Space Station 13 Guide

(WIP)

Welcome to Space Station 13! This is a 2-d game that takes place on a space station. It looks very basic, but the game is very complex. Almost every mob is player controlled! There are many different servers with their own style of playing. I hope this guide helps you learn how to play this amazing game!

Getting Started

Rules

Every server has their own set of Rules. You MUST read all if the server rules before you start playing. If you don't you could get banned.

Setting up a character

In the lobby screen select "Setup Character" and a page will open allowing you to customize your character and set your jobs.

• Name- Lets you change the name of your character. Many servers want your name to be realistic, but not based off something popular.

• Gender- Lets you change your character's gender between male and female.

• Age- Lets you change the age of your character. This DOES NOT change the loom of your character. It's just for roleplaying

• UI Style- Changes the look of your in game interface.

• Play Admin Midis- If enabled you will hear sounds that admins play during the round.

• Play Lobby Music- If enables you will hear the lobby music while you're in the lobby.

• Ghost Ears- Lets you chose to hear all sounds in the round or only sounds near you while you're a ghost.

• Ghost Radio- Lets you chose between haring all the radio chatter or only the radio chatter of the people near you while you're a ghost.

• Custom Loadout- Lets you pick items like berets and cigars to spawn with at the start of the round.

• Set Occupation Preferences- Allows you to pick what role you play when the round starts. I recommend that you set Squad Marine as HIGH when you play your first few rounds.

• Body- Lets you chose your blood type, skin color, whether your character needs glasses, if your character has synthetic limbs or not, if you wear underwear or an undershirt, if you have a backpack or a satchel, and your relations to the corporate. If you press (®) the settings will be randomized.

• Character Records- allow you to edit your medical, employment, and security records.

• Set Antag Options- Lets you chose your uplink type and give you exploitable information.

• Set Flavor Text- Lets you describe certain parts of your body.

• pAI Configuration- Lets you describe you when you play as a pAI.

• Hair- Lets you change your hair type and color.

• Facial Hair- Lets you change your facial hair type and color.

• Eyes- Lets you change your eye color.

• Body- Lets you change your body color.

• Home System- Lets you change the solar system you come from. This is only for roleplaying.

• Religion- Lets you change your character's religion. This is only for roleplaying.

• Be Alien- If selected it allows you to spawn as an alien when the round started

• Be pAI- If selected it allows you to become a personal artificial intelligence device.

• Be Survivor- Allows you to spawn as a survivor when the round starts

• Be Responder- Allows you to become a responder during a distress signal.

• Be Predator- Allows you to spawn as a predator when the round starts. You must be whitelisted to play as a predator!

• Be WO Commander- Allows you be spawn as the commander when the map Whisky Outpost starts.

Joining a Round

• If a round hasn't started yet you can select "Ready Up" and you'll spawn in when the round starts.

• If you join in the middle of the round and want to play as a marine you select "Join the USMC" . When you select "Join the USMC" you'll get a list of roles you can play. Select one and you'll spawn in.

• If you join in the middle of the round and want to play as an alien select "Join the Hive" . When you select "Join the Hive" you'll need to wait until a larva bursts for you to play.

In the Game

The Tabs

On the top right side of your screen you will see the tabs for the game.

• TEXT- Hides the tabs and shows the game's logs instead.

• INFO- Shows the tabs on the top right corner instead of the game logs.

• WIKI- Opens the Colonial Marines wiki in your internet browser.

• FORUM- Opens the Colonial Marines forum in your internet browser.

• CHANGELOG- Opens the changelog.

• DONATE- Allows you to donate money to the sever.

• STATUS- Shows the status of your character

• ADMIN- Allows you to send an Ahelp and see the online staff.

• GHOST- Allows you to become a ghost and do many things as a ghost.

• IC- Shows you what you can currently do "In Character"

• OOC- Shows you what you can do "Out of Character"

• PREFERENCES- Allows you to enable and disable many different preferences

Marine Interface

This is the basic Space Station 13 interface.

• The GREEN area is what your character is WEARING. It consists of your head, ears, eyes, face, hands, suit, exosuit, hands, feet, belt, back back, and identification card.

• The RED area shows what your character is holding. Your active hand is always highlighted. The main actions take place with what you're holding. We'll go into more detail later.

• The YELLOW area is your pockets. They allow you to store small items on your character.

• The PURPLE area are your intents. The one on the left is your character's SPEED. It can be changed between walking, slow, and running, fast. The center square shows if you're HELPING which allows you to interact with people without causing harm (green), HARMING which allows you to inflict damage on someone (red), GRABBING which allows you to pull people along with your character (yellow), or DISARMING which allows you to push an item a player is holding onto the floor (blue). The only intent you see right now is helping. Finally, the intent on the right is your AIMING intent. this allows you to hit someone's head, eyes, mouth, chest, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Right now you see the chest being targeted.

• The GREEN area shows your character's STATS. The top shows whether your INTERNALS are on or off. They are currently off. The middle stat shows you your character's HEALTH. It goes from 100, to green, to orange, to red, to crit, then to dead. Currently it's at full health. Finally, the bottom intent shows your character's NUTRITION. It will be colored if you're hungry, you won't see if if you're full, and it'll be gray if you've eaten too much food.

• The BROWN area are some general actions. The one on the left is RESIST. It lets you do things like break out of handcuffs and extinguish fire on yourself. The one in the middle is DROP. It lets you drop items in your hand. The one on the right is THROW. It lets you throw items in your hand.

• The areas not highlighted are specific to Colonial Marines, and will be explained later.

Alien Interface

This is the alien interface.

• The RED area is your hands. It shows what you're HOLDING. The active hand is always highlighted, so in this case the active hand is the left one. You can press X in hotkey mode to swap hands or you can press middle mouse button without hotkey mode to swap hands.

• The BLUE area starting from the left is "Tail stab", tail stab allows you to charge up your tail to unleash a powerful tail attack on the mob you hit, to charge it up you click the tail icon, then to use it on a mob, you just click on them with harm intent. Next is RESIST, this is the button you press when you're on fire to effectively do an alien version of stop drop and roll. If the fire isn't put out after a couple of tries and it's still causing damage, keep resisting. If it isn't causing damage any more it's a sprite bug which can be reset if press "Rest" in the IC tab.

• The PURPLE area contains five buttons, starting from left to right the first one you'll see is the button with the words labelled "Hunt" this shows that the current xeno player is in Hunt mode, effectively running, if the player was to click that it would change to stalk which is effectively walking, however for the Hunter caste only by stalking you can partially invisible.

Next we've got the button labelled "Help" if you click on that a 4 box intent button will appear, on it in the top left will be the Green intent which is the one the player currently has selected, this allows you to nudge your sisters to get them up faster if they've been stunned. Next there is the Blue intent which is disarm, this allows you to tackle any mob if you have an empty hand, you'll use this often as a xeno to drag mobs back to the Hive. Below disarm is grab, this is a yellow intent and when you grab a mob you won't cause it's wounds to bleed and tear open causing more damage but you will move slower. Finally to the left of the grab intent you'll see a red intent which is harm, this allows you to slash any mob, make sure to have an empty hand if you want to slash.

Next is your AIMING area, this is the human figure in the bottom right of the Ui to the right of the intent wheel, this allows you to aim for someone's head, eyes, mouth, chest, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Right now you see the chest is being targetted by the player.

Above the aiming area button, you have two more buttons, starting from the bottom down, you have "Drop", which if you click it, it will drop whatever is in your active hand at the time, the same can be done in hotkey mode with Q, and lastly there is the "Throw" button which if you click on it will toggle your throw on and if you then click on the desired tile you will throw the object in your active hand to the desired tile if the code allows it. You can quick toggle throw with R on hotkeys.

• The YELLOW area shows your STATS. The one on the top shows the amount of PLASMA you have. The blue empties as the amount of plasma is lowers, you can also check how much plasma you have by clicking on the status tab. Right now it's full. The middle shows the QUEEN'S LOCATION according to your location. Right now the queen is dead/not in the game. The bottom one shows your HEALTH. The green empties as your health decreases. Right now it's at full health.

How To Play

• Movement- You move your character around with the ARROW KEYS. Alternately if you press the tab key you can enable hot keys which allows you to walk with wasd.

• Interacting with People and Objects- The game mostly involves using the mouse. You can pick up objects by clicking on them and they'll go into your hand. To set them down, find a table to set them on or use drop on your hud. You can also throw objects using throw on your hud. You can grab people and certain objects with your grab intent. You can also hurt people using your harm intent.

• How to Speak-

This is the chat bar for SS13

This will be below your game. If it doesn't say "Say" then click on the button that says "chat" on the right side. type your message after "Say" to talk.

Communication

As a marine and alien you can communicate locally (Locally as in yo can see them on screen) by the use of Say" (which you can type out manually or you can press T in hotkey mode to bring up a chat pop up window to type what you want to say.)

To contact marines and aliens over a long distance you can use a radio key after Say" even the hivemind functions similarly to a radio. Here is a list of radio keys:

Radio Channel:	Key for the channel:
Command	:v
Military Police	:p
Requisitions	:u
Medical	:m
Engineering	:e
Alpha Squad	:q
Bravo Squad	:b
Charlie Squad	:c
Delta Squad	:d
General comms	;
ERT comms	:h

More Information

There are more guides to help you start your first few rounds in Colonial Marines.

The Marine Quickstart Guide and the Xeno Quickstart Guide are very helpful.

List of other guides

• Marine Equipment Guide
• Supply Crate Guide
• Marine Law
• Marine Ranks
• About the Marines
• About the Aliens
• Alien Hive Guide