MP shouldn't always be getting bwoinked/noted for ML or SOP breaches

General Policy Feedback
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I haven’t had it happen to me, but I have heard that a lot of MP will get very quickly bwoinked and noted for something like a wrong charge or accidentally violating SOP. While I understand that MP are held to a higher standard, I feel like most of this stuff should be handled IC by the CMP or warden. Unless a MP is constantly messing up, really egregiously messing up, or is acting in bad faith, it should be an IC issue.

If for instance an MP applies an additional charge that at the surface may look valid but is actually not, the person being charged should be able to take it up with the CMP and perhaps get some sort of compensation or something. Admin intervention for minor MP slip ups should be at most just telling them for next time or asking them to correct it, but a note I think is unnecessary.

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Personally, I’d only consider note-making for MP actions to be warranted if they are doing so maliciously, if there was a mistake I’d emphasis the responsibility of the CMP, then CO, to address an issue. But, everyone works differently, and it can be quicker to just ahelp the person directly, I can’t say how others do their staff work.

Notes are not a bad thing inherently since they are meant to allow staff to know something has happened or has been done in the past, contrary to popular belief staff are not a hivemind like the xenos.

Personally, personally? I’d just get rid of MPs. Re-theme them as ‘Shipside Marines’ or ‘Shipside Defence Personnel’ or whatever so you at least have some group the CO can rely on directly. But we’ve had debates about MPs as long as CM has existed.

I think the main crux around keeping versus removing MPs is that removing MPs would put more work on staff who will now have to get involved when someone is doing stupid stuff shipside and now it can’t really be resolved in an IC way.

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No. It’s a needed step to make you hateful and resentful toward the marines

Our next generation of mps need to experience being ahelped by the guy shooting out windows with an m2ac and calling mps pigs because the new mp forgot to tell the marine “you may appeal”

It fills you with hatred and forces you to master marine law which is key to using it as a weapon.

Peace? No peace!

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If the MP isn’t acting malicious/it fits with the RP, there is zero reason to note them. I had an MP give a prisoner a swirlie as payback because the prisoner had done this to the MP earlier outside of the brig. I found this entertaining RP wise and charged the MP, who then eventually tried to escape so I had them executed.

At no point did I help this because it was all handled IC but then I got bwoinked asking why I didn’t ahelp… why is being a snitch mandatory?

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Tiders getting mad when they get arrested after intentionally pissing off redshirt is pretty much the core of ss13

This is also why tiders who aren’t breaking ML for an actual reason but just to cause chaos and be annoying (and perhaps bait ahelps) shouldn’t be able to ahelp if the crew decides to punish them, even if it breaks ML (within reason)

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MPs should generally remain un-bwoinked/unnoted if the ML/SOP breach was either:

  1. Acceptable RP wise (bribery and corruption shouldn’t be just bwoinked unless so serious and should be up to someone like the CMP to stop), this also includes breaches of ML that are entertaining or roleplay-focused.

  2. The ML/SOP breach was so minor and the MP was unaware of it, generally speaking, MP breaking ML/SOP doesn’t affect round too much unless it’s done intentionally.

With that being said MP should still be punished for ML/SOP that were done intentionally that was with little/no reason or no roleplay. Major Violations should still be punished regardless of intent as most Major Violations can affect the ship/ship crew.

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I think the problem brought up here is actually a lot deeper than just “MPs are held to a higher standard”. While that’s very true and entirely agreeable, I think a lot of the issue stems from how most of the Marine players treat MPs in general. Play any singular round of CM during highpop and watch as the MPs go to arrest someone (usually, for legitimate reason, such as breaking shit or purposely antagonizing others or starting a fight), and how literally 30 Marines will immediately drop what they’re doing to sprint over to the location and bodyblock / fight back against the MPs.

Fuck, just go to player reports or staff reports and scroll through them, count how many people are written up for literally gunning down MPs for trying to arrest them. In the past month, I think I can offhandedly recall two or three, and that’s just the ones we see.

Now, take it to the logical conclusion here. An MP arrests the Delta SG for starting a fist fight with someone, beating them within an inch of their life, stealing their shoes, throwing their body into a corner, openly resisting arrest against the MP trying to arrest him, getting help from his entire squad who manifests directly on his location to assist, and when in jail, notices that one of the Officers put down the wrong crime in his list of six.

Bam. Ahelp. MP noted for not following SOP or not following ML to the letter instead of the spirit.

Yes, overall, MPs should be held to a higher standard, and they should have a lot more leeway, but this problem will forever persist as long as certain bad actors are allowed to continuously harass and do everything short of actively griefing the redshirts. As S5nt said, it’s a tale as old as time, SS13 greytide does something illegal or pisses off a sec officer, gets arrested, tries to find any and all loopholes they can in order to vindicate themselves and villify the arresting officer.

And until something is done to remedy THAT problem, the constant notes and bwoinks and accepted reports that I see about MPs being permanently and forever noted for “uhh you didnt tell the guy who hasn’t thus far listened to a word you said that he could appeal within five minutes” is asinine and just sad. It makes me, someone who used to play MP and CMP a lot, never want to touch the role again.

Something definitely needs revised.

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I think if anything we’ve been incredibly lenient with Modern MPs, and that is why they’re in this dogshit state.

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My sarcastic answer aside… you arent wrong.

The number of people who pull shit is depressing.

Like you have to announce someone is under arrest before you can charge resisting. So wanted people just run away from any mp saying anything so they can claim they didnt know and were not told that the mp that pointed at you and has a speechbubble above his head wanted to talk to them.

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Yes… had someone argue because I didn’t point to them in a crowded room (I was directly in front of them, staring at them) that they didn’t know they were under arrest, even though I stated it. No reason as to why he kept crawling under seats and trying to avoid me…

And the staff officer was seeing his point!!! Like ???

As S5nt said, it’s a tale as old as time, SS13 greytide does something illegal or pisses off a sec officer, gets arrested, tries to find any and all loopholes they can in order to vindicate themselves and villify the arresting officer.

And this, you have to know the rules so freaking well. However, because ML is so weird and so much is up to interpretation, there is a TON of gray area which you can’t know.

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Removing accountability from closest thing to admemes on the ship is a bad idea.

You want to be the law, youve got to represent it accurately.

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Very true. With power comes responsibility.

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Fighting an arrest or helping someone escape the MP’s is more fun than sitting back and watching someone get arrested, and you’ve got some 50+ people who just want to see shit happen. If they weren’t fighting xenos they’d be greytiding, and at the start of the game they can’t fight any xenos, and the longer you delay them fighting xenos, the bigger the greytide urge gets.

On top of that a lot of people just implicitly don’t like MP’s. Everyone remembers that one time an MP was a shitter, so there’s very little interest in ever actually helping an MP. Most people will play interference because, again it’s more fun, and also because they remember MP’s being abusive to them in the past.

Furthermore, a lot of MP’s take group-punishing actions to get their guy, like throwing flashbangs into the dropship; in which case you just hit 50 people who are borderline bored greytiders, it’s like sticking your hand in a wasp nest. That sort of behaviour further incites marines to interfere and I’ve seen it devolve into outright mutiny before. (And frankly, it doesn’t help that the tools MP’s have are overpowered and deny counterplay: It DIRECTLY affects how frustrated and mad people get regardless of how necessary it might be)

Lastly, marines virtually never see MP’s help them. MP’s are only an antagonistic force. They don’t help kill aliens, they only hinder killing aliens. Closet xenomains, obviously. They don’t do anything particularly useful either - they don’t build cades, they don’t organize the fob, they don’t give first aid. A lot of MP’s are also unrobust and worse than useless in any shipside fight providing only friendly fire to kill marines, or diving in front of xenos to save them from being shot.

In summation:

  1. Because it’s fun (never underestimate this)
  2. MP’s deserve it

it’s just how it is. You can’t change this current state of affairs with more rules. You’d have to make mechanical changes to the MP job itself.

In a way it’s similar to inter-squad rivalries, but the thing with issues between squads is that at the end of the day you’ve got to work together, and DO work together, to kill bugs. Meanwhile with MP’s, you never work together. They are always an outside antagonistic force that never helps you. Hell they are even antagonistic with the command staff half the time even when they’re essentially bodyguards and enforcers for the officers.

Overall I don’t think the current situation is that bad, but if I wanted to improve it, I’d start by trying to make MP’s directly beneficial to marines, at the very least so average players get some instances of, “this MP was actually cool”. Long hill to climb though.

@V3nturis IMO Marine sentiments and behaviour towards MP’s is itself a form of accountability. It’s the kind of soft accountability you can’t record in a notebook, that an admin team can never match. You can’t simply order people to like each other, they have to build it up between each other and the best you can do is create situations that encourage mutual respect and teamwork.

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Very true.

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I hope you know how ironic it really seems that, in this reply, you’re basically agreeing and addressing the same points I’m trying to make. You CAN’T force groups to like each other; But you SHOULD have means with which to at least force “playing nice” with all groups involved.

To simply say “it’s more fun” is inherently the main and major issue I’m trying to get at. Yes, I realize it’s more fun to fight against the MPs. Yes, I realize sometimes MPs are shitty. Yes, I realize sometimes they utilize equipment that might effect (oh no, a five second stun…) other marines in the process. Do I think any of this JUSTIFIES the behavior most marines present?

No, not really.

In any real interaction with those who have the power, authority, and capability to arrest a marine, you won’t have 30 individuals who all happened to dress the same that day come to try and defend an individual who is clearly guilty of the crimes they’re attempting to commit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is inherently a justification, moreso that if we are holding MPs to a higher standard when it comes to handling this sort of behavior… Why are we just letting every single marine go without so much as a handslap, when it quite literally showcases some of the most LRP behavior on the ship?

I also think calling MPs a purely antagonistic force is just being unfairly obtuse and devolving what their primary job is to just villainize them even more than the community already has. The sheer threat of them existing, and I use the term ‘threat’ loosely, it what keeps most of the order aboard the ship until the Marines drop. Yes, I know it’s also the threat of being banned or the admins intervening, but a secondary notion of “have to spend 30+ minutes in a cell instead of left clicking aliens” is a good incentive to behave, actually roleplay, gear up, and not left click humans instead.

And still, some marines choose to left click MPs just because they’re MPs.

Again, I direct you to several of the latest player reports; In one scenario, a player follows Marine Law to the dime, tells the person they’re being arrested, and the reaction is simply to pull out a gun and shoot them dead. No other marine involved attempts to assist. No other marine in the area does anything. The person almost permas because of it. That is the kind of behavior this dumbass “MPs are antags” mentality breeds. Again, we only see those who post it on the forums, I’m sure this shit happens consistently.

If the requirements for disliking a group is, as you have addressed:

  1. It’s fun to ‘fight’ against them
  2. Sometimes an individual who is part of that group can be a shitter
  3. Sometimes they do stuff that effects Marines who aren’t involved
    and 4. Can occasionally be seen as a ‘hostile force’ for their actions against the Marines…

…Then why don’t we gun Delta down at the start of every shift?

I’m not saying that more rules are necessary to fix the problem. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. Give MPs and, as well, Command more leniency when it comes to enforcing Marine Law. It needs to be the SPIRIT and not the LETTER, and I think a lot of problems will fix themselves.

And in the same vein, start punishing LRP shitters who strip MPs on the dropship and cause problems on purpose to incite violence or riots against the MPs and all of this other stuff more severely.

I know we’re not an HRP server.

But it definitely feels like we’re on the edge of LRP TDM.

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My brother in Christ, we are in a penal battalion. In the -probably- shittiest USCM ship in the galaxy. Most of us are already fucked anyways, because command will use us as cannon fodders. So why shouldn’t we help out a fellow marine who’s being arrested?

CM marines will never behave until the end of time, because the lore is adjusted to shitters and retarded people, instead of roblox spec ops larpers. And I’m honestly fine with that, because it’s goofy, and it’s what makes CM fun and memorable, compared to other milsim.

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I am fine with retardation. What I dislike is a trend I see where people misbehave on specialist roles like scout because they are critical to the marines functioning… so they know people will riot and cover for them. On the rare times they are caught… they throw a fit until pardoned.

I almost think we should pass a rule that specs/sgs are held to a higher system of rp similar to officers

If you want to fuck around and shoot out req windows and bludgeon people with a chair… dont do it as scout, play a pfc. Or mt

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I 100% crack down on any incidents I see of Specs/SGs disobeying orders. I conisder it a major OOC issue

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IIRC they do?

I thought they added that in with the SL expectations stuff

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Yes, SGs and specs were upgraded to a higher RP standard 2 months back. More specifically, they can’t disobey direct orders from command unless the order is supremely retarded iirc. Albeit sometimes the person playing command is extremely, extremely stupid and gives awful orders that you still have to follow (which is very very HRP)

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