The Basics

Congratulations on your joining of the colony. Make sure to check out the other Starter Guides (listed above) as well as the Job Guides.

Space Station 13 is a multiplayer roleplaying game developed using the BYOND engine. In Space Station 13 (from here on to be referred to as SS13 or Soj, short for "Sojourn" our specific variant), players take the role of workers on a colony. There are many different jobs available, and each player chooses and plays a role.

Let's get one thing out of the way from the start. You may want to read the Mission Statement. If you don't like roleplay heavy environments mixed with erotic roleplay and action you're better off trying somewhere else.

Sojourn is a heavily roleplay-focused server. The choice is not optional; it is enforced. Should you be new to roleplaying, consult A Crash Course in Roleplaying. Should you still have questions, ask them on the discord.

The Rules

Yes, there are rules set in place to ensure an enjoyable experience for all players. Please take a moment and read them.

What to Expect

What to expect from Sojourn:

• ~ADULT CONTENT~ WEW
• A large, evolving community of players
• Dynamic roleplaying over several-hours-long ‘shifts’
• Creating an ongoing story for your character (shifts have story continuity between them most of the time)
• A flexible setting to allow you to create a diverse array of characters to play
• A game to play while socializing, meeting new people, and enjoying yourself
• The ability to duck into a dorm for isolated ‘anything goes’ RP*
• Staff-driven storyline events involving the playerbase as characters

What to NOT expect from Sojourn:

• A high-action SS13 server with 24/7 robusting
• Antag rounds (anags are/can be manually assigned by admins)
• The ability to create characters which do not fit into the setting (without approval)
• A place to have every roleplay you want, at any time, anywhere, without restriction**
• A private chatroom where your roleplaying has no chance of being interrupted or seen by others
• Roleplaying with just your friends from other places
• Playing as specific characters from other licensed media
• 'Anything goes' refers to the fact that you can roleplay things that do not fit in the setting, or things you would usually be quickly arrested for, not that you can ignore the server’s rules.
  • Do not expect to be able to perform illegal acts in public or create scenarios that don’t fit within the setting without repercussions from other characters, or possibly admins.

Joining the Server

To join the server you'll need to follow a couple of steps:

1. Download the BYOND client from here. You'll need it to start playing
2. Register for a BYOND account here.
3. Add this server to your bookmarks, or just join manually using the BYOND client. byond://104.243.38.223:35565

If all has gone well, congratulations! You're on the server! Before you can jump in and start playing, we strongly recommend you set up your character first.

Character Setup

Before you start throwing together a character, make sure you glance at the wiki so that you know what types of characters are generally unacceptable and what races are lore supported before playing. If in doubt, ask.

Cosmetics

Cosmetics have no actual effect on gameplay, but we recommend that you take some time to change them to your taste.

• Name: As part of the roleplay guidelines followed by the server, it is required that all characters have a first and last name (with the exception of different languages or cultures, but use common sense!). By randomizing your name, the game will pick a suitable name for your character, accounting for gender.
• Gender: Self-explanatory; this is purely for roleplay purposes.
• Age: The only cosmetic setting that is basically useless. It will only appear on in-game security and medical records and won't change your character's appearance.

Occupations

This is an important option and will be covered in more detail below.

Skills

The skills system are ranks assigned by your job and sometimes affected by race or other factors. Your skills heavily effect what jobs you are capable of and will cause you to succeed or fail more at specific tasks based on your skill set.

Appearance

• Body: Pressing the (®) will give you a completely random appearance. Can produce some pretty strange results, so it's not recommended (unless you happen to like playing a bald woman with an enormous purple beard).
• Species: This option will allow you to change your Species. There are a number of species that you can encounter.
• Blood Type: Blood type isn't important until your character is injured; he or she can only give or accept blood transfusions from people with a compatible blood type.
• Body Color: This will change your character's skin color. You can use one of the presets, or define your own custom color using the custom tab in the window that pops up.
• Underwear: Changes the color of your character's underwear, visible when naked. Even if set to none, nothing particularly explicit is shown.
• Backpack: You can choose between a standard gray backpack, two different types of satchels (one brown leather, the other department-specific design and color), or none at all.
• Hair/Facial/Eyes: These let you change the color and, if applicable, style of your character's hair, facial hair, and eyes. Hair and facial hair styles can be changed regardless of gender. Use common sense, though: red eyes and bearded women aren't really a good idea.

Disabilities

Allows you to set disabilities for you character to start with. Not recommended. See Disabilities for more information.

Flavor Text

This blurb is shown when people examine you (see Controls for more information).

This text should only describe your character's physical traits and mannerisms. It's not a good idea to mention anything someone wouldn't know by looking at you or something that is opinionated (e.g. "has long brown hair" or "has a gruff look" rather than "is extremely beautiful" or "has problems with authority").

Character Records

This will pop-up a window that will allow you to set your character Medical and Security records, and have them be able to be read in-game by soteria doctors or marshals respectively.

This is mostly a fun little RP tool that can be used to help flesh out your character more. However, since it appears in-game as an official record, it should be written as such. Try to write it as you would expect from a large company like the Nadezhda.

Do not put your records in your Flavor Text. Flavor Text is meant for your physical description

There is also the "Employment Records" which can show your character's past occupation history.

Not recommended for newer players.

Antagonist Options

These will put you in the running for the role of various antagonists. As a new player, it is strongly recommended that you set all of these options to no until you have had the opportunity to play the various game modes as a normal crewman. Should you be chosen to play an antagonist without wanting to, tell an admin via Adminhelp that you are new and do not wish to do so.

The only exception is pAI candidate, which will give you the chance to play as a Personal AI. You can safely leave this enabled, since you can still reject it in-game.

Data Management

You can save your character and preferences for future rounds by clicking the save button at the bottom on the window. Doing so will allow you to play that character over different rounds.

You can also add more character slots by click the 'Create New Character' link. You have quite a few, so try experimenting with different characters and personalities!

Occupations, Revisited

Your occupation is, by far, one of the most important settings in the game. It affects your station access, rank, authority, equipment, and purpose in life. These range from civilian jobs such as chef or janitor, all the way up to the premier

Job Assignment

With the exception of Assistant, all job preferences have four levels: Never, Low, Medium, and High. These change how likely the server is to assign you that job when it compares your preferences with those of the other players.

Because of the diversity and range of jobs available, there are many ways to roleplay. A lot of these jobs, however, require a good knowledge of the game mechanics, the layout of the station, and how to use in-game tools and machinery. Because of this, the following jobs are recommended for new players:

• Assistant: The most basic of all occupations, the assistant has no authority and, generally speaking, no responsibilities. It's an excellent opportunity to learn the game mechanics — but your access is limited, so feel free to ask other people if you can help, and they'll usually be happy to show you around their department and help you learn the ropes. It also lets you practice roleplaying, if you're still unsure about it.

• Janitor: A simple, if menial, job that involves replacing lightbulbs, cleaning up messes, putting out wet floor signs, and then pointing them out to people who've slipped on the floor you just finished mopping. Your only responsibilities are to keep the station clean and well-lit, and it'll help you learn your way around the station and its various departments.

• Chef: A fairly simple job that gives you a good introduction to mixing ingredients, and there's even the possibility of cake into the bargain. Recipes are available here, to help kickstart a budding Chef's career.

• Bartender: Like the Chef, but with more alcohol. The Barman's job is primarily mixing and serving drinks to a thirsty crew. The recipes are also available here. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff you can make, so try it out!

If you're interested in other jobs, feel free to browse the Job Guides. Try to avoid any marshal, guild, or council positions until you get a hang of the game. (Jumping into a position you're not prepared to do is a guaranteed way of making people angry at you.)

Playing the Game

If all has gone well, you should be just about ready to play your first round, and you'll be entering one of two ways:

Starting the Round

Each round starts with a 3-minute delay while players chat and set up their characters. If you're lucky enough to join at this point, the first thing to do is set up your character's appearance and job preferences, then click Ready.

More than likely, however, you'll arrive halfway through a game in progress. Clicking View Crew Manifest will give you a list of who's on the station, and what position they have filled. When you join the game, you'll have the opportunity to choose from a list of available positions.

When joining a game in progress, you'll spawn at the elevator ' (or your character's selected method of entry), and will be introduced to the crew by the Arrivals Announcement Computer. From there, you can either try to find your workplace and get started, or just explore the station a bit.

Gameplay

The User Interface

• 1. Clothing(2): Anything your character is wearing. Clicking the backpack icon on the bottom left will show/hide this menu.
• 2. Hands(3): The items you're holding in your hands. The hand you're currently using will be highlighted, and you can switch hands by clicking the appropriate hand or clicking 'Swap'. (Keyboard shortcut: Page-Up)
  • If you wish to open objects with their own storage (while their in your inventory), simply move them to one hand, and click on them with an empty hand.
  • If you want to quickly equip an item, hold it in your active hand and press the E next to Swap.
• 3. Pockets(1): Your jumpsuit has pockets, and anything in them is displayed here. You won't be able to use them if you're naked.
• 4. Actions(4):
  • Throw: Toggle throwing; you can then throw the item in your active hand by clicking something to throw it at. (Top-right) (Keyboard shortcut: End)
  • Drop: Immediately let go of the item you're holding. (Left of Throw) (Keyboard shortcut: Home)
  • Resist Resist against restraints and grabs. (Left of Drop)
  • Let Go: You can pull people and some items by shift-clicking on them; if you're pulling something, click this button to release it. (Left of Resist, depending on your settings it may only appear when you've grabbed onto something)
• 5. Target, Speed, and Intent(4):
  • Body Target: Shows which part of the body you will interact with, whether helping or harming. To change this, click on the different parts of the body. (Bottom-right)
  • Movement Speed: This will toggle whether you run or walk. Walking is slower, but safer, and you won't slip as easily. (Left of Body Target)
  • Intent: This selects how you will interact with an object or a person when you make an action. (Left of Movement Speed)
    • (On Intent box: Green is Help (Top-left), Blue is Disarm (Top-Right), Yellow is Grab (Bottom-Right), Red is Harm (Bottom-Left)).
• 8. Weapon Mode(Appears above '4' on the HUD image): When you use a ranged weapon, this determines whether you shoot where you click, or select targets to take captive. If you activate the latter, you may set various conditions for when you will shoot automatically. These range from movement to talking on the comms.
• 9. Status Icons (7): In the new, lighter UI styles, most of these are only visible if something's out-of-the-ordinary.
  • Cold Warning
  • Heat Warning: Appears if the air you're breathing is superheated. Usually shows up near fires.
  • Toxic Warning:
  • Pressure Warning: Appears if air pressure is too high or too low.
  • Oxygen Warning: Appears if the air you're breathing has too little oxygen. If you linger too long, you'll eventually pass out and slowly asphyxiate.
  • Internals: Shows whether you are running on internals (an oxygen tank and breath mask). If you have them equipped, clicking this will switch them on or off.
  • Health: Fades to red as you take more damage. If it flashes with the word CRIT, it means you are close to death and require immediate medical attention.
  • Temperature Warning: Appears if your surroundings are too hot or too cold.
  • Hunger: Appears and gradually fades to red as you get hungrier. (It'll take a while to disappear after you eat something, though.)

Interacting With the World

Interacting with your surroundings in Space Station 13 is mostly done by the mouse. You can click with an empty hand active to pick up items or open containers, click on something with an item in your active hand to use the item on it, click on a computer or device to view its display, and so on. Once you get the hang of managing your character's hands, things will make more sense: you can't, for example, open a toolbox in your left hand if your right hand is full.

A good way of interpreting the interaction system in Space Station 13 is to think of each click as 'using' the object (or hand) on whatever you're clicking on. For instance, to use a computer in real life, you'd essentially 'use' an empty hand on it to start typing. Using an empty hand on an object will pick it up, if you can hold it. Holding an item in your hand and clicking on something can result in three things:

• If the object in hand is meant to be used with the object you're clicking on, the desired effect should occur. In the case of containers, such as drink bottles or beakers, you'll transfer a certain amount of units (usually 10) of the liquid from the container in your hand, to the container you're clicking on. For things like crowbarring the floor, you'll pry off a floor tile.
• If the object in hand is not meant to be used with the object you're clicking on, more often than not (and very annoyingly, sometimes) you'll attack the target with the object. This can result in rather funny cases of hitting people with first aid kits, hitting your drinks machine with a bottle of vodka, etc. Or more dangerously, hitting someone with a crowbar, scalpel, toolbox, etc. This happens to be the essence of Robusting, as well (which we do not recommend you to try on unsuspecting crewmembers for no reason), which is basically clicking on someone, but with a weapon or very damaging object in hand.
• If what you're clicking on is something that stores objects, the object will be taken out of your hand and placed in or on the target. This can be something like a table, opened locker or crate, which will place the object on top of the target, such that drinks will be placed on tables and jumpsuits will be placed in (technically, on) lockers. Objects like boxes and backpacks/satchels, which can be opened to reveal more slots for storing objects, will remove the item from your hand when clicked on, placing it in a slot inside.

It's okay to memorize those, but playing jobs that involve more object handling, such as Chef, Barman or Cargo Tech, will really help you understand how the system interprets clicks, and what to expect when trying to use something.

Interacting with Other People

Sojourn is, again, a heavily roleplay-focused server, and so your interactions with those around you are going to be very important. You won't get very far with pointing-and-clicking alone, so there are several basic commands to remember when dealing with other characters on the station:

• Say: Speak to those in sight. You can prefix your message with a semicolon (;) to talk on the general radio channel, if you have a headset, or a colon and a letter (i.e. :m or :s) to talk on your department radio channel. (You can examine headsets to see which channels they can access.)
• Whisper: Speak quietly, only audible to those right next to you. Anyone farther away will be told that you're whispering something.
• Me: Lets you narrate your character's actions in an emote. This will have your character's name in front of the text.
  • A nice tip to remember is that you can still use quotation marks with this command like so: Me "tries to stand up, but falls and shouts, "Damnit!"
• OOC: Speak to everyone currently playing, in an Out-Of-Character way. This can be used to ask about game mechanics and other things not concerning the game. Try not to mention events happening in the game in OOC, as everyone can see it.
• LOOC: Speak to everyone within your view in an Out-Of-Character way. This can be used to ask other players to explain procedures or ask for help without having to broadcast your request to the entire server.

Don't be afraid to be creative! Writing speech with an accent, or being descriptive with your emotes, will make you a lot more memorable.

For example:

Say ":n Dr. Glass, could you come to Xenobiology, please? I think you should see this...

Whisper "Don' bloody move, yeah? Or you're a dead man.

Me "grumbles irritably and kicks his feet up on his desk, glowering at his boss.

And don't forget to type properly! Consistently making typos or forgetting punctuation looks about the same to other players as showing up to a job interview drunk and slurring.

Here's a quick list of the different radio keys: (NOTE: YOUR HEADSET MUST HAVE THE CHANNELS TO USE THEM. EXAMINE THE HEADSET TO DETERMINE IF THEY DO)

• :h Will send your message to your department radio directly.
• :c Will send the message to the Command Channel
• :s Will send the message to the Security Channel
• :m Will send the message to the Medical Channel
• :e Will send the message to the Engineering Channel
• :n Will send the message to the Research Channel
• :u Will send the message to the Supply Channel
• :v Will send the message to the Service Channel
• :i Will let you talk into the neighboring intercom.
• :y will send a message to the Explorers Channel

If you wish to emote something over coms then use " say;! [...] ".

What To Do Now

There's a couple of things to do to help you settle in at Sojourn once you've gotten the hang of the game:

• Read up on the guide and lore pages: You can never know too much.

• Make yourself known on the discord: The server is home to a group of players whom make up the BS12 community and we love to see new faces, so swing by the discord at: https://discord.gg/Z35HsZT

• Try advanced jobs: Once you feel you have the basics of the game under your belt, don't be afraid to check the guides on the other positions available. Not only is it more fun, but you might actually get to help the station!

• Be an antagonist: After several rounds of traitor (or some other game modes), and after getting the hang of how everything works, it might be time to try your own hand as an antagonist. Here is the best place to learn the basics of the different game modes and how to be an antagonist, just make sure to keep roleplaying!

• Help out the game: If you're good with programming, drawing sprites, telling stories or designing maps, feel free to drop by the discord and show us what you can do.

Most importantly, have fun! After all, isn't that we're all here for?

Welcome to Sojourn.