In-game Username: DriverZip
Discord username: Acceces
Characters you play: Martin Smith
On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week: 5 hours
Days you are available to admin on: Most days of the week
How old are you? 19
Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience? I played a few dozen rounds on SS13 TG and SS14 Frontier station
Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)? Nope
Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers? I have been banned on SS14 quite a long time ago, which I regret
What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin? I would love to do a few events or build something cool at the centcomm station for when people evac. Mentoring players through Ahelps sounds quite fun aswell
What are you least interested in doing as an admin? Ban appeals, although I do understand that they have to be done
Detail Questions
What role do you think game admins serve on our servers?
Admins prevent people from self antagging and rounds delving into chaos, be it at the hands of incompetent command staff, people trying to create cargonia or any other activity that isn’t fun for anyone else other than the person(s) doing it. Apart from that admins also mentor people through Ahelps and provide assistance to those who are having trouble with their role or the controls. In the case that a round becomes stale they can also spice the round up by spawning an antagonist or two, or creating an interesting event like a wizard ship selling potions or something like that, which is in my opinion the preferred option compared to just spawning more bad guys, which would work, but a custom event is definitely superior
Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?
I saw an announcement in the discord server that stated the closure of miros and hopper due to half the admin team and most headmins leaving the project last month. This has quite worried me about the future of SS14 since I do genuinely love the game and it’s community and I really do not wish for it to die out, so I thought I’d help out how I can by becoming an admin to try to keep everything afloat. Alongside that I also vividly remember amazing events like the rimworld rounds or a centcomm inspector which I enjoyed a lot, and I’d love to see more of that
How do you feel about the current roleplay status on the servers?
It’s… okay at best? Salamander is doing fine for now, but I do feel like too many people mix it up with LRP by the amount of EORG I saw and ignorance towards MRP rules. Regarding the LRP servers, I often saw rounds just end up in NRP scenarios with people killing eachother for little things and simply disregarding OOC and LOOC which were made to prevent such a thing from happening, which is just nonsensical, and when OOC was used, it was used not for genuine discussion, but to direct personal insults to other people, so yeah, not cool
Other than banning problematic players, what admin actions do you believe have the biggest positive impact?
I love events, it always felt really refreshing to see something new happen, something unscripted to change how the round went. A good event can most certainly turn the round in a better direction like an inspector coming in after a major incident happened at the station, making the crew act better to prevent a spesos fine, or one of the funniest small events I had, a bucket of milk containing… god knows how many U’s of milk which required a team of 5 ERT janitors to be called in after it was inevitably spilled. Another thing that I believe has the most positive impact is mentoring players. Many people kinda just don’t know how something works sometimes, and it could also be something urgent like the only trainee engineer on the station trying to set singulo up, which would’ve most certainly resulted in disaster either thru power outage or singuloose if there were no Ahelps available to them
Have you ever had a negative experience in the game or with a game admin? If so what, if anything, would you do to prevent other players from experiencing this?
Had as many bad experiences as the good ones, but to name a few: got magdumped by a cadet for slipping them, had my syndie contra stash metagamed by a RD that i killed, had my shop gimmick get broken into by random people trying to get a hold of the stuff I was selling and multiple raider encounters, majority of which resulted in round ending sabotage. I do not believe I had any negative experiences with admins. Every time I was messaged it was for a valid reason and the following discussion was quite respectful
Have you ever had a good experience with the game or a game admin? If so, what was it?
I have many, many amazing stories from the game, but one story in particular feels the best to me, and that is me running bargaining shops, almost every round that I did this gimmick on had something special and unique happen. I traded with syndicates, one of them traded a minibomb for an AA card that I got traded in from some greytider, and one time I even got a permit from hos to trade basic weaponry, in exchange for a check list of suspicious purchases so they could hunt down criminals better, and, well, before that i had to endure multiple swat raids for the amount of controband my shop contained, which was the reasonable course of action from sec. But as for admins, I feel like every experience I had with one was almost sterile, which is not necessarily a bad thing, they just did what they needed to do and moved on to another Ahelp, which is the most efficient thing to do
Scenario Questions
Scenario 1
It is the start of the round. There are 60 players on the server. The game mode is traitors, traitors have not been selected yet. There are three players who decided to observe the round instead of join it orbiting you. Two of them are encouraging you to “do something funny”.
The safest option would be to just ignore the ghosts or go invisible, but if I’m not busy with Ahelps or any other more important matters I could have fun with it and teleport them to a different universe (not sure how its called exactly) and make an area for them to fight in, have them solve a puzzle or something along those lines for them to have fun with
Scenario 2
This scenario takes place on LRP. The Head of Security has decided to coup the Captain. The Head of Personnel agrees with the Head of Security and has taken up arms in case it is necessary to aid in effecting the arrest of the Captain. The Captain is hiding with the Quartermaster in the cargo shuttle to avoid the Clown who has stolen the captains saber as a non-antag. There are five people named in this scenario. Please describe what actions, if any, you would take in relation to each, and why.
Clown-What they did is blatant self-antag, they shouldn’t be stealing any equipment at all, I would put the sabre back into the captains locker and warn the clown to never steal the equipment again as a non-antag. If it is a repeated offense they would probably be banned for a day, but that might be a little harsh.
Quartermaster-They might not be aware of the coup, or just be following captain’s orders which is what every head is told to do, which would require no action to be taken against them
Head of Personnel-As their duties don’t typically include managing weapons or working with security in any significant way, I would question the HoP’s decision to arm themselves. After that I’ll observe how they handle any weapons they acquired from the armory to make sure they don’t go off shooting everybody they see
Head of Security-I would check whether a coup would be a reasonable response to the Captain’s behavior leading up to the first mention or call for a coup. If the reasoning and escalation leading up to it appear justified, I would watch the situation closely to make sure it remains a fun experience for everyone and not just devolve into a bloodbath. If the coups reason is deemed to be invalid HoS would most likely be facing punishment up to a role ban
Captain-I would need to review the circumstances that led to the call for a coup to determine if action is required regarding the Captain and their behavior. If everything aligns with the rules the situation should simply be monitored to ensure it stays engaging and orderly. However, if the Captain’s actions violate the rules, they should be punished accordingly, potentially leading up to a role ban or a server ban depending on the severity of their actions
The coup could also potentially be solved in character by sending in a centcomm negotiator, guarded by an ERT team, but that is riskier than just solving everything OOC
Scenario 3
You are ahelping a player about an issue. The player has no prior noted issues. A few days earlier, an admin had told you that this type of situation should result in a temporary ban for a first offense, and you are confident that this situation is not substantially different from the type that admin was describing. During the ahelp, another admin pings you on Discord with a link to the ongoing ahelp and tells you to just indefinitely ban them and make them appeal. Excluding trialmins and headmins, all admins are equally “ranked”. A headmin is not currently available.
I would discuss the information I received earlier with the second admin. An indefinite ban feels excessive for a first offense, though this depends heavily on the nature of the offense and its overall impact on the round and other players. I’d prefer to consult with other available admins before making a decision. But if that’s not possible, I would aim for a compromise with the other admin, giving a shorter ban that allows time to consult with a headmin later on for a final decision