Adding instruments to the loadout. Yay or nay?

[4000daniel1]

Made a PR that makes instruments available to off-duties and passengers, feel free to thumb it up or down accordingly: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18389

Despite the system improvements made by Fluffy, instruments see very seldom use due to their unavailability. Personally, I think instruments CAN on occasion be a valuable tool for RP, when they're used with some restraint. Walking around the ship playing something like Megalovania on maximum volume is the worst possible way I can imagine you could use them. But it's not the ONLY way you could use them. Considering we're a HRP server, I think we can expect that people don't use the tools provided to them in the worst possible ways. The way I hope and expect people would use instruments would be in more closed off environments, which don't involuntarily involve the whole ship.

I think this is part of the reason the piano in the dining area is seldom used. It's stationary, in a somewhat populated public area. Instead of playing music to people who don't necessarily want to hear it, I think it'd be more interesting to do stuff like playing a little tune for a friend, or a group of friends, or maybe you'd have a little concert in the holodeck, or maybe you could even form a little off duty band and practice together. To me, those possibilities for unique RP provided by having instruments available in the loadout trumps the dread I have of someone being a shitter walking around being annoying. Especially considering there's an option to mute instruments in the SFX preferences tab.

Those are my two cents. What do you guys think?

Edited February 12, 2024 by 4000daniel1
muh grammar

[Shimmer]

FUCK YES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

a lot of my characters are musically inclined, and its PAINFUL that i cant have one of my characters bring down a guitar to play for a friend or a partner, because theyre locked behind orders or finding some other way to make use of it.

It also allows for character development, as inconsequential as it is. A person learning to play an instrument IS an interesting dynamic because its not Elianne McElianna learning how to fire gigatron ubercannonen at antag number 5.

if people are being annoying with it, really is no different than someone being annoying by crowbarring lights or dragging characters around, it still falls into the same 'ahelp a cunt being a cunt'.

[EJJ]

4 hours ago, 4000daniel1 said:

Made a PR that makes instruments available to off-duties and passengers, feel free to thumb it up or down accordingly: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18389

I would like this available for Everyone but I will suggest adding assistants to the list? What's the point of playing NKA consular if I can't have my assistant follow me around with a lute?

[greenjoe]

Maybe to chaplain, too.
Playing music for come religious based things?

[Duthco]

I fully support this as someone who plays characters who use the piano in the Dining Hall in different ways as means of development and characterization. 

I would note in regard to the concerns of abuse [of the instruments] as expressed on the GitHub page:

• Were someone being a nuisance enough that crew would complain to Security about the matter, I would think it would be an open and shut case of i105, Hooliganism, for which confiscation of the instrument would make for a pretty simple IC resolution.
• Additionally, there is a piano in plain view in the Dining Hall, the abuse of which I've yet to witness. (Not to say it is impossible and may very well happen in my absence. Also, while it is true that a loadout item is more likely to be abused in the ways expressed, a public fixture, like the piano, I would think, would serve as a bit of a barometer for propensity of abuse.)

[Tomixcomics]

On 13/02/2024 at 07:56, Duthco said:

• Additionally, there is a piano in plain view in the Dining Hall, the abuse of which I've yet to witness. (Not to say it is impossible and may very well happen in my absence. Also, while it is true that a loadout item is more likely to be abused in the ways expressed, a public fixture, like the piano, I would think, would serve as a bit of a barometer for propensity of abuse.)

I put up with it because, I mean, it's a bar, but as a chef main, any time someone plays that thing or turns on the audio console I wince. And even my character has started wincing ICly.
It's not even abuse, it's just people coming in to play. And to me it lowkey feels like people who blast music on their phones without earbuds in a public place.
Especially since playing the instruments is basically like three clicks. At least if it was a real bar you'd be impressed with someone's skills and they'd get tired. Here it's more like they're pressing play on a playlist that everyone has to listen to.
Yes, I can mute game sounds but I feel like that would keep me from knowing what's going on sometimes, or having context, especially if people comment on it. (plus there's the very rare occasion where I don't actually hate it)
It's not, like, a huge deal. I usually just go on with my day, I just wanted to point out that it can be a nuisance to folks who are around it a lot, we just don't necessarily vocalize it too much.
 

[OolongCow]

1 hour ago, Tomixcomics said:

I put up with it because, I mean, it's a bar, but as a chef main, any time someone plays that thing or turns on the audio console I wince. And even my character has started wincing ICly.
It's not even abuse, it's just people coming in to play. And to me it lowkey feels like people who blast music on their phones without earbuds in a public place.
Especially since playing the instruments is basically like three clicks. At least if it was a real bar you'd be impressed with someone's skills and they'd get tired. Here it's more like they're pressing play on a playlist that everyone has to listen to.
Yes, I can mute game sounds but I feel like that would keep me from knowing what's going on sometimes, or having context, especially if people comment on it. (plus there's the very rare occasion where I don't actually hate it)
It's not, like, a huge deal. I usually just go on with my day, I just wanted to point out that it can be a nuisance to folks who are around it a lot, we just don't necessarily vocalize it too much.
 

There really should be an option to adjust the volume of instruments for yourself that isn't a binary toggle. If you could set them to 10% volume regardless of the setting the person playing them set they'd be infinitely more tolerable, I feel.