Bath Salts Addict

Don't get me wrong. I'm all gung-ho about death and murder when it drives a narrative and is a reasonable reaction to things the antagonist has done. I think it's interesting when an antagonist is cornered in maintenance, wounded, helpless and facing down the barrel of a gun by an angry sec officer who watched all his friends and colleagues get murdered, and enacts revenge in a swift and efficient manner. I believe that's an interesting ending to a story, instead of "he was put in cuffs and taken to the departures dock while the rest of the crew oggled at him like was a zoo animal instead of a dangerous lunatic until round end". The unfortunate thing is that if that situation were to ever actually play out on the server, staff would instantly bwoink the vengeful sec officer and find him at fault. Staff have made it clear time and time again that they don't want security to ever act like falliable and, at times, unreasonable people, even if it comes at the cost of telling an interesting story.

I can pitch in and say that I've had plenty of unpleasant moments with Amory using "authority" or "emotional instability" as an excuse to kill an antag beyond what is. One such incident that comes to mind is when I detained an antag (vampire or heister/merc, I think?) who had attacked multiple crew, including Amory's character Carmichael. While dragging him to processing to lock him away for the rest of the round, Carmichael comes wheeling in to the brig spamming in all caps and doing everything he can to stomp them to death and using the fact that he was attacked previously as an excuse. It got to the point where another sec officer and I had to beat him down to get him to stop. However, I can say that I've never seen Amory explicitly going out of his way to kill antags beyond what is reasonable for the situation and his character. Honestly, it's easy to shit on security for doing their job if you've never even played a round of security and put yourself in their shoes, like Rosetango regularly does. Just play sec for a week and you'll slowly start to understand why they make the decisions they do when they're put on the spot. It may not always be the best decision, they're only a human behind the screen, but it's a decision they think is the best. Remember that sticking to a character and preserving a semi-realistic setting is more important than mollycoddling antags. I can personally assure you that no one, especially Amory, is going out of their way to ruin your round because "haha fuck you". It's easy to sit back and whine about shitcurity and validhunting security when you've never bothered to put yourself in their position. If you're wrong about security being as bad as you say, then so what? And if you're right about sec being the big bad boogeymen you claim them to be? Then you have insider knowledge of how they work and can actually do something to try and change the way it works internally without whining on discord and making forum reports.

:thinking:

My biggest issue was the Sol Marines playing exclusively to win, rather than create an interesting event. This was proven when they almost immediately bypassed the sublevel defences that security and engineering had worked in tandem to organize in order to breach from space and vent and kill everyone inside, regardless of whether they were unarmed or not. I had briefly contemplated getting EVA gear, but I dared to think for a moment that Alberyk cared about the quality of the people he was putting in charge of roles integral to the round. But no, they instantly breached from EVA, killed the defenders that had begun to surrender and wordlessly began killing the unarmed engineer and cadet, one of whom was in paincrit. I ahelped about that, of course, and was told it was "handled" but in reality nothing happened. The general response to deadchat's complaints was, of course, the always classy "lol salty" and Alberyk bemoaned the station's lack of creativity while simultaneously allowing the marines to go about their business unmolested as they brute forced every situation they came across, even when the station made attempts to disable the power to stop them from firing the gun and killing civilians (Sol Marines complained about the bluespace arty being a "WMD" and then proceeded to hijack it and used it to kill millions on Biesel and the Odin??????). Take note of the fact that everytime the bluespace arty fired, it drained the station's powernet for a few minutes. If the lower deck still had power, but the supermatter ejected, it would have had enough juice to maybe fire once before draining the station and then that's it, but that clearly wasn't the case.

Okay, two things. One, that is literally the worst sprite I've ever seen. Ew. Second, people actually like the noir aesthetic and it's not out of place in the setting at all considering the fact that said setting is an amalgamation of influences and inspirations the lore team find interesting and incorporate into the game. Tajaran society is basically a mix between a 1984 Orwellian-style dystopia and the old Soviet Union. Luna looks like it's stuck in the 20's or 30's with it's retro-futuristic aesthetic. One character of all the characters on the station wearing a shirt, tie, coat and a fedora in an out-of-the-way office is hardly immersion breaking. I say leave the noir as default, but give the detective more alternate outfits to appease the sticks in the mud. On another note, why? You don't even play detective, and sure you main a role that interacts with them heavily, but why does it matter so much to you that you want it removed when other people are clearly enjoying it? This may be a bit personal, but I'm absolutely astounded by this level of selfishness. Just live and let live. Don't keep the detective on your screen if it's honestly THAT much of an issue for you, or stop playing forensic tech. I'd prefer being a noir meme than being forced into some stupid Detroit: Become Human reference or get turned into a cheap knockoff of a CSI: Miami character.

Think about it this way. If you find yourself in a locked room with an IPC handcuffed and at your mercy, you can go about the situation through the purely analytical mind of a person sitting at a screen calculating risk/reward factors on whether or not that IPC should be killed or converted, and you decide they're not worth the risk and kill them, then you ultimately introduce nothing interesting to the round by that choice, even if you think you're helping the cult's growth in the long run. Or, alternatively, you can look at it through the mind of a blood-worshipping, deranged cultist and see that a body is a body and go for the conversion regardless of any reservations you may have OOCly, since a cultist's primary goal is to spread their god's will as much as possible. In return, you spice up the round by introducing another antagonist who will go on to interact with the station and other antags for better or for worse. And even if they choose death over conversion, you can still soulstone them and make some use of them. As for conversion runes, the mental anguish probably far outweighs the physical damage it causes on the body, and since IPCs are largely logic-based machines with sentience, it's fair to say the conversion process negatively effects their brain in some way. If an IPC wordlessly resists repeated conversion attempts (provided you aren't just wordlessly stunning, restraining and converting them with "JOIN OR DIE" first) then you can probably ahelp that as that'd likely fall under powergaming. Don't quote me on that, though. Not every staff member's definition of powergaming is the same. And remember, as with any antagonist, your OOC goal as a cultist shouldn't be to dominate the station and win through any means necessary, it should first and foremost be to make the round interesting, even if you do end up losing terribly.

All I really have to say to that is... So what? If you'd rather kill or soulstone them rather than bothering to try for a conversion, then more power to you. You do what you want if that's what you think about cult IPCs, but just make sure you can justify it to staff if they bwoink you because you wanted to powergame your way to victory rather than create an interesting round. Vaurca can be fucked over by cultist EMPs as well, and a Diona's only real niche as a cultist is to park themselves next to the engine and spam cult ghosts until the station dies, otherwise they get BTFO'd by anyone with a flash or plant killer. Being a cultist IPC has it's trade offs and it has it's benefits. Upon converting an IPC, the cult gains a minion extremely resilient to brute damage that is unable to be memed by tear gas and can eat ERT bullpups for breakfast at the cost of being vulnerable to EMPs and unable to spam cult magic on a constant basis without some fallback method to repair themselves. If the IPC can't pull their weight in the team and play to their advantages and mitigate their disadvantages as much as possible, that's the fault of the player and not the species. If the cult's victory relies so heavily on said IPC pulling their weight, then the cult has been too busy murderboning and hasn't spent enough time converting, and so the fault lies with them and not the species.

I fail to see how this was ever an issue in the first place. You can't really apply logic to an eldritch blood cult who's magic is shown to be capable of corrupting inanimate objects and reality itself (cult walls, floors, computers turning into those altar things, constructs, etc etc) and if we're going to get really deep into this, the fact that IPCs can still be soul stoned proves they have something resembling a soul to be corrupted in the first place. It's not far-fetched to assume that the cult's magic is capable of corrupting an unlawed synthetic's programming or, if you're inclined to believe an IPC has one, their soul. If we're talking mechanics wise, a cultist IPC is at a severe disadvantage in comparison to organic cultists. [*]Cultist IPCs cannot use EMPs, which is the greatest utility the cult has against borgs, security, and enemy IPCs. Being around a fellow cultist who doesn't warn them before using the EMP is almost a death sentence, especially if the cult has gone loud and robotics is dead/non-converted. [*]IPCs cannot naturally regenerate wounds like other races can. A cultist IPC using cult magic means that their damage will stick with them unless they have a readily available supply of nanopaste or someone to repair them. If not, then failing to watch their use of cult magic (even so much as clicking on your talisman without actually doing anything causes damage) will wear on them and eventually make their limbs malfunction. Practically a death sentence if they find themselves in a pinch. [*]IPCs can manifest ghosts, but due to the damage over time for having one summoned, is a very bad idea for them, meaning another common cult tactic is out the window for them. [*]Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think cult armor overheats IPCs as well, but I'm not 100% sure on that one. The only benefit an IPC has I can think of off the top of my head is that they make for great stealthcultists, as even before the PR no one really knew IPCs could be converted in the first place, which had the consequence of cultists straight up murderizing IPCs without realizing they could have been converted. Any damage they take can simply be waved off by running around, or completely repaired without any lasting scabs or healing skins for security to meta. For the longest time IPCs rolled with what they had. It's never been an issue until now, all of a sudden, for whatever inane reason that got brought up to encourage a hasty PR. They don't deserve to have game code written to facilitate them, so how is it justified having game code rewritten to exclude them on the opposite end of the spectrum?

I was promised ERP if I +1'd this. Alice is a joy to see as a pAI, and Eve already has the synthetic personality down to a T. And if it means getting them to play a character who doesn't have some form of "Eve" in the name, that's a bonus. +1 from me

This has been a long time coming. Worthy makes good characters, even if they're not the most eccentric and extremely noticeable. It's a +1 from me.

Reporting Personnel: LSS-HOUND-C-13, adopting the alias Noir Rank of Reporting Personnel: Detective Game ID: bTY-c6cd Personnel Involved: - Trevor Falk, Warden (Offender) - Syvatopolk Aitmukhambetov, Quartermaster (Victim) - Altair Al-Azir, Security Officer (Witness) ((Worthy)) Time of Incident: Est. 2:20 PM GMT-6 Real time: (E.g 0500GMT 3/25/18) Location of Incident: Cargo; Cargo warehouse Nature of Incident: []Workplace Hazard []Accident/Injury []Destruction of Property []Neglect of Duty []Harassment []Assault [X]Misconduct [X]Other Violation of station directives, conducting an illegal search. Overview of the Incident: As part of the Cargo department's ordinary start-of-shift routine, a crate of dangerous and/or useful items were sent to the security department consisting of items found in the warehouse. The warden, Trevor Falk, found the crate and came to the conclusion that the warehouse should have more contraband stored. He informed the security department, and was told by both myself, the forensic technician Emily Smith and Officer Al-Azir of the specifics of station directive four and that attempting to search the warehouse under mere suspicion on code green, even with a warrant authorized by himself, would be illegal. Despite this warning, it seemed as if the Warden began to do so anyways. This unit monitored him as he spoke with the Quartermaster in the lobby from the bar with a pair of bincoulars while maintaining PDA communications with Mr. Aitmukhambetov, When he managed to force his way into cargo to search the warehouse, Officer Al-Azir was informed and requested to cargo to assist this unit in detaining Warden Falk, in which we did so and charged him with illegal search, attempted theft of an ED-209 security unit that he was dragging out of the warehouse, and exceeding official powers. Did you report it to a Head of Department or IAA? If so, who?: Captain Jordan Hudson ((HunterRS)) arrived as we were detaining the Warden and was informed of the circumstances, eventually giving his full approval for charges to be applied. Actions taken: Warden Falk was charged with i119 - Illegal Search, i102 - Petty Theft, and i214 - Exceeding Official Powers. Additional Notes: Warden Trevor Falk was also wearing his pistol in full view on his vest during code green when he was detained.

The basis for the recent mapping changes, according to Juani, was put forth to the respective security and medical discords. Not the forums, not the main discord, but unofficial discords that don't even comprise a fraction of the playerbase of their respective departments. I feel like this was an incredibly irresponsible and poorly thought out thing to do.

I make it a point to sometimes charge the people who contaminate evidence with the crime, even if I OOCly know they didn't actually commit the crime. It's the only way people will get it through their thick skulls not to touch a clearly husked changeling body or obvious bloody murder weapon. And if the victim honestly can't wait the extra 5-10 minutes for forensics to do an autopsy before handing the body off to medical, then why are they even playing a HRP server? If they have that much of a pathetic level of patience, they don't deserve cloning at all.

I don't normally post on these types of apps, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a -1. You have a tendency to get heated when things don't go your way, and tend to pump out the player complaints for a variety of reasons or, failing that, complain on discord. You tend to get emotional and worked up over a lot of things, and need to learn to take a step back and take things in stride. As Schev said, get some chill going. I won't elaborate further as these are topics that have already been discussed to death, but your issue with plahunter and the whole fiasco regarding McSpizzy and the ISD discord channel's management have left a sour taste in my mouth for you receiving a position that requires a cool and level-head. Hell, even the idea of you managing the ISD discord and your attempts at becoming the de facto "face" of security makes me uncomfortable.

G2 Industrials are slower than Dionae and they're tailor made for security roles. I fail to see how speed would be the sole factor in deciding they can't put all that strength and bulk to good use.

I don't understand this. Why wouldn't an IPC put themselves in harm's way to protect a more fragile crewmember? They can survive almost anything shy of an EMP and hobble back to robotics for repairs whereas an organic would likely be incapacitated or killed by any number of factors. Obviously they shouldn't go to extreme lengths where they're taking on an entire army singlehandedly to save a captured janitor, but if they were put in a situation where they could take a bullet for an organic, why wouldn't they? Stationbounds are lawed to put their expensive selves on the line for even the lowliest of crew if the situation calls for it, so why should an IPC, a synthetic that has much higher leeway in that regard, be forced to preserve themselves even at the cost of others? Leave it up to the individual character just like every other race is allowed to. Some IPCs will put themselves on the line for others, some won't.

I'm banking on the idea of allowing ERP to be an elaborate April Fool's joke, but on the off-chance it isn't... I say let people do what they want. In private. I fear allowing ERP would risk creating an atmosphere similar to Citadel, where they claim it's not about the pixel sex but in reality the only reason anyone ever plays Citadel over any other run of the mill /tg/code server is because of the ERP, and Citadel has a pretty toxic environment. I don't think those types of players are the ones Aurora wants or needs to sustain a healthy development. Nor can you really hope to expect players will be mature enough to handle that subject matter and implement it in a way that's supposed to enrich the stories they weave rather than just do it as a way to get their rocks off. Take the engineering department and it's players for example. Every single CE, atmos tech, or engineer that could be considered a "regular" character have probably ERPed each and every single one of each other over DMs, like some big fraternity of horny teenagers in orange. And yes. I will defend that statement to the death. As a result, playing engineeringas a relative newcomer or interacting with an engineering character in comparison to any other department just puts a weird feeling in the air (pun intended) knowing that this is the likely case. They don't explicitly say it, but knowing that they have just puts a huge damper on interacting with anyone from that department, and you start to notice things. Now, I'm not saying we absolutely should not ever implement ERP. If people reaaaally want to do that instead of discord DMs, more power to them I suppose. I just elect to remain extremely cautious about the prospect unless staff remain vigilant. A big huge one would be to not allow important roles like heads of staff or the warden or anyone in a department that's lacking people to go off and ERP, and expect people to abruptly stop ERPing if something happens that requires them.

Yeah, I suppose that's fair. At this point I have a clear idea in my head for what's acceptable. And if in doubt, I suppose I can always ahelp.

BYOND Key: Bath Salts Addict Total Ban Length: Permanent Banning staff member's Key: Alberyk Reason of Ban: "Managing the rd console, by printing nanopaste to heal himself. You have a lot of warnings and notes about powergaming behavior." Reason for Appeal: I want to preface this by saying that I don't necessarily agree that the situation that is the fulcrum of this situation necessitated a ban. I'm no liar, I'm not about to try and pull the wool over anyone's eyes by claiming that I've seen the light and I'm instantly a changed person. What I will concede to is the fact that there is an overarching issue prevalent in regards to the fact that I tend to be patient and dislike waiting around for someone to come over and do something that is incredibly simple while shit hits the fan. Maybe I'm just naturally impatient. Whatever it is, I'll try harder. Not much more I can say on this front.

You're comparing those two things to an entirely different situation without proper context. Hacking something and deconstructing a wall are pretty solidified in the way the skills system is implemented (or at least how each individual staff member interprets them, there's nothing set in stone from what I take away from all of this). A protolathe, on the other hand, is something I assumed was covered under my own interpretation of the required skills, something I've done countless times in the past without anyone batting an eyelash. Exia made clear to me their point of view on what skill(s) the protolathe operated under and I conceded to that point of view. If you had looked over the conversation like you claimed you'd have seen that. If it was a malicious, clearly intentional violation of the rules, I'm certain they would have taken action right then and there. I'll refute that point by quoting myself. To make myself more clear, I fail to see what necessitated an immediate, on-the-spot verdict for something a staff member perceived as a non-issue when you could have waited a short period to get the full story and opinion of a colleague. Seeing as I've now had to quote myself, it's becoming evident that we're both just arguing in circles here and we've both made our points abundantly clear. It would probably be for the best that we wait until Abo has reached a decision, as I believe he wants to get this handled as quickly as possible.

Again, to break this down. [*]Exia likely understood and saw the issue as what it was: a misunderstanding of the skills required to operate the protolathe. Hence that, they did not see what I did as malicious and elected not to place a note on my account. If they had, they would have assuredly done so as per their duties as a moderator. [*]You, without bothering to communicate properly with another staff member that could have been argued as "being involved", made an on-the-spot decision without getting the full story or properly looking into that particular incident. Why, exactly? What necessitated a hasty judgment without opening proper channels of communication? The note wasn't going anywhere, and I was blissfully ignorant of it's existence. Instead, you made a grandiose display over the overwhelming trust you have in your fellow staff members and decided to make something that was deemed a non-issue an issue.

So to break this one down... [*]The bartender incident was deemed a non-issue, so out of the blue you decided to take a look at my notes and without ever really bringing it up with anyone (except Theplahunter) and ignoring the fact that multiple people before you have read those notes, you decided to place me on that arbitrary "last straw" that acted as the catalyst for everything that happened. [*]After my talk with Exia concerning something I was not doing out of maliciousness but rather a misunderstanding of what skills operating the RnD console fell under, when it was likely deemed a non-issue by they themself, you decided to swoop in and apply a permanent ban, thus disregarding the decision of a subordinate moderator who most likely read the note you placed and, again, saw the situation as the misunderstanding that it was. So you don't need to tell anyone that they're treading on extremely thin ice, but you'll gladly tell some random player that. ...Why? What benefit did you perceive in your mind, what desirable outcome did you foresee by telling Theplahunter that instead of literally anyone else? If the arrest was deemed a non-issue, then why did you word it the way you did, and why did falsely reassure him that he was in the right?

You say this, but this wasn't some permanent ban out of the blue after you've decided that enough was enough. You would've done that during the incident where you accused me of metagaming the bartender, but you didn't have a leg to stand on. Instead, you decided to go behind my back and place me on some arbitrary "final straw" that you did not even tell me about, but rather went ahead and told some random player who I had previously wronged in that round and was salty as a result. You knew outright banning me for the first incident would be questionable and more difficult to justify. You go on to talk about precedents and nitpick all of my notes and warnings to help you in your case, but I looked at my notes. As I said before, out of all my total notes, warnings, and bans, only six are ever for hard powergaming. You can go ahead and bloat the truth, and pick out little pieces for you to stand atop, but the truth is very few of my notes are ever for "powergaming". Do I have a lot of notes? Yes, I'll admit that. Are a majority of my notes for validhunty/questionable behavior when acquiring valids? Yes, I'll admit that, but in that regard I've certainly eased up quite a bit. But apparently that isn't good enough, and you'll jump down my throat for the second biggest perceived issue and press that instead. And you did this with the full knowledge Alberyk confided in you (but, again, not me. Weird, huh?) that I would likely receive a permanent ban for even the smallest slight. Does this not seem a bit questionable to you? Even you yourself claim that I've done nothing prior to this incident to wrong you, but at the drop of a hat you'll practically rage at me in LOOC and even follow me around (after your character's death) as a ghost with your finger poised over the ahelp button (again, I'm calling bullshit on the idea that Eab ahelped before you did. In his words, someone else mentioned the situation well before he did). And yet because I slighted you just once, you went through all this trouble just to get revenge and now you're complaining about the treatment others are giving you.

This is a blatant lie. Let me put on my detective cap to prove why that is. Yes, Eab did ahelp about the nanopaste, but never directed the ahelp in question towards me in particular. He simply ahelped to see if it was allowed to print nanopaste from RnD. From his own words, he did not get an answer. He was simply told that the "issue was being dealt with", implying that someone had ahelped prior to him. Who, I wonder?

There seems to be a misconception about nanopaste. Nanopaste does not repair IPC's internal damages without someone opening the hatch to their innards and applying it that way. With nanopaste, an IPC can completely heal themselves up to full provided they have enough of it regardless of their damage so long as their internals aren't damaged. With that said, the direct counter to nanopaste is an EMP. Or blowing up the protolathe, depending on your point of view. What you're thinking of is stationbounds, as they do not require their hatch to be opened for nanopaste to repair their internal systems, provided it hasn't reached a damage threshold where it is completely deleted. That said, I am completely against this PR as it simply seems like a band-aid fix to a perceived problem rather than addressing the issue at it's roots. The fact of the matter is that if you give a robust enough player a crappy, mechanically inferior frame, they're still going to wipe the floor with anyone that doesn't have an EMP, laser weapon or an equal or superior amount of robustness because IPCs are immune to most stuns, feel no pain and are can largely shrug off ballistics with minimal consequences. If changing IPC resurrection is an absolute must, what I'd suggest is allowing Robotics to produce aesthetically identical but mechanically inferior frames (sans Shells and Bishop Frames. They'll just have to settle for a baseline or industrial one) that keeps everyone's snowflakey models but still "punishes" them for dying... You know, despite the fact that no other race has a permanent "punishment" for dying and getting revived. We'll offer up our robustness as sacrificial lambs if need be, but at least let us keep being snowflakes.