Clothing

Clothing generally encompasses items worn by players for primarily aesthetic purposes. While articles of clothing may have utility functions, their primary purpose is their appearance and the social impacts of that.

Job Clothing

Job clothing refers to articles of clothing specifically related to a particular role on the station. Players most often spawn with these clothes equipped, though supplemental accessories can spawn inside of lockers in departments.

The standing of the job should correlate with the complexity of the job's outfit. Simple jobs like passengers, cargo techs, janitors, should have basic outfits that have only a few items associated with them. More renowned jobs, like the Captain or Warden, can have more complicated outfits with additional components.

Clothing elements like capes or fancy hats should be reserved only for the absolute top-brass of the station. Similarly, having multiple options for a slot should e reserved for only the highest roles. While the captain can have two jumpsuits, someone like a doctor shouldn't.

Accessing Job Clothes

A role's clothing should not be obtainable outside their area on the station, though you should not necessarily need access to acquire it. A scientist's clothing may be inside of science, but the wardrobe or dressers that contain them should not be locked by access.

While more complex tools and resources can be secured, clothing should be fairly easy to acquire for the purposes of deception, social engineering, or drip-hunting.

Reusing Articles of Clothing

While some aspects of an outfit are tailored to a job, the number of specific named elements should be kept to a minimum.

For example, instead of having specific "passenger sneakers" and "cargo tech kicks", opt to simply have a single pair of shoes that suit both jobs. Reducing the number of similar clothing items helps simplify imitating an outfit.

Fluff Clothing

Fluff encompasses all clothing that isn't directly associated with a specific role. Overall, the existence of an article of fluff clothing needs to add something substantial in order to justify the maintenance cost. For example:

  • The new clothing item should have a unique niche, be generally novel, or otherwise be something that is broadly appealing to wear
  • The new clothing item should not have overlap with already existing clothing items
  • The new clothing item should ideally have interesting mechanics associated with them. While this is not a hard requirement, having additional features can serve to give purpose to what would otherwise be fluff clothing

Fluff clothing should also ideally be limited to individual pieces rather than entire outfits. If a single article of clothing is all you need to sell an idea or outfit, then that is all that should be added. Refrain from adding "sets" of clothing meant to work together, especially items in the same slot which can't be worn simultaneously.

Examples

  • Good | Sombrero & Poncho: A generally funny set of items that has a specific niche. The addition of the accent while worn also gives it an extra comedic mechanical backing.
  • Bad | Touhou Clothes: The theme of the outfit is not broadly usable and the reference does not provide value
  • Good | Cardborg: Pretending to be a fake robot is a funny idea which integrates will with science and robotics. Additionally, the outfit is good for hiding one's identity, which is an interesting niche
  • Bad | Animal Masks: Comedic/fluff masks are a role generally already filled by the clown and mime clothing options. The theming of the masks are also generally pretty weak, not providing anything novel that isn't accomplished better by existing items
  • Good | Colored Caps: Despite being a relatively large and similar array of clothing options, the caps are generally usable for a variety of outfits. Additionally, the capacity to recolor the caps is an interesting mechanic that reduces the specific issue of color bloat.