[Dismissed] Increase Difficulty/Consequences for Using Station Funds

[Kaed]

Money is largely meaningless in this game except for interactions with antagonists, and because of that, there is a tendency for command staff to just reach for the station accounts the moment weapons are needed or an absolutely preposterous amount of money is demanded for ransoms, like 20k for two captive cargo technicians in a recent round.  There are zero consequences for heads using those funds to immediately dispel any tension, and generally the people who try and insist otherwise are ignored under waves of humanitarian ideals like 'they're people, it's worth any price!'

I can tell you that there is no for-profit company (i.e. Nanotrasen) that would let you throw huge amounts of money Nanotrasen's company money away for a couple of barely qualified low level employees.  Maybe if they were heads of staff, or something, but this is ridiculous.

I'd like it if we had some actual policies on hostage negotiations and station funds, so it isn't left up to the gentle, soft-hearted HoP's and CMO's to blast Nanotrasen's money out of their ass with zero oversight.  There are often policies that governments have for terrorist negotiations, and Nanotrasen is practically a corporate government in itself.  I mean, the heads might still do it anyway, but they should be doing it with the understanding their jobs are on the line for carelessly using company funds.

[Azande]

to be fair, the 75K budget of the station is like... Pocket change to NanoTrasen, who is a multi-trillion credit income corporation. The Aurora alone took billions of credits to build.

[Kaed]

That doesn't mean you spend the approximate entire annual earnings of a low level employee to buy them back.  Rich corporations don't generally throw their money away to every pirate who comes along and grabs a random citizen, or they'd hemorrhage funds and become a viable target for every other pirate.

Precedents get set if you start giving in just because technically you can afford to pay whatever is asked, and it ends badly.

The aurora may have taken millions to build, but I'm pretty sure that a chef or cargo tech is not worth 10k+.  They can always get a new one for much cheaper.

I feel I should remind you this is the same setting where it was deemed 'not murder' to lobotomize and cut out someone's brain to put in a robot to use as a slave.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Kaed

[AmoryBlaine]

So, uh, is this to say we shouldn't negotiate with hostage takers? That seems counter productive. If they want money, what do we do?

[ben10083]

While I understand the points put forward, perhaps a ccia notice can be made saying that funds taken out from station accounts for non-work reasons (ransom doesn't fall under this) will be replenished by the crewmembers (AKA if science uses their department funds for a pizza party, they have their pay rerouted to refill the account). As a side note to this: The general station account will have all crew-members affected (All of them will have their pay reduced to pay for it).

I will also point out that NanoTrasen isn't a saint, they care about the profitability of the station and the bottom line. As such, NT would likely dissuade command from spending such exorbitant ransoms for low-value crewmembers.

Thoughts?

[Kaed]

It's not that negotiation should be discouraged, it's that I feel like Nanotrasen would have set some kind of (not very high) limit on how much they will let you pay for a ransom depending on the hostage(s) taken.  The negotiations should involve difficulty on the part of the station as they try to follow corporate policies and still figure out a way to pay off the greedy pirates (perhaps by pooling crewmember money or selling stuff to the round's merchant) instead of them just dipping unrestrained fingers into the station accounts or bounty funds and immediately resolving the problem.

[Butterrobber202]

Really, we have a very low amount of corporate shills in our command staff, so the lovey dovey humanitarian stuff is unsurprising. A new directive could probably be of help here on the disturbation of station funds. Give cookie cutter example of what the station funds should be used for, and base it on that. Or impose in-round faxes expressing Nanotrasen displeasure of the 70k credits that just vanished from the Aurora's bank account.

[DaTimeSmog]

Heres a thought...

Make Credits actually useful.

[Evandorf]

I think a powerful and established company like NT that does business in dangerous areas of the galaxy probably has some form of insurance on its personnel in the event of death, dismemberment, or capture.

Maybe IAA or more stingy HOPs would rankle at the idea of higher insurance premiums because they had to make a payment to pirates, but the cold, logical, and businesslike manner of treating your employees like things to be insured rather than people fits the pseudo-cyberpunk dystopian aesthetic.

[GreenBoi]

I mean, people forget that NT can pay newspapers not to talk about "lowly" events and deaths. They could pay the deaths to be simple stuff like "Security was sadly knocked out and unable to stop the death of the two Cargo Technicians" plus, with the HoS and Captain being implanted while it happens, they wouldn't tell the crew anything the wiser. Perhaps it could be a classified Directive 12 for the HoS and Captain to only know about.

[Resilynn]

Just make money mean something. 

 

[Evandorf]

4 hours ago, Resilynn said:

Just make money mean something. 

 

I'm not knocking your suggestion here, but this is pretty difficult to do. Especially in a game where people don't hold anything as truly valuable. Maybe when we have some kind of persistence it could happen.

[UnknownMurder]

I feel the same as EJ_Denton. I can just spend all of my money at the nearest laptop because I can and it does not affect future rounds or RPs. I can tell everyone that drinks are on me at the bar and empty my bank account because I'll get them back by the next round. Someone might get bwoinked just for emptying the bank account to buy everyone drinks because it is not a "sane decision". Sure, you can give antagonists the money but the real question is... What is the antagonist going to do with the money he just got in a round? He can do some influence on stuff with money but will people give two shits? Nah. Does this influence future rounds? No, antagonists are retconned and any actions caused by an antagonist are reverted before an upcoming round.

With this in mind, I can safely tell everyone that this is the exact source of problem where credit starts being useless. Let's be honest. Many of us have suggestions to make credit be useful but I see small or none of them being accepted.

I know this is off-topic, @EJ_Denton, but like many other people, I personally have a suggestion for it. My personal suggestion is just make accessories and/or custom items that you bring onto station cost money. Realistically, SOMEONE has to pay for it. Additionally to that, each round you miss, your bank will be taken by 100 credits to pay off your taxes and whatnot. Watch this get shot down because no one wants this because they cannot deny real world reality. 

[LorenLuke]

4 hours ago, UnknownMurder said:

Realistically, SOMEONE has to pay for it. Additionally to that, each round you miss, your bank will be taken by 100 credits to pay off your taxes and whatnot. Watch this get shot down because no one wants this because they cannot deny real world reality. 

Or show up for one round and leave for two years, then find you have 40k in debt.

[Kaed]

These suggestions about making the economy relevant mechanically are outside of the scope of this suggestion. What I'm looking for is a policy that forces us to pretend like money means something, specifically that that money belonging to Nanotrasen mean something to them.

 

The suggestions for economic reworks should be put in another thread.

[GreenBoi]

1 hour ago, Kaed said:

These suggestions about making the economy relevant mechanically are outside of the scope of this suggestion. What I'm looking for is a policy that forces us to pretend like money means something, specifically that that money belonging to Nanotrasen mean something to them.

 

The suggestions for economic reworks should be put in another thread.

This is where I think a secret Twelfth Directive (Or Zero so it doesn't have to be bumped up each time a new directive is added) as it'd force Captains and HoS to regard it with all decisions. It would actually fit the atmosphere. I think extra stuff like race or Security Records can be added too. I'll admit, I'm mainly saying this because it really bugs me whenever a HoS or Security save a Dreg when in reality, NT would probably say "Don't waste resources on someone we don't need". Just something to spuff up things and remind people who NT would keep and let go in dire situations.

[ben10083]

8 minutes ago, GreenBoi said:

This is where I think a secret Twelfth Directive (Or Zero so it doesn't have to be bumped up each time a new directive is added) as it'd force Captains and HoS to regard it with all decisions. It would actually fit the atmosphere. I think extra stuff like race or Security Records can be added too. I'll admit, I'm mainly saying this because it really bugs me whenever a HoS or Security save a Dreg when in reality, NT would probably say "Don't waste resources on someone we don't need". Just something to spuff up things and remind people who NT would keep and let go in dire situations.

A CCIA Notice would likely be used if it is decided to implement a policy about this.

[GreenBoi]

That's hard though since I thought of the Directive as mainly for the Captain and HoS as they'd be implanted and thus, known never to (or at least very rarely) break it and save unimportant personnel using a ridiculous amount of resources, it'd also break some Nice Commandheads that exist.

[Evandorf]

I still have to agree with @Azande that the amounts discussed are trivial.

In the round Kaed references, two hostages were ransomed for 20K. Now,  that's 10K a piece. Both were cargo techs if I remember right and their salaries are currently listed at 1,295 credits per week ( 67,340 credits per year ). So in effect NT is paying out an extra 1/6th of the lowest level employee's paycheck to get them back. It also will make sure the company is seen in the right light ( caring about their employees ) and mitigate additional costs ( litigation from family members, ect ).

[GreenBoi]

6 minutes ago, Evandorf said:

I still have to agree with @Azande that the amounts discussed are trivial.

In the round Kaed references, two hostages were ransomed for 20K. Now,  that's 10K a piece. Both were cargo techs if I remember right and their salaries are currently listed at 1,295 credits per week ( 67,340 credits per year ). So in effect NT is paying out an extra 1/6th of the lowest level employee's paycheck to get them back. It also will make sure the company is seen in the right light ( caring about their employees ) and mitigate additional costs ( litigation from family members, ect ).

I don't think this is what really matters. What matters most is that it's from one of the Station accounts. Directly from the Station budget for two labor workers that can literally be replaced in a day due to their lack of importance.

[Evandorf]

18 minutes ago, GreenBoi said:

I don't think this is what really matters. What matters most is that it's from one of the Station accounts. Directly from the Station budget for two labor workers that can literally be replaced in a day due to their lack of importance.

I disagree. It is very important to show whether or not something is reasonable because that is usually the basis for staff decisions made against questionable player actions.

Command has access to their respective station accounts and can use the funds on whatever they wish, so long as it is reasonable.

[Scheveningen]

The issue identified in the OP seems to stem from a couple problems that don't really relate to how much money is worth in-game right now.

1.) Antagonists don't know or don't care how much people are worth, they just want huge sums of money for minimal effort and risk involved.

2.) Putting a massive price on something you acquired easily means you don't care about the actual value of the person or thing you're holding hostage, it doesn't mean you're actually overvaluing it despite the massive price tag.

3.) There's a difference between being a smart humanitarian that judges case-by-case and an idiot humanitarian who is an impractical bleeding heart that pearl-clutches anytime a plan is set into place that has 'acceptable' risks.

Ultimately it has to do with players in general not understanding how much lives are actually worth (their general estimated bank account amount * 1.5, usually works), which is an issue with ignorance.

My personal policy that I use as a measure to get what I need done with minimal risk involved is that I won't charge into a hostage situation with priority #1 being getting the hostage out alive and sending the rest of the security team in to clean up the rest of the hostiles, if said hostage takers have been otherwise reasonable and not needlessly torturing people. If the antagonists do break those caveats then I almost always devise a plan to get the hostages free and pick off each of the hostage takers one-by-one.

I do factor in bus factor when it comes to riskier assaults on positions of the hostage takers. I.e., "Can we afford to lose any hostages, especially if they're low-priority personnel like assistants?"

It's easier to judge this as a HOS whose objectivity influenced by the implant is particularly dangerous from a moral/ethical point of view, but makes still sense in their position from protecting property and personnel perspective. There's been rumors about self-driving car algorithms out there that could potentially kill you if a biometric system determines you of less inherent value than to, say, someone in the very upper class, because they're more 'important' than you. Same kind of logic might apply here, people can die in a hostage situation and security could find that acceptable if the person who died was not very important to the station's operation whatsoever.

[Kaed]

As Delta says, the value of the money is largely irrelevant beneath the greater issue that without some guidelines any hostage situation can become an utterly bland situation devoid of conflict or stakes, because the pirates/mercenaries ask for an outrageous sum for the hostage, and command just empties the meaningless numbers in their station accounts and throws them into their hands.  Basically, there is a more important factor at work, and that's what makes a more interesting round for everyone.  You can very well claim 'Nanotrasen would pay this sum due to it being logical, trivial and making them look good," but let me present you with two hypothetical scenarios.

Situation A:

A hydroponics tajara named Nawful is kidnapped by some mercenaries, who demand fifteen grand for their return, or they will skin the cat boy and leave their head on the holodeck. The command staff confers on this and determines that Nawful does not deserve to die simply for the sake of money, and empties the bank accounts, delivering the requested money to the mercenaries.  At this point, Nawful is either given back, and the mercenaries fuck off or, if it's early in the round, continue to menace the station because what are they going to do for the next hour otherwise, or they betray command and run off with the money/maybe a new hostage, and stuff escalates to an ERT.  In this scenario, the crew at large feels no involvement in the proceedings.  They are passive observers who can do nothing but listen to the goings on via radio and maybe reassure Nawful things will be okay or to say mean things about the pirates.

Situation B:
The mercenaries capture a notable but unimportant janitor named... WIllow Barker... and threaten to sell her into slavery/the organ market if they are not given fifteen grand.  This is well out of acceptable limits for a random, according to company guidelines and what come command members consider common sense, and they have a talk over the command channel in that regard, with the CMO Phyllis Essie claiming that they can't allow one of their own to be harvested for organs under any circumstances.  Command is thrown into a deadlock as the argue about the value of life as opposed to corporate assets.  The mercenaries hear all of this, and relay it to the station and make threats of torturing Willow Barker or something if their demands are not met.  Willow Barker, being a loud janitor girl who speaks her mind, begins chewing out the command staff willing to let her be sold and harvested, and the crew inevitably splits into sides, decrying the greedy command members or trying to gather funds themselves to help.  In this situation, there is much more general round involvement and investment, because a conflict has arisen that isn't even really about the hostage and random so much as the nature of the value of people to the company and coworkers.

One of these advances the round conflict, while the other dissolves it, requiring some new plot point to come up and mostly leaves the onus of responsibility on the antagonists to do it.  Option A exists and occurs mostly because of laziness and an inability to recognize imagined value for imagined currency, and we need to have less of A happening and more of B.

[Evandorf]

36 minutes ago, Kaed said:

As Delta says, the value of the money is largely irrelevant beneath the greater issue that without some guidelines any hostage situation can become an utterly bland situation devoid of conflict or stakes, because the pirates/mercenaries ask for an outrageous sum for the hostage, and command just empties the meaningless numbers in their station accounts and throws them into their hands.  Basically, there is a more important factor at work, and that's what makes a more interesting round for everyone.  You can very well claim 'Nanotrasen would pay this sum due to it being logical, trivial and making them look good," but let me present you with two hypothetical scenarios.

Situation A:

A hydroponics tajara named Nawful is kidnapped by some mercenaries, who demand fifteen grand for their return, or they will skin the cat boy and leave their head on the holodeck. The command staff confers on this and determines that Nawful does not deserve to die simply for the sake of money, and empties the bank accounts, delivering the requested money to the mercenaries.  At this point, Nawful is either given back, and the mercenaries fuck off or, if it's early in the round, continue to menace the station because what are they going to do for the next hour otherwise, or they betray command and run off with the money/maybe a new hostage, and stuff escalates to an ERT.  In this scenario, the crew at large feels no involvement in the proceedings.  They are passive observers who can do nothing but listen to the goings on via radio and maybe reassure Nawful things will be okay or to say mean things about the pirates.

Situation B:
The mercenaries capture a notable but unimportant janitor named... WIllow Barker... and threaten to sell her into slavery/the organ market if they are not given fifteen grand.  This is well out of acceptable limits for a random, according to company guidelines and what come command members consider common sense, and they have a talk over the command channel in that regard, with the CMO Phyllis Essie claiming that they can't allow one of their own to be harvested for organs under any circumstances.  Command is thrown into a deadlock as the argue about the value of life as opposed to corporate assets.  The mercenaries hear all of this, and relay it to the station and make threats of torturing Willow Barker or something if their demands are not met.  Willow Barker, being a loud janitor girl who speaks her mind, begins chewing out the command staff willing to let her be sold and harvested, and the crew inevitably splits into sides, decrying the greedy command members or trying to gather funds themselves to help.  In this situation, there is much more general round involvement and investment, because a conflict has arisen that isn't even really about the hostage and random so much as the nature of the value of people to the company and coworkers.

One of these advances the round conflict, while the other dissolves it, requiring some new plot point to come up and mostly leaves the onus of responsibility on the antagonists to do it.  Option A exists and occurs mostly because of laziness and an inability to recognize imagined value for imagined currency, and we need to have less of A happening and more of B.

The issue I have is that this treads closer to policing RP. I'm not a fan of classifying this RP as good and this RP as bad because it's very subjective. Again, the main considerations for player actions are how believable and reasonable they are.

The difference between the two scenarios you give is essentially that situation B has much more radio chatter because it took them longer to get the money to the raiders, but in the end they still gave in to the ransom.

RP and conflict should come from the players themselves. I commend you for you involvement in the round as RD because you were the one that was the dissenting opinion which caused conflict but it's not something we should try to recreate through policies.

[Kaed]

There SHOULD be a corporate policy for ransoms and pirate related things, Evandorf.  It's an remote research station that is vulnerable to it.

I frankly don't care if you think it's 'policing roleplay', it makes zero sense that such things should be 100% up to the players involved in a corporate setting, because  employees cannot regularly be trusted to make good decisions for the company in a void of regulations.  There should be SOME kind of guidelines, even if they are there for people to disregard when it suits them.  The people who claim the company funds matter more should have something other than 'I'm an asshole to be ignored' backing them.

It also means choosing a life over your job security is more meaningful.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Kaed