The following is a list of rulings applied in effect by the CO Council to all whitelisted Commanding Officers. These rulings must be followed and not broken when playing as the CO of the ship. Violation of listed rulings can result in punishment from the Council.

This page will be updated semi-regularly when new rulings are made.

Compiled by Naut.

Departments

Heads of Staff

Department heads (the CE, RO, CMP, CMO) are not allowed to deploy to the AO, with the exception of the CE and CMP under exceptional circumstances (1). Such circumstances are:
- CMP: May deploy with a contingent of MPs only for nuclear device security, but one MP should remain behind for ship security.
- CE: May deploy only if there is an XO present on the ship. They must have permission from aCO/CO, and they only should be deploying for the purposes of FOB/Telecomms/Mortar Construction. If the FOB becomes contested or attacked, the CE must return to the Almayer as soon as they are able to.
- The RO and CMO are not allowed to deploy to the AO at all.
Department heads (except the CMO) are eligible to take over as acting Commander in the event both the CO and XO are unavailable.
- Department heads will not be able to act as aCO if their absence from their department would negatively impact that department’s functions.

Marine Law and SOP

Pardons

The Pardon function is coded into the game. You perform the pardon by going to the brig, opening the timer console, and pressing a button that states "Pardon." Mind you, a timer console can have several people’s timers, so make sure you select the correct person before doing the Pardon.
Pardons can be performed remotely by issuing an announcement publicly stating you are pardoning someone. You must do this for good reason. An example would be:

"I, Captain (name), hereby pardon (name) for the crimes of (crimes), due to (reason)."

You have to know the following to pardon someone:

The crimes the person has committed,
When the crimes were committed.

You can do remote pardons via announcements only.

Uniforms

Commissioned officers must wear their designated or otherwise appropriate uniforms. Non-standard clothing such as pajamas, shorts, maid outfits, or clown outfits are not allowed, and SOP cannot be modified to allow such.

SOP Modifications

Modifications to the SOP should be made with a valid reason and only if it serves to benefit the interests of the operation.
Uniform regulations that disregard basic logic and sense, such as allowing marines to deploy without uniform or armor, are not allowed.
The SOP may not be modified to circumvent your arrest if you are being arrested for violation of such.
Military Police must be informed of any change of SOP before it is implemented.
The SOP may not be modified to the extent of griefing or physically burdening marines. Modifications such as “marines must walk only” are prohibited, as is modifying SOP to imprison a marine for a custom offense with malicious intent.
Standard-issued equipment to Marines that can be found in their squad preparations and requisitions (such as the standard primary and secondary arms and attachments) cannot be restricted or prohibited in any way. Marines reserve the right to freely carry and use the equipment they are provided with.
Helmet wearing should only be explicitly made mandatory to Squad Leaders, Specialists, or other vital and specialty roles. It should not be enforced on standard Marines.

Area of Operations

LZ and Telecomms

Your extraction point (LZ) and Telecomms should at the very least have minimal PROPER defenses. You may build a FOB at any area other than the LZ, or you may additionally skip the construction of a well-defended FOB at the LZ; just make sure that the LZ has at least some form of proper protection.
Do not attempt to circumvent this by building flimsy wooden barricades or other rudimentary defenses and calling it ‘protection’. LZ defense must be able to at least momentarily hold off an enemy assault.

High Command

Admirals

If a flag officer (Rear Admiral or higher) is sent to your ship, DO NOT fire on them or their bodyguards, and comply with any orders they give you as they are your superior officer.
High Command will not send Admirals in to harm you, if one is sent, it is to resolve an issue fairly and your compliance will not only smooth things over sooner, but it will also get them out of your hair as soon as possible.

Metagaming

You can't order supplies stockpiled in a single area, even if you say it's for redeployment because it looks like ship-FOB supplies for the tank bay or something.
- You can order marines to gear up for redeployment, even if you primarily expect it to be for ship defense, but you can't start to set up a stockpile for your ship-FOB in certain locations.
Expected contact is in effect. Marines know who they could be fighting, but are not sure as to what exactly they are fighting until they actually witness it. As a result:
- You are not allowed to prepare unconventional or powerful equipment (such as OT or research grenades) for Marines before first drop or before you know who the enemy is.
- You cannot immediately describe the enemy as “Xenos” before actual contact, such as during briefing. Alternative words to describe the general concept of an enemy are allowed.
- The USCM mainly expects members of the CLF or, to a lesser extent, the UPP, to be the cause of the distress signal, so (falsely) describing the enemy as CLF or UPP soldiers are allowed.

Armory

Special equipment found in armories such as the Mk221 or M41A Mk. 1 can only be handed out to non-officers with a clear and understandable reason for doing so.
- You may not send them as part of a supply drop, give them away as rewards/prizes, or form a squad that uses such equipment as standard.
- You may hand them out to deploying CIC staff (you, XO, or any SOs) as part of their standard equipment.
- Armory equipment may be handed out to all personnel during boarding or a Code Red or Delta scenario. Officers should be prioritized before enlisted.

Command Staff

Senior Enlisted Advisors

Senior Enlisted Advisors are not permitted to do overwatch in the CIC. Don’t order them to do so.
Senior Enlisted Advisors may also not be deputized to act as MPs.
SEAs should only deploy to the AO for mentoring or assistance. While they may deploy on their own, they aren't allowed to participate in direct or indirect combat against enemies unless it’s to save their own life (such as during boardings).
- SEAs who drop without permission regardless of the above should be adminhelped.
- SEAs must return to the ship if the area they are working in becomes dangerous, contested, or otherwise too risky for them to safely continue their duties.

Shipside

Shipside Activities

Morale building stuff is fine as long as it doesn’t significantly delay the round start and allow Xenos to build up their capabilities. Don’t do dumb stuff like machete juggling, ritual sacrifices, having marines do seppuku, etc. Keep it semi-realistic.
A sanctioned spar between two marines is fine as long as one doesn’t get beaten to death and as long as it’s fists only.
Basketball games, D&D, using the dice are fine during the operation; whereas people do not redeploy and just play games is a ML issue. As long as your stuff isn’t rule breaking and does not delay pre-round deployment and put the marines to a disadvantage, it’s fine.
Make sure you don’t have Military Police breaking Marine Law during this stuff, if minor things happen they can ignore it, but they shouldn’t be ordered to break ML.

Commanding Officer - specific

Medals

Meme medals for actions that do not in actuality warrant any sort of medal at all are not allowed. Medals can be given for acts of true accomplishment in combat or in support, such as killing the Queen but can’t be awarded for trivial or meme things such as cooking dinner or being of a different race.
The Commanding Officer may not award themselves with medals - only superiors (RADM+) may award them for distinguishable actions.
You may add humorous comments regarding the person’s achievement on the medal citation, however as stated above, you shouldn't award medals for small feats or memes.

Deployment

You should not be deployed on the first drop. You may deploy after the first drop if you deem necessary, but you must leave the CIC staffed to oversee the operation.
You may not gear up to deploy (armor, rifle, etc.) until after the transport dropship has initially touched down.
The CIC must be staffed by a sufficient amount of officers that believe they can lead the operation without your assistance.
- If the CIC is not confident in their ability to lead without you, you may not deploy.
Failure to leave any commissioned officer of command authority (LT+) in the CIC is not allowed. The CIC must remain staffed by an officer at all times.
- The Command APC is not a valid extension of the CIC.
Make sure you remain on communications and are actively using announcements, comms and regularly issue orders and command. You still have to do your job while deployed.

Briefing

The briefing must be done physically and not via announcements. Briefings may be held in any open area as long as it isn’t one of the dropships.
Briefing location must also not be able to be situated in an area that disrupts the ability of any department to function. Conducting briefings in areas like the medbay or requisitions is not allowed.
The briefing may be given to certain squad members only (SLs, engineers, etc.) however SLs, if not already briefed, must be notified of standing orders after the fact.

Equipment

Do NOT give your Mateba or M46C rifle away. If you die, go unconscious, etc., and it is stolen, that's fine, but you should try to get it back to the best of your ability.
Your tablet should not be given out to non-command staff. Preferably only either you, the XO or acting Commander should be in possession of the tablet.

Announcements

The Commanding Officer may not issue any LRP, meme, or immature announcements. Making a remark or two is allowed (provided it’s still in-character), but focusing the entire subject of the announcement as a meme is not.
Announcements should be informative to the marines in at least some extent, and should not be used to insult, degrade, or otherwise impact the morale of marines.
Announcements should only link to known image capture sites such as Gyazo or imgur. Only still pictures of the tactical map are allowed -- no GIFs and/or pictures of content other than the tactical map.

Battlefield Executions

For further reading on Battlefield Execution guidelines, see the Marine Law section on BEs here.

Don't stretch the concepts of what is a valid BE or not too far, people insulting you is not a threat to your command, people insulting you to draw everyone away from your command is.
BEs may not be performed if the suspect is currently restrained or in custody, such as if they are in surgery or if they are safely contained within the brig.
An exception to this is when standard execution procedures (i.e. firing squad) are otherwise impossible, such as during boardings and/or during Delta Alert.
You may not order a BE by proxy - you cannot ask any marines or other staff to kill someone on your behalf. You must do it yourself.

Citations

^1. https://discordapp.com/channels/150315577943130112/547119668540866590/713949624871682108 ^2.