/tg/Station 13

It is my strong opinion that 15 hours is not enough time for a new player to learn an entire department well enough to warrant being in charge of said department.

A longer wait time in my opinion also reduces the incentive for brand new players to specifically Speedrun a head of staff role exclusively for the perks being a head of staff offers (expanded access, better roundstart tools, meta protections, etc)and gives them more time to actually learn a job role.

For most people this won't even effect anything, regardless if the time required is 15 or 30 hours if you actually want to play a head of staff role you'll put in the time for it. If someone is brand new to TG but not to SS13 and have an already strong grasp on gameplay knowledge they can just simply request a playtime exemption.

A quick question: could you please elaborate whether this is a universal, or server segregated policy (anywhere vs Manuel or explained in another such way you see fit)

Thoughts enclosed:

FantasticFwoosh wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 4:49 pm A quick question: could you please elaborate whether this is a universal, or server segregated policy (anywhere vs Manuel or explained in another such way you see fit)

Thoughts enclosed:

► Show Spoiler

Fast access to LRP roles I would stress is important of not being impounded with the higher roleplaying responsibilties of the job and quickly learning the mechanical ropes; if they "speedrun" roles then a low consequencial enviroment will be enough for them to satiate their desire for toys. As a counter-point reasonably imagine a slower introduction would equal more investment and feel much more of a reward in itself, allowing them to naturally enjoy the role in a MRP enviroment versus a frustrating situation where you can't locate heads on LRP or have fun with antag-roles like revolutionary from the get go, many a round has been saved on Sybil by a last minute head coming in to save the day or help fufill the red alert-swipe.

Off Topic

Mainly id hope its segregated config's as a reality check for Manuel players, forcing them to play LRP may be very productive getting a more varied outlook on server dynamics.

I'm interested in applying this to all servers, as I believe LRP could benefit, this is less RP quality control and more gameplay quality control to raise the skill floor expectation for heads of staff. Of course if LRP is not interested in this I can push for this to be MRP only

This is code, not config, btw. Though at the last coderbus meeting, we (maintainers) said we were okay putting it in config.

I'm going to move this to the Ideas board given that.

Isn't this config?

I was thinking of job hours as a whole, oops. Moving back.

Should be higher, ngl. We have job time exemptions for people who know their shit.

Previous thread on the subject: viewtopic.php?p=596668

I don’t have time to write a spiel but: no. The time requirements are fine as they are. Sometimes having incompetent heads makes for chaos and fun. I’d go so far as to say that incompetent leadership quintessential to the Nanotrasen experience.

Plus, I really think you are underestimating how long 15 hours is. You’re telling me thay literally doing nothing but playing one job in SS13 for a full day, sunup to sundown is not enough to qualify you to play a head of staff in that department? This is a video game, not a medical degree. People can learn while they play.

Farquaar wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 5:26 pm Previous thread on the subject: viewtopic.php?p=596668

I don’t have time to write a spiel but: no. The time requirements are fine as they are. Sometimes having incompetent heads makes for chaos and fun. I’d go so far as to say that incompetent leadership quintessential to the Nanotrasen experience.

Plus, I really think you are underestimating how long 15 hours is. You’re telling me thay literally doing nothing but playing one job in SS13 for a full day, sunup to sundown is not enough to qualify you to play a head of staff in that department? This is a video game, not a medical degree. People can learn while they play.

This is exactly what I'm telling you, I don't have enough fingers on my hand where I have personally witnessed a CE not know how to stop a N20 engine delam and a CMO not know how to pour mannitol on a brain to make it work in an MMI. It's not enough time and making the whole department suffer while they learn in a vital position is bullshit

Additionally: If you're using a head of staff role to learn a department, cringe and unbased! Why are you playing a vital game progression role while trying to LEARN the role when you can do the same thing with less stress and expectations?

While I would really, really like more experienced heads and think there’s an issue of inexperienced heads making things bad for the round, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.

This won’t make heads more experienced, it will create less people playing heads of staff. People who want to play head that are experienced will play head the same amount as they normally do, except now you will have vacancies where someone less experienced might have played. I guess the question is if no head is better than an inexperienced head - I’d actually say no for almost all cases. You could make an argument for HoP and HoS since HoP is often cap which needs a lot of hours, and HoS impacts people’s rounds a lot. But overall I don’t think it’s a great idea.

I’m saying this despite being of the opinion you should have around 50-100 hours as sec officer before you go HoS (per server even, since the culture differs so much between them).

Drag wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 5:53 pm Additionally: If you're using a head of staff role to learn a department, cringe and unbased! Why are you playing a vital game progression role while trying to LEARN the role when you can do the same thing with less stress and expectations?

Because most head roles are unique with the LRP and MRP implications? A good captain has to understand the overall morale and concerns (macro game-mode security threats and micro = the clown is satisified because you donated money to the theatre to get the ingredients for cream-pies), to grace LRP with a bit of chitter-chatter and step up to the plate when needed. Its something you can't learn without crash-course experience with real people amongst other head niceties, expectations and routines.

I'm wholly unconvinced that heads of staff are vital game progression roles outside of when there's revs.
The only downside to having an incompetent head of staff versus an incompetent staffie is that they'll have access and tools available to them that otherwise could be in someone else's hands.
I've played exclusively nonhuman for a while now and have never felt like I was inhibited by incompetent heads in any meaningful way whatsoever.

It could be argued that people are failing to teach newbies anything meaningful like the drive to gather more technical proficiency on their own within the time restriction that we already have.
It's been a bit since I've played much so I'm no longer the staffie teaching regularly, but the occasional incompetence adds a lot of fun and in technical jobs failure is to be expected in some capacity.
It's a margin of fun that I'd rather not see completely removed, whether it manifests as an AI screeching at the engineers over the stupidest piping errors or medical shoving their CMO down disposals for stuffing dead people in cryo

Drag wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 5:35 pmThis is exactly what I'm telling you, I don't have enough fingers on my hand where I have personally witnessed a CE not know how to stop a N20 engine delam and a CMO not know how to pour mannitol on a brain to make it work in an MMI. It's not enough time and making the whole department suffer while they learn in a vital position is bullshit

You completely missed my point. I’m saying that sometimes having incompetent heads is part of what makes SS13 fun, and that situations where the underpaid worker bee is leagues more competent than his overpaid boss is completely on-the-level thematically.

sinfulbliss wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 6:02 pm While I would really, really like more experienced heads and think there’s an issue of inexperienced heads making things bad for the round, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.

This won’t make heads more experienced, it will create less people playing heads of staff. People who want to play head that are experienced will play head the same amount as they normally do, except now you will have vacancies where someone less experienced might have played. I guess the question is if no head is better than an inexperienced head - I’d actually say no for almost all cases. You could make an argument for HoP and HoS since HoP is often cap which needs a lot of hours, and HoS impacts people’s rounds a lot. But overall I don’t think it’s a great idea.

I’m saying this despite being of the opinion you should have around 50-100 hours as sec officer before you go HoS (per server even, since the culture differs so much between them).

Except that vacancy means that a more experienced one is capable of showing up later, whereas that CMO who has never stepped foot in Chemistry before and did their entire time as a Paramedic or something, is what you're stuck with.

You completely missed my point. I’m saying that sometimes having incompetent heads is part of what makes SS13 fun, and that situations where the underpaid worker bee is leagues more competent than his overpaid boss is completely on-the-level thematically.

That is a general consensus I'm noticing now, let me ask another question:

On LRP are there certain roles that SHOULD have a higher play time requirement? Are there any that should be lower? Or is 15 hours the sweet spot?

I'm gonna ask the same thing but directed at the MRP nerds

i had to grind out some command hours (i usually play non-human) to finally get the captain experience after having like hundreds of hours in the game. i felt like it was an unnecessary blockade for me.

also 30 hours in a department is NOT enough to be competent. but it's impossible to truly gauge how many hours someone has clocked into a department, as you will usually juggle many kinds of jobs in a single ss13 round. i'm sure there's a lot of assistants that are capable of doing surgery but might not be able to play CMO due to hours.

if you want competent players, make heads require [X] hours total of gameplay, regardless of department. this won't guarantee competent players but i think this will change it from "you have to play this department" to "this is a blockade to stop newer players from taking on responsibility"

iwishforducks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:35 pm Words!

I see this being okay on paper, but in practice I see the time requirement being higher anyways if it was collective instead of by department. This of course ties back into the incompetent head of staff thing. I feel like a lot of compentent head of staff would crop up if wed remove command human authority (I personally think the dynamic with Asimov ais and non human command would be interesting but I digress).

might be fun to have like achievements or something you have to unlock some amount of, and it's just like "perform a heart surgery" or stuff like that

Drag wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:02 pm

iwishforducks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:35 pm Words!

I see this being okay on paper, but in practice I see the time requirement being higher anyways if it was collective instead of by department. This of course ties back into the incompetent head of staff thing. I feel like a lot of compentent head of staff would crop up if wed remove command human authority (I personally think the dynamic with Asimov ais and non human command would be interesting but I digress).

Being nonhuman doesn't even alter the experience in the midst of a skill issue, with the same amount of equal door access station-crew continue to be incompetent when it occurs, so (???).

I don’t see what difference 15 hours makes and playtime doesn’t guarantee competency in the first place. Seems like an arbitrary solution to a problem unstated.

Also it seems like the number of hours needed in a department to play its head should apply to each job in the department rather than every job collectively. So if it were 15 hours, that would mean 15 hours in each job instead of as any job. Assuming it doesn’t already work like that. And that number should be per department.

cacogen wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:13 pm I don’t see what difference 15 hours makes and playtime doesn’t guarantee competency in the first place. Seems like an arbitrary solution to a problem unstated.

Also it seems like the number of hours needed in a department to play its head should apply to each job in the department rather than every job collectively. So if it were 15 hours, that would mean 15 hours in each job instead of as any job. Assuming it doesn’t already work like that. And that number should be per department.

Explain to me how 15 hours of being a Mime, Clown, Psychologist, and Botanist will make me a better HoP

Also 15 hours on Paramedic would be torture, that's the most boring role on the station.

This is a terrible idea.

Woah, calm down.

I didn’t say there couldn’t be an exception for the HoP. Although given they oversee these positions (especially cargo) having experience in them couldn’t hurt.

But explain to me how it’s a terrible idea for the RD, CMO, CE and HoS to need to have experience in the subordinate positions of their departments to take over the head role.

You can’t, because it’s self-evidently not and you’re just being a cunt.

Mothblocks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:19 pm might be fun to have like achievements or something you have to unlock some amount of, and it's just like "perform a heart surgery" or stuff like that

Linked to head roles or not, this seems like it has the potential to be exceptionally rad

cacogen wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 2:35 am Woah, calm down.

I didn’t say there couldn’t be an exception for the HoP. Although given they oversee these positions (especially cargo) having experience in them couldn’t hurt.

But explain to me how it’s a terrible idea for the RD, CMO, CE and HoS to need to have experience in the subordinate positions of their departments to take over the head role.

You can’t, because it’s self-evidently not and you’re just being a cunt.

I dont know why you have this weird idea in your post that I'm some raging cunt who's going insane over your post. I said it's a bad idea, that's it, you're not that important and your post isn't that important to get that kind of emotional response from me, get over yourself.

Anyway, it's a bad idea because hours is a bad metric. People will just pick the roles they don't want to play but have to and go ssd in a closet. That's how most people unlock AI.

The other guy who said it was better to do it based on achievements has it right, if you want to make sure that the CMO can do a coronary bypass, make them have to do one as an MD.

cacogen wrote:But explain to me how it’s a terrible idea for the RD, CMO, CE and HoS to need to have experience in the subordinate positions of their departments to take over the head role.

Because this would be advocating for... 45 hours to play HoS and RD, 120 hours to play HoP (unless some weird exception is made which goes against the entire philosophy behind your idea), 60 hours CMO, and 30 hours CE. Yes, all heads should have experience in the subdepartments and know how to do them all. No, an intensive requirement like this shouldn't be mandated. It's imbalanced and doesn't even make sense given the relative difficulties of the jobs.

By difficulty, I think a fair ranking is Cap --> HoS --> CMO --> CE --> RD --> HoP. Obviously that's assuming you play the role with maximum responsibility and effort and don't just take it and tide around with more access. If you wanted different requirements for each job you should base it on difficulty. That's way too much juju though and the current system is totally fine. I agree with the sentiment behind your idea - I think 50+ hours as seccie is necessary before you should go HoS - but in reality 30 hours is a long time to play any game, much less a tiny subsection of a game, before you're even allowed to take on a role you might be itching to play. Inexperienced head is probably still better than no head (no pun intended).

sinfulbliss wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 8:16 am Because this would be advocating for... 45 hours to play HoS and RD, 120 hours to play HoP (unless some weird exception is made which goes against the entire philosophy behind your idea), 60 hours CMO, and 30 hours CE.

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is choosing an overall time and working out the individual required job times from that. Making an exception for certain jobs, such as those under the HoP, doesn't go against the "philosophy" behind the idea because as that person pointed out you don't need to have experience in all the jobs the HoP supervises to be a good HoP.

Imitates-The-Lizards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:28 amThe other guy who said it was better to do it based on achievements has it right, if you want to make sure that the CMO can do a coronary bypass, make them have to do one as an MD.

Nobody is going to take the time to make a system that can detect whether every single thing a head needs to know to do their job was accomplished start to finish by a specific person. At best you could make a handful of milestones for each head job that represented the most important things to know as that job that could then be used in conjunction with the hours requirement to slightly better ensure the time in subordinate roles was spent learning key things.

Imitates-The-Lizards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:28 am Anyway, it's a bad idea because hours is a bad metric. People will just pick the roles they don't want to play but have to and go ssd in a closet. That's how most people unlock AI.

It shouldn't count time spent AFK to prevent this.

Mothblocks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:19 pm might be fun to have like achievements or something you have to unlock some amount of, and it's just like "perform a heart surgery" or stuff like that

Is it possible to do this via code?

yes

Drag wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:02 pm

iwishforducks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:35 pm Words!

I see this being okay on paper, but in practice I see the time requirement being higher anyways if it was collective instead of by department. This of course ties back into the incompetent head of staff thing. I feel like a lot of compentent head of staff would crop up if wed remove command human authority (I personally think the dynamic with Asimov ais and non human command would be interesting but I digress).

If people who play nonhumans want to play command, they can simply create a human character.
b-b-b-b-but muh static though

Mothblocks wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:21 pmyes

I would be very surprised if you could implement a comprehensive list of achievements for every head of staff role that was able to properly measure that each step in the process to unlocking each achievement was completed by that person and then keep it updated whenever things were changed or removed or new things were added.

You will still run into the same problem bringing it up from 15 to 30, people keep making variants of this thread and no one seems to have anything besides "it sounds about right" when actually asking the question does raising the req prevent or even help curb incompetent heads outside of well now only the people who roll head and game it out get it.

edit: this thread was posted exactly 1 year, 3 hours, and 9 minutes after the last one.

cacogen wrote: ↑Sat Apr 02, 2022 2:56 pm

Mothblocks wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:21 pmyes

I would be very surprised if you could implement a comprehensive list of achievements for every head of staff role that was able to properly measure that each step in the process to unlocking each achievement was completed by that person and then keep it updated whenever things were changed or removed or new things were added.

Cacogen is right. I think we're going to have to just accept hours as our metric forever, because of future changes to systems. Who knows how medical might look like 3 years from now? We cant possibly plan around that.

We don't have interest in this, we want there to be more heads of staff in rounds and not fewer.