Fortifying departments w/o provication

[kieth4]

Should they be able to do it? Should they not? If they should be able to, how much shit justifies a proper reinforcement?

[warbluke]

Do you mean just dragging the stationary flasher in the sec airlock? I've never seen anyone really fortify more than that unless you count cargo setting up sandbags for a guncargo gimmick.

[Higgin]

I'm inclined to say yes, and even if we were to say no, barely any.

Being able to change the environment you play in is no small part of the fun of this game. A lot of things are built-in with vulnerabilities meant to be exploited or used, and people less obviously trying to play around them is always happening even if there is as of yet no confirmed threat in the round.

Some setups take longer than if you wait until they're relevant. For instance, upgrading med with regular tables and more surgery computers is not something you start doing after three dead assistants get rolled in needing revival. If they're alive and fighting, more bodies come in behind, or if somebody comes after you and tries to tableshove you in the Treatment Center, you'll wish you'd done it beforehand. Is that fortifying without foreknowledge? Sort of, yes.
.
Generally this never comes up because medical isn't involved as often in direct conflict and competition with antagonists over their targets. Still, it probably means some targets survived that would have not if med just sat around waiting. Is this hindrance?

More often it comes up connected to security reinforcing the brig or engineering making sabo-proof SM/atmos setups.

In both cases, it's against the current rules specifically under

...

Crewmembers are not allowed to pre-emptively search for, hinder, or otherwise seek conflict with antagonists without reasonable cause to do so. Otherwise, they may handle antagonists in any way they wish, provided they understand that their actions may be punished by Space Law if given IC cause.

...

and

Atmos techs are not allowed to edit atmos at roundstart so that the AI cannot use it for malicious purposes. While this might not make sense IC, it's a necessary OOC precedent for some game mechanics to work. Atmos techs are allowed if they have any reasonable suspicion of the AI being rogue.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no perfect defense, and the time spent on imperfect prep is time not spent elsewhere. If you choose to do it without foreknowledge, you're gambling that what you choose to do with your time will pay off - and even then. I've seen people turn the frontend of the brig into the fucking Stalin Line only for somebody with an emag (at the time) and C-4 to totally crack the whole thing open through maints.

It's more respectful of player choice and keeps the game more fresh if we let people try to do dumb countermeasures and play adaptively to them, imo. I'd be content to say that a non-green threat advisory is probably good enough grounds to start taking precautions - your character's just heard that today might be a bumpy ride, what do they do (or try) to help them cope?

If the problem is dominant strategies for protecting against trouble, they should make themselves visible for a nerf or other changes pretty quickly - otherwise, we could stand to lose a lot of the freedom and chance to play responsively if we push out the boundaries of asking "does X event justify Y prep?" to include more other kinds of prep behavior. Getting meds before a fight has happened, tools before a disaster strikes -

There's a lot of stuff that can't be easily justified to a concrete reason within each round that instead rests on a general understanding of what you might need to deal with. Fortification and target-hardening among those to me seem like some of the easier ones to bust open and much less common than the rest, so I have a hard time saying they should be disallowed any more than they are now.

[dendydoom]

my thoughts as i posted in bus have always been that i find the game is at its best and offers the best experiences when rounds are self contained.

a bored warden coming into a windfall of resources and going "we've had a few prisoners so far, i'm going to reinforce the brig" is fine to me.

a hos who has to deal with a tider early into the round telling the warden to reinforce the brig based on something that actually happened in that round is fine to me.

a secoff who thinks "john shitter is on the manifest and 4 weeks ago he kept tiding into the brig so now whenever i see him online i reinforce the brig" without any inciting incident that round is breaking the rules in my eyes.

your reasoning and motivation should be sourced from the current round. we've always discouraged overt speculation and hypotheticals for this kind of "prep."

[Higgin]

a secoff who thinks "john shitter is on the manifest and 4 weeks ago he kept tiding into the brig so now whenever i see him online i reinforce the brig" without any inciting incident that round is breaking the rules in my eyes.

your reasoning and motivation should be sourced from the current round. we've always discouraged overt speculation and hypotheticals for this kind of "prep."

some of my fears with policing this stuff back is that
1. we end up restricting it when it might be harmless or actually make the game more interesting for the people involved - you get a different setup to break into every round. While the story might be self-contained, I think the evolution of methods across rounds is a big part of what makes this fun as a game.
and
2.in the case of somebody responding to "x is gonna be a shitter and make my life difficult no matter what their antag status is," we might be punishing what is only a natural response from somebody getting persistently griefed.

the problem i've run into in this genre elsewhere was roundstart prisoners using botany to fuck up the brig or lead wild goose chases every. single. round.

security, in turn, confiscated the seeds and equipment they were using to do so.

the prisoner in turn found other ways to act out, both parties ended up ahelping, I had to sit them down to say
"you each shouldn't feel like you have to do this, you (security) shouldn't be preenptively jacking their shit so they can't do anything, and you're (the evil botanist prisoner main) not entitled to self-antagging as a prisoner."

That was a very hard pill for them to swallow. if the reason for fortification is mostly tiders, I think we would take caution not to look at the fortification as itself a problem so much as a symptom of other problems felt by the players doing the fortifying.

I don't really have a problem with it (fortification*, not tiding, to be clear,) when the actions are constrained and defensive (as opposed to say, raiding tool storage, engi, using all the station's mats on Fort Doom) - but I think it's fair to say there's something "there" there if people feel the need to do it reflexively every round.

My impression (with the brig and tiders at least) is that it's sort of a chicken-and-egg thing. You build a brig to defy God, tiders try to break it down or crack it open, one side eventually gets tired of the campaign every round or doesn't like the odds they're looking at, we end up here.

For the purposes of rule 4, tiders aren't antags though.

[dendydoom]

some of my fears with policing this stuff back is that
1. we end up restricting it when it might be harmless or actually make the game more interesting for the people involved - you get a different setup to break into every round. While the story might be self-contained, I think the evolution of methods across rounds is a big part of what makes this fun as a game.
and
2.in the case of somebody responding to "x is gonna be a shitter and make my life difficult no matter what their antag status is," we might be punishing what is only a natural response from somebody getting persistently griefed.

the problem i've run into in this genre elsewhere was roundstart prisoners using botany to fuck up the brig or lead wild goose chases every. single. round.

security, in turn, confiscated the seeds and equipment they were using to do so.

the prisoner in turn found other ways to act out, both parties ended up ahelping, I had to sit them down to say
"you each shouldn't feel like you have to do this, you (security) shouldn't be preenptively jacking their shit so they can't do anything, and you're (the evil botanist prisoner main) not entitled to self-antagging as a prisoner."

That was a very hard pill for them to swallow. if the reason for fortification is mostly tiders, I think we would take caution not to look at the fortification as itself a problem so much as a symptom of other problems felt by the players doing the fortifying.

I don't really have a problem with it (fortification*, not tiding, to be clear,) when the actions are constrained and defensive (as opposed to say, raiding tool storage, engi, using all the station's mats on Fort Doom) - but I think it's fair to say there's something "there" there if people feel the need to do it reflexively every round.

My impression (with the brig and tiders at least) is that it's sort of a chicken-and-egg thing. You build a brig to defy God, tiders try to break it down or crack it open, one side eventually gets tired of the campaign every round or doesn't like the odds they're looking at, we end up here.

For the purposes of rule 4, tiders aren't antags though.

this will get a little off-topic because it goes into the reasoning behind this sort of enforcement entirely.

my aim (and the aim of many others in this regard) is to try and keep people in a specific sort of mindset when approaching the game. our role ultimately is to preserve the best game space possible to encourage better rounds of ss13. i personally believe this is done when players approach the game from an IC mindset and use IC motivations as much as possible to drive their actions.

when people use "this person is a shitter" as motivation for IC action, then in reality they are not participating in a roleplaying game in good faith - they're playing defensively in quite a passive-aggressive way in order to combat some perceived offense that's wholly OOC. this undermines the integrity of our game and the efforts of players who engage ICly. players are not the arbiters of roleplay and do not decide when it does and doesn't apply.

there are lots of rules we can use to both ignore the rules or enforce them more strictly if it encourages better games. on mrp in particular, repeated use of gimmicks/mechanics that were enjoyable once but quickly overstay their welcome can be stopped by admins if it's making the game bad. outside of this in the regular ruleset, intentionally making the game unfun for others in a way that also contributes nothing yourself and without appropriate motivation is against the rules: this idea of "grief." there are lots of tools available to investigate, correct or remove players who are intentionally making the game an unfun place to participate in.

i do not personally agree with a self-policing attitude to the degree that players are making IC choices based on OOC dislike of another player if that player has done nothing to warrant it ICly in that round. if a player doesn't like someone then i'm in full support of working with them to make sure they see as little of each other as possible. but in many cases they don't have the full story or oversight that admins do, are emotionally involved in the situation and more often than not want the other player wiped from the face of the earth for their transgressions. this is sometimes necessary, but more often than not it is a disproportionate response.

our method here is to build a pattern of behaviour for a player that isn't engaging with the game properly, so that we can address it proportionately. a player will sometimes ahelp someone, then see them still playing the next round, and assume nothing was done. without knowing whether or not this is true or even the full context for the situation, they choose to take it into their own hands.

rarely are players actually evil and set on ruining the game entirely for everyone around them. often it's simply a miscommunication or a mismatch in expectations between players which leads to hurt feelings that are unreconciled and festers into resentment. this is not a good basis for someone to fairly consider the situation and make informed decisions in order to resolve it. if nothing else, it simply perpetuates it. i would like to discourage use of our game as the arena for these OOC altercations to take place, even if sometimes it can unintentionally lead to some interesting interactions.

[Higgin]

this will get a little off-topic because it goes into the reasoning behind this sort of enforcement entirely.

my aim (and the aim of many others in this regard) is to try and keep people in a specific sort of mindset when approaching the game. our role ultimately is to preserve the best game space possible to encourage better rounds of ss13. i personally believe this is done when players approach the game from an IC mindset and use IC motivations as much as possible to drive their actions.

when people use "this person is a shitter" as motivation for IC action, then in reality they are not participating in a roleplaying game in good faith - they're playing defensively in quite a passive-aggressive way in order to combat some perceived offense that's wholly OOC. this undermines the integrity of our game and the efforts of players who engage ICly. players are not the arbiters of roleplay and do not decide when it does and doesn't apply.

there are lots of rules we can use to both ignore the rules or enforce them more strictly if it encourages better games. on mrp in particular, repeated use of gimmicks/mechanics that were enjoyable once but quickly overstay their welcome can be stopped by admins if it's making the game bad. outside of this in the regular ruleset, intentionally making the game unfun for others in a way that also contributes nothing yourself and without appropriate motivation is against the rules: this idea of "grief." there are lots of tools available to investigate, correct or remove players who are intentionally making the game an unfun place to participate in.

i do not personally agree with a self-policing attitude to the degree that players are making IC choices based on OOC dislike of another player if that player has done nothing to warrant it ICly in that round. if a player doesn't like someone then i'm in full support of working with them to make sure they see as little of each other as possible. but in many cases they don't have the full story or oversight that admins do, are emotionally involved in the situation and more often than not want the other player wiped from the face of the earth for their transgressions. this is sometimes necessary, but more often than not it is a disproportionate response.

our method here is to build a pattern of behaviour for a player that isn't engaging with the game properly, so that we can address it proportionately. a player will sometimes ahelp someone, then see them still playing the next round, and assume nothing was done. without knowing whether or not this is true or even the full context for the situation, they choose to take it into their own hands.

rarely are players actually evil and set on ruining the game entirely for everyone around them. often it's simply a miscommunication or a mismatch in expectations between players which leads to hurt feelings that are unreconciled and festers into resentment. this is not a good basis for someone to fairly consider the situation and make informed decisions in order to resolve it. if nothing else, it simply perpetuates it. i would like to discourage use of our game as the arena for these OOC altercations to take place, even if sometimes it can unintentionally lead to some interesting interactions.

so if I follow, the requirement of a specific IC warrant of some sort within the round for an escalation from the roundstart "status quo" is important here because,

if there is genuine OOC grief, it gives each party a chance to step back down either with counseling from staff, or if they have a less shitty day than they were when there was a problem, or if they have some sort of rapprochement with the people they see as their OOC demons before the next time they play.

am I getting at the philosophy with that? I hadn't really considered the 'reconciliation' part of it - it's been my experience that these images otherwise intensify, and the people who hold them end up treating others who are uninvolved and may have much gentler expectations of how the world works according to a much harsher script (in the security example: harsher sentences, more lethals, etc.)



is it possible to have good-spirited prep and fortification that doesn't draw upon a specific IC warrant in-round but rather upon a general knowledge and sense of different approaches people might take to a target?

the text of the prohibition on atmos tamper-proofing is that it makes perfect sense to do it, and the reasons that we don't allow it are largely an OOC conceit to the mechanics - which all goes away the second you have some defensible reason to think the AI might be rogue or there might be sabotage afoot.

people who get tided in a round can take preventatives against further tiding - same sort of thing.

but what strikes me with the atmos and brig examples (rather than direct hunting, which is also under rule 4,) is that they're reversible safeguards against possible threats.

if you were designing a station whole cloth, or expected that there might be a problem, they are things that would make sense to do - we don't otherwise restrict IC knowledge of what antagonistic forces exist in the world, the tools they might use, and what they might go after.

is anything to be made of the threat advisory or "enemy communication intercepted," or is it pretty much still to say that you shouldn't proof against emags or hackers until you know there's a doorjack in play or break-ins afoot? do you have guidance as to where the perception of the threat is credible enough and the means proportionate that we could better communicate up front rather than just say "hinder?"

edit add:
I guess to boil it down is to ask, where do we start saying "yes, in perfectly good faith (without counting on the idea that other people are behaving OOCly shittily) that makes sense, but don't do it"?

is a heightened threat advisory sufficient for anything for a person's reasoning?

[dendydoom]

aye, the idea behind this sort of enforcement is generally that two wrongs don't make a right. oftentimes a player grows resentful not only because they feel like they've been wronged by another player, but our system around delicately handling people's privacy with punishments means that unless it's a full publicly listed permaban, the original reporting player doesn't really get to know what the outcome was.

it would be fine to comment on how fair or unfair this could be, but what i personally dislike is when a player comes to the conclusion that admins won't help because the person they don't like isn't permabanned, and they need to fight this other person themselves when they see them in rounds. if one person pisses in the pool to spite someone else that did it, then soon enough we're all just splashing around in piss. it creates an environment where players are empowered to dictate who is a good player and who isn't, and therefore who is allowed to participate "within the IC rules" and who is free game for OOC countermeasures. i would rather us not allow this.

for IC reasoning around prep, as with anything in this game it's hard to talk in general terms because situations quickly become so complicated and nuanced. i personally feel that the IC reasoning doesn't need to be super strong and detailed, it just needs to exist. for things like the brig, a light reason would be fine out of spontaneity, but a pattern of reinforcing it every round for the same flimsy reasons would likely start to wear thin for me. it's hard to say for certain, because of course this would be accompanied with a discussion between me and the player. if i get the feeling that they're playing in a wholly spontaneous, IC and reasonable way, i don't see any reason to stop them from enjoying their project.

[RedBaronFlyer]

Is this more common on the non-manuel servers? I almost never see departments being fortified unless it's cult/revs, or cargo doing a guncargo gimmick nanoseconds before they get raided by security.

I figure it's like most things where as long as you aren't wheeling it out every round and you have some sort of IC justification for it, it's fine. Fortifying your department every round at the start in the off-chance that antags/tiders try to do something is bad. Fortifying your department because there is cult/revs/a rowdy bunch of assistants/zombies is fine.

[Vekter]

My litmus test for anything along these lines is, "Does the person involved have a valid in character reason to be fortifying their department to the degree they're doing so?".

Cargo's replacing every window with reinforced plasma ones and the airlock with a vault door solely because it's Black Orbit? I think that's excessive.

Brig is setting up flashers because there's a group of rowdy assistants running around that could be a problem when they arrest them? That's fine by me.

War were declared? All bets are off, do what you need to do.

If I can ask the player "Why are you doing that?" and they can come up with a salient in-character reason for doing it, it's probably fine IMO. That reason just shouldn't fall back on out-of-character things, such as "I'm trying to cuck traitors who might want the blueprints" or "There was a lot of greytiding last round".

[britgrenadier1]

As long as “Sometimes I want to make engineering Fort Knox because it’s cool” is a valid reason then I think it’s fine. If people are fortifying roundstart once in a while just to test their building skills or whatever we should let them do that.

[Vekter]

As long as “Sometimes I want to make engineering Fort Knox because it’s cool” is a valid reason then I think it’s fine. If people are fortifying roundstart once in a while just to test their building skills or whatever we should let them do that.

I don't think I'd balk too much at this tbh, as long as it's not being motivated by OOC reasons beyond "I want to do something that's cool" and it's not explicitly to impede antags.

[Scriptis]

the gist i'm feeling here and my own opinion is "as long as it isn't consistent borderline antag hunting from that one annoying bastard, let the people cook"

[DrAmazing343]

the gist i'm feeling here and my own opinion is "as long as it isn't consistent borderline antag hunting from that one annoying bastard, let the people cook"

One-hundred percent my opinion, right here.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

What are peoples opinions on replacing the ORM with a window? You occasionally see cargo departments do that, because everyone knows it's only existed as a free beeline to the autolathe/cargo lathe ever since they added the ore silo (screwdriver + wrench lets you instantly bypass cargos front doors on maps that dont lock it in its own room), although the current cargo zeitgeist against greytiders seems to be the same "Let them do it, its always more trouble than its worth to try and kick greys out of a department" as everyone else so i dont think its common

[Vekter]

What are peoples opinions on replacing the ORM with a window? You occasionally see cargo departments do that, because everyone knows it's only existed as a free beeline to the autolathe/cargo lathe ever since they added the ore silo (screwdriver + wrench lets you instantly bypass cargos front doors on maps that dont lock it in its own room), although the current cargo zeitgeist against greytiders seems to be the same "Let them do it, its always more trouble than its worth to try and kick greys out of a department" as everyone else so i dont think its common

This doesn't really bother me tbh, but I think it should be something that players only do if they've actually witnessed someone breaking in.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

What are peoples opinions on replacing the ORM with a window? You occasionally see cargo departments do that, because everyone knows it's only existed as a free beeline to the autolathe/cargo lathe ever since they added the ore silo (screwdriver + wrench lets you instantly bypass cargos front doors on maps that dont lock it in its own room), although the current cargo zeitgeist against greytiders seems to be the same "Let them do it, its always more trouble than its worth to try and kick greys out of a department" as everyone else so i dont think its common

This doesn't really bother me tbh, but I think it should be something that players only do if they've actually witnessed someone breaking in.

That seems reasonable, given how the cargo frontroom breakin often happens over and over again because the valuable item (autolathe) remains there even after a breakin.

[Vekter]

What are peoples opinions on replacing the ORM with a window? You occasionally see cargo departments do that, because everyone knows it's only existed as a free beeline to the autolathe/cargo lathe ever since they added the ore silo (screwdriver + wrench lets you instantly bypass cargos front doors on maps that dont lock it in its own room), although the current cargo zeitgeist against greytiders seems to be the same "Let them do it, its always more trouble than its worth to try and kick greys out of a department" as everyone else so i dont think its common

This doesn't really bother me tbh, but I think it should be something that players only do if they've actually witnessed someone breaking in.

That seems reasonable, given how the cargo frontroom breakin often happens over and over again because the valuable item (autolathe) remains there even after a breakin.

I feel like more cargo teams need to just build a public autolathe, that pretty much fixes the issue.

[DaydreamIQ]

Whether yes or no in regards to this policy i'd like to know if we can clear up whether using barricades to narrow down the traffic passing through the sec airlocks to single lanes is considered fortifying or not. I've been bwoinked for it before but I see just as many people do it without backlash so a hard ruling would be much appreciated

[Longestarmlonglaw]

Cargo should apply mosin nagants to anyone breaking in

[Screemonster]

Cargo should apply mosin nagants to anyone breaking in

god
I just had a horrible idea
what if security had a punishment for greytiders that was basically the intestinators from the movie Fortress (1992) that basically just fucked them up horribly if they cross an area boundary _except_ if they do so via an airlock to which they have access

[NoxVS]

What are peoples opinions on replacing the ORM with a window? You occasionally see cargo departments do that, because everyone knows it's only existed as a free beeline to the autolathe/cargo lathe ever since they added the ore silo (screwdriver + wrench lets you instantly bypass cargos front doors on maps that dont lock it in its own room), although the current cargo zeitgeist against greytiders seems to be the same "Let them do it, its always more trouble than its worth to try and kick greys out of a department" as everyone else so i dont think its common

This doesn't really bother me tbh, but I think it should be something that players only do if they've actually witnessed someone breaking in.

If we don't want players fortifying the ORM every single round then we need to stop players from breaking in through it every single round. It's unreasonable for us to expect players to stop fortifying every round without also dealing with why they feel justified in doing it.

[Vekter]

What are peoples opinions on replacing the ORM with a window? You occasionally see cargo departments do that, because everyone knows it's only existed as a free beeline to the autolathe/cargo lathe ever since they added the ore silo (screwdriver + wrench lets you instantly bypass cargos front doors on maps that dont lock it in its own room), although the current cargo zeitgeist against greytiders seems to be the same "Let them do it, its always more trouble than its worth to try and kick greys out of a department" as everyone else so i dont think its common

This doesn't really bother me tbh, but I think it should be something that players only do if they've actually witnessed someone breaking in.

If we don't want players fortifying the ORM every single round then we need to stop players from breaking in through it every single round. It's unreasonable for us to expect players to stop fortifying every round without also dealing with why they feel justified in doing it.

I never said we shouldn't, people just never ahelp it so we don't know when it's happening.

[Screemonster]

code solution, maybe it should take more than a wrench to move some machines like the bolts should need an id swipe to access or something
especially if they're machines that tend to occupy an otherwise unobstructed hole in a wall

[RedBaronFlyer]

code solution, maybe it should take more than a wrench to move some machines like the bolts should need an id swipe to access or something
especially if they're machines that tend to occupy an otherwise unobstructed hole in a wall

I tried via a PR that made the orm use the fridge vendor machine code a while back where you would need to do several steps to move the fridge vendor machine, but I got asked to write new code since the code for machines doesn't follow modern standards and noped the fuck out of it because I lack that kind of ability. I know it's been shot down a few times but I really wish there was a lathe out in the cargo lobby. Back when I played CT more often you'd have to move it out there or cargo would get tided into the whole shift. It leads to an unfun game loop where you are almost incentivized to b-line to get the autolathe out into the lobby and grab some resources so people aren't screaming at you that the lathe has no resources for the first five minutes of the round. Often times people would walk up with a wrench, unwrench the orm, and walk in to do something instead of actually talking to a CT standing by the front desk. I don't really get why the orm and the autolathe are the way they are. Some might argue that it's good that cargo could decide to not allow people to print out stuff but for 99.9% of shifts it's infinitely easier to just let people do whatever. It's the same with tiding, do you want to risk getting your head bashed into a table by confronting them, or just wait for the tider to do whatever they wanted to do and leave?

[DaBoss]

I played traitor in a round recently where the warden fortified the brig incredibly heavily for no reason other than he was bored. Reinforced floors, plastitanium windows with extra reinforced plasmaglass thin windows on both sides, reinforced doors, armsky in the entrance passage which was remodelled into a single path, intimidating statues of the HoS and space law books, et cetera. It looked pretty cool and I don't think it negatively affected my round at all and I was still able to lock security in the brig by blockading the entrance with the bluespace-toilet-in-a-can so I could delay them while I stole a supermatter shard, another traitor got in and lasered Lia to death because they beat up a security guard in maints and took their id, and blood brothers blew the back walls of the brig open from space and managed to steal the ablative coat and murder the warden. I think a key thing to keep in mind here is that reinforcing is kinda shit and there's a lot of ways around it.

[Constellado]

The only kind of reinforcements I do not like is the mega fortified box filled with lathes, camera console, a telepad inside with shutters as doorways.

[TheBibleMelts]

let people be creative and engage with their shift in unique ways. if they do it so many times that it is no longer unique, rule 0 them to knock it off for a while.

[dendydoom]

we would like to protect reasonable player projects. it's fine and in the spirit of the game to build forts but if you do it too much it ruins the game balance and admins can and will tell you to stop.