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JKJudgeX

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Chief Medical Officer

Chief Medical Officer (24/37)

  1. +1 from me, it's a good app and we need more command players who emphasize facilitating the round over winning. Plus, the player has been here for multiple years and I can't recall ever having a single problem with them, so it would be weird not to +1.
  2. The HoS absolutely should still be in command of security officers regardless of their post. It's arbitrary and strange otherwise, and doesn't resemble any kind of real-world organizational structure. Distributing security through the station is a good idea; arbitrarily decapitating the department and hampering their ability to coordinate is a meaningless disruption of the department that I'm sure most of them do not want in the format that's been proposed here. You're just going to be sitting in a department with nothing to do, and security and the armory are going to be ezpz targets for any kind of antagonist. This seems like just another antag-love PR when antags already have it hilariously easy with the exception of having a police AI, but that's been a problem since AI, so... The game works best if the station can defend itself effectively and this allows for more RP that doesn't get disrupted by antags. All those people that vote extended or don't want to be converted to an antag? I'm sure they'd like it if the security department (Which signed up to fight antags) could interact with the parts of the game they don't particularly enjoy while they continue their role-playing. Also, don't forget that in MANY ROUNDS there are not very many heads. Putting the "medbay security officer" under a CMO or a science sec officer under an RD when those roles are often unfilled seems unwise.
  3. Schev and SHODAN's most recent posts seem the most rational and elegant to me. I was captain during a test round of department sec a while back and it was without sec radio and there was no HoS playing. So, I raised the complaint that security could not be effectively coordinated this way and was told to have them all tune to a certain frequency and then proceed. The amount of time and disorganization that this added to an already hectic round was stupid, and the entire time I'm thinking, "no company would ever do this in this way." ... From the outset, I understand some of the rationales behind wanting to distribute security around the station... and I think that such a style of security play should probably be made possible, but not coded to be mandatory in any way. Department security posts could easily exist and be assigned manually or by selection of a department in occupation preferences with no further changes necessary. This means that if a HoS is playing who wants to rely heavily on departmental security, they can, and also in events where security needs to act as a cohesive unit (crossfire, merc, heist, etc etc), that would not be taken away from them. People who don't like the idea of department security are not forced to mess with it, and people in love with the idea can slather it all over themselves. THIS, is how I would like to see this implemented first, if at all. Any rationale that is saying that security needs to be weakened seems uninformed to me. The layout of Aurora alone is an insanely large nerf by comparison with standard station layouts in terms of securing the station. I'll go out on a limb and say antags have it easier now than they ever have in the past, and the only station-side thing that I think needs a nerf with regard to antagonists is likely the AI, or xeno bonus rebalancing. Nerfing security is a bad idea, IMO.
  4. You are given many opportunities at "unequal" fights via the equipment available to antagonists, which sometimes far exceed the mechanical advantages of xenos. Therefore, the xenos mechanical advantages are not necessary for asymmetrical encounters, which I agree are very interesting and fun (until they become too asymmetrical, as there is some over the top imbalance here, too, when people decide to abuse it - thankfully not that often). Notice that in most RPGs, the racial bonuses that you can get, let's say, in D&D, are usually around +2 to a stat plus maybe some low-light vision or other tiny perk. You can't create a character that would be "foolish to fight" based purely on race, unless you start digging into specialty splat books or make a vampire or something - which then would be balanced out by giving something to everyone else. Yeah yeah, this isn't D&D, but, if we're just throwing balance out the window, then you no longer have an excuse for my character not to spawn with a fully loaded .45, either, since if there are going to be crewmembers aboard who can "bite my head off" in a very literal sense, captains, HoS'es, and security officers would REALISTICALLY come prepared to stop those people should they go rogue, or arrive from off-station to attack... so... in order to avoid an arms-race, just leave out the mechanical advantages. I have to just say agree to disagree. Vaurcae and Unathi are overpowered, with advantages that are not necessary for enjoyable gameplay. There's more imbalance than this, but these are the ones I see lately.
  5. If you need advantageous mechanical representation of a thing, then that thing simply should not be in the game. No one needs to play Superman, for example, so, if Superman is suddenly included in the lore and is needed to be represented on station, mistakes were made. "But I'm strong and can break cuffs, or slip out of them with my alien appendages, etc..." - Why would you be allowed to work on-station before handcuffs were upgraded to accommodate you? Easiest solution, no playable xenos are more than a standard deviation or so away from human strength. How many threads have we seen of "why would you attack my unbeatable giant lizard with your human?" - no one should have so much advantage that beating them one on one is considered unrealistic or foolish to attempt. The lore should just not have Unathi and Vaurca being that much bigger/stronger than humans, or having a decapitation bite/etc. You don't need it, and it doesn't enhance RP. I am only including this because it's the only part of having more Vaurca aboard that I don't like - mechanical advantages, which the Ta retain those of the Vaurca. It would be easy to just come along and throw a thumbs down and say "nah, don't like em" just to get another advantaged player slot out of the game, but, I really want the RP flavor of xenos without the imbalance, so, consider my opinion on Ta like my opinion on any other xeno: more RP less OP, please.
  6. The mechanical advantages just make any xeno a much harder sell for me. I like the xeno feel and having them around to add more than just lolanotherhuman (even though that's all I want to play)... but I really feel like mechanical advantages are a nono, even if they seem small or you think the disadvantages balance it out, it's still bad, and comparing them to borgs is a bad idea, too, because borgs are definitely overpowered but exceptionally hindered RP-wise and by laws/the AI. My advice to lore writers and such is that you'd have more ease getting your lore accepted and appreciated by the community if the mechanics were balanced and much more well-considered, and that goes for new races/breeds and old alike. The Ta RP I've seen so far was really fun and engaging. You don't need the mechanics for any of what we did.
  7. I wouldn't, and that's the nature of what makes something overpowered... someone can select a thing that makes them pretty much off-limits for combat for the rest of the crew, and nothing stops that person from instigating said combat. It's unnecessary, lends itself to powergaming, and adds absolutely nothing in terms of good RP besides "I am bigger and badder than everyone else because of my whitelist", and those kinds of things should be removed because it's just more mary-sue garbage, IMO. And I was not talking about using the hivenet to plot things, which can and has been done on many, many occasions - I was talking moreso the other way around... reporting things. Most other crewmembers can be kidnapped and silenced very easily. Why is this advantage NEEDED? What does it add? These kinds of little issues add up very quickly, from being a giant thing that can bite the crew's head off, to being able to essentially always communicate. It's just out of scale, and I would prefer the mechanical differences to be slimmed down greatly across all crew, synthetic, xeno, and so on. I would try to fight that 8 foot bug, by the way, if it was maybe an antagonist and it was my job to fight it? Or if it had snapped and decided to start murdering crew for whatever reason? Or, if I had an antagonist role and I was doing something else and for some reason it attacked me to stop me? And a number of other situations where I have very little or no choice in the matter, and am left with a huge disadvantage just because somebody regurgitated half a page of lore into a whitelist app? No thanks. The assumption that the mistake is yours if you end up tangling with a physically overpowered foe is flawed - players who have those advantages are definitely going to seek to use them, and unless you're also playing something overpowered, you don't have a special way of escaping it. I've been chased down by Unathi security as a Wizard before. I blew his arm off with a fireball. He didn't fear RP because he was a warrior-culture species and decided that it would be okay to continue running at me and killed me. That's just one example of a ton. I'm sure they happen daily. The mechanical advantages should be reduced/removed as they add literally nothing positive to the game and can be extremely disruptive when used. That being said, were those advantages to be removed, then having the flavor of xeno races around would be great, and I think that applies to the Ta as well as any other kind of Vaurca, Tajaran, Unathi, etc, and I see absolutely no reason to specifically pick on the Ta subspecies because it seems like the players ho have been joining as them are putting forth the effort to inclusively RP them, and I don't think they have any additional mechanical advantages, so, +1 for keeping Ta (albeit with potential graphics updates as mentioned above). EDIT: and yes, the two whitelist thing SHOULD keep them from showing up each and every single round, so... that's good too.
  8. I have enjoyed my interaction with them so far, but I don't yet know any of the mechanical differences between them and other crew, if there are any. The only issues I have with xeno crew is when they are mechanically superior to others in big ways, and this is not something where I think the Ta differ greatly. Having a psychic communication ability with other members of your species, IMO, is very bad because it creates a clique, provides ways to bypass communication barriers, etc. Being stronger or tougher, like Unathi, leads to powergaming concerns and poor RP situations like "why would you ever fight my character, he's 7 feet tall and made of muscles so he would never lose to you," - which is just lame. In short, there's nothing I would change about the Ta that I wouldn't change about Vaurca in general (they have some kinda mary-sue lore going on IMO, but that's another entire discussion and one I'm not going to delve into again). That being said, all I've seen Ta doing is looking strange, talking to people, and hosting D&D sessions, and actually RPing quite well with other people, so, as long as they don't start showing up in droves and such, I'm 100% okay with them and appreciate them on the station - despite them having the mechanical advantages of other Vaurca - but that's beyond the scope of this post and something that could eventually be fixed prety easily if anyone agreed. As far as appearance, the sprite isn't super horrible but an update would be welcome. They are a little large and attention-drawing, and I think we would do well to have an upper height and size limit for crew just for realism purposes. So, if anything, maybe a little bit of rework, but I really dislike the idea of outright removal of most things. If they become too populated on the server, it seems like an additional whitelist could be used to slim that down while still providing players who are interested in playing this an avenue to do so.
  9. I mean, I can simplify the captain's outlook here without involving xenophobia specifically... You did or said something that was brought to the captain's attention, and you didn't move to apologize and correct your attitude and behavior, but instead moved to justify what you had done, despite it clearly being against the regulations that you were employed to enforce. About half the time that a head has come to Nathan Corvo asking for the dismissal of an employee, the captain has reconciled the issue with the head and the employee because sometimes department heads behave exactly like you described the captain behaving towards you. They've made a snap decision and not given the employee a chance to say, "yeah, I was wrong, I apologize, and it won't happen again." Corvo gives you that chance if you have not had it. He'll even give a second or third chance if he feels like you haven't realized where things are heading. You intentionally bypassed those chances and spent all of your interaction time arguing and trying to justify your actions or argue down the punishment rather than acknowledging the wrongdoing. There was no feeling or indication given that should you not lose your job or simply take a 5 minute timeout in the brig that you wouldn't immediately continue to behave in this way. You are, in your last post, still trying to justify talking to crew in this way despite having it explained to you that it's unprofessional and unacceptable by both IC and OOC superiors and peers. This makes me feel like that if you continue to play this character in this role, I'm going to have to process your suspension repeatedly. ICly, There are so many more interesting and useful things that I can be doing with my time as captain, and so many more interesting and well-intentioned characters to interact with, OOCly, I also dislike having to go through this process, or spend my time interacting with a character complaint in which my actions were very unfairly represented... so, if you could, please just stop behaving in this way and find a better way to RP with us in the future, or if you absolutely must RP a xenophobic character, don't do it as a security officer, please? And when you get called out for breaking a regulation or having some kind of issue with crew, just correct yourself. For all I knew, you might have OOCly WANTED to RP getting fired. And to directly address your above points: There would not be a mention of xenophobia in the i109 description if mistreatment of xeno crew was in any way acceptable. And that's really all I have to say on the subject.
  10. So, the detective questioned you about racist remarks that you made, took the recording to the HoS, and then you got summoned to the line and your character didn't think "Uh oh, I might be in trouble for being a racist?" ... well, my captain can't detect if you're critically stupid, but not being able to put two and two together in this case is either 1) You are RPing someone entirely too dull to be a security officer, let alone be trusted with a fork, or 2) You are being disingenuous regarding having been spoken to regarding this issue before being asked to come to the HoP line. So, you were in fact interviewed, recorded, and that interview posted in my first response above, and now telling us it didn't happen? You said that the captain was yelling, which was untrue. Strike one. You said that the captain claimed he was the boss here and that he didn't care (He is the boss here, that's factual, whether you were reminded or not), but he did not say that he "didn't care". Strike two. You don't remember us explaining to you that you couldn't be trusted to enforce the regulations after you demonstrated that you were racist while wearing the uniform? Because "without even trying to talk about it whatsoever" is an outright lie, as the regulation you broke was told to you, and the reasoning for dismissing you was also relayed in this conversation (which was in no way a requirement that the captain spend his time doing this for you). Strike three. A longstanding Tajaran crewmember PDA'd the captain, probably around the same time you were being interviewed by the detective, and told him that you had made those racist remarks. He didn't have your name, so he gave a description and the captain said he'd keep an eye out to talk with you. Then the HoS brought it up and we agreed that you should be dismissed from duty. Here's something from the Aurora wiki's Security Officer article: Please re-read that bold part slowly, 7 or 8 times. Also, by the regulations, not surrendering your ID when ordered by the captain and instead trying to have a conversation is itself breaking the regulations and not respecting the chain of command. Had we wanted to be super assholes and throw the book at you, we could have brigged you, but instead we just asked you to go put on civilian clothes and ride out the rest of the round thinking about your actions far away from any security post, where your behavior made us sure you did not belong. Also, leaning on an EFMC contract as some kind of excuse or protection for WORSE behavior than is expected of regular ISD is exactly the opposite of how contractors work in real life. You're not even really a part of NT, so you think the EFMC is going to have your back when you are embarrassing in uniform, or that NT is going to tolerate contracted employees being unprofessional more often than their own guys who have shown loyalty and investment in the corporation? You're expecting both warmth and pay without commitment, and that's not how these kinds of professions work, from prostitution to mercenary work, if you aren't wearing my logo and carrying my flag but you're taking my cash, I'm the customer and I'm always right and expect consummate professionalism and obedience. If we have a history as coworkers and share the same boss and coworkers and you slip up here and there, of course I'm gonna let some things slide... but you're sure as hell not gonna lean on being a contractor as an excuse to shirk professionalism - it's the opposite, you're playing hard mode.
  11. That's a pretty cute thing to say by the guy who put this in his opener and also who had to be chastised for his topic title: I didn't ignore anything you said. I did suffer a disconnection when I tried to open the demotion form it somehow crashed my client, but beyond that 30-40 second disconnect, I paid full attention to the "RP" at hand, and, you're 100% lying as I never said that. Corvo doesn't raise his voice unless you trigger him in a couple of certain ways, and being an ignorant racist dufus isn't one of them. In fact, I specifically remember explaining that you had undermined the crew's ability to trust you to protect them by demonstrating that you were a racist, and I also ICly explained to you that you can't run around saying that kind of stupid bullshit (my words, as Corvo was being more professional) while wearing a uniform and representing the company. That will come out if and when the logs are looked into, and honestly the fact that you are choosing to lie about how you were dealt with is making me start to feel like I need to counter this with a player complaint. Are you denying that I told you that you had undermined the crew's faith in your impartiality as an officer, or that I explained to you that you were being demoted for being racist while on duty and in-uniform? I specifically remember taking the time to parse these points with you even though I actually just wanted to instantly delete you from the game and pretend like you hadn't existed. I have no problem with you taking issue with something I may have done wrong and bringing it here to discuss it. I'd love to correct any of my play that is done incorrectly, but firing an unapologetic and openly racist security officer is not something that I did incorrectly. I asked you for your ID because you had already been interviewed about the insult, and it was pretty clear that you KNEW why you had been sent to the window, and also, my protocol when considering a demotion is that I have your ID in my hand WHILE we discuss it, if we are going to, because I have a long string of experiences where telling someone they are being fired results in them sprinting off and sparking a manhunt because they are a giant manbaby trying to pretend to be a professional employee of a corporation. If I have your ID it kinda limits where you can run to and things can get resolved, and whether you are getting demoted or not also has a little to do with how you react when being told to surrender your ID. To come here and accuse me of having some kind of "agenda" and trying to make it out to be like the Aurora is some kind of "safe space" is pretty telling, in my opinion, YOU are the one bringing up modern political points, not us. Let me just short-circuit this, though, since you brought up "real life": Go do a quick google search for "Police Officer using racist terms" and you'll find a great number of results. Super fun things like Philadelphia firing 13 officers for posting racist memes... not even while on the job. Officers cannot undermine the crew's faith in their impartiality and fair-mindedness. You were suspended because your ability to do your job was analyzed and found wanting, since you had broken a regulation as an officer and the head of your department no longer wanted to work with you, simple as that, and it was explained to you in similar terms by both the HoS and the Captain. YOU can stop exaggerating and lying about how you were dealt with, and retract your untrue statements.
  12. Nantei's post sums it up well. Being openly racist at work is far beyond realistic play. Should the insulted parties report this kind of behavior to a news entity and it be reported that no punishment was given and that the attitude was tolerated, the press would have a field day with it and it would be very bad for the company. Had it simply been a passing remark, or apologized for and not brought to my attention by multiple crew, the outcome may have been different. I expected an incident report, so, I'll go ahead and post the logs I took. It should also be noted that the character's attitude while being considered for suspension was poor, and continued to be very poor after the fact, as indication of the kind of character we're dealing with here. I've served as Captain aboard the Aurora for three or more years, and have only suspended or demoted very few people, and never for a simple racist remark that was withdrawn upon confrontation. Unapologetic, xenophobic disrespect of other crew from a security officer, along with a disrespectful attitude towards command when confronted will not and should never be tolerated as it results in command itself being seen as weak and inactive, willing to allow crew to suffer a hostile workplace environment. Professionalism is important. The officer was also drunk on duty. I'll go ahead and attach the transcript I was given when the suspension was recommended: In OOC terms, an employee of a station crewed by multicultural employees would have received plenty of education as to why this is unacceptable behavior, and a member of security or any police force in reality would easily lose their job for saying things that are known to be racially insensitive and potentially baiting towards members of said race or culture. To summarize: This could have been handled more lightly had this officer not doubled down on his insult, or had not spoken this kind of language directly to a xeno crewmember, and I still agree with the decision that was put before me.
  13. This is a strange suggestion, but a feature I've thought might have some interesting consequences and thought I'd throw it out there and see if anything grows from it. The idea is that each department, or key departments, would have a special locker or box or other place in which they could put one item. This item persists to the next shift, only if the character who placed it there is present at round start. Why? It could be a handy way to put aside some of the tasks you might have performed during a round and get a small head start on the next one, allowing you to have a larger array of things to do in back to back round play. Some examples might include banking a tech disk in R&D, in order to jump ahead the next round in one of the tech trees, picking up where your researcher left off last shift... maybe robotics or R&D didn't get around to using a specific item they built or resource they had, and it would be nice to not have to luck out and get it next round or wait for the full length of the round to get started on that project - materials, a nice battery, something like that. Xenobiology? Maybe a core or two, archaeology? That really interesting find that there wasn't enough time to explore before the emergency escape shuttle, perhaps? The bar could stash a drink, security, maybe a good weapon or piece of armor they'd ordered before, and chemistry might stash a bottle of hard to make drugs. Ideally, the feature would not work if you rolled antag, and would fail on any item that would be a simple dupe of something like an ID or a laser rifle since those are already present. I dunno, I think it could be interesting to be able to toss one little thing into the next round and sort of pick up where you left off with it. It can be very disheartening to go through the trouble of R&D or building a complicated device or anything like that only to have the round end just as you get to the point where you could use it. I recognize there are potential exploits that might arise or that some things might be too disruptive to store in this way, and of course that each round is not necessarily canonical to the next, but with a little hard work and imagination I think those things could be overcome to net benefit. Anyway, something like this would be cool.
  14. "Enforce corporate regulations" should not be part of its function unless specifically used to do so by those who actually hold those jobs, IMO. Should it even understand trespassing?
  15. The problem with relying on "blacklisting" is that the issues that people bring up regarding AI very frequently are not against any rule. There's no rule at all that says an AI can't lock you down and report it in full detail the instant it sees you break into a place, overhears you saying something incriminating, or watches you perform a cult ritual somewhere... how would such a rule even be written? And because of that, I think the whitelisting would be a good idea because it allows the playstyle to be more tightly controlled, and pressure put forth on AI to play and perform well - as a whitelist can be threatened, which makes every potentially questionable interaction a gamble to have your actions tested against the "good play" established by synth whitelist management (or whoever is in charge of dictating acceptable RP standards for AI). Though I tend to be cynical, I think that stating that a whitelist doesn't help anything as with current command or xenos in terms of quality is a bit off-target and not giving fair consideration to many of the players with those whitelists who work hard to portray their characters and participate in rounds in a positive way. As a long-standing member of command, I have only a very small number of incidents of clashing with other command for not doing their jobs properly, while I have a host of examples of regular crew performing like absolute garbage and not even being sorry about it, so, take that as my testimony to the value of a whitelist, as I think they are as good, reasonable, and helpful as the quality of the administrators and moderators behind their issuance, governance and revocation.
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