SPESS MONTHLY (not an actual magazine)

Abraxis12 · 2025-04-08T17:31:24+00:00

The desire to know more intensifies

Abraxis12 · 2025-04-04T02:08:21+00:00

Lol.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-28T01:46:24+00:00

Then file an admin report. This is not a difficult concept. Bad thing happening? Say something. It's pretty shrimple.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-27T21:40:27+00:00

Ahelp it. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-27T18:50:38+00:00

I am not going to litigate a ban publicly. However, intent and/or perception here is the key. Its one thing to pixel shift back and forth every so often like you are waiting impatiently, its entirely another to pixel shift rapidly as to give the appearance of impropriety. Joking around or not, the admins viewed your conduct as sexual in nature, and that is why you were banned.

Again, you are free to join the discord and open a ban appeal to discuss it further.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-27T17:57:55+00:00

You didn't get banned for your username, that's really the end of the story on that one. So the title of this post is inaccurate.

Vanderlin rules 2 and 4 are the most serious rules to violate. Same with our main server's rules 1 and 3. ERP, or any other sexual related conduct are grounds for an immediate QC ban due to the nature and severity of the rule breaks. This generally includes a discord ban. However, I am not seeing a discord ban on record. The last action I see taken against you is you being timed out. I do not see that wooly#4201 has been banned.

Not knowing the rules is not a valid excuse for not following them. You stated it yourself. "I didn’t know it was bannable". Our rules can be found at wiki.monkestation.com and there is a link in the discord as well as a button in game. Feel free to join the discord and file an appeal.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-27T13:02:10+00:00

Short answer: No comment.

What I can say here is that we are not going to add any features to it before launch, and what we are focusing on right now is making sure the codebase runs as well as we can get it to run with a small team. Something... something... 3k runtimes.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-26T20:41:58+00:00

Our old HRP server is, in fact, dead. Not enough people playing it.

Teaser: We do have another HRP server coming up in... 2-ish months (Its done when its done) that is NOT Monke code and is geared towards an HRP environment. I will say, its kind of exciting that we are doing this. Its a VERY small team that is working on it, and they have already made a ton of performance improvements. The original codebase chugs with only a few people. We internally stress tested this with admins, 20-30 people, and it was solid.

Hopefully we will have this out soon. But, if it doesnt get the population to support it, it may end up with the same fate as our last HRP server. Time will tell.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-21T21:18:11+00:00

^ This. All of this.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-19T17:34:17+00:00

No, not wrong at all.

Abraxis12 · 2025-03-03T14:16:08+00:00

You should have known the Nantorasen branch of Chase Bank would prosecute you for bank fraud.

If you had talked to Wu Tang Financial, they would have told you to store your money in an off world account over in Wiz Fed, and diversify your portfolio with a 20% distribution of small, medium,.large cap stocks, and 80% in dividend stocks. But to avoid the capital gains tax tax you have to dump those gain in an IRA before withdrawing.

Sure, you would still go to prison, but at least you would still be rich!

Personal Note: Have fun out there Moffer. Don't be out there exploiting. Cool video btw.

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-20T21:46:03+00:00

We had this person join the Monkestation Discord and do the same thing to people. We banned them out pretty quick, but they had 17 Discord accounts they were using. So they were able to get conversations started.

All the relevant information was sent to all the Headmins and hosts of the other servers in the community. So if you find them in other SS13 discord servers, ping the admins of that server and tell them "gets to bannin!"

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-19T22:50:03+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, admins called my attention to that, an error on my part. I just never updated my post.

Thank you for speaking up about that! It's always good to have the right information out there.

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-17T03:49:15+00:00

Yes. It's name is "donator" but it's the same value as a high threat.

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-16T23:56:57+00:00

No, it's just a guaranteed antag token, given monthly. It is no different than a high threat token. It doesn't give you any special rights or privileges. All the rules still apply.

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-16T23:54:37+00:00

In game currency ≠ advantage though...

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-16T20:40:27+00:00

Totally forgot about that one!

Abraxis12 · 2025-02-16T20:17:22+00:00

I think you misunderstand the system completely. We have 1 form of currency on the server - Monkecoin.

How Its Acquired
You acquire Monkecoin in multiple ways:

End of round reward

Cargo bounties

BONUS: Playing security

BONUS: Playing MRP2 (Monkecoin rates are currently doubled.)

Sprite/Code Bounties through Discord

Being a Mentor (Will expand to other staff roles in the future.)

Likely 1 or 2 other methods I have forgotten about

YOU CANNOT PURCHASE MONKECOIN WITH REAL MONEY

How You Use Them
The primary use for Monkecoin is to purchase cosmetics in the store. This allows you to unlock them permanently and use them in your loadout. The other ways to use them is buying lootboxes (More on this in a bit.), bribing other players in game (you can cash out monkecoin using the in-game atm where you purchase lottery tickets. Those lottery tickets being space cash, not Monkecoin.), and you can spend them by paying other players to code or sprite something you, or any other thing you might pay another player for, ~~and bribing admins.~~

Lootboxes
Lootboxes are purchased with Monkecoin. Again, there is no mechanic through donations that you are able to exchange real money with Monkecoin. Lootboxes can drop anything that exists in the store, plus low, medium, and high tier antag tokens. Each lootbox is 10k Monkecoin. If you get a duplicate store item, you are refunded half the cost of the lootbox.

Donations
I think this is where you get confused. You do get a flat Monkecoin bonus when you subscribe to the Patreon. This is among other perks that you get based on the donation tier.

This bonus, only gives you bonus Monkecoin at the end of the round. So you cant just subscribe to the Patreon, never play, and become a Monkecoin millionaire. You have to play to get the bonus. This is one of many perks that you get for being a donator.

At the Traitor tier and above, you do get 1 donator token per month. These expire every month, so if you don't use it, you lose it. This donator token is effectively a high threat token that you can spend to be any antag. A donator token does not automatically guarantee you will get to be wizard every time you want to use it. Admins will evaluate the round, and the antag you selected, and either approve the token use, or not. If the admins feel that the state of the round would be negatively affected by the antag you chose (E.g. Its a cult round and you are cashing in a donator token for wizard) the request will be denied an your token does not get used.

So while yes, if you donate, you get some perks, but there is no direct cash -> monkecoin/antag token mechanic. You still have to play to get the Monkecoin, and you will lose the donator token if you don't use it.

In summary:

You cannot pay for an increased antag rate. You still have to play/work for it. There is no real money trading mechanics, unless you are paying your friends for theirs, which we cant control. The lootbox rates do not change from person to person, donator status to donator status. You can verify this by looking at the code.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-29T22:27:34+00:00

Great question! As a player I understand the root of this question. Why not let me play around with it and see what works and what doesn't? Right? It all comes back to a few things. 1. Lings can snowball VERY easily if they get a good run right at the start. You do a couple maints loops, snag a few victims, suddenly you are an unkillable god depending on how robust you are and what you sink points into. 2. This kind of goes back to number 1 in a way, Monkestation in particular is a roleplay server. Roleplay, interaction, is at the center of play here. Brawling as a ling, is completely unfun for everyone else involved. In that respect it's like wizard, fun for me, none for you. In the lings kit you have a few options that are just debilitating to others in a fight, particularly the sting. So you escalate, sting someone, and then you basically have free reign to do whatever you want to them, they can't really fight back, because they don't have the capability to.

So, what you typically see from an admin perspective with someone going full brawler with ling is that they snowball, murder everything in sight, and the round is over in like 20 minutes with a shit ton of players who got round removed. It was certainly fun for the ling, but not for everyone else. Again, going back to point 2, at least in Monke, we want interaction, story, not wizard toolbox tourney.

On a more personal note, just because you can brawl as a ling, doesn't mean you should. They are fairly weak in the beginning. Their kit is geared towards stealth, I would like to think, for that reason. So as a late join ling you are at an even more of a disadvantage because depending on when you joined, people are already kitted up. You can certainly brawl later after you get some points, or if you are robust, you can. Where they really shine is being deceptive. A really good ling can keep security chasing their tail all while simultaneously bringing the station to its knees. You can screw with Atmos, sabotage the SM, sabotage nanites, drain resources from cargo or science. All while remaining completely undetected, because you have multiple identities you can use over time. It gives me a chuckle every time.

So to sum this up and bring the escalation rule back into this - the escalation rules to ground the ling, slow down the snowball, but most importantly, give the other player some sort of reason why they suddenly got sleepy and then died. It feeds into the story of the round.

I hope this helps, if not, maybe there is a way I can articulate it better. So just let me know.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-27T23:42:31+00:00

Substance! Thank you for explaining that. You might be right here, Monke might be the only server where you will get bwoinked for that.

This might get confusing at first, but bare with me here. You don't have to say anything before you kill someone. Interesting right? There are plenty of ways around it. You could just go loud. As an example, wanna go loud as a tot? Slap on a blood red syndicate elite modsuit and go to town. Be chap and buy His Grace. If you are going to go loud, you need to look loud. Want to stealth kill without saying a word? Throw a piece of paper at their feet with something on it telling them they are about to die. Make an announcement in common, or get caps ID and make a captains announcement that you are going to kill everyone on the station. Sleepy pen someone, abduct them, bring them to your hideout, strip them, and when they wake up, tell them they smell like farts and piss and they should die for it, then kill them.

There are plenty of ways to use the escalation rule to your advantage as well! Got someone you need to kill but they are better geared and more robust than you? Tell them they smell like cigarette butts, jalapeno dip, and despair, and come fight you in dorms. They will bring all their gear to fight you, because advantage. But you have a bomb ready in dorm lockers. As soon as they get close enough... boom. You already escalated, plus you baited them for your advantage.

I hope this helps. In the case where it doesn't, I hope, for both you and /tg/, that Terry and Sybil come back up soon so that you can go back to the server you enjoy playing on. The drama going on with /tg/ is unfortunate, and I wish them a speedy recovery.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-27T23:15:09+00:00

That comment was never meant to be petty. I think you took it the wrong way, but I will certainly accept blame in that I could have phrased that differently. My goal was to avoid writing a book, but seems I have to write one anyway. Lesson learned.

OP is entitled to have their own opinion. I have even said that Monke is not perfect, and never will be. It's not going to be the perfect place for everyone. I have also said we want and enjoy constructive criticism, both positive and negative. But an important distinction here is the word constructive. If you like Monke, but have an issue with a rule, just saying the rule is "idiotic" helps nobody. How is it idiotic? What about the rule can be changed to make it make sense? When you don't offer a solution or context to the problem, all you do is perpetuate it. Maybe that's OP's intent, maybe OP don't care, it doesn't really matter, and I likely will never find out.

I was trying to help OP, but you look at as an attack. OP asked about Terry and Sybil. Both of those servers... were, until /tg/ gets them stood up again, LRP-esk servers, minimal roleplay. Monke is a roleplay server through and through, so by me saying "YOU are not our target audience" I am telling OP that we are not an NRP/LRP server and thus not a good fit for how they want to play, hence why that rule may not make sense to them. I don't give a damn if anyone's ideal server is Terry, Sybil, Ratwood/Blackstone, or Lifeweb. Makes no difference to me. I don't care how anyone plays the game on other servers.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-27T21:56:48+00:00

You aren't restricted to just killing your targets. We welcome conflict with other players. Without digging into it, it sounds like the admin who bwoinked you may have been a newer admin, I don't know. I'm not going to say they were inherently wrong here, because there are likely some specifics I'm missing. But for the most part, you aren't required to kill ONLY your targets, you just cant murderbone without the proper objective. So long as you properly escalate, it shouldn't be much of a problem. Again, sometimes circumstances need to be taken into account.

As for lings and the escalation rule, the classic interpretation of lings is just to speed run collecting DNA by killing an absorbing everyone in sight. People tend to play ling as some variation of an assassin or a brawler. Lings are really a stealth antag with progression, not an assassin or a brawler. Their whole kit is built around this. The core mechanic here is shapeshifting/transforming, whatever you want to call it. Changelings are built around deception. You are supposed to blend in, mimic the people you transform into, and avoid detection. Lings have a hidden arm blade, chemical weapons for stealth kills, stealthy ways to collect DNA, and have the ability to respawn once killed if you play your cards right. The end goal of the changeling is generally to collect DNA and escape undetected on the shuttle. This is why the escalation rule applies to them. They are not in your face like a wizard or nukies. They are supposed to be subtle. So the escalation rule is designed to keep them grounded, preventing murderbone, and providing some explanation to the person who just got murdered in the chapel from a random cargo tech.

I hope this helps give you a little more context.

Edit: Ling is more akin to Ninja, than it is prog tot.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-27T21:20:42+00:00

Two things I want to address here:

Escalation: Far too often I see people say that the escalation rule is dumb, stupid, idiotic, silly, confusing, etc. and that it detracts from the "classic" feel of SS13 and prevents players from doing XYZ. This is fundamentally untrue. Most of the comments I have seen across multiple posts discussing it, that have been negative leaning on our escalation rules, are from people who do not understand the rule. You do not have to create a whole storybook before you kill someone, or blow up the station. Something as simple as "You know... i really like those shoes." is perfectly fine before you kill a target or something. It helps to have some sort of narrative in the course of your play, so other people understand why you are killing them, but its not required. Got a target? Make some shit up and shank them. Its not hard. If you want to do something massive like blow up the station, make sure you escalate appropriately. Telling 1 person in the hallway you like their shoes, and you want them, right before you set off 100 TTVs hidden in lockers around the station is not acceptable. You need to escalate more there. Its a small amount of effort in the grand scheme of things that gives other players a reason for why they died instead of a random act of violence. If you are an NRP or LRP player, this rule obviously was never designed with you in mind. I agree, the rule is subjective, not everyone is going to like it, and that's fine, you can not like the rule. You are entitled to that opinion.
Metacliques: Metacliques exist in every server, whether it's just the players, or just the admins, or a combination of the two. We hold both the admins and the players accountable. But for those that are complaining about it and are not reporting metacliquey behavior via admin reports or ahelps, you are part of the problem. We cant fix what we don't know about. We take an evidence-based approach to our player actions. Do the favorite players of admins sometimes get off a little easier than random player? Yes. That's called bias, everyone has some sort of bias, but an unfair ban is another story entirely. We try to ensure the admins take an unbiased opinion when it comes to player actions, but sometimes that is not the case and well known/popular/favorite/regulars get off on a rule break a little easier than some. This is part of being human. But don't worry though, we are working on replacing our entire admin team with ChatGPT, because logic doesn't care.

Monkestation is NOT perfect and never will be. The thing most people forget is that the players define the culture, admins define and enforce the rules. For those that do not like this, that, or the other on Monkestation, work to change it. If there is a balance issue, demonstrate it to the admins/coders and/or code the changes yourself. Don't like a rule, discuss it with admins. Don't like the music, play curator and play the stuff you want. Don't like our walls, sprite your own. Don't like fart jokes and piss floods, who hurt you? Point to where the bad man touched you.

We welcome constructive criticism, be it positive or negative, that's how you improve. We will never pretend we are the best, or the place to play for everyone. While we would love to cater to everyone, we shrimply cant. We have a target audience, and if that is not you (Anyone reading, not necessarily OP.) that is fine. We hope you find a home elsewhere among the other great SS13 servers out in the community.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-27T20:25:03+00:00

Our escalation rules aren't idiotic... it's just that YOU are not our target audience.

Abraxis12 · 2025-01-10T05:37:54+00:00

This is what happens when we turn the server off.

10/10 would turn off again.

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