Item avaiability on station

[Lord_earthfire]

Hello there,

To keep the summary simple: there are too many optional items in departments available roundstart.

I found in more and more rounds that many people, myself included, are able to get their hands on any utems they could ever need until the end of a round, without interwcting with other departments.

Every round you can get utility belts, gas masks are -everywhere-, everyone is running around with spectroskopic googles who don't really need them (scientists, botanists). Every engineer can get mesons roundstart. Recently genetics have been given pet carier so they don'thave to go out of their department for items -at all-. There are enough medscanner modules that everyone and their mother can fit themselves with fully upgraded health scanners. And don't get me started on security being so overstuffed with roundstart items a questionable culture of "don't utilize items given by crew' has developed.


I just think thats too much. You are mostly kitted out round start and don't have any reasons to aquire "upgrades" along the way. The upgrades are mostly absolutely busted stuff like e.g. omnizine.

Locking behind upgrades and advanced items behind manufacturers or other departments would enable to keep some gear progression for departments. It would also enable others to have interaction, e.g. cargo getting more orders or mining actually being asked to mine something. And last but not least, working with limited recources is a kind of fun in and of itself.

Scarcity would also help balancing things. Smoke and poisoned drinks are in an odd place, since half the crew is running around with spectros, for example.

[IPingu]

Personally items being more scarce just slows down the gameplay a lot, which might be good in some aspects, though I personally really prefer fast-paced gameplay over it being more methodical.
Also I do enjoy working with limited resources, though not when I have to share it with a whole station of people who might hog it all.

[Silent Majority]

I don't think scarcity would encourage cooperation.

I think it would encourage tiding

I just use what starts in my bag and a flashlight

[Chasu]

All this is from my perspective as an RP regular, I can't speak to how severely these issues impact the classic servers.

I understand some of the nitpicks like spectro goggles and how "half the crew [...] running around with [them]" would be problematic - if that were the case. It could be a difference in playtimes and servers, but for me, personally, seeing someone who's not in research with spectros is an incredibly rare occurence.

In a game driven by its amount of fun and optional features, there is a lot of roundstart gear, sure. But why wouldn't scientists need reagent scanners? Why wouldn't engies need mesons? This kind of equipment is deeply interlocked with the departments jobs. I don't think a kind of gear progression system would be fun in the long run. Remember, these types of things have to be for both classic, lowpop, and RP play styles. After a while, the progression would just be another chore in the way, limiting what one can do withing 80 minutes (or less, on classic) even further. Antags, for example, currently have a lot of freedom in how they set up their gimmicks. Cutting down on optional items required for optional features would also limit antag freedom, causing rushed, unfun rounds with too much required preparation.
Who would be responsible for progression? If it isn't actually fun or gets boring too quickly, whichever department's got the task of bringing the whole station forward is gonna create a "this is boring af but someone has to waste 90 minutes of their life on this" kind of atmosphere, which is really not good for the gameplay. Same thing would apply if the departments would be responsible for their respective progression trees.

Additionally, one should try to figure out the actual cause of these issues. Everyone has an upgraded medical scanner (another example which I haven't seen happen on RP)? Is a game issue, or just players optimizing routines (which might even end up counting as mild powergaming).

In short, I think it's a classic-server issue of people going out of their way to get the best items, and not something that could be changed in the long term through game changes, as people will always end up trying to optimize routines and find metas.

[Lord_earthfire]

I mostly speak as a RP player here. And i feel it's more a problem on RP than on classic. Because on classic "doing your job" is not expected.

In a game driven by its amount of fun and optional features, there is a lot of roundstart gear, sure. But why wouldn't scientists need reagent scanners? Why wouldn't engies need mesons? This kind of equipment is deeply interlocked with the departments jobs.

Only partially. Lets stay with spectris as an example: scientists need reagent scanner, but not spectros. It's just in many ways an upgrade over the reagent scanner. They don't need it when they have scanners, but it's a nice upgrade.

The problem now gets that all scientists and the bartender can instantly idemtify poisons.

Engis don't need mesons for their job. But it helps. The problem is now they all can see and identify mechcomp because mesons were severly buffed. Mechcomp traps become mire useless than they already were.

Antags, for example, currently have a lot of freedom in how they set up their gimmicks. Cutting down on optional items required for optional features would also limit antag freedom, causing rushed, unfun rounds with too much required preparation.

And that's why i think the actual opposite would happen. Gimmicks won't be instantly become useless because the average crewmember is less capable. If you cause problems, people start getting the shit to counter you instead of being capable from the start.

Who would be responsible for progression? If it isn't actually fun or gets boring too quickly, whichever department's got the task of bringing the whole station forward is gonna create a "this is boring af but someone has to waste 90 minutes of their life on this" kind of atmosphere, which is really not good for the gameplay. Same thing would apply if the departments would be responsible for their respective progression trees.

People doing their job are responsible for the upgrades. Botany providing food for the chef. Mining getting ore. Scientists getting chemicals instead of fucking off and doing nothing all shift.

That is the gameplay loop. That is what falls under "you should play like you want to keep your job". The problem is noone needs you to do your job to do theirs.

[TDHooligan]

Sure, but a lot of the examples youve mentioned are just adding tedium. oh wow every botany shift i do chem i have to go to <X> and ask for spectro goggles. then sometimes i get none.

so I have to go to the HoP. and funnily enough, they're not there.

so I follow the rules and don't break in. and now 30 minutes of my shift I've wasted asking people for the access to the thing that lets me do my job lol

[Lord_earthfire]

so I follow the rules and don't break in. and now 30 minutes of my shift I've wasted asking people for the access to the thing that lets me do my job lol

Thats the thing: you don't need them for your job, you have alternatives.

Working together should be rewarded. If there is no reward, because you have all you need, why do you need to work with others?

People right now start at the ceiling if capability. They should start at the floor.

[Solenoid]

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 

[glowbold]

Sure, but a lot of the examples youve mentioned are just adding tedium. oh wow every botany shift i do chem i have to go to <X> and ask for spectro goggles. then sometimes i get none.

so I have to go to the HoP. and funnily enough, they're not there.

so I follow the rules and don't break in. and now 30 minutes of my shift I've wasted asking people for the access to the thing that lets me do my job lol

botanists have reagent scanners on their pda at roundstart

[TDHooligan]

botanists have reagent scanners on their pda at roundstart

in this specific case there's that workaround, but the concept still applies.

[Lord_earthfire]

in this specific case there's that workaround, but the concept still applies.

The post was about these "exceptions". We have quite the high amount of these.

I think the basics for the job should be available. But i want to have more scarcity of recources and items that go beyond that.

[Frank_Stein]

Personally I feel like more shit should break or need some kind of maintenance.

We have batteries you can make, but things like flashlights and PDA's seem to have infinite power
Scalpels and knives keep their sharpness despite being used to stab a dude 87 times before chucking them out an airlock. You can crush in the skulls of an entire department and your toolbox won't have a dent in it. You can BE stabbed 87 times and your uniform won't even be snagged let alone ripped to shreds.

If more things broke you'd have more reasons to recycle them for materials or print/buy them, giving a stronger use for money.
If more items showed signs of how they were being used, you'd create more evidence for forensics.

[Shiiba]

Personally I feel like more shit should break or need some kind of maintenance.

We have batteries you can make, but things like flashlights and PDA's seem to have infinite power
Scalpels and knives keep their sharpness despite being used to stab a dude 87 times before chucking them out an airlock. You can crush in the skulls of an entire department and your toolbox won't have a dent in it. You can BE stabbed 87 times and your uniform won't even be snagged let alone ripped to shreds.

If more things broke you'd have more reasons to recycle them for materials or print/buy them, giving a stronger use for money.
If more items showed signs of how they were being used, you'd create more evidence for forensics.

Oh I like that idea a lot!!

[Kotlol]

I love Frank's idea of maintance, wich if we do this.. should be it's own sub-division of engineering.
I know we split engineering and Mechanics for a while before merging them so we have engineers on standby doing the engine insted of 5 mechanics and a CE but non of them do engineering stuff.

But in <THIS CASE> , I do think civilian job or engineering job of <<GEAR MAINTANCE>> would be better.
The reason for this is simple. Engineers CAN do it too, but if it is gonna be a part of engineering alone.
I know what will happen: "I am busy with the engine" "I am busy repairing the bombed room" "I am busy doing this mech build I am doing"
Engineers tend to be very busy during rounds or distracted that even if you hit engineering alarm it might take 5-10 mins before one shows up.

But some of this stuff should just be recycled so money has more use.
Cept clown stuff... since it's not funny for clowns to buy things with their salary.

However this topic ALSO made me see the opposite of things. How some jobs have 1 item of something and if it is lost... you will never replace it.
This mostly comes with the detective in mind when my det-hat + stored gadgets is destroyed with no way of replacing them. So a replacement service from maybe a shop would be nice too.

Again.. i think a maintance guy dedicated to fixing stuff or selling stuff to fix things would be a great addition to the game.

Small side track: Replacing broken light bulbs is always a confusing thing if it's the janitors job or the engineers job. With this maintance guy... I think they should do it too. Engineering fixes station damage and electircal damage, maintance guy fixes small appliances, broken lamps, broken small machines and even broken furniture and such.

Just a custodian who's job is to keep the station functional and low entry.

[mralexs]

I say the Nadir durability system could easily be used here. Every interaction that can cause wear should roll to see if it damages an item.