Let's remove the Visitor ghost role (Or change it to make it worthwhile)

[Captain Gecko]

Following a slightly chaotic (but not in the way you think) technomancer round and a quick talk on discord, I have learned about the Visitor ghost role. From what I understand, the Visitor effectively works like a passenger or an off-duty crew, except it doesn't appear on manifest or doesn't have records. Now, the discussion on discord has turned to something about wether or not antags should be bugged just for not appearing on manifests which could be an interesting topic, but not the one meant for this thread. I want to talk exclusively of the Visitor ghost role here.

Basically it sucks. It's exactly like a passenger, except it's prone to have paperwork issues because it's not on manifest. Now there's two easy ways to fix that:

• REMOVE IT. Yep, that's it, remove it. I'm usually the kind of guy that always welcomes more content, but this is just useless. It brings nothing, no new roleplay opportunities, and only more confusion. I'll be honest, it's not the best option... Which brings us to...
• CHANGE IT/UPGRADE IT. I get the impression that the visitor is meant to be something other than the passenger, perhaps a unique, maybe important individual; but if it's really the case then we just cannot tell. So, let's enhance the role, with something very simple: give the visitor the ability to prove their legitimacy once they arrive. Let them write up an official Centcomm announcement about their visit, let them get official paperwork to show to annoying command members (me), and so on. Without that, and without warnings, no presence on the manifest and on records, an important visitor can easily pass for a stowaway. Maybe even rename the ghost role to convey what it's meant to be, call it VIP or something like this!

Edited November 12, 2023 by Captain Gecko
clarifying that I don't think that removing it is the best option.

[limette]

Strongly opposed to removal. It's a fun little role and the ambiguity that it offers as to whether someone is a hostile force or just a visitor seems like a desirable aspect; with it removed, one can simply assume OOCly and reasonably ICly by default that anyone who isn't a crewmember or a passenger is a stowaway and must spend two hours in the No Roleplay Cube. I don't think that is a problem to be resolved so much as an intentional part of the design of Visitor existing.

Maybe just add a 'guest pass' item available to Visitors on spawn and to antagonists optionally that is the official 'I am allowed to be here.' item rather than mandating they spend 30 minutes on paperwork or face the brig.

[Ramke]

I would personally recommend adding something to identify that they actually belong on the ship. A guest pass, a paper with a stamp, an announcement (doesn't have to be an intercomm one, just on the newscasters) when they spawn, so on.

I think it does allow a lot of interesting gimmicks i.e. someone that the Horizon picked up that was in distress, a diplomatic visit, literally any reason why the Horizon would bring someone who's not a direct employee or passenger paying money aboard, so it's worthwhile keeping imho.

[Captain Gecko]

1 hour ago, limette said:

Maybe just add a 'guest pass' item available to Visitors on spawn and to antagonists optionally that is the official 'I am allowed to be here.' item rather than mandating they spend 30 minutes on paperwork or face the brig.

I really like this, since it also fixes the antag part of the discussion there has been on the discord. Some seem to think that removing/changing Visitor would give antags less cover for infiltrating the ship or just doing peaceful gimmicks, but that would be assuming that people even knew about the Visitor ghost role, and would think said Visitors are legit as well.

Giving something to allow the Visitor to prove their legitimacy would ensure that we avoid confusion, and most importantly, allowing antags to get access to the same thing would actually allow them to not rely on people's knowledge of the Visitor ghost role's very existence, or on command members not being serious enough to investigate an anomaly in their records/manifest, to engage in infiltration/peaceful gimmicks.