MattAtlas

Yes, the point is that each of those cyborgs does the humans' job but better, without their limitations on knowledge.

Voting for dismissal. Not really needed or wanted -- the term is clear as is. You are always contesting a decision (thus making a complaint about it). Anything else is semantics. Also, moving this to the appropriate subforum, which is policy suggestions.

I like this conceptually but putting them in medsci takes away their biggest representation, which is Heph. Not sure how we can fix that.

People play certain depts (engineering, medical) for a mix of gameplay and roleplay. If someone who is faster and more efficient than you is constantly taking your job, how is that not stealing? Your argument would work if a borg could only do specific things. That's not the case -- a borg does everything and anything in a department, better than you, faster than you, with less limitations, less gameplay issues, no access issues and no roleplay requirements. Nevermind that there is more than enough free time in a round for both medical and engineering for them to not really want even more.

My opinion on the matter is that I think borgs and maintenance drones are problematic because they're the remnant of a really, really ancient design philosophy. What I mean by this is that borgs were created for the LRP/MRP round cycle from a long time ago: very little player courtesy, player speeds were all the same (borgs were slower!), no roleplay was required or expected, and people were essentially walking toolbelts with a name. It's really obvious that a cyborg is just that when you look at it: it has a set of tools, it can't pick up anything that it isn't explicitly allowed to, it doesn't interact with most game mechanics (no organs, no antag interactions beyond emagging which never happens anyway, ...), it doesn't have any lore beyond "You are a posibrain made to serve", it has to follow a stringent lawset in order to balance it, so on and so forth. Expectations never increased for cyborgs the way they did for human characters. We expect characters to take the time out of their round and roleplay, take things with a certain degree of slowness (engineers have several more caution steps to take than a cyborg in order to do most tasks: welding goggles, insulated gloves, hacking into places, going generally slower, ...). Cyborgs are required to do none of those things and are pretty much capable of handling almost* entire departments on their own, while being practically able to go the whole round without speaking to anybody. Maintenance drones suffer the same issues but even worse: they straight up cannot roleplay. And to everyone saying that playing a background character is fine: there is a difference between playing a normal background character, and a background character with inbuilt buffs that exists purely to steal your job, as it cannot have meaningful gameplay interactions or even offtime. Some will bring up exceptions but they do not unmake a rule. This all a bit problematic because stealing gameplay from others *is* a real, tangible issue. It has repercussions on the medical and engineering gameplay loop. The only real solution is removal, purely because there is no developer or administrative will for a rework and there will never really be. This kind of shows how much people are actually invested in borgs, which is little to nothing -- they have never received any real updates (despite having severe and obvious issues) beyond power creeping here and there or some variable changes. The same can't be said of any other department or species.

Voting for dismissal. I don't want to legitimize backseating as an uninvolved character. If you want to command, play Command and bear the responsibility - no in-betweens.

Unbanned.

This discussion came up a bit ago in staff chat and I will be implementing a hard number of minimum of rounds played for the command whitelist.

Fact of the matter is, security cyborgs incite players to act in an extremely validhunty way for several reasons, chief among them the fact that they're lawed to defend crew/the ship. The same problems would happen, regardless of whether or not the playerbase has matured, simply because the role itself makes the players act a certain way. That's also without speaking about the balance issues of having a robot that feels no pain and no fear barrelling at you with a taser and handcuffs, and additionally the fact that we don't want 2 extra security officers. Voting for dismissal.

You should be able to join now. If not, get back to me.

Accepted.

Accepted.

How would you keep one captain for each event? Not everyone can always attend events (timeslots for the event itself can vary, discounting possible emergencies or extra work for the player in question), and even not counting that, would you really want us to go down the route of bwoinking captain players to not roll for this event "because we already picked a captain"? What the crew did was unplanned, but that doesn't mean it was wrong. It was an outcome like all the others -- we can't predict every single scenario, nor would anyone at the time have reasonably predicted that the crew would betray both factions. This paints an unnecessarily (and frankly, is actually a lie) hostile picture of events. You are trying to create a problem where there is none. Characters were not railroaded and the fact that we cooperated with their choice means that they always had agency in the matter. Again you are trying to imply that things were railroaded -- they were not. All characters in the events were written as characters that do certain things because of how they are. Prideful solarians (especially an admiral) being unwilling to retreat isn't rigidity, it's the lore team playing a character. It isn't reasonable at all for us to select a team of five people and have them show up literally for every single event while blocking others from participating. It'd be railroading in the opposite direction and completely unfair. They knew the extortion that was happening as we made it very, very clear to them that what we were demanding was the result of the sum of what happened beforehand. Dennis Linton and Kei Nakai are not command characters yet changed much more in the arc than quite literally all Command players put together in the grand scheme of things. The FSF is not a unitary, centralized faction, it's an umbrella term for a lot of mercenary fleets. The FSF wouldn't care because there's no centralized government or anything. It's just what a random fleet is doing. If anything the Caravaggio itself might care. The Horizon didn't get looted, mind you, it stole phoron stores which were then demanded back by the Caravaggio. As for why it isn't using its own fleets to escort the Horizon, how does a narrative become better with a mcguffin that solves all issues and doesn't allow any sort of standoff or hostile confrontation? The simple answer is that it doesn't and the Horizon being alone is one of the few reasons that it provides a unique dynamic -- characters can't just go "oh the Icarus will save us!" and fuck off to their rooms to brood over the mutiny happening upstairs. It being alone is why characters are forced to take action and this is not something that can be given up.

How is it distracting? The planets have nothing to do with the arc and don't tie into them. Planets are also not that large and generally only require 30-40 minutes of reading. Nor are you obligated to read a planet when it immediately gets released.

Planets are released as they are made/reviewed and arcs don't matter for their release -- both of these planets have nothing to do with this arc. I don't see why they would either.

THE SOLARIAN PROVISIONAL COUNCIL ANNOUNCES THE EVENTUAL RETURN OF CIVILIAN CONTROL OVER THE MILITARY Article 4 of the Amor Patriae Prologue This live coverage of today's press conference by the Ministry of Defence is brought to you by the Sol Alliance News Network. Admiral Courtois makes his way to the Unity Station senate podium with two other flag officers behind him. He puts a fancy-looking binder down on the podium, with senators Hendrik Strom and Le Hanh Trang taking their positions next to the two flag poles on each side of the backdrop. This time, the room is packed with functionaries, senators, governors and representatives – practically all of Sol’s important figures are here. “In these times of uncertainty and turmoil, it’s important for our government to remain stable and be granted enough powers to see through the required radical reforms we need,” the Admiral begins, “The Industrial Reclamation Mandate was the most important of these reforms, but only a stepping stone along the way. Overtime, the government has worked to stabilise our situation, and we are now comfortable with taking steps to pave the way for the future of the Alliance.” “Today is the day we take the first of those steps. In collaboration with the senators Le Hanh Trang – who has spearheaded this project – and Hendrik Strom, we will take the first steps towards the return of the civilian government to our great nation. I’m joined by these two great politicians –” the Admiral gestures to Strom and Trang with a smile, “-- to sign into law a provision declaring that from the next legislature and forwards, the position of the Ministry of Defence, and thus control over the military branch, must exclusively be held by a civilian.” Most of the attending crowd claps at this announcement, with many standing up too. Trang and Strom also join in the clapping, looking happier than they usually do in their fiery speeches. “This agreement between the admiralty and the government has been in the making since the Industrial Reclamation Mandate, but has progressively stalled due to influence by corrupt Front sympathisers and other such traitors. We have finally agreed on the terms yesterday, and we have brought the paper here to be signed, in front of all citizens of the Alliance, for them to see that change is here. The military must not be allowed to control the nation for its whims and purposes: this simple truth was lost to us since the Interstellar War, but now that the so-called Collapse has shown us the frailty of this flawed system, it’s time to make some change. Change that will restore the people’s faith in the military, and change that will help prevent corruption at the highest level in the future.” Courtois steps back to give the podium to Trang, taking her place in the back as she prepares her own speech. “The Solarian Provisional Council has, as most of you know, been here for nearly two years, now. Two years that the Solarian people have had to endure without a democratically elected government. My friend Strom and I may have stepped up to the plate, but this situation cannot last more than it has to. No temporary measure must turn into a permanent one! And this is our first step towards embracing that commitment. Our first step that I am glad to be part of, and glad to have had the pleasure of committing my time to.” Most of the chamber applauds once again as Trang takes a pen on the podium and signs the bill. She steps aside and Strom makes his way forward. “As my colleague here said, we are well on the path to becoming whole again. There are still reforms required, of course, as Courtois here will remind you…” Strom lets out a short chuckle, “But, we must show you – the Solarian people – that we do not intend to govern by decree more than necessary. And this is our proof to the Solarian people, along with the promise of an elected legislature in the near future, that these times of rule by decree are coming to their end. Long live the Solarian Alliance!” The crowd claps with some cheers as Strom signs the bill as well, with photographers taking an extremely high amount of photos of this sensational moment. Thirty more minutes of questions being taken by Courtois follow as Strom and Trang reinforce their confidence in the Admiral, letting him answer most of the technical details while they give responses about the political side. Answers regarding the ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘where’ of the new elections are vague at best, and both Trang and Strom make it clear that time is still needed. The camera then cuts to Céline Eylenbosch standing in the hall outside of the Senate chamber, looking exhausted from asking a significant amount of questions, by the looks (and facts, if the viewer watched the entire question segment). “What a day it is today, viewers! We have just gotten our first confirmation that the Provisional Council really is just provisional after all! Most of us are glad to know that the government is taking these steps, for a change, instead of working in the shadows as they usually do… and what’s more surprising is their resolute endorsement of the new Minister! Many of you lodged doubts in our comments sections, and we are curious to hear if today’s announcement changes your mind, even a little! This was Céline Eylenbosch with the Solarian Alliance News Network! And here’s to our next segment…”

Yeah, sure.

On trial until 30SEP2022.

On trial until 30SEP2022.

Accepted.

To be clear, I'm only looking at this complaint from the lens of "was the ruling fine". I'm not abscribing any sort of label like "fragger" or "CM player" to you, nor do I intend to -- if we thought you were beyond redemption or anything of the sort, it would've been an unappealable permaban. But it isn't, and you're free to appeal it and say that you understand the problem. Maybe Cybs will require some additional playtime, but at the end of the day, we all know that these things happen to everyone. Most staff members have had a note or warning for accidentally going nuts once too.

This semantics problem is a misunderstanding and I don't know why you took that specifically from my statement. Here is what I said: This whole paragraph focuses on executions, not decapitations, which are written just as a synonym of an execution (which is what you did). You killing someone by bursting them 25 times in the chest would have prompted the same paragraph, except with the words "bursting them 25 times in the chest" instead of "decapitation". If you were to remove their chest armour and do that, I would still focus on you removing chest armour, because that means that the execution wasn't an urgent necessity. Roleplay justifications only work in certain contexts -- let's say maybe you're playing an antagonist, someone kills your character's best friend and you want to blow their brains out. That's totally fine. You're a mercenary and someone's trying to actively kill you no matter what, they got back up after going down and are shooting on you? Sure, you can assume they're a threat that can't be contained. You need to kill an officer because it's 1v4 and you can't afford ANYONE getting back up? Depends on round context, but that can be fine. Starting a firefight and "wanting to finish it" isn't something I would consider a reasonable roleplay justification, personally, especially considering the giga gear you guys had: if we allowed this kind of thing, executions would snowball a lot. They would become way more common simply because people would be able to justify it with "I want to finish the firefight and it's the natural conclusion", or some variation thereof. The mercenaries are firing at security? Security would be able to use your same exact excuse and get away with it, simply because we'd be setting precedent that executions are the natural ending to a firefight. And, like I said many times in the past, precedent-setting is something that does happen in complaints, and a lot. The benefit of the doubt goes both ways. Security has to give the antags the benefit of the doubt by not instantly executing them with flimsy reasoning (we bwoink people for this, a lot, before anyone says we don't). Antagonists should also keep in mind the round flow when considering whether to execute people or not -- gameplay is much enhanced when medical has something to do instead of just bagging people up. And there are other ways of making sure that security doesn't come back, mind, such as taking their guns/armour, which you all were in the position of doing. If a traitor, for example, wanted to take out an officer and had no choice but to execute them because they don't have the time? That'd be fine. But when it's 3 mercs with ultra armour up against security who is 2-3 officers down? That reasoning can't be applied. The shootout by that point was already over and I don't see the need for kill confirming, basically, nor do I think the given justification is particularly appropriate. Normally, escalation-wise this would be a temporary antagonist ban, but the fact that you didn't see the issue in the ticket is what led to it becoming a permanent one. And I can't say that justification is wrong, really. Accusing modmins of being personally involved and they're the person you killed is also kind of just bad faith as well. You shouldn't really be saying that. Furthermore, the ending of the ticket where you were calling Cybs hypocritical is also not okay. Each case is different and just because one wasn't handled due to the modmins being busy or because it was ruled okay doesn't mean you can just go around calling staff hypocritical with no context. This is also a major assumption on your end, that they would treat their wounds and immediately shoot you when they were basically knocking at death's door. Just because someone shot you before doesn't mean they'll do it again instantly and we generally tell people to have some restraint in these cases, as mentioned before -- you have the means to do so as an antag, by aiming at people and telling them to stay down, for example, none of which were explored. Keep in mind also that these people had 7.62 wounds and those are GRIEVOUS to the point where you are ENTIRELY DISABLED and functionally cannot go to the medbay alone, hence the need for them to treat themselves right there or kick the bucket. Doctors also aren't expected to go into active combat situations to treat people, as a 7.62 round will basically game end them as a stray. I can see in the logs that a non-combatant was also shot, hence why people were reluctant to go and roller bed security to medical or whatever. This complaint is considered handled and the ruling is sticking. I will be closing it in 24 hours.

Accepted. I just forgot about this app. Oops.

Accepted.

Okay, I'm gonna set some ground rules. 1. I do not and cannot care about any positional information here. As this is a complaint, I can't confirm or corroborate any of this beyond "he said she said", and it is on the player to make sure that their positioning is correct and doesn't lead to any misinformation in case of a complaint or if in an adminhelp where the staff member just logged on and hasn't seen whatever fight broke out. 2. I'm going to focus on the gameplay aspects of the mentioned executions, as that's the main issue we take with them -- it's generally just shit to execute people beyond where there is an actual solid need (some dude keeps getting back up and trying to kill people, like a ling or a hardsuited guy and there's no real means to immobilize them). For the record, being grabbed does not stop hardsuit users from using their integrated gun (which the Elyrans did use, a lot). So, there is no real way to stop someone in a hardsuit without killing them in this particular situation. Here is where I take issue: this was a lot more deliberate than you make it sound. [03:01:01.736] ATTACK: Ciruk/Rlfman. Al-Zaheed attempted to remove a ballistic helmet from omicega/(Azhara Shas'kui) (INTENT: HARM) [03:01:02.693] ATTACK: Ciruk/Rlfman. Al-Zaheed shot (/obj/item/projectile/bullet/rifle/a762) *no key*/(Azhara Shas'kui) (INTENT: HARM) [03:01:03.065] ATTACK: Ciruk/Rlfman. Al-Zaheed shot (/obj/item/projectile/bullet/rifle/a762) *no key*/(Azhara Shas'kui) (INTENT: HARM) [03:01:03.463] ATTACK: Ciruk/Rlfman. Al-Zaheed shot (/obj/item/projectile/bullet/rifle/a762) *no key*/(Azhara Shas'kui) (INTENT: HARM) You purposefully removed someone's helmet in order to decap them. This wasn't accidental nor a necessity (and you stated in your ticket response that you did it 'in a rush') - you had the time to sit still for 3 seconds to remove their helmet and then headgib them, which doesn't seem very necessary to me. And while it may make sense for characters to go for the permanent kill, that isn't necessarily how we judge whether things are fine or not. This is mostly a gameplay thing we're talking about, where executing people when there's no need to is basically just a net detriment for the round. And we do bwoink officers for this just as much as we bwoink antags. To take a look at another execution: This all just seems unnecessary. And I checked the logs surrounding these, by the way -- you were not being shot at. These were deliberate executions, which I do not think are okay in the context of the round. So I have to ask again what exactly the reason behind this was -- was it just preventing them from being rezzed, was it roleplay, was it driving your story? The hardsuits being handed out with NOBODY, somehow, knowing how powerful they were is a separate issue that I will handle later.