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Everything posted by Scheveningen
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Why? You're not going to see the adminhelps anyway if they were de-adminned just to be questioned. They will be influenced by the staff member as part of their testimony regardless, such as a player is able to smoothtalk out of trouble in the same capacity. Msay/asay helps save time and annoying bwoinks by putting their empirical point of view/testimony where admins can easily see it. This wouldn't really change much. Staff de-admin themselves largely because they don't want to deal with a flood of bwoinks during a period where they aren't interested in seeing information overflow, especially when they're playing a round-important job such as command staff. Sure, it isn't "fair" but I've been complained about before in-round and I went ahead to grab logs from my POV to screenshot and paste directly into msay and it helped clear the issue in seconds. If staff transparency is still such a defining issue for you after all of this time you've complained about it, I'm surprised you haven't left because of it.
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Transcriber's note: This is not actually written by an ancient cousin of Sun Tzu, the title is clickbait. Foreword A major part of SS13 culture is the broad term "robust" which is warped to a variety of different ways in usage either for meme value or simply to prove the point of flexibility with a double entendre. Robustness is generally defined as a player's total game knowledge and ability to put that knowledge of game mechanics into practice while playing the game. This can apply outside SS13 but became its own term because of the toolbox's infamous description. For some people, being robust is enjoyable. Often for some people as well, being unrobust is equally as unenjoyable because losing is never fun. "To robust" or "to outrobust" is defined in a slightly similar fashion, but applied in a specific sense that you outplayed an opposing player by either having better game knowledge or executing your mechanics better than the other player. This does not have to involve direct combat. Dedicated medical players are robust in a certain fashion that they take away any of the effort of antagonists in trying to kill or maim someone by healing the problem away, they prevent viruses from becoming a big deal by sticking needles of spaceacillin in folks displaying symptoms thus saving a lot of unlucky crewmembers a lot of grief and sitting around waiting for a cure to their stage 3 virus. Engineers do the same by repairing breaches or dealing with maintenance issues caused by antagonists or other reasons. Robust engineers fix stuff in a timely fashion and get the power set-up before the power drain even becomes a problem. It is absolutely possible to get the engine set up within five to ten minutes roundstart using a very effective technique that could constitute it as a speed-run method to reduce the time needed to get the task done. Researchers can also be robust, particularly in avoiding death-defying circumstances in the form of xenobiology or xenobotany, or simply not exploding the lab. Containing destructive forces in your work environment makes the station extremely grateful that you're not a bad player. Robust security stops self-antags/chucklefucks right in their place and minimize damage to themselves and their surroundings while taking out the bad guys and stopping them from becoming a physical threat to the rest of the crew. Other departments and jobs have other ways of being very good at their job to the point that it makes a huge difference in the round just by themselves, this is especially notable when people are actually working as a team. Robustness runs deeper than just that, or rather there's something missing. It is impossible to do any of this without understanding that you can't be robust while you're dead. Lemme explain. Subject: Combat and Surviving It Death may be part of the game, but it largely functions as a consequence for a very heated situation or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But because no death ever really happens for no reason in this game, it's important to understand that death is also a teaching mechanism. Such as it is for very difficult and punishing games like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, SS13 makes it easy to make mistakes and easy to die because of those mistakes being made. As an example, you can die in Dark Souls if you do everything right in a boss fight up until they're at the 1HP marker and you get cocky, try to go for a final swing at the wrong time, decide against timing your invulnerability frames in rolling through one of their heavy swings, causing massive damage to you and forcing a poise stagger. They are then able to take you down to 0 HP on your health bar and you're dead. "Fuck that!" you'll scream, because every human player will get frustrated at the game rather than looking inward at what they did wrong first. You only learn anything until after you calm down and review what you did wrong. SS13 operates on the same principle. Simple mistakes can be mortally wounding, simple actions can also be fatal given the element of RNG, something Dark Souls possesses in the form of how bosses and other enemies use their movesets randomly and not always (certain movesets are used based on very specific conditions which can be easily predicted once you know those thresholds but I digress) according to the situation, making them difficult to predict. Unlike SS13, Dark Souls attack cues are telegraphed in an unsubtle manner and there are very very few instances where you can be instantly killed with an attack you couldn't possibly react to, as the game separates attacks in two ways, "Fast - Light" or "Slow - Hard". Getting hit by a fast attack is not forgiving but it is more forgiving than being hit by an obviously telegraphed attack. Because this is SS13 we're talking about, Kill Threats and Kill Ranges are less immediately obvious given this is more of a game about deception than it is about PVP/PVE dueling. Dark Souls-isms aside, you're generally not working to full effective robustness if you can't manage to stay alive in the majority of circumstances. You will not always have to fight someone to survive. Lethal confrontations are better fought when you need to do so, but why? If you're a HOS on code green armed with only a telescopic baton and an energy pistol and a squad of 4 mercs fires in your general direction, the worst decision you could make is draw your weapon and shoot back. You might think you can clip one down but I can't emphasize how absolutely wrong you will be when you're the first dead person in the round because you didn't wise up and sprint the other direction towards the armory, in addition to globally announcing the merc presence. You couldn't do turn the tides if you didn't just temporarily walk away from the problem to revisit it with better equipment to face it. The "die another day" approach is usually the superior one if the odds are against you. Moving on to a key point in how both antags and combat roles remain effective throughout the round. Consolidation In SS13, it always takes time and resources to do things and finish off tasks. Remember that bald assistant you just arrested and handed off to the warden? You're short one pair of cuffs because the warden kept them on the prisoner because the assistant was still causing trouble. If you were attentive to this fact, you'd simply get a new pair to stock up and be prepared. This doesn't always cross everyone's mind. Two visitors attack you next for no perceivable reason. You only have one pair of cuffs on hand and you're the only officer, the warden is still in the brig and can't come by the time you call for help. You stun one but the other guy shakes him up before you think you can cuff him. At this point you're at a 2-1 disadvantage and they're going to kick your ass with disarm RNG multiplied by two, this is something you are absolutely unlikely to stop whatsoever. If they play it poorly, yes, you can stun them both but you can only cuff one on the scene. The other guy will get up in the next 10-15 seconds and you can only transport one. Things would've been different if you had that second pair of cuffs, wouldn't it? It wouldn't have been ideal, but the situation would've been salvaged better. Conditions like these define the outcome of conflicts that happen. In a more lethal situation, it is generally not a good idea to go chasing after antagonists as they expect you to be coming anyway and will outrun you if they know how to play anyway. So there's no point wasting ammunition on someone who will run and get away anyway unless you have something that will have already dealt a death blow long before they're able to do anything about it. Sometimes chasing antagonists as security works, often it does not. It only generally works on antagonists that have poor decision-making and commit to poor odds to fight you because of their own issues clouding their judgement. If you're up against someone who knows what they're doing, you will only waste ammo and time chasing after them. You will get fatigued after awhile and at that point is when they have the ability to turn around and outplay you. Terrorists. assassins and tricksters functionally work this way across fictional mediums to give the good guys a hard time and wear them down. In SS13, your health is your most important resource. If you get hurt even in a small way it can seriously determine how badly it screws you up if you get hurt again. Counter-gank, the best strategy! Ah, staying two steps ahead of your opponent. Nothing makes a person angrier than having their plans already predicted and leading to an outplay that shuts them down. It is satisfying in its own way but you're not doing it for that purpose, you're doing it because it's your job and it's a relatively safe way to execute it if it works. Of all of the playstyles I've seen security played, the best HOS that ever lived happened to play on goonstation. He never directly tailed after the notoriously good antagonists, instead he was always where the antagonists would likely turn up and he would exploit their surprise and defied expectations in order to get the jump on them and do serious damage with a lot of resources on their hands. Antagonists are able to do this too if they have access to all of the comms channels, and this is something that makes those antag types especially dangerous. Exploiting information is very round-changing. You might generally ask how a HOS is supposed to expect where antagonists are going to be. On a roleplay server this is not a viable strategy until there are confirmed hostile antagonists on the station, so your character would not think this until the moment comes. Antags commonly target innocents. Atrocities are how they bait the crew into chasing after them and it's how they antagonize the crew. Typically, the crew try to be brave and get fucked up for it if the antagonists are any good at ending fights quickly. Antagonists are not mind readers (aside from changelings and wizards who have the capacity to inform each other or receive global information on the fly, respectfully, something you can't deal with so don't worry about it), they will not usually expect an armed security officer protecting civilians due to the abusive, validhunt-like reputation security officers have unless they see the officer before they make the decision to attack innocent crewmembers. Good antags can try to plan ahead but that issue is generally what causes their downfall, trying to predict what will happen when they typically cannot know what will happen due to the random nature of the game and how every round is often different. The best laid plans always go to ruin. If your character does happen to know an antagonist's plans, do something to help the crew stay one or two steps ahead of them to give them an advantage. If your character doesn't know, though, they don't know. Don't exploit OOC guesses for IC. If you're security, this is knowledge you should share subtly with the rest of security if you want to guarantee an elimination of a dangerous antagonist. Being Robust is also being a Good Roleplayer As a disclaimer. Don't make guesses unless the guess is reasonable. Hell, don't even guess, either. If you're doing guesswork you're taking larger risks in doing something related to round conditions you don't even know will happen. Don't be robust at the expense of metagaming. Be robust for when it makes sense. You're allowed to surrender in some situations or concede defeat if it makes sense. You're allowed to do anything as long as it makes good amounts of sense in the best interests of your character while remaining believable. The most you are permitted to do is be robust as what your character is reasonably good at. A character that is robust at more things than what they are supposed to specialize in is a very imbalanced character that disrupts gameflow more than it actually contributes. Remember to stay in your lane and that mechanical knowledge will actually pay off to an enjoyable experience. That being said... Being Robust is Generally Being Reactive Proactive playstyles are typically suited for antags and good players at SS13. I say the latter because good players know how to be proactive as a non-antagonist without metagaming/being a chucklefuck, and not everyone is capable of doing that, I struggle with doing this fairly often as a non-antagonist given the amount of times I doubt my judgement and my information. I can't do anything right without having good quality of both accounts. I also don't like ganking proactively either because I can't possibly anticipate how some players will react as everyone is different in how they respond to issues. Reactive playstyles are also good for antags but are mostly meant for non-antagonists. It's easy: You wait for reasons to act. It is not metagaming if antagonists show themselves as a threat openly. It is not metagaming to assume it's a good idea to put on a space suit when breaches start happening in areas nearby to you or when you anticipate it's going to happen based on visual context clues. Reactiveness tends to be very powerful as it allows you to escalate your own methods accordingly based on how the situation progresses, especially when you're already prepared for a bad situation and can appropriately respond to it in a skillful fashion. Being reactive is different for every person, as everyone escalates differently. This makes you tough to predict because you're not the one making the initial decisions, you're just responding appropriately. Note that perceptive individuals recognize patterns and routines very quickly, and can exploit the predictability in some people's responses to issues. Keep expectations low but be reasonably prepared for anything is the general motto. end This largely only covered combat, you say, this entire thing shouldn't be done right then and here, you say. I've written what needs to be written. A lot of these philosophical concepts about combat can be carried over to make the other jobs efficient and enjoyable to play. I can't spoonfeed specifics about that, it would take away the trial-and-error learning process in actually using mechanics to succeed. The only thing I expanded on was how to make gameplay/roleplay strategies more effective. I can answer questions because I can't cover everything in a single post.
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[1 dismissal] Corporate punishment system reworked
Scheveningen replied to MO_oNyMan's topic in Rejected Policy
Actually true, I said charges don't stack multiplicatively, if you cared to read the context appropriately. I'm fully aware of the ability to adjust the range of a timed sentence based on severity, but again, a single charge of theft can never be charged above the maximum time that can be inflicted for theft. Double jeopardy is also not allowed for a single case, to charge someone with theft twice in one brig sentence they must've done it twice in two separate instances before being caught. I.e., steals cargo's shipments, steals cash on the bar counter and makes a run for it, that's two separate cases of theft but they do not stack multiplicatively, they stack additively like all charges do. -
Malf AI is very weak in its current state without borgs. Even with borgs it's still quite vulnerable given how slow malf research is.
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It should just crush your foot and instantly break it instead. That would be the ultimate inconvenience anyone could inflict on an individual.
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[1 dismissal] Corporate punishment system reworked
Scheveningen replied to MO_oNyMan's topic in Rejected Policy
Repeat charges don't stack multiplicatively, so you can never be permaed for one case of theft each time you're released, you're sentenced the same amount of time over and over again. "Again, HRP" is not an argument for removing a system without adequately replacing it with something of proper substance to justify removing it. -
[1 dismissal] Corporate punishment system reworked
Scheveningen replied to MO_oNyMan's topic in Rejected Policy
You'd be right, still doesn't stop playstyles from being played because no one wants their character to die. Surviving for some people is a "win condition". So people like to take extra measures to not die, such as taking threatening antags out of the round in order to suit this purpose. Whether it's permabrigging or not, it still works. You're still suggesting to remove a critical medium that determines one of many vital parts of security's gameflow and it keeps the warden occupied. Sitting at a computer or inside the armory doing inventory for the rest of the round is not a process that is enjoyable, considering I recently picked it up to play a bit regularly and the only entertaining aspect of it is the processing+brigging procedure. Every other part of it is either done in 5-10 minutes or it's just sitting around because the warden is never meant to leave the brig or act like a turbo-officer. The warden does not have other things to be doing on code green/blue otherwise. You're suggesting to remove a fundamental part of the game and I completely disagree with it. I don't care if you did some asinine and the charges are also asinine, you tough it out and wait out the sentence. It's consequence for doing a crime. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. It is that simple. It is not fun to have to repeatedly fine, catch, demote and release the same idiots over and over again only for them to do the same things again when they get out. The brig is designed to waste the time of unrobust griefers and also punish individuals who commit high-profile crimes and get caught doing it. Maybe fun for the guy getting released constantly because of easily abusable regulations because someone decided it was a good idea to remove brig sentences. Ends up being a waste of time for security officers. Would rather resort to lasering people to death rather than going through the effort to catch and release crewmembers like it's cat and mouse only for the system to be extremely ineffective. More often than not if you're spending 30-40 minutes of the round locked up in a cell, you probably deserve it. Other people spend substantially way less time in a brig cell because they know it's stupid to waste their playtime dicking around with security. The system works as intended and it works excellently. I fail to see how removing mechanics that add consequence to committing crimes will help security in the slightest. -
[1 dismissal] Corporate punishment system reworked
Scheveningen replied to MO_oNyMan's topic in Rejected Policy
You know traditionally speaking, security was created way back in the old days when Goon was the predominant server to deal with self-antags and the like and admins only stepped in for especially shit individuals instead of one-trick criminal ponies, yeah? Security functions as an excellent way to not only make gameplay interesting for more than one party than the person causing trouble, but also cuts out unnecessary admin intervention from the game. Literally nothing is more unenjoyable than having to freeze a scene for 20 minutes because an admin is talking to someone over either a roleplay nuance or perceived grief. I would rather sit in a prison cell and find other things to do than be forced to do nothing and wait because of admin intervention, and inevitably lose interest in the round because admin intervention managed to break roleplay flow for a long period of time. Enter security, whose job is to deal with this shit ICly unless the individual is spamming or otherwise being an excellently terrible individual OOCly. Removing the teeth from security will have nothing other than a profound negative effect on gameflow. Go ahead and try this little experiment with your own pet server or something because all of the communities have tried declawing sec before only for it to have a very negative effect on gameplay and antag interaction. Shocking, I know, having played for almost four years it's like I know what works and what doesn't compared to a much newer player who somehow thinks they know better and know what's best for a roleplay server. I couldn't tell you what's best for the server, really, but it's a great thing you're not on lead design or something. Sec would have more reason to HuT people they felt were "dangerous" rather than following guidelines to at the very least avoid immediately locking them up unless they're committing terrorism as a first crime. Revs and cultists would suffer these effects majorly, given the initial build-up in identifying both are usually smaller crimes escalating to larger ones as the round goes on, sec would be forced to play it more paranoid and safe versus these antagonists rather than just following the established guidelines they have now. You really need to think this out better. Do you even play security, or are you one of those dudes who snapped their headsets off their head because they accumulated a ton of charges for being uncooperative every step of the way with a minor issue with a security officer? These are profoundly bad ideas that I'm at a loss for words to really emphasize how much of an issue it is that these ideas are being pushed. -
There are few jackets that do this.
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[1 dismissal] Corporate punishment system reworked
Scheveningen replied to MO_oNyMan's topic in Rejected Policy
You're really not thinking straight. Lemme point out how. You've changed nothing in security procedure besides remove the brig from the equation, and that is all this suggestion sums up to. Which is a poor idea, because brigging suits multiple purposes. 1. It keeps people locked up for the duration of their sentence and unable to do any damage outside of the vicinity of the brig. 2. It allows for certain problem players to calm down in a contained cell after a heated arrest. 3. There's a sense of actual consequence in the form of deterrance so that players avoid drawing the ire of security in the first place so as to avoid a very boring brig sentence with either a short to a lengthy timer, which would otherwise waste a fair deal of their time due to how processing and brig discharge goes. Removing this would not help things. It would remove any sense of consequence for committing anywhere between a low to medium severity crime as a non-antagonist, or an antagonist, really, if they know they'll get away with it by paying a fine from their account that gets refreshed at the start of every round anyway. Some characters also start with a very healthy sum of credits in their account. Terminations and demotions both do the same thing in terms of gameplay anyway. Only CCIAA (or the person playing the character themselves) holds the authority to perma-kill/fire characters. So good luck to anyone who wishes to canonize terminations outside of CCIAA doing it themselves, this otherwise won't mean much. No, it isn't. The brig system operates very similarly as to how naval ships function while abroad. If someone commits a crime on-board, they get locked up for a determinant amount of time and issued any other added consequences based on the infraction they committed. As soon as the ship's crew returns from abroad to their HQ, any brig offenders that had to be held until transfer to HQ are then handed over to MPs for a court martial or to be tried in a non-military court if the offender happens to be civilian personnel. The MPs will not simply let you go when you decide to spray-paint a lieutenant's Blackhawk with a flames and skulls color design without his express permission, they will lock you up either for a determinant amount of time or when a superior officer investigates and makes a decision himself as to what to do with you. This is not a problem. This is an obstacle the warden must overcome by being attentive to brig timers and ensuring the communal access is secured by the time the original detainee. AKA doing their job properly. Removing features just because you think it'd make it easier is neither proper game balance or is it a good thought process to have. It reflects a lazy mindset to want substance removed from a job because it has challenges to it. This is already a thing anyway. Where do you think HuT individuals get handed off to for committing high crimes? If they are Biesel citizens, they have to be handled locally. If they aren't, the matter gets worse when they commit crimes in-sector as an expatriate. It does serve a purpose. If you do not wish to have your time wasted as a non-antagonist, don't commit crimes, that is by-and-large the secondary purpose of security, to shut down self-antags and police the crew's behavior. Removing this doesn't help antagonists, it helps the non-tasteful self-antagonists more and don't even say this should be a responsibility for server administration to police, because that is security's job. Antagonists are required to antagonize as part of their special function to make the round interesting, and in order for them to more effectively do that they need to play in a way that ensures they don't get caught and brigged if they wish to continue antagonizing. Antags need to be smarter than security and also more robust than all of security combined, and there are ways to do this and stay out of the brig. Tasteful self-antagonists can also do the same and neither get caught or even talked to by an admin if what they are doing makes sense in terms of escalation, but obviously to a level much less extreme than what antagonists are permitted to do. Oh, no, every system surely has its flaws and downfalls but nothing is interesting without a little consequence to the game. But, no, the solution is obviously for you to stop posting because you have no idea what you're talking about. Ideally while also hypothetically if I had an issue with someone who still stuck around to be the rot of the game while playing security, I would reapply to be staff just so I could have them permabanned from the server, considering it's an issue with an individual and not necessarily something that needs to affect the entire department's playstyle, you know. -
[Resolved] Character Complaint - Luxo Khazarazir
Scheveningen replied to Ornias's topic in Complaints Boards Archive
I am reading. You are being obtuse on purpose. Good day. -
[Resolved] Character Complaint - Luxo Khazarazir
Scheveningen replied to Ornias's topic in Complaints Boards Archive
Why didn't you report it to CCIAA rather than raising a conniption about it? Further, what's the excuse of these two decisions? Are you trying to play IAA like IAA is intended to be played, or are you playing IAA just to pretend that you have any authority over security? Just because IAA requires a command whitelist doesn't make you command. You are an oversight official that should report any infractions. -
[Resolved] Character Complaint - Luxo Khazarazir
Scheveningen replied to Ornias's topic in Complaints Boards Archive
Mutiny is also considered disobeying an order to the point where the disobedience is subversive of any form of discipline, impeding the performance of command staff by intentionally being uncooperative also may fall under this. This is also amazing, because it displays that you apparently got offended by a statement that would barely constitute as remotely insulting. And you blocked someone for this, lol. Your hubris seems to be overwhelming indeed if you take offense to such small statements as these. I did not think you would be the individual to act as fragile as this over very mild criticism. No, you blocked the byond conversation because you got insulted by the otherwise harmless and appropriate statement of "conduct unbecoming of an IAA", which you literally said was why you got offended. You should also take a moment to scroll up the page to see the subforum rules and perhaps also recall that involvement is only required in regards to staff complaints. Garnascus has said before that he rarely invokes that rule to begin with because it is very rare that I bring something up in a complaint that holds zero substance. Of course, knowing you and your behavior displayed in this thread, it's very rare that you intentionally go out of your way to find value in criticisms of you considering how you blocked someone for saying you displayed conduct unbecoming of an IAA, a statement that should barely graze your ego yet somehow dealt enough of a blow that you needed to block all communications from that player. -
[Resolved] Character Complaint - Luxo Khazarazir
Scheveningen replied to Ornias's topic in Complaints Boards Archive
Xander's correct on that, the captain remains to be the ultimate authority on the station until a figure from Central Command boards the station. This includes ERT, who take operational control for the duration of the emergency, as an irrelevant example. Unless the captain is ordering you to commit a medium-level/high-level severity infraction explicitly-speaking, there is zero reason to be disobeying an order from the captain. If you do disobey because it violates a serious regulation, that's fine, but you can still be punished for disobeying orders in the short term until someone comes around to review the situation and punish the captain for breaking regulations and abusing their authority. It is not ideal for an IAA to suggest mutiny is a good option. Wanting to arrest a command staff member without going through the appropriate approval channels of Central Command is mutiny. This is extremely childish to be doing. If the admins wish to be seeking to inflict consequences for what happened in this situation, this is a very good reason to be doing so. Regardless of whether you like a person's opinion or not, blocking someone who is attempting to seek common ground with you and gather context for what happened is a gross example of someone being unable to hear any other opinion than their own. Considering Munks' past reputation as a toxic player with a multitude of instances of bad security play, I would say I'm surprised nothing has changed, but I'm really not. Munks' responses and tone in this thread is more reminiscent of an angsty teenager rather than the reasonable adult he's supposed to be or at least act like. His friend Kaedwuff has made matters worse by adopting the same childish accusatory tone with snark-laden vocabulary choice, also fulfilling the same conditions that one would consider baiting or trolling. You both should probably get the stick out of your bum for a second and maybe consider that it is not about being right or wrong but morein considering what you could be doing better, because I'm pretty sure that's all anyone cares about here. Improvement of playstyles to make future situations better. -
[1 dismissal] Corporate punishment system reworked
Scheveningen replied to MO_oNyMan's topic in Rejected Policy
The round-based nature of the game makes this suggestion too untenable to put into practice, I'm not surprised Sue is interested in having more people held for transfer rather than not, I had honestly thought they had fucked off to Polaris for good. That's not fun whatsoever for anyone being brigged by a certain someone who takes pleasure in seeing other people upset and abusing their authority because of a power fantasy. Brigging for low severity to medium severity infractions are intended to rehabilitate and then release. Security needs to do a good job of actually explaining as to what the criminal did was wrong before releasing them. The accepted standard should not to be seek reasons to HuT people for the entire remainder of the round because you're looking for an excuse to charge them with a crime against the Republic of Biesel. -
Retro darkwave music is the only way to get into an SS13 mood.
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Community Discussion: Multiple jobs - Job hopping - Realism vs Gameplay
Scheveningen replied to Faris's topic in General
Much as I enjoy the back and forth of paragraphs, regular characters that are played in their dedicated role are arguably more interesting than job-hopped characters, considering there's more room for character development with just maybe 3 different characters played in 3 rounds compared to just 1 character back to back to back. You don't come to work as a visitor to work. You come to visit and enjoy the NT facilities. Chair RP role, primarily, but great for chilling out in the same respect and having zero responsibility. Kitchen volunteers shouldn't be done without there being a vacancy in the kitchen, obviously. The moment a real cook steps in they need to step down, hobby or not. Visitors shouldn't be expecting a whole lot from a role that isn't on the clock to begin with. Here's how I feel currently. Unopposed: Taking a jobs within the department, assuming you are qualified. Detective to Officer. Chef to Bartender. Cargo Tech and Miner. Strongly Opposed: Taking jobs with significant pay-gaps. Head of Security to Bartender. Warden to Cargo Technician. Unopposed with special exceptions:* Taking jobs across departments due to qualifications. Surgeon to Xenobiologist. Officer to Paramedic. *Surgeon/xenobiologist split makes sense due to the presence of anatomy effectively becoming a required xenoanatomy course in addition to the standard anatomy academia, since surgeons end up being in the chests of other species. Officer/paramedic split also explained earlier in the thread as well. Miner/engineer is touchy but could potentially work out if the miner happens to be a drill tech that handles engineering(ish) specifications of mining and happens to be familiar with engineering nuances as a result of it. Others require justifiable relation to one another to even work out in terms of relevance. -
Interesting. I hope someone told them that they peak in their Unathi equivalent of their late 20s. This seems eerily similar to what that Siddhārtha Gautama guy posited. 'Local chicken bone touched by wayward spirit, village collapsed simultaneously upon realization.' Furthermore, if you get in their way, they will run you over in the afterlife. Suddenly I'm not quite liking where this may go. Why do I always get these bad feelings two seconds before they actually become a real issue. That aside, this already doesn't bode well for the mold initially set as part of the Unathi narrative junctions. Machines are completely soulless. They are nothing, it is worse than a Sinta losing a part of themselves and becoming naught but a hollow dead husk drained of what life they had left in them. Machines that can think but cannot express themselves through the metaphorical heart are destined only for an amoral and almost deadened existence, that is the Unathi dogma that is pushed and overall believed. And maybe they're right. A soulless being is to be feared. It possesses nothing that can be celebrated. The more you succumb to the idea that the flesh has become weak, the less you allow the flesh to influence you to simply "just be." At what cost does it come to a Sinta not only to lose a part of their body but have it be replaced by some craven machine limb? It is unthinkable, a corruption of the body. Nothing is scarier to a Sinta than being approached by someone they believe they know, only for that fellow Sinta to be an impostor. A soul-less machine husk that walks, talks and pretends like it is a Sinta, and damn well makes a good impression of it. Worse, the idea that a shell just replaced one of their closest clan brothers or sisters, and that it could happen not only again but on a wider scale. If the Unathi ever used the term "heresy" often, this would be one of the times they would use it. Sinta are irrevocably stubborn, this is their nature. Their stubbornness has proven both to be a strength and a fault but has served them better as a strength. It seems very unlikely any Sinta would be so accepting of synthetics considering how they are a bastardization of life. It could be compared to a dark sorcery but most Sinta know better, yet still cannot help but fear and hate the synthetic. Perhaps largely out of not understanding, and also out of an unhealthy dose of bigotry, but the Sinta have believed for awhile that synthetics present a very clear threat to biological life (mostly just Unathi) and are extremely cautious if not hostile towards synthetics. I'm fairly certain the Marziites and other Hegemony officials would have these fellows brought to the desert to have their heads dunked straight into the sand dunes for engaging in wrongthink. There is a very marginal amount of ethics divergence in Unathi society. The intention of some of -- rather, most if not all -- of these changes seem to be inching towards an ethos that the Unathi themselves would not adopt to the point of it becoming a minority yet still significant religion. The Sinta are heavy-rooted in tradition, and traditional values are what create unity and strength among their people. They look down on extreme progressive changes, especially if it undercuts cultural values. I will not go over the second attempt I've seen of trying to make sexual expression inflated above other character priorities. You already know my opinion on this.
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Community Discussion: Multiple jobs - Job hopping - Realism vs Gameplay
Scheveningen replied to Faris's topic in General
Putting focus on discrediting their stance by showing the faults not only in their personal logic but also in the method they conduct things is not ad hominem. Possessing very few characters shows a lack of desire to branch out to more unfamiliar character concepts, true or not true? A lack of variation in differing personality between characters shows a lack of distinct individuality from one another, the only difference inevitably being cosmetic appearance, right or not? All too often, people cry (as in, not bawling their tears out, and rather in the sense of how it is used in the term 'outcry') "ad hominem" when their debate opponent says something mean-spirited or too frank while still failing to see the opposing arguments so as to avoid addressing the main points argued. Ad hominem by its definition is too easy to abuse modern-day given the nature of how outrage culture works and how easy it is to claim offense in a debate. While strange, it is ever so fascinating how most people who cry ad hominem, unlike most people, are unable to brush off "potentially offensive" comments because they care too much about ad hominem attacks in the first place, especially on the behalf of others. It's toxic rhetoric, so whatever. I'm lacking necessary context to properly argue this individual case with you. You didn't happen to say what job your character was and what two jobs they hop between. Hopping between some service department jobs isn't necessarily unreasonable as a culinary/botanical dual-schooling wouldn't be a terrible thought. Cross-class specialties that have little to zero relation (such as the distinction between engineering and medical, or cargo and security, or research and non-RD command) would generally be pushing the envelope. Skrell have an amount of leeway on other characters (save for IPCs, but IPCs get a bit of an exception) given the virtue of being able to be almost a hundred years older than humans, not to mention a different culture of vocational or academic studies to get where they need to be apart from humans. IPCs also get this leeway by simply sticking the equivalent USB-sized stick into a bot before the start of the shift and they specialize in a few useful things relevant to their job to a degree that surpasses humanoid capability on another virtue of being a synthetic. These are some particular exceptions. TL;DR on this note, Skrell can learn more things on a broader scale (or a deeper scale, whichever works as long as it's reasonable) whereas IPCs function from an advanced to an expert or even a master level for some tasks related to their field. If they aren't in security, however, the reasonable expectation is that they have no combat programming whatsoever so as to keep them fair and balanced so as to not automagically summon Advanced Krav Maga in a tight spot. Humanoids (Humans, Tajarans, Unathi) that don't include Skrell are largely the subject of this discussion given they have no particular distinctions when it comes to skill/knowledge retention nuance. This is largely what the subject is about. The species with knowledge retention limitations must keep those limitations because a balanced degree of competence is what makes interesting characters. Characters work like the inverse of finding value in diamonds, less flaws often means less inherent value as a character. It is important to give characters their flaws in addition to their strengths, otherwise they're faultless Mary Sues and subject to bad character design. This is where I must disagree again. What is the point of hiring a paid bartender if there are individuals who are willing forego their contract to essentially perform free labor for the station? I would say this is a kind of power creep, but it's difficult to find a proper term for it. It's certainly not as terrible as job-hopping, but the purpose inevitably remains the same and presents the same issue. The individual still drives to do the job they are technically not primarily employed for to begin with, when they are off the job, especially. My characters have hobbies too. I have hobbies other than SS13. I do them at home. I like cooking, so I cook at home. My characters also can cook, but they cook at home. I used to work at a bar and grill, I was effectively a shift manager. If I was Off the Job I was NEVER meant to be cooking anything, because that would bear the risk of cross-contamination which even with my rank in the chain of command would still get me potentially fired if the owner saw me doing that. Following kitchen procedure was more important than risking my job -- or worse, a contamination risk, because I enjoyed making smoked ham-grilled cheese sandwiches. It didn't matter if I liked to cook. If I wasn't on the clock meant to be cooking, I was not to be cooking at all. Every single food service establishment has this policy. I really don't see why this should be any different. More like a complete scam if you ask me. Even full-time soup kitchen staff get paid. No sane being would ever do this. -
It's generally smart to set-up macros for the left side of your keyboard if you use WASD mode as it allows for speedier usages of them. Ctrl-1/2/3/4 work pretty well, as do Alt-1/2/3/4 and etc. This contains everything you need so it's easily keyed up in a reasonable fashion rather than having to dance your fingers across the keyboard just to Toggle-Lock or Rotate-Chair, for instance. You can also do fun things with .click.
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Community Discussion: Multiple jobs - Job hopping - Realism vs Gameplay
Scheveningen replied to Faris's topic in General
You are giving your posts far too much credit, alexpkeaton, and you're out of line in what is reasonable in a discussion right now. You think I'm trolling, I am not, if anything you're trolling for an over-reaction over a very simple issue. It sucks you can't learn to take "no" for an answer but you don't need to resort to calling the opposition in an argument a troll because you don't like what they have to say. You don't have to post in response if you don't like what someone else has to say, nor should you have such hubris to think that my post alone somehow devalues your opinion (and somehow also derails the entire discussion, because you're the apparent authority on what the discussion direction should be) because I brought up things that you didn't even take the time to try and either address or discredit, it's pretty darn childish of you to act that way. You should really stop looking for reasons to clash with me, it's pointless and doesn't do this topic any justice with your meandering about. Visitors should not be expecting to board the station to immediately seek a "hobby" in the form of a task that other employees are paid to do. It is ridiculous to expect that a "hobby" should extend so far as to be doing what another person does for a living. Visitors have a multitude of other things they could be doing if they're bored. Working in the kitchen/bar as a "hobby" is far stretching what they are able to do. When you are a visitor you are not an active employee. Assistants are entirely different. Visitors can use the general garden to do whatever they want but they shouldn't ask for botany access to help the kitchen (and thus intruding on someone else's job even in the absence of a botanist), that's a little bit ridiculous to assert the opposite. So you're effectively saying that it should be the HoP's discretion who gains access to the kitchen or the bar regardless of the issue involving giving visitors access to do jobs that other people are paid for, your words entirely. Contrast with this in what you said one sentence earlier and there's already mixed signals going on. So, whatever, really, I see you don't really care for the visitor policy and would rather do away with it given your tone in how you addressed the visitor policy earlier, this is not very surprising. There's clearly an issue of consistency going on, which is something I pointed out in an earlier paragraph I wrote out which apparently went ignored considering how you managed to cause this consistency error in sentence structuring, and also evident in the very thing I was arguing against which was a position adamantly against job-hopping or "hobby-hopping", a cute term I will now coin for the sake of it because this has certainly turned into a discussion to remember. Which was in my post if you had actually gone back to read it rather than skimming for low-hanging fruit to attack. -
Community Discussion: Multiple jobs - Job hopping - Realism vs Gameplay
Scheveningen replied to Faris's topic in General
I am not derailing the discussion. I am asking a very simple question that holds a lot of relevance to the current issue here. If that should be the standard for command, why isn't it the standard for other jobs as well? Perhaps this is a difficulty in my understanding that this issue is overblown and none of the characters that could stand to be guilty of job-hopping are really creating that much of an issue in roleplay continuity on the server. Or maybe it isn't, because it's not quite immersive nor enabling of an entertaining heavy emphasis on roleplay to see crewmembers jumping from job to job like they're a swiss army knife with too many "hobbies" that are apparently, so burning in passion that they seem to overquality for the job that other characters have been created in a dedicated purpose for that job. Seeing someone in their "off-role" job is rarely fun because it means that because they've had their main job taken they have to resort to taking a low-responsibility job that is most likely someone else's main role. That's not quite fun, is it? I wonder why they don't just... create another character or something to suit the role. New personality. Something fresh and beyond the usual that they'd expect from their other characters. But I imagine this is an alien concept to this thread's few detractors, who have wholeheartedly admitted they do not play more than a few characters, which already says platitudes. Do we really need to cater to that? Roleplay communities were forged on desires for creativity. It would be unfortunate if we had to find middle ground for individuals who find it difficult to do the one thing that makes a roleplayer any good: and that's to be flexible. If you can't be flexible, you'll get left behind. This distinction rapidly becomes a bit different when it comes to something that is most certainly realistic/believable or whatever rhetoric seems popular on the forum these days, because a cop (aware of the distinction between a cop and a security officer, I know) can certainly become trained to be a medical EMS to be on-call when they're not clocked in for their primary employment. Stuff like that is not unreasonable and I would consider it one of the very few cross-class examples I can think of that would be justifiable. Anything else is completely outlandish. Additionally, security officer and paramedic are within the same paygrade. So that's a reasonable exception if anything and not the rule. Yes, I entirely understand why someone would be upset that they are no longer able to play the two (quite differentiating) jobs they enjoy the most on one character. To which I'll have to say, well, that's tough, but I sympathize. There are a lot of things you lose out on and won't be able to get back, I personally see them as opportunities to try something new if I haven't done it before and it seems reasonable to try and execute on my own. Oh! But, I'm sure other people don't find it that easy as I do to make characters and etc. I mean, I can't really fathom as to how it's that difficult, considering character creation should be done on at least a blank slate to test out if the aesthetic of your character is what you want before you invest a lot of time in thinking on what their background is only to never play them again due to lack of interest or just far too much attachment for your original characters to want to play anything else. Which is unhealthy already in regards to the latter, I should add. But character creation is not difficult. But you must start fresh and flesh out from there. Ideas come to you in the midst of the round, which you will inevitably remember later to add to your slate slowly gathering content upon it. It's a writer's tool to get out of the infamous writer's block. There's like, what, 30 character slots? I do have a character at least for every department, at most for any job I'm interested in playing if my main roles aren't currently available. At least new players get a free pass of Kindness and Understanding because they aren't mindreaders that will automatically intake the RP nuances and ruleset of this server into their brains to immediately understand it. Regulars hardly get a pass for this, this wasn't even an issue a long time ago. If your job was taken you just went assistant/visitor (we didn't have visitor some time ago so assistant used to just be the meta-accepted off-duty role until visitor was introduced with the Bay update) and chair RP'd. Or you just made a new character, joined as some other role and chilled out for a bit with a new character concept. Or had something on reservation to pop out. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time, job-hopping was so infrequent excluding some problem players who got banned to hell and back. Beyond that, I can't really see why you'd do much job-hopping across departments. Internally inside a department is one thing as long as your character has the academic credit for it, and it's within line of staying in paygrade. Jumping up and down the paygrade in incrementally ridiculous amounts because "hobbies" does not make a reasonable argument whatsoever. Tossed into the bin where it belongs. -
[+1 dismissal]Give Security Adequate Hearing Protection.
Scheveningen replied to Rushodan's topic in Archive
Because they suck and wouldn't be reasonably used even to stop the concussion part of it because it cripples your ability to hear entirely. If people wanted to entertain the idea of bowman headsets, the tradeoff could be that you could only hear your radio. -
Community Discussion: Multiple jobs - Job hopping - Realism vs Gameplay
Scheveningen replied to Faris's topic in General
Sure they are hobbies, in addition to being careers. I made the distinction in my post. Some people enjoy mixing drinks or making food but don’t get paid to do it. That’s called a hobby. Some people get paid to do those things. That’s called employment. Would you care to explain how it makes any sense for a command staff member to make such a large jump in paygrade when taking other jobs aboard the station, then? I have yet to see the issue addressed, unlike the other talking point which sums to "people can have hobbies", which does not quite contribute to the discussion in any meaningful fashion aside from stating it simply for nuance.