Admin Complaint: Sothangel

[Savinien Brassheart]

Admin Key: Sothangel

Your Discord name (if applicable): Zangulus

Complaint: So as Mechanic with Rose o' connor, I stumbled upon the syndicate supply depot, and I always delight in teaching people how to raid it by self detonating a space pod in the right area. I don't use the loot to valid hunt, nor do I use the comms to rat out syndies (not anymore, pyro and I had a talk about that ages ago). I get the loot, show it to sec, keep what I can for kicks use during the end of round free for all on the shuttle, the rest I either give to sec, medbay, and/or science.

However, after I blew the pod and we went inside, as we were raiding and going over what survived the blast I spied on my thermals 2 syndicate commados (the type you see in the wild west gateway) and a third commando with an E-shield and E-sword spawned right outside the front door of the outpost. I showed them to Rose on the thermal goggles and the one with the e-sword turned out to be sentient. Using careful tactics such as getting the two npcs to help gun down the sentient one and me distracting the two npcs, we one the first wave... But then, more seemed to come (though I admit they may have been more off screen we didnt see the first time) and ultimately I was wounded in such a way that it lead to my death. Rose, thankfully, was able to finish them off and we barely made it back to the station..

I ahelped and Sothangel admitted they were the one who spawned the commandos. Now as I said, I don't think I have used what I gotten in a harmful or rule breaking way since my return. It's more the thrill of doing it, and the fun of treasure collecting than actually wanting to use any of it. And it's not as though i do it every single round, sometimes I dont find the depot, sometimes I spend my shift in the gateway, and sometimes I'm an NT rep or scientist and do no treasure hunting at all. So I feel just deciding to spawning syndicate commandos on the two of us wasn't right or fair.

[necaladun]

Admins are permitted to spawn dynamic defenses and responses to things like attacks on the syndicate outpost regardless of how you plan to use the loot in there. Because of the ease at which the turrets can be taken out by tactics such as detonating a space pod, this is needed to avoid it being just a pinata. 

When you raid and steal from an intergalactic criminal syndicate, you should be prepared for a response - that's why there is a telepad in there. This might be a few guards to defend it, assassins sent after you when you return,  etc.

Exploiting the AI of "non-sentient" NPCs is an incredibly "gamey" thing to do and is frowned on, and I encourage admins to make up for the poor AI the best way they see possible, and punish people for attempting to exploit that. You should not be treating them as non-sentient NPCs, and rather treating them as commandos who are coming to kill you for robbing their employer.

The idea of the outpost was that it was to be a risk/reward thing, and with the current tactics being used, there is no risk. Thus, admins must add extra risk and danger to it. There is nothing wrong with that, and thus this complaint is without merit.