[Dismissed] Increase Difficulty/Consequences for Using Station Funds

[Evandorf]

Realistically, the company would have a laundry list of policies on many different topics and NT would have some policy regarding hostages and ransoms. Whether that policy would match what you want we could debate for a while but in practice, on the server, we can't make directives and policies for all possible emergencies. We rely on the capabilities and judgement of our whitelisted members. If you have an issue with how someone is acting in a command role I'd encourage you to make a player/character complaint.

That being said, this is all just my opinion and I definitely don't speak for the rest of the staff. I can't say whether this suggestion will be accepted or not but if it is, and a directive or policy is created, then it would not be actionable in-game. Much like directive four if someone was acting against policy then it would be an IC issue, especially considering that almost 100% of hostage situations will involve antagonists.

[Scheveningen]

Let's not worry so much about realistic issues moreso than we should worry about the lack of practical guidelines about this sort of thing. Because there are no practical guidelines on these issues, antagonists have no idea what they should be doing and don't know how much items are worth and thus ask for too much sometimes.

Because there are no practical guidelines, newbies and regulars alike are more predisposed to make mistakes and poor decisions. Let us not enable that any further.

[Evandorf]

Can you clarify? What would these guidelines cover and how would they be implemented?

If these guidelines were to aid new or even seasoned antagonists then they likely wouldn't be ICly something put out by NT, correct?

OK. I think I understand a little clearer what you mean. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're saying that we need to set guidelines for what is and is not acceptable in these situations. For example, emptying station accounts and the vault to get one hostage back is not acceptable. If  an antagonist demands excessive amounts of money for a hostage then there is little chance that the station will comply, rendering the hostage moot. On the other hand if the station/command does comply then they are not acting in a reasonable manner.

The main problem with this is it's very difficult to have guidelines that account for all circumstances unless they are blanket statements like "We do not negotiate with terrorists" and a blanket statement like that would quash hostage/ransom situations altogether. To bring up @Kaed's earlier point about self driving cars, the judgements they make are value based and they will prioritize certain people over others but there are endless possible circumstances in which an accident can occur. Many of those systems will actually utilize machine learning algorithms to decide who to save and who not to save. I mention this because such an algorithm is dynamic and actively changes based on the situation. Static guidelines or directives are simply inadequate.

This is why, IMO, it's preferable to let the players dictate what is and is not acceptable. Within reason, of course. There is a limit to how far the "life is priceless" mentality can be taken and if a command member is acting extremely unreasonable when dealing with terrorists then the issue should be reported.

[Kaed]

The problem with what you're suggesting here, as I've said several times (by the way, I didn't mention the self driving cars things, don't quote me on that) leaving it up to people to decide everything with no regulations at all is that you aren't giving any grounding for people NOT to capitulate immediately to any demand.  What motive, exactly, does ANYONE have to not empty the station accounts to the first pirate that grabs a janitor?  Even in that round you complimented me on, my arguments were forced and backed by little more than my OOC desire to be a dissenting opinion. It is precisely that reason that I was so easy to ignore entirely and work around.  

Let me give you some real life analogies of my own. I work in a customer service job for a company that people pay to enter a membership reward program.  More importantly for this discussion, we have certain free gifts we can offer people for making a payment to join or renew the program.  These gifts are not exactly luxurious, cheap bags and totes.  Honestly, I doubt they cost more than like $0.50-$1 each when purchased wholesale in bulk, they are almost individually valueless to the company except in as much as they make the members feel good and want to buy a membership for the gift.

Despite that, we have millions of members, and as such, we have clear and defined guidelines of when we can offer people a gift. Many people call in asking if they could get a free gift they heard about on TV for that payment they made a year and a half ago, and I can only give them one if they make a renewal payment.  Everyone doesn't get one just because they want one, there has to be rules, otherwise pretty much anyone could ask for a gift at any time, and they'd tell their friends to do the same because of how easy it is, and it would start to be a tax on the company funds, because even cheap bags add up once it starts to be in the millions.

The point on this meandering explanation is what actual motive do I have for refusing an unreasonable request without guidelines?  Whether it be a cheap polyester tote or a ten grand ransom for a janitor in a video game, there is literally no reason to refuse if there are not guidelines saying otherwise, other than 'I'm an asshole'.  And it's human nature to get mad and and eventually ignore the opinions of people who are being jerks for the sake of it.  These guidelines are needed to give some teeth to corporate shills in the face of an overwhelmingly bleeding heart command staff population.  You also can't claim that there is a greater picture and Nanotrasen is unphased by pirate demands because they are so rich while at the same time ignoring that if thousands of other pirates all start making demands once they hear how soft and humanitarian they are, it will start to actually hurt them to pay them all out.  This is essentially the sort of thing a person ignorant of good business practice would claim because they only see a microcosm of how it works and just see a rich company apparently being greedy in a single incident.

Frankly, I think the 1.5x bank account guideline (with some rounding) is a good enough policy.  i.e. if you're asking more than like 2k for a civilian, you should be laughed out of the station until you can renegotiate a better offer.

[Scheveningen]

17 hours ago, Evandorf said:

This is why, IMO, it's preferable to let the players dictate what is and is not acceptable. Within reason, of course. There is a limit to how far the "life is priceless" mentality can be taken and if a command member is acting extremely unreasonable when dealing with terrorists then the issue should be reported.

While fair, it's a bit naive to expect the broad abstract of 'the players' to do everything at least close to right. We don't need harsh rules or policies enforcing people to do things one way or another, but in absence of a proper rule we should set simple enough guidelines instead. They are less compulsory but when the situation calls for it and nobody has a better option to suit the situation, a simple guideline like, "1.5x the person's bank account is the most the station should be willing to offer for that hostage" goes quite far.

The suggestion I proposed won't necessarily make gameplay better, but hopefully if we build up more noncompulsory guidelines for people to follow if they have no other idea what they should/could be doing, it helps them make a decision in a situation where they're stuck without a good option.

Eventually guidelines like these will help shape people into making better decisions.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Conspiir]

1.5x a bank account isn't accurate at all.

 

One round a chef can have $400. The next, nearly 2000. What, I'm worth more this shift than I was the last one?

[Kaed]

We were picking a ballpark average, not 'the current amount in your account'. In the examples you gave, that's about 1200, which comes out to roughly 2000 anyway once you add 50%

[Conspiir]

But how do people in-round know that? They can only see how much I'd have in my account that round and can only make the call based on that, unless there was some printed list of just how much each job is worth.

[VeteranGary]

I mean, it's a station in space. Much like a ship in an ocean. Modern day cargo-ships usually carry cash on them as ransom money, or emergencies. It's not like it'll be used towards something, since if cargo is competent they can rack up thousands of credits/points. 

I know I'm taking realism into this, but it's just an explanation towards it. NT isn't /that/ careless about crew, they have a reputation and strive to keep it positive. That's why the SAT device is classified.

[Kaed]

7 hours ago, Conspiir said:

But how do people in-round know that? They can only see how much I'd have in my account that round and can only make the call based on that, unless there was some printed list of just how much each job is worth.

The entire point of this thread is to make guidelines that would tell you this information IC, how is this still confusing to you it is the purpose for which I made the thread.

Also, whether the self destruct is secret or not waffles back and forth constantly based on whether people are familiar with it supposed to being secret or know it exists.  The only place it's mentioned is on the wiki, and whether people go there regularly is up for debate.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Kaed

[Carver]

I'd be more upset if someone let me die because they wouldn't pay a paltry twenty grand than if they'd let me die because 'we can clone'. At least the latter has some intent of bringing the person back, and considering the 3-1 value of credits to dollars, that'd be like letting someone die/be sold into slavery because you wouldn't pay $6,600.

[Evandorf]

I think it would help if we could clarify what kind of guidelines these were. Specifically, if they are meant to be available as IC informtaion where would they be posted? Having NT make a directive or CCIAA announcement stating employees are only worth 1.5x their bank account wouldn't be realistic. It would be public information and would cause a tremendous backlash from the employees and general public. 

OOCly you could put guidelines for appropriate ransom levels in the traitor or antag wiki pages. The exploitable info and contracts on the uplink could also be an IC option.

I don't particularly agree that 1.5x your bank account is the right way to go but knowing how the proposed guidelines would be published would iron out some concerns. 

[Kaed]

8 hours ago, Carver said:

I'd be more upset if someone let me die because they wouldn't pay a paltry twenty grand than if they'd let me die because 'we can clone'. At least the latter has some intent of bringing the person back, and considering the 3-1 value of credits to dollars, that'd be like letting someone die/be sold into slavery because you wouldn't pay $6,600.

That's a nice ideal, but I sure as heck wouldn't pay $6,600 in one place to save some random person I barely know and employed to scrub floors from slavery/death, even if I had it, as an utterly preposterous amount of money for someone I don't know. And I'm not even a soulless company out for profit, which is what NT is supposed to be, according to all accounts. I myself would enjoy being the person to shut down attempts to pay such a huge sum out of hand. 

The problem is less about whether you'd like your character to die/be sold (because a lot of people are ridiculously attached to their characters and get upset when something bad happens to them, nothing new here) and more about the greater conflict of the round.  There should be a higher difficulty curve for requests for large amounts of money.  If you want a lot of money, put in the effort to break in and kidnap a head or even the captain.  What is happening here is people are taking the path of least resistance, grabbing from cargo/mining or the bar or basically the first person that they manage to put their pirate hands on and expecting to get a fortune of out this random unimportant employee.  And they do, because people playing either have no concept of value or refuse to acknowledge that they need to behave sensibly with corporate funds.

This sort of behavior should not be rewarded by command weeping 'A life is worth any price! *single tear*' and paying out the entire station general account for this cargo technician immediately. The guidelines I want will discourage this low effort high reward gameplay style.  Ransoms shouldn't be discouraged, but high value ransoms should be exclusive to command staff.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Kaed

[Evandorf]

But then if you kidnap the Captain or head, the focus of communication moves to command and security channels and we find ourselves in a situation exclusionary to most of the crew.

Harper shouting over common occurs because it's one of the only channels she has and because a head of staff or Captain would be more likely not want to rile or worry the crew and keep communication to the point and professional. 

[Kaed]

You're just reaching for straws right now.  There is no guarantee that the captain would only communicate with security and command, they have every channel available to them, and a good captain would make sure to involve as many people as possible.  Even if, for some reason, the hostage captain suddenly decided that they would refuse to talk to anyone except sec and command the moment they got captured, the ransomers sure as heck would broadcast that they have the captain on common, because it's the only channel they have, and they want everyone to know we have your leader.

In the end, it's up to the players themselves how much they want to involve the crew at large. Harper could just as easily choose to remain in sullen silence while the pirates communicate exclusively with security via a stolen headset.  The amount players exclude others from the events of the round is not a relevant part of this issue, because it's not something you can predict.

[Evandorf]

30 minutes ago, Kaed said:

In the end, it's up to the players themselves how much they want to involve the crew at large [...] The amount players exclude others from the events of the round is not a relevant part of this issue, because it's not something you can predict.

This is precisely my point. In your earlier posts you suggested that guidelines were needed to ensure that command didn't simply capitulate with ransom demands out of consideration of furthering conflict and creating story. You stated that, because of the amount of overall crew involvement, situation B was preferable.  We've talked around the issue for a bit now and I believe that it's up to the players themselves how much they want to involve the crew at large. This falls on command, the hostage, and the hostage takers and we have to be able to trust those players to create RP graciously and considerately for the round to be engaging as many people as possible. We also have to trust our whitelisted command members and our more experienced antags to set the bar on what is acceptable for ransom demands. There are obviously unacceptable extremes, which I don't believe require guidelines to identify, but everything else in between will be dependent upon the circumstances and the players involved.

[Kaed]

No. 

You're taking two statements with divergent purposes (There should be guidelines to ransom to create more conflict and people should be allowed to communicate with the crew as much as they want) and taking them out of context them to support your claim.  Involving the crew at large IS the preferable option, but setting guidelines that encourage claiming important hostages rather than the first one you can grab is not going to cause people to stop communicating.  While it should be up to people to play antagonist as they want, in theory, we should be encouraging actions that involve the whole round instead of just embracing a completely laissez-faire policy.  

Hostages tend to communicate with the crew unless their headset is taken away, and I frankly don't understand where you make the assertion that capturing a captain would involve the crew less than capturing a janitor, nor how your hypothetical situation has ANY BEARING ON THIS SUGGESTION, which is about simply hostage guidelines.  A janitor is utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, while the captain is the head honcho of the station.  Why should people care more about a janitor?

Edited January 13, 2019 by Kaed

[Evandorf]

The point of this suggestion, as I understand it, is to create guidelines for dealing with hostage situations as well as a general acceptable limit for what can be paid to ransomers. The reason you gave for this being necessary is that it would drive story and conflict. It has been my assertion throughout this thread that what drives story and conflict is not static guidelines but the actions of capable players. I have also maintained that even if NT were to decide a numerical value for the lives of its crew it would likely not post that information anywhere the public or regular crew would have access to it (directives, regulations, CCIAA messages).

These hypothetical situations have bearing on the suggestion simply as tools of demonstrating my perspective. Hostages work very well for a reason. Most people realistically will have sympathy for hostages and will alter their actions. Even if NT is an "evil" company, a company is the collection of people and bureaucracy. Often if you can get face to face with individual people inside the company they can be swayed to help you out if needed.

What I've been saying regarding high level hostage targets vs. low level civilians and the amount of RP/conflict each provides comes from my experience as merc/raider. As Blackscale I have experienced my fair share of hostage situations and from my experience if you want a loud, messy, and interesting hostage you go for a civilian. If you want a more dangerous, valuable, but with an overall smaller RP footprint you go for the Captain or Head of Staff.

Finally, what you consider to be laissez-faire I consider to be the appropriate amount of oversight. We already require members to be whitelisted to be in command roles. As I said earlier, if you believe a command member is acting extremely unreasonable then either ahelp or make a complaint.

[Carver]

5 hours ago, Kaed said:

That's a nice ideal, but I sure as heck wouldn't pay $6,600 in one place to save some random person I barely know and employed to scrub floors from slavery/death, even if I had it, as an utterly preposterous amount of money for someone I don't know. And I'm not even a soulless company out for profit, which is what NT is supposed to be, according to all accounts. I myself would enjoy being the person to shut down attempts to pay such a huge sum out of hand.

As it goes, not paying the ransom is asking for a heavy lawsuit and particularly negative press seeing as the incident occurs on-site, under the supervision of Internal Security.

I get that this is more or less trying to discourage antags from kidnapping Technician Bumblefuck and asking for all 75 grand. But I can only see it just encouraging more 'no negotiations' (or even better, not giving a shit at all) tactics from Command/Security, which is already a fairly annoying problem without encouragement to do so.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Carver
less repetition

[Scheveningen]

Please keep in mind NanoTrasen is an incredibly powerful, affluent and wealthy megacorporation, if not the most of all three categories.

1. They can spend hush money to keep a family satisfied and quiet.
2. They're capable of influencing utilities to mysteriously disappear if a family decides to get antsy and try to 'raise awareness' or spread information about the company that NanoTrasen doesn't want spoken about.
3. NanoTrasen has its own political influencers in the TC government and the media, even.

NT behaves a lot like a corporation in a dystopian world that hides their misdeeds very well. Propagandizing is very typical within the company culture and outside of it for advertising and influencing purposes.

It's fair to come to the assertion that a big company like NT can consider a cargo technician more disposable in a hostage situation than any other head of staff. And objectively, they are, to the company. NT doesn't necessarily want people to die, but if it comes down to trading one disposable asset for another, then perhaps someone will conveniently die instead of handing over credits worth far more than the life being traded for, is.

The importance I levy on this issue is particularly to help people make decisions of actual value and involvement of how the game's story elements function. When decisions are motivated under those principles, then the game suddenly gets so much deeper, interesting and complex to play.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Azande]

As a note, it's been all but written as staff ethos/policy that Command should not treat dying crew as if they're replaceable, as then you lose all consequences. I believe it was originally @Garnascus that told Captain-players that we had to actually consider crew safety when making decisions, and are not allowed to simply treat them as they're disposable. If Garn has changed his mind or if I am misremembering being told how to do my Captain job then I hope he corrects me.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

If we had funds withdrawn from the account console require a reason and it has a history a la arrest records, it would morph a feeling of consistency without having people spawn without department funds.

 

Account transaction history would also give us numbers on revenue and net loss or gain in credits.

 

Soft encouragement.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[ben10083]

@Senpai Jackboot Transaction history for accounts already exist, but you don't get the reason for each transaction

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

2 hours ago, ben10083 said:

@Senpai Jackboot Transaction history for accounts already exist, but you don't get the reason for each transaction

Carried over rounds.

[Kaed]

19 hours ago, Azande said:

As a note, it's been all but written as staff ethos/policy that Command should not treat dying crew as if they're replaceable, as then you lose all consequences. I believe it was originally @Garnascus that told Captain-players that we had to actually consider crew safety when making decisions, and are not allowed to simply treat them as they're disposable. If Garn has changed his mind or if I am misremembering being told how to do my Captain job then I hope he corrects me.

Treating them as completely irreplaceable accomplishes the exact same thing given the arbitrary and meaningless value you give money in these situations. It's the struggle between having to meet both corporate guidelines on employee value and the greedy demands of a pirate that conflict spawns from in hostage situations.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Kaed