Staff of Vampire Round, 12/25/23

[Susan]

BYOND Key: SueTheCake
Staff BYOND Key: Arrow768, Loorey, Dreampixl (I do not know who spawned what or how involved anyone was)
Game ID: crs-ad6Y
Reason for complaint: Admins abuse, overreaching, hijacking the round, and powergaming.

Merry Christmas, Aurora.

On this round, which later turned out to be Vampire, the off-station 'pirate' base spawned, was located by a xenoarchaeologist and reported to security. The Head of Security decided to go deal with the pirates that had menaced or otherwise been a problem for the expedition - I do not know - and took four officers, two EMTs, and themselves to go do so. They also had a combat mech. This is all well and good. However, at some point, presumably when they faxed Central (staff) for permission to do this, the staff on the server decided to take this as a carte blanche to 'soup up' the antagonists. A domino effect occurred to where they massacred the security team, boarded the Horizon (again, admin intervention, as the PR states their ship has no fuel and it is why they are hiding in a base, there), murdered more people, hijacked a round and effectively turned Vampire into Mercenary+, in the most unsatisfying and unpleasant way possible.

The pirates were given non-essential gear they do not spawn with. Their armory contains, per the map file itself from the github:

1x Crimson Hardsuit Module

3x Cuirass

1x Heavy Platecarrier + Helmet

2x 7.62 ARs with 6 mags

4x 9mm pistol with 12 mags

1x 10mm SMG with 3 mags

1x Combat Shotgun with at least 12 shotgun slugs

1x Marksman Rifle with 3 mags

1x Auto .45 pistol with 3 mags

8x Black Syndicate Voidsuits

However, by the time that the pirates had boarded the Horizon, we were made aware staff had further furnished them with an additional 4-5 sets of heavy armor (full armor, not just a helmet and vest like their spawn has), combat belts, more ARs, more equipment like eye protection, and two combat mechs that are nowhere near this map. It is a based of rag-tag pirates who have been left to starve for however long their vessel has broken down. Instead, the staff team decided to take it upon themselves to turn them into a full-forced Mercenary round type antagonistic force, because sec went to 'valid' them. This is what Arrow himself said. However, beyond me personally finding no value or substance in this excuse for intervention, it is also completely unnecessary.

This is not the first time security has had to deal with this outpost. The last time sec went to deal with it, they got wiped because their equipment is 'sufficient'. Dreampixl stated their gear is 'weird', but given the context of the PR that these are pirates (ala Raider) and not Nuclear Operatives (ala Mercenary), they are even MORE well equipped than our Raider gamemode is. And still more weaponry was given to them. The fact of the matter is with a sniper rifle (7.62) to shoot people off screen, one long hallway to gun people down in, 2 assault rifles (also 7.62), they are more than capable of fighting security in the terrible voidsuits that have no armor. They'd have all wiped, anyway. This admin overreach was not necessary.

But then there's this.

If the point of this 'improvement' was to 'punish' security for 'validing', then chasing them down when they tried to dis-engage does not speak to that being the purpose. Beyond that, the raiders themselves were all suspiciously Vaurca, so they could ostensibly take the full benefit of the antag heavy plate armor and be spaceproof as well. I do not believe that the players involved chose Vaurca out of a freak accident, I am sorry to say. This gave them an even more significant combat advantage, beyond admins unnecessarily providing them with additional firepower. Especially when they begin to gloat in OOC after the round has ended when they were provided a golden ticket by staff to subjugate the entire round with zero consequence.

When they boarded the Horizon, they proceeded to vent the ship as they went along, another tactic that plays into their species' strengths and further limits response (the security team had already been killed, and several others by a traitor at that point). The antagonists of that round were overshadowed and thrown out the window by the choice to enable these off-ship antags to board the Horizon with their gear, and though they did not bring the combat mechs, it doesn't matter, given the strength of the 7.62 rounds, the spreading breaches, and Vaurca existing as a species. A genuine Vampire was wordlessly gunned down in medical because of the situation, with no ability to provide genuine RP, as their role had entirely been eclipsed by staff meddling.

In short, even if one can argue that this heavy-handed response to security 'validing' them is justifiable, the gimmick extending to the Horizon was not, because it hijacked the rest of the round and subjected the rest of us to unbridled chaos. The Vaurca did not engage beyond being sarcastic and blood-thirsty on the radio, and there was nothing to be found in it but violence and bloodshed as underequipped crew who suffer from things like 'not being able to breathe in space' unlike Vaurca threw themselves at the brick wall of an overgeared antagonist team, beaten down at every turn.

If I wanted to play Mercenary, I would have voted it.

I believe this to be a vast misuse of administrative power. If, as Dreampixl says, their gear is 'weird', then why was this not mentioned on the PR when it was merged? The development team is fully aware of the PRs submitted to Aurora. Their equipment surpasses even one of our natural gamemodes (Raiders), so I do not buy this as a legitimate concern. 7.62 is a caliber that decimates even the heaviest of armors, even ballistic armor, and given security was equipped in paper-thin voidsuits, they would have been wiped as they had been the last time they went to go attack this base. And if the concern is security 'validing' them, then what is the staff's perspective on this away map? Why is it in the code? Why does it exist? What do you expect a xenoarchaeologist do when landing and confronted by pirates? We just ignore them, so they get no roleplay? They were added to be off-ship antagonists, so the only answer is either to run in and get taken hostage (forcing a security response) or ignore them (leaving them do nothing all-round)?

It's a catch 22. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. 

The context of Loorey's comments - and I am very sorry, Loorey - suggests to me this was done so people could get their frags in. I do not believe this is conduct befitting a moderator in this scenario, especially considering it is administration self-enabling themselves to run roughshod over a round and gloat in the bloody aftermath. The optics are terrible, even if this was not staff's intention, or their desire, or even what they set out to do. It looks that way.

[meep109]

Hi I was one of the pirates involved and I would like to say that the decision to pick Vaurca was in no way related to the heavy armor spawning. We had no way of knowing that stuff would be given to us at that time, and the stuff wasn't instantly given to us after we spawned in. No one talked to staff at all and the buffs were a surprise for the players too. I was the one that suggested we all pick Vaurca cause I had played that away site before as Vaurca and found it pretty fun

[Arrow768]

We polled if people liked the round.
Out of 23 people who voted 22 liked it.
So I´d say the round was a success, even if it wasnt what people voted for.

In addition, the vampire ahelped that they had to leave so it would have just been extended+

[Susan]

I was not logged into vote, and I dare say other people weren't. The ends do not justify the means, and I would have preferred extended+.

That's all I have to offer, pending whatever admin elects to take this complaint.

[Loorey]

Hi.

I am here to give you my viewpoint, given I was the Pirate Leader (which, doesn’t change much) and you mentioned me specifically at the bottom part but let’s go through one by one. 

First things first, it was Meep, Lent and myself that sat in deadchat, when someone on the Horizon mentioned the pirate base, and we decided we were going to play it. Note: There was absolutely no staff involvement at this point, we just talked about it and watched the HoS send out a fax regarding it. We decided what we are going to do exactly, and came up with the idea of playing Queenless K’lax (note, at that point it was ONLY us three saying this). Now while we are here, and you mentioned that it is suspicious we all played Vaurca, I should not be restricted from playing a species I am whitelisted for just because others think they are “op”. Yes, Vaurca warriors have better protection against brute damage and thus ballistics, and the heavy armor made this even more busted (we will come to that part in a bit) but I would also like to note, security used exclusively ballistics on us take the mech, which had lasers. Anyway, the “getting buffed” did not at all impact our species selection, because we knew nothing about this in advance, and just wanted to play Vaurcae. Because security was preparing to full assault, one of us asked for arrow to open the slots early which happened, sure you could already title this abuse, but I see nothing wrong with it, we intended to prepare with what we had (we still knew nothing of the buff, I wish to mention again). So it was, initially, Meep, Lent and myself that joined. Dreamix entered dchat hearing of this, and decided to join in too. The last member, and captive, joined shortly after. 

Also, I wish to inform you that the only Staff Members playing the Raiders were two Moderators (which do not have the ability to spawn anything or change a lot regarding the round) and a Developer, that being Dreamix, who did absolutely nothing in that regard either. If you count lore devs, those were the other staff members playing, which have no on-server permission. There was no “admins wanting to overbuff themselves”. Note: We did not ask for anything either. I simply started building and the others geared with standard goon base gear at first. When it was clear what security planned, arrow offered us a buff, I cannot exactly outline what the buff included at this point, and I do not want to just say “yeah what you outlined”, but what I know for sure is, it included two mechs and one uplink. 

Besides that, I have nothing to add regarding our play. What I wish to add is, that, to Bear and anyone that got angry or felt whatever else after my OOC comments after the round: I am sorry, that was maybe a little over the top, I do not want to stand here as the evil bully. Though, I feel like it wasn’t that much either. 

Anyway, that is all I have to say myself for now. Merry second day of Christmas, or first. I’m happy to answer questions. 

[Arrow768]

I also want to point out that the pirates got that ship flying by themselves.
I didnt spawn/modify it in any way to get it working, so they can take off from the pirate base
(And looking at the map, there is everything on the base to get it flying)

[Susan]

3 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

I also want to point out that the pirates got that ship flying by themselves.
I didnt spawn/modify it in any way to get it working.
(And looking at the map, there is everything on the base to get it flying)

From the PR:

Quote

They are a gang of pirates that are stuck in their own base because their shuttle is broken down, but repairable. Just a matter of getting it power. They lack the tools to do this themselves though, and therefore they only spawn once a ship actually docks on the away site, a lot like the old Zeng-Hu spider away site.

I do not know if there has been a change to the map, or if you allowing them an uplink (and thus a way to buy a toolbox) enabled this, but if it is the latter, then it would be a consequence of admin intervention.

[meep109]

So I'll explain how I did it: I found a super cap cell lying on the ground near the robco tool maker vendor. Idk if anyone spawned this in or not but the logs will reveal that I guess, it might have come from the trash pile Then my vaurca toolmates took a closet full of tools to the shuttle to help me out, after I figured out I could fix it using the cell. I then used those tools probably sourced from the robco toolmaker to hack open the APC, unlock the cover lock and slot in the supercap, which powered the shuttle control console. This allowed me to take off and dock with the Horizon. 

[Loorey]

9 minutes ago, Susan said:

and thus a way to buy a toolbox

Toolboxes spawn there naturally, I grabbed one and built before there was anything happening. The RobCo vendor spawns naturally too, and included a power cell of some sorts. I didn’t grab it myself, but can confirm this from a picture of the map and the fact that I used the vendor to get other tools.

[Lent23]

Hey! As one of the pirates that was a part of the pirate station. First of all, I'm sorry to hear that you did not have an enjoyable round. I am here because I'd like to add some context as Loorey and Meep have.

From the get-go, we had a few people that were interested in playing pirates. in dchat, there was myself, Loorey and Meep. We knew that when the Intrepid touched down, there would be spawns for the planet. We agreed that we would play Vaurca in dchat as our "gimmick." I know that Loorey and myself are simply fans of Vaurca, and we had some other people who had the WL. I was pretty amazed that we had the opportunity to have 6 people with vaurca WLs playing pirates. I believe we did have an advance spawn before the ship landed via admin intervention, just to get ready as they were on their way. As for additional loot, I believe we were given an ion gun, 2 mechs (1 with a laser gun/rifle/shield drone and 1 with 2x smg's), and 1 uplink. We proceeded to get our base ready and then waited for the Horizon to show up.

We engaged the Horizon's off crew who announced themselves as Iska's Adventurers (This is important because we most likely would not have proceeded onto the Horizon knowing that it was a megacorporation vessel.) Ultimately, our goal is to kill them and either a) take what they have on their ship and fix our ship | b) take their ship if it's nicer. We heard them call a retreat via our radios and we decided to push them, knowing that they were our only way off the asteroid. We caught them in a retreat and unfortunately for them, we were able to kill some of them, though the Intrepid was able to escape. At this point, we found a diona on the planet that had apparently been kicked off the Horizon. We invited it to join our ranks.

Now we look inward, panicking as the Horizon scrambles to fire its weapons at the base. One of the Vaurca found a way to repair our ship through the equipment on the base. We were able to get power going for just long enough to shuttle the ship to attach to the Horizon's starboard dock. This was our chance to get in, get some equipment and leave. Once we docked with the Horizon, we were given Heister tags to distinguish each other. This tag was applied to all five K'lax, the C'thur that we coerced into helping us (that was previously our prisoner) as well as the Diona. We proceeded through medical to Engineering, and our only goal was to get SMES parts and some fuel for our reactor. We faced opposition when it came to us, but we did no deviate or otherwise engage anyone outside of this.

We eventually kidnapped an engineer, got our things, and proceeded to leave. As we were leaving, Arrow told us that we should wrap our things up, and we told him that we were already on our way out, we just needed power to the station. He spawned in as a BSTech and gave us a SMES and some wiring in order to facilitate our departure faster. We left as quickly as we could and flew off.

Now, I'd like to respond to your comments/concerns:

1 hour ago, Susan said:

The Head of Security decided to go deal with the pirates that had menaced or otherwise been a problem for the expedition

I was ghosting at this time. The Head of Security was informed via the xenoarchaeologist that there was a threat in the system. The Head of Security then faxed central to confirm that they would be hunting down the pirate lair for the bounty it apparently held.

1 hour ago, Susan said:

the staff on the server decided to take this as a carte blanche to 'soup up' the antagonists.

I do not have access to msay, but the vibe that I was getting from the group that joined as the pirates was not that we were getting 'souped up' from the get-go. I was uninformed that the Horizon had a mech until I physically saw them.

1 hour ago, Susan said:

they massacred the security team, boarded the Horizon (again, admin intervention, as the PR states their ship has no fuel and it is why they are hiding in a base, there), murdered more people

I hope the walkthrough of our entire experience clears up our side of this for you. Our intent was never to kill anyone or massacre the security team. Our goal was hardly even to board the Horizon. Boarding the Horizon was the means to an end to fix our ship.

As for the boarding, as stated by Arrow: 

40 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

I also want to point out that the pirates got that ship flying by themselves.
I didnt spawn/modify it in any way to get it working, so they can take off from the pirate base

The ONLY admin intervention we had with regards to the ship was Arrow giving us a SMES while we were retreating, in order to more quickly facilitate our exit. Our ultimate goal as previously stated was to leave as quickly as possible. 

3 hours ago, Susan said:

we were made aware staff had further furnished them with an additional 4-5 sets of heavy armor (full armor, not just a helmet and vest like their spawn has), combat belts, more ARs

We were given a syndicate link, which we used to spawn Heavy Armor as far as I am aware. We were also not given more ARs to my knowledge.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

However, beyond me personally finding no value or substance in this excuse for intervention, it is also completely unnecessary.

Personally, having been in-round I would have been completely happy not having any assistance from admins. I understand that the admin intent was to make the round more interesting, but It definitely would have been much more challenging (and probably more fun for those involved) if we had no intervention. I am personally a big fan of Horizon wins over antags, and I would not have minded dying in this situation. The most important takeaway for me here is the admin intent to make the round more interesting for people involved.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

The fact of the matter is with a sniper rifle (7.62) to shoot people off screen, one long hallway to gun people down in, 2 assault rifles (also 7.62), they are more than capable of fighting security in the terrible voidsuits that have no armor. They'd have all wiped, anyway. This admin overreach was not necessary.

I do agree with this, however I think that the admin intent does still matter here, as stated above.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

If the point of this 'improvement' was to 'punish' security for 'validing', then chasing them down when they tried to dis-engage does not speak to that being the purpose.

I think what they were trying to say at this point was that the Horizon literally acted on a mission to hunt down a bounty. I don't think it was necessarily 'validing' or 'punishing' personally. That being said, I cannot speak for them.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

Beyond that, the raiders themselves were all suspiciously Vaurca, so they could ostensibly take the full benefit of the antag heavy plate armor and be spaceproof as well. I do not believe that the players involved chose Vaurca out of a freak accident, I am sorry to say. This gave them an even more significant combat advantage, beyond admins unnecessarily providing them with additional firepower. Especially when they begin to gloat in OOC after the round has ended when they were provided a golden ticket by staff to subjugate the entire round with zero consequence.

We chose Vaurca because we decided to play Vaurca in dsay. There was no motive to powergame, and we were uninformed that admin intervention was even going to happen in the first place. We simply did not powergame heavy armor in order to get a combat advantage. The gloating I do have an issue with. I think gloating that we killed Horizon staff is unnecessary and antag gloating is in bad taste in the first place, sans any admin intervention. Including the admin intervention and then gloating is simply bad manners, truth be told.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

When they boarded the Horizon, they proceeded to vent the ship as they went along, another tactic that plays into their species' strengths and further limits response

This was, to me, caused by a rush of having to get in and out. There was a hole in the bridge of our ship and we rushed out and broke into medical, with venting spreading from there as we rushed to engineering. The venting itself was not intentional in my experience (there was no intent behind venting anything in the rush, at least.)

3 hours ago, Susan said:

A genuine Vampire was wordlessly gunned down in medical because of the situation, with no ability to provide genuine RP, as their role had entirely been eclipsed by staff meddling.

I was not present for anyone being gunned down, as we mostly held people up to the best of our ability. I am not denying this happened, and I do apologize to the Vampire that had their round taken from them in this case.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

The Vaurca did not engage beyond being sarcastic and blood-thirsty on the radio, and there was nothing to be found in it but violence and bloodshed as underequipped crew who suffer from things like 'not being able to breathe in space' unlike Vaurca threw themselves at the brick wall of an overgeared antagonist team, beaten down at every turn.

Again, we did not shoot anybody that did not shoot us first while I was present. We attempted to speak with people, attempted to use medical staff and engineering staff to get where and what we needed and then we left as quickly as we could. I can count at least five other people we had the opportunity to murder but simply did not, as RPing and utilizing them simply made more sense.

3 hours ago, Susan said:

The context of Loorey's comments - and I am very sorry, Loorey - suggests to me this was done so people could get their frags in. I do not believe this is conduct befitting a moderator in this scenario, especially considering it is administration self-enabling themselves to run roughshod over a round and gloat in the bloody aftermath. The optics are terrible, even if this was not staff's intention, or their desire, or even what they set out to do. It looks that way.

While I do not condone Loorey's coments, the content of our actions were not to "get frags in" as you state - at least not for me. Again, I can only speak for my experience, but for me it was about getting in, getting our things and leaving. I believe the team understood this, and were all working towards that goal. I do not consider this a case of "administration self-enabling" as there was nobody that had the ability to spawn equipment on the pirate side. Again, I cannot see msay so I do not know what went on in there, but I never got the vibe that admins were "on our side" at all.

3 hours ago, meep109 said:

Hi I was one of the pirates involved and I would like to say that the decision to pick Vaurca was in no way related to the heavy armor spawning. We had no way of knowing that stuff would be given to us at that time, and the stuff wasn't instantly given to us after we spawned in. No one talked to staff at all and the buffs were a surprise for the players too. I was the one that suggested we all pick Vaurca cause I had played that away site before as Vaurca and found it pretty fun

Echoing this completely. We had no idea admin intervention was even going to happen, nobody informed us of anything. Before I checked the map file, I had just assumed that we had a mech from the get-go, as it was unmentioned (to me at least, perhaps I missed an LOOC message somewhere.) The Vaurca thing was simply agreed upon in dchat because vaurca are fun, not for any apparent mechanical advantage (I was going to play an IPC originally but swapped via a ticket with Melariara when I saw that EVERYBODY was Vaurca.)

 

Again, I apologize for anybody that did not enjoy the round. Our intent was not to kill anybody or assault the Horizon - it was always to get in, get our things and leave. I understand that not everybody on the station was involved with assaulting the base itself, but everybody suffered from the result of this. Ultimately, I do not think the admin intervention was necessary but I do understand why they gave us things: to make things more interesting. Again, I am a much bigger fan of a Horizon win when it comes to antags, and I would have preferred to personally die on the asteroid, but the experience of escaping with our lives was a thrilling tale, and all I can hope for is that we made it exciting for others in round as well.

 

Merry (Day After) Christmas, I hope this helps clear as much as I can up for everyone involved.

 

[Bear]

9 hours ago, Loorey said:

to Bear and anyone that got angry or felt whatever else after my OOC comments after the round: I am sorry, that was maybe a little over the top, I do not want to stand here as the evil bully. Though, I feel like it wasn’t that much either. 

Hi, I was mentioned. No I wasn't mad, do not worry. I piped up in ooc as the optics wasn't great for a moderator to be essentially fortnite default dancing and dropping L's on a situation that there was likely those who were upset after getting their shit rocked by the Vaurca Crew after security kicked the literal hornets' nest and got their shit kicked in for it and lol (they took a huge L). I have had a history of wilding a bit myself in my younger years, and simply wished to avoid an incident before one occurred. Sportsmanship goes a long way, you know?

[Dreamix]

Hi. I was one of the vaurca pirates, Za'Akaix'Oua K'lax. Also holding the position of a developer.

 

11 hours ago, Susan said:

A domino effect occurred to where they massacred the security team, boarded the Horizon (again, admin intervention, as the PR states their ship has no fuel and it is why they are hiding in a base, there), murdered more people, hijacked a round and effectively turned Vampire into Mercenary+, in the most unsatisfying and unpleasant way possible.

I do not think there is anything wrong with any of these things mentioned here. I think admin intervention is fine, and it's not uncommon for admins to add antags if it's highpop and it rolls extended. I wish staff would involve themselves in rounds more commonly like this, but of course, not just making it a murderfest every time (but I think that's fine too from time to time). I don't think it's "hijacking the round", and if it was, I don't think there's anything wrong with that either - rounds don't have to always go exactly according to the script and gamemode description. I also don't think it was "unsatisfying and unpleasant", and looking at the vote and OOC after the round, it seems most players have enjoyed it.

 

11 hours ago, Susan said:

Dreampixl stated their gear is 'weird', but given the context of the PR that these are pirates (ala Raider) and not Nuclear Operatives (ala Mercenary), they are even MORE well equipped than our Raider gamemode is.
(...)
If, as Dreampixl says, their gear is 'weird', then why was this not mentioned on the PR when it was merged? The development team is fully aware of the PRs submitted to Aurora.

While I think the idea of the away site with antagonists is nice, the map itself is not following the current mapping standards, and the collection of gear on the map is very strange. It has a ton of weapons, but it's lacking in armor, for example. The map layout is just, bad, honestly, the base is huge, with only one entrance that is way too easy to defend. I want to do a remap of this site some time soon, make it nicer and more balanced.

But why was it merged like this? Well. Currently it's just me actually reviewing maps, and this one sort of flew under my radar, in a time where I was less active on Aurora and more busy IRL. This is the first time I played it too, and second time I've seen it spawn at all, so I was not aware if the map layout or equipment bad balance-wise.

 

11 hours ago, Susan said:

I do not believe that the players involved chose Vaurca out of a freak accident, I am sorry to say.

I can only echo what Lent said. We chose Vaurca because we decided to play Vaurca in dsay and thought it would be fun, and I do not think there was a motive to powergame. I believe most of the other players in the vaurca pirates team also regularly play vaurca as crew on Horizon, me included.

We have had an uplink spawned by admins, as well as the mechs, an ion rifle, and some sets of heavy armor - I do not remember anything else being spawned. I do not think Vaurca are OP - I think it's more just the gear we got was OP. In retrospect normal armor would've been better than heavy armor, and the mechs were too much. I did not spawn anything myself, only ahelped and provided paths, as devs do not have the powers to spawn things. But as others said, the gear was spawned after we've already spawned as pirates and started preparing, and I would imagine also after staff saw what Horizon was bringing to the assault.

 

This thread is already big enough, so I'm just going to echo what with Lent and others have said. We did not vent horizon intentionally, or at least not maliciously - our ship was vented itself, and I think our airlock was not powered, so we had to enter horizon through a window anyways, and medbay was the closest window. We did not go out of our way to murderbone anyone, and as far as I've seen, we did not attack people who did not attack us themselves (other than some XO who refused to be taken hostage). We have basically just entered medbay, went into engineering, got some supplies, and left.

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Dreamix
oops pressed enter accidentally

[dessysalta]

Hi, since I haven't seen anyone comment from the security side of things, I'll do that now. If I'm peanutting, let me know.

I was Commander Iska for that round, and while I didn't necessarily have an issue with getting wiped, I would be amiss if I didn't say "giving two combat-grade exosuits and an uplink to a pirate base when all we have is a PEAC and one powerloader chassis with guns felt like a bit much." As far as "validing" goes, I should say that my character's motivations are what drove me to weed out the pirate base, not that I needed some action or wanted to get some easy arrests/kills. Considering my character is an Iska (and, yes, mistakenly introduced themselves as Iska's Adventurers, this was my fault) and Central Command gave him the go ahead, he was more than willing to perform a raid on a pirate hideout. Though to me I thought it'd spice up the round if security wasn't holed up on the Horizon for once given nothing happened for over an hour and a half and I was starting to think it was an extended round.

The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way is when we were in full retreat the two combat mechs, you guessed it, swarmed us and killed us in about 2 minutes on the outside. Maybe five if you count people dying from their injuries over that course, but the Vaurca went out of their way to execute us too (and I don't necessarily blame them, that's their right) and I feel you can't make the argument that the bugs didn't know we were Conglomerate-aligned after having seen all of our corporate gear and the Intrepid if for a moment. It felt decently aggravating to spend over an hour gearing security up, prepping for this mission, then we touchdown, Horizon tells us to GTFBO (get the fuck back on) and then we die without doing pretty much any damage aside from disabling their two mechs. We got steamrolled and the only other alternative would have been to do something that got me ahelped (since the bridge crew were yelling at us to get back on, and I had no reason to deny them that).

As far as adminbus goes, I should go on record to say that the idea of raiding a souped up base on behalf of the Conglomerate for funsies is pretty awesome. Conceptually, that is. The only issue is we never actually got to do that, we turned our backs for one second (some might call this a mistake, but we didn't really have a choice) and instantly died. I wouldn't personally mind if more adminbus stuff like this happened occasionally, but we were woefully outclassed fighting the most brute-resistant species that had two combat mechs and heavy armor. We were all humans (+ a tajara and a sinta) in voidsuits. Of course we're not going to win, especially when the other side is offered punji traps, fuel traps (see: the entrance that was covered in the stuff and got ignited immediately), reinforced barriers, barbed wire and a chokepoint on top of the uplink and two mechs.

Past that, I'll echo what has already been said on the pirate side of things about IC reasoning and the mentioned gear.

Edited December 26, 2023 by dessysalta
missed a line

[Lent23]

Hey Dessy, I have just a few clarifications to add:

1 hour ago, dessysalta said:

the Vaurca went out of their way to execute us too

We actually specifically tried to capture and heal as many as we could, so we could use them as bargaining chips in order to trade with the Horizon.

1 hour ago, dessysalta said:

we turned our backs for one second [...] and instantly died.

Unfortunately, the timing was simply bad luck for the Horizon, and I think that we would have experienced the same results without any admin equipment. Our goal was to ultimately capture and trade, but we unfortunately did too much damage to the retreating forces. I was absolutely looking forward to the honorless K'lax pirates holding the Iska commander hostage RP as well

[Alberyk]

Head administrators will deal with this complaint.

[Melariara]

Hello all, @Alberyk and I have come to a decision on this.

 

1. Loorey has been spoken to about their conduct as a moderator, as how they behaved is not what we as a team wish to see from any staff member, especially someone who is seen as the face of the server. The rest of the team has also been notified that this is not what we want to see in our staff members.

2. The Horizon was warned against going and invading the pirate base.

This was the fax that the Head of Security sent out.

Spoiler

This was the one that the Odin sent back in response

Spoiler

The Commander's player has also been spoken to in regards to SOP, as the sole member of command cannot leave the Horizon.

 

3.  We will make clear what is expected and acceptable to do without holding a vote when it comes to admin interference in a round. We feel that this lack of clear boundaries of what is acceptable or not without a vote likely caused the issues people had with this round.

 

If there are no further issues with this, we will be locking and archiving in 24 hours.

[Susan]

Thank you, Melaria and Alberyk, I have no further issues.

[Melariara]

Locking and archiving in that case.