Streamline RCON

[Boggle08]

Does anyone actually like doing this? I don't think we stand to lose much if someone were to give RCON optimal roundstart values. This shit is about as enjoyable as organizing a 60 member crew roster alphabetically based on their ID's DNA hash.

[niennab]

I support this. My biggest gripe with the RCON is how many button and subsequent keyboard inputs it takes to set it. I would love seeing either the numbers made optimal, the UI overhauled, or even both.

[WickedCybs]

RCON isn't required so I don't really see the point to preset values. One person's "optimal" is also another's "unoptimal" as well 

What I propose instead is for RCON to go by kilowatts rather than watts. It would cut the amount of key presses massively considering a standard say "1500000" watt input would just need you to enter "1500" instead, as an example.

[Boggle08]

41 minutes ago, WickedCybs said:

RCON isn't required so I don't really see the point to preset values. One person's "optimal" is also another's "unoptimal" as well 

They’re going to change the RCON values either way, the point is that we agree upon values that won’t cause power issues during peak operation(outside of people trying to charge like, a bunch of fucking guns or hypercells). Having preset values means I can run up and down the list only having to worry about turning everything on.

 

RCON has niche applications that don’t get taken advantage of because of the cancerous setup procedures, and it’s been my experience no one cares about it until a problem that could’ve been fixed by it comes up. Then people loudly bitch. 

[WickedCybs]

59 minutes ago, Boggle08 said:

They’re going to change the RCON values either way, the point is that we agree upon values that won’t cause power issues during peak operation(outside of people trying to charge like, a bunch of fucking guns or hypercells). Having preset values means I can run up and down the list only having to worry about turning everything on.

 

RCON has niche applications that don’t get taken advantage of because of the cancerous setup procedures, and it’s been my experience no one cares about it until a problem that could’ve been fixed by it comes up. Then people loudly bitch. 

It doesn't need to be setup though and it doesn't cause any issues not to do it during peak operations since it's optional. That's why I don't really see the point in a preset when it could just be made easier to input some numbers in less time.

The other thing is the usual times people do complain about RCON not being set typically comes from a misunderstanding of how it even works. Engineers might swear by it for safety, but there's a cap on shock damage (or so it's said) so you don't get straight up ashed and any "peak" settings are going to be balanced to the point it would kill players properly set RCON or not. Other than treating it as a fun sort of mini game the main benefit would be having a second set of power sources if the engines fail. RCON is so reflective of who sets it up to the point you have people dedicated to balancing it down to the watts, not doing it, doing it to the "usual" or clicking the max out button for everything and calling it a day.

Edited May 28, 2023 by WickedCybs

[Shimmer]

You can just max everything out if you don't want to bother, an SM engine can max out at 3k kW of power which is more than enough to charge all SMES' to their max even at their max settings.

I don't really see the point here, even a proper set up of RCon takes less than five minutes, it's something you can do while waiting for the reactor SMES to discharge before upgrading it.

[Boggle08]

12 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

It doesn't need to be setup though and it doesn't cause any issues not to do it during peak operations since it's optional. That's why I don't really see the point in a preset when it could just be made easier to input some numbers in less time.

The other thing is the usual times people do complain about RCON not being set typically comes from a misunderstanding of how it even works. Engineers might swear by it for safety, but there's a cap on shock damage (or so it's said) so you don't get straight up ashed and any "peak" settings are going to be balanced to the point it would kill players properly set RCON or not. Other than treating it as a fun sort of mini game the main benefit would be having a second set of power sources if the engines fail. RCON is so reflective of who sets it up to the point you have people dedicated to balancing it down to the watts, not doing it, doing it to the "usual" or clicking the max out button for everything and calling it a day.

I see RCON being done less every time I play, even during peak engineer population. The only utility RCON really has going for it is that ability to have a more flexible and resilient powergrid. Anything to streamline the process of configuring this subsystem, because the juice is not worth the tedious squeeze any more. 
 

8 hours ago, Shimmer said:

You can just max everything out if you don't want to bother, an SM engine can max out at 3k kW of power which is more than enough to charge all SMES' to their max even at their max settings.

I don't really see the point here, even a proper set up of RCon takes less than five minutes, it's something you can do while waiting for the reactor SMES to discharge before upgrading it.

I’ve had issues with brownouts during peak operations trying to max out the substations like that. I guess it doesn’t matter if you keep the bypasses on and let the substations dump their output directly back into master, but kind of defeats the point in a way. The point of my initial suggestion is to reduce the number of button presses, and therefore time spent on this subsystem.

What other case is there to not have preset values in the system? If it’s as pointless as people are insisting, then it’s inconsequential if it gets done.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Boggle08

[Sycmos]

I see no reason for not having a preset RCON configuration. Having a preset preserves the integrity of the power grid, and saves engineers time meticulously tapping in each input. Engineering already has enough tedium busywork involved, we should be aiming to limit this to better afford engineers time to actually roleplay on a roleplaying server.

[WickedCybs]

On 28/05/2023 at 09:04, Boggle08 said:

I see RCON being done less every time I play, even during peak engineer population. The only utility RCON really has going for it is that ability to have a more flexible and resilient powergrid. Anything to streamline the process of configuring this subsystem, because the juice is not worth the tedious squeeze any more. 

None of that is a problem and it sounds in line with what I said, because the utility is optional. Some people are still into that nonetheless.

On 28/05/2023 at 09:04, Boggle08 said:

What other case is there to not have preset values in the system? If it’s as pointless as people are insisting, then it’s inconsequential if it gets done.

I don't see the suggestion as worthwhile since the better solution to me was mentioned in a prior post of mine. if I think the presets are a waste of time and that it isn't going to solve the stated problem, why support it? There's no reason to do so, for me.

Code-wise this would be a pretty easy PR and you're still welcome to do it, but it's on you or others to do so then. All that needs to be done is making SMES subtypes and adjusting the inputs and outputs assuming we kept it simple and player-friendly. The in such a PR should be pretty generous due to all the kinds of rounds it might face, so any debate on how it might look like should keep that in mind.

[Ramke]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but RCON also serves a purpose of not game ending someone for getting shocked once.

It really frustrates me when Engineering, even with decent pop, just sometimes chooses not do RCON because "it's a waste of time" or "I don't want to do it because it's just annoying", and I find myself getting my hand ashed while trying to get to someone as a responder. People get shocked, accidentally or not, fairly frequently due to antag involvement, accidents, or people being stupid and playing with wires and so on.

I really disagree with the notion that it's pointless. It is optional, but the same type of optional as Operations not handing out the goods in the warehouse to departments. It's part of the job, and if not done it negatively affects other players/departments and heightens the chance of them getting game over'd by a funny airlock.

I would welcome any addition to make it easier to set up, there is a UI rework going around so hopefully it might just be a case of clicking a slider instead of typing in five 0's 20 times.

[Lly2]

On 28/05/2023 at 23:18, Sycmos said:

I see no reason for not having a preset RCON configuration. Having a preset preserves the integrity of the power grid, and saves engineers time meticulously tapping in each input. Engineering already has enough tedium busywork involved, we should be aiming to limit this to better afford engineers time to actually roleplay on a roleplaying server.

absolutely this, as well as what ramke said.

besides, there already are preset numbers in RCON - they're just uselessly low, so they all have to be changed regardless. even just upping the current ones to ~150kW rather than 50kW would ensure every department functions just by disabling the breakers, whilst leaving room for engineers who want to optimise.

[Ramke]

On 28/05/2023 at 03:28, WickedCybs said:

The other thing is the usual times people do complain about RCON not being set typically comes from a misunderstanding of how it even works. Engineers might swear by it for safety, but there's a cap on shock damage (or so it's said) so you don't get straight up ashed and any "peak" settings are going to be balanced to the point it would kill players properly set RCON or not. Other than treating it as a fun sort of mini game the main benefit would be having a second set of power sources if the engines fail. RCON is so reflective of who sets it up to the point you have people dedicated to balancing it down to the watts, not doing it, doing it to the "usual" or clicking the max out button for everything and calling it a day.

To bring some transparency to the misunderstanding, the difference between a RCON-configured shock (90kW, for example) and a RCON-disabled shock (1MW+) is the difference between getting 15-40 damage and 50-160 burn damage per shock.

[Lly2]

21 minutes ago, Lly2 said:

even just upping the current ones to ~150kW rather than 50kW would ensure every department functions just by disabling the breakers, whilst leaving room for engineers who want to optimise.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/16412

just sent this, reasoning below

[niennab]

1 hour ago, Lly2 said:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/16412

just sent this, reasoning below [...]

I like this a lot. Would you be open to having the output set to 140000 instead of 150000? Generally it's a good idea to have the input higher than the output so that it is effectively always charging once the breaker is switched.

[Omicega]

3 hours ago, Ramke said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but RCON also serves a purpose of not game ending someone for getting shocked once.

It really frustrates me when Engineering, even with decent pop, just sometimes chooses not do RCON because "it's a waste of time" or "I don't want to do it because it's just annoying", and I find myself getting my hand ashed while trying to get to someone as a responder. People get shocked, accidentally or not, fairly frequently due to antag involvement, accidents, or people being stupid and playing with wires and so on.

I really disagree with the notion that it's pointless. It is optional, but the same type of optional as Operations not handing out the goods in the warehouse to departments. It's part of the job, and if not done it negatively affects other players/departments and heightens the chance of them getting game over'd by a funny airlock.

 

I think you're wrong. Nobody does RCON in its current state because it's fiddly and annoying to set up, but frankly I don't think any engineer has any obligation to actually do it for you or anyone else. The only people who get regularly shocked are greytiders from the hub or engineers who forget to slip on their insulated gloves. Making it easier would definitely make it more likely that people will actually do it for you, but I have never done RCON unless specifically asked to when I play engineering and I object to the idea that it's now bad mannered or negligent towards other players to leave it as-is. Your comparison is a little misleading too, in my eyes, because I usually see RCON configured at 150k-200k per SMES. Even with all that on board, I think the cap on burn damage is already super generous.

Broadly speaking, I think a lot of Aurora's gameplay has moved towards being too 'impossible to fail' over the past few years (throwback to when the supermatter literally didn't need to be started because the roundstart power lasted through the whole round, lol), but while I'd normally say this RCON change is another step a direction that looks to remove any and all mechanical interaction from engineering, I also don't think that typing '150000' out manually twenty times every single round constitutes any actual gameplay, so making it a simple one-button press would be a welcome change. I don't think engineers should be required to press it or soft-shamed for not pressing it, though!

[Lly2]

35 minutes ago, niennab said:

I like this a lot. Would you be open to having the output set to 140000 instead of 150000? Generally it's a good idea to have the input higher than the output so that it is effectively always charging once the breaker is switched.

sounds good, done. had them both set to the same just because that's how it was before, but this makes sense.

[Sycmos]

18 minutes ago, Omicega said:

I think you're wrong. Nobody does RCON in its current state because it's fiddly and annoying to set up, but frankly I don't think any engineer has any obligation to actually do it for you or anyone else. The only people who get regularly shocked are greytiders from the hub or engineers who forget to slip on their insulated gloves. Making it easier would definitely make it more likely that people will actually do it for you, but I have never done RCON unless specifically asked to when I play engineering and I object to the idea that it's now bad mannered or negligent towards other players to leave it as-is. Your comparison is a little misleading too, in my eyes, because I usually see RCON configured at 150k-200k per SMES. Even with all that on board, I think the cap on burn damage is already super generous.

Broadly speaking, I think a lot of Aurora's gameplay has moved towards being too 'impossible to fail' over the past few years (throwback to when the supermatter literally didn't need to be started because the roundstart power lasted through the whole round, lol), but while I'd normally say this RCON change is another step a direction that looks to remove any and all mechanical interaction from engineering, I also don't think that typing '150000' out manually twenty times every single round constitutes any actual gameplay, so making it a simple one-button press would be a welcome change. I don't think engineers should be required to press it or soft-shamed for not pressing it, though!

The bulk of Engineering busywork is soft required because without it being done the ship does not function as effectively or safely as it should, and becomes noticeable to everyone else. Engineers should not and do not have to set thrusters because that's technically an Atmos job, but they do it out of soft obligation because Atmos Techs are sparse and they're required to move the ship. Setting RCON is a soft obligation because the default settings are incredibly underwhelming when it comes to power demand, and leads to potential injury like Ramke stated. Random events like vending machines and fungi are not necessarily required work, but ignoring them entirely looks bad on Engineering to other departments who often suffer from these issues. All of these things are expected by other players of Engineering whether or not we think there's any obligations to tackle them. RCON presets among other needed changes serve to minimize that work so engineers can focus on the primary intent of the server - roleplaying.

Mechanical play should not be informing RP opportunities, but as it stands there's enough busywork in Engineering that most Engineers have to work RP around their mechanical obligations, and that's not how things should be functioning for a "heavy roleplay" server.

[Boggle08]

5 hours ago, Ramke said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but RCON also serves a purpose of not game ending someone for getting shocked once.

It really frustrates me when Engineering, even with decent pop, just sometimes chooses not do RCON because "it's a waste of time" or "I don't want to do it because it's just annoying", and I find myself getting my hand ashed while trying to get to someone as a responder. People get shocked, accidentally or not, fairly frequently due to antag involvement, accidents, or people being stupid and playing with wires and so on.

I really disagree with the notion that it's pointless. It is optional, but the same type of optional as Operations not handing out the goods in the warehouse to departments. It's part of the job, and if not done it negatively affects other players/departments and heightens the chance of them getting game over'd by a funny airlock.

I would welcome any addition to make it easier to set up, there is a UI rework going around so hopefully it might just be a case of clicking a slider instead of typing in five 0's 20 times.

This essentially is the primary basis for me making this thread. While I personally believe that safety is an arbitrary concern(outside of niche cases where someone is shocking doors), The use cases and niche versatility of the distributed substation network never get taken advantage of because of the tedium. I am one of those people that stopped setting RCON because of this, and this suggestion, in my mind, is what will get me to start doing it again during peak operation. Setting up the shield network is far more substantial than RCON, but it can be done in seconds compared to the latter. The time and effort spent on a subsystem needs to be proportional to its utility.

TL;DR, these changes will make the RCON network more accessible to players interested in the technical aspects of engineering, while trivializing it for those that simply need to check off a box.

[Boggle08]

1 hour ago, Omicega said:

Broadly speaking, I think a lot of Aurora's gameplay has moved towards being too 'impossible to fail' over the past few years (throwback to when the supermatter literally didn't need to be started because the roundstart power lasted through the whole round, lol), but while I'd normally say this RCON change is another step a direction that looks to remove any and all mechanical interaction from engineering.

I see this as more of a springboard into raising the activity ceiling of engineering. If it is assumed RCON can be consistently turned on, we can consider features or obstacles designed around the subsystem in the future. I don't think concentrating all our effort on setup procedures is a long term plan, because they'll all get done before the first hour's up, and then engineering has not much to do except react.

1 hour ago, Sycmos said:

Mechanical play should not be informing RP opportunities, but as it stands there's enough busywork in Engineering that most Engineers have to work RP around their mechanical obligations, and that's not how things should be functioning for a "heavy roleplay" server.

When we design events, we don't often have to think about how to design for medical or security. We just present a problem, and those two and command just do their thing. Mechanics inform the bulk of their involvement. Science has no gameplay to it, and not only is it consistently dead/uninvolved, but we kind of have to force them into our design. There are few problems that make sense from a mechanical perspective to defer to science, and if we were to put them front and center of an event, it would pretty much be the science team pretending to do sciencey things. Completely gutting the videogame of it's videogameness makes it a bad videogame.

[Sycmos]

21 minutes ago, Boggle08 said:

When we design events, we don't often have to think about how to design for medical or security. We just present a problem, and those two and command just do their thing. Mechanics inform the bulk of their involvement. Science has no gameplay to it, and not only is it consistently dead/uninvolved, but we kind of have to force them into our design. There are few problems that make sense from a mechanical perspective to defer to science, and if we were to put them front and center of an event, it would pretty much be the science team pretending to do sciencey things. Completely gutting the videogame of it's videogameness makes it a bad videogame.

I suppose then it's a matter of perspective. I do not see the videogameness of SS13 to be anything other than a crutch to support engagement, or at worst an obstacle to roleplay, but ultimately it's a foundational aspect to what everything we have and there's no moving away from how mechanics deeply influence the way we interact as our characters. It's unfortunate because I feel that we could have more space for compelling storytelling if we did not rely on these things, but I come from a background of predominantly text-based RP and have never felt totally comfortable with how much I've had to make room for mechanical obligations.

Minimizing the upkeep to make space for more growth is a start at least, and RCON presets along with other changes will hopefully allow for more headspace for better things.

[N8-Toe]

2 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

This essentially is the primary basis for me making this thread. While I personally believe that safety is an arbitrary concern(outside of niche cases where someone is shocking doors), The use cases and niche versatility of the distributed substation network never get taken advantage of because of the tedium. I am one of those people that stopped setting RCON because of this, and this suggestion, in my mind, is what will get me to start doing it again during peak operation. Setting up the shield network is far more substantial than RCON, but it can be done in seconds compared to the latter. The time and effort spent on a subsystem needs to be proportional to its utility.

TL;DR, these changes will make the RCON network more accessible to players interested in the technical aspects of engineering, while trivializing it for those that simply need to check off a box.

I think this hits the nail on the head. massive support for this idea. Giving a solid baseline will make it easier for people to experiment or try novel ideas

[WickedCybs]

8 hours ago, Ramke said:

To bring some transparency to the misunderstanding, the difference between a RCON-configured shock (90kW, for example) and a RCON-disabled shock (1MW+) is the difference between getting 15-40 damage and 50-160 burn damage per shock.

More realistically, the average would be 25,80 then assuming one engine is being run. A substation set to 90kW is also exceptionably rare to the point that it's not even a factor (and would need to be done manually to the less intensive departments). So people would be looking at 20,60 in most cases then, which is unfortunately still life threatening as to require immediate treatment for both unless you get very lucky rolls. In part because blood loss from those kinds of burns is pretty overtuned.

5 hours ago, Sycmos said:

The bulk of Engineering busywork is soft required because without it being done the ship does not function as effectively or safely as it should, and becomes noticeable to everyone else. Engineers should not and do not have to set thrusters because that's technically an Atmos job, but they do it out of soft obligation because Atmos Techs are sparse and they're required to move the ship. Setting RCON is a soft obligation because the default settings are incredibly underwhelming when it comes to power demand, and leads to potential injury like Ramke stated. Random events like vending machines and fungi are not necessarily required work, but ignoring them entirely looks bad on Engineering to other departments who often suffer from these issues. All of these things are expected by other players of Engineering whether or not we think there's any obligations to tackle them. RCON presets among other needed changes serve to minimize that work so engineers can focus on the primary intent of the server - roleplaying.

Mechanical play should not be informing RP opportunities, but as it stands there's enough busywork in Engineering that most Engineers have to work RP around their mechanical obligations, and that's not how things should be functioning for a "heavy roleplay" server.

Other than what Boggle said, I don't think such things can really be compared. The vending machines are an actively ICly annoying event to those in the vicinity and the fungi could cause a breach. Thrusters are almost comparable there, but all the shuttles on the Horizon are easily fueled and can (and should) leave without waiting for maneuvers. There's also "maunevering thrusters" now that only require power if the Horizon must absolutely move a bit, but the thrusters aren't on.

Compared to those, RCON is still something that's effectively only noticed once the breaker switch is toggled and the crew complains about APCs going red for a moment. In most cases it affects nobody. To say it's an obligation is on the same level to me as saying engineers should know every aspect of their job up to telecomms and be able to do it competently, but we don't even expect Chief Engineers to be able to fix a bombed out tcomms if they don't know how or to even have much knowledge of something like the tesla.

It's a choice in the end to go beyond what's expected of a station engineer (keep the lights on, conduct repairs) and that's why it's always going to be considered optional but nice to have if engineering wants to engage with the mechanics of their department.

Edited May 30, 2023 by WickedCybs