Assistant Overhaul

[Kelenius]

Bottom post of the previous page:

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

[paprika]

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

I'm fairly certain you only get the very basic access to departments when your ID is swiped, also access does not stack.

The whole point is people who want assistants to actually assist them have a way of doing it that doesn't require them to hold doors open for them. If you give a assistant basic access just to piss off your boss I'm pretty sure he won't give a shit at all because if the assistant isn't helping or intentionally being an asshole because you 'don't like your boss' he can just call sec to throw them out, like literally every other situation in which an assistant is in a department against the head of said department's will, which is called trespassing.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

I'm pretty sure he won't give a shit at all because if the assistant isn't helping or intentionally being an asshole because you 'don't like your boss' he can just call sec to throw them out, like literally every other situation in which an assistant is in a department against the head of said department's will, which is called trespassing.

Dude, have you ever played a head?

In any case, it's not a trespassing. They have access to the department. Legitimate access.

My point is that the only person to be able to give legitimate access to people should be HoP (not counting captain). I can understand the thing with heads being able to give access to their departments, since they have OOC responsibility not to shit in their department, I may not like it, but I find it acceptable.

Nobody else has any OOC responsibility before their department whatsoever. You can forget about healing or cloning people, forget about R&D, fuck off into space in a hardsuit, unless you REALLY fuck up, nobody will give a shit OOC. Therefore, I'm absolutely against such people being able to hand out access to lord knows who.

Same logic. People who want assistants have no responsibilities. Therefore, they shouldn't have any rights or access. That's why I'm debating removing assistant maintenance access.

I mean, you can always get additional access from HoP, captain or even department head, if you need it for something. Otherwise, get a real job, dammit. Responsibility is not that great anyway. It's like, set up singulo, set up cryo, do some R&D. All take like five minutes of your time and that's it.

So I think instead of making assistant job MORE appealing, we need to make it LESS appealing. In this case removing maintenance access will aid security a lot as well.

I mean, currently, MD is less appealing than assistant in terms of access. No wonder we get 18 assistants 1 MD 0 security officer 0 warden rounds.

The thing is, assistant is supposedly answering to "absolutely everybody", so like, anyone can order them around in theory. However, we don't really enforce obeying orders here. So that's pretty useless. That's the key problem which is gonna be almost impossible to solve.

[Incomptinence]

Pfft assistant access better than MD access? So much of maint is wasted space and medics can access a tiny portion anyway I would say different not better.

Their spawning position is definitely the strongest thing they have. Oh here is this huge stash of tools pity if someone did crime with it *toolbox begins nudging assistant and winking*.

[paprika]

So I think instead of making assistant job MORE appealing, we need to make it LESS appealing. In this case removing maintenance access will aid security a lot as well.

Do you realize how many times we've tried this, trying to make assistant a less grey tide role by removing their maint or gimping their job? You're suggesting giving assistants access and then saying the current system on NT, which gives assistants access, is a bad idea.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

You're suggesting giving assistants access

Um, no I'm not?

Do you realize how many times we've tried this, trying to make assistant a less grey tide role by removing their maint or gimping their job?

No, what exactly was the problem?

[paprika]

Oh, sorry I confused you with someone else, but yeah the swipe ID thing works fine and assistant has always been for new players.

People flame, rage, troll, and generally be assholes when we remove maint from assistant even though they definitely should not have it; maint has become sort of a killing ground with a lot of sweet loot and no AI camera making assistant a good role to play an incognito crewmember traitor in. While it's silly they have it, maint is a lot less about actual maintenance and more about a necessary way to dodge security or find some fun loot.

I'm not sure, but we've had polls on it before and they have ended with people wanting assistants to keep maint access, so I feel like if we have another poll people will just vote the same way as they did before. We also literally just up and removed it before (IIRC) and people got really upset about it.

[Psyentific]

Long-term assistants are the scum of the station, and they ought to be treated like it. Remove assistant maint, give maint to most other jobs.

[paprika]

I agree a lot of other jobs should be able to go into maint. Especially medical.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Polls mean very little, unless they are completely one-sided. People who complain are those who play assistant, obviously.

I mean, in this thread we're addressing issue of assistants being too popular. The way to make assistant to be less popular is to remove what privileges they have - those are lack of responsibilities to anybody and maintenance access. We can't really remove the first one, then we should remove the second one.

Somebody mentioned the fact that assistants spawn near tools. Well, tools are kind of supposed to be available for mostly anyone who wants them. However, limiting number of multitools lying around in semi-public places could reduce hackability. I don't know if I like it, but that's a possibility. It would increase dependance on engineering in situations like fighting rogue AI though.

Increasing number of people who can go into maintenance wouldn't help the situation with assistants. I'd much rather limit maint access only to engineering. That's an unpopular opinion though.

[paprika]

There was an idea to make assistants spawn all over the station in various places and I think that's a good way of curbing grey tide so they're not all injected into this situation where they're around 5-6 other greyshirts (on sybil typically) and it'd probably help and be a very minor change. The only thing people would care about is not being able to get to the tools in tool storage first if they don't spawn near it but honestly they can go cry a fucking space river for all I care.

[Apsis]

Removing maint access from assistants just means they'll burn through the walls/doors instead. The ID swipe thing is pretty cool though, but I dunno if it can work as well on Sybil.

[leibniz]

As the Assistant you answer directly to absolutely everyone. Special circumstances may change this.

This should be changed to:

As the Assistant you answer to the HoP. Special circumstances may change this.

Currently assistants dont really answer to anyone, even if the text implies otherwise. This way it would have a bit more meaning and the HoP would some more to do.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Unless you want to make greytide legitimate, that's not a change I'd like to see at all

[leibniz]

Unless you want to make greytide legitimate, that's not a change I'd like to see at all

It'd still be against the rules.
I dont really recall assistants taking orders from anyone (unless they are volunteering in a department), so I think this could give some more responsibility to HoP's.

[Lovecraft]

This just sounds like an idea that would cause unneeded stress for Heads of Personnel.
"HoP your assistants are breaking into places straighten them out."
Just keep the position as is.

[MisterPerson]

I don't think that's a valid reason to shoot the idea down. The fact that assistants aren't accountable isn't a reason to not make them accountable.

Either way, what if assistants got service headsets? Service freq is the least frequently used last I knew. I don't think it'll change much (medical and science aren't used much more, for example), but it's worth a try. It'll give the HoP an easy way to ask for volunteers for job openings if nothing else.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

give assistants a personal channel, a head to give problems to and department access

that sure is a good idea

It'll give the HoP an easy way to ask for volunteers for job openings if nothing else.

Head announcements are for losers

[Khub]

I am really fond of the ID swiping idea.
To prevent disarm+steal ID+swipe+run, make a computer called "Internship Access Modification Console". It would work in a similar way to the ID console, just that there would be a roster of people who were given access. Any cyborg/AI/head of appropriate department/captain can go and revoke the access by logging in and pressing a button.

[AseaHeru]

YES.

Also, make it so that the IDs can be scanned by secPDAs to list access.

[Solarn]

I assure you that you don't know the meaning of the word "greytide" until you try taking away Maintenance access from assistants.

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

But I don't want to play security. I want to wander around drinking Black Russians, replacing broken lights, fixing hull breaches in Maintenance, salvaging as much cool equipment as I can find and basically doing random helpful shit that nobody is around to do at the moment. Me taking up a weapon and defending the station is a sign that Security has lost control of the situation.

Also, I enjoy just picking up a fire extinguisher and disappearing into Maintenance to hunt for whatever's lurking there without having to report to the HoS/ask the AI to open the door for me/check if the Unknown standing next to a bloody corpse and broken camera actually has an excuse.

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.

Doctors are pretty much the only job this wouldn't horribly backfire on. Cargo techs are basically a more advanced form of greytide, security officers, miners and engineers come equipped with the tools to cause massive damage right from the start and nobody wants 20+ botanists.

[Rolan7]

This idea sound really nice but Lo6a4evskiy is right, it would be abused. This shouldn't be necessary now that heads can grant department access, a change I couldn't support more.

[Deuce]

most jobs involve repeating a pattern of clicks until a result is obtained

assistant is popular because it provides the roleplay part of the game without boring click work

give more jobs meaningful decisions to make and they will be played more

[Incomptinence]

I wouldn't trust some of the player base with being in proximity to a meaningful decision.

Just look at all the roboticists who do stupid shit like try and kill their coworker over how to spend their starting metal.

[Deuce]

if players aren't trusted with meaningful power it's no surprise they aren't interested in having responsibility

[paprika]

assistant is popular because it provides the roleplay part of the game without boring click work

>assistant
>roleplay

[Lo6a4evskiy]

assistant is popular because it provides the roleplay part of the game without boring click work

Oh hahahahaahahah
hahahaahahahah
HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
hah
hahah
HAHAHAAHAHAAH
okay, enough of bullshit

You want to know jobs that provide huge amounts of roleplay? Heads. Security also fits, even though not as much.

Those jobs are at the absolute end of popularity contest.

Even though I actually agree with the rest of your post (which is why I play heads, security or AI most of the time), that's absolutely not the case with assistants, no sir.

[Deuce]

roleplaying an asshole is still roleplay

[AseaHeru]

Most assistants dont seem to roleplay, as they seem to be too busy getting valids on.

[Deuce]

valid hunting == roleplaying a vigilante

[AseaHeru]

valid hunting =/= roleplaying a vigilante

FIFY.

Afterall, security dosent go after the vigilantes.
And theres no reason on earth, in space or in the universe for there to be 40~ vigilantes on a place with 60 people.

[Deuce]

the station is where NT puts their excess vigilantes as a honeypot for Syndicate agents

[Pavlov]

Add new position solely in charge of managing greyshirts. Name "Cat Herder".