Add more job slots to various jobs.

[MatrixOne]

Also I literally don't think we have enough job slots, I think we'd need to up some jobs - Engineer, MD, Paramedic, Sec-off, Geneticist (+1), CT...

Melbert had an idea that I really liked. I think a lot of the jobs could genuinely use another slot to have in the config without the HoP having to do it every time. Right now some jobs have an additional console or dispenser for redundancy in case one gets stolen, but what if there were job slots to match them? If there's a console missing you can also print a board and make it. I'm on MRP but I feel like LRP could also benefit from this change, if you're LRP feel free to weigh in. Also I'd like to note that I like this idea regardless if assistants get population capped, I'm not making this conditional on other changes. I just think it'd be good for the game.

Here are some of the jobs that could benefit from another slot in my opinion:
Chemist (3 dispensers, only 2 job slots)
Geneticist (3 consoles, only 2 job slots)
Shaft Miner (they die and dnr a lot, tbh this could get +2 slots. they get a voucher so dont need a locker)
Janitor (only 2 janitors to clean a station of 60-70 people? I'd consider +2 slots even.)
Curator (Space exploring is fun.)

As for the following jobs, I'm not sure, what do you think?
Paramedic - parameds can be annoying when they tide into departments, but I don't play the job. What do paramed players think?
Medical Doctor - these jobs I see stay open even on high pop. 5 slots is plenty imo
Roboticist - this is a fairly high demand job and picked quite highly, but their department is really small and there's not enough station resources to go around. But maybe with more miner slots there'd be more mats? and it'd make it so all roboticists couldnt' be BBs, at least one would be another antag doing robo work
Chef - Kitchen is just too fuckin small for three people, and it has 2 machines and they gotta share ingredients. But if one chef is ded or afk or doing a gimmick or is evil then suddenly the remaining chef has to put up with a massive station demand for food and it can be really difficult to keep up. I would really like a third chefslot, there's just not enough machines and resources...
Detective - I like this job, I feel like two dets could be cool and they can buy more gear and gadgets in their vendor. A more RPish sec job with 2 slots would be nice to have on MRP and enable like a partner or rival dynamic of sorts. But of course opening another slot would make it less "special" and they'd have to share the office. I'd be in favor though. Also Ezel is right, we used to have two detectives, didn't we? We do have two lawyers and they share an office.
Prisoner - permabrig is kind of a cool place and it gets more fun when people there are social, but this can be annoying for sec to deal with. Especially if some antags get put into perma too, now it's really overpopulated... but maybe that's fun?

The main problems I see with this proposal are robbing HoP of some of their job (promoting people to these departments) and potentially cramping some of the jobs and creating a "too many cooks" situation.

[Ezel]

I swore we used to have two detectives but it got rolled back at some point two detectives felt pretty cool gave the sam and max dynamic to me

[zxaber]

Robotics does not have space for three. You have two exofabs, so you can have two robos. And most maps do not give the workshop enough room for a third (RIP Northstar, with possibly the most spacious robotics I've ever seen)

[RedBaronFlyer]

I'm all for more janitor slots as a janitor main. I do wish janitor carts weren't such a pain to come by though, I love them. I guess the bright side is most people run soap while I tend to use the janitor cart with it fully decked out with a broom, mop, light replacer, spray bottle*, while my belt has all the other janitor tools on it.

*That almost immediately gets stolen. Is there a game balance reason why the spray bottle you get from the service lathe doesn't fit in the janitor belt or the cart?

Only real downside is that rounds can vary a lot on how busy janitorial is, sometimes it's busy the whole time through, sometimes it's real slow and only picks up later on in the round, sometimes it's just slow the whole time.

Also you can have one or two janiborgs that basically out compete you at your job because they have effective AA and those shifts kind of suck... but that's unrelated.

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More geneticist slots seems alright, it did always feel weird how there were three consoles but only two geneticist. I could be wrong but I swear one of the maps only has two consoles so that would require updating, unless I am misremembering.

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More prisoner slots seems fine to me. Sidenote is that I've always wanted to see a prison architect style station run at some point, perhaps as an experiment or event or whatnot, but alas.

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You aren't suggesting this but Melbert did mention it. As someone who used to main cargo tech (so I could be very outdated in my views), I felt like five cargo tech slots was already a bit overkill. Cargo is stupidly busy at the beginning of the shift while everyone tries to get their department orders, people want to get tools, you have to try and get the autolathe out in the lobby or else you get tided, etc. but after that the job tends to be real slow. I feel like any more than five cargo techs would be kind of absurd. Five slots is good so that a few people can be unproductive or go on break and so something else etc but there are absolutely those shifts where you have five people doing cargo tech stuff and they are basically tripping over each other at that point.

[Cobby]

Its not exactly right to say Chemistry has 3 dispensers for 2 job slots because dispensers are not exclusive to the job slot of Chemistry, and if all chemists are expected to use the plumbing area its gonna get messy.

[MatrixOne]

It's true that MDs can also use pharma and having 2 chemists + 1 free dispenser lets the MD hop in without disturbing the chemist. I'd counter that if there are three working chemists on the dispensers, an MD should try to request what they need from the people who signed up and are actively working the department. As for plumbing, it can be built in any location, not just the lab itself, and the lab on tram is big enough to fit three factories. I think the case where all 3 chemists are all working without one of them leaving to antag, being SSD, or blowing themselves up, would be very uncommon.

[Vekter]

It's important to understand that most maps are designed with an extra spot for each job to accommodate for promotions/transfers. This is something we can definitely do (and I do support it, especially if we're limiting Assistant slots on Manuel) but we need to keep in mind that it could cause some headbutting in some scenarios.

[Cobby]

Preslotting on the config end for the idea that something goes awry during the course of a shift seems odd when theres a job explicitly built for that.

I cant speak to the first sentence because I largely agree, but if they both have predisposed access and both have the job description to make meds and they conflict on that then that'll be on the admins to deal w because I think both are legal and the chemist doesnt have any divine right over the *pharmacy* dispenser anymore than a MD outside of "well it used to be called chemistry".

I think the caveats are all true, but this is again for the config side and im not sure if you WANT these "oh actually youre suppose to just cope since we overpop'd by design" especially since you cant do configs in say "you must fill X other slots before the third job slot to chemist opens" in the current implementation, all of this for the sake of just handling assistants.

I think its getting close to the point of disconnect if the expectation is that the people who voluntarily are picking assistant are going to just suddenly do job content, and I think its even more of an ask for admins to be upset at them for not doing their job if by design you are adding job slots with the expectation someone in that slot is not going to be doing said job so its naturally going to displace people not exclusive to the chemistry part. It seems very circular and trying to fix a problem with a wrong solution.

[MatrixOne]

A chemist not having more right to the dispenser than an MD is gonna be a hard disagree from me, but sticking on topic, I think you're right to point out it sounds strange to base a config change on presupposing people won't do their job, because sometimes, of course, they will. That said, we should be looking at the game as it is and not how we'd like it to be in a perfect world, and the reality is that most of the time people join the jobs at various times and then are removed from the job for many many reasons over the course of the shift. I think this is much more common than all the jobbies sticking together alive and playing through the entire shift. So enabling an extra person to enjoy the job but forcing the others to "put up with" the presence of another person in this roleplay social game we're all playing, I think, is a small sacrifice if there's enough space and machines and resources to accommodate them without hampering the rest. We've established that some jobs like Robo and Chef just can't spare the extra slot.

But some can, so let's focus on the ones that can and eliminate the others.

I'll re-list the ones I liked for an extra slot: Chemist, Geneticist, Janitor, Shaft Miner, Curator, Detective.

I think these jobs could flex into three slots without a lot of issues, but there's a fine argument to be made for having one dispenser more than the amount of chemists to accommodate the MDs as well, and Geneticists also use the spare console to keep rerolling mutations, so if most people disagree with an extra slot for these jobs, we can knock them off the list.

What about Janitor, Shaft Miner, Curator, Detective?

[Cobby]

Im getting hung up on the fact this already happens (lol) in a much more dynamic way, via the HOP, and Im confused why the ask is to change the config to carve out their capabilities further vs. finding a way to tackle it (likely via code) as to why hops or even heads (if we gave them the capability) dont do this more often if its such a problem that we have to preplan for it at the config level every round.

Curator I think def doesnt need multiple people managing the library, Detective +1 I think has a pvp balance implication, SM would just be personal preference, and Janitor would be fine I think since theres always messes.

All this is said as to WHY this needs to be done, and if its to discourage assistants which is what I think the original discourse was about, I dont think anyone has really sold the idea in a way that doesnt act like the assistant who is now a janitor is suddenly going to clean, when there already exists in the game for assistants ways to get jobs and actually assist if the person *wanted* to do that.

[ju45he]

IIRC there are ID trimmers, PDA painters, PDA program disks, skillchips, and a computer with the program to change ID accesses on every head's computer. It's literally the job of every head to manage their own department but they just don't because the HoP exists to do their job for them.

Normalize heads of staff atually managing their department. Fuck it, force them to do it with policy or space law.

[MooCow12]

I'm actually okay with a third roboticist, by the time there is matts for exosuit fabricators to run nonstop they are also upgraded and most of the time isnt waiting on the fabricators, its waiting on matts and research and doing surgery up until that point.

A roboticist could also be doing other things like making a bot factory with manufacturing machines, taking brains out of people, doing circuits, and working more closely with the borgs.

[Fatal]

If you do this, you'd have to remove HoP

Don't give the HoP even less to do

[mrmelbert]

I'd like to pull stats on if the HoP actually does it because I don't think they do

[TheRex9001]

That job slots are config seems kinda weird to me tbh, like it is cool to have the input but to me it is moreso dictated by maps, like some maps can fit 3 geneticists pretty snuggly whilst others don't, same goes for chef. As for some specific jobs, I think Janitor is most suited for an increase because you are right in that it feels off to only have 2 janitors for a huge space station.

[drpupper]

i think chef would benefit from having an official sous-chef job of sorts, or someone to run the cafes found on some (most? all? unsure) of the stations. that way, when chef is kill, the station doesn't have to rely on someone ordering pizza.

[Thranos]

It doesn't help that most of the time at least one of the two janitors is either SSD, ghosted, or tiding.
Even one janitor can clean the station if they keep on top of it, but it requires you to basically be CONSTANTLY on the move and cleaning, and if you do something else for even a couple minutes, someone's exploded like fifteen monkeys in the medbay foyer and the clown released glitter in the bar while pulling a puking birdboat or something.
Extra slots would certainly help with both of these issues as long as the first one doesn't just increase in scale.

[MooCow12]

Need stronger janitor players not more of them tbh, i dont know why janitor borgs were nerfed when janitors can steal the atmos tech's backpack sprayer and fill it with space cleaner.

More janitors would put a much harder strain on their limited unique equipment and tools that are in their room. The job is not very friendly for new players without them and we shouldn't expect a job that new players are likely to take to have even less for new players to work with.

Remember when that streamer came to tg and all they did for 20 minutes was sit in the janitor closet of tram station? imagine that but someone spawns next to you and immediately takes half of the tools out that you needed to examine to put 2 and 2 together to realize how youre supposed to clean stuff.

[nianjiilical]

tbh id make the argument some jobs are already maxed out

i swear a lot of the times i play md/cargo tech/scientist and find myself not knowing what to do because theres only so many patients/crates/non-rnd-console things to do that are already taken so i basically just turn into an assistant with a department

[iain0]

We have discussed this internally and aren't interested in making any changes here.

We did toy around with the idea of adding a single extra slot to a few roles that might not be in contention for departmental resources on various maps, but in the end this doesn't make a lot of difference to anything, and it was raised that maps can specify their own preferences for job slots, which is honestly the best place for that to be determined.

As such we'll be leaving the settings as is.