Full assistant access.

[chesquatt]

Requiring someone to pick a non-assistant role is a bad idea. Here are the reasons.

A. If you force a player who is new, or who is just awful at roles play as something not assistant, you are going to have the singularity ripping the station apart. You want competant people to pick their roles they can do (not saying that always happens.) You also want people who suck, to pick a role that doesn't result in the station falling apart if it goes poorly.

B. I don't wanna pick engineer or cargo, let alone a more consequential position if I may have to leave, or am not committed to finishing the round for whatever reason.

C. If someone wants to do their own RP, or run say a boxing match, and they can't pick assistant they gotta walk off the job to do it. It corners players.

Let people who wanna pick assistant, pick assistant.

[Lovecraft]

I agree with this entirely. It's not a crime to encourage players to actually pick a job instead of just going assistant, but I think it's ridiculous I have to take the steps to take access off of my ID as soon as I start the game just because of this little gate.
We should work on making jobs more enticing to players instead of barring people from playing the role they want to.

[Saegrimr]

If this server didn't have a history of legitimately awful assistants and a policy of being too "nice" to just straight ban them but instead give them nine more chances at being turbo bad, it wouldn't be this way.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

After the freeze I might look into adding an "Intern" role with a max age of 60 days since signup, which would be unlimited, so that newer players always have a recourse if the only jobs available are ones they don't know how to play.

[Ikarrus]

Assistant is already unrestricted to new players for two weeks.

You guys aren't new players, so that's probably why you didn't know.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

So there is no newbie problem and people are trying to justify the grey tide?

[Ikarrus]

A problem OP never bothered to actually check with newbies, apparently.

[Falamazeer]

Wow, that's very well thought out.

[Scones]

After the freeze I might look into adding an "Intern" role with a max age of 60 days since signup, which would be unlimited, so that newer players always have a recourse if the only jobs available are ones they don't know how to play.

I think interns are fun. Promotes roleplay within teaching game mechanics, and I know that as a newer player it's really easy to just be afraid to try new roles for fear of taking a slot from a good/experienced player or just not even knowing where to start.

[chesquatt]

If this server didn't have a history of legitimately awful assistants and a policy of being too "nice" to just straight ban them but instead give them nine more chances at being turbo bad, it wouldn't be this way.

Lets just take all those shitty assistants
and put them in roles important to the station! Whose idea was that?

Also, the fact new players can always pick assistant is really good and not a feature I would have known about, but A+ job whoever thought to add that.

But seriously Rowdy Randy or Dickshit McGee is a fraction as harmful to the station as an assistant than as a cargo tech, engineer or medic. At best Dickshit ditches his ID somewhere and does what he was going to do anyway, now leaving the station down one engineer. Just jobban greytding assistants. At worst Dickshit steals some sleeping drugs and drugs people in the bar, or is an awful engineer and decides to steal a piece of the engine. I guess those are all easy ways to get jobbanned. Not like that's any different from assistant though.

[Saegrimr]

Its easier to notice a med doctor dicking around and ban him if he makes a habit of it.

Then eventually he finds himself banned from every station important role for being a useless greyfuck until its effectively a server ban as the only thing left is assistant he can't choose.

tl;dr stop being a useless fucking greyshit.

[chesquatt]

Its easier to notice a med doctor dicking around and ban him if he makes a habit of it.

Then eventually he finds himself banned from every station important role for being a useless greyfuck until its effectively a server ban as the only thing left is assistant he can't choose.

tl;dr stop being a useless fucking greyshit.

So then you agree, that if someone is a useless greyshit as an assistant, making them a doctor doesn't fix the problem?

Furthermore, do you really think that someone is going to not just go and make the fart circus game show just because they are forced to be a doctor?

[Saegrimr]

I can't fix shitty people, I can only get rid of them. Them being more visible and likely to be complained about because they're being a twat as a scientist makes it easier to remove them.

There's also the odd chance that them having to choose from a job means they might actually do something productive in the round before going and fucking off to his maint fort.

[chesquatt]

I can't fix shitty people, I can only get rid of them. Them being more visible and likely to be complained about because they're being a twat as a scientist makes it easier to remove them.

There's also the odd chance that them having to choose from a job means they might actually do something productive in the round before going and fucking off to his maint fort.

Fucking off to his maint fort with half the department in his backpack*
An assistant trying to steal all the surgical equipment and a nurse outfit is way more visible than a doctor doing it. Just saying.

[TheNightingale]

At worst, an Assistant forced into, say, Engineering, will 'accidentally' release the singularity, with the claim that 'I don't usually play Engineering so it was an accident honest'.

Just putting that one out there.

[chesquatt]

At worst, an Assistant forced into, say, Engineering, will 'accidentally' release the singularity, with the claim that 'I don't usually play Engineering so it was an accident honest'.

Just putting that one out there.

Basically my point.
Thing is too, I have 0 clue how to set up the singulo so I am either going to try and fail, or I am going to fuck off and do my own thing while the other wrench jockeys do the work. Probably stealing some sheet metal for my personal doomsday bunker/snack stash or something else equally useless.

[Saegrimr]

I'll be sure to keep you on the watch list for singulooses.

[chesquatt]

I'll be sure to keep you on the watch list for singulooses.

Your missing the point of my post completely.

[Balut]

If this server didn't have a history of legitimately awful assistants and a policy of being too "nice" to just straight ban them but instead give them nine more chances at being turbo bad, it wouldn't be this way.

So the solution to shitty Assistants is to not let them be Assistants, but instead spread them out into jobs with real access and make them harder to identify?

Has this actually worked or what. Like sure, maybe pressuring a player into learning [whatever the fuck job] by forcing him into it mmmmmight work, but a griefer that making Assistants limited seems to address isn't going to magically become less of a shit just because he has a job.

And if the solution is 'oh hey, we'll just effectively serverban them by making them jobbanned from literally everything' why the fuck not just, you know, fucking regular-ban them?

[EndgamerAzari]

I think the idea is that, once they have responsibilities and consequences for not doing them, they'll be less likely to fuck off and dick around. I'm honestly on the fence about the whole idea, but I understand the logic behind it.

[Saegrimr]

Your missing the point of my post completely.

Yeah probably.

So the solution to shitty Assistants is to not let them be Assistants, but instead spread them out into jobs with real access and make them harder to identify?

No, the solution would to just be server ban them on the spot, but i'm the only one who thinks that way on the admin team. So you get this stupid hacky bullshit as a middle ground to curb the tide a bit.
On a side note, its not preventing people from being assistants, there is just a hard cap of 10 (I think it was 10) assistants at roundstart and only opens up more if the rest of the jobs are filled up.

Has this actually worked or what. Like sure, maybe pressuring a player into learning [whatever the fuck job] by forcing him into it mmmmmight work,

Among other things happening on the server its hard to pin what has toned down the greytiding, but this might be one of them.

but a griefer that making Assistants limited seems to address isn't going to magically become less of a shit just because he has a job.

He'll likely just get banned anyway no matter what job he's in. This is more focused on the people who have been here for years to do nothing but fuck around and greytide.

And if the solution is 'oh hey, we'll just effectively serverban them by making them jobbanned from literally everything' why the fuck not just, you know, fucking regular-ban them?

That's what I'd rather see.

[chesquatt]

I think the idea is that, once they have responsibilities and consequences for not doing them, they'll be less likely to fuck off and dick around. I'm honestly on the fence about the whole idea, but I understand the logic behind it.

You can really, really easily go to the HOP and ask him to remove your job though. Maybe not change it to assistant. Maybe make a special job for you call assisstant or something clever. I see that logic, but I don't see anyone realistically actually reforming or abiding by it.

[Ikarrus]

It was originally put in as a way to stop half the server getting stuck with half-assistant crews if we implemented server population caps. The original asscap was a bit more relaxed at 5 assistants.

SoS later tightened the asscap to 3 for reasons being mentioned here.

[chesquatt]

It was originally put in as a way to stop half the server becoming assistants if we implemented server caps.

Sorry, explain?

[Ikarrus]

We have population caps now.

If too many players join, no more are permitted to join until someone dies.

[chesquatt]

We have population caps now.

If too many players join, no more are permitted to join until someone dies.

Bummer.
Still not sure why that would drive droves of people to assistant?

[PKPenguin321]

I remember the good ol' days where there were literally around 15 assistants spawning in primary tool storage at once all wearing grey and getting to the toolbelt/multitools/the coin for insuls first was an art
gave the term grey tide real meaning
it was pretty awful

that being said, sometimes we could use more assistant slots, especially on high-pop sybil. nothing extreme, but more would be good

[Saegrimr]

Its not that it drove people towards assistant, its that if The Regulars all took up 30 assistant slots, that left significantly less actual jobs for people who wanted to play those jobs.

Not that forcing the greyshirts into those jobs would give them a better chance at the job, but it would give that job a better chance of actually being done.

[Balut]

You can really, really easily go to the HOP and ask him to remove your job though. Maybe not change it to assistant. Maybe make a special job for you call assisstant or something clever. I see that logic, but I don't see anyone realistically actually reforming or abiding by it.

That's like 7-8 minutes of waiting in line though. I haven't been playing on /tg/station lately, but as I recall rounds here are routinely already shuttling off around the hour mark - and the last couple times I've played (relatively recently, a few weeks or so) were basically back to back rounds over in like ~30 minutes (there were a lot of Nuke Ops and a few Wizards in there, though).