Revise Shuttle calls

[Kaed]

Emergency shuttles are theoretically supposed to be a final option when everything is just fucked. In practice, they are instead used as the 'I don't want to play anymore' button, causing evacuations to be called from everything ranging from 'security can't handle the antag problem' to 'we're scared because the AI is malfunctioning'. The proper response for this SHOULD be calling an ERT, because it's an emergency. If no ERT is available, they all die, and/or the station is ABOUT TO EXPLODE, THEN that's a reason to call the shuttle, because there is no other way to fix the problem than getting the fuck out.

Sometimes, even worse, we have an infantile tug of war between the resident antagonists and the command staff, where the shuttle can be called and recalled over and over, because there is no coded in cooldown or cut-off point for the shuttle call function.

So, I propose:

1) Certain criteria must be met before the shuttle can be called, such as an ERT call and a certain amount of time passing afterwards (10-15 minutes?) or someone faxing central command and asking them to lift the shuttle block manually.

2) Stop the shuttle tug of war nonsense. If the shuttle is called and recalled more than 2 times in a round, any sensible company is going to want to know what the hell the command staff is doing and stop spending money on sending shuttles until someone explains what is going on. Block further shuttle calls at this point, and an staff member who can receive faxes has to lift the injunction.

3) Alternatively, put a significant cooldown on how long before you can call another shuttle, rather than 'immediately after it was recalled'

[Nanako]

I agree, mostly.

I'm not sure about a hard block, because there are situations where an immediate evac is needed. but it seems that people are just going to abuse it if there's not a mechanical solution. Maybe we need to take a harder look at the command/AI players who are prematurely calling shuttles, and be more encouraged to report them about it

Regarding 2, it makes sense that they'd want to stop wasting money until they know what's going on. but i think the most logical way to do that, especially if faxes aren't answered appropriately/at all, would be to automatically send an ERT to investigate, without it being requested.

[Nanako]

Another important idea that came up in chat.

When a shuttle is called or cancelled, the alert should include the name of the person who did it.

That would at least let us know who to post complaints about if we feel it's unwarranted, and notice patterns of specific people repeatedly calling it prematurely.

[Nikov]

Move shuttle calls to the keycard authentication panels. No one individual will be able to call or recall the shuttle, and it will be as easy to call the shuttle as it is to call the ERT.

[Kaed]

Another important idea that came up in chat.

When a shuttle is called or cancelled, the alert should include the name of the person who did it.

That would at least let us know who to post complaints about if we feel it's unwarranted, and notice patterns of specific people repeatedly calling it prematurely.

 

I reiterate my counterpoint that this removes any ability to have a stealth aspect for the sake of letting players validhunt or metagrudge other players. For instance, if you are notified that the station AI recalled your shuttle, you immediately know they are malfunctioning, and they have lost all stealth aspect. It is the same with any other antagonist. Knowledge of who called or recalled a shuttle should be kept admin side, and if you wish the information, you ask them. They will not refuse to tell you it if you explain you wish to make a player complaint, honest.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Four times this month and last month while playing deadhour the lone Head calls the shuttle the instant antagonists reveal themselves because "It's deadhour I'm not risking the crew." Each time I've had to ahelp so they get bwoink'd.

You cannot deny that shuttle calls are not utilized by command players to end the round when they get tired of it or no longer wanting to play. Making it something you swipe for would be a good compromise, but allow it to be recalled as it is now to give antagonists a fair shot. But on the same token, if we go this route, perhaps we should eliminate their ability to ever recall crew transfer shuttles, so we don't get into a problem of deadhour being stuck in a loop for 8 hours while admins sleep.

Or slap them with a time out after the 2nd attempt.

"The emergency shuttle has been recalled. You have 1 more recall allowance before shuttle service is suspended for 20 minutes."

"The emergency shuttle has been recalled. You have 0 recall allowances. Shuttle service has been suspended for 20 minutes."

Trying to call it again gets you..

Access denied. Shuttle service is suspended for the next 17 minutes.

Access denied. Shuttle service is suspend for the next 12 minutes.

etc

[Nanako]

I reiterate my counterpoint that this removes any ability to have a stealth aspect for the sake of letting players validhunt or metagrudge other players.

Well first of all, stealth antags that don't interact with the crew, are bad. This is why changeling mode is so terrible.

But secondly, if the antag is still being stealthy, the shuttle shouldn't have been called in the first place As we've established the shuttle should be used for situations where all is lost

If you want to stop the crew from leaving in that scenario, then you SHOULD be forced to show yourself, and bring the conflict to a head. The odds are pretty high that they know who you are anyway

 

For instance, if you are notified that the station AI recalled your shuttle, you immediately know they are malfunctioning, and they have lost all stealth aspect.

And if you're not notified, then the captain goes

'Hey, who recalled the shuttle'

CMO: 'Wasn't me'

CE; 'Wasn't me either, we're both in our departments doing things'

Captain: 'Then it must have been the AI. kill it!'

not much changes in that situation, the AI is always found out quickly when it recalls the shuttle, in the rare cases it isn't already known to be evil

[Nanako]

doublepost

Edited May 11, 2016 by Guest

[Nanako]

Or slap them with a time out after the 2nd attempt.

"The emergency shuttle has been recalled. You have 1 more recall allowance before shuttle service is suspended for 20 minutes."

"The emergency shuttle has been recalled. You have 0 recall allowances. Shuttle service has been suspended for 20 minutes."

Trying to call it again gets you..

Access denied. Shuttle service is suspended for the next 17 minutes.

Access denied. Shuttle service is suspend for the next 12 minutes.

etc

 

This makes the exact opposite of sense, though. NT has an interest in recovering their personnel, and figuring out what's going on aboard their stations.

If the recall allowances run out, you should still be allowed to call a shuttle and NOT allowed to recall it, not prevented from calling it again. that's just making it easier for people to forcibly drag the round on.

Also automatically dispatch an ERT when recall allowances run out, because that's an obvious sign that something is very wrong, and NT needs to send an entity they can trust to investigate the situation

[Zundy]

Or slap them with a time out after the 2nd attempt.

"The emergency shuttle has been recalled. You have 1 more recall allowance before shuttle service is suspended for 20 minutes."

"The emergency shuttle has been recalled. You have 0 recall allowances. Shuttle service has been suspended for 20 minutes."

Trying to call it again gets you..

Access denied. Shuttle service is suspended for the next 17 minutes.

Access denied. Shuttle service is suspend for the next 12 minutes.

etc

 

This makes the exact opposite of sense, though. NT has an interest in recovering their personnel, and figuring out what's going on aboard their stations.

If the recall allowances run out, you should still be allowed to call a shuttle and NOT allowed to recall it, not prevented from calling it again. that's just making it easier for people to forcibly drag the round on.

Also automatically dispatch an ERT when recall allowances run out, because that's an obvious sign that something is very wrong, and NT needs to send an entity they can trust to investigate the situation

 

I agree but, the ERT should arrive less "something is very wrong" and more "who the hell keeps firing off false alarms!?" If you keep activating an emergancy signal on, then off, then on, then off, the authorities arrive to reprimand you, be it a police or the train conductor.

[Guest]

This is a suggestion with no flaws whatsoever. Clearly we should enable antagonists to be able to murder the entire server on dead hour and keep the round so far into limbo that nobody wants to play because very few people want to have to respawn knowing who the antag is, and then being forced to not metagame the situation because they're playing a new character.

The round does not revolve around the antagonist to the extent where they must be catered to. The duty of the antagonist is to provide for an interesting round and RP experience, not to be given privileges because people whined enough about a round reset due to their actions as an awful antagonist.

Maybe take responsibility and don't work towards an objective that involves pointless murder?

[CakeIsOssim]

Before I start, I'd like to state that I've noticed it becoming a trend lately that people are trying to instate permanent solutions to temporary problems, most of which are not even actually problems. If someone calls the shuttle and the shuttle isn't even close to warranted, just ahelp them. This whole deal of preemptive rule enforcing is getting really tiresome to see.

No. We don't need to add "allowances" for the emergency shuttle. There are situations where the crew just needs to leave and cannot wait the ten minutes for an ERT to arrive and say, "Yeah, shit's fucked. Call the shuttle." If they try to call the shuttle and it gets recalled, so what? Start the manhunt. As soon as you find the person responsible, then you can end your round.

And, I don't know about the rest of you, but usually and hour or an hour and a half of chaos is just enough for me to notice that shit is either stagnant or winding down, and good rounds will usually start low, reach their high point at about an hour and a half, and wrap up nicely at the two hour mark or so with an emergency shuttle or even a crew transfer. This is a non issue.

[Kaed]

Before I start, I'd like to state that I've noticed it becoming a trend lately that people are trying to instate permanent solutions to temporary problems, most of which are not even actually problems. If someone calls the shuttle and the shuttle isn't even close to warranted, just ahelp them. This whole deal of preemptive rule enforcing is getting really tiresome to see.

No. We don't need to add "allowances" for the emergency shuttle. There are situations where the crew just needs to leave and cannot wait the ten minutes for an ERT to arrive and say, "Yeah, shit's fucked. Call the shuttle." If they try to call the shuttle and it gets recalled, so what? Start the manhunt. As soon as you find the person responsible, then you can end your round.

And, I don't know about the rest of you, but usually and hour or an hour and a half of chaos is just enough for me to notice that shit is either stagnant or winding down, and good rounds will usually start low, reach their high point at about an hour and a half, and wrap up nicely at the two hour mark or so with an emergency shuttle or even a crew transfer. This is a non issue.

 

This is not a non-issue, and 'just ahelp it' is not a solution for the problem. If you have to reach out to a meta-level to stop something preposterous allowed by the mechanics in-game, that's the problem. You fix those mechanics, so you're not relying on an array of wildly different opinioned staff members to resolve your issue. I've had several other members of staff agree that this is a good idea, so clearly your take on the matter is not the be all and end all on the debate.

And what if there are no admins around? Don't tell me there are always admins around. I frequently see a melange of mods and DO on the server with nary an admin in sight, and neither of those previous two have the ability to do much but grump at the person calling the shuttle and ban/warn them. The round still ends, and everything going on is cut off. Or we have a silly tug of war where the shuttle is called and recalled 5+ times until everyone is annoyed just because of the announcement spam. Is that a fun gameplay mechanic? Does it enhance the round in some way, seeing it?

 

This is a suggestion with no flaws whatsoever. Clearly we should enable antagonists to be able to murder the entire server on dead hour and keep the round so far into limbo that nobody wants to play because very few people want to have to respawn knowing who the antag is, and then being forced to not metagame the situation because they're playing a new character.

The round does not revolve around the antagonist to the extent where they must be catered to. The duty of the antagonist is to provide for an interesting round and RP experience, not to be given privileges because people whined enough about a round reset due to their actions as an awful antagonist.

Maybe take responsibility and don't work towards an objective that involves pointless murder?

 

This sarcastic remark would have some merit if the only reason shuttles were called was for a half dozen dead people, instead of the more often cause of 'I want to end the round before the antagonist can accomplish anything, because I'm losing'. While you would think losing to an antag would involve half a dozen dead people, that is not in fact always the case. This revision is not intended to stop emergency shuttles from happening, it's to curtail how abusable they are, and make them be used for actual emergencies.

[DatBerry]

I dont get it, are you trying to force people to get them valids to end the round instead of escaping?

Or do you just want them to submit and get absorbed/succ/bombed?

You say there should be an admin only unblock for shuttle calls but then using not having admins around as an excuse for your own argument, what?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

We could just compromise and have a 5 minute cool-down between each shuttle call.

[Kaed]

I dont get it, are you trying to force people to get them valids to end the round instead of escaping?

Or do you just want them to submit and get absorbed/succ/bombed?

You say there should be an admin only unblock for shuttle calls but then using not having admins around as an excuse for your own argument, what?

 

My ideas are rough and a work in progress. I will acknowledge that they may be unfeasible, and mainly just think something should be changed, though what I'm not clear on.

 

We could just compromise and have a 5 minute cool-down between each shuttle call.

 

Like this, it is a much more moderate idea and could work.

[Serveris]

How is a keycard authentication supposed to work in situations (like deadhour) where there's only one member of command staff? This would greatly overcompensate a situation that, as some people have said, could be dire.

One might suggest this single head of staff taking the spare ID in an emergency, and loaning a crew member either their personal ID and the spare, then calling the shuttle that way, but I can't see this being something CC would overlook in planning or endorse. It just seems like faulty planning.

Although I agree a rework could be interesting.

[Nanako]

Make ERT calling only require one ID, so people will actually do it when they should be doing it.