Server Rules
Nova Sector 13 Rules
- These rules are the framework for everyone on the server
- This server is for people who are 18 years of age or older. No exceptions.
- Our servers are based in the United States and we adhere to both moral guidelines and the United States Law.
Rule 0: Be Mature
- Don’t be a dick OOCly. Being needlessly antagonistic to other community members, generally toxic, or any other variation you could imagine won't be tolerated.
- English literacy is a must. We do not expect grammatical perfection; you should be able to speak comprehensibly out of character.
- Don’t “ride the line” with regards to the rules.
- Follow through on the spirit of rules, and not just their exact wording.
- If an admin has told you not to do something; do not do it.
- Don't attempt to argue in wordgames with the staff, it's their job to enforce the rules, not argue for them.
- Do not target players in bad faith.
- This applies across the board, and if you're caught doing so with a group, everyone involved will be banned.
- Do not ban-bait people.
- This includes misrepresenting a situation.
Rule 1: Do Not Grief
Griefing is the act of deliberately annoying or angering another player maliciously.
- Large scale destruction much be signed off by an administrator first.
- Players should use the opfor system to request permission for large-scale bombing, plasmaflooding, acid-flooding, or anything else that can and likely will damage a large swathe of the station.
2. Do not spam. This includes in-character conversation, the global out-of-character channel, or any other text channel used in-game.
3. Do not attack others randomly.
- If you want to attack another character, have a valid IC reason. see: Server Rules#10.5 Non-Antagonist Criminal Addendum
4. Do not exploit bugs or errors in the code to your benefit in-game.
- Report issues to the wider community in the main-dev chat channel, and on the github.
5. Do not disrupt the station, or machinery without just-cause.
- This can make the round effectively unplayable if enough vital functions are destroyed. Unless you have an approved OPFOR, you shouldn't excessively sabotage the station, or departments, this includes messing with the engine.
6. Do not harass a player ICly if it is unwelcome.
- this should be a given.
7. Don't touch SSD/AFK players unless you are moving them to safety/cryo (after the 30 minutes have passed).
8. The interlink isn't the place for conflict, or instigating stuff; you shouldn't be starting or trying to drag trouble there.
9. No force-borging or transforming another person's character without OOC consent.
Examples:
- Examples: Spamming *scream or any emote excessively in public will not be tolerated.
- Brawls or fights that naturally escalate are encouraged, but additionally you shouldn't be using them as an excuse to drag others in.
Rule 2: Listen to the staff team
The staff is responsible for upholding the enforcement of rules on the server. As such, they have a final say on related matters.
Take feedback about staff to a staff-report, or staff-feedback.
If you are ever considering doing something particularly drastic in terms of escalation - for example, mutinies - request permission via Admin-Help.
- Be polite, honest, and to the point when sending an admin PM.
- Time, place, the act itself, who did it, who might have seen it are all things that help staff in the moment with figuring out the situation overall.
- Do not instigate someone you are admin-helping about.
- This also means, you shouldn't start taunting them in LOOC after opening the ticket.
- An admin's word is final. If they say not to do it, do not do it.
- If you suspect an admin is in the wrong, calmly take the incident to an Staff-Help, and ping staff managers/headadmins to restrict it.
- Lying to the staff is a punishable offense.
- Lying in adminhelps, misrepresenting facts deliberately, or logging off when an admin has asked a question may result in a permaban, if you don't return.
- Avoid talking about rule breaks in the global OOC channel.
- If an admin tells you that something is IC, valid, and so forth, that is the final answer. Admins are not obligated to give you more information than they think is necessary during an ongoing round.
- If the situation you are admin-helping about is immediately happening to you, continue with the situation where possible, and ahelp immediately. (THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO PREFBREAK.)
Rule 3: Stay In-Character and Meet Character Standards
Your character must fit into the lore and setting, this includes their current situation.
- Speak in a believable manner.
- Knowledge must be consistent with the character; that means they shouldn't suddenly know how to do complex surgeries when convenient, when they previously couldn't.
- Do not act silly in a way that disrupts others RP, this includes stuff like: 'saying rofl,' 'spraypainting this months meme on the floor,' etc.
- Follow the character standards: General Player Policy and Standards
- Do not impersonate other player's characters.
- If you are playing someone else's character( I.E, changeling, genetics, etc.), you are not allowed to ERP as that character without OOC permission.
- Do not copy and paste real-world people and pre-existing fictional characters.
- (This does not mean you cannot play 'Deathclaws' or 'Xenomorphs' just that you cannot literally be John-117)
- Do not commit suicide for little reason.
- For Ex: Do not kill yourself to escape in-character punishments, do not commit suicide to spite someone for something mildly rude they said, etc.
- Underaged characters are strictly prohibited.
- Your character must look like an adult. Short species like goblins, kobolds, and so forth are allowed, however, they must still be an adult.
- The hard-coded limit for character age is 18 for a reason. Do not attempt to work around this by describing your character as looking “younger than 18” in your flavor text in any form, as it will be treated as a violation of the rules.
- Equally, do not try to imply they could be anything but above age.
- Your character must look like an adult. Short species like goblins, kobolds, and so forth are allowed, however, they must still be an adult.
Rule 4: Meet Minimum Roleplaying Standards - No LRP, Be Immersive
- Nova Sector Main should be treated as a roleplay oriented server.
- This means, you should aim to be focused on the best possible roleplay you can, even at your lowest point.
- Anti-roleplay behavior is not tolerated.
- This means, despite your wants as a player, you shouldn't be acting in a manner which causes other's roleplay to be negatively impacted, for your own amusement.
- You must be able to function in a roleplaying environment.
- You must be part of immersion and ideally add to it, not detract.
- This also means you shouldn't be doing anti-immersion room designs aswell (like, making the floor to be whichever meme is popular at the time)
- Like in the case of practical memes or jokes, do not overuse sexually implicit structures, be it strip-poles, or milking machines.
Rule 5: Act in Moderation
- Act in moderation, i.e. ensure that you do not do anything excessively. As a rule of thumb, if you think you're borderline, you are being excessive.
Moderation of Excessive Means.
- Lethal weaponry should generally be used in a situation that aligns with IC circumstances.
- This should only come up if the difference in escalation is excessive.
- (ex: someone tells you to fuck off, so you immediately maxcap them.)
- This should only come up if the difference in escalation is excessive.
- Use proper and convincing escalation.
Important: You should moderate how your character behaves and make sure it does not detract from the experience nor is a nuisance towards others.
You need to be extra careful, as you need to know when to stop or when to ease things off.
LOOC communication is your best friend when it comes to being sure you're not pushing things to far.
| Here are the three rules you should use to gauge if you're being excessive: |
|---|
| Are you affecting the round in any significant way? |
| Are you seriously annoying a person or group of people? |
| Are you doing this crime consistently enough that it becomes repetitive and annoying? |
Rule 5.2 On-going-situations:
Generally speaking, you should avoid crowding situations, for the sake of giving RP room to breathe.
- Crew may offer assistance if requested by security or if they notice security clearly does not have the situation covered.
- As an antagonist, unless you have a strong IC reason like an opportunity related to your goal, it is highly recommended you do not intervene. If possible, try to read the situation and avoid breaking up an ongoing roleplaying scene out of respect.
Rule 6: Play the job you have
- Do your primary job first. Keep to your department, and do not perform other peoples' jobs unless needed too, for the overall story.
- As an antagonist, your goal is to create conflict but ultimately entertainment and story for the crew.
- this means you shouldn't be going around starting pointless fights with security, or randomly destroying parts of the station for the sake of it.
- Don’t do the job of occupied departments (this includes acting/normal Captains).
For Reference: This means you should be trying your best to fulfill the role of your job atleast to a bare minimum, like setting up the SM as engineering; this doesn't mean you're required to know how on your first round, but you should try to seek help on how to do it right.
Rule 7: Do not metagame or metagrudge
- Metagaming is using information gotten out-of-character for in-character purposes. Including (but not limited to) direct message conversations, voice calls, streams, the global out-of-character, and other forms of out-of-game communication.
- Meta-grudging is the act of targeting a player while IC for OOC reasons.
- Attacking another player for something that happened in a previous round without mutual consent will be called meta-grudging. Rounds are canon, but escalation isn't, you have to build up too it.
- Regarding the continuity with antagonists, these rounds will count as canon, with the antag being anonymized, while the victim can pick if they themselves are, unless it violates meta-protections.
- You may remember what happened to you, but not who in particular did it. They are replaced by a functionally faceless individual.
- Do not attempt to make an in-character issue out of previous shifts’ antagonism, unless you have the OOC consent of the involved party. Ever.
- You may remember what happened to you, but not who in particular did it. They are replaced by a functionally faceless individual.
Rule 8: Do not powergame
Powergaming is defined as: going out of your way to accrue power, in a manner inconsistent with IC justifications.
- This applies to all players, regardless of role or status.
- Do not give access to your workplace to crew who would not otherwise have access, unless there is a justifiable reason to do so. (Letting someone take over manning the RnD desk, etc)
- Do not possess an excessive amount of equipment on you, all at once, with emphasis on not using it to the detriment of the roleplaying environment.
- This means, while you can have weapons, tools, and meds, you shouldn't be able to cover every situation, or be nigh-unstoppable against the crew at large.
Rule 9: Do not valid-hunt
Valid-hunting is defined as; going out of your way to target a player, based on or else-wise dependent on perceived antag status alone.
Justifiable reasons exclude you from this, such as:
- Valid IC escalation,
- A valid IC reason to go after them, (being a threat to oneself, being a threat to the station at large, elsewise escalated issues (breaking into ones department, etc)
- Risk of life to someone involved, which can be easily prevented
- If an Antagonist is not currently a station threat, or PMS, do not go out of your way to chase them down without valid IC reason.
- Forcibly mind-shielding crew, brainwashing crew, or otherwise attempting to root out Antagonists without any confirmation of a related threat is valid-hunting.
- Self-Defense is allowed to an extent without being called valid-hunting. Defending your department, yourself, or others is allowed.
- However, if you unambiguously go out of your way to aggressively seek an antagonist outside of your department, or general area, without cause, it would be validhunting, intent matters!
Rule 10: No Self-Antagging
Self-antagging is the act of acting like an general antagonist, when you are not.
While committing crimes ICly is permitted, self-antagonism is a different beast.
Self antagging, generally leads to a worse experience for everyone else involved, and makes it much harder to manage the actual 'chaos' of a round, when it goes to far.
If you are not an antag, do not do the following:
- Roleplay as a terrorist.
- Murder someone without a justifiable IC reason.
- Pretend to be an established antagonist (Throwing on a black and red spacesuit and sabotaging solars.)
- Sabotage important station facilities (flooding Security with plasma, blowing up Engineering, unleashing viruses from Virology).
This list is not excessive, and staff may need to extend it to certain grey area situations, dependent on context.
10.5 Non-Antagonist Criminal Addendum
For non-antagonist criminals, please read the below:
- Crime is allowed, however, self-antagging is not.
- To be a non-antag criminal ICly, you must be able to read the round and station, and you must be focused on roleplay and creating fun for others. It is not an excuse to use mechanics or to be LRP.
- Be aware of the alert levels at all the time and be considerate of others.
- If the round is becoming chaotic, do not become a hindrance. You must not become the focal point of the round as a non-antag criminal.
In conclusion, to be a non-antag criminal,
- You must be low maintenance for security. If you constantly require attention from security, you are doing it wrong. This includes powergaming to avoid arrest.
- You should try to dial it back if the round heats up; or elsewise, keep the impact minimal.
- You should try to create RP around your crimes; it shouldn't be self-serving, or entirely self-focused.
- You actions must be within 4xx crimes in corp regs with a special exception for allowing murder. Grand theft, Grand Sabotage, and Inciting a Riot require an OPFOR.
Furthermore, this ties into the IC in OOC toxicity violation. Making an excuse to create problems with security is not allowed. It is genuinely annoying and unfun which is the antithesis of what this server aims for.
Rule 11: Situational Rulings
These are rulings made to address a specific circumstance, or act, that don't necessarily fit within the rest of the rules, but equally go against the goals of the server.
| Ruling | Description | Reason | Approver |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruling on Character Sizes: | Character sizes should remain, regardless of how mechanically attainable, as small as half a tile, or as big as an three-and-a-half-tiles* and no farther in any direction. | People making themselves extremely small, or 10 tiles tall. | Headmins |
| Ruling on microbomb implants for OPFORs | Any OPFOR that has a microbomb equipment listed in it will have that specific equipment denied. Until the item can be removed permanently from the selectable lists, do not put it in as a requested equipment. | History of poor RP, leading up to them instantly setting it off when they have any negative interaction. | Ignari |
| Ruling on LOOC: | Shitstirring in LOOC will be met with a server ban (This has always been the standard, this is being put here for clarity.) | Deadmon | |
| Ruling regarding Rolling Antagonist as a 'Unintended roles' | Departmental Guards/Security/Command/Prisoner/GhostRoles are expected to notify staff if they have rolled traitor, changeling or heretic as it is not intended for them to do so. They may choose to either respawn as another job or to pass on the antag status. | Established* Ruling Reason: Occasional bug/code hiccups that allows them to roll antags type that they are not intended to. | Goldenalpharex |
| Ruling regarding item requests | Due to a constant flood of tickets related to it, players should only ask for items to be spawned if they are an essential part of their kit and did not receive them due to a bug. Any other requests should be done via a pray. OPFOR requests for gear not on the list should be done in the chat. | Due to a constant flood of tickets related to it, players should only ask for items to be spawned if they are an essential part of their kit and did not receive them due to a bug. Any other requests should be done via a pray. OPFOR requests for gear not on the list should be done in the chat. | Staff, in general. |
| Ruling on Ghost Cafe Conduct: | The purpose of the ghost cafe is to offer a place for people to relax in with a lax ic/ooc line. - The ghost cafe is not an arena and should not be used in selfish manners. If you want to have a fighting pit with your friends make yourself an area in one of the free parts and keep it there. | Established* Ruling Reason: Repeated poor conduct in the cafe | Goldenalpharex |
| Ruling on Blackout Policy: | Upon death you do not remember anything that has lead up to it, the person who killed you or where it happened.
You still remember what happened throughout the rest of the round but anything close to your death is faint at best and unreliable. Blackout applies to cyborgs as well, you will not remember the above mentioned if you are killed or your chassis destroyed. To note, being deconstructed while functional does not trigger the blackout and you will still keep the memories. |
copypasta of the in-game text | Staff |
| Ruling on 'engineering projects' | Teslas, Singularities, or Designs with a high risk of danger beyond engineering, require staff approval before starting it, via Ahelp. This is so staff can mitigate the knock on effects if it goes bad. | Too many SMs going McNuclear at low, and highpop. | Desminus |
| Ruling on Prisoners | Prisoners(the job, roundstart or latejoin) must OPFOR to be a significant nuisance or escape. | Too many Prisoners escaping or causing chaos without an OPFOR. | Deadmon |