Being non security

[Last_stand_crew]

It's not much of a complaint, rather a question, though i'm still sad that it happened somewhy, but on the one before round with ID cAJ-dzKM there was situation like this:
somewhat 12 people, and maximum 8 joined at the start, there was no security, i mean, really, no one was playing on sec, and i was on character Amy Veir, surgeon resident, next, our miners get on aim of a random with their gun and this assailant wants bluespace drive, what do i know right now? one of miners called for help through main channel and didn't say anything else, while second didn't know what happened to first and got hostaged too, so no more info, all crew thought it's just miners got hurt so i went for captain's spare ID card, knowing that it should be somewhere around his office, to gain access, then i take paramedic's RIG and ask what's up, go to hangar and see a random pointing his gun at engineer, what next, you ask? now fun begins: i ask A-help whether i can scare antag away with a big gun i could find in armory... just to rescue hostages, nothing else, while he says: "want to do something like this, play security", well, i knew that i would be probably rejected with some reason like i (somewhat) quoted, but then happens something i am pissed about! there's still no security, no, only a cook, cargo tech and yet another engineer joins round (maybe someone else, but no security, at least from start of the round and till the end of story i'm telling, i mean, after last event i told ya somewhere around end of round one officer joined), but atmos tech (i don't remember his name) asks for that spare cap's ID card i had, and with Radiance (R&D worker) engages! they take a gun with something like tranquiliser and handcuff him, though first attempt was unsuccessful and he drawed not just a revolver type pistol, but a rifle, other stuff i'm furious about is already IC issue so i won't go into much detail here, the main POINT is that players, who have chosen jobs that aren't connected to security by any means did something i wanted to do, but got rejected because of playing job that's not connected to security!
Now, what the question is? can players do security job if there's no security on shift? at least to save other crew or whole ship??? because it feels like some admins just don't understand situations or something like that, OR any player who do this just get noted or even banned! i just want an answer, because i don't understand what's going on now...

[Last_stand_crew]

i do not know if i chosen the right topic to ask this, i do not know if i even had a right to write something like this, but i will be happy if there would be answer from at least five admins which are pretty much same with the idea: "yes", or "no"

Edited July 24 by Last_stand_crew

[Loorey]

I've moved the topic into the General board for you since this is not a staff complaint and does not belong in that subforum.

On the note of what you actually wrote:

7 hours ago, Last_stand_crew said:

Now, what the question is? can players do security job if there's no security on shift? at least to save other crew or whole ship??? because it feels like some admins just don't understand situations or something like that, OR any player who do this just get noted or even banned!

To answer this, no, you cannot blatantly do the job of security. And I can assure you, we do understand. You've been talked to by both me and another Modmin that round, the other Modmin being Jasorn, who told you that self-defense in any case is totally acceptable, but you are not to blatantly hunt down the antagonist(s). That's not okay.

This is a very situational thing, which is why you should always Ahelp before doing anything. You did Ahelp and it was explained to you to only act in self defense, as the antag was not really escalating strongly at all, you were told to let the gimmick play out and if something happens to you that you can defend yourself. 

[dessysalta]

Hi, I was the secoff during the latter half of that round.

To add onto what Loorey said, acting as security while non-security is reserved for the worst of circumstances, and generally requires a good in-character reason to do so regardless. Situations that aren't mass-cas(ualty) often don't warrant a citizen's arrest unless you have strong reason to believe there's going to be mass-cas in the very near future with no one to stop it—even so, you need to get into the logistics of it. Medical student is presented with a hostage situation, decides to break into the armory or find a gun, go gung-ho around the antagonist to scare them off? Even in a hypothetical scenario where this works and no shots are fired, this is stretching the limit of what a reasonable person would do, particularly one with so much to lose and not a whole lot to gain. Hostages are already a huge bargaining chip that stops normal security from antagonizing them without a well thought-out plan, factoring in power armor and military-grade weaponry and even common sense and it's no contest.

When there doesn't exist any security on or off-duty, there's usually slack given in order to interact with the antagonist; this more means you can act with hostility towards them, not that you can gear up past bare essentials (which usually means what's on your person/what a reasonable person would take with them to minimize injury to themselves). Hostages, like the ones mentioned during the round (though I don't have the full story), can organize break outs particularly in severe circumstances like this. I've been spoken to a few times about acting as security in non-security positions, and it really is highly situational. Off-duty Vedhra warrior for hive K'lax, sees horrorform changeling and thinks its Lii'draic? Feel free to engage, but be on the defense more than offense. On-duty bartender with security too busy to handle what might be a vampire? Put down the bat and get some fear RP going on. When red alert is called, that usually means all bets are off and you can assume that things are about to be fucked if they're not already, but still try and wait for guidance from your other crew members, if not a head of staff (and as Loorey said, ahelp to be sure).

More OOCly, it's just not a good idea to play the hero as medical, especially if you're the only one in the department. People, including antagonists, rely on you to make sure no one dies or is kept out of the round for too awfully long. This doesn't mean you should be a doormat, but think of a scenario where another non-security character might pick up a weapon, and restrict yourself to something twice that severity before you opt into that kind of play. You'll eventually learn to play it by ear and figure out when it would be reasonable to rush into the defense and blast them to bits, but it's exceedingly rare and needs to be justified up the wazoo before it can be considered.

[DatSamTho]

Honestly, in my experience, it's best to err on the side of caution until you can get a pretty good sense for this type of thing. It took me quite a while until I got out of my "MUST KILL ANTAGS" phase and actually got enough experience to know when it's okay to act as non-security crew.

Though generally what I can think of as tips:

- Your sense of preservation is the most important thing. Try to keep that in mind at all time.

- If there is security, unless your life or health is in danger, leave it to them. The only caveat for this is, if security has been broken after an engagement, and it seems pretty clear that the antags have won over them, in which case:

- If there is no command, or security (Or most of them are dead) and there is a clear threat to the ship, or your safety, it's probably pretty safe to arm up. Now, this doesn't mean that you should go and hunt down the antag. What I've seen happen most times, during things such as lowpop vampire rounds, and such, is an impromptu crew militia forming, as it's generally safest to be in a large group.

- Every round is unique, and there's no real one-fits-all solution to every single one, in the end you'll have to use your best judgement depending on the current situation, your character and job. And always ahelp when in doubt.

[Last_stand_crew]

On 24/07/2025 at 19:50, Loorey said:

I've moved the topic into the General board for you since this is not a staff complaint and does not belong in that subforum.

On the note of what you actually wrote:

To answer this, no, you cannot blatantly do the job of security. And I can assure you, we do understand. You've been talked to by both me and another Modmin that round, the other Modmin being Jasorn, who told you that self-defense in any case is totally acceptable, but you are not to blatantly hunt down the antagonist(s). That's not okay.

This is a very situational thing, which is why you should always Ahelp before doing anything. You did Ahelp and it was explained to you to only act in self defense, as the antag was not really escalating strongly at all, you were told to let the gimmick play out and if something happens to you that you can defend yourself. 

well then why did other players do what i asked if i can? yet again (i won't get tired to say this) they were not security, it was not self-defence, but still they risked their and others lives (hostages) to stop the criminal, though they did it without casualties there was a possibility of someone getting hurt (and one of the crew eventually died because we didn't at least check for all of his pockets so that he wouldn't get out but it's not the topic), the topic is: are they going to be banned for their activities, @Loorey
some more: i mean, seriosly, i even asked in A-help if they asked to get permission do something about this antag, admins said that they never got permission
oh, one last thing: i guess i probably look like i want to talkshit or something, but the problem is i'm so confused, i wasn't permitted, they did what i wanted probably without permission and i wonder if they even never got warned that they broke game rules... i just need an answer

Edited July 27 by Last_stand_crew

[Loorey]

3 hours ago, Last_stand_crew said:

well then why did other players do what i asked if i can?

You asked to get weapons from the armoury to hunt down the antag, they did not do this.

3 hours ago, Last_stand_crew said:

the topic is: are they going to be banned for their activities

No.

3 hours ago, Last_stand_crew said:

i wasn't permitted, they did what i wanted probably without permission

Once again, they did not. It was them ultimately managing to disarm the antag in a self-defense scenario, then arresting them. Which is totally fine. There were no weapons from the armoury involved like you wanted them. 

[Last_stand_crew]

On 28/07/2025 at 02:14, Loorey said:

You asked to get weapons from the armoury to hunt down the antag, they did not do this.

No.

Once again, they did not. It was them ultimately managing to disarm the antag in a self-defense scenario, then arresting them. Which is totally fine. There were no weapons from the armoury involved like you wanted them. 

@Loorey, well it wasn't self-defence, and yes, it wasn't REALLY hunting down, just saving others, but still i clearly said that i wanted to scare antag away, gun is just factor that'd tell if he'd be scared, i never meant to hunt him down, while THOSE hunted him and cuffed, no matter that it wasn't lethal, no matter that no one got hurt they pretty much risked and, as someone said of admins, should of have a really good reason to do so, i'm continuing this topic because there are some things that aren't clear to me

Edited Wednesday at 20:00 by Last_stand_crew

[FabianK3]

Hi!

I'm playing Bradley Knight, the atmos tech you have referred to.
I hope i can shed some light on the round, provide some new perspective and hopefully help clear some things up for you.

I joined mid-round as far as I can remember and just arrived after the antag presented themselves. Not long after the antag made it clear that one of their goals was to utilize the bluespace drive (among other non-relevant things). The crew manifest at time had no command staff or any security.
The hostage that was taken was the only engineer besides me, they have been assaulted and threatened to get the drive going. It should be noted that regular engineering personell isn't capable of completing that task alone.

My character was faced two direct issues:
1.) A coworker and good friend of Knight was threatened, already (somewhat) injured and yelling for help. There was nobody else to take any action in any form.
2.) There was an immediate threat to the whole ship but utilizing the bluespace drive without the technical expertise and goodwill - Misuse or in proper use of the bluespace drive can result in heavy damage or even the destruction of the ship.
The important context to both of those issues:
- There was no command staff to start any form of proper negotiations or handle the situation.
- There was no security to handle the antag directly in any form.
- There was a direct threat to the crew.
- There was a direct threat to the ship utilizing engineering equipment my character is directly responsible for/trained with.

Low pop rounds with out command or security can generally be sometimes a bit difficult to balance with heavily armed antags (the goal is to have fun, not to "win" after all).
With that context, let me explain what my way of thought was and how Bradley and others tackled the situation:

As others have already said, the goal isn't / wasn't to hunt or arrest the antag. The in-character goals were to try to help the injured crew without taking extrem measures and handle the immediate threat to the ship if possible.
The most obvious plan and also what happened was that I talked with the mentioned xeno scientist on how they could do that while not overstepping their role and expertise in-character (and, obviously, without directly breaking rules or powergaming).
The solution was A.) to utilize the tranquilizer gun research has access to and B.) utilize plants the scientist grew that also contained sedating properties while C.) making use of the access an atmos tech have considering the situation was unfolding in the engineering department.
The plan was to redirect the attention of the antag away from the bluespace drive and if possible, to help the injured crew with them in it. This is another reason, as why you were needed as a medical character.
I like to make this very clear: The goal was not to hunt the antag or to scare them away, the goal was to help the crew and eliminate a direct threat to the whole ship.
This shift in perspective is probably the first and most important step to finding a balance in this scenario, in my opinion.

The action then unfolded like this:
Bradley and the scientist entered the maints after looking into the drive using the cameras. Their idea was to get the antag out and busy with the scientist that was able to (non-lethally, this is important in my opinion) to keep the antag busy, while Bradley tried to look after their coworker and the drive.
And that pretty much played out like that - The antag did follow the scientist and Bradley was able to look into the room.
To our own surprise, the tools we had chosen did not only keep the antag busy, but managed to sedate them.

We were then (involuntarily) faced with the situation of what do to them (to cite the ingame vibe at that time, between multiple people: "Oh shit, what do we do now?").
To completely get rid of an antag without security/command and on low pop isn't/wouldn't have been fun for anyone, so that clearly was not an option.
So we looked again for the tools we had at our disposal and science had their containment cell.
It's now important to add: When looking at the sedated antag, we purposefully did not remove all their gear - There never was the intention to stop the gimmick of the round in it's track.
That is also the reason the antag broke out of the cell (Suprise! Surprise! Sometime you have to play along to make it a fun round).
After a couple of chases around some maints, the antag vanished around the ship and the plan failed from an IC-perspective. OOCly, this gave more then a full hour of stuff to do for most of the low pop crew at this time.
In the end, the antag managed to get back into the drive and do some stuff with it. They did execute the engineer they managed to catch again (with their consent) as the engineer failed to setup the drive (due to IC lack of knowledge). This led to the antag to break of their mission and leave for good, as it also was closing in on the end of the round.
Just close of that / in parallel at the end, a security officer did come up and Bradley dropped everything to quickly brief said officer and get them rolling instead of continuing anything on our own.

So - What is the difference I see in what you were trying to accomplish from what you shared in your posts?
- Bradley was directly involved in the gimmick as it was about the bluespace drive.
- Without any form of command and security, there was nothing else to do but to interact with the antag in some way due to the pending threat to the ship from an engineering perspective.
- The tools used and actions taken were in the skillset and expertise of engineering and research.
- The antag was given a lot of advantages on purpose and no lethal options were planned to be used. (The tranquilizer gun shot missed, and science threw plants at them...)
- No weapons like content from the armory was used. The goal wasn't to scare the antag "away" but to keep them busy to help the injured crew.
- The plan was "bait and run away", not "arm up and threaten".

I know, for a fact, that would I have asked to get a gun from the armory, I would've been told no. No questions asked. What goes for you, goes for me as well. I have no doubt about that.
Perspective matters. I hope this answers your primary concerns about that round.


Additionally, I like to mention something that seemed to have bothered you in-round from my perspective:
When Bradley arrived, a while later, I asked you for the captains spare card you were carrying. My thought in that scenario was, as mentioned before, some interaction with the antag was necessary and without command, utilizing resources from other departments like science and engineering sounded reasonable. In addition, it didn't feel right ICly to have a character that is not even fully employed yet (a training role OOCly, a resident ICly) to have the captains spare card. Bradley (and others) felt responsible for taking said card to keep it secure. This does not imply we didn't want you to have it, but rather to keep it in the hands of personell with higher responsibilities at that time. The fact that you were wearing a locked hardsuit on your back was only made known way way late in the round. Of course we would've helped you out of that suit if we had known earlier. When you did share the issue, it was in a rather high intensity moment without much time for that. Whether or not it was appropriate for you to get in the possession of the captains spare card or wear the hardsuit is not for me to decide.


I hope I was able to give some insight into the round and what I think is different about the approaches the low pop crew chose during that round.
My personell suggestion is: Ahelp when things are unclear and maybe ask for directions instead of asking for allowance, the staff is genuinely welcoming and helpful in this regard!
I remember having the similar questions about how to handle such situations when I joined Aurora.
Let me know if anything else is unclear to you that I might be able to clear up further.


P.S.: It doesn't feel great to read about somebody asking to ban people in an informal complaint because you had an apparently different experience then they had. I'm certain the staff will take action when needed without asking for drastic measures...

[Nagito Komaeda]

Fabian already commented with the perspective from Bradley; I feel like mine as Radiance should be in here as well.

The entire start of this situation was because we were going to do a rescue operation. The Spark crew hailed out and needed help, and we couldn't teleport or fly down because of the access limitations on the crew. It's because of this and only this that we got the spare. I think it's odd that a surgical resident got their hands on one of the highest-value objects on the station.

Fabian also wrote why we engaged with the antag. For Bradley, it's ship safety and a liked colleague being in danger. For Radiance, it's ship danger. Bradley has stronger reasons, but didn't have the means to take down the antag himself without it being bloody or extremely dangerous for himself. For Radiance, as a robot, the risk of personal injury is a margin lower (though self-preservation dictates that he should be cautious, self-preservation also comes into play when the entire ship can be in danger due to the Bluespace Drive being messed with.) Radiance also devised a method that could take down the antag; by modifying a specific plant with sedatives so that it bursts out into smoke, they could possibly sedate the antag. Those were used to subdue him eventually.

The chase happened in maintenance (a domain well-known to Bradley as an engineer), and the antag chose to chase us down instead of keeping his hostage. The chase happened, we got shot at, and I did get damaged! But, with the plants I managed to eventually subdue the antag. Then, we got the Machinist to print us a set of cuffs.

Instead of throwing him in Security, we choose a room in research to contain the antag. We never de-geared the antag (besides his PDA, that was put on the table, because he was stealing data with it) and just went "Okay... so what now?" When the antag got out and killed me, I accepted that as part of the risk! 

 

If we didn't have the spare, I genuinely think next to nothing would have changed. Sure, we would not have had the tranq rifle - but I'm very certain it had no effect compared to the plants. Sure, we couldn't easily walk into Hazardous Containment - but we had an Engineer that could easily deal with the doors. And we never stopped the gimmick in its tracks. Both Bradley and Radiance acted based on their expertise, because there was a massive risk to the ship if nobody did anything. We never would have done these things of our own volition if there was Security or Command taking charge in the situation: This is their domain to deal with. We never went out to get a 'scary gun' to 'intimidate the antag' with, because that's the surefire way to get shot at.

I echo that it sucked for you to be stuck in a hardsuit, but I think the situation never warranted a learner role getting the Captain's spare. If the Spark arrived three minutes prior, the spare would never have been in the situation, and while it made some things easier with getting into places, it never dictated the way we approached the situation.

[UltraNumeron]

Antag here, I respect crew fighting back and it does make for a better round then no pushback. Though yeah it is definetly alot better to have the crew use their own department gear and such to do so, rather than taking from the armory which can baloon pretty easily into a militia. It should also be noted that guns are not a good scare tactic against people who also have guns and armor. Because that is not intimidating someone with superior force but starting a firefight.

Should also note the reason i chased you all there was because the hostage already managed to get away! A mishap with the field generator stunned me for a few seconds that they managed to escape with, and I found you coming at me in maint when i chased after so we had a scuffle. Which ended with me sedated and having dropped my guns and locked up in the containment chamber with the others now armed with my guns. 

From which i escaped with an energy sword i had in my pocket from my gear loadout and cut through the wall and took down the now armed scientist and retrieved my gun and pda uplink. From which the rest Fabian already said. Overall crew fighting back with their own weapons rather than the armories made it a pretty fun and interesting round with relatively fair combat against the crew! And Id have been happy to have seen you join the conflict too, just without need for armory guns. There was no security and i took their colleagues hostage with a gun and voidsuit, so the crew had right to do as they did.