Emagged shuttles and RP

[Error2147483647]

While I ostensibly intend this as a discussion thread, I'll come right out swinging with my own opinion on the matter. I think that you shouldn't be able to emag the shuttle console on the RP servers.

For one, the shuttle is often where either you get cooldown end-of-round RP where people tend to close off their gimmicks, smoke one if the shift was pretty rough, and Security has time to give themselves a round of pats on the back for a job well done if they managed to deal with all the antags. Or on the flipside, the site of a desparate last stand if a shambler makes themselves known, or a traitor who's been grandstanding all round gets to gloat and/or fight off the last dregs of whoever made it out. One guy choosing to emag the shuttle robs everyone of that.

Second point is that antags cannot roll the 'hijack the escape shuttle by escaping alone' objective on RP, so there's no greentext incentive to do it, and even then I'd be happier if they went on a rip-roaring rampage. In fact most antags (arcfiends, vamps, and lings most notably, but also traitors sometimes) DO get the 'escape alive' objective.

Third, and again this is an opinion, it just... generally doesn't feel good OOC to have the shuttle take off early, especially since it so often seems to be almost totally unescalated. It'd be one thing if someone made their intentions known from the start, with the quantity of people that removing the nigh-on only method of escape/victory that emagging the shuttle affects I'd expect corresponding amounts of escalation, but from the few times I've seen it that just... doesn't tend to happen.

An honourable mention goes to losing your spacebux purchase if you don't escape, and earning less too. Some people just don't care about spacebux though or have enough that it doesn't matter to them, hence why this is just an honourable mention rather than an actual point in my argument.

Most people I've talked to don't like shuttle emags for one reason or another but if you DO think that they're fine, please do chime in here. I'd love to hear your responses!

[Silent Majority]

I'm not sure how you could escalate it..I guess the bridge doors could be made unemaggable but people often force their ways in anyway.

I've never personally "got" the point of it myself. It really rarely seems to be for much of a reason other then you can

[GuiHppn]

I feel, although its not harmful directly to anyone either IC or OOC, it surely is a cold bucket of water to the face when you start hearing that closing time theme song just to learnt that its not closing. Ya stuck in the workplace. Sometimes the shuttle is a place to wrap things up, specially on either very busy or very quiet shifts. I fear the biggest issue is on the quiet ones, where you had few to none interactions with what was happening and the antagonists, just to have one of them rushing in the shuttle and grabbing an early leave. On the other hand, must feel amazing for the antagonist hehe. I dont know if this subject is easy to solve in anyways, because either will be changed mechanically (making emag just halving the boarding time, which would result in a rush in, or removing the emmag shuttle thing) or by moderation (which implies new rulesets and guidelines and overwatch from adming/ahelps from players). Also, i dont see that hapenning that much, at least on RP. Feels like even antagonists want to have someone else at the shuttle to... keep rplaying? Making sure, specially quietly and stealtly, that no one else board up feels like more as an scalation issue than the shuttle mechanics by themselves. Also sorry if its weird or misspelled but fuck 3am here i should be DEAD in bed by now

[Lord_earthfire]

The shuttle is the most boring to downright worst part of a round, so i don't care either way if it's cut short or not. If i am honest, i every often buckle in and grab a coffee irl because what happens on the shuttle is very often rampaging/self-antagging or just nothing.

Beyond this, after a very sucessfull antag round, emagging and "stealing" the shuttle is the final "fuck you" to the crew and makes for a great finale.

Cutting a not-eventfull or chaotic/self-antagging part of the round in favor for a good climactic ending is overall a good thing. I think shuttle emag should stay and i kinda wish we would see it more often on RP.

[Dhaidburt]

I feel, although its not harmful directly to anyone either IC or OOC, it surely is a cold bucket of water to the face when you start hearing that closing time theme song just to learnt that its not closing. Ya stuck in the workplace. Sometimes the shuttle is a place to wrap things up, specially on either very busy or very quiet shifts. I fear the biggest issue is on the quiet ones, where you had few to none interactions with what was happening and the antagonists, just to have one of them rushing in the shuttle and grabbing an early leave

Beyond this, after a very sucessfull antag round, emagging and "stealing" the shuttle is the final "fuck you" to the crew and makes for a great finale.

Cutting a not-eventfull or chaotic/self-antagging part of the round in favor for a good climactic ending is overall a good thing. I think shuttle emag should stay and i kinda wish we would see it more often on RP.

I'd say this is my view of things. If the traitor got away with EVERYTHING, the shuttle being stolen feels like you're shaking your fist at Lupin the 3rd, the villain who was always going to get away with it all. But if the shuttle is Emagged after an incredibly dull shift, it comes as an annoyance more than anything. You had 90 minutes to do things, and you chose NOW of all times??

[Kotlol]

As people point out...

It can be an amazing pay off... IF you do it correctly.
But most of the time. It doesn't.

It was just your emag spamming antagonist. And the worst part is... most players DO NOT KNOW who done it unless they say so in OOC.
So if let's say.. it's a non-antagonist who somehow got their hands on an emag. You wouldn't know, unless everyone Ahelps it, everytime the shuttle is emagged.

The other problem with it. Is escalation... and while my favorite type of escalation would be announcing the fact you are taking the shuttle and now the crew has to defend it's arrival (WICH IS COOL since now the whole station is involved), Everytime it happened it went either from:
"Ooh the guy spamming emags every where did it"
OR the most common
"We had an antagonist with an emag??'

Yea the most common occurance of this is litterly, "I didn't know we had an antagonist, let alone one with an emag."

In my opinion.. this stuff needs to be banned. Since a traitor head can pulls this off with relative ease and that makes it no fun.
If we want emagging the shuttle to remain. Then insted of an early leave, it gets delayed a minute insted with an announcement going: "Shuttle destination changed!"
And now the shuttle has to be fought and fixed before it leaves to "whoknowswhere" (Can be a funny destination that's not centcomm and everyone gets the "Did not escape" ending)

But as it stands now. Emagging the shuttle 90% of the time ruins the atomsphere and makes most of the time players go: "Well... that sucked."
It is similiar to getting out cryo, checking in the radio what's needed and then BOOM you explode due to a random traitor bombing you didn't know existed yet.

My other biggest issue is that emagging the shuttle ruins chances for other antags who want to do a shuttle gimmick. Cause now you don't have the full audiance you wanted...
So while in classic it's part of the fun. In RP , it needs to be changed/removed. And while some say: "I hate the shuttle escapes since it's boring/chaotic."
That's a small problem, but.. overall "stealing the shuttle" needs to be done differently with escalation possible.

Maybe emagging the shuttle call computer would announce the arrival of a syndicate shuttle players gotta fight over as another suggestion?
I can go on, but it needs changing. That's that.

[Lord_earthfire]

But if the shuttle is Emagged after an incredibly dull shift, it comes as an annoyance more than anything. You had 90 minutes to do things, and you chose NOW of all times??

I fully agree, but this is not really an issue with the emag specifically. the same happens with a scientist antag who does sit in toxins all the round and ttv's the shuttle at the end. Or the botanist who realizes they smoked weed all round and whips up the red saw in the shuttle.

This is the "antag wastes all round and goes loud on the shuttle"-situation. And the emag is just one way that can go down. Removing the emag interaction on RP doesn't change the problem.

[Error2147483647]

But if the shuttle is Emagged after an incredibly dull shift, it comes as an annoyance more than anything. You had 90 minutes to do things, and you chose NOW of all times??

I fully agree, but this is not really an issue with the emag specifically. the same happens with a scientist antag who does sit in toxins all the round and ttv's the shuttle at the end. Or the botanist who realizes they smoked weed all round and whips up the red saw in the shuttle.

This is the "antag wastes all round and goes loud on the shuttle"-situation. And the emag is just one way that can go down. Removing the emag interaction on RP doesn't change the problem.

Good points, good points...

Thing is we've had multiple rulings on where/exactly how much you should be escalating if you're going to go around bombing with maxcaps. People've been banned from the RP servers for misusing them before, whereas shuttle emags aren't something there's any admin dictation or precedent for. 

I think, even if the emag interaction is let as-is, then a more concrete ruling on the escalation required would go a long way.

[colossusqw]

Sharing my few cents on the matter:

I'd go as far as to say the shuttle control being a IC thing, as opposed to an OOC vote in general is far from ideal. The decision to keep playing a round or not is not something that should be integrated ICly and sabotage-able at all, it's an out of game thing that currently is either solely in the hands of command to decide, or hijackable, when "THIS DECIDES IF THE ROUND ENDS OR NOT" is something that majorly affects absolutely everyone in ways that even physically destroying parts of the station does not.

I've seen quite a few places have a pop-up vote for everyone, dead or alive, that has played the round to see if they want the shuttle to come or not, it's much more intuitive, less prone to misuse, and more indicative of what everyone involved in the round ACTUALLY wants instead of a few select people's will overriding a grand majority of players in a round.

[GuiHppn]

The idea of emags changing the location is great (although maybe a hard to achieve? dunno im no coder) But imagine if ya could choose where it would land. Either crash in a lava lake on lava moon, or land on a syndie station, get sent to an asteroid field or... just stops in the middle of the space, to be targeted by martians or drones, maybe sinks into the ocean or the trench. Theres a lot of possibilities.

[JOELED]

I've seen quite a few places have a pop-up vote for everyone, dead or alive, that has played the round to see if they want the shuttle to come or not, it's much more intuitive, less prone to misuse, and more indicative of what everyone involved in the round ACTUALLY wants instead of a few select people's will overriding a grand majority of players in a round.

I prefer this handling of shuttlecall a lot