/tg/Station 13

To prevent "Ha ha friendly contractor" every time, I suggest we simply MAKE the station actually care about contractor kidnappings...

By making them siphon sheets from the ore silo.

I won't say which sheets, or how many, or what have you, but I think it would be good to have some incentive against Friendly Contractor Telecrystal Farm to get all the Cool Items, and since nobody cares about the station's credits...

Friendly contractor is failRP on med roleplay and honestly kind of lame traitoring on LRP that i'm sure ends up with you getting killed very quickly

If a nonantag gets their hands on 30+ TCs worth of gear because some dude bought a contract kit and gave it to sec, the remaining antags aren't going to have a fun time.

Lore wise, even if ransoms are returned to cargo, the Syndicate also steals intel from contract targets, so doing contracts as a nonantag or helping someone do them is effectively defecting. In my opinion these defectors should be considered very valid enemies of the corp, even if they're security or the captain.

Personally, I already discourage that. When I see nonantags actively cooperating with contractors or using a dead contractor's uplink for free gamer gear, I like to spawn an official to find out how a single contractor manages to be this efficient. If they succesfully report back with the defector's name, IC consequences happen to them. No BSA or smite bullshittery though, I try to make it fun for the defector.

Oh because the ransom that only hurts cargo should hurt more people by costing materials instead dunno if it'd work but I get you

Admins: Simply do not have contractors be friendly

I would be totally open to a top-down policy call that Friendly Contractor shit is simply Not Allowed as nonantag, or a call that using one you find/take/"find" makes you valid salad and you're not allowed to fight back against validhunters (so that you can't declare yourself an antag if you get one, then robust all the people trying to stop you from using it, which is exactly what most assistants and sec would prrrrooooobably do?)

cacogen wrote:Oh because the ransom that only hurts cargo should hurt more people by costing materials instead dunno if it'd work but I get you

I hate to say it, kind of, but... yes, exactly that. Costing the minerals that engineering, medical, and science use to make their Gamer Gear mechs and defibs and jaws of life would do a much better job of deterring "Who wants to take a quickie vacation so sec can buy CQC manuals" than the current penalty.

Another alternative I just thought of would be to have it juice the threat level, ramping up rapidly based on how many contacts have already been fulfilled.

But yeah, anything that gets rid of friendly contractors is good IMO.

I think this extends to a much bigger problem which is friendly antags in general.

I've seen time and time again antagonists who, because they don't want the stress of being wanted, opt to go 100% friendly and work together with sec, sometimes even against other antags. The point of antag is to make the round move forward towards chaos, and friendly antags detract from that goal directly. Antags who wanna be friendly or just vibe should just ask admins to pass their antag to someone else.

I've had a Manuel round with a friendly contractor and we completed like 4-5 contracts together, along with stopping real contractors and helping out sec. Of course friendly antags are great for sec, but they're not great for the overall round, and in the longrun they make things boring both for crew and sec. It might be good to make a rule against being a non-antagonist antagonist in general, apart from just contractors.

Same for like cult, rev, etc. People consenting to being culted/revved, instead of fighting against them, isn't in the spirit of the game IMO. Especially on LRP where most of the action comes from high-intensity antag-crew conflict.

sinfulbliss wrote:It might be good to make a rule against being a non-antagonist antagonist in general, apart from just contractors.

Same for like cult, rev, etc. People consenting to being culted/revved, instead of fighting against them, isn't in the spirit of the game IMO. Especially on LRP where most of the action comes from high-intensity antag-crew conflict.

I theoretically want to agree with these, but I can think of easy counterexamples on both

It's very easy to get antag and then just not have a great idea, but also not be robust enough to murderbone instead of being creative. Or you might be waiting for the Perfect Moment to do something and then oops shuttle has docked with the station.

On the flip side, consenting to being culted/revved is... there's a huge difference IMO between "not fighting to the death" vs. "seeking them out to join." I've definitely been brought into maint by someone and been like "I sure hope nothing terrible happens" because I can't be fucked to powergame/metagame hard enough to actually try to prevent someone from killing me, only to end up next to some cultists doing a conversion and, instead of bolting or BIG SCREAM on radio, just saying IC "I don't suppose there's anything I can do to talk you out of this," because like... sometimes you're just not in the mood to try bolting, dropping the soap you picked up at roundstart, screaming ;CULT, and trying to slip out of maint before you eat a stun hand, etc.

Basically, I just accept my fate if someone asks, sec or antag.

But if I'm already outside of sec drawing graffiti or something, yeah, I'll also go in and grab an implant when the ;REVS MEDICAL call comes out. If I'm in medical and they're outside, I'll help the CMO fortify instead of crawling around in the halls. And so on.

Might not be worth discussing because "it's very likely that contractor goes in the [near] future," but my stance is that 100% friendly antags are generally bad for the game in the majority of cases regardless of antag type which is the bigger issue. A code solution like you proposed is neat but friendlies will friendly no matter what (there have been friendly dragons! on MRP! ?)

PKPenguin321 wrote:Might not be worth discussing because "it's very likely that contractor goes in the [near] future," but my stance is that 100% friendly antags are generally bad for the game in the majority of cases regardless of antag type which is the bigger issue. A code solution like you proposed is neat but friendlies will friendly no matter what (there have been friendly dragons! on MRP! ?)

I entirely disagree, We need more Bellas and fewer Deans. Not everyone is going to be a super mean antagonist that just kills everyone. Contractors are refreshing and are a win-win situation.
Plus it pays to be friendly as a contractor, I mean. The person comes back and yells "Oh hey so and so is a massive nerd, valid". Boom ya dead.

Antagonists should play their role

Being a friendly antag in a game about deception is a valid way of achieving your goals

PKPenguin321 wrote:Might not be worth discussing because "it's very likely that contractor goes in the [near] future," but my stance is that 100% friendly antags are generally bad for the game in the majority of cases regardless of antag type which is the bigger issue. A code solution like you proposed is neat but friendlies will friendly no matter what (there have been friendly dragons! on MRP! ?)

Still not sure what i'm going to do with contractors afterwards, I think maybe wrapping kidnapping into a smart objective and removing the rest may be how it goes down unfortunately unless I think of something better

admin issue

Pandarsenic wrote:I theoretically want to agree with these, but I can think of easy counterexamples on both

It's very easy to get antag and then just not have a great idea, but also not be robust enough to murderbone instead of being creative. Or you might be waiting for the Perfect Moment to do something and then oops shuttle has docked with the station.

I agree, and I also tend to think antag is one of the more taxing roles for this same reason. Even without creativity or the robustness to murderbone, though, an antag can still advance the round by creating general chaos, or even just completing their objectives (the objectives are a good way to create chaos, for the most part). But antags who do their jobs normally like they're normal crew, ignore objectives, and maybe buy a desword on the shuttle 5 sec before landing, aren't advancing the round as an antag should.

Pandarsenic wrote:I've definitely been brought into maint by someone and been like "I sure hope nothing terrible happens".

That seems fine to me. I meant more of the type who knowingly get themselves culted/revved to avoid conflict. If your character isn't the type to fight, or you simply don't want to get critted/killed by a swarm of revs/cult, then that's a completely valid reason to comply. It's a subtle difference though so I doubt it could be enforced easily.

i captured a "friendly contractor" as sec once on Manuel and had a Lawyer and the HOS try to get me to release them saying that everyone they kidnapped went willingly so it didn't count as a crime.

I pointed out the contracts in the lawyers office stating that Nanotrasen owns every crewman's soul, thus the contractor was embezzling from nanotrasen by removing company property from the station without authorization and then ransoming them back to Nanotrasen.

They realized my logic was solid and the contractor went to jail for crimes. I put their gear in the secure evidence locker.

Super Aggro Crag wrote:i captured a "friendly contractor" as sec once on Manuel and had a Lawyer and the HOS try to get me to release them saying that everyone they kidnapped went willingly so it didn't count as a crime.

I pointed out the contracts in the lawyers office stating that Nanotrasen owns every crewman's soul, thus the contractor was embezzling from nanotrasen by removing company property from the station without authorization and then ransoming them back to Nanotrasen.

They realized my logic was solid and the contractor went to jail for crimes. I put their gear in the secure evidence locker.

Brrr, No Must Remove Content Brrrrrr.

This sounded like a solid case.