Rename miners or add an alt title for other specialisations!

[DahBunny]

Okay so we all know mining does more then just mine now on the horizon, we're often the first or only ones to get to awaysites, We salvage, we loot and we shoot (well no, we pickaxe stuff but what i mean is we handle xenofauna more often then any other role), and this had lead to a situation where being a miner is a really wierd existance, when someone needs something not orderable by operations, they send us to fetch it, and this is not always materials, so i suggest, renaming us, my favorite suggestion i got from discord discussion is Aquistions Technician/Operative/Specialist, but there has also been suggestions of Alt titles based on what specific crewman is best at, like salvage tech, Surveyor (for the ones who scout and explore) and while not one i'd personally agree with someone mentioned an alt title refering too the fact we often catch/kill xenofauna.

 

Im gonna level with you, Miners get VERY little respect at the moment and it seems to mostly because of title IC, no one seems to understand what goes into the job and it leads to inefficant solutions to problems, for example, someone ends up on the exterior of the horizon, often security takes there time suiting up and heads out, when there is a bunch of "miners" sitting around already suited and ready that specialise in working in EVA conditions (although at the moment without exterior airlock access on the horizon for some reason) just listening to folks panic, Another example of inefficancy is when expeditions are arranged, they always have security lead the pack, rifle in hand, which often leads to folks getting shot accidentally, or an officer unable to interact to close a door quick enough after opening because he's wielding his rifle and the first thing he thought to do was fight, rather then close the door, back off and prepare like anyone who frequents awaysites and asteroids would when given the chance, Im not saying security don't have they're place in expeditions i just think right now the roles in that situation are mixed up when you have someone specialised in scouting derelicts and asteroids.

[EJJ]

I'm still wondering why the job on the wikia is called Prospector but we're still Shaft Miners?

There's a lot of stuff miners get called to do that isn't our job description. We get called to break into the Intrepid and drive it instead of Bridge Crew, we get called to go retrieve someone that got outside the ship somehow, occasionally we get called by the closest authority to command to actually deal with a combat threat.

Either way I can agree. A lot of times on deadpop/lowsec when antags come around miners get armed by sec/bridge to help deal with whatever threat has cropped up. Mining and Engineering tend to be the secondary defense network if sec can't handle something whether its intentional or not.

Edited June 25, 2022 by EJJ

[KingOfThePing]

Adding alt-titles is no problem. What has to be understood that it's fluff only (not that much of a problem with miners). And even then some Maintainer or Admin can veto it. But it's worth a try because personally I am a huge fan of alt-titles. Do you have any specific suggestions you would want to see added?

[DahBunny]

Aquistions technician is one im fond of, as is salvage tech/shipbreaker.

I'v seen people suggest prospector and EVA Specialist.

[Lilly Evans]

I had the idea of Geographer/explorer specialization who's job is to map asteroids/away sites and note gamma readings (Like xenoarch does to find artifacts, but does not dig for artifacts), note resources found, etc all for the benefit of the SCC sending more dedicated mining/retrieval operations to those areas.

[WAYRT]

4 minutes ago, Lilly Evans said:

I had the idea of Geographer/explorer specialization who's job is to map asteroids/away sites and note gamma readings (Like xenoarch does to find artifacts, but does not dig for artifacts), note resources found, etc all for the benefit of the SCC sending more dedicated mining/retrieval operations to those areas.

This is essentially being a Prospector, but if we are to move miners to general EVA grunts, I think name EVA Technician/Specialist would fit them better. 

[Tagada]

AFAIK Salvage technician is the commonly accepted English title, with Salvage engineer coming in close second depending on the precise type of salvage being accomplished. (though the in-game implications of that are a little vaster than a simple name).

To be honest, the issue is that awaysites - that were originally mapped and added in to provide a destination for mixed-department expedition teams - are now exclusively the purview of mining, since they're there every round and have the means to travel, whereas assembling a team for the Intrepid and exploring requires Command bothering to do so.

To my mind, mining should mostly (!) stick to mining and leave salvage to composite teams that include engineers, science, security, etc. The setting is after all, an Expedition ship. Not a salvage barge. Salvage, especially on the kind of awaysites we have, is normally done by trained engineers and scientist, not miners there to grab the shiny.

Is the question of whether mining should target non-mining-related awaysites so often really settled to the point where we're ready to consecrate salvage being a part of that role with an alt-title? Would doing this make the intrepid even less relevant? Salvage has never been officially a mining job on the server, as far as I know. (Though correct me if I'm wrong)

 

EDIT: Add to this that proper, mining-type awaysites actually come with pretty much the same loot and share of structures, crates, etc. Specifically put there so that even miners, who are supposed to mine, have something to stumble on and drag home.

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Tagada

[DahBunny]

3 hours ago, Tagada said:

(as above)

 

I get your what your saying, but its not mining thats making the intrepid less relevant, its how complicated it is to arrange an expedition, its alot of moving parts, you need a command member to arrange it, you need a bridge crewman to pilot and sit around in the cockpit the whole time to liaise with the horizon, everyone needs to get they're individual equipment they need, everyone needs to get and set up voidsuits, everyone needs to know how to use them and how to function safely on awaysites, its alot of moving parts any of which can make a mistake, and tank the whole thing and thats not even considering how tempting a large group of people is for antag's which can also stop the expedition.

Its not like exploration on bay, wheres theres a dedicated team that you know for sure have all the skills and equipment there and ready, the closest we have to that is "mining", and maybe its wrong that it attracts the players that want to actually go out and interact with the awaysites most, but is natural given the situation, and it doesnt change the fact it is also the largest collection of EVA ready personel on the horizon at short notice in most cases.

[KingOfThePing]

Please remember in your suggestions that alt-titles do not come with different privileges or fields of work. This is the requirement that were set by The Higher Ups (tm). 

As a good example take Cook und Chef. They both do the same but one is slightly less educated in what they both do. 

[Boggle08]

3 hours ago, DahBunny said:

snip

Mining doesn't really consult anyone before going out onto derelicts. They just zip out, clean it out, then they're done. It's not blatant gatekeeping, because you aren't directly refusing people on your shuttle, but it's effectively the same thing because you can just fire off and do map content that was intended for cross-departmental teams before anything can be organized.

Further more, generalist titles like "salvage technician" implicitly lay claim to these away sites for the shaft miner. All of our awaysites at the moment are derelicts fit for salvage operations. With an alt title like that, that's grounds to tell every engineer that wants to go check out the derelict to go fuck themselves.

[DahBunny]

3 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

As above

I agree right now we don't consult, but thats because right now atleast, alot of awaysite interactions (aside from combat for security, but even when we do ask, they always refuse to come or command refuses to let them) are currently not functional as awaysite powergrids are currently not working, awaysite shuttles currently cannot link to they're controls and the few times we have asked for assistance from other departments we are often told an expedition will be planned, which never emerges.

And say we don't consult or request outside help even if you ignore all of the above as false, as we often liaise with science and take scientists with us, xenoarchs and anomalists, and thats even after they were given access and rights to pilots the intrepid.

Also we don't ever "zip out" somewhere, as piloting and safely clearing an awaysite is never a quick task, hell most of the time mining is not even back from they're first trip until 1:30 into the shift occasionally we'll be back within an hour if we underprepare and have an efficant team.

Cross departmental teams would be great if we had naturally longer rounds and a larger player count, but we don't, and thats hardly minings fault.

[Tagada]

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that mining is somehow at fault - the derelicts are there, miners have access and it's perfectly understandable that you like bringing high-tech mechs, guns and interesting objects more than clicking on rocks and then smelting them, even though every single shift is guaranteed to have a actual rock you can go to to actually mine - the excuse of all away sites being derelicts is simply not being true.

It's perfectly natural for miners to want to go salvage but it is also very much outside their normal role. There is very little overlap between the skillset required for salvage and mining RL... And I don't believe our spessmen to be any different. If a xenobiologist can't become a xenobotanist overnight, why should a mineral extraction technician suddenly become a trained salvage engineer when they need to?

My problem here is that a new title would formalise these kinds of awaysites being mining's job. But they're not, as of yet. Officially, they're there for expeditions.

 

As a point of contention, I'd like to note that both security and engineering have significantly more EVA capable, armed and geared personnel than mining on most shifts - if your experience is that command refuses to launch expeditions, then it is an issue with command not doing what it's supposed to and not at all an issue of mining alt titles.

(Obviously, I don't think this discussion applies to ultra-lowpop in any way.)

Edited June 27, 2022 by Tagada

[Dreamix]

Miners need some more love. "Shaft miner" is a super silly title. They should get a fancy title like "Acquisition Specialist" or "EVA Specialists", or something similarly fitting, to be inline with the change from boring "Cargo" to the fancy "Operations".

Miners already do much more than just mining, and are expected to do more than just mining. They HAVE to be weapons trained, to fight the monsters on the asteroid, which are all canon and all, and they indeed do get weapons in the form of KAs. They need to know piloting. And they get good EVA gear, too. Miners already are "EVA Specialists" in everything but name.

 

Miners should definitively be able to go salvage the derelicts or whatever. Why? Because no one else wants to. This isn't an issue with command - expeditions are boring for everyone on the expedition team, except like one or two people who actually get to do things, if any at all.

If the stars align, and a derelict spawns, and there's command staff to organize the expedition, and bridge crew to lead it, and enough crew in every department... and command still needs to ask people if they want to "volunteer", cause people are hesitant to go. I've even seen people say they'd rather cryo than be forced to go on an expedition.

 

If miners shouldn't go to derelicts and do expeditions, then that'd be super lame. There's lots of miner mains, and they seem to have lots of fun on the derelicts and etc. Gating away derelicts behind expeditions would mean they'd be very rarely visited.


Wild idea, how about:
- change miner title to something cool
- give them interpid access
- allow them to arrange expeditions

[Captain Gecko]

Right so there are a few things I have issues with and a few things I like. I've been a bit bugged myself at miners exploring derelicts right away, considering it's pretty much the only thing I can do myself with an anomalist. I rarely get to properly work with the current issues (although the allowance of scientists into the Intrepid has made things better for now, that's pretty cool), and the few times I hear of an away site well... It's already been explored. And since away sites don't often hold materials, it's even a proper replacement, and most of science (besides Xenoarcheology since there are often anomaleis been brought back, thank god) don't even get the benefits they would've had with a standard mining mission. On the other hand, I can get why this would happen. As stated above, expeditions don't happen so much, for one reason or another, so... Why not? At least on a gameplay level...

Alt-title is okay, since it would indicate a different specialisation, people wouldn't have the same expectation for them, the same way they wouldn't have the same expectation for Xenoarchs and standards Scientists despite them being technically the same jobs with alt-titles. Now, if you've red my thread about this issue in science, you may know my opinion on this issue already, I'd rather have it its own job from the get go... That would also allow them to have access to the Intrepid without allowing all miners to do so... But that would be a thread on its own. Still, alt-title or new job, somethign needs to be done, both to differentiate these "explorers" and more classic miners, and have proper expectations for them.

 

Also, on the proposal of "EVA specialist"... No. EVA Specialist is way too broad. Technically, a Xenoarch is an EVA Specialist. An engineer (or at least some of them) might as well be EVA specialists... Something simpler, more precise, and more importantly that could be understood by everyone, so that we could associate it with the proper expectations associated with it. My proposals would be "Explorer", "Scavenger", or "Pioneer".

Hell, we could make them "Scouts", "Forward Reconaissance Elements", their jobs being limited to exploring a site while touching as little as possible, leaving the proper expedition work for when they'll be accompanied by a proper team with science, engineering, security (and hopefully someone from medical too).

Edited June 27, 2022 by Captain Gecko

[Tagada]

The common denominator seems to be the desire for the Operations department to be able to handle organising expeditions on their own without necessarily making shaft miners into generalist-space-adventurers. I believe that it's true: The new setting and new sites calls for the whole job to be handled in a slightly different way.

Someone sufficiently dedicated to this should write up a separate suggestion about Operations being expanded to include a new job, specifically for explorers (or some other name), perhaps armed with xenofauna guns or some other minor form of self defence and gear themed towards derelict salvage.

As things are set up, the Operations Manager is technically the best suited to call, organise and manage expedition. A simple piece of new SoP could describe their authority in that regard, perhaps even giving them a limited ability to draft engineers, science, etc.

I think that miners should neither be qualified to handle derelict salvage as they currently are, nor transformed into a role that is basically the universal EVA hero. Extensions to game mechanics should be motivated by a desired thematic outcome, not the meta of how things actually stand.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Tagada

[Gem]

i personally like the title "Acquisitionist" or "Acquisitions Specialist", as it reflects their current duties (or rather, performed duties) very well.

[Gem]

7 minutes ago, Tagada said:

Someone sufficiently dedicated to this should write up a separate suggestion about Operations being expanded to include a new job, specifically for explorers (or some other name), perhaps armed with xenofauna guns or some other minor form of self defence and gear themed towards derelict salvage.

iirc dedicated exploration jobs and/or a department isn't going to be a thing because the intention is to bring a few people from every department instead. though honestly if people are already too busy with on-ship stuff, don't want to go on expeditions, or everyone keeps saying no to expeditions, a dedicated job or department should definitely be considered because then you know the players who chose that job for their character are 100% on board with going on expeditions.

[Tagada]

@GemI was thinking about a 1-2 slot operations role that mining friendly players would take to specialise themselves towards derelict salvage. They could accompany or lead outgoing expeditions, ostensibly trained to handle the dangers of abandoned space structures and ships  - A specialist like that is warranted in the setting and would probably be a mining player making use of their knowledge in a legitimate way.

My desire, of course, never was to break up the stated dynamic of inter-departmental expeditions teams - it's more a compromise: If the intention is to give miners legitimate access to derelicts via an alt-role, let's make it so that it has an in-game relation to the expedition system.

Edit: Following that thought, such a role would satisfy the meta-need of miners to go do derelicts alone on lowpop or when noone is bothered to launch an actual expedition.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Tagada

[Boggle08]

14 minutes ago, Gem said:

iirc dedicated exploration jobs and/or a department isn't going to be a thing because the intention is to bring a few people from every department instead. though honestly if people are already too busy with on-ship stuff, don't want to go on expeditions, or everyone keeps saying no to expeditions, a dedicated job or department should definitely be considered because then you know the players who chose that job for their character are 100% on board with going on expeditions.

I'm starting to think the larger issue is that most of the maps aren't designed for multidepartment teams, outside of the first or second mission. The biggest obstacles in derelict missions are usually just a bunch of turrets and hostile NPC's. There's no locks or reinforced bunkers that you need to bring an engineer to break into with, since they're either blown wide open or the doors just miraculously open for anyone. I'm already starting to see people in actual intrepid away missions optimize who they bring, because now it's just as many officers as they can pack, FR, and either a surgeon or a physician if they can be spared. We don't carefully and tentatively creep through derelicts any more. Now we just rip through them, taking out as many hostile mobs as we can, and then push all the loot into our shuttles.

[Gem]

1 minute ago, Boggle08 said:

I'm starting to think the larger issue is that most of the maps aren't designed for multidepartment teams, [...]

i second this thought. many away missions usually rely on combat as "points-of-interest", as you said, rather than puzzles, environmental storytelling, or similarly. it would be cool to see more of this in maps so that more diverse teams are encouraged.

[Zelmana]

As long as they don't get access to the Intrepid.
The intrepid is a high value target & escape option for Antags, and is also in use by Xenoarch now. There's plenty of scenario where Command wants to send an official "Away team" via the intrepid and if 2 shaft miners have taken it at the start of the shift that is a big problem.