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Add more science skill jobs to Red
No smart mixer wants to be a corpie.

As already mentioned in the town hall, most science skill focused characters have practically zero job choices when they can't or won't go to a corp. This should be rectified, as other skills have both Mix and Corp options.

My suggestion is to add a subcontractor corp to Red, that offers other corps cheap and skilled labor, which it sources from Mixers. It'd check if your best science skill is on a sufficient level, and then let you scan-in for work similar to the factory, but at better pay. Though I'd suggest to make it work a tad differently: You may only spend one hour a day working, but get substantially better pay than in the factory. That way the subcontractor is an actual temporary option to science skill focused characters, and reduces the time stolen that you could be spending roleplaying. The amount you get after a hour could be based on your best science skill, its level, and balanced against the alternatives it has for a stable chyen income. One can always correct the values to the same number, once less supported science skills gain more support.

Another suggestion is dedicated, small shops, like programming sweatshops and gadget repair shops. And extending existing shops to also manufacture a portion of their own products, just like the 100 rads with its munition guy. These shops could become places where science skill characters learn how to use their skills, as a senior PC or puppet introduces a new PC to the job.

I think the gap is an intentional one. Brainy, skilled labor goes Topside, the Mix tends to have less sophisticated labor. I also feel that as it stands right now, we don't particularly need incentive to push people to stay in the Mix and that if anything, the opposite is true and Topside needs a bit of a boost.
Ohmygod I couldn't disagree more, Kiwi.

A player's decision whether to go play a corpie or a mixer should be a preference, not a forced choice (at first at least, obviously players rise and fall based on RP and choices, etc.) That's why we even have corpie immigration now.

This is a direly needed thing for the health of science/tech archetypes, and to balance the corpie/mix ecosystems. We need corpie deckers, we need mix deckers, we need both to have income and resources and communities. We need corporate chemists and we need black clinic chemists.

Give the mix nerds some access to chyen, finally, please! It gives the bullies some lunch money to steal when they come to give us wedgies :) For real though, we have so little coded leverage in other means, it'd be nice to at least have some more basic access to chyen. While everyone may rely on crates to begin with, some archetypes basically live on them forever because there's no real incentive for other players to pay them to do anything, or they get paid to do things so rarely it barely counts.

I'm not quite sure where I stand on this. I do -not- think there should be well paying jobs of any variety in the Mix, science included. Perhaps some low end jobs, sweatshop types, or something that involved a level of danger, as in working with radiation or sewage. Also, I do not think that every single character concept should be coded in because you want to play it. If you choose to play a mixer scientist who absolutely will not work for a corp, that is perfectly fine, but you are choosing a tough life, which makes sense. In the context of needing scientists for black market things, these will most likely be, in game and genre-wise, brains from corporate employ either moonlighting for extra money or disgraced and no longer employed by a corp. Same goes for deckers, fallen corpies who amassed their knowledge working topside. Mix bred deckers, in my mind, would be the lonely bastard holed up in his apartment, eating cups of noodles and cheese pizzas while dumping every bit of chy and time into their equipment.
If you're focused on making a Mixer, then there's certain factors you have to accept. Mixers make more on the regular because of the mortality rate and how quick they are to lose things, so "better paying jobs" is already an anathema to the hustle they have the window for. If you want to play a purely non-com brainy character, then the market suggests you go to the play that's littered with Judges and Corpsec... Or ply the fuck out of your services to the people who CAN protect you.

More hard coded jobs (IE positions or an upgrade SHI) aren't needed in my opinon.

More applications -of- these skills in a dirty Mixer way are so that deckers, mechanics, and technical sorts can ply their trade to the people who can protect them. Chemists are a very obvious one that have the potential to regularly exchange their services, for example. Other trades? Not so much.

I would fully agree to more applications for the skills in the game, allowing them more opportunities to make money off of other players, just not the hard coded jobs. Having played both Mix and Topside characters, I can say there is a lot of opportunity to make money in the Mix, comparatively, especially since corpies can no longer do crates..
Corp was never meant to do crates in the first place and was stated as a bug.

If you feel you aren't making enough money IC and bringing it up OOC, you're entirely missing the point of theme and your PC should be internalizing it... and then externalizing it.

The Mix is poor and stepped on and down trodden and it's hungry...

Make that hunger drive you.

All that being said, that doesn't mean you should have more tools at your disposal for the RP. All stats and skills are there to -support- RP, not a replacement for it. If these new skills are being suggested, then they should be created (and will be created) with the mindset they will make players engage each other more... with the inherent risks involved.

If deckers had more ways to 'ply their trade...' etc. in the mix, we wouldn't be having this conversation. :)

Yeah. Grid 3.0 is going to help balance a lot of things over time, but this is a bandaid that can help and be rebalanced later.

The point is people roll these archetypes and want to play mixers and on top of running into the dead end that is coded support for...doing stuff...the run into an income wall at the same time. Little income also means stunted growth in getting gear to do the few things the archetypes can do, stunted ability to fund plots, etc. Coded job support also creates RP opportunities at those jobs. They help provide community gel points and identities, in their way.

"The point is people roll these archetypes and want to play mixers and on top of running into the dead end that is coded support for...doing stuff...the run into an income wall at the same time. Little income also means stunted growth in getting gear to do the few things the archetypes can do, stunted ability to fund plots, etc. "

Welcome to the Mix!

There are other ways to make money besides your skills as well.

And saying deckers can't do anything completely diminishes what recent deckers have.

It's an RP game first and foremost, remember that.

Also consider the way a egghead character thinks, there not just a repository of knowledge which plugs away, they think of plans and schemes to use there skills to etch out a living in the mix. If your character is supposed to be really smart, cunning and resourceful but can only make money through finding a job thats already been hard-coded into the world for them, then you arent playing the archetype, your playing the skills.
What I'll say on this is just from skimming the board post, people seem to be assuming that people are choosing to be mixers or corpies. Most corpies fall back to the Mix eventually, and if they've invested all this time and effort in being good at the technical skill they honed only to be shunted somewhere that skill is next to useless, meaning they're starting back at square one.
For every need topside, there should be equivalent to satisfy said need down in the mix. So if those science jobs exist topside for a reason, then there likely is similar reason for them to exist in the red. Otherwise, what is the point of topside job if it doesn't satisfy some need? And that seems to be true, you have topside and mix drug dealers, joys, servers etc, why not mad scientists?
What jobs have topside equivalents that don't have Mix ones?
Because what the hell are they needed for? The sciences of the mix are covered already. What would science do?
I don't know what scientists do ingame, but if there are no mix-side jobs for them, then clearly something is missing.
"Welcome to the Mix!"

Welcome to the Mix WHAT? Everyone talking like there aren't already dozens of ambient and already-described and perfectly reasonable and themely things in the Mix that would fit these suggestions perfectly, some extremely cool that I can't get into cuz FOIC, that would offer so much more sorely needed flavor to a mix deckers identity and RP than 'LUL IT'S THE MIX IT SUX GO BE BARTENDER #19449494'

"There are other ways to make money besides your skills as well."

Yeah and it's the same intrinsically generic stuff every single other PC is doing which is the entire problem :)))))) Let's disable combat so no one needs bouncers and corpsec agents, they can't ply their trade :(((( but it's okay :))) they can all run crates and deliver to gangers I bet that's fulfilling

"And saying deckers can't do anything completely diminishes what recent deckers have."

bruhmoment.jpg

scientists are biotech, chemistry, and/or medical, which all have Mix jobs
Such...inherent contributing value that statement had! Wow!
If you're mad that Mixers are poor and angry and you have to risk making what little you do, then you're missing the point of playing the poor angry downtrodden.

If you think that's why I'm upset you need to @service-request a respec into your reading comprehension and take your memes to the right thread.

I literally don't care if sweatshop_programming_job @ rohan khabib's roboto factory on North Tamiya pays the same 3000 chy a week that random_mix_job_02 pays. The point is that mix_decker_bakafuck_03 gets to earn that 3000 chyen being a PROGRAMMER and not a chicken delivery bro. and maybe gets to meet other programmers while working there.

some of ya'll real scared that the nerds might actually get a modicum of chyen or power or that more than like 4 of us might roll the archetype at a given time in this game and it shows.

Honestly, every single job in the game, Mix or Topside, stands more as a framework for roleplay than it is a 'box' to put your character in to satisfy their archetype. The Mix has a long-standing tradition of black market, under-the-table work that you can find if you roleplay your way into it. Don't stress coded income so much, it's not meant to make or break your character, roleplay is.
My character (~1 year old) has used their skills maybe... four or five times altogether, and they get by far more on RP than any skill they have or will.

I think you shouldn't try playing a character that's smarter than you, if you can't come up with ways to make chy outside what your skills can do with code.

Jameson, you seem to be talking about deckers rather than scientists on a scientist thread, which I misunderstand.

Though, while you may bitch as much as you please, I have no control of that, you misunderstand that is being done as we speak and that grid 3.0 is actively worked on, because deckers are a seen problem. You likely don't know all that is in the future there so I see it pointless to gripe about deckers now, no?

Seir,

decking skills fall under 'Computer Science'

also OP refers to programming / gadget job suggestions

also the thread is a continuation of a TH discussion and suggestion thread about both science and tech related jobs

so the misunderstanding is yours.

Yes, perhaps you have me at science. However no attempts at suggestion you have made. You said 'FUCK THIS! LET US GET MONEY TOO!' and spoke about how characters deserve better. There was no elaborate gadget idea, no job idea. Start your own thread this is sort of invasive to the topic, off topic, and distracting.
"and spoke about how characters deserve better."

>> you mean discussed in detail my reasons for supporting the suggestion(s) from the TH discussion that's being continued here, including in the OP, which explicitly mentions decking and techie jobs, along with other things? the same exact thing everyone else in the thread is doing (supporting / not supporting?)

literally not 'invasive' or 'off topic' at all, even if you disagree with what i have to say. if you find my position 'distracting' because you dislike it or don't find it to be apropos of whatever about the topic you personally do find interesting you can use your input method of choice and scroll by without engaging. what i find 'distracting' is your low-effort whinging at me and sarcastic posting 'wow what a contribution!' above when you're just gonna unironically complain that you think i'm doing that like two hours later like ??

there is also more discussion including further examples in the original TH agenda post that spawned this topic, from me, because i posted it. ty

I'm done replying to this after this post. Chill absolute the fuck out.
Be nicer to each other.

That said, I will say this - there are some (currently limited) plans to provide greater support to specific science types game wide and is on my current schedule as part of a wider review. I'm not making any promises as to what this will look like on the player side but I will say I'm aware of the perception expressed in this thread and alot of these things will be incorporated into my review and then implemented as they fall into our prioritisation queue.

Consider that we may not implement your idea, might implement something entirely different or do the exact opposite of your preference depending on where we land on each different issue.

If you have any specific feedback that includes specifics around your character, send them through to me at [email protected] - I won't provide you with feedback surrounding that, but it will help me in conducting my review.

--Glitch

People keep forgetting that being good in a skill means you dedicated UE to said skill. There's basically one reason to do so, roleplaying with said skill. You roleplay with the skill by using it on a daily basis (requiring it to be scripted) or by earning chyen with it (indirectly, at least allows you to pretend you used it). Issue is that there are science skills that can't do either. You can make a programmer character who hates the corps, and suddenly you can't use the skill (hopefully fixed by grid 3.0) and you can't make any chyen with it. Suddenly that character is no longer a programmer, because even though he might have 50% of his UE in the skill, there's no instance in his entire life that he's using it (besides the occasional GM help).

Saying that's the intended way for the Mix means it's intended to have UE traps for Mix characters, at which point I'd ask for the only reasonable thing: to warn players that these skills will only get regular use as a corpie. I've already accepted the warning that I'm not getting coded support, but I've not accepted the warning that my characters going to be entirely unable to use the skill.

My choice in what skills to put UE in shouldn't be influenced on whatever or not I want to make more chyen than running crates. Because by that moment my choice of skill is no longer what I want to roleplay, but what I can make chyen with. This sounds to me like it's entirely incompatible with Sindomes idea of prioritizing roleplay. In fact I've had to patch this out by learning alternate skills, having my character pretend that it's absolute realistic that there isn't a single place in the Mix that needs programmers, and that there isn't a single computer in the entire Mix that can be programmed. That's already too meta for my taste.

tl;dr why should my spent UE mean less than your spent UE, when it's all about fixing the setting?

New to Sindome. Not new to muds or CP or any combination of the two, though not an authority on either to be sure. But since this topic seems to strike a lot of nerves i thought maybe a fresh perspective might help.

I like the Mix. It comes across to me as an, uh, mix of The Pit (Mega-City One) and the Sprawl. Both succumb to rampant joblessness, homelessness, hunger, violence, crime, etc. In the Pit there is more of a sense of helplessness , where crime is simply a means to end the boredom that comes from full automation and nearly 100% unemployment, while in the Sprawl there is more of a sense of urgency and hope, where the economic divide and the lack of jobs and perhaps having a job itself is just an obstacle to finding that ONE piece of paydata that will propel the character into Freeside or some other colony offworld where the rich hoard all their wealth. It's the essence of HOPE.

To me, a job in the mix, first and foremost, should symbolize that hope, a door of opportunity to that ONE score your character needs or to move them one step closer to their ultimate goal. It is in no way a means to an end and should barely be a means at all. Its the backdoor dealings, the navigation of the criminal underbelly, leeching new yen, nuyen, or chyen from every source possible, all the while building your own network of clients, enemies, and eventually victims that is your -job-. The rest is just money for drugs, sex, and moments of escape to keep themselves sane. Grabbing pleasure, just like cred, wherever they can take it.

Jobs are for those in Freeside, Chiba City, and Gold, Green, and Blue. NO self respecting Corp is going to hire or trust ANYONE from the mix to do anything of real value. And besides, you've been trying to break in and steal all their secrets for the past year or so. They know this! I assume to keep in line with the current employment structure in the Mix, jobs that are science based outside of the medical field there could include:

1)Real SIC engineers to fix brownouts. No self respecting corpie would find themselves down in red to fix an outage. But a down on his luck mixer with the skills could fix it. Make the brownouts more permanent, giving mixer electricians and maybe deckers something to go fix. NLM loses chyen every time a filthy mixer can't slap down 10c for a private sic so i think they'd pay some schlub a couple kay a week to get things going more quickly. Go to the location in question. Jack in. Fix the glitch. Get paid. And if SIC goes out and doesn't get fixed fast enough while i'm conducting private biz i know who to blame. I could maybe even plan, for a little cash, a brownout in an area just when i need it.

2)An electonics recycling center. What happens to all those broken and returned e-notes, cameras, and other electonic goodies i have no idea what they do yet? No corpie is going to sort through them and salvage parts, but some aspiring rigger in the mix might be perfect for that kind of work. I'm sure techtronics would love to have some next to slave labor to salvage some expensive metals and boards that are worth 100x their weight in chyen.

3)Corporate Grid Scrubbers - This ones for the deckers. These guys get paid to surf the grid and scrub all negative mentions in the news, chatboards, and toher company owned sites to keep the corporate image pristine. All you get are pennies, but if you save them up, maybe that one bit of news you find turns over a whole new leaf, or maybe with the right cracking skills and chrome you find a backdoor into the very company you're supposed to be keeping clean. I wouldnt get caught though.

This is long enough. But these are the thoughts i had and i wanted to get them down.

The way sic brownouts happen though Are totally random and as designed to allow crime to better flourish.
Yeah jobs are scarce in the mix, and even where jobs for certain archetypes do exist they're going to be the subject of hard competition.

That said, it does look quite discouraging to play certain archetypes when they have nowhere to go that makes IC sense. Tech/chemist/etc jobs in the mix make perfect sense in the theme...

I think the problem is finding a way to create these jobs that will be used by other players. I really don't think an automated 'scanin-work-scanout' system is a viable answer, I wouldn't be interested if it was me.

There are things people take called drugs, they cause IC problems when you stop taking them, potentially something for a chemist to do? People spend chy to fix their problem, chemist gets to do backstreet chem work.

There is plenty of tech in the mix, maybe it should break sometimes? Most of you broke-ass bakas rely on Street Terms for your grid time, how do they not break down with all those grubby fingers poking at them all the time? Techie gets to play being a mix techie.

Deckers have a very obvious use for their most basic skill, I don't think a lot of people take advantage of that. Yes, they can plug their trade IC over SIC or whatever, but would it hurt to have an automated job where players would visit to get their **** *******, decker gets to play being a decker? (not rude, just not sure if I can say it here. I am sure most of you know what I mean)

Just a few ideas, but bartenders/medics aren't actually any use to anyone because if their job, NPCs are much more efficient... But I will use a PC bartender/medic every time, even if I have to wait longer and spend more chyen because it's cool dealing with real bakas.

Give people easier access/simple reasons to access these nerd characters' skillsets and the chyen will flow because that's the game.

Hope some of that rambling made sense :/

Just a note on what plebe said and grizzlies response. Both can work. If there were SIC transmitters in the Mix then this could work both ways. If you are intending to commit crimes you dont want over the SIC, youre going to have to pay someone to take down the transmitter and SIC for that area.

This could be fixed by techies. ( it could maybe also be on a timer in case there is no techies on for a while SIC will eventually come back up). This could maybe be a WCS job or something, where down transmitters are flagged at HQ (or a wcs terminal they can check or something, not sure if this is a thing).

Also the tiered chemical production in the other thread would also be a good addition. I understand that you are meant to be making most of your money through RP, having more options for sidelines coded might also generate RP.

I'm quite new to Sindome so my input may be flawed by lack of knowledge in what we can do IC but here is my take.

While the mix is dirt poor, there is still a lot of electronics. After all the criminal scum don't necesseraly need the flash to get theirs hands to get theirs hands on expensive stuff. And for the legit goods, the corps don't exactly sell the best stuff to poor people. Therefore there is a need for techies to deal with stolen eletronics or low quality ones.

I'm in favor of more use of tech skills that can allow for more interactions between Techies and other mixers.

While a scanin/scanout job related to say : Electro tech or programming might give a brainy charcater an IC job, it would not really give a way for them to roleplay their character with others apart from the "I work in the Repair shop".

But if you add a real use to the tech skill like :

-Electronics hardware breaking with use or time, as the corps would only sell low quality stuff to Red.

-SIC relay antenna that can be tampered with and repaired.

-One time use electical key to break into a specific kind of door.

-Progia and other connected appliances could be autolocked once reported stolen. This would need someone to crack them.

-...

Then all the brainy character would have more opportunity to roleplay their archetypes with other players in a themely manner . For exemple :

_____________________________________________________________________

SIC JoeBaka : "Damn, the quickterm I just bought won't do anything but blink red."

SIC RandomMano : "That term must have been dipped, you got conned chummer !"

SIC JohnTech << "Come to the Jun repair workshop in Red Central, I'll repair it if you have the flash SICer."

_____________________________________________________________________

SIC Anon 1354 : "I need a Tech !"

SIC Anontech5646 << : What do you need chummer?"

Sic Anon 1354 : " It'd be a shame if the SIC stopped workin' in Sarz turf tonight at 3am" [sent to : SIC Anontech5646]

SIC Anontech5646 << : "If a mano were to part way with 50 kay that would happen."

Sic Anon 1354 : "I got the flash" [sent to : SIC Anontech5646]

SIC Anontech5646 << ""Meet me in the market, I'll be wearing a green poncho"

_____________________________________________________________________

As seen in the exemples, the tech oriented characters fit in with the rest of the mix. They use theirs skills for shady purposes, not for the improvment of mankind or other bullshit the corps progaganda will tell you.

But what I am saying is SIC in the mix works as intended, and topside doesn’t/shouldn’t give a shit or wish to spend money on it.

With the code being as it is (I’ve seent it) it can be a random outage and then be back just as quick. It’s not very plausible to implement.

For the rolling brownouts, sure -- but the suggestion as I understand it revolves around more targeted and nefarious and potentially permanent blackouts if IC-ly accessible hardware is fucked with by those with means and knowledge. This is already something on The List (see previous town hall discussions) to some degree via 'panels' that have been in the works on and off for a while. This could be an additional layer of SIC unreliability that fosters crime that brings more people into the fun, is all.

It's not entirely unreasonable to my mind that NLM would give token care and chy to funding subcontracted work in the mix to some bear minimum of upkeep for SIC (bc even Mixers pay that SIC bill, sometimes, eventually, and NLM wants that chy chy) and if they didn't have their SIC with -some- reliability they'd probably riot and kill everyone or something. It follows the same logic as WCS IMO, presumably to an extreme of themely-ness the City Council (or whatever bureaucratic framework is in place that governs such things) wouldn't care enough about the Mix to fund WCS activity there at all, but they do.

Corpse disposal probably isn’t in the same league as oh no my sic is out for a few minutes.

I believe you would probably even have to have these panels in every room in the mix. It sounds like a huge undertaking for something so...bleh.

If you want to disable sic, there are tools you can get to do this relatively easy and also without needing to find some mystery panel, both static and permanent. I’m not dogging your idea or suggestion, I’m just putting some perspective on it.

Oh no, I always imagined something more akin to the power grid or like, larger-scale wifi or something -- targeting access that would take out SIC for a wider area, a street, etc, there could be maybe a handful of 'chief access panels' at most for Red Central -- themselves then falling within gang territory that makes turf more valuable...there are interesting possible implications I think. Rival gang can't coordinate during an attack if their whole street is blacked out (then WCS or NLM_subcontractor_techie044 is reluctantly dispatched to fix the panel bc it's a permanent blackout until they do and the trash golems are complaining and won't wind up their bills if there's no SIC to use, and so on).

There can always be tweaks to how multiple tools accomplish similar goals, be it cost, effectiveness, risk of use, reliability...and I think erring towards encouraging tools that involve players and create PC-to-PC engagement, friction, RP, PCs paying PCs, etc., should be the default goal of any game changes.