Goonhub
10-19-2022, 10:27 AM
Hey, as previously mentioned in this thread I'm planning to a rework of HoP mechanics and introduce a bunch of changes, many of which will be subject to debate. Before really getting into it though, I thought it smart to make a thread about it to not only gauge interest, but also opinions and ideas for this.
First, let's do a breakdown of my subjective problems and opinions about HoP:
- HoP is often jokingly mentioned to be never around, but this is an actual problem
- HoP rarely has a reason to be around 24/7, leading to problem number one
- HoP is the only command member (besides Captain) to not have a designated department, furthering problem number two
Let's have a discussion about command members for a bit. Every command member has a designated department they belong to, Security (HoS), Medical (MD), Engineering (CE) and Science (RD). The only exceptions are Captain and HoP, which leads to the fact that both of these often share a series of tasks, and in many games even leads HoP to act as a vice-captain in many matters. But the truth is that the Captain doesn't have anything to do other than to oversee and mess around, in many ways it makes sense that Captain's department is, in a sense, all departments.
The same can't be said about the HoP, who very much has a task, but no department that goes with it. The task itself is menial and leaves HoP with nothing to do a majority of the round, but also leads to situations that if there is work required, he's not present to do it. Therefore, these are the issues I'm wanting to tackle, and for that, we're going to take a look at each one of them.
Solution Nr. 1: Give HoP more meaningful things to do that warrant his presence in an office.
This is a no-brainer, if a job doesn't do what it's supposed to because they have no incentive to, then give them things to do. Here's what I'm thinking, the field of expertise for any HoP is paperwork. Filling out forms, handing out forms, and handling assignments to departments via IDs. Some of you may be familiar with DisturbHerb's or Adhara's paperwork templates. These are fantastic and were made to enhance the job experience of a HoP, but I feel like they should be made official, or at the very least, be viewed upon as an example for forms that HoP should start out with. Filling out and signing forms should be an integral part of being a HoP, and should provide at the very least an extra layer of work. Things such as artifact forms are also great examples for layouts that could be used for a variety of tasks. Someone else also mentioned tasks such as messaging / emailing people about specific things, but this would require more brainstorming.
On the subject of forms, they shouldn't just be limited to forms you fill out for the station. I'm proposing something akin to the requisitions system of QM, randomly generated forms (or picked from a list) that have to be filled out and filed / sent in order to generate a bit of cash. This could be silly little things like "List of favorite foods" to "Rank the danger level of the following syndicate-affiliated factions". Ideally, each of these will have a "correct" checklist to fill out, like artifact forms, that will pay out an amount based on how many correct answers were supplied. It will give HoP another thing to do during downtime that's very fitting to his role.
Photocopiers. These are excellent devices that are fully coded and even include paper bin support. HoP should start out with a single copy of each necessary form and should be required to make copies of any forms. Not only does this utilize an otherwise fairly unused object, it's also very much what a HoP would be doing. Other tools that should receive more usage are noticeboards (saves notes between rounds, great for custom stuff), filing cabinets (for storing filled out forms) and clipboards, which RD for instance spawns with, and arguably, so should HoP. Printers are worth mentioning, too. Since people love doing things for money, why not give a monetary incentive per correctly filled out form in the filing cabinet at the end of the round, akin to how many other departments do things to generate cash flow.
Solution Nr. 2: Tie HoP directly to banking / stock marketing to create a new gameplay loop
Banking is a large part of the game that's somehow largely ignored. Basic features, such as being able to create new banking accounts for people who spawned without a record in the system, are missing entirely and are sorely needed. Once that's patched up, this is a big part of the game that's practically waiting for a department to handle it, and HoP is the job to do it. They already have a banking computer on most if not all maps, and are considered to be in charge of it, but there's little reason to even interact with it in any given round unless someone messed with it.
How about introducing a system focused around job performance? Payment shouldn't be job-based, instead it should be based on a department budget that any given job belongs to. Departments have a job performance rating that increases when doing well, and decreases when doing poorly. The budget will be monitored and evaluated by the HoP, and payments no longer work on a schedule, but on an interval that the HoP can configure. Additionally, the HoP can cut or increase funding of departments that do poorly, based on their rating. This budget could tie into a variety of things, such as inventory of vending machines or even electricity. Botany just smoked weed all shift? Vending machines become locked out and their power is cut.
The stock market is a system that's still in development, but should definitely be fleshed out. Banking is nice, but is more of a passive increase in responsibility. Stock marketing is very much the active part of dealing with money. Additionally to filling out forms, the HoP can increase the amount of cash generated for the station by properly buying and selling stocks at the right time. This is something that could be a more involved process that a HoP can entertain themselves with in their office during downtime without going missing.
Solution Nr. 3: Introduce a new department centered around HoP, "Human Resources"
With all the new stuff and potential, HoP may now have more things to do and have more responsibility, but what if HoP dies, is an antagonist and the Captain is nowhere to be found? A valid concern, and something many of us have likely already experienced. That's why I'm proposing a new job, which will act like a HoP with less access, called Administrative Assistant (a HoP Lite, if you will).
Hoplites (heh) can do many of the tasks that HoP would usually do, although with less executive dominion, for instance, they will be able to grant ID access, but nothing higher than their own rank. They won't be able to grant command access and will primarily deal with lower level ID requests. Additionally, they'll also be handling the filing of forms or preparation of copies in case HoP is busy doing other things. And like the HoP, they'll be able to spend their time trading in the stock market to increase the cash flow for the station.
The advantages of having underlings is obvious, there's an additional level of responsibility and delegation that HoP gains by having a department he governs over, and it'll finally be possible for him to be missing from his station for whatever reason without the captain having to spring into action (since he's often just as unreliable). Furthermore, AdminAsses (heh again) will be similar to other assistants in that even if they aren't great at their job, it's not the end of the world. There's a case to be made about reworking staff assistants into administrative assistants, though I personally wanted to avoid that because Staff Assistants are very much jack-of-all-trades and I didn't want to remove that part of their identity.
---
Anyhow! That's the basic gist of my ideas. Feel free to call out any particular parts you like and any which you don't like. Obviously suggest any ideas you feel are relevant to the discussion, or even disagree with any of my takes. I'm not trying to push any specific idea, I just want HoP to feel like a more full job experience, and after a lot of thinking time, this is what I came up with.
First, let's do a breakdown of my subjective problems and opinions about HoP:
- HoP is often jokingly mentioned to be never around, but this is an actual problem
- HoP rarely has a reason to be around 24/7, leading to problem number one
- HoP is the only command member (besides Captain) to not have a designated department, furthering problem number two
Let's have a discussion about command members for a bit. Every command member has a designated department they belong to, Security (HoS), Medical (MD), Engineering (CE) and Science (RD). The only exceptions are Captain and HoP, which leads to the fact that both of these often share a series of tasks, and in many games even leads HoP to act as a vice-captain in many matters. But the truth is that the Captain doesn't have anything to do other than to oversee and mess around, in many ways it makes sense that Captain's department is, in a sense, all departments.
The same can't be said about the HoP, who very much has a task, but no department that goes with it. The task itself is menial and leaves HoP with nothing to do a majority of the round, but also leads to situations that if there is work required, he's not present to do it. Therefore, these are the issues I'm wanting to tackle, and for that, we're going to take a look at each one of them.
Solution Nr. 1: Give HoP more meaningful things to do that warrant his presence in an office.
This is a no-brainer, if a job doesn't do what it's supposed to because they have no incentive to, then give them things to do. Here's what I'm thinking, the field of expertise for any HoP is paperwork. Filling out forms, handing out forms, and handling assignments to departments via IDs. Some of you may be familiar with DisturbHerb's or Adhara's paperwork templates. These are fantastic and were made to enhance the job experience of a HoP, but I feel like they should be made official, or at the very least, be viewed upon as an example for forms that HoP should start out with. Filling out and signing forms should be an integral part of being a HoP, and should provide at the very least an extra layer of work. Things such as artifact forms are also great examples for layouts that could be used for a variety of tasks. Someone else also mentioned tasks such as messaging / emailing people about specific things, but this would require more brainstorming.
On the subject of forms, they shouldn't just be limited to forms you fill out for the station. I'm proposing something akin to the requisitions system of QM, randomly generated forms (or picked from a list) that have to be filled out and filed / sent in order to generate a bit of cash. This could be silly little things like "List of favorite foods" to "Rank the danger level of the following syndicate-affiliated factions". Ideally, each of these will have a "correct" checklist to fill out, like artifact forms, that will pay out an amount based on how many correct answers were supplied. It will give HoP another thing to do during downtime that's very fitting to his role.
Photocopiers. These are excellent devices that are fully coded and even include paper bin support. HoP should start out with a single copy of each necessary form and should be required to make copies of any forms. Not only does this utilize an otherwise fairly unused object, it's also very much what a HoP would be doing. Other tools that should receive more usage are noticeboards (saves notes between rounds, great for custom stuff), filing cabinets (for storing filled out forms) and clipboards, which RD for instance spawns with, and arguably, so should HoP. Printers are worth mentioning, too. Since people love doing things for money, why not give a monetary incentive per correctly filled out form in the filing cabinet at the end of the round, akin to how many other departments do things to generate cash flow.
Solution Nr. 2: Tie HoP directly to banking / stock marketing to create a new gameplay loop
Banking is a large part of the game that's somehow largely ignored. Basic features, such as being able to create new banking accounts for people who spawned without a record in the system, are missing entirely and are sorely needed. Once that's patched up, this is a big part of the game that's practically waiting for a department to handle it, and HoP is the job to do it. They already have a banking computer on most if not all maps, and are considered to be in charge of it, but there's little reason to even interact with it in any given round unless someone messed with it.
How about introducing a system focused around job performance? Payment shouldn't be job-based, instead it should be based on a department budget that any given job belongs to. Departments have a job performance rating that increases when doing well, and decreases when doing poorly. The budget will be monitored and evaluated by the HoP, and payments no longer work on a schedule, but on an interval that the HoP can configure. Additionally, the HoP can cut or increase funding of departments that do poorly, based on their rating. This budget could tie into a variety of things, such as inventory of vending machines or even electricity. Botany just smoked weed all shift? Vending machines become locked out and their power is cut.
The stock market is a system that's still in development, but should definitely be fleshed out. Banking is nice, but is more of a passive increase in responsibility. Stock marketing is very much the active part of dealing with money. Additionally to filling out forms, the HoP can increase the amount of cash generated for the station by properly buying and selling stocks at the right time. This is something that could be a more involved process that a HoP can entertain themselves with in their office during downtime without going missing.
Solution Nr. 3: Introduce a new department centered around HoP, "Human Resources"
With all the new stuff and potential, HoP may now have more things to do and have more responsibility, but what if HoP dies, is an antagonist and the Captain is nowhere to be found? A valid concern, and something many of us have likely already experienced. That's why I'm proposing a new job, which will act like a HoP with less access, called Administrative Assistant (a HoP Lite, if you will).
Hoplites (heh) can do many of the tasks that HoP would usually do, although with less executive dominion, for instance, they will be able to grant ID access, but nothing higher than their own rank. They won't be able to grant command access and will primarily deal with lower level ID requests. Additionally, they'll also be handling the filing of forms or preparation of copies in case HoP is busy doing other things. And like the HoP, they'll be able to spend their time trading in the stock market to increase the cash flow for the station.
The advantages of having underlings is obvious, there's an additional level of responsibility and delegation that HoP gains by having a department he governs over, and it'll finally be possible for him to be missing from his station for whatever reason without the captain having to spring into action (since he's often just as unreliable). Furthermore, AdminAsses (heh again) will be similar to other assistants in that even if they aren't great at their job, it's not the end of the world. There's a case to be made about reworking staff assistants into administrative assistants, though I personally wanted to avoid that because Staff Assistants are very much jack-of-all-trades and I didn't want to remove that part of their identity.
---
Anyhow! That's the basic gist of my ideas. Feel free to call out any particular parts you like and any which you don't like. Obviously suggest any ideas you feel are relevant to the discussion, or even disagree with any of my takes. I'm not trying to push any specific idea, I just want HoP to feel like a more full job experience, and after a lot of thinking time, this is what I came up with.