Disable assistant maintenance access

[skoglol]

The majority of the crew jobs do not have general maintenance access, only around their own department. The exceptions are engineering, security, cargo and the captain. Given maintenance isn't supposed to be open to the general public, assistants having free reign in there is out of place. As it currently stands, it is prefereable to antag as an assistant than some non-maintenance access job, and that devalues having an actual job.

I propose a test period where assistant maint access is disabled and see how it works out. This is a config option, so falls to headmins to decide.

Edit:
Headmin election thread on the topic:
viewtopic.php?f=52&t=27356

Some thoughts relating to the above thread and early discussion.
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=27061&p=573292#p573292

[NecromancerAnne]

This kind of change should probably be a commitment and not one easily assessed by a test. What likely will happen is a period of extremely intense door hacking or wall demolishment, to which will be claimed 'this did nothing but make things worse'.

Or, translated, this is making too apparent how easy it is to gain access to most of the station with the most basic of tools. Even most maint tunnels are a walls away, and girders can be destroyed fairly easily. Which means you pretty much only need a welder to open up passages.

A change like this needs to come with a measure of gritting our teeth and bearing it. If the aim is to push people out of assistant, we might find more success in expanding on oranges idea of the 'intern' for new players and removing assistant entirely.

[firecage]

Wasn't this exact thing not only proposed, but actually implemented, a few years back(or more than a few)? I can't really recall it affecting much before it was reverted.

On the other hand, the playerbase has changed since that time with most of those who played back then no longer playing, and I guess both rule-wise and code-wise there has been more of a push towards MRP than the previous PVP standard, so I guess it couldn't hurt to try again.

[MrStonedOne]

This has been done before. I support the test, but for other reasons.

See, I believe two things:

1. Assistants have gotten unrobust lately
2. Firedoors really gimp traitors wanting to plasma flood

What happened last time was every assistant became very good at hacking, mainly just permanently disabling door power. Wires codes were being shouted across radio from round start, and by half way in the round every maint door had its power wires snipped and was crowbarred open. One of those rounds I was a traitor atmos, it was glorious. maint doors created a path for plasma and fire to go around the firedoors, and nobody could stop the flames.

So yes. Lets do it! for traitor atmos techs everywhere.

[Boris]

Wires codes were being shouted across radio from round start.

This still happens quite often I'm pretty sure.

[skoglol]

Someone did bring up how other servers without assistant maint access often sees perma open maint doors, so sure we might see that. More stuff for assistants to do, more stuff for bored engineers to fix. Win win.

[wesoda25]

Semi related but I think it would be better if assistants could only access the main passageways through maintenance, and not the side rooms (which members of the local department would be able to access). There'd be less places for them to access in maint, which I guess would be a gentler way of limiting their access, as well as cementing low and high traffic areas in maintenance, giving department members access to places less likely to have an assistant pop their head into looking for valids.

I had this idea a while ago and messed with meta to help showcase it, it's a bit dated now but the idea remains the same.

Spoiler:

If this is still access to too many areas, certain parts could be cut, for example sec maint.

[RaveRadbury]

Semi related but I think it would be better if assistants could only access the main passageways through maintenance, and not the side rooms (which members of the local department would be able to access). There'd be less places for them to access in maint, which I guess would be a gentler way of limiting their access, as well as cementing low and high traffic areas in maintenance, giving department members access to places less likely to have an assistant pop their head into looking for valids.

I had this idea a while ago and messed with meta to help showcase it, it's a bit dated now but the idea remains the same.

Spoiler:

If this is still access to too many areas, certain parts could be cut, for example sec maint.

Many of those spaces function as secondary workspaces, I thought we had them in maint so assistants can do the jobs there, without having to worry about doing them well?

[wesoda25]

I mean if we completely bar assistants from maint they won't be able to access them anyways, will they?

[Agux909]

Bar them from maint then replace all the airlocks in the map with medium security (except for any access airlocks), and current medium security ones with high security. You can still hack but it will take longer, (making it less attractive, unless you REALLY need/want to get in there) it will be more apparent and less of a braindead 3 click operation.


If it depended on me (thank god it doesn't) I would also make it so each department had their own randomized wires. That would make it irrelevant for people to scream the wire colors in comms, and also more of a pain overall to hack (hacking shouldnt be easy)

[skoglol]

I dont mean this to make maints unavailable to assistants, just make them have to expend some effort getting there which is in line with the rest of the crew. Hacking isnt necessarily a problem we need to solve.

[Agux909]

Fair, but if as it was said, this was tried in the past and resulted in a tendency of the playerbase learning to hack better and faster, then resulting in other problems... well, makes you think.

[Eskjjlj]

This man is obsessed with nerfing assistants, first he came for our roundstart insuls, toolboxes and rcds... now he's coming after our maint access!!

[NecromancerAnne]

This has been done before. I support the test, but for other reasons.

See, I believe two things:

1. Assistants have gotten unrobust lately
2. Firedoors really gimp traitors wanting to plasma flood

What happened last time was every assistant became very good at hacking, mainly just permanently disabling door power. Wires codes were being shouted across radio from round start, and by half way in the round every maint door had its power wires snipped and was crowbarred open. One of those rounds I was a traitor atmos, it was glorious. maint doors created a path for plasma and fire to go around the firedoors, and nobody could stop the flames.

So yes. Lets do it! for traitor atmos techs everywhere.

Don't mean to burst your bubble, weedman, but hacking isn't a mystical art. There are tricks to accomplishing it safely, and they are well distributed, and once the knowledge of door wires are found in a round there is no stopping assistants getting anywhere.

Also, atmos is hardly what impacts door hacking viability but a change like this sure does trap every assistant in the round in the halls when the fires happen. How terrible.

[Armhulen]

I really don't like global wires and I know people will seethe at me for it but hacking is too easy and too risk free when you know the wires without experimenting yourself

[NecromancerAnne]

Try and change it and see how the tide seethes

Personally I wouldn't mind non-global wires. Department specific wires would be fine by me, simply to slow people the fuck up.

(And reinforcement to high security doors but again, this is a terrible sacrilege to the point it's bannable if you do it to security round start, according to some)

[tinodrima7020]

No! Please bro! Don't make me have to spend 5 extra seconds to get into and out of maint. Noooooo! You are literally worse than Hitler!! Aaaaa my precious seconds!!! AaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

[Agux909]

Also, atmos is hardly what impacts door hacking viability but a change like this sure does trap every assistant in the round in the halls when the fires happen. How terrible.

Maybe what could be coded in is for emergency access to be triggered in maint airlocks adjacent to the fire emergency?

[Mickyan]

I'm not particularly against this but generally I dislike encouraging people to acquire equipment that's already very desirable (haking tools aka all access)

But assistants or no assistants, I think the issue is that maint access is invaluable since it opens up the map in such a major way and gives whoever has it a huge advantage over who does not. I'd like for maint doors to have safety_mode turned on by default so that traversing maintenance is tedious and slow, but possible even without proper access

[Tlaltecuhtli]

This has been done before. I support the test, but for other reasons.

See, I believe two things:

1. Assistants have gotten unrobust lately
2. Firedoors really gimp traitors wanting to plasma flood

What happened last time was every assistant became very good at hacking, mainly just permanently disabling door power. Wires codes were being shouted across radio from round start, and by half way in the round every maint door had its power wires snipped and was crowbarred open. One of those rounds I was a traitor atmos, it was glorious. maint doors created a path for plasma and fire to go around the firedoors, and nobody could stop the flames.

So yes. Lets do it! for traitor atmos techs everywhere.

you are supposed to put plasma in distro not opening a can of plasma and then hack doors around it to spread

[MrStonedOne]

you are supposed to put plasma in distro not opening a can of plasma and then hack doors around it to spread

Excuse you madman, but you forget yourself!

Putting plasma in distro does not spread it around the station as vents only release pressure to handle a drop in pressure from norm, and only just enough to bring that particular tile up to target pressure (ie: not much).

You have to work with the air alarms to solve this, but doing that only spreads it so much given the hallway doors and such. This would be part of the intention of having such doors on a space station, to keep air leaks or contamination from spreading too easily.

unless every maint door was bolted or depowered open.

Now spread can hit both sec hallway and the public sec lobby, all from 1 hacked air alarm in the central hallway.

Also you forgot about fire. The best plasma flood is a cold plasma o2 mix, this crams the gas molecules together so more plasma and o2 are released in the same tick for any given vent. So, once you plasma the station, how do you light it all on fire? firedoors and closed airlocks will prevent this to a fair degree, that is after all what they do.

Unless every maint door is stuck open.....

Seeing a trend here?

[oranges]

This is the most active I've seen you in 4 years

[wesoda25]

I really don't like global wires and I know people will seethe at me for it but hacking is too easy and too risk free when you know the wires without experimenting yourself

Do it

[PKPenguin321]

If you do this then also give all assistants guns, I have no good reason for it but I think it would be funny

[teepeepee]

Bar them from maint then replace all the airlocks in the map with medium security (except for any access airlocks), and current medium security ones with high security. You can still hack but it will take longer, (making it less attractive, unless you REALLY need/want to get in there) it will be more apparent and less of a braindead 3 click operation.


If it depended on me (thank god it doesn't) I would also make it so each department had their own randomized wires. That would make it irrelevant for people to scream the wire colors in comms, and also more of a pain overall to hack (hacking shouldnt be easy)

two step alternative: weld the wall next to the airlock and wrench the girder out of the way
reinforce that airlock all you want, engie wagie

[nianjiilical]

what if every type of door had their own wires but some were easier than others

make maintenance easy to break into but give captains quarters like 5 shock wires

[Sheodir]

I'm not particularly against this but generally I dislike encouraging people to acquire equipment that's already very desirable (haking tools aka all access)

But assistants or no assistants, I think the issue is that maint access is invaluable since it opens up the map in such a major way and gives whoever has it a huge advantage over who does not. I'd like for maint doors to have safety_mode turned on by default so that traversing maintenance is tedious and slow, but possible even without proper access

This wouldn't be an issue if every Sec was a chad like me and aprehended any and all hacking and powergaming gear from people that shouldn't have em

I approve of this suggestion, make the greyshits work harder for their... lack of pay
also randomized sector wires pls, hacking is the most braindead process

[firecage]

I mean, from an ingame and realistic point of view. Unless it is high security airlocks(armory, vault, captain's office...but even then). Well...randomized wires in airlocks would make absolutely no sense. Doesn't matter whether each departments doors has different wires to hack in the best case, or every doors wire is randomized in the worst case. I can imagine the person implementing such a design being fired, and then fired out of an airlock for, frankly, being an idiot.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I mean, from an ingame and realistic point of view. Unless it is high security airlocks(armory, vault, captain's office...but even then). Well...randomized wires in airlocks would make absolutely no sense. Doesn't matter whether each departments doors has different wires to hack in the best case, or every doors wire is randomized in the worst case. I can imagine the person implementing such a design being fired, and then fired out of an airlock for, frankly, being an idiot.

If you're going by realism the idea of automated futuristic security doors with built in lockdown bolts having a handy little panel on the outside you can unscrew to snip two wires with pocket snips and open the doors makes even less sense

[TheMidnghtRose]

I would like to point out. We actually have a button for this.

[Agux909]

Resuming, I think the most appropiate way IF one wants to apply this change is:

1 Forbid assistant all maint access. Add a trigger for emergency access that goes off alongside automatic firelocks (not manual) for airlocks adjacent to the fire emergency.
2 Replace all non-public airlocks with medium security ones, replace all medium security to high security ones.
3 Non-global wires. Different wires for each department. Makes no sense for an assistant to hack the public bathroom airlock and immediately gain the knowledge to hack the armory airlock, for example.

[Stickymayhem]

you are supposed to put plasma in distro not opening a can of plasma and then hack doors around it to spread

Excuse you madman, but you forget yourself!

Putting plasma in distro does not spread it around the station as vents only release pressure to handle a drop in pressure from norm, and only just enough to bring that particular tile up to target pressure (ie: not much).

You have to work with the air alarms to solve this, but doing that only spreads it so much given the hallway doors and such. This would be part of the intention of having such doors on a space station, to keep air leaks or contamination from spreading too easily.

unless every maint door was bolted or depowered open.

Now spread can hit both sec hallway and the public sec lobby, all from 1 hacked air alarm in the central hallway.

Also you forgot about fire. The best plasma flood is a cold plasma o2 mix, this crams the gas molecules together so more plasma and o2 are released in the same tick for any given vent. So, once you plasma the station, how do you light it all on fire? firedoors and closed airlocks will prevent this to a fair degree, that is after all what they do.

Unless every maint door is stuck open.....

Seeing a trend here?

bruh im pretty sure you can emag fire alarms to stop them triggering properly.

maybe it got taken out but I used to run around doing that before my plasmafloods

[Gamarr]

Assistants don't need maint because assistants don't actually do anything that requires it.
This used to be a toggle way back when and probably still is, and was even used briefly. I often pushed for it but guess what?
Nobody wants to fight for it or listen to the reeing that resulted from the shithead greybacks that lose it, so it was turned off.
Why? Because the greybacks cause more problems without it.

So they just fucking gave it back because no effort is put into stopping/dealing with the assistants, whether in-game or through code, because the griefing little twats are such an ingrained part of tg that nothing is done about it.

I have one solution: they lose assmaint but also spawn in maintenance. Both parties win.

[CPTANT]

you are supposed to put plasma in distro not opening a can of plasma and then hack doors around it to spread

Excuse you madman, but you forget yourself!

Putting plasma in distro does not spread it around the station as vents only release pressure to handle a drop in pressure from norm, and only just enough to bring that particular tile up to target pressure (ie: not much).

You have to work with the air alarms to solve this, but doing that only spreads it so much given the hallway doors and such. This would be part of the intention of having such doors on a space station, to keep air leaks or contamination from spreading too easily.

unless every maint door was bolted or depowered open.

Now spread can hit both sec hallway and the public sec lobby, all from 1 hacked air alarm in the central hallway.

Also you forgot about fire. The best plasma flood is a cold plasma o2 mix, this crams the gas molecules together so more plasma and o2 are released in the same tick for any given vent. So, once you plasma the station, how do you light it all on fire? firedoors and closed airlocks will prevent this to a fair degree, that is after all what they do.

Unless every maint door is stuck open.....

Seeing a trend here?

It's funny that you still don't know the trick to truly apocalyptic plasma fires.

[saprasam]

i remain as one of the few assistants who are decently robust but i like my maint access
this changes nothing to me

[cacogen]

How many times has this been tried? It doesn't work. Treating certain roles like enemies to be gimped or purged is both childish and amateurish and shows a lack of understanding of the game, its culture and its players. Working against the players to force your dictatorial views on the game is not a good way to design.

Give everyone maintenance but disincentivise going in there through other means (e.g. PvE danger) if it's such an issue.

I really don't like global wires and I know people will seethe at me for it but hacking is too easy and too risk free when you know the wires without experimenting yourself

If every airlock had different wiring hacking would be agony. Maybe it could work if only maintenance doors had unique wiring per door and if the rest of the airlocks had unique wiring on a department basis (with different wires for heads of staff offices and other high security areas). To mitigate the difficulty keeping track of them mentally (writing them down is shit) the UI could rename the wires when you discover them. This would help engineers fixing door wires as well.

[NecromancerAnne]

Having experienced different wires for different doors, I can tell you that the result was that hacking has to be learned per set of doors and that slowed things massively. You couldn't reasonably hack into more public areas of the station, since sec was given a pretty generous leeway on that due to your slower hacking speed.

If you wanna make it easier to spot tiders, it's not a bad move but it will slow up antags hard as well. Not necessarily a bad thing.

[saprasam]

How many times has this been tried? It doesn't work. Treating certain roles like enemies to be gimped or purged is both childish and amateurish and shows a lack of understanding of the game, its culture and its players. Working against the players to force your dictatorial views on the game is not a good way to design.

Give everyone maintenance but disincentivise going in there through other means (e.g. PvE danger) if it's such an issue.

I really don't like global wires and I know people will seethe at me for it but hacking is too easy and too risk free when you know the wires without experimenting yourself

If every airlock had different wiring hacking would be agony. Maybe it could work if only maintenance doors had unique wiring per door and if the rest of the airlocks had unique wiring on a department basis (with different wires for heads of staff offices and other high security areas). To mitigate the difficulty keeping track of them mentally (writing them down is shit) the UI could rename the wires when you discover them. This would help engineers fixing door wires as well.

say that to the coders

[cacogen]

I mean that whether you're an admin, coder or just suggesting ideas on the forum.

[Malkraz]

The solution is adding a ghost role ratpeople that can valid anyone in maint

[Flatulent]

Someone did bring up how other servers without assistant maint access often sees perma open maint doors, so sure we might see that. More stuff for assistants to do, more stuff for bored engineers to fix. Win win.

yes because its SO FUN to fix doors as engineer.
i guarantee you that on majority of rounds, the engineers will just give up trying to fix doors because every single door will be fucking broken. remember old emags? doors broken by emag will just say broken forever, same with disable power + bolt.

you are supposed to put plasma in distro not opening a can of plasma and then hack doors around it to spread

Excuse you madman, but you forget yourself!

Putting plasma in distro does not spread it around the station as vents only release pressure to handle a drop in pressure from norm, and only just enough to bring that particular tile up to target pressure (ie: not much).

You have to work with the air alarms to solve this, but doing that only spreads it so much given the hallway doors and such. This would be part of the intention of having such doors on a space station, to keep air leaks or contamination from spreading too easily.

unless every maint door was bolted or depowered open.

Now spread can hit both sec hallway and the public sec lobby, all from 1 hacked air alarm in the central hallway.

Also you forgot about fire. The best plasma flood is a cold plasma o2 mix, this crams the gas molecules together so more plasma and o2 are released in the same tick for any given vent. So, once you plasma the station, how do you light it all on fire? firedoors and closed airlocks will prevent this to a fair degree, that is after all what they do.

Unless every maint door is stuck open.....

Seeing a trend here?

whats passive vents

[Flatulent]

if we are doing this also remove atmos maint access, they don't need it to fix air around the station. if they need access to incinerator let them hack into it or make an entrance with the tools they get for free from engineering lobby.

[Istoprocent1]

Give maintenance access to everybody and turn maintenance into PvP zone like Wilderness in Runescape.

Assistants don't need maintenance access. Breaking and entry is a 2 minute sentence, which allows sec to search those assistants who are caught in the maintenance.

[saprasam]

Give maintenance access to everybody and turn maintenance into PvP zone like Wilderness in Runescape.

Assistants don't need maintenance access. Breaking and entry is a 2 minute sentence, which allows sec to search those assistants who are caught in the maintenance.

you chose this take just because you like arresting assistants

[NecromancerAnne]

Undermaint when. I wanna fight a Maint Ropers.

[Sheodir]

TUNNEL SNAKES RULE

[oranges]

Working against the players to force your dictatorial views on the game is not a good way to design.

hard to agree considering this is how it's always been done

[ATHATH]

Why are we specifically targeting assistants for nerfs and anti-QoL "improvements", again? Like, I know the meme is haha assistant robust despite starting with nothing, but isn't the CLOWN the one who's supposed to be specifically bullied by game mechanics all of the time (see: clumsy trait, shoes with slowdown)? Seriously, what is everyone's problem with assistants?

IMO, this change would make antag maint bases slightly harder/a bit more annoying to make (you'd have to gank an engineer or the HoP or something to grab proper maint access (or just buy an agent ID)), and also make maint feel a lot less... lively. Also, if assistants aren't the ones who're supposed to be prowling maint (grabbing maint loot, spotting antags and antag bases for sec, etc.)... who IS?

Anyway, here's Wonderwall a shitty meme I made about this in 5 minutes (be warned, it's cringe): https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

[Flatulent]

Why are we specifically targeting assistants for nerfs and anti-QoL "improvements", again? Seriously, what is everyone's problem with assistants?

they aren’t wagies on the wagie cagie station

[remanseptim]

Assistants don't need maintenance access. Breaking and entry is a 2 minute sentence, which allows sec to search those assistants who are caught in the maintenance.

if you arrest for B&E into an area without that area's workers asking you to do so, you are shitsec and an arrestbot.