Retry removing roundstart setup

[kyres1]

The fourth reply by me on this thread has major clarification on the intent if possibly misunderstood here

Preface for my fellow devs :

Spoiler

This is a SUPER old suggestion unearthed from a 2018 thread and two PRs (one unrelated) which came just before the NBT's actual finalized concepts. Those threads are at the bottom of this post so people are clear that this is something we've bounced between before. Beware that, even after the relevant PR was made to totally remove engine set-up, it was later set back to its original state by developer input. This thread isn't overriding that, but it is offering a second look now that we've completely changed settings and circumstance years later.

To everyone else;

We tried removing or easing roundstart setup at least twice as a mandatory gameplay requirement from the Aurora. On the Horizon, with even more departments and functions, and even a lot of exploration reliant on it, it's become needlessly destructive and limiting to our gameplay when we can not guarantee our manifests are 100% staffed 24/7. Things becoming this way like exploration are deathly hindering what would otherwise be really common; landing on Adhomai, for example, is something extremely sparse between non-mining and research crew. Not only are we rolling against the odds of Adhomai even spawning, we're juggling its region, its dangers, and the manifest contents, which are overwhelmingly underpopulated for work days especially. It makes lowpop and non-peak hours in general universally suffer.

Basically, this all means we should :

1. Make shields set up by default, or optimally some shield present on the Horizon that keeps the ship safe before it actually begins moving (maybe by disabling random events and blocking third party ships from landing without malicious interference?) (I have some fucking crazy sprites that could be used for this, actually). This would allow the Horizon to face dangers once the crew even exist to react to those dangers, and prevents 3am shipwide greimorian infestations, or mass venting and damage preventing joining.

2. Have one, both, or a separately-set-up engine for the purposes of keeping the ship habitable before we begin maneuvering in space. Like above, this could become useless when the ship actually moves, meaning engineering is still needed for long-distance travel, and things like ship combat or hazards become suicide without them. You can also accomplish this by the primary, or a secondary SMES being charged from roundstart, and losing its stored power when that happens too.

3. Have thrusters set-up by default in a proper efficiently mapped way. This part is slightly self-defeating if the Horizon would need engineering anyway to begin moving like above, but it would save engineering's time if they did intend to join expeditions without prolonging their departure. It would also ease the requirement for basic engineers to know atmospherics extensively, and vice versa, though given I don't play engineering recently, feel free to let me know if these are fine as is.

Those relatively simple changes would, alongside this post just below, make everyday game play immediately less restrictive for all crew. Go see more of the work we've dumped into exploration! It's worth it.

The primordial 2018 thread about this is here,

 

The PRs that related to this on the Aurora are here;

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5462

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/12230

 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by kyres1
red text

[Fluffy]

I'm all for removing repetitive roundstart tedium and use this unwasted time to either a more extensive gimmick or to have a reduced round duration

+1

[EJJ]

I'll give a +1 for this, removing a lot of tedium would be good but giving some more resources so if people dislike the setups something more efficient can be made would be good too.

(Also use one of the more efficient thruster setups that ShakeyJake and Sneaky made or something for the love of god, Montressor.)

[niennab]

I think this is an incredible suggestion and one that is more conductive to a heavy roleplaying environment. With it, what we might end up seeing is more of a willingness to explore, as there will be less of a reliance on every role on the station being filled. Moreover things like the shields being on to start will give security more wiggle room while also sparring service from having to leave their departments. Easily this suggestion nets a +1 from me.

I try to get a round in every day but since the Horizon has entered Adhomaian space, I've only managed to touch down on an exoplanet once. It was a lot of fun but the current system really does rely on the stars aligning for it to happen. A change like this will offer more to the server that the present monotony simply doesn't permit. It may even solve the lull we're in. As is, Engineering has far too much game mechanic work assigned to it.

If people wanted one reactor/engine on over the other, I imagine the Tesla is best kept off. I tend to see varied set ups with the Tesla whereas the SM is simply whether someone wants to be reasonable or push it to the limit. Unrelated as well but the more we're able to either set up telecomms, APCs or ways of generating energy on an exoplanet, we may also see engineering projects being put up in the same way Kadeem had the crew build the beginnings of a port during the last arc.

Edited March 14, 2023 by niennab

[Peppermint]

We tried this before and it just murdered high pop engineering counts to the same issue as lowpop. I really don't think balancing around the latter is a good idea as the game is barely playable unless you want chat RP then as is. Which is fine, but doesn't help and just shifts the issue.

 

[kyres1]

Just now, Peppermint said:

We tried this before and it just murdered high pop engineering counts to the same issue as lowpop. I really don't think balancing around the latter is a good idea as the game is barely playable unless you want chat RP then as is. Which is fine, but doesn't help and just shifts the issue.

 

Chat RP is honestly going to be less desirable when you're capable of doing more things. In this case, we have a lot more we as a whole crew can do, since we're no longer on the Aurora. It can functionally make sense with the takeaways above to have an entire manifest leave the Horizon, which would've been absolutely nonsense on the Aurora.

[Peppermint]

I have no issue with chat rp. If people enjoy that, then go for it. More that you're going to struggle for anything more - and new players joining the round to an empty ship because the other 4 are on an expedition will also not be fun. I agree that making expeditions easier would be good (maybe a place to grab things you need and go that's less access locked?) but taking away engineering's gameplay further isn't great imo.

[kyres1]

1 minute ago, Peppermint said:

I have no issue with chat rp. If people enjoy that, then go for it. More that you're going to struggle for anything more - and new players joining the round to an empty ship because the other 4 are on an expedition will also not be fun. I agree that making expeditions easier would be good (maybe a place to grab things you need and go that's less access locked?) but taking away engineering's gameplay further isn't great imo.

The intention wasn't to call out chat rp, whoops. I meant to say the alternatives are presented better here, instead of chat RP being practically all you can accomplish.

For the new players and the leaving-behind of crew, yeah, that's a fair point. I think that we also may benefit from having more people inclined to join at round-start either way, and having more ways to keep in touch or frequent travel to and from the Horizon when in range is absolutely a must. Which, was part of another suggestion I was writing literally while replying to this, so that might be relevant too (especially because I'll happily work on the listed changes, as well)

For engineering having gameplay, they don't really have gameplay as it is to begin with. It could be argued that the busywork and tedium is all they've had for as long as we've even had a supermatter reactor. Which, is a really long time. I can see your point when taking that into account, because removing content from an already content-barren department is a very silly idea. The change is beneficial, in the end, but we would need to work on alternative busywork for engineering or actually interesting objectives/gameplay after years of zero content.

These alternatives don't seem really difficult either, if we lower the necessity of these departments relegating to emergency tasks. That gives them way more room to actually proactively seek or be given activities in daily game play. Exploration is a tremendous aspect of this option-oriented style already, so I think these opportunities mesh together perfectly.

[Sycmos]

This is a great suggestion, from top to bottom. Oftentimes the capacity for actual exploration relies far too much on a number of positions being filled and it is only during a very small timeframe during the day that these slots are often occupied, leaving the remainder of the day and those who play during those hours without the opportunity to capitalize on the new setting. Engineering has a vastly more important role in enabling the functionality of our map and the tedium of maintaining systems has only increased since our transition from a stationary one. Without Engineering present, which happens for a significant amount of the early morning in the US and afternoon in Europe and elsewhere, it makes rounds practically unfeasible unless someone dedicates at least 20 minutes to setup. This essentially makes it so a significant portion of a day's rounds are completely unplayable.

If you are an Engineering player during these hours you also have to live with the reality that given the severely limited number of personnel you may have to dedicate a significant portion of the round to roundstart and random event busywork, which can effectively kill the momentum of in-character interactions and potentially end your round if there's injury without medical. Engineering players should not have to pick between roleplaying and making sure the round functions as intended simply because our random events do not discriminate for player count, which hurts low and deadpop players much more than it does highpop.

All of these recommendations would significantly improve the quality of life for players across the board in terms of engaging with the setting and allowing time and space for RP, and if that doesn't deserve a +1 then I don't know what does.

[Carver]

I like these suggested changes, especially if everything leaves room for optimization if an Engineer wishes to finely adjust them.

[Dreamix]

• join at round start
• see sensors, nothing nearby
• no engineers, or just one, or an engineer with an apprentice
• power and propulsion maybe set up at 00:30 or later
• finally start moving

Situation above is far too common. The simple fix is to just spawn things near horizon... But then we are a ship, so it'd be preferable to just move where we want to, instead of making everything cool spawn near horizon, making it so there's no need to move it. Like I commonly see other ships and sites spawn on the overmap, but if Adhomai or whatever spawns near horizon, then there's no reason to visit anything else.

I'd prefer if propulsion and power were set up at round start. I don't think engineers wanting their bit of gameplay (setting up) should be prioritized over anyone else (going places, expeditions, etc).

[Roostercat]

Honestly giving something for engineering to do has to take priority over something like this. Having all of this setup already done, while good for BC and people wanting to explore around, basically kills engineering mechanics wise outside of patching breaches, which are usually short term and are not guaranteed to even happen. Maybe requiring some sort of setup for the ship's weapons beyond loading or some such. Going straight for auto-setup before fixing this glaring issue will just be another problem for an already content-lacking department. -1 for now.

 

Although this does not take into account how much engi players enjoy setting up the engine IE the points on it taking far too long, so I suppose take it with a grain of salt.

[Scheveningen]

1 hour ago, Roostercat said:

Although this does not take into account how much engi players enjoy setting up the engine IE the points on it taking far too long, so I suppose take it with a grain of salt.

Repeatedly setting up the tesla and waiting close to 20 minutes every round for the grid PSU to discharge into the main grid after maxxing out the RCON settings and then having to go downstairs to modify the thrusters with the Wiley-Zhao method in order to have a functional thruster set-up isn't as fun as it seems. After you get the hang of it, and do it enough times, it becomes as repetitive and boring as folding your own clothes.

[N8-Toe]

I'm for this from someone who plays engineering. I'd rather have time to RP, or work on shenanigans and projects than have to do the same 20 minute setup. We have two power sources. if both are going at round start, you can spool one down to then fiddle and make an optimal setup.  so +1 from me.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

No matter how you look at it, engineering is mechanically the worst department by a long shot, both here(rivalled only by single jobs like Scientist) and just about everywhere else on SS13, and I say this as someone who's mained this for who knows how long. Power sources are inherited from LRP and function in their current state as a checklist you set up and then treat as a black box for the rest of the round that you dare not touch, same goes for the rest of roundstart. Optimizing these things means spending an indeterminate amount of time in a corner all isolated from everything else, seeing how much power you can generate without jumping face first into LRP-tier optimization. The things engineering has should be less about setting up black boxes. Setup can be simplified, and the interactions we have with it throughout the round deepened, and engineering gameplay would be substantially improved because the systems becomes an active part of the gameplay loop, instead of something you just forget about until some guy breaks into the chamber. This suggestion, however, simplifies the setup without giving back anything in return. Roleplaying a job also involves being able to do things related to that job, however abstracted, and not just having the game do everything for you before you get a chance to interact with it.

tl;dr SS13's insistence on simulation instead of cohesive game design drags down engineering, but it's still better than nothing at all.

[Scheveningen]

25 minutes ago, ImmortalRedshirt said:

tl;dr SS13's insistence on simulation instead of cohesive game design drags down engineering, but it's still better than nothing at all.

Barotrauma nominally has this fixed by having a reactor that requires more than semi-occasional visits to ensure it stays running and isn't overloading on power output or heat. An engineer on reactor duty isn't always needed to be near the reactor, but their first priority is to be on that as well as fixing electrical devices (or the hull) as needed.

 

[ImmortalRedshirt]

I'll be honest, I haven't played Barotrauma all that much, but the reactor there seems to do its job fairly well. Being able to easily increase output for a time at the risk of instability or vice versa without having to completely change the setup is a good way to handle things. Having a system that requires decisions to be made and being able to make them with little tedium involved is nice. Current power systems on ss13 are designed against this, due to high power generated and the ability to store it all in a Big Fucking Battery that can be slowly discharged.

[WickedCybs]

I'm not really for this. The same thoughts were said back when we tried having the SMES already powered and setup on the station map (this proved unpopular). It was also an engineering effort to outright remove one of the Horizon thruster sections already being pre-setup because engineering wanted to play with the thrusters. Some call this busywork. Others don't. I personally can have an engine setup within minutes and the thrusters in less than a minute (you can just skip the burn chamber and directly inject phoron) without any real interruption to my roleplay. I understand part of that is due to my own experience in the department, but a lot of engineers do way more than they need to either because they want to or because it's the usual. I also believe jobs should have a few things to do at the start anyway because at the core, people are here for the gameplay and mechanics too.

Rather than directly remove core gameplay loops I would just return what we lost which lightened the burden a bit on the station map along with other new ideas that would add options instead. We had sections of the solars that were already setup (roof zlevel) and could let a lowpop shift without engineers subsist for a while on the station. We could extend that automation to potentially giving the bridge a way to remotely turn on the thruster pumps if no engineers are awake. Instead of the reliance on having operations (they can't really do this in practice anyway) or engineering directly fuel the Horizon, there could be a refueling port for pilots to supply the Intrepid with. 

As for shields, they aren't really relevant if the ship moves and I'd rather have the more customizeable Bay shields than the one and done iteration. I also really do not want to link the shields to third parties being able to board or not, because that doesn't really make much sense to me compared to just having docking codes so the airlocks won't open until those are sent over. Don't like the idea of just completely stopping random events if the Horizon hasn't moved either, because stuff should still happen without the Horizon setting out to look for it.

[Sneakyranger]

I'm not really interested at all. I joined right around when Aurora was experimenting with a max SMES at round start, and it made me wonder what the point of playing engineer at all is. If roles are unfilled, then the ship doesn't work so well - that's just how it is. People can call round start engineering setup tedious busywork all they like - I find it to be neither of those, and so do not support this. I would say it would make engineering equivalent to medical in terms of gameplay (i.e waiting simulator), but on any given round you are far more likely to have someone hurt themselves than you are to fix a breach or even notable non-breach damage.

I also believe that Cybs is totally correct in saying that several methods for the Horizon to compensate for a lack of engineers - nonideal but functional thrusters, auxiliary solar power generation - is far superior. It's also true that knowledge of the department cuts down setup times immensely.

Furthermore, even taking the position that the round start setup is tedious and so on, this is removing actions without replacing them with superior ones. I've already discussed the rarity of breaches and damage, but I would also like to touch on this as someone who has played C.E regularly for some time: department projects are fun, but they cannot sustain a department in the long term. They will eventually become just as tedious and boring, assuming there are people available to come up with them at all. You would then find the department as one without a purpose for most rounds.

 

I'm not sold on trading engineering gameplay for some exploration idea that is likely to be, in my personal opinion, even more tedious once time has passed. I cannot express enough how emphatically I dislike the original proposal in the OP, with the exception of the mentions of basic but inferior function still being possible without engineers listed in #2, though I would prefer the SMES method.

 

In short, my opinion is that while I don't think a lack of engineers necessarily needs to hold the entire ship hostage with no power or even small movements, making them fundamentally redundant is a terrible idea. 

 

 

[kyres1]

Edit : read the post that I made after this! It clarifies some easily misinterpreted wording used here.

I should add that this suggestion is less about making Engineering more fun as a point and more about allowing every other department to have fun without being hindered by the lack of engineering entirely.

It's way easier to alter this than it is to somehow balance out the sheer amount of lost hours and ruined rounds for other departments that exist anyway. Instead, we're even more pressured to add ceaseless content to the other departments to make up for most of the day being unplayable, which is what we'd need to do to counteract this.

So, giving content to engineering that isn't so pivotal to the round even being playable for everyone else is much easier. Even in the absolute worst case that assumes Engineering has absolutely nothing to do ever again, we're left with way less problems to solve than currently presented.

 

2 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

As for shields, they aren't really relevant if the ship moves and I'd rather have the more customizeable Bay shields than the one and done iteration. I also really do not want to link the shields to third parties being able to board or not, because that doesn't really make much sense to me compared to just having docking codes so the airlocks won't open until those are sent over. Don't like the idea of just completely stopping random events if the Horizon hasn't moved either, because stuff should still happen without the Horizon setting out to look for it.

The thing is that without the necessary departments and crew to react to these events, some of the events plainly don't trigger already. The unavoidable circumstances that still occur like moving fauna or less specialized events become way less painful and boring when people who have the tools and allowed skills to deal with them are around.

For third parties and docking codes, this is just a proposed alternative to docking codes. It has also been a very long time since spontaneous intrusive ghost-role boarding became an issue. Seeing as we lack any features whatsoever preventing it as far as I'm aware, the usage of shields or a specialized system that blocks those problems would work just fine and save us some pressure if we use this proposal's existing changes to work off of.

An unmentioned issue I should've also described was the ability for ghost roles to exist with no command or helm crew to even acknowledge their presence. Ultimately this leaves the Horizon dead in the water and impossible to speak with, while the ghost roles are left not even really knowing those staff have become unavailable by either leaving the round, or departing on the ship for expeditions (which is a frequent occurrence for the entire helm to do). Being impervious to an extent from these situations until people can even roleplay with them would allow for people, like bridge crew, to actually leave the ship without a complete back-up roster staying behind plus command.

Edited March 15, 2023 by kyres1
adding the red text

[La Villa Strangiato]

If you automate engineering away, you will have a beautiful problem of cause-and-effect where people will stop playing engineering because there is nothing to do. Despite the fact that some people consider the setup tedious busywork (I didn't mind it, but then again I am/was a chemistry main), the setup is engineering's bread and butter. Without it + assorted projects + blobs, there is literally fuckall to do in a round for a department that has already been rather shafted.

If nobody plays engineering, nobody is going to teach engineering apprentices; ergo, nobody is around to fix atmos greef + vending machines + viruses but admins, drones, and sometimes an AI.

The other problem with making engineering fully set at round start is that it removes any customisability from shields, SM setup, Tesla setup, and (I look conspicuously at SneakyRanger and ShakyJake) thruster setup. If we have the default 80/20 setup going into the thrusters at round start, it will be a major pain in the ass to take out the cringe and fail gas and replace it with a superior gas mix and pipe setup. This removes the last measly scrap of joy from engineering, and almost guarantees even your hardcore engineers will get frustrated with the department.

But La Villa Strangiato, I hear you lament, when we have no engineers it sucks major dick to do things and go places. The ship runs out of power, La Villa Strangiato.

You are correct! Which is why, instead of removing engineering entirely, I have taken the burden of being the Ideas Guy upon myself and proposing a few ideas, in order of (probably) least complicated to most complicated to make expeditions and power loss less of a problem.

1. Make it so the Horizon spawns within a tile of an away site, any away site, all the time. Currently, this was done for Adhomai whenever Adhomai spawned, but I think it can also be done for the rest of the game as well. It means the Intrepid can make a simple transition from ship to planet surface, and if they want to go to another away site, the hypothetical bridge crew can head on over so the bridge crew isn't totally screwed for things to do.

2. Add solars. There is literally so much empty deck space I seriously have no idea why there aren't solars already. Make the AI able to interface with them, and allow a department vaguely related to engineering (operations?) to turn them on so the ship isn't in the dark forever.

 

[Sneakyranger]

1 hour ago, kyres1 said:

So, giving content to engineering that isn't so pivotal to the round even being playable for everyone else is much easier. Even in the absolute worst case that assumes Engineering has absolutely nothing to do ever again, we're left with way less problems to solve than currently presented.

I personally believe that if the roundstart work was removed then there wouldn't be anything ever added to replace it. Promises or implications of future development to iterate on engineering gameplay once what it already has is removed are not the most reliable things in the world - not because of any implication that anyone promising it would be dishonest, but simply from the fact that SS13 development has this kind of story playing out often: a volunteer developer suggests and begins work on a project to overhaul a system or implement a new one, but because they are a volunteer and an individual with their own life and motivation levels, never finishes it. I feel it is far more likely that if engineering lost what it has now, nothing would ever be implemented to replace it unless those implementations are completed and ready to be made from the very beginning or very close to it. The development cycle of SS13 by its nature as a volunteer project is just not reliable enough, in my personal view.

 

I don't really have any investment in the offship issue at all and therefore don't have anything to say about proposed solutions.  I will say that docking codes seem more sensible as a solution to prevent unwanted offship docking.

 

I would also like to mention here something that I neglected to mention in my original post, which applies more as a comment to the general readers of this thread than it does as a reply to Kyres. As someone who plays engineering extremely often, there is no room for modification once an engineering system is on. You need to disable it in some way and make it stop working before you can make changes to it, with no exceptions. Thrusters, Tesla (can't actually be turned off or turned back on again without a lot of things that I will not mention here), SM. The shields would count, but you can't change those. Typically, this disable/re-enable process takes a long time, long enough to where the benefit would be pointless before the round ticks over.
 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Sneakyranger
two words missing but now added

[kyres1]

3 minutes ago, Sneakyranger said:

I personally believe that if the roundstart work was removed then there wouldn't be anything ever added to replace it.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think, because of this, we should tackle the issue only when the effort is assuredly being put forth to replace it. Which is super important to reiterate as a motivator of this thread. I added clarity to that below.

To new readers, please god read this;

The quote here,

1 hour ago, kyres1 said:

I should add that this suggestion is less about making Engineering more fun as a point and more about allowing every other department to have fun without being hindered by the lack of engineering entirely.

was pointed out to me as being horribly easy to misinterpret.

To be perfectly clear about what my intent with this post is, I mean to imply that this suggestion does not focus on Engineering's particular gameplay being altered in any significant manner. This, especially with the content of the first post, aims to give us a solution preferable to engineering's players.

So, while the issue is clearly seen here, the solutions proposed are not as simple as removing our set-up entirely, but making certain department elements - only some of which are vital to game play - temporarily a non-issue for manifests that are utterly incapable of remedying the issue to begin with. It goes without saying that Engineering hasn't had consistent, or even major content or playstyle alterations since we even added a supermatter crystal. And, that's such a long time that most of the potential viewers of this thread would not even be here to remember it. Relying on removing the features in place for a "maybe" is not being proposed (much less considered by development overall, to my knowledge).

I apologize if none of this was made apparent at first. I made a lot of threads today, so words are getting jumbled and mispronounced as a result. If there's further confusion about the intent of the suggestion not being made immediately clear in the first post, let me know and I'll try to elaborate on it; all of it should be in line with the paragraph written before this otherwise.

[WickedCybs]

47 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

The thing is that without the necessary departments and crew to react to these events, some of the events plainly don't trigger already. The unavoidable circumstances that still occur like moving fauna or less specialized events become way less painful and boring when people who have the tools and allowed skills to deal with them are around.

Which is fine and more of a reason to me to fine tune that if required. Stuff like lowpop vines happen because it counts any crew member available at the moment as part of its spawn chance rather than just engineering, since I suppose it's expected that more than them dealing with it.

49 minutes ago, kyres1 said:

For third parties and docking codes, this is just a proposed alternative to docking codes. It has also been a very long time since spontaneous intrusive ghost-role boarding became an issue. Seeing as we lack any features whatsoever preventing it as far as I'm aware, the usage of shields or a specialized system that blocks those problems would work just fine and save us some pressure if we use this proposal's existing changes to work off of.

Just not a fan of it as it's a proposal to add something that would be mechanically stapled to the shielding, which is already a system we would do well to de-emphasize the more overmap-content we add (and indeed we have, stuff like the bubble is gone) as it's a binary thing that just no-sells most space problems. I can see that being desired for the same reason, but it's far more interesting to me add choices and customization to this stuff to make it matter. A separate system is more than fine though, it just shouldn't piggyback off of this and needs to stay separate in my opinion. I'd sooner just add a shuttle whitelist (which is possible mechanically) and assign explicitly SCC friendly entities as being able to use the interior hangar only.

Also want to say that at the moment overmap ships randomly boarding without permission is an administrative issue (even if they're friendly) and likely always will be unless we get clearly marked overmap antags in. So it's not a problem I think as we're past the days of Einstein shuttles randomly coming in and begging for fuel.

1 hour ago, kyres1 said:

An unmentioned issue I should've also described was the ability for ghost roles to exist with no command or helm crew to even acknowledge their presence. Ultimately this leaves the Horizon dead in the water and impossible to speak with, while the ghost roles are left not even really knowing those staff have become unavailable by either leaving the round, or departing on the ship for expeditions (which is a frequent occurrence for the entire helm to do). Being impervious to an extent from these situations until people can even roleplay with them would allow for people, like bridge crew, to actually leave the ship without a complete back-up roster staying behind plus command.

The way communications work at the moment is that they're still going to know the Horizon has a skeleton crew due to the new telecommunications changes. It broadcasts the common channel to anyone nearby, which they can also talk to. So they're not in the dark. It's honestly not really a problem that can be solved anyway, because either way the third parties will be staring at a Horizon that won't be doing much with them and honestly, they shouldn't even be revolving around the Horizon anyway. Maybe a lowpop Intrepid away team and meet up and rp with them, but yeah.

At the core of everything though...

Quote

So, giving content to engineering that isn't so pivotal to the round even being playable for everyone else is much easier. Even in the absolute worst case that assumes Engineering has absolutely nothing to do ever again, we're left with way less problems to solve than currently presented.

...I just don't think this that is what this would accomplish and in the worst case, it would be a massive problem, multiple even, because our engineering players matter too. Those don't need to be the only solutions either because it's still a reality we have managed to support lowpop somewhat in the past without totally removing an important element to engineering, and they still mattered. 

The other thing is that we don't really balance around lowpop to begin with and have said as much on similar threads such as this. I wouldn't say we should totally leave lowpop in the cold but all I can see with the solutions given is that it would mostly invalidate a department and end up killing highpop engineering for the sake of lower populations, while not exactly solving the issue in lowpop either. 

I'm personally fully willing to look into seeing about an autosolars setup and some remote valves (though that might need to be a port) for the thrusters among other things mentioned as alternatives here, as I still see those as better solutions to the "problem".

[kyres1]

6 minutes ago, WickedCybs said:

...I just don't think this that is what this would accomplish and in the worst case, it would be a massive problem, multiple even, because our engineering players matter too. Those don't need to be the only solutions either because it's still a reality we have managed to support lowpop somewhat in the past without totally removing an important element to engineering, and they still mattered. 

The purpose of the "worst case" statement here was to say that we have less problems to solve, hypothetically. As in, the expectation is to still have problems on our plate if we even drop a metaphorical nuke on the whole department. It leaves the actual impact of these things more clear on the rest of the server, which I painted out as requiring even more content for every department to do constantly to even make up for the debilitating aspects setup has on the problem-rounds in question.

At its core, yes, I played engineering for years. Engineering players matter and I didn't say the contrary, but I did say that we're definitely trading the entire rest of the server's detriment for their enjoyment. That in of itself is not really an outrageous claim to make given the circumstance, to me.

13 minutes ago, WickedCybs said:

Just not a fan of it as it's a proposal to add something that would be mechanically stapled to the shielding, which is already a system we would do well to de-emphasize the more overmap-content we add (and indeed we have, stuff like the bubble is gone) as it's a binary thing that just no-sells most space problems. I can see that being desired for the same reason, but it's far more interesting to me add choices and customization to this stuff to make it matter. A separate system is more than fine though, it just shouldn't piggyback off of this and needs to stay separate in my opinion. I'd sooner just add a shuttle whitelist (which is possible mechanically) and assign explicitly SCC friendly entities as being able to use the interior hangar only.

Fair. I agree with these points entirely.

14 minutes ago, WickedCybs said:

The way communications work at the moment is that they're still going to know the Horizon has a skeleton crew due to the new telecommunications changes. It broadcasts the common channel to anyone nearby, which they can also talk to. So they're not in the dark. It's honestly not really a problem that can be solved anyway, because either way the third parties will be staring at a Horizon that won't be doing much with them and honestly, they shouldn't even be revolving around the Horizon anyway. Maybe a lowpop Intrepid away team and meet up and rp with them, but yeah.

Didn't know this either; this definitely remedies that concern, if a little clunky seeing the common radio channel.

 

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Prefacing this by saying I don't want to be rude whatsoever, but -

While it makes me feel like I'm speaking in a different language, I am going to super duper simplify the things that are, to me, being misinterpreted here from these two posts;

39 minutes ago, La Villa Strangiato said:

If you automate engineering away, you will have a beautiful problem of cause-and-effect where people will stop playing engineering because there is nothing to do. Despite the fact that some people consider the setup tedious busywork (I didn't mind it, but then again I am/was a chemistry main), the setup is engineering's bread and butter. Without it + assorted projects + blobs, there is literally fuckall to do in a round for a department that has already been rather shafted.

5 hours ago, Roostercat said:

Going straight for auto-setup before fixing this glaring issue will just be another problem for an already content-lacking department. -1 for now.

Yes, I think Engineering's enjoyable features need to stay until we have a proper replacement. It is really silly and honestly cruel to say that a starved player group should starve more without assuring them we can replace what was taken. This was not the written intent of the suggestion.

It is not said here or brought in by me that these features are tedious, underwhelming, busywork, time wasters, etcetera. My opinion on the actual gameplay given to Engineering is that I literally have no room to talk, I haven't consistently played an engineer in two entire years. It might be easy to misinterpret this given the substance of the linked threads, which I did not bother re-reading and added them for the purposes further explained in the OP's heading spoiler.

To fully establish what was said before that post was made and again in the above, the intention is to replace, not remove. This is actually so elaborated upon by now that I am just going to point out the OP doesn't mention a total removal of the features mentioned at all.  Even more, it is literally sugar coated intentionally by altering the original system to remain completely intact; but when the proper staff or actual usage for those systems, they become vital as they are now. Things like needing to move the ship - or even just setting up the reactors for no intended use, which isn't even mentioned as being suddenly inaccessible here.