History of SS13

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A crash course in Space Station 13's history.

THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

Creation: 2003

Space Station 13 was created by Exadv1 and released in BYOND on February 16, 2003. (Old Storyline)

The game was intended to be a simple atmospherics simulator. It was not a very popular game. A few servers were available, but player numbers rarely reached double digits.

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 in spite of Exadv1's efforts to keep it proprietary. Several stories claim the code was actually stolen, with many versions saying one of Exadv1's own friends pilfered it 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 and, for his part, has no recollection of any flash drives being stolen. In fact, according to his 2017 interview, listed below, 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 this story.

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 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 got leaked by someone named 0xCSRF. He obtained it by finding an admin's password in a hacked password dump from xsplit and found the Goonstation repository on bitbucket. A player named ErikHanson paid him 400$ in bitcoins to not leak it or to get him an exclusive copy, but that did not work at all. It was leaked and put on Github. The admins published a public response and put the proper current source on github, labeled Goonstation 2016. This release has inspired the goonstation community to contribute to the branch, prompting the admins to open up a patches subforum on the official forums.

Exadv1 interview: 2017

Exadv1 interview by BlackPantsLegion.

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"Wow, that's insane. It's a fucking miracle that even compiles at all." - Tom, owner of BYOND, regarding the goonstation branch of SS13 (and his first swear on the forums)