History of SS13

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Wow, that's insane. It's a miracle that even compiles at all.

— Tom, former owner of BYOND, regarding the Goonstation branch of SS13

A crash course in Space Station 13's history.

BYOND Before BYOND: 1994

BYOND began way back in 1994, when Dan Bradley approached Tom Hehre with the idea of creating a graphics-based online multi-user dungeon from scratch. The next year, in 1995, the two graduating college students formed a company known as "Dantom International" (Dan + Tom = Dantom) to develop this game. However, as the scope of the game became more and more complex, they realized they would never be able to achieve their original goal and decided to repurpose their project into a game-making suite, essentially allowing others to finish the game for them. This game builder was given the name "DUNG", that is, "Dantom's Universal Network Game", which can be interpreted as a clever shortening of "dungeon", a poorly-made poop joke, both, or neither.

Like modern BYOND, it used a special programming language called "DM", presumably as in "Dungeon Master". Originally, DM was a system for creating spells in the MUD Dan and Tom were initially developing. However, it grew so incredibly complex that it started becoming the game's very own proprietary programming language, prompting Dan and Tom to switch to developing a game engine.

Also like modern BYOND, DUNG was intended as a quick and easy way for programmers to quickly and easily create online graphical games without having to deal with networking or graphical interface creation code. In their own words:

DUNG is not revolutionary in providing this technology; networked graphical games have existed for quite some time now. Until now, however, creating such a game required a large amount of programming knowledge, especially in the frustrating field of networks and graphical interfaces. How many creative game ideas were abandoned because the otherwise capable programmer became overwhelmed with the intricasies of the interface? Many, to be sure. The advantage of DUNG is that these elements are automatically handled for you. You can design simple DUNG worlds, such as graphical chat servers, in a matter of minutes. And if you are interested in making more complex worlds, you can use the powerful DUNG language, DM to complete the task much more readily than with a traditional language. [1]

Once again much like modern BYOND, usernames were called "keys", fitting into the vague dungeon metaphor. Interestingly, users were granted a key for only a limited amount of time. If someone wanted to keep their key permanently, they had to participate in the beta test for DUNG, create and make games, and submit them to a particular Dantom-related email. If the Dantom team liked their creations, the team would grant the user the privilege of permanently keeping their key, and possibly other perks, including advertising and perhaps even hosting their games.

In 2000, DUNG was renamed into the more marketable BYOND. Curiously, the original start page for DUNG has been preserved on, of all things, an obscure page located on an cycling website. The reason is quite simple: one of the cyclists, aka BIKE GODS, featured on the site is one of the DUNG/BYOND founders.

BYOND's Beginnings: 2000

For the most part, BYOND was the same after being rebranded from DUNG, aside from some renamed tools and a seemingly endless cavalcade of BYOND/beyond puns. BYOND still billed itself as a powerful yet easy to use engine that was going to empower creators (which were often referred to as "wizards") and revolutionize the Internet. DM was still called DM, though this time it meant "Dream Maker", and like today, it had single inheritance and a area-turf-object-mob system. Dream Seeker was around, though it was both for hosting games and joining them, rather than having hosting handled by a separate program (in this case Dream Daemon) like today.

BYOND also still sold itself as a step up from multi-user dungeons, offering many improvements that were revolutionary then but are today quite commonplace, across games in general and in SS13 in particular, such as embedding icons in the text and using hyperlinks. This time though it also its emphasized its compatibility with older MUDs, noting its ability to interface through telnet for telnet-based MUDs (something which it can still do today).

Many of the first BYOND games were card basically online versions of simple tabletop games, e.g. card games, word games, and board games, often with copyright-friendly names of varying cleverness, e.g. Una vs Uno. There was an occasional RPG, sometimes inspired by the most popular anime at the time in the West, which in 2000s was Dragon Ball Z. Several have been lost to time, but some still miraculously remain viewable on BYOND. Among them are Drummond Cribbage, XO, QuickStep, and Lexiconomy, which is also one of the oldest games still on BYOND's Hub. There are also still a few titles from Dan himself, including Golden Stool and NightMud, which hearken back to the Night Soil: the quest for the golden stool RPG from the DUNG era.

Just as it is today, and ever shall be, BYOND was free, but unlike today, rather than premium memberships with perks, BYOND used a variety of methods for funding. There was pedestrian fare, such as selling physical books about BYOND and DM and getting money from ads, and BYOND also proposed potentially offering game CDs and even commercially releasing games. Most curiously, BYOND also experimented with a currency called "BYONDimes", which are perhaps most similar to Steam Wallet Funds.

People could buy BYONDimes via credit card or check at a rate of 1 BYONDime per 0.10 USD. They could then use the BYONDimes to purchase game content, with extra levels being BYOND's go-to example when explaining the system, and the money would go towards their creators. On the code end, buying content through BYONDimes was done through a simple inbuilt PayDimes() procedure. BYONDimes could also pay for various hosting plans from BYOND, which had names like "The Launch Pad" and "The Moon", on a X BYONDimes per day basis.

In addition to selling content, people could also receive BYONDimes through BYOND's developer referral program. If someone introduced another person to BYOND through a personalized link, and if that person bought a hosting plan or the DM physical guide book (which in BYOND's eyes meant BYOND was gaining a developer), that someone who shared the link would get a 10% cut of the proceeds as BYONDimes, with dividends being handled out on a monthly basis.

BYOND made its money through transaction fees incurred when people redeemed their BYONDimes for cash. If someone wanted to exchange their collected BYONDimes, BYOND would take 50 BYONDimes and 10% of the amount as a transaction fee and mail the remaining amount as a check. BYOND essentially acted as a retailer for wholesale content creators, handling the legal and security matters of credit cards for them, though BYOND did offer to assist high-volume sellers in becoming full-fledged credit card merchants. In some ways, it's similar to BYOND acting as a game development kit and networking platform for game developers.

Creation: 2003

It's no doubt you've heard that SS13 actually started out as an air simulator. Unlike a lot of other things people say about the history of SS13, this is actually quite true. Strange as it may sound, SS13 was created by Exadv1 as a simple hobby project/air physics demo.

While Exadv1 cites the sci-fi genre in general and the Alien franchise in particular as a huge influence on the game, the two works that directly inspired him to make it in the first place directly involved atmospheric simulation. One was an article in Game Programming Gems 3 that outlined a basic framework for using cellular automata to simulate air physics. The other was a BYOND game called Space Tug, an Alien homage featuring exaggerated hull breach physics. Together, both of these works inspired Exadv1 to implement his own vision of atmospheric simulation.

In fact, some of the game's central mechanics were added simply to make the air simulation more interesting. For example, plasma, the miracle substance at the core of SS13's lore, was added because Exadv1 wanted a gas that was visible in air and thus more pleasing to work with. Even the setting serves second fiddle to the atmospherics. Initially, the game was set on the surface of an Earth-like planet, but was moved to outer space as an excuse to include vacuum physics.

After a few months of coding, including a week for the basic atmospherics frame, SS13 was released in BYOND on February 16, 2003. The Old Storyline, in all its flowchart glory, was posted some months later.

It was not a very popular game. A few servers were available, but player numbers rarely reached double digits. The community itself consisted of less than twenty people, with 5 of them, including Exadv1 himself, holding admin powers. Unlike today, most of them knew each other from other, far more popular BYOND games and often had each other on their friends list.

Much like today, most people spent their rounds bashing each other's heads in with toolboxes and air tanks. While there were jobs like Medical Doctor, Station Engineer, and Toxins Researcher, job-related content was quite sparse, so many were bored with nothing better to do besides beat each other up. Unlike today, hardly anybody minded. Most people saw it as friendly horseplay or forgive/forgot about it later. That's not to say there wasn't any drama. There was some bit of tension between players who preferred roleplay and those who preferred action, and, when host files were distributed later on, there were a few admins and server owners known to abuse their powers. That said, it was of a much smaller scope than today.

And that was all they did. Initially, there were no game modes at all; the "round" ended whenever someone decided to take down the server. However, shortly after the release, Exadv1 did add a handful of game modes.

• Traitor: One crew member was actually a Syndicate agent tasked with assassinating someone, usually the Captain. The crew could discover the identity of the traitor by using, of all things, Research. Later on, traitors gained uplinks and access to a handful of weapons and tools.
• Meteor: Poorly-drawn meteors would occasionally collide into some random part of the station, tearing up any walls, windows, machinery, and people (though not any floors) in the way. Had a rather poor reputation as being unfun.
• Extended: No antagonists or hazards would spawn, so the station crew were free to build things and beat the crap out of each other without any space rocks or assassins to interrupt them. So-called because the shuttle arrived later than usual, i.e. the round length was "extended" for a while longer.

Later on, a few more were added:

• Monkey/Infection/Monkey Infection: One player was a monkey with a disease that turned other people into monkeys. Reception was rather mixed.
• Nuke: A crew of Syndicate operatives attempted to destroy the station with a nuclear bomb. Unlike in modern Goonstation, the nuke required inserting the auth disk, activating lots of weird random toggles, and inputting a special code.

Over time, Exadv1 gradually drifted away from SS13 to focus on school and other projects. In the years since, the SS13 community stayed active but stagnant. The team Exadv1 appointed continued to develop his code and maintain the SS13 forums and website. One of the team members, a programmer going by AZA, attempted to remake SS13 four times, with little progress. Meanwhile, a user named Hobnob was hard at work reverse-engineering SS13, decompiling host files and splicing binaries, eventually managing to create his own mapping tool. Remember these names.

Popularity: 2008

Suddenly, in March 2008, the source code for SS13 was unexpectedly released. The exact details are still rather hazy, and there are many rumors on how and why the source got released.

Immediately after the release, many suspected that a disgruntled programmer leaked the code, supposedly against Exadv1's will. Several stories claim the code was actually stolen, with many versions saying one of Exadv1's own friends pilfered a flash drive with the source during a house visit, in some versions accidentally, some intentionally. Other speculate that Exadv1 gave the host files to somebody (typically AZA, one of the programmers), who, after some disagreements, (the particular issues vary) gave to another user, Hobnob. Hobnob then decompiled the code himself and gave it to AZA, who then released it.

Exadv1 himself did not witness the leak, as he had left SS13 long ago to focus on schoolwork. He has no recollection of any flash drives being stolen, and, besides, he kept the source on a hard drive, not a flash drive. In fact, in his 2017 interview, listed below, Exadv1 insisted there was no theft of any sort at all. Rather, he willingly handed over a copy of the source to AZA and gave him the rights to do essentially whatever he wished do with it, including, implicitly, release it. One of the old SS13.net blog posts somewhat confirms that AZA had this sort of privilege, making this one of the more plausible versions of the story, but, unfortunately, the Downloads page reminds lost to the ages.

What we know for certain is that many of the features common to every SS13 server today, such as the power network and the lighting system, arose shortly after, and arguably because of, the release. You can take a look at some of them here and watch some Goonstation admins (and few other users) attempt to play it in the video below:

Eventually, Hobnob and a few other users created the first open-source version of SS13 called, in the typical OSS creativity, OpenSS13. Thanks to the open source, Space Station 13 gradually improved in quality and gained popularity within gaming communities.

Around the same time of OpenSS13's inception, goons from Something Awful began to take interest in the game and goon-hosted servers appeared. While other communities used the OpenSS13 code, Goonstation coders worked on their own closed-source code. Eventually, in 2009, Goonstation successfully produced a new and unique station, known as Donut Station. This was a major accomplishment for the game.

As the popularity of Space Station 13 rose even further, a second map was required to fit the higher number of players. Thus, in early 2010, Devstation was released. A large portion of the game's original code was rewritten and improved. On April 2010, goonstation released their current revision of the code, known as r4407.

Branching out: 2010 onwards

The release of r4407 allowed many communities to produce their own servers. For example, /tg/station came from 4chan's /tg/ community. Goonstation continued working on their own code, while other servers made their own changes to r4407. Each branch of SS13 had their own set of coders, and their own version of Space Station 13 code. New stations were produced and player numbers continued to rise. The game even started to receive recognition in gaming magazines.

Leak: 2016

On March 2nd, 2016, most of Goonstation's code was leaked by an individual known as 0xCSRF, who obtained it by finding an admin's password in the XSplit data breach, and then finding the Goonstation repository on Bitbucket (a repository hosting service). A player, ErikHanson, paid $400 in bitcoin for the code not to be leaked or for an exclusive copy, but to no avail; the code was leaked on Github. Admins subsequently published a public response and put the proper current source on Github, labeled Goonstation 2016. This public release inspired many in the Goonstation community to contribute to the branch, prompting admins to open up a patches subforum on the official forums.

Exadv1 interview: 2017

Exadv1 interview by BlackPantsLegion.

Unofficial Transcript of Part 1

Leak: 2020

On February 12th, 2020, a former coder leaked Goonstation's code dated to November 2019. This leak was preceded by complications in intra-admin relations with regard to the former coder. Five days later, admins published an official statement about the leak and released the code, as of January 2020, in Goonstation 2020.

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Open Sourcing

Not long after - on April 1st, 2020 - the administration decided to make the codebase at large open source. Their explanation can be found here. As mentioned there, there is still some hidden secret content, but most of the code will now be maintained publicly at this location.