/tg/Station 13

by **Katjezz** » Sat May 10, 2014 6:13 pm #4988

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE ASSISTANT NOW"
"Harris mcHarrison has grabbed Assi Stanes"
"Harris mcHarrison starts stabbing Assi Stanes with the "Sharp item" into the eyes"

So, we all know Assistants are useless and a problem. They have a few Main Problems:

1: Nobody wants them. Nobody.
2: You have nothing to do as assistant, like you cant Help anyone because they instantly attack you. This is of course because of the usual greyshirt behaviour, which is caused by the fact they have nothing to do.
3: You cant enter any departement except Medbay and Bar without getting robusted into crit. Dead serious here.
4: They have no reason to Exist. No Job, no objective, nothing to take care off. When asking a HoP for a job, it can be difficult to actually get one that you like.
5: they Greytide. Some do it because they want to griff, most others do it to end Shitcurity, but all of them do it because they are bored.

Right now, Assistants are the Ultimate Weapon on the Station. They Fear nothing because they have nothing to Lose. They always act extremely brutal and Anoying because nobody wants them anways. If a greytide gets unleashed, its almost impossible to stop them without excessive force, and if you do so, everyone else on the Station joines them, including the AI and Borgs.

So, to help this, Every departement should get 3 Assistant Slots. It works like Security. You join the game and get instantly assigned to a departement. Like, if you set "Station Engineer" in your preferences to High but only Assistant is available, you get assignes as Engineering assistant.

In the said departement should be a room for them where they can hang around, have Assistant items they need for the said departement.
As example Medbay, Medbay-Assists gets sent out to bring back dead bodies after an accident, bombing or so, giving First Aid with simple Bruise Packs and ointments.
Technical-Assistants (Engineering/Cargo/Atmos) as example would have to do very Basic stuff, bringing Cargo deliverys to departements, Replacing Lights, Fixing broken Floortiles and so on.

I think security needs to be exluded from that for Obvious reasons.

Of course they should be forced by rules to act accordingly to the job, like not stealing Insulateds and then still go and greytide. The Assistant clothing should change, like the Technical-Assistant has a Grey suit wich features Yellow stripes.

However, something needs to be done. In the last Months Greytide has gotten worse and worse. When you Join the game as assistant, the First thing most people do is going to robotics to see if they can get Borged. You usualy take Assistant on purpose for this so no departement is missing someone. But if you cant get Borged, your are pretty much lost. Then the disarming, stuff throwing, Sec harrassing and greytiding beginns.

by **Remie Richards** » Sat May 10, 2014 6:21 pm #4989

Katjezz wrote:4: They have no reason to Exist...

They exist because of Jobs having limit caps.
They'e a job purely and simply so you can play on the station and perhaps get a job/be involved in the round.

Nobody would enjoy being forced to Observe because there are no jobs/no jobs they enjoy.

by **Alex Crimson** » Sat May 10, 2014 6:46 pm #4995

I think Assistants are fine as is. The only problem is with the people who play them.

by **Psyentific** » Sat May 10, 2014 6:48 pm #4997

Alex Crimson wrote:I think Assistants are fine as is. The only problem is with the people who play them.

^ ^ ^

If you've got ten assistants, five of them will be average, two of them will be good, two of them will be bad, and one of them will be dead.

by **Kelenius** » Sat May 10, 2014 6:57 pm #5003

It's not just the people who play assistants. When I play a non-antag assistant, (when I don't go for borging at roundstart), I try to actually help people around the station.

Seven times out of ten I get attacked.

Of the most recent ones was when I've got all-access from the captain. Later, HoS had a door broken, I announced over the radio that I'm going to fix it, went there to fix it, they brigged me for 4 minutes and took away my access.

by **Incomptinence** » Sun May 11, 2014 8:12 am #5126

Grey tiding is just a set of shitty behaviours you can perform in any job. I don't mind people behaving badly, in moderation.

by **Stickymayhem** » Sun May 11, 2014 10:30 am #5143

Kelenius wrote:It's not just the people who play assistants. When I play a non-antag assistant, (when I don't go for borging at roundstart), I try to actually help people around the station.

Seven times out of ten I get attacked.

Of the most recent ones was when I've got all-access from the captain. Later, HoS had a door broken, I announced over the radio that I'm going to fix it, went there to fix it, they brigged me for 4 minutes and took away my access.

I'd recommend getting a stamped pass signed by the Captain next time.

Recently I've been attempting to ICly rectify this problem by establishing a greentide, giving the beneficial assistants and opportunity to be part of a new group that is trusted and directly controlled by the Head of Personnel. The first time I tried this a couple of them armed up with spears and start trying to kill security so I shut it down. The second time the round ended super quick and we didn't have time to establish a presence. I'll give it another go. Props to Sigurd Sigurdson for the name.

by **MisterPerson** » Sun May 11, 2014 1:34 pm #5162

The easiest way to bring this to fruition is to remove assistants and uncap the number of engineers, medical doctors, scientists, and cargo technicians allowed (basic workers in each department), which would have a similar effect to what was proposed in the OP.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a longstanding hatred of assistants. If there's no job slots available, I would seriously suggest joining another server over allowed people to play assistant.

by **Skorvold** » Sun May 11, 2014 1:53 pm #5166

Assistant is a golden job that should remain untouched. It's perfect as is.

by **paprika** » Sun May 11, 2014 4:37 pm #5189

If people bother other players as assistant every round and they've played for more than 3 months just ban them from assistant, they're just playing it to grief at that point and are better off with some responsibility to learn how to play the game and contribute to the round instead of eternally bathing in the 'new guy stigma' greyshirt has.

by **bandit** » Sun May 11, 2014 5:57 pm #5216

The nerf to the ID console (only one open/closed slot every 5 minutes, regardless of where you do it) didn't help matters. I understand why it was done (clownspam, closing sec slots en masse), but it makes it that much harder to stop the massive gray tide.

The other elephant in the room here is that Sibyl is overpopulated most of the time. That's why we have 50 assistants every round.

by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Sun May 11, 2014 8:07 pm #5233

Remie Richards wrote:They exist because of Jobs having limit caps.

If that were true, they would be only unlocked if all jobs are taken.

bandit wrote:The nerf to the ID console (only one open/closed slot every 5 minutes, regardless of where you do it) didn't help matters. I understand why it was done (clownspam, closing sec slots en masse), but it makes it that much harder to stop the massive gray tide.

If that were true, there wouldn't be 10 assistants for every security officer 9 times out of 10. Population doesn't really matter, people go assistants because they want to, not because jobs are capped.

Easy solution would be to remove assistant's maintenance access. They don't need it, you all know it, and it will make up for security not having maint access (which should also be the case), meanwhile reducing assistant's appeal. Job with no responsibilities should have no access.

by **Incomptinence** » Mon May 12, 2014 1:50 am #5305

If a joining player sees a ridiculously high job count they will probably join in the spam. ID console could have changed everything but we couldn't let it because pansies. Imagine a 10 officer sec team THE LAW THE LAW THE LAW.

by **bandit** » Mon May 12, 2014 2:56 am #5324

At least a few roundstart assistants each round will usually be due to the bug. (For those who don't know: if you Declare Ready at the last second, you make it into the round but after role assignment apparently, and you'll spawn as assistant.)

by **MrMindless** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:12 am #5379

Removing assistant maintenance access will contribute to "greytides" rather than prevent them. As it stands, every round there's a few tunnel rat assistants who go into maintenance either to explore it (if they're new) or to remodel it into their own little assistant hub. These assistants are one of the least disruptive assistants around.

Furthermore don't forget the fact that new players will likely be playing assistant and need to get to know the game a bit. Maintenance is a fairly large part of the game.

That said uncapping engineers/cargo techs is a bad idea. First off engineer is a job with an incredibly high baseline ability to disrupt the station and engineers already have the tendency to "fuck off" at roundstart. No need to encourage the current "greytide" assistants to be able to do exactly the same thing they're doing now, only with instant access to insulated gloves, hacking tools, a space suit, plasma, telecoms and the engine itself. And let us not forget that after assistants, cargo is the most likely department to riot.

by **Steelpoint** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:30 am #5382

It could be interesting to restrict assistants to only appear once all station jobs have been taken.

BUT I do like to play Assistant when I don't want to have any responsibility and just want to goof around and try and make a public autolath.

by **Kelenius** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:42 am #5384

Steelpoint wrote:It could be interesting to restrict assistants to only appear once all station jobs have been taken.

That would be horrible.

You wanted to be the AI? Fuck you, you're a librarian.

by **Psyentific** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:52 am #5390

Remove "Assistant", give departmental assistants. Grey jumpsuit, but spawns with an appropriately palatte-swapped hazard vest and the most basic of access to their department. Enough to do the job, kinda mostly sorta not-really. Actually no, do not remove vanilla assistant.

Remember - There are two kinds of grey tide. Griffons, who you will never get rid of, and people who are bored and it's fun to sax with sec.

Remember - There are three kinds of assistant.
Newbies, who really need to be told to do something that isn't the most aimless freeform unsupervised hated job on station.
Experienced players who don't main assistant, doing it for a change-up. They don't need to be told what to do, and don't really need any attention. Maint forts and autistic space bases. They don't really need attention.
Experienced players who do main assistant. They also don't need to be told what to do, they chose this. Barflies, validers, greytiders, ERPers, whatevers. The Miku Frosts, the Danny Schmidts, the Dante & Daltas. They don't really need attention.

If I was going to overhaul Assistant? Keep normal assistants, but add Medical Assistants, Engineering Assistants, Security Assistants, Service Assistants, Supply Assistant. Corresponding roles, not really locked in, but off the cuff? Paramedic, Apprentice, Rookie Cop, Waiter, Cargo Tech. Don't give them that job title, that'd lock it in to a 'proper' job - These are still assistants we're talking about, but make it clear that these people chose to assist.
supply is a real department qm is a real head just like cmo

by **Incomptinence** » Mon May 12, 2014 8:23 am #5395

Kelenius wrote:
Steelpoint wrote:It could be interesting to restrict assistants to only appear once all station jobs have been taken.

That would be horrible.

You wanted to be the AI? Fuck you, you're a librarian.

Ugh don't talk about librarian. Most depressing job full stop. The job where the biggest problem was those playing it basically BEGGING TO BE KILLED.

by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Mon May 12, 2014 10:59 am #5413

Psyentific wrote:If I was going to overhaul Assistant? Keep normal assistants, but add Medical Assistants, Engineering Assistants, Security Assistants, Service Assistants, Supply Assistant. Corresponding roles, not really locked in, but off the cuff? Paramedic, Apprentice, Rookie Cop, Waiter, Cargo Tech. Don't give them that job title, that'd lock it in to a 'proper' job - These are still assistants we're talking about, but make it clear that these people chose to assist.
supply is a real department qm is a real head just like cmo

Why would people take these assistants and not real jobs if they really want to assist though?

by **Void Slayer** » Mon May 12, 2014 11:26 am #5415

We could give people who select assistant a random job they do not need access for -

Waiter, farmer, light replacer, Reporter, porter, artist, actor, athlete, snitch, test subject, tourist and so on. With appropriate civilian garb and reporting to the HoP.

They could then ask for a real job or more access for the random thing they get. It at least gives a specific role play job for them to do even if it doesn't have any "real" responsibility. Sec would see all special assistant roles as a grey C for civilian.

I like the idea of nano transen filling what they consider unnecessary role with random, unskilled, unwilling interns.

by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Mon May 12, 2014 12:30 pm #5429

I dunno if making assistant more appealing is the way to go.

by **AseaHeru** » Mon May 12, 2014 12:50 pm #5437

I like void's idea.

by **Jalleo** » Mon May 12, 2014 6:15 pm #5480

Really the solution is to kinda push it so assistants can do only really really basic jobs.

The solution is to try and work out a push for a different play style for the server while not pushing away everyone currently playing the game and to allow for players who currently play assistant for giggles or just random helping out from disliking the change.

by **Gun Hog** » Wed May 14, 2014 8:48 pm #5896

I enjoyed that one idea of giving an assistant access to your area by swiping your ID against his, thus setting his role to "[your name]'s assistant". I.E. the assistant has your name in his job title.

by **callanrockslol** » Thu May 15, 2014 2:53 pm #6119

Two types of players go assistant regularly, the new guys and the old guys, and everyone at the population cap.

When it comes down to it a horde of armed assistants are more reliable than security.

by **Incomptinence** » Thu May 15, 2014 10:48 pm #6178

For a certain value of armed, most of them have extinguishers or some other tool a few rarely have spears. An elite few grab the cells and have prods I guess but other jobs can make more prods.

by **MisterPerson** » Fri May 16, 2014 2:15 am #6191

callanrockslol wrote:Two types of players go assistant regularly, the new guys and the old guys, and everyone at the population cap.

When it comes down to it a horde of armed assistants are more reliable than security.

Which is a damn shame. I wish those assistants would just play security if they want to be security.

by **Steelpoint** » Fri May 16, 2014 2:25 am #6193

If your going to be a vigilantie you should be held to the same standard as Security.

by **Incomptinence** » Fri May 16, 2014 3:49 am #6202

Vigilantism is a crime in real life and I advise it be treated as such in game.

by **Skyclad.Observer** » Fri May 16, 2014 6:19 am #6230

MisterPerson wrote:
callanrockslol wrote:Two types of players go assistant regularly, the new guys and the old guys, and everyone at the population cap.

When it comes down to it a horde of armed assistants are more reliable than security.

Which is a damn shame. I wish those assistants would just play security if they want to be security.

Hi, part-time vigiliante here. A lot of the time, Security is held to a higher standard than players - I've recieved a security jobban before for standing idly by and watching as a changeling eats the clown. I didn't care then, and I still don't now.
I don't want to be obligated to protect the station and its crew, and I definitely don't want to be expected to follow & uphold space law. Sometimes, I just don't give a shit - Security doesn't really allow me to do that. Playing Sec, especially on high pop rounds, tends to be very hectic. You're often running from fire to fire, with little downtime. It's entirely possible to be needed in two places at the same time, both important, and each on the other end of the station. That's not really enjoyable to me - I like downtime after my fights, I like not being screamed for every five, ten minutes; I don't like high-stress rounds.

by **Apsis** » Fri May 16, 2014 10:01 am #6262

I agree with Skyland, but I do enjoy playing security too. It allows me to respond fast (and safer usually) to big treats like wizard and nuke ops. Low crime traitor and changeling stuff bores me, since it's the same old arrest scenario. The character I use to play sec only joined because of these reasons too.

Vigilantism is fun. Especially if it puts you if different situations every time. Like working with a changeling to get revenge, etc.

Also using vigilantism is a bad reason anyway. It's not exclusive to assistant at all.

by **Stickymayhem** » Fri May 16, 2014 10:37 am #6265

I also like being a vigilante. For me it's a way to have fun without people getting in the way. Often as an officer the warden or hos will insist in permabrig/execution for every traitor no matter what they did. I like to do things that result in more fun like taking their traitor items or blinding them and letting them go.

Problem with security is a bad warden or hos, or rather, an ANTI-FUN, warden or hos, just kills it for me. After emagging to my objective one round, the detective caught and arrested me. He was friendly and funny about it so I didn't resist. When we get to the brig, the detective explains that I'm a traitor but I gave myself up and didn't harm anyone. HoS orders them repeatedly to permabrig me anyway.

The warden and detective are so cool that they stage a hilariously and poorly acted break out as the detective 'drops' his gun, 'accidentally' takes off my handcuffs instead of checking my pocket, and falls over. I run, yelling about my masterfully executed escape, grab the wardens PDA and egun, unlock the brig, then politely throw the PDA and revolver back through.

Fun was had. But we all got chomped by the Lord soon after anyway.

by **AseaHeru** » Fri May 16, 2014 12:31 pm #6279

Stickymayhem wrote:Often as an officer the warden or hos will insist in permabrig/execution for every traitor no matter what they did.

Did they get there moronic asses banned? Because thats really rather dickish, as well as ignoring the twin sets of "suggestion-rules" they get given.

by **Aurx** » Sun May 18, 2014 6:46 am #6634

You could try porting /vg/station's assistant cap. Maximum of three assistants per security officer.

by **paprika** » Sun May 18, 2014 4:41 pm #6693

Aurx wrote:You could try porting /vg/station's assistant cap. Maximum of three assistants per security officer.

Good ass idea.

by **Fragnostic** » Mon May 19, 2014 2:45 am #6870

Maybe assistants should randomly be given a gray suits with some important jobset.
For example, grey jumpsuit assistant with a medical stripes or an arm band with a basic medkit.
Engi assistant: hardhat, grey jumpsuit, black gloves, toolbox
Green thumb: leather gloves, grey jumpsuit, blueapron, and a mini hoe.
Fire fighter: firefighter helmet, gas mask, and extinguisher (maybe water grenade or two)
I dunno. Not jobs, but job suggestions. Or start giving them objectives as assistants like hug 20 people, or help shake three people when they slip.

by **Psyentific** » Mon May 19, 2014 4:31 am #6894

Psyentific wrote:Remove "Assistant", give departmental assistants. Grey jumpsuit, but spawns with an appropriately palatte-swapped hazard vest and the most basic of access to their department. Enough to do the job, kinda mostly sorta not-really. Actually no, do not remove vanilla assistant - They fill an important niche.

Remember - There are two kinds of grey tide. Griffons, who you will never get rid of, and people who are bored and it's fun to sax with sec.

Remember - There are three kinds of assistant.
Newbies, who really need to be told to do something that isn't the most aimless freeform unsupervised hated job on station.
Experienced players who don't main assistant, doing it for a change-up. They don't need to be told what to do, and don't really need any attention; they're going assistant to do a gimmick. Maint forts and autistic space bases. They don't really need attention.
Experienced players who do main assistant. They also don't need to be told what to do, they chose this. Barflies, valid vigilantes, greytiding griffons, ERPers, whatevers. The Miku Frosts, the Danny Schmidts, the Dante & Daltas. They don't really need attention; they chose assistant because it has no responsibilities.

If I was going to overhaul Assistant? Keep normal assistants, but add Medical Assistants, Engineering Assistants, Security Assistants, Service Assistants, Supply Assistant. Corresponding roles, not really locked in, but off the cuff? Paramedic, Apprentice Engineer, Rookie Cop, Waiter, Cargo Tech. Don't give them that job title, that'd lock it in to a 'proper' job - These are still assistants we're talking about, but make it clear that these people chose to assist, make it clear that they probably don't know what they're doing, and make it clear where they ought to be assisting. Departmental assistants as a funnel into proper jobs.

by **paprika** » Tue May 20, 2014 9:43 am #7328

Psy's idea is pretty killer I have to say. Still, we already have the 'swipe ID on an assistant's ID to inherit some access' thing, it just needs to be more obvious for new players so it's utilized.

Could assistants get a cute flavor title in departments when their IDs are swiped maybe? Like if a medical crewmember swipes an assistant's ID, it renames it 'nurse', engineering gets 'greasemonkey', sec gets 'mallcop'(someone think of something better than this), and cargo assistants get 'slave'!

Each department could have a unique assistant flavored job with tiny bits of general access so they can help out by getting supplies and fixing basic things.

This would add a HUGE new layer to the job dynamic to make versions of jobs that are helpful to the department but still without a ton of responsibility.

by **AseaHeru** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:32 pm #7372

I would say "intern" instead of "slave", "rookie" instead of "mallcop",and perhaps "waiter" for kitchen/bar?

by **Fragnostic** » Tue May 20, 2014 3:31 pm #7427

God, yes! The assistant basic-access-thing sounds awesome.
I have a couple:
[job]:[assistant counterpart]

Scientist: test subject
Cargo: pack mule
Chemistry: druggie
Atmos: plumber
Captain: Nanotrasen appointed slave
Security: (I like mallcop, give them only pepperspray and a flash, and cuffs)
Chaplain: friar/monk/(maybe nun will have a use now)
I'll have more.

by **Atticat** » Wed May 21, 2014 8:06 pm #7846

While this idea has potential as someone who plays heads it would be a nightmare to keep them in line. I'm Lucky if my non-assistant staff listens to me as it is.

by **paprika** » Wed May 21, 2014 11:24 pm #7906

Atticat wrote:I'm Lucky if my non-assistant staff listens to me as it is.

Teehee funny (non-intentional) joke

by **MisterPerson** » Thu May 22, 2014 6:00 pm #8135

While the "swipe assistant ID to gain access" idea is a good one, I still hold it would be generally simpler long-term to just uncap (or increase the cap on) most of the jobs that assistants would become.

by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Thu May 22, 2014 7:13 pm #8144

clearly giving assistants even more ways to steal and break shit is the way to go

I'm pretty sure most greytiders are not willing to do jack. Giving them access would solve the problem with people who actually CAN'T figure out what to do, but as most of hem don't WANT to do anything, it's just gonna make situation worse. And you won't even be able to murder them for stealing stuff, because technically they have access to it.

Atticat wrote:While this idea has potential as someone who plays heads it would be a nightmare to keep them in line. I'm Lucky if my non-assistant staff listens to me as it is.

This is also true. A lot of people just fuck off from their basic (scientist, engineer, MD) jobs. It's hard to account for those and shit they take with them, and if you add assistants to that mix, it's gonna become a lot more painful.

MisterPerson wrote:While the "swipe assistant ID to gain access" idea is a good one, I still hold it would be generally simpler long-term to just uncap (or increase the cap on) most of the jobs that assistants would become.

Eeeeh, this could lead to departments being seriously overcrowded. But I suppose it's worth a try, since engineers don't need to stay in engineering, MDs don't have a whole lot to do there and science is quite big to allow for many scientists.

However, I don't think that we get too many assistants due to there not being enough slots. Again, people just don't want to do jack.

by **paprika** » Thu May 22, 2014 9:30 pm #8168

The ID swiping shit is already on artyom and it's fantastic but really underplayed because a lot of people don't know it exists. I think we should still add flavor titles when you swipe your card because that'd be awesome. I want to be a nurse.

by **Cheimon** » Fri May 23, 2014 12:50 am #8234

I like Psy's idea, but particularly because for some jobs you want to learn how to do it without the responsibility of taking someone's place. Departmental assistants who have basic access but need to be let in and out of the specific areas sounds very good. Especially if they're controlled by the department and limited by the number of people in it.

I think if that would work well it would need to cover almost all departments, security included if possible. Goodness knows people complain enough about how security hasn't learned how to do their job. A bit of training for that can't be a bad thing.

by **paprika** » Fri May 23, 2014 1:08 am #8237

Well the system that's currently in place requires someone in the department to swipe your card thus filtering any shithead grey idiots from departments if nobody swipes their ID. This would just be giving assistants random access and some colorful clothes and not serve any purpose because assistants will be lazy and/or abuse the access anyway. The system that is in place requires someone to actually put a little bit of thought into "hey, should I give this guy access? Does he seem new/helpful?" rather than relying on code to randomly deal out access to random players regardless of if they want to actually help or not.

I get that you don't like assistants but rather than shitting up other departments with unhelpful assistants I'd rather keep it as a 'containment' job for all the retards who don't like roleplaying like they're on a space station and actually assisting. Those who do will make themselves known and get more access from either the HoP or a guardian who swipes their ID.

by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Fri May 23, 2014 4:40 am #8279

Stolen ID now means that not only one greyshirt can access the area, but all of them.

Next time I won't like my boss I will randomly swipe access to all greyshirts.

Yeah, giving greyshirts an agent card is totally a good idea. Obviously they don't just want access for looting, otherwise they would pick up the job anyway, no, that's totally not the case. And those who want to help in certain departments totally don't go to the HoP anyway.

HoP already got part of his job removed by heads being able to give access to their departments. Oh look, you already have this thing to make departmental IDs. It works only with heads, too, which is kind of how it's supposed to be. No retarded scientist should ever let greyshirts gain access No need for swipe non-sense.

I mean, giving away access rapidly becoming everyone's privilege is kind of stupid, if you ask me.

by **Kelenius** » Fri May 23, 2014 6:23 am #8302

Add an option 'return to lobby if preferences unavailable'.