The State of the Chef

[BurgerBB]

Chef is currently the second most underused role on the station, with the first one being Librarian. Despite being quite useful and involved in most rounds on other servers, the food the chef produces is never used because of several key things.

1. There are too many chef alternatives. Vendor food is super convenient. Lunchboxes are as well.

2. No one actually gives a shit about hunger. Even with the vendor bug present for a month, on average I would get at most 3 patrons per 2 hour shift. Currently hunger only has an effect on movement speed, and nothing else. It does not deal clone damage as people think, it does not cause organ failure or death. It's just a simple movement speed penalty of 0.1 seconds for low nutrition and 0.2 for malnutrition.

3. There is no incentive to go down to server. Most jobs that require constant work are quite far away from the kitchen. Security is usually on the run too much to sit down and eat. People in the sublevel can't be bothered to walk that distance. Miners in the bar only go to drink.

Proposed Solutions:

1. Remove lunchboxes. People spawn with lunchboxes not because they're trying to watch what they eat, but because they metagame and wish to skip the vendor and kitchen entirely.

2. Make junk food undesirable. Perhaps use it as a last resort. Currently, the negative effects of eating junkfood are a joke and don't actually stop people from eating junkfood. Unathi are actually immune to the effects of junkfood penalties because of this. Perhaps more negative effects are needed. An idea I had was a news article that announces recalls for certain junkfood in vendors because they contain unwanted chems. Perhaps meat pies are being recalled because they have have trace amounts of acid in them.

3. Limit the amount of junkfood on the station. Not every vendor needs to be stocked with junkfood. Considering how most organizations tend to restock junkfood once a week, perhaps once a month, the vendors shouldn't be restocked to the brim. This addition would also give janitors more to do, as they would need to restock machines more often.

4. Make chef food more desirable. Perhaps give buffs to eating chef food. Maybe put in some healing chems when making hard to make food like other servers.

5. Make hunger more threatening. It won't kill you, but it will cause more effects. Maybe more of a move speed penalty, and a very low pain tolerance. One hit with the baton should knock you down instantly when malnourished. Perhaps this will be good for revrounds for control.

6. Add an optional, 15 minute lunchbreak where people are invited to the bar. If there is a chef at roundstart, the round will always start at 11:00am. At 12:00am, an announcement from central command will inform everyone that they may take their 15 minute lunch break. You can also make the lunchbreak more desirable by making it so that at 12:00am, people will be hungry. This can be done by making it so that people have a certain amount of nutrition level when they spawn so that by 12:00pm, they will be hungry.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Punishing people for not going to the chef isn't going to make chef a job that people enjoy more. I don't want to have to feel like chef players are only 'clocking in' because if they don't then we all suffer. This is a game...

I've seen chefs and I've gotten into chef a little bit myself. The biggest issues are the immediate supply chain of hydroponics and whether or not its staffed, and the finnicky Nanako-era cooking mechanics that are a boon and a blessing.

1) Do not remove lunchboxes. The food in them does not provide 2 hours of nutrients.

2) Do not cause junk food to cause all these negative affects again...

3) I don't feel like being punished for someone else not picking chef. You're going to force me to hop the counter. I do not have control over whether or not there is food in the kitchen.

4) sure, but people already like eating the chef's food....

5) Lunch breaks are better being dynamic. This isn't a job. Don't make me clock in or out and I don't want to have to deal with either side of the headache of "DOCTOR HELP" "shut up im on lunch break"

Small quality of life suggestions would improve the chef's experience for players, and I've submitted minor tweaks to the chef's role. You got very upset about these suggestions, and instead of QoL tweaks you want to make the entire station more miserable until someone bites the bullet to play chef.

This is bad game design and is not at all desirable in any sense.

-1

Edited August 27, 2018 by Marlon Phoenix

[BurgerBB]

Bad game design is creating a role and then introducing mechanics to make that role redundant. Bad feedback is saying no to feedback without suggesting alternatives or improving upon the design while also being passive aggressive and bringing up my alleged attitude in other threads especially when they have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

1. The lunchbox only exists to metagame. It's not an RP tool like most other flavor items. I think the lunchbox is the only item that does this.

2. This isn't feedback. Regardless, as an addum, events can have a percent chance to trigger based on the current amount of people in a job. The junkfood recall event can only happen if a chef isn't present so there are no concerns of punishing players for not going to the chef.

3. The amount of vending machines fully stocked can be adjusted to be a reasonable level. It can be 10% unstocked, all the way to 90% unstocked. You are dismissing the very concept of this without even knowing the full numbers or what is even possible. Hell, the restock level can be based on whether or not there is a chef present.

4. This isn't feedback.

5. Your basing the merit of a suggestion solely because of worst case scenarios that won't happen. Doctors will not say "Yeah, go die I'm on my lunchbreak." unless they wish to get punished ICly and quite possibly OOCly.

[AmoryBlaine]

This is awful, I hope this gets nowhere. The last thing we need is more of this stuff where you try to force everyone to visit the kitchen, something which a lot of people already do purely for the RP interaction available there. Forcing us to visit with the threat of negative affects otherwise does not make me a happy camper. I will die defending my rights to pack my own lunch before going to work, or eating raisins from the vending machine.

-1

[Trazz666]

Please Burger, not this again. I am literally begging you.

[CommanderXor]

On the topic of removal of lunchboxes, what about Vaurca? A majority of Vaurca players - from what I have seen, of course - have lunchboxes since they can stock k'ois waffles and fried k'ois. The chef isn't able to make k'ois related things most of the time, and I highly doubt science would be willing to give up their limited stock of k'ois to feed the hungry ant-men.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I did provide alternatives.... Quality of life tweaks, and I named the issues at hand.

This idea punishes people for there not being a chef on station. This is bad design because it is not up to me, a cargo technician, on if there is a chef. You want to improve the job but you are hitting it from the wrong perspective.

 

1. The lunchbox only exists to metagame.

 

LOL

Edited August 27, 2018 by Marlon Phoenix

[BurgerBB]

On the topic of removal of lunchboxes, what about Vaurca? A majority of Vaurca players - from what I have seen, of course - have lunchboxes since they can stock k'ois waffles and fried k'ois. The chef isn't able to make k'ois related things most of the time, and I highly doubt science would be willing to give up their limited stock of k'ois to feed the hungry ant-men.

 

I'm fine with giving ants a k'ois bar but generally anything else is dumb.

 

This is awful, I hope this gets nowhere. The last thing we need is more of this stuff where you try to force everyone to visit the kitchen, something which a lot of people already do purely for the RP interaction available there. Forcing us to visit with the threat of negative affects otherwise does not make me a happy camper. I will die defending my rights to pack my own lunch before going to work, or eating raisins from the vending machine.

-1

 

In the like 100 rounds I play chef people don't go to the kitchen to RP. Interaction is usually

"Hey is this free to take?"

"Yes."

"Thanks."

Chef interaction doesn't exist. If people want service interaction they go to the bar.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Making people resent you because they are forced to grab food from you or suffer isn't going to improve your RP as a chef. They'll still just grab the food and leave? They'll just be really annoyed ALL the time. Nothing in your suggestion will make characters talk to your chef more.

Have you tried packing lunchboxes and delivering them to people? I've delivered lunchboxes of burritos, chips and salsa to miners and give spaghetti to sec. You can bring interaction to other people.

[BurgerBB]

Making people resent you because they are forced to grab food from you or suffer isn't going to improve your RP as a chef. They'll still just grab the food and leave? They'll just be really annoyed ALL the time. Nothing in your suggestion will make characters talk to your chef more.

Have you tried packing lunchboxes and delivering them to people? I've delivered lunchboxes of burritos, chips and salsa to miners and give spaghetti to sec. You can bring interaction to other people.

 

No one will resent the chef. If anything, people will resent me as already proven with the unnecessary shitposting in this thread.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

If you're going to call constructive criticism shitposting, then I am not at all interested in anything you happen to suggest nor anything you have to say.

-1

[Lady Fowl]

-1

To be really blunt, this is kinda a dumb idea really. Just leave it as is

[Munks]

Stop trying to change the game to force people to rely on chefs just because you like to play them

-1

[HouseOfSynth]

I thought I'd come on by and throw some opinions on this. So here we are.

 

Chef is currently the second most underused role on the station, with the first one being Librarian. Despite being quite useful and involved in most rounds on other servers, the food the chef produces is never used because of several key things.

 

You're probably right. But you only get as much value out of a roll as you make. What I mean here is, sitting around in a kitchen doing the same stuff is going to drive people away from the role. Being a chef doesn't stop you running mini events in the bar and catering for them. Nor does it stop you exiting the kitchen and taking orders from departments, delivering them the food when it's ready which is, if you think about it, much more convenient. My point is you decide whether your round is boring or interesting. Relying on other people to do it for you all the time is a flawed tactic in some roles, such as chef.

 

1. There are too many chef alternatives. Vendor food is super convenient. Lunchboxes are as well.

 

Then make it convenient. Advertise! People are spending their money on vendors. If they're too lazy to come down to the kitchen then bring your product to them. Lunchboxes don't really go a long way for nutrient., You'll still go hungry with a lunchbox.

 

2. No one actually gives a shit about hunger. Even with the vendor bug present for a month, on average I would get at most 3 patrons per 2 hour shift. Currently hunger only has an effect on movement speed, and nothing else. It does not deal clone damage as people think, it does not cause organ failure or death. It's just a simple movement speed penalty of 0.1 seconds for low nutrition and 0.2 for malnutrition.

 

You're not going to die of hunger in any work environment. Be it two hours or eight. But people do seek out food when they're hungry in game, most likely from the nearest and most reliable source. Since there's barely ever a chef, it's usually vending machines.

 

3. There is no incentive to go down to server. Most jobs that require constant work are quite far away from the kitchen. Security is usually on the run too much to sit down and eat. People in the sublevel can't be bothered to walk that distance. Miners in the bar only go to drink.

 

Then take the business to them! You may not have people visit the kitchen, but at some point they will go back to their department. If people can't be bothered to eat your food because of distance and you're that hung up about it, then you should take it to them. That way you get some fulfillment. AND some interaction. It's a two way street.

We now move on to proposed solutions

 

Proposed Solutions:

1. Remove lunchboxes. People spawn with lunchboxes not because they're trying to watch what they eat, but because they metagame and wish to skip the vendor and kitchen entirely.

 

I think you're getting your words mixed up a bit here. Metagaming is using OOC knowledge to influence your IC actions. Taking lunch to work is not metagaming. If you really want to pin a word on it you could pin powergaming on it. But in my opinion that would be hyperbole. I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to bring lunch to work. I do it IRL because it's much more beneficial than eating McDonalds on every break. Some people just have preference of eating their own prepared food than someone elses. Besides, you'll still go hungry even if you eat a lunchbox. Removing lunchboxes won't really solve your issue.

 

2. Make junk food undesirable. Perhaps use it as a last resort. Currently, the negative effects of eating junkfood are a joke and don't actually stop people from eating junkfood. Unathi are actually immune to the effects of junkfood penalties because of this. Perhaps more negative effects are needed. An idea I had was a news article that announces recalls for certain junkfood in vendors because they contain unwanted chems. Perhaps meat pies are being recalled because they have have trace amounts of acid in them.

 

I get this, I get that it's annoying to cook stuff for the crew and they go eat a meat pie for 30 credits. So, as I said, make your product easier to reach. Make deliveries, take requests. This is all down to interaction. You can walk into the bar and take orders for people. These things can help to change this. If you sit in the kitchen silent then people will just go to a vendor because either they don't realise there's a chef or they don't see the point of going the extra mile to get something they might not like. As I said you need to interact with people too. You can't just sit there and expect the RP to flow to you just like that. The round is only as fun as you make it really.

 

3. Limit the amount of junkfood on the station. Not every vendor needs to be stocked with junkfood. Considering how most organizations tend to restock junkfood once a week, perhaps once a month, the vendors shouldn't be restocked to the brim. This addition would also give janitors more to do, as they would need to restock machines more often.

 

I'll be honest, this isn't a bad idea and could actually work well. I'd actually support this one. Since it doesn't complicate the whole ordeal all that much.

 

4. Make chef food more desirable. Perhaps give buffs to eating chef food. Maybe put in some healing chems when making hard to make food like other servers.

 

Eeeeh, this opens routes for powergaming and such. I don't think buffing in this case would really work. It's like making a B-line for tea when you get bitten by a spider.

 

5. Make hunger more threatening. It won't kill you, but it will cause more effects. Maybe more of a move speed penalty, and a very low pain tolerance. One hit with the baton should knock you down instantly when malnourished. Perhaps this will be good for revrounds for control.

 

Could work. However you don't starve to death on a 2 hour shift. Or even an 8 hour shift. Which kind of makes it redundant. Buffing the damages of hunger will just be an inconvenience more than anything.

 

6. Add an optional, 15 minute lunchbreak where people are invited to the bar. If there is a chef at roundstart, the round will always start at 11:00am. At 12:00am, an announcement from central command will inform everyone that they may take their 15 minute lunch break. You can also make the lunchbreak more desirable by making it so that at 12:00am, people will be hungry. This can be done by making it so that people have a certain amount of nutrition level when they spawn so that by 12:00pm, they will be hungry.

Some department heads already do this for their underlings. Crewmembers also sometimes ask for breaks aswell. But usually they're free to go and get food any time.

So my conclusion? You claim people avoid the chef and simply don't interact with them beyond "Can I eat this"? Here are my proposed solutions:

1) Find your own interaction. Stop relying on people to bring it to you.

2) Make deliveries to departments, they'll appreciate this and will more than likely eat it.

3) Take personal orders. This shows you, A: care for the crew's needs on a personal level and B: Will generate RP

4) Host mini events, or at least propose them to the heads of staff. Cater for them and such. Needless to say, this will generate RP and give you and the crew something interesting to do.

The game is only as fun as you make it. Remember that rounds are driven by other player's actions. So add to that yourself, be that chef who always comes around with food when we need it. Who takes our orders and cooks the food we like. Give it a go, see how much more fun it is than sitting in the kitchen all shift.

Well that's my opinion on the matter, I'll be happy to reply to any response you direct at me.

[Coalf]

I had a bigass post to respond but seeing as people are just getting called out for shitposting when they're trying to give legitimate feedback I'd find it pointless to post.

-1

[SleepyWolf]

if you want to force people to interact with you you should try playing security cadet

although i do like the idea of the prepared food giving you a buff.

[Doxxmedearly]

tbh I wish people would interact with the chef more rather than going to vendors.

The chef is preparing freshly cooked food, with the freshest produce you can actually get, and usually happy to cook whatever you want to order, for free.

Compared to shitty vendor food that costs a ton of creds.

I'd like anyone reading this thread to keep that in perspective when RPing. Sometimes you're too busy, but, if you're not, yes, you should take some time to go get a free fresh-cooked meal.

But. I agree with HouseofSynth's points. I also agree with and like the idea of vendors being only partially-stocked, since that doesn't really screw over the station without a chef on staff, and makes sense. The random recall event wouldn't be a bad thing to toss in, either.

I see a lot of rounds with chef RP. There are some notable chefs who do a lot, and get a lot. And there ARE rounds where you get nothing. That sucks, and I know it sucks. But... I don't think all of the proposed solutions, as they are now, are a good way to go about this.

[Sebbe]

>Lunchboxes are only for meta game

Oh fuck, I hope the admins IRL won't ban me for choosing to have a cheap and reliable lunch that I enjoy making each morning, fuck I have to apologise to my boss tomorrow for meta gaming my lunchbreaks.

[UnknownMurder]

I do agree with Jackboot, House of Synth, and ironically Coalf's points. Also, >lunchboxes are metagaming. Well shit, I guess I'm metagaming in real world, guess I'll be banned from real world and find a different server. I typically have my lunch on HIIIIIGH NOON. It'd be exaggeration to pin it on powergaming as well. I dunno about you, Burger. Where and how do you eat your lunch?

-1

[BurgerBB]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5190

Arrow already beat me to a "not fully stocked" vending machine PR. This PR removes vending machines from central command, removes junkfood, and adds antmen food to their spawning boxes.

[Asheram]

If you -really- want to get some RP out of the whole thing then go code a lunch cart and go deliver.

[Arrow768]

The OP has a few issues but also contains some interesting things.

Let´s start with half-stocked vending machines.

That has been suggested a few times already and it makes sense to not have all machines fully stocked.

(Especially since the station already has a way to refill the vending machines with the restock cartridges)

Therefore I decided to implement this here:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5189

Regarding "Noone gives a shit about the chef":

Indeed, while there was the vending bug present, I didnt visit the chef and mostly ignored the hunger meter.

Not because I was too lazy, but because there is rarely a good chef.

That is also where that comes in:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5188

To reduce the difficulty and frustration of the chef position, the time it takes until food burns in the oven is now almost doubled.

Make junkfood undesireable

An idea I had was a news article that announces recalls for certain junkfood in vendors because they contain unwanted chems.

If you want to do that, then that is the way to go about that, but not additional nerfs.

Add a random event, that posts a news story about the dangers of a specific kind of fastfood.

That way you can raise ICly the awareness about it and I believe some people might be more likely to go to the chef.

Maybe even a second version of the event (that is very rare; otherwise it would get tiresome) which mentions there is a specific danger to the food and "locks" the specific entry (just removes the contents of that specific food from the machines)

(There will always be those that ignore that and you wont be able to do anything about that. Just like irl.)

The biggest issue that I see is the distribution of the food.

There are a few ways around that:

• ICly announce the availability of the chef, possibly offer deliveries
  
• Send your menu to the departments via the request console, again so they are aware there is a chef
  
• Add a new food distribution system -> A central machine at the kitchen that is stocked by the chef and retrival machines in the departments that "retrieve" the food from the central machine in the kitchen. Possibly with the ability to set a price.
  
  
  
  I also hope that the upcoming bar and kitchen overhaul will draw more people to the kitchen.
  
  https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5110
  

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

The OP has a few issues but also contains some interesting things.

Let´s start with half-stocked vending machines.

That has been suggested a few times already and it makes sense to not have all machines fully stocked.

(Especially since the station already has a way to refill the vending machines with the restock cartridges)

Therefore I decided to implement this here:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5189

Regarding "Noone gives a shit about the chef":

Indeed, while there was the vending bug present, I didnt visit the chef and mostly ignored the hunger meter.

Not because I was too lazy, but because there is rarely a good chef.

That is also where that comes in:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5188

To reduce the difficulty and frustration of the chef position, the time it takes until food burns in the oven is now almost doubled.

Make junkfood undesireable

An idea I had was a news article that announces recalls for certain junkfood in vendors because they contain unwanted chems.

If you want to do that, then that is the way to go about that, but not additional nerfs.

Add a random event, that posts a news story about the dangers of a specific kind of fastfood.

That way you can raise ICly the awareness about it and I believe some people might be more likely to go to the chef.

Maybe even a second version of the event (that is very rare; otherwise it would get tiresome) which mentions there is a specific danger to the food and "locks" the specific entry (just removes the contents of that specific food from the machines)

(There will always be those that ignore that and you wont be able to do anything about that. Just like irl.)

The biggest issue that I see is the distribution of the food.

There are a few ways around that:

• ICly announce the availability of the chef, possibly offer deliveries
  
• Send your menu to the departments via the request console, again so they are aware there is a chef
  
• Add a new food distribution system -> A central machine at the kitchen that is stocked by the chef and retrival machines in the departments that "retrieve" the food from the central machine in the kitchen. Possibly with the ability to set a price.
  
  
  
  I also hope that the upcoming bar and kitchen overhaul will draw more people to the kitchen.
  
  https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5110
  

 

You raised a lot of good points, code-dad.

The premise of the OP is that we must strip food from the station in order to encourage crew-to-chef RP. The points raised by him aren't about the balance of food availability itself but how it relates to the interactions the chef receives.

This is bad design because it does not address the bottom line - even if the chef becomes the only source of food in the entire round, the only net affect will be people continuing to grab and forget food from the kitchen as well as being generally more annoyed and frustrated because of their character recieving constant negative affects from hunger that is entirely reliant on a job they have no control over being filled or not. With the chef job being the end point of a supply chain, punishing the server at large for it not functioning up to snuff is going to lower our player retention I guarantee.

A central computer for delivers is a good suggestion but all of your points here are mechanical implementations of what is possible already, and could just need pushing to do IC'ly. As I said in a previous post I already deliver food via lunchboxes to departments and can take orders. Leaving posters and papers scattered around encouraging an intiative to take orders could encourage chefs and players to do more of the interactions inherent in this.

It would also be a better alternative to raise the kitchen staff job count to 3 and include misc roles such as a "Waiter", "Delivery Boy". "Kitchen Staff" as a vague title would also reduce the amount of alt-titles while letting these players swap between them to adapt to the circumstances of the round - today I'm a delivery boy, tomorrow i'm a dish washer, yesterday I was a waiter, and right now I think I'll be an ice cream salesman for a few rounds.

[Snoopy11]

-1 I interact with the chef when I can, but I've found very often that people will walk up to the kitchen, grab food, eat, and piss off without a word. Don't remove stuff, add things to chef that makes them more beneficial for people to use than junk food, I tend to eat from the kitchen as it slows down hunger better than junk food.

[BurgerBB]

Glad to know that someone is out there sharing the work with me. I partially like your dangers of junkfood article, however I still very much like my idea. If there is a chef, then there will be a junkfood recall event of my proposal, if there isn't, there will just be a news article stating the health concerns of it.

Also another PR is up that makes it so that Unathi are affected by junkfood penalties. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5191