Should the Sci Lab Assistant be a full learner Role or a Long Term Role?

[Jaeger Brothers]

The Lab assistant is in a weird spot as Some people see  it as a Full learner role that should switch to the full role and not stay as an LA forever but Some people think the LA is a Long Term Role that can be used as a job and My Opinion is the latter as I think learner roles should be for High Stress Roles like Security or Medical where you don't have much time to check the wiki or ask in OOC and wait for an answer but in Sci you can since I don't know about many time constraints and RnD is just a List of things you need to do and then you can get to the other stuff and if it was supposed to be a learner role the Age should've been higher so that they can transfer but this means that many characters have to be retconned.

[Peppermint]

I will never understand why Aurora is so hellbent on having everything in its proper place in some ways, even when it's not hurting anyone. Letting people play LAs as they want to RP being one isn't hurting anyone. It's a department that kind of just does its own thing regardless, so you're not really going to have situations like the super doctor medical intern or the hellkillermurder sec cadet who are both experienced players larping at being new. The stakes are not really the same.

The most elegant way of doing it imo is to have LA stay a learner role and have an alt title for a more long term one. But even then, who is actively being hurt by LAs sticking around/what mechanical damage is being done? 'Realism' is not really an argument and even then that's more of a support than anything.

[Toomie]

I believe Lab assistant can be used as both a learning roll and just a full time job roll. Your are a Assistant for the lab, there are people who just work that job because they work that job. Not to be promoted to a full scientist. I feel like saying that Lab assistant can only be used as a learning roll is like saying that people are only nurses to then later become a doctor. Its also not the case that we are short on Lab assistant slots because so many people play them with permanent characters, not everyone wants to play in Research as a full on Scientist, Research is a department where having a Assistant to help with things is in my opinion the most useful as well. In short, In my time on Aurora so far and playing in Research fairly often I have never seen a reason why there would be any problem with using the Lab assistant role for a permanent character that is just there to help Assist with things in the lab.

 

[Rabid Animal]

Just add a understudy alt title to distinguish people trying to learn, this has been brought up at least three times and there's even a PR for it. I don't know why it's such a thing. 

 

Lab assistant working as an assistant role is fine as is, who cares if people wanna make permanent characters in those roles.

[GeneralCamo]

36 minutes ago, Rabid Animal said:

there's even a PR for it.

The PR was rejected by the maintainers.

[Rabid Animal]

Which is silly to me, there's alt titles for the other "learner rolls" so I don't really get it

 

[CatsinHD]

30 minutes ago, Rabid Animal said:

Which is silly to me, there's alt titles for the other "learner rolls" so I don't really get it

 

Those alt-titles are used to distinguish what they're learning. The Surgical Resident is focusing on surgery, whereas the Paramedic Trainee is focusing on medical first response. They're not used to specify long-term or short-term, more of a flag to say "hey, I want to learn X so I can become Y" and the "mentors" can adjust accordingly

I don't really have much of an opinion. Science just sorta exists and has its fun (I have enjoyed xenobot... I just need a xenoflora report form). An alt-title seems neat, or just making a separate role. I'm mainly here to clarify the above point.

[FlamingLily]

I fundamentally do not get the issue with a role with little mechanical obligation and a lot of roleplay obligation on a roleplay server. Like, librarian, assistant, consular and representative, psychologist, chaplain (unless there's vampires)

 

There is no purpose to these roles other than RP, and yet no one would remove them, because the roleplay element is valuable. And so, for what purpose should lab assistant be turned from a RP focused role that can be used to learn the mechanics, into something that a player is expected to use for mechanics, mechanics alone, and leave once you know what you're doing?

 

I wouldn't be entirely against turning the existing "Assistant" role into a lab or research assistant through alt-titles (and following through, one title for each department), though the sudden reduction in access  and comms would be disappointing.

[Carver]

4 hours ago, FlamingLily said:

I wouldn't be entirely against turning the existing "Assistant" role into a lab or research assistant through alt-titles (and following through, one title for each department), though the sudden reduction in access  and comms would be disappointing.

I agree with this if it's solely adding alt-titles rather than a wholesale shift in role purpose. There are a lot of fun assistant gimmicks to support non-science roles (funnily you could probably just ask to assist Research as a normal Assistant if you develop a bit of IC trust).

[FlamingLily]

15 hours ago, Carver said:

(funnily you could probably just ask to assist Research as a normal Assistant if you develop a bit of IC trust).

While certainly possible, that can be a difficult process which for many people I'm sure makes the role undesirable; that's what I feel alt-titles would work to remedy, by providing a mechanical avenue of trust