JKJudgeX

I'll also note that I don't think I was being "prickly" in OOC or passive aggressive. I was legitimately asking if people knew that a surgeon was not allowed to use a welder, and also trying to ascertain whether I had been adminhelped (which was my assumption, though the player told me he didn't after I stated that he was fighting on the shuttle and then adminhelped me in the previous round). I think there's a certain level of sensitivity here, where every possible statement or action in ahelp and OOC was being taken as some kind of serious affront to Ezuo, when in fact it was just me stating my case. I didn't call names or make suppositions, other than that I feel like he didn't realize I was a Loyalist when he first ahelped me... This is my second issue with a Trial Moderator recently, and I wouldn't have even brought it up if not for the permanence of the notes. When they are being signed on, is there any kind of discussion about the fact that noting someone's account is semi-permanent, and you've got players here who have been around for a long time, and little notes like this will have an impact on future rulings and things like whether they are considered for mod or admin positions. So what I'm saying is, can we chill with the notes that I have to come and contest on the forums to get expunged, because, this is not the fun part of SS13. Now I feel ineligible to apply for any kind of other whitelists or positions, because I'm apparently a bad person that gets noted a lot. Thanks.

BYOND Key: JKJudgeX Staff BYOND Key: Ezuo Game ID: bPA-bxLR Reason for complaint: I, as a Loyalist, arrived on the escape shuttle to find Preston Prestoff shooting a proto-kinetic accelerator at Bloke Two, who was firing back with a .45 signal pistol... on the shuttle. Them being right in front of me, I assumed this was Rev action because I didn't see an L over their heads (and there was prior discussion regarding a potential mutiny, Bloke Two being a very likely potential mutineer, between myself and another Loyalist, as well as on general comms), and decided to intervene and disarm the situation for crew safety. I cable-cuffed Preston, pushed him into a locker that was a couple squares away and standing open (I have no idea why it was there), closed the locker, realized I had a welder, and welded him into it, getting ready to proceed to deal with Bloke Two, who was also acting as an antag (neither of them were). I am adminhelped by ezuo, who proceeds to ask me why a Surgeon would locker-weld a guy. I explain that I am an antagonist, Loyalist, and he was acting like a rev right in front of me, shooting people, so I was disabling him. He proceeds to act as though using a welder on a locker is an unreasonable action for a surgeon. I explain to him that anyone can use a welder on a locker, and this is not at all uncommon or out of the norm, especially for an antagonist. I have never heard of anyone saying that a specific skill is needed to weld a locker shut, so I challenged the concept. I asked in OOC if anybody knew that a surgeon couldn't weld a locker shut, which Ezuo then proceeded to accuse me of being "salty" for, and pulled out the "Don't be a dick" rule (thus calling me a dick, which, that's pretty fun to do over nothing). Evidence/logs/etc: Here is the evidence of what I arrived on the shuttle to: Preston Prestoff fires the proto-kinetic accelerator! Preston Prestoff fires the proto-kinetic accelerator! Bloke Two fires .45 signal pistol! The chemical shell misses Preston Prestoff narrowly! The chemical shell misses Vincent Corvo narrowly! The chemical shell explodes in a bright flash! Vincent Corvo attempted to disarm Preston Prestoff! Vincent Corvo attempted to disarm Bloke Two! Vincent Corvo attempted to disarm Preston Prestoff! Vincent Corvo is attempting to put cable restraints on Preston Prestoff! And since there was an open locker right there and I had earlier picked up a welder that was laying in the hall, a convenient opportunity to get Preston out of the way presented itself and I took it. Additional remarks: I'm not trying to be argumentative here, clearly the two non-antagonists shooting each other with flares and proto-kinetic accelerators at the end of the round was something that should have been addressed by Ezuo, but instead he chose to address me and start making up this rule that you can't locker-weld someone unless you're an engineer or something. He told me that his ruling was final, and if I had a complaint about it to bring it here, so, here it is, since he wanted it so bad... but, in all honesty, is locker-welding someone really going to require a specific skill? Honestly? Like, you have to have Amateur "Construction" skill to use a welder at all? I've never heard that and see this "rule" being broken in every other round. The construction skill doesn't even seem to be geared towards something as low-level as "welding a metal locker door shut", which is something a junior high school kid could very, very easily accomplish. If I had to guess what happened, I think Ezuo made a knee-jerk reaction to my robusting/lockering of Preston, thinking I was just randomly fighting on the shuttle, at first not realizing that I was an antagonist, and for whatever reason refused to relent (I think his ego got involved) when I informed him of the fact that I was an antagonist who thought these guys were part of a mutiny)... which is another reason I'd like to stick this complaint, because I don't think a good sign of a moderator is one who can't acknowledge their mistake, pump the brakes, and back off, especially on something as trivial and in response to a very poor end of round scenario, anyway. Also, I got noted for this exchange, which should have not even happened, IMO, once he realized I was an antag dealing with non-antags acting like antags on the shuttle. So, there you have it. What I'd like to see next: I would like a strong clarification as to whether an antagonist locker-welding someone who is shooting at people and fighting other crew is outside the range of acceptable actions unless that antagonist has a specific skill. And, I'd also like the note removed. Thank you for your time and patience.

I've interacted with Rifler many times, with me as Captain, me as RD, myself as antag and her as security, and her as antag security. In all cases, she was a well-played character and I'd be happy to see this whitelist approved. +1 for sure.

I've asked for this feature in the past. My suggestion was that the camera glows or makes a sound or stops moving or something like that. I really think this idea would help things, but, often by the time the AI looks in, it's too late (if he's just lolcycling cameras and stopping when he sees two crewmembers within a tile of each other, he's going to eventually find something). It would still greatly help in situations where you are about to do something and then suddenly the AI looks in and you know about it. I'd also like the ability to "soft-disable" a camera, in other words, a certain combination of wire clipping, or an easily obtainable device (maybe even just some extra wires) to "attach" to the wires inside the camera that cause it to "loop" - by that I mean, mechanically, it just shows the hallway as a static image, so the AI and people watching security cams just see an empty part of the hallway or room or whatever when they switch to the camera, but they get no notification that the tampering has been done... if that makes any sense. About half the time I disable a camera, an engineering borg and a detective/security show up to investigate, even if I didn't trip the alarm.

Well, my original suggestion post regarding AI from a long time ago was to provide notification when the AI is watching an area, or other mechanics-based limitations to the AI, which was met with nearly identical disinterest, so, my natural next move to reduce this problem was for a simple set of behavioral guidelines for AI similar to that found in command or that found for antagonists. I'm fine with any kind of limitation, rule-based or mechanics-based that doesn't put antagonists, and thus the majority of the interaction of the round type, at the whim or quality of the AI player. I feel like that if we are going to dictate that a Tajaran has personality X, Unathi usually behave thusly, and IPCs are to tend to be "this way", a few simple guidelines for the AI's behavior that lead it away from playing as a human police detective with lockdown powers wouldn't be out of the question or unprecedented. That being said, I DO actually agree with Skull and prefer mechanical changes, but, I've not seen any limiting mechanical changes suggested to AI that got any traction whatsoever... I'd like to see some, either here or in another thread (and if in another thread, please link me so I can chime in and lend support).

Basically the problem that I draw here, is that we tell antagonists not to "play to win" but the AI is not under the same guidelines (this includes malfAI, too). Other servers often have a few paragraphs to a few pages of rules specifically dictating some dos and don'ts regarding playing AI, many of which are aimed towards putting a bridle on AI meta/powergaming. It would stand to reason that on a HRP server (with the heaviest possible ruleset imposed upon antag behavior), some special guidelines of play would be imposed on the role with more power than any other role on the station (as counterbalance to the heavy ruleset placed on antagonists).

After many, many rounds on the old map and the new, a recurring trend that I am seeing way too much of is the AI playing as part of security, all the time. In order not to nerf the AI so that it's still fun to play and useful to the crew, I would like to see some of the following RP guidelines enforced for the AI. Many of these ideas come from how I remember the AI being played about 5 years ago on various servers (RP and not), and some of them are just because some of the antag modes (cult and changeling, especially) seem to run very slow with very little action because of the amount of subterfuge required to avoid the AI tattling on you and thus bringing the round to a boring close. 1) The AI is not security-minded. It can assist with security functions, but, unless special rules and directives are installed or spoken to it, the AI does not report "suspicious behavior". It should not be using intercomms to listen in on conversations and then hand over the conversation log to security, unless asked (yes, they do this). It will report things like being asked to open doors that it shouldn't. It will report things like unknown crew members boarding the station. It will report injuries - but only if it sees them because of suit sensors (it doesn't necessarily understand organics completely). 2) The AI is vague in its reporting, requiring back and forth to coax more information out of it. "Crew member Douglass seems to be injured in arrivals maintenance" might be how it reports that a changeling has pulled someone into maintenance and started absorbing them. If asked "how was he injured?" it might say "Another crew member was involved." and finally reveal who has attacked Douglass if asked "Which crew member?". 3) The AI awaits commands to bolt doors, except for in clear, immediate danger-to-crew situations. A known murderer is trying to hunt down the RD and there's one door between them? The AI might bolt that. The AI does NOT lock down antagonists or report their every move without input. It must be queried for that information, and told by a crew member to lock an antagonist on the run down. 4) Generally, the AI player should respect the game mode and allow a generous, sporting chance for antagonists to work some conflict into the station before spoiling the roundtype and/or bringing about the conclusion of the antagonist's round via bolted doors and divulged information to security/command... much in the same way that antagonists are to RP and promote enjoyment of the round by choosing gimmicks that are more involving than "murder everybody". The AI on Aurora is generally not horrendous about breaking these kinds of behaviors, but, close to half the time, the AI does seem to get very, very involved with valid-hunting, on its own volition, and that seems a little strange to me. At a certain point it stops seeming like a synthetic intelligence and starts seeming like a guy playing SS13 with access to all cameras and doors who wants to valid-hunt. I'd like to see some serious rules, even if not these, put in place to limit this kind of behavior. The power of all station camera access with jump-to capabilities and the crew monitor, plus being able to bolt people in places as soon as you suspect them of something is just altogether unnecessary, and results in antag rounds often seeming slow and stupid (because the antag got busted by security before they could really get things started, the first time they needed to kill someone). None of this would apply to a Malf AI and of course anything can be overridden and modified with clever directives. I'm 100% aware that all of this can be played around by subverting the AI/being tricky/etc, I have a somewhat decent success rate as antagonist as far as getting away with a few murders or starting a semi-successful cult/rev goes... but, if people want more action in those changeling and traitor rounds, the super-cop AI play has to be curtailed. I get it, disabling cameras is "ezpz", but A) it's a dead giveaway that summons security to disabled cameras half the time even if no alarm goes off, and B) is a little silly to have to squint our eyes and believe every possible antagonist suddenly knows how to disable cameras like a professional electrician. This isn't me asking that AI be removed from keeping the crew safe/etc... this is me asking for clearer, more pro-RP rules that steer AI players towards being a synthetic and utility for the crew, and away from round-ruining valid-hunting. That shouldn't be why you're playing AI.

There's already a great deal of synthetic presence onboard. I don't think we need to incentivize much more by way of synthetic hijinks or empowering the already pretty much game-breaking AI.

Thanks, garn, tishina, and pikl, I know being a mod/admin is tough business, mad respect. Sorry to make this such a big thing, but you guys are awesome for actually reading it and discussing it. I did quietly rage-quit at first but when I thought about it I figured I should at least say something just to get it out there. I think this kind of thing is actually good for the server and says a lot about the mod and admin team. This is why I've been here for so long now, and part of why I hope to keep sticking around. I've definitely been in the wrong before, here, and taken my licks and even been a bit of a butthole a couple of times and you guys have been cool and forgiven that, so, even more props for having cool heads. I think it was honestly just all a misunderstanding and since we all sort of agree, I'd like to withdraw my moderator complaint if that's possible, Pikl maintained professional candor throughout and wasn't dismissive or rude at all and to me that speaks well of his future here. Thanks again.

I get that. It was a very hectic situation altogether, and, probably wouldn't have happened had there been a HoS or someone else around who had any idea of what to do with a ninja. I certainly don't know how you are "supposed" to handle them. I really thought I gave this antag more than adequate opportunities to escape the situation either 100% peacefully or by using his abilities. If you know anything about how I play it's that I tend to prefer being the antagonist and usually have a soft-spot for them and try to let them do their thing unless they are straight up murderboning people. I'm much less of a valid-hunter, I can PROMISE YOU, than some existing staff, but, I won't go into that or name names. Would I have been in equal trouble had I just said, "security, shoot this guy!"? They'd already told me tasers weren't working so they'd have probably used lethals. I feel like that's what would have happened to me if I were the ninja and I did that same thing. The reason I feel bad about this decision is because there was little else to be done and it keeps being presented over and over as though we hadn't explored the other options of subduing this ninja. They asking him nicely, tasers, cuffs, etc, and had I not been told that his suit was the source of his power, I'd have not used EMP weapons. At a certain point it gets very, very difficult to justify the use of an EMP grenade, EVER, if this particular incident is taken as precedent. I certainly can't dream up a situation besides mALF AI in which an EMP (being larger than a screen) could ever be justifiably thrown without running the risk of harming someone's cybernetics. The reason I made this complaint and am sticking to it is also because the nature of Pikl's complaint against me shifted from essentially calling me a validhunter, that I was using meta knowledge (even though I clearly explained that we'd discussed IC all of this and reasoned out the use of EMP), to "putting people in danger with an EMP" which is the true one that I admit to with my own ignorance, and then if you look above I even got called on breaking the "don't be a dick" rule even though I'm pretty sure I've been 100% cordial about this whole matter, and so on. So, yeah, the "shifting sands" strategy of sentencing someone, and not being able to really nail a rule to what I did, plus my honest explanations for why everything went the way it was (with logs), in my mind, add up to this should have never been more than a warning. It's pretty hard not to take it personally, but, I don't have any evidence that Pikl would have a reason to dislike me, or I'd go there. Also, as a side note, ninjas suck and it's probably the literal worst gamemode still played.

I'm unsure as to what else I can do for you. First of all "grazed upon"? You could use that kind of language at your whim, anytime, let's be a bit more realistic. *sigh* okay, let's do this one by one... 1) Thanks for implying that I was ever a dick in dealing with you on this issue via AHELP OOC or whatever. I certainly was NOT a dick in-game, re-read what I've posted and my log for proof of that. Strike 1. 2) Power-gaming? There was no power-gaming here, at all. If this use of the EMP on a ninja was powergaming, then I contest that ANY AND ALL uses of the EMP on a ninja would be powergaming. The tools at play were openly discussed, all other non-lethal options had been exhausted first, and NO SURPRISE or PRE-EMPTIVE acquisition of the tools occurred. At all. In any way. Also, I was called into this situation because there was no HoS, and it's being treated as though I was on some kind of mission to ruin this antag's round - I was trying to do other stuff away from the ninja. So, strike 2. 3) Nothing unbelievable happened here from me, myself and my character did not know the exact range of an EMP grenade. Lessons were learned by accident here. All other actions were clearly explained and justified to multiple other characters, and fit with the narrative of the ninja being told to not cause any more security issues and then immediately, inexplicably doing so. You might want to consider that action by the antag to be unbelievable, or his suicide with no rationale... but nothing that I did was irrational at all. I clearly stated multiple times that I was trying to disarm the situation diplomatically and with no dead bodies. I did so until he committed suicide. He walked free from note and ban though, so, again, that's why you're getting this complaint because you aren't addressing the mistakes that others made that contributed to this or acknowledging primary fault where it belongs . You are blaming ME for "grazing upon" these rules that were actually BROKEN to cause my "grazing" (which I reject entirely). So, strike 3. 4) Avoid pain. A sane, well-rounded character would not engage in actions that are overly painful, or put themselves in harm's way without consideration if you read what I've said, there was plenty of consideration to this. Also, I was told that the kind of cybernetics I had were immune to EMP in OOC shortly beforehand when I asked, and that turned out to be inaccurate or I had chosen the wrong ones or misunderstood something there, not that my character would "avoid pain" (especially rather small pain) in a situation dealing with a lawbreaking character who had JUST demonstrated a willingness to harm crew violently. So, strike 4. 5) Escalation of conflict here was slow, in at least 5 stages, and did not even escalate to "trying to kill someone" as is the example in said rule. Strike 5. 6) Ganking traditionally refers to killing someone, especially without reason or role-play beforehand. No one was killed. No one was ganked. No one died. This was done with warning and a bunch of quoted RP beforehand, and with ample time for the antagonist to react and save himself. So, strike 6. So, I get it, you wanted to "throw the book" at me here, but I think to any reasonable observer of the actual situation or avid reader of this back and forth as well as my ban appeal it's pretty clear that I had no harmful intent, and at WORST misused an EMP grenade that I didn't understand. No actual rules were broken, or even close to broken... Honestly, the fact that you would TRY to throw that many rules into the mix indicates poor judgement in this kind of scenario. SS13 is a complicated game. I get it, but you really should be able to point to a rule I actually broke, or some horrible lapse of judgement outside of a single underestimation of the blast radius of a piece of equipment or ACTUALLY ganky behavior or something before you throw a ban. Lastly, about the note, if you're going to play with absolutism and things that are literally 100% permanent, you should be much, much, much more selective and careful of when you opt to place them. You've essentially given me a tattoo that will be looked at, even by wise, veteran mods and administrators, and wielded against me for the remainder of the time that I play on this server, and my next encounter with someone equally unseasoned could very well result in a permanent ban. I've had way, way worse, way more meta, way more ganky, clear breakings of the rules against me that I've adminhelped in the past and not a single note or punishment was given, so, yeah, I got pretty upset by having the rulebook thrown at me over something this light, unintentional, and very carefully executed and decided. It's really unfortunate that you can't understand that and are a moderator who will doubtlessly be faced with hundreds more situations like this. It's pretty clear that you can't nail a rule to any of this, so, I'll leave it at that. Thanks for participating and reading what I had to say, thank you for your time, and I hope we can continue to play together on mended terms and with a clearer disposition in the future.

I'm not angry, I just had a complaint because I think your handling of the situation was poor, and I wanted to voice it so that it would be known, since you are a trial moderator, to act as record for anyone else who might think that your management of other situations are also poor. Also, you told me twice to give you a staff complaint if I was unhappy with the way that you handled it, and, I did find your method of handling the situation to be lacking the finesse that most of the other moderators and admins show with this kind of situation. I'm pretty sure your explanation of why what I did was a bad move and my subsequent admission that I didn't know the EMP grenade was quite that large would have adequately sufficed to prevent me from doing it again. It was an honest mistake, and one that I should have never been pushed into had the antag A) held to his RP'd words, B) Played smarter leading up to the situation, or C) reacted to prevent the discharging of the EMP in a more competent way. Myself, the rest of command, and security had been more than accommodating to this guy for over an hour, and we openly participated in his gimmick. Being told you will be shut down if you make another security problem and then being let completely off the hook (as he was) and then IMMEDIATELY provoking a response is poor play, and you should have, in my opinion, recognized that. We also had the option of responding with completely lethal force the instant he pulled a blade on myself and security, which, in my opinion, would have been the bad play... instead, walking away from him for a couple minutes, and giving him a ridiculously long time to react to the EMP grenade's presence by either teleporting out or de-escalating the situation with words (both things I *thought* he would attempt), he did not. Given my lack of knowledge of the ridiculous size of the EMP grenade, our prior attempts to shut him down, and his actions, I felt I didn't have much else of a choice, and even after the admittedly not best choice was made, the round COULD have gone on, if he hadn't made ANOTHER bad choice and committed suicide for absolutely non-existent RP reasons (no one was threatening his life, he had made no clear indication of an assassination target, and it killed no one but him). Like I've said, in many other situations, the raw action of rolling up on a ninja and randomly throwing an EMP grenade to lolvalid, yeah, I get it... but again, no one had to die here even after my actions and your verbal reprimand would have clearly sufficed to prevent me from taking further actions... especially given that you can see I had no other command violations after holding a whitelist for what? Well over a year and a half now, even playing a Research Director that is widely known to be a cold and brutal antagonist, never have I "abused" command. I DID think about what happened, and the more I remember the stupidity of that situation and the antag's actions, the less I find your decision to have had any wisdom in it. Most antags in that situation would have been outright killed with little to no reaction time, and no bans of any sort would have likely been given out - and this one was being cooperated with instead... so... There is one thing I'd like from you actually... which rule did I break? I get it that you weren't a fan of how I played the situation, but, honestly, if there's an actual role ban, even for 5 minutes, there should be a rule cited that was broken, so, please, which rule? And thank you for your time, please don't imply that I'm angry. I wouldn't have posted this if you hadn't asked me to do it twice and if you had removed the note from my record. A note for a note seems fair to me in this kind of situation.

BYOND Key: JKJudgeX Staff BYOND Key: Pikl Game ID: bO9-dcnz Reason for complaint: Punitive action taken under questionable circumstances Evidence/logs/etc: It was a ninja round, the ninja was playing very out in the open. I was captain. We allowed him to be escorted around the station to "collect parts for his broken ship" etc etc. Things were fine. Security complaints involving ninja started coming in (used his net on someone to "teach them a lesson"), there was no HoS. I came to brig to talk to him again and ensure that he was going to comply (log follows), he agreed to and then immediately threatened me with an emote and drawing a blade: "Nathan Corvo"If I get another security concern out of you today, Dragon, I am going to sterilize your whole situation without another question. Are we clear?" Nathan Corvo"Are. We. Clear?" Dragon"" Very clear. Nathan Corvo"Good. You're welcome to gather tools and repair your craft." Nathan Corvo"But I've got no time or interest in putting my crew at risk on your behalf Dragon"My culture is bound by honor." Dragon"As yours are bound by laws." Nathan Corvo"Not here it isn't." Nathan Corvo"Here is NT." Dragon"They are one and the same. I didn't realize that." Nathan Corvo"Your culture exists outside the walls of this station and away from this asteroid. I'll let my guys help you get back to that, until then, our corporate regulations will supplant your 'honor'." LOOC: Dragon:Mromi. I'm about to do something dumb Dragon releases an energy sowrd from his arm, placing the blade agains the Captain's suit.. 2 things can be seen here: 1) He was explicitly told that his NEXT security concern would result in his situation being shut down. 2) He was given ample freedom to return to what he was doing if he was just cool about it. After this I ordered him arrested, security could not arrest him because cuffs don't work/he can't be disarmed because ninja. I am told by security that his suit prevents anything like that and he can cloak and teleport (which he had also told us earlier in the round and demonstrated). I, having honestly never fought a ninja for more than 10 seconds before, figure that an EMP grenade would be the way to disable this guy long enough to get the message across, so, I go and get one, after warning a couple of security guys and the HoP that it was what I was doing. I exclaimed for everyone to get back while I was holding the EMP grenade in my hand, a few times, ordered the warden out of the room (exposing myself for at least a minute to a ninja in the room, who I was hoping would take this opportunity to make a break for it and start, y'know, doing ninja stuff) We stand off, I present the grenade, and here I give him a great deal of time to teleport away or otherwise escape, or attack me (I wasn't trying to end this guy's round). He stealths so I toss the grenade... lots of people are EMPed (no one died, I didn't know the EMP grenade was quite THAT big), and the ninja is attempting to run after he reappears. I baton his legs to put him down and try to remove his gear. None of that works, so, I retreat from the room, intending to leave the rest of the job to security, and order him detained again. He decides to self destruct. I am bwoinked by Pikl. I explain the situation and receive a week long command ban. I explain how much we tried to work with the guy, the amount of time we gave him, and why the EMP was deployed. The ban is applied and stays, along with a note. I appeal and ask that the ban and note be removed. Ban is lowered to 3 days and the note stays. I am writing this complaint because I asked Pikl for advice on how I SHOULD have handled the situation, and he did not provide an adequate alternate solution of how I should have handled it. I believe that if you are going to punish someone for something, you should be able to tell them exactly what they SHOULD have done, instead of the wrong thing that they did. I promise that VERY FEW NINJAS are ever given the amount of freedom, tolerance, and gentle handling as this ninja got. Further, I guarantee that very rarely is someone given a command ban for actions that did not have much larger ramifications for the round than this. Being EMPed as Ninja doesn't have to end your round, especially when the crew has agreed to help you and they didn't shoot you all the way dead when you pulled a blade on the captain in a glass room. I did everything in my power as captain to bring this guy under some semblance of control, after repeated briggable offenses and in a way that would result in zero deaths. I still do not agree with this ban, even reduced, and believe that it was handled in a strangely biased and poorly explained way, where Pikl was focusing on asking me if I knew what the problem with discharging an EMP grenade in security was (which I said yes, I didn't know it was quite that large). Nobody died who didn't kill themselves, the ninja and others were free to continue their RP and the round. Additional remarks: I would understand this ban if there had been a HoS and the captain was stepping in and taking control of a situation out from under a competent fellow command member. I could understand this situation if it was meta (which in the appeal thread, btw, Pikl essentially claimed it was, despite the ample RP and conversation in-round that indicated that it wasn't, and the ample opportunity to escape it, and not being murdered after its use, etc). I'd also understand the ban and note had I outright murdered the antag in this scenario, but, like I said, he was given an awfully long time and stern warnings before any actions were taken against him. I feel like what may have happened here is that Pikl openly accepted a very derisive and one-sided account of my actions as taken by the person or people who admin-helped, and assumed that I had run into this situation intent on being a hero or valid-hunting, when that wasn't the case. I've played here a long time and work pretty hard to run fairly good command positions - facilitating crew and RP and helping slow rounds along with events and so on and so forth - and working command is a nightmare half the time, but if we're going to get punished for situations like this, it really sucks all the fun out of it. It would have been nice to feel like Pikl really understood the situation before handing out the ban, and that he had an understanding of working understaffed command in this kind of scenario, but none of this came across... All this out-in-the-open ninja had to do in order to not be EMPed was comply as he said he would do after he was warned, or, use his ninja skills with any level of competence to avoid the situation after he decided to go bad-antag mode. My wrongdoing was discharging an EMP that was a little bigger than I expected, which I'm sorry about, but more of a "oh, sorry guys, won't do that again" level of sorry, not a "ban me from command and note my account" level of sorry, thus the complaint. I'd like to see the actual RULE that I broke here. Also: Didn't the ninja break a rule by suicide for no discernible reason?

I'd really like to see the logs on this to know whether Absynth threw peppers or not. It's pretty much implied in this thread that he did. If he says he didn't and called a mod a liar in his appeal, then that's big trouble. If he didn't, well, then this gets very interesting. Making ice peppers that never got abused just doesn't seem like it can be a reason for a permanent department ban. Making ice peppers that you then yourself abuse, and lie about doing so in an appeal sounds more like time for an upgrade to permanent server ban to me though.

I wasn't involved at all and don't know the whole story, but, from what I've read here, how in the world did something like this result in a PERMANENT, apparently unappealable department job ban? Even considering prior job bans. From what I've read here, he didn't actually himself abuse the things he grew? Somebody grew something dangerous. I don't see the big deal. There are whole canisters of phoron sitting right there that anyone with a science badge can drag out into a hall and open up... welder tanks and welders sitting all around that any assistant can grab and ignite or use to poison people, etc... 5 million ways to wreck people in this game, and this guy loses access to a whole department forever for making one of those and someone ELSE using it? How many times have the xenobiologists unleashed slime rampage upon coworkers and gotten absolutely no punishment? Seems a bit heavy of a punishment to me for growing ice peppers, unless said peppers concluded the round and blew up the whole station and crashed the server or something.

1) The ninja had agreed not to be a further threat and then suddenly, for no reason, re-negged on that by pulling the sword. It was made 100% clear to him that he would be crushed underfoot if he raised another security threat, and then he immediately did so, with not even a good reason to do so. Even after this, he was *STILL* given opportunity to relent and chose to remain conflictive, thus leaving me the choice of telling security to go weapons hot, or try one more non-lethal thing. It had already been said that tasers do not work on him on radio. By pulling a blade on a captain who had just told him he was alright if we got no more trouble from him, he convinced me that if I let him leave that room without being shown that we meant business, that he would have in fact killed someone before the shift was over. This meant action had to be taken, and since words, cuffs, and tasers hadn't proved effective, it was time to try something else. 2) He had ALREADY committed multiple briggable offenses which we could not brig him for at this point. (trespassing, assaulting someone, displaying weapons, etc), and it had been proven that he could not be cuffed, nor tased. 3) I wasn't "carrying around EMP grenades" as I already explained, but, I see you trying to make it look like I was meta-ing the ninja, which I was not. The ninja made it clear the instant he arrived, all of us RP pretending not to know what a ninja was, that he could not be disarmed without removing his suit, which would harm him to do so, he purported. When security indicated they could not restrain him, it stood to reason that he could be restrained if he was EMPed. I began whispering to command and security officers that I was going to go retrieve EMP grenades, and I did so, while he was in the room "detained". Upon my return, security was still unable to subdue him, so, I stepped in with the EMP grenade to put him down. Here's an excerpt: "Nathan Corvo"If I get another security concern out of you today, Dragon, I am going to sterilize your whole situation without another question. Are we clear?" Nathan Corvo"Are. We. Clear?" Dragon"" Very clear. Nathan Corvo"Good. You're welcome to gather tools and repair your craft." Nathan Corvo"But I've got no time or interest in putting my crew at risk on your behalf Dragon"My culture is bound by honor." Dragon"As yours are bound by laws." Nathan Corvo"Not here it isn't." Nathan Corvo"Here is NT." Dragon"They are one and the same. I didn't realize that." Nathan Corvo"Your culture exists outside the walls of this station and away from this asteroid. I'll let my guys help you get back to that, until then, our corporate regulations will supplant your 'honor'." LOOC: Dragon:Mromi. I'm about to do something dumb Dragon releases an energy sowrd from his arm, placing the blade agains the Captain's suit.. and so on from there. He even said he was gonna do something dumb in LOOC, knowing it wasn't smart... was still given huge time to get free or escape the EMP, etc... 4) Even before deploying the EMP, I stood face to face with him for a good 30 seconds with the EMP in my hand, in his reach. I was telling everyone to clear out, and then gave him further time to react. This was me literally giving him the opportunity to disarm me, to run, to say something, to teleport, to do ANYTHING. 5) After he was EMPed, he could have done any number of things to continue RP and the round and chose not to.

I was participating in the RP with the ninja. I was the first to do so when he arrived, and I was continuing to do so in that room. I offered plenty of dialogue and actions for him to play on, and his choice was to threaten with a sword, escalating what was otherwise just a conversation. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure security had plans to let him interact with much of the crew at all had it not been for command, myself included, playing along with his (honestly not very good - no offense) gimmick. That escalation was an EMP grenade only after security failed to arrest him, as ordered. They indicated they were not CAPABLE of arresting him while his suit was active. Since there was no HoS to defer to, I just tried to deactivate his suit so that he could be arrested. I had no idea this would result in him committing suicide, nor did I think this would end the round, nor did I think that all of security would be harmed by a single EMP grenade. Again, no one's round was concluded, or even necessarily ruined by my actions. I don't see how ruining my whole week of play is in any way a measured response to me hurting a ninja that pulled a sword on me after he was given plenty of opportunity to play it cool and walk 100% free... and opportunity even after the EMP weapon to be treated and interacted with and role-played with for as long as he wanted. Clearly, it's not something I would do again, since I was unaware that one EMP grenade in this situation could result in such a ridiculously heavy punishment.

BYOND Key: JKJudgeX Total Ban Length: 1 week Job Ban Banning staff member's Key: Pikl Reason of Ban: Used an EMP grenade on a Ninja in security Reason for Appeal: Situation: Ninja appears aboard, in command area. We greet him and he explains that he needs to repair his ship. He demonstrates ninja abilities to us but ensures us that he is harmless and that we should help him. His name is Dragon. We agree after brief deliberation and assign someone to escort him about. Soon thereafter, reports come in that he has netted someone. He goes to security to be talked to about this. I show up as Captain (Nathan Corvo) to figure out what's up. He says he had to teach her a lesson about honor or something. I explain that his honor code can't be used to hurt the crew, and that NT regulations will serve as his new code of honor aboard the vessel, or we will react in extreme punitive fashion. The Ninja extends a blade and emotes pressing it against my chest, and is stopped by his chaperone that we've assigned. I excuse myself from the interrogation room and order that the ninja be arrested. Officers attempt to arrest him, but are unsuccessful because they can't cuff him. He continues to act indignant and in control, and at this point we are helpless to actually arrest or stop him, since he can turn invisible or teleport. I am advised via whisper by security that we have to disable his suit before we will be able to arrest him. I go and get EMP grenades, because it has been repeatedly made clear by the ninja that his technological suit cannot be removed and is the source of his weaponry and powers. I return, and order everyone to get clear. Repeatedly, I tell members of security to get clear. I have distributed two EMP grenades to other security and the HoP, and have whispered about EMP grenades to a couple of others as well. Everyone gets clear. I enter the room with the ninja and we stand have a short stand off. I prime the grenade, and he vanishes, I throw it, and it goes off. The ninja re-appears and attempts to avoid me. I hit him in the leg several times with the extendable baton to incapacitate him. I try to remove some of his gear, and find that I can't take much of it off. My intention was not to kill this antag, nor end his antag round, nor terminate his narrative. I was enjoying our back and forth RP, and just wanted to throw in a little bit of action. I was thinking that the round would go on for at least 30 more minutes and he would escape security, etc, after we got him healed up, and that we would have more encounters. I retreat from the room, giving him space, and inform security that they are now to detain him and see to his health. A minute or so later, for reasons I do not know, he self-destructs, hurting a bunch of people. I am adminhelped about throwing an EMP grenade in security. 1) I did not realize how absolutely huge an EMP grenade explosion was. 2) I could not formulate any other way to temporarily disable him or stop him from teleporting/cloaking long enough for us to do anything about it. 3) No one died as a result of this EMP grenade. 4) No one but the ninja died as a result of his, in my opinion, unreasonable self-destruct. 5) I explained these things in full to Pikl, and received a week-long command role ban. 6) Yes, this did hurt some security guys who had cybernetic parts, again, didn't know the range was that huge, and, again, nobody died and everyone was treated. Yes, I understand an EMP grenade is dangerous because someone can have a cybernetic heart, and that people are put into pain when they have cybernetic limbs. Nathan Corvo has cybernetic limbs and was ready to deal with that pain in order to stop this threat to the crew. Again, this was meant to be a move to demonstrate to the ninja that we were not helpless against him, and in no way was there any kind of plan to kill this ninja, since he had not actually killed anyone yet. But he had threatened the captain's life with a weapon, in front of security. Normally, I'd just take my licks and move on, but this didn't seem right or fair to me as anything more than a quick "hey, be more careful with EMP grenades", which I would have just been like "alright". I asked Pikl what his suggestions were for roping in a dangerous person who had threatened command personnel when they have a ninja suit. He did not seem to have an answer or any kind of suggestion regarding how I *should* have handled the scenario instead. Security had already tried to arrest him to no avail. The next step in my mind was "lethals, go" or, use an EMP and incapacitate the Ninja and dissolve the situation without fatalities. Outside of that, it seems that the options were "well, okay, I know he just put a laser sword to me in plain view of everyone, but, let him wander around some more" but that seemed like bad RP, too. In any event, a ban like this goes on my record, and I've been playing Captain a lot recently and generally trying to be very helpful to new and old players alike by occupying a rather unforgiving role, and this was kind of a shock. You guys know I've played here for years, I probably have one or two notes from using bombs as antags which you should note has entirely curtailed, but outside of those old issues, I'd bet that 95% of my interactions as command staff have been satisfactory in terms of RP and understanding the position. The punishment should fit the crime. Nobody's round was even ended by my actions, but this concludes my whole week of play. I'm just saying, that's a bit out of bounds IMO. I would like the ban removed and for it to be removed from my record. Thank you for your time.

Tried Leonce out on a round that was going very quietly with no HoS as Interim HoS. He did well, seemed to respond quickly and he had dealt with a CCIA note about weapons training and such. The round erupted into a rather hectic final portion as the changelings revealed themselves and he showed good RP and security operations understanding. I'll +1 him despite his relatively short playtime here because I feel like command is kind of thin lately and he demonstrated RP and interest in the command process.

I still say it'd make sense. People lose IDs, and some antags start without them, changelings need IDs to completely subsume someone's appearance, but, if they didn't *have* to have them, and you didn't have the right to demand an ID on green, a changeling could steal someone's DNA, dress like them, and masquerade as them without the ID more effectively. That plus the visitor reasons I mentioned above gives plenty of room for it to be reasonable to be able to refuse/ignore an ID check on Green alert.

I kinda like the idea of the station having visitors who come for various reasons... "here for an interview", "here to buy some resources/items from cargo", "here on a stop for further travel to vacation spot/eventual destination", "here for a medical procedure" - all things that may or may not be actually being done during the shift that we are playing. This is why I like the visitor role. It makes the hallways and civilian areas of the station more like a "public" area. So, I feel like the original suggestion might have some merit to be considered if we say no IDs have to be shown - in public areas... if you are down in research you need to have an ID on display, or in security or engineering or the bridge, etc. Out in the hall or the chapel or the bar, on green alert? I'd be fine with a no ID requirement. Why? For the reasons stated above about visitors who should have rights since they aren't employees (as if employees shouldn't lol, well trained proles)... but for meta reasons, it helps antags like wizard who show up without an ID not immediately be meta-known to the crew as an antag. I'd kinda also like to see "visitors" not show up in employee records.

I noticed a general lack of tools in maint and around command. When power outages occur, there need to be crowbars around... maybe just use the old map as a guide for placement in general, ensuring that you don't get stuck on new map in places you wouldn't have been stuck in old map. A power outage shouldn't turn a whole department into nuggets, which is what happens if there aren't any crowbars around. There should be one on the bridge, and since the bridge is now not directly attached to the HoP and Captain's offices, probably at least one in the area connecting the rooms of the command area. Security also seemed very light on crowbars and tools. I'd also like to see a couple of extra auxiliary tool storage areas around to make up for the long walk to tool storage that now exists from many places aboard. They should have a couple of mechanical and electrical toolboxes, boxes of replacement lights, fire extinguisher, toolbelt, and maybe a couple of other little things in there. I'm not saying crowbars should rain from the sky when an outage happens, sometimes you're supposed to be stuck, but, the new map seems quite stranding during a power outage and I feel like NT would have provided a few more tools around than I see.

Traunt demonstrated competency in R&D and RP encounters have been satisfactory, +1 from me, more RDs are always good.

It's an RP server, not a "non-combat" server. Your character has decided to wander around a rarely traversed part of the station and you suddenly get murdered? That happens in like, every horror sci-fi movie ever made, and the game is meant to mimic that kind of thing from time to time. Every single mode has combat weaponry and gear. That's there for a reason. What you are talking about are the things usually referred to by the community as "gimmicks"... and they are not unique to RP servers. The raiders doing the merchant thing, the revolutionaries doing the communist thing, traitors adding flair to their objectives by saying it's for a specific company, etc. In any case, there is plenty of time to RP in the 30 minutes to 2 hours while the antags set up their gameplay... maybe they'll get busted, maybe you'll never see them, maybe they'll RP with you... and maybe, in this particular round, your fate was to be the hapless victim that gets shot in the face for seemingly no reason. It happens, and trying to make it not happen takes away from the realism and some of the suspense of the game. I had a great round as captain a while back where I kind of discovered who the antags might be, but didn't know where they were. I went to talk to them to see if it was them, and I opened the door to science to find one of the suspects standing there with a gun in his hand. I say "What the-" and then he blows my brains out. It was a great round because of the fun interactions that happened leading up to this. I didn't enjoy having my fun round instantly concluded, but, it made sense, right? The captain has just found you with a gun? Bad times for him. Had he gone into a big RP spiel, he would have had to trust me to play into his gimmick, which I may or may not have done (Nathan Corvo is usually non-violent, this guy didn't know that or didn't care). Long story short, half of the excitement of this game is not knowing what's in store. If everyone becomes a scripted text-slinging RP-Robot for fear of getting adminhelped, and every game mode turns into something as terribly boring and done-to-death as merchant mercenaries (please kill me out of this round when this gimmick happens)... the game loses flavor and people get bored. Cult is great... be they suicide bombing extremists, a super stealth-cult that summons nar-sie, or a station-converting super-defensive bunch of almost-wizards, the gamemode as it is is one of my favorites.

if they grenaded you before any combat had started, that was shitty, but you do know you could've used flash rounds? one shot is like a ranged flash that would overload their senors and leave them helpless against the harmbaton, fllashrounds for the .45 and 12 gauge shotguns are easily printed out of an autolathe without hacking it Yeah, it turns out that the same mentality that goes and pre-emptively removes all of the EMP grenades and guns is also the same mentality that shoots before you have a chance to flash/etc... which is why I kinda consider that meta-play... it's very much playing to win more than anything else... But, again, every once in a while? Sure... I was just particularly frustrated by that round because it was when people were continually testing the new syndie borg features and it was getting old very fast.