Goonhub
07-31-2019, 03:26 PM
It appears that the biggest factor in what people will do is fun - will they enjoy doing it, or will it result in something that they would enjoy.
Based on your response, Flaborized, it would seem that there are at least 2 different ways in which cooperation, collaboration, and other synonyms can be encouraged.
Firstly, mutual benefit. Designing a game mechanic to rely on cooperation would require some form of mutual benefit to those cooperating. Flaborized already made a good example of what a well-designed cooperative game mechanic could look like with Genetics.
However, what does a less-than-optimal cooperative relationship look like? Lets look at Cargo for that. Specifically, the relationship between the Quartermaster and the Miner. The Miner has very little use for the QM, besides some access and the occasional supply request for convenience (e.g medkits), as the Miner can fabricate all that they need. However, the QM heavily relies on the Miner for the Miner's spare ore and materials, to turn a profit for the station and to buy supplies. To the Miner, the QM is irrelevant for the most part, and bringing ore to the QM is tedious at times. This means that the Miner can ignore the QM with minimal repercussion, as the Miner would not benefit much from cooperating with the QM - this results in the QM not being able to make nearly as much profit, impacting their round negatively.
The propositions to remedy this are mostly theoretical, but if a coder is willing to implement it, go right ahead.
The solution to this lack of incentive to cooperate can be fixed by giving the Miner a reason to actually rely on the QM - perhaps not a required interaction, but definitely helpful. Perhaps blueprints for the advanced mining gear which can be bought from traders, or upgrades/materials that can be made from the QM's many fabricators. If the QM doesn't want to cooperate, then they lose out on the Miner who has the ability to bring in massive quantities of profit.
Intradepartmental cooperation could also prove to be interesting. Security, as Flaborized explained, revolves around the goal of 'stop the bad guys and keep the peace' (roughly), but that goal isn't realistically achievable with just one person. As such, in order to be 'good at sec', officers are encouraged to cooperate and communicate to effectively handle antags.
Perhaps something similar could happen with other departments, such as Medbay. At the moment, Medbay typically is just some doctors standing around, waiting to fix any broken people that walk/stumble/crawl/are-thrown in. Nothing wrong with this, of course. However, if teamwork wanted to be encouraged, then rewarding medbay players for cooperation should be a thing. As a possible method for achieving this, perhaps there can be various gear and equipment in Medbay which provides certain buffs, encouraging different playstyles. For example, the Paramedic suit could provide a noticeable speed boost, encouraging the wearer to run out and search for injured patients. Of course, how the heck do you even locate injured patients? By injecting people with health implants, of course, and rushing to wherever they are when dying later in the round. As an added bonus, having fold-up roller beds/stretchers would help even more, allowing you to quickly get to an injured patient, deploy a bed to rapidly move them (because hurt people are slow), and drag them back to Medbay. That's just one example of encouraging a specific playstyle by tweaking/implementing mechanics, which could have the effect of making unique playstyles which synergize with one another (the paramedic and the general doctoring playstyles, for example)
also WOW this was a long fucking post. Wow I am bored
Based on your response, Flaborized, it would seem that there are at least 2 different ways in which cooperation, collaboration, and other synonyms can be encouraged.
Firstly, mutual benefit. Designing a game mechanic to rely on cooperation would require some form of mutual benefit to those cooperating. Flaborized already made a good example of what a well-designed cooperative game mechanic could look like with Genetics.
However, what does a less-than-optimal cooperative relationship look like? Lets look at Cargo for that. Specifically, the relationship between the Quartermaster and the Miner. The Miner has very little use for the QM, besides some access and the occasional supply request for convenience (e.g medkits), as the Miner can fabricate all that they need. However, the QM heavily relies on the Miner for the Miner's spare ore and materials, to turn a profit for the station and to buy supplies. To the Miner, the QM is irrelevant for the most part, and bringing ore to the QM is tedious at times. This means that the Miner can ignore the QM with minimal repercussion, as the Miner would not benefit much from cooperating with the QM - this results in the QM not being able to make nearly as much profit, impacting their round negatively.
The propositions to remedy this are mostly theoretical, but if a coder is willing to implement it, go right ahead.
The solution to this lack of incentive to cooperate can be fixed by giving the Miner a reason to actually rely on the QM - perhaps not a required interaction, but definitely helpful. Perhaps blueprints for the advanced mining gear which can be bought from traders, or upgrades/materials that can be made from the QM's many fabricators. If the QM doesn't want to cooperate, then they lose out on the Miner who has the ability to bring in massive quantities of profit.
Intradepartmental cooperation could also prove to be interesting. Security, as Flaborized explained, revolves around the goal of 'stop the bad guys and keep the peace' (roughly), but that goal isn't realistically achievable with just one person. As such, in order to be 'good at sec', officers are encouraged to cooperate and communicate to effectively handle antags.
Perhaps something similar could happen with other departments, such as Medbay. At the moment, Medbay typically is just some doctors standing around, waiting to fix any broken people that walk/stumble/crawl/are-thrown in. Nothing wrong with this, of course. However, if teamwork wanted to be encouraged, then rewarding medbay players for cooperation should be a thing. As a possible method for achieving this, perhaps there can be various gear and equipment in Medbay which provides certain buffs, encouraging different playstyles. For example, the Paramedic suit could provide a noticeable speed boost, encouraging the wearer to run out and search for injured patients. Of course, how the heck do you even locate injured patients? By injecting people with health implants, of course, and rushing to wherever they are when dying later in the round. As an added bonus, having fold-up roller beds/stretchers would help even more, allowing you to quickly get to an injured patient, deploy a bed to rapidly move them (because hurt people are slow), and drag them back to Medbay. That's just one example of encouraging a specific playstyle by tweaking/implementing mechanics, which could have the effect of making unique playstyles which synergize with one another (the paramedic and the general doctoring playstyles, for example)
also WOW this was a long fucking post. Wow I am bored