Staff Assistant

A gentleman's guide to the staff assistant, Volume one.

Written and published by Brycen Neckbeardly.

How can I get anything done when I have almost no access to any important areas and nobody trusts me?!

Fret not, you can do plenty and in some cases even more than certain non-assistant positions.

First off, maintenance is an extremely undervalued access level and logging out is a massive waste of its potential. Maintenance literally composes about half of the current station and you should frequent the place as not only does it exist for literally that reason but also it is much easier, but by no means easy, to get away with anything you want in maintenance.

As an assistant you must also be willing and capable of taking advantage of the items around you to satisfy your plans. An example would be the often large collection of corpses strewn about the station, more often than not when you find these corpses their backpacks and IDs are long gone but it is rare, in this era, to find them without a jumpsuit. Jumpsuits are powerful tools to anyone that knows how to use them properly. Fooling one crew member can be more influential than killing fifty.

Okay, I understand how I would go about doing something but what should I do and why?

If you're playing as an assistant it's either because you've been terrible and you were job-banned from everything else or you like the freedom that comes with the job. Your job, unofficially, is to keep the round interesting by performing mildly traitorous acts. Some examples may be found below but the remember that even the sky isn't your limit so long as you're not going about being a huge jerk. (Author's note : The more complex you are in your deviousness the better and at no point should you feel discouraged to manipulate the station's crew into doing what you actually want. I.E. You find that some "good" security officer has been hunting for traitors since minute one and you decide you're going to play the role of red herring.)

1. Rob from the rich and everyone else : Stealing is, in moderate doses, not discouraged by administrators so long as you're only really a jerk to idiots and you don't seriously injure or worse to someone that isn't shit then you should feel free to try and become the master thief of your station. Keep in mind that aside from security you will also have to deal with the misbegotten few that haven't followed you on a similar path and crew that do have jobs as they will very quickly take any chance they get to attack, kill or detain you in the name of "justice" or much more comically "to stop your griefing". Don't bother trying to negotiate, although it is never spoken by anyone, unless you've been recognized by some of the more decent players and they happen to be in control or available to help you, you'll just be wasting your energy.

2. Genetics isn't doing its job! : Make use of those naked corpses around the station, more often than not they are left to rot or burn away in the halls. Try to create an interesting situation by stockpiling them in maintenance and behold as nearly everyone stops ignoring the corpses that could've been easily cloned by them and immediately declare you to be a changeling and begin attacking you. Why would you want this? For starters this is a good way of getting the crew to start cloning and taking more care of corpses. Also it's just far more fun and useful than asking genetics to do its job. If you ask for something you're making that person think, if you can provoke an instinctive response from a player you may as well have complete control over them.

3. Gang wars : So you're playing Gang wars? Well, I suggest you play the role of a turn-coat in order to keep the match fun. Having half of the station join a single gang isn't interesting and you should feel bad if you've ever done that. Standard procedures should be followed but don't feel afraid to make runs at gang members foolish enough to wander alone, after all, they will likely be beaten to death if they are stupid enough to do that in the first place.

Crew Objectives

If you want brag about how robust you are you can try and complete these trivial objectives on top of your official unofficial job.

Have your butt removed somehow by the end of the round
Robotics can help here. Just tell the Roboticist you want your butt as a hat and they'll usually oblige you quickly.

End the round with a non-Assistant ID registered to you
Go bother the Head of Personnel or the Captain for a job change (or Head of Security if they're both missing). Otherwise, search for their corpses and hunt down their very likely already looted IDs.

Be wearing at least one piece of clown clothing at the end of the round Just go open crates in Crew Quarters until you find one with the clown suit in it, and put it on. The shoes will make you slip occasionally and be stunned for a good few seconds, they are better used on certain others than worn on yourself. Keep in mind said others will not be able to remove the shoes if they can't use their hands for whatever reason.

A Traitorous Assistant: The Underdog Insurgent

Essentially act as you would normally while playing assistant but now you have the clearance to kill as you see fit and you have access to one, or more, means to an end.

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