Staff Report - Forest2001

[GoldenDarkness]

Staff Report

Your BYOND Key

GoldenDarkness55

Date of Incident

July 20, 2020

Your Character Name?

DO-192-R

Their BYOND Key

Forest2001

Approximate time and date of the incident

05:20 central us

Which Staff Protocols (//showthrea...-and-Protocols) were broken

"Do not abuse your power"

"Preserve the RP and enjoyment of the server"

Description of the incident

I've managed to sneak onboard Almayer as a runner, rushed CIC business as usual, marines aware of my presence and patrolling the hallways.

I ended up killing a marine in the cryo cafeteria, with MPs and marines immediately converging upon the location.
Thats when I noticed several sentry guns spawned in the cryo area proper, still "inactive".

The sentry guns were later activated, limiting my passage through the cryo cell area despite the crew actively hunting me in several pairs of two.

When I finally died I learned that every shipside kill has been reported by ARES along with the location - the lone doctor I killed and dragged off has been found and recovered, the IO I assaulted in intel storage has been reported by ARES even before he died - by the time I killed him I've had an MP with another marine waiting by the doors. My attempt to hide under a table in hangar and await the dropship to possibly return planetside has been spoiled aswell - ARES informed marines that im in the hangar area, resulting in my eventual death.

Despite the shipside crew actively hunting me, a staffed medical department and a working synth onboard the admin decided to further hound me via this blatant power abuse, without even informing me of this taking place.

During hijack the marines attempted to make a small fort in cryo using the sentries, but the sentry guns were abombed hurting nearby marines. Unsure if they've been warned of the imminent explosions.

Semi-related, this aint the first time it happened as I've had another admin do the same ARES reporting in a round where Forest was CO.

Evidence

https://imgur.com/s9JGWyZ sentry guns

https://streamable.com/c2scl8 IO case

https://streamable.com/fdl88x sentry abombing

How you would punish the accused

Demotion from admin.

The staff member didnt even bother informing me that everything I do is being broadcasted by ARES, blatant abuse that ruined my round.

[forest2001]

The IO case may have been over done.
The sentries I stand by, and indeed I considered putting one in each prep. Typically speaking the staff team, particularly the admins, do not look fondly on spawn camping people.

Destruction of the sentries was forewarned, and had a build up prior to their explosions. They were there to stop you camping spawns as you were doing so, not to give marines an advantage post hijack.

Edit: The Staff Officer by the Computer Lab was passing already, and heard the slashes, the MP responded to ARES reporting a Medical Emergency.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

"Preserve the RP and enjoyment of the server"

Preventing a xeno from camping cyro cells and marine spawns is preserving the enjoyment of the server, and we've were in talks with the developers to add warning systems to the dropships if a xeno gets on board, or even adding sentry turrets in the cyro area that will only work pre-hijack. A single lurker taking out the entire Almayer is not fun, and any major videogame has some type of spawn camping prevention mechanic. If you sneak on the Almayer and kill some doctors or CIC that's one thing, but the second you hit the cyro cells you take away the enjoyment from people who just started the game. Instead of making it a OOC rulebreak, Forest decided to use IC means because you as a single lurker can unbalance the round if you killed pretty much everything on board, and to give you a chance to still play as a lurker on board with everyone hunting you down via cat and mouse.

I'm denying that part of the report because let's face it Goldendarkness, it's not enjoyable to spawn into the game as a marine and immediately get killed. You having your round ruined does not negate fresh spawns having their round ruined.

The only allegation we will investigate is the situation with the bombing of the sentry turrets if they hurt marines without a warning.

[GoldenDarkness]

I wasnt spawn camping, only one cryo marine has died and that was in cafeteria with marines arriving immediately. I've spent the round patrolling both upper and lower decks, killing research and breaking lights.

Even if we assume I was spawn camping, you could have limited ARES announcements to cryo marines, instead of punishing me for going after the proper targets.

I wasnt a lurker, I was a runner and shipside was nowhere close to being wiped, having ARES report my every move was unneccessary as i was already struggling.
I also dont see whats wrong with a single lurker wiping every marine onboard, even if by some miracle it managed to happen.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

I wasnt spawn camping, only one cryo marine has died and that was in cafeteria with marines arriving immediately. I've spent the round patrolling both upper and lower decks, killing research and breaking lights.

Even if we assume I was spawn camping, you could have limited ARES announcements to cryo marines, instead of punishing me for going after the proper targets.

I wasnt a lurker, I was a runner and shipside was nowhere close to being wiped, having ARES report my every move was unneccessary as i was already struggling.
I also dont see whats wrong with a single lurker wiping every marine onboard, even if by some miracle it managed to happen.

Runner, lurker, combat caste xeno. It would be the similar in a situation if one survivor wiped the entire hive at round start which happened. If things get unbalanced, an admin can use IC means to change it. It would be the same if an admin had to cause cave ins to prevent a OOC metarush that was a rule break.

My ruling on this is simple: If a xeno can sneak aboard, it's like anything else we have certain limitations to make sure the game is fair for all sides. Don't spawn camp, don't destroy things that can't be replaced (OB fuel, Medbay Surgical Beds, etc...)

[Hunk1]

Ares annoucement:

EMPs:

Abombing the turrets 5 seconds later:

Cyan represents instances of abombing, Green represents sparks hitting players which cause no damage, red represents actual harm caused by abombs.

[GoldenDarkness]

One survivor abusing roundstart where all xenos are larvae is clearly different from wiping shipside with tac shotguns, medbay and a fuckton of combat capable marines in a fully lit environment where you cant heal or regenerate plasma without ovi'd queen transfering it.

Either way things have not been unbalanced that round (I believe I scored around 4 kills before dying) and the admin involvement was far from necessary.

The game was fair for both sides until forest decided to abuse ARES - furthering the disadvantage I've already had as a shipside xeno and didnt even bother informing me about it, shifting the balance HEAVILY in marine favor.

As I've already said the spawn camp accusation is baseless, I can upload the entire round footage if you want. Not a single marine was even slashed in the cryo cell area, and the only thing sentries accomplished was limiting me from passing through the room.

[GoldenDarkness]

Pretty sure the ARES announcement logs aint complete, I've heard there's been one for IO and one for me hiding in the hangar (https://imgur.com/oxAXu2x), so there should be at least two.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

Again the only allegation we investigated was the abomb hurting marines, and they were fairly warned about it.

We are in discussions with the developers now about if a xeno does sneak aboard on protections to prevent spawn camping or killing marines before they even have a fair chance to fight back. Regardless this was a round that had bare minimum shipside staff, and we feel that forest didn't do anything wrong. It's not just preserving the enjoyment of one runner versus the almayer, it's perserving the enjoyment for all.

For now management ruling is if a xeno gets on board, don't spawn camp cyro/canteen and kill fresh spawn marines. Wanna murderbone the CIC, the medics, the researchers, knock yourself out.