Inter-Departmental Cooperation (co-op)

[babayetu83]

add more things the depts can do for eachother

let robotics develop upgrades to the mining magnet for more quick, efficient, bountiful or even selective mineral mining

[Triacontakai]

hello i would like to point out that a possible problem with department cooperation: no one plays a certain department for a round.
this can be seen in TG (and related branches), where R&D relies on mining, but 50% of rounds don't have competent miners, therefore completely bottle-necking the job half the time you decide to play it.

if this wasn't an issue, department coop would be fantastic, but stuff like this limits it to just a minor bonus for departments.

[Frank_Stein]

hello i would like to point out that a possible problem with department cooperation: no one plays a certain department for a round.
this can be seen in TG (and related branches), where R&D relies on mining, but 50% of rounds don't have competent miners, therefore completely bottle-necking the job half the time you decide to play it.

if this wasn't an issue, department coop would be fantastic, but stuff like this limits it to just a minor bonus for departments.

That's why we gotta avoid codependency in cooperation. Like Technature said, it's best if all departments can achieve full potential independently, but working together gets them there much faster

[Cyfarfod]

I 100% degree. Medibay should be able to operate, heal and respond to emergencies without help. Botany should be able to supply the station without help. Mining should be able to get materials, and make some cool equipment, without help.

BUT!

Is this the end of it, for what we want from goon? Should there be more AFTER these baselines?

Goon does an AMAZING job keeping antisocial douche-bags out. There is definitely room for social butterflies to flutter around, and make the world a better place.

Do we WANT to have *MECHANICS* to influence it?

[Vitatroll]

Lol, I'm in trouble. I've been an antisocial douche-bag for years and nobody ever told me it was uncool. :saddowns:

The problem is once you add synergistic components, those components become the new baseline. Anything beneath optimal performance is generally considered, well, suboptimal - and people get huffy about that.

My main line of questions would be: What is the point of interdepartmental cooperation? What does the server gain from encouraging (or forcing) it? Can we accomplish the same goal with another method?

I view jobs as fun but optional minigames. If I want crew interaction, I head to the bar. Not saying it should be that way, but I'm so used to it that I might have a hard time finding fault with it.

[Superlagg]

Cross-round persistence would have to be limited somehow. Otherwise, if you have a solid PTL firing and a merchant selling gold bars, you would have a ridiculous stockpile of cash. Additionally, if the miners can just save some ores between rounds, then they could practically always have industrial armour in the first few minutes.

Worst-case scenario I can think of is someone storing armour materials, spear parts, starstone, etc. in a round, and then popping a token in the next round, saving themselves 40 minutes of setup for their stimulants (or whatever chem does work) infused gloves, iridium spear, indy suit, mechboots, etc.

I like the idea, but there would need to be some way of preventing abuse. (Though I guess just making it illegal to do so would be a viable, if somewhat ham-fisted solution)

Of course it would need to be limited. Stockpiling millions of rare or valuable items would be nuts! Certain, if not most stashed goods would have a cap on how much would fit in there, or how much persists to the next round. Maybe even that would decay, encouraging those jobs to be played more often.

The goal is to get people to want to play these dumb roles more often, as well as let other roles more reliably benefit from them doing their job. As currently, interdepartmental cooperation can only happen when both departments are staffed and with people who have the best interests of someone other than themselves in mind.

By having a sizable portion of the stuff they made carry over to later rounds, not only does their hour of work not feel like it went to waste once the shuttle leaves, but everyone interested can benefit for them doing their job. That, and it could allow the self-interested to inadvertently help others through making what they do benefit "future them".

With the effort they put in through the previous rounds, the Miners, for instance, would have a boost for the current round. This'd be one of the rewards for playing these resource-support jobs. As they'd get a boost, so would the other roles that (should) rely on them doing their job to reach it's best potential.

The QM would start with more things to sell to get more fun crates, Roboticists would get more interesting materials to build more borgs and fancier modules, material nerds would be able to play with alloys when they get the inspiration and not whenever Mining feels like showing up and sharing their stuff.

And this brings me to the whole thing about people stashing high-end resources for future antag rounds. I don't see much of an issue with that. Since they still spent that 40 minutes grinding out a bunch of cool stuff, they didn't exactly skip that setup time, just that it happens earlier into the round.

Also, whatever they stashed could just as easily be swiped by someone else who wanted to play with the pretty metals and plants, or by someone who opted to gear up and fight the unstoppable Space Nerd. And, once it's used, they'll have to grind it out again; just like how it is now, only that here there's more of a guarantee that someone will enjoy it.

That, and it also allows for some longer projects without lengthening the round. Spend a round or two grinding out a bunch of cool shit, then spend the next round building cool shit with that shit. And get into arguments and interdepartmental feuds over who gets the cool shit, whichever ends up happening.

I get the feeling that cross-round persistance would end up with a lot of "well theres a shit ton of everything my department can produce this round so theres no point in even doing my job" and "Botany makes tons of medicine in a fraction of the time it takes us to make a few beakers, theres no point to making helpful reagents with chemistry" etc.

If that shit ton of stuff isn't going to use, that might be a problem with the use for the stuff. If the lettuce stocks are consistently stuffed, that tells me that something needs to be done to make lettuce useful. Or it could indicate that it's too easy/quick/etc to create lettuce for the current demand. Ideally, everything would be used, either gradually over time or in large bursts. Resources are there to be used; no use in having a useless resource!

And even if nobody wants your lettuce, someone's gonna want your w33d, life or otherwise. That's one of the big functions of the persistent resources, that it lets future rounds use and benefit from the more advanced, labor-intensive stuff that you spent all round pouring your heart and soul into. For something like this, you'll still have something to work for even if lettuce stays as a side dish that nobody eats.

Botany and Chemistry share somewhat different niches, but their differences allow them both to be useful and competitive interdepartmental coops to Medbay. Botany can create shitloads of good medicine, but it takes a while to grow and mutate, needs processing and (in most cases) purification (filtering out the poisons and w33d from the medicine), and can't create nearly as diverse a range of cool and specialized stuff that Chemistry can.

While Botany can make thousands of units of charcoal and aspirin in the time it'd take Chemistry to make a lousy beaker's worth, I don't think Botany can serve up a piping hot glass of perfluorodecalin or cryoxadone, either on demand or at all.

And again, even if it doesn't work out this way, it can be changed to be that way. It'll have its shortcomings, and it'll need a loooot of work to get running, both for this mechanic and everything that interacts with it, but I feel like it would go a long way to supporting interdepartmental cooperation and/or interaction.

[Paineframe]

How about request buttons linked to a little blinky light or something in the associated department? Or maybe a partial crew manifest available to everyone? One of the big things impacting cooperation is that most people have no idea if anyone's standing on the other end of that chute waiting for stuff, and the radio is a crappy way to coordinate who wants things.

For example, I'm a botanist, I grow some food, I shove it down the kitchen chute, and from my perspective that's it. I never hear anything about it ever again. Is there a chef in the kitchen, or did he fuck off somewhere on a gimmick? Is the chef still alive? Did a chef even join this round at all? Are these veggies I'm sending just sitting unnoticed in the kitchen? Probably! Same goes for every other job that sells stuff. As a miner or QM, I can send stuff to robotics, then twenty minutes later when I show up in Medbay I discover the robutticist is AWOL and the create I sent has never been touched. I've tried calling out over the radio, I've tried sending letters via the mail, but for all I know the department on the other end is completely empty.

[Frank_Stein]

Something I've said before is some kind of job ticket system connected to the PDAs.

A way that you can post things wanted, and check things wanted from your department, as well as general alerts

[Cyfarfod]

This is a good point as well, although I think it'd be better to keep it separate from PDAs. After all, plenty of people keep their messaging off because PDAs are bombable.

[Technature]

How about request buttons linked to a little blinky light or something in the associated department? Or maybe a partial crew manifest available to everyone? One of the big things impacting cooperation is that most people have no idea if anyone's standing on the other end of that chute waiting for stuff, and the radio is a crappy way to coordinate who wants things.

For example, I'm a botanist, I grow some food, I shove it down the kitchen chute, and from my perspective that's it. I never hear anything about it ever again. Is there a chef in the kitchen, or did he fuck off somewhere on a gimmick? Is the chef still alive? Did a chef even join this round at all? Are these veggies I'm sending just sitting unnoticed in the kitchen? Probably! Same goes for every other job that sells stuff. As a miner or QM, I can send stuff to robotics, then twenty minutes later when I show up in Medbay I discover the robutticist is AWOL and the create I sent has never been touched. I've tried calling out over the radio, I've tried sending letters via the mail, but for all I know the department on the other end is completely empty.

If I want something from a specific department, I usually use the PDA.  It's hard to keep an eye on the radio, but PDA text stands out most of the time and makes a neat unique little beep.

Of course if the specific department isn't on the messenger thing, it means asking around for a name that works there (no guarantee the AI will be paying attention) but eh.

Also, turning off your PDA at the start of a round will get me to make fun of you for it you powergaming piece of hot garbage.

[Cyfarfod]

Also, turning off your PDA at the start of a round will get me to make fun of you for it you powergaming piece of hot garbage.

I agree, I don't do it till someone cries PDA bomb, but it IS a thing.

[Vitatroll]

I do it every round I'm not a medic. Fite me.

Granted I'm usually naked, drunk and completely unarmed so that probably won't go well for me.

Seriously though I'm not sure what we're shooting for. More light rp? More things to do? Is this a mechanical problem or a matter of differing ideologies?

[Cyfarfod]

I do it every round I'm not a medic. Fite me.

Granted I'm usually naked, drunk and completely unarmed so that probably won't go well for me.

Seriously though I'm not sure what we're shooting for. More light rp? More things to do? Is this a mechanical problem or a matter of differing ideologies?

To be honest I don't totally know. My inspiration for starting the thread is that totally my gut. My gut says that there could be some cool things to be made that would involve multiple departments. For example, starstone.

Starstone is rare for some really obvious reasons, but it's REALLY NEAT! And, to get really cool effects, you kinda need science and mining to work together (or have all access). I figured there'd be nothing wrong with just kinda opening up an idea farm and getting people's ideas.

I don't think it's VITAL FOR GOONSTATION TO THRIVE (our population numbers the last few days have been NUTSO btw!) and I'm not even 100% sure it's actually something to strive for. I just kinda wanted to open up the conversation!

[Superlagg]

My reasoning is that for a lot of the fun stuff in the game, much of which more or less requires the efforts of multiple departments, it requires that you invest a sizable chunk of the round into doing it. This isn't a bad thing, cool stuff should take a lot of work to do, makes it all the more hype when you and your buddies pull it off!

Problem is that rounds tend to be volatile in length, and nobody wants to get halfway into a sweet project only for the round to end cus some jackass blew up the bar. I don't want to stop that jerk from having fun, I want to make the impact of a premature shuttle call less all-this-work-for-nothing.

At the very least, it'd make me feel less like I'm wasting my time playing a resource-maker role, as I'd feel like someone would use the stuff I grew or mined for something at some point. Might encourage others to play those roles, and for other departments to have something to so with the stuff they make, as opposed to mailing it all to a department that might not even be staffed or intact.