available will vary, but for now, pick Assistant. (The numbers in brackets next to a job show the current number of that role - a 0 means there are no players with that job in the game.

If the window has the Ready/Not Ready toggle, that means a round has not started yet. This is ideal, because you'll be playing the round from the beginning, when things are the going to be calm and allow you to get your bearings in a relatively safe environment.