Susan

Gonna say no. Telecomms doesn't break down anywhere near enough to have a technician on call on the station, literally paying someone to sit on their ass all shift. It has always been my impression telecomms crews come from CentComm or someplace else off screen since their equipment is stored on the satellite (and why taking void suits is grand theft, because they're the only suits for said maintenance crews).

All I'm going to say, Cassie, is while you have a point with Hypatia perhaps, I also have experienced the steady decline of a server from the other side of the perspective. Baystation12 used to be a really good server a long time ago, and it's where I started my SS13 life. Way back in 2012 I played there daily and had lots of positive experiences. Whereas stubbornness led to Hypatia being overrun, Baystation was an entirely different thing. Similar to what I'm witnessing here, Baystation's playerbase of amicable roleplayers was washed away by a grey tide of new blood, and the administration wanted to keep their population up so they totally destroyed what Baystation used to be and bent over backwards to accomodate the new players, which caused many of the people I knew for a long time to leave. Drew, Rebel, Yinadele, Learnosaurus Rex, the list goes on. Baystation's administrative policies shifted to where they are today, some sort of antag-worshipping medium roleplay heaven and more than two thirds of the place is fresh blood. I left Baystation after trying my damndest to stop that from happening and butting heads with admin staff to the point where I just got tired of the back and forth. I don't want to see that happen here. New people may be important, but old people are equally as important, because without them the server does not have any foundation. I'm not suggesting utter stagnation but I don't want us to take a leaf out of Baystation's book and start letting people do whatever nonsensical bullshit they want. There needs to be a balance between the two, and in all honesty I don't think changing lore or putting in ridiculously low brig times are a compromise fair for the other half. The lore is a guideline; people say it's restrictive, but how? It outlines how the different species interact? You can't be a Space American? How is it unfairly restrictive, by not allowing aliens to be all heads? How is SoP awful? By disallowing anyone but the captain from authorizing AI law changes? By outlining punishments for lawbreakers? This isn't just about having a good time. Your right to have a good time ends where someone else's begins. Aurora has problems, but shedding our foundation to keep the fresh, nomadic grey tide from tapering out isn't the way to go about it either.

If anything, the responses to this topic are evidence that there are complaints and reservations. The question that needs to be asked are these complaints Valkrae said he left over actually worthwhile? When it comes to cliques and favoritism, as well as unwillingness to cooperate with new players, perhaps. But you see another side of the coin in this topic too: complaining about admins doing their job. Let antags murder SSD players? Really? Let griefers run free? The fact of life is not everyone is going to be happy with everything, but you have to discern worthwhile complaints from people who are complaining about something that is actually in line with server standards. The fact that people are even agreeing with letting griefers run wild and SSDs get murderstripped is ridiculous, and I expected something different. I don't think those complaints are founded in reality, nor do I think complaints about lore stifling roleplay or SoP 'omg im arrested so un fun its a game i should have fun' have any substance. I don't dislike Conservan, but I think the issues he has aren't issues at all, and are positives. Fast grief response is good. Respecting SSD players, who you can neither roleplay with or have a challenge by wantonly murdering them, is good. I fail to see how admins doing their job could even be interpreted as an issue. The point to be made is there is always a cacophony of people complaining, it was like that on Bay, but you need to figure out if the stuff they're complaining about is even deserving of acknowledgement. So people leave because they can't eat the SSD detective. Why should we care? New blood is the life of the server, sure, but do you really want to start sacrificing what makes Aurora Aurora just to make everyone happy? You can't do that; what makes Aurora Aurora isn't cliques or favoritism or 'muh catbeasts', it is an atmospheric environment with, in my opinion, relatively well-written lore and sensible restrictions that bring it more in line with an immersive experience. Why should we let the bald griefer run around so he can kill everyone? Why should we let antags take the easy card out and kill SSDs? Why should we let characters who break the law in egregious ways run free? Just so we can keep our population in the 50s and 60s? People may have left, but the server doesn't seem to have truly suffered for it. And if someone really wants to leave because they got arrested for knocking a guy's teeth out, then I don't think struggling to retain them is worthwhile.

Baystation had a topic where people could post antag information about their characters, so that's probably a good route to go.

I agree with Doomberg. I don't deny there are certain groups with issues, but what I hate most of all are the people who leave and then shit on the server when they did nothing to improve the situation. I hated what Baystation turned into, and even after most of my friends had left the server I stayed until the bitter end in an effort to change it. All of these 'veteran's who ran off to abandon ship, did you try talking to, say, Skull? Voicing your complaints? Because it looks to me like none of that happened. Aurora isn't perfect, but you had a chance to try and impact the things you dislike and you chose not to. The point of a community is to work together to create an atmosphere. Giving up on that doesn't help.

The SS13 reddit also complained that /TG/ made it against the rules to lynch someone for killing Ian. Take what they say with a grain of salt.

Approved.

Hartburry, I like you, I do, but this is a skewed perspective. You: Drank on the job, wasted supplies racing around in a chair with wheels, and told your boss you aren't here to kiss his 'furry ass', which would be like telling your boss you aren't there to kiss his 'nigger ass'. I would have fired you too. I'd have fired you even if you were Hakra, because that behavior is inexcusable, and you can be damn sure I'd arrest you for it, too. Neglect of duty and hooliganism are valid charges here. To be honest, I can't quite find what the problem you are purporting there to be is. Favoritism? You said yourself Nasir was polite to you about your strikes before you got on his bad side, so... what, did he hate you because you were bald? That's not the impression I'm seeing. You were given chances and you blew them. How is this a bad thing at all? Are you attempting to imply new players shouldn't be held to the same reasonable standard as everyone else? If a new guy calls me a spic that my Spanish character shouldn't take offense to that? That orders I give are questioned and I should just let it go? I do think our server has this dumb bald fascination and should lay off of it, but what I see here isn't abuse of a new player, what I see here is an annoying character getting his just deserts. Just because a character isn't immediately nice to someone they don't know isn't a 'clique'. If you're trying to say we need to forgo IC circumstances and be super cheery and chipper to every new player, I find that ridiculous. Welcome to work in reality. Bosses can be Hitler. Coworkers can hate your guts. And on the other side of the coin it can all be happy cheery. It isn't workplace simulator for characters to react differently to other people, that is basic human interaction.

And everything except that incident with your engineer can be justified; I witnessed almost all of these situations; the reality is leaking police case files or taking part in seditious activities (which does not require a violent crime to occur) are actually very serious and just because you think your charges are trumped up doesn't mean they actually are. You can get in trouble for doing those very same things in real life, and you should for doing them in game. Your boss can also fire you for arguing with them - if you tried that in the real world your ass would probably be grass. There is a point here that needs to be addressed. I don't hate fun. I don't hate roleplay. However, I don't think that fun needs to come before roleplay. Play a character in its entirety, don't play a character and then expect to get away with bloody murder because it's a game. Yes, we're here to have fun, but fun has boundaries. If you cross those boundaries then you end in the brig. There isn't a game in this world without rules and regulations and this game is no different. People don't want to sit in the brig and they don't want to take their times and they want timers nerfed and laws removed and oh no I want to have fun, but they all expect everyone to react super realistic when an antagonist points a gun at them or be totally okay with being murdered so everyone else can have fun. It's interesting to see this double standard pop up; Baystation is notorious for kissing antagonist ass all the time, I don't want to see that happen here. Fun is okay. But fun has boundaries. Cutting people's butts off is fun. But does it cross the boundary? Yes. Believability is more important than fun.

It seems that this poisonous 'it's a game i have to have fun' rhetoric has been spreading very far, and ideas like this catch my ire because the heart of the issue rests with someone who got arrested for being an idiot and they're mad they got sentenced accordingly. With that in mind, I want to respond to this with a resounding 'no ( to half of the suggestion )'. Bare-bones anecdotal evidence of 'trumped up' brig timers is not enough to make me even stop to consider that what you are saying is a widespread issue and not just Player B thinking they shouldn't be arrested for knocking Player A's teeth out and that it's the system's fault and not theirs. I play security consistently almost every day and the occasions recalled do not happen with the severity people would like you to believe. I am more than one hundred percent certain that allegations of inflated brig times come from problem players or characters who are constantly arrested for the same things who believe that breaking and entering or theft shouldn't be punished and that it's security's fault for arresting them for breaking the law. I can count on my hand the number of times that an innocent person was actually locked up and it is a low number indeed. Most of us who play security aren't stupid and Internal Affairs can and should look into arrests that are questionable. However, for timers over forty minutes without crimes like murder or anything else that would account mandatory permanent detainment (murder, attempted murder, rape, sabotage) I would support a tribunal to weigh in and potentially decide what to do with this individual, to release them with implants or permabrig them or what have you. I simply don't believe that 'illegitimate arrests' happen with such a consistency that the brig is full of entirely innocent people to warrant such a low level asinine check and balance because I've been there and I can say without a doubt most of those complaining are those who are upset with the times given for their wanton disregard.

Here are most of the songs I have been listening to lately. 1940s - 1970s. 1-2-3 Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again Mercy Mr. Percy Serenade in Blue Stardust Chattanooga Choo Choo Mack the Knife Danke Schoen Runaround Sue Sooner or Later Young Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJFVPxBpezk Midnight Confessions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nZnqtDdsws

Scratch that. Keep it how it is. I don't think IPCs should be heads and restrictions for species should be left to their developers, not the community.

Stop making broad sweeping statements about the validity of Tajaran as heads. It is not something that is wide spread. The species is being given a trial run in head positions of minimal importance (CE, HoS, CMO) compared to the three head honchos of the station (RD #1, Captain #2, HoP #3). This isn't something that's common, and your average Joe probably still has a human boss or a Skrellian boss. No, the Board of Director's isn't kissing furry ass. Tajaran head positions are actually being threatened by the outbursts on Adhomai and the damage caused to the Human embassy.

I think Cassie's good points are so because of something else: More than half of her arguments consist of poor player characters and decisions (operating without anesthesia, players spawning a shit ton of mice and mappers choosing to include them because they're retarded, everyone on station being a leftist liberal pizza-identifying nongendered cube, players putting their characters in positions where they wouldn't be hired or tenuously retained) and are in no way a result of lore. Literally everything except point six are a result of player decisions that aren't policed because I don't know why. I've been pining to get character policing for a very long time and I doubt it will ever happen. People using 'baldie' in game is a player fault. People not following the regulations of their job is a player fault. People being xenofucking sympathizers is a player fault. It has absolutely nothing to do with roleplay vs realism, it has more to do with people being allowed to be shitters with no consequences.

Except removing conflict is already incredibly easy. I'd say the loyalty implant should have applied to you. Let's figure out why they're not half as bad as you make them out to be. In order for you to be implanted, you have to be... what? Arrested. Captured by security. You have to be in custody, and at that point if they're considering sticking you with a loyalty implant your conflict is already removed. You'll be permabrigged if they don't. It's over. You're done. There is no more conflict being generated by you. Security usually sticks people with loyalty implants either to let them out for some god forsaken reason without a permanent sentence or to make them spill the beans and then let them out on a non-permanent sentence. By the time you're getting an implant you're in custody and will more likely than not spend the round in the permawing otherwise. Removing conflict is easy. You don't need loyalty implants to do that, all you need is a pair of cuffs and a taser gun.

How can you be illiterate and then acquire a law degree and a degree in criminal justice which require you to go to school...? How do you graduate high school without learning basic reading skills or ever having to apply them? I had to take tests. I had to read them and then write on them. What. At 18 he graduates high school and within a year he learns all this shit from, what, a year in the cadet program? A year in the army? Where did he learn the law? That isn't a degree you can earn in a short period of time. Not to mention in order to perform forensic duties he would need a degree in criminal justice and for that at minimum you need a bachelor's and a stint in a university.

I'm offering negative support for the same reasons Baka brought up; I have consistently seen Thundy either get upset and start fighting in LOOC or repeatedly attempt to just run from people over and over again with no concern for what happens to her in character. The fact that these LOOC fights happen at all is the problem; they are typically instigated by you, and as such whether or not you excuse yourself or take it to the forums is irrelevant. It is the fact it happens at all is what I have an issue with.

What, is 'this is just a game' or 'we're here to have fun' some sort of be-all end-all sweeping statement to justify stupid or illogical changes? I thought we're supposed to be held to a higher standard as a heavy roleplay server. If people want fun without restrictions that aren't asinine and are based in logic (the law, species restrictions) then there are servers to go blow off steam on. Here, our server carries the tag of 'heavy roleplay' and just because something is 'fun' doesn't mean it's something that clicks with our server. Cutting people's asses off and making buttbots is fun, I admit. Do we want to start porting that to Aurora? I don't think IPCs should be heads at all based on the fact that they're experimental machines with no lawsets and I don't believe it would be easy for humans to so readily overcome the prejudice against machines which has been going strong since manufacturing lines were staffed with robotic arms welding car doors. They are highly experimental and their design might not be entirely finished; you cannot expect an artificial person to be able to perform the same as a human in any given scenario. Downloading data is not the same as experience, and leaders must command the respect of their underlings. I don't see many people anywhere in space respecting IPCs as heads. They don't have the experience, they can't make snap emotional judgement calls like humans can, they don't have 'gut feelings', they can't break regs to do something even if it will save someone. They aren't head material.

That changeling should have been killed. I like to refer to how police apply deadly force for most situations; up until around the 1980s a police officer could shoot a fleeing person suspected of being a felon simply to stop him from escaping. However, a Supreme Court ruling in '85 abolished that (the Fleeing Felon rule) is basically what I refer to most of the time. So, if the guy is armed - and it doesn't have to be a gun - you are legally authorized to blow his brains out if you think he can get you. If the officer has probable cause to think he will be seriously injured or killed by the suspect than lethal force is justified. If the officer has probable cause to believe that an innocent will be seriously injured or killed by the suspect lethal force is authorized. Typically there is an investigation and a third party must gauge if the officer was reasonable in his application of force. So if your head of security is saying not to kill the wizard teleporting around attacking people, ignore him. He's dumb. Shoot to kill. You should have executed the changeling, too, and ignored whoever was telling you different because you were totally justified to kill him as far as deadly force goes.

Approverated.

Do not insult the glorious flying baton of justice!

Yes, I am ignoring it, because it is ridiculous and spouted by problem players (such as yourself) who seem to think we need goon sentencing where murder is ten minutes. I don't know what kind of fantasy world you live in but not every game is tooled to be fun and friendly for everyone, especially not roleplay games, which generally have a strict ruleset to abide by. In this case, it is the law and corporate guidelines, which have to exist in our world because without them we would be departing greatly from reality. Being sentenced to long times for serious crimes is a fact of life, and like it or not, in this game you are taking control of a character's life. Permabrigging someone for justified reasons is well within the line of what we should be expecting from our universe. Last time I checked, the headline at the top of our window was 'heavy roleplay', not 'light roleplay' or 'medium roleplay'. If you can't handle the sentence given to you, a justified sentence, then maybe a server that is less serious is a better home. People bitching about something doesn't mean their bitching is worthwhile, justified, or something we have to listen to. What I'm seeing here is basically you being upset you got permabrigged when it was logical and justifiable for that to happen to you. Rather than take your punishment in stride and deal with it you're starting some crusade to change our basic and common sense guidelines with the peanut gallery inserting themselves because they too got arrested once for something, woe is me, being jailed is so boring. Security SoP does not cause problems. It reduces your enjoyment of the game because you broke it and got arrested. The problem is not SoP, it is you who as a non-antag wanted to risk everything to help Charlie and then got caught, so you decide to take it out on security when it is no one's fault but your own for ending up in the situation you were in. You broke the law the sentence was justified, and there is nothing wrong with the law. You are just upset you got brigged, like everyone I have ever seen because they can't grasp the concept they did something wrong. If you hadn't have conspired to commit multiple grand crimes to begin with you wouldn't have been permabrigged at all. There is no problem with SoP - you are the problem. Permabrig for two grand crimes is not harsh, get over yourself. It is justified. Infiltration and grand theft together amount to over sixty which is an immediate permabrig anyway. What you should be saying is I shouldn't be doing grand crimes as a non antagonist because I will be sentenced like an antagonist which usually results in permanent holding. Outside of that, you are overexaggerating and attempting to imply security will permabrig you for anything when that is outrageous and entirely not true. You were guilty of two high crimes, not slapping someone or hopping the kitchen counter.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Crying about 'muh office simulator' is not going to help your argument. You consciously were willing to aid a woman in breaking into a secure location containing a nuclear explosive without a second thought, and if it was me I would have put you in permanent holding too. Conspiracy to commit grand theft, neglect of duty, conspiracy to infiltrate - you would be brigged until transfer until such a point you would be transferred to police custody and given a trial by a jury of your peers. I don't care if people play this game as an escape. I play this game as an escape. But like any game, if you break the rules, you get punished. And you broke very serious rules and just expected to be let off with a slap on the wrist? The IC world doesn't bow to you. You're some worthless scientist on the station and I don't even think the Board of Directors would even know your employee number, no less your name. Punishments aren't here to create a 'fun and friendly' atmosphere. You broke the law. You get a jail cell. If you don't want a jail cell, don't break the law. How is this a difficult concept to comprehend? And for your argument, guess what. We don't treat them like we do in real life. At most you're in prison for three hours compared to what should be a life sentence. So you already have what you wanted. Leeway. Assault is like twenty mintues compared to five to eight years, maybe. There already is leeway.

You're all being ridiculous. Seven people voted for a round that requires a fifteen number ready. Seven people, which is obviously nowhere near enough to play nuke voted for nuke with the clear understanding that if running off people who just wanted to play nuke there wouldn't be enough; as such, it is no one's fault but the people who voted nuke. You have no right to force people to play your shitty murderbone gamemode if they don't want to. You knew you didn't have enough people to play nuke in the votes and you voted it anyway without taking into consideration what the rest of the server wanted. And then when a shitty mode was voted in and people didn't want to play it instead of recognizing that the fault lay with you (for voting a mode with insufficient numbers) you decide to blame them for ruining your experience. A sob story for the ages. I'm crying tears for your misfortune. There is a required amount of people game mechanic wise because otherwise the favor tips heavily in the balance of the nuke ops; nine people versus three ops is ridiculous. Unless those people have access to weapons or 1/3 of that population is security you might as well call it game over. And, something that regularly happens with nuke, is people constantly join right after it starts. So you will end up with a large amount of crew and 3 ops just so you could scrape by and play your glorious gamemode, then in the process fuck over the antagonists. It is fine as it is. This is democracy. If you vote for something without enough numbers and then expect it to go through, it is no one's fault but your own.

Armando's new hit single.