PVE Gameplay overhaul for Research, Mining, Engineering V1

[Klayboxx]

The fact that he made this game shows how bad his ideas are, though.

2d space men? Jesus who would do that.

Anyway I'll give actual constructive criticism here:

What made me love ss13 was the fact that it never held your hand and never told youwhat to do. When you roll a job its a guideline of what you can do right off the bat, but who fucking knows if by the end of the round you are in the captains space suit with TK beating cluwnes to death. When the job objectives were mentioned i knew they were steeping in the wrong direction of, "YOU ROLLED THIS JOB THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO!!" And that is exactly what they were at first, everyone scrambling to full their objectives. Now people mostly ignore then because lets face it;

Its way more fun to do what you want to do, not what a agame wants you to do.

Now if this were a game mode or a 100% optional thing then whatever, it doesn't limit people. But when you completely revamp a game to what you prefers and kill off what others enjoy you're going to alienate a lot of people.

[Klayboxx]

The fact that he made this game shows how bad his ideas are, though.

2d space men? Jesus who would do that.

Anyway I'll give actual constructive criticism here:

What made me love ss13 was the fact that it never held your hand and never told youwhat to do. When you roll a job its a guideline of what you can do right off the bat, but who fucking knows if by the end of the round you are in the captains space suit with TK beating cluwnes to death. When the job objectives were mentioned i knew they were steeping in the wrong direction of, "YOU ROLLED THIS JOB THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO!!" And that is exactly what they were at first, everyone scrambling to full their objectives. Now people mostly ignore then because lets face it;

Its way more fun to do what you want to do, not what a agame wants you to do.

Now if this were a game mode or a 100% optional thing then whatever, it doesn't limit people. But when you completely revamp a game to what you prefers and kill off what others enjoy you're going to alienate a lot of people.

im not talking about the mining or anything here im talking about the job progression thinger

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

I would love a gamemode where everyone teams up and works together to complete a set of objectives. With no antagonists.

[CaptainBravo]

I would love a gamemode where everyone teams up and works together to complete a set of objectives. With no antagonists.

Don't Get Murdered By Yetis Mode

also the yetis explode

[Shoddy]

Hm

I think we should wait until cogmap to see if we need anymore HUGE updates.

All this stuff seems real super RPey, although i absolutely fucking love away teams, always my favourite part of Sci fi.

If we get away teams that would probably be literally all i do for 85% of my rounds. fuck yes.

[h3half]

Is this going to be a goonstation thing? Or are you just posting here for feedback?

Is this going to happen? Or are you putting out feelers to test people's reactions?


In regards to the singularity/new engine thing: You could always take the singularity code and just modify it anyways, there's nothing saying that just because there is a nuclear engine it has to be used

[Sundance]

Hmm, I've read through this thread and I got a little idea, specifically regarding engineers.
Engineers currently set up the engine and as the wiki suggests, immediately get bored and hack shit or get drunk. Cogs map gives engineers something to do, and is a great roll in the right direction, but perhaps there is room to take this further.
Why don't we tweak random events like exadv1 suggested but without the points system incorperated.
The random events currently are everybody running into maint/lockers or a puny set of pebbles hit the station and nobody moves or panics.
The random event should be something that should be feared but not unmanageable, and what I mean by that is where the engineers come into play.
Say we got meteors coming in, these aren't pebbles, these are holy fuck botany is going to be fucked, then it's up to the engineers to save the crew with their meteor shields. Fuck, we SHOULD be able to manufacture meteor shields, and it SHOULD be like exadv1 suggested, that various ores/chemicals secreted in it makes it last longer. Other random events could be added, and would give engineers EVEN more things to do. Random mobs, like a zombie outbreak, where 10-15 zombies may spawn in a random place, engineers could build turrets like previously suggested to keep these at bay (the turrets can only target mobs and pods, where I imagine pods could be some traitor and security could choose what specific pod the turret could attack)
And here's my tweak: These random events, deadly as they may seem, should remain random. This would add to the paranoia that is ss13.
So now engineers instead of doing what they do now, which is nothing really, can build defense systems, pods, managing the engine along with managing the station.
The possibilities as a traitor to fuck shit up during these random events are monumental. Hack the meteor shields, hack the turrets, stun people and throw them to the mobs. I am just drooling at all the options you could do as a traitor.

In regard to other things like mining, adding stuff like a tech tree could be awesome. Like seriously, mining is already slightly rpg with buying stuff from the fabricator to progress. You would really need to tweak mining alot so that miners don't actually spend all their shit on themselves and they actually benefit from sending ores to departments because people are selfish haha.

And in regard to science, if scientists could make claymores that only blow up when attached to doors, they could be used for miners who find a spooky derelict station, etc. Anything for toxins to be used. Scientists could work with miners for research purposes, certain things found in space such as strange mechanical contraptions (big ones, expanding over many tiles) may require scientist intervention, in which case the telelab, a miner gps and scientists going over and researching this area would be REALLY awesome. It might even be some sort of weapon (traitor scientist/miner ears perk up)

So tl;dr: Yes, give engineers something to do. Yes to a deadlier random event.
Give miners+scientists a better relation, give miners a better purpose, because currently there isn't really bar having their own little rpg adventure in space.
and finely give TRAITORS things to fuck with the station and the people.

[Ronnyfire]

I like a lot of your ideas, and i really want more reason to do non PVP things in SS13, that being said...

Point systems that carry over between rounds are generally a pretty bad idea. Look at League of Legends for example, a simple competitive game, but because you get a reward outside the individual round most people get super pissed and stressed out about bad or new players causing a loss.
I also just think point systems that carry over between rounds are kinda silly and a bit too meta.

Instead, if you want to be tracking how well various departments are doing their work already you may as well get rid of a salary and give departments money based on their effectiveness. Some jobs (assistant, chaplain...) would probably just have normal incomes as they work now because they have no real goals to track.

Obviously tied into this we would need a use for money outside building and party supplies from QM. Larger variety of vending machines, maybe more specialized machines within departments, like....
- The science wing can get more beakers, protective gear, exotic chemicals(holy water, space fungus, new chems), more bomb valves and guardbuddy upgrade components.
- A machine near the janitors closet could sell more spray bottles, galoshes(expensive!), maybe a trash scanner so the janitor can know how messy the station is (so he can know when he should to hunt for stuff to clean)
- Engineering could get EVA gear(pretty costly), Magnetic Boots (on tier with a full set of EVA gear), Jetpacks, unloaded RCD (engineers may need to pool together to afford one?) and RCD cartridges.

I could go on listing more department specific vending machines, but ill wait to see if there is any actual interest in that line of thought before i make a monster post.

Using this money system noone is forced into doing their specific job, but there is incentive alongside helping the station against...

More consistent and scary / damaging events! Like you were saying, random events should scale up as the round progresses. But! It should be up to more than just the engineering staff to deal with the negative effects. Sure engineers should fix hull breaches from meteors that slip past shields but other jobs should be able to help in station upkeep outside of just augmenting engineerings shields.
Chemists metal foam could temporarily patch holes in the floor of the station (create a floor that will crumble away in 2-5 min)
Scientists could have the chance to find artifacts that are invulnerable meteor shields that just need to be welded down to avoid drifting off.
Electricians can have plans in their kit at the start of the round that make radiation scrubbers (cogmap) and better alternatives to opening up air canisters in depressurized rooms.
Janitor could have caution tape that prevents anyone not set to harm intent from passing them to help warn people of that massive hole in the main hallway just south of here (because we all know byond is laggy and you can easily walk a screen and a half in the blink of an eye)

Just a side note on job cooperation, electricians should be able to break down artifacts we know the effects and triggers of to make human tech versions of them (ok, so that one is actually just me wanting something i totally dont think will ever exist)

TL;DR,
PVP AND PVE are both cool, PVP is its own incentive, so we need a good one for PVE
Points crossing between rounds is anti-fun and silly
Vending machines are cool
Money should be an incentive, not just expected
Events should be bigger and scarier as the round goes on
More jobs should have the option to help deal with events, not just engineers vs holes in the station.

[h3half]

Look at League of Legends for example, a simple competitive game, but because you get a reward outside the individual round most people get super pissed and stressed out about bad or new players causing a loss.
I also just think point systems that carry over between rounds are kinda silly and a bit too meta.

But his idea is for things that are superficial. A new hat when you reach a milestone doesn't hurt anything or anyone. And the other example he gave was that the whole server unlocks new away missions if one player is "good" enough; how is this bad? It's giving more choice, nobody is forcing them to choose that away mission. And it only takes one (or a few) players to be "good" enough to unlock it, so it's not like anyone would be angry about not having it. "You guys should be better so I can do x!" sounds dumb and I don't think any rational person would ever actually say that.

I think people just skimmed over that paragraph and didn't see that the things he gave examples of doesn't really affect anything.

[OMJ]

i was having an idea for that and other gmaes like S19 have it
basically what it is is if you win a certain medal you get the option to spawn with a mask
lets say theres an objective to choke out an assistant
"omj gets the grayshirt medal!"
and I get the option to spawn with a clown mask

[OMJ]

and i think PVE modes should be added like monkey malfunction. pit the players against the NPCs more often.

[Anticheese]

Honestly? If the player versus environment aspect of the game were to be reinforced well, and the gameplay resulting from it actually fun, I'd have no complaints. As it is the station is pretty static, and more optional things to do to keep everything from going horribly wrong would be nice. These PVE features (I'm mostly interested in players versus the toughest environment of all - the station itself) would have to be largely optional, as some players might not be interested or they may get bored, and people shouldn't be branded as traitors/parasites/whatever for slacking off and bumming around the station.

But yeah. By all means, have a good clear idea of where you're taking SS13 next. Just make sure it doesn't completely replace what we have now.