Welcome to the station crew, enjoy your stay.

About

Space Station 13 also known by its other variants, Goonstation, /tg/station, Baystation, /vg/station, and D2K5Station is a more or less roleplaying game on the BYOND platform. Since 2007 it's established a cult following for its terminology, player base, and clunky interface.
A player begins either by immediately entering a round, resulting in a random character or by creating a customized character, with which to use for future rounds. The player selects one of many roles, ranging from the captain to an assistant.

History

In 2003, Exadv1 released Space Station 13 on BYOND as a simple atmospheric roleplaying game set in the future, where Humanity is capable of space exploration. At the time, player numbers peaked at around 10, and the game's mechanics were kept in extreme secrecy, where one could get banned for talking about them. It grew on from that, but it took 3 more years for it to be noticed. Servers were very uncommon and hard to make, as knowing someone with the original files was necessary to compile maps and such.
In 2006, the code was leaked by a user known as AZA, one of the few people with access to the original source code, after a disagreement with Exadv1. AZA worked with another user, hobnob, to decompile it and release it to the public. The code was released sometime later, although nobody actually did anything with it, at least until someone made a server simply known as OpenSS13. Around this time, Something Awful had noticed the game, and several servers cropped up.
In 2007, Space Station 13 gained some attention from communities like Penny Arcade, and around this time, the player numbers peaked at 18, with new maps being created, and a new backstory being made, with Nanotrasen (the company running Space Station 13) being fully aware that their space stations are "nonsensical metal death traps masquerading as space stations," but they don't do anything about it, because the cost-cutting measures they use are simply too effective.
Throughout the years, the game slowly gained popularity, and more servers and more maps began to crop up.
In 2010, player numbers peaked at 50 and 4chan's /tg/ caught wind of the game, spawning what is known as /tg/station. Bay12games also created Baystation around this time, and the three codebases that each server runs on are all publicly available for download, and this has caused even more servers to crop up based around those codebases.
Now, there are around 300 players playing on average at all times, and the game's mechanics are becoming more and more robust.

Structure

There are three forms of server structure for space station 13. Each server follows one of currently four types: Baystation, /tg/station, Colonial Marines, and Goonstation. Each server has it's own expectations.

Goonstation is the first and most populated type of server, typically ranging from around 50+ players out of 450. The server matches typically range from 30 minutes to two hours. Goonstation generally follows a light roleplay experience, and is more casual and laid back.

/tg/station is the second most populated server and was the second kind of server codebase created with any sort of popularity around it. /tg/station generally expects you to roleplay a good bit more than Goon does, but it's still a fairly laid back experience, with rounds lasting anywhere from an hour to two hours.

Baystation is typically low populated, and with good reason; Baystation sports considerable modifications in comparison to Goon and /tg/, and the round lengths vary between servers with the longer rounds taking over 8 hours. It's normal for most Baystation servers to have at least four playable crew member races. Baystation expects players to be incredibly serious and to be roleplaying at all times.

Colonial Marines has very little in common with the other three servers. Based on the Alien series, Colonial Marines is a combat oriented total conversion that pits the USCM against the Xenomorphs. The goal for the USCM is to eliminate the Xenomorph hive, and the Xenomorph objective is to eliminate the Marines. Rounds typically last for an hour or more, with some form of roleplaying to be expected of both sides, more for the Marines than the Xenos.

Gamemodes

Different game modes are present on different servers, some are extended all the time or some may vary, but most of the time, they're kept in secret so the crew doesn't know what to expect. Note there are more game modes but those are the most known ones.

• Traitor: A traitor or traitors are chosen and have a goal that goes against the station, such as stealing an assistant's shoes, or blowing up the AI.
• Revolution: A game mode centered around the crew uprising. Certain players are chosen as head revolutionaries and their goal is to recruit the rest of the crew to attempt to overthrow the current heads.
• Cult: Cult members are chosen and have a goal to summon their god. Cults can be either the Blood Cult or Clockwork cult.
• Wizard: A wizard or wizards are chosen with a task similar to the traitor.
• AI Malfunction: AI is malfunctioning and the crew needs to disable it, repair it, or escape the station before it kills them. Malfunctioning AI has different AI laws than the normal AI, which serve as a guideline for the AI.
• Alien: Xenomorphs are on board the station with a goal to kill the crew and make the station their hive.
• Virus Epidemic: A virus is infecting the crew and med bay (especially virology) has to cure it or prevent more of the crew getting infected.
• Extended: A game mode that can take up to 8 hours with nothing happening, usually found on RP servers. Admins sometimes change the game mode if nothing is happening at all.
• Sandbox: A round where players can do and spawn anything they want.

Jobs

Before the player starts the round, he has to choose a job; jobs vary with difficulty and importance and their description varies from server to server. Note that jobs that generally appear on most servers are listed here.

Command

• Captain: The leader of the station and has access everywhere on the station. Typically gets ignored in light RP servers.
• Head of Personnel: Second highest in command on the station, he takes captain's place if he is not present. He maintains the crew's jobs and conveniently disappears when someone needs their job changed.
• Head of Security: Leader of the security force, generally one of the few people you can actually trust on the station provided he isn't Shitcurity.
• Chief Engineer: Leader of engineering. Typically fails to direct Engineering and set up the supermatter, resulting in a shuttle call.
• Research Director: Leader of the research team.
• Chief Medical Officer: Leader of the medical team.

Security

• Security Officer: Patrols the stations and upholds the law, with "upholding the law" being defined on the spot if they're shitcurity.
• Warden: Maintains the station's brig and its armory.
• Detective: Investigates crimes scenes.
• Internal Affairs Agent: Investigates internal issues.

Engineering

• Station Engineer: Maintains the station.
• Atmospheric Technician: Maintains the station's air.

Maintenance and Supply

• Quartermaster: Leader of the cargo team, but is not part of the command group.
• Cargo Technician: Orders and delivers supply to the station, typically steals everything not nailed down.
• Shaft Miner: Mines ore on an nearby asteroid, is part of the cargo team, usually dies to Megafauna immediately.
• Janitor: Cleans up the station.
• Botanist: Grows plants for the chef, typically floods the station with cannabis.

Medical

• Medical Doctor: Treats the injured.
• Virologist: Researches a cure for a virus if one spawns on the station, otherwise floods the station with an airborne disease that makes everyone into a bald catgirl.
• Chemist: Prepares medicine for the crew, or blows up Chemistry within the first five minutes.

Science

• Scientist: Researches everything on the station.
• Roboticist: Builds robots and exosuits for the crew.

Civilian

• Assistant: The intended purpose is to assist the crew, but nobody does that. Instead, people will use it to validhunt antags with a toolbox endlessly.
• Bartender: Serves drinks in the bar.
• Chef: Cooks for the crew. Meals are typically made of your standard fare; bacon, steak, station pets, human flesh.
• Chaplain: Provides spiritual support in a chapel. Also one of the most valuable members on the station in Cult rounds.
• Librarian: Takes care of the library. Doesn't actually do anything except for print fanfiction or copypasta endlessly.

Non-Human

• AI: Serve the crew and have the absolute control of the station.
• Cyborg: Different kinds of cyborgs exist for different jobs such as security, janitor, or medical borgs. Typically bound to the AI.
• Personal AI: Act as the user's companion.

Antagonists

Depending on the round, antagonists may appear. Antagonists have goals that are against the station, i.e to damage it or steal a valuable object. One or more people are chosen as antagonists.

• Traitor: See game modes above for an explanation as to what this does.
• Cultist: See above.
• Changeling: Based on John Carpenter's "The Thing", the Changeling absorbs a crew member and acquires his/her body and job, goals may include absorbing a specific crew member or getting out alive.
• Xenomorph: See game modes list.
• Wizard: Possesses arcane powers, such as instant teleportation and polymorphing.

Other antagonists exist but are not available or rarely used on many servers.

Running Gags

Often times, players will reference the community as inept, incompetent, or abusive. These jokes are normally aimed at Goon, notorious for housing players who do not enjoy the roleplaying of the other servers.
Space Station 13 involves many references to sci-fi movies, games and books, such as Half-Life, Alien, Dead Space, 2001: A Space Oddessy, and Warhammer 40k.

Clowns

Clowns in Space Station 13 are a position that the player can take on most servers. Clowns are allowed to be annoying and obnoxious, and so are mostly disliked by the community. Clowns are mostly hated by the station's security due to the mischief they cause and many players playing as security abuse clowns. More roleplay-centric servers tend to ban clowns due to their behavior.

Shitcurity

Shitcurity is a portmanteau between 'shit' and 'security', used as an remark to the Security team doing things that would get them fired in real life.

Cuban Pete

Cuban Pete was the name of a player in the early days of Space Station 13, roughly back in 2010, who made bombs so ludicrously big they would not only blow the entire station up, but they would also crash the server. He is the sole reason why bomb maxcaps have been hardcoded into the game, and has been immortalized in various forms, such as an arcade machine that had a cryptographic sequencer used on it by a traitor..

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