Master Havoc - Player Report: Sakura Synthetic, Combat Synth

[masterhavoc]

Master Havoc - Player Report: Sakura Synthetic, However, synths are unable to perform active combat duties and will not perform combat specific orders, meaning they must not actively engage in combat unless in self preservation or in the defense of a USCMC Personnel. This would include telling a Synthetic unit to go capture something from the middle of an enemy base

What’s your BYOND key?

Master Havoc

Round ID:

21006

Your character name:

Vincent Frontiers

Accused BYOND key:

Admin PM from-NessiePendragon: We cannot give their ckey to you.

Accused character name:

Sakura Synthetic

What rule(s) were broken?:

However, synths are unable to perform active combat duties and will not perform combat specific orders, meaning they must not actively engage in combat unless in self preservation or in the defense of a USCMC Personnel. This would include telling a Synthetic unit to go capture something from the middle of an enemy base

Description of the incident:

Xenos were losing, only 4 were left. Due to bioscan showing like 7 for some reason, and lowpop hours, both sides wern’t pushing each other hard. The xenos were still active in the middle-ish area, but definitely losing ground. Off to the southwest corner of the map, neither side was touching the xeno pyloned comms tower. Marines had full control and cades up with the northwest comms tower.

In this situation, Sakura went south alone, destroyed the xeno defenses, and brought up the southwest comms tower. There is a fairly large distance of no mans land they covered alone due to low numbers and more action was towards the north/center so this wasn’t a quick side detour to the front. I had the spectator’s tac map open at the time, though I guess my word isn’t the best evidence.

I more or less also want closure on synths vs xeno buildings. I ran into similar problems with Eve in the past, although wound up not reporting them. Eve was either on the front line in front of the marines chopping at weeds and walls, or went to our backlines and hacked up at undefended weeds and walls. As xeno it is so frustrating when they attack our buildings as I know we will not be able to kill them. In frontline they can kite us all day, and lucky slashes or acids will not do anything meaningful. As for backline least with a solo marine, a single acid trap with a player controlled huggie could ruin them. Where’s the threat for the synth? So for future events could I get an answer to if synths can:

1. Solo clear out comms
2. Solo backline infestation
3. Be in front of the marines frontlines clearing out infestation

Evidence:

I apologize for this, I had one chat log of them saying they restored the comms tower that I lost in copy-paste history. I was specing them as they restored the tower, alone, in the middle of xeno walls and creep around them. I then ahelped about it and biolock told me they didnt know the roles and it would have to go to the whitelist council or something? I remember this mentioned when I complained about Eve yet did nothing at the time so I wound up forgetting if there was special synth reporting steps. I don’t see a separate synth reporting area anywhere on the forums though.

[NekoSam]

Hello! I am the synthetic here, sakura.

I…I really don’t understand. What exactly is the issue? “Combat” synthetic? I didn’t fight against any xenos, or destroy sensitive frontline fortifications mid-frontline-combat like an hive for instance.

You saying that there was only 4 xenos left was quite exactly the reason why I decided to go clear the pylon. We had a hive siege coming up, plenty of medics and engineers up doing their tasks. before I left, there was no dead bodies, no destroyed barricades to replace, and no calls for me were made/orders. I even fixed sensors towers a bit before, but that was a WHILE before and last to my knowledge the tower was still up since command never told me it was down.

There is ZERO xenos in the colony apart from hive, which was currently about to be sieged. So I took around 30 seconds to walk down, from the botany’s exterior/construction to the pylon. I had a motion detector and never picked up ANY pings on the way there, further cementing my game sense. I knew for a fact it was safe to do.

I didn’t removed the entirety of the defenses as a matter of fact. I took down ONE door, A SINGLE door. Took the pylon out afterwards. That was it. I did not fight any xenos, I did not clear out the entire “fortification”. It was a simple door, and pylon, that I cleared.

You said “I was specing them as they restored the tower, alone, in the middle of xeno walls and creep around them.”

This further proves that, I really didn’t “destroy entire fortifications alone”. All I did was take the necessary damage to remove the pylon, as it was completely safe to do and didn’t have to engage in any form of combat for it.

Had there been active xenos defending the pylon? I would’ve had to leave. Most definitely, this would’ve been a right report to do. Had there been xenos I would’ve been forced to leave and NOT engage. But I walked there and NOTHING was there. I even only had to take down A SINGLE DOOR. This wasn’t combat synthing, its me clearing that off.

Immediatly after that, I told marines over comms It was cleared and went back to the front to assist, in which the round ended 10 minutes or so after? Maybe a bit more or less?

I understand what you mean by “capture something in the middle of an enemy base”. Like, “go save the captured marines in the middle of the hive”. This would imply combat, or aggressing enemy combatants to obtain something.

This is, to some extent, like if I was to clear a wall next to an off-screen fight and claim for it to be “combat synthing”.

Also as what you say about eve extends to this too. Synthetics are PREVENTED from engaging enemy combattants at the front I agree. But nothing stops us from clearing off walls and such. Soon as a xeno appears though, every synth backs off immediatly and let the front handles itself. Is it annoying for xenos to deal with? Yes. Yes it is I agree.

If a synthetic decides to clear walls IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FRONTLINE? Something is wrong. But if marines are pushing and there isn’t any front, nothing is wrong with synthetic assisting in clearing off walls since we usually have better melee weapons.

I understand what you mean, and ultimately, council will review and check this out. But I really don’t see anything wrong with my action. A left, forgotten, ditched to the side objective during lowpop on a round that was about to end, that takes 30 seconds for me to walk and 10 seconds to take down a door+pylon really doesn’t scream combat synth to me. I pretty much cleared weeds in a dark area while the front was COMPLETELY rolling over xenos and GOING SMOOTHLY. I didn’t abandon dead bodies to perma alone, I didn’t ditched engineering tasks, I didn’t overlook any direct orders from anyone. Everything was going well, so I went and cleared the pylon.

Your report is fine, I don’t see an issue with you wondering if foul-play was at work. But I really don’t believe I commited anything close to combat synthing.

An empty, forgotten and left alone area in outside of the frontline, with 4 xenos left, does not constitute combat synting. Otherwise synthetics could NEVER repair any communication towers because a lesser drone planted one weed and 4 walls then walked off leaving it alone. That’d be ludicrous.

[NekoSam]

You said: “Xenos were losing, only 4 were left. Due to bioscan showing like 7 for some reason, and lowpop hours, both sides wern’t pushing each other hard”

Also I have to note, because im dumb and just realised-

From my point of view, we were pushing HARD. There wasn’t a stale mate at that point. 4 or 7 xenos didn’t matter much, marines were all rolling together and starting to make their way into the caves, every xenos was in there trying to fend off the marine tide. You saying “both sides weren’t pushing each other hard” is… Either a lie (which i really dont think it is dont worry!), or just poor game-sense (no offense meant).

We went from being stuck in medical for a large portion of the round, to pushing heavily all of a sudden. Which afforded me enough time to safely take the pylon off to assist the marines. Not to repeat myself, but there was literally no xenos there I didn’t combat anything. I didn’t killed a drone and a warrior to cut the pylon, this would be an example of combat synthing for instance.

EDIT (Sorry!)

“While a Synthetic Unit is moving between locations, returning wounded, guarding the FoB, or patrolling the colony alone or in small groups, they are allowed to defend themselves and the lives of other humans, provided that assistance from others nearby is ineffective or unable to arrive in time.”

“Patrolling the colony alone” is an interesting bit. Me walking off alone isn’t a bad thing, but it goes under self-preservation clause.I fully knew the limits of what I was doing, I knew there was no more backliners to worry about. There is nothing wrong with me not sticking to the front like glue if I use good judgment.

[masterhavoc]

A lot of what you replied is towards bringing this to a greyer area: which is fine, but I do not want to muddy the waters with some of the specifics. Kinda why I put up the 1,2,3 as general guidance. More of what is and is not allowed which can then be used to compare this instance rather than just this case? Or maybe breaking down some of the key points you brought up? Either rate you bothered to elaborate so I want to throw my 2 cents before handing this over for council review, as the decision could affect synths and my reporting in the future.

side notes:
in tacmap the marines were still around the middle structures. Maybe on cave enterance? It was still pretty far from the hive’s other side of the cave. I have 1600 hours in the server so I hope I could read the flow of battle. But admittedly I was in lazy spec mode so I am sure you were more attuned/cared more about the battlefield than me. I will trust your judgement on the battlefield conditions, and anything else you mentioned like only one door to the comms tower.

That “left and forgotten” comms tower was left but not forgotten. In fact 3-5 minutes earlier I spawned in as lesser, saw on xeno map where the xenos were, decided to make sure not to attack from the comms tower so marines would purposely not think about it, and went to go tunnel north to harass northern comms. When xenos are low on numbers it is a viable option to not do anything near the tower in hopes marines forget about it. If a party slowly craws up on it, as they would if they had to throw flares and fearRP the dark, there could have been some reaction time for xenos to take the tunnel and save it. It would have been a legitimate strategy for the xenos to decide the battelfield is now at the comms tower and all tunnel to it when it finally gets under attack.

I personally agree with allowed to clear things with marines when they are not actively fighting xenos, and disagree with allowed to clear things when off soloing in the middle of nowhere. No idea where the council stands though and is part of the reason I am bringing up the other points.

1. Synth Safety: Your sense of safety comes from your immediate vision, your MT, your previous journeys, the number of enemies, and understanding of where the battlefront is. There were 7 xenos (on average on what you know), meaning 1 or 2 backliners shoudn’t be a surprise. I don’t know how you knew there were no backliners at all period: only you didn’t witness any recently and no marines were complaining about it. Poor XX roonie that no one bothers even reporing in. The pylon is there and lessers are active: I lessered myself on north comms, other lesser was poking on south fob, probably spawning from the pylon. There was a tunnel just west of the comms tower, if you were not aware. For a synth, this situation is not dangerous. You havnt traveled down there before but you do know the fight is NE so you can assume backliners only. You can see in the dark making it hard for xenos to abuse darkness for ambushes. A random huggie will not hug you. You run fast enough and survive pounces well enough that a runner or lurker out of nowhere will not end your life. Even if you get a lesser to report on you, MT should stop a slow ambush on you. You just have to run back and try again in 5 minutes. What about if you were a single marine though? walking on weeds, in the dark, with lessers, potential backline, and a tunnel around. I have had runners destroy me after one MT ping went off. I have had random huggie traps spell out my end. If a lesser got some hive members together, if I see 3 pings I might as well shoot myself. So I put this question out there. Is safe considered safe because synths are strong enough to handle whatever xenos can throw at them in this situation? Or is safe only safe when even a marine could safely handle it?

2. backline defense. There could be other objectives such as retrieving equipment, or removing some scary huggie traps you saw earlier while saving a guy, but in this case a comms tower. For any backline objective, how many defenses are you allowed to take down to achieve your goal? 1? 3? 5? 10? It also kinda ties in with my 2) question in above post: are you even allowed to attack any backline defenses in soloing? If a scout dropped his gun behind no defenses to some area away from battle can you pick it up? What about behind one door? two? three? Does the size of the defense even matter, or can you break anything you want to accomplish a goal away from battle?

3. lesser mischief. A surprisingly stronger argument than I expected. going back to backline defenses, again let’s say the scout dropped his gun for synth to retrieve. Only thing nearby is a lesser who put up some doors between the gun and scout. It certainly seems silly to prevent the synth to at least get the gun and run back. In another case if the lesser took out the marine’s stupidly unguarded comms and then put up some quick doors, is the synth no longer allowed to save the comms? My thoughts to reconcile this would be more towards how long the objective has been unclaimed. If scout’s gun was dropped 3 minutes ago, screw it, the lesser has a chance to be spec metagaming anyway. If the scout’s gun was dropped 30 minutes ago, how do you even know a lesser made those doors? Even more, what if it was a lesser but it made 10 wall/door fortifications between you and the gun? Is it still alright to blast through everything and retrieve it on your own just because it was only a lesser spending a half-hour working on it? (energy sucks on poor lessers). Going back to the actual comms, if a lesser popped out of the pylon as you came by, is that all it took to force the synth to not be able to reclaim the xeno comms? What about clearing out backline hive walls/doors/nodes? Does a lesser have to guard undefended areas just to stop the synths from destroying the backline?

4. priority order. Doing all the support work from medical to engineering to supplies to psychological counseling after seeing a marine’s gut torn open from a larva is great and what I would expect from synths. Not sure if it has any impact on the situation though. I suppose if asked to do things and the synth goes off clearing out areas instead is one thing. What about when the synth has nothing immediate to do though? Does that give them an opportunity to solo some backline infestation?

[Katskan]

To prevent this becoming a discussion, as reports are not supposed to be, the question that would determine if this is misconduct or not is whether there was active presence of xenos at the structures, i.e. was there combat or was it clearance of an unoccupied area. There are subsequent questions if there was combat, but the case is pretty much open and shut if it’s clearance.

[NekoSam]

As to not start any discussion as you mentioned, I will simply answer your question.

@Katskan

whether there was active presence of xenos at the structures, i.e. was there combat or was it clearance of an unoccupied area.

No there was not any presence of xenos. I haven’t fought anyone, seen anyone or engaged in any fighting. All I did was clear an unoccupied area. Logs will back me up in this, and havoc never mentioned me fighting anyways. (Which I never did)

That being said, As an ex-councillor I agree reports aren’t discussions. I said my piece, havoc said his piece in return, councillor asked for something and I answered. I’ll leave the rest to councillors + logs and see what happens.

If needed, I’ll answer more questions any synthetic councillors have.

[masterhavoc]

Agreed with NekoSam, spectators view at that time showed no xenos around that area.

[QuickLoad]

Hello masterhavoc, hello NekoSam. Thanks for your time and patience.

The council assessed this report based off of Synthetic Programming and the accusation of Sakura violating her programming, specifically combat restrictions. In order to do so they have to directly break a single or more of the listed restrictions such as utilizing a firearm. In this case, the closest thing would be frontline combat however the frontline was significantly far from where Sakura was located, and resin structures do not count as xenomorphs - thus there was neither frontline combat nor any violations in combat programming.

During our review of available evidence and logs, we found that during no point in Sakura’s tenure to the communications tower location, repairs, and back, did they engage in any sort of combat at all. All interactions were over the radio and with inanimate objects - ie destroying pylons. Sakura then traveled to comms, and fixed it. None of these interactions would count as combat, and thus Sakura couldn’t have committed any combat offences as there was no combat to be involved in to begin with. There were no xenomorphs nearby based on the logs, which were occupied at the then-present frontline.

Because of this, there was absolutely no possible way Sakura could have violated her combat programming; this report is denied.

The other considerations brought up in this thread are outside of the scope of this report so I can’t comment on that. They will be discussed internally by council, and if needed, changes to the programming guidelines may be made. Have a great day everyone