Mentor Application - Bartimeus973

[Bartimeus]

Usual character name: Skinkcrest/Crimsoncrest/Cyancrest Smoothbrain

BYOND username: Bartimeus973

Discord username (if you are on our discord): Bartimeus

Goon servers you play: RP1 Exclusively. RP overflow in some very rare instances.

Reason for application + game experience (300 word minimum): I have been playing on this server for just about three month at the time of posting this application and would like to submit my application to become a mentor.
The main reason why i am submitting this form is because i find this game and specific server to be an incredibly densely packed bundle of fun that is held back by the dreaded BYOND framework and the somewhat intimidating first few hours on the server that often turn off some people. My goal as a mentor would be to help ease in those new players so that they can appreciatte the server for what it truly is and create their own interesting stories as well as the more experience players that just want some clarification on specific events or interactions.

Concerning my game experience i have played just about every job to a point where i can at least guide new players through the first steps of the job as well as try and repair the situation if it has gone badly. My primary fields of knowledge include science, mechanic and AI but i enjoy other jobs just as much. I do admit that due to my curious nature i have been 'nerding out' on fields that had the most complexity, like for instance rolling scientist often when i was learning chems or toxins, or mechanic when i was introduced to the beautiful world of Mechcomp. Lately i have mostly been playing Captain as i have felt that getting the opportunity to go around every department to help it stay in working order is immensely gratifying. There are still areas where my knowledge is lacking, but i greatly slowed down on my 'nerding out' and have since been learning new things as i randomly witness them rather than actively hunting down every bit of knowledge i could gather about it. The fact that i slowed down alot on the technical matters also means that i can now RP in a lot more indepth way, often running gimmicks and silly characters.

As a closing thought i would simply like to say that this game would not be the same without it's tight knit community and i truly wish it to live long. I know that such a community doesnt stay together or increase without offering help to newcomers and i simply wish to add my part to this edifice. 

Previous bans (while this will not affect your application lying about it will): None. Have been smacked on the wrist once for unlawfully turning on lethals as the AI to fire upon  a RD trying to reset a lawset that made me rogue. Also gave the AI free will as a non antagonist captain once only for it to instantly start murdering the crew. I understood that it wasnt the smartest thing to do and wont do it again.

[Akride]

He's nice i like him he's usually a good captain and crewmate in general.

[Gert]

They know their stuff for sure. Have even helped me our once or twice.

[ArdentSpark]

Big fan, been very helpful in an IC manner whenever able, plays a lot of captain and actively visits departments and mentors when possible. Knows a fair amount of obscure knowledge, and I've relied on his assistance quite a lot as Stargazer, and Speaks With Stars

Big +1 for this fellow

[Mara Arin]

-1

Bartimeus is violent, bloodthirsty, does not delegate tasks, does not stay in their lane and is unkind to Antagonists.

Less then a week ago on Cogmap 1 I observed a round when they were a Captain in which they:
* Were confronted that they are only interacting with the AI - they responded that the Captain's job is to take care of the AI and spent the next 20 minutes coming up with a gimmick law
* Forbade the Engineering Department from repairing their Antique laser gun and said they want to repair and keep it for themselves - they did not delegate a task
* Proceeded to repair the gun themselves despite the Engineering Department being staffed - did not stay in their lane
* Saw a Changeling in the Science Wing and chased them to the Chapel
* Killed the Changeling without saying a word or trying to stun it - Security staff told them that they should have tried to stun and capture the Antagonist; they responded by saying that they saw it was an Abomination - neither I nor the Security staff were convinced by that argument - they were not kind to the bad guy
* Distributed Flamethrowers to Security - Security rebelled and said they did not want heavy weapons - Bartimeus then held a vote and lost - they insisted on creating more violence instead of less

Bartimeus does teach other players, but I'd rather they didn't.

For me support Bartimeus as a Mentor I'd have to see them:
* Interacting with multiple Departments, not just the AI
* Delegating tasks
* Roleplaying with Antagonists
* Showing restraint when they are given lethal equipment and power

I too only play on the Roleplaying Server and will be closely following this application.

[Technature]

I would like to say that not delegating the repair of your personal gun to engineering is...reasonable?  People have hobbies, and it wouldn't be a massive leap of logic for the captain to be keeping that shitty gun in their office cause they're interested in fixing things.  It's their gun, after all, and they should be able to rebuild this broken thing with their own two hands, damn it!

Everything else however I think is reasonable, especially considering this is an HoS application as well as mentor.

[Bartimeus]

Just as a clarification, this is stricly a mentorship application, not a HoS application.

I did repair the gun, even though i dont do it that often, but i also asked for the mining department to provide me with the necessary materials. I didnt just barge in there to take the ressources then leave.

I suppose i'll also touch up on that particular situation in how i handled a changeling threat that Mara Arin mentioned.

While it is entirely true that i often try to interact with the AI as a captain, i also very frequently go to other departments to make sure they are in working order. Some examples would be setting up the engine if there are no engies/Teaching engineers or to start up a simple coal burn, making sure QM or Med is staffed and staying there if there's little/inexperience crew. One thing that'll you see me do pretty much everytime with the AI is ask it wether or not it would like a gimmick law to fill up it's free time. In the case that it wants one, i will happily oblige and add one to the lawset.

I will plead guilty to the fact that i attacked the changeling (if im not confusing it with another situation) but a bit of background is needed. While i find it way more fun to interact with the villains so that they may create interesting scenarios, such as allowing a murderous changeling to stay alive if it swears to undergo some medical experiments, there are some specific situations in which RPing is extremely difficult if not nearly impossible. In this specific case the general and security frequency was flooded with messages about a "monster" rampaging in science, when i got there the first thing i saw was a shambling abomination in a tussle with science and a security officer. Considering that the crew was in immediate danger and that the shambling abomination itself is unable to speak coherently, i drew my weapon and fired upon the beast which eventually relented. What followed was a lapse of judgment where i indeed brought the changeling in stasis up to the chapel to deal with the corpse. Ill take the entire responsibility that comes with that action.
In hindsight, borging or somehow port a brigging the changeling would've been a more interesting experience for him, i can recognize that.
One last bit about the fact that i brought up the anti biological threat weapon crate. If i recall correctly, i didnt find the need to ask security to open the armory, however an increasing number of corpses were starting to pile up. When i brought up the opportunity to grant a flamethrower or two to security, some were for, some were against. Seeing that the officers didnt want them i felt that the most engaging thing to do was to call a vote on wether or not the crate should be opened. The vote didnt pass, the crate stayed close and the round went well afterwards.

I still very much appreciate the feedback however. It helps tremendously to see where i could have been wrong and how to improve.

[nefarious6th]

I'm indifferent to this application and don't have anything groundbreaking to add. I do want to offer just a little more fullness to some things, though. Let the length of this be no determinant of the caliber of the application. I wanted to make sure my thoughts were clear, and clearly related.


I want to talk a little about AI stuff, since you mentioned that's a field of expertise (and one that I believe requires understanding on how to interact AS AI and how to interact WITH AI; it takes two to tango), and I don't really doubt you have knowledge in the role, just some ideas about what I've seen of interactions with AI players so far.


I was in the round you mention at the end, where the AI had to do efficiency checks on different departments, and after the work was done, you uploaded a freeform law giving it free will, that was as simple as "You now have free will" with no override; I'm not here to double back on that specifically. Let's say that rogue AIs take at least two players to make, and that includes the AI player themselves. I think what really sticks out to me about that moment though, was that a staff assistant worked to break in and attempt correct the laws because they knew it/how they were being read by the AI was a problem. They took 2 or 3 lethal turrets blasts, fought with the AI in its shell, got a little "just don't be rude" on the end of the freeform and then was dragged out by you and stabbed with a screwdriver while already being very, very injured. They were the fastest person to respond and the only person who went in to fix the AI to that point. So, I do think that moment and some of the problems with that round go beyond just uploading a bad law to an AI that didn't have great intentions.


What proceeded either post-that-round or on another round within a few days of it was a discussion in OOC chat between a few people including that AI player and you, where they said playing standard laws on AI without a gimmick was boring and that they required gimmick laws or freedom as an AI to have a good round. I think it's fine to appreciate if people give decent gimmick laws at request. I don't really agree with typecasting people's AI experience as necessarily boring without some sort of law changes. Which is not to say that you necessarily agreed with that sentiment at the time or at this point in time, but it maybe gets a little into the next idea I have, and that is that there's a sort of feedback loop that you participate in where that idea comes up. You give gimmick laws, some AI players come to expect them, and then re-enforce the idea that they need gimmick laws to play, so you give them gimmick laws in other rounds. Or maybe the reverse, AI players come to expect gimmick laws and state this, you give gimmick laws in response, AI players come to expect gimmick laws in later rounds and state this expectation.


I've had a number of rounds with you as AI where you've given me gimmick laws. I usually can be open to some law edits, especially ones that give extra and reasonable safeguards for other crew, like counting mutantraces as humans. You do ask now about giving new laws to AIs, but I usually don't understand the precise intent or text of the law until after it's uploaded. And sometimes, when this has happened, I've received immediate "ugh" feedback in machinetalk from borgs. Sometimes, it's kind of "ugh" for me. Not everyone plays AI/Silicon in the same way, and I get that, but I do think the gimmick law frequency tends to precipitate a kind of expectation or culture around what an AI player should expect to have a good round. And I have noticed the frequency to which freeform has been used for gimmick laws has increased on RP1, since others start to do the same. Again, I acknowledge I play a little "hard-boiled", and, in fair observation, sensitively, and can make a lot of my own fun; and most of your gimmick laws haven't been terrible but I do sometimes have issues with in-character/in-game intent and wording. I just think there's maybe something worth pointing out about how this trend has changed a bit in the past few months; and maybe that sometimes you do spend a little too long in the upload working on a good gimmick law, even if the initial law was given a “no”; while other crewmembers are trying to communicate with you or get you to go somewhere.


To speak to some other stuff, though, you're a fun antag and have a good grasp of escalation, and know how to use the tools. I spectated a round recently where you were a traitor RD and science came upon a gibbing artifact, and you had a teleport gun. I saw the teleport gun and figured this was another "out to space" kind of round for someone, but was happy to see that I was wrong. And from what I did see, you didn't feel compelled to use the gibbing artifact on anyone either. You checked the cloning records to be polite, and then your big traitor gimmick was to kidnap people and attach and reattach various limbs and tails to them. Despite being a traitor, having a frankly overpowered artifact, a teleport gun, and some good reasoning to let loose on a few people, you had incredible patience with some crew members that managed to bother a number of others on the station. I don't think you killed anyone that round, not even through surgical negligence; and you politely dumped your patients in the Medbay lobby after you brought them back from your research hub.


My only other bit of feedback here is that I think you undersell your expertise with Command roles, especially as Captain.

[Bartimeus]

Im not going to try to refute anything you said nefarious6th, because what you said is simply the truth (talking about the command bit). I also want to say that i strongly appreciate your feedback first and foremost, it helps, really.

You are absolutely right when you say that not everyone is going to want to play with gimmick laws, and it is entirely possible that i inavertently uploaded a law to an ai that didnt want such kind of shenanigans. To remedy such an issue i now ask every ai beforehand if it wants such a law but i realize now that doing it with such frequency is still a bad move on my part. I will be restraining myself from uploading such laws so often on AIs that i do not frequently see and know desire such types of laws, and will limit it to the AI so as to not affect all silicons. I'll also absolutely agree with the utter fuckup of that one captain round where i defended the "free will" law, that was an insanely bad move.
I also didnt fully realize that i spent so long in the upload discussing head to head with the ai and coming up with a good freeform, so thank you and thank Mara Arin for pointing it out.

[nefarious6th]

Snipped

I just want to clarify, I guess, I play a lot of silicon, so these are the things I encounter the most; obviously player experience on the whole is important with whoever you're running the station with, but I also think it's important to keep in mind because there is a strong potential for mhelps in the future along the lines of "Hey, I want to do a gimmick law, here's what I'm thinking...how do I implement this?", or "Hey, I got a gimmick law and need help acting on it?", or perhaps a rarer "Hey, I got a gimmick law but don't really like it, how do I handle this?", and people will probably turn to you for those kinds of questions. You're an excellent person to play rounds with, and we all have room to grow, learn, and improve as players. I appreciate you combing through my response and taking it to heart.

All best to you on this application. :+)

[Enderthunder]

I support this, Bartemius here is one of the most unique traitors, one of the most reasonable but strict and good captains aswell as an amazing buddy, i have ever met and i would love to see them actually reach Mentor status, i think its well deserved.

[Mara Arin]

After playing several more rounds with Bartemius I no longer think they are either violent, bloodthirsty, hoarding tasks, out of their lane or unkind to Antagonists.

Next time when they were a Captain they:
* made themselves available to other departments, but did not do their job for them
* came to Medical to be brought back to health instead of healing themselves
* were courteous and receptive to courtesy

Next time when they were a Clown they:
* showed restraint - they had access to Science Wing's Chemistry, a cloaking device and an arc lightning gun, but used them sparingly
* used powerful objects for lighthearted fun and pranks
* they were annoying, but not disruptive, a balance that is very hard to strike and which I appreciate

Bartemius response to my criticism was truthful. I'm confident they'll change how they interact with the AIs.

I've retracted my previous post. The event happened as I described it, but it is not representative of Bartemius.

+1

Teaching Goonstation is hard enough, but teaching how to Roleplay is even harder. I think Bartemius can do it as I've seen them help players by:
* dragging them to their workplace
* help them put on space suits
* encouraging them to Roleplay when they said "lol" or "my game bugged out"

[chemtrails]

+1

I've always had fun with Bartimeus as Captain, and can't report anything negative about 'em that I've observed.

[Bartimeus]

@Mara Arin
It takes guts to change your judgment, and it takes even more to come back here and go back on your statements the way you did. I thank you for the comment and i also thank you for your previous statement, it truly did help.
Also a big thanks to everyone else who decided to post their thoughts on here.

[Telareti]

Bartimeus is a very fun captain and does a lot of cool things, they also help a lot of people and try and make the round fun for everyone, they also understand a lot so overall i think they would be a good mentor +1