[1 Dismissal] Intern / Trainee Positions

[Qu1nnd0lyn]

On the Aurora Station, there is not a position that can be selected at each round start for either interning or training purposes. I recently decided to make a character to learn medical. My friend loves it and we wanted to be able to roleplay together in MedBay. However, when I looked at the information on the forums, it showed that for a medical resident, your character was "supposed" to have basic training already and be prepping to move up into a doctor-type position. Players on board even RPed like my character was a doctor and knew what she was doing... which... she (and I) don't.

For a newbie like me, that really didn't make sense... but there was no other option. Luckily no one seems to care... but then that kind of negates the purpose of having the "requirements" be there for a resident.

I would like to suggest making an intern / trainee position. This position would need to be similar to an assistant, where trainees are very limited to their accessible areas. If a HoP is present, they can change the delegation of the internship to whatever area the person is wanting and assign a teacher/overseer for training. This role should obviously include medical, science, and securit, though engineering already has a role designated as a apprentice. If this role is implemented, it would make sense (at least to me) to delete the engineering apprentice role and perhaps make it something like the maintenance technician. The internship / trainee position has to the civilian roles as well. Bartender, Chef, Gardener, Cargo, Mining, Librarian, Chaplain... These roles are not vital to the station, but people play them often and learning from a guide is not as fun as learning from a fellow player.

What is most important is that this position allows all roles to be accessible to newbies. If you're like me and afraid to join in as a role that you currently have no IRL knowledge of... this role would solve some of the issue. Seasoned players who know how the job/role works can train ICly as well as OOCly if needed. It would make things much more new player friendly and generate roleplay for those looking to branch out of a department or into a new departmental role.

Obviously if you are making a new character and have IRL knowledge of how to do the role you want the new character to go into, you can start them at the higher level job. The purpose of the internship/trainee is for players who need either IRL training on how to do the job, or characters who you have decided are learning something new.

Thank you for your consideration. Please let me know if you agree, disagree, have suggestions, ... anything! - Qu1nnd0lyn

[Scheveningen]

On the Aurora Station, there is not a position that can be selected at each round start for either interning or training purposes.

 

They exist. They are thusly called, "Security Cadet, Engineering Apprentice, Lab Assistant, Medical Resident." The medical resident was previously known as the nursing intern. The name change was to suit a different dynamic.

 

However, when I looked at the information on the forums, it showed that for a medical resident, your character was "supposed" to have basic training already and be prepping to move up into a doctor-type position. Players on board even RPed like my character was a doctor and knew what she was doing... which... she (and I) don't.

 

Well, they're dumb for assuming the knowledge of a medical resident. Or the character is. Whichever. This is an in-character nuance more than anything else, though.

Anyway, the other jobs are entry-level positions and hardly need a bit of accreditation aside from what's cited on the wiki for the civilian jobs. You're supposed to spend the first round or so in that job to get a handle of the basic mechanics of the SS13 systems that get incredibly more complex (surprisingly) as soon as you get into the more sophisticated and in-depth roles that the wiki recommends you stay away from at first.

Another thing about the 'new player friendly' thing. SS13 has traditionally always been 'new player unfriendly' but not necessarily due in part to the community; it's largely due to how high the learning curve is for an otherwise dated and not fully intuitive engine. It's easy to say SS13 is easy when you've played as long as I have (between 3-4 years), but there's pretty much a 50-50 split where people struggle immensely to get a hand of SS13 mechanics or they manage it through time and persistence. The variable that never changes is time.

The question, "how can we make the game more newbie friendly" has been asked many times. The answer remains the same; "Why do you think it hasn't already been tried?"

Inevitably, though, the steep learning curve is a way to hook certain types of players into the game to get them interested in the first place. There's no hand-holding to SS13. Your character can die instantly from a single mistake that couldn't have been prevented outside of your avatar not being there in the first place to get killed.

[Qu1nnd0lyn]

Okay, I see what you mean for the main security, science, and engineering... but my point with medical still stands. Plus, I do think that it would be advantageous to make something for people who want to learn the simple things like cooking or botany, as well as cargo and mining.

I know I'd love to learn cargo and mining, but there isn't a position in my opinion that lets me join in and not take a job that could go to someone who already knows how to do it.

So I still say that putting a job like this in would be fun. It's also nice when there is no HoP to be able to just kind of do what you want. The interns would be limited in accessible areas, but they can still roam around in the bar/lounge, library, medbay lobby, cargo lobby, etc.

Just my thoughts.

[Scheveningen]

I know I'd love to learn cargo and mining, but there isn't a position in my opinion that lets me join in and not take a job that could go to someone who already knows how to do it.

 

More or less that's true, but part of the fun of SS13 is diving headfirst in to learn. You don't become among the most mechanically robust through reading guides. Practice makes perfect.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Thank you for your feedback. Quite a few new players would like nursing intern back. I will look into having it re-added with the dev team renamed 'medical intern' to not confuse it with nurses' form of a resident.

[Arrow768]

You always have the option to join as assistant and ask the head of staff of the department to assign you to a training position.

Most of them will do that as long as the round is not too hectic

[Korinra]

Real ranks used in USA:

Medical Student (college)

Intern (First year in a hospital after graduation, they by law MAY NOT practice as a doctor without supervision at all times)

Resident (Interns who are permitted to work without supervision)

Fellow (A Resident who has completed residency, but opts for more internship, usually this is to specialize. IE a Cardioracic Surgeon would require a Fellowship program)

Attending (This is a full Doctor who is no longer a trainee, and has completed their "residency". Usually this rank only applies in "Teaching Hospitals" as they're expected to teach Interns and Residents)

Chief of Medicine (This is the highest rank in a hospital. This is basically the guy the board of directors puts in charge of the entire hospital, and is expected to have the highest medical knowledge of everyone present)

For game purposes, we've all passed our "Medical Student" phase, and are now allowed to work in the Medical Field, as stated before, an Assistant could get the title "Medical Intern", but I think it's not extremely important.

Since Medical doesn't really have enough things for the need to have Fellows, the different departments (Virology/Chemistry/Psych) kind of skip over the Fellowship program, but if you really want to I'm sure HoPs and Captains wouldn't mind forcing it in through the ID modifier.

Attending, well that's your basic "Medical Doctor", "Surgeon", "EMT", so that exists.

And of course the COM is the (ironically named) CMO, who runs Medical.

Frankly from a game mechanics perspective, there isn't REALLY a reason it NEEDS to be added, as an Medical Resident, you COULD just ask the CMO if you could work with supervision only, or a CMO might enforce it on Residents that they're not comfortable working alone.

The only change I think should happen is Medical Resident should also have an option "Surgical Resident", to imply a Surgeon in training. In real hospitals they are equal as far as their "rank", but one specializes in surgery and the other on internal medicine.

[MO_oNyMan]

Yeah, the lack of already existing positions that allow new players to learn specific jobs (like virology, xenoarch, atmos, tcomms, mining, cooking, detective, forensics, etc.) is a bit of a problem. While for most civilian slots you can ask HoP to assign you to a specific job (like cargo assistant, junior chef or something like that) other jobs are not really something you could trust an average assistant with.

So as a solution to this i'm all for making a bunch of new alt-titles for departments (chemistry resident, surgery resident, virology resident, psychology resident, nursery resident etc. for people who want to learn something specialised. Medical intern for people who are just starting in medical and need to be taught how a syringe works, investigative assistant for security investigators and so on).

[Korinra]

My point there was that "Chesmistry/Virology/Psychology Resident" is called a "Fellow". It's a term that means you're ready to practice the basics, but are learning a specific division. Surgical Resident makes sense, but a "Nursery Resident" is an oxymoron. A Nurse is a Doctor's assistant, a Nurse Practitioner is a nurse who can also prescribe basic medications. Neither of which are "doctors", they're medically trained non-doctors, who help with basic tasks like drawing blood and placing IV's so Doctors have more time with researching illness. A Nurse by definition in SS13 basically would do paperwork only or hand out pills/shots to people with minor damage, something anyone in Medical could do.

If Medical was set up properly, here are the titles I'd expect to see:

Medical Resident / Surgical Resident (Training)

Medical Doctor / Surgeon / EMT / Medical Attending / Surgical Attending (various normal fields, with the added title "Attending" for people who specifically want to teach Residents)

Psych / Virologist / Chemistry (As they are now, specialty fields within Medical)

Chief of Medicine (Because frankly I like the American medical term better than the militaristic term Chief Medical Officer)

[LordFowl]

All of these already exist in the form of interns. If your rights as an intern are not being respected, stand up for yourself like the little intern you are.

Voting for dismissal.

[MO_oNyMan]

All of these already exist in the form of interns. If your rights as an intern are not being respected, stand up for yourself like the little intern you are.

Voting for dismissal.

 

Considering the amount of IC knowledge the interns have to grasp as well as finite round duration and IRL counterparts having the option to choose your speciality would ease the integration process of the new players. It's HRP, not dark souls. Some newbie-friendliness will benefit the station and the community