Most of these rules are common sense, and everyone is held to them the same. Core rules are zero exception policies. Failing to read these rules doesn’t excuse terrible behaviour. All staff who have to deal with rulebreaks are encouraged to give second chances and act with clemency if there is room for it. Admins can and do use their own judgement first. Just because something is not covered by a specific rule does not mean it is a loophole to be exploited.

Admins that conduct unauthorized bans, or generally break the code of conduct, must be reported immediately. Terms of Services for associated applications still apply.

Universal Ruleset

A set of immutable, fundamental principles that everyone should follow; no matter the context.

Treat all persons fairly and with respect, to not engage in harassment or discrimination.
Strive such that this code is upheld by all others, including the adminship. Formally report it if discovered it had not been upheld otherwise.
Avoid contempt with final decisions made by the adminship, regardless of personal beliefs.
Work together with your fellow man, every player is a person.
Avoid alienating other players, or encouraging or enforcing doctrine onto others.
No references nor analogues of real life military and/or insurgent groups.
Erotic content of any kind is not allowed under any circumstance.
Don't evade bans or admin punishment.
You have a right to appeal a ban at least once.

This guarantee only applies to the first appeal for a ban. Every attempt to appeal a ban after your first is not a right.

You have the right to argue and defend yourself.

Don't be rude in conversations with staff.

You have the right to escalate an issue to higher-up staff over a decision.

A decision made by the standing owner is final.

Roleplay Ruleset

These are rules that pertain to the roleplay standards that are employed on this server. Most of these come naturally to the “MRP” label, but otherwise these are the most important. The idea is that this ruleset permits emerging player freedom without being no/low-roleplay (N/LRP), and in a way that is fair and respectable to those who just wish to enjoy the game.

Pretext: Try to immerse yourself into your character. This includes doing your part in your role on the station, and delegating tasks that are outside of that description. This does not imply you’re forced to play the whole round.

Rules Can’t Cover Everything

Every example of a rule break cannot be defined as written, therefore, enforcement of the rules is subject to staff interpretation of the rule's intention.

If you are concerned as to whether or not what you're about to do is allowed, feel free to use AHELP and ask an admin. for clarification. Lack of admin. response does not mean it’s approved, but no penalty will be held against you if nobody else is alienated or scorned.

No Meta-Gaming

Don't use information gained outside of in-character means, and don't convey In Character (IC) information in the Local Out Of Character (LOOC) chat channel.

Accidentally saying an IC thing OOC, or OOC thing IC is not an offence.
Communicating in-round information outside of the round isn’t acceptable.
Characters are allowed to know everything they can about in-game mechanics or antagonists within reason.
Characters may keep persistent friendships with characters, but not for unfair advantages against others.

Teaming up with others that you usually wouldn’t is the most egregious example.

Don't Grief

Don't act against AFK and SSD/Catatonic players until 5 min. have passed.
Don't leave the server or force respawn to avoid punishment from Admin staff.
Exploits, abusing bugs, cheating, intentional lag, etc. are all forbidden.
Don't round remove people (i.e. make someone unrecoverable) unless:

The person being round-removed is being removed by an admin.
The round-removal is self-inflicted.It is part of an antagonist’s objectives / mechanics.

Don't End of Round Grief (EORG); attacking other players and griefing at round-end is not allowed.

New Life Rule / 5 Minute Rule

After cloning, respawning, or taking a ghost role, you must follow the new life rule.

If cloned, resuscitated, or respawned, you don't have amnesia, but you can only recall vague details of who or what had killed you.
If taking a ghost role, you have no memories from any past lives for the duration of playing as a ghost role.
Don't act on anything you saw whilst a ghost.

General Chat Guidelines

Follow the chat guidelines below.

Only use English, or an approved constructed language. (See Con.Lang. Rules)
Don't send excessive spam. AHELP request spam warrants a swift ban.
If there is any rulebreak, use AHELP if OOC does not resolve it.
Avoid advertising. Posting other related SS14 servers is permissible, but not respectful.
Don't use Netspeak / 133T-speak (i.e. LOL, ROFL, XD, FR).
Words that are closely tied to, or intended to replace/imitate, real life slurs aren’t allowed.
Low roleplay (LRP) actions that have no regard for your character or the setting (Memes, silly copy paste spam IC) aren’t acceptable.

Character Names

"Classic" racial names are not enforced, but are still left in-game.

Your IC name should fit into the game's setting with at least some realism. Leniency is given to inoffensive names, names of locations, brands, fictional people or names parodying off from them. (e.g. Baul Sadman, Nuke Duken, William Weiß (/Weiss) are fine) However:

Don't use numbers, symbols, abbreviated titles or adjectives (I.e. Mr, Dr, Big, Old). Titles like “Doctor” or “Miss” are permissible. (Dr. Kel vs Doctor Kel)
Avoid using character names of other well-known players, don't impersonate players this way.

Separate Character & Player

Treat your character as a separate entity from you, the player. Your character's actions, feelings, and knowledge in-game should be based solely on the character's experiences and not your own as the player. Previous experiences with other characters are allowed to lead to meta-friending, but you may not meta-grudge another player-character.

This does not permit you to give overly special treatment towards them in terms of in-game items they should not be getting. (E.g. A Security Officer giving Security Glasses to a Scientist.)

Antagonist Guidelines

Even as an antagonist you are still playing a character. Determine how your character would react to being given these objectives, and work through it appropriately; they aren’t play-to-win. While you are not required to complete your objectives, you are still encouraged to act as an antagonist.

Don’t self-antag.
Antagonists aren’t your friends. Free agents may be negotiated-with at your own risk, but they don’t have to be friendly. Roles like nuclear operatives, space dragons, or zombies are considered chaotic-evil, and cannot be reasoned with.
Non-antagonists may not assist or work with known antagonists, like tipping-off victims, pretending to be hostages, etc.

Non-security aren’t encouraged to initiate a fight with antagonist roles, but instead flee, or call security.

Engage with antagonists if they're trying to interact. Even if they're antagonists, they should prioritize roleplay over completing objectives.

Holding the singularity hostage for a theft objective is acceptable, while simply releasing it and using the ensuing chaos as a thief is poor sportsmanship.

Poor sportsmanship is not welcome, here.

E.g.:

Killing players unrelated to your immediate objective in a manner that results in their round removal.

(Crew that don't make an attempt at self preservation, or engage in valid-hunting, are exempt from this.)

Causing mass damages whilst not a station-destroying antagonist, like Nuclear Operatives.
Not working with your team as a team-focused antagonist.
Loitering or camping (called “Puppy-Guarding”) around the arrivals or cryosleep areas of the station in order to target newly-spawning players.
Extending the length of the round, or forcefully ending it in spite of others.

Ghost Roles

All ghost roles have a set description for how the role should be played, you must follow the ghost role description unless an admin gives the go-ahead.

Antagonistic ghost roles, and pest ghost roles like mice are fair game.

Security and Station Command

Command and Security are expected to maintain a minimum level of competency in their roles as to not disparage others. The expectation is that behaviour should remain in character, and can be handled in OOC if boundaries are crossed.

See Universal Ruleset if lost on basic expectations.

Follow ingame SoP if lost on escalation tiers.

Escalation Guidelines

Don't attack non-antagonist ghost roles— like familiars, drones, or pets —or other players without a good reason beyond “it’s what my character would do.”
All players are recommended to resolve situations and de-escalate IC confrontation, but can to use lethal force if the other party flags themselves.
A party flags themselves to escalate a fight by wielding a weapon, racking it, or by taking out any explosives / triggers.

Don’t Play To Win

Acting in a way that is play-to-win; overpower other players; using excesses against them. See examples:

Stockpiling a large amount of weapons as a non-combatant role.
Hiding irreplaceable items in out-of-reach areas.

Irreplaceable items include, but aren't limited to: Nuclear Authentication Disk, The Nuke itself, most command-level gear, etc.

Areas include, but aren't limited to: Lavaland, 10km away in Space, the Automated Trade Station (A.T.S.), etc.

Using Longarms (i.e. any weapon bigger than a pistol or which requires wielding to work) as security on Code Green; no guns when there’s no threats.
Obtaining a goliath heart as salvage persistently, and using its abilities on others.

Valid-Hunting

Hunting player characters with only the sole intent to kill for itself.
Non-security may only hunt down round-ending / global threats.

All rules beyond this point are reserved for Staff, Contributors, and Exceptions in the ruleset that grant additional permissions in certain situations.

Staff Ruleset

Failure to accommodate for any of these aspects of Admin Accountability will result in removal from the staff list. This is a subset of Universal accountability explicitly made for any and all staff. The continued numbering is deliberate.

Uphold the highest standards of integrity, responsible behavior, and ethical conduct. don't be rude to players.
Avoid unlawful conduct, and to reject bribery in all its forms.
Seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of work, to acknowledge and correct errors, to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data, and to properly credit the contributions of others.

Insult: "You're a shitty artist."
Harsh criticism: "Your painting seems uninspired."

The intent behind an insult is to hurt or disparage another person.

The intent behind a criticism is to call attention to a defect or deficiency.

Bans must be verbosely described. Spell it out. If you don’t, it can’t be justified.
No less than two weeks should be spent gathering community feedback on new admin applications whose ratio should be very positive in outlook. If this is unable to be done then a vote may be held by all staff without bias.
You are liable to scrutiny: nobody should be penalized for genuine criticism.
You aren’t obligated to cover for any player losses, deaths, or delays. This includes Respawns and Revivals. Exceptions may be made in certain circumstances.

Exception being where player death removes them from the game by no fault of their own.

The removal or downgrading of administrative privileges from staff must first be initiated by a report from a player. Proof must then be provided which rule(s) the staff had broken from the above rulesets.
When using AHELP, be polite and accommodating.

If you can’t be, then start with “Heya Howdy”.

Let in-character issues be handled in-character. (I.e. A crewmate with a mosin nagant is security’s concern, not yours.)
Don't use AHELP for small issues. Use OOC first.

(Ex. If the captain neglects to carry their disk, tell them in (L)OOC or silent message to get it before escalating to AHELP.)

Adhere to the authority of roles above one’s current role.
Senior Staff cannot remove the roles of lower staff without approval from the standing Owner.

If there is no direct report, nor proof that the server has been harmed, a 75% “Yes” playerbase poll in a 24 hour window must succeed for removal. Provided context must be unbiased manner.

(Yes = Remove, No = Keep)

Contributor Accountability

Failure to accommodate for any of these aspects of Contributor Accountability will result in removal of repository permissions. This is a subset of Universal accountability. This is made for all maintainers, and contributors of the repository. It’s small, but supposed to promote professionalism.

Never intentionally push a broken work that does not compile. If you do so by accident, quickly fix it.
Verbosely describe the changes in commits as to avoid confusion. (Eg. No “meh”, “did this”, and “thing was done” commits.)
Always thoroughly test your work at least once before pushing it to the repository.
Don't push anything that impacts gameplay drastically for all members of the server in an egregious way. (Ie. Fentanyl update where people made $14 mil. in one round.)
Strive for an additive-first paradigm. Avoid removal of content whereatall possible, especially if a compromise can be made on corrective fixes.

Constructed Languages

These are exceptions to the English-Only rule allowing constructed languages (conlangs). Ultimately the goal is to promote roleplay value through cultural differences, but abusing these exceptions will harm your own experience greatly in the long-run.

Avoid alienating new players.
Follow all other rules accordingly. Aka, no ERP, EORG, etc.
No real life ([I]RL) languages other than English. No exceptions.
Whitelist-only roles must be English only. Central Command, and etc may NOT use constructed languages without senior permission.
Only those whitelisteds are allowed to introduce new conlangs.
If you make / use a conlang, notify an admin in advance and have it processed with key characteristics to identify it.
If you create / use a conlang, you represent it. Should you do wrong with it, then you may be banned from using it. Attempts to circumvent this may be met with a ban.
All conlangs must use the English alphabet and English (Arabic) number system.
The conlang must be submitted through a ticket or some sort of system to the staff team and approved before use.

If a conlang is deemed inappropriate, or suspected of misuse, it may be banned.

Anyone involved in propagating, or creating it will no longer be able to benefit from these exceptions to the English-Only rule. Admins have total freedom to judge a conlang, and how to react to its use, alongside commensurate punishment for anyone whom breaks the rules with them.

Optional Rules

These rules are purely optional, and can be ignored. Their reasons for being here may vary.

For the entire month of April all staff must start every AHELP or ticket with "Heya howdy".
You must declare your loyalty to either Buck Wing as a Buckaroo, or Cletus J. Thickneck as a Thickerlite. Switch teams only if you feel like it, and one is losing.

Special Thanks to the Alphabetical Order of Peers who reviewed this Ruleset

Nukeclear, Sky Fluff, Ukeleleman

Table of Contents

Foreword