Goonhub
03-20-2025, 07:32 AM
My perspective on this is probably more applicable to all inter-departmental things, and not just the topic of this discussion, but I still find it important to mention.
Inter-departmental cooperation, to me, is not just asking someone else for an item they spawn with. If an item has to be crafted, then sure, but if there's 8 spectro goggles in sci and you just have to bother Steve McScientist to give you a pair and then proceed to need nothing else from Sci the whole shift, then that is not meaningful interactivity. Forcing that interaction does not help anyone, either, since science is just going to be bombarded with "spectro pls" by every job who needs, or more accurately "wants", them at the start of each shift and then proceed to maybe only interact with one of those people again in the future. Also, being 100% reliant on another department to do your own job well, in my opinion as someone who usually plays lowpop, is equally unfun as there being no cooperation whatsoever. This is because there's no guarantee that the department will have any players or that the players in that department will care at all about your requests.
You could argue there shouldn't be 8 pairs in this hypothetical version of sci, or any pairs at all at roundstart, but then how do scientists get spectros? Do they have to just buy them through cargo, earn them by doing research, craft them? Would that crafting recipe make science totally dependent on mining to get more interesting gear? If so, how do we make it so mining needs something from other departments, and isn't just the department that everyone relies on without needing anything themselves? If not, does the recipe really make the process of acquiring spectros more fun or involved? Are spectroscopic goggles really so powerful that they need to be changed like this? Is it even worth making the change, or would every solution make things less fun and/or more tedious in the context of a 90 minute round?
I'm not trying to shut down dialogue here, I just really don't think I see the same issues as you do. I don't think that it's a bad thing for people to start with equipment that makes them good at their job, and if those players decide to give away that equipment, then so be it. I also don't really agree that people needing to do their job for the whole station to progress will actually make them do their job, it'll just make it even more frustrating when they don't do their job because everything now depends on them and reduces the amount of RP that the players of those jobs can have. There's no time to go to the bar or kitchen if everyone is breathing down your neck for X or Y item that they need to progress and you're the only one, or one of the few, in that job.
Just my two cents
Inter-departmental cooperation, to me, is not just asking someone else for an item they spawn with. If an item has to be crafted, then sure, but if there's 8 spectro goggles in sci and you just have to bother Steve McScientist to give you a pair and then proceed to need nothing else from Sci the whole shift, then that is not meaningful interactivity. Forcing that interaction does not help anyone, either, since science is just going to be bombarded with "spectro pls" by every job who needs, or more accurately "wants", them at the start of each shift and then proceed to maybe only interact with one of those people again in the future. Also, being 100% reliant on another department to do your own job well, in my opinion as someone who usually plays lowpop, is equally unfun as there being no cooperation whatsoever. This is because there's no guarantee that the department will have any players or that the players in that department will care at all about your requests.
You could argue there shouldn't be 8 pairs in this hypothetical version of sci, or any pairs at all at roundstart, but then how do scientists get spectros? Do they have to just buy them through cargo, earn them by doing research, craft them? Would that crafting recipe make science totally dependent on mining to get more interesting gear? If so, how do we make it so mining needs something from other departments, and isn't just the department that everyone relies on without needing anything themselves? If not, does the recipe really make the process of acquiring spectros more fun or involved? Are spectroscopic goggles really so powerful that they need to be changed like this? Is it even worth making the change, or would every solution make things less fun and/or more tedious in the context of a 90 minute round?
I'm not trying to shut down dialogue here, I just really don't think I see the same issues as you do. I don't think that it's a bad thing for people to start with equipment that makes them good at their job, and if those players decide to give away that equipment, then so be it. I also don't really agree that people needing to do their job for the whole station to progress will actually make them do their job, it'll just make it even more frustrating when they don't do their job because everything now depends on them and reduces the amount of RP that the players of those jobs can have. There's no time to go to the bar or kitchen if everyone is breathing down your neck for X or Y item that they need to progress and you're the only one, or one of the few, in that job.
Just my two cents