Subject : Gtheglorious (and LordEclipse by proxy)
Do you want this complaint to be made public after it is processed : Yes
Policies or Expectations Violated : Falsification of admin rules (LordEclipse, Gtheglorious) and violation of admin guideline 2.6 “Do not interfere unless you are needed.” (Gtheglorious)
Detailed Summary : Unfortunately the instance happened a week or so ago, maybe more, so it might not be the freshest in my memory. I’ll elaborate as much as possible on my reasoning, intention, actions, etc. or whatever needs further clarification.
I was a salvage specialist on either Fland or some other larger station. The round was very near over - clearly after 45 minutes as there was a Space Ninja currently active on the station, but moreso that we were in code red emergency status. At some point QM had gotten us shotguns, or I found one, or had a PKA, to be completely honest some LRP rounds the QM will just go nuts later in the shift if we’re well off enough, I just know I was armed. I deliberately did not go hunting initially, as reports of a space ninja usually mean they end up microbombing themselves, but comms were eventually cut off entirely. Then code red was called. As I swoop around with a jetpack to get a gauge on the station, I hear a syndicate bomb and fly in just close enough to watch it explode. It’s all in the replay, though I would be remiss to find out which round as that’s out of my scope.
Next to the blown up syndicate bomb is a Syndie surplus crate, which I rummage through to find anything useful, then just leave it there because - I want to again stress that the round was near ending, shuttle called, no comms, code red, heads reported as missing/dead , the station is in an egregious downfall and I’m really just doing what I can to salvage the station itself after 1 full hour of salvaging regularly. As I’m flying North of the station, I finally see the Space Ninja and engage them in combat one way or another, I again don’t remember the weapon I had as I believe I was unable to finish the encounter.
I was ahelped something like “Hey. Validhunting, cut it out.”
This is where I challenge the ruling, and furthermore deep dive into the rules, longform, short, as well as any clarifications I can find that deliberately indicate validhunting. I’ll break my findings down as succinctly as possible:
Validhunting is in no way, shape, or form directly mentioned as part of the current ruleset. Furthermore, the rule clarification states
Non-Security
Non-security should generally not be focusing on seeking out, killing, or arresting threats. They can if threats present themselves, or if they are particularly relevant to the crewmember. For example, crew may attack a syndicate they see attacking another crewmember, and salvage techs may respond to a callout of carp in cargo. Certain severe emergencies may make it reasonable for normal crew to defend the station against it, like nukies or particularly destructive traitors.
I want to emphasize that if a code red, no comms, head reported missing, shuttle called, syndicate bombing active space ninja isn’t particularly enough to warrant some extra hands from salvagers who have done their job twice over, I genuinely fail to see when it would ever be okay to help the crew vs literally just avoiding any antagonists you see. If there was ever a time for a salvager to come give a hand to security… Well, I digress.
I challenged the ruling and was told that because there were security on station to handle the antagonists, I should just do my job. Aforementioned job already having been completed with mats to spare, I stated my case in that there was a code red, I’d done my job, etc.;
As opposed to meeting the situation with scrutiny to the trialmin with a couple of hundred hours vs the player with 2,000 hours, LordEclipse stated that I was breaking Rule 11.
Here’s Rule 11 for context:
Act like an actual human being on a space station in a low-roleplay (LRP) environment. You do not need to feign ignorance of things outside your job or write a character backstory, but you are at the minimum expected to maintain a basic level of roleplay.
- Do not use text speak (ex: “lol”, “wtf”, “brb”, “lmao”, “thx”, “sgtm”) or emoticons (ex: “:)”, “xD”) in-character. Nobody speaks like that. You will be warned to stop.
- Do not refer to OOC things or concepts like the game’s administrators in-character (common ways to refer to admins could be referring to them as “Central Command” if needed).
- Threatening other players by telling them you are calling the admins on them will usually result in administrators taking the other party’s side, regardless of it being in-character or out-of-character.
- Do not use custom emotes to bypass filters on normal speech, or use them in an incredibly lazy manner (ex: “George Melons motions for you to order a crate of medical supplies”, at least make an effort to act it out). Mice, carp, spiders, and many other animals are prevented from speaking for a reason.
The only instance I could see being broken is by somebody else misconstruing how one would act IRL.
I hate to play hypotheticals, but let me posit a scenario that likens my situation to how I would act like an actual human being:
The most apt and reasonable comparison I can make to SS14 being IRL is working on an oil rig. There is only one way on/off and that’s shuttle , and any damage to its infrastructure could be devastating to the masses. If a ninja boarded my oil rig and I was working as a scuba diver going deepsea to collect minerals , why would I not use my harpoon or combat knife to stop them? Even moreso if we’re given weaponry to deal with hungry sharks or predators.
In the exact same vein why would I not, after my job is done, stop someone who could be actively against that or is killing my co-workers? (This dives into a metagaming discussion of “do we know ninjas can call in threats, do we know they exist” etc and that’s for another discussion surely and could afford to be vetted.)
I can and will absolutely admit that I wanted to use the toys I’d earned from an hour of hard work on the station. Space Ninja is a ghost role. They will always come and go. Surviving expeditions, debris, other traitors, and whatever other things salvagers get thrown at them for an entire hour and actually getting to evac is like 50/50 for salv specialists, let’s be real.
It’s much more rare that you’ll find a competent salvage specialist who has lived through the full shift than you will find a space ninja. This leads me to believe that it’s not that a salvage specialist was at the scene that was the problem, just a particular username, but I digress and will continue with my complaint.
Under the current ruleset, in no circumstances should the low roleplay environment lambast the use of mechanics and earned weaponry to assist security during active threats. There is a reason some people prefer LRP to MRP. I don’t want to sit and write a dissertation to the Space Ninja before I fire on him, I think having knowledge of the Syndicate, Shadow Clan, space dragons, etc.; isn’t unheard of and furthermore is not deliberately defined anywhere, so the interpretation of what is MRP/LRP and metagaming is **entirely up to the admin.
This is an extremely dangerous precedent and will kill fun before it has a chance to naturally flourish.**
In this instance, an admin was overzealous and looking at the action and chose to step in entirely unwarranted. This was then backed up by a more senior administrator who cited a rule that had no clearly defined terminology to support their claims.
I’m gonna emphasize and I bet you can find out who the space ninja was and ask yourself, but neither the Space Ninja nor Security had an issue with my assistance in the matter.
If I’m being sincere and dropping the professionalism I’m attempting to convey here, I think being the highest playtime player (maybe short one or two people) paints a target on my back because I’m actively using mechanics that I have to teach trialmins about. Things like EORG should be common knowledge and a trialmin shouldn’t be asking me what it means, it’s in the ruleset. That states pretty evidently that the very people enforcing the rules do not fully understand them. This then can boil down to Rule 0 or 1 or w/e which is essentially that admins are infallible in their decisions solely because they are admins, and challenging them is a moot point, because one will back up another as opposed to meet the situation with scrutiny or consider LRP/conditions in an effort to be "right " and if all else fails, rule 0.
I want to add that this ended up making me create a question post, which I referred to after posting a snarky picture in screenshots-and-videos while fed up with a round or something or the other. It spiraled into another admin telling me I was maldposting but nikthechampion managed to ask me why I posted it, which began a discussion. I feel kinda bad because I think sloth took it inflammatorily when I questioned how long it’d been unanswered for, and that really genuinely was not my intent, and I think this could have all been remedied by less intentionally overzealous admins or a further clarification and standardizing of rulesets. Then I made a shitty comment about fixing the sound in the game because it’s been broken which wasn’t cool, but I’ll dive into that another time undoubtedly.
As of late, being ahelped for doing what I’ve historically done consistently just makes me not want to play. Why would I play when some shifts I can perform actions that are perfectly normal and some shifts I have to walk on eggshells? There’s no consistency in rulings and senior admins are doubling down on poor decisions, both of whom are directly infracting the guidelines that admins are held to.
I’ve played the game for 2,000 hours and gone through entire admin teams at a time . If there was someone intimately aware of the ruleset and it’s caveats, it’s me. At no point was I ever, ever informed I was validhunting and I’ve been trying to curb my powergamey behavior since speaking with and blowing up on Kayek. Metalgearsloth informed me that I was being crass and rightfully so. To this day I’ve tried to maintain civil discussion even in the face of aforementioned rule creation and miscitation, having to teach trialmins game mechanics, having to deal with admemes on nukie rounds, etc.;
This was not an instance of nipping something in the bud, this created a mountain out of a molehill.
**Gtheglorious:** Hey, validhunting, don’t do that. Let security handle the ninja as they are still active and around.
**Sosa:** I don’t see that in any of the rules - which one was it breaking?