ERT Alternatives

[Love-To-Hug]

It's my belief that pulling validhunters from dchat is an inherently flawed mechanic. Not only does it punish antagonists that manage to take out Security, but those who have been observing the round are privy to a lot of information that can be used subconsciously or purposely with plausible deniability.

Here are some of my ideas for alternatives I've been thinking about:

Code Alpha: A special alert level that functions similarly to Red Alert but needs admin approval like ERT currently does. Once activated, all doors on the station that are not command doors are set to emergency access. All station crew are allowed to possess weaponry and are encouraged to arm up and stick together.

Emergency Evacuation Team: This would be similar to the ERT, but their objective is not to restore order to their station, their job is to facilitate evacuation. They arrive in a special escape shuttle equipped like an upgraded medbay. It takes 5 minutes to arrive and leaves after 10 minutes. EET orders is to stay and protect the ship and not validhunt, and to try and rely on the crew to bring those that need medical care. Exceptions can be made if escape is heavily breached. Can be emagged for it to leave sooner, but the console to do so is more protected than on the standard escape shuttle.

Station Contract Termination: An adminbus event, triggered by mass incompetence of both Command and Security. Turns the station into a lawless free for all. Mutiny allowed, all IDs terminated, no grief rules.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[Ziiro]

I want to argue against this - I've actually typed up a response a few times, but everything I'd argue for with regards to justifying ERT is pretty much solved with what you've got here.

[Sothangel]

I've suggested something before based on the distress beacon in the FTL game - It could be another option on the authenticater machine, and has random/admin-chosen outcomes. You could have junkers come to scrap the distressed station, band of highly armed mercenaries come to save you for a price, a shuttle arrives nearby for people to use to escape, antags get reinforcements, SIT/SST get sent to claim station for the Syndicate/Loot stuff, ERT or other friendly military power come and attempt to help. Could be anything really, just an idea.

[Shadeykins]

Code Alpha sounds like a great way to encourage validhunting, and scenarios like this only occur during terror spiders, xenos, etc anyways which makes it redundant.

EET goes directly counter to established game lore. If there's an emergency situation so severe that an ERT arrives, there is to be no evacuation. This is not only in SoP, but it's also supported by the mechanical implementation of the 7-10 directive and quarantine laws.

SCT is basically just a flavourless version of highlander. I don't see why we would want to encourage Paradise to become goon-lite.

I would much rather have options on ERTs be presented so you could request SPECIFIC types of ERT's, thereby providing concrete restrictions on ERT role choices.

Engineering ERT? 0 security slots, 1 medical slot. Medical ERT? 0 engineering slots, 1 security slot. Security ERT? Maximum of 1 medic, and 1 engineering and these roles can only be chosen once there's already 3 security role ERT members.

[Love-To-Hug]

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Code Alpha sounds like a great way to encourage validhunting, and scenarios like this only occur during terror spiders, xenos, etc anyways which makes it redundant.

When all of Security is dead, trying to keep non-Security from getting involved with antagonists seems like a misguided effort to me. Especially when you consider the response is typically calling validhunters from dchat. Would you rather validhunters from the current crew or from people who have been speculating the station like a divine being looking down from heaven?

So yes, I agree with you, Code Alpha would encourage validhunting. But it's the lesser of two evils in my opinion. ERTs are extremely powerful, fully equipped, and most importantly, have the benefit of having speculated. Baldy McGriefenheimer has a baseball bat and a go-get-em attitude.

 

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EET goes directly counter to established game lore. If there's an emergency situation so severe that an ERT arrives, there is to be no evacuation. This is not only in SoP, but it's also supported by the mechanical implementation of the 7-10 directive and quarantine laws.

Actually the ERT decides when to evacuate, and I fail to see why SoP can't be changed as it has many, many times before. Nothing is set in stone. Obviously EET wouldn't be an option when it comes to xenos/blobs/etc.

 

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SCT is basically just a flavourless version of highlander. I don't see why we would want to encourage Paradise to become goon-lite.

Because if the round has been plunged into anarchy anyway, might as well make it official and get some fun out of it. Currently, when rounds like this happen, everything just kind of stagnates until the automated shuttle arrives. Extremely boring. Who knows, a mutiny could be successful and they could re-establish order. Or maybe the Syndicate operatives themselves rise to power as the station's leaders. So many possibilities when all bets are off.

 

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Engineering ERT? 0 security slots, 1 medical slot. Medical ERT? 0 engineering slots, 1 security slot. Security ERT? Maximum of 1 medic, and 1 engineering and these roles can only be chosen once there's already 3 security role ERT members.

This doesn't do anything to fix the 'validhunters from dchat' problem.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[Twinmold]

Your ECT already exists in terms of Code Epsilon. We as admins still pick if a squad is sent to clean up or not, before or after the event is called: They are not mutual inclusive of one another. It doesn't change ID access (which is something you can't change since it's attached to the card in the form of a chip, otherwise command would just have a database they could access to remotely change anyone's ID without issue). ERTs have been a part of SS13 for a very long time, and the use of meta-game knowledge is punishable on an administrative level. Obviously, not everything is perfect and can be proven, though numerous things can be. At the same time, you can actually imagine the main sources of problems would ALREADY be known to the ERT through camera monitoring and briefing of the situation, so the 'big picture' could already been known. Removing ERT is a poor move and punishes players even more because of the idea that people always know what's going on and use that knowledge, consciously or or sub-consciously. We have trust in our player base to follow the rules and be trusted not to use certain information. We enforce the rules against these players when it's found they have violated the rules and the trust we've given them.

As for valid hunters in general, it doesn't stop either side: Be it from dead chat or in-game, the concept of a valid hunter is the exact same, and unchanged. The only difference is the amount of knowledge they have from a meta-game perspective, which is not valid hunting, but meta-gaming. You're suggestion seems to stem from a common idea of no one should have any meta-knowledge and be able to play the round itself because no one can be trusted, which is actually of poor form to enforce when at the end of the day, this is also just a game.

Do we have rules to make things more fair for players? Yes.
Do we enforce these rules to the extent that we find fair, rather than just the word? Yes.
Should we punish everyone for the issues of the few? No.
Should we stop people having a chance to rejoin on mere speculation of the group rather than the individual? No.
Should we remove the ERT because of the potential of valid hunters? No.

Otherwise, why not just remove every possible item or method that allows for valid hunting in the first place merely because of how it's used? You wouldn't have a game left, to be honest. ERTs have been part of the game for a long time, and removing ERT isn't going to make it any better, it'll actually support antagonists ALWAYS killing off security since it'll just come down to the ramble of crew against them after that, something we actually have been trying to get away from. We have been pushing for antagonists not to kill off security and crew not to go against the antagonists themselves. ERT is a nice intermediary as if there is a lack of security, the round doesn't just end (say the round starts with virtually no security). We have a chance to call an ERT if security doesn't fill up in a reasonable time and things start getting chaotic, such as if a bunch of people are dying but don't feel a shuttle is an appropriate course of action. This way, people have a chance of getting back into the round more likely than just mid-round antag roll (especially if killed early or selected observer) so they don't have to sit and wait an hour and a half to two hours just to get back in. It's more than about the letter of the law/rules but also the enjoyment and fun of the game to players.

[Love-To-Hug]

51 minutes ago, Twinmold said:

You're suggestion seems to stem from a common idea of no one should have any meta-knowledge and be able to play the round itself because no one can be trusted, which is actually of poor form to enforce when at the end of the day, this is also just a game.

Metaknowledge is hard to police and generally isn't a problem, but ERTs are highly-equipped validhunters and, in my opinion, should be the last people trusted to not abuse metaknowledge from a game mechanics standpoint.

I simply feel it's better for the crew to fend for themselves than to have dchat validhunters. I think it's not only much more fair, but far more interesting. I doubt many people have fun during an effective ERT call other than the ERT themselves, which I feel is a good counter to your 'game' argument. In other words, the goal should be for it to be as fun for as many people as possible, and I don't feel like ERT accomplishes that.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[Twinmold]

I would like to point something out, then... What are you situating as 'valid hunting'? The point of security ERT is the exact same as security in general, with a focus on bringing an end to whatever is causing the chaotic situation in general. Valid hunting is, in general, to find any particular reason to consider a person valid as an antag to be stopped, brigged, and/or executed. As I stated prior, the only difference between those coming from dead chat and in-game is the potential for meta-knowledge to leak, but regardless of that, that same knowledge can be used in any randomly assigned mid-round antag roll, too, in which they focus on those who are antags, either to stop or help them, which would be the same basic concept in either case to take validity to hunt them, either to aid or harm them.

From a role-play perspective, the crew aren't supposed to have to fend for themselves in all situation, and in fact in rare situations should they have to. Take consideration of new players, being thrown into this situation where there is no more backup available. A steep learning curve has just become even steeper, and is likely to keep newer players from coming into the game because a difficult game is even hard to get into because suddenly someone just killed all of security and the only ones who can stop them (and probably failing by this point) is the crew. We don't want to support antags having a harder time or killing security with the only issue then being crew, which as stated before, isn't going to really stop them. But at the same time, it's already a huge random number generation chance against them because it takes one crew to stop them, but they have to be successful in every instance to beat the crew. By limiting the number of appropriate people to counter the antags, it evens the playing field between the crew and antags in a number of cases, and supports more interesting tactics rather than just the common ones.

I can still call out Rule 5 (Play your role) because people aren't supposed to be going against antags if they aren't security (with rare exceptions) and antag-fighting isn't fun for everyone, nor is it always interesting to see the station fall to chaos. It's more work for admins as it, as well, because now you have the antags calling out the crew as valid hunters instead of the appropriate people they expect to be against them.

We should be going for fun for the whole, and much of that is by the role you select to play: If you really want to be the counter to antags, go security, not scientist, engineer, medical, etc. Each person has fun in a different way, which is why having so many available roles and goals for them is good, and at the same time, this is a role-playing game: You shouldn't be playing for the mechanics of the game, but rather the story you build. Most of our higher rated rounds are when people have more role-play interaction rather than antag interaction, though some of the highest and best dealt karma given to players are those antags that role-play and make the round generally more interesting by not killing people, and making the death of the people they kill more interesting for the victim.

The ERT is also capable of bring people back into the round who have died for various causes, and people in observe and dead chat, especially in the long run when an ERT would normally be called, makes up a large percentage of players on an average shift (connected or disconnected because dead). With how it's worded, it sounds like you feel every ERT is a valid hunting group, which to be honest sounds like a 'I died to ERT, please remove them' approach. If valid hunting is an actual issue with ERT, we need to catch them and have them reported on the case when it happens so we can better investigate. At the same time, we can find out the validity of the situation (did they legitimately have IC evidence to go after them person or is it actually meta-knowledge), in which we can handle proper judgement and punishments. In this case result, valid hunting is only finding evidence, and how hard they push for that evidence. It's a vanilla position to the game and something that will not and/or should not be removed.

We as admins still have final say on if an ERT is even sent to the station, and therein there's still the chance for rounds to go much more astray than expected. Removing ERT would be removing a very real response to a situation from Central Command and removes a very powerful tool for admins to try to calm a situation if we feel the chaos needs to lower. We are to find and adjust the level of order and chaos in a round depending on how we feel the shift should move, same with seriousness and silliness. If we just had a very high-chaos round, we're likely to try to make the next round more calm, and that could include sending an ERT if chaos starts to build beyond an acceptable level for the goal of the round. We have many options, and there will not be the removal of such options.

[Love-To-Hug]

I've never died to ERT. The word 'validhunters' is pretty self-explanatory I feel. People who hunt valids. So in the context of ERT, any and all antagonists. They are indeed a validhunting group. So is Security. Because of metaknowledge, validhunters should not be pulled from dchat. I'm not sure where the disconnect is, here. Let's call a spade a spade.

I'm also not sure where the roleplay argument is coming from. Are you implying it would be bad roleplay for the crew to take arms when Security is all dead and dangerous murderers are on the loose, who threaten their ability to make it home safely?

You also talk about how crew aren't likely to stop antagonists, but then argue that the crew being after them would make antagonists lives harder. Why would it be harder than an ERT who are all equipped with guns, all access, and hardsuits?

As far as introducing a way for people to get dead people re-involved in the round, sure, I support that - you'll notice the EET idea I mentioned would accomplish just that. In my opinion, other ideas should be explored to get people back in the game. But I fee that whenever a player is pulled from the deadpool, it should usually not be to hunt down antagonists. ERTs are extremely common right now, and I don't feel they add much fun to the round for both antagonists and loyal workers. ERTs are generally well-equipped to handle problems themselves, leaving little room for employees to have an impact as far as being a help to the station goes. It is as if the ERT has made the rest of the crew obsolete.

 

54 minutes ago, Twinmold said:

We as admins still have final say on if an ERT is even sent to the station, and therein there's still the chance for rounds to go much more astray than expected. Removing ERT would be removing a very real response to a situation from Central Command and removes a very powerful tool for admins to try to calm a situation if we feel the chaos needs to lower.

I never said anything about removing ERT entirely. I simply believe it should not be a player-activated mechanic (i.e. something they can swipe for).

Edited April 2, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[Shadeykins]

1 hour ago, Love-To-Hug said:

II never said anything about removing ERT entirely. I simply believe it should not be a player-activated mechanic (i.e. something they can swipe for).

It already isn't. All ERT swipe requests are manually approved by an admin, who decides on the code-level of the ERT and whether or not to send it at all.

[Love-To-Hug]

Just now, Shadeykins said:

It already isn't. All ERT swipe requests are manually approved by an admin, who decides on the code-level of the ERT and whether or not to send it at all.

I'll rephrase. Player-triggered mechanic, pending approval. Players should have nothing to do with bringing an ERT.

[Shadeykins]

8 minutes ago, Love-To-Hug said:

I'll rephrase. Player-triggered mechanic, pending approval. Players should have nothing to do with bringing an ERT.

Removing the auto-summon ERT mechanic was contentious in its own right because it unduly burdens administrators who honestly don't have time to even check faxes 9 times out of 10.

This is just going to add a heinous amount of salt/spite against admins, because they'll be expected to know the exact layout/situation aboard the station at all times and constantly be ready with a judgement call on whether or not an ERT is required. If you've spent any amount of time in deadchat, you already know how terrible it gets when an ERT is needed and command members themselves aren't swiping. This you can write-off to some extent because ghosts can see if heads are even capable/actively doing something.

Admins? Not so much, nobody can see the aghosts and nobody (except other admins) know if the admins are busy or not. This just incentivizes deadchat to start frothing at the mouth every time a fair number of people are dead, because they'll be wondering why the admin (who probably has better things to do) doesn't know exactly what's going on and why there isn't an ERT yet.

You need only look at the salt that gets generated toward the admins when people feel a Deathsquad is needed and it doesn't get called.

This isn't even to touch on the tremendous amount of hand-holding this leads to, by stripping Command of making important judgement calls and setting a precedent for administrators to constantly baby the heads of command and make the hard decisions for them.

No, no, no, and no.

tl;dr? The suggestion to strip ERT swipes out adds absolutely nothing to the server and just detracts from an established mechanic that already works perfectly fine. It also piles on more responsibilities to overburdened administrators, who have much better things to focus their attention on (such as administration).

[Love-To-Hug]

That's why my suggestion involves alternatives for the players to trigger. ERT would, ideally, become a rare occurrence.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[ZN23X]

If you want to argue ERTs shouldn't be pulled from deadchat with an advantage from the information they've absorbed while being a ghost, you could argue we shouldn't do the same with mid round antags either. Then you'd eliminate two features that are designed to give relief to the ghost population.

Spawning a blob, spiders, or xenos mid round technically gives struggling antags an advantage but it is an attempt to allow the round to carry on and be interesting. 

If you don't have ERT after all or most of sec is dead then you'd just be forced to shuttle call and end the round. Consider ERT the antags REWARD for kicking security's ass. Now they get to see how they fare against a stronger foe.

[Love-To-Hug]

17 minutes ago, ZN23X said:

If you want to argue ERTs shouldn't be pulled from deadchat with an advantage from the information they've absorbed while being a ghost, you could argue we shouldn't do the same with mid round antags either. Then you'd eliminate two features that are designed to give relief to the ghost population.

Spawning a blob, spiders, or xenos mid round technically gives struggling antags an advantage but it is an attempt to allow the round to carry on and be interesting. 

If you don't have ERT after all or most of sec is dead then you'd just be forced to shuttle call and end the round. Consider ERT the antags REWARD for kicking security's ass. Now they get to see how they fare against a stronger foe.

Mid-round antags having the benefit of metaknowledge isn't even nearly as big of an issue. What loyalists are doing is information that not only becomes obsolete quickly, but isn't that valuable in the first place. But what antagonists are doing is information that has staying power, as they could be under disguise, they could have a hideout, they could be hanging around a specific part of space... it's just far more useful information to have than 'Oh security is in the brig. The Captain is in the bridge. The chemist is making medicine.'

Blobs can't even act on that information as they don't choose their starting point. Terror spiders typically just set up camp in maintenance nearest where they start from and go from there because speed is a priority. The ones that stand to profit the most are xenos, and even then, the information that's most valuable to them is something you would have to think to check beforehand, and by the time you check, someone's already taken the prompt to spawn in as a xeno. So that's moot too.

Not to mention, antagonists are generally the interesting ones to watch. So when the prompt to become a mid-round thingie comes up, you're most likely going to have the most knowledge of the antagonists, not the loyalists.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[ZN23X]

I surrender. Make antags lives easier, they've got it rough. Especially the ones who powergame like crazy to murder all of sec.

Edited April 2, 2017 by ZN23X

[Love-To-Hug]

Er... is the implication that antagonists don't have it rough?

[ZN23X]

I mean...they've gotta deal with all the advanced equipment and abilities that security has that antags don't even have access to. And they have to deal with chuckle fucks on top of that. So unfair.

[Purpose2]

Antags /do/ have it rough.

[ZN23X]

I guess we can agree that antags think they have it rough, sec thinks they have it rough, and anyone who works any other role thinks they have it rough.

Just a matter perspective and opinion.

I've brought this off topic. I apologize. I'll shut up now.

Edited April 2, 2017 by ZN23X

[Twinmold]

Antags using powerful methods is one reason why we have ERT, a powerful counter (when done right). It STILL comes down to an admin going 'ok, should we send in the ERT and what kind'? If the antags responsible for getting the ERT called aren't being cheesy as all hell and the situation isn't dire, we normally reject ERTs or put a delay on sending it. When they are just wrecking the station and causing mass amounts of chase or chaos, we can send one in quickly. The 'difficulty' of antag is partly based on how aggressive the antag is in the first place. We can adjust the difficulty by some degree in some cases (with example an ERT or SIT, to counter or help them).

Stating that just because someone gets to choose to get into the mid-round antag position and only has the knowledge of antags doesn't change something: They know WHERE the antags are or their plan or a combination of information. It doesn't stop them going after that antag or their base of operation or where they might have hidden something. It's still meta-knowledge, and the only difference in appearance (but it is still the same thing as an under concept) is it looks like a grudge instead of a valid hunt, but that's because YOU are also an antag. In essence, it's the exact same thing. You could be going after that person because they are an antag, but have plausible deniability because you are also an antag.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Twinmold

[Love-To-Hug]

Uh, you could be, but you'd be shooting yourself in the foot, since the antags doing well means the station is weaker for your takeover.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Love-To-Hug

[Twinmold]

Vice versa the antag doing well could lead them to easily taking you down if you don't hit them when the crew is still at it's strongest and able to fight them, too. Yeah, the crew will be going after you, too, but since they'll be split between two threats, it can make it easier for both sides and the fallout of the event means easier to take down the other antag before they can focus on you solely.

[Love-To-Hug]

This argument doesn't have a lot of weight because as it stands, this scenario you're describing basically never happens.

[Twinmold]

Nor does your side of the stance: It's a matter of perspective and intention by the players. If someone wants to screw over the antag, regardless of how they get back into the round they can do so, be it ERT or mid-round antag (with really the only exception being blob; some are just EASIER to do so, such as revenant). It's a matter of perspective of ERT being designed to be counter-antag (thus bring order) vs mid-round antag being strictly to increase entropy (thus bring chaos). How they go about doing so can hide many underlying intentions, such as meta-grudges, meta-knowledge use, and valid hunting via targeting specific people when you reasonably wouldn't go after them.