[CLOSED PR] Removes jailbird and stowaway.

[github_bot]

PULL REQUEST DETAILS



About the PR
Removes Jailbird trait and stowaway job

Why's this needed?
These options for character setup remain among the most common issues we hear about from players and staff. Crew response to both at this point is trite and non-engaging. Why bother having something if 95% of the time someone in sec taps a scanner on you and the other 5% is self-antagging.

Despite the general familiarity to stowaways, we're still seeing salvagers unable to infiltrate as crew as stowaways are not pressed into working (or even getting an ID, often).


Something else might work, but this isn't it.


Testing
Tested locally and confirmed the job/trait do not appear.

Changelog

Code:

changelog
(u)glowbold
(*)Stowaway job and Jailbird trait have been removed.

PULL REQUEST DETAILS

[RelentlessGarbage]

I've collected some off-the-cuff feedback from the discord. The results are roughly:
> General consensus around Jailbird is that it can go.
> Some people enjoy playing as a Stowaway, and would prefer that it be reworked in some way rather than be completely removed.
> The PR should be split up to address removal of Jailbird and Removal/reworking of Stowaway in separate PRs.

If nothing else, the third point will make the Jailbird removal faster, if that is the priority of the Dev Team.

[Torchwick]

Tbh I'd rather see Jailbird go (or be reworked to have less insane crimes) than stowaway. Stowaway can be very fun sometimes. I'm not hugely passionate one way or the other. I see /why/, I just think jailbird is more often the one that I see have no real effect more. If stowaways are self-antagging to a point that its a problem then I'd say that's more of an ahelp issue, as the same people self-antagging on stowaway are likely the ones that will do the same on staff assistant. Again, though, take it or leave it. I personally find stowaway to be less of a problem than the wild "decapitated the captain" jailbird crimes, but I understand either way.

[Piesuu]

Removing Jailbird is a good change.

Jailbird is fun... some of the time, but having 2 to 3 people (on average, highpop) that have to be dealt with and are flagged for arrest every shift stopped being naturally fun a while ago, at least in my eyes. It's usually the exact same loop of behaviour with the VERY RARE exception of someone taking it up a notch with a gimmick that isn't just light self-antagging.
I'm actually rather happy about the removal due to mostly negative experiences with Command/Security staff picking Jailbird.
Sure, it might make security a bit more boring in the short-term but there's other ways to spice up the shift before actual threats and antags pick up the slack. Other people can always PR their own ideas on finding some idle work for security to grab.

I don't have an opinion on stowaway either way and won't mind the removal, personally.

[Jamie!]

Really feels like this should be two separate PRs. I don't really care for jailbird, and I wouldn't mind it going, but I find stowaway pretty fun now that it's a job and not a trait.

[RubberRats]

I am all for this change. An overwhelming majority of interactions I have had with jailbirds and stowaways have been middling at best, with them usually getting annoyed for receiving pushback in character (for being a criminal/trespassing a private station), and sometimes committing low-effort grief. The rare good interactions have felt like flukes, and I don't think they really make much sense for static characters.

I think it could be neat to experiment with stowaways as a ghost antagonist spawn with slightly higher expectations for playing their role.

[nova2053]

In favour of this because a lot of the time I've seen jailbird and stowaway used, I've never seen them result in anything particularly interesting.

Stowaways frequently just get treated as regular crew members, which is only exasperated by the fact they aren't forced into randomnaming, and the fact crew members generally don't have a full idea of who is and isn't on the manifest.

Minor jailbird crimes rarely get prosecuted or even interacted with at all because they're "off-station offenses" (and some of them aren't even actual crimes), and major charges also get glossed over a whole lot, presumably because security doesn't particularly want to treat the jailbird with a "spaced the captain" charge as someone who actually spaced the captain, so security just takes any jailbirds off of arrest with at most a ticketing.

[Solenoid]

I'd prefer if jailbird was removed but Stowaway was slightly reworked.

Jailbird, as people have already said ad nauseam here, is generally just not a good trait. People don't wanna punish other players for a trait, but equally that makes it functionally useless and just justifies grief when jailbird players kill Securitrons or whatever. 

Stowaway, I think should just have forced randomnaming and appearances, maybe more job-specific objectives, stuff like that to make stowaways more of a unique experience to play as. Everything you could do as stowaway right now can be done with a staffie, and better. I'd like to see stuff like "Make a home in a corner of maintenance" or "Get your hands on three different radio headsets", etc. become objectives to give Stowaways more goals and more RP opportunities. Maybe also have a rounds played requirement for Stowaways, so that new players aren't accidentally signing up for/joining a job with high grief potential and a lot of barriers to normal play? I dunno.

[Skotcher]

Like others have mentioned, I think it's best if the PR is split into two: One for removing Stowaway, one for removing Jailbird.

I'm personally happy with removing Jailbird. I don't think it's meaningfully contributing to the round in the way we might have hoped it would. That said, I'm not really bothered if it stays.

I'm against the removal of Stowaway. I do think that having Stowaways is providing meaningful content to the round and is healthy for game modes that can utilize subterfuge, such as Salvagers or Nuclear Operatives. Their presence in game provides an in-game reason for why there might be people on board who would not appear on the manifest. I worry that their removal would shift attitudes around people who do not appear on the manifest to "That is an antag".

I am in favor of changes to Stowaway, such as forcing random names & appearances. I'm not against the idea of including a midround ghost spawn for a Stowaway that grants antag status, acting similar to a sleeper agent call (this to make sure that Stowaways aren't just getting a free pass to be trespassers on station and provide more in-game validity to be suspicious of stowaway).

[Lithesra]

Jailbird I fully agree with, stowaway I do not. I've definitely witnessed and experienced issues with it (lackluster response or excessive hostility from crew, established characters being given free reign, mass-sabotage), but my personal experiences have been largely positive rather than negative. Making personal hideouts, running small, questionable errands for opportunistic crew, having minor altercations with security resulting in shenanigans; there's a lot of memories of playing or encountering stowaways that I cherish.

Personally, I think most issues with stowaway could be resolved by either clearly outlining their place in the game, and/or by forcing them to spawn as a randomized character like others have suggested.

I haven't experienced the part about salvagers though; salvagers have definitely been able to infiltrate with good-faith roleplay (unless their teammates already went loud). But if it is an issue, I'd expect removing stowaway would only make it even worse.

(I don't play at 40+ pop though, so my experience is probably not universal)

[Vulwin_Gilran]

I am all for jailbird getting cast into the void, and honestly same for stowaway.

People are saying all you need to do is make them random name/random appearance but i dont believe that would do it. Most of the actually fun things I've seen people do with stowaway are making SPECIFIC stowaway gimmick characters with name and appearance.

One of the only stowaways I remember ever actually having a good experience with is Illegal Skeleton, and I think what they do with the role is perfect and is exactly what a stowaway should be like.

I would rather stowaway just get fully replaced with something else, like even some kind of new antag role.

[GARGATHUGANOKSREVENG]

why do developers always want to remove things from the game instead of adding things

[glowbold]

why do developers always want to remove things from the game instead of adding things

yo, dipshit, i just added gravity. fuck outta here.

[Lord_earthfire]

Based glowbold.

But really, there was almost nothing removed in the codebase in recent years.

There are a lot of sidegrades where some people scream "they removed muh stuff". That's about it.

Even the recent cloner PR severely buffed the addition of parts/blood into it. But some simple minded folks take changes at face value and don't even take a moment to think about how to adapt.

[JORJ949]

why do developers always want to remove things from the game instead of adding things

Removing bad features adds fun. Just constantly adding more and more useless or unfun features is called "feature bloat".

The ideas forum is not for being rude or aggressive to Developers and Contributors, but for providing constructive criticism and actionable feedback.