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We Have An Existential Issue Within The Aurora Community (The Marlon Manifesto)


Guest Marlon Phoenix

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

There is a problem with the ERT and Security becoming the only departments that get to participate in rounds in a way that isn't being Changeling Victim #14.

 

For example I rarely ever see construction projects. I never see anyone renovating the theater in maintenance, and on the very rare moment that someone tries, they’re forced to stop because they don’t have a permit, or it’s blue alert, or the AI has bolted the doors because the AI doesn’t like it. There is so much red tape and bureaucracy and an unwillingness from command to facilitate spontaneous projects from the crew. The only safe forms of recreation is sitting in the bar sharing backstories.

 

The HoS has the ultimate authority over the station. While I am a HoP main, when I play HoS I noticed right away the level of involvement the crew expected of me within all affairs of the station. People PDA’d me about internal workplace disputes, the AI would report someone renovating their own department as “illegal”, among other things. When I dismiss these reports and say it is either beneath my importance or something better suited for their own supervisor, I get snippy responses because there is the expectation that I pick ‘their’ side and punish whoever they are unhappy with. It is incredibly easy to have your HoS character establish themselves within every department.

 

The greater culture this produces and encourages is one of trying to punish other players for not strictly following the ‘lane’ they are expected to be in. Any deviation from your expected role is punished. Rather than trying to expect good faith from other players, this is a culture of expecting the worst out of them.

 

There’s no risks being taken because even Command has entrenched itself into the Heads way of doing things. The HoS is the sovereign of the station; even if the Captain gives an order to do something, the HoS can and has overridden it for the ‘greater good’. And that is when the Captain does not just meekly defer to the HoS. So the HoS is on the top fighting the bad guy. Usually the rest of command is falling into bitter bickering and feuding. A protest against some action or policy leads to flame wars on the command channel. Everyone is in this petty fight to ‘one up’ each other and its very easy to take the bait. (I am not immune and have taken the bait a lot unfortunately) Once again on this level there’s no desire to show good faith or expect good faith. It’s either my way or the highway.

 

The reason the HoS comes out on top of all these disputes is because the HoS has the firepower. Both literally with the weapons Security has to enforce the HoS’ orders, and the firepower of being able to interpret regulations to fit their agenda.

 

This has left departments isolated and struggling to participate outside their extremely specific roles. In an event that is not a VIP visit, a chef, botanist, or cargo technician has basically zero ability to involve themselves with whatever is going on. The only ones that have any luck are librarians (they arrange little DnD games), and the Chief Engineer.

 

All of these problems can and have lead to the decline of online communities (establishing cliques) and at the very best it can make Aurora a more mean spirited and unwelcoming place.

 

The solution has always remained the same and it’s what I’ve been doing up until my recent command whitelist strip. The solution is to say “yes” more, and always show good faith to non-command crew.

 

“Can I come too?”

“Yes.”

 

“Can I do this project?”

“Yes.”

 

“Can I do this experiment where I lobotomize and extract someone’s brain then eat it in front of their cousin in order to determine how horror impacts the moisture of the fingertips?”

“Uhh ok maybe not that one…. Security to my office please”

 

If as many people as possible start actively assuming good faith in other players, and doing their best to be encouraging, then we can start to break the mindset of cliques and exclusivity.

 

Things will probably go awry especially on an antagonist round, but is that inherently a bad thing? In the timeless words of the philosopher Ms. Frizzle: "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"

Edited by Marlon Phoenix
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As someone who's partaken in like atleast two events as an event character, there's an awful tendency for command and Security to try to sequester events away from the general public and generally keep knowledge/communication to the crew at large at an absolute minimum. During the tajaran refugee ebent we got shoved into a tiny area of the construction level and were never allowed anywhere without Security's noses in our assholes.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

As someone who's partaken in like atleast two events as an event character, there's an awful tendency for command and Security to try to sequester events away from the general public and generally keep knowledge/communication to the crew at large at an absolute minimum. During the tajaran refugee ebent we got shoved into a tiny area of the construction level and were never allowed anywhere without Security's noses in our assholes.

 

I notice this trend immediately when I board as a VIP. I make a proactive effort to force my way to the greater crew. When I boarded as Tau Ceti's President Dorn, it was actually remarked on how sociable Dorn was to a lot of the crew. The trick was to speed walk past, and ahead of Command who were trying to tie me down, and being proactive. Of course this is not always a possibility, given that not everyone can do what they want like the president of the country can....

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If there were is any hope of fixing this problem, a whole lot more than just saying yes will have to change.


I can't say I haven't experienced most of this while playing as well, it's horrible, but there's a limit to how many people can be included in an event without detracting from it as well, there are on average 60 players in a round when these events are happening. I don't know how you could hope to include them all. The only way is for a lot of chaos to happen or for it to happen on Station instead of far removed from the Station.


My ears are open to ideas.

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Agreed wholeheartedly. I had a round where I was branded a traitor recently, as CMO, for walking into the bar and telling crew members why we were on red alert. We had been on red for over an hour and command wouldn't so much as make an announcement. The HoS and Captain wouldn't even brief the rest of command, I had to piece it all together. We are not playing a game to be won, we are telling a story. The more people get to participate in that story, the better.


I have literally come on as an antag, after admins helped me and my fellow mercs come up with a great gimmick to involve tons of crew, and been instantly brigged and ultimately, I shit you not, ordered killed, because, y'know, I was the antag. I never got to so much as see a single person outside of security.


I think command players need to work harder on including people in the narrative, it's as simple as that. Whitelistees need to understand their OOC responsibility to help facilitate a round.

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I have an extremely controversial fix for this, but if I've learned anything, it's that these forums love extreme controversy:

Make rounds longer / extend the time before voting for a crew transfer is allowed.

I personally think one of the larger reasons nobody does anything is because there's no way to commit to fully renovating an area AND basking in it being finished in the 1 1/4 hours Engineering has free on an Extended round after the engine, shields, SMES', and solars have been set up.

Few people want to do elaborate, interesting antagonist gimmicks due to the fact that as, for example, a wizard you have about an hour and a half after deciding a gimmick and choosing your spells. If you're a 'peaceful' wizard, that hour and a half can get cut down to forty five minutes after dealing with security.

Events would have actual time to do things with the crew rather than spending ninety percent of the shift talking to command or security.

Not only would longer rounds (Maybe just by half an hour or an hour, at first) fix these problems, but they'd have a secondary, much-needed effect, as well:

In my opinion, it'd calm down the sheer amount of Urist McValids in security. A longer round would mean less 'click bad guy until horizontal' time, and thus more time for people in security to learn to either

A: Actually be sociable like the rest of the departments are forced to be 90% of the time by them hogging all the good events

Or

B: Find ways to include themselves in goings-on that don't involve punching antags to death.


Like I said, highly controversial, but I think it'd be worth at least a test run to see if it gave people the ability to actually be creative, do fun things, and play cool gimmicks.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

I have an extremely controversial fix for this, but if I've learned anything, it's that these forums love extreme controversy:

Make rounds longer / extend the time before voting for a crew transfer is allowed.

I personally think one of the larger reasons nobody does anything is because there's no way to commit to fully renovating an area AND basking in it being finished in the 1 1/4 hours Engineering has free on an Extended round after the engine, shields, SMES', and solars have been set up.

 

The length of a round does not determine how creative the crew can be. In all of my playtime within this community, the largest hurdle to spontanious projects from the crew coming to completion are the arbitrary roadblocks placed by command. Paperwork, permits, etc. Even the most complicated projects I have ever seen, when executed with zeal, took no more than 30 mins if there was no bureaucracy in the way. Mandated longer rounds will have the exact same issues, because the source of the problem is not time.

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It's a big problem that's worth tackling however I have a different take on it.


I wouldn't necessarily blame command for it, or even security, I think they share part of the blame but most of the problem exists entirely within antags.


During this summer, as quartermaster, I've had 0 meaningful antag interaction.


The most interaction I've gotten in a round is a heist round where command staff were using the mining airlock to setup a hostage negotiation that I wasn't even aware of until the very last minute. Things are so bad that I've labeled myself as the doorman of Cargo because my roll during crisis situation is letting security into cargo so they can deal with raiders or whatever. It's depressing as hell, and I honestly was writing a guide for new players that mentions that players should pick Cargo Techs as their first job instead of assistant because no one likes new players who are assistants, and cargo techs do not have any interaction with antags.


Antags avoid service like the plague for some reason despite it being a really good place for antags.


Cargo has a 20 minute window where you can steal some pretty good shit from the cargo warehouse. A lot of good stuff spawns, including combat shields, voice changing masks, swords, materials, and random chemicals. The quartermaster has access/information the service department account so you can steal 5000 to 50,000 credits if you get them to cooperate. Unfortunately money is quite meaningless so I guess that's meaningless too.


I have an idea for antag objectives that involves interaction with other departments. I think I'll be posting about it right now.

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I've always appreciated good 'ol antags going into other departments and screwing shit up, especially in Science and Service where I feel that sort of interaction is needed most (less so Engineering, because I see them much more involved with the round than not). And why AREN'T they interacting there? Science has a bunch of cool tech! Service has a bunch of cool loot!


And with the shutdowns of fun from Sec, it feels just "NO FUN ALLOWED" sometimes. Sometimes it's annoying or disruptive, but a lot of the time they're not doing any harm, so why do you care so much?


Wholeheartedly support this.

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I've been ask to post my thoughts on this by Jackboot and so I shall. I personally agree with Jackboot in this. Sometimes, I see Head of Security, Security, or Captain trying to pull off WW2 SHHHHH Propaganda.

shh-telling-friend-telling-enemy-world-war-2-poster.gif5384cd86c836e0ef3476936cbf7620c7--political-posters-enemies.jpg

 

Sometimes, it's just to clear the public communciation so everyone could quit cussing each other out and clogging up the public communications (why do you even do this at a workplace). No one wants to see that in middle of an emergency so I respect that. Although, Security bunking up together and telling or preventing other people not to be involved is just... Meh. That's when I sort of got bored and unhappy with other security members trying to tell people what to do when they should not be doing all the time. What is even more infuriating is Security not wanting to arrest each other because they have higher priorities at the moment even though a security member made a petty infraction overlooked by many security members but suppose a non-security member does it, it won't be overlooked by many members. There are higher chances that you'll get brigged as a non-security member than being a security member. If this behavior continues more, more people are going to start suggesting something to be done to security members or security whitelists be applied on them. This is my just my thoughts and I understand not many people may share the same thoughts as I do, Security really have changed from being fun to no fun in less than two years. I miss the Alexis Sutton ([mention]whiterabit[/mention]), Dylan Wright ([mention]SirCatnip[/mention]), and Alex Graves (me) in 2016 through 2017 security gang, they would contribute to FUN RP than NO FUN but times had to change fast.

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The reasons for this existing in the first place is due to the heavily ingrained rule of the server that pretty much dictates that your character shouldn't be actively doing things or being in certain situations that they know unnecessarily endangers them.


This applies to everyone except security. Why?


Because security is realistically expected to die in order to get rid of a particularly hostile threat if that is what it takes, from a NanoTrasen point of view.


From the security point of view, they're trying to protect people. Even from themselves.


If people don't like this, this can change, of course. No longer does security need to really put such a heavy priority on the safety of those without special rank.


If we want to really start roleplaying an insidiously corrupt corporation that has a command staff culture that views many of their assets inherently disposable (because that's what the corporation would be trying to silently promote), then that is totally something I'd be onboard with. I will have to retire two characters because of it, but it doesn't really matter to anyone else.

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I got asked to fire off some hot opinions so here it goes.


I will start off by saying the more I have been exposed to Security mains the more I fundamentally do not like to interact with them (with some exceptions of course), not because of lack of roleplay ability (they are technically roleplaying) but because the dominant culture is one in which promotes the exact same archetype in each character. I can't say why this is the case because I've never made a Security character on this server but it becomes increasingly apparent that only a certain kind of Character appears to be rewarded or at least encouraged, that being the tough security officer who takes no shit, has anger issues and of course willingly ignores the corruption of his buddies because they're his buddies. Now is this a legitimate character? Yeah sure but its sort of tiring to see the same man copy and pasted, especially when these issues are most apparent during non-canonical antag or event rounds when it becomes incredibly difficult to file an actual IR against these characters because their 'attitudes rely on external non-canon factors' regardless if the interaction was as an antag or not. Obviously an OOC complaint doesn't work either because its not actually against the rules to rp a Security officer who was clearly bullied in school. My greatest insight into this was when I was lucky enough to be awarded Security channel access as a 'Brig Chaplain' to which I will give the necessary credit to that Head of Security who went out of their way to involve me in the otherwise shut off catacombs that is the brig. As I said, there are exceptions to this but there is a very serious and pretty terrible Security culture of circle jerking. Now, does this exist for other departments? Oh sweet Jesus yes but none are ever so horrifically interfering in event/antag rounds when its from Security.


All I am asking is for some more Security players to use their heads a tad bit more. Nothing was funnier to me when an Officer threatened to arrest my character because he was trying to teach an off duty cadet how to box because we weren't in the holodeck, despite the fact that the holodeck had been hacked and was not at all safe. In truth, I do rarely try and get the attention of Security but the more I am forced into situations where I have to deal with them, the more and more I am not liking anyone in the department, either due to laziness, unneeded malevolence or just bland characters in general. Whats the solution to all of this? Couldn't tell you, maybe a different kind of HoS needs to step up to the plate or an old one needs to play more often and really crack hard on the culture of it. Maybe new players need to play Security in general. I will confess as a new player I don't have all the answers to an issue of culture but i definitely have been exposed to some annoying elements and can share them.


Now, secondly I got asked to talk about what my experience has been like as a new guy thats stuck around for a bit. I can say pretty confidently its been good, initially it was hard to find my place but how much that is due to my own character design choices and how much that is 'the culture of aurora' is really hard to say. I play a character that is naturally antagonistic in his nature not because he breaks into places and breaks corporate law but because he has a lot of opinions and likes to force them on unwilling people. This is naturally a character that will initially be written off OOCly or disliked ICly and sometimes with good reason. I can say however that once continually persisting into shifts on Aurora he found his corner of the server not because one clique opened up to him but because many people from many groups responded pretty well. In particular the staff were the first to really receive me into the server then many other notable people came forward and its been good times.


As for my interaction with events since then? I play a Chaplain so I tend to do really well at being involved in the long story driven lore events but terribly at the on station action events for the very simple reason is the only people who would need a Chaplain during such events are characters who hold key positions and therefore really can't take the time away from their positions to come and speak to me. Does character design have a significant impact on this? Absolutely, however I like to think I am pretty good at entertaining myself but the simple reality is when shit hits the fan the civilian sector is just a burden that needs to be kept safe, there is no incentive for them to interact beyond fear rp which is rarely engaging.


tl;dr character design is a pretty important thing to consider here and hard to regulate, I found Aurora welcoming for the simple reason I had obvious goals to achieve and once people realized that my character was a vehicle for change, they gladly interacted with him and welcomed him to the community.

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This isn't a Security or Command issue really. I've tried incredibly hard to get the community active in doing fun things, and nobody seems to bite.


I've run blood drives, I've asked Engineering if they want to do an awesome build project the answer is always no (they have work to do), I've held Captain's Lunches, I've officiated weddings.


You can all write super long paragraphs about the good old days, but the Aurora Community has changed considerably over the years, especially since Jackboot and I first arrived on the scene at our own discovery of this server - and people are NOT willing to create their own RP anymore (you can see this in the fact that when I first came here, extended was very frequent, you could not go a secret round or two without having extended after, and staff constantly encouraged this kind of thing.


We had someone that created a Chaplain and church based on pizza and everyone including admins loved it. Nowadays, that's something staff would probably bwoink someone over.


Our community as a whole has changed to super antag-centered. We're used to staff events killing all of the crew and leaving no one alive because of [mention]Alberyk[/mention] , so naturally during all events Security are on edge and keep people sequestered - it's their lore job. [mention]AmoryBlaine[/mention] comes to mind for getting a warning or soft-warning for literally manning the brig desk and NOT patrolling because that's 'not what officers are supposed to do'.


Extra Note


Head of Staff Whitelistees get unfairly punished for MAKING LITERALLY ANY FUCKING DECISION THAT DOES NOT FOLLOW REGULATIONS TO A TEE COMPLETELY. I was an IAA, I joined a revolution in a revolution round because the loyalists had made no effort to reasonably engage me - I got warned for it and told IAAs need to be loyal to the captain, even though I saw ICly and OOCly the Revs were much better for NT overall. Whitelistees are expected to be loyal to the Chain of Command, even if not implanted - you can see this in CMO Fernando Gonzales getting a warning for helping an antag team where the warning says 'you're expected to be loyal under duress'.'


I boarded as a Captain the other shift to find that the RD and HoS had given Security's Armoury lawgivers, and the HoS and an Officer were testing two out. This was nice, interdepartmental RP. Then, the Officer stupidly did not check or try to sync their gun, which the RD had accidentally bound to themselves - and blew their arm off. The fun stopped there because the HoS decided he was going to arrest and charge the RD for gross negligence without even a word to them about it - I stepped in as Captain, brought them both in for some nice roleplay discussion, took them to the firing range to show why an officer shouldn't be given a lawgiver at all (1 month trained officers dont need explosive weapons), and cancelled the arrest because I didn't think the charge was fair or fitting. I promptly got an IR from [mention]CampinKiller[/mention] for trying to encourage literally any other method of resolution other than 15-20 minutes in a time out box on station.

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My opinion wasn't asked for, but oh well. I'll preface this with saying that I've been around for a few years, but am far from the most active player.


I'll start off with the construction, and go from there. I'd love to see more creativity with it, more of it. Any time I've seen someone attempt it, their build is, to me, cool to watch. To see, both IC and OOC, how their mind rolls through it. But it always falls back to that same old problem before anything actually happens. Just eight-ish hours ago, I ran into it again. An off-duty CE was re-arranging desks in the spare office. The AI then locked the office, insisted that Sec give him a slap on the wrist, and didn't open it for the rest of the round. I fail to see the issue with this action. Or why it should particularly be against Regs. But I'll digress on that, being that I'm not a writer, and move on to the other issue.


I think hostile action runs deep in how the entire server plays. Sec is a particularly bad about it, yes, but I won't say it's just them. The issue with Sec stems from two places, in my mind. The first, being ignorance of the game. The number of officers I run across that clearly display that they have no clue what they're doing is astonishing. But they get away with it because they follow the mantra of the others who trained them : "I'm angry and armed, so I don't answer to you." And so, what do they do when they come across potential threats? Bludgeon them to death and call it "doing their job." And the second issue relates to it. Because, somewhere along the line, and it's true to life I guess, Security stopped being protectors and started being enforcers. And it stops being a thing of "what can I do to keep people safe" and starts being a thing of "what can I do to get my power-fix."


And I would guess, in it's own way, Command suffers from a similar issue. The only part I can definitively comment on is in regards to the HoS. At first I thought it was how people chose to play HoS, but I've realized that it's not. That other departments treat the HoS like a more powerful Captain, and so they end up having to act like one.


I want to talk about antags too, though. Because they're still part of the problem. Some antags come up with some excellent gimmicks. I can name a few players in particular that, in my mind, are almost always spot on with it. But too often do those gimmicks fall by the wayside. Suddenly, it's just the same old "kill people" role. Honestly, it's been over a year since I've seen an antag that didn't just try to kill crew. (A Solid Snake-like ninja that's only purpose on the station was to wipe out a team of mercs. And as soon as he was finished doing so, single-handedly I might add, he bid me farewell and left.) But it's not just Sec, Command, and antags. How many "barfights" do we have that start off as "your mother is ugly" and end with someone trying to stomp in a skull? How many assistants have welders and wrenches in their bags for no good reason? How many people bitch like hell and leave because the round is Extended?


You're right, Jackboot. It's a community problem. It's why our RP is so often shit now. Because we're in this shift away from HRP to validhunting. And it sucks, but I can't think of how to really fix that.

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I promptly got an IR from @CampinKiller for trying to encourage literally any other method of resolution other than 15-20 minutes in a time out box on station.

 

Your IR was not just because you forbade an arrest, but because you forbade an arrest despite an overwhelming amount of evidence that the RD was negligent. But, I digress.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

There are many ideas in this thread and on discord about how to address the problems I've highlighted. Many of these have included fixing code red, adding Away Missions, increasing the round length, etc.


I always encourage people to continue making suggestions on how to improve our server and community, but all of these suggestions are going to hit the same brick wall.


We cannot have any events that include anyone outside security until we deal with the culture of command being so entrenched and mean spirited, and we can't do that because the culture has extended to the administration of command play.


Cool away missions are not going to go how we want because why would anyone but security and medical be on a scouting mission? Why would anyone that is not security go on a dangerous away mission? These are the arguments we will fall into, because this is already what happens with events that requires parts of the crew to travel off-station - it becomes a fun event for 4 officers, the HoS, the Captain, and if they're lucky a doctor or two.


Longer rounds will not fix the issue within the culture of command.


My philosophy remains the same and it is the root fix to all of these connected and related issues.


As Command players, we need to start saying "yes" more. When engineering or civilian has a a gimmick that they want to do, or they want to involve themselves, they do ask. As Head of Personnel I get many requests from crew via PDA or coming to my line asking if they can get the access to do all of these different things. And I always try to do what I said in the OP: Say yes! I only try to reject requests that give VERY weird vibes or put them in VERY unusual situations, such as a janitor wanting to mop the floors of the vault. Our expectations of what common sense rejections can vary of course, and mine tend to revolve around whether or not the location has sensitive items that would put them or others in danger if they interacted with them maliciously or naively.


But this remains dangerous because this breaking out of the 'lane' of expectation is met with hostility from other members of Command. It is almost always the HoS or the AI who demand to see the paperwork, and be given an explanation as to why this thing is going on. Once again the red tape and bureaucracy tries to shut down spontaneous activity from the crew. From an admin level there is punishment if something goes wrong, or someone goes in over their head leading to things getting messy.


The culture of "stay in your lane and don't do anything out of the ordinary" has entrenched itself within the command community and the admin policing of command. And it's create the framework of dividing the entire station into the framework of a support structure who's entire purpose is to prop up and sustain security.


As Burger said the cargo department is often just a source of mcguffins for the security department. Their value is what they can contribute to security - but their value here is NOT translated to be outside their department. Jobs like the botanist, chef, and chaplain might as well not exist for all our command culture cares.


Snake here is a great example of the small things that can happen when Command says "yes." Playing a brig chaplain is such a small thing but all of the good interactions we have tend to just be the small things that happen during our rounds. I personally remember in the past when I asked for morgue access as a chaplain to tend to the dead (following the unathi religious views of being respectful to corpses) and the CMO at the time seethed with disgust and rage that i'd desecrate the dead and waste medical supplies by closing the bleeding wounds on these heavily damaged corpses and dressing them in white jumpsuits. Two incidents of a role going outside their standard lane had two different experiences - and it was Snake who had the better off result of it.


All of this loops back to my original mantra.


As HoP, say "yes".

As HoS, say "yes."

As CMO, say "yes".

As Captain, say "yes."

As CE, say "yes."

As RD, say "yes."


Rope people into your schemes, allow people to go off on their own schemes. Watch it go well, or go bad, or go hilariously bad. Expect good faith, assume the best, and say "yes".

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I'd like to add input, even though I've not been the most active player for the longest time at all, and do not care much to communicate through forums; there seems to be a definitively cliquish culture among security and command. It should be impossible to refute the presence of this culture, and it aggrevates me because I would prefer to be able to play security; I don't, because I can't stand a lot of other security characters and command staff. I play a civilian character, and I don't find it uncommon to have security with rods up their rear ends emoting "/me shoves x out of the way" when it is only really five minutes into the round. I would like to think that command players changing their playstyle would help change this, but I see the problem persistant in other ways that cannot be affected by such a change, such as the sheer saturation of security staff to civilian staff. Other such factors include what I'd describe as a 'turtle maneuvre', where any kind of IR or leverage used against command or security feels like it is swatted down because security and command will stick up for another often unconditionally.

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As a command player and a common Captain on station I'd like to throw my two cents. To be honest, I want to say yes more. And I try to do what I can. Giving chaplin's extra access, Bridge Assistants (Sometimes for each department), I try to push engineering to do things on the construction level *Because if its cool it might get added to the map ;)*, I push for IA to do audits, I push for meetings and Events to happen where I can. And I've found two major blockers and they'll be listed in order of 'strength'


1.) Hardly anyone cares to show up. I've throw little parties on extended rounds or quiet rounds to literally just gather the crew together to say "Hey, lets all relax a bit and chill together" and maybe some guys from the civilian department and/or visitors show to it. So its kinda like, "Why go through literally like an hour of set up to just be ignored." I love to try to bring the crew together it however seems ineffective and yes there are some people who ICly have their characters to set to hate interactions like that and etc. but when its like 50-60 people on and most of the slots are filled and ten including myself show up. There might be an issue with people wanting to go out and make RP.


1.5ish) I get it, chair RP isn't always the greatest RP but why don't we enjoy extended rounds more? Why don't we have them more often. I honesty believe we'd have better characters all around if there are more canon rounds. Even Uriel Evans, drops out of the good graces a bit when its an antag round. It changes how he operates a bit. And I know. we shouldn't meta. but I think most people who play would admit that if they knew it was extended they played sightly differently. Ergo: Command Staff not getting death alarms (But getting them on confirmed antag rounds or secret), Security not fulling equipping on extended, or ignoring half their duties, (Sweeping maintenance, training, watching cameras etc.), Medical (Not stocking their medications, not preping OR rooms, not watching life-sign consoles.), Service *Notably the barkeep* (not packing extra slugs in their bag.), Cargo actually works better on extended along with Engineering imo because they don't have to turn to handle an antag. IF you don't believe me seriously sit back and watch rounds. See the difference. you'll find characters extremely trusting on extended rounds. What would be "real" for them. You'll also find them lacking their jobs and ignoring stuff at times. ((This can't be said about EVERYONE of course. Some people stick to their things no matter the round which is awesome. But we need a standard. A good standard. Either every round no matter what: Its prepare for something bad which shouldn't be the case. Or have it where the standard is, "Its another day at work.. quiet... like always... we should be ready incase something happens.. but its going to be quiet." And because of how many antags rounds we have they have lost their... effect. a lot of characters don't go "Omg this guy just murdered this other guy" its "Wow" *claps* "you're an antag, cool. Neeext" So as a HRP server, we're missing the point and dropping the ball.


2,) Bwionks. There are some things yes, that should be a HEAVY and HARD NO, NO, NO! Like janitor's knowing how to use firearm, work the SM, hack a door, use complex tech, and also know how to Command better than trained Staff. Or the Captain valid hunting because he is coolest guy, also big no no. However I find bwionks are a bit more common now adays. and even on things that shouldn't be bwionked. Example: Chaplin has strange religion, He starts teaching about, religion has strange quirk to do something slightly stupid to those outside religion. ((Stripping and running, eating 20 pies, I dunno know)) but most likely they are getting bwionked for 'not being realistic.' Or if someone in engineering was an intern in engineering but had an idea how to do a lot in engineering based on stuff they observed. If the character/byond key is new. probably a bwionk. If a non-security member assist security or gets caught in something because they were distracted or whatever, unless its not seen as serious, probably a bwionk. Though funnily enough, just like politicians. The community is why the bwionks have increased, yeah its the staffing way of hitting it too. but in reality its because more and more as a community we seem to not be able to handle things between ourselves. if I have an issue with Byond Key B. ICly or OOCly I most of the time don't speak with them and ignore any and all characters/statements/post they make. As Byond Key B will do with me. We have this whole idea of, "If you don't agree with me you're against me club thing going on and it kinda sucks. We're RPing people who are working on a station, pulling long hours for reasonable pay, aging anywhere from 18 to 7152639 #SkrellLivesMatter. But yet we can't handle our own interactions. Yes there are some things that should be bwionked about but alot of it could be fixed in one LOOC message or two lines of IC discussion fixing the issue. We as a community should start working to fix things ourselves where and when we can and being mature about things. I'd say it be good to get to know each other a bit OOCly (not like names and shit you weridos, but like interest). What others like etc. If we start to learn each other it'd probably lead to less of ignorance on station and actual good RP. Conflict does not equal antag with gun. Conflict = Story. Thanks for allowing me my two cents.

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I would also like to put my two cents. Everything seems to revolve around Security and Antags these days.

 

  • Security - Gate off everyone else from the antag. Kill or subdue them as fast as possible and then go about their day.

 

  • Command - Sit around, let security protect you. Give them access to vault, call the emergency shuttle, dust your hands off and call it a day.

 

  • Medical- Fix up security / whoever security beats up, fill prescriptions and then do literally nothing else.

 

  • Science - Invent force gloves and weapons just for security. Good luck trying anything else before the end of the shift.

 

  • Engineering - Drop whatever you want to do and clean up the mess Security and the Antag has created. Especially breaches.

 

  • Civilian - Wait for 1 hour before the other departments come in. Wait for another half an hour to cater to the security officers beating each-other off on a job well done.

 

  • Cargo - Get ignored by security unless they need anything. Give minerals to science, ship off your containers and then sit around because cargo isn't important to Antags.

 

Honestly, Peacetags are a necessary evil. Not every antagonist needs to be a guy with a gun killing people. There also needs to be events that revolves around the other departments. Remember, this is a *SCIENCE* and *MINING* station.


Example :


A faulty pylon in the gravity generator needs to be replaced! Cargo needs to purchase one and Science and Engineering need to work together to fix it!

Maybe some phoron would help, hmm?


A slime has evolved way too quickly and is immune to regular attacks! Science and Medical need to synthesize a chemical and a way to dispatch it to kill it!


A wealthy Skrellian TV show host has come to the station for a documentary! Civilian and Engineering need to work together to make the station look as nice as possible!


Nanotrasen has scheduled a company event to sell phoron and phoron merchandise! All the departments need to work together to sell as much product as possible!

Engineering might need to set up a storefront, Cargo might need to hire more miners and Science might need to invent a new way of transporting the phoron!


See! Not everything needs security.

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It's such as shame that whenever you talk about this issue outside the thread, people claim that this is how it's supposed to be. The service department is supposed to be ignored by antags. Medical exists to treat security's wounds when they come back from an unga bunga. Engineering exists to provide power to the station and setup shields from random events. Command is meant to chairrp with antags for 2 hours.


There are even staff members in the confessional thread who admit they get actually upset when people believe that civilian should be involved in antags more. This gives me depression because it likely means that nothing will be done about this issue.

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I’ve given this a lot of thought. I know I can’t change the overall culture of the server, especially in security where I have the least sway, but I’ll do the following, because I can change how I play.

 

  • I will start saying yes to more, though I will stick to my own grumpy, Fernando way of doing so.
  • When I antag, I will do my best to keep non security departments involved and target non command assets.
  • I will be far more diligent in ahelping bad, and exclusive security and command play, even when it benefits me.

 

Because I wholeheartedly agree that this culture is not conducive to a fun server.

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I’ve given this a lot of thought. I know I can’t change the overall culture of the server, especially in security where I have the least sway, but I’ll do the following, because I can change how I play.

 

  • I will start saying yes to more, though I will stick to my own grumpy, Fernando way of doing so.
  • When I antag, I will do my best to keep non security departments involved and target non command assets.
  • I will be far more diligent in ahelping bad, and exclusive security and command play, even when it benefits me.

 

Because I wholeheartedly agree that this culture is not conducive to a fun server.

 

Unfortunately being bad antag isn't against the rules. Depending on who you ahelp an admin will either respond with "Antagging is hard and it shouldn't be expected for them to interact with everyone, sorry." or "I'll talk to them." and they'll ask them nicely to consider interacting with others which leads me to another point.


I have a very strong feeling that the official response of this thread is that there's nothing anyone can do about it because antagging is hard and it's unrealistic to provide enjoyment to everyone. One of the main reasons why antagging is hard because the crew (see: sec) has a tendency to validhunt.


Make a thread asking for sec to validhunt less, and the official response of that thread will be that there's nothing anyone can do about it because playing sec is hard and it's unrealistic to roleplay because antags have a tendency to secure valids.


Make a thread asking for antags to validhunt less, and the official response of that thread will be that there's nothing anyone can do about it because playing antag is hard and it's unrealistic to roleplay more because the crew (see: sec) has a tendency to validhunt.


Make a thread asking for sec to validhunt less, and the official response of that thread will be that there's nothing anyone can do about it because playing sec is hard and it's unrealistic to roleplay because antags have a tendency to secure valids.


Make a thread asking for antags to validhunt less, and the official response of that thread will be that there's nothing anyone can do about it because playing antag is hard and it's unrealistic to roleplay more because the crew (see: sec) has a tendency to validhunt.


...


Endless loop. This issue of antags roleplaying has been discussed many times before and it's always met with the same endless loop of not doing anything because another problem exists.

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I used to Chief Engineer a lot, and now very little. Engineering is largely a player-versus-environment mode, and an enormous amount of antags are player-versus-player. There are no rounds where the station endures a meteor bombardment for two hours. Even if we had this, the shield generators render breaches rare, if ever, and only to be really had on the difficult-to-re pressurize departures bay.


Slackening the rules stranglehold on environmental antagonism (breaches and fires) will make engineering great again.


Specifically. I was being a sneaky traitor for two hours, colluding with the AI, abducting the RD, killing her. Whoopsie. Security failed to find out what I was up to. But when 1:45 rolled around and I realized we were going to crew transfer unless it went to red alert, and without an escape pod I couldn't fulfill my goal of "exit on escape pod with hostage". So I tried to adminhelp permission to set up a slow supermatter failure. Specifically, bypass almost all of the radiator, which would gradually overheat the core. The core would delaminate in a number of minutes unless ejected, and ejecting it would cause the power to fail and chaos to ensue.


Even with only fifteen minutes left on the clock before the round was over and everyone starts voting on if they're ready to go home, the admin declined this. Why? I hadn't escalated. I got a lecture on escalation. Its 15 minutes left on the clock, and murdering a woman isn't enough escalation. I have to have a running gun battle with Security and really stick my neck out to get captured taking stupid risks before I'm allowed to do anything "fun".


I've been bwoinked before for other things, like opening welder tanks and sloshing fuel all over maintenance halls. This isn't sufficiently escalated. Apparently leaving traps around to kill or maim unwitting smokers can't be the start of my escalation. They would knock one person out until their body was recovered and cloned, which is made easy thanks to sensors and fire alarms. Instead I have to start by submitting a strongly worded letter to the Captain telling him I will be his traitor today and ask his security team to not instantly hold to transfer now that they have this signed confession.


People need to be trusted more as good actors and less as griefing randoms who just joined the server yesterday. Get rid of shield generators. Loosen the prohibition on fires, breaching, bombs and even supermatter fuckery. Give people stuff to run away from.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Example :


A faulty pylon in the gravity generator needs to be replaced! Cargo needs to purchase one and Science and Engineering need to work together to fix it!

Maybe some phoron would help, hmm?


A slime has evolved way too quickly and is immune to regular attacks! Science and Medical need to synthesize a chemical and a way to dispatch it to kill it!


A wealthy Skrellian TV show host has come to the station for a documentary! Civilian and Engineering need to work together to make the station look as nice as possible!


Nanotrasen has scheduled a company event to sell phoron and phoron merchandise! All the departments need to work together to sell as much product as possible!

Engineering might need to set up a storefront, Cargo might need to hire more miners and Science might need to invent a new way of transporting the phoron!


See! Not everything needs security.

 

good ones! on it

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