User:Studenterhue/Quickstart

Requirements

• The BYOND client - SS13 is hosted through BYOND, a primitive and admittingly rather sketchy-looking game suite from the 1990s and 2000s. It doesn't matter whether you choose to download of the .exe or the .zip; both give you the same client, compiler, and server software, though the .exe will allow you to join servers via byond:// links on the web.
  • Since this is Goonstation, make sure you've the Beta version listed on the Main Page.
• A BYOND account - While some games on BYOND allow you to join as a Guest, without having register, SS13 in general and the Goonstation version in particular don't. If you try to log in on a Goonstation server without an account, you'll get a "connection closed" error.
• Windows - The BYOND client only runs on Windows, though it is possible to run it on VMWare, WINE, and VirtualBox. This is because...
• Internet Explorer 11+ or Equivalent - BYOND uses Internet Explorer for some of the HTML popups, among other things. Is that stupid? Yes, yes it is. Is it something we just have to deal with for now? Yes, yes it is.
• DirectX 10+/Updated Graphics Drivers - SS13's graphics are far from cutting edge, but in order for lighting and other things to look the way it should, you need updated graphics drivers. Otherwise, it'll look something like this.

Aside from that, there aren't any hardware requirements. For clients, there's no minimum CPU bus speed, ram size, etc.

Understanding the Rules

Please, read the Rules. Don't assume that just because you've been on other SS13 servers or other gaming communities that you somehow know Goonstation's, because our rules are different from most other servers. You should pay particular attention to Rule 1 and Rule 4, for they're ones new people often break. Here they are, copy and pasted, with additional info.

• "Rule 1: Don't grief." The actual Rules and Grief page explain what this rule means more thoroughly, but there are two situations where new people often break this rule.
  • Annoyances & Break-In: As the rule explicitly says, you shouldn't murder people for being mildly annoying. Nor should you try to kill them for breaking into your workplace.
    • Instead, you should use non-lethal means, like asking them to stop or requesting Security to come to your place to deal with them. If you have to use violence, go for weapons that reduce stamina rather than raw damage (e.g. toolboxes); if they go down, stop attacking them and drag them out of your sight.
    • For that matter, people who enter your workplace aren't always breaking in. They could be a Security Officer who has access to your workplace and is patrolling that area or a Quartermaster who wants something to sell. Point is, don't assume that the guy in your workplace who you don't know is somehow trepassing or wants to harm you.
  • Monkey See, Monkey Do: Seeing a dude or group of dudes murdering another dude is not a reason to join in murdering them, and it's definitely not a reason to suddenly assume you're allowed to murder other dudes. Don't listen to anybody that says "it's a [game mode] round, everyone is antag" or says that such a thing is okay.
    • There are a few cases where you are allowed to murder people and other things of that nature. If the person in question has murdered people before and is trying to murder you, it's usually alright as it's self-defense, but it really depends in a lot of situations.
    • If you find yourself in such a situation, please, slow down and press F1 to ask an Administrator about what's going on. It's better to ask questions rather than assume and ruin someone else's round.
• "Rule 4: Bigotry and sexual content is a non-negotiable hard 'no'": It doesn't matter if you're also a [slur], if you have friends that are [slur], you said/did it as a joke, you honestly didn't mean to hurt anybody, etc. It's all unacceptable here, no matter the context. It's not because Goonstation is trying to be family-friendly, for profanity and insults fine. It's just the Goonstation staff feel that having people say and do bigoted or sexual things is neither fun nor interesting for gameplay or community building.

Fortunately for you, the Goonstation administration team is reasonable. If you're caught violating the Rules, an Admin will usually just send you an AdminPM politely pointing out what rule you're breaking and asking you to stop. All they want from you is that you follow their request. If you wish, you can click on the name in the AdminPM and write something like "Okay, got it" as acknowledge. Bans are only used if you're a repeat offender or if you log off before the Admins can do anything about it, in which case you can go to the forums to explain yourself and show repentance.

This section only clarifies some aspects of the Rules and is thus not a substitute for reading them. If you have any questions about the rules while you're in-game, press F1 to fill out an Adminhelp, a request to the Adminstrators who run Goonstation and manage its players.

Playing

Common Scenarios

Hull Breach

You might notice a low O2 warning pop up in your HUD, indicating you're currently lacking oxygen. Sometimes, this is because some of disease or poison preventing you from breathing, but more often, it's because some part of the area you're in has been exposed to space/the ocean and has lost air. In these situations, to breathe, you must have what are called internals, which consist of:

• A breath mask or gas mask /.
  • Everyone starts with a breath mask in a box in their backpack. To take it out:
    1. Click on your backpack to open up its inventory.
    2. Click on the box's sprite to put it in your hand.
    3. Click on the box to access its inventory.
    4. Click on the hand slot that doesn't have the box to switch to the other hand.
    5. Click on the breath mask to put it in your hand.
  • Gas masks / are found in various closets scattered about maintenance tunnels, dark areas with unadorned floors and accessible via doors labelled "maintenance access".
• Some sort of tank of air or oxygen, frequently in form of an emergency oxygen tank , gas tank (oxygen) , or gas tank (air mix) .
  • If you're lucky, you might have an emergency oxygen tank in your box . You can extract from the box in the same way you extracted the breath mask.
    • Look in the Arrivals area for any closets, mini-closests, etc. that might have oxygen tanks.
    • If you're lucky, someone might have opened EVA, in which case you can simply walk up to the tank dispenser , click on it to open up its interface, click on the "Dispense" link right of the part that says "Oxygen", and then click on the oxygen tank to pick it up.
  • If you have access to maintenance areas (that is, you can go through doors marked "maintenance access"), you can find air tanks in emergency oxygen closets . Goonstation's version of maintenance is, thankfully, much less confusing than codebases, but you can still get lost if you're new.

Just having this won't keep from suffocating. To configure your internals to start supplying air to you:

1. Equip your breath mask or gas mask / by clicking on the mask slot while the mask is in your active hand. The exact appearance depends on your HUD style, but each style uses a fairly similar icon.
2. Make sure you're, at the very least, holding your air tank .in one of your hands.
3. Turn on the Toggle Tank Valve [name of air tank] button in the top right. If you've set up your mask correctly, it should change from to Again, exact appearance depends on your HUD style choice, but the icon is always either in the top left or middle right.

---

Powering the station: the geothermal capture system

All about Hotspots

These quakes cause particular effects within a certain radius of the center

Hunting for & Centering Hotspots: The Hard Part

For example, if you plop a rod northwest of the your previous spot and get an estimate of 8 when your previous one was 9, you should continue northwest. Conversely, if it's 10, you should head the opposite direction, southeast, and if it's 9 again, you should try another direction entirely.

Overlapping Hotspots

With a bit of intuition and some simple math, you can still decipher where the centers are. If you manage to find a corner of one hotspot where there isn't overlap (that is, readings of 10 and nothing above that), you could intuit the center based on which corner it is (i.e. if you've found the northwest corner of a hotspot, then the center is 10 tiles to the southeast.) From there, since you know where one hotspot is and thus how far you are its center at any point, you can use to decipher the dowsing rod readings. For example, if you get an estimate of 5 and know that there's a hotspot 3 tiles directly north of you, then that means there's another hotspot 2 tiles away in some direction.

Alternatively, you can ignore the distance estimates entirely and rely upon indicator light alone. Theoretically, you could use a single dowsing rod and find the center by the light alone. However, it's usually easier to make a grid of dowsing rods over an area, and