What the hell is tg stations design philosophy even?

[Farquaar]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I vaguely alluded to what could be considered the design docs

[cacogen]

Yeah design documents are dictatorial and oppressive and lead to stupid situations where the person implementing something will not take on any feedback because the document says it has to be this way and unless the person behind the document is willing to update it in light of new information it doesn't reflect the reality of how things play out in the game. I don't see why the cohesive vision meme exists as a criticism of the codebase from a player's point of view when it's people being mostly free to contribute what they want that prevents it becoming shit as laid out by resentful people who don't play the game and would rather remove things because it's less work than balancing or improving them

[Mothblocks]

just talk to the person that made the design doc, we're all on discord

[Qustinnus]

would rather remove things because it's less work than balancing or improving them

Still more work than you do

[cacogen]

As far as I can tell you just code half-assed buggy features for your own gratification, do nothing to fix the bugs reported and ignore any feedback you don't like. Isn't coding your job? If I had that level of skill I'd be doing a lot more. And aren't you a maintainer? I don't think I ever see you review anything that isn't somebody working with you on one of your features. If Mothblocks had decided to imply what I said there was wrong because I supposedly don't do any work for the codebase it wouldn't be so ridiculous given the amount of code he reviews and PRs he merges.

As it is I report any bugs I see, put a great deal of effort into the pull requests I make, test them over and over again and quickly fix any bugs that slip through. I also give plenty of honest, quality feedback despite knowing 99% of the time it's a waste of effort. Any PR I make that requires a considerable amount of effort has to sit a lot longer than yours do before a maintainer will look at it. Sometimes they go stale.

But you're right, maybe I should fix more bugs of yours like these ones I reported a couple of months ago: #56388, #56389. While I'm at it instead of giving feedback and despite it not being my responsibility to do so and not knowing your code and it being considerably more effort for me than it is for you to do maybe I should take it upon myself to make your newest feature actually desirable to play instead of endless, stressful tedium because you won't respond to any of the feedback that would fix it. Add search to the crafting menu so finding what you need isn't such a chore. Reduce how often they chime so it isn't so loud and stressful. Increase the payouts to actually make it worth doing compared to bounties. That type of thing that you will never do because I guess you view it as a power struggle when players want you to change something and that's more important than making the minigame actually fun to play.

Anyway, I recognise that it likely harms me more than it helps me ultimately to say this but I've already typed it out so here it is. If I didn't have such an abrasive adherence to saying what I believe I wouldn't have to deal with this. But it doesn't make what I'm saying untrue.

just talk to the person that made the design doc, we're all on discord

Players give plenty of feedback. Coders don't want to be influenced by it the vast majority of the time. Whether it's on the PR, in a feedback thread, to the coder in OOC or in Discord makes no difference.

[BONERMASTER]

The way I see it, and as some coders have expressed in similiar vain, this game, in it's form here, is fucked. The base of this is a mafia style game where you as antag can just ignore the part where they vote to hang you and instead fucking kill everybody, while everybody else must shut the fuck up and play target practice. Maybe more realistic, maybe more novel, but breaks the game! That's just a terrible game, and our coders are literally chainsmoking, jugging energy drinks and shooting cocaine in trying to come up with an answer as to why anybody should play that game.

The answer is, there is no answer, truth hurts, the game is just rigged shit, no matter how many gimmicks and atmos simulations you build around it. The only solution to that is to put the game out of it's misery, like a horse with four broken legs, and make a new one (or buy one, for the horse), like burgerstation.

Because here the game actually works, given, it appeals to the age old instinct of ruthless mass violence, but you can just feel how everything in this game feeds into it and positively reinforces it. There is a clear goal, and you're working very hard with your peers to accomplish that, and even if the game does fuck you and a meat golem pops out of a box and two-hits your strongest character, the frustration that you deal with there is just a glimmer compared to our version, because the game itself is fun, and even if I get anally destroyed and die a second before roundend, losing all my gear, I would not feel dread making a new start and trying something else, because I still enjoy playing the game.
You go try that here, play security and lose your disabler to a clown slipping you, it's just one non-permanent round, but you'll be fuming over it for the rest of your life, and if you don't, then you never played security. No matter how many times jannies appeal to more roleplay or a new cool thing gets added, as long as that underlying rigged shit, that's embedded into the base of our game, can happily exist, all our players will be gradually pushed into becoming validhunting apes, and we'll join hippie station in their endtimes apocalypse.


The only hope, and it's a not unlikely hope, is that Oranges one day just deletes the entire game, bribes Burger with a Burgerking coupon to replace it with his version and spearheads the development of an entirely new take on SS13, with playernumbers soaring through the sky, ad revenue in the millions and a playerbase that says "Thank you coder- (the rest is not important)". Until that happens, fingers crossed!!

[Mothblocks]

And aren't you a maintainer?

If you're talking to Floyd, they are not a maintainer, no.

Players give plenty of feedback. Coders don't want to be influenced by it the vast majority of the time. Whether it's on the PR, in a feedback thread, to the coder in OOC or in Discord makes no difference.

Then this is something that is not because of design documents, and so is silly to attribute as to them being problematic.

[oranges]

imsxz unravelling the Gordian knot

[youtube]yrwTDfdck7I[/youtube]

[Qustinnus]

As far as I can tell you just code half-assed buggy features for your own gratification, do nothing to fix the bugs reported and ignore any feedback you don't like. Isn't coding your job? If I had that level of skill I'd be doing a lot more. And aren't you a maintainer? I don't think I ever see you review anything that isn't somebody working with you on one of your features. If Mothblocks had decided to imply what I said there was wrong because I supposedly don't do any work for the codebase it wouldn't be so ridiculous given the amount of code he reviews and PRs he merges.

As it is I report any bugs I see, put a great deal of effort into the pull requests I make, test them over and over again and quickly fix any bugs that slip through. I also give plenty of honest, quality feedback despite knowing 99% of the time it's a waste of effort. Any PR I make that requires a considerable amount of effort has to sit a lot longer than yours do before a maintainer will look at it. Sometimes they go stale.

But you're right, maybe I should fix more bugs of yours like these ones I reported a couple of months ago: #56388, #56389. While I'm at it instead of giving feedback and despite it not being my responsibility to do so and not knowing your code and it being considerably more effort for me than it is for you to do maybe I should take it upon myself to make your newest feature actually desirable to play instead of endless, stressful tedium because you won't respond to any of the feedback that would fix it. Add search to the crafting menu so finding what you need isn't such a chore. Reduce how often they chime so it isn't so loud and stressful. Increase the payouts to actually make it worth doing compared to bounties. That type of thing that you will never do because I guess you view it as a power struggle when players want you to change something and that's more important than making the minigame actually fun to play.

Anyway, I recognise that it likely harms me more than it helps me ultimately to say this but I've already typed it out so here it is. If I didn't have such an abrasive adherence to saying what I believe I wouldn't have to deal with this. But it doesn't make what I'm saying untrue.

just talk to the person that made the design doc, we're all on discord

Players give plenty of feedback. Coders don't want to be influenced by it the vast majority of the time. Whether it's on the PR, in a feedback thread, to the coder in OOC or in Discord makes no difference.

1. I'm not a maintainer, anything I review is because either the code is something I know or made.

2. I fix tons of bugs and refactor tons of shit, which is why I can make features in the first place.


Anyways, because you're clearly so mad about tourists:
1. They pay more (like you asked)
2. They make less noise (like you asked)
3. Crafting is being made less tedious (like you asked)

But because you suckle on chalk erasers all day you don't pay attention to that. And instead you will continuously give your piss poor takes

Edit: also I learnt how to code by coding for tg so your knuckle dragging "if I had that skill" excuse just shows the extend of your laziness.

You also need to notice that neither of those issues are assigned to me, so I can't track the fact that they're related to my code. One of those bugs was already fixed so thanks for proving me right.

[Yenwodyah]

Cloning only made death "consequential" for doctors and traitors

Cloning: You die -> you take a time out while you get cloned. If you're a traitor you permadeath unless you set up autocloning.

Post-cloning: You die -> you take a time out while some doctor fixes your corpse. Unless you're a traitor, then you permadeath because no one wants to heal you.

[oranges]

As far as I can tell you just code half-assed buggy features for your own gratification, do nothing to fix the bugs reported and ignore any feedback you don't like. Isn't coding your job? If I had that level of skill I'd be doing a lot more. And aren't you a maintainer? I don't think I ever see you review anything that isn't somebody working with you on one of your features. If Mothblocks had decided to imply what I said there was wrong because I supposedly don't do any work for the codebase it wouldn't be so ridiculous given the amount of code he reviews and PRs he merges.

This is an extremely inappropriate personal attack, I should ban you for it, but I'll give you one warning.

[Armhulen]

Cloning only made death "consequential" for doctors and traitors

Cloning: You die -> you take a time out while you get cloned. If you're a traitor you permadeath unless you set up autocloning.

Post-cloning: You die -> you take a time out while some doctor fixes your corpse. Unless you're a traitor, then you permadeath because no one wants to heal you.

I kinda like the competency of med being tied to keeping the loop of old cloning, like you're only ever reaching cloning speeds (or faster) if you have a well working med

[Ffakka]

I'm seriously confused on what's even the mindset that maintainers have.

my coding philosophy is to get rekt in maint and nerf whatever rekt me and if you dont like it k1d u can get the fuck out

i got killed by a singloose once and wheres the singloose now, buddy?

im stronger than you, im smarter than you, i remove variety and fun just because i feel like ruining your day, and if you even try to complain ill mock you with "change = bad" until you never dare to cross these forums ever again

this game, your world, is my playground and if you dont shut the fuck up im gonna fucking destroy you

[Flatulent]

Since people are having problems understanding it, I will now post operational algorithm for a tgstation coder.

1. Make PR.
2. PR is completely full of bugs, naturally maintainers won’t merge it?
3. PR is merged despite being bugged.
4. Cook now has CQC that works through camera with global range.
5. 10 Mar. 2021 “Hands from the celling” incident

[TheFinalPotato]

[Mothblocks]

4. Cook now has CQC that works through camera with global range.

that pr just changed the whitelisted areas, it had literally nothing to do with that bug silly

[Istoprocent1]

Cloning could've been easily balanced out by having it just be researched kinda like how medbay stuff is now. This also implies that nanites don't make getting hurt inconsequential

Cloning leads to doctors going "this person's injuries are too complicated for me to bother treating, just euthanise and clone them instead"

edit: and the fact that it existed meant it was impossible to even suggest improvements to the medical system that added any complexity at all because any suggestions were met with a wall of "if you make it anything more complex than braindead pushing a button on a sleeper then doctors will just kill and clone instead"

Ah yes, spending 20 minutes on fixing one dude who has been purposefully fucked up is the best.

Its not like, debrain, get a monkey, replace brain, defib, tell them to fuck off to genetics to get themselves fixed isn't literally "the cloning 2.0".

[Mothblocks]

if you spend 20 minutes on one body, even the deliberately fucked up ones, you are a bad doctor

[ABearInTheWoods]

Yeah design documents are dictatorial and oppressive and lead to stupid situations where the person implementing something will not take on any feedback because the document says it has to be this way

This is a valid complaint and saying "just talk to the guy who made the design doc" doesn't help.

Isn't coding your job?

No.

[Qustinnus]

Isn't coding your job?

No.

I think he meant I'm a programmer as a job IRL (Which I'm not.)

[CPTANT]

I haven't played for a while, what cloning alternatives are still in the game?

[Irad]

The alternative is being round removed.

the issue is that you can't remove people from the round with instant stuns or with shotguns that kill in 0.5 seconds.

Improve ways to play singleplayer, thanks. if you want this game to be some kind of town of Salem mafia game, then play that. I want a dying because someone looked at you with harm intent simulation.

[Armhulen]

Improve ways to play singleplayer, thanks.

sell me on this, second time i've heard this about a multiplayer deduction semi-sandbox roleplaying game

[Irad]

sell me on this, second time i've heard this about a multiplayer deduction semi-sandbox roleplaying game

I just don't think the good part about the game is the deduction part - the fun things are the sandbox and the hidden antagonists: figuring out who it is isn't fun in this game, and I don't want it to be a game where security/crew can decide that someone is an antag and "vote them out" like in mafia. I mean, do you like it when security comes and stunbaton searchstips you because of a discussion they had on sec Comms?


If I wanted to play a deduction game, I'd play Avalon, mafia or whatever, and those are fun too.

[oranges]

The alternative is being round removed.

the issue is that you can't remove people from the round with instant stuns or with shotguns that kill in 0.5 seconds.

Improve ways to play singleplayer, thanks. if you want this game to be some kind of town of Salem mafia game, then play that. I want a dying because someone looked at you with harm intent simulation.

no thanks

[Mothblocks]

I mean, do you like it when security comes and stunbaton searchstips you because of a discussion they had on sec Comms?

as a designer yeah, because it means paranoia is alive and well and also it's fun as sec to try and get to the bottom of the chaos when it's not a guy going loud.

[Mothblocks]

I haven't played for a while, what cloning alternatives are still in the game?

the entire medical department gameplay that was previously unused because of cloning

defibs have no timer anymore my friend it's wonderful

[Screemonster]

if you want this game to be some kind of town of Salem mafia game

what the fuck kind of game do you think ss13 is

[Irad]

if you want this game to be some kind of town of Salem mafia game

what the fuck kind of game do you think ss13 is

an atmospheric and horizontal simulation.

[Qustinnus]

this thread is just a lamer version of https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2660

[SardarKreuz]

I'm seriously confused on what's even the mindset that maintainers have....

That's the very reason I never dared to code for this server.
Stuff comes, stuff goes, and the main impression is there's nothing like an actual mindset in it.

...It's a lot like evolution. Many mutations (PRs) come into existence, but only those that improve reproductive fitness (are compatible with the maintainers' vision) persist (get merged).

I do disagree in that generally the maintainer/keeper/owner/boss of a project can do whatever, but what dictates if it's worthy or not is the user base.
If something really bad is done the entire software becomes obsolete, goes down the drain and that is the real evolution theory.
Free software included.
(But's not the case here considering the metrics I do use. This project is faring reasonably well on many aspects.)

...Reviving people and healing people are now such tedious processes doctors don't even want to deal with a drunk guy critting themselves repeatedly, or a rage cage, let alone a real emergency....
...But the idea that the game benefits from most players sitting out is misinformed to begin with.

Pretty much looks like it.
I decided to play again on this server those last weeks and I was amazed at how medbay is working.
A pile of corpses getting preserver patch applied to but going nowhere.
On most cases only thing left to do was to get into a ghost role sleeper and play outside the station.

And I had the impression many of those got removed.
Also saw no one getting spawned into a critter from xenoscience or something. (Is it harder to do now? Or got removed? I do have no idea.)

And you are right. From player POV it's feeling "quite boring" if your character do die nowadays.

My impression?
In old times, the reason for round to end used to be the station getting too wrecked.
Also we had people complaining about "metagaming". (Not really since all clones and spawns were met with the whole crew screaming by radio about whatever killed them but...)

Now it's looking different.
People are thinking twice about wrecking the station. And security thinks twice about using lethals.

Is it because of the "round permadeath" that's happening now?

...cloning is bad content...

...Cloning leads to doctors going "this person's injuries are too complicated for me to bother treating, just euthanise and clone them instead"...

YEAH! In that too, I do agree.

The problem with cloning by the past was it being a gratuitous "second life" with no drawbacks of any sort.
(Getting re-spawned as a xenobiology golem/cortical borer/whatever was far more interesting.)

Big deal is cloning was too reliable.

Your character do die and come back as the exact same character.
Then it proceed to resume it's life.
The very same thing to happen again and again, wich is boring too.

But to tell something?

By another project I tried to re-balance it by creating a cloner that was innacurate on purpose and used to randomly create mutated demi-humans, new people with no identity or even perfect clones (always with a 2nd or 3rd suffix to indicate it in name) but controlled by other players.

And you guess?
My attempt got shadowrealmed because "this is not how cloning is supposed to work", based on how it was by all other servers.

(Blesssed be those holy paladins of copy-paste standardization. May they live forever in boredom, eternally blessed by their deities. )

[SardarKreuz]

Very good insights and thoughts, Bonermaster.

...The base of this is a mafia style game where you as antag can just ignore the part where they vote to hang you and instead fucking kill everybody, while everybody else must shut the fuck up and play target practice....

...The answer is, there is no answer, truth hurts, the game is just rigged shit, no matter how many gimmicks and atmos simulations you build around it....

My take on this?
SS13 as a whole suffers from the same problem that will arise on any sandbox game with combat features.
You can compare it to SecondLife (if you do consider coding as sandboxing) or to MineCraft.
And you will see the very same thing.

There are no goals to start with. No measures. No positive or negative score.
Also nothing you can keep from one round to another.
"Achievement" comes from the personal perception.

So if you murderbone everyone or break everything up as antag/security/crewmate/greytider/etc it's "OK".
There's no "red text" or "orange text" for anything done wrong.
Nor a green text for small accomplishments. (Or score.)

How many times your character helped another one with a healing chem without causing OD?
Or repaired something at the station?
Or created low and high tier stuff at genetics, xenobio, robotics, chemistry, bar, kitchen, etc?

And the fuck-ups? The stuff done wrong?

Nothing of this is accounted for. (And it could be. It's easy to port and tweak one of the many "combat log" systems already coded for this sort of stuff.)

"Score" could even be something meaningful in gameplay, giving access to better gear, resources, higher skills, etc.

What if the Syndicate only trust explosives and other dangerous types of gear to the best operatives?
What if Nanotrasen only issues high tier cool stuff (powerful equipment, roundstart mutations, implants, weapons,...) to the most effective workers?
What if space wizard federation, spider clan, etc... even Narsie/Ratvar/Changeling/Shadowling/Blob/Abductor's planets/etc.... Do the same?

But it's the player's past actions (whatever the character) what's influencing this?

Table would be totally turned with this sort of gameplay tweak. Only I wouldn't do it on all servers. (It's cool to have a chaotic honeytrap somewhere.)

...like burgerstation. (...) it appeals to the age old instinct of ruthless mass violence, but you can just feel how everything in this game feeds into it and positively reinforces it. There is a clear goal, and you're working very hard with your peers to accomplish that, and even if the game does fuck you and a meat golem pops out of a box and two-hits your strongest character ...

They are doing it 100% right.

Goal is "inventory/perk based" with a relative permadeath.
But the idea is the same.

What you did, stays. Changes your gameplay experience.

And if you don't collab, there will be no one to rescue you, reanimate your character and let you keep your achievements intact. (Instead of hardcoded score system.)

Only it's easier to do this with a combat oriented sim than with a sandbox because it's an ancient genre.
Compare to roguelikes, and burgerstation inherited a lot from this well stablished genre that is as ancient as XT computers.

And it keeps things interesting.
Having eventual monsters or "bad events" by the station freshen up things. Create new challenges. Make the game less boring.

On what you said?
What's bad on SS13 is "griefing" actually.
You are there doing what you should.
Then someone comes and ruins the round for you for no good reason. And they do go totally unpunished.

Clown stealing a disabler isn't even the worst thing.

But picture harmful gamebreaking greytiding, antag murderboning, etc... even power-meta-gaming antag hunting players who comes taking your gear for no good reason.... And this is bad.

Will feel like you are being punished for playing.

For a better SS13 server? The energy spent on implementing visual features/gimmicks/etc..., would be better spent on changing the gameplay mechanics with mor accountability even if nothing else is changed.

Give security full-auto gyrojet rifle with explosive ammo.
Give the traitor a one use disintegrator beam for destroying a specific target with it.
Give the miners +999 war axes of instant delimbing.
Have absurdly powerful races. Absurd antags. Absurd mutations. Implants.
Etc....
But hardcode something for making the players accountable for misusing those, and it will be a much better game.

[BONERMASTER]

Yeah man, exactly. Players getting rewarded for doing good, basically the building stone of any game. The way I see it, any incentive or goal that keeps you from greytiding, is better than nothing. And what is greytiding really? A bunch of experienced players, usually burning out, wanting to put all the mechanics and skills they learned to an use. And in that way, our game doesn't provide them with a good outlet for that.

But if it did, it could catapult the fun up for everyone, and with the setting we have, there are enough possibilities to accomplish that, even one that we have right now, the gateway. Imagine greytiders, instead of self-antagging and laying waste to the station, going on a gateway mission to find a syndie base in the middle of an arctic planet, and they're hacking their way into the base while engaging in a shootout with them. They'd be busy, the crew could get in along with them, and it'd be overall pretty cool. On that alone, you can weave so much stuff in there to make it exciting and challenging, and you can build your station / roles around that activity, and that's just one possibility.

And if we had something like that going, then progression as you mentioned could be easily implemented, and then players could look forward to put their rewards to good use, sort of like handing them the keys to a Porsche and telling them to go as fast as they can. And who would still get a burnout then?

[Qustinnus]

except those burnt out greytiders like greytiding because they piss off actual people (funny to whoever is doing it)

[BONERMASTER]

Of course, especially when they got nothing else to do. So when we put in a goal that invites all players to partake in it, there might be less of them choosing to vandalize the station instead. And I believe that, if the crew would fully back this endevaour, that it would automatically solidarise itself against greys sabotaging that, and make it a lot more likely for them to fail, get killed or be banned.

[Armhulen]

Of course, especially when they got nothing else to do. So when we put in a goal that invites all players to partake in it, there might be less of them choosing to vandalize the station instead. And I believe that, if the crew would fully back this endevaour, that it would automatically solidarise itself against greys sabotaging that, and make it a lot more likely for them to fail, get killed or be banned.

Yo spill the beans on this you got my heart but now you gotta win my brain

[oranges]

[youtube]AI16lhbh7wY[/youtube]

[BONERMASTER]

Of course, especially when they got nothing else to do. So when we put in a goal that invites all players to partake in it, there might be less of them choosing to vandalize the station instead. And I believe that, if the crew would fully back this endevaour, that it would automatically solidarise itself against greys sabotaging that, and make it a lot more likely for them to fail, get killed or be banned.

Yo spill the beans on this you got my heart but now you gotta win my brain

God bless. I've been theorycrafting this for a while. Players, usually, try to survive, and learn skills and mechanics that help them with their odds. We want to make use of that by putting in a constant, looming threat, that the players can't ignore but that also doesn't utterly wreck them. So for example a syndie base on another planet that sends spaceships to shoot rockets at the station or has agents on board that infiltrate it. And we give the players the option to engage that threat, so for example, a gateway mission with a team to attack the base, or building the bluespace artillery to shoot it.

Once we have established a working concept, it'll be a lot simpler for coders to expand the variety or further fleshing out the already existing options, and what would be considered a full blown event now, may just be a standard game mode by then. And we can also keep running the antags on top of that, and it might lead to interesting conflict where they would be required to cooperate with the crew to ensure their own survival. And it would ease their burden to cause chaos, because it'll happen naturally. I think that's just a few of many ways in which the game could benefit from having that, with virtually no limit to the upside.

[Helios]

The problem is there is no wholeistic approach to design.
As an example, when genetics was nerfed, so that being a hulk is a suicidal act and punching walls hurts you, then at the same time removing X-ray, and this is long after removing cloning from Genetics, people stopped playing the job, because it was the same amount of work with far lower return. And the people who nerfed genetics had no plan in place to make that job worth doing again.

As for cloning, the problem with the removal was that it was complete, rather then partial. Replica pods got nerfed so that they weren't availible from hacking the machine, and you had to mutate them yourself from cabbages or order them from cargo. That was a reasonable change. Requiring research to build a cloning console would be a good thing. If that means most stations have a cloner 20 minutes in, that's fine.

There are some items that are far above the power curve. When detective started with Thermals and his old revolver at round start, he was overpowered. The balance was that there was only one detective, and he was one of the good guys. The designers can have the philosophy of any nail that sticks out gets hammered down, when the solution is to add in drawbacks that make it balanced in its own way. Hulk was stun immune, but couldn't use guns and had other equipment limitations. The solution isn't to remove things from the game, it's to add drawbacks so that skilled players can optimize around those drawbacks, and stupid players can get hammered down by them.

[Mothblocks]

As for cloning, the problem with the removal was that it was complete, rather then partial. Replica pods got nerfed so that they weren't availible from hacking the machine, and you had to mutate them yourself from cabbages or order them from cargo. That was a reasonable change. Requiring research to build a cloning console would be a good thing. If that means most stations have a cloner 20 minutes in, that's fine.

this is a bad design philosophy when the entire plan is to remove cloning anyway, why bother taking baby steps when we can just rip the band-aid off? cloning on research still sucks, i'm fairly certain that's been denied in the past.

[Helios]

As for cloning, the problem with the removal was that it was complete, rather then partial. Replica pods got nerfed so that they weren't availible from hacking the machine, and you had to mutate them yourself from cabbages or order them from cargo. That was a reasonable change. Requiring research to build a cloning console would be a good thing. If that means most stations have a cloner 20 minutes in, that's fine.

this is a bad design philosophy when the entire plan is to remove cloning anyway, why bother taking baby steps when we can just rip the band-aid off? cloning on research still sucks, i'm fairly certain that's been denied in the past.

It's not babysteps, it's a compromise. It makes both sides slightly unhappy, and slightly happy. I still think there's a value to compromises

[Mothblocks]

there's no point in a compromise when we can simply choose what is better for the game (total removal)

[Armhulen]

Also can I just say that a ton of the changes end up being compromises for one reason or another and erryone hates it :^(

[PKPenguin321]

I mean, do you like it when security comes and stunbaton searchstips you because of a discussion they had on sec Comms?

as a designer yeah, because it means paranoia is alive

i sincerely wish this is what it meant

[TheFinalPotato]

As for cloning, the problem with the removal was that it was complete, rather then partial. Replica pods got nerfed so that they weren't availible from hacking the machine, and you had to mutate them yourself from cabbages or order them from cargo. That was a reasonable change. Requiring research to build a cloning console would be a good thing. If that means most stations have a cloner 20 minutes in, that's fine.

this is a bad design philosophy when the entire plan is to remove cloning anyway, why bother taking baby steps when we can just rip the band-aid off? cloning on research still sucks, i'm fairly certain that's been denied in the past.

It's not babysteps, it's a compromise. It makes both sides slightly unhappy, and slightly happy. I still think there's a value to compromises

you seem to misunderstand the reasoning behind removing cloning. Most stations having a cloner 20 minutes in would not be fine, because we don't like what cloning does/did to medical gameplay. So, it was nuked. A "compromise" would have been useless, because it'd still leave the problem of medical being useless post cloning research.

[MisterPerson]

What if the Syndicate only trust explosives and other dangerous types of gear to the best operatives?
What if Nanotrasen only issues high tier cool stuff (powerful equipment, roundstart mutations, implants, weapons,...) to the most effective workers?
What if space wizard federation, spider clan, etc... even Narsie/Ratvar/Changeling/Shadowling/Blob/Abductor's planets/etc.... Do the same?

There's pros and cons to this design. Let's go over them.
Pros:

• New players are shown the minimum amount of stuff specifically tailored to the new player experience, which limits choice overload and keeps thing simple.
• Players get a sense of pride and accomplishment from unlocking new stuff and increasing their level.
• Announcing level ups can make them a social experience (ooc "congrats on level 69!").
• Keeps players engaged with Skinner box trickery (if I play 4 more games, I'll unlock those bee grenades...).

Cons:

• Fewer people having access to high level equipment at all leads to it being underutilized.
• Balance becomes an issue vis-a-vis high level vs low level players (outside of skill) but also access to stuff. Can't assume that every player has access to every tool. Easy to accidentally create situations where the only counter to a strat is with stuff a new player doesn't have access to.
• Level can be a source of elitism rather than a badge of honor.
• Keeps players forcibly engaged with Skinner box trickery (if I play 4 more security rounds, I'll unlock the teleflash... even though I hate playing as sec).

I would be fine with it as long as it didn't care about individual player "stats" and focused far more on either immutable factors (was an engineer, was a traitor, etc) or large-scale accomplishments or outcomes (station was nuked, cult won, etc) or even just counted total playtime. Additionally we'd probably want the scaling to be pretty rapid such that you unlock stuff fairly quickly. And don't make them upgrades, that's really fucking stupid.

For a better SS13 server? The energy spent on implementing visual features/gimmicks/etc..., would be better spent on changing the gameplay mechanics with mor accountability even if nothing else is changed.

Give security full-auto gyrojet rifle with explosive ammo.
Give the traitor a one use disintegrator beam for destroying a specific target with it.
Give the miners +999 war axes of instant delimbing.
Have absurdly powerful races. Absurd antags. Absurd mutations. Implants.
Etc....
But hardcode something for making the players accountable for misusing those, and it will be a much better game.

[/quote]

Impossible. Code doesn't understand nuance or situational complexity. Figuring out if those cases were proper is the domain of administration, not code. And powercreeping everything just results in powercreeping nothing (if everybody is super, nobody is). Also it's very easy to say "add more features" but there's more to life than being good at combat. We can't just give every job powerful weapons.

That being said "more cool stuff" is always nice, just don't complain when that stuff gets taken away if it winds up not being as cool as advertised, alright? I kind of cringe when people try to add stuff because it's way easier to add stuff than to remove it and complexity costs are real.

[EuSouAFazenda]

Cloning could've been easily balanced out by having it just be researched kinda like how medbay stuff is now. This also implies that nanites don't make getting hurt inconsequential

I love cosmic irony

[Mothblocks]

id normally roll my eyes at necro'ing a serpico thread but that made me lol

[Cosmodeus]

Cloning make everything else the medic did completely unnecessary. There where medics that would intentionally kill you instead of help you just to clone you because it was faster. Nerfs to cloning had been made because metagamers, but after all the nerfing and there was quite a bit, players still skip being a medic. Honestly, they need to rework the cryogenic pods so that they require more to use, as chemistry had with its rework involving ph levels. The lawyer may have been a character primarily for roleplay (manuel exist(and shouldn't)), but removing the lawyer would be like removing assistant. People still play the game and want to be lawyer or psychiatrist. You're just being a negative nancy.

[oranges]

are you going to have an opinion on every old thread?

[Pandarsenic]

I was hoping this necro thread would have some design insights and boy was I disappointed