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Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:35 pm
by rockpecker
In the interest of encouraging engineers and medical to actually fix shit rather than "oh no call the shuttle", and giving other departments like botany and genetics time to make some progress before getting reset, I propose that every round be one hour of game time. No more, no less. At one hour the crew transfer shuttle arrives.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:38 pm
by Saegrimr
Sounds great until singulo gets loose at roundstart and you have a server full of ghosts and like three dudes huddled in a pod for 45 minutes.
Or revs dunk the heads 10 minutes in.
Or cult manages to get their 10 minute narsie in because they didn't fuck around (never happens anyway).
Or nuke ops show up.
Or toxins gets their bomb on.
Or just about any situation other than changeling snorefest.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:39 pm
by Steelpoint
I think he means that while the Emergency Evac shuttle can be called at any point, but that by the one hour mark a Transfer Shuttle will be sent without a possibility of recall or delay.

To be frank I'm quite receptive to the idea.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:40 pm
by Saegrimr
If the emergency shuttle can be called at any point, what's the point of making engineers/medical fix things? (You know, the point of his post)

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:45 pm
by rockpecker
Steelpoint wrote:I think he means that while the Emergency Evac shuttle can be called at any point, but that by the one hour mark a Transfer Shuttle will be sent without a possibility of recall or delay.
To clarify, I am proposing that we remove the emergency shuttle.
Saegrimr wrote:Sounds great until singulo gets loose at roundstart and you have a server full of ghosts and like three dudes huddled in a pod for 45 minutes.
Don't let that happen, then.
Or revs dunk the heads 10 minutes in.
Don't let that happen, then. (Though then the revs get 50 minutes of actually running the station as a reward for their success.)
Or cult manages to get their 10 minute narsie in because they didn't fuck around (never happens anyway).
Don't let that happen, then. You get the idea.

It's not like we're going to have a truly persistent station that gets increasingly fucked up over time. It's a one-hour reset. If everyone's dead and nothing interesting is ever going to happen, then an admin could still reset the server, of course. But having a big IC reset button encourages pushing it at the first sign of trouble.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:54 pm
by Saegrimr
If "Don't let that happen" was the magical fix-all for these things, they would never happen. Grab your red shoes and go on a journey to meta all the antags till they can't perform so you can plant potatoes for an hour and do it again.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:02 pm
by Incoming
Mulligan Antag was designed to solve the problem your having here in some cases, but I can't code a system that will keep shitty heads from calling the shuttle ASAP without any solid reasoning.

People need to remember you call the emergency shuttle to admit you lost, not to boast you won.

Also yeah the game was not designed for fixed length rounds in the slightest.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:11 pm
by Scones
I don't know why people are constantly pushing for longer rounds. It sounds very game-centric but seriously, once all the antags are dead, the chance of anything interesting happening in lieu of admins drops to almost null. If the Blob is dead, if the Wizard is dead, if the Malf AI is dead. Several players have probably permanently been removed from the round: Go home. Start a new round. You dealt with the threat for the round and now it's time to start over again.

While we're talking about Mulligan, can Incoming PLEASE add a check to see if Hostile Lockdown was used by a Malf AI? That should 100% prevent the round from mulliganning considering it fucks up every door on the station. I always end malf rounds for that exact reason.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:26 pm
by Lovecraft
What if a round lasts longer than an hour and people don't want it to end?
There's the argument that ghosts want to join in the new round, but they should just join Basil.

Re: Fixed-length rounds

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:28 pm
by Incoming
Scones wrote:I don't know why people are constantly pushing for longer rounds. It sounds very game-centric but seriously, once all the antags are dead, the chance of anything interesting happening in lieu of admins drops to almost null. If the Blob is dead, if the Wizard is dead, if the Malf AI is dead. Several players have probably permanently been removed from the round: Go home. Start a new round. You dealt with the threat for the round and now it's time to start over again.

While we're talking about Mulligan, can Incoming PLEASE add a check to see if Hostile Lockdown was used by a Malf AI? That should 100% prevent the round from mulliganning considering it fucks up every door on the station. I always end malf rounds for that exact reason.
Scones the whole reason admins get a prompt to end the round if they feel it should end is BECAUSE of stuff like hostile lockdown. You ARE the check!

Also the whole point of mulligans was to keep those otherwise hypershort rounds from being boring, but the system was bugged to throw extended mulligans (which ARE boring) way too often. That has been fixed for the last few days but it doesn't mean anything if people just auto call the shuttle anyways. Why is everyone always in such a rush to stop playing?

Edit: That said the system isn't finished yet and I hope to at some point soon have more options to allow for better control of mulligans. Stick with me on this one, it's coming.