2 dismissals Give Atmospheric Technicians insulated gloves again

[hazelmouse]

As of this PR, Atmospheric Technicians no longer have insulated gloves in their closets, and no access to them otherwise. This hamstrings the role into near unplayability, with a new inability to hack or fix doors, interact with live wires in any way, interact with APCs, fix vendors, open up the bar or kitchen for crew, etc. It hits lowpop players especially hard, since you're now unable to fulfil essential engineering duties as the lone engineer. I'd support a PR to have them readded, now with full documentation, to keep the occupation enjoyable for the people that actually play it. Thoughts?

To be clear, this is not intended to be a thread on whether atmospheric technician should exist or whether it should be merged into engineer. Please do not derail it, 

[furrycactus]

I'd very much agree with returning them. Engineers and Atmospheric Technicians have different tasks at roundstart to be sure as they have different specialties, but once their respective duties are done (setting the SM/INDRA + setting Atmos/Thrusters) it becomes necessary that they fulfill similar tasks when it comes to a repair job. If you're in a highpop round, it's pretty easy to dedicate yourself primarily to what your job expects of you, with engineers fixing powernets and equipment, and atmos techs fixing pipes and atmosphere issues, crossing over and helping each other out as needed. But as population dips, it becomes significantly harder to play atmos tech. God forbid you play one as the sole Engineering staff during lowpop/Australian hours without gloves, because you can't do any of the aforementioned things in the original post. The only opinion of atmos techs having insulated gloves that I've seen has been "oh thank god, finally".

I don't think it's all that dissimilar to Physician/Surgeon. Both these roles can provide patient care with medication and surgery, but they both specialise in one or the other, and we don't have some kind of enforcement that prevents Surgeons from administering medication to patients (especially because they often have to do so during surgery). And of course we don't, because it would make playing Surgeon on hectic highpop where patients are filling the treatment room, and lowpop/Australian hours feel terrible, too. "Sorry, I can't give you dylovene/inaprovaline/kelotane/mortaphenyl because those medications are locked in a cabinet I don't have access to".

Additionally, why is it the expectation that Atmospheric Technicians are not able to interact with cable and wire in any way, even if it's purely for repairs (because you straight up cannot without insulated gloves, which means any broken cables will sit broken until an Engineer with gloves comes to tend to it, and if there isn't one you're plain out of luck), and yet, Engineers have free reign to engage with scrubber/supply/fuel/aux/simple pipes/scrubbers/vents as they see fit? Why are pipes and their devices not then treated in the same vein and entirely restricted to needing a pipe wrench to alter? Let me be clear, I did make a PR recently that removes pipe wrenches from Engineer lockers, but it's not a change I actually wanted to see, but I think if we're for some reason set on making suspiciously timed and motivated PRs to hold Atmospheric Technicians to an unfair standard, we need to start doing it to Engineer as well.

That, or we simply give Atmos Techs the gloves that they need in order to help out when their tasks become aligned with Engineers, and let Engineers retain the tools they need in order to do the same. Which I think is far more preferable.

[RexTenebrarumSum]

I agree entirely. +1 if it's applicable to this.

 

If they're gonna take away the insulated gloves, I feel they should also takeaway Atmos access to the supermatter engines too. And remove access to the starboard thruster for engineers if they wanna segregate the jobs like this. My personal opinion, that way engineers deal with any and all power issues and Atmos deals with any and all atmospheric issues.  Cause engineers have access to Atmos equipment down in d1 engineering/Atmos maintenance. Pipe dispensers and disposal dispensers, let alone their own portable air and scrubber pumps.  Why shouldn't the Atmos techs have access to insulated gloves in exchange for engineers having access to all that equipment?  There's a give and take, and if you take from Atmos, gotta take from engineering.

 

TL;DR: i don't actually want to nerf both jobs, but just to play devil's advocate,  removal of I.gloves for Atmos should mean removal of Atmos equipment for engineering.

[Fluffy]

The technical storage room has three pairs of insulated gloves (one per specie), and atmospheric technicians should have access to said room, can anyone confirm?

Edited October 22, 2023 by Fluffy

[stevIII]

10 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

The technical storage room has three pairs of insulated gloves (one per specie), and atmospheric technicians should have access to said room, can anyone confirm?

From testing on a private server (So take this with a grain of salt), Atmos Techs do not have access to technical storage.

[furrycactus]

15 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

The technical storage room has three pairs of insulated gloves (one per specie), and atmospheric technicians should have access to said room, can anyone confirm?

Atmos Techs do not have access to that room, nor have they ever historically on the Aurora either. I know for sure because I have to hack into there every round for a gas cooler circuit board and micro manipulator for Atmos modifications.

Edited October 22, 2023 by furrycactus

[Fluffy]

I guess the server is running with minimal access configured then, because in the non-minimal access configuration they should be able to:

Spoiler

I am mostly indifferent for either option, though I do believe that if they have the means to, there should be some form of regulation that doesn't allow them to do engineering stuffs (and for engineers to do atmos tech stuff) if there's someone playing the specific role and is not requesting help to do something

For a different approach, would giving them access to a single set of gloves be a viable option? And if so, via the access to the tech storage being added?

Edited October 22, 2023 by Fluffy

[hazelmouse]

16 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

I guess the server is running with minimal access configured then, because in the non-minimal access configuration they should be able to:

  Reveal hidden contents

I am mostly indifferent for either option, though I do believe that if they have the means to, there should be some form of regulation that doesn't allow them to do engineering stuffs (and for engineers to do atmos tech stuff) if there's someone playing the specific role and is not requesting help to do something

For a different approach, would giving them access to a single set of gloves be a viable option? And if so, via the access to the tech storage being added?

I would prefer if there were enough gloves for all three slots, I feel it would be awkward and unnecessary for atmospheric techs to have to juggle a single pair of gloves between them. I'd be entirely satisfied if there were two more pairs of gloves per species in an open technical storage, so long as they're available to atmospherics somehow.

[MattAtlas]

Voting for dismissal for the same reasons as last time. This was already discussed by maintainers and I don't expect the judgement to change.

[hazelmouse]

52 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

Voting for dismissal for the same reasons as last time. This was already discussed by maintainers and I don't expect the judgement to change.

I don't like the idea that this is a foregone conclusion because it's already been discussed, especially given we have already had gloves in atmospherics for months at this point without any complaint I've seen from anyone.

Edited October 22, 2023 by hazelmouse
made more concise

[stevIII]

All this is going to do is make Engineering more annoying for everyone involved in lower population rounds. It's absurd to say that the fully trained engineers shouldn't be allowed insulated gloves, just because they're also meant to tinker with the thrusters.

My main complaint with this is how it removes more of the often somewhat limited game play of Atmos techs. If you're playing a low pop round, you set the SM and thrusters, and then are largely done with your job for the remainder of the round. Disallowing Atmos Techs from hacking doors or fixing vendors just means that they become literally useless after about thirty minutes. What is the God damn point of the job existing at this point?

How about we also ban Wardens from using guns, Miners and Machinists from the warehouse and Surgeons, Psychs and Pharmacists from the GTR, if what you want is "Job Separation"

No one consistently complained in the months AT's had insulated gloves, otherwise the PR would have been done back then.

Furthermore, why should a maintainer decision made months ago then happily ignored without any serious or consistent complaints now suddenly be enforced. Things change, we're not being held at gunpoint to always listen to the decisions made by people not even playing the role they're affecting.

Edited October 22, 2023 by stevIII
bigger

[OolongCow]

Engineering is not a role that needs to be "balanced". People who play engineering do it because they want to have fun, and nobody suffers if engineers are having fun. There is not a single antagonist type that suffers because atmos did entirely voluntary upgrades, or because atmos techs can replace a wire. Yet there's some asinine belief that adding something that removes a major annoyance from a role is "too far". This is the equivalent of removing spare handcuffs from security and telling them "just go print them from ops if you want more than the ones that spawn in your belts" except there's not even an "other side" that benefits.

This is probably the dumbest way possible to differentiate between the roles. You're just going to make people play atmos tech even less than they already do until some coder adds some exclusive thing to them (probably as a removal from normal engineers) to try and force people to play them again. How about you give them something to actually do that isn't vital to the integrity of the ship that engineers don't get to play with? I already floated the idea of and offered to map a side room where atmos techs can play with a TEG for burn chamber experimentation that doesn't require long waits for operations deliveries or science bothering to print them some gas cooler boards (which also serves as a convenient way for them to teach new atmos techs).

Edited October 22, 2023 by OolongCow

[MattAtlas]

5 hours ago, stevIII said:

No one consistently complained in the months AT's had insulated gloves, otherwise the PR would have been done back then.

Furthermore, why should a maintainer decision made months ago then happily ignored without any serious or consistent complaints now suddenly be enforced. Things change, we're not being held at gunpoint to always listen to the decisions made by people not even playing the role they're affecting.

I had a reply written up but this is the last drop of water. Three years of work for this server, months and days of my life spent working on shit like TGUI and brainmed, working with people for feedback, only to get to hear something as wonderful as "it's okay to ignore maintainers maliciously and you should do it" over insulated fucking gloves.

I don't even know what to say honestly.

[Omicega]

Out of respect for the OP, I'll avoid discussing any merging of the two jobs, although I do think it would by and large kill several birds with one stone. Moving on:

Atmospheric technicians had to co-operate with engineers or command to get their hands on insulated gloves for years before the PR and the server didn't burn down. I see a lot of talk about lowpop, and while I'm aware it is a different world entirely from what the server 'normally' operates like, I think the insinuation that atmospheric technicians have some intrinsic right to function there any more than a lone hydroponicist, journalist, or security officer would is missing the point entirely. You aren't an engineer -- you're an atmospheric technician. Just being in the same department shouldn't afford you a right to fulfil essential engineering duties any more than playing an off-duty engineer in the same server conditions would entitle you to break in and set the reactor up either. If you want to have the power set up, you can always just play an engineer instead -- or you can join as a maintenance drone then respawn, or have an AI do it, or just wait for an engineer to show up in the same way that highpop rounds sometimes have to. I'm not sure whether engineer/atmos technician is considered an acceptable jobhop in the same way that security officer/investigator or bartender/chef is, but if it is then that's another solution. You'd need to ask staff on that, though.

The bottom line is that the part of the PR I reverted was never meant to be merged in the first place. It makes the revenge PR (and it is a revenge PR) to remove pipe wrenches look pretty silly by comparison, even though I don't necessarily disagree with or care about engineers losing pipe wrenches. It's just a false equivalency.

I wouldn't really be averse to seeing atmospheric technicians get access to the supermatter reactor (and only the supermatter, not the INDRA) as some kind of halfway house here. That way, they can do whatever they need to do in order to make lowpop rounds functional without deconstructing the technical storage airlock to grab the gloves in there, and when things get higher in population they can go back to asking engineers for spare gloves. I'm aware maintainers have blocked atmospherics regaining SM access too, for some reason, but that's a discussion to bring to them and not to me.

As a final note, I'm open to hearing how giving atmospheric technicians gloves by default doesn't essentially powercreep engineers from a mechanical standpoint. The RFD-P is a piece of equipment that engineers just cannot get outside of a funky warehouse spawn or research building one (if they even can?). There aren't any spares; each atmos tech only gets one each, so with them having insulated gloves as well you essentially now have engineers with extra equipment that can, at the snip of a single wire, go anywhere engineers can and do anything engineers can do, except with an objectively better range of equipment. We could add RFD-Ps to the engineers' lockers as well, I guess, but then we're approaching a question the OP asked me specifically to avoid.

5 hours ago, Fluffy said:

there should be some form of regulation that doesn't allow them to do engineering stuffs (and for engineers to do atmos tech stuff) if there's someone playing the specific role and is not requesting help to do something

I don't really think IC regulations solve anything, especially the funky little CCIA ones that live on their own wiki page. They're mostly just 'gotchas' that get pointed at every once in a blue moon, and are otherwise woefully out of date and mostly irrelevant even on highpop rounds. On lower pop ones -- good luck having anything listened to or adhered to with minimal security and no command. If there isn't already a mutual understanding that people should stay in their lanes where these things are concerned, then there's no real hope of a regulation to point at doing anything to sort it out. Maybe that's too cynical, but those are my thoughts on it.

5 hours ago, furrycactus said:

Let me be clear, I did make a PR recently that removes pipe wrenches from Engineer lockers, but it's not a change I actually wanted to see, but I think if we're for some reason set on making suspiciously timed and motivated PRs to hold Atmospheric Technicians to an unfair standard, we need to start doing it to Engineer as well.

If you have something to say, I'd appreciate it if you just came out and said it rather than went about sniping across my bows. I'm happy to chat with you about my motivations either here or on Discord if you prefer, but I'm not going to sit back and just tolerate your passive-aggression, and I'd ask staff to keep a particular eye on it in future if this thread goes any further.

[Dreamix]

5 hours ago, stevIII said:

Furthermore, why should a maintainer decision made months ago then happily ignored without any serious or consistent complaints now suddenly be enforced. Things change, we're not being held at gunpoint to always listen to the decisions made by people not even playing the role they're affecting.

49 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

This is probably the dumbest way possible to differentiate between the roles. (...) How about you give them something to actually do that isn't vital to the integrity of the ship that engineers don't get to play with?

...and to anyone who upvoted these two posts:

 

How do you expect maintainers, developers, and contributors, to be motivated to work on anything, when this apparently is okay to post, and even is upvoted by different people?

This kind of toxic and accusatory tone, implying that devs don't actually play these roles, that their decisions are dumb and misinformed, and can be ignored. Implying that devs are just looking for things to remove or make worse with malicious intent.

Why would the same devs who literally just got you INDRA to play with (and many other additions, bugfixes, refactors, throughout the months and years), would want to work on anything else, when this is the kind of toxic feedback that they are met with over a simple change like removing insulated gloves?

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Dreamix

[geeves]

hi, someone that upvoted posts here

i agree with returning the glubbs
i think the decision should be looked at again (which is what this thread is doing) (and the decision should be respected)
and i dont think engineering necessarily has to be balanced

anything else is silly shitflinging and you're all dorks who play the same roleplaying game together, it aint life or death, peace and love, xoxo

[hazelmouse]

5 minutes ago, Omicega said:

Out of respect for the OP, I'll avoid discussing any merging of the two jobs, although I do think it would by and large kill several birds with one stone. Moving on:

Atmospheric technicians had to co-operate with engineers or command to get their hands on insulated gloves for years before the PR and the server didn't burn down. I see a lot of talk about lowpop, and while I'm aware it is a different world entirely from what the server 'normally' operates like, I think the insinuation that atmospheric technicians have some intrinsic right to function there any more than a lone hydroponicist, journalist, or security officer would is missing the point entirely. You aren't an engineer -- you're an atmospheric technician. Just being in the same department shouldn't afford you a right to fulfil essential engineering duties any more than playing an off-duty engineer in the same server conditions would entitle you to break in and set the reactor up either. If you want to have the power set up, you can always just play an engineer instead -- or you can join as a maintenance drone then respawn, or have an AI do it, or just wait for an engineer to show up in the same way that highpop rounds sometimes have to. I'm not sure whether engineer/atmos technician is considered an acceptable jobhop in the same way that security officer/investigator or bartender/chef is, but if it is then that's another solution. You'd need to ask staff on that, though.

The bottom line is that the part of the PR I reverted was never meant to be merged in the first place. It makes the revenge PR (and it is a revenge PR) to remove pipe wrenches look pretty silly by comparison, even though I don't necessarily disagree with or care about engineers losing pipe wrenches. It's just a false equivalency.

I wouldn't really be averse to seeing atmospheric technicians get access to the supermatter reactor (and only the supermatter, not the INDRA) as some kind of halfway house here. That way, they can do whatever they need to do in order to make lowpop rounds functional without deconstructing the technical storage airlock to grab the gloves in there, and when things get higher in population they can go back to asking engineers for spare gloves. I'm aware maintainers have blocked atmospherics regaining SM access too, for some reason, but that's a discussion to bring to them and not to me.

As a final note, I'm open to hearing how giving atmospheric technicians gloves by default doesn't essentially powercreep engineers from a mechanical standpoint. The RFD-P is a piece of equipment that engineers just cannot get outside of a funky warehouse spawn or research building one (if they even can?). There aren't any spares; each atmos tech only gets one each, so with them having insulated gloves as well you essentially now have engineers with extra equipment that can, at the snip of a single wire, go anywhere engineers can and do anything engineers can do, except with an objectively better range of equipment. We could add RFD-Ps to the engineers' lockers as well, I guess, but then we're approaching a question the OP asked me specifically to avoid.

Atmospherics already has access to the Supermatter and not the INDRA, which I do appreciate. I like engineers having the INDRA over atmospheric technicians, and I honestly do also wish they had a neat bit of gear similar to the RFD-P to play around with too. I personally think that atmospheric techs should be able to do the same basic jobs as can engineers, since I don't think limiting them to a very narrow purview of just atmospherics would be very enjoyable to play, or would makes anyone else's experience more enjoyable.

Otherwise, entirely parroting Geeves here. I'll enjoy playing an atmospheric technician regardless, I just think I'd enjoy it quite a bit more with this change.

[Sneakyranger]

1 hour ago, OolongCow said:

How about you give them something to actually do that isn't vital to the integrity of the ship that engineers don't get to play with? 

This is what the thrusters are. Given that cold phoron works fine and we even lived with the nornal burn chamber method for a while, they are nonvital. Even most thruster upgrades aren't used much. They're for fun. Engineers don't really get to play with them; everything short of staff bwoinking has been set up to ensure that pretty much.

Anyway, without saying whether they *should* be merged, it's difficult to debate the topic without taking in to account given the two maintainer posts on the original PR and the fact that atmos tech has been on a knife edge. It's a simple fact that the more shared equipment and duties of the jobs the more likely they are to get merged together (or cause other problems).

Are insulated gloves alone really going to cause such problems? No, probably not - but they're still a step in that direction, just a rather small one. Personally, I'm always in support of separating the equipment and jobs more, and was happy to see pipe wrenches go from engineers.

As it stands, until the INDRA was added recently, atmos techs were really just engineer plus, and I say this as someone who played atmos tech. You traded Tesla access for thruster access (infinitely more in depth mechanics), an rpd, atmos control access, and a better hardsuit (radiation is less common a threat than big ass fires, and for a while rad protection was buggy anyway). The way I see it, insuls being removed helps dial that back down, though ultimately if they come back I'm not going to weep as they're relatively small in the grand scheme of things and don't matter overmuch.

There does come a point where too much equipment can be stripped away in the name of differentiation to where it  negatively impacts the role, but having played gloveless tech, I did not feel that was the case. It was only irritating when people expected me to act like an engineer instead of a technician, or during lowpop where all bets are off.

 

8 hours ago, furrycactus said:

Trim

This post has a lot of different points worth talking about but several individual quotes is annoying on mobile, so I'm responding to it as a blob.

Firstly, physician and surgeon have OOC mod enforcement of job separation which tech/engineer does not have. There is no Engineering Guide Chart on the wiki, and thank god for it. Therefore, role differentiation is entirely based on starting equipment and player behavior. It's a bad comparison. Hell, several staff would probably rather merge them than bother oocly enforcing it.

Secondly, equating pipes to wire. This one works a bit better but they're still different. The major thing that separates atmos techs from engis with regards to pipes should be knowledge; the average engi barely cares enough to learn the difference between supply and scrub and anything beyond that is a bonus. This system isn't one hundred percent reliable, but remember we live in a world without skills or OOC enforcement, so it works well enough. Wires, on the other hand, are mastered as soon as one is able to click on a knot instead of a tile. The RPD also makes techs vastly superior at interacting with pipes to a degree that cannot be understated.

A shame about you not liking your own PR. I genuinely thought it wasn't a bad idea. Not sure how the buggers got pipe wrenches in the first place.

 

Ultimately, insulated gloves aren't a super huge issue for me, but I think techs are better off without, especially given that the lack of OOC restriction means that if truly necessary their fellow engineers, the chief engineer, the captain, or a well placed emitter can get them what they need. Lowpop is always a wild zone, and so while the argument that they should spawn with them then is valid, I'm not sure whether it should be developed around that.

 

 

[stevIII]

2 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

I had a reply written up but this is the last drop of water. Three years of work for this server, months and days of my life spent working on shit like TGUI and brainmed, working with people for feedback, only to get to hear something as wonderful as "it's okay to ignore maintainers maliciously and you should do it" over insulated fucking gloves.

I don't even know what to say honestly.

That was really unfair of me to say and I'm sorry, I'm not going go try excuse it since it was just a shitty and inexcusable comment made while annoyed. I am very sorry.

[Arrow768]

seconding the vote for dismissal.
given the attitudes displayed by some people in this thread its being locked and binned prematurely.