A little Question and Answer Thread.

[Mordent]

What exactly can you do about telesci metagangs? You know the type - 4/5 players teaming up several rounds in a row, one of them usually joining as HOP/Cap and granting the rest all-access at roundstart, before they robbing mechanics and sec blind and spend the round looting the adventure zones. Attempting to stop them usually results in them promptly getting released and tossed in the brig yourself, and then rounds go on for hours because they hold the shuttle hostage until they get what they want. It's not really true metagaming and certainly the sol nerds would never have gotten as far as they did without some degree of coordination, but the same few nerds doing it every round with impunity gets old.

Is this a problem on LLJK2 as well? It's definitely one on LLJK1; I get that people want to do telescience because life aboard the NSS Destiny can get dull after a while on extended, but the problem you mention is totally a thing.

It's worse when they keep recalling the shuttle when people die on the ship - let alone those on telesci - or getting pissy that no one is able to because all of the heads are busy doing telesci. I've seen rounds with a massive engine fire and perhaps ten people dead because of it over the span of twenty minutes, and the three or four command staff keep recalling the shuttle because they're telesciencing. Keep in mind that outside of events LLJK1 rarely gets over a dozen consecutive players at the moment, and you can see the extent of the problem.

I've done telescience in the past, it just doesn't really interest me, so I'm always on the ship trying to hold together the pieces while all of the folks with authority and access are off galivanting elsewhere. It's also not always bad - sometimes they do respond to actual requests to do their real jobs (e.g. sort out access, make command decisions) - but I'd say 75% of the time I simply don't see the captain/HoP outside of the first and last ten minutes of the round, and if I do it's because they're wanting one of their telescience buddies cloned or healed up.

In terms of fixing the problem (and yes, I do think it's a problem when only a select few players get to play how they want to the exclusion of others), I tend to simply insist on a shuttle call when appropriate, being somewhat obstinant and stubborn when told to recall it (I'm often the CoM). Throw in some "standard procedure" RP fluff around it and generally they agree to the call in 10 minutes.

How does the telescience bunch get to actually do their thing without me doing this? Actually show your face on the station for ten minutes here or there and go through the backlog of things that you were meant to be doing - settle disputes, sort out payroll, adjust access, re-issue IDs, check your department is intact (I've seen the RD come back at the end of the round and wonder where all of his scientists were and what happened to the research hallway... they died in a huge explosion caused by toxins that flooded most of research with all-consuming fire that we've just barely managed to contain, let alone fix, which we've been frantically talking about over the radio for ages) - and respect the fact that there are more players on than you. Yes, right this second the telescience group could make up 2/3rds of those online, but there have been a whole bunch who signed up and left shortly after because they either died and got bored waiting or couldn't get anything done because of the lack of their department head/HoP/Captain.