In game Communication Improvements

[Frank_Stein]

Instead of derailing the austerity thread more, here's a thread for talking about how to make communication on the station better. Couple of general ideas to comment on or add to:

• PDA improvements
  

• Job ticket system
  

I think one way to do both would be to create a kind of forum that you can access from the PDA.

Have a board for each department, one for station news and alerts, and a general purpose one.

Post job requests on the relevant board, have the relevant people get notifications (a PDA beep and something like " Crewman A made a new post in thread B"), let them add notes and comments on the created threads. Thread creators and admins can change the status of threads to things like open/ongoing, resolved, or cancelled 

Heads have admin privileges for their respective boards and are the only people aside from Sec that can post in the alerts one. Captain and HoP have full admin privileges.

---

Also whoops this should go in suggestions

[Nnystyxx]

I like the idea of like, department IRC chats, for some reason. Or just some form of bulletin board, so that each department knew what was needed of them when.

[UrsulaMejor]

I like the idea of department BBSs. It'd also fit with the theme

[Vitatroll]

I like the bbs bit too. It'd give me a place to share my ascii cat pictures.

[atamusvaleo]

Aren't bulletin boards already a feature?

[Dions]

Aren't bulletin boards already a feature?

Yeah but easy to miss. If your PDA kept each job and the general public updated i think things would be way more coherent. Maybe an info kiosk system for the public which can vary from the most free of the presses to the mouthpiece of the iron fisted captain, but would usually give a newly joining player an idea of whats happening in the round, and could benefit oafish sec and medical players who cant look at the radio for ten seconds (me all the way).

Plus if each department makes enough noise then people will know that they can go to medbay and get healed in the lobby without breaking in, that they can go to QM and order stuff, that engineers are around to fix a hull breach etc. All of which are good things to encourage and facilitate when our playerbase has the freedom to do whatever.

[Nnystyxx]

Bulletin boards can have papers stuck on them. Those are nice. I'm not sure how many areas actually have them. The writing system in general is a little bit neglected, especially since I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW PRINTERS WORK AAAAAAAAAAAA

And yeah, information kiosks/walls/etc would be good. TGcode has this like, bulletin/newsfeed system that's really cool when people decide to be station reporters/disperse helpful info

[Mordent]

Bulletin boards can have papers stuck on them. Those are nice. I'm not sure how many areas actually have them. The writing system in general is a little bit neglected, especially since I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW PRINTERS WORK AAAAAAAAAAAA

And yeah, information kiosks/walls/etc would be good. TGcode has this like, bulletin/newsfeed system that's really cool when people decide to be station reporters/disperse helpful info

Happy to show you if you're on Destiny at the same time as me. My only wish was that Term OS B files didn't have such a low limit, as you can't make decent length documents (while you can with a pen) and have to resort to manual entry in WizWrite on ThinkDOS instead.

[Frank_Stein]

One thing that I hope would happen with the general board would be stuff like Mining posting work for someone to take a crate full of ore from them over to engineering. Random staff assistants get the notification of work, can apply to carry out that job, and then get some kind of cash reward sent to their account upon the job being marked as complete.

This gives a system of direct payment for completing tasks, a way for departments to outsource labor, an record of accountability for when people agree to jobs and don't fulfill them, the HoP more to do since I'd imagine the organization of labor is their department, and a way for crafty traitors and miscreants to intercept deliveries/gain access to areas either by taking job requests, posing as the person who accepted it, or attacking them in transit

---

Another idea, automated jobs.

Some would be basic stuff like the Engine being started as an incomplete job already posted at round start. Whoever finishes it can get paid for it by the Chief Engineer, HoP, Captain, or AI marking them as the one that completed it.

Other stuff would be more like the merchant requests but open certain department or everyone depending on the request.

[Superlagg]

Maybe also give the AI the ability to easily add notices to the general message board, something like a hotkey to make a quick update to the list of what exploded or who died. Maybe also with pictures because cameras. The crew can submit things, though the AI would need to approve them.

This is mainly to make keeping the crew updated takes as little effort as possible.

Also how about a table of areas with their statuses, so you can tell at a glance if the engine is on fire or cloning blew up. Something song the lines of:

Cloning: Intact but filthy.
Robotics: Staffed by clown.
Escape: MIA.

Oh, and there should be an option in the character creator to set a username bound to your ID or pin, maybe with an option to be anonymous or have it be random and hideous.

Wireless PDA glasses so you can access the message board while strangling two people?

[Nnystyxx]

I like the idea of staff assistants being paid gophers. I like it a lot, actually.

That and the status/notice stuff. All of this would be great and I would support it wholeheartedly.

EDIT: Please do nerf/remove Detomatrix though because PDAs are a really good and neat thing nobody uses out of fear they'll blow up :<

EDIT2: And paid-jobs. Incentivize the engineers (or even a random shmuck who needs cash) to set up the engine

[Vitatroll]

I was just thinking of a small gui-based pdabbs with a small structure. You'd have a root for all access and branches for departmental access. No user-created branches required. Just simple messaging.

Unlike the literal bulletin boards I think a bbs would actually get some use. You know, outside of the times I put fake wanted posters up for myself and others.

edit: oh, and possibly the incorporation of email into pms so that system actually gets used. That'd be neat.

[Dions]

So some of the most basic good ideas i see being useful from this thread:

A general free to post in public board
A somewhat regulated (command/AI/sec) Station Status and Update feed
A special news outlet that can only be edited by a journalist/whoever controls the journalist office (to be added)
Department specific update and coordination boards for the big three (security, medical, and engineering)
Odd job posting and claiming system, for both automated and player requested jobs

All of which could be accessed by PDA and info kiosk.

I'd also like it if journalists could use a system akin to security tickets being saved to goonhub. Perhaps things they publish get saved to a thing just like it so people can see the expert chronicles of good journalists as they try to describe the particular flavor of carnage and chaos the rounds bring.

[atamusvaleo]

Stuff about things discussed

More functionality for the PDA's is always a plus in my book. Also, I'd like for all of my journalist work to finally be read by more than one person (me) each round.

Nnystyxx (your name is on the autofill list on my phone... strange) I'd be happy to lend a hand with the printers as well. You tend to be around when I'm on. I'll drop you a line next time I notice you.

[Nnystyxx]

Stuff about things discussed

More functionality for the PDA's is always a plus in my book. Also, I'd like for all of my journalist work to finally be read by more than one person (me) each round.

Nnystyxx (your name is on the autofill list on my phone... strange) I'd be happy to lend a hand with the printers as well. You tend to be around when I'm on. I'll drop you a line next time I notice you.

Journalist comes up a lot more than other gimmick jobs, I've noticed, so it'd be nice for them to have more legitimacy and function. And, yeah, more PDA function. Who was it that was talking about redoing the PDA interface? I saw some nice mockups for it.

Anyway, send me your ingame name/ckey, if it's different and I'll see if I can spot you, atamusvaleo. I look at the Manifest a bit more than I use Who. Thanks for the offering.

EDIT: No preference over Mordent, I'm just on #2 much more frequently.