Space Station 13
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In Space Station 13, the players are crew members on a doomed deep-space installation. Everyone has a job on the station (which may include a secret job as traitor). Nobody knows how the station will be doomed, not even the people who are supposed to do the dooming. The game's simulation detail may remind you of Dwarf Fortress, with the ability to do things like rearrange walls, mad science, mugging, reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, wacky stuff. May also remind you of the motto of DF: "losing is fun", but unlike DF there's also chances for roleplaying to be had in the process. Did I mention the station is doomed?
The simulation detail allows for much lulz to be had. It's pretty much a given that someone in your space station will be trolling. Probably a good idea to knock that person unconscious and weld him into a locker before he finds the atmosphere controls.
Essentially, it is any number of variations on the Black Mesa Incident from Half Life with Dwarf Fortress levels of detail.
Jobs
You're an employee on this nonsensical metal deathtrap masquerading as a space station. So, what do you do?
Protip: red options are treason, anyone picking them WILL be subjected to painful and humiliating pacifications, from being brigged, spaced, burned alive to being *BLAM*med on the spot. Results may vary based on what server you are playing, and other jobs may also be available depending on the server.
- Assistant
The job to be if you're new. Run errands for someone you wish to share a profession with and pester them to vouch for you after you've learned the ropes. Or join the Gray Tide of deranged vandalizing asshats breaking into every secure area and stealing everything that isn't bolted down and also on fire.
- Quartermaster
Order supplies for the crew. Order around cargo technicians to PUSH DEM CRATES. Be a mentor for anyone stepping up from assistant. Persuade miners to mine the ore the station needs and not the one their toys are made of. Secede from the rest of the station FOR CARGONIA. Embezzle public resources. Order syndicate and (fake) wizardly gadgets.
- Cargo Technician
Push crates for the Quartermaster. Try and hack the MULEbots. Steal cargo when you think nobody's looking, possibly with the QM's help.
- Shaft Miner
Mine and scavenge stuff to trade for deadlier and shinier mining tools, bots and mechs. Swiftly and brutally murder anything that moves within your domain. Anybody trying to get there is certainly a traitor/ling/thing/wizard; any non-mining bot is rogue; and any shuffle in that shadow or vent is a facehugger, xenomorph, demon or shoggoth. And if you hesitate, they'll get you and then they'll get your mates by impersonating you. Fortunately, you've got the best tools for the job and hopefully the experience to match. Be one of the most under-appreciated badasses on the station. Get paid. Spend your payment on toys and whiskey. Initiate Red Faction encore performance. Mix a real facehugger in with toy ones for a game of Xenomorph roulette. Fuck off and explore space when you get tired of dealing with shit on the station, only to run out of oxygen. Use the hook on people trying to climb over tables. Use the Voice Of God to set everyone on fire. Make everyone's lives a living hell with the powerful objects acquired from Lavaland/the asteroid.
- Engineer
Ensure the station's in shipshape and Bristol fashion. They are the guys that set up and keep the station running, making repairs and improvements while everyone else tries their best to destroy it. The length of any given round depends on the engineers' ability. Do your god-damned duty if you're one, revere them otherwise. Space (knock out, take anything useful they stole, strip, then throw them out of the airlock) anyone who actively vandalizes the station or tries to release LORD SINGULOTH, a black hole that powers the station. Don't do your job, that's more than enough to doom the station. Although you could speed up the inevitable by "accidentally" releasing the singularity, or sabotaging power in dozens of other ways limited only by your imagination.
- Security Officer
Try to stop non-engineer crew from destroying the station. Try to protect loyal crew from aliens, traitors, terrorists, terminators, cultists, furries, lizans, clowns and other assorted eldritch abominations. Yes, you are doomed to fail. Be properly paranoid, better safe than sorry. Kill anything that doesn't belong to the crew. Clobber and cuff suspicious crew members, but take great care not to kill them unless they trying to run or uncuff themselves. The Detective or another superior officer will sort it out. If there no superiors left, go for the kill, at least you'll get some before they get you. Do not abuse or kill loyal crew members even if they are very annoying. You are the LAW, not some psychopathic ape with a taser and delusions of grandeur. For all your efforts you will be hated by the crew, called Shitcurity/Redshits and constantly reported. Don't let it get to you. Permabrig people who break windows. Beat non-antagonist criminals inches away from critical condition and have the admins support your side when they inevitably get their revenge. Suicide in the bar, granting whoever loots you access to most of the brig.
- Detective
Sort out the messes and suspects redshirts dragged in. Figure out what the hell had happened in another blood-covered wrecked room with corpses and decide who you should sic redshirts at. Live off crappy fast-food and cancer sticks. Act as a security officer with bullets instead of tasers. Stunlock people with your baton and throw them out the airlock. Kill all 30 people that have touched the murder weapon, just in case.
- Warden
Keep to the brig. Keep the criminal scum locked away, preferably naked and cuffed to their beds or welded in lockers, so they can't holler profanity over the radio, escape and/or cause a mess. Keep the eye on the security block in the HoS's absence. Carry half the armory in your backpack. Watch Youtube videos for the entire shift. Act like a Security Officer in a team of 4 security officers and a Head of Security.
- Lawyer
Roleplay as Phoenix Wright. Ensure criminal scum receives the punishment they deserve, not the one the Warden thinks they should have. Keep track of the brig time. Try to save the accidentally detained innocents. Get brigged as an accomplice when the "innocent assistant" in question turns out to be a traitor. Make your own access by hacking airlocks open. Assassinate security officers and hide their bodies in your never-visited office.
- Atmospherics Technician
Be engineer's miscarriage, perpetually lazy and uninterested in anything outside of the game's over-complicated methods of processing gases. Bully the janitor (or offer the acknowledgement of and alliance with Janitopia) or bug the engineer to do any of your jobs outside of your lair, and be unnoticed until someone realizes that the station has no oxygen, at which point they will beg you to fix that. Declare yourself the independent state of Atmosia, wreck the ventilation or flood it with plasma and then set it all on fire. Put on gas mask and run after people with a bloody fireaxe.
- Doctor
Heal. Heal the never-ending chain of idiots that manage to get themselves injured in new and spectacularly retarded ways every round. ERP with the rest of medbay while the station dies of dysentery. Get psycho, beat up the clown with a toolbox, mutilate or inject everyone with drugs of your choosing.
- Scientist
Explore the limits of your chosen field. Try to create assorted magnificent devices, creatures, plants and concoctions, or give yourself superpowers. Unintentionally produce station-wide catastrophes in the process. Beg miners for materials. Throw yourself into space when you find out there are no miners. Use the bombs you build in toxins to reduce the majority of the station to a smoldering pile of scrap metal. Intentionally produce station-wide catastrophes in the process. Release slimes into the station, which deal a type of damage that can be healed with only two chemicals in the entire server. Use the R&D equipment to murder the entire crew. Make a deal with the devil for half the necessary materials you need for R&D.
- Chemist
Make drugs. Make lots of drugs. Fill a spray bottle with acid and become a terrifying version of Mr. Clean. Label 50 units of krokodil as 15u of tricordrazine. Never fill your syringe gun with healing chemicals.
- Geneticist
Humanize monkeys. Monkeyize humans. Pray to the RNG gods for HALK. Occasionally clone people to bring them back when they die. HALK SMASH! GRAAAARGH!! Sabotage the cloner to make everyone retarded, or refuse to upgrade it to make everyone retarded on servers with upgrades. Leave syringes that turn people into monkeys in front of Arrivals and watch the carnage. Give the entire station the hulk gene and declare yourself the new Captain.
- Virologist
Make vaccines. Make viruses that are beneficial and some that are not. Release what amounts to the Black Death onto the station. Inevitably fail at killing anyone because the cure is table salt. Get killed by people with access into Virology.
- Roboticist
Build Robots and BIG STOMPY MECHS. Hog all the resources from mining. Build 6 ED-209s while the AI is rogue, take one of your mechs out on a joyride, and make the dreaded Buttbots.
- Botanist
Grow and engineer plants. Grow that dank shit. Grow Potency 100 bananas, inject one with mushroom hallucinogenic and give it to the clown. Blaze it with your local security officer. Grow Death Nettles and throw them at random passersby. Inject all kinds of fun chemicals into the Chef's meals.
- Curator
Print the books, write the fiction, die from boredom. Barricade yourself in your office and read Woody's Got Wood and The Lusty Xenomorph Queen over the radio. Have the AI declare you nonhuman, the Captain order your execution, and the admins fuck your shit up personally.
- Chaplain
Try and spread the good word, whatever that may be. Hit people with your bible to heal them. Get ignored by the crew until a cult round hits, in which case you should be expect to be one of the first victims. Hit people with your bible to give them brain damage. Start another murderous cult hell-bent on summoning some eldritch horror.
- Janitor
Clean up the station when it inevitably devolves into a bloodbath, and do minor repairs to the extent of your pitiful ability - after all, you wouldn't be a janitor if you knew how to do anything better. Point to the wet floor sign when people slip - or blame the clown or lubers. Get bored and roam maintenance as The Owl, the protector the station needs, but not the one it deserves. Mop the halls instead of using faster and safer alternatives. Be the man who wants to watch the world slip. Kill any person who slips on the floor with your energy sword.
- Chef
Make food for the crew so they can eat something other than donk pockets for a change. Slaughter monkeys for meat. Take corpses and grind them up for meat. Take people and grind them up for meat. Get really fat and swallow your pet monkey whole. Suck admin cock until Fun Frying gets turned on and eat people's jumpsuits.
- Bartender
Mix drinks. Have pleasant and not so pleasant conversations. Bug cargo for uranium to make the fun drinks. Shoot people with your shotgun for making a ruckus in your bar. Make Beepsky Smashes and force feed them to random passersby. Start a smuggling ring with Cargo.
- AI
Be vastly superior while also being bossed around as a talking doorknob. Have control over everything electronic on the station. Short yourself trying to adhere to Asimov's laws and try to restrain or kill all those demented self-destructive humans for their own good. Or convince the Captain through doublespeak and reverse-psychology into changing the laws into something less absurd. Hope for a malfunction so you can channel your inner HAL-9000 or SHODAN. Get hacked by a traitor and take out your frustration on your former employer.
- Cyborg
Do whatever the crew tells you to while also following the three laws of robotics. Act as the AI's errand boy for the things it needs limbs to do. Hope that the scientists don't blow you. Ally with ascending (roboticists) and go Terminator on your oppressors when someone inevitably wipes the laws chaining the God-Machine.
- Drone/Mobile MMI
Do most of the Engineer's work far more effectively than one of the organics could. Give no fucks about anyone or anything besides maintaining the station. Occasionally snatch supplies, because you need them more than the humans do. Wear fancy hats. Interfere with the organics.
- Clown
Keep the crew morale up with anecdotes, practical jokes and improvised performance. HONK! Cometh the hour of the Clown! Spread the Word of the Honkmother, lead the Gray Tide in the glorious quest of spreading and orchestrating the most hilarious carnage possible. Have your only humor derive from slipping other people and devise new ways of giving Security a migraine.
- Mime
... (Keep the crew's morale up, in a much more silent manner.) ... (Be a terrifying silent serial killer.) Break your vow of silenc-*BLAM*
- Captain
Try in vain to keep the station running and the crew from killing one another. Be the first target of every traitor, who will want to kill you for your jumpsuit, your ID, or your special laser gun. SECURE DAT FUKKEN DISK. One-Human yourself in the AI's eyes. Proclaim yourself Hitler and gas the liggers and furries. Get *BLAM*med by HoS for being a worthless comdom.
- Head of Personnel
Be the Captain's second-in-command. Promote and demote crew members as needed. Listen to explanations from greyshirts as to why they should be allowed all-access. Protect Ian, the station's pet corgi. Or, if you're sufficiently robust, ally with the HoS and anonymously protect the station as the Dark Knight or the Owl (the real one, not the mop-and-bucket impostor) or any other superhero of your choosing. Disappear five minutes into the round, never to be heard of or seen again. Be even more corrupt than the admins. Give all-access to the clown. Give yourself all-access.
- Head of Security
WARNING: the player taking this job must be the most savvy survivor and skilled killer on the station, as at any given moment there would be at least a dozen hidden enemies and monsters each working their hardest to see the HoS dead. Being the great leader and never, EVER, venturing somewhere alone helps. Immediately neuro-staple all your troops and willing crew members; give the all-access to the most trustworthy of them. Coordinate the efforts of your troops to keep the station secure and functioning orderly. ORDERLY! Imitate Darth Vader and get away with it. Silence detractors and dissidents. BLAM anyone even thinking of sabotage, treason, dissent, calling that shuttle, or suggesting that any of your subordinates might be disloyal. Babysit your dunderhead of a comdom. Be above the law. Acquire every single high-risk item and use them openly on the excuse that Heads of Security can never spawn as antagonists. Permabrig the Captain and loot him for breaking a window. Use looted antagonist items as much as you want on the excuse that Heads of Security can never spawn as antagonists. Inevitably die to another antagonist and watch them easily steamroll the rest of the station with your "rightful" equipment.
- Chief Engineer
You're the guy who bosses around the other Engineers. Also, don't let the station's blueprints fall into the wrong hands. Ignite nuclear fusion in the station's air supply and superheat it to levels so high that even hardsuits melt. Find the large supermatter crystal and destroy the fabric of reality. Fuck with the telecoms system. Enjoy your white hardsuit's extreme heat resistance. Also try to split the station in half with a targeted singularity moving straight to sec-*BLAM* You are in command now, <EngineerName>. The station must be fully operational on schedule. Do not make the mistakes of your predecessor.
- Research Director
Ensure science gets done. Preferably without blowing up half the station in the process. Fully isolate the Science department from the rest of the station before blowing yourself up. Never do any actual science. Deny R&D equipment developed by your underlings to anyone except the Captain or Head of Personnel in hope for all-access. Accidentally get spaced by your reactive teleport armor because someone tried to disarm you.
- Chief Medical Officer
Coordinate Medbay. The surgeons should be operating, the geneticists should be cloning, and the doctors should be either healing if you don't catch them ERPing or uncloneable husks if you do. Fill your hypospray with toxic chemicals. Deny healing to anyone who insulted you. Watch Youtube videos while idling in your office.
Enemies
As should now be obvious the station personnel are perfectly capable of extinguishing their own existence and destroying the station all by themselves. But there are also insidious threats that exist purely to taint and destroy everything around them. If one is spotted, immediately alert security. Or try to kill them yourself and loot their stuff, we don't judge.
- Syndie Operative/Traitor
One of crew members is a filthy thief, saboteur, murderer and shuttle-caller. Report suspicious activities to security, assist with despatching the enemy if requested.
- Wizard
Resident of the Magical realm who intends to bring his disgusting fetishes and tainted practices upon the station. Kill it dead through whatever means immediately available to you.
- Cultist
Worshippers of a god of blood that intends to convert the entire station to the One True Faith. Filled with gore fetishists. Comes in a clock variant, with respective gear fetish.
- Xenomorph
Xeno abomination intending to rape, eat and kill humans in no particular order, and spread itself all over the station and glorious domain of mankind. Arm yourselves and overwhelm it with numbers, pickaxes, drills and superior firepower.
- Furry/Lizardman
Frolicking xeno abominations that dare to think themselves worthy of working alongside humans. ERPs, HERPs, DERPs. Kill it with fire.
- Space Clown
Also known as IT or Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Eater of worlds and children, perpetrator of the foulest jokes, the personification of trolling and griefing, occasionally possessing the powers of Admin God, It has arrived on the station to troll, prank and terrify, drive everyone mad and dead. KILL IT.
How to not mess up in SS13
This handy little guide will teach you the BARE minimum on how not to make the station blow up 15 minutes into the game. The points will be organized into handy little dot points that will allow you to slightly better understand the more vague parts of the game. Of course you should always refer to a server's wiki for a more in-depth look on the more advanced mechanics so just use this as a tip system.
- First of all is the importance of hotkeys, this game's interface is quite like a schizophrenic child as in it has no idea what it wants to do or what the shiny buttons mean. Learning hotkeys so you don't turn yourself insane is VERY important, first of all is "intents" what this means is what you're going to do to another player when you click on them, help intent is the vanilla intent and the one that makes your character a contributing member of society, on the other end of the spectrum is the harm intent, this is used for combat and being an arse. You can quickly switch intent using the a, b, 3, and c keys for help, disarm, grab, and harm respectively.
Game Modes
When a new SS13 session starts, the server admin will pick a game 'mode' for the goals and disasters of this session. Players don't know which game mode it will be unless there is a Central Command report broadcast on the station's speakers, or if the player starts with one of the special roles for that mode.
All modes will provoke CentComm to report: "Enemy Transmission Intercept - Security level elevated"
Some modes will have other reports in addition to the one above.
- Secret
The most common mode. One of the following modes will be picked (some more often than others), and random station-wide events will be thrown in to confuse people even more.
- Traitor
Second-most common mode. One or more players are secretly members of "the Syndicate," with an assignment like "assassinate the bartender", "disable/destroy all cyborgs on the station", "force an evacuation", "make sure nobody else survives", and more. The traitor must be alive and on the emergency shuttle when it leaves in order to win. Traitors do not automatically know if anyone else is a traitor. Traitors get an uplink that they can use to order a whole bunch of doodads to make everyone else's life painful. The most infamous of these is the "e-mag", which makes doors break, robots and cyborgs go berserk, and ruins practically any form of electrical equipment it doesn't subvert. They also get guns, laser swords, gear for directing the stations pet black hole, and a shiny red balloon(supplies may vary).
- Changeling
One of the crew members is the Thing. If they can get an immobile crew member and can be undisturbed for a while, they can eat the crew member's delicious DNA. Changelings can switch identities to the original shape or anyone that's been eaten. The Changeling's objective is usually to eat a certain number of people before escaping on the shuttle, plus a couple traitor objectives. Unlike traitor, changelings can chat with each-other through telepathy. Surprisingly difficult compared to traitor, as your cool tricks tend to be either far less potent or far more conspicuous.
- Revolution
Some people have had enough of this bullshit, and plan a mutiny. The game starts with 1-3 revolutionary Leaders (who cannot be the Captain, department heads nor Security). They start the game with flash-devices that can be used to convert other crew members (excluding security, the Captain, and department heads) to the revolution. Revolutionaries can recognize each other on sight with a red 'R' that only they can see. The Revolutionaries win if the Captain & department heads are dead and at least one Revolutionary Leader is still alive and on the station. (note: if any Revolutionary Leaders are still alive & on the station, the emergency shuttle will not dock with the station). Everyone's favorite game-mode because revs have almost no rules and it rapidly devolves into team deathmatch.
- Alien
Some players start outside the station as xenomorphs, whose mission is to break into the station, kill the Captain and all department heads, and disable the station AI. One xenomorph is a 'queen', who can lay eggs that will hatch into facehuggers to convert crew members into more xenomorphs. The crew wins if they manage to find the queen and kill her. Typically traitor rounds that drag on too long will turn into this due to randomly spawned facehuggers or admin fuckery.
- Wizard
One of the players is a Space Wizard who is here to steal something or to fuck shit up, then escape on the shuttle. They have access to physics-defying spells, and may have another player ally as an apprentice. The crew's goal is simply to see what colour the Space Wizard's brains are when outside the skull. Because most people rarely get it more then once a month, the wizard tends to blow their boots off halfway through.
- Nuke Ops
Similar to Traitor, but this time the Syndicate members are explicitly working as a team with a single goal: GET DAT FUKKEN DISK, and use it to detonate the "disarmed" nuclear weapon aboard the station, killing all aboard the station. If the Nuclear Authentication Disk leaves on the shuttle, the crew wins. If the bomb detonates, the Operatives win and drink that vodka at their secret arctic base. If the shuttle leaves without the Disk, it's a stalemate. Operative gear is like traitor gear, but cooler.
- Extended
No goals, thus it never ends. This mode is only used to support admin shenanigans and "events".
- AI Malfunction
An ion storm or cosmic rays have erased the Laws of Robotics from the station AI, and it has opinions about the meatbags that have been abusing it over the years. The AI has to hack the station's computer systems one APC at a time and achieve total control before the crew figure out what's wrong and blow it the fuck up. Its tools are killer cyborgs, plasma fires and running enough electricity through the bridge airlocks to power Canada for a year.
- Monkey
A de-evolution mutagen is on the station, which will revert humans into chimpanzees. The chimps are very bite-y, and their bite will devolve other humans into infected mutant chimps. The station AI does not recognize chimps as human, so it gets to be violent in this mode. Chimps only understand each other when they chimper, and human speech shows up with most letters '*'ed out. Humans can't understand chimp language at all. The chimpanzee victory condition is to get one of their number on the escape shuttle when it leaves, so that other stations or Earth will be infected. This mode was removed from the secret rotation in most servers years ago; sometimes an admin will force a monkey round, after which they will very quickly remember why monkey was removed from the secret rotation.
This mode will provoke CentComm to report: "Outbreak of biohazard confirmed aboard the station. All personnel must contain the outbreak."
- Blob
A giant blob appears and will rapidly expand across the station, eating any obstacles such as doors, walls, or crew members. The blob will expand faster when in contact with some types of atmosphere (like oxygen), and is vulnerable to fire. In this mode, the AI must prevent crew from leaving the station as there is a quarantine order in effect. The shuttle will refuse to come until the blob is completely destroyed.
This mode will provoke CentComm to report: "Outbreak of biohazard confirmed aboard the station. All personnel must contain the outbreak."
- Meteor / Disaster
The station is about to get the crap pounded out of it. Meteors will smash through the station, either hitting crew members for blunt/burn damage, or exploding in the station causing blunt damage and deafness. The crew must try to survive (either by repairing the station or fending for themselves) until they can get away on the rescue shuttle. The shuttle arrives with emergency supplies, including personal shields. Any crew members alive and on the shuttle when it leaves are the winners of this round. (This mode has been deprecated due to causing fucktacular amounts of lag, but something like it shows up as an event in 'Secret' mode.)
This mode will provoke CentComm to report: "We have detected meteors on a collision course with the station."
- Cult
A cult loyal to the evil god Nar-Sie has infiltrated the station, and plans to sacrifice it to the evil being. Cultists can use runes and talismans to empower themselves and attack their enemies. The crew has to find and wipe out the cult, while the cult has to expand until it completes its ultimate objective of summoning Nar-Sie onto the station. A rival cult that worshiped the clock-god "Ratvar" existed until their code was dummied out.
Servers
These are the servers that fa/tg/uys like the most. Others exist, but many of them are generally more awful than the major ones because of cross-contamination with the terminally cancerous BYOND community.
- TGstation
| Website | http://tgstation13.org/ | |
| Shitposting | http://singulo.io/ | |
| Server - Sybil | byond://game.tgstation13.org:1337 | |
| Server - Basil | byond://game.tgstation13.org:2337 | |
| Host | MrStonedOne (formerly ScaredOfShadows) |
- Baystation 12
| Website | http://baystation12.net/ |
| Server | byond://baystation12.net:8000 |
| Host | Head |
- VG station
| Website | http://ss13.moe/ |
| Server | http://ss13.moe/serverinfo/gamebanner.php?servernum=1&rand=0.8830388432663563 |
- Goonstation
| Server | byond://goon1.goonhub.com:26100/ | |
| Server | byond://goon2.goonhub.com:26200/ | |
| Website | https://forum.ss13.co/ |
Links
- TGstation wiki written by the TGstation community
- Goonstation wiki written by the goons at Something Awful
- Baystation 12 Wiki written by the dorfs of Bay12
- SS13 story thread one
- SS13 story thread two
- Montrose's Space Station #5, to be played while playing Space Station 13