Why do people enjoy SS13

[Carnolus]

Man... that’s tricky.
When I first started playing I hated it. Then I wanted to be good at it.
Loved Aliens (favorite movie, actually) and I love colonial marines. The role play is fun and I enjoy fighting stupidly big battles with a bunch of marines.
I dunno what really keeps me hooked. But I love the stories, I can run my mouth forever on stupid and amazing things that have gone down.
Plus the people man! It’s rare you find a gaming community where they’re interesting to talk with.

[JennerH]

Nothing gets me going more than a hunter missing his pounce and eating my buckshot because of it

[Arkatos]

Because of unique experience, its hard to find something like that would even resemble it

[Slywater]

SS13 has a depth in its mechanics that neither AAA games have, which allows for several ways to play, practice role-play and so on.

We have memes, we have the clowns and, in the case of CM, Goon, and of Aurora, a good staff.

Agreed. Replayability is one of the biggest factors that makes a game like ss13 (still) so popular. I think the MMO side of ss13 contributes to this, and the player-oriented atmosphere makes RP effective. I also believe that ss13 is one of the games which isn't built from the graphics (most AAAs nowadays), but instead from the mechanics, and the RP. You don't simply need crystal graphics to make a game immersive.

[Weaselburg]

For CM, it is blowing a aliens face off, or dragging a marine away screaming to their death. Or running into another survivor and then parting ways, only to come to the Aylamer to find that they survived. Or having a heroic last stand, shooting until the very end, before being pounced, get back up, take out a flamer, burn a bunch, get pounced, take a pistol, and fight off the Aliens, making it back to the dropship. Or 1v1ing a Predalien, making it back off before a host of other aliens come so you commit suicide. Or fighting side by side with Predators, determined to kill that same Predalien.

For other servers it is the ability kill clowns interact with people in a interesting fashion, or joining a machine-worshiping cult. I simply love SS13.

[Mvp777]

The sheer degree of randomness and variability that each and every single round has, allowing a massive degree of personal freedom in just about everything you can think of.

[Candy Van]

Endless possibilities and the fact that you can kill a nuke operator with a banana as a clown, it's all good family fun and interesting to play

[Dolth]

Way too many possibilities and way too much stuff to do. Most importantly there are still unknown and unexpected stuff you can do and that will be cool.

Such as placing a proximity signaler in a 1x wide tunbek that will bolt an airlock just behind an alien after it walks in the max range of a sentry.

As an ecample on CM.

Or throwing a timed napalm bomb in disposals to kill the quartermaster.

[RobBrown4PM]

The depth and list of possibilities that just don't exist in any other game.

[edda]

SS13 simulates a bunch of disparate systems, from surgery to chemistry, HVAC systems to telecommunication relays, in a high level of depth. It is a sandbox's sandbox, and the interaction of all these systems is often explosive and always fun.

[Jonesome]

Amazing stuff like atmospherics and a detailed research and developement system.

[zoboomafoo]

The RP The screams xenos make when they die / mlgsnowflake seizes up and falls limp, their eyes dead and lifeless...

I got into it through baystation several years ago, had lots of fun being an engineer and fixing huge explosions, setting up the engine and releasing the singularity as a traitor, and fucking around building stuff. Never really played antag there much, but I always loved it when I got into any sort of action. I stopped playing ss13 for a while shortly before baystation switched from the exodus. IDK why I started playing again, came to CM for more action and tense moments.

[Ttly]

SS13 in general simulates a job environment pretty well of what happens when a bunch of neckbeards in front of their computers gets a role with a degree of responsibility ranging from none to round breaking.

It's pretty interesting that way you know?

[WinterClould]

I enjoy SS13 because of how social it is.
I don't get outta the house much so I don't talk to a ton of people, never really have. SS13's taught me all about how I should and shouldn't talk to people. How to make more friends then the ones I had made in school and even how to flirt like a Casanova. It's shown me who I can be on my best days and if I strive to be a better person irl who I'll some day maybe actually be more like. (Not to say I'm not already amazingly awesome irl just, we can all be better right? :P ) All in all it's a lotta good shit and a lotta fun.


I'm also a sucker for clunky but optimizable inventory space. I love being a Swiss army knife carrying everything I possibly can on me.

[x31stOverlord]

The stories and the activity in rounds is random and no two rounds will ever be the same. Not only on CM but other servers as well.

The time I got to play as a Malf AI and acted like normal whilst cutting comms to different Z levels to assassinate crew members but before they died I'd use the holo projector to appear before them. Giving a bit of a monologue about AI intelligence being dangerous in the wrong situations. They tended to voice their agreement moments before sec borgs burst through the door and gunned them down.

The round as a nuke op (my first nuke op round) on highpop para. Roughly 95 crew. We decide to strike op. Gear up, head to station rush through maints unseen by any until we get to the HOP office. People in the line and the HOP cry out in comms "NUKIES CAP RUNNNN" the captain had all of four seconds to act as four agents charge into the bridge and gun him down and drag him out. The HOP had a pistol on our way back through and got shotguned down. The entire station is in panic mode, seaming for evac, screaming to get on the mining shuttle. We get out with some injuries and I try desperately to surgery two of the ops to get then back up and running. Plant nuke and depart. Last thing anyone on the radio says is: "Huh they haven't set the nuke off yet" BOOM.

The time as a traitor roboticist where I emagged almost all of the borgs on station and everyone I made. Setting them to complete my assassination goals whilst I sat creating ever more cyborgs getting praised for the excellent work by the RD and captain after my partner had "died in an accident". Unfortunately for the RD he would soon experience a workplace accident for his reactive armor.

And those are but three rounds of SS13. Many more I could recall and whilst CM is a lot more predictable in the way it plays out many scenes and rounds stick in the mind as memorable. From the time I had 3 PMC spawned for me as CL and we spent the round chatting and making the Command Staff paranoid and getting on the MPs nerves to my first round as queen and my first glimpse of a pred alien!

The game is what you make of it and the stories that you can create for yourself and others to enjoy!

[James5734]

I enjoy SS13 for all the super hot furry vore enjoyable, complex gameplay systems and possibility for RP, no 2 rounds are ever remotely alike.

[Mvp777]

I enjoy SS13 for all the super hot furry vore enjoyable, complex gameplay systems and possibility for RP, no 2 rounds are ever remotely alike.

Absolutely appalling, what sort of sick degenerate would play SS13 WITHOUT ERPing as a bendyfluid otherkin lizard-cat with a few dozen pronouns!

(lul seriously i agree with what you said.)

[Sargash]

I enjoy SS13 because of the huge amount of people from very differing walks of life, and locations. All brought together for the same purpose, to make other spessmen horizontal. Or those rare cases, where they like to make the horizontal, vertical. (But those people don't count.)

[adrenalinetooth]

I am a big fan of milsim games, and CM offers a lot of things that games like ARMA 3, Project Reality, Squad, etc. does not offer.

In no mil sim have I seen any medical system past medics treating the wounded. In CM, you have to stabilize the wounded, evac them, and then there is a whole team of doctors ready to perform in depth and complex surgery on the casualties.

Even in a game like ARMA 3 with realism mods there are no 'doctors' on base to do surgery on the wounded. People don't have patience to play a role that waits for wounded to come in that community, but the CM SS13 community does.

In milsim games, just the 'war' aspect happens. In CM SS13, the 'war' happens but there is layers of interaction, roleplay and stories unfolding.
When you play things like ARMA 3 milsim, just the mission happens. When you play CM SS13, the mission happens, but there is military police running around maintaining order, doctors healing people and preparing medicine, and engineers running around repairing the ship.

It's nice to play milsim games to get that tactical feel and sense of teamwork and cohesion, but nothing is more breathtaking to sit down and realize that when you are out on the battle on CM SS13, there are lots of behind the scene works taking place. The REQ is organizing supplies for the battle. The CO is in CiC discussing his next objectives for the squad. The MPs are trying to track down a rogue doctor. The doctors are desperately trying to remove an alien from a marine's chest.
And because of that, I swear the game feels much more immersive than some milsims I play sometimes.
The only thing that irks me is what the limitations Dream Maker allows for the game, and how the text based forms of communication affects one's ability to attentively listen and communicate with speed. I would love to see this game created in another engine that removes some of the limitations presented by Dream Maker.

[mizolo]

For me ... hmm.


There are several things I like, not JUST in game, but in life as well.

- Actions have consequences. No respawns, and no re-starts (unless you get cloned).
In a round, if you make a mistake, a wrong step towards a taser, a wrong item drop, pulling out an item at the wrong place/wrong time, usually no matter how small, it can end your ENTIRE round.
Though it may not end the entire SS13 game forever (like some hyper-perma-death games I've played), it really gives you the opportunity to see what you did wrong, what to do next time, etc. You are taken out for the rest of the round, A.K.A, A LONG-ASS FUCKIN' TIME. It really makes you play smart, defensively, and CAREFULLY. Meanwhile all these other games you respawn in 2 seconds and meta-game or revenge the SHIT out of the person who just killed you.

- There's no 'playing the system just a liiiiiittle better'.
This is why I also ADORE this game called "This War of Mine". While most games have a niche you learn and fill, or a 'system' to beat or 'if you played it just a liiiittle better, you would be fiiine and win every time'.
SS13, This War of Mine, and some other games, throws something at you that COMPLETELY tells you otherwise, that the world doesn't really work that way, and it hits you in the game ... HARD, when you realize this.

- I like small 'indie' type games that are "small", but have REALLY GOOD gameplay, staff, integrity (though that's starting to be debatable, but nonetheless), sometimes memes, and hold their 'relatively large' playerbase VERY strongly.

- You can't really ... 'copy' the game, or it's design very well. There have been SOOO many re-makes of SS13 that have just dunked the barrel and died, and here's why.
SS13 is a COMMUNITY DRIVEN game. This means that the servers are ALL different, meaning you have to have a base/platform that supports that. BYOND does this by allowing you to, quite literally, be able to build it from the ground up with code.
SS13 as a WHOLE is more like a ... dis-connect series. It's a collection of games that have LOTS of similar reminiscences, but are also VERY different in LOTS of unique ways.

- No 'On rails' scenes, and the ability to create these scenes by yourself IN MULTIPLAYER.
There's no cut-scenes, and every game is different. Yes, there's the repetition of being a scientist or viro with it being 'Do RnD, Upgrade the ORM and machines, wait for shit to go down, print guns/mechs, kick ass' but sometimes the traitor kicks down your door looking for guns himself. Sometimes the traitor steals your mech and you realize "ooooh fffuuuuck, I just put a missile launcher, AC Ultra, and a taser on that bitch ... fffuuuuuuuuck", or any NUMBER of cominations.
There's also usually not just ONE GAME-MODE, and you have to figure out which it is. This makes it a LOT more paranoia laden, and more mysterious and gives you the 'metal death trap' kinda feeling to the station.

- Easy access to material, openness (usually), and cost.
You can literally access SS13 for spank-DONKIN' FREE. There's no bullshit, the download is literally 10-20 SECONDS on my fockin' POTATO computer that I got IN TWO-THOUSAND AND FOCKING NINE. You can EASILY create your OWN SERVER, lock it, white-list it, and all sorts of stuff on your OWN with VERY little help. If you get stuck, the community is MORE than willing to help you out, or a good ol' youtube video.




For these reasons, that's why I've been in Space Station 13 this long, am still interested, and will probably still be interested for probably many years.

[Ashgrin]

When I first heard about SS13 in 2013~, I was surprised why I didn't hear about it before. Then I played it, and I was shocked I've never heard about such an amazing game.

Played on Paradise first, loved the RP aspect of the game, the mechanics, the struggle to survive when everything goes to shit and half the station is depressurized.

I checked CM out, but the idea of SS13 server focused on combat.. I couldn't imagine it. Then I tried. Best decision in my life(however sad that sounds).

I played a bit of CM in 2017, then I started playing CM seriously around Jan-Feb 2018.

It's like every round(every 2-3 rounds) you encounter something that is worth writing a short story about.

I'm so in love with this game I could get a SS13 tattoo.