Impose Austerity On Station To Improve The Game

[Xeram]

What I'm gathering is that youre too stuck in the way things are and so are everyone else, so we shouldn't try to change what we see as a big problem with our server in specific because you are so much better than everyone at everything.

Maybe if people were expected/allowed to do their job they'd be good at it and not just sitting there dying a little inside when they watch a server regular bomb their way into whatever department they want so they can do that job for themselves, completely ignoring and cutting you out of the equation to the point where you wonder why you even bother.

It just makes the server regulars this big horrible monster that does everything and pushes new players around to the point where they have to be just like the old players, relying on nobody but themselves. By the time a new player has learned how to be useful, theyre using the knowledge to perpetuate the cycle once more.


In short suck it up you don't need fuckin sunglasses at round start as a staff assistant you big babies.

The issue is, people are expected and fully allowed to do their jobs as is. The issue? Literally everybody has their own agenda with their own priorities and a solid 70% of the time it involves nothing helpful for anyone but themselves. Botany is sure capable of saving the crews asses by whipping up easy access to tons of medical chems, but I've literally never seen it happen once besides the occasional accidental white weed while making LSD and exploding death tomatos mixed with potassium bomb bananas. Have we already forgotten the period too of "fuck geneticists and genetics forever" because they were allowed to do their job, and it ended up consisting of them almost solely hiding away and giving themselves mutations while corpses rotted at their front door?

Perhaps if it was like the old days where not starting the (incredibly simple) singularity engine resulted in immediate lynch mobs out for engineer blood the moment critical areas started losing power, they'd be a tad more motivated, but then we'd be back at the problem of scaring new players. All in all, it ends up creating 2 types of people when it comes to jobs, one is new and is trying to do the job, but is incapable and typically doesn't ask for help (I've watched this frustratingly many, many times.) and end up never coming back to the server typically, Or people who are competent at the job, but only use it as a means to an end for their plans, such as people playing mechanics or engineers so they can get gloves a few minutes earlier and then promptly fuck off to do adventure shit or overcharge the engine to the point it melts the west side of the station killing half the crew. Without people being independent and solving these problems that'd require help from multiple departments otherwise, the place would be fucked really damn fast.


Hell let's take that engine example. Let's say 10 minutes in the engineers have gone with their plan of trying to max out the PTL and get the hottest engine possible. The ambient temperature of the west side of the station is now measurable in the millions of Celsius. Assuming we've drastically reduced the supplies on station to the point many people from many separate places need to step in, what will it take? First and foremost, there will be tons of people rushing to medbay due to the lava-lung they have. But due to reduced medical supplies, there aren't enough burn patches to keep fixing people up and the heat is creeping down and possibly going to torch medbay lobby. Maybe robotics has even exploded from it. So medbay yells at chemistry and/or botany to please for the love of god make Silver sulf or synthflesh. Botany will take time and may be unwilling, as they have just finally perfected their prize-winning explosive tomato crop, while the chemists vanished about 5 minutes ago to go try and make/find super secret chemicals. Now things are rapidly going to shit with items catching fire and people walking into medbay and dropping dead, so they begin shuttling people off to the cloner and robotics. From my observations, robotics has 2 states. Completely empty, or fully staffed and prepared for a crisis. Let's assume the latter and people start getting hucked in and borged. A construction borg takes the module to quickly go and try and vent the hyper-heated gas while a medical one scrambles now to keep everyone from burning to death. Now the halls are no longer literally hell, but they're freezing cold and vented people suddenly need space suits to be able to navigate properly, however now that EVA has been newly secured and de-windowed, nobody but heads and engineers can reliably get suits. Adding to all this, there are antagonists running around most assuredly causing havoc elsewhere besides the literal hell that is the west side now, no doubt murdering people listed above who would be critical to helping stop this or setting the syths on a good ol robo-rampage.


Sounds like a lot of effort to fix one damn thing, and a lot of coordination on a very idealized version of the goon community. Because it is. The reality of if something like this happens with massively reduced supplies? The same thing that happens when a blob shows up. 1 or 2 people trying to solve the issue, dying, then everyone else immediately calling the shuttle and the round ends very quickly with a lot of people grumpy that their plans got interrupted by the round abruptly ending far earlier than normal.

Basically, you can't just go and suddenly shift things to try and build the game about having to rely on other departments and people in a game where the people, situation, and gear are all unreliable as hell and the only surefire solution to save yourself and others tedium and headache is to be capable of doing it yourself.

TL;DR edit since Vita basically nailed the heart of what I'm meaning:

The majority of what one does (or everything, if you're a proponent of psychological egoism) is done to benefit oneself. If someone doesn't gain something from their job (fun, loot, respect, etc.) or if they find something more rewarding than their job then they'll fuck off. Dependencies just create poorstation. Instead, you should look toward creating for synergies.