Newish Guy

[Joe Feros]

hi im Joe i mostly play Joe Feros but i wanted to know your experience on ss13 because im still a student and i wish to present this hidden gem to my school.

the following questions are
1 what role is better for the newbies on station
2 the difference between light and heavy rp
3 how are you guys? no really, hows it goin?

[DioChasek]

1. In my experience the 3 best roles for new players are janitor, staff assistant and doctor. Janitor is wonderful because you have at least basic responsibilities, and you tend to learn high traffic and important areas pretty quickly since those often need cleaning, staff assistant is good for wandering without the responsibility and affords you room to play as you will(within server rules of course don’t be a griefer and don’t be the guy who gets rule 4’d for writing or spewing obscenities), and finally the humble doctor introduces you to your health conditions and how to treat them, a valuable sklll that everyone should learn the basics of.
2. Light rp is the insanity of classic space station 13 where the basic server rules are the norm, (don’t grief no racism no sexual content, cannot stress that enough) Heavy rp is a bit more restricted you can find more on the topic here https://wiki.ss13.co/Rules
3 Work is horrible but thanks for asking.
Don’t be afraid to ask admins or mentors for help in game and be cool to one another.

[Splints]

The only thing I would add to Dio's answer is that the wider SS13 community beyond Goonstation has a definition for light/medium/heavy RP a bit different from the servers here. Goon classic would probably be considered 'no rp' since there is no expectation to role play while Goon RP is somewhere on the range of light to medium RP. Light/medium/heavy RP is all defined by how strict the rules are. Heavy RP on many other servers has much stricter rules than Goon's RP. For example, rules about respecting the canon lore and following strict rules for how to name and play characters depending on their species.

[stuck_in_void_HELP]

To answer the first question, i'd say aside from Staff Assistant, the best options are chef and bartender.

That's because there's little expected out of you. The crew can get food and drinks elsewhere if you aren't making any. So it allows you to really take your time and learn. What makes these jobs better than Staff Assistant for a new player is that they've got all this equipment and tools and dispensers laying around for them to use, meaning that they've got a prime opportunity to really mess around and learn, figure out basic mechanics, etc.

[George_Manning]

To answer the first question, i'd say aside from Staff Assistant, the best options are chef and bartender.

That's because there's little expected out of you. The crew can get food and drinks elsewhere if you aren't making any. So it allows you to really take your time and learn. What makes these jobs better than Staff Assistant for a new player is that they've got all this equipment and tools and dispensers laying around for them to use, meaning that they've got a prime opportunity to really mess around and learn, figure out basic mechanics, etc.

I always recommend bartender because it's a very socially interactive role that lets you adjust to the general vibe of the station and like you say, people are very forgiving.

[stuck_in_void_HELP]

To answer the first question, i'd say aside from Staff Assistant, the best options are chef and bartender.

That's because there's little expected out of you. The crew can get food and drinks elsewhere if you aren't making any. So it allows you to really take your time and learn. What makes these jobs better than Staff Assistant for a new player is that they've got all this equipment and tools and dispensers laying around for them to use, meaning that they've got a prime opportunity to really mess around and learn, figure out basic mechanics, etc.

I always recommend bartender because it's a very socially interactive role that lets you adjust to the general vibe of the station and like you say, people are very forgiving.

Yeah, and the drinks/soda/chems dispenser could get you used to the dispenser system in general, you could even learn how to use the chemmaster and the extractor too. From there you end up playing as scientist which teaches you how to use terminals, which opens up additional jobs and opportunities, and so on.

[Oremir]

personally i'l have to say ; Janitor and Botanist are at the top for me if you already know the controls a bit. People don't expect a whole damn lot from these two jobs so you're allowed to learn at your own speed. People will also suggest Staff Assistant (and i used to) but i only think Staffie is good if you're learning the controls and bare basics if you're past that, pick Jan/Botanist or another civ job. After that : LATE JOIN. why? Because Late-Joining allows you to sign up as Medical-Assistant, Research-Assistant and Technical-Assistant which are all introductory positions for Medical, Research and Engineering respectively. Or just sign up as a Meddoc, Researcher or Engineer, only suggesting the Assistant roles because there might be less pressure on you that way.

[Mouse]

While learning Goon doctoring is a very valuable skill, it's also a stressful role and one of the few that people actually want competence from.  If you want to doctor as a new player I'd recommend reading the wiki (and in fact having both Doctoring and Chemicals open while playing) and listening to other players.  It's not uncommon for a doctor to be treating someone who knows more about medicine than the doctor, and one of the biggest traps a new doctor can fall into is thinking that because they're the doctor they don't need to listen to advice from non-doctors!  Basically, if the clown is telling you to give someone mannitol, give them mannitol.