[2 Dismissal] CCIA becoming "yet another whitelist" [Binned: 15/04/2018]

[Arrow768]

I have noticed a recent trend where CCIA tries to involve themselves more and more in the affairs of the ongoing rounds.

The addition of the ERT Commander was meant to be a way for them to brief the ERT Teams.

However in reality it is being used to command a ERT Team on the station and make tactical decisions regarding the ongoing situations.

In round bTO-b14r a CCIA Agent was aboard the station to "inspect medical".

When asked why that is needed, they responded that it was "due to the recent changes to the department".

Given that this was a merc round I find that highly inappropriate as this puts yet another high value target on the station that has to be protected.

CCIA becoming more and more involved in IC matters just leads to them becoming "yet another whitelist" to unlock.

I am very heavily opposed to CCIA Agents being used outside of investigations.

The same thing goes for the Commander.

If we wanted to have a IC Role to lead the ERT Team from the Odin and make tactical decisions for the L/Tpr, then we would have added the role for everyone (or as a command whitelist option)

I can see how there is a usecase during the initial briefing and possibly if there is a emergency that requires a intervention (i.e. when ERT tries to depose command for no reason)

[Guest Menown]

Station IAA should be handling inspections and shit, and relaying the information to CCIA if it's needed. As it is, mapping stuff like medical's thing isn't something that can be handled ICly.

As for the Commander suggestion, I like the idea of Whitelisted Command players able to assume the role.

[Synnono]

I can see how there is a usecase during the initial briefing and possibly if there is a emergency that requires a intervention (i.e. when ERT tries to depose command for no reason)

 

I will try to address the rest of this post when I have some downtime at work, but as for this, these are currently the cases the feature was implemented for, and are currently the only things we should really be using Commander characters for.

[ben10083]

CCIA should NOT be pushed put of IC matters, and although I am not a CCIA agent and cannot know for sure, I bet it was enjoyable inspecting medical with CCIA status and leading a ERT instead of investigating yet another report.

Allow CCIA to do things instead of investigations.

-1. (Also they are already a whitelist so what do you even mean by "yet another whitelist?)

[Elliot]

I agree with what’s been said here. I find it very strange having this “CCIA inspection” unless if was an event type thing but we should not be doing that during normal rounds. I’m sure Syn will look into it regardless.

As for ERT Commander being a command whitelist option, it does make sense and could work out for the better in the long run. An intreting idea but only testing can tell the outcome.

As for the guild lines of using ERT Commander nothing has been formally written (as far as I know) and it should defiantly be added to the ERT section of the wiki.

[Gollee]

CCIA are specifically meant to be avoided by antagonist actions, as unlike other staff members, their OOC job is severely hindered by in character interruptions. Having them on station specifically for antags to target sets a bad precedent. The antags in question on this round were informed in A-OOC about it, but the rest of the players were not, so misunderstandings could result from this.

If you want a special target for antags, use visitors, other high ranking personnel, government officials; not CCIA, they are there to fill a very specific purpose and expanding that purpose could compromise their ability to perform their core duty, which is to deal with Incident Reports, both ICly and OOCly.

If you want to expand the CCIA Out of Character job to include also being high value targets, then please do not use the actual IC CCIA, use a different section, CCIA need to be specifically seperated from the event visitors. They used to be murdered every shift they arrived on, it was absolute hell.

[Arrow768]

CCIA should NOT be pushed put of IC matters, and although I am not a CCIA agent and cannot know for sure, I bet it was enjoyable inspecting medical with CCIA status and leading a ERT instead of investigating yet another report.

Allow CCIA to do things instead of investigations.

-1. (Also they are already a whitelist so what do you even mean by "yet another whitelist?)

 

That is exactly the issue.

You already view CCIA as a whitelist to unlock.

They are not. They are a staff position meant to investigate IC reports filed and address IC issues that come up during rounds if you contact central command (i.e. indirectly steer the round)

But they are by no means meant to directly control the outcome of a round or involve themselfs in it.

It would be simmilar to devs using bluespace techs to goof around because it "might be a enjoyable experience".

You will see a dev use a BST in two situations:

• If a bug/issue needs to be investigated
  
• On the Centcom Z-Level
  

[JMJ_99]

I'm going to preface this by saying that this was an exception to the regular way that we would operate. For the concerns about this leading to Agents being ganked, we said explicitly that I was valid and that I would leave if they went loud. In any other circumstance attacking a Agent is an OOC issue. Also ERT commander does not have any guidelines set yet. For what happened that round, Coalf bwoinked me asking for me to join as my agent because the Mercs were asking for a High value target, so I join under the pretense of an inspection.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Guest

[Coalf]

This was an absolute and COMPLETE exception that the MERCENARIES themselves requested and quite honestly CCIA's should not have this stupid aura of angelic might.

The only reason they're protected by the rules is because it would be EXTREMELY annoying as pretty much every antag defaults to "Me bing bang CCIA".

The reason this happened was because mercenaries were bored of capturing the same targets, this enabled quite a lot of teamplay from them as they actually disabled the CC shuttle before engaging the target, making sure he couldn't escape.

Furthermore me and JMJ made it VERY CLEAR this was the ONLY TIME CCIA'S were valid and the only reason it was a CCIA was for the ease of spawning as I didn't have to make a 2 page paragraph explaining why this famous guy is suddenly coming to the station AND it enabled heightened co-operation as even the captain, i.e yourself got quite involved in the action and decision making as he wasn't the number one persona to capture and kill.

CCIA's are still very much a department that requires co-operation and teamwork which honestly would be fucking IMPOSSIBLE to pull off with normal whitelist system.

[Brutishcrab51]

I have noticed a recent trend where CCIA tries to involve themselves more and more in the affairs of the ongoing rounds.

The addition of the ERT Commander was meant to be a way for them to brief the ERT Teams.

However in reality it is being used to command a ERT Team on the station and make tactical decisions regarding the ongoing situations.

The same thing goes for the Commander.

If we wanted to have a IC Role to lead the ERT Team from the Odin and make tactical decisions for the L/Tpr, then we would have added the role for everyone (or as a command whitelist option)

I can see how there is a usecase during the initial briefing and possibly if there is a emergency that requires a intervention (i.e. when ERT tries to depose command for no reason)

 

I believe the incident listed, the ERT Team being commanded, was due to the CCIA 'Return Mob' button, which we use to despawn out of the round when we're done, being broken for ERT Commanders. There's a github request on it somewhere. The CCIA playing the Commander was able to play out as an overwatch for the Team due to this.

As far as our #1 bossman established (Synaliminum), the unofficial guidelines are that we use the ERT Commander to brief teams (if need be), to intervene in an ERT (If need be: See, overstepping their bounds widely), and at Admin request. There's some things that we have access to as an ERT Commander, that we would be immediately fired for if we used, without permission. (See: Bluespace Artillery).

What we need is for Skull and Head Memes to establish guidelines in cooperation with the #1 Metal Gear Synaliminum, at the core of this discussion.

Also, CCIA can inspect the station every once in a while. They fill in the same niche as fabled 'Duty Officers', but it should be very rare, and usually with the nod of staff. I've done it twice since the start of the year, and adminhelped both times for the go-ahead.

[Arrow768]

CCIA's are still very much a department that requires co-operation and teamwork which honestly would be fucking IMPOSSIBLE to pull off with normal whitelist system.

 

I did not mean to turn CCIA into a whitelist, But it very much feels like CCIA is becoming jet another role to unlock, as they take on more and more IC responsibilities.

The thing that concerns me is that out of laziness a staff member is spawned in instead of just asking in dsay if someone wants to do it.

Being a VIP is not a role that needs to be restricted to staff members.

 

Also, CCIA can inspect the station every once in a while. They fill in the same niche as fabled 'Duty Officers', but it should be very rare, and usually with the nod of staff. I've done it twice since the start of the year, and adminhelped both times for the go-ahead.

 

There is a huge difference between the duty officer at central and ccia inspecting the station.

One thing carries 0 ic involvement.

The other one strongly suggests that someone screwed up very hard if centcom has to send a agent to inspect the station.

If you wish to inspect a department you can already do so.

Just play a IA Agent.

Again, if you wish to play a VIP visitor that is not a problem, but do not use your position as staff for that.

What I wish to come out of that policy suggestion is a clear set of guidelines that outline what a CCIA Agent can do and what not.

The same thing for the ERT commander.

And I am sure that if we have a need for a ready to use vip visitor role, lore can come up with one and than we can implement that as a preset to spawn in.

[Synnono]

This does not appear to be a policy suggestion, but rather a complaint regarding the activity of one or more CCIA staff in recent rounds. This may be worth moving to an appropriate complaints forum, depending on how [mention]Arrow768[/mention] feels. In the meantime, I'll try to summarize what I'm thinking so far:

In the first case, in the merc round the OP indicates, the CCIA staff member was asked by Coalf to participate the way they did because the antagonists asked him for a high-value target. Yes, it was unusual, and regular antagonist players are probably aware that CCIA agents cannot normally be touched while they're aboard to do IR-related things, since we remind them in AOOC nearly every time we board. In this case though, antagonists were made aware of the agent's validity as a target. It was a round gimmick that was trying to fulfill a player-generated request. We work with admins to do things like this from time to time, and it's been that way for as long as I can recall.

I spoke with Coalf, and it was not the CCIA staff member's own idea to become part of that round gimmick - they were approached and used because a CCIA agent is easy to justify on-station in the setting of the game world. This case wasn't an instance of us "trying to involve ourselves" in the round. Generally speaking, we do not try to board the station to direct a round or drive player behavior. We don't even try to do it via fax, unless someone messages us asking for exactly that, or there is a way we could help a crew player or antagonist escalate the round themselves.

While some people are supportive of the idea of Central Command being more visible in the game world, it is not currently policy for us to go out of our way and be that, unless it's part of a lore or admin event and our assistance has been requested.

Since ERT commanders weren't used in that round according to Coalf, I'm going to assume the commander behavior you're indicating is a separate issue.

As was discussed a bit in the Github discussion of the pull request, the goals of an ERT commander character are:

 

• To brief the team as necessary, as you indicate in your OP. This is mostly for immersion and lorefluff, since it's more appropriate for the briefing to come from ERT's command structure.
  
• To curtail ERT authority if a team takes extreme/unnecessary measures, as was requested via player suggestion thread.
  
• To have a small degree of IC control of the late-round escalation of conflict, since escalation of conflict and flow of a round is something we are concerned with as a staff team.
  

 

Our goal in having these characters is not to drive the round instead of the players. They provide an IC power check on a player role we give effectively unlimited authority in an emergency. They also empower those players to respond to a specific threat, without those players having to resort to meta-knowledge. They might provide objectives or create a sense of urgency, but they will not be calling the play-by-play tactics of an emergency response. If someone has been doing that, they should not be. I would like to ask you to be patient in that regard, though, since the functionality is less than three days old and I have yet to update our training materials with complete guidelines. There are some shorthand instructions that have been posted in the meanwhile in our Discord channel.

With those two things addressed, can you elaborate on your larger concern? We cannot be as hidden away as BSTs by the nature of the roles we play, but what do you feel is at risk here?

[Scheveningen]

With those two things addressed, can you elaborate on your larger concern? We cannot be as hidden away as BSTs by the nature of the roles we play, but what do you feel is at risk here?

 

Very little. It is very inconsequential what occurs over the course of an antagonist round. Player-generated requests, if reasonable, can be fulfilled if the aforementioned CCIA staff feel up to entertaining it.

I don't feel like we should be kneejerking against CCIA being more relevant in the grand scheme of the game. Adding an occasional appearance from time to time should allow them a bit more obvious presence within the game so that people don't think they're only situationally useful.

[Arrow768]

I consider the Issue with the ERT Commander addressed and resolved.

However using CCIA for visitor positions or station inspections has the following problems:

It removes the options from the players to play in a position that is not always available and effectively restricts that position to staff members.

Asking if someone is willing to play as a vip visitor in deadchat, spawning them near the admin shuttle equipping them and asking them to come up with a backstory only takes a few minutes.

A few minutes that are well worth the time because it gives someone the chance to play as something thats not normally available.

Not doing that is just laziness and leads to elitism amongst staffers.

If you use CCIA for "station inspections", then you are effectively saying that command on the station is so incompetent, that a CCIA Agent needs to personally head there and investigate the situation.

No, its not normal for CCIA to make "station inspections" because we have another role who´s job is exactly that and that can be played by any player: Internal Affairs.

If you wish to perform a station inspection, then just play that role.

If that role is already filled with two IA Agents, then send them a fax to carry out the investigation.

As it stands, joining as a CCIA Agent to inspect the station for your own enjoyment and without any specific IC Reason just sais: "Hey Look. I am important and I need to show it"

[Synnono]

[...]joining as a CCIA Agent to inspect the station for your own enjoyment and without any specific IC Reason just sais: "Hey Look. I am important and I need to show it"

 

Avoiding this perception is already part of our guidelines, and your concern will be taken into consideration. The next time you see staff that you feel are doing this, I encourage you to talk to them first, and if you have to after that conversation, consider posting a complaint.

Since there appears to be no new policy being suggested here, I'm not sure if a dismissal vote is appropriate. Putting one up anyway so red names can see it.

[Faris]

Staff positions are not becoming whitelist based. There's an application, interview, vetting and trial for all applicants, which is far more thorough than a whitelist.

Dismissing.

[Arrow768]

Talked a bit with Sharp about this in discord.

I consider it resolved now.

[Faris]

Locking and archiving since dealt with.