Game basics:
Space Station 13 is a multi-player game on the BYOND platform. Centering around a research station owned by the giant corporation known as NanoTrasen somewhere off in deep space, you'll find yourself as a member of the crew helping to keep the station running in a tidy and ordered fashion. Join up in such roles as an Engineer, Scientist, Medical Doctor and try your best to make sure the station doesn't go to hell in a handbasket - a tall order indeed given that such hazards as traitors, alien creatures and terrorists have their own designs on the station.
Then there's other risks of working in deep space, such as meteor showers, radiation storms, and various occupational hazards such as engine failiure or explosive asteroids when mining.
Game features:
Though the game does not have the best graphics, the game has a quite huge world and a large variety of features. The game has been open-source for a couple of years now, as a result there are many servers which provide different game mechanics and features, though what really matters in SS13 is the community.
Space Station 13 is basically a role-playing game, due to the variation of servers, there are multiple intensities of roleplaying on each server, each having it's own rules. The game is round-based, each round duration varies between servers, in heavy-roleplaying servers, games tend to go on for 3-6 hours on average, and on normal/light-roleplaying servers, the game tends to last a maximum of 60 minutes.
Each round may be of a different mode, each mode differs from the other in what antagonist role it provides. For example, the "Traitor" mode, which is the most known of all modes, is a mode where a certain little number of players are picked and given specific objectives to achieve at all costs, the traitors spawn with a special installment in their PDA device, which allows them to spawn/create weapons to achieve their objectives. Traitor identities are concealed, and are only provided on the end of the round, most traitors tend to do their set objectives(which can vary between assassinations, stealing an object and hijacking the escape shuttle) in a stealthy way, while others can just simply test what the players call "robustness" skills by purging the whole station. Since the crew's main objective is to keep the station running and stable, it is but obvious that they have to prevent those antagonists from achieving their objectives.
As you join the game, you will usually encounter a window like this one:
As you can see, on the left, lies the game screen, bottom right lies the chat box and top right is the 'stats' panel, which allows you to scroll between certain commands(such as contacting an admin, seeing the players online and a couple of other commands) and tabs.
The window in the middle of the screen shows 3 different buttons, lets start with the first one, which is the "Create Character", which allows you to customize your character, on clicking that button, you will come across these options:
Between each round is a 120 seconds time delay which allows you to customize your character and set yourself as ready. To make the game fair, you cannot exactly 'choose' a role if the game has not started, since roles are limited(there can be only one captain, for example), but you can set them as preferred in different priorities so that you have a chance of being picked into being that specific role from this screen:
After you have set your character(you should probably save your preferences), you probably want to join the game, which is obviously the 2nd button in the menu provided in the first image(the third button is just "Observe" which spawns you as a ghost where you can just roam about the game and spectate, obviously), if the game has not yet started, you will be declared ready to the game until the round starts. Though if you are a late joiner, you will faced with this window, which allows you to pick between the vacant job slots:
On picking a role, you spawn on the arrival shuttle if you are a late joiner, or in your working place if you joined before the game started. On spawn, you are given certain tools and an ID with specific access to your workplace and to areas where you need access to work. In this image, I started late as an 'Assistant', which is a role with the least access:
You can always change your access level and/or occupation by contacting one of the station heads who have certain computers to edit your access("Head of Personnel" and "Captain"). If you are given an antagonist role, you will be given a certain set of instructions of how to use your equipment, your objectives and a huge red message telling you that you are the bad guy. In the above image, you can see on the HUD a number of icons, bottom left is the inventory, right is your status and bottom right is your intent, your aim and icon telling you whether you are running or walking. To the right of the game, is the chat box, as you can see, a number of other players are speaking over their headset radio. A perfect talk, one guy stammering for help, a bunch of others blaming the janitor for not doing his job right and other complaining about stolen ID.
The game might look simple, but it really is not. The game has a huge number of well-built systems:
That is me after I have stripped myself off my clothes and beaten myself up with a crowbar. In the image, you can see the simple dynamic yet amusing lighting system and a small part of the health system, where I am losing blood and I have bruises.
The game has a great atmospheric system, which can affect you in several ways. In the image above, the status bar showed a thermometer icon, which indicated extremely low temperature, 2 icons showing the lack of oxygen and high pressure in the room and an icon telling me that my character's health stat is "Crit.", as in critical(which means he is unconscious).
]
Once you have died, you can leave your body, become a ghost and spectate the round. Above is an image of me as a ghost, watching the captain, the head of personnel, an engineer and a geneticist who was able to modify his genes to give himself the "hulk" superpower(which is another great system, the genetics system) destroying a malfunctioning AI(which is a player chosen to be so, the AI as full access to everything on the station, and is controlled by his 'laws', which can also be changed and modified for either good or evil purposes) in it's chamber.
If you have died, there is a chance that someone finds your corpse and clones you into another body in the genetics lab:
Or you can be taken to the robotics lab and have your brain placed into a cyborg body and serve the AI:
Powering the station, is a huge singularity, which is the engineer's job to create, contain and make use of. This is a image of the engine room, where the singularity was not correctly contained and escaped into space:
Another system is the telecommunication system, which allows your headset radio and your PDA messages to work, which is stationed away from the main station:
The most amusing of all systems is the atmospheric system, which is basically a miracle to work this efficiently on BYOND, this is a small part of the atmospherics room which regulates the whole station's air supply:
Joining the game:
1. You must download install the BYOND client, byond.com/download/
2. Register a BYOND account.
3. Once you have installed BYOND, make sure you have logged into the downloaded client, then you have to go to the game's hub, byond.com/games/Exadv1/SpaceStation13, to find a server to play in.
4. Scroll down and join any of the servers. As I said earlier, community makes a big part of the game, so I HIGHLY suggest playing on Liberty Station server(aka LLA).
Make sure you read the rules carefully, they differ between each server, some servers are more sensitive towards certain matters.
The game may be a little difficult in the beginning, but you can get used to it. There are several game wikis out there that you can use if you need help(wiki.nanotrasen.com/index.php?title=Main_Page), you can always use the adminhelp command to ask an admin for help, or you can ask a question over the OOC. You can just ask a question here otherwise.
Space Station 13 is a multi-player game on the BYOND platform. Centering around a research station owned by the giant corporation known as NanoTrasen somewhere off in deep space, you'll find yourself as a member of the crew helping to keep the station running in a tidy and ordered fashion. Join up in such roles as an Engineer, Scientist, Medical Doctor and try your best to make sure the station doesn't go to hell in a handbasket - a tall order indeed given that such hazards as traitors, alien creatures and terrorists have their own designs on the station.
Then there's other risks of working in deep space, such as meteor showers, radiation storms, and various occupational hazards such as engine failiure or explosive asteroids when mining.
Game features:
Though the game does not have the best graphics, the game has a quite huge world and a large variety of features. The game has been open-source for a couple of years now, as a result there are many servers which provide different game mechanics and features, though what really matters in SS13 is the community.
Space Station 13 is basically a role-playing game, due to the variation of servers, there are multiple intensities of roleplaying on each server, each having it's own rules. The game is round-based, each round duration varies between servers, in heavy-roleplaying servers, games tend to go on for 3-6 hours on average, and on normal/light-roleplaying servers, the game tends to last a maximum of 60 minutes.
Each round may be of a different mode, each mode differs from the other in what antagonist role it provides. For example, the "Traitor" mode, which is the most known of all modes, is a mode where a certain little number of players are picked and given specific objectives to achieve at all costs, the traitors spawn with a special installment in their PDA device, which allows them to spawn/create weapons to achieve their objectives. Traitor identities are concealed, and are only provided on the end of the round, most traitors tend to do their set objectives(which can vary between assassinations, stealing an object and hijacking the escape shuttle) in a stealthy way, while others can just simply test what the players call "robustness" skills by purging the whole station. Since the crew's main objective is to keep the station running and stable, it is but obvious that they have to prevent those antagonists from achieving their objectives.
As you join the game, you will usually encounter a window like this one:
As you can see, on the left, lies the game screen, bottom right lies the chat box and top right is the 'stats' panel, which allows you to scroll between certain commands(such as contacting an admin, seeing the players online and a couple of other commands) and tabs.
The window in the middle of the screen shows 3 different buttons, lets start with the first one, which is the "Create Character", which allows you to customize your character, on clicking that button, you will come across these options:
Between each round is a 120 seconds time delay which allows you to customize your character and set yourself as ready. To make the game fair, you cannot exactly 'choose' a role if the game has not started, since roles are limited(there can be only one captain, for example), but you can set them as preferred in different priorities so that you have a chance of being picked into being that specific role from this screen:
After you have set your character(you should probably save your preferences), you probably want to join the game, which is obviously the 2nd button in the menu provided in the first image(the third button is just "Observe" which spawns you as a ghost where you can just roam about the game and spectate, obviously), if the game has not yet started, you will be declared ready to the game until the round starts. Though if you are a late joiner, you will faced with this window, which allows you to pick between the vacant job slots:
On picking a role, you spawn on the arrival shuttle if you are a late joiner, or in your working place if you joined before the game started. On spawn, you are given certain tools and an ID with specific access to your workplace and to areas where you need access to work. In this image, I started late as an 'Assistant', which is a role with the least access:
You can always change your access level and/or occupation by contacting one of the station heads who have certain computers to edit your access("Head of Personnel" and "Captain"). If you are given an antagonist role, you will be given a certain set of instructions of how to use your equipment, your objectives and a huge red message telling you that you are the bad guy. In the above image, you can see on the HUD a number of icons, bottom left is the inventory, right is your status and bottom right is your intent, your aim and icon telling you whether you are running or walking. To the right of the game, is the chat box, as you can see, a number of other players are speaking over their headset radio. A perfect talk, one guy stammering for help, a bunch of others blaming the janitor for not doing his job right and other complaining about stolen ID.
The game might look simple, but it really is not. The game has a huge number of well-built systems:
That is me after I have stripped myself off my clothes and beaten myself up with a crowbar. In the image, you can see the simple dynamic yet amusing lighting system and a small part of the health system, where I am losing blood and I have bruises.
The game has a great atmospheric system, which can affect you in several ways. In the image above, the status bar showed a thermometer icon, which indicated extremely low temperature, 2 icons showing the lack of oxygen and high pressure in the room and an icon telling me that my character's health stat is "Crit.", as in critical(which means he is unconscious).
]Once you have died, you can leave your body, become a ghost and spectate the round. Above is an image of me as a ghost, watching the captain, the head of personnel, an engineer and a geneticist who was able to modify his genes to give himself the "hulk" superpower(which is another great system, the genetics system) destroying a malfunctioning AI(which is a player chosen to be so, the AI as full access to everything on the station, and is controlled by his 'laws', which can also be changed and modified for either good or evil purposes) in it's chamber.
If you have died, there is a chance that someone finds your corpse and clones you into another body in the genetics lab:
Or you can be taken to the robotics lab and have your brain placed into a cyborg body and serve the AI:
Powering the station, is a huge singularity, which is the engineer's job to create, contain and make use of. This is a image of the engine room, where the singularity was not correctly contained and escaped into space:
Another system is the telecommunication system, which allows your headset radio and your PDA messages to work, which is stationed away from the main station:
The most amusing of all systems is the atmospheric system, which is basically a miracle to work this efficiently on BYOND, this is a small part of the atmospherics room which regulates the whole station's air supply:
Joining the game:
1. You must download install the BYOND client, byond.com/download/
2. Register a BYOND account.
3. Once you have installed BYOND, make sure you have logged into the downloaded client, then you have to go to the game's hub, byond.com/games/Exadv1/SpaceStation13, to find a server to play in.
4. Scroll down and join any of the servers. As I said earlier, community makes a big part of the game, so I HIGHLY suggest playing on Liberty Station server(aka LLA).
Make sure you read the rules carefully, they differ between each server, some servers are more sensitive towards certain matters.
The game may be a little difficult in the beginning, but you can get used to it. There are several game wikis out there that you can use if you need help(wiki.nanotrasen.com/index.php?title=Main_Page), you can always use the adminhelp command to ask an admin for help, or you can ask a question over the OOC. You can just ask a question here otherwise.