Grand Federation Combat Regulations (04/25/20)
Table of contents
- SECTION I - THE BIG ONES
- SECTION II - BASIC RULES
- SECTION III - Weapons
- SECTION IV - DEPLOYABLES & ARMOR
- SECTION V - VEHICLES
- SECTION VI - RATIOS
- SECTION VII - UNBANNING
FORWARD
Please use common sense, just because something isn’t mentioned in the rules does not mean it is OK. If something is not explicitly banned but is clearly being used in an attempt to circumvent the rules, it is not allowed. If something is not covered here but deemed to be disallowed by the defending officer, stop doing it for the time being until it is reviewed by Grand Federation leadership to determine if it should or shouldn’t be allowed and we will follow up with you when such decision is made.
We are generally lax on rules enforcement because we believe in innovating new ideas for combat. Please do not use this to be a rules-lawyering asshole; we will know, and if you want to act stupid, we will treat you that way.
We reserve the right to enforce rules through admin tools or zeppelins.
These rules are subject to change at any time, by doing combat here you accept responsibility for keeping yourself and/or your forces informed on our rules and any updates that may be issued in the hub, choosing to be ignorant of the rules does not exempt you from them.
SECTION I - THE BIG ONES
- Breaking these rules is a one-way ticket off sim. You will be banned immediately for doing any of the following.
Crashing the sim, someone’s client, or otherwise intentionally destabilizing SL performance. If your weapons are just really laggy, expect to be told to swap to something else.
Doxxing someone. This applies whether it occurs within the sim or without.
Generally acting like a manchild. We are not here to play mental gymnastics with you, and we don’t “owe” you anything. If you come correct and act like an adult, there won’t be any problems.
Wearing a child avatar. This doesn’t mean that small avatars are banned- but child AVs are very obvious and distinguishable from a small-framed adult avatar.
Outright refusing to comply with OIC commands. The OIC is the acting sim administrator. If you get uppity with the OIC instead of simply complying and later filing a complaint, you will still face a ban for whatever period is determined to be appropriate.
Trespassing/doing combat in non-combat areas. If you sithack to Space Afrika without being invited, expect to be shot. Doing it repeatedly will get you banned. Additionally, shooting/attacking people in the spawn hubs, Caine’s Cantina SLMC Museum, in-progress sim build(s), or Papa Malone’s will get you removed. Attempting to influence combat in ANY WAY from these areas is forbidden.
Attempting to bypass administrative systems. If you were banned, trespassing into our sim on an alt is not how you get unbanned. If your gear was banned, it was banned for a reason and renaming it to get around the equipment enforcer is an admission of guilt and immediate ban.
Stalking or otherwise repeated harassment. If you are still trying to contact a GF member after they’ve asked you not to, congratulations, you’re an internet stalker and will not be permitted on sim. This also applies if you think that having your friends/fellow group members do it in your stead will get around this rule.
Copybotting or other content theft. If you’re a known copybotter, don’t expect to be welcome here.
SECTION II - BASIC RULES
Flying without the use of a vehicle (AV flying) is forbidden. This includes scripted AV flight (e.g. jump packs, grav packs, etc) and misused equipment.
Breaching is allowed, but there are rules. Instant breaches (i.e. you hit a button, you immediately can go through something) are allowed to be used horizontally provided that they are not spammed. You can breach up and down so long as the cast time is three seconds (you hit a button, place a charge, and then it creates a breach three seconds later). Persistent breaches should be able to be used by anyone close enough, somehow removable (repair/destroy), and should be two-way. TL;DR: don’t use your breach as an elevator.
Engaging from the spawn area is prohibited. Engaging from the area -around- the spawn buildings is fine, but keep in mind that as a common courtesy we don’t fire into those areas. That courtesy is revoked the moment we are shot from inside the areas around the attacker spawns. The orange line around the attacker spawn in the city build and the HESCO barriers around the attacker spawn in the jungle build are the “courtesy lines.”
Sithacking is prohibited. This means don’t use the build menu to bypass having to move through the sim. If you are stuck in something, ctrl shift H.
We reserve the right to disallow any equipment or revoke access to anyone that is being detrimental to sim stability or health, regardless of the status of the equipment or individual.
Pre-jump and hard-fall must be enabled..
Animation Overrides that offset or otherwise cause an avatar’s visual model to misrepresent the location of the avatars hitbox while idle or moving are not allowed. In general the defending OIC reserves the right to ask you to remove your AO.
Do not shoot through walls or transparent/translucent non-phantom prims intentionally. Windows are phantom in this sim, but solid transparent prims are treated the same as walls. Exceptions to this rule are explained later.
Officers are also administrators of the sim. During combat, a declared OIC holds ultimate authority; outside of combat, Federation commissioned officers are still considered administrators regardless of rank or personal issues.
The Attacking OIC is responsible for all attackers from their group, whether they are “lone wolfing” or not.
The Attacking OIC has the right to request exclusivity in their attack, or for the attacker hub to be cleared. The Defending OIC also can request only Federation personnel to defend. Raid intercepts and three-way battles must be approved by both sides.
Both sides are allowed one “super weapon” per hour of battle. This could be either a supermassive, endgame fleetship, a giant nuke, et cetera. Any sort of map-build-generated weapon is exempt from this rule, as they may be triggered by either side and are considered a “build hazard.” This cannot be done as a hit-and-run attack; your force must be attacking for at least 60 minutes before you are cleared to use your superweapon.
Rappel/grappling devices are permitted, but cannot be “hookshots.” That is to say, your grapple must function realistically (within the confines of SL’s capabilities) and involve scaling the side of the obstacle or climbing up the rope at roughly walking pace, rather than just rapidly pulling you through the air.
We have ways to detect if you have hitboxes showing, and we can tell if someone has derendered the foliage in the jungle build. If you set these systems off, things will likely escalate greatly.
You should always be “killable.” NPVs are forbidden, as are invincible vehicles or mutilated LBA systems with obnoxious requirements that have to be met to do damage to them.
In the jungle build, it is acceptable to use a swimming HUD or amphibious vehicle so long as it incurs a movement penalty in the water. Boats are also allowed, but as with all vehicles, should be LBA-compatible.
SECTION III - Weapons
Use of griefer tools or similar devices such as autokillers, orbiters, and push weaponry is not allowed. This includes devices which unintentionally impede the movement of armored units or send them off-world (your bullets shouldn’t grief armor).
Generally speaking, you should not be killing people through walls, be it by using phantom bullets, non-raycasted grenades, or using rez offset to shoot through walls. Specialized weapons that kill through walls can be used if they are reasonably balanced. This can be done (but is not automatically qualified by; we are giving you freedom to innovate new things, don’t use it to be a rules-lawyering prick) via combining things like reduced damage, rarity of use, platform that fires it, or superweapon status.
Magazine size is limited to 100 for standard infantry-based weapons, non-standard weapons with larger capacities are expected to have a reasonably increased reload time to balance the increased magazine size.
Automatic-melee weapons and 360-degree melees are not allowed. Offhand melee weapons or ones that can be used in conjunction with other weapons such as pistols are limited to 5m range maximum in front of the avatar. Melee primary weapons or melee weapons that cannot be used in conjunction with others will be handled per defending OIC discretion.
Avatars in the air more than 20m (meters) off the ground may be engaged with anti-aircraft weaponry such as flak or seekers, use of flak or seeking munitions against grounded infantry (below 20m) or vehicles is forbidden.
Weapons should have reasonable rates of fire, magazine size, and/or reload times, an example (though not hard limit) of such would be a gun with a 200 round magazine that fires at 2500 RPM with a 2 second reload, this would very obviously go against common sense and not be allowed.
Weapons must rez one bullet at a time, with the exception of shotguns.
All munitions should be deployed from a qualifying platform and have a route through physical space that they travel through. This means inventory-dropped bombs and systems that rez munitions directly on impact points are forbidden.
Explosions, gas, or similar munitions should be indiscriminate, no explosions should be group or owner safe, exceptions may apply in very specific circumstances (gas mask checks, etc) cleared beforehand by Grand Federation leadership. Land mines however are not required to detonate on friendly agents unless touched directly by them.
Flashbangs are to last a reasonable amount of time (ideally at or under 10 seconds) and must count down regardless of mouselook status. Flashbangs or similar devices can either blind infantry OR tanks, not both.
Hand grenades should not be thrown faster than a maximum of 30 m/s, and if there is adjustable gravity, it should be as close to standard as possible. This is to prevent physics gaps, and you are also not an MLB pitcher.
Landmines should not be thrown, and they should be clearly visible with a reliably-sized hitbox (i.e. bullets reliably destroy them).
Guns that use agentlist are prohibited unless directly approved by the Federation Officer Corps. This includes PSS.
Worn interceptors and shields are forbidden, exceptions include directional riot shields of reasonable size (not 10m wide, etc). This applies to both physical and raycast blocking devices.
SECTION IV - DEPLOYABLES & ARMOR
Use of non-LBA based armor is forbidden, if a group is incapable of functioning without LBA exceptions may be made per defending OIC discretion, the allowance of such systems during a raid is not a permanent allowance. Damage caps on LBA-based armor should be kept within reason or be returned. Inverse LBA is currently only allowed for breach entry/exits.
Only the provided medic TP system is approved for combat.
Sit Barricades must have reasonable hitpoint amounts for their size and have hitpoints no greater than 50. You are only allowed ONE sit barricade per life.
If you deploy systems close to the spawn or otherwise behind the “courtesy lines,” we reserve the right to enter the area to destroy them.
All deployable barriers must have a visual model representative of their area of effect, the barrier must be easily visible and not particles (99 transparency is NOT okay). This applies to barriers that block both physical and raycast projectile methods.
Anti-missile/grenade systems are required to have a visible model for the emitter (part that takes damage) but not the area of effect, however they MUST NOT intercept projectiles at bullet speeds (149m/s+). Interceptors must also be of reasonable size, with some form of cooldown or ammo count, they must not intercept through walls or solid objects. Interceptors are limited to one per combatant.
Any deployable fortifications with more than 100HP must be constructed, it cannot just be instantly spawned.
SECTION V - VEHICLES
Ground-based armored Vehicles are limited to 400 HP at max, but health and speed should be inverse of each other so a more heavily armored tank should be slower. Armored gunships are limited to 200 HP at max and must also trade armor for speed or vice versa. Fleetships are allowed per defending OIC discretion.
Vehicles follow the same rules as deployables in terms of authorized armor systems and therefore should use a variant of LBA.
LBA is allowed for vehicles if reasonably balanced. Light armored vehicles can be full LBA if the HP is low enough to justify it, an example would be an armored car that is full LBA but only 25 hitpoints so its resistant to bullets but still dies with relative ease to any anti-armor weapon.
Aircraft are expected to be used as intended, gunships are not tanks and should not be used as tanks, else they will be treated as such and held to the same standards, this applies both ways.
SECTION VI - RATIOS
- The Grand Federation does not believe in attacker-to-defender ratio rules. However it should be noted that it doesn’t say anything great about your group if you need to bring in 12 people to fight against 3 defenders. That said entering the sim en mass during periods of low or little activity with the intent to blackscreen or otherwise block us in the spawns is asinine, petty, and will likely result in zeppelins or other heavy escalation.
SECTION VII - UNBANNING
So you have been banned from the sim. What now?
If you feel that your ban was unjust, you can contact a GF officer to file a complaint. Keep in mind, however, that we all talk to each other and most interactions with people regarding sim administration are shared on our discord. If you immediately start screeding in public about how big bad Grand Fed banned you and how they’re killing the community by doing so, we will be significantly less inclined to help you. If your approach is to message a random enlisted member, know that they have been told to ignore any attempt to discuss administrative actions. If you decide that messaging an officer with a bunch of profanity and generally shitty things, or decide to target the responsible officer for harassment, you will most likely have your ban upgraded to a permanent one.
Come correct, or don’t come at all.