BramvanZijp - 2025/05/03

[viscid rain]

SS14 account: BramvanZijp

Character name: Cristopher Bashline

Type of Ban: NFSD Command Roleban (Sergeant, Bailiff, Sheriff)

Date of Ban and Duration: 2025/05/03, Permanent.

Reason for Ban: "Continued behaviour of powergaming across multiple shifts and continued behaviour. Modifying their ship for threats and such that do not exist or isnt known in the sector. This counts as a second whitelist strike. You may appeal this in the discord."

Your side of the story: The shift started, and it was just myself as sheriff and a Public Affairs Liaison. I waited for 30-60 minutes, hoping for more staff to sign on, but little to no one actually arrived. As such, this made it very clear to me I would likely need to take direct action in the field, prompting me to start preparing a Paladin to be able to act as both a mobile office, while also being capable of direct interdiction for law enforcement purposes, given I did not have the staff to do so.
While later on, I did get SOME company, it was still nowhere near enough to warrant me retreating to my office 24/7, nor was it enough to sufficiently man an empress, which has worked very well in the first of the 2 shifts as NFSD I did recently after taking a 2+ month break. (Which also handles the "continued behaviour across multiple shifts" aspect. I did not modify a ship in shift 1, only in shift 2, and anything I did before then was both months ago and already handled.)

Now, when I say modify, here is a list of everything I did:

• Shuffle around some consoles in the control area to be easier to access, they stayed in the same room.
• Move the locker next to that control area to be easier to access
• Unpack the NFSD Techfab flatpack, which I spawn with in my satchel on roundstart, on the ship.
• Add directional reinforced plasma glass (and secure windoors) around that control area, the techfab, and the recharger. This is all done because if I have my personal flagship, with the locker containing even my paperwork bag (Which includes my stamp, among other things), I want those things to be accessible to me, and only me, that is not making my ship more effective in combat, that is just handling sensitive equipment and information responsibly and securely.
• Add secure windoors under the 2 glass shutters that make up the storage bay, because otherwise that area can be breached by simply prying open the shutters. I have confirmed that this is not intentional for the ship, with this fix being allowed as a temporary measure until this vulnerability is resolved, which I am attempting to do in this Github Pull Request.

Now, the shift went on, people came and went, untill eventually I started realising my ships power grid was acting off, so I ahelped asking if there was a known reason for why my ships power grid suddenly failed after hours of working fine, maybe a bug or game mechanic I was not aware of?

Turns out the issue was the techfab, which consumes 1 kw of power apparantly?? In any case, I assume the substation was acting as a buffer which kept it unnoticed for so long. So I moved the techfab into the armory on the NFSD outpost, and problem solved, right? Sadly not.

THE REMAINING PART OF THIS QUESTION WILL BE APPENDED BELOW DUE TO THE DISCORD MESSAGE CHARACTER LIMIT

The admin responding started asking questions about why I had this ship. I explained it was a roundstart ship with the modifications I made being confirmed as allowed by a high ranking staff member in a ticket, offering to provide the transcript, screenshots, etc. Now, after a back and forth of them hammering down the same facts/comparisons that did not apply (Explained below, but it was confirmed the changes I made do not require a threat to make.), with me asking several times what the admin wanted me to change, intending to simply follow-up in a ticket after the fact, given I knew I was in the right, I got confirmation from a yellowmin/headmin that what I was doing was allowed, and this was never overturned/retracted, meaning as a player I did more then my due diligence to make sure my actions were to the best of my knowledge, and the knowledge of any reasonable player, in compliance with the server rules and standards, so I intended to leave it that, make the requested changes, and deal with it later in a ticket where the matter could be further clarified and I would be able to point to my previous efforts to ensure compliance with the rules.

Instead, I was told that my "Continued attempts to break the rules despite being told it was not allowed by multiple people, and then attempts to argue / rules lawyer around it" (I was told that it WAS allowed by a yellowmin, and there was only one person who has tried to dispute that since then, being the admin I was dealing with in the AHelp) had netted me a permanent NFSD command ban, despite the only thing I did being seeking clarity and following that ruling in an attempt to enjoy my time playing frontier without getting in trouble for breaking rules I was not sure applied. Because I did more then most people would have done to verify that I was not in violation of any rules. And when I tried to bring that up in the AHelp very clearly several times, it was simply ignored or brushed off, and then labelled as an attempt to rules lawyer, which this is not, this is pointing out that I had this matter clarified with a high ranking staff member in an attempt to prevent issues like these from happening in the first place.

I did everything I could to make sure I was in compliance with the rules, and even asked if there was anything I needed to do despite that after realising that trying to sort the issue in a back and forth in AHelp was pointless, and I was better off just handling it in a ticket after the fact. And instead of even being TOLD what I was expected to do given there were now even threats that would justify reinforcing a ship (I will get into why I know for a fact I did not need a threat/reason below in more detail), and instead of being answered, or the admin choosing to have the issue clarified internally, I as a player was penalized because the Frontier Staff team simply did not agree on how to enforce/interpret the servers rules and standards. And that feels unfair. Punishments should, in my opinion, be handed out if players break the rules with it being obvious what they were doing breaks said rules. If it is a gray area, inform them, leave them a note saying this was pointed out to them, and that more severe action can be taken if it happens again, but players should (again, in my opinion) not be punished becuase they were misinformed of the way the rules apply by official staff members, with nothing having happened since that would call that ruling into question. Because it is literally impossible to be aware of and be in compliance with every game admin's individual interpretation of the server rules, especially if those flat-out contradict eachother in many ways, and players should (in. my. opinion.) not be expected to do and know this.

THE REMAINING QUESTIONS OF THIS APPEAL WILL BE APPENDED BELOW DUE TO THE DISCORD MESSAGE CHARACTER LIMIT

Why you think you should be unbanned/have ban reduced:
Because I was doing something I was explicitly told I was ALLOWED to do by a high-ranking member of the staff team, as I had several questions, including this one, clarified with Leander in a staff report ticket after a previous issue, as it had by then became clear to me that the rules are not always interpreted the same.

What was called "Rules Lawyering" was me pointing out that I knew this would likely cause uncertainty if it was allowed or not in the future, which lead to me going to a yellow admin (Who, given their ability to process staff complaints, are logically higher ranked) who told me it was allowed. And according to the top of the frontier rules, all admin decisions are final, so I am highly confused as to why I as a player who checked with a yellowmin/headmin and was confirmed it was fine, am now getting in trouble for following that ruling after a base-level admin suddenly overturns it, despite it being final, without giving me a chance to correct behaviour which I explicitly made sure was not against the rules, despite me asking many times what I needed to change, to which I never received a reply.

Frontier gives its admin team a lot of leeway to interpret and suspend/ignore rules for the sake of the experience, which while I can see the value in that, it also leads to unclarity in what is and is not allowed. So I contacted a higher ranking staff member in Leander, and laid out a list of actions, and if they would be allowed to be taken without being powergaming, etc. Here are 2 entries from that list:
2. Adding a separated "room" with directional glass around the helm area of your ship if you want said ship to serve as your personal flagship as sheriff, and thus be locked to that rank.
3. Adding a small storage area with a closet and an armory rack, with another locked windoor protecting it, so that these sensitive items can be kept safe.

The answer to both was identical: It was allowed because "thats just more organisation".
Before you say the implication was that allowed meant if something happens to justify it, at the start of the list, I made a very clear distinction:
"Then here is a list of scenarios, numbered so you can easily respond to each one individually, which you could answer with Allowed, Not Allowed, Allowed if something happened during the round to warrant it, or a different answer if you think none of the previous 3 cover the rules regarding that specific scenario."
Notice how I acknowledged that it being allowed is not the same as it being allowed AFTER a reason arrises to justify it, and how the need for a threat was NOT the answer provided by Leander to either isolating the helm area as a locked compartment, or isolating sensitive storage as a locked compartment.

In short, I was not sure about the rules, so I asked. A ruling was made, which was not retracted, nor overturned by a staff member of higher or even equal ranking compared to the person who issued that ruling, and as per frontiers rules, that means that ruling is final. I followed orders as per a chain of command, knowing that even if the admin may choose to issue a punishment on the spot, I had clear evidence and justification showing not only that there was no reason to believe I was doing anything wrong, but actually explicit confirmation that I was in compliance with the rules taking the actions I did. And while I understand communication can not be perfect between the staff team, I do not believe that the players should suffer for this.

Extra Notes:

• This ban also includes a whitelist strike, and I would appreciate it if that could also be removed in the event this appeal is accepted.
• I will be refrencing a report ticket from 2.5 months ago, the ID was 236, and the ticket was handled by Leander.
• Furthermore, please specify if I am allowed to attach things like the AHelps or content of the report ticket here, or if I should provide those privately.

TLDR:
Contary to what may or may not popular belief, I dont like doing this. I do not like having to make 10k+ character appeals as a result of varying ways to interpret the rules, nor do I like having multi-paragraph back-and-forths in staff report tickets. So after last time, I prepared. I got answers to EXACT scenarios I suspected may pop up again in a way that there would be zero room for varying interpretations. And I got my answer, from a yellowmin/headmin. So I thought: Great! That was that! There are now only 3 people who can contest that ruling, one of which being the person who issued it, and I made the questions so specific that no amount of context, interpretation, or personal staff opinions, could change that! And yet here we are, with me being forced to appeal again despite putting in all the effort I did last time in an attempt to ensure last time would be THE last time, but here we go again. If you want me to send any of the sources/quotes/transcripts that I refer to, please tell me if I can send those publically or not.