DIRTSTATION 2015

[danno]

THIS IS AWFUL

[miggles]

not like the janitor doesnt already have enough to clean with all the inevitable blood trails

[MisterPerson]

Could you be more specific about what you mean?

[Remie Richards]

Could you be more specific about what you mean?

I popped on the server quickly just to see, yeah... there's dirt like permanently crusted over all the main corridoors.
it's perhaps a bit much.

[cedarbridge]

Could you be more specific about what you mean?

I popped on the server quickly just to see, yeah... there's dirt like permanently crusted over all the main corridoors.
it's perhaps a bit much.

I thought that was just some jerk setting off smoke bombs.

[Alex Crimson]

Yeah i just had a look on the server. Dirt tiles everywhere. The main hallways were covered, the workplaces were covered. You would need an army of Janitors to keep that place clean.

[paprika]

We have 2 janitors now, can they seriously not keep up with the dirty tiles? If not, it's a really simple change to increase the amount of times a tile needs to be walked on before it gets dirty again. It's currently like, 30, I think.

[lumipharon]

Where does all the dirt come from? Shoes are not magic dirt dispensers. Would it be practical for example, to causing people to track dirt after walking on say, the asteroid/soil tiles etc?

[Steelpoint]

This is weird change, there's no reason that clean shoes walking on a clean tile is suddenly going to produce dirt out of no where.

I can get behind dirty shoes from the asteroid or someone in space making dirt tiles, but this is too much.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

We have 2 janitors now, can they seriously not keep up with the dirty tiles? If not, it's a really simple change to increase the amount of times a tile needs to be walked on before it gets dirty again. It's currently like, 30, I think.

Should be a random chance that increases depending on how many times it was walked on.

Like prob(stepped_on - 10) or something.

[WeeYakk]

Of all the bay features to steal.

If we're going to keep this can we get rid of randomly spawned messes at round start? Yeah there's two jannys now but they can't keep up with the messes of even a 30 person crew when blood and dirt is encrusted on literally every floor tile. We actually had three janitors the other night on basil and even with just a 30 person crew there was still too much dirt.

[MMMiracles]

Best part about this feature is the fact people can run in a circle to generate infinite piles of dirt, essentially making the janitor's efforts futile.

[danno]

We have 2 janitors now, can they seriously not keep up with the dirty tiles? If not, it's a really simple change to increase the amount of times a tile needs to be walked on before it gets dirty again. It's currently like, 30, I think.

It's almost hilariously too much right now. If it's currently 30, it needs to be like 90 or 120 or maybe more, even with two janitors.

[danno]

This is weird change, there's no reason that clean shoes walking on a clean tile is suddenly going to produce dirt out of no where.

I can get behind dirty shoes from the asteroid or someone in space making dirt tiles, but this is too much.

ps. realism is stupid so this isn't really a great argument

[miggles]

not any more stupid than dirt randomly appearing on every floor ever

[cedarbridge]

This is weird change, there's no reason that clean shoes walking on a clean tile is suddenly going to produce dirt out of no where.

I can get behind dirty shoes from the asteroid or someone in space making dirt tiles, but this is too much.

ps. realism is stupid so this isn't really a great argument

Great no-content argument there :^)

Really though, shoes producing magical dirt out of thin air is pretty awful, especially at the current rates. All it really means is high traffic areas become a shitshow of slipping because the janitor has to camp out in front of medbay/bar/doors E of captain's office all round.

[Riley]

Playing a Janitor that's trying to do their job might as well be synonymous with ban-baiting with the way things currently are. Dirt shows up far too quickly.

Also it looks like the pubes of the elderly on certain tiles, but oh well.

[Saegrimr]

You'd think the infinite blood trails constantly everywhere was enough work.

[Xerux]

When I saw the main hall after latejoining recently, I honestly thought someone had run around while setting off dirt grenades.

[tolstovskiy]

I like it, I don't need to claim that janiborg is rogue now for me to have something to clean. And I also have lots of space to slip you and point at signs all around you.

[Reimoo]

Maybe if cleaning a single hallway as a janitor didn't take 5ever with a mop I wouldn't be too upset with this.

[paprika]

Going to increase the amount of times a tile needs to be walked on to get dirty so that this only starts showing up late-round when the janitor is absent.

[DemonFiren]

Soap master race.

[Steelpoint]

If this was reworked it could be a interesting game play mechanic.

Just for example, if dirt could only be tracked from maintenance and the mining station. It could be a boon to security's investigation scope, for example if a crime was committed in maintenance recently and you arrest a suspect and find that their feet are covered in dust and dirt, or their hands are dirty from cleaning their shoes, it would add a interesting layer of complexity.

But right now I really dislike how dirt is just magically created just by walking down a hall.

[Saegrimr]

Port bloody footprints.

[paprika]

Actually they aren't even a feature we don't have. We've had bloody footprints before bay even split from us. It's just a code hassle to implement and laggy, if I remember correctly.

[Saegrimr]

I can't imagine its much worse than 95% of tiles having a dirt object on it.

[paprika]

But that doesn't create lag at all, and dirt aren't objects?

[Saegrimr]

I'm not gonna pretend I know how the code works for the footprints, i'm just going off assumption that 50 or so icon/effect/footprints is less of a strain than a couple hundred icon/effect/effect/dirt

[cedarbridge]

If this was reworked it could be a interesting game play mechanic.

Just for example, if dirt could only be tracked from maintenance and the mining station. It could be a boon to security's investigation scope, for example if a crime was committed in maintenance recently and you arrest a suspect and find that their feet are covered in dust and dirt, or their hands are dirty from cleaning their shoes, it would add a interesting layer of complexity.

But right now I really dislike how dirt is just magically created just by walking down a hall.

There was some talk at one point (I don't think I've got record of it anywhere on hand) of styling changelings to be more like Mush. We add a "dirty" status that crops up from doing certain job and non-job related things and is removed by washing/showering. Using certain abilities would also cause dirty status and etc etc etc.

[dezzmont]

A dirty status and bloodied status on doing certain actions certainly would add a lot to forensics and make keeping the station clean a thing without how silly dirtstation is. Infinitely generating dirt from shoes is... yeah... At most it should be based on going on dirty maint tiles and going into space or the mines for a limited time.

[paprika]

Why do people keep saying 'infinitely generating dirt from shoes' when you don't need to be wearing shoes to dirty floor tiles?

[cedarbridge]

Why do people keep saying 'infinitely generating dirt from shoes' when you don't need to be wearing shoes to dirty floor tiles?

The shoes part wasn't the important part you were supposed to be focusing on there pap.

[miggles]

thats even worse, because it implies that people must have dirt glands on their feet that slowly produce dirt out of nowhere

[dezzmont]

Why do people keep saying 'infinitely generating dirt from shoes' when you don't need to be wearing shoes to dirty floor tiles?

This statement doesn't make me think any higher of the change.

At least shoes being dirty makes sense, kinda, but not really.

The fact that the dirt infinitely spawns from nowhere is why this was very poorly implemented. It is open to tomfoolery like running laps around the station to deliberately make everything dirty forever.

Considering how openly exploitable and nonsensical this change is, and how absolutely non-vital spawning dirt is, wouldn't a revert be in order?

Or at least change it to a tile scuffing code rather than a dirt code, with a new sprite. Still can be wiped by the janitor, but doesn't leave actual miracle conservation of matter violating dirt, and instead shows wear on commonly walked paths.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Apparently people here think that unless you wear dirty shoes in your house, floors never become dirty

Pro tip: they do

[dezzmont]

Apparently people think massive clods of dirt materializes as part of stepping on stuff with clean shoes.

Pro Tip: It doesn't. And you are probably thinking of dust. Most dirty floors are not covered in dirt.

[Reimoo]

The janitor should get one of those huge mops that are hallway size in width so he can actually do something about this.

[paprika]

The janitor should get one of those huge mops that are hallway size in width so he can actually do something about this.

Also this, very much this

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Apparently people think massive clods of dirt materializes as part of stepping on stuff with clean shoes.

Uh huh and all humans look like pixelly crap

It's a shitty 2D game, can you give it a break? I know it's too much right now, but "oh dirt out of nowhere my immulsions" is a STUPID argument.

And you are probably thinking of dust. Most dirty floors are not covered in dirt.

Because that makes a ton of difference

[dezzmont]

It does matter because dust doesn't come off your shoes.

[Jalleo]

Are people seriously complaining at a silly game mechanic that tries to force someone who is constantly running either:
A. Running about cant keep up with cleaning
or
B. has cleanbots doing it all or there is nothing to clean

This is a game that is about athestics yes but seriously just making the station dirty gives something for both assistants and janitors to do.

Assistants can lick the floor clean and janitors can actually clean the floor. (We need that feature for assistants)

[Alex Crimson]

No Assistant is going to start cleaning the floors just because they become dirty now. No amount of Janitors could keep up with the rate at which dirt spawns. Even if they could, its pretty boring work cleaning up endless halls of dirty tiles.

[dezzmont]

The mechanic is purely an annoyance mechanic and a poorly made one at that due to the weird effects and behaviors it creates.

It lowers the overal quality of the code. The change needs to be defended and justified considering how many people are pointing out what are inarguably flaws.

Again, why couldn't this be taken out considering the fact it is by all accounts broken? What does this actually add to the janitor job? Janitors already give up on trying to clean bloodtrails once they realize the work is hopeless, why would they try to keep the station clean when dirt infinitely spawns out of my toenails?

Does anyone seriously think that janitor players would get any real enjoyment out of the halls being endlessly dirty? And does this actually enhance the appeal of messes in any way if they are so common? Seeing blood or dirt in a place should be shocking and disgusting, not par for the course. Even blood trails smearing the entire hallways have the value of being somewhat shocking and requiring... special materials... to pull off. This is just dirt.

[Jalleo]

Now we are getting somewhere. Does everyone think the way the janitor goes around cleaning as in literally going to clean every single tile?

Would people prefer to automate it more by changing the process to be more of a janitor state which areas need cleaning for bots to go to clean if they run out of water go back and get some more etc etc. Or would it be better to just throw a mop and bucket at pretty much each seperate access area and leave the janitor to just clean the hallways?


dezzmont are you sure the mechanic of dirt being created which dynamically make areas which people use dirty or the job itself with how its designed to act on a station with probably 10 peoples top which has had loads of stuff thrown ontop since then is now outdated and broken?


EDIT: Created a issue report give a proper idea for how to fix the janitor job. (The job itself is broken this change proved it to be honest. Saying remove the dirt wont solve this)
https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/6814

[dezzmont]

Janitors usually go to areas that are especially messy to clean them. When the station gets flooded with messes the job loses a lot of its meaning or it is usually time to evac anyway.

If the change creates so much dirt that the janitor REQUIRES an army of robots to clean the station, something is fucked up.

And yes, I am pretty sure the code is broken. It doesn't make the areas where people use dirty, it coats the entire station in dirt out of nowhere. There is a big difference. The janitor job scales marvelously as well, implying that this is a population issue is ridiculous. Too much dirt would spawn from 10 people let alone 50, simply because every couple of steps a new dirt clod appears.

A janitor to keep the station clean literally needs to sweep behind themselves every so often. This feature is downright hillarious in how poorly it works. If it creates too much dirt at our population level, and the janitor and current mess system was perfectly functional at our population level, then maybe that is a big sign that the change is bad.

If your change makes your intended system so non-functional you need to do a complete overhall and change literally everything about it the change is bad.

If your change requires you to change gameplay so that it is automated because there is no way for players to keep up either what you are automating should be of no interest to anyone or the change is bad.

My preference would be for this change to be reverted, as it adds nothing to the role of janitor and breaks it in a way that isn't realistic to repair unless every tile someone would walk through automatically cleans. The fact you are recommending that the janitor change to an automated possition because too much work was given to them over a needless change designed to benefit the job as is shows how problematic this change is.

The job was never broken. It was mostly an RP job with a lot of fancy toys. And the change doesn't affect janitors, it affects the entire station and requires an omnipotent cleaning staff to fix.

Even if you changed the janitor job to an automated bot job that sat in its room and clicked buttons all day, which I am pretty sure 0% of the playerbase wants, it would not fix the underlying problem of dirt, that it shows up for no reason way too fast and if it infinitely spawns at any noticable rate then it is highly abusable.

The janitor job was never broken. This change didn't even break the job. It just was a bad change that didn't do what it intended to do and drawing a line in the sand and refusing to admit the idea was a poor one is downright silly. I have seen 5 people fill the halls with dirt in about 3 minutes deliberately. As in fill. It isn't hard.

[Jalleo]

Even before this change the janitor job was broken because as soon as a few people died we had mess everywhere and it took ages for the janitor to solve this. The dirt just increased this issue it did nothing else the core aspect of the janitor job and thus the janitor job was already broken.

Link to issue report about this in previous post

[Alex Crimson]

Ive never had a problem keeping the station clean as a Janitor. Cleaning up blood and rubbish is what i expect to do, and im fine with that. Running around endlessly cleaning a hallway however does not sound like fun. That doesnt even include the workplaces Janitors do not have access to, which will probably remain dirt-covered for the entire round.

I dont think this dirt mechanic is anything more than an annoyance. I feel that Janitors were fine before this update. They do not need to be essential to the station to be fun.

[dezzmont]

Please explain how the janitor job at its core was broken.

Saying stuff like that doesn't make it true. How was the janitor job non-functional, and more importantly how does saying that in any way justify a dirt rate like this?

Assuming the average player walks 5 tiles every 10 seconds, which is pretty low but hey we can assume it is a chemist/viro/warden heavy round, and they generate a dirt clod every 30 steps, you are looking at each player making one clod a minute. In a round with 50 players, that means a new dirt tile spawns every 1.2 seconds.

On a busier round with more of the jobs being active (MD, sec, ect) and people are running about 10 tiles per 10 seconds, you are looking at a whopping 120 dirt clods per minute.

If you think janitor is dumb? Fine. I get that. They often don't have a lot to do in fact is my main issue with them. And the bots idea is pretty cool. But it in no way ties into how invalid this change is. When you run the math it is downright stupid. I know I hate calling ideas and design choices stupid as a point but there it is, each janitor having to clean one tile every .3 seconds to break even is absolutely ridiculous to expect. The janitor would literally need to clean 120 clods a minute to break even on a busy day, and if you seriously think they have too much to clean as is then you should be saying this change needs to be reverted too.

Lowering the rate of dirt generation doesn't help with the fact that the dirt is not, that magical word, realistic. Realism is not itself a goal, but more of a cost. You pay realisim to get features that are good for gameplay. The ideal is to minimize the cost of realisim to make a good game. Dirt magically appearing by moving is highly unrealistic. People can understand it is wrong because it doesn't match how their enviroments get dirty, and it is wrong in an invasive way because you are forced to deal with it (as much as you have to deal with anything purely cosmetic) all the time. So you are paying a lot of realisim for something with major flaws. Unless the rate of dirt was so high as to be more unusual to see one drop at all let alone consistently, it is still easy to coat the halls.

The worst part to me? The absolute worst part? It doesn't concentrate the epic mess crewmen create. It isn't like a blood trail or splatters which tend to be in a local area the janitor can clean all at once. Each person makes their own dirt in a dotted trail after them, so even when toned down it isn't like the janitor is going to clean up messes. It would feel more like an OCD person cleaning individual specs off their floor. It wouldn't feel good or fun and the places you expect to be dirty would only sometimes actually become dirty. Cargo would be an enternal mess as would medbay and sec, and the main hallways would get dirty often enough in a splotchy pattern. It would just spread outwards and forever unless you made dirt so rare as to raise the question of why this would be a mechanic.

[Jalleo]

The dirt change just increased the issue that was already there.

Just go look at what I said in the issue report.

Literally the dirt change proved that. Depending on how a round goes you can either be working all the time as a janitor cleaning everything or standing about as there is nothing you can reach to clean. We have mice and mousetraps for the janitor to kill and dispose of. We got blood trails for the janitor to clean up we have randomly generated dirt and other stuff at the start of the round for the janitor to clean. Which one appears to need the most work? Which one is the most rewarding its probably the same since that is the only one you can reach.

The change with dirt is bad yes due to how high pop we get and how tiny are passageways are compared to Bay.