Remove Assistants

[keinto]

A rough idea that I would like to see people elaborate on.

- Remove the greytide.

- Leave the visitor slots in.

- Introduce more entry-level positions for Cargo, Bridge, Kitchen, Bar, and other civilian departments. The assistant slot has long been abused for para-engineers and wewladders who don't want to fall under a stricter chain of command.

A few suggestions for these new positions:

Bridge Secretary

Cargo assistant/ Mining trainee

Waitress/Food runner

The only downside I can see from this is taking away something to do for the HOP, but honestly, the only position I can recall the HOP giving is Bridge secretary, and this happens to rarely it might as well not happen at all. On the other hand, with more entry-level positions added more rivalry between departments can flourish or they can bond as they learn the ropes of their respective jobs together.

What do you think?

[Fire and Glory]

I'll just say I like the concept in removing assistants, whatever form it may take.

[Avajain]

I think that this is honestly a pretty good idea, although as someone who QMs a lot, a cargo assistant or mining trainee aren't required. The base jobs are simple enough, just require a small bit of teaching. And cargo really doesn't need more people hanging around. Other than that I think it's all a brilliant suggestion.

[Chada1]

I like the idea of replacing Assistant with more minor roles, this seems so much more fun than this bland proto-Engineer that we have at the moment.

[DatBerry]

Assistants answer to everyone, while you can't force them to change jobs you can already force them to do work they know/doesn't require much knowledge.

Assistants form a pool of unassigned dumb labor that any department can use when needed, most of the time though, no one needs extra helpers, assigning specialized helpers would just cut up the amount of labor available, (e.g: service assistant wouldn't help cargo even if they ask, as it's not his job)

the problem comes not from the worker though, but from the employer, you can't help those who do not wish to be helped.

a limp wristed scientist would rather push and pull two crates on their own than ask an assistant to do it. why? their irrational fear of the assistant running off with the crate in an isolated station in space.

Have you ever played as an assistant and tried to assist? I'm guessing not, it's something you can't understand until you've tried it yourself. I've observed assistants turn to the life of crime, to the passerby you would think they're just chimping out for no reason, but if you've been following them you'd notice that almost every interaction they've had with anyone had them receiving distrust, passive aggressiveness or even out right insults for practically no reason. the stereotype of assistants is encouraged by the playerbase.

giving them department related jobs and access would help against the stigma but there's still the issue of splitting up the dumb labor on such a small station and on jobs that doesn't even require a training course or anything, cargo techs are already basically clean slate idiots and ex/active criminals, I don't know what more of a fool can you get to work as a cargo assistant, and people almost never sit to eat, why'd NT hire a full time waiter?

any job lower than current supply and service departments have can already be done by an assistant, and they're expected to if the need ever arises, and sometimes they actually might be needed, but do you believe it's likely that the assistant would refuse to help or would it be more likely that they are never called? from my experience it was the latter.

Solving an OOC issue with an IC solution that doesn't make much IC sense doesn't really work well.

Again, if an assistant refuses to assist without any proper reason, they should be arrested for neglect of duty.

if an assistant is given work, he'll have less time to goof off.

[Resilynn]

I really like the waitress idea especially. Cargo doesn't need much, except maybe someone who specializes in pressing the single button to melt shit.

Every department could benefit from secretaries.

[Butterrobber202]

I'd kill for a command secretary role. Bridge access, meeting room access, could help out command peeps, it would be cool.

[NoahKirchner]

If you add secretaries to every department, then what happens during dead or with a lacklustre department?

As it stands now, an assistant can pick whatever department they'd like to assist (assuming menial labour) after the round has started instead of needing to lock in to an intern role, I thought that was the point. Sure they can't do any advanced labour, but they can help people as the situation requires instead of being stuck in one department the entire round.

[Lohikar]

We literally can't remove assistants without a bunch of refactoring due to how job code works. Assistant or some other equivalent role must be present.

[BRAINOS]

I really just wanna ask real quick: is our issue with greytide really that bad?

I hardly ever see a crapload of assistants just causing a mess for no reason.

For departments like Sec, Med, Research and Cargo, a desk-person might be great, but we honestly shouldn't remove assistants in general if we want to fit something like that in. Med and Cargo need people manning the desk the most, but generally Medical has that covered well enough and Cargo's typically on call for orders if they're away from the desk, anyway.

Besides, if we remove assistant, but keep visitor, you can guess what people who want to greytide will do. Removing assistants isn't the answer to our problem, whatever that problem apparently is.

[AmoryBlaine]

I really just wanna ask real quick: is our issue with greytide really that bad?

 

Less so now, but as a Perma-Sec player I can tell you that at the beginning of July, and late June we had a massive influx of shitters. We had at least six repeat greytiders who kept returning round after round after round. I think they banned most already though.

[sonicgotnuked]

I really just wanna ask real quick: is our issue with greytide really that bad?

 

Less so now, but as a Perma-Sec player I can tell you that at the beginning of July, and late June we had a massive influx of shitters. We had at least six repeat greytiders who kept returning round after round after round. I think they banned most already though.

 

Why do you think removing assistants is going to fix this? Do you want them to start joining into roles like engineering and science?

[Resilynn]

I really just wanna ask real quick: is our issue with greytide really that bad?

 

Less so now, but as a Perma-Sec player I can tell you that at the beginning of July, and late June we had a massive influx of shitters. We had at least six repeat greytiders who kept returning round after round after round. I think they banned most already though.

Why do you think removing assistants is going to fix this? Do you want them to start joining into roles like engineering and science?

 

Or chemist. *shudders*

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I rarely, if ever, have problems with too many assistants or troublemaking assistants. Assistants form a pool of labor that you can have reassigned to low-skill jobs when needed. Assistants are also incredibly low-risk low-reward, and let new players explore the place and assist where people ask for help without having the obligation of being locked to one department.

More intern slots may seem like a good idea, but as a career HoP I have to say that it is far easier to manage and delegate 12 assistants running around than having 6 interns in each department who don't know what they're doing. Have you ever been a lone security officer herding around a bunch of interns? It's a nightmare. Don't even get me started on a medical bay staffed with a horde of medical interns. It's awful.

A few times assistants come to me asking for something to do, and I check the manifest and see if there is a shortage in a non-sensitive department, and I reassign them to an intern in that department. If you see an assistant is causing problems then have them reassigned to work in botany, or give them a mop bucket, or ask them to do something. USUALLY when I ask an assistant for help doing something reasonable then they go do it. If they run off and steal your crates then that is just something you call security for.

The round resets after 2 hours so there's not a lot of risk in giving a barebones level of trust to assistants. If they are being troublemakers, then just have sec handle them. They have zero access so they can only be a nuisance until an admin talks to them or you kill them.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Marlon Phoenix

[Azande]

No. I like having assistants to put in Cargo when they decide not to join as Cargo.

[AllyBearsley]

As a guy who plans on bringing some people who are very new to SS13 in, I would love more intern roles. However, I am not really for removing assistants on the basis, there really isn't much reason and as Lohi said it would be very difficult. I will also go back to what Berry said "server mentallity." However, before I really go into that I must first tell [mention]DatBerry[/mention] to go eat a cactus for playing an almost stereotypical bald assistant and then whining about it for months. I love you Berry and I love what you turned Rob into before you deleted him, but seriously sometimes you took it too far and it got old. Still you and others have made some great points.

So first let's go into "There isn't much reason". Assistants have very little access to anything on their own. In fact they have no specific work station, they just wander around looking for something to do. Sometimes in their boredom they do silly crap. Sometimes destructive. I've found this to be very true for new players in general no matter their role. If they aren't constantly doing something, their mind wanders and they can do some very borderline dangerous stuff. Another thing is with the Assistant slot open, we have a place where the worst can go without having access to engineering, security, science, or medical. We can more easily contain the shitty Assistants and look to find jobs for the ones who actually want to help.

Now for code. Lohi explained code and I don't understand much code. Good job Lohi.

Finally server mentallity. As a new comer, this server has some very strange mentalities. I won't go into all of them, but one major one is the inbuilt belief that all Assistants are bad. We all have fallen victim to this belief at least for a short while. I believed they were all shitters for a while myself. However, I've learned a lot of times the Assistants are actually either looking for a break from the major responsibilities of a main department or just looking to learn how to play. We instead of shunning or removing Assistants should instead look to find them jobs. Department Head (primarily HoPs) and well departments in general should be looking for ways to engage Assistants in assisting the station running. Yes there will be shitters, but I would say it's much better they are running around in the assistant spot over a full fledged doctor or engineer slot.

TL;DR Blah blah, assistants aren't that bad blah blah blah.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Even if an assistant is bad, as I said, anything they do is erased when the shift ends. So being afraid of assistants is a little silly, because the worst that happens is they break something that gets reset in a few hours. I have always been really lenient in reassigning assistants to specific intern roles, or anything in service or cargo.

[AllyBearsley]

Reassigning assistants to intern roles is great. Double so if you can help convince them to work on records in the process, with maybe an LOOC nudge or something. Plus the reassigning of assistants is why I'm not too worried about the current intern limits. If someone shows up a little late one shift as an assistant, but they have the records to work as an intern, I don't see many HoPs ignoring them.

[AmoryBlaine]

I really just wanna ask real quick: is our issue with greytide really that bad?

 

Less so now, but as a Perma-Sec player I can tell you that at the beginning of July, and late June we had a massive influx of shitters. We had at least six repeat greytiders who kept returning round after round after round. I think they banned most already though.

 

Why do you think removing assistants is going to fix this? Do you want them to start joining into roles like engineering and science?

 

He asked how bad our greytide issue was, I told him what I've experienced. I didn't say removing Assistants is going to fix anything.

[Arrow768]

In my opinion the problem with assistants is that they dont really have any responsibilities at all.

Some of them try to actually help out, but then there are others.

Those that engage in shady business almost every round.

Those that have canon records of drug dealing and other crimes that would prevent your work on a sensitive research station.

Those that try to fuck with security / the AI just to get a response.

I believe that removing the assistant slot and replacing it with more low level positions can help with that, because then there is the expectation to actually do something productive in a specific department.

And these low level department positions can then be used for the grunt work

Regarding the requirement for the assistant slot [mention]Lohikar[/mention] . The suggestion is only to replace the assistant, not the visitor slot

[Lohikar]

In my opinion the problem with assistants is that they dont really have any responsibilities at all.

Some of them try to actually help out, but then there are others.

Those that engage in shady business almost every round.

Those that have canon records of drug dealing and other crimes that would prevent your work on a sensitive research station.

Those that try to fuck with security / the AI just to get a response.

I believe that removing the assistant slot and replacing it with more low level positions can help with that, because then there is the expectation to actually do something productive in a specific department.

And these low level department positions can then be used for the grunt work

Regarding the requirement for the assistant slot @Lohikar . The suggestion is only to replace the assistant, not the visitor slot

 

Removing the Assistant slot but leaving Visitor will just lead to the troublemakers joining as Visitor, as it is a default job.

[Dreamix]

(...)

Removing the Assistant slot but leaving Visitor will just lead to the troublemakers joining as Visitor, as it is a default job.

And removing assistants/visitors will just lead to the troublemakers joining as security or engineering.

Assistant-like job needs to exist. It's a buffer job, the griefers, newbies, noobs, troublemakers all go there.

Also, adding even more jobs (entry-level jobs, departmental assistants) will just mean that more people will do less. Departments would be even more crowded during high pop, while dead hours would have more people who do nothing.

[idioch]

I kinda feel assistants tend to get ignored alot. Almost about the same treatment as the servers department specific roles, engineering assistant and such. About the only good game experience I had was as a nursing intern, where the CMO actually RP teaching me stuff in game. Every other time I play these roles my character tends to get swept aside and ignored if they don't know what they are doing.

At any rate isn't the general purpose of assistants, including the departmental ones, to learn things as a potential newbie to the game? Most servers I've played tend to ignore you when you offer on common channel to assist. Nothing is stopping these troublemakers joining into a department to start trouble anyways. Ignoring them is also potentially causing them to be troublemakers simply because they are more then likely bored.

[Ornias]

One suggestion per thread, I get it, but PLEASE stop making them spawn in primary tool storage. That's just asking for trouble.

Otherwise, I play an assistant role. I get reassigned to something useful every shift, often some subsection of the service department - waiter, barista, sous-chef. If you take away that role, I'll be forced to pick a specific department and no longer be allowed to be that low-level everyman.

Assitant may be abused by some, but as others have addressed, not all. And, unlike genetics, they don't have the knowledge or clearance to make people superpowered freaks.

Start giving assistants stuff to assist with and you'll find they'll either get bored and quit peacefully or feel accepted and stay.

[BRAINOS]

I'm gonna go ahead and say right now I've got three characters I mainly play, and the most unpredictable rounds go to a character who isn't back in Cargo or hiding in Robotics: an assistant.

Because of his role as a general, multi-department assistant, he's been able to get involved in:

- Bartending

- Sec Cadet Cadet

- Xenobotany

- Science

- Robotics

- Typical asshat assistant shenanigans

Every time I sign on with Roberto, I have no idea what to expect. I'm a pretty experienced player and I know most of the departments, but the assistant role has allowed me to really flex around and interact with the crew who main these departments. It all comes down to being friendly, persistent and interesting, even if it borders on gimmicky.

Strict department only intern roles would kill the experience of meeting a total stranger in a totally new department just by saying, "Sup, brah."