Staff Complaint - Sadkermit

[Loorey]

BYOND Key: Loorey

Staff BYOND Key: Sadkermit

Game ID: co9-daki

Reason for complaint:

I do not see this issue as properly handled and wish to, at least get a second opinion from an Administrator, on why it is okay that "Antagonists can execute security on-the-spot if they're in a fight". Let me describe the entire situation from me joining the round, to me getting head-pb'd and taken out of the round for context:

I joined the round as Head of Security, when the ninja's already boarded the Horizon, broke into the Captain's office and were discovered lingering in the Command Substation on Deck Three by the rest of Security. There was no aggression at that point, just a verbal conflict between ninja's and security. The Warden brought out energy carbines that were stashed in satchels and the ship was on green alert, there were no long-arms, neither special armor out from the side of Security. I gave the order to the AI not to raise the alert as to not scare anyone into conflict.

I grabbed my equipment, that being: Security Belt, Plate Carrier, Disruptor and Helmet (which was in my bag) and joined the Officers on the third, where they were talking. I started taking over and talking to the ninja (which tried disguising himself as the Captain) where he asked me if we were not informed about the Security Drill happening, and informed me of his identity as Captain etc. I returned that I didn't know and asked more about it. When one of the Bridge Crewmen yelled for help over command comms and I heard disruptor shots on the Bridge:

Spoiler

I sprinted to the Bridge together with one of the Officers, the second Antagonist (who was on the Bridge in his stealthsuit, that being Comet Blaze) ran into Telecommunications as we entered. The officer stayed back and I followed him into telecomms, grabbing my disruptor, he was in the Server Room itself where he quickly drew a 9mm Pistol, I was in the foyer aiming my disruptor at him, telling him to get down:

Spoiler

In return, not aiming the 9mm pistol at me, he told me that is not happening, so I opened fire on him with my disruptor, where he sprinted to me and instantly started head-pbing me, resulting in my death in about 10 seconds because I had no helmet on, which the antag definitely knew:

Spoiler

(Death immediately after that)

While you can definitely say "your issue" because I opened fire with my disruptor and "your issue" for not wearing your helmet, I do agree with you, but I was trying to resolve the entire situation diplomatically from the start, attempting to give the antags some leeway with their gimmick instead of coming in, gun-maxing in heavy armor and headashing the two - because I would have definitely had the option to do so.

Given all the context, I do very much believe the antag was aware of the entire situation, I was non-lethally armed, only wearing a plate-carrier w/o Helmet and was basically no threat to a lethally armed Ninja that could've also easily gotten away. Yet instead of maybe shooting me in the legs/arms or center mass as warning to get away, the antag decides to immediately head-pb me taking me out of the round about 10 minutes after I joined, 30 mins total into the round.

Now you may ask, "Why do you make this complain, you shot first", I see a lot of constant shitting on security for being too extreme, I tried being diplomatic and also wouldn't have associated the Telecomms ninja with the other one in disguise. If I would have taken out a laser rifle, rolled up looking like an armory and headashed one of them after a 9mm shot, I would have certainly gotten AdminPM'd and possibly warned or jobbanned for doing so - this has happened to Security Players before.

Staff opinions seem to differ a lot on this topic. Even if the player does not get punished, which is also not my primary goal here, I wish to have a publicly available explanation on why it is okay for an Antagonist to take a non-lethally armed Security Player out of the round immediately, but when the other side is doing so it gets punished.

Evidence/logs/etc:

Everything posted above describes the situation rather well. I have a screenshot of the ticket on hand, if that's wanted.

Additional remarks:

Everything I talked about above, I want a clarification on this.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Loorey
Turned this into a Staff Complaint

[Comet Blaze]

Hello, I will provide a brief summary of events starting from when we were first approached by Officer Hector Santiago, as the events prior to that are not relevant to this complaint.

Me and the other ninja were in the process of swapping suits, as his ran out of power and he needed to go to the Captain's office to steal their uniform. The other ninja had already removed his suit, when the door opens up to reveal a rather bewildered Santiago staring right at us. Francesco (the other ninja) attempted to convince the officer we were, in fact, members of command, which Officer Santiago, understandably, had a hard time believing in. Francesco and Hector continued the back and forth for a little while until the warden comes in and, rather blatantly, hands Santiago an energy carbine, which, at least for the duration I was there to witness it, remained unholstered during the conversation. This is to say that, although yes, officers did not bring out heavy armour and long arms straight way, they were rather overtly packing weapons, which put me a little on edge, this was not helped by the fact the AI also attempted to bolt us into the substation, meaning we'd only have one exit, the one guarded by Officer Santiago.

Shortly after the bolting incident, Francesco turns to me and asks me to "File a complaint", I had absolutely no idea what he meant by that but figured I was better off leaving the room and figuring a way to escape. I decided to use my cloak to attempt to kidnap the Bridge Crewman and hold them hostage but failed, which lead to the call for help that summoned you and another officer, this one armed with a laser rifle.

I'm now trapped within Tcomms with a HoS aiming a disruptor, an officer with a laser rifle just outside, and God knows how many more officers with carbines in front of the bridge, with all that in mind I resorted to the only tool I had on me, the 9mm pistol that comes default with the stealth suit.

Even as I'm typing this I struggle to see what I could have done differently, I will admit my lack of experience with the role and equipment of a ninja, as this is my second round with the role, the first being a peaceful gimmick that didn't even involve wearing a hardsuit, so in actuality this was closer to my first ninja round.

I do think you agree with me up to this point, however, so I'll address what seems, to me, the biggest issue you brought forward, that being the multiple head PBs. I will admit I was surprised when the paramedic pronounced you DOA, as I'm accustomed to humans staying in crit for a few minutes instead of instantly of dropping. My experience with shooting antags, often point blank as well, as a security officer has never lead me to killing someone I did not mean to, and I expected the same to apply here as well. It seems I grossly underestimated the impact of armour, and I will refrain from shooting people in the head from now on unless I really want them gone.

With that out of the way, I'm sorry for removing you out of the round prematurely, I did not realize how powerful and important armour was and did not expect my actions to result in such a swift death. My intention was to put you into crit so I could attempt to run away, but instead I ended up removing you from the round round completely and for that, again, I'm sorry.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Comet Blaze
Grammer

[Loorey]

Hey Again. First of all thanks for the response, given I latejoined that round, this clears up some things for me on my side, I did not get much time briefing into the situation.

15 hours ago, Comet Blaze said:

The other ninja had already removed his suit, when the door opens up to reveal a rather bewildered Santiago staring right at us. Francesco (the other ninja) attempted to convince the officer we were, in fact, members of command, which Officer Santiago, understandably, had a hard time believing in.

That's something I saw when observing, which ultimately led to my decision of joining as Head of Security as Security seemed very eager to just shut down your gimmick and not let you through with it, no matter the explanations or sending an announcement etc. This is something that unfortunately happens a lot when Security is unsupervised / there is no Command. I was joining as Head of Security to be able to give you some leeway for your gimmick.

15 hours ago, Comet Blaze said:

which lead to the call for help that summoned you and another officer, this one armed with a laser rifle.

When observing, the Warden definitely handed out armament, though I'm not aware that a laser rifle was actually handed out in the entire situation, if so - that's on me for not noticing, I did not pay too much attention to exactly that when running to the bridge, I was just aware that both energy carbines were handed out.

15 hours ago, Comet Blaze said:

I'm now trapped within Tcomms with a HoS aiming a disruptor, an officer with a laser rifle just outside, and God knows how many more officers with carbines in front of the bridge, with all that in mind I resorted to the only tool I had on me, the 9mm pistol that comes default with the stealth suit. Even as I'm typing this I struggle to see what I could have done differently, I will admit my lack of experience with the role and equipment of a ninja, as this is my second round with the role, the first being a peaceful gimmick that didn't even involve wearing a hardsuit, so in actuality this was closer to my first ninja round.

While yes, I understand the thought from your side that there's "no other way out", you have a lot of tools at disposal as a Ninja, the stealth suit you were wearing has quite a few Hardsuit Modules including a Stealth Field that both of you Ninja's bought - and at that point of time, you had Captain-level access. The most simple thing that could've been done is just sneaking away using the stealth field or using the Emergency Teleport module. It's totally fair that you're a new ninja player and might've not known about all of that, which I won't doubt here. We've all been there and all had to learn.

15 hours ago, Comet Blaze said:

I do think you agree with me up to this point, however, so I'll address what seems, to me, the biggest issue you brought forward, that being the multiple head PBs. I will admit I was surprised when the paramedic pronounced you DOA, as I'm accustomed to humans staying in crit for a few minutes instead of instantly of dropping. My experience with shooting antags, often point blank as well, as a security officer has never lead me to killing someone I did not mean to, and I expected the same to apply here as well. It seems I grossly underestimated the impact of armour, and I will refrain from shooting people in the head from now on unless I really want them gone.

Given you play a lot as Security Officer (unless I am mistaking you with someone else, in which case I am sorry) you should definitely know the effects that armor has and how fast a human actually drops from point-blank shots into the head. Targeting the head as you said yourself, is generally the option when you're at a point of completely removing someone from the round for whatever reasoning, since it can directly damage the brain.

15 hours ago, Comet Blaze said:

With that out of the way, I'm sorry for removing you out of the round prematurely, I did not realize how powerful and important armour was and did not expect my actions to result in such a swift death. My intention was to put you into crit so I could attempt to run away, but instead I ended up removing you from the round round completely and for that, again, I'm sorry.

While I was a little mad for being taken out of the round that fast, I'm not particularly mad at you for it. You were new in the role and mistakes happen, I would just greatly appreciate you taking more care when engaging in firefights with others, whether it is from the Antagonist-side or the Security-side.

In hindsight - given this has been "handled" by Staff but I do not agree with how it was handled, this should be a Staff Complaint regardless, not a Player Complaint. Which is also my primary concern here, getting an answer from another uninvolved Staff Member, preferably an Administrator at this point on why it is okay that "Antagonists can execute security on-the-spot if they're in a fight".

[Comet Blaze]

1 hour ago, Loorey said:

While yes, I understand the thought from your side that there's "no other way out", you have a lot of tools at disposal as a Ninja, the stealth suit you were wearing has quite a few Hardsuit Modules including a Stealth Field that both of you Ninja's bought - and at that point of time, you had Captain-level access. The most simple thing that could've been done is just sneaking away using the stealth field or using the Emergency Teleport module. It's totally fair that you're a new ninja player and might've not known about all of that, which I won't doubt here. We've all been there and all had to learn.

The kidnapping attempt had completely drained my battery meaning at the time of our confrontation I didn't have access to any modules. I do agree with you that the cloaking module would've been ideal in the situation if I had access to it.

1 hour ago, Loorey said:

Given you play a lot as Security Officer (unless I am mistaking you with someone else, in which case I am sorry) you should definitely know the effects that armor has and how fast a human actually drops from point-blank shots into the head. Targeting the head as you said yourself, is generally the option when you're at a point of completely removing someone from the round for whatever reasoning, since it can directly damage the brain.

It's true I play a lot of Security Officer, but I've never been given a report on the damage I inflicted, I can attest that they're badly hurt but specifics, such as broken bones and organ damage, are beyond me. Compound with the fact we don't lethal unarmoured targets and I'm left with no frame of reference for how big the gap really is between an armoured and an unarmoured target which is further complicated by the fact I mostly play IPC, meaning my experience with getting shot is wildly different, so I can't utilize it to gauge the effects my actions will have on others.

Regardless, this experience was rather enlightening in exposing gaps in my knowledge and flaws in my play, which I do very much intend to rectify.

 

Those were the only points from your reply I wished to address. I can't speak for the other ninja, but I myself am not upset at security for how they handled the situation, it was simply unfortunate how we were caught when we were most vulnerable.

I'm happy to know there's no OOC beef between us and look forward to putting this incident behind us.

Let me know if there is anything else I can help with, otherwise I'll await for the decision of whoever is in charge of this complaint.

[kermit]

I asked to get this turned into a staff complaint given it more concerns my decision in a ticket, so I'll give my side of things now that's done.

Addressing Loorey throughout this, much of what Comet said above is what I observed personally and then had quickly clarified to me in a ticket. They were unluckily caught out by Security quite early and were on the backfoot, attempted to take a hostage which didn't go to plan, then were trying to just flee. Your HoS ran after them and made us of the AI to bolt doors behind Comet as they fled; this backfired on you as you were then bolted into telecomms with Comet's fleeing ninja.

That's enough justification for Comet to kill your HoS after you got locked into telecomms together. Comet mentioned it was accidental, but even purposely this would have been fine really. I can't have expected Comet to read your mind that you intended to pause the previous firefight and resume diplomacy and, in either case, conflict isn't an on/off switch that gets reset everytime someone chooses to dial things back. Neither was Comet expected to always make the second move and be reactionary to Command/Security; antagonists can make the first move against security, if they have a reason.

So, going by the rules:

Did Comet have a reason to kill your HoS? Yes, you were pursuing them after they attempted to pose as a captain/take a hostage.

Had Comet been trying to generate some kind of story before resorting to combat/killing? Yes, they had a plan involving posing as a captain/XO, unfortunately it didn't go to plan.

Being killed/removed from the rounds despite your wishes/expectations/sense of fun isn't a consideration; antagonists have enough to consider (rules, their ingame plan, etc) and it is impossible to cater to everyone player's sense of what is the 'right way to play antagonist' or what is fun.

That was the basis behind my decision and me saying 'antagonists can execute security on-the-spot if they're in a fight'. Admittedly, I may not have taken the time to thoroughly explain the decision to you in the ticke.

Edited August 6, 2023 by kermit
late edits

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hello, I will be handling this complaint.

I will rule on this soon. 

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Okay, thank you for waiting. It has been a week for sure. 

I am ruling that there was appropriate escalation. 

One of our Head Administrators, Garnascus, can be quoted saying the following - 

Quote

"Antags do not have to try other methods first. Long as they have a reason to kill someone they can do it. End of. If an antagonist gets into conflict with security the antagonist cannot be held responsible for the non-rule-breaking measures he takes to fight with security because security are ALWAYS allowed to continue fighting with the antags to incapacitate or kill them."

This was from a discussion about executions as a whole. 

Antagonists have more leeway than crew-members regarding executions. 
In this situation, and please correct me if I have this mixed up - 
There was a firefight before the conflict. This set up the round to have proper escalation for lethal force from the Security team. 
While you may not have had any interaction with this person prior to them being locked into the telecomms area, you did - or more importantly, the crew did order the AI to lock them in. 
So at this point, they are cornered, have already been engaged/their partner had been engaged, weapons are out - So, they escalated to shooting you. 
I firmly do believe that they did not mean anything intentionally malicious. If anything, I'd blame the mechanics of the firearm. Another player decapped two ninjas with a simple .45 while they were in Dominian hardsuits - without intending to. 

All in all this situation was rough, but I am going to hold up the ruling that Kermit made.