Scout Service for RnD/mining (edited) (This doesn't touch sec slots anymore)

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

5 is too many scouts, 4 is too few. They have too many duties or too few. We can't expand upon expeditions because we don't have expanded expeditions. I feel like I'm being set up to fail. ?

I'll see what I can do to address concerns without totally gutting this entirely and then being told that the new version is too gutted to be worth implementing.

[Nantei]

As far as a mechanical benefit goes, I have been musing with the idea of them being able to bring back materials and research objects. Expeditions currently have little to offer, but it doesn't have to be that way. Getting expeditions to happen more is largely beneficial to making expeditions better. Why would anyone work on expeditions as of now? They're almost never done.

Mining also as a role has suffered from being very tedious and dull for awhile. Most miners stop doing their job after the first or second haul, and it's usually entirely to get their goodies. So why don't we make the gameplay loop for mining actually fun? What if expedition sites were rich with material for miners? I think it's worth considering that away sites could be a lot more than just a rare roleplay experience.

[Skull132]

33 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

They have too many duties or too few. We can't expand upon expeditions because we don't have expanded expeditions.

For the n-th time. Most of these duties do not exist at this time. To use your own DLC model: once the content to support more explorers is in, we can add more explorers. Creating job titles and descriptions is trivial as fuck. Adding a slot to an already existent role simply requires you edit a single number in a single file.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

37 minutes ago, Nantei said:

As far as a mechanical benefit goes, I have been musing with the idea of them being able to bring back materials and research objects. Expeditions currently have little to offer, but it doesn't have to be that way. Getting expeditions to happen more is largely beneficial to making expeditions better. Why would anyone work on expeditions as of now? They're almost never done.

Mining also as a role has suffered from being very tedious and dull for awhile. Most miners stop doing their job after the first or second haul, and it's usually entirely to get their goodies. So why don't we make the gameplay loop for mining actually fun? What if expedition sites were rich with material for miners? I think it's worth considering that away sites could be a lot more than just a rare roleplay experience.

I had a mapper help me prepare an away mission map. It was our first one, and the first one I ever managed or participated in. I have not mapped in many, many months since catserver but if we have these jobs who are dedicated to away missions, that I know the expeditions will definately see a lot of use, I'll pick up mapping again and work on churning out locations to go to.

Currently I feel like expeditions are too clunky for me to want to devote a lot of time developing. You need to assemble volunteers from a bunch of different departments.... You need to convince the Heads its worth going.... You need to get the right amount of people.... You need to make sure you all have your waivers...

Having people who immediately go "YES PLEASE. WE GO NOW. GO EXPEDITION NOW YES PLEASE GO." without requiring waivers (because it's their job description) gives me the confidence to know any content produced will have at least 4 eager participants. And that means, at the very worst, with NO ONE ELSE wanting to go, 4 people had fun participating in content we've created. But I am pretty confident they're going to be followed by scientists or whoever else.

Working in the backwards model seems counter intuitive to me, because we need to actively put our hands behind the crew and shove them into the away shuttle by framing expeditions as events.

There are even more possibilities outside away missions, just like you said. Resources being in different expedition zones would be very fun. Perhaps we could even balkanize ores to different expedition zones, so that some resources aren't on the asteroid. I would love to have scouts helping mining explore a jungle planet to find diamond deposits or whatever.

Miners share the same emphasis on EVA with scouts, but don't have any push to go on expeditions because their work is relatively self-contained to the asteroid, even on the same z-level.

This is kind of like my philosophy for writing a book. A blank page leads you nowhere. Writing small chapters, even if they are flawed, are constructive foundations that you can go back and edit, and then expand on, in a continuous creative process.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Nantei]

55 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Working in the backwards model seems counter intuitive to me, because we need to actively put our hands behind the crew and shove them into the away shuttle by framing expeditions as events.

This is pretty much my argument for 'putting the wagon before the horse' here. Expedition development is pretty stagnant it seems, and I have a feeling that would change if expeditions were seen more than never. Hell, I'd argue as far as role specific content goes, the scouts still have more content than say, Xenobiology. There's a plethora of roles that make their own fun.

[Scheveningen]

There are not enough away missions currently in the game right now, nor are the away missions per se rewarding from a roleplay and gameplay standpoint to really justify this bloated department addition as-is. Adding 5 more slots into the game is not insignificant.

Furthermore, I've attempted to organize or participate in expeditions as a support role countless times. Preparation takes a really long time, especially considering how crucial and helpful circuit-based devices are for expeditions, such as subspace transceivers that function as multi-way transmitters to help keep everyone talking to one another. 80% of the time an antagonist causes trouble on the station side, and 80% of when that happens, the heads of staff definitively cancel the expedition. I'm not going to rail against other command players, though, this is what I've seen happen through the majority of my experiences trying to get an expedition going, only for that effort to be essentially wasted. At this point, most of people who play regularly have collectively decided away missions are not worth the trouble on any other game mode that isn't extended. Even then, what are the odds you're going to get an RD or a captain who gives a crap on the rare occasion that an extended round happens?

Also, park ranger aesthetic clashes so heavily with everything else. This feels like another attempt to make real-world parallels again. Likewise, the identity of a park ranger is someone who protects wildlife and watches for forest fires. They keep other humans from interfering with wildlife or being destructive -- they are not explorers in any sense, they are national protectors of wildlife reserve property. Skull's made their points regarding "gubmint infringing on corporate interests" and they're pretty sound in many regards. Park ranger aesthetic and background needs to be scrapped in favor of contracted space rangers instead. You know, the kind of people explorers or scientists would hire, seasoned frontierspersons whose major purpose is to guide the geeks through the lay of the land (or space, really) and protect them from their own ignorance, and likewise be an extra gun when things get bad. Less of "Smokey the Bear" and more "Seasoned Freelance Ranger" without spilling the blood of indigenous people, of course. Further, to not clash with the art style and otherwise stick to common cliche aspects, nylon jumpsuits and crinkley jackets would be peak aesthetic for them.

It would be best if there were only 1 or 2 rangers on top of that, not 5. We do not need a whole new department just to facilitate exactly one aspect of science that is just as optional as doing Toxins, or Telescience, or searching for anomalies on the asteroid, etc. I don't really have a problem of having at least one job or at most two to support the specific aspect of going on expeditions. The intent is fine, but the execution of how this is want to be done is really bizarre.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

There are more to do than away missions. There are now 4 job slots. Preperation time will be reduced with able bodied scouts. You can still cancel regular crew going on an expedition and send scouts, allowing player participation in both the station events and the expedition, because scouts belong on expeditions whereas security or medical belong on the station during shenanigans. The park ranger aesthetic has been addressed in my post to skull. There is only 1 ranger. There are 2 scouts and a cadet.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Here is a sneak peek at their new hat, without the rest of the in-progress jumpsuit.

Their alternate jumpsuit is entering its final stage...

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

edit:
nvm one sec

Edited September 20, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I think this work by amoryblaine (but with the leg lines made a lightwr blue by me) work good.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

OK, we'll make a PR soon.

[Carver]

I sincerely hope this doesn't run into the same issues and problems that Polaris' explorers had, but I'll have to wait and see.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Okay, I'm going to try picking this up again.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Ive been talking to arrow about where this would best be added with. Scouts synergize well with departmentsec especially if depsec doesnt have wider maint access. It is also great for numap.

However with vanilla sec (without maint access) its best if the slots are low. 1 leader, 1 ranger, 1 scout.

Loreside im talking to other devs about some tweaks to their presentation and stuff.

An away mission draft guide will be worked on to inform scouts that they need to bring crew along on expeditions. Im thinking an emt, scientists, and a cargo tech or 2 along with scouts.

[Butterrobber202]

Honestly 2 scouts sound better, just for team play.

[Xelnagahunter]

4 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Im thinking an emt, scientists, and a cargo tech or 2 along with scouts.

*emphasis mine

Why cargo techs but no engineers? I'm all for including cargo if possible, but I feel engineering staff would be far more needed than a crate loader.

[AmoryBlaine]

All this whole idea seems to do is remove Sec's involvement with expeditions, while keeping intact everyone else's given only Security has a redundancy issue.

[Nantei]

4 hours ago, AmoryBlaine said:

All this whole idea seems to do is remove Sec's involvement with expeditions, while keeping intact everyone else's given only Security has a redundancy issue.

I don't see that as an inherently bad thing. Besides, you could still come, nothing stops you. Security just ceases to be mandatory instead.

[Kintsugi]

I absolutely, fundamentally dislike this idea. It is a radical change that has no justification for necessity - It is a buff to the station's capabilities as a force for dealing with issues - and it compromises the chain of command by throwing a new wrench into the works. People thought contractors were bad for being a nebulous rogue agent under NT's command  - now you're going to have government agents aboard the station. Armed government agents. Furthermore, there is the issue of purpose: this is, like on Baystation, like on Polaris, like on wherever else - an explorer role. Now that the original proposal has (Thankfully) been abandoned, the sole niche for scouts that aren't filled by other jobs currently is being a dedicated expeditionary. Yes, they could help supply move crates. Yes, they could maintain the garden - but so can an assistant. Expeditions happen so rarely currently that to add this job is to add a job that, for 90% of rounds, will go unused. This proposal would add armed government agents that have a very niche purpose that is not applicable to how most rounds currently play out - in fact, I imagine that the scouts, if added, would end up being more like a dedicated militia that immediately supplements security's strength in a crisis/mercenary boarding than the guys you ask tag along with an expedition.

EDIT: Also, let me point out that these guys start off with lethal weapons and security doesn't.

Edited November 26, 2019 by DanseMacabre

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Oh yeah geeze I don't know how I forgot an engineer. An engineer should definately go too.

I think that gives us a big chunk of people going out on expeditions. Stationwise with the security department losing maintenence access scouts also have a good job as being carp sweepers. I'm still wondering if, for 3 people, there's enough of a core gameplay loop for them to do outside of expeditions. I believe with the wide range of options they will always have enough to do - as a HoP main I know that running around supply and botany to volunteer my time can easily tie up most of my time helping people and interacting with them.

So that's why I think scouts have enough of a wholesome (or otherwise) range of options to do fun stuff outside of expeditions. With the 3 slots in the current iteration they'll be great to add alongside depsec. Just need a dev to help and a spriter.

[Arrow768]

On 25/11/2019 at 23:19, Marlon Phoenix said:

Ive been talking to arrow about where this would best be added with. Scouts synergize well with departmentsec especially if depsec doesnt have wider maint access. It is also great for numap.

Well, as I mentioned during the conversation, I am not sold on it, as the current away missions + helping science/botany is not a lot to support a role.

[Kintsugi]

24 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Oh yeah geeze I don't know how I forgot an engineer. An engineer should definately go too.

I think that gives us a big chunk of people going out on expeditions. Stationwise with the security department losing maintenence access scouts also have a good job as being carp sweepers. I'm still wondering if, for 3 people, there's enough of a core gameplay loop for them to do outside of expeditions. I believe with the wide range of options they will always have enough to do - as a HoP main I know that running around supply and botany to volunteer my time can easily tie up most of my time helping people and interacting with them.

So that's why I think scouts have enough of a wholesome (or otherwise) range of options to do fun stuff outside of expeditions. With the 3 slots in the current iteration they'll be great to add alongside depsec. Just need a dev to help and a spriter.

I don't understand why these guys would have maintenance access when security (Or most of the station, for that matter) does not - carp killing is not a strong enough justification in my mind, and in fact I think them having maintenance access will only contribute to the issue of them becoming the station's militia force. When security can't pursue bad guys into maintenance, but these guys (Armed with only lethal weapons) can?

I also do not understand the relationship between this and depsec - Depsec has been presented as being merely a restructuring of the security department that does not compromise security's functionality. You must also consider that while you personally may enjoy helping supply with crates and tending to the garden - I imagine the majority of the people who would go as this role probably wouldn't do so. You must remember that while somebody COULD do something, that COULD lies outside what the core of their gameplay is: A security officer COULD help the janitor clean the hallways. A paramedic COULD help out in the kitchen. But those are not part of the core of their gameplay. Just like being a scout would be the core of the scout's gameplay.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Just now, DanseMacabre said:

I also do not understand the relationship between this and depsec

Departmental security is compartmentalized and balkanized. They are not a cohesive,singular force. officers are isolated. scouts are a cohesive force that can serve as a support role for an officer or two.

People seem to be taking my suggestions for what Scouts can do off of away missions very literally and turning them against me. All of the arguments presented can be used against any of our current jobs outside the main four. Why do we need a chaplain when we have a psychologist? Is there enough for a chaplain  to do to justify its job? Why do we have a chef when we have vending machines? Isn't it redundant to have a dedicated cook when we can easily get food anyway? What about assistants? Librarians?

The CORE of the gameplay of Scouts is expeditions, asteroid exploration, asteroid resource location, eva wildlife handling (carp sweeps), eva Search and Rescue, and a pair of eyes and access for officers.

I keep hearing that we're going to be adding more expeditions with numap and more explorations and scouts will work LATER, later later later. it's strange to me that we cant add a small element of them here to test their feasibility and see how they stand in the current state. in my experience when im told to wait on a project of mine for someone else to finish theirs I'd never get anything added.

im highly critical of this "wait and see" mindset because the biggest case where i was told this was about waiting for autakh until humans got augments the same way. nearly 2 years later i'd still be waiting. i dont think its reasonable to tell me to wait potentially years for a testmerge of 3 job slots.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Im exploring the gameplay focus scouts should have when not on away missions.

Right now i have my sights on xenoarchaology.

Ill post a full suggestion later. If anyone plays xenoarch and has comments on its gameplay loops and whether or not you feel like scouts could fit into it would be good. Xenoarch mains post NOW

What is your favorite part of xenoarch and what is your least favorite part? How finnicky are the mechanics? Can you see it being done by rough and tumble indiana jones types?

What if scouts were focused on being treasure hunters, archaologists, and pioneers on the asteroid when not helping scientists on away missions?

What if we added more treasures and secrets to the asteroid to coincide?

Edited November 28, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Nantei]

I'm hardly a 'xenoarch main'. I don't think almost anyone is. But scouts would be good for escorts. Xenoarchs run into a fair amount of carp... or on the rare occasion bears. Xenoarch is pretty delicate so I don't think they would be able to do any excavating, but if we had more treasure/other RNG goodies it would be better. If we had procedurally generated ruins to explore that would help a lot, but that would be a lot of work. I'm still kicking around the idea of the lower sectors being more dangerous IE; Having more and deadlier simplier mobs, in exchange for way higher ore density.