Role Time-Requirements and Sec/Command Standards

Development Feedback
1

I wrote all this because its earnest feedback provided with the best intentions. I want to help the community. Please don’t TL;DR it.

Current Role Time-Requirements aren’t working. In the past 5 days I’ve seen a warden who didn’t know any space law, a CE who didn’t know AME had to be on HV, and multiple security officers who are obsessed with killing people. Meanwhile, despite having 50 hours as captain, 200 as engineer, 30 as CE, 30 as warden, and 30 as HoS, I am no longer qualified to play captain because I dont play science(?).

The paradigm of “Just a-help it” is exhausting and it doesn’t prevent the damage these players do (either due to ignorance or malice). It creates more frustrating experiences for players and more a-help tickets for admins. It doesn’t help anyone.

This ties in to Sec and Command standards. These elevated standards are important because there are no in-game accountability mechanisms for these players other than other sec and command players.

We shouldn’t be seeing captains wearing advanced magboots and lethaling people because they missed with their disabler. We shouldn’t be seeing wardens playing around with armory guns for no reason. We shouldn’t be seeing RDs and HoPs stealing the deckard out of the vault roundstart. But we are seeing these things almost every round on vulture.

We should be seeing command and sec set an example. They should be roleplaying more, not less, than anyone else. They should know all of the rules, they should know space-law. Role time requirements used to ensure this. I remember a few years ago when the people playing head roles were very experienced and just overall good and fun players to play with and against. I had the benefit of learning to play SS14 from them.

We still have good, and even great rounds. But lately more and more shifts are complete disasters. Role time requirements should not have been touched, and sec/command standards need to be more heavily enforced.

5 Likes
2

Dude just play the science. It helps to understand all parts of the station. And incompotent command just kinda happens

1 Like
3

I’ve been doing a little science here and there. I’ve already learned how everything works in my time in other roles. I can do xeno, anoms, borgs, whatever. I just don’t find it fun. The focus of the post is how the incompetence is becoming more of an issue lately.

4

this isn’t a playtime problem honestly

none of this stuff is complicated enough that it actually takes a substantial amount of time, a warden who doesn’t know space law after 5hrs sec isn’t going to magically know it after 20hrs. im skeptical that its actually the case than these players are being shitters because theyre inexperienced, its far more likely that they know what they’re doing and simply don’t care for whatever reason

more stringent enforcement of the rules is the problem when theyre being fraglantly broken constantly

1 Like
5

Honestly, I feel like role timers only serve to prevent bare-minimum incompetence and keep raiders out of important positions. They don’t really do much to ensure people in Command know what’s expected of them, because… well, that’s not something you can measure with a timer.

I don’t know what a satisfactory solution to this would be - all I can come up with are things that’d increase admin workload, or things that’re just as unreliable as timers.

It’s rough.

6

I am still of the position that we need “challenge based” role unlocking. where basically it yeets you to a map. and you get your “NT Captain certification” or whatever job. include stuff like mutiple choice quizes and such for sec or other roles where there isn’t really any construction or in-world task you can do. and keep both so you need some time. but you also need to be knowledge tested.
CE’s quiz could be to bootstrap a station (eg: omega) from a “worst case” scenario (SMES unpowered)
RDs could be heres a arti. research it.
CMOs could be a chem test making sure you know how to treat people.
QM is a glorified cargo tech so they dont need any test (yeah I said it)
HoS/Ward should have spacelaw quiz and sentencing quizes.

7

I feel like that’d be what we have in an ideal world, but it’d probably be a whole thing to actually code and set up… plus, it’d need to be compatible with downstreams that might not have the same requirements - or even roles - as WizDen, so the whole thing would have to happen on the same server you’re trying to unlock the role on.

It’d be nice, and a method that wouldn’t add much admin workload, but it’s something that’s much harder to add than just adjusting role timers or adding a whitelist. (Which again, is a shame, because I like the sound of this method on paper!)

8

Generally, higher play times actually just incentivise players to AFK some roles or do the bare minimum than make an attempt to learn, this change made the roles more accessible to people willing to try, made it easier to catch people lazing around. In my experience adminning the general “expertise” of people in these roles has actually funnily enough gone up

9

Playtime requirements act as a buffer time during which problematic players will be disciplined BEFORE they are able to take powerful roles that have a strong influence on round quality. A cadet who doesn’t bother to read the rules and magdumps someone for a minor crime will get rolebanned or possibly even banned before they start playing warden or hos. An engineer will have to solve a wider variety of problems and learn more about power and spacing mechanics before they take CE.

Playtime requirements serve as a preventative filter, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, for players and admins alike.

1 Like
10

I don’t see these issues yet on the servers in which they were already in place.

Not everyone needs to know everything about the job, and this extends to the Captain and CE and HoS since they were all cited here (with good reason).

As mentioned earlier, someone with no interest in doing the job just won’t do it and get the time anyways, this doesn’t change much, but means you don’t need to spend 2.5 real time days grinding to get captain.

This system of lower times tends to sort itself out on SS13 based servers from what I’ve seen.

If it does (somehow) become an issue, we can look at the times.

What I’ve seen so far has been generally positive with command actually saying “I don’t know” instead of being confidently wrong and making everything worse.

As a note: The average survival time for a raider is less than 20 minutes.

11

bringing back SOP to lrp or at least a toned down version of it could help with this a lot IMO

3 Likes
12

Give em a cargo shuttle and get em to fly to ATS and back, then fly to specific coordinates and back to simulate saving borgs who got launched off station.

Maybe instead of a test, give each role a pertinent milestone or something? Like for Tech Assistant make it so they have to start an AME in the first 5 minutes of a round to unlock Station Engi, then have them lose access to TA when they can start a PA power source. And make them build a teg that runs long enough to charge an empty smes array for atmos tech. They’re simple examples, but they’re measurable ideas of progress that ensure they understand the role enough and could be rp friendly ways to encourage learning the role.

13

in the case of “roles dont exists downstream” they could just delete (or rework/make custom) protos for challenges. but also since the time req system is not going if they dont wanna make/use “challenge protos” they can just keep on using the time-based system.

14

I mean command has always had occasionable questionables but as a player it does feel a bit more common now. I don’t get the impression these players are the type that would have AFK grinded either, they just…were given the option and title extremely early on in their knowledge accumulation.

And since they have important accesses and tools and are expected to tend to some necessities, it has definitely affected a lot of rounds where I doubt we were ahelping anything because it was just kind of, “well, we need to solve this and it’s not really ahelpable or anything”

But a lot of those people didn’t seem to be in a position to learn the rest of what they need as command since, people expected them to be doing other stuff, or even mentoring.

I will say though

Station AIs

While I’m glad the role no longer often goes unused on lowpop

they’ve become very noticeably very commonly…well, the main problem used to just be that they’d “validhunt” well outside of crewsimov needs, but now there’s a lot of people that just need a lot of instruction on how to follow their lawsets, debate what crew harm is when shocking doors

and is reallllly suffering from them not having a few more rounds as a borg who’s vulnerable to IC consequences for being a shitter…

like more than one player i’ve noticed that has a billion hours in the game says “I can finally play AI” now that they don’t have to be a borgi, and immediately…harass people as AI.

1 Like
15

Just want to comment that the above happened all the time even before the playtime changes. This one definitely isn’t new.

It’s very difficult to objectively judge what this change is doing, given confirmation biases. I also don’t feel like things have improved much and I have seen one or two bad rounds since this (recent!) change, but it’s impossible to judge whether this is truly a trend.

I am strongly of the opinion however that vulture’s roleplay and behavior standards have generally gone down over time regardless and that this change might make people scrutinize that much more.

1 Like
16

I do like the test idea however I’d tweek it slightly make it ‘achivement’ based and given some achivements that experianced members of that department will do

For example:
RD would need the achivements
“its borging time” - Make a borg from scratch in under 180 seconds from the moment you put the first part on the exoskeleton
“Mysterys solved” - activate every type of activation on artifacts
“Anomalous discovery.” - keep an anom alive for 20 minutes without it criting anyone or exploding.
“We have Grav at home!” - create a mini-grav generator and place it on the station after the main grav fails.

CE would have one for making AME, Atmos, Supercool N2 and O2 Loops, Teg, Singlo, and Telsa (with the last two requiring them not loose for 20 minutes)

CMO would need one for finishing a list of chems in under 20 minutes. and another treating 20 different crew in a shift.

QM can get one for making 1,000,000 spaceos over the course of all shifts. (QM doesn’t really require techincal skill)

And HoP is head of service… so Botany, Cooking, and Drink mixing checks as if one of those departments needs training it would be HoPs job.

The problem being Coding it. but it would at least ensure the heads of department know their department.

By being achivement based it allows folks to play the game normally and if doing their jobs unlock them in time.

17

A lot of people are discussing alternative systems of varying complexity to be added alongside/replace time requirements. There might be a simpler solution that would do much the same and be way easier to manage.

Checklist system:
In lobby you have another tab you can open called ‘skill checklist’ or something similar. The checklist has a bunch of listed tasks that can be self assessed by the player, and are organised into departments.
Mock up for example:

Engineering-
Can construct and deconstruct walls [ _ ] 1
Can construct and deconstruct doors [ _ ] 2
Can repair spacing [ _ ] 3
Can repair wiring [ _ ] 4
Can repair piping [ _ ] 5
Can step down HV to LV [ _ ] 6
Can build and operate AME [ _ ] 7
Can build and operate tesla [ _ ] 8
Can build and operate singularity [ _ ] 9
Can build and operate TEG [ _ ] 10
Can setup distro [ _ ] 11
Can setup cryo [ _ ] 12
Can create freezon [ _ ] 13

Promotion options- (alongside time req ofc)
Engineer needs 1,2,3,4
Atmos needs 1,2,3,4,5
CE needs 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11
Cosmetics options-
Senior Engi needs 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Senior Atmos needs 1,2,3,4,5,10,11,12,13

What could this achieve?
most of the time when a player can’t do their job tasks is because they didn’t know what they were supposed to know or not, it’s a non malicious accident that the player didn’t avoid because they didn’t know what they didn’t know. This will not stop a bad faithed CE from playing the CE as they can just lie by checking all the boxes. This will stop a good faithed CE from playing the role before they’re ready for the responsibilities and also inform them what responsibilities are expected that they should learn.
This could also extend to antag roles as we have all seen a nukeop agent at some point who is shocked and confused that they need to know chemistry.
It also gives senior roles an actual meaning beyond playtime, the senior Atmos tech will always know how to make freezon.
While this would be a tool for the player, not the admin, this could be adapted by admins if they saw use in it, like if they see a new player with all boxes ticked. In its raw state it would not effect admin load.

I think that from ease of use, and being WAY simpler to implement than other suggestions, this is a good contender on how to improve on the current situation.

Also I think it will be fun and rewarding to check off all the boxes, I could imagine it would give new players a tangible goal to strive for while prompting them to try more aspect of the game. I really want to have a full screen of ticks, that would feel very rewarding.

(starting item tied to ‘can fly and dock a shuttle’ check box - class D shuttle license) :slightly_smiling_face:

Edit: gonna move this to a feature request as I want to flesh out the idea better, present it clearer and include the comment ideas as I kept thinking about this the last 2 days.

18

If we add something like that, it would be incredible if it would also be on the player’s PDA for their current job, so they could refer it in-round in-character to see what the job is about, how they are doing, and even cross out stuff as they learn?

1 Like
19

This gives me an idea for the currently unused personal records computer, while also allowing the checks and balances to ensure folks are not lying about being able to do something to brute force command access.

What if;

  1. the PDA showed you your job records. allowing you to see your check list

  2. It could only be updated by your head of department // Cap on the personal records computer (on the bridge/CC)

  3. Your Command can check the records to see what you need training in as well and to allocate crew based on there records as ‘staff records’ on thier PDA.

The advantages would be that before you could access command, you’d have the knowellege you needed to cover the role signed off by someone who already had done it, ensuring some experiance.

You’d also have the ability to check off boxes if a player comes into your department after joining in another role. The department head able to access your records for their department even if you didn’t start on it.

you can see as command any crew members training needs allowing you time to offer training rather than waiting for them to come to you.

Using the personal records computer also forces command to leave their department giving a chance for antags to target those who are less likely to leave department like RD who can sit in sci for nearly the whole shift after setting up their portal and getting the valut resources.

And It would mean HoP would need to vist the service department to sign off on tasks for others to get into HoP helping service feel a bit more like a department and HoP more like the head of service that they are.

20

okay but the one downside of a “checkbox” system and why I am against it. is because of the Dunning-Krueger effect. where those with little knowledge will go “I know everything” those with some knowledge believe they know nothing. and those who actually do know everything will know everything. so it leads to less “midground” heads which I dont like. I want to prevent the people who know nothing. not the people who know a bit but not everything