Forced Department Heads

[Mordent]

After initial jobs are chosen via preferences, add an extra step that goes like this:

• Is captain filled? If not, upgrade HoP.
  
• Is HoP filled? If not, pick from a random department head.
  
• Are department heads filled? If not, pick from a random member of that department (if any).
  

Loop through this until it's happy or until no progress is made during a loop (e.g. no one was picked as medical staff, so no MD).

I would like to explicitly exclude "is AI filled? If not, pick from random cyborg" from this list, because playing the two is a VERY different experience, whereas department heads just have more access and a bigger target on their back.

This could partly absorb the "Deputy" suggestion here.

[Noah Buttes]

Sounds cool, but why would you pick the HoP from other heads if he's technically the head of the civilian department?

Does this also work for security, assuming someone in security has HoS authorization?

[Mordent]

HoP is chosen from other heads because he's the head of the other heads. He's also the head of the civilian department.

Security is a weird edge case. I think we can do this one of four ways:

• Remove the whitelist entirely (and therefore apply the above to security as well)
  
• Have it so that only whitelisted people can select HoS as a job preference, then if none of them selected it (i.e. it is set to unwanted by all of them), but they are a security officer, let it pick from that group first (then the non-HoS group if that first criteria isn't met).
  
• Have it so that only whitelisted people can select HoS as a job preference, then if none of them selected it (i.e. it is set to unwanted by all of them) then pick at random from all security officers (i.e. regardless of HoS status).
  
• Have it so that only whitelisted people can select HoS as a job preference, then if none of them selected it (i.e. it is set to unwanted by all of them) but they are a security officer, let it pick from that group (so only HoSes are available for the pick).
  

My personal preference is for one of the last two.

[Gannets]

Job selection could certainly do with a shake-up. I think I'm pro-filling head roles first?

[Avack]

I should say I'm not fond of anything that involves forcing people into roles. However, I think this one could be alright, just because heads are basically just regular people in their department with a bit more access. I do have some issues with it as presented, though:

• I don't think this should bypass having roles set to unwanted. If somebody doesn't want the stress/responsibility of a head role or wants to avoid them for another reason, they should have the option to do so by setting them to unwanted.
  
• The HoP should not be forced. They are, in my opinion, the least important head and the one with the least connection to the roles of their department. It's true that they're theoretically in charge, but in the context of 2 all that happens is they change IDs until they get completely forgotten. If HoP is forced, people will be redirected to it from productive and useful head roles and either achieve nothing or just do the job they wanted anyway.
  
• The HoS should respect the whitelist, IMO, but that's a rant for another time.
  

Probably worth noting at this point that captain and AI are already forced but respect unwanted prefs, which I think is good and fine.

[Mordent]

I'd be fine with HoP not being included in this.

I'm decently confident that we won't have the "there is no RD" problem if people set RD to anything but Unwanted.

[Flourish]

Yeah, I don't think this should bypass unwanted either. Sometimes you don't want the (real or perceived) responsibility of being a head! In general, job selection could do with some more work, though.

[IshmaelNemo]

• I don't think this should bypass having roles set to unwanted. If somebody doesn't want the stress/responsibility of a head role or wants to avoid them for another reason, they should have the option to do so by setting them to unwanted.
  

Perhaps make it clear to a player with the relevant head positions selected that a department is missing any personnel and they will be promoted to head? For instace, on the job selection screen, dim out/minimize the department jobs and only have the head position, or add something to it like (Promotion) or (No staff). Or even just add a pop-up like "The department you have joined has no staff, and you will be promoted to its head. Is this okay?"

[Mordent]

I think the whole point of this is to force people to be heads. If we give people the option/respect Unwanted, there's basically no difference from current.

[Spoodle]

I agree with Mordent's original post, minus the HoP being auto-filled. With HoS, I support the 4th option that Mordent posted. I also agree with the head-filling bypassing the unwanted status.

[Frank_Stein]

Generally I think if there's like, one doctor and that's it, they should probably have full access to their department, so it makes sense to make them a head. So yes I'm for this plus everyone else's concerns

[Noah Buttes]

I support mordent's fourth option for handling security.

I support forcing heads past unwanted, with the exception of the chief engineer. I love being a mechanic and so do quite a few other people, but the CE is pretty much expected to set up the engine. Sometimes I don't want that responsibility and just want to goof around with mechcomp stuff instead.

The other heads can all be summed up as doctor+, scientist+, or staff assistant++.

[robertGN]

I do like this idea outside of the HoP being forced, but I see an issue with it:
Newer players that want to try a role may get pushed into a leadership position when they simply don't want it. I know that when I first started playing however many years ago, I avoided the head roles like the plague. While the community doesn't really care when a head is incompetent, new players may not necessarily know this, which could potentially cause a bit of stress when playing the game/the role for the first time.

I'm not sure if playtime is currently tracked, much less if the amount of time you've played a specific role is tracked, but a way to fix this would be to prioritize having more experienced crew-members be pushed into a head slot first.

[Vitatroll]

Sounds good. I'm with Avack on pretty much everything, though.

[Firepower]

This also has the effect of making rev rounds less one sided, since we'll actually have heads to combat.