Server Rules

Skyrat policies

	Server Rules
	Fundamentals for Players
	General Player Policy and Standards
	Antagonist Policy
	Silicon policy
	Command Policy
	Ghost Role policy
	Corporate Regulations
	Contraband
	Security Policy
	Cargo Policy
	Medical Policy
	Misc Roleplaying Policy
	Guide to Roleplaying Excellency
	Administrative Guidelines

Return to policies page

If possible, please read the Server Principles: Principles - Not Required

Skyrat 13 Rules

These rules are the framework for both staff members and regular users. If you don’t agree with these rules, do not say you do. You are not forced to play here; there are other options (both within the Space Station 13 community and outside it) for you.

This framework is derived in large part from drawn from several other related communities’ in-game rulesets, modified to suit our purposes. This is a living, always in-progress document; it may be changed in the future, updates will be announced on the Discord server.

Rule 0: Be Mature

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. Alongside this stringent ruling, we ask that you act maturely as a player.

• Don’t be a dick OOCly. We all have lives, and many of us use the community as a place to relax. Being needlessly antagonistic to other community members, generally toxic, and otherwise unkind while here makes the space worse for others. Further encouraging toxic behavior, and pushing away community members. Just don’t be a dick.

• English literacy is a must. We do not expect grammatical perfection; but if you are not comprehensible out-of-character, this server is not for you. There are some foreign language Space Station 13 communities out there that could fit your needs better.

• Don’t “ride the line” with regards to the rules. Follow through on the spirit of rules, and not just their exact wording. You will be punished for this as though you broke the concerned rule(s).

• If an admin has told you not to do something; do not do it. Do not attempt to play word games, and rules lawyer, at those whose job it is to uphold the rules.

• Do not target players in bad faith. Anyone who participates in a coordinated effort in the form of a meta-gang to maliciously target someone be permanently banned without appeal if found guilty and found uncooperative if found worthy of the charge. We will assume the worst if we cannot obtain reliable, unadulterated information.

• Do not ban-bait people.
  • For example, deathgasping, succumbing, or whispering last words in critical conditions means that the person that placed the victim in crit cannot be blamed for killing, only critting. You may admin-help about being critted or attacked, but you cannot admin-help and misrepresent the situation by claiming you were killed. You will get a note and warning, and repeat offenses of this sort of behavior may result in a ban.
  • For more egregious acts of ban-baiting, you may be banned immediately.

Rule 1: Do Not Grief

Griefing is the act of deliberately annoying or angering another player using aspects of the game in unintended ways. Newcomers that exhibit this behavior will find themselves permanently banned. End of Round Grief is not allowed on the server.

• 1.Plasma-flooding must have permission from an administrator first. We encourage players to use the OPFOR system to request a plasma-flood objective, given sufficient reason.
  • Local plasma-flooding has a greater chance of being accepted, while station-wide plasma-flooding will be exposed to greater scrutiny and will be extremely rare to the point that it should almost never occur except in the rarest of instances where it makes sense.
    For station-wide plasma-flooding, after approval, you should roleplay enough of a lead-up to the plasma-flood in a way that demonstrates clear and sufficient escalation to the station that is engaging.
    • Lastly, you will have a greater chance of being accepted the later it is into a round and when the round is quiet.

• 2. Do not spam. This includes in-character conversation, the global out-of-character channel, or any other text channel used in-game (such as the Admin-Help system).

• 3. Do not attack others or engage in what is otherwise known as "random deathmatch" also known as RDM. If you want to attack another character, have a valid IC reason. Conduct yourself in a way that is consistent with our aforementioned principles. Killing someone is frowned upon without a strong IC reason, i.e. self-defense, is needed to achieve your goals as an antagonist, etc.

• 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 intentionally damage the station or its machinery without a valid IC reason. This can make the round effectively unplayable if enough vital functions are destroyed.
  • Unless you are an antag with admin approval, you are not allowed to sabotage the engine to the point that it may potentially cause a point of no return or the round to end shorter than expected.

• 6. Do not harass players out-of-character. If the source of the harassment is linked to actions within the server, you will be dealt with.

• 7. Do not harass a player ICly if it is unwelcome. Anyone who participates in a coordinated effort in the form of a meta-gang to harass characters in-game in any manner will be permanently banned without appeal if found guilty and found uncooperative if found worthy of the charge.
  • We will assume the worst if we cannot obtain reliable, unadulterated information.

• 8. Don't touch SSD/AFK players without prior admin approval via admin help. (Note: Moving an SSD/AFK player to safety or dragging them to the shuttle is exempt from this.)

• 9. Do not mess with the Interlink where players arrive after the round, as it is not meant for antagging. It is meant to be a safe place to arrive and chill.

• 10. EORG or "End of Round Grief" is not allowed on the server.

Examples:

• Spamming *scream or any emote excessively in public will not be tolerated.
• While brawls or fights that naturally escalate is encouraged, be aware that doing so with the intent of killing someone should be avoided.
  • Doing so in a manner that is consistent may lead to charges of powergaming and griefing which may result in a permanent ban.
• Abusing a bug, glitch, or error to gain an item you shouldn't have access to is considered powergaming.

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. We welcome honest comments, feedback, and critiques with the expectation that it is done civilly and politely in correspondence to the first server principle.

If you are ever considering doing something particularly drastic - including mutinities and murders as a non-antagonist - request permission via Admin-Help.

1. Be polite, honest, and to the point when sending an admin PM. Give all relevant information that you can, as it will help us resolve your case.
2. Avoid antagonizing someone you are admin-helping about.
3. An admin's word is final. If they say not to do it, do not do it.
4. If you suspect an admin is in the wrong, calmly document and report the incident. Be as thorough and as unbiased as possible. While the latter is difficult when emotional, it will help your case more often than not.
5. Any form of harmful and deceitful behavior will be met with disproportionate punishment due to the nature of the offense. Lying to the staff is a punishable offense and may become permanent if done frequently. Furthermore, anyone who consistently engages in clandestine behavior with the intent to do harm, i.e. to harass or slander individuals, will receive a permanent ban with no opportunity to appeal.
   1. a Lying in adminhelps, misrepresenting facts deliberately, or logging off when an admin has asked a question may result in permabans.
   2. b Admins will not automatically place bans for players logging off however, and will generally wait a while in case real life situations caused a player to disconnect or go AFK.

• Avoid talking about s rule infraction in the global OOC channel. This can, and will, lead to people metagaming. When you can, use the Admin-Help and Mentor-Help systems to your benefit.

• 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 you want more information you may ask again after the round, or you may ask for the logs which may be given if thought appropriate

• If the situation you are admin-helping about is immediately happening to you, state your intentions in LOOC and either pause the scene or remove your character from the scene.

Rule 3: Stay In-Character and Meet Character Standards

Your character, the one you will be playing on the server, must fit into the lore & setting. For the time being, your character is an employee with one of the various Companies or Corporations dependent on their chosen department (or background), in 'Sector 13,' an area of space between various space-borne-empires well known for a habit of having 'anomalies,' or anomalous activity. The station is a workplace, and depending on the importance of your job; acting to far 'out of line' can lead to the fast path to unemployment (or worse.)

• Follow our Character Guidelines: Read Me

• Speak like an actual person.

• Do not act like a meme ICly. Being silly is one thing. Being a meme is another.

• Netspeak terms like "lol", "rofl", "lmao" are specifically disallowed while talking aloud. You may use these in in-character text, like PDA messages.

• Follow the character standards: General Player Policy and Standards

• Do not impersonate staff or other player characters.

• Do not recreate someone else’s character in the character creator. There are exceptions like with changeling or a comms agent mimicking them. If you are someone else's character, 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.

• Do not commit suicide for little reason.

• 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 be physically mature.

• 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. Do not overemphasize the youthfulness of a character, as that will be treated as a dog whistle.

Rule 4: Meet Minimum Roleplaying Standards - No LRP, Be Immersive

• Skyrat Main should be treated as a HRP-MRP server. For roleplaying enforcement purposes, please play on the main server with the aim to be High Roleplay or HRP, even if our minimum requirement is MRP. This is to ensure people consistently stay above the roleplaying standards, even at their lowest points. If your quality dips at times due to what's going on in the station, you will not be punished for that, given that you have a record of solid roleplaying. Essentially, we want you to be MRP at your very worst, so that LRP is no longer an issue on the station. See Skyrat Main Roleplaying Standard

• Low Roleplay (LRP) or No Roleplay (NRP) is not allowed. This includes the use of 'meme slangs' outside of PDA messages like "skill issues". Both are interchangeable. In Skyrat, LRP/NRP describes the roleplaying intent of a player. It indicates that the action or a player that is said to be LRP/NRP has minimal interest in roleplaying or contributing to the roleplaying environment, oftentimes breaking the immersion of others severely. They are more interested in memeing, mechanics, and being self-indulgent in their behavior without consideration for others' immersion. These players will face a quality control ban. Please note that if a player is so poor that they come off as LRP/NRP, even if they intend to be MRP/HRP, they may also face a quality control ban.

• You must demonstrate sufficient roleplaying proficiency. You must be part of immersion and ideally add to it, not detract. Spelling and grammar does not have to be perfect, rather we only require it to be comprehensible and readable without being immersion-breaking. We do not expect you to be a good writer, rather we expect you to be a good roleplayer.

• Choosing your actions based on what'd be funny at the time rather than what your character reasonably would do will be considered LRP if it breaks immersion. This is described extensively in our listed standards above. At the end of the day, you must be considerate of other people's immersion. If your character acts nonsensical, is unable to act in any meaningful way, and you exhibit signs of LRP, i.e. overreliance on quick emotes, memeing in say, etc, you may face a quality control ban. Claiming your character is just "goofy" will not fly.

• Excessive memeing in-game that will not be tolerated, particularly those that break immersion. Meme slangs like "skill issues" are not allowed outside of PDA messages. You will be given one warning. After that, you will be given a ban in escalating fashion for each fashion, until you are permanently banned from the server. Memeing in a way that contributes to the in-game setting and roleplaying atmosphere is completely acceptable, given that you do not do so excessively.

• If you choose to do a practical meme or joke such as this:
  
  Do not do it in a public area. Please do so in a place that is out of the way like maintenance. We may even make specific areas in maintenance that are more suitable for extensive graffiti or goofing off with your friends, given that it's not excessive, i.e. see above.

• Meme painting like this one below will be tolerated, given that it's not done in a tame and not excessive or ridiculous manner:
  

• Like in the case of practical memes or jokes, do not put lewd devices, i.e. milking machines, in public areas. Such devices should be out of public visibility, i.e. in an enclosed room or maintenance, or they will be deemed LRP. In the cases of lewd items, i.e. dildos, they should not be egregiously visible in public areas and interactions with it should be kept to subtle/subtler in public areas. Abuse of such devices for pref-breaking, memeing, or your own humor will result in punishment.

• Do not shove your fetishes in other people's faces. Sharing explicit details in places or channels that cannot be willfully avoided will fall in violation of this rule. Have respect for other peoples' boundaries. On the other end of the spectrum, if you accidentally come across a scenario that you do not like but does not violate the rules, please be reasonable and respectful, i.e. handle it ICly if it's public or disregard if private, i.e. in areas that are not typically used such as shower rooms, maintenance, and so forth. This relationship goes both ways. Your freedom should not impede another's or vice versa.

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 Lethal Means [Read Carefully]

• Lethal weaponry should generally be used in a situation in which there is reasonable belief of a threat to oneself, however, this is primarily an IC issue, unless the difference is escalate is excessive.
  • (ex: someone tells you to fuck off, so you immediately maxcap them.)
• As always, proper and convincing escalation is key, and we give exemptions based on that.
  • Lethals weapons are not for general bickering, 'for fun', and so forth; that is, the situation should escalate, or have outside variables that justifies the sharp escalation, and not be done over something as simple as being called stupid.
    When it comes to corporate regulation, using your weapon in a non life threatening situation opens you up to being charged as if the gun was contraband among other things.

• Keep in mind that helping a friend escape arrest may be a form of self-antagonism and may breach rules regarding meta-behavior, depending on the context and reason. Unless it is convincingly reasonable for you to do so, please refrain.
• Important: You should moderate how your character behaves and make sure it does not detract from the experience nor is a nuisance towards others. For instance, we welcome people to play ICly as a criminal, racist, asshole, bully, and so forth. It adds variety to the station and creates conflict that can be wonderfully fun to play out.

However, please keep in mind that acting as an asshole so excessively can be unfun or can come off as OOC rather than IC.

You need to be extra careful, as you need to know when to stop or when to ease things off. Use LOOC to see if the other person is okay for instance.

Here are the three rules you should use to gauge if you're being excessive:

1. Are you affecting the round in any significant way?
2. Are you seriously annoying a person or group of people?
3. Are you doing this crime consistently enough that it becomes repetitive and annoying?
4. These can even be applied crossround, stealing the science techfab every single round would only really be fun for yourself.

Violating a single rule of the above means you're being an OOC dick which means this is an OOC issue. Warnings and advice will be given, but punitive measures may be taken if we fail to see any improvement.

If you are targeting someone for IC purposes or are looking to be their rival, you should let them know that it is purely IC and you should also attempt to seek consent. Otherwise, you may face trouble from them or staff further down the line

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. This rule does not apply if they are put into force as a militia as dictated by command or security.
• 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.
• Security personnel are allowed to deal with malicious or overly aggressive rubberneckers as a threat (rubbernecking).
• When it comes to building an item, mech, and so forth, please construct only what you need or foresee reasonably needing.
  • For instance, do not build ten hygiene bots. If the station faces a threat, ready yourself appropriately for said threat. There is rarely ever a reason to build an army of Durands. Try to act as a reasonable character within that moment where building too few or too many can result in you being fired.

Rule 6: Play the job you have

Put honest effort into your job.

Example: As an Engineer, you should secure power before doing anything else. If you don’t know how to do that (and are alone in Engineering) seek help from a more experienced crewmember outside of Engineering, or ask for advice through the Mentor-Help system. In general, attempt to meet the bare minimum expectations for your job. If you are the Head of your department, delegate when you can, as you are a manager first and foremost! Micromanaging is the devil, unless you are playing that type of character! You are allowed to roleplay your character somewhat incompetently though less so with engineers.

• See Principle #7

• As an antagonist, your goal is to create conflict but ultimately entertainment and story for the crew. Do not engage in mindless slaughter or destruction. Feel free to craft a backstory for your antagonistic character, given that you roleplay them well and with responsibility to the rest of the server. If in doubt, contact staff for feedback.

• Do your primary job first. Keep to your department, and do not perform other peoples' jobs unless A) the position is empty B) there is an emergency.

• Do not ignore crucial-to-the-station duties for menial or unimportant jobs. A medical doctor should not be hidden in virology while someone is dying of appendicitis in the medical bay lobby. If you are to be found doing just this, you will be a target for dereliction charges ICly. If this behavior continues, you will be job-banned.

• Again, do not overstep your job description, i.e. medical should not be preoccupied with figuring out what happened to a patient beyond what is required to devise an effective treatment, such as checking if their toxin damage is being caused by ingested or injected poisons so you know whether to use charcoal in syringe or pill form.. You may be concerned, and tip off Security to your suspicions, but avoid performing criminal investigations when there is a perfectly capable Security force on-station.

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, however, you cannot act maliciously over on an event that transpired in another round without consent from the involved parties.

• Do not take advantage of the rules for your own benefit. You are not allowed to perform any antagonistic action at the Interlink for instance. You may, for instance, plan or purchase equipment at the Interlink, but you are not allowed to hide there or your equipment there.

• Knowledge must be consistent with the character; that means they shouldn't suddenly know how to do complex surgeries when convenient, when the previously couldn't.

• Regarding the continuity with antagonists, these rounds will count as canon unless specified. 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.

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 equally, regardless of role.
• Do not give yourself all-access just because you can.

• Don’t steal 'important' items(IV drips, techfab boards, the chef's oven, etc) without good cause as a non-antagonist.

• 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)

• Don’t do the job of occupied departments (this includes acting Captains).

• Do not possess an unbelievable amount of weaponry on you. If you're a security officer, equip yourself appropriately for the alert and situation. For all crew, do not act like a walking armory. (Multiple weapons, armor, medical supplies, tools, etc-etc, the focus is in excessive amounts)

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, when it is not elsewise "valid"(Strong IC reasoning that you were involved in, a station threat, Permanent Mechanical State, etc-etc) for you to do so.

• If an Antagonist is not currently a station threat, or elsewise, PMS, do not go out of your way to chase them down.
• Forcibly mind-shielding crew, brainwashing crew, or otherwise attempting to root out Antagonists without any confirmation of a related threat is valid-hunting. It can quickly ruin an otherwise perfectly on-track secret round.

• 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, you will not be protected from round-removal or elsewise, as it'd be the consequence of your own actions.

Rule 10: No Self-Antagging

Self-antagging is the act of acting like an in-game antagonist when you weren't selected to be the round's antag. While committing crimes ICly is permitted, self-antagonism is a different beast. To differentiate, you should not act like a traitor or commit terrorism. This involves performing actions that are expected of antags, such as murder(without proper IC escalation), grand sabotage, abduction of high-level personnel, etc.

The key difference between the activities you could do thanks to Principle #6, and self-antagonism, is the negative impact your actions have on the round as a whole. If you establish the rules of your IC interactions beforehand, and work with other players, then you can perform any number of unlawful activities under Principle #6. As a rule of thumb and as a reminder, anything that could be considered terrorism in the real world is self-antagging.

If you are not an antag, do not do the following:

• Roleplay as a serial killer, a criminally insane character, or a terrorist.
• Murder someone without a justifiable IC reason (self-defense, honor duel, etc.)
• Pretend to be an established antagonist (Throwing on a black and red spacesuit and sabotaging solars is NOT fine.)
• Sabotage important station facilities (flooding Security with plasma, blowing up Engineering, unleashing viruses from Virology).
• Keep in mind that helping a friend escape arrest may be a form of self-antagonism and may breach rules regarding meta-behavior, depending on the context and reason. Unless it is convincingly reasonable for you to do so, please refrain.

And so on. This list is not exhaustive, and other activities may or may not fit under self-antagonism, as decided by the staff.

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 should keep to the left-side of the corp-regs crimes(3xx and below)(HERE); that is, you shouldn't be using 'non-antag-criminal' as an excuse to gun down the CMO because he insulted your shoes.
• Failure to adhere to this will result in pacification bans or server bans.

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: Behave in accordance to our principles

Link: Click here!

The principles lay plainly our goals for the server and how we aim to achieve them. It highlights what we expect from players, and it also allows you to understand why the rules are organized as they are. By following them, you will more than likely be in good shape.

In fact, we argue strongly that the principles are there, so you understand what is expected of you whenever you stir IC trouble. For example, this server allows you to commit crimes given that you roleplayed and thought your character out. This, however, does not grant you the license to grief. Keep in mind that its main purpose is there to create interesting scenarios born out of conflict for players to engage with, even on an extended shift. To become a trusted member of the community, use this freedom to not only enhance your own playing experience but others as well!

While the principles are there to encourage player initiative, we encourage players to ask for consent from nearby players when possible. Anything that affects the shift station-wide will require admin consent. Please keep in mind that intentionally disregarding or actively ignoring the principles laid out for the players will draw the attention of the staff and may result in punitive measures.

Here are a few key reminders:

1. At a minimum, do not be a dick OOCly!
2. Play as the character, not as the player.
3. You are allowed to roleplay your character somewhat incompetently though not to the point that it becomes very unfun.
4. Whenever possible, roleplay what you can. This does not mean you have to roleplay everything out, rather you keep an eye out for roleplaying opportunities.
5. No force-borging or transforming another person's character without OOC consent. OOC consent is required.
6. Round removal without good reason is prohibited. We strongly encourage alternatives, as round removal typically tends to be a lazy way of handling things. This is a roleplaying server after all.
7. This is a friendly reminder that this is an adult server and that you are an adult. Expect adult situations to arise. When it comes to ERP, we have light protection in accordance to the "do not be a dick OOCly" rule. We expect people, whether they are a participant or bystander, to be considerate of each other and the situation they're in.
8. You should expect IC conflict with less than scrupulous characters.
9. Remember, this is not comprehensive. Please see the Principles Document for further detail.

Skyrat policies

Server Rules • Fundamentals for Players • General Player Policy • Antagonist Policy • Silicon policy • Command Policy • Ghost Role policy • Corporate Regulations • Contraband • Security Policy • Cargo Policy • Medical Policy • Misc Roleplaying Policy • Guide to Roleplaying Excellency

---

Return to policies page