Science Job SOP --- COMPLETE!

[Kyet]

 

Mostly because the Reactive Teleport Armour is a highly expensive, experimental one-of-a-kind piece of armour that shouldn't be worn unless there's a darn good reason for it. A baton, by comparison, is a stick.

 

Doesn't matter. The telebaton is robust. The armor isn't. The armor being expensive, prototype, unique, etc doesn't matter when its not useful, and thus most RDs refuse to use it. Having something that most RDs completely refuse to use at all, because they feel it is useless, be more restricted in usage than the more useful thing they spawn with, does not make sense.

 

the Research Director is probably the last person who should packing heat.

Disagree.

Science has an ungodly amount of maint tunnels, where there are often carp/spiders/etc.

Science is the only department with the experimentor device, which spawns hostile mobs.

Science is the only department to breed dangerous aliens, like slimes and "tame" xenos.

The RD is directly responsible for making sure robos don't make rogue combat mechs.

Science is the department where a traitor can walk in with an emag and walk out with a lasercannon/teleshield in under 30 seconds.

Science has, or gives access to, several traitor theft objectives, and many other things useful for completing objectives.

The RD is responsible for all of this, and is likely carrying at least one theft objective (hand tele) on his person at all times.

They deal with a bunch of threats (often monsters, which, unlike the crew that sec deals with, are immune to stuns), and have a huge target on their back, both on their department and on them personally.

Science is also far away from sec, and thus prone to lengthy response times.

RD also doesn't have much in the way of protective gear. No hardsuits, no damage-resistant armor, etc.

 

Ideally, sure, sec could be counted on to handle all of this - but in practice, this is usually not the case.

RDs can and should take responsibility for what happens in their department, like any head.

RD is still not security - but it is their job to manage a department with lots of dangerous things that can eat you.

 

there's no real logical reason the Research Director should have as much firepower as the entire Security Department

Aside from the above, they're the head of the department that produces the dangerous objects and regularly has to deal with various kinds of monster out to kill them.

Expecting the RD not to carry an appropriate weapon for these sorts of things within their department, is like expecting the CE not to carry metal/rods to deal with hull breaches.

 

It is already hard enough to get the standard weapons unlocked - getting permission to make something that must be brought to the armory, very slowly and conspicuously, seems like it would reduce the practicality of mechs to the point where their use-cases would be nil, similar to the impressive array of hand-held weapons from the protolathe, that never get used due to the logistics of both producing and unlocking them.

Pretty much.

 

I believe the HoS should have the knowledge of dangerous weapons on the station and at least should at some point make a decision as to whether or not post a guard to make sure that the items aren't stolen.

No sec player is going to stand guard over an empty room all round. Won't happen.

 

The Durand, Gygax and Phazon are incredibly dangerous Exosuits that can carry incredibly dangerous equipment that should not be in the hands of whoever built it just because they had the resources to do it. Not to mention, aside from extreme emergencies, there's no reason to use those mechs anyway.

Engineers have no reason to make stunprods, cablecuffs, etc.

Security has no reason to be using body armor on green.

Docs don't need to walk around with sedatives, enough omizine to kill a horse, and strange reagent that can gib the body.

Cargo doesn't need to order an igloves crate, basically giving them the ability to hack into anything.

 

None of these people need to carry around the interesting stuff they carry.

Yet they do.

Every round.

 

As is, Science is broken. There is no argument against this. They are 15 minutes and a half-decent Cargo shipment away from getting hilariously powerful weaponry and fully-equipped military Exosuits, while the rest of the station basically has what they had from the start, plus whatever they can scrounge up from Cargo. Science is very much at an advantage when it comes to their power level, and can be very easily abused.

 

Science is entirely based on the idea of research - ie: do work, make better stuff. They're the only department that actually has to research items to get them. Everyone else gets theirs from round start.

 

Making mechs is a little trickier than you suggest - it requires mining to make/deliver minerals, someone to do R&D, someone to upgrade machines, someone to build them, and then either getting permission or accepting the fact you're probably going to get shot to ribbons by sec. Oh, and firing back with lethals as a non-antag in a mech will get you boinked.

 

Yes, science is powerful, but it takes work to get there, and even once there its very easy to screw up, lose all your shit, and get demoted/killed/banned.

 

TL;DR: there's literally no reason why a Roboticist should be walking around with a military Exosuit unless there are Nukies/Blobs/Shadownerds/maybe Wizards, and playing around with Deathmechs shouldn't be the primary reason Robotics is staffed.

 

Sure, but the fact is, it is.

 

 

This is actually a misunderstanding. I did not mean AI Lawset Boards. I meant the actual AI Core Board. Will change to make it more obvious.

 

This is already in the RD's office by default. If we want to go this route, perhaps lockboxing the AI core board to RD access would be an idea.

 

I'll be absolutely honest, I was struggling to reach the 9 Guideline total for Genetics.

General rule: the more rules you have, the less attention each gets.

Personally I would aim for the absolute minimum number of rules, so they have a good chance of being memorized easily.

 

Technically speaking, Telescience isn't gone. You can still make the equipment if you get the materials for it, and it's not exactly expensive either. Hell, you can remove the ExperiMENTOR and rebuild Telescience in its old place quite quickly.

Nobody bothers.

That said, I've had situations where Command was favourable to a Honk Mech, usually when the Clown isn't being a shit. So it's not entirely impossible.

 

This is why I did not advocate for their complete removal from the game. Clowns need *something* to encourage them not to just be assholes who slip everyone. Just as clowns who make the crew miserable by slipping hallways need to suffer more, clowns who make the crew happy need to be more rewarded. I could definitely see giving a HONK mech to a clown who does a really good job, making the crew happy, or say, robusting multiple traitors, as a valid reward. It can always be destroyed with an ion gun if they abuse it - but for a clown to get one, they probably have to be so responsible that I doubt they would abuse it.

IMHO, the best way to nerf HONK mechs is actually unrelated to science - reduce the value of bananium ore in mining to zero. Thus, miners no longer have an incentive to gather it, and its very unlikely to be acquired in quantities sufficient to construct mechs out of it.

 

I applied a bit of common logic

Logic + SS13 = Danger Will Robinson!

 

Well, technically, the Science Department is there to do Science, and one of their job objectives is to literally max out Research.

 

R&D is one kind of science, out of the 6 kinds (robo, telesci, scichem, xenobio, toxins, and genetics).

Making a rule that RD must max one kind of science, ignoring all others, is weird.

 

(snip)

Good points, however:

1) I believe that medbay is very under-utilized as is. There are times medbay is lucky to get a couple of patients in the whole shift (I know, I've played medbay a few times over the last few days, and not once was there any substantial action). Aside from chat/hang out, there's not a lot for them to do most shifts. Frankly, I think docs could use the extra work of handling the cloner. It would give them something to do.

2) There's nothing stopping genetics research from providing their products to medbay even if they're made a proper sub-department of science. Heck, I support the reinforced windoor/desk-in-the-wall thing to encourage this. At the very least though, CMO should have exclusive authority over cloning, and RD should have exclusive authority over genetics research.

 

[Vivalas]

 

If security can't be trusted to protect research from all the things you mentioned, that's a whole 'nother problem. SOP is meant to be a sane IC window into the game world, security exists for a reason, sorry, but science does not need to mass produce weapons and combat mechs to 'protect' themselves from all the existential threats out there in space (and on the station), if security is not responding to summons in research that needs to be addressed seperately.

 

Additionaly body armor is not equivalent to telearmor. Sec does not run around with riot gear on green, nor does the captain don their armor. If there is a situation where the RD would truly need their armor then the alert should not be green anyways.

 

SOP should be built on IC presumptions, not OOC metapresumptions. I don't think NT would approve of taking their RD taking an expensive high-tech piece of hardware for a joyride when there is no threat.

 

The RD is not a militarized warlord, his department should not be mass producing weapons, nor should be be wearing telearmor when there is no threat.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Doesn't matter. The telebaton is robust. The armor isn't. The armor being expensive, prototype, unique, etc doesn't matter when its not useful, and thus most RDs refuse to use it. Having something that most RDs completely refuse to use at all, because they feel it is useless, be more restricted in usage than the more useful thing they spawn with, does not make sense.

 

As detailed in the later response to Fox, already swapped that to full permission, with a caveat that amounts to "Keep it off unless you absolutely have to or bad things will probably happen".

 

Science has an ungodly amount of maint tunnels, where there are often carp/spiders/etc.

 

Science doesn't actually need to go into any of these tunnels in order to use their department, and all their sub-Departments are protected by either walls or reinforced walls. The exception to this is the small windowed corridor to the Science Shuttle, but even then.

 

Not to mention Security is fully capable of handling those kinds of mobs if they get off their ass. In fact, maintenance mobs are more of a danger to Engineering than anything else.

 

Science is the only department with the experimentor device, which spawns hostile mobs.

 

It's a medium-rare occurrence that can be stopped via a single blast door button if you're fast enough. In addition, these are simple mobs, who can fall quite easily to a single weapon.

 

Science is the only department to breed dangerous aliens, like slimes and "tame" xenos.

 

Slimes can be handled with the (relatively) harmless Temperature Gun, and tame Xenos are tame. Not to mention, once again, anything created via Gold Extract + Plasma can easily be taken down with a crowbar or, failing that, a single weapon from the Protolathe (and I'm talking actual weapons, like the Saber SMG) can more than easily handle the threat.

 

The RD is directly responsible for making sure robos don't make rogue combat mechs.

 

This can be easily done via the preemptive application of a tracking beacon. Not to mention, if a Combat Mech goes rogue and the person inside is half-decent, you won't have much of a chance at doing anything either.

 

Science is the department where a traitor can walk in with an emag and walk out with a lasercannon/teleshield in under 30 seconds.

 

Traitors can also walk into Engineering and hotwire/release the Engine, causing a lot more damage and being much harder to take down.

 

Traitors can also walk into the Armory and steal enough gear to effectively cripple Security and go on a much more effective rampage.

 

Every single Department has something traitors can emag/outright use to cause massive damage to the crew. In some cases, dare I say, more damage than anything that comes from the Protolathe. I have no qualms with distributing a weapon if there's a valid reason to suspect there's danger around, but preemptively carrying guns because a traitor might try and fiddle with Science? I cannot personally agree with that. It's the same reason Security isn't allowed to just hand out guns on Code Green before anything actually happens.

 

Not to mention, again, there's a reason the Research Director doesn't start with a Weapon Permit on their ID.

 

Science has, or gives access to, several traitor theft objectives, and many other things useful for completing objectives.

 

So does every other Department.

 

The RD is responsible for all of this, and is likely carrying at least one theft objective (hand tele) on his person at all times.

 

The Hand Tele may also be with the Chief Engineer, not to mention the Captain is also likely to have one on their person as well, in addition to an all-access ID. In fact, every Head is likely to be carrying at least one Theft Objective on their person at all times.

 

They deal with a bunch of threats (often monsters, which, unlike the crew that sec deals with, are immune to stuns), and have a huge target on their back, both on their department and on them personally.

 

Slimes can be killed exceedingly fast with fire extinguishers if they're properly contained, or Temperature Guns if they're not. The monsters that can't be killed via crowbar can be easily gunned down by calling Security.

 

Not to mention, literally anyone can be a target for antagonists, and as mentioned, all the other Departments have something incredibly useful for Antagonists to get their hands on or sabotage or fiddle with. This does not mean they should preemptively arm themselves.

 

Science is also far away from sec, and thus prone to lengthy response times.

 

While I do agree with this point, this is more of a matter of Security often being understaffed during low-medium pop rounds, and even then having to patrol the entire station. That said, I should also point out Security does often beeline for Science if there's a call. Most of their time is spent getting someone to open the doors.

 

RD also doesn't have much in the way of protective gear. No hardsuits, no damage-resistant armor, etc.

 

Neither does the CMO, and lord knows the amount of BS they have to put up with as well.

 

The Chief Engineer's Advanced Hardsuit does have some decent armour values against Melee and Bomb damage, but then again, they're also supposed to be exposed to those hazards far more than the Research Director is.

 

Ideally, sure, sec could be counted on to handle all of this - but in practice, this is usually not the case.

 

I have to say here that I completely agree with you. Security's performance can be inconsistent, at best, and even when they're decent, they're still spread thin covering the entire station.

 

However, this is where our viewpoints differ. You recognize that yes, there is a problem in practical terms, and you'd rather work around it so it doesn't cause more problems. This works.

 

I, on the other hand, would prefer to take the, uh, lengthier and harder route of trying to fix the underlying problem. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but it's something I'd like to try anyway.

 

RD is still not security - but it is their job to manage a department with lots of dangerous things that can eat you.

 

Here I should point out that if safety procedures are taken, the risk of this happening is minimal, and when it does happen, can easily be rectified by calling Security or getting fire extinguishers. Most monster-related problems in Science come not from the job itself, but from the people working it ignoring safety protocols.

 

Aside from the above, they're the head of the department that produces the dangerous objects and regularly has to deal with various kinds of monster out to kill them.

Expecting the RD not to carry an appropriate weapon for these sorts of things within their department, is like expecting the CE not to carry metal/rods to deal with hull breaches.

 

I'm not against the Research Director carrying a weapon around. I'm opposed to the idea of the Research Director carrying around multiple weapons. A single Saber SMG can quite easily handle pretty much any threat that can come out of Science and is cheap to make and maintain to boot. Not to mention you can still ask for it in Code Green. Just expect the Head of Security to raise their eyebrows a bit more than usual.

 

It is already hard enough to get the standard weapons unlocked - getting permission to make something that must be brought to the armory, very slowly and conspicuously, seems like it would reduce the practicality of mechs to the point where their use-cases would be nil, similar to the impressive array of hand-held weapons from the protolathe, that never get used due to the logistics of both producing and unlocking them.

 

Their number of use-cases is already incredibly reduced. Going around hunting antags in a combat mech doesn't work in the most common gamemodes, and what we see is Roboticists making personal death machines to either parade around, or keep in store for post-round grief.

 

Again, my entire point here is this: just because Science can make deathmechs and death guns, doesn't necessarily mean it should be making them.

 

No sec player is going to stand guard over an empty room all round. Won't happen.

 

Agreed. Not to mention it's a fantastic waste of time and resources, as the Officer could be doing something a hell of a lot more productive.

 

Plus, the Armory has motion sensors every cyborg + AI can pick up on. And most AIs are paranoid about Armory motion sensor alarms.

 

Engineers have no reason to make stunprods, cablecuffs, etc.

 

Agreed. They also get arrested and have their stuff confiscated if they get caught, not to mention probably either demoted or put on the CE's shitlist.

 

Security has no reason to be using body armor on green.

 

I disagree immensely. Someone who's out to hit someone with a crowbar isn't going to politely wait until the Color Code is increased. Those things hurt. Brawls and scuffles happen on Code Green all the merry time.

 

Docs don't need to walk around with sedatives, enough omizine to kill a horse, and strange reagent that can gib the body.

 

You severely overestimate the amount of times Omnizine and Strange Reagent is even produced at all, at least outside of Sleepers for the former. Not to mention Sedatives are useful for races that can't receive regular anaesthetics.

 

None of these people need to carry around the interesting stuff they carry.

Yet they do.

Every round.

 

Aside from what I already said, there is a world of difference between a syringe with sedative, or a stunprod, or body armour, and a fully armed military Exosuit.

 

Science is entirely based on the idea of research - ie: do work, make better stuff. They're the only department that actually has to research items to get them. Everyone else gets theirs from round start.

 

Linear Station, Quadratic Science. Much like mages, you start off small, then end up massively outclassing everyone else.

 

Making mechs is a little trickier than you suggest - it requires mining to make/deliver minerals, someone to do R&D, someone to upgrade machines, someone to build them, and then either getting permission or accepting the fact you're probably going to get shot to ribbons by sec. Oh, and firing back with lethals as a non-antag in a mech will get you boinked.

 

Yes, science is powerful, but it takes work to get there, and even once there its very easy to screw up, lose all your shit, and get demoted/killed/banned.

 

While I agree that making fully armed military mechs isn't necessarily easy out the bat, it's not really complicated either. Research is ridiculously easy to complete, the Bluespace RPED makes upgrading machines literally a "click button, get upgrade", and the best parts can be mass produced with 1-2 diamonds once the Protolathe is upgraded. Thanks to TG Mining, it stopped being a matter of "if", it became a matter of "when".

 

Also, and I'm going to be very crass here, it's not "work". Completing Research is essentially done by following a super-optimized spreadsheet at this point, and assuming Mining has at least one active person, can be completed in under 15 minutes. It's not nearly as hard as I've heard some people say it is. Assuming Mining is active, Science can be literally swimming in toys before the first hour mark.

 

Sure, but the fact is, it is.

 

And to that I say:

 

SOP is meant to be a sane IC window into the game world (...) SOP should be built on IC presumptions, not OOC metapresumptions.

 

Literally could not have said it better myself. THAT right there is the whole point of this Project.

 

This is already in the RD's office by default. If we want to go this route, perhaps lockboxing the AI core board to RD access would be an idea.

 

Well, making an AI requires either a posibrain or MMI, so lockboxing it probably isn't required. That said, it's there so that Science can't go gung-ho happy with making AIs when no one in Command wants them.

 

General rule: the more rules you have, the less attention each gets.

Personally I would aim for the absolute minimum number of rules, so they have a good chance of being memorized easily.

 

*nod

 

Nobody bothers.

 

I've seen a few myself, hence why it's there. It wasn't ripped apart, like Xenoarch was, so not taking it into consideration would leave a glaring hole in there.

 

-snip about HONKs-

 

Couldn't agree more on the reward part. Good clown, clowns that are legitimately entertaining, have every right to be given a HONK as a reward for their service to the Honkmother, mostly because they're the kind of people who won't be dickbags about it and spam the Horn.

 

That said, making Bananium something like a Gateway reward would be a nice idea.

 

Logic + SS13 = Danger Will Robinson!

 

That was legit brainfart on my end. That said, it still baffles me that Science can make self-charging Advanced E-Guns, Decloners, X-ray Guns and bloody SMGs... but not a simple E-Gun.

 

It boggles the mind.

 

R&D is one kind of science, out of the 6 kinds (robo, telesci, scichem, xenobio, toxins, and genetics).

Making a rule that RD must max one kind of science, ignoring all others, is weird.

 

The point isn't to ignore other research. In fact, it's not even a rule, it's a SOP Guideline that, as I said, is malleable. It's there because, technically, it's their mechanical job objective, and the main source of "power" for Science and the rest of the Station.

 

Gotta get 'dem sweet auto-cloners.

 

As for what Vivalas said, basically that. SOP should not be constructed based on meta-assumptions that are themselves based on poor performance by the various Departments. It should, in fact, be a standard IC window into NanoTrasen company policy, and should read like such.

 

[Crazylemon]

 

One issue, is that once materials are sorted and squared away, is that nonetheless, mechs take time to produce - Not only do the parts have to be produced serially, bottlenecked by the speed of the fabricator, but they must also be assembled step-by-step - and the protolathe requirement for all combat mechs puts their creation behind yet another delay for all roboticists that don't set up a secondary protolathe in their station, which is the majority of them. In a time of crisis, such as a xenomorph infestation, or hostile operative attack, there is not the time to produce mechs to cope with the threat at the point you're aware of it, starting from a point where you have the materials, but nothing constructed. Perhaps: Once this is all finalized, I can modify the code to prevent piloting combat mechs by non-security members in code green, but in code blue, this constraint is relaxed? That way, robotics can still make a bunch of mechs ready for trouble, but you don't get the "my personal deathmachine" problem you seem to be running up against.

 

Also, I don't get the extreme restrictions on constructing mecha weaponry, when they're completely useless without the combat mecha you're not supposed to construct in the first place...

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Also, I don't get the extreme restrictions on constructing mecha weaponry, when they're completely useless without the combat mecha you're not supposed to construct in the first place...

 

That's... actually a good point, it's incredibly redundant. I'll be removing it.

 

As for your other point, here's where I have to reiterate the point from where I stand: Robotics has no real reason to be making fully armed military exosuits just because it can. The "but something antaggy might happen" argument should have no bearing on SOP.

 

That said, here's what I'm going to do: rather than written and stamped permission at Code Green, I'll swap it over to merely verbal consent from the Head of Security and/or Captain. That way, there's still a restriction, but all you literally need to do is ask "Yo, Cap/HoS, can I make them Durands?".

 

[johannhawk]

 

Also, I don't get the extreme restrictions on constructing mecha weaponry, when they're completely useless without the combat mecha you're not supposed to construct in the first place...

 

That's... actually a good point, it's incredibly redundant. I'll be removing it.

 

As for your other point, here's where I have to reiterate the point from where I stand: Robotics has no real reason to be making fully armed military exosuits just because it can. The "but something antaggy might happen" argument should have no bearing on SOP.

 

That said, here's what I'm going to do: rather than written and stamped permission at Code Green, I'll swap it over to merely verbal consent from the Head of Security and/or Captain. That way, there's still a restriction, but all you literally need to do is ask "Yo, Cap/HoS, can I make them Durands?".

 

ill just leave a reminder that using a emag on a mech enables it to be able to equip ANYTHING, even combat related things...or that dreaded mech bike horn.

i hope im not wrong, but still, its kinda redundant either way.

 

[Crazylemon]

 

It seems that emag thing applies only for RIPLEYs... but either way lockboxing won't do a toot, since you can just emag the lockbox, so yeah, restrictions still don't make sense.

 

And the mandated communication between robotics and security sounds great - it should foster better coordination between the two groups, and make the latter group more aware of what robotics has to offer.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

And hold gung-ho Roboticists accountable if they decide to make combat mechs without asking anyone.

[Crazylemon]

Indeed! Slam them down!

[scrubmcnoob]

 

I feel that the science players who are trying to legitimize the notion of the RD gaining lock box access on code Red are forgetting that there are plenty of other elevations that can be brought upon the station and that centcomm can still send more men in.

 

'Wait what? It's code red? Sec lost two guys and centcomm has not responded to the fax sent thirty seconds ago?...

THE SITUATION IS OUT OF CONTROL. Quick, print Saber Smgs and incendiary rounds to combat that one confirmed ling'

 

Come on, if you want to use guns so badly, play some security and try on the big boy boots of station responsibility rather than sitting in Toysrus all day.

 

[Kyet]

 

Ideally, sure, sec could be counted on to handle all of this - but in practice, this is usually not the case.

 

I have to say here that I completely agree with you. Security's performance can be inconsistent, at best, and even when they're decent, they're still spread thin covering the entire station.

 

However, this is where our viewpoints differ. You recognize that yes, there is a problem in practical terms, and you'd rather work around it so it doesn't cause more problems. This works.

 

I, on the other hand, would prefer to take the, uh, lengthier and harder route of trying to fix the underlying problem. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but it's something I'd like to try anyway.

 

Fair point.

 

Good luck. That will not be an easy task.

 

A single Saber SMG can quite easily handle pretty much any threat that can come out of Science and is cheap to make and maintain to boot. Not to mention you can still ask for it in Code Green. Just expect the Head of Security to raise their eyebrows a bit more than usual.

SMGs (and projectile weapons in general) are better against players, as they break bones, etc.

High-damage laser weapons, like the laser cannon, are (IMHO) better against monsters, because of their high per-hit damage and the ability to fire through glass windows with them.

As RD, when I need to deal with most monsters, my go-to weapon is the laser cannon (if they are few) or dual AEGs (if they are many).

 

Security has no reason to be using body armor on green.

 

I disagree immensely. Someone who's out to hit someone with a crowbar isn't going to politely wait until the Color Code is increased. Those things hurt. Brawls and scuffles happen on Code Green all the merry time.

 

That was intended as a satirical example of the "we don't need it right now, so lets not equip it" thinking. Not a serious claim.

 

Docs don't need to walk around with sedatives, enough omizine to kill a horse, and strange reagent that can gib the body.

 

You severely overestimate the amount of times Omnizine and Strange Reagent is even produced at all, at least outside of Sleepers for the former. Not to mention Sedatives are useful for races that can't receive regular anaesthetics.

 

I make both pretty much every round I am CMO/medchemist, though usually I don't need to use them.

I admit I may be the exception to the rule. I have not checked how often others make them.

 

Science is entirely based on the idea of research - ie: do work, make better stuff. They're the only department that actually has to research items to get them. Everyone else gets theirs from round start.

 

Linear Station, Quadratic Science. Much like mages, you start off small, then end up massively outclassing everyone else.

I actually like this.

Then again, I like linear warriors, quadratic wizards in D&D as well.

I like facing the choice of "kick ass now, or later?" I feel it adds depth if the balance changes over time.

 

SOP is meant to be a sane IC window into the game world (...) SOP should be built on IC presumptions, not OOC metapresumptions.

 

I don't think it has to be exclusively one or the other.

A SOP based exclusively on IC viewpoints risks being ignored because it is often useless, and in some cases, actively detrimental.

A SOP based exclusively on OOC viewpoints risks being ignored because it is artifical and in some cases, very alien to natural RP interaction.

I feel a balance can be struck between these.

 

That said, making Bananium something like a Gateway reward would be a nice idea.

 

This nerfs it so hard you might as well remove honk mechs entirely.

HONK mechs should be constructable IF you want to reward a clown, but difficult to construct otherwise.

Perhaps the best solution is to make HONK mech chassis lockboxed, locked to RD/Captain access.

 

it still baffles me that Science can make self-charging Advanced E-Guns, Decloners, X-ray Guns and bloody SMGs... but not a simple E-Gun.

 

Actually, I like it.

Think about it: it prevents R&D weapons from being confused with weapons stolen/borrowed/lost from the armory, and actually enforces more accountability for both loss of sec weapons (can't claim you got it from R&D) and also science weapons (you know where it came from).

 

The point isn't to ignore other research. In fact, it's not even a rule, it's a SOP Guideline that, as I said, is malleable. It's there because, technically, it's their mechanical job objective, and the main source of "power" for Science and the rest of the Station.

Mechanical job objectives are almost meaningless - they don't exist for most jobs, and even for science (the only major department that has them?), they don't even begin to cover the things you should be doing. Doesn't mean they should be completely ignored, it would be awesome if every job had job objectives - it just means they're not very important in the grand scheme of things, and aren't a very good justification for anything.

 

I feel that the science players who are trying to legitimize the notion of the RD gaining lock box access on code Red are forgetting that there are plenty of other elevations that can be brought upon the station and that centcomm can still send more men in.

I am not arguing that the RD should be able to open weapon any new kinds of weapon lockboxes themselves.

What I am arguing is that if the HoS/Captain see fit to give the RD a weapon, or weapons, other people should not be complaining on the grounds of SOP, because if things have got to that point, there's probably a good reason. Essentially, the same point as Tully makes: SOP can be ignored if the situation requires it, as SOP is standard operating procedure, IE what you do when everything is going well, NOT what you do in the event of a major disaster.

 

CC might send more men, but that is rare. Usually they just ignore your request completely.

 

'Wait what? It's code red? Sec lost two guys and centcomm has not responded to the fax sent thirty seconds ago?...

THE SITUATION IS OUT OF CONTROL. Quick, print Saber Smgs and incendiary rounds to combat that one confirmed ling'

CC often completely fails to respond to messages/faxes. Butt-faxes almost always get a response, but they're the only kind of fax I've seen that does. I've seen people fax in about confirmed xenos, almost-winning blobs, etc only to be met with total silence, yet butt-faxes about CC being comdoms get almost-instant BSAs.

Many bad command decisions could be avoided if admins made a point of responding to EVERY fax/commsconsole message, and EVERY ERT request, even if the answer is "Sorry, we can't authorize an ERT because one guy set off a bomb near bridge, security is expected to handle that, perhaps you should consider going code blue, checking prints, etc". Ignoring the command crew's pleas is a large part of why said command crew panics and does stupid things - they don't get any guidance during the moment about what they should do, even when they specifically ask for it. So, they assume they're on their own in a hostile situation, and overreact.

ERT requests are the worst. CC often decides whether or not to send an ERT based on factors that the command crew has no possible way of knowing IC, and never says anything about the request. IMHO, something like an ERT request should always, without fail get an official response. The biggest factor I've observed as a ghost influence whether an ERT request gets an ERT actually sent is... deadchat. Which the command crew has literally no possible way of knowing about. That makes ERT approvals/ignores seem totally arbitrary to command teams.

If I could make any one change to SOP to address a grievance in SS13, it would be: "admins must grant or send an official 'no' response for any ERT request sent by the command team within 5 minutes. If they fail to do this, the ERT request should be automatically granted by the code, under the presumption that they are either AFK, do not care what happens, or are otherwise unresponsive. If the answer is 'no', a brief note about why should be included, so the command team learns what is, and what is not, an acceptable situation in which to request an ERT, and future invalid ERT requests are less likely."

 

You may joke, but saber SMGs are not the best weapon to use against lings. And I have seen plenty of shifts late at night where one or two lings get the run of the station because there is ZERO security staff and nobody wants to be one. The context can be very important. "Let security handle it" is all well and good, but what if there IS no security? That actually happens quite a lot, late at night. Yeah, more people play at peak, but how things operate in the middle of the night should be considered too.

 

 

Come on, if you want to use guns so badly, play some security and try on the big boy boots of station responsibility rather than sitting in Toysrus all day.

 

I play security regularly. Just yesterday I was sec officer, and took out 3 spiders in science before I even asked the HoS to issue me a basic egun - and even then I'd have preferred to be in the action, but talking was all I could do at the time because I was stuck waiting outside OR1 for surgery to fix the bones the spiders broke.

 

Science is not "toysrus", and that attitude pisses me off. As RD I frequently find myself cleaning up after characters with that attitude who are responsible for blown up rooms and letting rampaging monsters go free. Security is a stressful job, I know, I play it quite a bit. Still, every job needs to default to treating the others with respect.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

High-damage laser weapons, like the laser cannon, are (IMHO) better against monsters, because of their high per-hit damage and the ability to fire through glass windows with them.

As RD, when I need to deal with most monsters, my go-to weapon is the laser cannon (if they are few) or dual AEGs (if they are many).

 

I personally dislike the Laser Cannon for the simple fact that it's bulky as all hell. That said, I'm not opposed to the idea of carrying multiple weapons to handle an immediate threat, just don't hold on to all of them unless it's actually necessary.

 

That was intended as a satirical example of the "we don't need it right now, so lets not equip it" thinking. Not a serious claim.

 

Maybe I'm just weird, but I actually follow that line of thought. I just carry around what I need for my immediate job and leave unnecessary (for the time) stuff at my work station. I dislike bags filled up with random stuff.

 

I make both pretty much every round I am CMO/medchemist, though usually I don't need to use them.

I admit I may be the exception to the rule. I have not checked how often others make them.

 

As someone who plays Medbay often, I can assure you that you are the exception to the rule. It's been literally months since I've seen anyone carrying around more than a small syringe of Omnizine.

 

(one of the biggest reasons to which is the fact that getting Robotics to make an Odysseus is borderline maddening most shifts)

 

I actually like this.

Then again, I like linear warriors, quadratic wizards in D&D as well.

I like facing the choice of "kick ass now, or later?" I feel it adds depth if the balance changes over time.

 

I played Mage exclusively in Dragon Age: Origins. Quadratic mage growth is one of the few things that make me cackle maniacally.

 

My point was that yes, you need to work for your stuff. But it's not that much work, and the stuff at the end of the line is ridiculously powerful compared to everyone else. You can basically make entire Departments on your own.

 

I don't think it has to be exclusively one or the other.

A SOP based exclusively on IC viewpoints risks being ignored because it is often useless, and in some cases, actively detrimental.

A SOP based exclusively on OOC viewpoints risks being ignored because it is artifical and in some cases, very alien to natural RP interaction.

I feel a balance can be struck between these.

 

I agree. I admit I may not have as much Science experience as others, but a lot of the Guidelines here were created with practical considerations in mind. A lot of it (and a lot of what's to come) is stuff people already do, except put in an actual formal guideline.

 

That said, as mentioned before, I am averse to the idea of Science carrying weapons to "protect" themselves. Protecting the station is Security's job, and if they're not doing that properly, I'd rather fix that than find workarounds.

 

This nerfs it so hard you might as well remove honk mechs entirely.

HONK mechs should be constructable IF you want to reward a clown, but difficult to construct otherwise.

Perhaps the best solution is to make HONK mech chassis lockboxed, locked to RD/Captain access.

 

Beg pardon, I misspoke. My idea was to slightly reduce the amount of Bananium available off the bat, not outright remove it. And to compensate, add even more Bananium at the gateway as well, so you either need to spend a loooooooooooong time finding Bananium, or brave the Gateway for it.

 

Think about it: it prevents R&D weapons from being confused with weapons stolen/borrowed/lost from the armory, and actually enforces more accountability for both loss of sec weapons (can't claim you got it from R&D) and also science weapons (you know where it came from).

 

Actually, that does make sense. Huh.

 

Mechanical job objectives are almost meaningless - they don't exist for most jobs, and even for science (the only major department that has them?), they don't even begin to cover the things you should be doing. Doesn't mean they should be completely ignored, it would be awesome if every job had job objectives - it just means they're not very important in the grand scheme of things, and aren't a very good justification for anything.

 

Very true, though personally I'm a fan of general job objectives in order to nudge people into actually doing their jobs (such as "Make X of Y" for MedChem or "Set up the X Engine" for Engineering).

 

That said, my entire point is that the main source of goodies and upgrades for Science comes from Research, which can be very easily completed, so Science shouldn't just ignore it entirely.

 

What I am arguing is that if the HoS/Captain see fit to give the RD a weapon, or weapons, other people should not be complaining on the grounds of SOP, because if things have got to that point, there's probably a good reason. Essentially, the same point as Tully makes: SOP can be ignored if the situation requires it, as SOP is standard operating procedure, IE what you do when everything is going well, NOT what you do in the event of a major disaster.

 

Pretty much. I'm averse to the idea of the RD carrying multiple weapons "just in case", but as someone else said in this thread, SOP is meant to interlock. In this case, Science SOP interlocks with Sec SOP. If the Head of Security sees fit to give the RD more than a single weapon, then I'm to assume the situation really is that dire.

 

CC often completely fails to respond to messages/faxes. Butt-faxes almost always get a response, but they're the only kind of fax I've seen that does. I've seen people fax in about confirmed xenos, almost-winning blobs, etc only to be met with total silence, yet butt-faxes about CC being comdoms get almost-instant BSAs.

Many bad command decisions could be avoided if admins made a point of responding to EVERY fax/commsconsole message, and EVERY ERT request, even if the answer is "Sorry, we can't authorize an ERT because one guy set off a bomb near bridge, security is expected to handle that, perhaps you should consider going code blue, checking prints, etc". Ignoring the command crew's pleas is a large part of why said command crew panics and does stupid things - they don't get any guidance during the moment about what they should do, even when they specifically ask for it. So, they assume they're on their own in a hostile situation, and overreact.

 

I feel I should clarify something:

 

90% of faxes we receive deserve no response.

 

They're either piss-poor formatted, have horrible grammar, have no signature/stamp, have no useful information or have stuff that we have literally no reason to do anything about. I get faxes from IAAs asking us to sentence someone who hit someone else with a crowbar on a daily basis. That's just stupid.

 

I make a point of answering every fax that deserves an answer. And I do so based on what the fax is. If I receive a fax from the Captain that just says "We have Xenos", I'm not gonna do anything. Not only did the Captain not ask anything, he just wasted a fax machine relay cooldown to tell us something we have no way of doing anything about.

 

As for the second point, any Command personnel that panic whenever CC doesn't answer them probably aren't fit for the position anyway. We expect Command personnel to be able to keep their cool and not flip their shit the moment something remotely bad happens.

 

I actually do deny ERT requests with a reason whenever the request is not necessary. 99% of the time, this reason is "You have an active Security team, we're not scrambling an ERT because one person died".

 

At the end of the day, properly written faxes get responses. If my initial mental reaction to a fax (and I know this extends to the Administration as well) is "You should fucking know how to do this yourself, we're not your babysitter", you're not likely to get any help, because:

 

You should fucking know how to do this yourself, we're not your babysitter

 

ERT requests are the worst. CC often decides whether or not to send an ERT based on factors that the command crew has no possible way of knowing IC, and never says anything about the request. IMHO, something like an ERT request should always, without fail get an official response. The biggest factor I've observed as a ghost influence whether an ERT request gets an ERT actually sent is... deadchat. Which the command crew has literally no possible way of knowing about. That makes ERT approvals/ignores seem totally arbitrary to command teams.

 

To be perfectly honest, this is mostly to do with round balance. Yes, it can be an amazingly detailed fax or communication, but it's tremendously unfair for a 3-person cult to suddenly have a 5-man Amber ERT hunting them down.

 

That said, I've been handing out detailed "no" responses more and more lately. Command has an unfortunate tendency to only call ERTs when they're not needed, and completely forget to call for one when it's actually necessary. Panic, I guess.

 

If I could make any one change to SOP to address a grievance in SS13, it would be: "admins must grant or send an official 'no' response for any ERT request sent by the command team within 5 minutes. If they fail to do this, the ERT request should be automatically granted by the code, under the presumption that they are either AFK, do not care what happens, or are otherwise unresponsive. If the answer is 'no', a brief note about why should be included, so the command team learns what is, and what is not, an acceptable situation in which to request an ERT, and future invalid ERT requests are less likely."

 

We actually have something similar. If there are no Game Admins online (so, only Trial Admins and below), eventually all ERT requests default to Code Amber and get sent automatically.

 

That said, a lot of it is due to the fact that the ERT request is hilariously easy to miss, since it's the same colour as 50% of the chat box.

 

You may joke, but saber SMGs are not the best weapon to use against lings. And I have seen plenty of shifts late at night where one or two lings get the run of the station because there is ZERO security staff and nobody wants to be one. The context can be very important. "Let security handle it" is all well and good, but what if there IS no security? That actually happens quite a lot, late at night. Yeah, more people play at peak, but how things operate in the middle of the night should be considered too.

 

And that is why SOP is malleable. Again, under nominal conditions in Code Red, one good weapon should suffice. If it doesn't, feel free to request further assistance from the relevant person.

 

This'll actually be its very own mini-section in Command SOP: "When SOP isn't enough"

 

Science is not "toysrus", and that attitude pisses me off. As RD I frequently find myself cleaning up after characters with that attitude who are responsible for blown up rooms and letting rampaging monsters go free. Security is a stressful job, I know, I play it quite a bit. Still, every job needs to default to treating the others with respect.

 

That may be so, but there is still a problem with Science players who play Science purely to play with the toys. Roboticists who make not a single Utility Mech and hog all resources to make that one Durand so they can go pewpew at post-round grief.

 

There's a lot of powergaming going around in Science, and Science Job SOP should at least establish some nominal baselines on how Scientists should be acting when everything's alright. As I said, SOP is malleable. But if there's no reason to mold it, then it should be followed normally.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Changed:

 

The Geneticist is not permitted to grant Powers to non-Command Staff without express verbal consent from the Research Director.

 

To:

 

The Geneticist is not permitted to grant Powers to non-Command Staff without express verbal consent from the Research Director. The Chief Medical Officer still detains full authority to forcefully remove these Powers if they are abused

 

[Knightedskull]

 

Changed:

 

The Geneticist is not permitted to grant Powers to non-Command Staff without express verbal consent from the Research Director.

 

To:

 

The Geneticist is not permitted to grant Powers to non-Command Staff without express verbal consent from the Research Director. The Chief Medical Officer still detains full authority to forcefully remove these Powers if they are abused

In the instance of abuse, what are the measures that a CMO can take if it is more than one person?

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Multiple Mutadone syringes, for one.

 

Or getting Security to forcefully detain people and bring them in for Genetic treatment.

 

Essentially, if the Powers are being abused, the CMO has full authority to do what it takes to remove those powers, short of actual bodily harm.

 

Unless it's an out-of-control Hulk, then bodily harm is fully permitted.

 

[Keroman]

 

Fill that hypospray with a mutadone/ether mix to remove their powers and knock 'em out, then drag 'em out and remove their IDs.

 

But for reals, don't do that unless there's an immediate danger to you or a crew member from the irresponsible Geneticists. Security should be all over Genetics handing out powers all willy-nilly because antags with powers are a huge threat if not dealt with quickly. Make sure you get those syringe guns ready for 'em with plenty of mutadone to go around.

 

[Knightedskull]

 

Right, just trying to make as much clarification as possible.

I asked that to make sure I wouldn't be overstepping boundries or whatnot.

 

[Shadeykins]

 

The Geneticist is not permitted to grant Powers to non-Command Staff without express verbal consent from the Research Director. The Chief Medical Officer still detains full authority to forcefully remove these Powers if they are abused

 

Detains needs to be changed to either retains, or maintains.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

Woops, gonna change it.

[Kyet]

 

I personally dislike the Laser Cannon for the simple fact that it's bulky as all hell.

The laser cannon is a good weapon if (A) you have a bag of holding, and thus can carry it safely, and (B) you have access to rechargers and © you're going after a non-slime monster, which requires lethal damage, and has to take time to break through windows to get to you.

If (A) or (B) is false, an AEG is probably better, because it self-recharges.

If © is false, because you're going after crew, a stun revolver is probably better.

If © is false, because you're going after something that will not be stupid enough to stand behind glass, but can still easily kill you if it closes the distance (like a player-controlled xeno), then it is time to adapt.

 

As someone who plays Medbay often, I can assure you that you are the exception to the rule. It's been literally months since I've seen anyone carrying around more than a small syringe of Omnizine.

Most of the omnizine I get comes from warm donk pockets, not mechs. I pretty much never ask science for an ody as medbay chemist. I find I never need to. Most rounds, medbay sees little use and it is rare that I will need more than that quantity of omnizine.

 

personally I'm a fan of general job objectives in order to nudge people into actually doing their jobs (such as "Make X of Y" for MedChem or "Set up the X Engine" for Engineering).

I would like it if all jobs had job objectives like that.

 

90% of faxes we receive deserve no response.

 

I strongly disagree. This attitude really makes my blood boil.

Faxing CC about an emergency only to have it ignored because the message was formatted poorly is rather like calling 911 only to have your call ignored because the operator doesn't like your accent, or feels you're talking too quickly. My gut reaction to either situation is: "WTF are you thinking?".

 

If you can't read what they're saying at all, just say "Sorry, we could not understand that, please re-fax with more clarity". Once sentence! Takes a few seconds to type.

If you can, but just can't be bothered because the formatting makes it hard, that's bad, but at least you could adminpm the sender and say "Sorry, too busy right now dealing with stuff to try to decipher that - when faxing CC it is best to be clear, concise, to the point, and finish with a clear request. Try again if you like.".

If you can read it, even understand it, but choose to ignore it just because you happen to not like the formatting... that just makes me furious.

 

Have you ever seen SOS calls in real emergencies?

 

Real emergency distress calls are not well-formatted essays. Grammar is ignored completely in the interests of efficiency. They sure as fuck don't have official stamps and time spent aligning text in margins or applying corporate logos.

 

They are short, brutal messages consisting of key codewords, like "fire at 11th and 4th, 3 down, need assistance" or "active gunman at hallwood, send swat".

 

I would argue the exact opposite: if you get a well-formatted message, that's actually evidence it is NOT a real emergency.

 

Real emergencies aren't things people send calm, well-written faxes about. Real emergencies produce short, abrupt SOS messages.

 

If the IAA asks you to sentence someone for hitting someone else with a crowbar, and you ignore it, they'll probably do it again. If you reply "No. The fax machine is not a toy, and is to be used only for SERIOUS issues. Someone being hit with a crowbar is not remotely serious enough to fax us over." then they might actually learn something and you just might have less shitty faxes to read in future. Also, fewer IAAs will get disgruntled over being "ignored" because although you did not give them what you wanted, at least you proved you bothered to read and reply to their communication.

 

If the captain says "we have xenos", I would *assume* he's asking for either an ERT, or a code gamma. Those are the standard response options a captain might expect. Actually, in that situation, I'd assume he's asking for gamma, because he could have requested an ERT with the swiper. If he's messaging/faxing instead, either most of the command crew is dead and he can't use the swiper, he specifically wants gamma not ERT, or he's just panicing in what he considers an emergency and it might just be one guy in a friggin' xeno suit.

A good reply, assuming you planned to send no help might be: "If they start to overrun the station, request gamma or an ERT. Otherwise, we assume your trained sec force can handle it once you verify the threat and equip them with armory weapons"

That sort of response takes 20 seconds to type, rebukes him for sending a useless message, trains him if he's clueless, and sets the standards for when he should be contacting you. In two sentences, it does a heck of a lot to ensure better conduct from him and less stupid messages for you. I would call that a "teachable moment" you can reap rewards from later - if you use it. No, you're not obliged to teach people, but it's very, very helpful if you do, both for you, and for them.

 

EVERYONE panics at some point during an emergency. Everyone is new at some point. Not everyone is used to Josiah Young running around in a frigging xeno suit every single round and tame xenos in xenobio. Some people genuinely do flip out when they see alieums or a blob in their spessmen game. Standard admin procedure when dealing with faxes/messages should account for this. Arguably the people that need help most are the ones who don't know what they're doing when they ask for help. "Help" doesn't just mean "ERT". Sometimes, perhaps even often, a simple reminder is all they need.

 

I actually do deny ERT requests with a reason whenever the request is not necessary. 99% of the time, this reason is "You have an active Security team, we're not scrambling an ERT because one person died".

That's a good response! I wish admins used responses like that more often.

 

At the end of the day, properly written faxes get responses. If my initial mental reaction to a fax (and I know this extends to the Administration as well) is "You should fucking know how to do this yourself, we're not your babysitter", you're not likely to get any help

 

I wish that more admins actually SAID that in response to stupid faxes. Perhaps they'd get less stupid faxes.

 

A big part of the problem with faxes, IMHO, is that NOBODY is ever told their fax is bad, let alone punished for misusing faxes, unless of course they send a faxed copy of their own ass or something so blatent as "fuck CC! Long live the syndicate!"

I'd love it if admins were much more responsive to faxes - and that included coming down much harder on people who misused faxes, either due to ignorance (sending them a reminder of what is acceptable or not), or malice (sending a team to "deal with" a command crew sending "fuck CC" faxes). If you never bother to tell people that what they're doing is wrong and annoys you, how can you expect them to change their behavior? You can't!

 

To be perfectly honest, this is mostly to do with round balance. Yes, it can be an amazingly detailed fax or communication, but it's tremendously unfair for a 3-person cult to suddenly have a 5-man Amber ERT hunting them down.

 

That's fine. That's normal, even. Often, things look much worse to the command crew than they really are, because the command crew has limited vision/understanding of the situation, and tends to see only the problems.

 

There are a ton of things admins could say in this situation to say "no" fairly whilst remaining IC, such as:

"Sorry, all ERT teams are currently deployed, we have none spare right now"

"We tapped into your camera feed. So far, only 3 cultists have been observed. Our standard team is currently dealing with a xeno outbreak on installation 3847. We cannot re-route them for 3 cultists. If the situation becomes a dire threat to the station, swipe for ERT again."

"3 cultists (we checked your sec records remotely) is not a valid reason for ERT. Your sec force is expected to deal with that."

"If you have them in custody, administer holy water to deconvert them. If you don't, capture them, then do that. If you know exactly how many there are, we assume one of the above two situations applies."

 

None of these break immersion or screw up the antags' round. Actually, I'd say they enhance immersion.

 

That said, I've been handing out detailed "no" responses more and more lately. Command has an unfortunate tendency to only call ERTs when they're not needed, and completely forget to call for one when it's actually necessary. Panic, I guess.

Or, they already had their request ignored once, and they assume it will be ignored again, because they don't see any of the admins' reasoning, and just assume admins will ignore them no matter what they say. I've seen people make that decision a fair bit.

 

We actually have something similar. If there are no Game Admins online (so, only Trial Admins and below), eventually all ERT requests default to Code Amber and get sent automatically.

That is a solution to the problem of "what do we do when there are no admins online to handle this?"

That's a completely different problem to the one I'm mad about.

The problem I'm mad about is what I perceive to be admins deliberately ignoring command crew SOSes for what I believe to be absolutely shitty reasons.

 

I am not saying admins don't have good reasons for making the decisions they make. They do.

The decisions are fine. Sending an ERT for a 3-person cult is overkill, no doubt. It would take most of the fun out of the round.

I am saying their reasons for failing to communicate those decisions with the command crew that has requested their help are shitty.

 

Perhaps not all of them, but "the message wasn't formatted correctly" is seems very shitty, and "we're not babysitters" seems arguably shitty, depending on how likely it is that you think someone who sends one shitty fax/msg will send another because they were never told their first one was bad in any way.

 

That said, a lot of it is due to the fact that the ERT request is hilariously easy to miss, since it's the same colour as 50% of the chat box.

 

It should be a one-line change to make the ERT request a big, flashy color, or trigger a sound file for admins so they never miss it.

Hell, even a new sound file is not required - just make it play the "boink" sound twice to indicate that an official request from the command staff has arrived and just like any ahelp, it should get some form of response, even if that response is "You're expected to handle that yourself. Let us know if _____ happens. If THAT happens, and you tell us, we might send help."

 

Not meaning to tear you apart here, Tully. From your replies, it seems you actually do answer faxes/ERTrequests more than most. The lack of admin response to CC faxes/messages just makes me madder than anything else I see in SS13, with the possible exception of clowns being given all-access.

 

[necaladun]

 

90% of faxes we receive deserve no response.

 

I strongly disagree. This attitude really makes my blood boil.

 

 

It's a bit of a derail from SOP, but regardless.

 

The fax can be a real hassle for admins for a few reasons. If we're currently investigating grief, PMing players, or ghosting them to catch them fucking up, then we don't have the time to fax. There's plenty of other admin duties that also take priority above it, and once they're done, it's easy to forget about the fax.

 

Additionally, if we're playing actively in the round, it can be hard to find a good time - especially if we're currently getting attacked by the very xenos you faxed about!

 

A hell of a lot of faxes can simply be replied to with the line "Proceed as per SoP". You don't need to tell CC that a greyshirt hit the clown with a crowbar. Maybe a few buttons for default replies would help with that. "Xenos have attacked" or "nuke ops are here" again are things the crew have the tools to deal with - whether it's an ERT or calling the shuttle. The main thing the fax is good for is responding to admin events/really unusual situations (help the cult has recruited wizard xenos!), or disputes among command (Captain is dead, HoP and HoS are arguing over who is in command).

 

All in all, it's best to see the fax machine as something that might help, but not to rely on it. A fax of "command are all dead need ERT no one alive to swipe" is more likely to get help. And of course, to remember that the admins may be busy or have a variety of reasons not to reply.

 

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

If you never bother to tell people that what they're doing is wrong and annoys you, how can you expect them to change their behavior? You can't!

 

Precisely why my most frequent fax is a "please sign and stamp your faxes properly" one I have pre-made on Word.

 

I won't be addressing the entire point with the fax thing point by point. Rather, I'll do it in a general sense, as I can see that I touched on a sore nerve.

 

I never intended to diminish the impact of player input, nor the real emergency of the situation at hand. However, I would like to point out something:

 

Some times, we just can't make it.

 

Administrators, when not observing, are not only playing the game alongside everyone else, they also deal with Ahelps, random Asay/Msay, making sure Deadchat, LOOC and OOC is policed, handling complaints and generally having our chat boxes spammed by the clown hitting people with the horn.

 

Simultaneously, we're trying to play and have fun while doing so. And, well, not all people think paperwork is fun. I do, but I'm a nerd.

 

It boils down to the fact that, after a million "thing is bad halp" faxes, it becomes increasingly harder to respond with the exact same enthusiasm as you may once have had. Not just because writing a fax takes time and effort that maybe we want to apply to the round itself, but because, well, we're human beings, and we just get tired. Not to mention, it is also very easy to ignore faxes if you don't check the Fax Panel frequently. The fax alert, too, is silent and stealthy. But I digress.

 

It's not a "you suck" attitude towards faxes. It's very much a situation where we're constantly exposed to, frankly, completely inane and pointless walls of text that serve no actual purpose other than to have the person kill time writing it. As simple (and possibly petty) as it may sound, after a while, it becomes increasingly hard to maintain the level of shits given.

 

It's desensitization. Enormous amounts of "noise" drown out useful information. I personally try and go around this by reading every single possible fax, but even I, at this point, just look at some of them and think:

 

"The only possible response I could give this is telling them to fix shit themselves"

 

And really, in some circumstances, it's hard not to expect the person to do their job on their own, especially when there are other, more important faxes, waiting for a response.

 

Not to mention, from an IC perspective, a lot of faxes just give a really general description and sorta expect CC to "just know". There really isn't a guideline, but a rule of thumb is that CC knows just what's on the fax. And when a fax shows up without a signature or stamp, how can CC confirm it's a real fax and not just a forgery/prank?

 

How to fix this? Consistently answer to every single fax and explain just why they shouldn't have been written, or what to do properly. I tend to use the Representative as my go-to person for that, by telling them "Sit down with X and teach them how to properly write faxes, goddamnit". But, at the end of the day, we're still human beings, with limited stamina, and all the limitations that come with it.

 

[alexpkeaton]

A little meta, but I think it would make a lot of sense if the future SoP discussions are broken out into separate threads so that you don't have to sift through pages of discussion to find points on other SoP sections. If this keeps up, at 2 weeks of SoP discussion per section, we'll have 70+ pages of discussion and whole areas will be buried in the middle. Perhaps a special "SoP discussion" folder can be added under "Announcements" on the main page for the duration of this discussion, with this thread moved and renamed to "Science SoP" ... then after it is over, the threads can be locked and moved back for archival purposes.

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

... I'll, uh, split this off then.

 

EDIT: Christ almighty, this fucking thread got huge fast.

 

[Kyet]

 

Re: faxes

If replying to faxes is a pain for admins to do, have you considered options that might reduce the effort required?

 

If composing a fax is a lot of effort, perhaps just send that two-sentence message direct to their headset. Avoids the lengthy time period spent messing with formatting and codes. If determined to use a fax, why not make the standard fax reply screen/form auto-populate a standard fax template, so you can do basic faxes without having to dig up the formatting instructions each time?

 

Why not have one-click-standard-reply options for the more common fax responses? "Your station is already equipped with the crew and resources to handle this. Please use them to resolve the issue", could be one. "We will only declare gamma or send ERT for xenos if we believe there to be a serious xeno infestation - one or two of them does not count" could be another. "IAAs should only fax CC as a last resort, in cases where the chain of command on the station has proven they are unable or unwilling to deal with a major problem. Please work with them before resorting to filing a complaint with CC." could be useful too. This type of message would clearly set expectations without being super generic (as "follow SOP" is), and would still be faster to send than typing out replies manually as happens now.

 

Even better would be some guidance being placed on the comms console / fax machines as to what is, and what is not, a valid reason to message/fax CC. Heck, putting some on the keycard auth device, such that it appears to anyone trying to call an ERT, could be useful too. This would require little more than displaying some text in the UI, and it could potentially reduce silly faxes/requests a fair bit.