Getting Started

So you've never played the game before and you're looking to get started. Sweet. New players are totally awesome and there are a ton of people playing on the servers who love to help you get going. However, even they can't help you if you don't have understanding on how the very basics work. So let's get started on that!

Step 1: Download BYOND[1].

Build Your Own Net Dream (or BYOND for short) is the platform that Space Station 13 runs on. We aren't going to lie - it's pretty bad. It's mostly held together with equal parts duct tape and prayer, and it took numerous attempts to work around the slipshod code to make it so it could be played with minimal latency. You will likely be cursing BYOND at least once. The sooner you get used to this, the better off you'll be.

Step 2: Find the appropriate server

Since the vanilla version of Space Station 13, many servers have branched out in their own ways and developed many different ideas. Many have borrowed code from one another, but most of them are different in some way. To join a server, you can either join by clicking on a server on the Main Page, by joining from the page on BYOND's site[2], or by entering the IP into the connect/favorites bar on your BYOND client for easy access. Since you're reading up on Goonserv, you're going to want to look for Gibbed #3/Gibbed #4, hosted by the Galactic Order of Oppressive Neckbeards.

First Things First

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Successfully connecting to a server will bring you to the screen shown above. It's very likely that you'll catch any given server in the middle of a round. The screen for pre-round stuff is mostly the same, and you can often tell when a round has just started or ended by the OOC chat being allowed briefly. In any case, the very first thing you should do is click on Character Setup. This will display a menu that is mostly self-explanatory, and allows you to set your job preferences as well as your character's name, whether to randomly generate that name per round, and their age and general appearance. Tweak these settings however you like.

Selecting your job preferences is the most important thing here, for the moment. If you don't know how to do anything, enlisting as some form of Assistant is strongly recommended, and definitely do not sign up for antagonist, Head, or AI roles if you don't know what you're doing. Assistants are essentially free from responsibilities aboard the station and are thus ideal for going around and learning the basics from people.

In any case, once you've configured your character how you like, make sure to save those preferencces, and then back out and click Declare Ready. Pre-round, this will automatically spawn you in your proper place when play starts, and in the middle of a round, it gives you another screen to select your job. Again, if you're clueless and eager to learn, Assistant-level work is recommended strongly.

When you select your job mid-round you will spawn in the Arrivals shuttle, which may add another thing to your plate if you need to get around and find your designated workspace. Mentorhelp and just plain asking over the radio is strongly advised for stuff like this.

In any case...

My God, It's Full Of Complexity

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Try not to panic. Seriously. Don't take any hasty actions because Space Station 13 is the sort of game where it is possible for one to kill oneself with one's own shoes. The controls and UI are probably the real reason that you're reading this, anyway. Let's break down the User Interface first, then, and after that we'll figure out how to avoid attacking random people and ourselves.

The left side of the game window is occupied by the actual game itself, showing all the environments and sprites. The right side of the window is occupied by chat and informational text. Both sides are important. Let's start by looking at the left side first.

• Your Character is always in the center of the game screen. Your sprite is mostly determined by what you're wearing and your appearance preferences.
• Other Players are represented by very similar-looking sprites in the game. The man in red standing next to my sprite is a fellow player.
• Your Health is indicated by a number of boxes that occupy the top-right of the game window. Currently my health is at 100 percent; as one takes damage from any source, it will begin to go down, and the color will change from green to less friendly colors such as orange, and until you hit Critical state and eventually die. The game will popup windows denoting the sources of damage you're taking over time, as opposed to direct injuries or attacks. If you see a source-of-damage box, it's a red flag that you need to leave the area and seek protection from whatever is hurting you.

The rest of the in-game UI is occupying most of the bottom of the game window.

• Equipment Slots are generally on the top row of boxes, and denote what your character has on you in some fashion, whether it's a helmet, a breath mask, a radio headset, etc. Clicking on an item occupying this slot will bring it to your active hand. Having a compatible item in your active hand and clicking on an empty slot will equip it, or clicking on the green left-most button on the bottom row, which will automatically attempt to equip your active hand's item and will also display or hide the top equipment slots.
• Belt, Pockets, and Back slots are next to the green INV button and occupy the left half of the bottom row of buttons. These are like the equipment slots, and compatibe items can be put into these slots. Different slots can hold different items, and you will always start with your PDA in your belt slot and typically a water battle or pen in your pockets. Everybody also starts with a backpack on their back slot, which can be removed by dragging it to the active hand or opened by clicking on it with an empty active hand.
• Your Hands are denoted by the middle slots of the bottom row, which have a hand background on them. You can hold items in your hands, which allows you to use them, or if you hands are empty what you will do by clicking on yourself and others is determined by your Intent. These slots are incredibly important. One hand will always be surrounded by orange, denoting the active hand, which is the one that will act when you click. You can switch active hands with the middle mouse button or by clicking on the hand slot. Most items in the game will be wielded like weaponry when you click on something, even if your intent is set to Help! Be sure you're not about to bash somebody with the item you're holding; ignorance is no excuse! Many items in the game can be interacted with only if your hand is free.
• Throw or Drop are the next two buttons. Throw is on the top; when clicked, it will enable you to toss the item in your active hand in whatever direction you click with your mouse like a projectile. When you click the Drop button, you simply and noiselessly toss whatever was in your active hand to the floor.
• Intent Settings are the next four buttons in the UI; these determine what action you will take when your active hand is empty and you click on another person (or yourself). The four Intent settings are:
  • Help, the green hand. This will cause you to shake a person in an attempt to wake them up from stun or knockdown effects, or, if they're badly hurt, will allow you to attempt CPR. Gear worn on the head such as helmets and masks will block this until removed.
  • Disarm, the yellow hand. This will allow you to attempt to remove something from another person's hands. An unwary attacker is often undone by a single lucky disarm levelling the playing field, and you should always be aware of Disarm's power. Store items that might be used against you in other slots than your hands to keep them safe from theft or worse.
  • Grab, the orange fist. This allows you to grab somebody, and, like Disarming or punching, is typically seen as an aggressive action except for specific circumstances. Grabbing can lead to strangling by tightening your grip on a target, but if the target is capable of Resisting, it may prove ineffective. Gear on their head will also block strangling just as it does Help. Grabbing can also be used to toss a person, and it has other, more advanced functions. For the new-to-moderately-skilled-player, this is definitely the least common Intent setting.
  • Harm, the red fist. Clicking on somebody, even yourself, with this Intent on will lead you to you punching and swinging away with every click. While it's generally better to wield some sort of weapon, even an improvised one, in an emergency you can target punches to vulnerable areas such as the head and groin This can land a surprise knockdown on your opponent, which can be deadly in a fight due to the robust combat engine.

Intent also governs how you collide with other players; attempting to move into someone else with Help on will lead to the two of you quickly switching places. Any other Intent will cause your character to shove them forward to make room for yourself. Excessive shoving is seen as a possibly aggressive, and definitely quite annoying, action, so in crowded areas, having your Intent set to Help is usually better.

• Target Settings are next, and allow you to aim actions you take towards people by clicking on parts of the body until they are highlighted in red. This is used in special actions as well as simply to aim attacks for important places, such as the head or groin. Aim does not matter for the purposes of disarming, helping, or grabbing, but it does affect where you will try to punch or attack with a weapon.
• Run/Walk is the top-left button of the four remaining on the in-game window. This will determine your movement setting. Typically you want to be moving at a run, and that is the default, but when the floor is wet ahead you want to slow to a walk or you will fall over. If you slow to a crawl and you aren't hurt and it's not BYOND lagging, check to see if you've accidentally toggled yourself to walk.
• Pull is the top-right button on the bottom right side of the bar. It will be lit with orange around its border if you are currently dragging something, and you can click on it to release the object.
• Resist is the bottom-left button of the bunch, and it has a few specific applications. If somebody is attempting to put a grab on you or remove something from your person, click 'resist' to mess that process up. This is why, to do these things, one must often render a target incapable of resisting. If you are lit on fire and actively burning, you must use Resist as well as Stand/Rest in order to first drop to the ground and then click Resist repeatedly to roll around and extinguish yourself.
• Rest/Stand is the final button on the in-game UI and the final of the four we're looking at. This governs whether you are on the floor, recovering at a slow but steady rate, or on your feet. If you are knocked down for any reason, use this button to attempt to stand. On the other hand, if you need to rest from being drunk or something, use this button. You cannot move while resting.

Clear as mud, right? I know it seems that way, but the complexity of the UI will soon become like breathing to you, and you'll be able to work around it with ease.

The right-hand side of the window is where the chat box goes, as well as information on the top-right. All sorts of information can be displayed and is often obvious or can be learned later. Mostly focus on the chat itself for now.

• • Text spoken normally will appear black and unitalicised, and can only be heard by people in the same general area as the speaker. Type say "message" to speak in this manner when you don't feel like broadcasting idle/treasonous chatter to the entire station.
  • Text spoken into the radio will appear green and will denote with a symbol whether it came from the headset or intercom, as well the frequency of the channel. To send radio messages, type say ; "message". This will broadcast to all active radios and the AI itself and is the most used method of chatting by far. An AI can click on your name from a radio message to zoom to your location with its cameras. Note that sometimes you may be spoken over if multiple people are trying to talk on the same frequency at the same time. If you need to get a message out, just retype it or copy-and-paste it and try again. Even the AI can be spoken over, which is usually seen when it is trying to recite its laws.
    • Special radio channels can be accessed by specialist headsets such as Security, Medical, or Engineering. These appear red, dark blue, or yellow, respectively, and you can send a message on this channel with say :h "message". Note that people standing near enough to you are able to hear your headset.
  • Whispering is a special ultra-short range version of 'regular talk' that is black and italicized and only understandable from a short number of tiles away. Those father away may catch garbled snippets of the message. To whisper, type whisper "message".
  • Machinetalk is a special form of communication only available to the AI, its Cyborgs, and anybody with a Machine Translation Implant. Messages can be sent this way with say :s "Message". Although it is unlikely you will encounter this at this stage, know that it is black and italiciized, and it gives no indication you are communicating at all to outsiders, unlike radio broadcasts.
  • Updates from CentComm will appear with a large title and red text and generally be very obvious. These can either be canned messages denoting specific or random events in the game, or messages straight from the Admins. In any case, it is frequently bad news and definitely to be attended to.
  • Event Messages can be black, blue, or red, with the red ones typically demanding the most attention, since they can be potentially or overtly hostile actions. Not all red-text events are hostile, though; context matters. Red-texted event messages are rarely smart to ignore.
  • Deadchat is only available if you are dead or spectating, and denotes messages from other players in a similiar situation. Speak as you would normally speak, with say "message". Except for in very rare instances, deadchat cannot be seen by the living and is a safe place to discuss and spectate about the events of the match or talk about what happened without getting into trouble like you would for doing that in OOC.
  • OOC is a special chat channel that is often disabled during the rounds proper and enabled before and after each round. BYOND usernames instead of character names are used and there is no expectation of RP or anything other than just an internet chatroom at all. Broadcasting in-Character information (IC) over OOC during a match is forbidden and will often end up getting OOC disabled and yourself punished for your attempt to metagame and break the rules. Don't even try this..
  • Goonsay is a special chat channel reserved for verified members of the Something Awful forums, that is, goons. It's the only thing you get for verifying you are a goon. Treat this like a different OOC channel for most respects.

Okay! So that's the chat information. Now you are capable of communication across a range of mediums and methods, although it will take some getting used to. Now that you know about the UI, let's move on to...

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