Remove Cargonia

[Peppermint]

- I don't like the idea of removing weapons from cargo, namely as sec then gets royally fucked when ninjas/mercs empty the armory, which is honestly laughably easy to do. If at that point there's no option to order weapons, there's really nothing  you can do for the rest of the round and will bring back the checklist meta of 'captain's office, voidsuits, armory' that has thankfully been less of a thing recently.  Right now it's a pain, but it doesn't entirely end the round.

- Along with the above, locking weapons behind impossible to break crates really just doesn't seem that realistic. I'm not entirely sure what could be done here though. At the very least, emitters should still work.

- As I touched on earlier, I don't think KAs should be changed at all. I can't recall the last time I saw them being used as a weapon in atmos and you tend to get them an hour or so in anyway. The base ones (and the ones in the mining machine) suck, whilst it's so darn satisfying to back out onto the rock fully suited up for 10k+ points a trip.

- Extra time gating for QM seems sensible. It shouldn't be whitelisted given the difference in responsibilities being huge and, imo at least, QM is likely to give bad habits if people are using it to springboard into command. Another option would be to perhaps move it away from having any form of command capabilities at all, and instead just a co-ordination role between mining and the techs. 

Edited January 14, 2020 by Lemei

[MattAtlas]

41 minutes ago, Shenaanigans said:

Similarly to a lot of other people here, I agree with some of these proposed changes and disagree with others.

1. Lock ordering weapons behind command authorization. Yes, do that. It'd go a long way in reducing the militia-like response you sometimes get from cargo, but still allow some fun if a command character comes by for authorization to get help in rounds where shit really hits the fan. Really security seems to depend on it sometimes to get access to lethals/ammo when there's no HoS or warden.
2. Remove/whitelist Quartermaster. I'm not super into this one. I'm personally using the QM position right now to get my feet wet in a "command like" position so it'd suck to have that taken away or locked behind the same whitelist I'm not comfortable going for yet. HoP is also an often filled role, but they have much more in the way of people to oversee than other command roles, except captain of course, so having someone around whose focus is to make sure orders are being gotten out, bounties are being sorted, and materials are being sent out from mining is very useful in my opinion.
3. Big agree that "unga bunga buy guns" is not a mindset to teach to players new to the HRP scene, but I feel that the prevalence of shitter QMs is being overstated a bit here. I have more time on mining than cargo though that's still let me run across a wide variety of QMs, most of which were just fine and reasonable while the capital S shitters more often than not got ahelped or given a stern talking to from the HoP when they tried some nonsense. The prevalence of LRP behavior in cargo seems, to me, no worse than what you see in many other departments and Doxx encapsulates pretty much all my thoughts on that in her first post.
4. Remove KAs. Please no. Nerf them to be basically useless in atmosphere if necessary, but the thrill of getting a suped up KA from science (which happens rarely since you need both a staffed science department, materials, and time to wait for your order to be made) to make mining not so tedious would be a really terrible thing to lose.
5. Ahelp ahelp ahelp. Yes, agree, we should absolutely encourage a shift in culture (over the whole server, in my opinion) where powergaming, LRP behavior is met with reporting it to staff and refusing to participate in doing the same. It's easy to get swept up in it when the whole department is spear toting and raring to go, but if it's nipped at the very start when someone starts slapping together enough plasteel swords for the whole department you can avoid things getting to that point. I'd be all for staff becoming stricter on this sort of thing and if that starts in cargo for right now that's alright.

This pretty much sums up my opinion on it. I think QM is a position where we'd lose more out on by removing it than doing something about the dept culture itself. By locking gun orders to command auth and perhaps a restructuring of the cargo department in general (rename and redefining) we can force a culture shift pretty easily.

 

(You can currently break crates open with guns and emitters.)

[Cnaym]

4 minutes ago, Lemei said:

As I touched on earlier, I don't think KAs should be changed at all. I can't recall the last time I saw them being used as a weapon in atmos and you tend to get them an hour or so in anyway. The base ones (and the ones in the mining machine) suck, whilst it's so darn satisfying to back out onto the rock fully suited up for 10k+ points a trip.

Here's how mining has been going for over half a year now. Miner does 5 minutes prep time, 10-15 minutes of mining outside, comes back in and grabs the KA from science, goes back out for 20-30, has a large ass haul that will last science forever, is done with mining for the round and focuses on RP, joins the cargo militia if they want to OR which is funny, joins the counter militia (usually 2-4 people) of "inform central, help get shuttle, gtfo" which I have seen from a number of older players do and was one of the reasons I decided to post this.

Removal of the KA would lead to miners trying out different tools. They are all viable. The mechs did a great job when the rocks where gone, a.k.a. sand digging in a 3x3, which yielded the same ammount of points really. Drills used to get upgrades and serve as passive mining, with miners spending their round inside and picking up whatever they needed when asked for things. The diamond pickaxe is still the number one artifact / exploration tool, due to how well it works against sharks and the likes. The resonator is a niche favorite, which has seen some hilarious combat uses and can fully replace the KA when no scientist is arround.

The issue with the KA is that it's the simplest tool for the job and people flock to it like it's the holy grail. Seismic charge miners are a thing (although there are only like 3 right now). Robotics now can build dual specialized mechs. Yes, you can have a mech that does mining and has a healing laser + mounted sleeper, which is frankly amazing.

I remember a time when falling was the biggest danger to new miners, right now it's falling into line with the rest of the miners, getting bored and leaving the department again. I'd like to see them stick around, as mining has so much more to offer then points. Leudos new outpost that is a random spawn is amazing, so is the phoron vault that one can find. The simple roundstart pickup of the GPS used to make peoples eyes widen when they saw that somewhere something was out there ?

[Doxxmedearly]

18 minutes ago, Cnaym said:

Miner does 5 minutes prep time, 10-15 minutes of mining outside, comes back in and grabs the KA from science, goes back out for 20-30, has a large ass haul that will last science forever, is done with mining for the round and focuses on RP,

 

18 minutes ago, Cnaym said:

Removal of the KA would lead to miners trying out different tools. They are all viable.

There is nothing wrong with miners preferring the KA, or doing a big haul and staying on station. I've played miners who prefer exosuits and drills, and haven't really caught shit for it. I haven't witnessed people trying to force it, either, in my time in supply. But there is a problem with people telling miners it's the "right" or "only" way.

[Peppermint]

Mining itself just isn't that interesting of a role. And that's fine. In the same vein that people are saying there are plenty of other options, the existence of KAs being a thing doesn't prevent that. If people want to use them and delve deeper (heh) into the more mechanical side, that's fine. But people who aren't as interested in doing so shouldn't have their own preference changed.

[BurgerBB]

Every department does this now. If an antag has murderous intent, cargo, engineering, and science immediately hunker down and start mass producing antag killing stuff because they don't want to be kicked out of the round by shitty antags.

 

Funny thing, while departments used to do this a bit before brainmed, now they do it every other round. Makes you think.

 

 

[Carver]

11 hours ago, Aphelion said:

Cargonia arming themselves up in the event of a crisis adds a layer of realism that is quite nice. Not that they should genk and validhunt, but becoming roof-koreans adds to a round more often than not, while providing another layer of conflict, in my opinion. It's also all cargo can essentially do in a crisis other than sit around with their thumbs up their ass doing nothing at all or crying for an hour and a half because they are in mortal danger and have no way at all to handle it.

I'm going to target this argument in particular as something that validates the OP. In no circumstance, is the mail and shipping department of a Corporation's branch arming up with firearms and military-grade kit realistic in the slightest. It is the exact thing that would get you fired and is absolutely unacceptable conduct in a majority of cases where it occurs.

In a crisis your goal is to ensure any orders made by Command go through, and orders made by personnel dealing with the active emergency (Engineering/Security/Medical) go through within reason (That is to say, if an order is shifty it should be reported to Security and Command regardless). You are not heroes. You are not a guerilla force. You are the department that handles mail, shipping and mining exports.

13 hours ago, Cnaym said:

2. Remove Quartermaster. I considered this for a really long time now. They don't serve a purpose, except of being the hideout for people who will not get a command whitelist and are not yet banned. Honestly though, any QM that is interested in HRP instead of unga, will work the same way as cargo tech as they do as QM. Most of them indeed have in the past and chose the promotion ICly because it made sense. I strongly suggest them to apply for the command whitelist instead.

I would prefer QM be whitelisted, as even considering the mentality problems, it's often the only role who reliably handles orders within cargo and can keep the shorts in check. Too many cargo techs tend to be played by characters with vaguely criminal backgrounds who can never reliably see an order through (Or refuse orders they personally disagree with), or by characters who simply leave the department and never return to it as they play 'Irresponsible assistant with extra access'. The QM is often the only reliable answer to these problem-people unless we do a wide sweep of unrealistic characters whose behaviours and backgrounds would preclude them from working on a Research Station.

As for the removal of KAs doing damage? Good. All for it. I wouldn't mind seeing KAs gone as a whole as they presented a massive amount of power creep that inadvertently buffed Research and the crew as a whole, but I'd settle for a nerf to remove their ability to cause harm.

As for the removal of weapons? Keep them locked behind needing an AI (for lack of Command) or anyone with Command access. Make a Cryptographic Sequencer able to override this lock for the purpose of traitor and revolution modes. Be wary that if cargo's weaponry ordering as a whole were removed, Security may require a buff to the armoury's contents due to them relying on co-operation with cargo during particularly bad crises.

[Aphelion]

7 hours ago, Cnaym said:

Removal of the KA would lead to miners trying out different tools. They are all viable. The mechs did a great job when the rocks where gone, a.k.a. sand digging in a 3x3, which yielded the same ammount of points really. Drills used to get upgrades and serve as passive mining, with miners spending their round inside and picking up whatever they needed when asked for things. The diamond pickaxe is still the number one artifact / exploration tool, due to how well it works against sharks and the likes. The resonator is a niche favorite, which has seen some hilarious combat uses and can fully replace the KA when no scientist is arround.

Pickaxes are actually usable when you wield them, drills are effective at digging individual areas, digging through sand is always an option, digging with mechs seems to have lower yield than digging with a shovel, the resonator is one tile at a time, and the industrial drill seems to rely heavily on rng.

Currently, mining as a job is basically built around working with KAs, unlike on other servers where after a digging for three or four tiles you'd be likely to at least come across some hematite or phoron, on this server, mineral deposits are really spread out, in some cases you can dig in a straight line and not find anything.

Additionally, I've tried using a drill machine, (I probably should try it again since that was about five months ago.) when I used the big ol' mining drill most deposits were mediocre and not really worth the 2k point investment.

Digging through sand works, but it seems it has A- Been nerfed and; B - Is not really any fun at all. 

There's another benefit of the KA that is a good meta, and that is that it encourages miners to interact with science, which honestly, is half the reason playing R&D is good, being a valued member of the station.

 

I would be all for removing the KAs if there were actually effective and fun alternatives that kept other areas of the station involved. If that means changing the way that materials are spawned, or making using a big ol' drill a little more worth it, that's G. Otherwise, nah.

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Aphelion

[Aphelion]

3 hours ago, Carver said:

I'm going to target this argument in particular as something that validates the OP. In no circumstance, is the mail and shipping department of a Corporation's branch arming up with firearms and military-grade kit realistic in the slightest. It is the exact thing that would get you fired and is absolutely unacceptable conduct in a majority of cases where it occurs.

In a crisis your goal is to ensure any orders made by Command go through, and orders made by personnel dealing with the active emergency (Engineering/Security/Medical) go through within reason (That is to say, if an order is shifty it should be reported to Security and Command regardless). You are not heroes. You are not a guerilla force. You are the department that handles mail, shipping and mining exports.

I've had lots of shifts where all of security is dead, and there's some evil monster on the station.

Expecting security to be the only department that does combat is silly. Ordering and unlocking tactical gear en'mass is just as silly yeah, but I seriously think lots of situations can come up where gearing up like that to at least defend themselves and their workplace is valid salads. Lots of different game types can reach a climax where it is pure combat, or shit is hitting the fan, and to say that the average joe won't do what they can to defend their way of life or protect people they care about is limiting RP to sitting in the corner and crying all shift.

[Carver]

5 hours ago, Aphelion said:

I've had lots of shifts where all of security is dead, and there's some evil monster on the station.

Expecting security to be the only department that does combat is silly. Ordering and unlocking tactical gear en'mass is just as silly yeah, but I seriously think lots of situations can come up where gearing up like that to at least defend themselves and their workplace is valid salads. Lots of different game types can reach a climax where it is pure combat, or shit is hitting the fan, and to say that the average joe won't do what they can to defend their way of life or protect people they care about is limiting RP to sitting in the corner and crying all shift.

Average Joe should be trusting Command who'll hopefully be calling for Emergency Response. If Command orders the departments to prepare in such a way, then so be it. But the overall situation should be gathering the non-Emergency personnel in a secure area, whilst summoning whatever Emergency Response squad shows up, and in the event the ERT/TCFL are killed off: calling an emergency shuttle.

Now, whilst Security being dead on it's own is not valid for arming up, if Command is dead as well? Then you have a fair reason to do so without orders from above, especially if your goal is to call the shuttle so everyone can get out safely.

[Aphelion]

13 minutes ago, Carver said:

Average Joe should be trusting Command who'll hopefully be calling for Emergency Response. If Command orders the departments to prepare in such a way, then so be it. But the overall situation should be gathering the non-Emergency personnel in a secure area, whilst summoning whatever Emergency Response squad shows up, and in the event the ERT/TCFL are killed off: calling an emergency shuttle.

Now, whilst Security being dead on it's own is not valid for arming up, if Command is dead as well? Then you have a fair reason to do so without orders from above, especially if your goal is to call the shuttle so everyone can get out safely.

You seem to assume people follow order in a crises, that everyone will just immediately know SoP and do it.

Just gonna reply by showing the fire drill from The Office.

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Aphelion

[Carver]

5 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

You seem to assume people follow order in a crises, that everyone will just immediately know SoP and do it.

Just gonna reply by showing the fire drill from The Office.

Spoiler

 

 

A disorganized panic is one thing (And is surprisingly rare outside of, funnily enough, fires on the station). A co-ordinated 'buying twenty thousand credits worth of military grade kit and shooting the crates open with an emitter' is another thing entirely. If people cannot reasonably follow the basic orders of Command during an emergency (Which is, at the bare minimum, to not arm up like a bunch of insurgents), why were they allowed on a moderately valuable Research Station.

[Aphelion]

56 minutes ago, Carver said:

A disorganized panic is one thing (And is surprisingly rare outside of, funnily enough, fires on the station). A co-ordinated 'buying twenty thousand credits worth of military grade kit and shooting the crates open with an emitter' is another thing entirely. If people cannot reasonably follow the basic orders of Command during an emergency (Which is, at the bare minimum, to not arm up like a bunch of insurgents), why were they allowed on a moderately valuable Research Station.

I agree with you to the level that cargo techs should not have the military training/skills to use weapons and armors.
I still think that in the event that there are armed hostiles on the station, a cargotech or crew member might try to arm themself, or try to get access to some means of personal defense. This does not mean trying to hunt down the antag unless it is literally the only thing they can do to save themselves.

Personally I lean to removing the ability to brute-force into boxes, or even just making it so that Kinetic Accelerators cannot get them. Acids/hacking is a much nicer way of getting into them, because it involves a few more people.

 I think that NT's hiring standards should be acknowledged. The thing is, without loyalty implanting the lot of them, NT has no real clue how someone might act when PunPun starts talking to them in their mind and the HoP shoots laser eyes at the bartender. So long as it follows a sensible set of actions and reactions I am okay with things happening in various ways. I think there's a certain amount of lee-way we can give people on their capacity to follow commands in an emergency, depending on how drastic the emergency is.

[Carver]

16 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

Personally I lean to removing the ability to brute-force into boxes, or even just making it so that Kinetic Accelerators cannot get them. Acids/hacking is a much nicer way of getting into them, because it involves a few more people.

KA's getting into them has to be an oversight, seeing as previously it did require an emitter (Thus requiring an engineer or stealing one, since I believe emitter crates are also locked) or stealing a weapon from Security or Command to destroy a crate. I don't think they should be hackable unless you're talking about Cryptographic Sequencers, and acid should just melt the contents if we're being real.

18 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

I still think that in the event that there are armed hostiles on the station, a cargotech or crew member might try to arm themself, or try to get access to some means of personal defense. This does not mean trying to hunt down the antag unless it is literally the only thing they can do to save themselves.

---

 I think that NT's hiring standards should be acknowledged. The thing is, without loyalty implanting the lot of them, NT has no real clue how someone might act when PunPun starts talking to them in their mind and the HoP shoots laser eyes at the bartender. So long as it follows a sensible set of actions and reactions I am okay with things happening in various ways. I think there's a certain amount of lee-way we can give people on their capacity to follow commands in an emergency, depending on how drastic the emergency is.

My issue is less about people disobeying -- as I wouldn't mind if they actually acted hysterical like in the video you linked -- and more about how it ends up being some methodical process of step-by-step arming themselves like it's a fucking coordinated rev round. It's almost never cargo techs arming themselves with knives (Something they tend to illegally do regardless for some reason) and instead fucking jank-ass spears, bucklers, crossbows, swords and other ridiculous things -- or just firearms.

I'd love to see people panic to try to evacuate and get the shuttle called instead of 'panic' to lynch mob up against whatever's vaguely threatening either the room they like to AFK in or the station waifu. But, instead, people focus far too much on removing the threat rather than removing themselves from the threatened area.

[Zundy]

Yeah, gearing up (because the gear is there) and hunkering down/helping people in peril makes sense to me. It's believable. 

 

Gearing up and valid hunting is a bit whack.

[Jupiter Storm]

  Hello, I off-main as a Shaft Miner and while I do not think that 'Cargonia' is a particularly urgent issue (when compared with topics such as the 'AI question' and Cortical Borers) - I have been forced at gun-point to reply to this thread as well, so I shall address each point in turn because there are some immensely relevant issues that have been raised regarding the behavior of characters that the 'Cargonia' mentality enables.

1. Remove all weapons from the menu. Better yet, lock them behind a command access.

It should be fairly obvious why this is needed. 'Please do not punish the many for the actions of the few' is not a valid argument when Cargo is one of the chief departments (aside from Science and Security - the latter of which at least makes a shred of sense) where characters frequently use their 'unwealthy' or 'street rat' status or even a background in some paramilitary organization to excuse building militias without proper escalation. Miners in particular are by far the worst for this, but not the only culprits.

If access is locked behind Command auths, it still gives Antags a very easy way to acquire them (particularly in Revolution type rounds) and, when all has invariably gone to shit and the station requires new heroes of the common people, for normal characters with a little help from Command or the A.I.

 

2. Remove Quartermaster.

I do not agree that Quartermaster should be removed. What I do agree with is that the Quartermaster is played horribly, more often than not. The fact that anybody has access to Quartermaster sickens me, because while many roleplayers can be trusted to progress their characters realistically (and mark my words, read the lore, the Quartermaster does require specific qualifications), these are not the sort of people who will take the Quartermaster role on a whim. As a role, it is useful as it serves as a link between Supply and the Chain of Command, and provides a single fixed point for decision making regarding allocation of funds and orders.

What makes the role cancerous, is the fact that it doubles up as a person who directly issues orders to others - a fact that is abused more often than not resulting in three distinct 'species' of QM:

#1 - The Super-Nanny: All miners are supervised to an absolutely childish degree and it simply becomes frustrating if you're working under this QM, because your every conversation is questioned, every gasp or part of fear roleplay you do receives an overreaction or the classic STAY THERE, I'M SUITING UP TO RESCUE YOU. ... Like, fuck that. Oh, this type of Quartermaster also inherently assumes that everybody underneath them is stupid - even if they're characters who have been around far longer than they have.

#2 - The Communist Marshal: Ah yes, a QM who gets along well with their underlings and allows them to get away with whatever they like. This is more like it! ... BUT WAIT, what's that? The station's reached Blue Alert? Oh no. STAY IN YOUR DEPARTMENTS, EVERYONE. WE'RE FORTIFYING THIS JOINT. CALL THE SHUTTLE FOR WEAPONS. WE'RE GOING HUNTING. This type of Quartermaster will also have an innate hatred for Security which apparently qualifies as a 'personality', 

#3 - The Logistician: The only QM I will ever play under willingly without going to Cryo. The Logistician requests their Yield Declarations politely, they handle issues in a bureaucratic, measured fashion. Their prime concern is checking through the orders, organizing the department's paperwork and ensuring that funds are acquired. They do not involve themselves directly in the business of those under them, except where their ability to do their jobs is concerned. If additional support is needed, they interact with other departments, and do not handle it themselves, because they're too busy doing their actual job.

 

3. Stop teaching the mindset to new players.

I will be honest with you, I'm not entirely certain what this means. A lot of people will have already learned this mind-set from other servers and are simply migrating to the Aurora. I think that the 'Cargonia' mindset is very healthy as a base character concept, because I have worked in a second-line industrial environment (which Cargo is, indisputably), and everything there is very lax - as long as you do your job. A lot of shit gets talked, a lot of equipment gets used as toys. There is a general mistrust towards the law, but this is mostly bravado and there is a distinct line between 'bending the rules' and 'actively opposing authority with violence'.

The important thing to remember however is that you aren't soldiers in the making. You're literally not trained for any sort of serious confrontation. The Soviet Union tried this 'proletariat army' business before, and suffered the most horrendous casualties of any country. Because. Nobody knew. What they were doing.

 

4. Remove the KAs, or at least make them do zero damage.

I completely loathe Kinetic Accelerators. They add absolutely nothing to the experience of Mining - in fact, they reduce the profession and the roleplay from ... an innovative, industrial process of setting up drilling rigs, digging shafts to plant explosives and employing heavy machinery / minetracks for greater efficiency ... to a lazy countryside stroll with an unga cannon that deletes an unrealistic number of tiles with minimal effort. This is just wrong. But Kinetic Accelerators do have their place...

On other servers (which I do not play, this is learned by word of mouth), it seems to be the case that Accelerators are mostly optimized for taking out wildlife EVA - they are next to useless against rocks. This is something I would prefer to see. Essentially, in pressurized environments their damage should equal close to zero - outside they should be effective against Carp and Dwellers, but otherwise have very little in the way of upgrades to enhance their effectiveness against rock.

EDIT: In consideration of the replies of those who prefer to spend as little time as possible on the rock so that they can Roleplay, allow me to remind you of a very important factoid.

There is absolutely zero requirement for your character to return large hauls in a short space of time. Your character is employed to work, but there is a very low entry bar, in the lore, for Shaft Miners. There is no standard to which you are held, ICly, by those who actually matter, ICly. If you want your character to be renowned as a hard worker and an efficient miner, returning to the station to roleplay inside after a short time working is not a feasible and realistic way to go about it.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You are either a hard worker, and you will be recognised as a hard worker, or your character is somebody who does their job, goes inside, and relaxes. Since you are held to no standard, there is no disadvantage to this. It is simply a different way of working.

If you do not actually care how your character is perceived as either an effective / lazy miner, then the question of 'fast big hauls' should be a moot point.

Furthermore, 'there is no roleplay on the mine' is not a valid argument. I frequently work in a pair (and yes, this is a metaclique because I made a friend I want to see more often, sue me), with a character who I get along with and enjoy playing with. We have a lot of interesting adventures. It is entirely possible to make good, if not exceptional, narratives out of working for extended periods of time. You just have to... Gasp, socialize! - Sometimes you are just incompatible with another character, and that's okay. But rarely have I seen anybody reject an offer of working together and making a story out of the profession. Roleplay is not a service others provide you. You make your own.

 

5. Report the shitty mindset if you want to focus on RP instead.

Ditto. Too few things are ahelped lately - this is why moderators exist. We cannot fix problems by simply REMOVING EVERYTHING that can be potentially abused. There would be nothing left in the game. Instead we need to focus on punishing poor quality and rewarding great quality.

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Jupiter Storm

[canon35]

1. I would add that weapons crates should be locked behind armory access as well, considering that the crates themselves normally require the HoS or warden to open and can allow Security to restock in case of emergency if they have a warden.  Emagging or maybe even hacking the cargo console should remove this requirement.  Armor and voidsuit crates should remain untouched. It shouldn't be a little more difficult to try and gain armor if needed. 

2.  There is absolutely no need to remove QM. As plenty of people have stated, the issue isn't within the role itself- It's players. Simply institute a waiting period for it as we have with Security roles. They work fine as a middle man when they have a player that's actually a regular here. 

3. The QM can do this if they're not removed and have a waitlist. The people who play longer on Aurora will come in as a  better one, and they can help reign in cargo characters who act like this. Or beat them, which also works. 

4. As stated by others, I don't see the issue with KAs. They barely work as a weapon normally and are used by new players who think they're badass, or when you don't have anything to defend yourself with at a range. Buffing the uses of other mining tools (Pickaxes, thermal drill, industrial drill, etc) can encourage people to simply work with those instead. Allow Industrial drills to be upgraded and easily dredge up materials, restore pickaxes and drills to their old 3 tile digging glory.  Regarding the crate opening, it's a fantastic tool for antags to arm themselves via cargo by getting around locked crates with ease and for miners to get rare items from the crates. 

5. This seems to the crux of the issue right here. People simply not reporting. People just need to ahelp and try to inform admins Urist McCT is running around with a assault rifle trying to shoot cultists, or that Edgy McGreatcoat just made a crossbow and is trying to hunt down the heisters. Eventually those guys will tone down or simply leave, and let cargo be open to those who want to play it like the space warehouse workers that we want. 

I do hope that any changes that come to cargo don't entirely gut it. It's a fantastic tool for antags, especially team focused ones like Cult and Rev. It just needs some adjustments mechanically and a few IC/OOC enforcements to solve the Cargonia issue. 

[Carver]

On 16/01/2020 at 14:41, canon35 said:

1. I would add that weapons crates should be locked behind armory access as well, considering that the crates themselves normally require the HoS or warden to open and can allow Security to restock in case of emergency if they have a warden.  Emagging or maybe even hacking the cargo console should remove this requirement.  Armor and voidsuit crates should remain untouched. It shouldn't be a little more difficult to try and gain armor if needed. 

They are locked behind that, from what I recall. It doesn't help. (After some thinking, I now understand that you mean ordering.)

On 16/01/2020 at 14:41, canon35 said:

4. As stated by others, I don't see the issue with KAs. They barely work as a weapon normally and are used by new players who think they're badass, or when you don't have anything to defend yourself with at a range. Buffing the uses of other mining tools (Pickaxes, thermal drill, industrial drill, etc) can encourage people to simply work with those instead. Allow Industrial drills to be upgraded and easily dredge up materials, restore pickaxes and drills to their old 3 tile digging glory.  Regarding the crate opening, it's a fantastic tool for antags to arm themselves via cargo by getting around locked crates with ease and for miners to get rare items from the crates. 

It's far, far too easy of a way for both antags and especially non-antags to open crates. Whereas it used to require either a moderate TC investment (Cryptographic Sequencer, which can be used for other purposes as well) or theft of heavy industrial equipment requiring set-up in a remote or otherwise secret location (Emitters, something that you can order and also use a Cryptographic Sequencer to open the crate of allowing you limitless crate openings thereafter).

Now? It's more trivial for miners to open weapons crates via a recharging and easily accessible tool than for officers who need to expend ridiculous amounts of rather limited-supply rubbers to achieve the same effect. No other department can so easily crack a crate illicitly, and it's worse that the department that can do so is the one who gets first access to any and all crates.

Edited January 18, 2020 by Carver
Re-read things when I was less tired.

[Meep]

I'm a newer player here on the server. Been here for just under a month so keep that in mind with my observation here. In my time here I've played in the cargo department mostly and I've not really seen many of these issues. I've maybe seen cargo arm up two or three times? (Arming up as in having actual guns and stuff) Anyway on to the specific points raised in the OP

 

1.Remove all weapons from the menu. Better yet, lock them behind a command access

I kind of agree with this, not that I see it as a major issue though because I've not really seen them get ordered much honestly not to say that it doesn't happen. I'd say allow the QM to order them and as others have stated hold the QM role to a higher standard, be that playtime or whatever. The biggest reason I say this command staff aren't always available and without them it could leave security out of luck should they need to order them.

 

2. Remove Quartermaster

I disagree here, like others have said it's nice to have a "command lite" on the station for people to dip their toes in. It also provides a logical progression for someones career towards HoP. You aren't going to go from working as a cargo tech for years to HoP after all. On average I'd say QMs don't really have a big impact on my rounds in cargo, been quite a few good ones but most of the time they are just a cargo tech+, which isn't great but it isn't really a problem either in my opinion. The worst I've got and this was only once was a QM being overly preachy about my character using an Unathi's first name (a genuine mistake on my characters part since they aren't vary aware of the ins and outs of alien cultures) but I'm probably getting a bit off topic there, that's a fair personal disagreement between characters.

3.Stop teaching the mindset to new players

I agree with what Jupiter posted above here basically, he wrote it out better than I could. I will add though that I think the HoP should be overseeing this department (along with service) a lot more. I've seen the HoP in cargo once maybe twice? in my month here. You're more likely to find the HoP in medbay honestly. I feel like the biggest reason this is because for some reason the HoP office is at the other end of the station. All other heads have their offices located inside the departments they overlook and I believe HoP should have a spot somewhere in the middle of cargo and service. Then the department can actually be watched over and guided by someone who is whitelisted as is the case in the other departments. In my short time here I've had my ID changed by the Captain more than the HoP (once), the HoP to me is just  "that voice on the radio and announcements" Not that I blame the HoP's for this, I really can't blame them since it is such a walk between their office and the departments they are supposed to be overseeing.

4. Remove the KAs, or at least make them do zero damage.

I sort of agree with this, they are in a very odd place. As the OP says they remove the ability to find things other than crates (generally rubbish anyway) which is a real shame. Once you bring in your first haul you can have an upgraded one that makes all the other mining tools totally invalidated. Even from the start of the round it's the best bit of mining kit since a pickaxe is so slow. I'm sad to say it because it is cool but the modular weapon part system is largely pointless. When playing a non antag miner there is no reason to get any upgrades for it other the ones that provide the largest AoE and give it an auto recharging cell. The only reason to upgrade the KA for damage would be if you are an antag and want to shoot someone up or if you want to go meme blob hunting. I think mining might need it's own thread to be honest (I have so many thoughts about it that probably aren't relevant to this thread) but to summarise I think the KA should be kept as a self defense tool and be next to useless at actually mining rock, of course this would require quite a big rebalance of all the other mining tools and science will need to have something else to offer miners.

5. Report the shitty mindset if you want to focus on RP instead.

My only issue here is as a player it can often been hard to determine what is actually worth ahelping. I've been told by friends a lot of times after recounting tales of shitty things that happened during a round that I should have ahelped it. But I often have felt these incidents were too minor to bother admins about. Some guidance here would be appreciated.

 

Edit for one more thing. I don't really see the issue of miners getting gun crates taking them outside and shooting them open. I've not seen this happen and I thought this was a high rp server? I don't understand this focus on "needing to win". Does every mechanic need to be locked down nice and secure so it can't be used against others? If someone was doing this as a non antag surely you'd just report them and they'd get bwoinked?

 

Edited January 18, 2020 by Meep
Adding one more thing

[Skyglazer]

If anything ends up getting changed as a result of this discussion, please don't make it so that Technicians can't approve gun orders. It'd just be a hassle if security comes by to order a replacement gun and then I have to go all the way out of my way to grab the HoP. There is not always a quartermaster. I understand that it might create more "bureaucracy RP" by having to go grab your superior, but there are often times- especially during less populated rounds, where I find myself as a lone Tech occupying cargo. There might not even be an HoP for me to grab. Just make it so that security has to be the one to place the order, and it'll be fine.

[Cnaym]

Only having security able to place the orders, would solve a lot, while keeping it open enough for lowpop rounds, yeah.

I tweaked some numbers for mining in a PR, but my internet is currently not willing to help me out, so I am stuck waiting for it to return. The idea is to make other tools more efficient and have materials dumb less thousands of credits into the cargo account, but I intend for that to have it's own feedback thread later down the line.

[Ventii]

I don't post often on these forums, but I thought I'd weigh in with an unneeded anecdote.

It's been a really long time since I've mained (or even touched) Cargo, but when I did, I had quite literally just started playing the game about 10-or-so months ago. The culture may have changed a ton since then, and the faces have absolutely changed, but I absolutely credit the wonderful individuals down there with being willing to teach my sorry ass how to play the game and the basics of what-not-to-do. Frankly, it was great, and I can safely say the Meme State of Cargonia was never established during my time with them, and I never once touched a gun, armour, or really, anything resembling a weapon.

There were absolutely some colourful characters at the time, though I certainly wouldn't call any of them "shitters" even by the standards I now have. Key example, the first character I met on this server was my QM who, at the time, was kicking the living snot out of a vending machine. Upon asking her what the problem was she quickly designated me as the new Cargo Tech (I was a fresh assistant at the time; not bald, thankfully), which was then promptly followed up with being introduced to a lackadaisical Russian named Yuri who would become my unofficial buddy in the next few rounds. Honestly, the whole ordeal felt like a classic Breakfast Club scenario and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

At the time, it was an incredible space to learn as a result of what people have already mentioned and while this is inherently anecdotal and things may have changed and absolutely vary with the people involved, I didn't catch any particularly toxic mindset ingrained in Cargo as a department. As another point of potential error, however, I did join during the Ssethtide, so the general culture in the server as a whole was shifted as a result of having an influx of either unfortunate souls or people like me.

Anyhow, take this as my tacit (though, limited by nature) approval of the character of the most stable department around, particularly in the context of not promoting problematic mindsets. I can't say I've personally seen anything overly crazy ever coming from Cargo in all the time I've played since in other departments either. Again, however, none of this is at all a claim that these things aren't problems; this is solely anecdotal and I don't play nearly as much as all of the regulars in this thread and otherwise, and my take is therefore less valid.

I can't speak to the remainder of the points; whether they're healthy changes or not, that's really up to my betters to decide.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Ventii
Grammar, flow, general readability, clarification.

[Kaed]

I think this thread has a good intent behind it, but I wished to express my feelings that it is all but completely impossible to train these behaviors out of the player base.

You can take steps to mitigate the problem, and you've offered some good suggestions for that. But at the end of the day our server mentality add the development team refuses to mechanically enforce behaviors, and prefers to trust everyone to behave themselves and not power game or form militias.

That's not going to work. It's never going to work. Claiming that people need to report this behavior more doesn't work either. Reactive administration does not accomplish anything except to correct the behaviors of players who have been on the server for a long time. Aside from the fact that we consistently get new players from other servers, our staff is varied in their approach. Some of them are more relaxed than others, and one of them might think it's okay for a cargo tech to arm up during a crisis, while another would try to enforce realism on your cargo worker that he would know how to use weapons. 

We've also added a lot of content to the game that makes forming a militia extremely easy, such as adding medieval weapons (something I extremely hate that alberyk added to the game) and makeshift armor that can easily be created from any stack of metal and wood and wire, without any compensating mechanics that make it harder for any person anywhere to make these. People will continue to abuse these easy mechanics as much as they are abusing kinetic accelerators right now, unless we add more inherit skill sets and complexity to the game than just telling people to moderate themselves unless reported.

All of these OP suggestions are patches on a greater problem that we need to fix. We shouldn't have to treat the concept of "High roleplay" as "inhibiting mechanics are bad and everyone should role play their own skills freely", because people playing a game don't want to limit themselves if they don't have to. You can't trust people not to make sure they have the most chance to win. It's a basic part of human nature that we don't like to lose. Staff members shouldn't have to go around babysitting people in cargo and everyone else and telling them that they can't build a spear and armor the moment danger rears its head. They should just be unable to do it unless they have a valid reason to know how to do that.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Kaed

[Boggle08]

Cargo needs something to do in red alert scenarios that isn't just ordering guns and hunkering down.

I think people are incentivised to cargonia because there isn't much shit for them to do mechanically/contribute to the round besides loading up on guns. I've started playing cargo a little more, and as I understand it for techs, we worry about the warehouse and the bounties primarily. The former is done early in the round, the latter is completed as the round progresses. Bounties don't get done when SHTF. It is dangerous to wander the halls when SHTF. What else is there when the other departments can't complete bounties and no one is ordering shit in a hazardous round? I don't see any other ways cargo can contribute to a crazy round unless other departments go out of their way to order shit.

Take engineering. We have our own "militia", but it is usually contained within our department, and the characters who are violence adverse don't assemble weapons. It's because we have obligations to ensure the station has power and air. Such obligations incentivize us to stay put, ensure engineering isn't compromised, and stay alive. Reaching the shuttle is a hard feat when the road there is paved with depressurized halls, and you can't fix shit if you're dead or validhunting. It is a natural response to whatever's going on, and it's in the interest of preserving the lives of the people who work in engineering rather than stopping "greentext".

A heavy handed approach to culling bad cargo behavior will only be agreeable to me if it is a temporary measure in service to finding some more things for cargo to do during red alert. What would cargo do otherwise? Roll down the shutters and wait for the alert to pass? There's enough downtime in cargo already.

Do keep in mind, through all of this, I am not justifying cargo to go on wild hunts scouring the station for the bad guy. Cargo should be locking down their department with their weapons instead of doing that shit. From an IC perspective, some shit kicking job at NT isn't worth dying for. Give the department more responsibilities to the station during crisis, and I believe things will get better. Idle hands are the work of the Unga.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Boggle08
Grammar fix