Make guidelines for what survivors do and do not know

[Telegnats]

CM Version (alpha or Regular):
Mostly regular - why not both?

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary):
I just heard a trial mod saying he caught a survivor for metagaming about the lifecycles of aliens. To which I say is bullshit, and this type of thing has been happening all the time and no one has said anything about it in any official sense to my knowledge. This needs to change.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole):
It stops survivor knowledge being a grey area. If admins and moderators are going to start enforcing metagame rules, we need to know what survivors are even allowed to know so we don't trip an arbitrary line.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):
Make some rules that make sense. Survivors know X, Y, and Z. Something, anything along that line would be nice.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it):
Make a rule about it. Or at least an official statement on it so we don't have grey areas.

[LordeKilly]

They can know whatever they want.

[Steelpoint]

I've had conflicting in game accounts from admins/mods on what exactly survivors can know.

As far as I can tell survivors are essentially your average SS13 player who knows everything and will do anything to survive, hence their title.

[Shadowling1232]

Both,

I think the survivors should be able to say things about aliens that correspond to their roles, a living security officer may be able to tell the tale of their weapons and what the huggers do to people as external affects, -Once attached my friend had been knocked out by the sheer force and pressure the thing applied to him-
A surgeon can describe the internal affects applied by the huggers and their damage rates.
A botanist can just say about what they look like or their weeds since they work with plants.
However an assistant would only know what they look like, as would most service roles.
Researchers however would know a larger amount of information depending on their role, RD or Scientist, the varied jobs would have different information.
The Captain/Heads would know abit more than the RD/Egg Head, due to the reason that they should have authorized the transport/harboring.

[Tetsip]

They can know whatever they want.

We've had issues with this. We've had survivors RP knowing the entire alien life cycle and basically dumping every ounce of information about the aliens to the marines.

This isn't acceptable. The role of the survivor is that you're one of the few that survived the onslaught on the Sulaco/Colony. For starters, for a survivor to know all the knowledge of the aliens, they would have had to see a queen, see a nest, see a hugger on a face, see the same person erupt, and see that chestburster evolved. It's illogical, irrational, and it ruins the sense of mystery and development that has to happen every round for marines to adapt to the situation on the Nostromo. Survivors are not immune to xenomorph metagame and while I'm happy to let them ICly sputter off and rant about the aliens, if I see a survivor basically pouring the wiki out on xenomorphs at marines, I will get on them about xenomorph metagame.

I've had conflicting in game accounts from admins/mods on what exactly survivors can know.

As far as I can tell survivors are essentially your average SS13 player who knows everything and will do anything to survive, hence their title.

Conflicted. A survivor is you average SS13 crewmember. They did what they had to do to survive, but that does not mean they know everything. See above.

[Biolock]

We do need these guidelines, because that's not true, LordeKilly. A survivor, for one, would not know the life cycle of a xeno. Generally speaking, they wouldn't know things that you'd have to be in the nest to know, because if a survivor has seen the nest, they're dead. The exception is things they actually see that round, if they ACTUALLY get captured and escape, they might have some of that meta knowledge. But escaping the nest is an exception, not a rule, no survivor can 'pretend' like they escaped the nest and had that knowledge.


- This is, of course, what I believe. We'll need some higher level staff to make a decision though.

[Mboddz]

The problem is finding a balance. Survivors have to know a wee bit in order to have survived. Unless they happened to be in the luckiest place when it happened (like the mining station).

[Tetsip]

The problem is finding a balance. Survivors have to know a wee bit in order to have survived. Unless they happened to be in the luckiest place when it happened (like the mining station).

Or hid inside of a locker and refused to leave.

[Feweh]

Acceptable for a survivor to understand that the Xeno's are hostile, facehug people, they vent crawl, have acid blood, have a base/hive somewhere and their are different variants of them.

Un-acceptable would be a survivor knowing EVERYTHING possible about Xeno's.

[apophis775]

We are going to work on this.

[Astralenigma]

Hmm, This still happens from time to time in alpha but right now the story is different (Xenomorph Archaelogic/Research Facility) and I don't see that many people complaining about it.
Those guidelines could be an interesting addition.

[Arachnidnexus]

Survivors right now vary between the "lemme regurgitate all xeno facts" to "crazed shoot at marines" and I do wish there would be rules on their knowledge and abilities. I feel that survivors survive way too often given how "impossible" it's supposed to be because all they need to do is put up a few girders and wait for marines. There have only been like two times where fellow survivors and I have RP'd ignoring the OOC fact that marines are coming. I've seen cases where survivors have deconstructed and rebuilt reinforced walls and stated IC that "only boilers can acid through these." That kinda just bugs me and usually means that those survivors powergame the rest of the round too because they're survivors with whatever skill set they want.

[Dyne]

As the survivor that possibly started the whole discussion in question I'll add my .50 bullet points.

1. As survivor I imagine what level of development was witnessed, and act accordingly. For instance- only a glimpse of high tiers (which supposedly were killed in that last stand at security).
2. Also I try to limit myself to the role my character took in the colony, and weave it into the knowledge of the original outbreak.
3. My +1 goes to survivor roles, tailored knowledge and starting equipment, as was discussed in other topics, so, say, a scientist starts with more knowledge, sec officer starts with armor and a gun, Weyland corporate starts with a hidden agenda etc.

[Arachnidnexus]

Tailored survivor roles and starting WY IDs would be great, actually. IDs would at least help guide RP efforts. One thing I kinda want is for survivors to have really high hunger so that they have to scavenge a bit for food instead of being able to rush for metal and barricade instantly.

[Snypehunter007]

Moved to the new GitLab suggestion system.