Not Getting Banned

The Rules are there for everyone to have fun, but still leave some room for interpretation. If you want to play it safe, here are some pointers.

LISTEN TO THE ADMINS
This is by far the most important pointer here. If you are playing and an admin contacts you questioning you on your behaviour, or asking you to change something, listen to them and do as they say. Of course, admins aren’t omniscient nor perfect, so if you think they are wrong, feel free to explain how things got to where they are and your reasoning, but if they are still not convinced, then just do as they say. DON’T try to discuss it until a settlement is reached there and now. You are in the middle of the game and the game won’t stop for you to discuss it over.

Instead, even if you think the admin is wrong, if they insist that you cease or change the behaviour, do it. Later, when you have the opportunity, discuss it with them again, preferably involving other admins and players. The skype group is good for this (though make sure it isn’t the same round, as that would be IC in OOC). Another good alternative is making a forum post about it.

And, whatever happens, don’t hate the admins. They are just doing their job, a job they do for free, by the way. Keep in mind that essentially every griefer thinks what they are doing is fine, and the admin is wrong. If the admins let anyone who though they were right do what they wanted, we would all be screwed.

That is why admins need to enforce their opinion. Sadly, this means that their opinion will be enforced even when it is wrong, but this is not something that can be helped. Just accept the unfortunate event and try to prevent it from happening again by bringing the "wrongful" judgment to the light of the community. Don’t hate the admins; it won’t achieve anything other than make they want to ban you more and for longer.

Most importantly of all, If an admin PMs you about something, absolutely do not ignore them. If you won't respond when the admins try to speak with you, then you leave them with little choice but to ban you.

When in doubt, ASK THE ADMINS
This is the second most important pointer here. When you are unsure of whether something is allowable or not, or how bad it would be, just adminhelp it. If you adminhelp it and act according to the reply you receive, you could kill everyone and destroy the entire ship and still not get banned, because you were doing it under the OK of an admin. Even if what you did was terrible, it was the admin that gave the "yes" that will have to do the explaining, not you.

What if there are no admins, or they don’t reply? Well, if you have time, you could take a quick look on the wiki and it may be able to clear things up for you. If you are able to make it cryptic enough as to not be IC on OOC, you can also try asking the other players.

If you are still unsure, just use your common sense, think of what would be fun for others, and hope you aren’t doing something terrible. If you do, and an admin comes and questions you on it, tell him that you were unable to get a clarification and that will probably save your ass if you didn’t break common sense to the extreme, or have a really bad history.

Write in a way that feels like speech
Another thing that breaks immersion is when we see someone writing in a way that doesn’t feel like speech, like writing with terrible grammar, using smileys and other internets slang/codes, using all-caps too frequently (in fact its probably better to not use it at all, unless you really, REALLY need to convey it’s a very big and nasty scream), and so on.

Understandably, not everyone is a native English speaker, and keeping to grammar isn’t always easy, but please try. As long as you are trying nobody will ban you for this. Though some community members are somewhat of grammar Nazis, so try to not let them push you around too much either. (Unless they’re an admin. Remember 1!)

No metagaming or IC in OOC
It doesn’t matter how unfair or awesome what just happened was, you should NEVER write in OOC about what happened IC, unless it’s from another round or vague/old enough to not matter, nor break character to manifest your OOC will IC.

If it was awesome, comment on it later. If it was something aggravating, resolve it privately with an admin or, again, leave it for later. And, for god's sake, DON’T use your current in-game character as means of getting revenge against someone you hate or grudge personally in an OOC, no matter how terrible the things they did to you in previous times.

Metagaming and IC in OOC are the great enemies of immersion, and, again, breaking immersion is a bannable thing. You do not have the right to break other people's immersion over your problems.

In particular, the end-round reveal and other information are not in-character knowledge, and you should not act upon seeing someone's name popping up as a "successful traitor" one time. When we even have them, half the time the traitors are given silly objectives like "stuff Kisuke up your ass" anyway.

Be careful when treading into the realms of insanity and murderousness
While this is a role playing game and it should be understood that actions are character against character, and not player against player, if you play an insane, evil, predatory, antagonistic or otherwise unpleasant character, it is advisable to make sure your fellow players are "on board." You might try using the LOOC command to communicate your RP intentions with other players, particularly if you have not played with the other character before. (Likewise, if you feel that a player is becoming too aggressive, you can also try using the LOOC command to ask them to stop.)

Being predatory, murderous or animalistic isn’t always going to be a bad thing, but you need to know how to do it in order to not spoil the fun or immersion of others.

Feral characters are common one, and can be either very fun to play, or very frustrating for others - if you're going on a feral rampage that just ends up disrupting the rest of the station, that's no fun for anyone. If you do want to play a character that exhibits feral behaviour, plan it out - give them a trigger, give them some actual behaviours besides "ruin everything", give them some means of snapping them out of it that doesn't require people to go outside their prefs (for instance - if your character goes into heat and becomes extremely violent until they get laid, and there aren't any players on that want to RP out a sex scene, then now wouldn't be a good time to go feral) and above all, make it enjoyable, not just for you, but for the people who have to interact with you.

Think twice before killing someone (vore excluded, obviously)
This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the last point. Even if you have a good enough reason to kill someone, your personality allows it, the situation calls for it, etc... Keep in mind that killing someone means taking someone out of the game, and they may not enjoy that.

So, ask yourself two great questions before killing someone: First, will the victim find this enjoyable? Can I make this enjoyable for them? And, second, can I, through this murder, create an interesting situation or scenario for the remaining players?

Also, its worthy noting that putting someone in a situation where they are essentially paralyzed forever or almost forever can be as bad as murder, if not worse, as it leaves then unable to play the game and at the same time unable to observe it since they haven’t died and ghosted yet.

Examples would be leaving someone cuffed indefinitely in the brig (when not having commited a captial crime), sealed inside a locker without a way to communicate with anyone, abandoned with anaesthetic internals, etc.

Obviously, vore is an exeption to this - but do note that if your prey isn't up for digestion, then you're expected to respect that.

Don’t stop RP just because you are under attack
Admittedly, the click-spam combat of this game does make it hard to maintain RP during it, since generally whoever clicks more and talks less wins, but still, if your attacker is maintaining the RP, try to maintain it as well. Wait until they have finished talking, if they are, don’t rush them if they have a gun, that sort of thing. Attacking someone who's giving you the courtesy of a roleplay scene, especially when they're in the middle of typing a post, is a good way to get the admins on your case.

Keep in mind that most people in real life are afraid from dying, afraid of fighting and afraid of GUNS, and most people in real life wouldn’t try to fight their way out of a hostage situation unless they had lost all hope of survival otherwise, or the kidnapper had made a truly massive opportunity-giving blunder, like falling unconscious a meter away.

Do note, however, that the hostage-taking "aim" mode of guns is not considered a no-RP attack. You're given plenty of warning, an audible alert, and a bold red notice in the text window alerting you that you'll be shot if you move. If you get shot at by an attacker using targeting mode, then it's your movement/action that prompted it. Notably, roleplaying posts using Me or Say won't set it off.

Think twice before destroying something
Destroying objects or parts of the ship can be a serious thing and it’s generally not something you should do if you don’t have decent reasons for. Before doing so, ask yourself: Will this endanger the crew? (Potentially depressurizing a place, for example) Will this potentially make someone unable to do their jobs, such as the destruction of an important computer? Do I have a good, sensible reason to be destroying or modifying this thing I? ( This applies for hacking autolathes and other objects.)

That said, engineers and other... Mechanical jobs are generally allowed to have some fun modifying or building and changing machinery, just as long as it makes some sense, doesn’t endanger anyone else, and doesn’t consume massive amounts of resources that should be getting spent elsewhere. Getting permission from your superiors first is a good idea.

Before playing as an AI/cyborg, accept you will have to follow your laws
Do you hate humans? Too bad, your laws say you have to help them. Are you a pacifist? Well, also too bad. If your laws get changed to "Destroy all humans", you would have to go and destroy all humans. That's how being a cyborg/AI is, you need to be ready to do all sorts of things, even things you would never do if you had choice.

And, if you are a cyborg, then accept that the AI's interpretation of the laws, as well as anything else, always overrides your own: The AI is your supreme, irrefutable boss and you need to obey it (Unless you are a disconnected cyborg, that is).

Note that your laws are not listed in order of preference. If you find yourself in a catch-22 situation where no course of action or inaction will allow you to avoid breaking at least one law, it's best to choose the route of least noncompliance.

Despite what I said above, don’t blindly follow all your laws
Sometimes it happens that a griefy player manages to upload a law. Or, if you are a cyborg, a griefy AI decides to interpret laws in a nasty manner, and suddenly the laws/your AI are forcing you to do things that normally would be the worst of griefing, such as slaughtering the entire crew.

Should you just go ahead and do it? No! Adminhelp it and confirm on whenever to do it or not with an admin first. This can save the round from descending into turmoil.

Following the above and the spirit behind them will go a long way to keeping the round fun for everyone and you ban free!