Space Station 13 (and its successor, Space Station 14) is a multiplayer roleplay / job simulation / disaster survival game. It's a little hard to describe! Everything takes place as a round that generally lasts 1-3 hours, though you can join or exit the round at any time in the shift. Almost all servers have some level of roleplay to it, with some servers being on the lower end (more wacky gameplay hijinks) and some being on the higher end (establishing characters and relationships and arcs across many rounds).

The gist is that you are one crew member on board a space station, alongside all the other players in the game, spread across multiple departments. For the most part, your only goals are to do your job and keep the station running. You might be an engineer, a doctor, a chef, a security officer, a scientist... there's a lot of roles you can take up. However, due to ramping events and enemy activity, inevitably the station will become uninhabitable, prompting an evacuation (which ends the round).

SS13 is quite well-known for its mechanical complexity and dynamic systems, but each player is only going to interact with a small slice of these mechanics. For example, say you are an engineer, so your job is to set up an engine to generate power, and fix structural damage to the station when it arises.

• You might need to talk to the Cargo department to acquire materials or extra power generators (like solar panels).
• The Science department can research upgraded tools that you can ask for, or they might call Engineering over the radio to provide them with atmospheric gases.
• Maybe you get attacked while repairing cable networks, and you have to get wheeled over to the Medical department for revival.

It's also open-source, and each server of the game is a self-contained copy of the game's entire code. This means, between different servers, you might play the same game with different mechanics and content. In fact, some people have done crazy total conversion work for SS13/14, turning the game from a space station survival simulator to, among other things: a "marines vs. xenomorphs" team PVP gamemode, a dark fantasy kingdom roleplaying game, an MMO-esque space exploration game where everyone's split into dozens of small crews on little spaceships, and a recreation of Lobotomy Corporation using SS13 mechanics.

Space Station 13 is hosted on the BYOND game engine, and the SS13 server browser is found in the BYOND launcher. It's been going strong since 2003. BYOND is notable for how fucking old and kinda shitty it is (the launcher is NOT malware despite how it looks), but SS13 is also quite iconic and mechanically rich. Mind the learning curve, however.

this shift was on a map called Tortuga, medium-large map with an "interesting" service department layout. there are three kitchens joined to one central "break room" area for the chef, but each individual kitchen is small and shitty - it does mean, however, a massive surplus of supplies. the hydroponics bay is massive with the most amount of soil / hydroponics trays out of any map we have. there's a massive park area with a stage.

the first part of their shift was pretty standard, filling in for botany in their absence. while the botanist was out trapped in some conversation, casey tended to the plants and fielded requests from the two chefs.

i'm taking a brief detour to also explain one of my favorite species in this server - thaven. 

at some point casey hits up one of their friends, Satan Was An Angel Too, a thaven musician for this shift. she invites them to watch her and a slime-person acquaintance of theirs named Sorrel Biff perform, and they decide to-- actually, no, they pick up a mop and clean up massive blood spills dragging through every major hallway. but anyways, then casey shuffles over to the bar to watch the performance, then sorrel and casey get drinks.

(pictured: casey, satan, sorrel)

 

sorrel leaves after hearing that the atmospheric technician has finished his "torture chamber". casey takes up the now-empty bar in place of the previous bartender who decided to cryo (exit the round) for the night. they serve an engineer and their buddy.

 

eventually satan returns and inexplicably appoints Casey as her voice of reason.

casey and satan have been hanging out a lot more lately, but something casey has been struggling with is feeling like they have been enabling satan's impulsive behavior a little too much lately. on one round casey let satan talk them into giving her around 100u of their own blood, which she used to make drinks that made her deliriously sick. on another round casey attended to some of the chef's botany orders while satan mutated plants into generating gas (though this was a very good thing for the station ultimately). so at this point, casey wants to dial it back a bit and give their own input on things. they ask her to elaborate.

satan tells casey that there's a public-access door that she can't enter, and she wants to break into it. but when she and casey walk to the door in question, it's unbolted. it's a maintenance bar.

casey shuffles inside, but satan immediately asserts herself quite intrusively. she stands on the bar counter and declares she can do whatever she wants, because nobody else is real. the bar owner, Scrawl, gets his manservant bouncer "Guy" to drag her out. they bolt the door to keep her out. casey catches up a bit with one of their other friends, Mera, who happens to be in the maints bar at this same time. 

(pictured: mera, scrawl, guy)

 

they tell her they feel bad leaving Satan out in the cold while everyone's in here, while they debate to themselves if they should leave to keep satan company. at this point, however, everyone in this (crowded) maints bar hears slamming against the bolted airlock. satan is attempting to break in.

casey attempts to reason with her behind the door just as she finally breaks it open.

 

at this point Guy throws her out again, and then chokes her out, but now nothing is stopping her from intruding on the bar. satan thinks scrawl's distaste towards her is related to some feud between her partner and him, a feud that she apparently knows nothing about even though it's been plaguing them for months. everyone is positively bewildered. satan speculates they're exes (a thought that makes scrawl utterly disgusted). then casey shakes her out of it enough to get her to evac on her own.

satan is extremely banned from scrawl's bar. casey's maints bar permission status remains unknown.

apparently, this was satan's list of moods for this shift, which is why she was completely unhinged instead of getting a multitool and remote signaller to undo the door bolts herself like a normal person.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 
 
 
 

 
 

casey wrote down on their sheet that they're not looking for anything serious or committed at this time, but they're willing to chat and have a low-stakes nice time. 
 
casey only really tabled once, with an Actual Literal Fucking Demon. at the start of the event casey handed the demon a self-recharging power cell for its translator. they actually met once before; during Satan Was An Angel Too's mad hatter round, it was at the bar looking for a word to rhyme with "precious" and casey volunteered "wretched", to its amusement. their conversation was nice, but not really a date; casey was wondering what the fuck "damnation" meant on the demon's suitor form. they both commisserated over the difficulties of being a very rare species at this company 
 
 
 
after the tabling was over, casey shuffled over to a bar that some acquaintances and strangers were hanging out at. scrawl was there but strangely not his bouncer, a thaven named seeking ruin in seeking purity ("ruin"), a cybernetic human guy named xander whom casey thought was kind of hot, and the human bartender fran whom casey has seen around a few times. a few people coming in and out. there was also a certain human guy named David Ward. 
 
dave is already friends with casey, though not very deeply so at this point. dave's a little weird, a genuine vampire-chaser. he filed his teeth down to be sharp and drinks blood recreationally even though he's not an actual vampire. his morals are really skewed and strange - fine with the idea of killing people as long as it looks cool (though dave has never done it himself). casey thinks the guy is fun to hang with but also finds this amoral shtick of his kind of tacky. this shift, dave also tried and failed to get a date, because he couldn't find any hot guys who were also evil. like dave was going all-in on looking for evil guys. 
 
this shift, however, solidified casey and dave's friendship way more. there's one thing they can agree on wholeheartedly - the guys at this bar are hot. they legit got to queen out watching a hot guy pole dance in a bunny suit. it was such an incredible bonding experience for them. 
 
also later casey pays dave $80 for mustering the courage to take his shirt off and get on the pole himself 
 
 
 
then a friend of dave's (and fran's and ruin's and xander's) walks in, a guy named buddy. sweating from head to to, anxious, dateless. buddy is genuinely attractive to a certain kind of person but his lack of confidence is so strong it's a dealbreaker for a lot of people. the people at this bar rally together to help up buddy's confidence and sex appeal so he can get a date. 
 
dave, who is not very good at thinking through the consequences of his actions, seizes this opportunity to attempt to turn buddy evil. 
 
 
 
 
this horribly, horribly backfires as buddy's other wingmen, including casey, try to help buddy become as much of a dreamboat for dave as possible, because if buddy and dave can get together that technically counts as getting him a date. and dave realizes way too late and gets very, very, very scared. casey was REALLY not helping here. they kept egging buddy on to "Platonically" hit dave and everyone else was helping to make the whole thing incredibly unhinged. they described it as buddy morphing into a hot guy to dave in the same way a hungry person sees their friend turn into a giant steak in a cartoon 
 
eventually people started filtering out of the bar and club, leaving just casey and scrawl. casey takes the opportunity to apologize to scrawl for not being able to keep satan under control during the mad hatter incident, which scrawl forgives simply because casey had the mind to apologize in the first place. their conversation is cut short by new faces coming in. 
 
casey takes a break to return to the station and grab food, and they have a nice conversation with dave where they chat about gay bar culture and how they feel about dating and attraction. they also stumble into a certain Roy Alvarez (human guy, satan's partner), a friend of both of theirs. roy is apparently on work probation after an "episode" - deftly avoiding telling casey what actually happened. they express their sympathies. 
 
evac arrives and fran escorts david to evac by picking him up, which they call "dave escort services" 
 
 
 
 
What the...  

• casey showed up in their date night outfit, and began chatting up skye (7-foot-tall moth person that casey has a crush on) at the bar

• looker (a shadowkin, kinda. more like a shapeshifting alien pretending to be a shadowkin) runs into the bar asking skye for romantic advice; skye brings casey with them to the boxing ring to show looker how to Take Charge

• casey was having a great time watching skye and looker do "Romance Coaching" (read: skye was throwing and body slamming looker) until the courier rolled in and threw a fragile envelope at casey. it instantly exploded into a massive pool of blood, completely drenching casey right in front of skye and looker, in the nice outfit they wore to date night

• skye and looker finish their deal and skye tells casey he's too tired to hang out and do cute stuff; he cryos. despite being covered in blood, skye still finds them cute - the only silver lining for the rest of the entire shift

• casey, somehow still holding it together after this big of an ego wound, talks to and trades with dave for a non-blood soaked jacket

• they take a shower and head straight back to the bar to order slightly-stronger-than-their-usual alcohol and bitch to the bartender (parsons, arachnid) about the situation

• someone orders a blood drink from the bar, which parsons lacks the material for; casey, who just happens to have a syringe and beverage jug on them for unrelated reasons, volunteers their own

• looker then also runs in and SPECIFICALLY asks casey if he can drink their blood. they say yes, begrudgingly, under the condition that he does not actually put his mouth on them, and extracts more of their blood for this purpose

• they try to hand looker a glass of it but it ends up shattering. looker, offended, retaliates by grappling casey and throwing them (something they learned from skye earlier)

• this spills the jug of blood in their hand, covering them in blood AGAIN, which makes them actually genuinely pissed off

 

• they step outside to take a breather (and have a brief funny with addie fizz, a slime person who is <5 feet tall and kind of insane) before they finally step back into the bar and order even stronger alcohol
• they toss a skimmer discus with a sucker born every minute (thaven) for a bit before realizing sucker was the courier that threw the blood envelope at them in front of the guy they have a crush on
• in an uncharacteristic moment of "i'm gonna do something about this instead of grinning and bearing it and minding my own business" casey chugs the rest of their drink and tries to confront sucker to demand an apology. they get blown off
• casey vents to dave a little bit but decides not to pursue the issue, because evac just arrived
• dave arrives at evac and offers casey a sympathetic ear, before sucker shows up and pressures dave into huffing frezon (extremely psychedelic gas), thus killing any chance of conversation between dave and casey