Rules

Discord & Community Rules

• Administrator rulings are final, given they are made in good faith and in accordance with other rules and policies. If you have a problem with said rulings you may appeal to have said ruling reversed, clarified or amended by higher ranking administrators or project leads if no higher ranking administrator is available. If this rule is invoked to exact punishment on someone, the banning admin will be expected to have a strong reasoning for the ban, and the ban itself must be deemed for the better health of the server by a majority of the admin team AND the tribune of the plebs. I will elaborate more further below.
• Administrators will be held responsible for their actions and will be punished if the offense is severe enough or the admin has a history of similar offenses.
• Repeated line-toeing of an offense will be treated as an actual offense. Self-explanatory, if you repeatedly toe the line of any of the rules below it will be treated as if the rule was actually broken and a proportionate punishment will be exacted.
• Children will be removed on sight. Anyone under the age of 13 will be banned instantly per Discord ToS. Anyone under the age of 16 will be removed normally.
• No NSFW content. This is not an ERP server, please take that somewhere else. Discussion is allowed to an extent, err on the side of caution.
• Don’t be a douchebag. We’re all here to test ships, do your best to not actively make the environment of the discord terrible for others. This includes not shit-talking other servers here. We won’t ban for first-time offenses or off-hand comments but they will still be removed regardless.
  • No Bigotry. Period. Slurs (including thinly veiled real-life slurs directed at fictional groups [i.e. the N word but with a single letter replaced]), common dogwhistles, and “jokes” are not tolerated here. For the case of dogwhistles and slurs which one may not find offensive, we will not exact a real punishment but instead warn the offender.
• Keep discussions on-topic. We will not interrupt the natural flow of conversation unless it veers too far out, but please put discussions in their proper channels.
  • No Politics. Politics, especially of the recent events variety, is not allowed here, period. There will be no containment channel made for it, that’s called DMs.
  • Keep personal affairs out of Shiptest. This is not your friend group, this is an SS13 server. Please vent to people you actually know.
• No IC in OOC. This kind of goes without saying but it’s useful to have it codified anyways. Ick ock on the discord will net punishments on both the discord and game server.

Escalation Policies

On January the 13th, 2022, a set of escalation rulings and rules of engagement were put into effect on the main server. They are as follows:

Escalation Checklist

Though most players know how good escalation works, we're adding a way to clarify things in dubious situations, so that both sides hopefully know what to expect. You are not required to consider this, but it does help if you're doubtful. The checklist is as follows:

• Is there a meaningful gain to escalating?
• Are you taking the reasonable next step up?
• Are you the sole proprietor of the conflict?
• Do others around you want you to escalate?
• Do you have a distinct point you're not willing to escalate past?

Considering these questions personally or in LOOC helps clear up doubt with present escalation, and also helps you build a clear reasoning for your actions. Your answers, ideally, are yes, yes, no, yes and yes.

IFF System

Having tags that let players see escalation-relative information is also a part of this new system. There are two types of flag, each of which should be included as a prefix or suffix to a ship name.

Combat preference flags show how that ship wants to engage with regards to combat and escalation. Currently, there are only two: Neutral and Aggressive. Neutral (NTRL) ships are expected to be neither conflict-averse nor conflict-focused. They are your "average" crew, trying to get along or achieve a goal depending on their situation. Aggressive (AGRS) ships are ones who actively seek to engage whatever enemies might be present. That does not mean they exist solely or primarily to fight, but that they can and will. When an Aggressive ship escalates with a Neutral ship, the Aggressive ship is expected to personally review the escalation checklist.

Factional Tags

Factional tags determine alliance and use our existing ship tags structure. They determine who you're likely to fight. Excluding independent ships, ships of the same faction tag are generally expected to get along, even if they're both Aggressive. You shouldn't be fighting your own faction without a REALLY good reason. Faction tags are as follows:

• NTSV: Nanotrasen Space Vessel. You are enemies with the Syndicate, but not required to engage them if Neutral. You are neutral towards SolGov, and cannot attack them just because you think they might tax you. You are neutral towards independents also.

• SSV: Syndicate Space Vessel. You are enemies with Nanotrasen, but not required to engage them if Neutral. You are, like Nanotrasen, neutral towards SolGov and independent ships. You are not the "bad guys" and do not attack people without reason.

• SGSV: SolGov Space Vessel. You are a true neutral party, just like your Swiss forebearers. Escalate slowly if you need to, remember you're here to keep things together constructively. Do not space-cop. There will be paperwork. If you can, help mediate events between other parties.

• ISV: Independent vessel. Your relations to others are decided on a case-by-case basis. That's not an excuse to be a pirate or warlord. If you really want to be one, consult an admin first and get their approval. Otherwise, everyone is neutral to you.

• The captain (or highest ranking crewmember) decides your ship's tags when they start, and tags are generally discouraged from being changed unless necessary (a ship is taken over or converted, etc.) Ships not using tags are technically neutral, but will be encouraged by admins to pick tags to encourage use of the system.

False-flags are banned, and using them will result in a dayban. This is an OOC system for now, and we need people to be able to trust it.

We hope these new systems will add an enjoyable level of risk to Shiptest. Details subject to change as we get feedback and data.

Roleplaying Rules

Translated into boring-speak by MkSb (thanks marg you are greate)

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The Rules

Note: These rules were made in order to enhance to experience of players, not restrict them for the sake of it. These rules are subject to change as our community grows, evolves, and changes.

• Try to act in-character as a believable character. (See What’s a character? below)
• Do not be excessively malicious without extremely good reasoning, EVEN IF YOUR CHARACTER’S PERSONALITY ALLOWS FOR IT.
• Try to keep a roleplay standard where your characters actions are believable and fun.
• Refrain from content that may make other players uncomfortable in any way (ALL sexual content, excessively gross content, etcetera)
• Try to follow the lore, to the extent that it exists. Use of this wiki for finding lore is encouraged.
• Don't abuse RP features for the sake of gameplay advantage. This means nothing like leaving your typing indicator up to bait people into having their guard down.
  • As an aside to this, don't respawn as the same character in the same round you've already played as them (or a very similar character, or an identical relative of them... you get the deal). Even if you cryo on one ship, don't respawn on another as that character- how did they get from one cryo hold to the other?
• This is in the Discord and community rules, but bears repeating- communication of in-round information in OOC channels is bannable.

Additional Explanations

What’s a character?

According to Webster, a character is defined as being “one of the persons of a drama or novel,” “the personality or part which an actor recreates,” “a person marked by notable or conspicuous traits,” and other similar definitions.

…okay, and what does that have to do with anything?

Well, your “character” in SS13 reflects all of these definitions. It’s a personality that you, the actor, recreates. It’s a person in the drama that is a round of Space Station 13. It’s a person with notable/conspicuous traits as if everyone acted the same, rounds would be much more dull.

What the hell goes into flavor text?

Anything others can perceive about your character (what can be seen, observed, etc), and anything you'd want OOCly known about you the player, like "I'm new!" or "I don't like being converted to antag" (and it should hopefully be marked as such). You shouldn't put anything into flavor text that people wouldn't be able to know, like their backstory or personality (though things like tone of voice or posture can indicate such things and are acceptable!).

Lenience will probably be shown to jokier non-sequitur types of flavor text- after all, every videogame ever has had references in the flavor text of items or achievements rather than any genuinely useful information. And of course, it shouldn't violate any of the server rules.

So, what does in-character mean?

In-character mostly means you act like the character you’re trying to recreate would. Not that there’s really a for sure way to tell what they would do, as they don’t exist, but as you are their creator, you should be able to infer from the personality you construct for them what they would do.

Does that mean I just have to do exactly what I’m told without question, like what I’ve heard the stereotypical HRP server requires?

Well, you can, but generally people don’t always do exactly what they’re told no matter what the circumstances. A good character has to be believable, so if they just follow orders blindly (unless this is the personality you’re going for), it may not be believable as a character that sometimes questions or even refuses doing morally questionable things.

So can I not do stupid stuff?

You can totally do stupid stuff. Last I checked, most people had a sense of humour mixed with some amount of curiosity. HOWEVER, this doesn’t mean you can be stupid at the great expense of others. Most people are generally smart enough to know when something obviously is going to go wrong and have the morality to not do things they know will hurt others unless they have a really good reason for doing so.

So what kind of RP level is this again? I forgot.

What’s an RP level?