[MRP] Robotics powergaming and job dereliction

[carshalash]

Honestly this department has just gotten incredibly silly and tiring to deal with as the most glorious and perfect silicon player on all of tgstation, and perhaps ss13 as a whole.

Seeing other AIs and cyborgs need to beg one of the other departments to set up an exolathe or just having to drag a random player into the office to assist them is honestly incredibly pathetic. The department has been over run by people refusing to do anything besides doing augmenting their partner for its MANY benefits with very few weaknesses and people just making combat mechs for flimsy reasons.

[Timberpoes]

You'll probably find the issue that robotics is an incredibly shallow job most of the time.

You'd think that roboticists would be busy as hell but... What do you think their job is?

If nobody wants to be augmented, or if people head to medbay for implants, all that's left is building borgos and mechs. Once per shift you will meet every cyborg, install a complete set of upgrades and that's it. There's no need to ever see that cyborg again.

If posibrains aren't activating, you have nothing to do but build mechs.

We don't force any other job to sit in their department 24/7 doing fuck all, except maybe Warden who gets yelled at if they ever leave the brig.

[Stickymayhem]

I think it's reasonable to say that this is very much a code problem. Robotics is still a bit of a legacy job compared to a lot of other departments that have been revamped and given more depth.

Someone needs to give the department some love otherwise they really don't have enough value to offer besides making big boi robots

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The problem isnt that they're messing around with the cool fun bonuses, the problem is that they refuse to do any of their actual important stuff, like if the engineers refused to set up the SM because they were desigining their brand new floating minisat to build.

[Misdoubtful]

Isn't this something that would be somewhat solved by the hackmd for reworking mechs and hardsuits (the orbital drop pod has already been merged in)? This seems more like a code issue.

https://hackmd.io/@tgstation/HyzY1TDw8

Robotics certainly has a very shallow pool of things do. Some other codebases have more types of robots that can be made; different types of upgrade boards to install, more mech types (say, ones designed specifically for engineering tasks), the older borg components system, robotic crew members to work on — even circuits (nerfed) spawning in their department.

Honestly though, lets look at the four current possible avenues in the job:

Spoiler:

Mechs (only a few can be made for a narrow band of reasons, mostly killing)
Augments (only a few, not even most implants, medical just does this but better. So why go to robotics for them)
Borgs and their upgrades (not many posibrains are active in mrp as less people are dead)
Bots (only for them to be broken, smashed, or something else)

Most of the time they are doing at least two of these, therefore isn't this just more of an IC thing? Its not like they just are not doing anything, the content is just lacking.

[Timberpoes]

The problem isnt that they're messing around with the cool fun bonuses, the problem is that they refuse to do any of their actual important stuff, like if the engineers refused to set up the SM because they were desigining their brand new floating minisat to build.

What is the actual important stuff?

You're making it seem like roboticists are constantly busy doing things in the robotics lab. In the first 15-20 minutes, there's nothing to do. Set a couple of cyborg shells printing and pray you get an early-tech civvie bounty or two.

At some point you get a techweb node that means you call in all cyborgs of a specific module type to upgrade them. Maybe get a new battery once or twice in an entire round per cyborg. Done. Never see them again. Sum total of 1 minute of work per borg across a 90 minute round.

It would be like if the engineers didn't set up the SM because it took 20 minutes for the SM crystal to be delivered and they have nothing to do, then they set up the SM in 2 minutes and have nothing to do again after that, but for some reason they HAD to stick around the SM chamber the entire shift incase someone needed them.

Their job's work is predicated on how many ghosts take posibrains, otherwise they barely have any real work to do.

[carshalash]

The problem isnt that they're messing around with the cool fun bonuses, the problem is that they refuse to do any of their actual important stuff, like if the engineers refused to set up the SM because they were desigining their brand new floating minisat to build.

What is the actual important stuff?

Make shells for the AI, have a posibrain or two on the floor, have fucking back up robot endoskeletons ready in case some shit goes down.

Don't just fucking aug yourself, get a gygax and decide your job is done. People turning robotics into fucking xenobio 2.0 is dumb

[Timberpoes]

You can do that in the first 10 minutes of the round. You can pop back after half an hour to make a couple of posibrains that won't pop and a couple of BORIS modules to put in shells that you'll end up storing in the borg chargers after they never get used for the rest of the shift.

This is MRP. Roboticists have nothing to do for 75% of the shift. If you forced them to stay in the robotics lab 24/7, nobody would play it for risk of being noted or banned for leaving robotics to go do something interesting.

Your responses spark of someone who has never played the average robotics round and experienced how utterly little you're actually required to do your own job across a 1 hour time period, let alone however long an average Manuel round lasts.

It is the medbay of science. A soul crushingly boring job when nobody else is giving you work to do, and some of your jobs can already be done by other people anyway, where you exist at the mercy of the ghost pool wanting to give you 3 minutes of work every so often.

Pretty good when shit's busy, sec wants mechs, people need borging, posibrains are beeping because the AI is malf or has been subverted, the xenobiologist delivers yellow cores to you instead of installing them in borgs themselves and when the ORM is full of juicy materials. Those shifts so rarely happen on Manuel.

[NoxVS]

You can do that in the first 10 minutes of the round. You can pop back after half an hour to make a couple of posibrains that won't pop and a couple of BORIS modules to put in shells that you'll end up storing in the borg chargers after they never get used for the rest of the shift.

This is MRP. Roboticists have nothing to do for 75% of the shift. If you forced them to stay in the robotics lab 24/7, nobody would play it for risk of being noted or banned for leaving robotics to go do something interesting.

Your responses spark of someone who has never played the average robotics round and experienced how utterly little you're actually required to do your own job across a 1 hour time period, let alone however long an average Manuel round lasts.

It is the medbay of science. A soul crushingly boring job when nobody else is giving you work to do, and some of your jobs can already be done by other people anyway, where you exist at the mercy of the ghost pool wanting to give you 3 minutes of work every so often.

Pretty good when shit's busy, sec wants mechs, people need borging, posibrains are beeping because the AI is malf or has been subverted, the xenobiologist delivers yellow cores to you instead of installing them in borgs themselves and when the ORM is full of juicy materials. Those shifts so rarely happen on Manuel.

The issue is when people refuse to do even what can be done in the first 10 minutes. I notice it often. Your entire argument has nothing to do with this policy discussion

[Timberpoes]

To be fair, the OP was complaining about roboticists that only aug and make (combat) mechs then stomping around.the station in their mechs in the opening post.

That is literally two of the three things that a roboticist does.

I do not believe doing 2/3rds of your job to be anything but an IC issue. It sparks of complaining a roboticist isn't doing what you want them to do in the way you want them to do it. That they're somehow not doing their job correctly and that needs a policy decision made so they don't leave their labs and are at your beck and call.

I mean for fuck's sake, do we set policies for engineers that only set up solars and ignore the SM? Do we force them to stay in engineering incase the SM goes critical? Botanists that only make war crimes instead of plants useful to the station? Virologists that don't sit in virology 24/7 incase they're needed to produce a vaccine?

Nearly every other role can get away with only doing half their job or only doing their job to benefit themselves in some way. As long as they engage with the role in even a cursory manner, that's all we ask. Raising the bar for robotics is raising the bar for every job. Doctors never leave medbay. Botanists must make plants for more than themselves. The chef cannot make trash junk food and must make high effort meals. You get the point.

Manuel is not HRP and neither admins or policy should seek to backseat game HOW people do their job, even if they're only doing it selfishly to benefit themselves.

If a roboticist is building mechs and auging people then they are literally doing their job, just not the parts of it you want them to do. Maybe they're malicious actors who are only playing roboticist for the mechs. But they're still doing part of their job. Just the part that benefits them and not the part that benefits you.

[PKPenguin321]

This post was deleted by PKPenguin321 on Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:47 pm.
Reason: Off topic

[cacogen]

Did you try contacting the roboticists

[iamgoofball]

The problem isnt that they're messing around with the cool fun bonuses, the problem is that they refuse to do any of their actual important stuff, like if the engineers refused to set up the SM because they were desigining their brand new floating minisat to build.

What is the actual important stuff?

Make shells for the AI, have a posibrain or two on the floor, have fucking back up robot endoskeletons ready in case some shit goes down.

Don't just fucking aug yourself, get a gygax and decide your job is done. People turning robotics into fucking xenobio 2.0 is dumb

I don't owe you shit. What if I don't like the AI? Why would I make more AI slaves or give the AI a shell?

We have a fully functional medbay you can use to revive people with, and if that isn't available, you can go to Botany, and if that isn't available, Secret Monkey Technique. if I wanna build gigantic stompy mecha robots, that's my job and I can do that.

[Vekter]

Definitely a code issue. There's really not much to do after you have a shell ready for the AI and you're waiting on posibrains to pop/people to come in to be borged. The job needs to incentivize doing things other than making big stompy mechs or that's all they're going to want to do.

I don't owe you shit. What if I don't like the AI? Why would I make more AI slaves or give the AI a shell?

Like the least necessary bit of aggression I've seen in a while. What the fuck?

[iamgoofball]

Definitely a code issue. There's really not much to do after you have a shell ready for the AI and you're waiting on posibrains to pop/people to come in to be borged. The job needs to incentivize doing things other than making big stompy mechs or that's all they're going to want to do.

I don't owe you shit. What if I don't like the AI? Why would I make more AI slaves or give the AI a shell?

Like the least necessary bit of aggression I've seen in a while. What the fuck?

When the OP introduces themselves as

most glorious and perfect silicon player

I'm not inclined to give a damn about whether or not they want roboticists to build stuff for them, and the fact they're in here with a thread to demand admins ban roboticists who don't immediately cave to the AI/cyborg players' wants and demands is fucking stupid.

[saprasam]

robotics is a boring job and needs more things to do

I don't owe you shit. What if I don't like the AI? Why would I make more AI slaves or give the AI a shell?

We have a fully functional medbay you can use to revive people with, and if that isn't available, you can go to Botany, and if that isn't available, Secret Monkey Technique. if I wanna build gigantic stompy mecha robots, that's my job and I can do that.

take your meds schizo

[Agux909]

But seriously, what other things does a roboticist do?

[Vekter]

Definitely a code issue. There's really not much to do after you have a shell ready for the AI and you're waiting on posibrains to pop/people to come in to be borged. The job needs to incentivize doing things other than making big stompy mechs or that's all they're going to want to do.

I don't owe you shit. What if I don't like the AI? Why would I make more AI slaves or give the AI a shell?

Like the least necessary bit of aggression I've seen in a while. What the fuck?

When the OP introduces themselves as

most glorious and perfect silicon player

I'm not inclined to give a damn about whether or not they want roboticists to build stuff for them, and the fact they're in here with a thread to demand admins ban roboticists who don't immediately cave to the AI/cyborg players' wants and demands is fucking stupid.

It's sarcasm, why are you taking anything Carsh says seriously

take your meds schizo

What the fuck is wrong with you

[Coconutwarrior97]

We believe this is best served by a code solution rather than any action taken administratively.

Headmin Votes:
Coconutwarrior97: Yes.
Domitius: Yes.
Naloac: Yes.