How Not to Be a Cock When Asking for a TC Trade

[bandit]

Recently there has been an uptick in people asking to trade their TCs for special items or powers. This can spice up a round. It can also make the admins want to murder you. So here is a quick guide on how not to be a cock while asking for a TC trade.

Don't ask the admins for shit you can make during the round.

TC trades are not a way to get around doing your job. If it can be made during the round -- especially if it can be made in the job you are assigned -- don't ask the admins to allow you to be lazy.

If the admin says "not this round," don't pester the admins.

In many cases there is IC information the admins cannot give out. Even if there isn't and the admin just doesn't feel like doing a TC trade, being an assclown about it is not likely to make them change their minds.

Asking for a TC trade every round produces diminishing returns.

A few people, and you know who you are, ask to trade TCs for special events literally every time they roll traitor. After a certain amount of trades it gets old and no longer spices up the round.

Your behavior in events and as a player in general affects how likely the admins are to trust you with TC trades.

Should be self explanatory but is... not.

Other administrators are free to add to this.

[Anonmare]

Don't ask for Wizard spells, or at the very least, don't ask for stuff like mindswap or fireball or any of the ridicolous robed spells. Wizard is a solo antag for 25+ pop for a reason.

Don't ask for Nuke OP guns or Pulse-based weapons.

[TechnoAlchemist]

If people want to trade away their TC to allow them to circumvent their job it's their loss TBH.

[Zilenan91]

Depends on what they get. I think denying a scientist a SABR roundstart is fine because you KNOW that all he'll do is go on a turbo-murder spree with it and nothing else.

[PKPenguin321]

i am sad that this thread was necessary

you'd hope that basic social skills or intuition would be enough

Don't ask for Wizard spells, or at the very least, don't ask for stuff like mindswap or fireball or any of the ridicolous robed spells. Wizard is a solo antag for 25+ pop for a reason.

Don't ask for Nuke OP guns or Pulse-based weapons.

i remember a round where admins gave a couple of traitors mindswap for their TCs, it was a fun round. it can be okay from time to time but very rarely and you shouldn't expect admins to just give it to you, since 99% they wont.

[Reece]

Best admin prayer I got answered was when I was monkeyfied and prayed to be turned into Reece Dempsey.
Name changed to Reece Dempsey, actually ended up saving me because the second genetics guy noticed my name and injected me back to human.

[Shaps-cloud]

fun tip: if you've prayed like 2-3 times and didn't get a response, you're probably not going to get what you want. We've had people pray every 30 seconds like clockwork for their trade upwards of eight or nine times before someone tells them flat out no. Admins can get really busy really quickly and answering prayers/setting up gimmicks is usually at the bottom of the priority list, so feel free to send a second prayer or even an ahelp if no one responded to your first request, but if you don't get anything back, understand that it's probably not happening.

[ShadowDimentio]

I trade crystals basically every time I roll traitor

I am the problem

[TheNightingale]

Sometimes I feel like doing solo nukeop/wizard gimmicks (you can usually trust me not to kill anyone, I'm a Bay-tier RP fan), but mostly if I'm wanting a TC trade it's because "oh god an unexpected thing happened can I swap {however many TCs I have left} for {something to escape the unexpected thing}".

Like that one time I got directly hit by a meteor whilst doing another objective, I swapped my TCs for changeling status to resurrect out of it.

[Zilenan91]

I trade to be a spider sometimes. Make a maint layer, kill people, it's fun stuff.

[Saegrimr]

I'm not particularly creative so I hate when people ask for a TC trade and not have something in mind they want to do.

[Zilenan91]

I once was a ling and prayed for admins to do something fun. Loller asked if I wanted to have Jungle Fever and then everything was monkies and it was hilarious.

[lumipharon]

Gib wiznerd pl0x

[imblyings]

You can trade for a lot of things, not just rev or morph

items, var-edits, fake centcom announcements, abductor teams, var-edited spells, spells, anything basically that I can spawn or var-edit without crashing the server/in a reasonable time frame/without being deadminned, about the only rule is that 20 tc usually won't buy you anything more effective than 20 tc of uplink items unless you're a creative man

we probably like creative things rather than tc trade requests for items that are for outright killing

sometimes we will be ok with giving you OP roles or items but these will come with restrictions, for example, I might give bloodcrawl to someone on low pop but they won't be able to murderbone. Usually players are good about this and understand, and just use bloodcrawl to be annoying/spooky.

[Saegrimr]

Hell just last night I traded a wizard's apprentice to turn him into a heavily var edited basilisk that looked like a floating ice skull that shot the ice beams everywhere.

[firecage]

For some reason it feels like this thread is very specifically directed towards me.

[Steelpoint]

Wait why is it disliked for a traitor to trade in their telecrystals to get a item that could have been acquired through job progression (aka: RnD)?

I mean they're trading telecrystals for it.

[bandit]

Wait why is it disliked for a traitor to trade in their telecrystals to get a item that could have been acquired through job progression (aka: RnD)?

I mean they're trading telecrystals for it.

Because it removes all semblance that the game is a game and not a glorified griff lottery. Part of this is admittedly a pet peeve -- the shift away from using the station itself as a tool to being able to buy anything and everything from your uplink is IMO one of the worst design shifts -- but part of it is common sense. It's far more interesting when traitors at least attempt to be part of the round itself.

[Steelpoint]

So a player requesting a bloodcrawl ability (with limitations) is fine but asking for a Laser Cannon is not?

I guess it is a pet peeve because outside of absurd overpowered items (like Phazons or something) I don't see a issue with someone spending TC's to get a higher tier RnD item.

Sure, its not exactly lore friendly (why are we researching something if it already exists (aka: all items in RnD)) but we've never been held to lore on /tg/.

[Cheimon]

fun tip: if you've prayed like 2-3 times and didn't get a response, you're probably not going to get what you want. We've had people pray every 30 seconds like clockwork for their trade upwards of eight or nine times before someone tells them flat out no. Admins can get really busy really quickly and answering prayers/setting up gimmicks is usually at the bottom of the priority list, so feel free to send a second prayer or even an ahelp if no one responded to your first request, but if you don't get anything back, understand that it's probably not happening.

A straightforward 'no' is very helpful. If I'm praying, I have no idea if anybody is listening or not (or, indeed, have simply missed it). That actually just made me adminhelp instead, because at least that can be flat-out rejected.

[Shaps-cloud]

fun tip: if you've prayed like 2-3 times and didn't get a response, you're probably not going to get what you want. We've had people pray every 30 seconds like clockwork for their trade upwards of eight or nine times before someone tells them flat out no. Admins can get really busy really quickly and answering prayers/setting up gimmicks is usually at the bottom of the priority list, so feel free to send a second prayer or even an ahelp if no one responded to your first request, but if you don't get anything back, understand that it's probably not happening.

A straightforward 'no' is very helpful. If I'm praying, I have no idea if anybody is listening or not (or, indeed, have simply missed it). That actually just made me adminhelp instead, because at least that can be flat-out rejected.

Like I said, we try to be quick and respond to you ASAP, but when we're dealing with lots of ahelps, having someone spamming prayers really isn't helping.v

So a player requesting a bloodcrawl ability (with limitations) is fine but asking for a Laser Cannon is not?

I guess it is a pet peeve because outside of absurd overpowered items (like Phazons or something) I don't see a issue with someone spending TC's to get a higher tier RnD item.

Sure, its not exactly lore friendly (why are we researching something if it already exists (aka: all items in RnD)) but we've never been held to lore on /tg/.

Bloodcrawl is a controversial one that really varies from admin to admin, I don't really like giving it out personally after I mistakenly gave it to tsar once, but someone else might

[Zilenan91]

Bloodcrawl is too much power for traitors to have. As is any wizard mobility spell, they're all just too abusable.

[John_Oxford]

it'd be neat if there was a little tab at the bottom that let you trade 20 tc for unique things

instead of a admin using var's to give you a timestop spell, you could use 20 tc to buy a pocket watch than when activated, stopped time.

or instead of asking a admin for a central command annoucement, you could be given a little pda chip that opened up a tab to make central command annoucements.

or if you wanted to be a cuck and buy research levels with your 20 tc, you could buy research disks containing levels on them.

[Venticular]

Bloodcrawl is too much power for traitors to have. As is any wizard mobility spell, they're all just too abusable.

One time I saw a traitor with blood crawl and an E-Sword. Thing is, blood crawl + any weapon = easy mode murderbone.
The more people you kill, the more blood. The more blood, the easier it is to kill people.
There needs to be a maximum amount of power a traitor can receive with 20 TC.

[TheNightingale]

or instead of asking a admin for a central command annoucement, you could be given a little pda chip that opened up a tab to make central command annoucements.

Traitors being able to make Central Command announcements would be great. Maybe add it as an option for emagging a comms console ("Fake a message"?).

[Anonmare]

I hnaded out Bloodcrawl for 20 TCs (taking the whole uplink for it seeme reasonable to me) and they didn't murder anyone so I didn't have to worry about it blowing up in my face.

I'd only give players that level of player if I could trust them or afford to keep an eye on them the whole time tbh.

[Venticular]

I hnaded out Bloodcrawl for 20 TCs (taking the whole uplink for it seeme reasonable to me) and they didn't murder anyone so I didn't have to worry about it blowing up in my face.

I'd only give players that level of player if I could trust them or afford to keep an eye on them the whole time tbh.

Really, it depends on the player.
I'm just saying, giving blood crawl to the wrong person could turn out very badly.

[Ricotez]

I remember when a player begged for create cult floor so they could turn the station into cult floor and then decided that clearly the admin intended for them to use that spell to pave all of space instead

[Cheimon]

it'd be neat if there was a little tab at the bottom that let you trade 20 tc for unique things

instead of a admin using var's to give you a timestop spell, you could use 20 tc to buy a pocket watch than when activated, stopped time.

or instead of asking a admin for a central command annoucement, you could be given a little pda chip that opened up a tab to make central command annoucements.

or if you wanted to be a cuck and buy research levels with your 20 tc, you could buy research disks containing levels on them.

At that point though, if they're coded in they are functionally just 20 tc items, and should be made into the game as such. Trades exist because they are of uncertain balance, and whether an admin wants to do it will vary from round to round.

[IcePacks]

How not to be a cock

interesting concept

[J_Madison]

Can recall and blood crawl be de facto excluded please?

Someone decided to trade 20 TC for blood crawl, recall item, and Esword. It was so fucking stupid.

[TheNightingale]

Giving people cool stuff shouldn't be discouraged; what they use it for should. You can do some really fun stuff with bloodcrawl, like being a spooky demon, popping up in front of someone, and shouting "BOO!!". Recall isn't inherently bad either; using it for stealing people's bags is classic. The real problem is people using these fun things for non-fun purposes.

Give someone an M1911-P (infinite pulse/laser/taser pistol)? Sure. But they can't use it for killing people, only for ruining the exterior walls and making Engineering have a bad time. How about Ei Nath and a sleeping carp scroll? Absolutely, but they can only Ei Nath people they beat in honourable, fair single combat.

Don't just go yes or no to things - does the resident murderboner fan want an L6 and adrenals? They don't get the L6, but they do get a donksoft LMG - and instructions to minimise casualties! The Xenobiologist wants a staff of change? Of course - but a magical striketeam has been sent to recover it, and they need to defend Xenobiology against a wave of magical apprentices and wizard simple-mobs.

[bandit]

OK, to balance out the salt, here is a example of a good TC trade.

Daisy Holmes was growing a fuckton of bluespace bananas as is her style, and filling the hallways with them. No one bit. (pun not intended) So she traded all her TCs for the admins to make the entire station population starving, forcing everyone to stuff themselves on the bananas, get shitfaced drunk from the reagents, and slip everywhere.

[MimicFaux]

One of my favourite trades was when one player traded to be the pilot for the infiltrator during a nuke ops round.
The only caveat being they weren't allowed to leave the ship, they took to the role remarkably well. Playing the role of part taxicab, part navigator. In the end, just being at the steering wheel proved instrumental for helping his teammates after bad firefights scattered them.

[DemonFiren]

That's the ops job I generally volunteer for.
Because it keeps me out of combat, unrobust faggot that I am.

Oh, right.
[youtube]EOQcnliEjXM[/youtube]

[Jacough]

I had a good round once where I played a retarded detective named Doofus and prayed to trade my revolver with a cap gun because "mom says I'm not allowed to play with real guns". Went around shooting at criminals and screaming "BANG BANG BANG!!"

[calzilla1]

I ask for tator shop every time
It's surprising how many people try to fuck with the shop and how little customers i get

[Qbopper]

I'm glad this thread was made - I'm personally seeing a lot of people actually being annoyed with admins for not doing TC trades. No one is owed a TC trade, nor are admins obliged to give them - if you ask for one and it happens, that's awesome, but don't expect TC trades. It just leads to people getting pissy when an admin misses their pray/doesn't want to give a TC trade at that moment, and I'm seeing it enough that I'm starting to consider making a list in notepad of "people I'm never going to TC trade". TC trades are a way to make the round more interesting, not a god given right for you to get something you want RIGHT NOW. (the best part is if the initial request gets missed and the player assumes we're just ignoring them to generate sodium for some reason)

In addition to the OP, if you're dead, don't get pissy when we say "no you can't TC trade". You're dead.

[cedarbridge]

I consider 5 things (sometimes others) when determining if I'll grant a TC trade.


1) Do I find the trade interesting?
I like to use myself as a yardstick for trades because I spend a lot of time watching rounds. If I think it would be interesting to watch the antag play with whatever it is they requested I give some presumption to other ghosts enjoying the spectacle. This is also why I've never made xenos because I really just don't enjoy them as a concept though other admins may grant a trade for it. I've done abductors fairly often and a very rare devil trade though.
2) Does the trade add something interesting or meta breaking to the round?
I really like mixing antag types. I'm a big fan of any sort of TC trade meeting my other criteria that changes the traitor's role entirely from "another traitor with an esword" to an abductor team or a solo op, or whatever. Given the right circumstances I might be receptive to spawning a blob in a traitor round just to entirely throw off the meta of "ITS <antag type here>!" This is also the stage where I consider whether other players would consider interacting with the trade to be fair/interesting. Antag shouldn't be a griff lottery where everyone salivates at rolling it because "now I get to have fun for once" The antag is the centerpiece of the round because interacting with them should be as interesting as playing them.
3) Will grating the trade break the round in some way?
I grant devil extremely sparingly because it can spiral out of control very quickly and only a handful know how to stop it. I don't rush to tamper with bombcaps because even a single overcap bomb can decimate a chunk of the station. I'll always consider the effect of giving one antag something that the others won't be able to match or counter just because they didn't convince me first.
4) Is the trade a novel idea?
"admuns gib xeno plz kkkk" I once gave a traitor two golden desert eagle pistols with spare mags for their TCs because I thought their edgy Columbine lizard gimmick was funny enough and thought through enough to justify. If you're praying for the same thing every round, don't expect it to happen.
5) Will the headmins launch me into the sun for granting this trade?
There's obviously certain things that are just off limits like megafauna and possessing the singulo. Don't ask and players should know when those sorts of things are clearly out of the realm of reason.

Other considerations are: when is the trade proposed? Start of round/20 minutes in/etc, does the trade involve other players directly into the fun? Abductors and borers are great for this because it shares the fun with others and makes for fun interaction.

Just a few thoughts on the matter.

[oranges]

protip you can spam the pray verb in the chatbar by pressing CTRL + UP and ENTER

Admins hate this.

[cedarbridge]

protip you can spam the pray verb in the chatbar by pressing CTRL + UP and ENTER

Admins hate this.

protip the admins have a smite button for this

[Cobby]

Someone asked for a bunch of ravenous, player controlled cows to stampede the station once.

Moo!

[oranges]

protip you can spam the pray verb in the chatbar by pressing CTRL + UP and ENTER

Admins hate this.

protip the admins have a smite button for this

they cant' push it because the chat scrolls too fast for them.

[Anonmare]

protip you can spam the pray verb in the chatbar by pressing CTRL + UP and ENTER

Admins hate this.

protip the admins have a smite button for this

they cant' push it because the chat scrolls too fast for them.

>Not using the player panel to mute them long enough for you to make the chat stand still to smite them
Gee oranges, I never knew you were so unrobust

[Qbopper]

protip you can spam the pray verb in the chatbar by pressing CTRL + UP and ENTER

Admins hate this.

protip the admins have a smite button for this

they cant' push it because the chat scrolls too fast for them.

>underestimating my lighting hands
>assuming we won't just mute you/punish you because it's difficult to click a smite button

[Arianya]

I once asked for a TC trade for "either fireball or voice of god I guess"

I got both.

It was a fun round.

I killed Bryce Pax.

[cedarbridge]

I once asked for a TC trade for "either fireball or voice of god I guess"

I got both.

It was a fun round.

I killed Bryce Pax.

Several years ago I remember a TC trade for fireball and a bunch of minor var edits with an appropriate costume for an antag player named Sagat. He still got dunked but watching him run down the hall kicking people and screaming TIGER! before getting caught was quality stuff.

[Bolien]

Is the proper way to ask for a trade via ahelp or prayer?

[captain sawrge]

Is the proper way to ask for a trade via ahelp or prayer?

Don't ask for it 9 times, don't ask for something stupid, don't just TC trade with nothing in mind in hopes that the admin will have something planned for you instead.

Other than that just say whatever

[killerx09]

I once asked for a trade to become a sentient one potency banana peel.

An admin told me it wasn't possible.