Mentor Application - kooarbiter

Staff Applications Mentor Applications
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Mentor Application - kooarbiter

Byond CKEY:

kooarbiter

Discord ID:

kooarbiter

Character Name(s):

Ezra Bass, I used to play Ana Bow

Why do you want to become a Mentor?:

I love the idea of the SEA role, I’m sad it’s exclusive to mentor but I am willing to put the work in to have access to it. I’ve been playing and enjoying CM so long I feel it’s only fair to return the favor with the little bits and pieces I’ve learned over the years. CM was actually the very first server I ever played, back in 2016, and it has been in my rotation of regular servers for it’s robust RP and enjoyable combat.

What gameplay areas do you know and which areas are you strong and weak in?:

I like to think I am very good with engineering projects, I’m quite capable in most forms of groundside combat, I know medical fairly well although I’m somewhat lacking in chemistry and research. I can lead well and I love teaching people. I can RP very well (in my opinion) and I love creating ad hoc stories in game. I have very little experience with flying cas, but I know how to fit out dropships and refill them as well as run transport and triage. I haven’t played enough intel to be super experienced with it but I know how to do it. I’m competent with requisitions and I often pack supply crates as squad marine.

I’ve played almost every xeno caste short of hivelord although I don’t know all of the ravager and praetorian strains by heart. I haven’t played much queen and the toxicity surrounding the role makes me hesitant to play it. My internet connection isn’t the greatest which is why i don’t often play T3s, but I could guide anyone what they should be doing and what their caste is skilled at.

I have outlived most of the high ranking staff over the years, I remember the apop/feweh drama, the jamie saga, and our current changing of hats, and I will probably last for longer still. I’m not a mucho robusto by any means, but I’ve been around.

How often are to able to play CM?:

I should be able to get at least 1-2 hours a day if i put my mind to it, although I do have a problem with getting burnt out easily, it’s something I’ve dealt with my entire life but CM has had so much variation I rarely ever get tired of it

A screenshot or transcript of your human and xeno playtimes:

Human 214.5 hr Xeno 45.9 hr Other 19 hr

I’ve been playing CM for a long ass time, since long before we tracked playtime, if I had to assume I’d say somewhere above a thousand hours of active playing, although much of it was me dying over and over again. I remember when charlie was green, I remember when the tank started with a cannon, I remember the D day tier Sulaco hangar defenses, I very much miss the old tech system with the stims and special medic bruise packs and the RTO. I remember but do not miss when we had actual cloning.

My playtime record is much lower than the actual total, I don’t play CM actively like I used to because I’ve played so much of it already, but if I make a commitment to log at least an hour each day I’m sure It’ll get higher in no time.
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Anything else you’d like to add?:

Back during the ssethtide, when the shadows first lengthened, I took up a position as an “assistance officer” where I helped to shuffle and guide all of the feckless new players and I had a blast. I have a picture of the medal I earned on my old computer and it is a proud moment of mine.

I really look forward to helping new players, the SEA role in particular looks like an especially fun vector for doing this, I know better than to shit on new players for being confused and inexperienced, and I like to think I have taught a lot of players over the years how to play not just CM, but ss13 in general. One of my most precious memories is of my first round of CM, when Carl “hail” Barnybus dragged my sorry ass around the Sulaco escaping a xeno hijacking, ending in us getting surrounded on the bridge and dying horribly as a wave of xenos of various shapes and sizes encircled us and beat us to death. Good times.

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Ive def seen you around, sadly can’t say much to your in game knowledge but seeing your time spread, while not foolproof as to your ability, would be nice, even if much of it has been wiped over the years.

Being mentor is also a lot more than just being SEA, even if its the most visible interaction with mentors. Do you feel comfortable for example with potentially guiding a new doctor player through surgery via mhelps? or a slightly panicked fob engineer on low pop with no other guidance?

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Absolutely to both, I’ve been pondering how exactly I would set up my reference wiki pages. I’ve got tons of building theory that can be easily put into practice, and I used to play back to back surgeon back in the day and a good amount of my previous knowledge translates, as well I’ve updated myself on what surgeries require what.

As for SEA not being the entirety of the role, being in the game, teaching the newbies how not to die is very fun, but I understand everyone needs help for small things here and there, and not neccesarily an ingame mentor.

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you wouldnt happen to have a screenshot of your playtimes? it would be nice to see the spread between different roles, even though theyve been wiped as you say a few times.

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Sure thing, I would have more time as ASO and IO but those roles are almost always taken when I hop on

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Would appreciate getting a response from anyone with questions, feedback, or telling me what they think of my CM gamer clout, kinda feels like my app dropped into the forum abyss.

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I’m not a mentor or anything but you definitely need more recent playtimes. Your hours in some roles are bare-bones (such as researcher) and you have no playtimes for some crucial and complicated roles as well, such as OT, doctor, XO, and xeno Queen.

Again, I’m not a mentor, but this is just my advice from how knowledgeable mentors are expected to be.

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I used to play a lot of roles that I don’t have listed playtimes in, after the original techwebs was removed a lot of what i loved about old CM died, and i stopped playing for a while, and then I came back a few years later. I can’t prove that I have many dozens of hours in medic and doctor, but if anyone remembers my character jack sugar from many years ago, he was my go to for medical roles, for example

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I believe you have those times, but I’m sure much has changed. Just because you were familiar then, doesn’t mean your familiar now. I still think having recent playtimes in such roles is necessary to fully understand them in their current form.

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that’s fair, I can’t argue against that, but i do know a lot of things are similar, the most different thing to me being research based on what it used to be (it was basically nothing, but a long time ago it was just xenology but more direct back on sulaco)

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sorry about not getting back sooner. how would you deal with these scenarios

  • You get an mhelp from a player asking “help, how do i build as a drone?”

  • You’re playing on lowpop and get an mhelp from a player stating “im the lone engineer on fob, what do i do?”

  • You get an Mhelp stating “this XO sucks [redacted] and i want to mutiny, can you help me?”

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All fine

  1. As a drone, you can use the wall button “choose resin structure” near the top of the screen, then click on the secrete resin button with tools criss-crossed, and middle mouse the ground to build your selected construction, and it saved whatever you chose until you override it. Using the Order construction button you can make special structures to make forward buildings more secure and powerful, but require time to build up.

  2. Make sure to secure the entrances to fob with barricades, you can make them out of metal, sandbags (fill them up with an entrenching tool on dirt), or plasteel. Make sure to make barbed wire out of metal, as it makes your barricades tougher and prevents enemies from jumping over them.

With your laser designator, alt click the designator to turn the light green, then activate it in your hands to zoom out, if you control+click a ground you can get coordinates for supply drops, make sure you drop it somewhere safe behind barricades where it wont hit anyone. If you have sentry turrets and mines, you can set them down to help augment the defenses.

  1. It’s not up to me to handle mutinies, if you want permission to mutiny, gather up 5 co conspirators and adminhelp for permission to mutiny, good luck!
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im largely satisfied. +1

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You get an Mhelp from a PO asking how to do fire missions and any tips.

An OT Mhelps, his asking you how to create ANFO and how to assemble an M15 grenade.

A researcher asks you, how to create greenos and what to look out for when creating them. He also asks how to create custom stims.

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  1. On the right side console, you can set up a fire mission by setting the length of the mission (12 is the normal, with 6 being short) and have different firemissions for the main four directions. With the gimbal, you can offset your weapons from the center that your firemission will travel down. it starts at 0 at being centered, but entering 1-6 (for right side weapons only, makes them go farther away the higher the number) and -1 to -6 being the opposite for the left side weapons. When your firemission is ready, inform jtac operators and start a fly by, on the right side console you will see if there are any lases or signal flares, make sure to confirm before firing on any lases or flares to avoid friendly fire. I recomend letting the jtac channel know what kinds of fire missions you plan on carrying out, and to tailor your loadout to whatever the ground calls for.

  2. Anfo can be mixed with 1 unit welding fuel to 2 units Ammonium Nitrate, which can be made with a mix of polytrinic acid and ammonia in equal parts. Custom OT grenades, as well as most custom explosive shells, can be printed from the army lathe.

  3. Get to the maximum clearance level of five, scan royal plasma from a queen or praetorian, relate the chemical trait “ciphering 2” (other levels will result in non friendly xenos), onto another chemical. inject a monkey with this chemical and infect them with an egg or egg plasma. The monkey will lose a lot of blood and will need to be cared for until they hatch. If the ciphering chemical is injected quickly before or after infecting them you should look out for their blood level dropping rapidly, or the monkey taking large amounts of damage.

You can create custom stims by combining positive traits like neogenetic and anti corrosive, which will heal brute and burn damage respectively. Removing negative traits and boosting the positive ones will make the chemical more effective. Once the chemical is done, print medical pens via the medilathe, and fill them by putting them in the chemical centrifuge and filling the input beaker with your stimical. Your stim will likely have a low OD threshold, make sure to take note of this before you test it on anyone.When you are satisfied that it works properly, distribute the pens to medics or groundside marines, and bug the CMO to publish your findings so medics will know how much to distribute or how to treat an OD.

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  1. Inform the player that cas works in a grid method. Along with directing them to the wiki to ease their troubles. Most players will still be confused from this explanation. So ensure that they understand. Good explanation overall.

  2. Explanation of ANFO is good, however what I meant is how to assemble the grenade not how to print it. Please explain how you would assemble the grenade. As well as things to look out for when assembling a rocket. If you can’t answer it, explain what you will do and where you would direct the player to find answers.

  3. Blood loss only happens if egg plasma is directly injected from a syringe or other method that is injected in the monkeys blood stream. Not from the face hugging method. Overall the explanation is good. Along with the explanation of the creation of stims. Do keep in mind that there are different injectors example being 15x4 which means 15 units and can be injected 4 times.

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  1. I guess explaining that it works like a grid was the right call, I didn’t put it into words great.

  2. right, this is where my bias is showing, after printing an OT casing, link it to a detonator which can be secured or attachable by screwdrivering the detonator assembly (The detonator assemblies will need to be sourced from your autolathe) the detonators (igniter, signaller, proximity sensor and timer) will be needed to receive signals and cause the explosive to detonate. All of the detonators have different triggers, but at least one and up to two igniters MUST be added, depending on the casing you choose, so make sure you know what does what before blowing yourself up. Insert the beaker/warhead of choice into your casing and optionally alt click to enable the dampener if you want to restrict the explosive area for safety. Finally secure the full assembly with a screwdriver and it will be ready to use, make sure to use the simulator to test your creation.

For making a rocket specifically, print the 84mm rocket tube and rocket warhead from the army lathe, attach two igniters obtained from the autolathe to the warhead itself. Pour whatever chemical mix you have in mind, making sure not to cause it to destabilize and explode. Additionally add 60u of methane (4 parts hydrogen to 1 parts carbon) in the rocket tube itself. Once you are done, optionally dampen the warhead with an alt click, and screwdriver the completed rocket, then send it to the demo specialist, or to req so they can.

  1. I suspect medipens are being changed/removed to some degree, I am not sure if there are pens other than EZ planned to be significantly changed or removed in the near future, so i wouldn’t want to give a player false information over that.
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Good job, hope you get on the team. +1.

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If you’re teaching a new OT how to make ANFO you better explain not to make more than 60 at once (which means add no more than 30 welding fuel to your ammonium nitrate at once) or you will quickly end up with a blown up OT lab.

Could be clearer that you have to relate CIP 1 and then amplify it to level 2. Also praes don’t have royal plasma, they have dark acidic blood which can be combined with egg plasma to make royal plasma. Also you need clearance 5X, not just level 5.

Also when it comes to making stims I think it’s very important to mention the “Create” option on the synthesis machine. You mention removing negative traits and increasing positive ones which implies taking an already existing chem and modifying it but this is rarely how anyone makes stims since it’s not very viable, you will end up with an abysmal OD threshold since the threshold lowers every time you make any modification like that and it’s more expensive and limits what you can do. For stims use the “create” option, add the properties you want at whatever level you want, set the complexity (which determines the rarity of the chems required for the recipe) to basic or common for each 3 slots so you can easily make the stim, set the OD to whatever you want, give it a name, then create.

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  1. That’s a good idea, I guess I assumed most players would check OD/explosion thresholds before creating anything potentially dangerous, but that was probably just projection on my part.

  2. Right, forgot it was 5x specifically, for the chemical synthesis, I am not incredibly skilled at research and I have no excuse for not knowing this, I will try to play researcher more to remove some of these blindspots.

thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it

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