Spectral Instruments - Conversion non-antags

[conrad]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I'll preface this by saying I am very, very mad. If I come across a little direct, I apologize.

The subject is how the spectral instrument skeletons should be treated, and how other conversion non-antags (if they exist, or come to exist) should be treated.

From what I understand, the spectral instruments are a very, very rare piece of maintenance loot. However, just in the last two weeks, we saw, I believe, three rounds where someone found the loot in maintenance, used it to convert a bunch of people, which leads to two problems: the skeletons aren't antagonists, which means they're bound by escalation policy, and so are most of their victims.

This generates a ton of ahelps since they are not antagonists, and can spawn controversial notes/bans.

I see three solutions for this:

• Remove spectral instruments from the maintenance loot pool. Would require a code change for this and, fuck it, I'll do it

• Treat instrument converted skeletons as regular team conversion antagonists (this is my preferred solution). Setting an antagonist flag for converted skeletons would also require a code change (I could do it but I have no idea how to even start)

• Maintain escalation rules where the skeletons are not antagonists and make it optional for them to convert (I think everyone is gonna hate this, but it doesn't require a code change.)

I know some of these require code changes, but hell, it's a fucking ballache to admin a round where people find the fucking spectral instruments. I can only imagine what ballache it must be to be bwoinked senseless as a player from them as well.

If I said something incorrect, please let me know.

Thoughts? Thank you for your attention

[conrad]

Thank you Jacquerel, Fikou and NecromancerAnne for flagging this and getting it solved so soon. Indeed, with this merged we revert to what it was before where finding the spooky stuff in maints is just a rare treat, almost like an event.

I'll leave this open, but I feel that discussing this is now moot, since the root of the issue is solved.

Thanks again!

The root of the issue isn't solved though, as it still exists as a rare spawn in maint. It was only the lavaland one that was removed. There would still be an admin related stress on what to do in these kinds of scenarios if it rolled, and we need a concrete ruling on how to handle it. The PR that would actually solve the issue is https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/74720, which hasn't been merged.

What I have heard, from admins and players I asked about the subject, is that in years of playing they have never seen this item.

And, in the last two weeks while I've been adminning, I've seen it three times.

The issue was the item appearing every round and causing a disturbance. Watermelon crunched the numbers and it seems to be rare enough that it stops being a problem and becomes an event (just like it's supposed to be in Halloween).

I think we're good.

[Archie700]

Now that we know the cause is lavaland loot (another case of lavaland loot causing problems), I'm fine with the sax as it is.

[conrad]

Right, I'm gonna close this. I think we're good.