Nations RP Guidelines

[nefarious6th]

1. Way, way, way too many people
2. Heads taking off their headsets in UN meetings led to Bad Times for the department underlings because we didn't know when people would be back and without final approval on things people went ahead and just Did Stuff.
3. I was in engineering and the sudden declaration if us being rogue by the UN because we had backed Civvy was really off-putting. For the foot soldiers of the Engi dept, our first hint we were going rogue was...the declaration by the UN that we were rogue and to be killed or whatever. This led to pretty much whatever issues we had later with borders and people shooting us and whatnot. No comms message, no PDA message, nothing.,
4. We need a better process for people to go rogue versus going to the UN summit. Half of engineering quit by the end. (Mostly cargo gave up)
5. Traders accepting salvage was fun and good, it gave me a reason to go places I otherwise wouldn't have to go get crates and stuff versus just withdrawing some absurd amount of money.

[stagda]

One thing that made things difficult was communciating within nations privately. Perhaps theres a way to borrow some code for gangs and have each nation set up as a 'gang?' That would give them the ability to control membership/private comms/something like a locker could be a way to get items. Also coud be used to tag territory?

[Zonespace]

Merge #7276 when
In all seriousness, a population cap would be great, I had fun as the RD because science was small, only 6-7 scientists. But even then it was a pain to keep everything in order, because of the general population causes constant break-ins and miscreantism among the people outside of the nation, leading to me having to execute and space several staffies because they were constant aggressors to science via breaking in and attacking science staff.

[AGreywolfe]

so from the perspective of the AI in regards to the silicon nation i have mixed feelings:

on the one hand i love it because its an interesting challenge and allows you to do so much in regards to destabilizing the station. From what i saw i think the borgs liked the freedom as well even with the restrictions i gave them and our neutrality as a whole.

but on the other hand that neutrality is almost forced as the borgs have such a massive disadvantage because they cant replace lost limbs or rebuild dead borgs like every other nation can, nor can our borgs adjust tools or adapt to changing situations without direct assistance from another crew member.

so while its a nice challenge to play a neutral party in a game thats all about murdering the crap out of each other its kind of spoiled by the fact that its almost forced on you. if i were to suggest any changes i think it would be to make the silicon department a sort of third party entity.

they have no claim to territory because they automatically have access to the whole station. maybe just a simple goal change to be something like "silicons priorities are to ensure the station remains livable by whatever means they see fit" this gives them a clear goal outside of invade every room you can, while also allowing them to get violent if they want, which would still allow them to throw wrenches into the plans of overly aggressive nations.

thats just how i feel about it, im sure everyone has ideas on how to improve it better though.

[Merlin1230]

I will say, the un summit felt like I didn't have much of a say in stuff. Or... really knowing what happened. stuff felt like it sorta stayed in there and didn't come out. Granted, I was a peacekeeper, but it seemed like one minute everything was fine and the next civ and engi are rogue nations?? that we have to detain?? And I never even knew why... it was all very confusing for me for why things were this way. and like I said before, the whole taking off your headset in the meeting for meetings that lasted like... 30 minutes? 20? something like that, it kinda lead to more confusion cause now I couldn't get contact with my head! and I'd imagine it was similar for the actual nations, as I was only a peacekeeper.

[Ikea]

Making roboticists a part of silicon department instead of medical department would probably be a good change however Im unsure how youd convey that in a way thats clear to all.

[SlashSync]

I don't know if the robo thing is needed since silicon's were neutral and simply made a deal to get the service they needed. Made for pretty fun diplomatic RP to be honest.

[Yellow]

Im so sorry oh my god it didnt embed and I get a hosting error every time I try to edit it oh fuck

[nefarious6th]

I will say, the un summit felt like I didn't have much of a say in stuff. Or... really knowing what happened. stuff felt like it sorta stayed in there and didn't come out. Granted, I was a peacekeeper, but it seemed like one minute everything was fine and the next civ and engi are rogue nations?? that we have to detain?? And I never even knew why... it was all very confusing for me for why things were this way. and like I said before, the whole taking off your headset in the meeting for meetings that lasted like... 30 minutes? 20? something like that, it kinda lead to more confusion cause now I couldn't get contact with my head! and I'd imagine it was similar for the actual nations, as I was only a peacekeeper.

Parallel experience from within a nation
Additionally, the closed door meetings and lengthy time they were occupied meant it was not really possible to go ask for permission to create a new state. I'm not even sure how I would've contacted the Captain or my head for approval for that in a convenient manner where i could go into an already running meeting with that request.

[data_err0r]

Posted on behalf of Yellow

[AgrippaHera]

I think HOP's role isn't really suited for the rule format of nations, as I had to kind of deal with ID changing, which was only allowed with confirmation from other heads (In an incredibly busy radio chat), on top of an insane amount of things. While ACTIVELY trying to visit all my departments, i was able to meet with botany ONCE.

Additionally, from the perspective of a head, not being able to communicate with your nation was very much out of our hands, so I think changes ought to be made for that. (controlling all of civ was very, very impossible).

Others have already made note of the pop issues.

Additionally, people seem to be REALLY pasionate about nations, I think you are really on the edge of a great goon gimmick!! Please keep workin on it

[Skorpios]

I feel a lot of my ideas have already been said but I'll add in one more. The map layout of Donut 3 for Nations was pretty odd for engineering. Medical, science, and the Peacekeepers could hole up in their specific areas and just keep people in the hallway, but engineering is straddling the eastern hall. This caused a huge amount of tension as some players started blockading what was usually a public access hall.

I did see a lot of people have genuine fun with the event though. Lots of engineers ran around shouting "GLORY!" and "HAIL!" which I think shows a ton of passion for the idea. Engineering is usually such a silent department, so seeing them come together, even if it was in brief flashes between the chaos, was very cool.

I'd love to see this ran again someday.

[Love]

So, I played a borgo. Love.

It wasn't a misery, as described before, for silicons. We communicated well with eachother. We helped one another as we could. We had some small goals like setting up power independence and securing a ruck kit. Silicon nation was a place of calm and peace compared to elsewhere. We had fresh coffee!

I enjoyed the round, because borgfriends hanging out and borging around is always nice.

But there are still issues. Paralysis because lost limbs and death were irrecoverable. NKTA spent half the round as limbless nugget barely able to move. We only eventually got that fixed because TURTLE independently negotiated with medical, then we bypassed the heads and lied to a doctor about having the MDs permission to take him. (We will love you for real, Josiah, even if we got you via deception!) Because as with everything else, waiting for after the latest Summit was a joke.

The heads didn't run things. They sat in a room and pretended to run things while the actual round happened and things were done. They weren't leaders, they are roadblocks to leadership. Not due to personal failing, just by design. They precluded other leadership while being cloistered away in a bunker. Even us silicons, who were lucky enough to have a leader that couldn't take off their headset, were directionless. All we had was a mandate to keep halls clear that nobody knew about and not even the peacekeepers, who we were doing it for, supported.

To offer a TL;DR, it wasn't a game of diplomacy and warfare for borgs. It was an economic simulator of a scrappy developing nation with abundant natural resources trying to bootstrap itself to self sufficiency. ...Then giving up because it's an anarchy and just kidnapping doctors from developed nations, and holding them in a cave like a bunch of strange backflipping hill yokels.

[Telareti]

Overall i had a fun time! thanks for another fun event! so what i think is, the traders were done amazingly again, and being able to give them items in exchange for things is very helpful! the map this time around felt a lot nicer and less cramped and all the heads did great, and were more organised this time around, likely due to the RSVP. i love the Nation idea, theres so much fun RP from deception and diplomacy,
I feel many others enjoy the idea of Nations RP As well! and i feel with trial and error and some more nation events the issues can all start to be fixed!

the main issues i found were what people have mainly already said but they are. Heads having to take off their radios at the summit lead to many departments having a lack of a head guiding them and informing them on the Goal and also keeping Order, For Example in the science Department at the start, some people were already saying things like "going to start making TTVs and WMDS" 2 minutes in But lucky for science, Walks The RD was on radio to provide leadership and make a Goal clear, this lead to science being very organised i feel.

I felt the second issue was also Pop. In Terms of ways to fix these things though i like Yellows RSVP idea, i also like Sovs Idea for maybe a VR Summit, that could allow things to run faster and smoother, and another way was Leys Idea for Delegates could also work and allow the heads time to mange their nation well the Delegate handles the UN.

these were the main issues i experienced myself, But thanks again for the amazing round! the idea for nation is great and the Handling of the event by the admins has been done fantastically!

[Wrench-1]

I appreciate and respect all of the effort that went into this event from the Admin team. Nations takes a lot of planning and preparation, and then a lot of ahelp answering and log checking to keep things on relative track. The amount of effort you folks go through to make events like these for us to play is amazing, and thank you for that! But with that being said, this event wasn't good, and this was not because of the Admins, but because of various factors leading it to be doomed from the start. A lot of these problems have already been stated, but I want to give some practical examples of how these issues impacted the round for me personally.

For the round, I played as Evelyn, my QM character. The goal for me personally this round was to amass Engineering a lot of wealth and go around to traders to sell various wares I collected from salvage operations into space, and this was a similar goal shared by most QMs this round, which explains why when stuff started going REALLY badly in Engineering, most QMs either cryo'd out, or bailed on Engineering as a whole and just wandered around and vibed with other folks that also left their nations. Engineering and the round as a whole was really fun for the first 60 - 90 minutes. Engineering was cooperating and interacting with each other, which is very uncommon in normal rounds on the RP Server, but the first issue I caught onto very quickly was the player count, especially in Engineering. Engineering by far being the largest department, it also had the greatest number of disparity among players. Some folks wanted to chill and make the nation stronger through funds, and goods and services, some folks wanted to chill and feed the Singularity and make it stronger, some folks wanted to amass weaponry, some folks wanted to barricade the Engineering hallway, and some folks just wanted to go to war with Sci super early because they took over Tech Storage. This also isn't mentioning Engineering comms going a mile a minute and being absolutely impossible to communicate on effectively with the 20+ players all shouting over each other about various topics and various tasks, and shouting for folks to start fights with Sci or start fights with someone else. It got to the point where I was just ignoring comms altogether.

Along with the disparity of players in Engineering all wanting to do different things, the fact that in the Summit, heads of staff were encouraged to not wear their headsets meant that there were long stretches of time where Engineering had absolutely no contact with their leader due to summits often lasting 30+ minutes. Due to this, Engineering had no clear cut overall nation goal set out by the CE, and everyone that wanted to do something, did it without consulting the CE or their fellow nation members, completely disregarding the negative impact it would have on other nation members, and other players from other nations. For example, the Engineering hallway, which is a Public Hallway a lot of folks use, being barricaded lead to moments where Peacekeepers simply couldn't get folks to Medbay on our end of the station, and this was made worse when the doors that were part of the barricade were BOLTED for some reason. I do not blame the CE or any of the head players for what happened, as they all still did fantastic given the situation and I know they tried keeping things on track, but simply put, if the heads of a nation are going to be unreachable for a very long period of time, things are going to go down hill really fast.

For me, the round started going fully downhill when Engineering was declared a Rogue Nation when we backed the Civilian Nation, and our CE outright disappeared for a long period of time and I still don't know where they went, leading to Engineering having to vote for a new leader, which resulted in a three-way tie and EVEN MORE disparity and chaos. The declaration of Engineering being rogue was the first time a lot of the players in Engineering were made aware of this, and also didn't agree with, which in turn resulted in a lot of members of Engineering leaving, either by Cryoing out, or just going solo and trying to transfer to another nation, which is what I tried to do. This was IMPOSSIBLE to do because, as per the rules, in order to transfer nations you had to take part in a UN summit, which at the time was impossible because tensions were too high and summits weren't being held. This lead to a lot of refugees just wandering the station without any purpose and sorta just waiting out the round timer, which is how I spent the last third of my round, or they cryo'd out. I was practically begging to switch nations and being told I couldn't at the time, so I asked for Security to grant me sanctuary, which they obliged, but then I shortly decided to leave and went on to do some small scale RP with other disgruntled former nation members, which was a personal highlight, so thank you to everyone that RPd with me here. In turn, the round ended with me, and a bunch of other disgruntled players having a slumber party in Sec, and then heading to Botany Maint to hotbox Omega Weed together and die.

A lot of solutions to these issues have been given, but I'll add my own thoughts to them too.

For events of such a scale, a playercap is necessary. There were WAY too many players, with a good chunk of them not being really RP focused, or folks that just joined from the hub seeing that it was one of the top servers at the time and didn't even read the rules of the round. I understand and respect that we want to include everyone that we can in an event, but it is simply not feasible to expect 100+ people to all RP and behave, especially in an RP heavy event like Nations, and I don't think its feasible for Admins to see absolutely every rule break when there are that many people on the server, but I could be wrong because our Admins are super powered. A pre-round sign up would be beneficial for this, which Yellow has suggested so props to them. Allow those that want to take part to sign up, and then when the Whitelist joins, remove the whitelist to fill out the remaining player slots. A player count of around 80~ I think would be the best for a round like this.

A new way to hold summits would also be useful, but I think maybe the best way to fix this would be to do Ikea's idea, and allow for departments to have TWO Head slots, with one being an ambassador that goes to the Summits, and one being a departmental manager that stays in the nation. That way, when the Ambassador is away at a summit, departments still have contact with their departmental manager and can still get the greenlight and overall goals from them, so nations don't turn into chaos due to lack of communication from the head.

And lastly, transferring nations NEEDS to be made a lot simpler. Waiting for a summit to happen is just not feasible, and it would be made a lot more simpler if to transfer, you just had to seek approval from the head of the nation you wish to transfer to. Maybe fill out some paperwork to make it more official, and then the leader of the nation can hand it to the Captain so they know when a transfer has taken place. Would definitely save folks from just wandering the station without a purpose when their nation goes to hell.

Sorry for the long post... I just had a lot to get off my chest about this round. Again, I want to reiterate that Admins did fantastic, and the new way the traders worked was also fantastic! You take goods your department makes, and trade them for goods of equal value. Its quick, fun and simple, and doesn't give Cargo a ridiculous advantage. The main issues all stemmed from Population issues, lack of communication with the head of each nation, and the really difficult process we have to attempt to go through in order to switch nations.