New design of Research

[oranges]

So active points generation hasn't worked, techwebs is a total mess, points generation is massive one round, and nothing the next.


I want techwebs overhauled.

Flat rate point generation, from start of round and ticking upwards.

Sub chains of research should be gated by a scientific experiment, what that looks like for each part of the web is up to users implementation choice, it might be redeeming something like a slime, or building a specific nanite/virus, it should be related to the technologies in question

The techweb console should be moved to the bridge and added to Head of staff PDA's, so they can oversee research for their depts and techwebs is no longer seen as a "science" job.


The core research techs should be achievable in 60 minutes, with extension trees being possible but only a selection of them, I.e you have to choose some focuses.

I will not accept PR's that do not conform to this design.

[Jack7D1]

Hell yeah, no more 30 minute R&D wut now rounds.

[bobbahbrown]

I have begun writing a system which I am currently dubbing 'experisci' while it is in development.

This system will have three core concepts, EXPERIMENTS, RESEARCH PROJECTS, and POINT POOLS

Experiments are datums which at their core describe a task of which the true/false completion and status can be checked. They can also be sabotaged, if implemented.

Research projects are akin to the techweb nodes, and control the access to new items and projects. They will require a number of points from one or many pools, as well as the completion of some experiments.

Point pools are representative for some entity (such as a department) and will generate a flat number of points. The current intention is to have points be a limiting factor alongside experiments such that it is unlikely a crew will complete a large portion of the research, or at least the 'end game' research in a given shift.

Direction of a pools spending towards a project will be controlled through a console or PDA cartridge, and in the base implementation there would be pools for each department controlled by their department heads.

Experiments will be written in such a way that the actual 'contributor' or item/structure/etc handling the experiment is ambiguous. This way we can have scanners for items, we could have the destructive analyzer, a machine to handle slimes, etc.

All WIP, but those are my thoughts so far.

Additional rambling:
- I think it would be cool to have the ability for events to fire at some rare probability from research projects being completed
- Using the sabotage-ability of experiments, we can have antagonists who aim to sabotage station research

[PKPenguin321]

Sub chains of research should be gated by a scientific experiment, what that looks like for each part of the web is up to users implementation choice, it might be redeeming something like a slime, or building a specific nanite/virus, it should be related to the technologies in question

Making the research analyzer a handheld tool instead of a machine you have to insert things into would benefit this. A scientist could go to a department, say Medbay, and wave their research wand over something like a dissected alien, unlocking new tech nodes.

[Arcanemusic]

https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/49899
There.

[Vekter]

oranges I've spent 20 hours on this damn R&D rework that does exactly what you're asking for, the only difference being that each department can manage their own research so it's not a dedicated Science thing.

I will work with you on this, but you've gotta actually help me figure out what exactly needs to be done and how.

E: After talking in DMs this isn't too far off what I already had intended, just makes it a bit harder.

[GuyonBroadway]

Casual reminder that 60 min rounds won't happen on the regular unless you physically set the shuttle refeul timer to be 60 mins. There will always be those people who fastcall because they bored/didn't roll antag/the clown honked them.

Need I go dig up the comic again or will a simple "Shits fukt. Do?

[Vekter]

Casual reminder that 60 min rounds won't happen on the regular unless you physically set the shuttle refeul timer to be 60 mins. There will always be those people who fastcall because they bored/didn't roll antag/the clown honked them.

Need I go dig up the comic again or will a simple "Shits fukt. Do?

This actually doesn't happen as often as you think it does. I recall we're trying to balance around 90 minute rounds with something like 45 players on average and those tend to actually go the full length. If someone is fast calling because they didn't roll antag, that's an admin issue.

Also: This shouldn't affect my plans for R&D too much. Each individual department will still get their own research stuff, it'll just be handled on the tablet each head starts with. Also I'm assuming oranges meant tablet and not PDA because there's no way in hell the R&D system would work on a PDA without overhauling the whole fucking system

[oranges]

Casual reminder that 60 min rounds won't happen on the regular unless you physically set the shuttle refeul timer to be 60 mins. There will always be those people who fastcall because they bored/didn't roll antag/the clown honked them.

Need I go dig up the comic again or will a simple "Shits fukt. Do?

I'm aware that it won't happen regularly, I'm also okay with this, the target of 60 minutes is somewhat arbitrary, but the more people focus on it, the more of a reality it will become.

I don't see any other particular method of setting a round time and approaching it other than just pickign one and getting on with it frankly, there's just too many variables to tweak in one go.

[GuyonBroadway]

Casual reminder that 60 min rounds won't happen on the regular unless you physically set the shuttle refeul timer to be 60 mins. There will always be those people who fastcall because they bored/didn't roll antag/the clown honked them.

Need I go dig up the comic again or will a simple "Shits fukt. Do?

I'm aware that it won't happen regularly, I'm also okay with this, the target of 60 minutes is somewhat arbitrary, but the more people focus on it, the more of a reality it will become.

I don't see any other particular method of setting a round time and approaching it other than just pickign one and getting on with it frankly, there's just too many variables to tweak in one go.

Try hard limiting the reful timer to 60 mins (with shuttle call enabled if casualties are more than %50) and leave it for a few weeks. Document the reasons why rounds end up boring or unfun and then take steps to address those issues.

[oranges]

That seems like a worse option that will just make people more annoyed than incremental change.

[GuyonBroadway]

That seems like a worse option that will just make people more annoyed than incremental change.

Emphasis on "a few weeks" the point is to gather feedback, once the reasons most people call it in at around the 45 min mark are identified, resolve them.

The irony is that the answer would be to give people a reason to play for an hour and a half, not lockdown much of the game behind a timegate. Giving people stuff to do with the toys of thier departments will be more effective than hiding said toys behind a timer.

Of course the issue is more neuanced than that, with factors like high mortality rates coupled with the ever increasing difficulty in revival make it so dying early on to a muderboner incredibly frustrating as now you don't get to play for 90 mins. Or some antags being given over to ending the round inside of 12 mins (lookin' at you blitz ops) Or if all the antags die then there isn't much spice to the round or a myriad of other issues that we could theory craft all week. What we need is information to highlight these neuances and tweak them.

Once we have this info we can then turn the shuttle call timer down or outright off because people will want to stick around.

[bobbahbrown]

update me vekter and Floyd have joined up to be a super rnd team

experisci coming at u fast

best,
bobbahbrown