Standard Operating Procedures, Yes/No/Maybe?

Development Feature Requests
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An idea I’ve had recently to help promote further RP and interaction between players and departments is a document called the SoP (Standard Operation Procedures, or Station Operation Procedures) This is a book which has existed on several major SS13 servers in the past for these very same reasons.

This is a non-space law based book that covers several “other things” that space law does not, such as unauthorized station modification, post abandonment, running around naked or trying to actively hide your ID, committing minor acts of extreme annoyance that disrupt other crew and departments, as well as other generally minor things that are annoying but otherwise uncovered by space law.

My reasoning for this is that sometimes, command and security will take actions against players do things like randomly building stuff around the station without asking, or refusing to properly do their job, and when action is taken against these players I noticed many times it ends in in both IC and OOC tirades of said players insulting the command/sec staff for stopping them because “it’s not against space law” thou obviously a violation of normalcy and operations of the station.

Not only do I think this could result in more player interaction for those who now have to seek departmental approval for certain things instead of just winging it, could help clear up IC questions of what constitutes an NT employee (passengers vs other crew?), and also gives command and security a valid book to use against players who enjoy pushing the boundaries as far as they can and then complaining and insulting people in OOC when they are just doing their jobs to the best they can understand them. Even thou many of these things are covered in the server rules (don’t be a dick, don’t abandon your post) they do not translate to IC and spacelaw (understandable as many of these are not crimes and just major disturbances)

Obviously SoP violations should not result in prison time but they should give command and security administrative punishment options for repeated offenders such as temporary access suspension, reassignment, demotion or even a total firing from NT in the case of major and continued violations! However as it stands ICly, command and security operate on an ad-hoc basis of assigning and taking actions against these acts that are not covered in space law and, it results in major OOC conflict, especially as players of said departments have varying degrees of what they feel is appropriate or inappropriate and often conflict IC, and again OOC because of that.

Thoughts? feelings? too long didn’t read? leeme know!!!

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I don’t know why SoP was removed from MRP tbh.

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Most people wander off from their department because there isn’t enough content in the game to warrant them staying there for a full hour. Engi sets up power in 5 minutes, atmos is done with TEG by 10, chem can have even the most advanced of chemicals by the 20 minute mark, chaplain is just a joke role. The only roles where you can reasonable stay the whole shift doing your thing is sec, botany, chef, musician, bartender, clown. Even doctors will get extremely bored during rounds where antags don’t go on killing sprees.

BUT, the rest I agree with.

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Tbf most of those (except post abandonment) are covered by space law, modification can easily be vandalism, and the rest are textbook disturbance (although that is literally the catch all you are being an annoying shitter crime)

But yeah SOP was cool and codified a lot of that, should be brought back, including for LRP frankly.

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Those points are all pretty fair also tbh I actually forgot disturbance was a crime, idk how hahah. At least SOP would still be cool thou.

It could be nice LRP but due to the nature of LRP I almost imagine it could be negative for everyone involved, I guess that just depends on how low the low-role-play server should allow, which as it stands is pretttttty low hahah.

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That is entirely valid, there are some roles that don’t actually need you to be manning your post and in many cases players can quickly return when called on radio. I think SOP should have a a reasonable position of requiring station critical jobs to at-least be on-call to their department as needed. In particular that bit about abandoning role is more for people who take a role and then just really don’t do it much at all, even when asked, but still preform the bare minimum to avoid the server rule break. Also it adds IC context instead of just a server rule.

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ngl, i think SoP should definitely return in some form. there are guidelines that should exist, but not as strict laws or OOC restrictions - SoP was perfect for codifying these.

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