/tg/Station 13

This is to discuss things like BoH bombing/toxins bombing/delamming SM to deal with antagonists as the first course of action. Such as delamming the SM to deny clock cult power, bombing a wizard as he appears, confiscating PDAs/radios/pens during random searches in case of traitors and so on.

My personal opinion is that it's really fucking shitty to do any of the above as your first course of action, since it's just unfun and powergaming is a cancerous blight that ought to be exorcised. We're supposed to be maintaining at least a flimsy veneer of IC/OOC knowledge separation.

This is just like lowpop murderboning, isn't it.
Everyone knows it's shitty, everyone agrees it's shitty, but nothing is being done about it.

Bombing wizards doesn't seem like that much of an extreme because good luck catching him.

Saegrimr wrote:Bombing wizards doesn't seem like that much of an extreme because good luck catching him.

I think the situation OP was referring to involves wizards that haven't wrought any havoc yet. AKA, bombing friendly wizards (admittedly, cancer vs cancer) or stealth/nonlethal wizards (as if).

non-antagonists are not allowed to pre-emptively search for, hinder or otherwise seek conflict with antagonists without reasonable prior cause.

edit: in particular, if sec are randomsearching and confiscating headsets, PDAs and pens in case there might be traitors then that's a pretty fucking cut-and-dry violation of the above

You listed a bunch of different actions against a bunch of different threats, can't really give a blanket statement on that.

Using bombs against antags are okay if you do your best to avoid collateral, and the antag was likely to cause more damage than your bomb does.

Security can't randomly take possible uplink spawns in random searches, that is straight up metagaming and bannable and ruins the whole round.

Blowing up the engine is dumb as hell but we're fixing that being a viable way to fight clock cult with a code solution anyway.

Kor wrote:Security can't randomly take possible uplink spawns in random searches, that is straight up metagaming and bannable and ruins the whole round.

But to what extent? I had been arrested for breaking into the lawyer's office to grab his suit, and this shit happened to me when I got arrested, but when I ahelped about it, I was told it was a valid tactic. Is this action alright if you arrest a guy for "Failure to Disperse"?

CosmicScientist wrote:woo! I was getting bored with no policy threads!

I can't find it on the wiki's rules but I thought bombing a wizard was bannable if it did kill anyone else. I guess that was just naught but rumour.

I also assumed metagaming, such as confiscating uplink items without confirming tator status was something you could be bwoinked about, maybe near the level of "I'm polyaciding my gun, the HoS' gun, the blueprints and the RCD!"

I would assume delaminating the SM would be foul play in that you can kill someone and you will be directly causing a shuttle call due to the damage caused. And you can just not have the SM running, shut it down, package it up, send it back to Centcom or if not possible, guard it. Yaknow, something fun because blowing it up isn't helping the corporation! That's expensive!


If there is an IC excuse, "someone told me to do this", "I gathered all the heads of staff around in a meeting and we decided on this and made a captain's announcement", then it might be fine or if the orders were from a superior, then it'll be on their head instead. I imagine the sentence I just said depends too much on context to be policy.

The bombing rule you're thinking of is that it's ok if the round ends via your bombing, if you bomb the wizard killing 4 nonantags and he gets away you're in trouble afaik. Im pretty sure there's something in headmin rulings about it but I may be misremembering

delamming the SM to deny clock cult power, bombing a wizard as he appears, confiscating PDAs/radios/pens during random searches in case of traitors and so on.

They're not the same situation so putting it under a blanket and treating it equally is faulty at best and stupid at worst.

There's been bans in the past for people trying to self immolate trying to kill a wizard and failing to do so.
(https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6613)

People get noted (I hope) or talked down to when searching or confiscating for no reason, but if you get arrested during a traitor round you shouldn't be surprised if your innocence is non-secure anymore.

Delaminating the SM or deconstructing the SMES units after a clock cult is confirmed shouldn't be bannable, it is a fault of the gamemode design and not the players caught in said gamemode. It's not being done "just in case," it's being done because it is a mutual crippling move that takes the clock cult down to a fairer fighting chance for the crew. Just like people aren't banned for securing cargo and chair cuffing non implanted personnel during revolution or brigging and make possible cult targets chug holy water until they have more of it in their system than blood.

Banning people for refusing to lay down peacefully to the antagonists kills the organic, non forced stories that sometimes happen on this server.

I'm not up to date on the latest in clock cult meta, so correct me if I'm wrong, but is straight up delaminating the SM the only way to deny them power, as opposed to cutting wires or APC stuff?

You can run around crowbaring APCs to counter them but if you just turn them all off entirely they're crippled and can't do shit about it

RandolfTheMeh wrote:

Kor wrote:Security can't randomly take possible uplink spawns in random searches, that is straight up metagaming and bannable and ruins the whole round.

But to what extent? I had been arrested for breaking into the lawyer's office to grab his suit, and this shit happened to me when I got arrested, but when I ahelped about it, I was told it was a valid tactic. Is this action alright if you arrest a guy for "Failure to Disperse"?

I don't think breaking into non secure areas is grounds for taking pens/headsets etc. If someone tried to murder someone else it might be appropriate.

CosmicScientist wrote:Metagaming traitor uplinks might be prevented by making the uplink not a sole item. I don't know if you can access your TC shop on any PDA with your code but that might be an idea. Another idea might be tying the TC shop to a necessary to function as normal crew item, such as an ID card, though I don't know how that would work given that they're just data laden cards, not communication devices. Though if the solution went as far as a permanent uplink implant, whether or not it remained with you after death, then that would remove counter play or interaction from security.

I could be overthinking that since whilst not necessarily fun, if you lose your pocket shop, oh well, think of another solution or write that round off as a loss. Maybe you should have just played better.

So without a solution, taking mundane stuff because they could be uplinks because the owner could be a traitor is boooring. Especially when the only crew members who will want that stuff back are traitors.

the uplink implant exists to be a thing that can't be taken off you even in perma, but maybe this could be solved by making uplinks craftable out of some relatively common item like a signaler or something, and setting it to the right code/frequency is what's important. Sec still won't have people busting out of the brig with a 1tc toolbox since presumably they'll have checked the guy's pockets for signalers, but it'll no longer be effective for them to strip potentially-uplink items from people they aren't 100% certain are traitors (and let's face it, if they're 100% certain, they'd do a lot more than just take their PDA)

Kor wrote: Blowing up the engine is dumb as hell but we're fixing that being a viable way to fight clock cult with a code solution anyway.

I actually have an idea for that. Make it so that when the engine is destroyed on clock cult it ends the round and says that its a playerbase major victory because we narrowly avoided having to play clock cult

Wyzack wrote:

Kor wrote: Blowing up the engine is dumb as hell but we're fixing that being a viable way to fight clock cult with a code solution anyway.

I actually have an idea for that. Make it so that when the engine is destroyed on clock cult it ends the round and says that its a playerbase major victory because we narrowly avoided having to play clock cult

Clock cult being removed would be a playerbase major victory.

Anyway here's my opinions on everything itt

Taking traitor uplink items with no evidence they're a traitor: No.

Suicide bombing wizards: Valid

BoH bombing cults: IC issue

Suicide bombing friendly wizards: Twice as valid as a hostile wizard

Delamming SM on clock cult: It can't make the round any worse.

Contrary to popular belief there is such a thing as a powergaming ban

kevinz000 wrote:Contrary to popular belief there is such a thing as a powergaming ban

(74 bans in the db with 'powergam'* in them.

*Covers powergame/powergaming

Regarding the pen uplink, you may want to give the Mime, Lawyer and Clown pens back in their PDA slot at roundstart. As of right now if you are any of those 3 roles and have a pen uplink, it spawns in your bag due to there being a crayon/fountain pen in the PDA at roundstart.

I never acted on knowing this, nor had someone act on this information against me, but If I checked a Mime/Clown/Lawyer's PDA and found a regular pen, I would be very suspicious.

If you check someone's PDA pen for being a sleepy pen or e dagger without having a very good reason to think they're a Syndicate™ brand antag then you're a massive turd. May as well take off every window breaker's shoes and check them for thick soles at that point.

cmspano wrote:If you check someone's PDA pen for being a sleepy pen or e dagger without having a very good reason to think they're a Syndicate™ brand antag then you're a massive turd. May as well take off every window breaker's shoes and check them for thick soles at that point.

If I'm already checking their PDA for a uplink and messages, I might as well check the pen too. I also check headsets for syndie and binary keys, and shoes for no-slips. I do thorough searches, not half-assed ones.

Had our cult base in vacant office maxcapped today within a couple minutes of us being discovered, we had only converted one person (and lost one) so bombing arrivals to try and shut down a nascent cult seems to fit the bill for people going balls out on antags.

Oldman Robustin wrote:Had our cult base in vacant office maxcapped today within a couple minutes of us being discovered, we had only converted one person (and lost one) so bombing arrivals to try and shut down a nascent cult seems to fit the bill for people going balls out on antags.

Says the person who uses voice activated suicide maxcaps versus nuke ops.

Hathkar wrote:

cmspano wrote:If you check someone's PDA pen for being a sleepy pen or e dagger without having a very good reason to think they're a Syndicate™ brand antag then you're a massive turd. May as well take off every window breaker's shoes and check them for thick soles at that point.

If I'm already checking their PDA for a uplink and messages, I might as well check the pen too. I also check headsets for syndie and binary keys, and shoes for no-slips. I do thorough searches, not half-assed ones.

Checking the PDA for incriminating messages is completely reasonable, checking headsets for illegal keys when you have no reason to think they're not just some dickhead who shoved the clown is acting like a giant turd.

Getting your jollies by low-effort redtexting a syndie because they broke a window while having a syndicate key in their headset is like faking an orgasm when masturbating, sad and pointless.

cmspano wrote:

Hathkar wrote:

cmspano wrote:If you check someone's PDA pen for being a sleepy pen or e dagger without having a very good reason to think they're a Syndicate™ brand antag then you're a massive turd. May as well take off every window breaker's shoes and check them for thick soles at that point.

If I'm already checking their PDA for a uplink and messages, I might as well check the pen too. I also check headsets for syndie and binary keys, and shoes for no-slips. I do thorough searches, not half-assed ones.

Checking the PDA for incriminating messages is completely reasonable, checking headsets for illegal keys when you have no reason to think they're not just some dickhead who shoved the clown is acting like a giant turd.

Getting your jollies by low-effort redtexting a syndie because they broke a window while having a syndicate key in their headset is like faking an orgasm when masturbating, sad and pointless.

I should clarify. I don't search for petty crimes like window smashing or clown pushing, I search when I the person is being particularly suspicious (Wearing a gas mask with no ID, weapons like a fireaxe/gun, constantly resisting questioning/arrest). Y'know, the actual signs of being a bad person with malicious intent.

I used to have a bad habit of checking for thermals.

I think I did it more because I wanted thermals as sec again.

Incomptinence wrote:I used to have a bad habit of checking for thermals.

I think I did it more because I wanted thermals as sec again.

I won't lie, I'm guilty of doing this. I've caught a number of traitors who I just strip for their gear,hit them a couple of times, and then throw them out of the back security airlock into maintenance.

Durkel wrote:

Incomptinence wrote:I used to have a bad habit of checking for thermals.

I think I did it more because I wanted thermals as sec again.

I won't lie, I'm guilty of doing this. I've caught a number of traitors who I just strip for their gear,hit them a couple of times, and then throw them out of the back security airlock into maintenance.

Sec like you are actually a great thing to have. You limit the damage a traitor can do without removing them from the round and making them boring.

Honestly confiscation and release needs to be done more often.

Checking PDAs should be a natural process for a criminal, PDA messages should be included in the search. If the person in question has left their uplink active more fool them.

Checking a headset for keys without reasonable suspicion is pretty crappy. Stealing PDAs and headsets and pens without reasonable suspicion is shitty.

I'll hold my hands up as cancer.
If I get you and I've had to chase for more than a few minutes or you've done anything but complied 100% then I'm doing a full pat down check of every nook and cranny, and if you complain you're getting surgically searched then taggedfor good measure.