On Code Red...

[CampinKiller]

So, it seems to me that Code Red is overused in some situations, or at least left in place for a very long time.

Take a round last night, for example. I was a ling who had RP'd being studied by R&D in exchange for protohumans to feed on. After about an hour and a half, I escape, as I know that I cannot trust that I won't be taken, experimented on, and killed by NanoTrasen after the shift is over. I go into hiding after my escape, and tell Security that I will remain peaceful if I am left alone. Security naturally refuses, but they have no idea where I am, so I am fine. However, at around the 2 hour mark, the alert level is raised to Code Red, despite no hostile acts to that point, after breaking out, and an ERT is called shortly after. The Code Red is left until at least the 3.5 hour mark, when I eventually went to the Dorms because I had to sleep. I don't know how long the round went after that.

My main issue is, that despite never discovering any violent acts (until over an hour after Code Red was declared), that the RP ground to a halt. I had to stay in the department of the person's body I consumed, as did the rest of that department, and we had nothing to do. We couldn't leave, given the Code Red, and we couldn't test anything, on orders from the Research Director. At this point, I assume the ability to do anything besides stare at a wall and talk to whoever else is with you ground to a halt everywhere except Mining, the Bar, and Security. It was boring, and we couldn't call a transfer vote to end it because of the Code Red.

My point is this - there needs to be a limit on the length of a Code Red, or votes should be allowed past the 3 hour mark, even if it's Code Red. If a known alien lifeform escapes, or there's an attack on the station, then it makes sense, but if you cannot find it, or they abandon the attack, then you don't need to keep everyone staring at a wall with nothing to do for a long amount of time, because that ~90 minutes worth of Code Red did nothing except keep people sitting around and looking at a wall.

[Garnascus]

Abuse of code red can potentially be an OOC issue and is something you can always ahelp about. Imposing a limit on code red ant necessary, only whitelisted players (usually) call a code red and we can almost always trust them to not abuse it.

[SierraKomodo]

As the leading trooper for the ERT that was called, we were told ICly that a hostile xenobiological lifeform that could impersonate any crewmember it killed was loose aboard the station. We put together aplan to systematically search and verify the identity of every crewmember, which took a lot longer than it should have because nobody on this station wants to cooperate with anybody. When I saw the timer was past three and a half hours and we couldn't get anywhere, I decided 'fuck it, we're calling a shuttle'.

[CakeIsOssim]

In the situation you described, it doesn't sound like code red was being abused, but rather poorly used. There is a difference, IMO. Let's take a look at a few things.

 

 

"The station has received reliable information about possible hostile activity aboard the station." This would've been more fitting, considering the fact that you had not actually attacked any of the crew, and the current round time. However...

 

 

"There is a serious and immediate threat to the station." You were an unknown xenofauna that could consume and assume any person aboard the station. An immediate threat? Maybe.

I really don't want this to turn into corporate regs, where one of them was removed because people were tired of dealing with shitty officers, and adjusted regs accordingly. Code red is just fine, and I have never seen it actually abused. Has it been called and then everyone capable of lowering it dies? Yes, this happens sometimes. I wouldn't actually call that abuse. That's also probably one of the situations where you need to ahelp if it can't be solved through IC means.