remove/rework random events entirely

[kyres1]

Random events are kind of tiresome and dealing with them, after the third or fourth time, gets really repetitive. This is pretty much just a suggestion to remove them entirely, or, in the best case scenario, rework the current ones (or new ones) into really cool shit. Should the latter be considered and pursued by a developer, ideas for that could go on this thread.

 

for clarity this refers to carp/rampant brand intelligence/blobs etc.

Edited September 1, 2020 by kyres1

[Butterrobber202]

the main reason these exist is so Medical/Security have something to do on extended rounds, since they require some chaos to get to do their work.

 

what do you propose we replace them with?

[Kintsugi]

1 hour ago, Butterrobber202 said:

the main reason these exist is so Medical/Security have something to do on extended rounds, since they require some chaos to get to do their work.

Security and medical should roleplay and create situations of their own to deal with during extended rounds. Relying on random events is a terrible way to go about enjoying an extended round.

[niennab]

I really hate the massive migration and I often find that truly purging the station of them, (getting access to areas, putting down inflatables where needed, charging both my suit cooler and my gun, finally shooting them) can mean that I am made busy during the entire round. Even with a partner. This is rather counter intuitive to roleplay and I'd rather see the mode removed or DRASTICALLY reduced. The same can goes for spiders. Since an unattended white spider can really fuck up the station.

If security or medical can't roleplay on extended, then they should learn to. A reduction in these events maaaaayyyy also encourage players to go on expeditions or host station stuff like plays, station training, so on and so forth.

Edited September 1, 2020 by niennab

[Faris]

1 hour ago, Butterrobber202 said:

the main reason these exist is so Medical/Security have something to do on extended rounds, since they require some chaos to get to do their work.

 

what do you propose we replace them with?

There is genuinely TOO much to do for security in this sense. It's either very little or max chaos.

Having to deal with a combination of two to three digits worth of mobs, blobs and hivebots can often to lead to even more hectic rounds than some of the craziest antag ones. They need to be toned down or to scale different to have a middle area. Running from window to window to shoot carp is very mindless and boring.

[Doxxmedearly]

Carp migrations, blobs, spiders, vendor malfunctions etc. Aren't chaos. They aren't really that amusing. They're predictable and annoying to deal with at best (ie: on extended), and at worst, they interrupt actually chaotic or interesting rounds on secret.

Security has plenty to do on extended almost every round; it just happens to not involve shooting things most of the time. The crew is always getting up to nonsense. Same goes for Medical; plenty of people get hurt in a given extended round.

The roleplay is there for any department if they're willing to generate it. Random events at best generate a fraction of a round's time worth of RP. Half the time they're a nuisance to the people who ARE seeking out RP opportunities/projects. I'm for their removal.

[MalMalumam]

I have found random events to be kind of dreary and repetitive, yeah.

Might be worth removing them for a while just to see what people say and how people deal with it.

[Peppermint]

I actually disagree. I only play security these days, with a large part of that as command staff. They give some weight to extended, allow for crew co-operation, and bring about some level of danger. The only two I dislike are basic (non-mass) carp invasions as they can, for whatever reason, stack - and sometimes are entirely irrelevant as fish get stuck on terrain - and the machine one.  I don't see their removal doing anything other than just forcing' chairRP, bestRP' mentalities. Not everyone wants to sit around chatting, and these give opportunities to do otherwise. 

[CampinKiller]

I'd love to see them removed or reworked, for reasons already mentioned. There's also nothing like being in the middle of a code red and having hivebots appear - the odds of things like that occurring in non-extended rounds should at least be lowered.

[TrainTN]

1 hour ago, Lemei said:

I actually disagree. I only play security these days, with a large part of that as command staff. They give some weight to extended, allow for crew co-operation, and bring about some level of danger. The only two I dislike are basic (non-mass) carp invasions as they can, for whatever reason, stack - and sometimes are entirely irrelevant as fish get stuck on terrain - and the machine one.  I don't see their removal doing anything other than just forcing' chairRP, bestRP' mentalities. Not everyone wants to sit around chatting, and these give opportunities to do otherwise. 

I second this, I have played Security and Medical rounds where nothing that took longer than 5 minutes to handle occurred, and I could do nothing but sit in chairs either in awkward silence or having shallow conversation. Two hours (or more) of that gets mind-numbing, I don't consider that engaging roleplay, I'd rather be doing anything else to keep my mind on the round. In Security and Medical, professionalism is demanded due to the seriousness of their work, so there's not much tolerance for goofing off when they're expected to be on-call at all times.

I would support reworks though because yeah, some events are just bad. I hate rampant brand intelligence. The first time the soda machine shoots a can of cola at your head, it's funny, but the joke wears thin very quickly. Most people just ignore getting beaned with a bag of chips. It'd be better if it had a variety of effects: dispensing incorrect orders, drastically inflated prices, destroying some or all of their stock (snack/drink machines only) or if they outright disabled themselves and needed repairs (and hopefully broken vending machines means more people hanging out with the chef and bartender, too). You could even throw in the effect of some machines having their secret hacked goods unlocked so there could be a minor upside.

An increased variety of events would help too. Even if it was just adding in a lot of minor things so that the more dangerous/time-consuming ones don't happen as often and are more evenly distributed across multiple rounds so people don't experience as much burn-out.

[Scheveningen]

I find that the biggest issue with these events is that they do not make use of ghost spawns to slot players into these supposed intervals of chaos. PvE isn't that incredibly exciting, since they're coded to rush you down like the idiot simple mobs they are for the more severe events, and then every other event is either an environmental annoyance or just a straight up annoyance.

[MalMalumam]

So here's all the events:

Minor:

• APC Damage - no announcement
• Brand Intelligence
• Camera Damage - no announcement
• Economic News - appears in Tau Ceti Daily
• Lost Carp - minor carp migration
• Money Hacker - someone's account gets hacked and the money drained - HoP gets a notification on their requests console
• Money Lotto - announced in Tau Ceti Daily
• Mundane News - Tau Ceti Daily
• PDA Spam
• Wallrot
• Clogged Vents
• False Alarm
• Supply Drop - may or may not be announced - random loot crate or bluespace golem rune appears somewhere
• CCIA General Notice
• Lizard/rat infestation

Moderate:

• Moderate carp migration
• Comms blackout "Ionospheric alert"
• Electrical storm
• Gravity Failure
• Grid Check
• Ion Storm (AI may get a new law, bots may get emagged)
• Meteor Shower
• Prison break
• Containment error - Xenobio
• Containment error - Bridge
• Radiation Storm
• Random Antag (not announced)
• Rogue Drone
• Moderate Spider Infestation
• Space bat/spiderling infestation

Major:

• Blob
• Major carp migration
• Meteor wave
• Space vines
• Spider infestation
• Hivebot/slime infestation

[TrainTN]

5 minutes ago, MalMalumam said:

So here's all the events:

-list-

That's a good amount, though there could be a lot more minor events and moderate events. Burned out wires, buggy lighting, glitchy thermostats, radio interference as a lesser version of the radio blackout, the supply shuttle gets temporarily disabled for maintenance, consoles suddenly demand updates be installed or become corrupted.

More purely-neutral and positive events would be good too. Maybe the Odin sends announcements about whatever is going on over there, maybe an aurora forms near the Aurora and space starts changing colors for a while, maybe some random plants/fungi start growing on the asteroid's exterior and the xenobotanists can go poke at them, maybe mining gets an announcement that certain minerals are worth more points, maybe RnD gets a free random tech level. Maybe a random dog or cat or whatever spawns somewhere on the station.

[ThelonTV]

I don't know if it's powergaming/failRP but I kind of enjoy going EVA at the supply dep. in a mining RIG and whacking carps in one hit.

Regardless of that, Cargo Surface breaches are kind of the only interaction (in my experience) between supply and engineering (except for gib bounties plox), which would be sad to remove. Even though it's a mayor inconvinience for supply to not be able to access their top floor anymore, it's still a nice change in pace to get something fixed.

[Zelmana]

I enjoy the random events. As others have stated, it adds some flavor not only to extended rounds but also can be overlaid ontop of other antag-events to create a more unique story every round. Carp for example are a "random" event and give xenoarch and mining some danger to their job, which adds to rp.

That being said, variety is the spice of life. Reworking some of these I believe would be time well spent.

[Waff-AI]

Nienna really hit all the points on the head with their post, ESPECIALLY with how exhausting it is to deal with constant carp. That being said, I love meteor showers because they seem like a realistic event to be occurring while living on an asteroid, but I can live with its outright removal if it means no more carp or dwellers beating the windows for fifty minutes while I'm trying to roleplay.

[Carver]

Whilst I'd love random events gone (all but Meteors, truthfully), I tolerate them if only because they're somewhat helpful for maintaining population during quieter rounds. If there was a suitable replacement I'd love that, but I've no idea what even could adequately replace it.

[nonno_anselmo]

hard extended is a sin, we can't do blood drives/vivisections/first aid courses every single round. We can't hope for a miner to forget what gravity is either

[Spider]

Random events seem to predominantly involve security or engineering and it would be nice to see the same done for other departments. Mining, research, or medical.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Spider

[Carver]

40 minutes ago, Spider said:

Random events seem to predominantly involve security or engineering and it would be nice to see the same done for other departments. Mining, research, or medical.

There are/were random events that tended to involve medical. One of the remaining ones has to do with your name (as it's not uncommon for crewmen to be mauled), and the other remaining ones are mostly biohazard/carp/drones/etc. if the crew get hurt by them. There were also viral events, but those were so incredibly awful and involved the afflicted sitting around in quarantine without much RP or any gameplay for 20-60 minutes depending on how competent Medical was.

[NerdyVampire]

How about we try a few rounds where we disable automatic announcements altogether, (with few exceptions like rad storm) so no warnings are given at all unless crew report them and command/AI proceed to make it into an announcement?

I really like us trying to key in ghost roles to new events if possible, I like the idea of a critical patient being sent to Aurora medical ICU via bluespace due to X reason. 

[Arrow768]

On 01/09/2020 at 22:41, kyres1 said:

Random events are kind of tiresome and dealing with them, after the third or fourth time, gets really repetitive. This is pretty much just a suggestion to remove them entirely, or, in the best case scenario, rework the current ones (or new ones) into really cool shit. Should the latter be considered and pursued by a developer, ideas for that could go on this thread.

 

for clarity this refers to carp/rampant brand intelligence/blobs etc.

This suggestion is by itself not very helpful.

If you want someone to improve it, you need to explain what you mean by “really cool shit” that should replace the current events.

I am also against outright removing the events as they add a factor of unpredictability to the to rounds (which is why they got added in the first place).
That said, a lot of the mentioned issues can be solved by increasing the chance of the “nothing” event.

[Skull132]

48 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

I am also against outright removing the events as they add a factor of unpredictability to the to rounds (which is why they got added in the first place).

This. Events is one of those systems that I would not remove without a better option being PR-d, due to the effect they have on gameplay.

[Cnaym]

We could come up with new events to expand the list and have more variance instead. I always love the power loss and radio disruptions, heck even looting maint during rad storms can be fun. What I have been thinking of adding would be:
1. Time limited cargo bounty, involves other departments, maybe something hard to do like special plants or quick organ delivery, could be announced via CCIA for all to help with.

2. Hivebots to medium, just a swarm without beacon, same for carp migration, both could do with a smaller number of "annoying" mobs to deal with.

3. False Bounty, intercepted error message or such from a bounty hunter ship, placing a bounty or warrant on someone random, letting the crew decide if they want to help or capture them and such.

4. Expedition alarms, stuff like the delaminating crystal on an expedition site was a great meme, having such things announced together with ghost spawners opening could make for good large scale events. For example the unathi / taj expedition site could be suffering engine failure and needs to be evacuated and looted in 20-30  minutes from the start of  the announcement.

5. For engineers mainly, emergency decompression. Could be like scrubbers, but instead of splurting out random stuff from scrubbers, a section or department could be about to loose integrity or flooded with harmless gas. Message would give a warning, engineers get a time to fix it or vent it or such.

6. Instead of merchant or survival pod we could have a team visit with a harmless ship which is announced, you could be stuff like refugees or bounty hunters and such without needing to be antag. With AooC access and only on extendo, those could come up with some smaller gimmiks like some merchants do.

[Zundy]

We could have a ghost spawn where it's a person(s) who has been diverted to the aurora for emergancy medical treatement.