Goonhub
2 hours ago
Hey there, thank you for posting this feedback. I want to start out by apologizing - I gave you a short answer in the moment, but that wasn't and isn't fair to you. In the future, I will make sure to follow up with more details to ensure maximum clarity.
In this particular instance, a staff assistant taking it upon themselves to procure high-grade pod weaponry from the syndicate black market when security is alive and well strains rules we have around wanting to keep your job on our RP servers. I would feel similarly if a staffie picked up a SPES and some AEX ammo that was left out and kept them on hand for a while just in case an antag attacked. In addition, knowing where the post is and heading there is something we can both do OOC, but knowing where the super-secret syndicate base is as an entry-level job IC is a stretch. This is the crux behind the statement "fine on classic, not cool on RP", and I owed you that explanation when I reached out to talk with you.
That said, you're absolutely right in identifying inconsistency here; the rules around the listening post have not been updated in accordance with design changes over time. When that statement was put into the metagaming page, listening post access worked significantly differently - you had to have an agent ID to get in and out of the listening post front doors. The relatively recent change to hand-scanners unlocking the post for all should have caused us to re-review this rule statement, but that didn't happen at the time. The admin team is now in discussion about the the metagaming listening post rule clause you mentioned.
Outside of the rules, there are some changes to game mechanics that will make things more clear through in-game interactions. I've already added contraband values to Kinetic pod weaponry to better communicate their illegal nature. In addition a PR is up that will have CARL no longer do business with non-antagonists; other black market vendors will be less discerning, as always.
Once again, I apologize for the confusion and frustration here and thank you for the report.
In this particular instance, a staff assistant taking it upon themselves to procure high-grade pod weaponry from the syndicate black market when security is alive and well strains rules we have around wanting to keep your job on our RP servers. I would feel similarly if a staffie picked up a SPES and some AEX ammo that was left out and kept them on hand for a while just in case an antag attacked. In addition, knowing where the post is and heading there is something we can both do OOC, but knowing where the super-secret syndicate base is as an entry-level job IC is a stretch. This is the crux behind the statement "fine on classic, not cool on RP", and I owed you that explanation when I reached out to talk with you.
That said, you're absolutely right in identifying inconsistency here; the rules around the listening post have not been updated in accordance with design changes over time. When that statement was put into the metagaming page, listening post access worked significantly differently - you had to have an agent ID to get in and out of the listening post front doors. The relatively recent change to hand-scanners unlocking the post for all should have caused us to re-review this rule statement, but that didn't happen at the time. The admin team is now in discussion about the the metagaming listening post rule clause you mentioned.
Outside of the rules, there are some changes to game mechanics that will make things more clear through in-game interactions. I've already added contraband values to Kinetic pod weaponry to better communicate their illegal nature. In addition a PR is up that will have CARL no longer do business with non-antagonists; other black market vendors will be less discerning, as always.
Once again, I apologize for the confusion and frustration here and thank you for the report.