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[1 Dismissal] IC directive suggestion: Posting bail


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I can imagine Synn is groaning at the idea of an 11th directive so soon after the 10th. Regardless, I have a cool idea.


General premise: Serving a brig sentence for a slew of charges is not fun. You want those 30 minutes to be better spent elsewhere, but you can't rely on security to do as you suggest and just fine you heavily, especially since there's no policy on such a thing, so they'll probably just opt to brig you and take up a lot of your time anyway.


The solution: Provided you didn't commit at least one HuT offense, any crewmember possesses the right to pay 60% of the maximum fine that can be issued for the offenses they committed. Paying for their own 'bail' is considered admission of guilt for the crimes they committed. Upon paying that amount, they may immediately be released. Additionally, another individual may also 'post bail' on the behalf of the other crewmember, instead paying 75% of their maximum possible fines. Additionally, the person posting their bail will be considered held responsible for the individual they posted bail for. The security team has the right to deny future bail posting attempts only for repeat offenders.


You cannot post bail for yourself if posting bail would put your credit account into the red. You cannot post bail for yourself if you've committed a violation that would result in HuT. The head of security or acting captain reserves the right to immediately veto bail posting attempts provided there is reasonable cause and proper discretion exercised over the denial of such an attempt. Abuse of this is considered exceeding official powers.


Example: You committed a string of 3 assaults and resisted arrest for up to 25 minutes, wasting a lot of resources and time security used to detain you. The HOS vetoes your attempts of getting out. This is fair due to the extreme circumstances involved in addition to the bad faith you exercised in evading detainment.

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Going to C&P what I said in ISD Discord, but currently credits are absolutely useless. I am not in support of a "get out of jail free card," even if they can only do it once. Also, I believe sole authority for approving or denying bail requests should lie with the HoS, unless there is not one.

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Credits are currently useless because there's little to spend them on. On occasion you might order something from cargo but it doesn't bump your account much. Snacks used to be very expensive but it got a lot of complaints about it that the costs were reverted (since it was related to an IC embargo anyway, so it didn't last forever). Making credits more worth it is beyond the actual scope of this suggestion, but it still has an additional effect relating to this anyway.


Making it an option to pay for your own bail to immediately get out of jail would actually make credits worth more simply on the principle of having another opportunity in the game to be able to spend credits on.


I only suggested the numbers for 65% to 75% because I wasn't sure if they'd hit hard enough on people's bank account and it's better to go easy on a suggestion rather than be as severe as "you have to pay the max fine sentence to get out of serving your time."


If it is preferable to pay 100% max fine for a few to a slew of charges then that's fine. It would make it more viable.

 

The head of security or acting captain reserves the right to immediately veto bail posting attempts provided there is reasonable cause and proper discretion exercised over the denial of such an attempt. Abuse of this is considered exceeding official powers.

 

The standard should be that you can pay to get out of the brig, but if you're a repeat offender you do not get this luxury ever again in the round. If you're a serial murderer you don't get this luxury. If you're poor you don't get this luxury.

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as said in discord, this just seems to be a work around to fine's not having policy; smarter solution is getting a policy on fines.



also you're not making credits " more useful " you're making them good for one thing, produce more things that make them a more rigid part of gameplay and then you can call it making them more useful.

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also you're not making credits " more useful " you're making them good for one thing, produce more things that make them a more rigid part of gameplay and then you can call it making them more useful.

 

outside the scope of a singular suggestion

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So the way bail works in the real world is that it's used as commodity by the court to ensure that you return, so you don't spend 3 months in jail waiting for your court date and proceed to lose your job, your house, and your family dog. You return to the court hearing during your trial, you get the money back. There's an incentive to show up because otherwise, the money you spent on bail (which is rarely a small amount) never is going to be returned.


The biggest issue with your recommendation for bail to be a thing is that the amount of credits a character has one round has *no* bearing on the amount they hold on another. There's absolutely no reason to NOT go out on bail because, for all intents and purposes, it is a get-out-of-jail card free. If I pay the bail, that's the end of it for the rest of the round, and if I don't do anything else, there's no long term punishment. At most, you can't smoke 30 packets of cigarettes for the rest of the round, or need to hassle someone in command to give you access to one of the station accounts to make a purchase related to your job. And if I can't get out on bail, then it is completely possible that it's due to the fact that RNG screwed me over, and made me 500 credits short of what it would cost.


Along with that, many of the regulations that can easily get you to 30+ minutes in the brig (or, for that matter, have to pay a fine for) are not minor infractions- they're assault, sedition, infiltration, all rather serious crimes. Many of them already have being given a tracking implant a portion of the punishment already, so adding that as an additional step towards bail would be redundant.


In the end, being caught in SS13 should be similar to getting killed in it- it should have consequences. And under the idea you brought up for bail, the consequences for getting caught for a slew of charges are minimal, possibly nonexistent based on what department you're in.

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Well, at the moment credits don't matter ingame.

That might change when / if we implement persistent economy.


Therefore granting every player a very easy get-out-of-jail free card.

This is also why I am opposed to this as it makes being caught by security become a non-factor as you can just buy your way out.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

make it 4,000 credits blanket with an option to revoke bail by the HoS and this cuts about 75% of players ability to post bail without fundraisers, which..... seems fun. Has them remain out on parole while the time runs down.

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If we ever implemented a persistent economy I'd be willing to revisit this, as we would need moneysinks badly. But as things stand now, this suggestion takes the parole function that the Captain, HoS and Warden already possess and grants it to anyone with loads of money, which is not ideal. The mechanical punishment of a brig sentence shouldn't necessarily be a problem you can pay away, and most of the infractions you could pay your way out of do not have terribly long brig timers in the first place.


It's neither here nor there, but if this were ever to be implemented, it would likely not be in the form of a Station Directive. We would probably just format the wiki's regulation page to reflect the new system.


Voting to dismiss this, but it's a thought for the future if we ever revisit persistent bank accounts.

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If we ever implemented a persistent economy I'd be willing to revisit this, as we would need moneysinks badly. But as things stand now, this suggestion takes the parole function that the Captain, HoS and Warden already possess and grants it to anyone with loads of money, which is not ideal. The mechanical punishment of a brig sentence shouldn't necessarily be a problem you can pay away, and most of the infractions you could pay your way out of do not have terribly long brig timers in the first place.


It's neither here nor there, but if this were ever to be implemented, it would likely not be in the form of a Station Directive. We would probably just format the wiki's regulation page to reflect the new system.


Voting to dismiss this, but it's a thought for the future if we ever revisit persistent bank accounts.

 

Seconding this.

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