User:Commondragon
Play-Along Tutorial: Your first Round
So you have decided to join in on the fast growing (well, growing) phenomena that is Space Station 13! And this is a tutorial made just for you to understand how to play. Very basic information, and some easily miss-able cool tricks will covered here so you can start playing in earnest. For now, please open up BYOND and choose one of the Gibbed servers. This wiki is for the Goonstation branch of SS13 (Gibbed), and the other servers run the 4chan /tg/ codebase (Just about everything else). You have to log into BYOND, as guest users are blocked from playing.
READ THE RULES OR I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND SHOVE YOUR MONITOR DOWN YOUR THROAT
It might also be important to note that things go horribly wrong very often. You may be murdered while trying to do things or certain things might be stolen or completely destroyed.
Building your 2D spaceman
Now that you have hopped onto a server, you will be presented with a few screens. First being the big game screen, this we will deal with later. In front will be several stacked smaller screens. The first is usually the changelog, read over the recent changes if you want to. Secondly, there will be the game options box. Click Character setup to bring up the character creation screen. You will see several options and a little 2D spaceman. We are going to go by each option one-by-one and customize your spaceman to your liking.
The round may end while you are navigating the menus, just be patient if the server restarts
Naming your 2D spaceman
First, we have the name option. You will have a random name, a @ next to it, and next to THAT (@ = Yes). @ = random. If you wish to have a random name every round, keep @-yes the same and move on, otherwise click the word YES to change it to NO. Now, you can put in your own name (you must have at a minimum a first and last name, or two words separated by spaces!) or click the blue @ to generate a random name for your usage.
Use of any Furry, Anime, or My Little Pony reference names is at your own risk. If someone catches on, you may be ridiculed and/or removed from the game. Also naming yourself Adolf Hitler is code for "please murder me forever"
Also featured here is the Male/Female gender toggle (Influences pronouns in-game) and the age setting (which doesn't seem to affect anything)
Please skip the occupation choices for now, these we will get to later.
Coloring your 2D spaceman
Now we are at the Body option set. Let us start with Body. First of all, Blood type doesn't really do that much (although there an admin has hinted that it does SOMETHING). The other two toggles deal directly with spaceman appearance. You can choose your skin tone (in a number between 1 and 220), and if your spaceman has underwear on under their jumpsuit.
After that is hair color and eye color options. You also pick the style of hair and facial hair, as well as their individual colors (you can have a different color facial hair than your normal hair!). Play around with this until you get something you like. You are provided with a bunch of colors for use on your spaceman, but you can also switch to the custom tab in the color box to use an RGB slider.
Fun fact: The letters in the various hair/eye color boxes come out to say "IM GO KU", or "IM GOKU".
Training your 2D spaceman
Now, before we go to the next set of options, let's go back to the occupation choices. Normally, you have up to three preferences for jobs, which are picked at the start of a round. Most likely you will be joining mid round, so this won't affect the tutorial. If the round hasn't started yet, please wait until it does, which takes about a minute. You should know if a round is not started/about over if you see OOC chatter in the lower box on the right hand side of the game screen.
Anyways, choose your job preferences for when you want to go to the game proper. I would suggest staying away from any command positions such as Captain, Head of Personnel, or Research Director. Same goes for AI. It should be noted that putting down assistant as a first or second choice will prevent further choices, as assistant roles are in unlimited number, so you never have to compete for the position and thus will always get it.
Now, go back to the options after eye color. There are several "Be X?" where X is an antagonist role or important station role. Set all of these to No for now. Once you have a grip of the game mechanics, you might want to enable antagonist roles, which enters you in a chance to have free reign to kill people for a round (may include special powers).
Aside from those options, there is the soundscape option (which toggles ambient sounds, if they end up bothering you), and the option to load/save/blank your current character setup.
- Shipping your 2D spaceman
Once you have your preferences set, click declare ready, and then select Staff assistant from the list of available positions. If the other options grey out, click the button again to un-ready and wait until the round starts. This is important because the tutorial assumes a mid-round join.
Welcome to the Station!
Right now, you should be sitting at the arrival shuttle. Congratulations! You are now a member of the space station 13 crew! So what is next? If you followed the instructions above, you should be in your standard issue grey Staff Assistant jumpsuit. Ugly if you ask me. Let's change our look for this round.
Wait a second, how do I even move!?
Calm down. Here on space station 13, we move with the Arrow keys. Try that right now. Your 2D spaceman will change direction depending on how you are moving. This doesn't really do much in regards to game mechanics, it just looks nice. You can walk over the various chairs on the shuttle fine, but other things in the room (including other players!) block your path. There is an easy way around them but we will get to that later.
Change my look? I don't understand!
In the arrival shuttle, you should see a big row of lockers at the top.
So, how about we open it up? To do this, stand next to a closed locker and click on it. The locker will fly open revealing a big pile of clothes inside. If all the lockers are open, pretend you opened one. Here, we should pick out our outfit. Pick out a blue jumpsuit and a blue hat (if you are playing a girl for some odd reason, pick out a pink jumpsuit and a red hat).
- I just hit myself with the jumpsuit, how do I do this?
How about we explore the inventory interface before we go any further? Your UI has two main parts, your health status at the top right (we'll get to that later) and your inventory/intent status. Lets look at the inventory for now. There are two lines of inventory slots. One of them is controlled by an inventory view button, which is the blue man on the green background. Each inventory slot is self explanatory. An important note is that the ID card, the belt, and the two pocket slots are dependent on you wearing a jumpsuit. Also inventory related are your hand icons. One of these should be orange and one should be blue. The orange is your ACTIVE hand, which means if you have a gun in that hand and click an item, you will smack it with your gun. If your hand is empty, you will pick up or use items.
So, make sure both lines of inventory are showing. Pick up your blue jumpsuit by clicking on it. It should show up in your selected hand. Now, middle click (if you don't have a middle mouse button, just click the empty, unselected hand). Pick up the hat with the empty hand. Now, click on your head slot to put on the hat, and switch back to the jumpsuit (make sure to click the empty space AROUND the jumpsuit in the hand slot).
I'm going to teach you a COOL TRICK that not even all the pros know. With your jumpsuit in your selected hand, click the inventory collapse button. Your jumpsuit will switch with the one you are wearing. Usually people remove the jumpsuit first, dropping all of their items on the floor and making a big mess. You probably want to drop your old grey jumpsuit. Next to the hand icons are two smaller icons, one with a yellow arrow pointing right and other pointing down. The one pointing down is drop, but for now, click the icon with the yellow arrow, and click an empty tile. You just threw something!
Communication is key!
Now that we are stylin' lets go and brag about it. If you look to your right you should see two squares. The top box with the tabs are various commands, and are a part of the standard BYOND interface. The bottom is the chat window. Most of the text there should be green text with Name [145.7] says, "Words". This is radio chatter and it is the most important part of your SS13 day. ALWAYS check radio chatter.
So how do you speak? First, lets try just talking out loud. Type the following exactly (no quotes tho): "sa testing" . This should come out as Yourname says, "testing". Typing sa[space] will auto-complete into the say command, which is useful for getting a quick message out. You can always talk normally, unless you are unconscious or there happens to be no air around.
Now, how about we talk over radio? This time, you are going to type (without quotes): "say ;hello everyone!". If you included the semicolon, your text will be broadcast over radio, showing up in italics for you. For everyone else, your radio chatter will appear in green to them. They might even respond!
There are different kinds of messages, and going over them will help you understand what is going on. Note that extra radio channels are listed. To access these, you need a radio headset of that type, and then can talk into it by using ":h" before a message instead of a semicolon.
| Text Style | Usage |
|---|---|
| Bold Red | Combat text. |
| Regular red | Event text or Security radio. |
| Bold non-red | Name Text. |
| Regular black | Normal chat emotes, and minor events. |
| Green | Regular Radio |
| Eye blindingly yellow | Engineering radio |
| Purple | Medical/Research radio |
| Italics | Person talking into radio/Robot speak (robots use ":s" instead of semicolon to use this) |
Rolling out!
We should start exploring the station. First of all, look south (downwards) of the arrival shuttle. Do you see lights on? The power should be on. At this point, just walk into the airlocks and start heading down the hallway. If the airlocks refuse to open or the lights are dark, you need to get a crowbar to open the doors. One is usually provided for the crew, but people usually steal that. Check for it between the arcade machines. If you find it, click on the de-powered door to open it. Unless it is bolted (red lights), it should work.
If the crowbar isn't present, you might need to tell the crew about it. In that case give a radio message. Another possibility is that the airlocks are electrified, which in that case you will get a nasty shock and fall over for a while. Just wait until your 2D spaceman stands up, and until then tell someone about what happened.
People and Places
Before we take a tour, I want to give information about staying alive during your tour. If at any time you see a red box with O2 in it at the top right, back off from the area. Especially if you see a tile of open space. Go down to Tools of the trades for information on internals. If you don't have any, you might have to go find some or someone might have to give some to you.
The first place you will see on the way into the station is a desk. This is the Arrivals checkpoint, and is home to the Head of Personnel. Most of the time they should be out of their office. If they are out of their office early round (before 10 minutes in) you should probably announce their disappearance over radio, so someone can yell at him. The Head of Personnel is in charge of ID cards, and can give you a new job if you ask for it. If he is there, you might want to ask to have your title changed to Tourist or something fun like that.
To the right is the Escape Shuttle bay. Unless the shuttle has docked with the station, you don't need to go there, so continue downwards. To the right with the blue doors is EVA, which holds spacesuits. Continue down past the airlocks, to the right again is the general manufacturer which makes tools, and to the left is Quartermasters. You will hit a T intersection, keep going down. To your left will be in order: A hallway to Engineering, the air scrubber Storage (for toxin leaks), and the other hallway to Engineering. To your right after that will be a turn to another T, keep going down. At the top of the T is the Bar and Kitchen, home to the barman and chef respectively. The bar is a cool place to hang out. You might even see a clown hanging around. If the clown is green and making funny noises, you should leave them alone.
Hang right, which is the way to Medbay. Some people dressed in while should be scrambling to get to you. Do not be alarmed, they are simply doctors and want to see what pills they can shove down your throat. This is an important place, since you have to go here any time you end up smacked up or burnt. Medbay is another central hub because of the various departments that fit in this general section. Upwards sit the workstations of Robotics and Genetics, who will be in charge of granting you your second life should you end up dead on your first one. Same for your third life and fourth life and so on. Downwards is the general Research area. Research plays around with a lot of stuff, most of it used to fuck with the rest of the station. Scientists aren't that trusted by the rest of the station because of such. By now the doctors should be getting mad that you are loitering in the Medbay lobby, so go out and keep moving.
Across from where you entered Medbay is Hydroponics, which either grows space weed or supplies the kitchen with vegetables. You then pass Electronics and Crew Quarters to the left. To the right there should start to be red doors. The first red door is the Detective's office. Then, you will reach Security. This is where you go if you break the law, as in they will beat you senseless with stunsticks and drag you in here to serve your time. Across from there is Tool storage. Lets stop our tour and head inside.
Tools of the trades
Basic item tutorial to go here later
Becoming a true member of the station
Combat tutorial to go here later
Outro to go here later