Familiarity System

[Cheridan]

As you're probably aware, the current system of speech suggests that every person on the station is capable of identifying each other by their voice. Even if someone has their face covered, as soon as they speak they're completely given away.

This makes sense for smaller, close knit stations where it's assumed that everyone has met up with each other in some sort of pre-round orientation meeting. But in a 60+ person scenario, it begins to make less sense. I certainly don't know the voices, much less the names, of everyone I've worked or gone to school with.

The familiarity system would be a simulation of this. As people speak, you gain familiarity with their voice.

• If you are unfamiliar with someone and they're not wearing an ID, they'll show up as Unknown.
  If you are unfamiliar with someone and they are wearing an ID and mask, their voice will show up as their ID.
  If you are unfamiliar with someone and they are wearing an ID without a mask, their voice will show up as "Unknown (As ID Name)". (It's assumed that IDs are photo ids, so you'd be able to tell that bald dude with a mohawk isn't Zoey Webb).
  If you are familiar with someone wearing a different ID, they'll show up like they currently do, "RealName (As ID Name)"

Radios kind of mess all this up I guess, something would have to be done so that chat isn't just 100 Unknown people. Handwave it as radios having facecams? :^)

Basically, you'll be familiar with people who you've heard often. This will likely include your coworkers and people you've chatted with. This will also include people who you've heard over the radio often, even if you haven't spoken to them personally. Therefore, trying to pose as a clown who has been very vocal over the radio advertising his clown mart would be difficult. Posing as an antisocial maintenance-lurker assistant? Well, that's simple.

Now, the current speech system doesn't handle people disguising their voices. Even if you know someone pretty well, they can still disguise their voice to make themselves sound differently. There would be a Disguise Voice/Speak Normally toggle, which would make your speech count as unfamiliar even to people who are familiar to you. However, ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴇxᴛ ᴡɪʟʟ sʜᴏᴡ ᴜᴘ ɪɴ sᴍᴀʟʟᴄᴀᴘs, ɪɴᴅɪᴄᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ sᴘᴇᴀᴋɪɴɢ ɪɴ "Tʜᴇ Bᴀᴛᴍᴀɴ Vᴏɪᴄᴇ".

Overall, the system would add depth to disguising allowing better random muggings and other Antag -> Victim communication, and would give an incentive to small talk with your fellow crewmembers hopefully leading to more total interaction and roleplay.

[Ezel]

gonna kill you with a batton

I like this idea alot since this pushes more sense into the game
Hearing a voice get know it
Gas masked guy voice dont know it
Genuis!

[Steelpoint]

Its an interesting system I'll grant it that.

It could work, of course its going to be confusing for a while.

The system would need to be set up so anyone in a relevant department is a 'known' individual. So someone in Science would know anyone who works in Science. Also any heads of staff would need to know everyone else. The Captain will be an interesting case to look at, as well as the geneticist knowing everyone in two departments.

You know what would be neat, if your recording someone (Say a Security investigation) that if you get the people talking to state their name, then when the recording is played back it will state their names.

[Miauw]

muh codebabby

[Scott]

This makes sense for smaller, close knit stations where it's assumed that everyone has met up with each other in some sort of pre-round orientation meeting. But in a 60+ person scenario, it begins to make less sense. I certainly don't know the voices, much less the names, of everyone I've worked or gone to school with.

Dude what the fuck, it's a video game. And 60 people isn't that much to remember, not to mention every time someone new joins their names are announced, just imagine in your autistic mind that the PDA displays their name and their face for a short while.

[cedarbridge]

This makes sense for smaller, close knit stations where it's assumed that everyone has met up with each other in some sort of pre-round orientation meeting. But in a 60+ person scenario, it begins to make less sense. I certainly don't know the voices, much less the names, of everyone I've worked or gone to school with.

Dude what the fuck, it's a video game. And 60 people isn't that much to remember, not to mention every time someone new joins their names are announced, just imagine in your autistic mind that the PDA displays their name and their face for a short while.

He's right though. Not everyone makes a mental list of every person they've ever been in a building with. I don't know half of my graduating class. That's not autism. Its the opposite.

[Steelpoint]

What cedar said, just because you've been with a group of people for a long time does not mean you will know all of their names.

I would imagine only the Captain and maybe the Head of Personal would know everyone by default. Considering their positions.

I think a system like this could work, but it would depend on how it is implemented as well as the scope of its game play impact.

[Scott]

You don't need to make a mental list, remembering faces and names is easy for people.

This system makes no sense in a round based game with rounds that last an hour, two some times, three and four rarely.

[Miauw]

It's not about realisms.

[Reimoo]

How about just everyone in your department starts off as familiar?

[cedarbridge]

How about just everyone in your department starts off as familiar?

I think that's what was suggested thusfar. The only real confusion was on points like the captain and maybe Head of Personnel. Both would have some reason to know each crew member.

[Scott]

It's not about realisms.

Except it is.

[oranges]

What exactly is the gameplay benefit that we are aiming for here?

I can see this giving traitors a chance to slip in and out and not get identified which is a positive.

I'm concerned it will give the greytide an edge though.

[cedarbridge]

What exactly is the gameplay benefit that we are aiming for here?

I can see this giving traitors a chance to slip in and out and not get identified which is a positive.

I'm concerned it will give the greytide an edge though.

Just about anything that benefits a stealthy traitor will benefit a greytiding shitler too. Punish the shitlers for being shit and let the antags be antags.

[Arete]

The system would need to be set up so anyone in a relevant department is a 'known' individual. So someone in Science would know anyone who works in Science. Also any heads of staff would need to know everyone else. The Captain will be an interesting case to look at, as well as the geneticist knowing everyone in two departments.

I'd make it so that everyone in a department knows everyone else in a department, and everyone knows every head of staff. Traitors should also know the faces and voices of any kill targets. Maybe everyone should also know a few other random people at the start of the round. Beyond that, it's up to meeting an interaction threshold to learn everyone's faces and voices. I like that this could give a motivation to non-traitors to make smalltalk and such, which gives traitors more cover for talking about traitor things together or trying to manipulate non-traitors. As things stand, if some guy from another department keeps making small talk and following me around, I can be pretty sure that he's trying to kill me.

This effect would be strongest if only face-to-face interaction led to familiarity. I think radios shouldn't work toward familiarity, and instead the scripting to identify what job role is attached to the ID of the one talking should be activated by default. That should keep radio chatter from being too impenetrable.

Anyone saying that this is just a realism change for the sake of realism is just being obtuse. It would have significant effects on the way the game is played, and it should be evaluated on whether those effects would be positive or not.

[oranges]

We could handwave radio stuff by assuming each users headset is tied to their name in the AI database - So the name is always known

would seem a bit weird when you switch headsets but lets assume they are biometrically activated.

Also the AI should probably know everyone by default.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Um

Why?

[Arete]

Um

Why?

Overall, the system would add depth to disguising allowing better random muggings and other Antag -> Victim communication, and would give an incentive to small talk with your fellow crewmembers hopefully leading to more total interaction and roleplay.

You're welcome.

[MisterPerson]

This seems like it would be very complicated to do. Also it would either require removing the status bar or having everyone named "Unknown" there. The webclient has some extra flexibility there so it's not a dealbreaker.

Well obviously if somebody says their name, you should begin identifying them right away. It would be odd if somebody said "I'm Dante Smith, how can I help you?" and they still showed up as unknown. Which, yayifications, means you have to start looping through all speech. Radios can just simply be "Unknown" for everyone you don't know. Actually now that I think about it, that would be a neat thing where everyone would really have to say their name to each other, which might alone help roleplay a lot. And someone who wants to stay anonymous just shows up as unknown constantly. I'm liking this idea the more I hear about it.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Um

Why?

Overall, the system would add depth to disguising allowing better random muggings and other Antag -> Victim communication, and would give an incentive to small talk with your fellow crewmembers hopefully leading to more total interaction and roleplay.

You're welcome.

Overall, the system would add pain in the ass for absolutely everybody, extra pain in the ass for security, command and anyone who likes socializing, extreme benefits for greytiding and antagonists and on top of that it will absolutely destroy any little interactions we have currently.

So, I ask again. Why?

Not to mention that it has nothing to do with realism as it is just a way to let people distinguish those tiny sprites that would be actual faces in reality. Hence plastic surgery changes that name of yours. Because your appearance changes.

To sum up, please no, absolutely horrible idea in my opinion.

[Reimoo]

What if people could add tags to unknown people?

For example, if someone tells you his name is "John Smith" you could tagging as such and his name would show up as that in the chat. It doesn't have to be a name, either. It could just be "that guy with a funny hat".

This would hopefully remove some of the unknowns that would fill the chat and also lends itself to being able to lie about your identity and temporarily get away with it.

[Scott]

What if we don't do this at all because this isn't Bay?

[firecage]

Uhh...60 people is complex and large for you?

[Miauw]

What if we don't do this at all because this isn't Bay?

try giving actual arguments.

I mostly agree with MrPerson, this would be pretty hellish to implement. Theoretically speech can be handled and constructed by every hearer seperately, but it is usually constructed by the speaker and only constructed by the hearer if it's neccesary. This would basically require it to be constructed for every person seperately (slow), while looping through several lists (sloooow).

[MisterPerson]

The speaker can precheck for interesting things and report those out. Then the listener just checks for special flags rather than having to loop through all speech themselves.

[Scott]

What if we don't do this at all because this isn't Bay?

try giving actual arguments.

I mostly agree with MrPerson, this would be pretty hellish to implement. Theoretically speech can be handled and constructed by every hearer seperately, but it is usually constructed by the speaker and only constructed by the hearer if it's neccesary. This would basically require it to be constructed for every person seperately (slow), while looping through several lists (sloooow).

How is "this isn't bay" not a valid argument? /tg/ isn't heavy on roleplay, this is a thing for more serious roleplay, which we don't have here. It isn't even server policy to have serious roleplay going on, this system has no place here.

[Reimoo]

How is it serious roleplay?

[MedicInDisquise]

This is convulated just to baindaid-fix a problem that should be solved with the traitor item itself.

I say make a new traitor item that you wear as an exosuit, that allows you completely disquise your skin, hair colour, uniform and hat. Cloaking Device that auto disquises you?

[cedarbridge]

How is "this isn't bay" not a valid argument?

If you are asking this question seriously I think its time for you to reconsider your argumentative prowess.

[Konork]

This is convulated just to baindaid-fix a problem that should be solved with the traitor item itself.

I say make a new traitor item that you wear as an exosuit, that allows you completely disquise your skin, hair colour, uniform and hat. Cloaking Device that auto disquises you?

It's not a problem with a specific traitor item, it's a problem with trying to disguise in general.

[MisterPerson]

Can we keep discussion related to the OP's idea and not divulge to "Bay vs /tg/" or other (potentially good!) ideas.

[Incomptinence]

Not sure this will really help antagonists. Doesn't it work both ways? So you could trail the wrong person in a profession or get thrown off for an entire round by them putting on job atypical clothing. So would traitors get pre-existing knowledge of their targets? Wouldn't changelings reset this system by changing genomes making genetic disguises pointless and making them unknowns or worse popping up as a known you have not previously met?
What about the head of personnel? Isn't it their job to work the roster and change records so they should know everyone? Isn't security just as strong if they religiously work the records and just stun all these unknowns set to arrest? If it does not work over the radio how will the AI get to know anybody? If it does not work over the radio what is to stop misinformation becoming rife without consequence?

[callanrockslol]

This is convulated just to baindaid-fix a problem that should be solved with the traitor item itself.

I say make a new traitor item that you wear as an exosuit, that allows you completely disquise your skin, hair colour, uniform and hat. Cloaking Device that auto disquises you?

It's not a problem with a specific traitor item, it's a problem with trying to disguise in general.

Disguising is easy, there is no problem, people are just too lazy to engineer eachother

[Psyentific]

It's a super-advanced future radio. Don't ask too many questions how it works. The last guy who asked questions about how Telecomms knew everyones name got disappeared.