Removal of auto cloning and pre scanning

[Dax Dupont]

Bottom post of the previous page:

honestly I think having prescanning with expiring records would be good.

Like a max of like 5-10 minutes and it becomes unusable.

This change has a huge QoL loss for medbay players, body management in the cloning room is hectic as is usually, i'd like to be able to scan and strip people, then throw them in the morgue and clone them one by one

[DrunkenMatey]

Any time I go near medbay and I see the cloner in use with a body waiting for a scan, I just get annoyed and build 2-3 more clone pods.

[Dr_bee]

honestly I think having prescanning with expiring records would be good.

Like a max of like 5-10 minutes and it becomes unusable.

This change has a huge QoL loss for medbay players, body management in the cloning room is hectic as is usually, i'd like to be able to scan and strip people, then throw them in the morgue and clone them one by one

Pre-scanning is fine in my opinion. It was autocloning that was cancer. Relying on another player to save your ass with the cloner is fine to me, as it requires people know you are dead and also be willing to resurrect your ass. It also still makes destroying cloning a good tactic.

Cooperation should be rewarded with powerful abilities, as in a game focused on paranoia, trust is the most valuable resource.

[Mark9013100]

honestly I think having prescanning with expiring records would be good.

Like a max of like 5-10 minutes and it becomes unusable.

This change has a huge QoL loss for medbay players, body management in the cloning room is hectic as is usually, i'd like to be able to scan and strip people, then throw them in the morgue and clone them one by one

Pre-scanning is fine in my opinion. It was autocloning that was cancer. Relying on another player to save your ass with the cloner is fine to me, as it requires people know you are dead and also be willing to resurrect your ass. It also still makes destroying cloning a good tactic.

Cooperation should be rewarded with powerful abilities, as in a game focused on paranoia, trust is the most valuable resource.

In fact you got it completely wrong, the issue isn't auto processing, it's that there is a way to return to life, from any location in the game, with zero repercussions. Which makes death meaningless.

This is entirely due to pre-scanning.

the autoprocess matters not one bit, other than making an already extremely overpowered function, much more reliable.

[Dr_bee]

honestly I think having prescanning with expiring records would be good.

Like a max of like 5-10 minutes and it becomes unusable.

This change has a huge QoL loss for medbay players, body management in the cloning room is hectic as is usually, i'd like to be able to scan and strip people, then throw them in the morgue and clone them one by one

Pre-scanning is fine in my opinion. It was autocloning that was cancer. Relying on another player to save your ass with the cloner is fine to me, as it requires people know you are dead and also be willing to resurrect your ass. It also still makes destroying cloning a good tactic.

Cooperation should be rewarded with powerful abilities, as in a game focused on paranoia, trust is the most valuable resource.

In fact you got it completely wrong, the issue isn't auto processing, it's that there is a way to return to life, from any location in the game, with zero repercussions. Which makes death meaningless.

This is entirely due to pre-scanning.

the autoprocess matters not one bit, other than making an already extremely overpowered function, much more reliable.

Its obvious that I disagree with Oranges on this. Backups need to exist or murder becomes the best solution to almost every problem.

If there is no risk of a character coming back from a murder why not murder everyone. Death is already the first go to for most players and that isnt because players can come back easily it is because it is best way to solve a problem that could be role played out of.

Pre scanning gives an actual tactical advantage for trusting another player, and gives a downside to straight up murdering a fuck instead of trying to talk your way out of something. It is basically a straight up nerf to people who do bare bones roleplay to get someone to press a button for you if you die.

Auto process was bad because it required no trust or roleplay, pre-scanning is good because it rewards it. Incentives matter.

[4dplanner]

This change has a huge QoL loss for medbay players, body management in the cloning room is hectic as is usually, i'd like to be able to scan and strip people, then throw them in the morgue and clone them one by one

You might want to take a look at the PR that lets you scan dead people that's up at the moment. It should solve that problem pretty handily.

[BeeSting12]

For cloning, it would be cool if the cloning pod requires a chemical mixture collectively known as cloning vat juice. It's a mixture of synthflesh, blood, clonexadone, neurine and some rare or difficult to make chemical. The cloning vat juice would be orderable at cargo or made in chemistry, putting a price on cloning random assistant #1289 instead of say, an engineer or doctor who could contribute to the station.

Might even be funnier to separate the chemicals into separate containers so you have to fill them all separately. Not enough synthflesh? Your patient might not have a couple limbs when he pops out. No neurine? Say hello to extreme brain damage. This type of thing would also reinforce the idea that cloning is a prototype and experimental instead of a perfectly working machine ready for the market. Also opens up the floor for traitor activities such as replacing all the blood with sulphuric acid.

posted it in unloved rock's thread but i think this would make the game more interesting than just removing cloning

[Shadowflame909]

honestly I think having prescanning with expiring records would be good.

Like a max of like 5-10 minutes and it becomes unusable.

This change has a huge QoL loss for medbay players, body management in the cloning room is hectic as is usually, i'd like to be able to scan and strip people, then throw them in the morgue and clone them one by one

Pre-scanning is fine in my opinion. It was autocloning that was cancer. Relying on another player to save your ass with the cloner is fine to me, as it requires people know you are dead and also be willing to resurrect your ass. It also still makes destroying cloning a good tactic.

Cooperation should be rewarded with powerful abilities, as in a game focused on paranoia, trust is the most valuable resource.

In fact you got it completely wrong, the issue isn't auto processing, it's that there is a way to return to life, from any location in the game, with zero repercussions. Which makes death meaningless.

This is entirely due to pre-scanning.

the autoprocess matters not one bit, other than making an already extremely overpowered function, much more reliable.

Its obvious that I disagree with Oranges on this. Backups need to exist or murder becomes the best solution to almost every problem.

If there is no risk of a character coming back from a murder why not murder everyone. Death is already the first go to for most players and that isnt because players can come back easily it is because it is best way to solve a problem that could be role played out of.

Pre scanning gives an actual tactical advantage for trusting another player, and gives a downside to straight up murdering a fuck instead of trying to talk your way out of something. It is basically a straight up nerf to people who do bare bones roleplay to get someone to press a button for you if you die.

Auto process was bad because it required no trust or roleplay, pre-scanning is good because it rewards it. Incentives matter.

this 100%. Oranges want more paranoia, and more fear of death coming towards you at any moment. But the obvious downsides to this is that people will be even less inclined to interact at the chance that they get one shotted and have to sit out the round for an hour or two.

Give us alive pre-scanning, remove autocloning, and make it so that everyone can remove anyone's pre-scan data with a tap of a button. This will make this game more centered around the conflict of trust vs paranoia. Like the gimmick of traitors, changelings, cultists, literally every antagonist except for wizard and war ops.

Death can be feared, but the conflict of trust and paranoia will ultimately make the game much more satisfying and bring about the higher RP with the potential of going awry that we all want.

[DrunkenMatey]

Another thought here. If the current goal is more rp, more paranoia and generally changing the current vibe of tg... then this and other changes/proposals make sense. But I wonder what the end goal is; because there are already servers that have far stricter RP and escalation rules and we are all playing here. So while I am in favour of our almost pointless escalation rule being updated, i dont want to lose the feel of tg. It isn't a super serious server, it is memey and zany and I am cool with that, I just would like people to be less murderboney as nonantags and yeah taking out autoprocess on cloning is ok but lets be real with our goals here.

[WarbossLincoln]

I don't think Oranges is trying to increase RP, but to increase lethality of the server.

[Shadowflame909]

I don't think Oranges is trying to increase RP, but to increase lethality of the server.

what is this lifeweeb?

[Hathkar]

Is this a joke? Keep pre-scanning, remove the actual auto-cloning.
Maybe make it so medical doctors can also remove cloning records, instead of just genetics and the CMO.

[Mark9013100]

Is this a joke? Keep pre-scanning, remove the actual auto-cloning.
Maybe make it so medical doctors can also remove cloning records, instead of just genetics and the CMO.

It isn't a joke, but no one's feedback matters because this is expressly what oranges wants gone, and since he's a maintainer, no one aside from him essentially gets a say in it.

[Shadowflame909]

Is this a joke? Keep pre-scanning, remove the actual auto-cloning.
Maybe make it so medical doctors can also remove cloning records, instead of just genetics and the CMO.

It isn't a joke, but no one's feedback matters because this is expressly what oranges wants gone, and since he's a maintainer, no one aside from him essentially gets a say in it.

ORANGE YOU FRICKIN FRICK. YOU JUST CAN'T EVER BE QUENCHED. YOUR FANTASY FOR HOW THIS GAME SHOULD BE PLAYED, CANT EVER BE QUENCHED CAN THEY. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

[WarbossLincoln]

Doesn't MSO have the ultimate authority on what happens with anything tgstation related? I've suggested before if people really hate the fact that Oranges is unilaterally in control of code they should organize and petition MSO to change that.

Edit:

What you're not going to like however is that someone will ultimately be in charge of the direction the code goes. At best it's going to be something like a tribunal of head developers. To do that you'd need 3 experienced tgstation devs who are as active as Oranges and have them vote on every little thing. It's unlikely that will happen.

In no world will the players' opinions have direct control over code/feature changes because we aren't customers paying for a product. At best we'll have coders who consider the opinions of the players, and I think most of them do to an extent. I think Oranges considers our opinions but when he disagrees he assumes he knows what's best. A true example of a developer.

[DrunkenMatey]

I just wish we could see a declaration of intent or some kind of road map or short term goal from the person/people who get to decide on the direction TG is going. At least then we could make suggestions and come up with ideas that work towards a stated goal rather than feeling like we are wasting our time sharing our ideas.

[Grazyn]

Roadmaps are bad, they force coders to work on things they may not like and it results in mediocre and bugged stuff with no soul, or more realistically, unfinished projects which sucks hundreds of work-hours and end up scrapped.

[Mark9013100]

Roadmaps are bad, they force coders to work on things they may not like and it results in mediocre and bugged stuff with no soul, or more realistically, unfinished projects which sucks hundreds of work-hours and end up scrapped.

I don't care if roadmaps are subjectively/objectively bad, I want to know what the endgoal is aside from a vague 'make death impactful.'

[WarbossLincoln]

Roadmaps are bad

developing without a plan or a product vision is worse.

Edit: I know that tgstation development is volunteer and is not a 'product' so I wouldn't expect the same level of organization as an agile dev team or anything, but there should be a little. Probably coordinated between Oranges as head dev and MSO as server owner.

[confused rock]

Roadmaps are bad

developing without a plan or a product vision is worse.

[Shadowflame909]

Death really can't, and shouldn't be impactful first when it's so easy to die.

The average player goes through at least 1-2 clonings per round. And the average robust player has some form of healing meds on them for when they take damage.

What I'm trying to say is, If you take people's method of revival without taking away the methods of easy and mass destruction. You're just going to end up with a game that the average player finds that they can't win.

You'll probably just get people not trying at all. Less interaction between players, and more or less even saltier players and PRs then we have now.

Why drive to make it so impactful if it's easy enough to die that players feel these revives are necessary oranges?

[WarbossLincoln]

Roadmaps are bad

developing without a plan or a product vision is worse.

Not to mention a road map isn't necessarily some grand waterfall scheme where you know what tgstation code should be a year from now. It can easily be a broad plan of general functionality and improvements with some kind of desired timeline. It's all flexible and can adjust as you go.

Something along the lines of

We want to code these major overall changes in 2019(or Q1/2 of 2019, however far ahead the higher up devs have ideas for): XXX, XXX, XXX, and XXX
Goal of these changes: XXXXXXXXX

Q1 2019
- cloning changes
-----surgery overhaul
-----autoclone/prescan decisions and changes
-----replacement for cloning?
- XXXX Optmization

Q2 2019
- Something else
------Something else sub task
- Something else

unfinished projects which sucks hundreds of work-hours and end up scrapped.

This is what you get when someone starts a project with major implications to gameplay with no overall vision, plan, goals, or anything. See Economy until someone picks it back up and does a lot of work with it.

[oranges]

This game hasn't had a plan or product vision for a very long time and hasn't suffered from it.

[confused rock]

but oooranges it haaaas suffered everyone is completely detached and eats memes for breakfast these daaays

[4dplanner]

Trying to give arrival times for features coded at random by volunteers seems like a mistake.

[DrunkenMatey]

i dunno bout others, but im not asking for some detailed plan. just some vague direction so that i wont bother sharing ideas that dont mesh with that and instead try to work on ideas towards that direction. So if your vague direction is "death needs to be a bigger deal" then I wouldn't bother suggesting giving everyone insta revive or some shit.

[Grazyn]

i dunno bout others, but im not asking for some detailed plan. just some vague direction so that i wont bother sharing ideas that dont mesh with that and instead try to work on ideas towards that direction. So if your vague direction is "death needs to be a bigger deal" then I wouldn't bother suggesting giving everyone insta revive or some shit.

You're under the false impression that your ideas and suggestions have any weight or value if you're not a coder. They don't. Sure, once in a while you'll see a coder coding someone else's idea, but it's an extremely rare occurence and shouldn't be taken as the standard way the project works.

A lack of plan and direction is what makes the project flow: coders have very little shackles so they can PR whatever they like without having to think whether it fits the plan or not. This also allows easier reverts and overhauls: if a coder doesn't like a feature, or how a recent feature has been implemented, he can push a revert/tweak and it won't be shut down immediately (barring some edge cases). This is exactly what happened with pre scanning: removed with a PR, readded a few days later with another PR.

[Shadowflame909]

i dunno bout others, but im not asking for some detailed plan. just some vague direction so that i wont bother sharing ideas that dont mesh with that and instead try to work on ideas towards that direction. So if your vague direction is "death needs to be a bigger deal" then I wouldn't bother suggesting giving everyone insta revive or some shit.

You're under the false impression that your ideas and suggestions have any weight or value if you're not a coder. They don't. Sure, once in a while you'll see a coder coding someone else's idea, but it's an extremely rare occurence and shouldn't be taken as the standard way the project works.

A lack of plan and direction is what makes the project flow: coders have very little shackles so they can PR whatever they like without having to think whether it fits the plan or not. This also allows easier reverts and overhauls: if a coder doesn't like a feature, or how a recent feature has been implemented, he can push a revert/tweak and it won't be shut down immediately (barring some edge cases). This is exactly what happened with pre scanning: removed with a PR, readded a few days later with another PR.

The PR's were made by the same person though, who hated the idea of traitors being able to use pre-scanning as a method to continue a killing spree.

I personally would of went with removing cloner boards. They're supposed to be experimental! Protect that thing! Also, I'd make it so you don't need any access to wipe IDs. Remove Autocloning, and then call it a day.

[Mark9013100]

At this point I'm convinced the sole purpose of removal prescanning was just an ill will change.

[Shadowflame909]

At this point I'm convinced the sole purpose of removal prescanning was just an ill will change.

ill Will oranges agrees with because they think it's too easy to survive on /tg/ (it's plenty easy to die. Reviving is just simple. But if you take out one and leave the other the game becomes unbalanced)

[cacogen]

nerfing cloning as a means to reinforce the fragility of lives on the station has always been shit
razharas' machine deconstruction pull intentionally/unintentionally made cloning take even longer than it already did which lead to huge queues in cloning when there was a murderbonerer about which lead to paprika's defibrillator pull that we never needed

there are better ways to make not dying matter

[Zarniwoop]

Why do we even have feedback threads if the only thing that matters is what some dbag coder that doesn't even fuckin play thinks?

And in regards to the notion that they're not trying to increase RP on tg, between this, economy and clamping down on naming policy, I get a different impression.

Players should have more of a say in the direction the server goes. Not rude pricks like oranges that hardly even play.

[somerandomguy]

Why do we even have feedback threads if the only thing that matters is what some dbag coder that doesn't even fuckin play thinks?

And in regards to the notion that they're not trying to increase RP on tg, between this, economy and clamping down on naming policy, I get a different impression.

Players should have more of a say in the direction the server goes. Not rude pricks like oranges that hardly even play.

"what are headmin elections"

[Dr_bee]

Why do we even have feedback threads if the only thing that matters is what some dbag coder that doesn't even fuckin play thinks?

And in regards to the notion that they're not trying to increase RP on tg, between this, economy and clamping down on naming policy, I get a different impression.

Players should have more of a say in the direction the server goes. Not rude pricks like oranges that hardly even play.

"what are headmin elections"

Headmins have no say over the code.

[somerandomguy]

Why do we even have feedback threads if the only thing that matters is what some dbag coder that doesn't even fuckin play thinks?

And in regards to the notion that they're not trying to increase RP on tg, between this, economy and clamping down on naming policy, I get a different impression.

Players should have more of a say in the direction the server goes. Not rude pricks like oranges that hardly even play.

"what are headmin elections"

Headmins have no say over the code.

They have a say on naming policy, movespeed, escalation/other policy (which influences RP quite a bit) and config options
Plus do they give the players a say in where the server goes, just not via code

[Pseudomaniac]

Just a quick question, how many of you have actually seen a maint cloning base?

[Anonmare]

Several times and I've made many myself in the past. I abused them a lot, especially with xenoio polymorphing to turn myself into things like syndie assault borgs and with the old protolathe guns. I think some people could remember the cancerous stuff I used to do with the taser revolver and science SMG

[Dr_bee]

Just a quick question, how many of you have actually seen a maint cloning base?

Ive discovered quite a few during the era of autocloning, especially when some asshole traitor is suicide bombing everyone.

[Anonmare]

I got an idea lads. Why not make pre-scanning require a head implant? Like a cortical stack from Transhuman space, and give medbay a supply of some to give to people who they think need it most (with more able to be manufactured after sufficient research). Maybe make cortical stacks fatal if removed after implantation and deal brain damage if EMP'd.

That way, to be able to be pre-scanned, it requires you to really put your trust in someone and has downsides.

[WarbossLincoln]

When was auto cloning added to start with? We survived without it before. It's not the end of the world.

[Mark9013100]

When was auto cloning added to start with? We survived without it before. It's not the end of the world.

I couldn't care less about autocloning, but what's the main point of controversy is the removal of pre-scanning records and the intent to later on fully remove cloning.

[Grazyn]

I doubt anyone would even notice the removal of prescanning, I mean how often are people cloned manually from records? Almost never? In my six years of playing here, I don't think it ever happened to me.

[Mark9013100]

I doubt anyone would even notice the removal of prescanning, I mean how often are people cloned manually from records? Almost never? In my six years of playing here, I don't think it ever happened to me.

1. It's already been removed.
2. I've cloned people from records for years.

[Cobby]

Having to look over that stuff again is quite cancerous I must admit

[Actionb]

Why do we even have feedback threads if the only thing that matters is what some dbag coder that doesn't even fuckin play thinks?

There's two types of feedback threads:
- those from coders looking for feedback on the work they are doing/planning
- those from players that are trying to improve/complain

The latter has very little chance of actually achieving something, since you still need somebody to pick up on that feedback and turn it into code.
This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.
The players have no right to demand from the coders. The only ones that can are MSO, headcoders and the maintainers.
Compliance from coders should be seen as a courtesy. Feedback threads should be seen as an exercise in brainstorming, suggesting ideas.
That's my view. Feel free to prove me wrong.

[Mark9013100]

This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.

Except that's what I did and my PR got shot down.

[JStheguy]

This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.

Except that's what I did and my PR got shot down.

Just learn to code harder, pleb!

[somerandomguy]

This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.

Except that's what I did and my PR got shot down.

Usually it gets merged unless your code is bad, your feature is unbalanced, or it conflicts with oranges' vision for the game
It would help if you could link it so I could see

[JStheguy]

This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.

Except that's what I did and my PR got shot down.

Usually it gets merged unless your code is bad, your feature is unbalanced, or it conflicts with oranges' vision for the game
It would help if you could link it so I could see

"Why do we have feedback threads if the only feedback that matters is Oranges'?"
"Just learn to code, you'll be able get your changes in easily, as long as Oranges is okay with it."

[Mark9013100]

This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.

Except that's what I did and my PR got shot down.

Usually it gets merged unless your code is bad, your feature is unbalanced, or it conflicts with oranges' vision for the game
It would help if you could link it so I could see

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/41864

[Zarniwoop]

This is where the phrase "learn 2 code" comes in - even if you had the best ideas, you cannot force a volunteer coder to implement them; you would have to do it youself.

Except that's what I did and my PR got shot down.

Usually it gets merged unless your code is bad, your feature is unbalanced, or it conflicts with oranges' vision for the game
It would help if you could link it so I could see

"Why do we have feedback threads if the only feedback that matters is Oranges'?"
"Just learn to code, you'll be able get your changes in easily, as long as Oranges is okay with it."

Yea, they’ll use any kind of broken logic to tell anyone they disagree with they’re wrong. They literally state your own point back to you as though it’s some kind of rebuttal of what you said. Never mind ever addressing the fact that this is a GAME and the entire purpose of coding anything at all for it is for the enjoyment of the people PLAYING the GAME. Why should they get zero say while coders, many of whom barely play, if at all, are the end-all be-all of what is implemented?

And to the jackass saying this is what he admin elections are for, you know that’s absolutely asinine. Doesn’t really matter what they decide if the coders can just remove whatever it is and say it doesn’t fit their “vision.”

Just cut the shit and admit nobody really in charge gives a fuck what the players want. Oranges has made clear plenty of times how much he loathes the players for deigning to think they have any say in a game they play a hell of a lot more than he does.