Going_joker_mode - Staff Report: Enforcement Action Taken - westrover
What’s your BYOND key:
Going_joker_mode
Round ID:
31706
Your character name:
Scott ‘Freak’ Greer
Their BYOND key:
westrover
What are you reporting?:
Enforcement Action Taken
Description of the incident:
In Round 31706, while playing Dropship Crew Chief, I used the LZ detector through normal in-game interaction (dropship equipment/camera console) while the dropship was shipside/docked/stationary, and then relayed what I saw over IC comms.
I received a staff note framing this as “Rule 5/6 - Mechanical Exploits to get Meta-knowledge,” asserting that I “used a bug” to obtain information I “otherwise shouldn’t have gotten,” and then announced it.
My report is that this enforcement characterization does not match the mechanic’s documented development intent and merged PR history. The LZ detector was explicitly changed to work while not in flight because “in air only” made it near useless, and the stated purpose was to evaluate the FOB/LZ situation “before taking off from it or heading to it.” “Before heading to it” necessarily includes the shipside pre-launch stage (while still docked/stationary) because you have not yet started the flight. The wiki/tooltip were not updated to reflect this change, creating a reasonable and longstanding ambiguity that makes “bug abuse/meta” an unfair characterization for normal use of the system.
Evidence:
PR intent explicitly supports use while not in air, including “before taking off … or heading to it” (which includes shipside/docked pre-launch):
PR #4516 explains that in-flight-only made the detector “near useless” and that the change turns it into a tool to evaluate the FOB “before taking off from it or heading to it,” and includes the changelog “LZ detector now works even when the DS is stationary.”
Link: makes LZ detector work while landed by cuberound · Pull Request #4516 · cmss13-devs/cmss13 · GitHub
The change being remade/cleaned up and merged:
PR #4647 states it remade #4516 and “rest is the same,” repeating the same “DS is stationary” changelog, and it was merged into master.
Link: makes LZ detector work while landed round 2 by cuberound · Pull Request #4647 · cmss13-devs/cmss13 · GitHub
Repo discussion treating LZ detector capability as normal precedent (not inherently exploit/meta):
PR #8121 references “the LZ detectors being able to see them as precedent” in the context of acceptable early awareness.
Link: updates & adds some synthvivor presets by Detective-Google · Pull Request #8121 · cmss13-devs/cmss13 · GitHub
Rules context staff cited:
Rule 5 (bugs/unintended feature abuse).
Link: CM-SS13 Rules
Rule 6 (unknowable info / metacomms).
Link: CM-SS13 Rules
Documentation mismatch:
Pilot Officer wiki still states the LZ detector “Only works while in flight, not while docked,” despite the merged PR intent/history above (and there was no updated tooltip/wiki guidance reflecting the “stationary” change).
Link: Pilot Officer - CM-SS13 - Wiki
The ingame tool tip for the AN/AVD-60 LZ Detector is also misleading.