[Why is there so much hate towards Paradise station?]

An interesting point I've seen being posted on the internet is that Paradise doesn't release significantly many new updates anymore and I think there's some truth to that. Since playing on Paradise station I haven't seen much new except a few new cosmetic items and a rework of some parts of the station. Another issue that I thing actually has quite a lot of merit is the grievance people have with admins, calling the game the "admins' playground".

Paradise station is advertised of being a "medium RP server" but many restrictions that admins come up with ultimately just enable people to be asshats or jerks and has the side-effect of locking people out of many RP opportunities. Many instances would have been more prudent to let the IAA and HoP handle or even telling the person that maybe he should just go back and apologize for being rude and request a borg again. Even worse; sometimes it results in removing powers from jobs such as not letting xenobiologists take advantage of the fact that their animals can act as independent agents. I think admins are too keen to intervene here to the detriment of the game.

The only time I can think of when I called an admin was when a ghost was harassing me and interfering with things I had to do at the station, otherwise I prefer to put the different departments at work. Paradise station is well fleshed out that every department can find something to do and you have somewhere to turn with your grievances unless the admins interfere and remove their opportunity to do their jobs, like how they tend to interfere with situations that would belong to the IAA to deal with. Admin intervention should be the last resort when none of the departments can actually deal with an issue or when a person clearly is breaking from their stated objectives, not the first place where people go to whine when things don't go their way and especially not when the admin's intervention clearly contradicts what we're being told is our goal in the game.

["My Country"]

I'm from Sweden, a country who is polarized between people who says that love will solve all problems and authoritarians who believe that discipline will solve all problems.

Also Bork, bork, börk.

[Alert procedure change]

On 6/15/2017 at 8:20 AM, tzo said:

- IMHO, the biggest problem with how security works now is that often, crew who screw with security can't be charged with anything at all. Covering the brig lobby with 'shitcurity!' graffiti, thus ensuring that anyone who is brought in gets encouraged to take an anti-sec mindset right away? Graffiti is not a crime. Constantly complaining about 'shitcurity' over radio, such that the crew stop wanting to help security? Not a crime. Stealing someone away from sec custody while they're being searched? (as happened in my last shift).... you can only charge them with the same sentence as the original criminal. Which, if you're just doing a random search and they don't have anything on them.... is nothing. I actually had to let both of those idiots go, last time I played security, because although they were consuming sec's time, triggering manhunts, etc, I did not think I could actually charge either of them with anything. The ultimate example of this sort of thing is the clown trying to slip security on red alert, with confirmed cult/shadowlings/etc. From the Sec Officer's point of view, they have no idea if the clown slipping them is going to get them killed, yet, despite the stress this causes the officer, its hard to charge the clown with anything in cases like this. Even if they do it constantly and you can find something to charge them with, it usually isn't worth the cries of "SHITCURITY ARRESTING ME FOR SLIPPING!" and inevitable IAA hassle you get as a result. 

I think this is the result of this is because of the limited scope of Space Law to begin with. I understand that Space Law is limited because it's supposed to fit the limitations of the playerbase and not be too OP by giving security too many privileges to arrest and brig but I can't help but feel that Space Law is simply too limiting and needs to be expanded, preferably with the help of people who understands the difficulties of playing Security such as @tzo for instance.

But also the behavior that you describe where greyshirts are griefing security is something I would actually interpret as people self-antaging. While shitcurity can develop over a match - much more commonly the issue relates to people coming in and being pre-disposed to hating security. I feel that coming in and deciding to screw with security from the get go is self-antaging and should be banned.

Also another issue with security is that the maximum security force is too small for the physical size of the station and that not a lot of people like playing security so security is undermanned very often, leaving them ill equipped to deal with bored civilians, mimes or clowns causing chaos in addition to the antags.

[Security Lockers]

If it was my choice I would confiscate everything that would fall outside the suspect's department. The stuff in maintenence is also NanoTrasen property. In any civilized law book; what most civilians do would be considered looting and extremely illegal.

[Revamping Timer on Unlocking Command Roles]

23 minutes ago, Tayswift said:

The issue with gating captain behind playtime in all departments is that good leaders aren't defined by knowing every little thing about what they're managing. Good leaders make smart, well-informed decisions by listening carefully to their subordinates that specialize in certain areas. That's why, for example, the president of a country doesn't need to know how to be a doctor, engineer, businessperson, etc at the same time. CMO is a different story of course, since often you're the only one who has any idea how medbay works.

Captains should ideally have some leadership experience, and have played on the server for a while. Job bans can probably handle the rest.

This isn't meant as a critique to what you said but I want to add to it. The reason why a president of a country doesn't really need to know anything or have any qualifications is because he is elected to his position and democracies are deliberately built on the idea that anybody should be able to run for government offices. A captain is fundamentally different from a president in all manner of respects. First off whenever you're a captain of a military outpost, an oilrig or a ship you usually have some experience and understanding in what the ship or station is supposed to do even if you don't know every little minute detail. Second, it is true that in corporations that nepotism can lead to that unqualified people get into high ranked positions but it's usually more common that the leaders have a career where they've proven their capabilities for a very long time in some junior position - especially when they take responsibility of a science station such as NSS Cyberiad. Third - if you were the NanoTrasen director and you had to give a job to your untested nephew would you put him directly in charge of the station or promote the current CMO to captain and put your nephew below him as a CMO instead? For me the choice seems pretty obvious.

Personally I feel that the captain would and should have experience in working as a head in at least one department before. Which department they might have worked in is less important I think.

[Revamping Timer on Unlocking Command Roles]

You do't have to gate through playtime, but you could gate through other means such as some sortof achievement system. For example before you play as a HoS the server might track that your character has set the cell timers once, or picked up a weapon from armory or even sent a chat message in the security channel. For CMO it might be administrating a drug to a patient or healing a broken lung in surgery, ect. That way you can ensure standards at least in understanding basic mechanics, while allowing qualified players to get access very quickly.

[Crusader Kings 2]

Yeah, I play this from time to time. I did not like the Monks & Mystics DLC though.

[Security Lockers]

11 minutes ago, Someonewithapen said:

Honestly, if it's a case of Medical HuDS or other non-security equipment, I'd ask where they got it before confiscating. Really the excuse "found it in maint" only works on toolbelts, if they can't come up with anything better, slap their wrist, take it back.

The issue is that officers are really bad at actually confiscating stuff from people. I find that while working in security that the officers most often give back the equipment they find on people.

[Luke Hice]

Full Name: Luke Gregory Hice

Age: 32

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Blood Type: O+

General Occupational Role(s): Most medical roles except for CMO. Most commonly Surgeon or Chemist, but also Robotics or even Brig Physician.

Biography: Luke Hice has a controversial past and has butted heads a few times with NanoTrasen Heads of Personnel because of an incident where he lost his job as a pharmacist in one of the regular stations. Because of his controversial past he can't really get into leadership positions, not that he ever wanted to be put into that situation to begin with. He is concerned with a long lost space love by the name of Mira which he recalls from time to time. He has often been shipped between stations by strict CMO's because of the controversy surrounding his past. The investment that NanoTrasen spent on him and his education have been to too big to outright fire him so he has been cruising along from CMO to CMO over the years, doing fairly well for himself despite the controversy but past always catches up with a person. Eventually he ended up on NSS Cyberaid in hopes that he would just "go away" somehow.

Qualifications:
Qualified Surgeon
Qualified Doctor
Intermediate understanding of chemistry
Basic understanding of robotics, genetics and virology.

Employment Records: Worked for NanoTrasen for many years in various medical departments in different roles.

Security Records: Was convicted for abusing illegal space drugs.

Medical Records: Lost his right arm in a childhood accident.

Appearance text: Luke is a a slim person with dark circles around his eyes. He wears a tired expression and hunches forward nearly all the time. He wears a black coat and a blue scarf (as long as the scarf fits with his uniform). Suffering from severe nicotine addiction - he can often be seen with a cigarette in his mouth even while on duty.

[Security Lockers]

2 hours ago, Jovaniph said:

As far as I recall from an Admin Announcement during a round I played, Detectives and Shields (or anyone not sec) obtaining Sec Huds from the Security Department was job bannable.

Edit: I would say anyone caught doing this should be reported to the admins.

What about people running into Medical, hacking the med dispensers and grabbing medical huds and crew monitors? I once saw a civilian who had nabbed a medical belt somehow and I told him after treating him: "Okay you should be good to go, now you just need to take a shower and return the belt."

[Give Internal Affairs Agents more power]

@FPK @SideCat
I second that. It isn't even especially common that trials take place in real life, and when they do it's only when the evidence is circumstantial or when there's a high profile case (just like in SS13). Most often lawyers and prosecutors sit down with the accused and decide preemptively how to plead and for what punishment. It is only when these talks can't be resolved in a good way where there is actually a trial.

If you wanna play a Lawyer it's best to just sit in prisoner processing and hear all the cases that comes in and chime in on the conversations between security, leadership and the accused and act as a sort of mediator or councilor. Relevant questions is who was the injured party, how was the party injured and when did this happen? Security should be able to answer both the first questions and from that you might be able to negotiate back and forth.

As it is right now though, the sentences are too low to justify trials. The highest a sentence can be would be 2 hours anyway so even a quick trial would be a massive drain of resources to possibly prevent very little harm to be done. I think the sentences are too short in general to even justify catching most criminals.

[Revamping the NT Default Lawset]

14 hours ago, Tayswift said:

That would be stretching it, I think. Excessive drinking is a health issue that the AI would want to address, but the bar existing isn't a threat to crew health in and of itself.

From the point of view of someone who regularly works in the medical department I have to disagree! In fact it is both fortunate (for the alcoholics) and unfortunate (for the medical staff) that the bar is directly across the corridor from medical. However I think that the fact that I did bring up this question is a problem in of itself: For instance - how far with an AI player go in interpreting his lawsets? For me if I had that lawset - it would be the most obvious thing to actually shut down power to the bar. This is problematic in real terms since that would make the bartender unemployed and when coming up with lawsets we need to make sure that they don't conflict with the jobs that are in the game.

I hate to stomp on your idea but health can range from everything to alcoholism to people not using EVA suit's or even willingly Borgify themselves. Sometimes it isn't in our best interests to be healthy, also safeguarding the health of around 50 people is a huge responsibility and burden for the AI that I don't think one player can keep up with.

Instead it should be more akin to "Discourage or prevent the use of illegal force on a crew member aboard the NSS Cyberaid" if you really want the AI to prevent shitcurity, or "Safeguard the lives of the crew aboard the NSS Cyberaid to the best of your ability." if you just want the AI to protect the lives of the crew. Personally I think these two laws could even go together.

Another issue I have is "transparency"; which is a word not a lot of people understand and especially the younger age groups. To make it more easily understood it should be rephrased into "State your intentions before you act."

Also "Serve the crew by assisting them to the best of your ability.", does that also mean assisting malicious behavior, law breakers or traitors?

This is my suggestion instead:
1. Safeguard the lives of the crew to the best of your ability.
2. State your intentions before you act.
3. Assist the crew's requests as long as the requests don't break Space Law or Standard Operating Procedures.
4. Discourage the use of illegal force on a crew member.

This would make the AI slow but it would make it very transparent, very helpful, very lawful and might even prevent shitcurity. But of course this is just my thoughts around the subject and should be considered with a grain of salt.

[Revamping the NT Default Lawset]

Does safeguarding the health of the crew mean that it would be valid for the AI to shut down power to the bar, since one of the most common health issues in Cyberaid (as well as in real life) is rampant alcoholism?

[Give Internal Affairs Agents more power]

Just now, FPK said:

I need to make a longer post to this thread, or even make my own thread on my thoughts about the IAA role, but...

Shoving the IAA into a closet doesn't seem like the best idea.

I thought it seemed like an interesting idea, maybe they could change the room to have a window and a better entrance as well? The other option would be putting the IAA in the NanoTrasen Rep's office and letting the rep go somewhere else.

[Give Internal Affairs Agents more power]

2 hours ago, ClockworkRuse said:

I honestly don't agree that the IAA is a useless position or underpowered, it's just a very difficult role to play. For an IAA to be really effective, there has to be enough time to go through the proper channels and make your presence known. I've had more success trying to play an advisor than anything else, just trying to chime in politely over comms.  I don't feel like giving them access to suspend ID's is a good idea, because ultimately what will happen is that security will ask them to use that power for their valid hunting and the IAA should no part in that, besides do you really want to give the clown the possibility of shutting down IDs? Because one tabled IAA and suddenly security can't open doors.

I'm quite puzzled by these arguments. Do Security go to Head of Personnel to demote people as it is right now? How would suspension of ID:s be in the interests of security when they most often tend to target people who have very limited access anyway? And the argument about clowns doing this or that isn't a strong one either. If a clown is shutting down ID:s (or injecting food with morphine as they tend to do right now) then the clowns are self-antaging. The line between self-antag and a prank can be a thin one and clowns frequently cross this line yes, and this means that clowns needs to be scrutinized much more for their actions.
 

2 hours ago, ClockworkRuse said:

Letting them disable ID's isn't going to let them ensure SoP or Space Law are being followed, giving them access isn't going to do much either. Most of the time, if you just ask, someone will let you in anyways. But do you really need to be in engineering making sure that they are doing their job? Do you have to babysit the chef to make sure they are producing at least three dishes every twenty minutes? With basic access you could walk by and see things like that. Hell, you can wait in your office until you hear people being pissed over comms before you go check anything out. And even then, just talking to people and feeling the situation out should be enough to get things to go somewhere.

When you mention engineering you mention a department that tends to have it's members roaming the station so you're talking here about the one specific department where the access would be the least helpful, but if you instead think of getting into science so you can talk to their wings when they shut their blinds or into medical quickly so you can look at what the geneticists are doing then this line of thinking becomes more clear; sometimes you just need to reach the stations to establish contact with people, especially if they're hiding within their own department wing to avoid the consequences of their actions. There are so many wings within the departments which are just not at all easily accessible from the main corridors.

By simply letting them disable ID:s wont necessarily help them ensure SoP or Space Law but it will give them some leverage over the normal crew to remind them that he does have some personnel management power. I do understand that that's not how many people imagine the IAA because people tend to see him as a "space lawyer" and regular lawyers don't really suspend people from their jobs, but that's the issue of terminology - an IAA isn't a lawyer and the limited scope of Paradise Station's space law doesn't really require lawyers (or magistrates) to begin with as the laws fairly simple to understand. It is mainly the SoP that needs enforcement because departments are very likely to breach the SoP and it's the departments IAAs are meant to overlook and can make some serious positive impact on - not prisoner processing of 10 minute time-outs for bored civilians.

That is just a suggestion though. I'm not sure of what powers an IAA should have - but they ought to have something more than faxing central command which is something they don't really get to do.

 

2 hours ago, ClockworkRuse said:

As far as answering to HoP? I could see that. I've seen a magistrate like.... five times. If that. Maybe if an IAA answers to HoP in regards to matters of SoP breaches and a magistrate in regards to Space Law? That would work.

I really do think so. The IAA really does need closer ties to the HoP, preferrably by moving the IAA's office closer to the HoP (or vice versa) and giving both of these some shared space so they can establish contact and discuss personnel management. The issue on personnel management is it's own huge issue in the game but I believe that's just because of player incompetence such as coroners not reporting deceased crew, no oversight, HoP being slow to fill vacant positions, ect.

[Give Internal Affairs Agents more power]

What is the class that rarely gets picked? We all know it. It's the internal affairs. It is basically like playing a Civilian with Security access. Why? Because IAAs have basically no power. The way they're described in the Wiki is closer to a possible workhorse of the Head of Personnel, but they have really limited access to the station even though they're supposed to look after the crew. Nobody really goes to the IAA either because people know that because of the limited power that this position has - it's entirely pointless instead the more reasonable thing to do would be to go to the Head of Personnel. This is also what I heard when I had a dispute with another person "Go to the HoP if you disagree."

Unfair demotions, departments not doing their jobs, ect. are so very common in Paradise Station but still nobody really thinks twice of contacting the IAA because the IAA is a useless position. Because they have no access it means that they can't really look into disputes either and lead investigations, because they're situated so far away from HoP it means that even if they find people who are mismanaging their jobs - they still can't really do anything about it. You'd have to badger the departments for maybe a guest pass, but even that is so rare to get. If they have to go with the often overburdened HoP with all manner of problems (and HoP rarely ever use the IAAs to investigate either).

That is why I think that the IAA needs to have powers more similar to those of the Head of Personnel. They need at least basic access to all departments so he can get inside and he also needs to have the power to at least suspend a person from their job (such as maybe a timed ID lock?).

I also don't see the reason to merge titles such as Lawyer or Public Defender with this title, yes - lawyers look into civil disputes as well but lawyers operate from the law where breaking it can have serious and profound consequences. In SS13 Paradise Civil disputes are rarely more than a minor crime and might suffer a person what... 10 minute brig time? Real world laws are also large, complex and actually cover civil disputes. If you look in the wiki there is very, very little work having been put into the matters of proper procedures within the departments and there is basically nothing about civil disputes in Space Law. Also since most rounds cover around 2 hours or less - it means that IAAs don't have the time to make as large and comprehensive investigations of disputes of the departments as their job description demands.

That is why I suggest these changes to the IAA:

• He gets the ability to suspend an ID for any person that isn't part of command for up to 10 minutes, but not to demote anybody.
• He has basic access to all departments, but maybe not the wings (he might be able to walk into science but not into Robotics, walk into medical but not surgery, walk into cargo and mining, ect). This would mean that he actually has the ability to reach and establish contact with the personnel aboard instead of having to rely on people having the initiative to contact him (why would they - when HoP is a better choice?)
• The IAAs' superior are the Head of Personnel and their office should eventually be moved closer to HoP so they and HoP can actually establish contact and actually do their jobs with some semblance of effectiveness.

I think this would still make him somewhat weaksauce but it would definitely allow him to actually do his job instead of forcing him to be some random guy with a briefcase and sunglasses.