Nations RP Guidelines

[Daktangle]

The heads of each department disappearing definitely felt like leaving the department in a void. The head could appoint a 2nd in command, and probably should, but I think that it would be more fun overall to have a UN delegate that goes to the UN meetings.

Register them with both the Peacekeepers and the UN, and then give them a list of points their deparment wants to raise. This way the head is available to direct their department, and their wants and demands are presented at the UN.

[Mr. Moriarty]

For reference, I played Alexander Nelson, UN Security Chief (HoS).

For myself, as hectic and mad as the event was, I greatly enjoyed it, and sincerely thank all of the admins that gathered to make this possible. In addition, I will be mentioning the names of several Nation Heads, and I would like to say everyone RPed remarkably well, and every action taken in the summits was fantastic to be a part of. Thank you everyone!

That being said, there were several major issues, primarily, population count. The now infamous decision for the Nation Heads to take off their headsets during summits was a direct result of this, as the general consensus was that we needed to focus first and foremost on deciding the borders of our nations, making claims, and setting out basic ground rules and neutral zones. For the Heads, this worked remarkably well, nobody lost track of what we were talking about, or got overwhelmed at walls of text and radio chatter obscuring negotiations. However from what I hear, the Nations themselves suffered greatly from it, causing them to become disorganised and estranged from their leaders, sometimes following orders they had no clue as to why they were being carried out, or going against orders and establishing checkpoints in hallways (a massive point of contention in later summits). I know that several of HM’s Peacekeepers had very little idea of what UN laws were in place, and the crew were very much isolated from the summits and what happened within them, leading to great confusion at times. I also understand that some Peacekeepers were acting as station security, rather than Peacekeepers.

Another glaring issue was the random events, which led to excess tension and escalation; the meteor shower played a critical role in Engistan being declared a rogue nation (alongside Civilia) by the UN. As it seems few people know what happened during the second summit due to communications breakdowns, I will summarise events, although do keep in mind this will not be a perfect retelling, and it is from my perspective, so please do correct me if I get anything wrong. During the second summit, it was brought to attention that Engineers were constructing unlawful checkpoints, which Prime Minister Scrapper 14 said he was attempting to control, but was unable to, as too many Engineers were ignoring orders, UN Leader Jory Clements then escalated this by claiming Scrapper had no control over his nation, and warning him to get it under control, lest the Peacekeepers take action for them encroaching neutral territory. A meteor shower was promptly announced, by chance heading to strike the UN/Peacekeeper portion of the station, forcing us to rely upon Scrapper's QMs to order shields, and, in a beautiful twist of fate, it was Scrapper's turn to threaten the UN Leader and UN Security Chief; I warned Scrapper that refusing to allow the UN adequate defence against a meteor strike would be treated as a hostile action against the UN. Prime Minister Barret of Civilia backed Engistan, saying that they would stand in alliance against the UN, were Engistan to go through with seceding from it. It came to pass that both nations seceded, and the meteor strike hit with UN and Peacekeeper territory unprotected, I announced I was placing both Nation Heads under arrest, for defying the UN, and taking indirect hostile action against it, I did give both Heads ample opportunity to escape and lead the rogue nations by themselves, with them both standing next to disposal and exit chutes, however LOOC would have helped greatly here, and allowed us a chance to talk about which direction to take the secession in.

After the Nations of Engistan and Civilia were declared rogue, I feel things began to go downhill much more rapidly, not solely because of that action, several other things played major factors, such as the station depressurising due to the meteors, but I feel the most disarray was caused by very few people knowing why the two nations had been declared rogue, and the vast power vacuum left by the two Prime Ministers being placed under arrest until a new leader could be found. For Engistan, from what I can tell, three illegitimate elections were held, each electing a leader who claimed all the others were results of false elections, and accusing each other of lying and subterfuge. This in turn led to what resembled gang violence in Engistan, with the nation splintering, and several members going rogue and firing upon fellow Engineers themselves; I ordered HM’s Peacekeepers to descend and detain anyone brandishing a firearm or weapon in Engistan, and get the place under control. Eventually all Engineers were brought into a meeting room, and a new election began. By this point, the shuttle was almost here, barely any room had air left in it, and everyone’s emergency oxygen tanks were running low; several death alerts began to ring out as logged-out officers suffocated, or their oxygen tanks ran out, and in the end, the UN was declared incompetent, dissolved, and I declared to my Peacekeepers to return to Spacelaw, and contain the violence as much as possible. Then the shuttle left, and the server crashed.

---

To think we are able to solve all of the issues with Nations is perhaps naive, but I believe there needs to be some kind of population cap, having in excess of 120 people on one station will inevitably lead to low RP players, rule breakers, and so forth. Several solutions to this have already been proposed, such as a hard player cap, or a whitelist, so I won’t dwell on it long, but I am in favour of Yellow’s proposition of an RSVP for the round.

I also believe the more destructive random events should be disabled, such as the radiation blowouts, of which we had two, and meteor showers, if not disable most of the random events, as a good amount of them can cause mass casualty, and can take entire nations out of the game if other nations neglect to provide aid, solely by chance and poor luck. I would opt to keep events such as Appendicitis Contraction in, as it is not overly disruptive, and forces nations to either seek help from Medbay, one of the weaker nations, or construct some form of rudimentary operating theatre themselves.

Another issue I presented was HM’s Peacekeepers having some inexperienced officers, for which a whitelist for Nations Peacekeepers, an application list for Peacekeepers, or greatly increasing the Security roles’ roundlock specifically for Nations, would all be welcome changes. More NTSO slots would also be welcome at such high populations.

It has also been discussed prior about the relative disarray and lack of coordination within nations due to the leader attending summits and being off-comms for a good length of time, for which a second Nation Head has been suggested, one to lead while the other leader is negotiating with the other nations. I feel as if the second Nation Head would work best if chosen by the current Head from their department, and provided the adequate equipment by them prior to the first summit. This ties in with another issue I wanted to discuss: voting for a new leader; it is incredibly slow and chaotic to do so given the nature of Nations, and having a second-in-command to the Nation Head would greatly streamline this, the only thing needing done is for the second-in-command to be promoted to Head, and for them to choose a new second-in-command.

On another note, the Prime Minister of Civilia was still required to perform HoP work, rather than lead their nation. I believe affording all Nation Heads ID computer access would help to alleviate this, and perhaps provide each department with an ID computer, however this will likely be heavily abused, but hopefully the application-only Nation Heads will help prevent this to an extent, but I feel it would be better than forcing the HoP to do HoP work all round.

With all these suggested changes on the forums, and if the admin team intend to do further Nations rounds, perhaps a dedicated gamemode for Nations would be welcome, as to streamline the setup for the round.

My apologies for the incredibly long post, but I wished to share my opinions on the gamemode, as from the perspective of the UN Security Chief (HoS).

[Froggit_Dogget]

I don't like the idea of population caps. Instead, each nation could have a bigger heirarchy. As a part of engistan, lack of communication and leadership to fall back on was bad. If we had, the CE and then the CE had two, sort of, ACE's, or assistant CE's, to stay behind from the summit and manage things, I believe it would have gone smoother. It would allow for more people to manage the 20+ people per department and fix the highpop issues

[DioChasek]

Wild idea the HOP is UN aligned to make ID access accessable for all nations. The True leader of the Civilian department is the Clown.

[Chayot]

Mhm. Overall, there was a huge lack of coordination between members of the Nations. While I'm certain taking off the earpieces helped the leaders, this left everyone else in the dark. This, in turn, caused a great deal of players to begin to act on their own. While I'm not adverse to players acting out on their own, I do not believe they understood that what they were doing would cause a diplomatic fiasco.

For instance, as far as I could tell, the Security Chief did not relay any information whatsoever from the summit, to peacekeepers. Aside from direct orders to detain or combat a Nation, we didn't know Why we were being ordered to do things. Peacekeepers saw nations illegally claiming land, fighting, and didn't understand if they should intervene or not. Maybe we were stopping an illegal claim, maybe we were disrupting the very order we are supposed to protect.

I understand that the Nation Heads are busy, or having fun roleplaying, and I don't believe it to be their fault.
I believe the crew would benefit from a simple bouncer radio being present at the negotiations, publicly broadcasting the going-ons.
Peacekeepers in particular should be in constant contact with the appropriate information they need to fulfill their job correctly.

Moreover, a sort of "hierarchy" as described by Froggit might be beneficial so as to dissuade confusion, and nation-members from acting out on their own.
Departments could elect a Representative. Representative's elect a Nation Head from amongst themselves, to attend the summit.
Nation Heads relay information down to the Representative. Thus negating the "population problem", and hopefully addressing members of a nation acting out on their own.
Civilia would, perhaps rightfully, be one of the few whereby this system wouldn't work, and would be mostly without direction.


I.G., a miner expands into Maint. The Rep of mining reigns him in, telling him that they haven't yet laid claims, and doing so would create tensions between "X" department/the U.N.. Problem Solved. Maybe report it to Nation Head, either way it's solved.

Alternatively, If the Rep fails to reign him in, or encourages his behavior, Mining itself may be rouge within Engistan.
Engistani Reps/the Nation Head may need to take disciplinary action, organizing against them, or calling the U.N. for support.
(Thus having the U.N. Acknowledge that the actions of mining are unsanctioned by Engistan, causing lessened diplomatic tensions.)

---
a word

[Kubius]

If there is a desire for a dedicated Nations map to make borders more controlled and less havoc-filled, I could develop a bespoke Nations map.



This is a quick mockup of a templated Nations map (not necessarily to scale). Each "floret" module would play host to either a nation or the Peacekeepers' neutral ground; connections to neutral ground would have options for open border crossing (closed off through blast shutters for the main route and bolting for maintenance) and regulated vetting through a border control station.

(if image is breaking I can provide one on discord, send ping)

[DioChasek]

I don't wanna rule 4 myself on a map in the forums, could use a shape adjustment is all I am gonna say.

[AmazingDragons]

I think whatever side silicons end up on (neutral third party, UN, regular nation, split them up by module) roboticists ought to be on their side. Part of their whole "thing" is being able to fix themselves up and modify themselves. Roboticists are also pretty much useless without borgs to repair.

[DioChasek]

Also makes the silicon department have an easy weakness if war is ever declared on them. Which is honestly the least likely nation to have war declared on them but still.