A basic, starter tutorial can be found on this page. Additional guides can be found here.
Tips on how to behave can be found at the A Crash Course In Roleplaying guide.
To take items off a person, click and drag the person's sprite onto yours.
When you have done that, a pop-up window should appear and by simply pressing the names of the items you want to take off they will be removed from the person you are stripping and appear on the floor underneath them. Note that doing so on a person who hasn't given you permission is a quick way to get slapped over the head, slammed into a window and thrown down a Disposals chute.
Clicking and dragging a small animal's sprite into yours while not on HELP intent allows you to pick the animal up. Hostile animals, however, will quickly escape from your grasp!
With the mouse you can also perform the following actions:
These are a few keyboard shortcuts for your convenience.
Shortcut Action F1 Adminhelp F2 Screenshot F3 IC Text F4 Emote F6 Switch Gun Mode Home, Ctrl+D Drop Held Object End, Ctrl+W Toggle Throw Object On/Off Page Down, Ctrl+A Activate Held Object Shift + Click Examine Object Ctrl + Click Pull Object Delete Stop Pulling Object Crtl+E/Q, Insert Switch Intents Middle Mouse Click, Page Up, Ctrl+S Switch Hands Ctrl+Up, Ctrl+Down Scroll previously entered text See a full guide here.
Starting Tips Some general tips that will get you through gameplay :
Try to resist the urge to press the “Be Syndicate” button. Being a Traitor is much harder than it looks and next to impossible to the newest of players. Get a feel for how everything works before even considering to be an antagonist, and if you get dragged into the role please read the corresponding guide thoroughly or sit it out entirely (warning the admins through adminhelp might be nice unless you want to risk an antagonist ban for ruining the round).
Helpful hints and tips that don't really fit anywhere else. These are those small details which most people get through playing, but are here for players new and old to learn.
Checking out the Lore and the Guides category is also recommended.
Controls To aim for someone's eyes or mouth, use your body-part targeting box and click on the head multiple times to cycle to them By dragging the sprite of a container, for example a box or a character sprite, onto your own characters sprite when adjacent, you will open a window with its contents. This allows you take items without picking up the container or access a character's inventory (you also set their internals and remove their handcuffs here). Containers that dispose their contents when clicked, like donut boxes or paper bins are picked up in this fashion. There are more radio keys (say ”[key] [Message]“) than Common (which is ”;“). As a departmental job you can access your headset's department channel using :h, as a Silicon you can use :b to access Binary chat. If using a radio headset with multiple channels (Captain's Headset), you can notably use :s (Security), :m (Medical), :e (Engineering), :n (Science), :d (Service) and :c (Command). Certain species and antagonist roles also have their personal channel keys, usually found on their respective pages. You can “Whisper” to pass a message to anyone adjacent to you (People two tiles away from you will hear a small part of it, and people further away will only see you whispering) You can use the ”.ping“ command to measure your latency in seconds (Anything above 0.5 usually starts to cause significant lag). If your latency seems normal, the server is most likely struggling with the simulation; waiting it out is recommended. When pulling an object such as a locker or fuel tank, click a floor tile next to the object and “accessible” to you with an empty hand to push the object to the desired tile (if you can't manage that, call for help). You can give an item to someone quickly by right-clicking them and selecting the “Give” option while adjacent to them. This will not work if their hands are full and you will have to wait for them to accept the prompt. You can also reverse-pickpocket an item into their hand to the same effect (with the advantage of being able to drop any item in the way and being allowed to interact with incapacitated/dead people, but the risk of making them aggressive) Press the “Drop” button to drop a grab (clicking your Grab will only strengthen it). You can also put a non-aggressive grab off-hand to interact with other objects in your inventory or the world with the hand switch shortcut Click yourself with food or drinks in hand to eat/drink (aim for your mouth for maximal success chances, especially with drinks as you can splash them over people, the floor or yourself) You can quickly shove someone into a container or machine (Body Scanners, Closets, Cloning Machines, Cryo Cells) by dragging their sprite onto it while they are adjacent to you, and you are adjacent to the machine (hilariously enough, they don't have to be adjacent to the container or machine, leading to some pretty intense long-range action) General To use a Hand Labeler, simply click on it to turn it on and set the desired text, and then click on the object you wish to label. Pens can also work on certain objects like beakers. You can name and rename a sheet of paper by right-clicking on it and choosing “Rename”. Most coats (notably labcoats) have pockets. You can store two small objects inside of them by simply using the objects on your coat, and access your coat inventory by clicking on it. Any equipped item that triggers an inventory when interacted (such as above) can be removed and put in your hand by clicking and dragging to an empty hand slot. You can buckle yourself or other people to chairs and beds they are standing on by dragging their sprite onto it. You can unbuckle yourself and others by clicking on the chair or bed (this will work if they are handcuffed, but not if you are, in which case you will want to “Resist”) The “Disarm” intent is your friend and will be the most helpful to you when assaulted. It will most likely disarm someone (dropping anything in their active hand on the ground) and might even push them (knocking them on the floor for a short period of time) If someone is forcing something onto you (force-feeding, pickpocketing, etc) moving will usually stop the action. “Resist” will also work in a pinch. You can remove handcuffs, cable ties and straights jackets (once you get straight jacketed for being a shitter, you won't be able to take it off yourself, pray for your nearest clown to do so himself) by clicking “Resist”. This requires a couple of minutes and standing still. This also applies to being handcuffed and buckled to something or welded into a locker. The “Resist” intent will put yourself out if you are on fire, but will cause you to drop and roll. Do not do it if you are still very close to the fire. You can kill yourself at any time where you are not restrained by typing “Suicide” (this will prevent you from being cloned) or simply stop playing by using “Ghost” (this will expel you from your body forever and show you as catatonic when examined). You can also beat yourself senseless or use a loaded gun on yourself (even certain fake or non-lethal guns for varying reasons) with your mouth targeted and pull the trigger (it is automatic, don't try to fire manually). “Succumb” will allow you to immediately die if put into critical for any reason (and keep you cloneable) and using Whisper will have the same effect along with whispering a last few words to someone adjacent to you. If you log out your character will persist but show as braindead when examined. You might end up in the Dormitories if a good soul finds you, you might be sitting in some random spot in a public area, or you might get stripped naked or killed. While asleep (Sleep, this wears off quickly, or Rest and Sleep if you wish to stay asleep, in which case you'll have to use Rest again to wake up) you will usually dream. This appears as blue text with random words. As meaningful as those “dreams” sound, they usually are not related to the round at all, although one can still have fun by trying to link those together. Reinforced Metal (Plasteel) can be made by Shaft Miners by smelting Plasma Ore and Iron Ore in the Smelter on the Mining Base, something that they will usually only do after you threaten to open their thick skull with their own pickaxe and make them eat their limbs. You can use Welding Tools to weld doors and closets open or shut. Swipe your ID on a Personal Locker to claim it as your own. Only you, the Head of Personnel and the Captain can open them once claimed. Welding Tools can be refueled by using them on a Fuel Tank. Note that you might want to have them shut off before doing so for obvious reasons, else the results will be explosive. Security You can attach handcuffs to shoes to create shackles. Make prisoners wear those to prevent them from running (usually referred to as legcuffing). Keep a flash in your pocket for menial crowd control, put a piece of body armor on as an exosuit and keep a stun baton on your Suit Storage slot to deal with unarmed but resisting crewmen and conserve a Taser in your Security Belt (or on your Belt slot outright) to stun someone from a distance to put them out of the fight and move in to restrain them. Running around with your Stun Baton or Taser in hand when not performing an arrest is an open invitation to have it disarmed off of you and used for improvised facial reconstruction. Communication If your headset stops working, it's very likely that the Telecommunications are down, or you may have been hit by an EMP from a grenade, a spell or the Singularity (in which case you simply have to click on your headset and toggle the options back on). Station Bounced Radios and Intercoms will still work on station. In general, if someone messes with Telecommunications the radio channels might become dysfunctional or unreliable. Medical To restore someone's identity/face from “Unknown” backup their UI+UE in Genetics and inject them with it. You might also perform Facial Reconstruction Surgery If your health indicator is full but you are still in pain, you might have a broken bone or have temporary pain that will wear off. Check into Medbay to get Bone Repair Surgery. Serious damage, especially from sharp objects, can also cause external and internal bleeding. In case your state deteriorates rapidly a short moment after you have been hit, you are bleeding profusely and should be fixed as soon as possible using bruise packs for external bleeding and Internal Bleeding Surgery if internal bleeding. You will also generally drop blood droplets on the floor if you are bleeding and get oxygen damage. Sleepers cannot heal Toxin damage and can only dispense Inaprovaline (which avoids the degradation of your patient's state) on incapacitated patients. Large amount of pain might cause you to end up in shock from sheer pain and cause undesirable effects. Painkillers such as Tramadol are able to fix it but regular damage must still be treated normally. The Body Scanners in Medbay can be used to tell where internal injuries, broken bones and implants are located and can show damage to internal and external organs alike in a very thorough manner, use them whenever possible. Diseases do not show up in details on your Medical Scanner until analyzed via Virology or in some cases Body Scanners. Appendicitis is the only condition that does. Spaceacillin will halt disease progression and outright heal common colds, but serious diseases must be cured by Virology regardless. Sleeping is one of the easiest ways to wear off Mindbreaker and will hasten damage recovery as long as you are stabilized. Blood can be recovered naturally using nutrients (Also known as food, you'll usually go hungry very quickly if you lost blood) and Iron (bother the Chemist to make you a 50 units pill) Milk can fix bone damage. Note that broken bones will stay broken even if all the damage is gone, and Surgery is needed Large doses of Bicardine will patch up internal organs a little. This is important for the heart (risk of heart attack) and liver (accumulation of toxic damage) Kitchen and Bar The Gibber in the Kitchen will intake humans and some miscellaneous animals (notably not monkeys, which go on meat spikes) and output meat. Simply grab your target and click on the Gibber to load them, then turn it on. You can ask the Quartermaster to order Cows and Chickens. Cows can be milked with a glass or a bucket to give Milk and chickens lay eggs when fed Wheat. You can also gib them to turn into food. Check the Piano page for some songs that work well on the Piano.