A Working Skill System

[BurgerBB]

This project has been tried many times but a lot of coders just have given up for various reasons.

I kind of want to pick this up again, or have someone else pick it up, since I think it would be a good addition to the server.

This will be point form for easy viewing. The system will include:

• All antags getting maximum skills upon antag status.
  
• Manual setting of skills for each player (not job based), meaning yes, you can have a visitor with max skills.
  
• If no skill system is set for the character, it will default to the job's skill setting.
  
• No skillscaps. You can set your character to have max skills, however admins can check players who do this to see if it makes sense.
  

 

What I haven't really determined is what the skill system will be like. I kind of want to do something very basic, such as 3 attributes common in tabletop games: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence, however a more specific system will likely be needed.

[ShameOnTurtles]

As long as the system is based on how efficiently/effectively/competently you can do an action, and not the ability to do the action itself, I am fine with this.

In regards to specific implementation, I am not sure and would have to think more on that, but I think attempting to adapt the current skills system we have is worth a shot.

[BurgerBB]

As long as the system is based on how efficiently/effectively/competently you can do an action, and not the ability to do the action itself, I am fine with this.

In regards to specific implementation, I am not sure and would have to think more on that, but I think attempting to adapt the current skills system we have is worth a shot.

 

I think this is the best option. I mean anyone will be able to do something, lets say surgery, it's just that a novice will fuck up a lot.

[Butterrobber202]

Right so I was actually looking into this awhile ago, in regards to RAW POWER.

The List, strongest to weakest went /something/ like this

1. Those goddamn G2's

2. Those Bug Workers

3. Those Bug Warriors/Unathi/G1's occupy the same space

4. Plant dudes/Vox

5. Zhan

6. Baseline IPCs

7. Humans/Remaining IPCs

6. Orange Cats/Normal Cats

7. Skrell

mind you this was like, 8 months ago when I did all this research, and this could be completely wrong. But I'd totally support physical bonus such as dex, str, and int for each race.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Guest

[Snakebittenn]

I'm biased, but I'd rather something like Bay's system, especially in regards to >a surgeon cannot be a professional killer

[Trazz666]

No. God no. A million times no. The last thing the server needs is mechanical support for those salty/condescending players whose go-to complaint is "Why does a [job title] know how to do [thing they're going to complain about]?".

[Scheveningen]

Yes pls. Would rather everything in-character be moderated by mechanics nowadays than by administrators or mods too afraid to moderate grey area cases of powergaming.

[Itanimulli]

It's been a while.

I vote yes. Sort of. I wanna see what the finished product would look like. It should just have sliders and score you that way. And if you know too much your score becomes "questionable" and you must consult an admin. Of course you wouldn't be scored on really dumb stuff.

[AmoryBlaine]

I agree with Paradox, and Schev. Please add this in some form.

[BurgerBB]

I see there is support for a skill system. So far the additional suggestion is:

- It never limits what you can do, just how well you do it.

So far I have the following ideas

Surgery: Failure rate of performing surgery steps. An unskilled surgeon will fuck up a lot, while a master surgeon can perform surgery with everyday items. Also affects how fast you perform surgery based actions.

Chemistry: Failure rate of pouring exact measurements. An unskilled chemist may pour in up to 10 more units of chemicals than needed when transfering from beaker to beaker, and take longer while pouring, while a master chemist has no penalty and can pour reagents in perfectly without using tools.

Medicine: How effective physical treatment is. An unskilled medical expert will use more bandages when healing wounds, and the damage healed by them will be ineffective. Also affects how fast bandages, ointment, bruise packs, burn packs are applied, as well as how fast it takes to inject/draw blood from someone.

Construction Engineering: Failure rate of construction steps. An unskilled engineer will take around a minute or two to complete a construction step with a chance of failure, a master engineer will take only seconds with no failure possible.

Electrical Engineering: Failure rate of eletrical based construction steps. An unskilled electrical engineer will take longer installing new batteries, fixing wires, cutting and pulsing wires, while a master electrical engineer will have no trouble with any of that.

Science: Failure rate of using and accessing complex devices. An unskilled scientist would take a minute or two to turn on complex items, while a master would take meer seconds, and with no failure rate. Also effects robotics work and nanopaste functionality.

Cooking: Failure rate of setting the correct time and temperature of food. An unskilled cook will struggle with cooking more complex dishes, while a master cook will cook, cut, and prepare food faster and more successfully. Also affects clumsiness in the kitchen.

Botany: Failure rate of gathering and maintaining plants. A low skilled botanist will sometimes damage plants when weeding out plants or watering them, while a high skill botanist will be able to grow plants with greater yields.

EVA: Effectiveness while working in the void. An unskilled EVA will move sluggishly in a space suit and require more stamina to move, while a master EVA will move fluently and require no stamina to move around.

I'm incredibly hesitant to touch the following:

Combat: People will complain no matter what I do. Perhaps only make it so that this only affects ranged weapons or something.

Attributes: Stuff like athletics, strength, ect.

Fluff shit: Stuff like baystation Bureaucracy, Finance, Piloting, Anatomy.

[Bauser]

Mechanically enforcing skills is going to be so garbage for a million reasons that no one will see coming until it's implemented and the jigsaw puzzle of their absurdity is fully realized.

Now, because my cook is not an expert chemist, he won't be able to pour accurate measurements of milk or universal enzyme into a beaker with measurements on it. ALSO now if I want to play a relatively unskilled cook, I don't get to roleplay it, I just get to sit back and let the game decide what food randomly gets to be burned crap and what food turns out OK.

It's just going to be garbage, top to bottom. And for what? Literally what is the payoff? People get to take more time to perform menial tasks alone? Fun.

EDIT: Not to mention the meta. God, I can't wait until security validhunts a surgeon when they notice he's really good at growing plants - because, after all, antags get max skills automatically. Or if an engineer is suspiciously good at turning on a complex device like an emitter (part of their job) because it's a science skill. Ugh. I can't -1 this enough.

[Sytic]

A working skill system requires progression, an actual system of progression where a player can game this system (as he already possesses the mechanical know-how, but it's a new character) to receive the rank that represents their actual skill in the task OOCly, and would otherwise allow new players to progress up to harder and harder challenges.

A working characteristics system also requires progression, yet in a different vein. A character unable to perform certain actions because of their mechanical limitations might find themselves having to work at improving their characteristics.

At the moment, progression is not defined on Aurora. There is no system of progression. In my opinion, unless a system where a player can reliably progress in a skill is added, it'll just provide frustration for things a player is often able to do, and now suddenly being unable to do them with no recompense, and they will have only two choices:

1. Improve the skills they should be able to do, with fear that due to this skill being outside their job skillset, it will be called powergaming. Or,

2. Do not, and live without the threat of being referred to as powergaming, but at the price of being unable to do something you had originally been able to do.

A system of progression should be implemented alongside this, and then comes the question of "is this actually good for our current environment of roleplay?" (Which, I'd personally agree with.)

[Bauser]

There's not progression because the game isn't styled to be an RPG, our characters aren't supposed to be leveling up and earning all their knowledge within the scope of rounds - our characters are relatively static because they're supposed to have their whole life experiences behind them, learning everything they know in their backstories, etc. What progresses is personality and character arc stuff - story elements, not level-ups. If the day comes that we can improve our characters on Aurora by grinding for skills, I will be extremely disappointed in all of you for allowing it to happen.

[Conspiir]

I can't support this. As neat as it sounds, it's not what the server needs.

People will low skill level in a thing will be pushed aside by the people with higher skill level in a thing, every time. Even if you're roleplaying a, say, medical resident. No, as soon as the crisis hits, you cannot be allowed to touch patients because you'll use too many bandages.

Like Bauser says, we aren't an RPG and we don't "level up." The characters learn organically, not through what a skill page says.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Locking mundane skills behind a skill tree will be incredibly frustrating. The most egregious example of this is cooking. Rogue cooking is not exactly a runaway issue within our community.

EVA as well is not the most egregious skill to have. We have a limited number of hardsuits and exploitation of EVA is very easy to notice and punish. Most unskilled staff have to make do with the emergency softsuits which already have the debuffs that you mentioned.

However these skills are often very obvious to notice when utilized by non-essential staff and I can't remember when unskilled surgeries started become a major problems that staff were not punishing.

[Butterrobber202]

I would cut some of those down, the rank below master should be to do everything like it currently is, a sin, no chance of mistake or need for additional equipment. Perhaps give the 'master' rank a small time buff or something like that.

[Doxxmedearly]

I don't think this will do much of anything to fix any problems of powergaming.

I can just max skill my character and do anything, like I can now. If I'm doing something beyond reasonable expectations, it's going to have to be noticed and ahelped. And they're going to have to open up my skills and look at them before passing a judgement. That's just like it is right now; it seems all this is going to do is cause frustration without fixing the problem it seeks to address.

Mechanical implementations are not the solution for subpar RP. They can't be, because it's a learned skill. RP is something that's based around good faith, player interaction, and reasonable moderation, not mechanical crunchiness. And if I can just max my character's skills anyway, what does this change?

I'm pretty much with JB and Bauser here. Is this really such a tremendous issue? Because it sounds like most people are a little frustrated with staff not enforcing skills properly, or being vague about how they enforce judgments on if a character can reasonably doing a thing they're doing. Perhaps that needs to be looked at, if this is the case.

[Zundy]

I like the skill system idea. The amount of skill you can allocate is only limited by your character concept in this proposal which is perfect. You can have your master chef, master chemist if you like though I'd be interested to see your character background for that to work.

My main issue is with policing this. As far as I know and have experienced the current skillsets aren't enforced, unless I'm wrong? Anecdotally I've never seen it enforced in recent memory. Will the admin staff be able to see skill levels at a glance? Can the admin and mod staff police this? The main issue with skills today is characters becoming gods of combat inexplicably.

From a data perspective this would be good to allow staff to monitor what skillsets people are taking up and therefore check where folks are focusing their roleplay.

[Bauser]

Doxx brings up a good point: any player could abuse a mechanical skills system for a long, long time, because in order to police it, somebody has to see that your skills are too high. In a best-case scenario, that means they take the time to check your records (if they're security or command - otherwise they're shit out of luck), and in a more likely scenario, that means they have to notice how good you are at pouring exact measurements or how fast you can weld a door. Most of the consequences are invisible to other players, so... good luck.

In fact, most of the consequences being invisible to other players is a good explanation on its own for why this change should be avoided. It adds no interaction or intrigue; it inconveniences each player all by their lonesome.

[BurgerBB]

I like the skill system idea. The amount of skill you can allocate is only limited by your character concept in this proposal which is perfect. You can have your master chef, master chemist if you like though I'd be interested to see your character background for that to work.

My main issue is with policing this. As far as I know and have experienced the current skillsets aren't enforced, unless I'm wrong? Anecdotally I've never seen it enforced in recent memory. Will the admin staff be able to see skill levels at a glance? Can the admin and mod staff police this? The main issue with skills today is characters becoming gods of combat inexplicably.

From a data perspective this would be good to allow staff to monitor what skillsets people are taking up and therefore check where folks are focusing their roleplay.

 

There will be an admin verb that checks players with a certain skill or greater, or a certain "total skill point" or greater.

[TrickingTrapster]

Yeah, I think this may be a little bit too ambitious. A bit too much of a fundamental change on how the server is played. However, reading this has given me another idea that I can't really post here due to double suggestion rules, but I'll put it up shortly, I guess. This skill thing might sound good in theory but it's a more massive change than you're making it out to be.

[MattAtlas]

Yeah, I think this may be a little bit too ambitious. A bit too much of a fundamental change on how the server is played. However, reading this has given me another idea that I can't really post here due to double suggestion rules, but I'll put it up shortly, I guess. This skill thing might sound good in theory but it's a more massive change than you're making it out to be.

 

It's really not a fundamental change, and I don't see how it is? If you could elaborate on how it's a "massive" change, it'd be appreciated.

[DrHobo]

Skills actually do get enforced, and people do get bwoinked for it like someone deconstructing a reinforced wall with no construction skill. As much as this could be a good idea, I think a trait system like goon but less meme-y would be better and a skill system is going to end up a mess. Some character's I play are geniuses, some just average folks earning a wage, and some are totally useless that if they hadn't fallen through the cracks would be fired for incompetence. Maybe instead of a skill system, just a better management of it by tagging various actions with skills to alert mods and admin if someone is doing something they don't have the skills for rather than nerf the actual actions.

[Pratepresidenten]

I am a huge fan of this to be honest! The prospect of having tasks modified by stats is very appealing, allowing you to further tailor a character to fit the job needs. A hard working miner would have more melee weapon damage and would hit harder, and a constant on the move paramedic would have faster movement speed. What is there not to like about a system such as this? Either you can do a thing awesomely, okay-ish or fail horribly.

Although such an implement would require a very long time of constant tweaking and rebalancing, not to mention ripping apart our current system, and y'know, people would most likely cry over certain aspects not being perfect for them as people always complain about this or that.

In any case, this suggestion has a lot to offer and it has my utmost support! Make it a reality please.