[Misjudment of ERT Response early on in Cult Round.]

If I am allowed to detract from the response/complaint template, I disagree highly with the suggestion that “Being stuck in Processing, awaiting to be deconverted” isn’t a purposeful design element of cult rounds.

By issuing 2 admin spawn instant de-converters, the preparations of the sec/chaplain/chemists to get holy water, ensure their prisoners are deconverted, and interact with one another as a crew in order to effectively neutralize the cultists was rendered moot.

The point of holy water as a slow, drawn out process not is not only RP relevant, but a specifically designed mechanic in order to allow for potential trickery, rescue, to wiggle from cuffs and be summoned away- I can’t speak for anyone else but i’ve used the time while being decoverted to make an escape on a number of occasions. For an admin to plonk two ERT who can de-convert people instantly at the start of the round is unfun and spoils any efforts of round-start cultists to evade, escape or otherwise trick sec to going free.

If it’s felt so strongly that this isn’t by design, and to warrant 2 instant de-covertvers to a round in order to speed up the de-culting process, perhaps open a PR to increase the speed in which holy water decoverts, or issue prayer beads to sec in order to speed up the process on all cult rounds?

It’s been highlighted in the above logs that even before the ERT was on station, the cult had already dropped like flies.

Not recognising this as an Admin is the mistake that I wanted to highlight, shed of any instant frustration that being in the moment caused, hence the use of this official means to express it, instead of remaining salty in dead chat, or on discord.

Accepting you’ve made a mistake is the first step in learning from it, and my frustrated comments can be taken as inflammatory, so taking this to complaints was the only other option.

I hope that the initial outburst of my discontent with the choices made doesn’t marr the genuine error made within the round and everyone can learn from their mistakes.

One thing I didn’t expect was to be psychoanalysed and my behaviour deconstructed so handedly, you know me only through interactions on an ancient 2d spaceman game, but we live and learn.

That’s probably the best we’ll get out of this, I’m content with the response. Ciao

[Misjudment of ERT Response early on in Cult Round.]

Admin Key: NORWEST

Your Ckey: Boidca

Discord Name: Boidca

Date of incident: 19.07.21 - 22:35 GMT (Cultist round)

Nature of Complaint: Misuse of power, judgement.

 

Brief Description: Paranormal ERT was called on the cult when they only had 5 members, no converts, few runes and no cult gear approx 25 minutes into the round.

 

Full Description: Due to an SM delamination early in the shift, and cult runes found in maints during the round, an ERT was called which included 2 Paranormal ERT with prayer beads. The cult at the time held no cult items, had no organised base and included only the round-start cultists. While the cultists were caught early by sec, the use of prayer beads for instant deculting denied any efforts to recover the cultists, as it being so soon into the round, the likelihood of sec being prepared to decult crew allowed a chance for summoning, rescue attempts and the like to take place. The inclusion of paranormal ERT created an imbalance of power for the cult, as they had no means (no tasers, no stunbatons) to combat cult-immune ERT so early on.

The original 5 cultists had to face a disproportionate threat level when conducting their antagging, that they were effectively prevented from the usual ‘meta’ of early cult rounds, slowly converting their colleagues, hiding in maints with small, hidden conversion rooms.

Further to this, as soon as all the round start cultists were caught and de-culted within 10 minutes of the ERT showing up, more were created by admin command to make up for the speed in which the cult fell, direct from admin intervention of the paranormal ERT. This is an attempt to recover the round from the error made by summoning the ERT so soon, but the original cultists were swept over with such speed, their gameplay and fun was denied, then more crew were given the opportunity to antag and those original 5 had been left behind.

The Paranormal ERT was recalled and extra cultists added in, with the original cult now effectively out of the round. 

Yes the opportunity to be re-culted was available, but the metaknowledge that others would press upon them for being re-culted under the circumstances forced many of those original cultists to cyro, myself being one of them.

I feel that the choice to respond with such overkill to a cult within 25 minutes shows a lack of clarity and understanding of the power level of the cult at the time. The balance of ERT was poorly made and it calls into question the ability to judge the current strength and proportional response to the station threat. ERT responses aren’t supposed to sweep over the cultists inside 10 minutes, and the choice to randomly allocate more after the fact demonstrates that They knew the choice was made in error, but no attempt to reconcile with the original cult players was made.