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This document is also available in Russian.
Данный документ также доступен на русском языке.
faq-zeroonyx.ru.md.
Note
What is LRP/MRP/HRP?
Servers of all types prioritize entertainment for all participants. We gather in this game to have a good time, experience character situations, share emotions, and laugh at the chaos that unexpectedly befalls the characters.Depending on preferences, players and servers in SS13 are often divided into the following categories:
- LRP (Low Role Play) - low to no requirements for role-playing and motivated actions. LRP servers are often extremely fun and chaotic, with few rules on expressing oneself in-game or carrying out one's ideas. Players are free to reference out-of-game context for the sake of jokes, helping newcomers, or communicating about the round. LRP is closest to the chaotic origins of SS13.
- MRP (Medium Role Play) - moderate role-playing requirements and a stricter ruleset. Often, the plausibility of a character's motivations measures role performance. This is especially true for actions with a strong impact on the round, such as decisions by department heads, killing other players, or acting as an antagonist. Actions on MRP servers often range from LRP to HRP in terms of motivation, and rounds vary from measured and calm to full-scale chaos with the destruction of the entire station.
- HRP (High Role Play) - strict requirements for character depth and motivation of their actions. HRP servers have the strictest rulesets and prioritize realistic interactions between characters. HRP servers reveal complex character relationships and feature deep immersion into the story of the round; the focus shifts from mechanics, chaos, and conflict towards development of situations and scenarios, often with great detail.
ZeroOnyx is primarily defined by its community.
Following the practices inherited from parent project Chaotic Onyx, and being founded by active Onyx players, the MRP category comes closest.
Going out of character, random killings, or using one's character solely as means for carrying out a gimmick are not permissible, so it doesn't fit the LRP category.
Nevertheless, occasionally smuggling the supermatter crystal into the medbay's operating theater, converting armory into a public garden, or breaking the fourth wall with a witty joke are well withing the range of things that are allowed.
After all, the roots of ZeroOnyx lie in the chaotic essence of SS13.
On the other hand, ZeroOnyx doesn't require constant emotes, deep immersion in the role, and doesn't have a culture of protecting sensitive souls who join a chaos and emergencies game to "have a tea", so HRP is not suitable either.
However, like Onyx, there are situations where deep stories between characters unfold, where shifts pass without the destruction of the station, and where tired spessmans simply gather in a bar with some music to relax from the endless chaos.
Based on all this, the automatic shuttle vote is set for 2 hours from the start of the shift, with consecutive votes every 30 minutes if players choose to extend the round.
That said, most shifts will end with an emergency evacuation much sooner one way or another.
The team and community of Chaotic Onyx have invested a tremendous amount of effort into creating the current build and keeping it interesting and relevant to the established Russian-speaking community.
ZeroOnyx is still only a few hundred commits away from the last common one with OnyxBay, and so is much more a fork than something standalone.
- Controversial development direction that caused conflicts within the community.
- Practice in maintaining a large codebase for me (RufusZero). Bringing the code up to its 2024 state allows me to familiarize myself with the systems and gain the necessary experience for future work.
ZeroOnyx is founded by Onyx players who value the culture built into the codebase, its features, and even its bugs.
While there are many other SS13 builds that have far more modern and clean code, refined mechanics, and content, ZeroOnyx is built as a continuation of the Chaotic Onyx community, and so continues its codebase.
SS13 players are extremely diverse, each with their views on what is right. It's impossible to define a direction in just a few lines that everyone can understand, considering the differing perspectives.
Thus, it is necessary to be a bit more verbose, at least until the community can project its own direction independently.
Onyx's experience shows that the game can still be very interesting even during low-pop. It depends on how interested the participants themselves are, and admins, who have tons of tools to create countless unique situations and scenarios from the tools at their disposal.
ZeroOnyx's priority is to remain accessible, not popular.
Traditional projects with unique features and effort towards maintaining an active player base require much more time to develop but will be launched later on.
ZeroOnyx is a community for playing Space Station 13.
Everyone is free to express themselves, but it must not disrupt others.
Provocative statements, national symbolism, controversial and polarizing topics, and any other content that may lead to conflicts and disagreements may be moderated out of the community.
However, there is a separate Discord channel where discussion of such topics is acceptable.
It is important to consider the impression that certain things make about the community. Even if your profile/message/reactions do not offend any active discussion participants, others may simply be reading the chats without direct participation. This includes new community members as well.
Pleasing every member, especially those who misunderstand jokes or miss the context, is not feasible, but national symbolism or tasteless banter on controversial topics do not create a good first impression of the community either.
Currently, the server is fully supported by my own (RufusZero) funds and does not have any channels for community financial support. Since ZeroOnyx was created without dependence on an active player base, I plan to keep the server stable for at least the next 3 years (2025, 2026, and 2027).
That being said, if there is enough interest from the playerbase, the server may switch to community funding in the future, as is the case with other SS13 projects.
Currently, ZeroOnyx is maintained by me (RufusZero), and accepts contributions from active members of the ZeroHub community.
ZeroOnyx's development direction does not involve large-scale build changes, and focuses on maintaining stability instead.
This eliminates the need for extensive changes to maps, sprites, sound, and lore, leaving code as the main work area. This allows me to keep maintaining ZeroOnyx on my own even in the absence of contributors.
Obviously, working alone on a code base of this scale takes a lot of time and effort, but with a low number of participants, the amount of changes needed to maintain stability is also extremely low.
As the number of participants grows, so does the number of active contributors, which allows SS13 projects to actively move forward to this day.