Scheveningen

It's a fucking joke that certain medicine can be called a stabilizer when no chemical in the game even exists that can prevent what is otherwise the sole indicator of life: brain death. If an expensive chemical that exists that can keep brain damage from accruing due to [insert millions of reasons here] it would solve so many problems. Why is this game treated like Escape from Tarkov with how dumb the health system is right now? You have to not only throw so much medicine at one person who is seriously injured but you also have to keep tabs on things that the developers have deliberately removed the ability to be aware of in real-time since the health analyzers are almost useless and many medicinals have been massively nerfed before brainmed was even a thing. Don't play medical if you want to have fun in this game. All you'll get is heightened blood pressure from trying super hard to keep others in the round, and everyone has their limits.

No, it was not 100% science's fault, but it was pretty much 50%. I was deliberately avoiding ordering stuff from cargo because I was expecting far worse looks if I handed medics, Tabor, or whoever else combat shotguns to be left in the expeditionary shuttle. The expedition was cancelled because absolutely nothing was finished on the research side by the 3rd time that they were asked to push out something that could be used for self defense on the expedition. If the expectation is that I should send people with no means of defending themselves to explore any random derelict on their own then I will either not try to organize an expedition again or I will veto any expedition that doesn't have any means of preparation. It makes no IC or OOC sense to shove out an expedition with no self defense measures at all, and it probably made no sense to try to organize an expedition with a research team totally disinterested in the fact the expedition was happening. I should've gotten a read on that earlier and adjusted accordingly. The first wave wasn't ideal either, but the RD was wanting to get the first mission commenced to start with. The round in question was not ideal. It was a ridiculous battle of ego between the captain and research that simply didn't need to happen, but it did anyway. As already displayed through the screenshots intended to incriminate me somehow, I'm already aware of the dozens of different ways I could've executed this better. I have already thought about how to do stuff better and it's not like I'm about to stop doing so, but that's not what this complaint is for. I am extremely doubtful this complaint was initially written with those good laced intentions in mind to helpfully highlight what could've been done better, those of you who think you need to seek OOC action for this are essentially trying to go after me because of the IC politics of the round delayed and otherwise deflated your perception of the round. I'm not going to pretend that was the outcome I wanted but it was the outcome we all got. I've already dealt with it and moved on. It's clear some other people haven't.

I just want to say I resent any accusations of metagaming - and likewise I take issue with the accusation of metagaming being thrown the way of HunterRS who played absolutely fantastically as the RD for that round. They pretty much salvaged any interest I had in that round due to their timely presence at the lowest point of that round, and they were hella constructive in putting the expedition stuff back on the fast track. The "round start" declaration of the expedition intending was about 15-20 minutes into the round. Let me ask how many people who might be reading this in a rhetorical fashion, at what point in the round do you think it's best to announce an expedition? 30 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours before the vote is able to be ran on an extended round? Better yet, OP, have you tried to motivate the entire station into a productive frenzy and ensure everyone possible who is capable of supplying useful stuff for the expedition team to be able to succeed, once before? I probably don't need to know your opinion. It's hard. It is actually less worth it for me to try to make it work because I don't even get to participate in the same expedition that other people do. It's amazing how utterly not-worth-it it is for the organizer to try to whip up something fun like a space adventure but it's a blast for anyone who actually is the space adventurer. If this is the kind of reaction I or anyone else should expect for this sort of thing, no wonder why it doesn't happen on a regular basis. The major thing making expedition set-up so tedious and difficult -- besides logistical screw-ups caused by personnel -- is the initial time limitation and the "metagame" surrounding the vote for transfer. As a player and a command whitelistee, in order to maximize the fun of other players who want to participate in an expedition besides research, I have to motivate preparations for it as soon as possible. It is a complete waste of time on my end and on the broad aspect of other people's time to announce the expeditionary process any later than minute one, effectively. They need that time to explore and have fun. I don't get any other choice but to announce early that an expedition is happening. Having plenty of time to prepare is a hell of a lot better than having to be ready to go to have to do stuff for a space game in like 5 minutes. An hour was given. The quotas from research - the #1 department that I was begging for results from - didn't get fulfilled. As for the guns, the amount of guns, what color shoes the guns were wearing, whatever. Expeditions are not safe. Space adventurism, in general, is not safe. Would you rather the whole team get sent over to deal with the colossus spider with not even the laser shotguns? Those laser shotguns are pitiful as well, even. Their ammo consumption per shot, accuracy, damage, I would rather turn the safety on and use a maglite to kill spiders instead. That's why better guns were requested. They don't have to be 70 burn per shot death ray cannons the likes of which seasoned ~science powergamers~ or whatever the strawman label is now are capable of. They should just be good enough, why is that so hard to understand? Vira spitballed "4" for the number of supplied guns because she is generally a person who is able to compromise and relent with slightly less ideal results, but "I'll give you 0" is absolutely not what she will accept hearing. It's what she heard anyway, so she wrote off RnD for the rest of the shift and relied upon robotics - because they were the only ones in the department who were the most eager to help out. I will point out robotics messed up and spread themselves too wide which meant they could deliver nothing, which led to the immediate (albeit temporary) cancellation of the expedition. An expeditionary team cannot go explore in a dangerous hostile environment if it is incapable of defending itself in a worst-case scenario. The folks who did come back from the first wave were really glad that they brought at least more than bare minimum. Re; the briefing room scene. The initial intent of that was to rule out exactly who did what and who was contributing anything at all. The proverbial axe was above Ian's neck here, not anybody else in that room. Was it a bit of an unfunny, melodramatic spectacle? A bit, but it served its purpose. Another thing: Don't tell people "no" and then wait an eon to tell them why. By the time my character heard the reasons, they had already written off the people who told them "no" as if they weren't going to be of any help at all. And that was concluded at the end of the briefing room argument. Most assuredly had I or my character heard the reasons much earlier why an order could not be feasibly carried out in terms of subordinate capacity/competence then that entire round would've gone so much better. As for round two of the expedition team: no, the expedition's second round was to try to rescue some survivors that were heard at the expedition site. No, I did not personally lead that team. The aim of the expedition team was not to kill spiders, contrary to what your belief is here. It was to dive in, establish radio comms with those derelict survivors and rescue them. Appreciate being characterized as some sort of conflict-seeking bad guy validhunter again. Least I know what the intent of this complaint is. As for the OOC comments, do you expect me to apologize for voicing my opinion that Ian White, the character, was acting like a bad sport and not contributing anything positive to the team effort that was asked of him? If I believed he was breaking the rules I would've adminhelped. I did not. I do not really care for Ian White as a character but I'm not going to pretend like I give enough of a damn to go after their ability to play here. I'm adult enough to go, "I disagree with you, I think what you did was wrong" and I moved on. I will also note in those last few OOC screenshots that I was able to introspect what I could've done better and what I will do better in the future based off this pretty unpleasant-in-the-middle round. Not to mention that I was not stuck on Ian White after the first 2 warnings in OOC went out, I don't know what was with that mod in the chat there and I don't really care what they were trying to accomplish either.

Reporting Personnel: Vira Bolivar Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Captain Game ID: b9p-axZi Commended Personnel: Mrrrrhazmanq Naldratajrmro - Assistant/Expeditionary Gardener Witnesses: Edward Dawnguard - Research Director Ruby Lotami - Physician Time of Commendable Act: ?? Real Time: 12:00AM 01-Oct-20 ish Location of Act: NSS Aurora Expeditionary Shuttle Overview: Naldratajrmro saved the life of Tabor Janssens during an expedition to an unidentified derelict installation by amputating an infected arm caused by a nurse spider strain. They took initiative to save the life of a man who most certainly would've died seconds after had they not acted sooner. I recommend they be awarded for valor, bravery and initiative. Additional Notes: ((I'm hoping this may be vaguely canon since while it did pertain to an away site, I don't expect any involved party to be able to recognize the place they landed in. I'll still accept it if it turns out to not be considered canon.))

Would recommend this be moved to projects since this is an actual PR, I was about to suggest that I make these edits myself until I saw the link to the PR. Very good, I like this.

Not remotely enforceable without turning its laws into making it incapable of harming a living being.

Uh, no. Giving the AI a weapon that crushes people to death is not how the AI should provide support to the round (dare I also point out, that mech is not even good at what it is equipped for? the mounted toolset is actually redundant and useless, its only use is unsurprisingly to kill things with its hard hitting melee attacks). They're an all-encompassing knowledge base that can teach people how to do things or do chemistry with the help of a person to switch beakers around. They can open airlocks in an emergency, disable ID scan to permit ease of access in said emergencies so they don't have to actively wait for someone to say "ai door law 2 or i valid you" to do their job. The mech is only useful as a weapon and you're defending it. The AI already possesses many means of supporting the round. The mech does not accomplish this aim apart from "directly supporting the round" through killing or impeding the round antagonists. Considering the AI sits in the most secure and nearly impenetrable area in the game, I'd rather the AI be unable to directly threaten the life of any character at all without breaking its laws.

Also want to point out how much of a hilarious conflict of interest it is for someone to open up in the thread with "AS A FREQUENT AI PLAYER" (implication being that person plays everything else even less, and is therefore less likely to have a balanced and fair viewpoint on the whole subject) and then unsurprisingly try to defend the shitty status quo of certain features involved that enable the AI to actively be able to shut down antagonists directly once again. It would be fantastic if the AI had claws specifically for the malf game mode, whenever it gets re-enabled, but the AI is absolutely not supposed to have any kind of fangs whatsoever to be able to remove antagonists from the round directly. That is the crew's responsibility should it ever boil down to self-preservation. The AI is a support and roleplaying tool.

I've never attacked a crewmember with a mech on purpose. You don't have to put the cult in a losing position by killing them. You can also use the mech to obnoxiously bodyblock, guard chokes, push, shove, be incredibly annoying and waste the time of antagonists. And the AI gets one of these tools to physically impact the round (HINT: COMPLETELY AGAINST THE DESIGN OF THE AI) for free? Why?

as someone who in fact rolled over entire cults with the remote mech in question I'd rather it be removed from the game if it's getting commonly abused now

The spare identification has been a classic aspect of SS13 gameplay since time immemorial. Unfortunately this also means it's been the only high-risk item that matters because having the hand teleporter or other means of creative mobility on demand seems rather redundant if you can walk through every other airlock and then close it much faster than anyone can respond. It is within my belief that the spare identification is a form of in-round power that is far too easily accessed through illegitimate means, and acquiring said 'power' in the round requires absolutely no interaction with any other inhabitants of the round. Normally one would think that the act of acquiring the spare ID would have its risks: you'd be wrong. Immediately acquiring the spare ID means you have a flexible number of potential escapes from the captain's office instead of just the way you got in. Command airlocks are just like any other airlock and do not have randomized electronics. Making them do so would just make it so that the ideal option is to cut a wall or slice through a window since those two are faster than hacking a secure airlock. In essence, there is no reasonable way to keep the spare identification as it is, and defending the spare identification behind a guard of auto-turrets would be as equivalent as erasing the spare identification from existence. Simply removing the spare identification from the captain's office and the NSS Aurora entirely would be much simpler and would not require 5d gymnastics justifications. Let's talk about some potential consequences of this. Bear with me, for I expect these and many other arguments in spades well in advance. 1. Antagonists have to buy the agent ID, or pick-up a toolbelt or manipulate others to enable access to places their job doesn't intend them to be. It is my personal belief that "having" to do something that makes you interact with others in the round is universally a good thing moreso than it is a bad thing. This is an RP environment much as is the way that a DnD campaign is an RP environment. The players expect to interact with the villain and the other way around. Having to require time investment and actual careful covering of one's own tracks to break into, out of, around areas helps simulate that petty-to-grand thievery is not as simple as "I walk in, take what I want and leave." Requiring either specialized tools to break in or someone to have helped the antagonist into an area they legally shouldn't be in makes it so that there's a bit of actual brainpower required to accomplish any meaningful objective. The Agent ID is also a pretty good tool already, but sadly made redundant thanks to how easy it is to acquire the spare and then keep its power throughout the entire round. Also consider, hacking a borg would be a disproportionately amazing option should that fit your character. If you really want a key to the station, being forced to resort to interact with another player is a fantastic idea. Likewise, the emag is going to cut into your TC budget anyway. 2. Breaking into [insert secure area here] alone would be impossible! Well, good. Bring a friend, you'll have loads of fun trying to stage a heist on the vault without the ease of the spare ID. That might actually be a challenge that requires a bit of planning to defeat all the turrets with whatever guns you have. 3. The head of personnel and captain are now massive targets! Well, good. They should be already? But now antagonists have that as their only resort if they want more specific access, which gives direct indication that indeed, someone does have something as dangerous as all-access to the entire station. It leaves evidence that an antagonist did in fact interact with one of the inhabitants of the station instead of completely sidelining interaction to complete IC objectives, which defeats the point of playing an antagonist. Most assuredly a majority of people who already play command internally burn with a desire to actually meaningfully interact with an antagonist, so a simple stick-up would probably make anyone's day. The risk involved be damned. 4. But what about command staff in an emergency? What about head of personnel/captain becoming high-priority roles? Command staff having to be creative and think around their access limits? The HOP/Captain jobs actually being played by command whitelistees? Don't tease me. Let's be honest, having the spare ID or no will not always change the outcome of a round. The fact that the station and the round antagonists are both potentially incapable of having it during a round with no HOP/captain is perhaps more of a good thing than it is a bad one. It becomes a situation of two sides being pit against each other with their own limitations of access and requirements of creativity to get into or out of certain places. "I guess I'll just deal with the round going to hell when me being unable to do anything about it" is the exact spirit of playing a cult round as a station job, for instance. Sometimes rounds go to hell, and that's okay! That's literally the spirit of SS13. If this change makes it more often that's actually not entirely a bad thing. 5. These are massive ninja/wizard/merc/heist nerfs! Oh no, whatever will they do? The ninja can just teleport away, the wizard can knock airlocks open (straight into the armory to fireball the lockers, I might add, if not also knock the lockers too - not sure if it does that here), mercenaries literally spawn with epic gamer tools and heisters get budget epic gamer tools to spawn with also. I guess they will just have to deal with it.

I in fact, know Danse moderately well, and can attest for his roleplaying ability as well as being a responsible individual in positions of authority based on my experience from playing with him on other servers. He's consistent in terms of play and also can hold an intelligent conversation about the lore and the setting. +1, personally.

I'm still a fan of vision cones, but I admit I am not a fan of how responsive keystrokes are. It seems there is a delay to face direction for shift-click examining to change direction. These issues seem to be the only problem that make this system harder to use, since I am otherwise accustomed to vision cones from other SS13-alike servers that used them.

I'll be honest, historical precedent with certain human demographics in real life have been nothing short of often showing that even this is 'normal' in the sense that it can take more than a hundred years before any appreciable change is made in terms of civil rights. Likewise it indicates that the state of IPCs may require an IC revolution for them to claw out of being treated as property.

Recall that before Kait Tea was a large number of cultists who had already assaulted the security force with their array of various cult-typical abilities, which in the context of any 'normal' character is a step above fantastical/horrifying. According to what I had heard happened before, sec almost got rolled but barely survived getting rolled by the cult. There was really no verification but a hunch on the IC or OOC that Kait Tea was /really/ the only one left either. I believe there were more orthodox and easily more constructive options to communicate when was an appropriate time to elevate or de-escalate the threat level, whichever it may be in any given situation. It is rather clear that in this situation that it would've been more constructive and better-suited for the state of the round at an OOC level to simply communicate that, "Hey, it's been code red but fairly tame from an antagonist viewpoint for a bit, would you consider lowering to blue?" in ahelps. The reason for this is that unless a direct order is given via fax, pretty much everything sent by CC as a response is either a reinforcement of already existing policy or a suggestion as to how the situation should develop - but not an actual binding advisement as to how the "IC" state of the round should go forward. tl;dr you really should've just bwoinked Campin but not under the pretense he was in trouble or anything. I've been asked by admins to try to close out the round before from an OOC motivated standpoint and I have still been able to concoct reasonable IC explanations to do so. It is much harder to motivate characters to do things they wouldn't normally do in IC, but the OOC side is easier to motivate.

I would like to refute the above statement outright posted by Arrow, having played as the Captain for the latter half of that round that they mentioned. The way they paint the subject of this complaint is a little ridiculous. While a majority of the cult gave themselves into security there was still one cultist left and for all security knew, they weren't aware of the person's full capabilities. Being able to teleport at will, put up invisible and invulnerable obstructions and otherwise engage in the supernatural or mutant in terms of abilities is not a very typical or low bar for a threat. It's absolutely hypocrisy to accuse the head of security for trying to draw out the round in pursuance of valids while also adminbusing in an ERT that was neither needed or asked for by command in that round, to then 'clean up the round' and pursue their own 'valids' if we call trying to conclude any plot threads as something as utterly insidious as claiming valid-salad. That was an absolutely unorthodox and uncalled-for OOC use of ERT to forcibly conclude a round, and is otherwise a gross misuse of admin powers to influence the round too. It makes no sense to force an ERT when you point out in IC that there is an entire security department during a round in which there were few if no deaths on the station's side. It makes no IC sense to expect that a station must go to code blue when there are still active associates of a terrorist group running around the station unless you OOCly expect and demand the round end at 2:00 on the dot every time. It's even more ridiculous to paint the command staff player's behavior as being more responsible for the antagonist's behavior that round than the antagonist themselves for deciding to yakkety sax throughout the station and deliberately hold the round hostage with their behavior. Sec unfortunately has the burden of having to chase the antagonist when they are ordered to because it is practically dumb to not to, because any terrorist can resurface if allowed to let go and then come back to hurt people. It's not like people can jump off the surface of the station, despawn and never come back. Everyone is stuck on the station together, meaning they have to deal with each other by containing one another or killing the other. It's such a crazy conflict of interest there is with you making this testimony and also actively using your admin powers to seek an outcome that makes Marc Price look ICly bad as well as make their player look bad too. I will say that my vote and that of the CE was of the conclusion that it wasn't right to lower the code level until security managed to properly contain or kill the remaining cultist in that round. It is unfortunate to drag a round out and have any responsibility in doing so: but you open a huge fucking can of worms if we start punishing people who don't mean any malice and just want to play here. Campin did not really fuck over that round any at all. The antagonists were doing far more damage than he did. Recall that he is not all powerful and all-seeing as an admin is and thus is not capable of making the most optimal decisions because he is still a player who has to work with the information he is given. It is an unfair expectation that other people should have to put more effort through to reach the same level of understanding of how the round is going because you have easier access to it than other players do.

I think it was a travesty that you weren't also applied a community ban, having witnessed what happened that led to your discord ban. Aurora has always required the necessary 'paperwork' to justify the permanent removal of someone from the community. Since you had been away from this community for such a long time it's really just unfortunate that I don't possess the receipts to your spectacularly shitty conduct anymore having assumed you would stay gone. Jokes on me in that regard, should not have made that assumption. There does exist unforgivable offenses and what you did shouldn't be simply forgiven on any mark. "I've changed, matured, sorry" should not be enough to convince anyone that the nasty shit you still said was still tolerable enough to forgive. It wasn't and will never be. I don't care if you've been successful in your real life, nor do I care if your world view has nuanced over time. That doesn't change what you've said or done or what impact you've left behind. If you really have changed for the better, you're better off making an impact someplace else. There's nothing for you here.

Haven't really seen this be the case because the worst that happens is that someone with very poor positioning is incapable of fighting back. Not a lot changes since the status quo before was that if you got alpha striked by a lot of frontloaded melee damage, you were dead by the first hit. Today, people with guns can back themselves against a wall and just riddle their opponent with bullets if they try to advance suicidally. If the devs are going to add the aim assist to melee, then it would be best that you're incapable of sprinting while doing so.

I've actually seen it by now and I was expecting gulag as in being able to physically send people down to hard labor. Well you probably can since there is a ladder to the new location, but anyway, it's not as incredibly inhumane as the initial impression was given to me. The worst that is up is that you're compelled into a 1x1 VR chair cage to remote control a robot to mine stuff out to get time off your sentence.

Reporting Personnel: Vira Bolivar Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Captain Game ID: b8W-aHQc Personnel Involved: Nash Harper - Security Cadet, Offender Time of Incident: 1200 Station Time ((I don't actually remember)) Real Time: 11-1AM EST Location of Incident: NSS Aurora/Transfer Shuttle Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [ x ] - Neglect of Duty [ x ] - Harassment [ ] - Assault [ x ] - Misconduct [ ] - Other _____ Overview of the Incident: The individual in question was harassing their co-workers, primarily that of the non-human disposition, with xenophobic comments and otherwise making their peers and colleagues feel unwelcome or uncomfortable around them. I spoke to Mr. Harper and essentially laid out that such behavior was utterly unacceptable that it was to stop. I commented on how their behavior would not be acceptable considering their home country's Edict on following the laws and social rules of any other country besides their own. Apparently I made such a good impression upon them with this example that they stopped short of threatening me for "besmirching their honor" (paraphrased), and then claimed they would shut their mouth once they realized I was listening intently. Later, I would overhear comments about Mr. Harper referring to the new detention camp and stating things such as "We should really send people down to the work camp" and "All I'm really saying is that back in Dominia we don't pussy-foot around slavery" over the security radio. The department as a whole was led to assume the individual was openly embracing the concept of institutionalized slavery and xenophobia, given their earlier comments in the shift. Considering the immediate disaster now on my plate, I had them suspended from employment. They had to be arrested due to their non-compliance when I asked them to hand their identification and equipment over. They levied additional insults and subtle threats against me, most of which did not particularly intimidate me considering a full house of security personnel willing to immediately deal with him according to company rules. It is my impression that this individual is neither fit for continued employment with the corporation nor continued work with the security department. While sufficient action was taken against them in that shift, I'd rather not see such an unrepentant and otherwise hostile individual return to work for this corporation considering their obvious issues with authority and diversity in terms of what the company hires. I'd also suggest word of their conduct get sent back to their home country so they might meet adequate recompense for what transpired on my station. I am told this isn't the first time company personnel have had issues with this employee in particular on the local side of things. Submitted Evidence: Several conversations were had over the security radio network. Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why?: I was the station's captain. Actions taken: Offending individual temporarily suspended from employ for that shift due to the severity of their offenses. Additional Notes: n/a

there are some other ways to rebuke this but I'm not interested in playing devil's advocate for something that should be relatively well agreed upon that robotics being able to give very difficult to kill combat mechs straight to security without any oversight is not a good thing. Everyone else has hoops to jump through, and I'll be damned if robotics gets to not have to deal with one.