/tg/Station 13

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:07 am**

Bottom post of the previous page:

You could even flesh out the server management to make it its own minigame if you wanted to.

Maybe mso will finally take part in the game he hosts.

And maybe we could get him to code it

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:39 am**

Kor wrote:
Yakumo_Chen wrote: Remind me what science spends time on since you removed two out of three major departments?

Science had research, xenobio, toxins, robotics

It now has techwebs, circuits, xenobio, toxins, robotics

You're moving toxins to atmos (why atmospherics needs access to bomb-making equipment baffles me) so the ''main" science departments are just going to be just circuits and xeno. You're basically cutting the interesting work science can do in half in favor of one department that works fine with just one person (xenobio), circuits (which is interesting but so far doesn't have a lot of majorly reproducible / functional outputs), and the department that someone presses a button once every 5 minutes in, and has no incentive to press the button more then a couple times.

Science doesn't even have a real need to do research beyond their own direct benefit now. Science has barely anything to upgrade and no need to actually do station upgrades because "fuck everyone else, they can do it themselves now", and no incentive to boost tech for anyone else outside their own very basic upgrades.

They don't even have incentive to help miners since they don't need minerals.

Oranges is apparently convinced that the entire science department revolves solely around xenobiology now.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 7:25 am**

Some people wanting to move atmos to toxins doesn't mean its going to happen. The only hard yes I have given to anyone on that topic is Okand on the map they're making (and they're moving genetics to RnD in its place).

>no incentive to do RnD

That's why they don't have to actively do it anymore. It's something for the RD or a single scientist or the captain or the AI to help the station progress in the background. It doesn't dump out a barrel of guns for selecting a tech, but it costs you nothing but a button click. The only reason not to help the rest of the crew would be out of spite. And you still get improved machinery, mechs, circuits, bluespace shit, etc for your personal use as a scientist.

Yes, it's less direct reward than being able to get a personal armoury+the machines from every department+a mech but doctors manage to heal and security officers manage to arrest and engineers manage to turn on the engine without having to be handed the contents of every department as an incentive for helping people.

It's true it might attract a different kind of player now though, and that the techweb machine might be better off with the captain as part of him being the leader of the crew as a whole, rather than solo minded players hoping to farm buffs for themselves.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:03 am**

Kor wrote:>no incentive to do RnD

That's why they don't have to actively do it anymore. It's something for the RD or a single scientist or the captain or the AI to help the station progress in the background. It doesn't dump out a barrel of guns for selecting a tech, but it costs you nothing but a button click. The only reason not to help the rest of the crew would be out of spite. And you still get improved machinery, mechs, circuits, bluespace shit, etc for your personal use as a scientist.

Yes, it's less direct reward than being able to get a personal armoury+the machines from every department+a mech but doctors manage to heal and security officers manage to arrest and engineers manage to turn on the engine without having to be handed the contents of every department as an incentive for helping people.

It's true it might attract a different kind of player now though, and that the techweb machine might be better off with the captain as part of him being the leader of the crew as a whole, rather than solo minded players hoping to farm buffs for themselves.

The problem with all of this is that the proposed solution to "RND's research is too self-sufficient and too self-supplicative" is artifically gating their efficiency and deleting their ability to be self-supplicating.

Let me say this: I do not personally object to the idea of departmental lathes; I'm all for that. It handles the powergame bits nicely and basically fucking ties it all up nice with a little bow. Research previously was either you're in it to powergame or not. I didn't enjoy the powergame stuff, so I basically stopped RDing and focused on more fun and interactive jobs.

This change does not attract me. In fact, I don't think it'd be hard to say it fails to attract ANYONE who likes SS13. Most players on SS13 either like the slow-build style with, more casual rounds with a lot of busywork, or higher-octane rushes to get shit done, with some players enjoying the balance inbetween. (Yes, I'm counting engaged RP as lots of busywork.) A lot of stuff has been done with that idea in mind. This science revision won't draw in any players because it fundamentally provides no busywork and no clear way to rush it.

There is no incentive to to RnD on a fundamental level, not because it doesn't reward you with items, but because you aren't involved in any way BEYOND a button click. At that point, I'm getting used to just redirecting all requests to the AI, because then they can fulfill their double duty as doorknob and BUTTON PUSHER.

When you can insert the AI in your job without having a single bonus for your being there, I think that's pretty bad. Like, really bad, actually.

Without more clear busywork added to the job's overhead (as mentioned on the gitmerge: insertion of minibits like broader preparation of items to meet techweb goals, for example - like old RnD but more involved and with the individual pieces mattering more), I REALLY hate this change. I poked with it today and I am also going to add in that current techweb pieces are actually honestly too ridiculously spread out and the current interface doesn't give me any easy idea at all about what will make what. Make them separate columns in a general theme, I don't care; I just need there to be some order to the interface so I can actually understand if this tech will make what I want without my having to go through every damn description to learn the exacts, because that's not a fun minigame, that's reading and it's unfun to the extreme.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:18 pm**

I've seen mostly positive feedback in game, so please don't act like everybody who plays the game is against this change just because you personally oppose it.

The "no clear way to rush it" seems to be the idea. It allows for more powerful stuff to be added while still being meaningfully time gated. The current system can't handle anything too strong as the scientists will be printing it within 10 minutes every round and there is no trade off. With the new one, if you want to spend all your points on weapons you can get them fairly quick but you'll be neglecting all the other areas of research.

The incentive to do it is the same as before. You unlock higher tiers and a wider variety of equipment. It's not supposed to be anything more than pushing a button, it's not a dedicated job anymore. It's more like the overall station goal.

The involvement is the proposed contributions of all the departments towards accelerating research. This bit hasn't been made yet though so it'll seem a little off while we're playing with only half of the system in place.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:48 pm**

I still dont understand how the destructive analyzer works but since apparently points are added directly to the machine for detonating bombs on Toxins Test, it seems to be pretty easy to rush a particular tech. The limiting factor is minerals, science still hoards minerals and cargo/miners still deliver them there on the assumption it will be most useful there - though some miners are catching on that the Cargo protolathe has what they actually wan

That's why I'm contemplating department goals. Kor outlined the big problem with RND before, so this is an improvement, but its still far from satisfying to have your department's grandest technology determined by:

1) If cargo deems you worthy of a mineral delivery

and

2) If RND feels spending points on your department

Cross-departmental cooperation is one thing but making the other departments the ONLY source of progress is silly too. It also addresses the major issue I sought to deal with using GBP, giving departments something to do when the station isn't exploding. Giving departments some degree of control over their tech and what they can produce in exchange for pursuing unique (randomized) objectives seems like a perfect fit for this new system.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:25 pm**

Perhaps this is time for the E.X.P.E.R.I.-MENTOR to get an update and shine?

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:59 pm**

I say we (and by we I mean the admins) put kev on coding lock down until he finishes the r&d wiki page

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 7:00 pm**

Experimentor would be lovely for one of their department goals, been brainstorming ideas for each dept. and science is tricky because only Xenobio is readily adaptable to that framework. Toxins would either end up being too simple/routine or force them to depend on atmos for their goal (you can make uber maxcaps anywhere but its 10x easier with atmos).

Problem is I simply don't understand how it works for anything except "revealing" the true nature of strange objects.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:32 pm**

TribeOfBeavers wrote:I've seen mostly positive feedback in game, so please don't act like everybody who plays the game is against this change just because you personally oppose it.

What? I play on Bagil and I've seen mostly negative feedback. What feedback are you seeing?

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 10:01 pm**

>UI is confusing trash

This is true and is the most important thing to fix

The old system of a random checklist of items shoved in a machine to reach mystery requirements was not exactly intuitive either though, people were just used to it and there was enough outside documentation to manage

>you can't rush it

That is half the point. It's very difficult to balance or plan modes/antag around the RnD endgame being reached at minute 15 out of a 40-50 minute round and now all the machines are 4 times as efficient and the crew can shoot through walls and can carry unlimited stuff etc

>not mechanically engaging

TribeOfBeavers answered this pretty well already

It's not supposed to be anything more than pushing a button, it's not a dedicated job anymore. It's more like the overall station goal.

I personally never found the old checklist deconstruction approach very mechanically engaging either and I doubt many others would have either save for the disproportionate number of rewards compared to every other department

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 10:27 pm**

it's likely going to be another change where we have to wait a month or three for there to be people with actual feedback instead of just shitting on it

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 10:38 pm**

Was it really disproportionate? Botany, xenobio, toxins, genetics, viro, cargo... All have very good stuff for pretty minimal effort.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:16 pm**

Buggy wrote:
TribeOfBeavers wrote:I've seen mostly positive feedback in game, so please don't act like everybody who plays the game is against this change just because you personally oppose it.
What? I play on Bagil and I've seen mostly negative feedback. What feedback are you seeing?

I should have been more clear I guess. Neutral or mildly positive is more accurate. We just play at different times I suppose.

Other than people saying the UI is bad (which is true) people have been fine with the overall ideas/concepts of it from what I saw. I mean, I haven't seen people saying they love it and there are a few vocal people complaining but it hasn't seemed any worse than most new features. You get a few people acting like it's the end of the world with every change that gets made in this game.

My point with that paragraph was mostly just to tell them to avoid acting like they speak on behalf of the playerbase as a whole when giving feedback about this stuff. Wasn't meant to be a "You're wrong, everyone actually loves it" type thing.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:27 pm**

Main issue I have off the bat is that the UI is very unintuitive and there is no documentation or tutorial at all about how this system works at all.

Posted: **Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:30 pm**

Steelpoint wrote:there is no documentation or tutorial at all about how this system works at all.

this is really damn annoying and it would be nice if major prs could come with at the very least some kind of barebones guide so that someone else can try and make a wiki article or something

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 12:43 am**

Qbopper wrote:
Steelpoint wrote:there is no documentation or tutorial at all about how this system works at all.
this is really damn annoying and it would be nice if major prs could come with at the very least some kind of barebones guide so that someone else can try and make a wiki article or something

sometimes, writing a wiki page about a new thing you're adding before it's merged is perceived as arrogance by maintainers

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:14 am**

There's a difference between a PR out of the blue and a PR that has the full backing of the head coder but this is irrelevant

I'm glad some people see the point of this system, Robustin seems to get it, the idea is that technology is no longer a "science" department thing, it's an entire crew thing.

This means every single department can now utilise the gate system RnD provides without all the items ending up in scientists hands as gatekeepers. This means things that Robustin and others wanted to do around adding newer items to each individual department can be done without requiring more points systems.

Kor, I still believe that the consoles should be moved to department head offices, RnD scientists don't have the same incentive to push the buttons and it further democratises access to the techweb and also sets up some nice staff interdepartment conflict

Minerals also need reworking IMO, science should not be receiving all the minerals, perhaps the ORM can be public access?

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:22 am**

ninjanomnom wrote:
You could even flesh out the server management to make it its own minigame if you wanted to.
Maybe mso will finally take part in the game he hosts.

And maybe we could get him to code it

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 2:34 am**

Qbopper wrote:
oranges wrote:Engineering potentially should get the servers, rather than RnD, since they're closer to atmos and have the tools to build heating/cooling apparatus
you could put it next to telecomms so all the server stuff is in one place, could be neato

>one bomb knocks out comms and deletes all of the station research
Sounds the opposite of neato

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:57 am**

TribeOfBeavers wrote:I've seen mostly positive feedback in game, so please don't act like everybody who plays the game is against this change just because you personally oppose it

My point with that paragraph was mostly just to tell them to avoid acting like they speak on behalf of the playerbase as a whole when giving feedback about this stuff. Wasn't meant to be a "You're wrong, everyone actually loves it" type thing.

Okay, I've literally been on Sybil (primarily) the last few days, playing during the night CST. (9pm - 4am)

The comments on Techwebs have generally gone as follows:

1) i haven't played since the update, how do you techwebs
2) (someone explains how techwebs work/are automated)
3) wow i really hate that

I try and keep my judgement clear - if the majority of players liked this, I'd stick to not doing sci at all and leave it - but I don't see what you're seeing. And I'm not trying to pretend I am The Everyclown or something, but it is important to acknowledge that part of the playerbase clearly dislikes this, and I'm not so sure it's a loud minority so much as a decently sized amount of people.

Most of the complaints I saw, to be fair, are about small changes or just techwebs. General reception of the departmental protolathe system leans positive. Complaints have been about how the ORM works, and about just generally how unfriendly techwebs are without a guide or some basic understanding of how to visibly speed it up. I think most people who never cared about research will enjoy the departmental lathes; I don't personally believe this update will make anyone ecstatic about research if they weren't already.

Kor wrote:>you can't rush it

That is half the point. It's very difficult to balance or plan modes/antag around the RnD endgame being reached at minute 15 out of a 40-50 minute round and now all the machines are 4 times as efficient and the crew can shoot through walls and can carry unlimited stuff etc

I understand this, and I'm not against techwebs as a whole. I think techwebs are an overcorrection. I don't want a perfectly rushable system, because that would lead to powergamers playing SS13 like speedrunners and that's not really interesting or emergent gameplay, it's just stupid. I just think that techwebs have a really awful UI and integration right now, and their timers might be straight up overtuned; I feel like making it so each Research department (Xenobio, E.X.P.E.R.I.MENTOR, bombs) has a way to up point returns and adding in a slightly modified version of the old system (less about decomping random high-tech shit, more about decomping samples from all around the station, perhaps using things like Botany's discovery scores) could be genuinely interesting.

Having each department do different things would be cool too; xenobio contributing specific slime colors (tier expected rising w/ round timer or points spent) to gain points, the aforementioned possible sample prep system lowering costs on related techweb bubbles (AKA, diff. parts of the station fire off samples to science to help them do science gooder, which would be positive communication?) I was personally thinking the sample prep system could have major gains simply because the chance of people actually being that helpful feels very, very small... but it should at least be worthwhile, I'd think.

TribeOfBeavers wrote:The incentive to do it is the same as before. You unlock higher tiers and a wider variety of equipment. It's not supposed to be anything more than pushing a button, it's not a dedicated job anymore. It's more like the overall station goal.

The involvement is the proposed contributions of all the departments towards accelerating research. This bit hasn't been made yet though so it'll seem a little off while we're playing with only half of the system in place.

The incentive is much, much smaller because of the poorer UI. It's not clear what hitting these buttons does or enables except for specific names or scrolling through the related text, which is inherently going to make the system less fun until a guide outlines everything or the UI updates. It just also is kind of a slap in the face without (as you mentioned) the involvement part, because it's just getting rid of sci's previously primary job and offloading it on the AI or whomstever ends up wanting to touch buttons.

I've been railing on this a lot, but I want to be really clear here: I think implementing techwebs at this stage was a bad idea. I know our Git Strat isn't to fully form a function before launching it out into the wild, but for a major update like this that got a feature freeze, it's probably not going to feel great until there's clear ways to be directly involved in research, whether it's told to you by guides, or something else.

Grazyn wrote:

most of the time people who assume you're being arrogant because of a wiki page are not really worth listening to. assisting the playerbase get acquainted if it's merged =/= arrogance

given, it's arrogance if you start a git pull & have the entire guide written before you've even coded it. timing is everything i guess

oranges wrote:Minerals also need reworking IMO, science should not be receiving all the minerals, perhaps the ORM can be public access?

the major issue there is stuff like's been mentioned - assistant unwrenches it and steals it, because it's valuable to everyone

if the orm's public access it'd be nice if it had ID-locked bolts or something really, so the entire machine can't be stolen

that still doesn't solve science when science is like "ok let me dump the entire contents of the ORM into this box" but whatevs it's a start

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:59 am**

cedarbridge wrote:
Qbopper wrote:
oranges wrote:Engineering potentially should get the servers, rather than RnD, since they're closer to atmos and have the tools to build heating/cooling apparatus
you could put it next to telecomms so all the server stuff is in one place, could be neato
>one bomb knocks out comms and deletes all of the station research
Sounds the opposite of neato

obviously i don't mean plop it right next to the existing tcomms as is and call it a day

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 4:57 am**

Noka wrote: The comments on Techwebs have generally gone as follows:

1) i haven't played since the update, how do you techwebs
2) (someone explains how techwebs work/are automated)
3) wow i really hate that

We probably shouldn't be changing the system based on the feedback of a player that hasn't actually played with it for any length of time yet...

I try and keep my judgement clear - if the majority of players liked this, I'd stick to not doing sci at all and leave it - but I don't see what you're seeing. And I'm not trying to pretend I am The Everyclown or something, but it is important to acknowledge that part of the playerbase clearly dislikes this, and I'm not so sure it's a loud minority so much as a decently sized amount of people.

Fair enough, that's just the vibe I got from the first post is all, specifically with the "it fails to attract ANYONE who likes SS13" part. I know people dislike it, that's perfectly fine. I was just sharing that when I played many people seemed neutral or mildly positive about it.

TribeOfBeavers wrote:The incentive to do it is the same as before. You unlock higher tiers and a wider variety of equipment. It's not supposed to be anything more than pushing a button, it's not a dedicated job anymore. It's more like the overall station goal.

The involvement is the proposed contributions of all the departments towards accelerating research. This bit hasn't been made yet though so it'll seem a little off while we're playing with only half of the system in place.
The incentive is much, much smaller because of the poorer UI. It's not clear what hitting these buttons does or enables except for specific names or scrolling through the related text, which is inherently going to make the system less fun until a guide outlines everything or the UI updates. It just also is kind of a slap in the face without (as you mentioned) the involvement part, because it's just getting rid of sci's previously primary job and offloading it on the AI or whomstever ends up wanting to touch buttons.

I agree the UI is bad and hurts how enjoyable it is right now but it's worth noting the old UI was garbage too, just garbage we were used to. It relied on following a guide/past experience to go through a checklist or going on a scavenger hunt around the station where you don't know what you're supposed to be looking for (if you're new). There was no feedback about what the research categories meant or what they unlocked when you leveled them up.

I've been railing on this a lot, but I want to be really clear here: I think implementing techwebs at this stage was a bad idea. I know our Git Strat isn't to fully form a function before launching it out into the wild, but for a major update like this that got a feature freeze, it's probably not going to feel great until there's clear ways to be directly involved in research, whether it's told to you by guides, or something else.

That's a fair criticism. Sadly it's just not super viable with our current system to do it all at once. Bugs need to be fixed, features tested, feedback given, etc. It'll (hopefully) be better with all the intended features in place.

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:08 am**

I was okay with webs before the departmental lathes were shoehorned into it to appease the goof "science can't have whack experimental weapons" crowd but now it's really taken all the fun out of researching, since you can't build anything cool any more. Everything else has no real benefit to the station. Bombs are useless, xenobio 's fruits almost never leave the lab unless it's sentient, and circuits feels like a pet project you can do every round.

Without research you've taken away all the engaging interaction I can have with players. Players who were once happy for me to dispense items or upgrade their shit, but they can just DIY it now, taking half the round progressing interaction from the game and encouraging people to never leave their departments except to harass mining now.

What did you gain from this? You took away guns from science, I guess. And most everything else. Also you took away their ability to make any interesting machines, and if medbay blows up it looks like science won't be rebuilding it anymore. Since you moved the parts to make machines to.... the department that will need the machines when it's blown up. OK.

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:40 am**

Science nerf was long overdue. Scientists being the focus of every gamemode, scientists moonlightning every other job from cargo to sec, it had to stop. Their job is now to upgrade the station, and they still have access to OP shit (port-a-singulo, portal gun, zero-effort copypasted killbots and alarm-o-bots)

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 6:05 pm**

Spoilers: game modes still revolve around science. it's just much more hilariously effective to sabotage because resetting research means you have to replay the idle game again, and if you DONT sabotage it, then you're giving guns to security instead of being able to exploit printing them in a semi-public and low-security department.

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:06 pm**

Yakumo_Chen wrote:Spoilers: game modes still revolve around science. it's just much more hilariously effective to sabotage because resetting research means you have to replay the idle game again, and if you DONT sabotage it, then you're giving guns to security instead of being able to exploit printing them in a semi-public and low-security department.

>not making periodic physical backups

It is like they are asking for the servers to be bombed, my god.

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:06 pm**

My only problem with techwebs is that unlike every techweb I've ever seen, there's no cost to going deeper into the techweb. Everything but a few things costs 2500

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:59 pm**

Dr_bee wrote:
Yakumo_Chen wrote:Spoilers: game modes still revolve around science. it's just much more hilariously effective to sabotage because resetting research means you have to replay the idle game again, and if you DONT sabotage it, then you're giving guns to security instead of being able to exploit printing them in a semi-public and low-security department.
>not making periodic physical backups

It is like they are asking for the servers to be bombed, my god.

Nobody ever does this outside of extreme science autists like Kevin or me when I'm trying to prevent 30 people from carrying portable singulos

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 8:04 pm**

Grazyn wrote:Science nerf was long overdue. Scientists being the focus of every gamemode, scientists moonlightning every other job from cargo to sec, it had to stop. Their job is now to upgrade the station, and they still have access to OP shit (port-a-singulo, portal gun, zero-effort copypasted killbots and alarm-o-bots)

You are missing the point where it's not the job of science to make upgrades for anyone now, since anyone can do it. You've removed all the interactivity of upgrading towhoever happens to be in their autism cave for the particular department needing upgrades

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:05 pm**

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:My only problem with techwebs is that unlike every techweb I've ever seen, there's no cost to going deeper into the techweb. Everything but a few things costs 2500

It needs resorting and re balancing pretty badly

Yakumo_Chen wrote:Spoilers: game modes still revolve around science. it's just much more hilariously effective to sabotage because resetting research means you have to replay the idle game again, and if you DONT sabotage it, then you're giving guns to security instead of being able to exploit printing them in a semi-public and low-security department.

Since it's some magical decentralized cloud shit now I don't think it'd be unreasonable to remove the "delete everything" button from RnD servers

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:21 pm**

I told you kor, you gotta move the point machine out of RnD and into the department head offices, otherwise yakumo is gonna complain until the cows come home about how they had to push buttons every few minutes and didn't even get anything for it!

Posted: **Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:43 pm**

yakumo i removed the reset research option.

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2017 10:38 am**

oranges wrote:I told you kor, you gotta move the point machine out of RnD and into the department head offices, otherwise yakumo is gonna complain until the cows come home about how they had to push buttons every few minutes and didn't even get anything for it!

I can't comment on the points system (since i've never used it) but it sounds like a lot of extra work to devise items for each department outside of some sort of buff (such as giving cargo discounts) or just unlocking special items for points. Heads are already meta-possessive of stuff in their departments, and there is very little a station member can do to stop people abusing the heads points responsibility if such a system was put in by overriding their ID check (captains swooping to steal),or stealing all/ID access.

Finally, science has always been a 2 man job of 1 person doing RnD and another possibly 2 people crowding xenobio (which only 1 is required) i am pleased to hear toxins has a legitimate reason to contribute outside of asking the AI to turn off their APC at the first sign of trouble but as i've just skimmed this thread, testing lab & the experimentor room (or whatever could supplant those) are exempt from regular staffing because they aren't anything.

- Xenobio is the only hands on science job used to starve off boredom with the lure of rewards & being active if RnD is detracted from being a fetch-quest anymore, anything else is suicidal (experimentor is literally lethal with random fireballs) going back to telescience levels of unfriendly mechanic gameplay (circuits is literally NTSL, like how telescience was advanced math & its used for killbots, only people who know toxins/want to bomb shit ever play toxins else because its not easy to get into & linear)

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2017 1:26 pm**

ITT: r&d powergamers angry that their easy money free guns printer was replaced with actual electrical engineering and research and development

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2017 4:00 pm**

ITT: goof doesn’t know what feedback is and how it helps new features

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2017 4:39 pm**

Qbmax32 wrote:ITT: goof doesn’t know what feedback is and how it helps new features

For somebody who talks a lot about how they totally give a shit about player feedback (from OOC where people would rather be playing the game) he sure does this a lot.

Topically, I'm sure I get the idea that time gating certain items is important and that tech lists in the past have just sped up the process a lot, but I'm not convinced that the whole process is really needed in the first place? This feels like a "nerf science to benefit everyone else" without finishing the sentence with "by doing x." I don't know what cargo gets out of this system that they didn't already get through their miners getting upgrades. That symbiotic relationship between science and mining was already well established. I worry that this is just going to turn already sheltered departments into even more sheltered departments. Obviously R&D being a 15 minute gun factory was a problem, but I worry that we're overtweaking things and just assuming that IC is good enough to function as a department role where its already manifesting a ton of (probably round time related) issues. I worry that strictly controlled time gates will be an issue when we can't seem to make up our minds on what round length is acceptable.

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2017 5:19 pm**

cedarbridge wrote:
Qbmax32 wrote:ITT: goof doesn’t know what feedback is and how it helps new features
For somebody who talks a lot about how they totally give a shit about player feedback (from OOC where people would rather be playing the game) he sure does this a lot.

Topically, I'm sure I get the idea that time gating certain items is important and that tech lists in the past have just sped up the process a lot, but I'm not convinced that the whole process is really needed in the first place? This feels like a "nerf science to benefit everyone else" without finishing the sentence with "by doing x." I don't know what cargo gets out of this system that they didn't already get through their miners getting upgrades. That symbiotic relationship between science and mining was already well established. I worry that this is just going to turn already sheltered departments into even more sheltered departments. Obviously R&D being a 15 minute gun factory was a problem, but I worry that we're overtweaking things and just assuming that IC is good enough to function as a department role where its already manifesting a ton of (probably round time related) issues. I worry that strictly controlled time gates will be an issue when we can't seem to make up our minds on what round length is acceptable.

My biggest problem right now is that there are 2 research paths that HAVE to be done first, which is the parts path and the mining path. It removed all choice as you need those techs to do anything else well.

Making the departmental gains a bit more spread out would help somewhat. for example moving the advanced mining tech stuff to other nodes.

The major problems now are just node balance and adjusting point cost, these things can be tweaked easier at least.

Posted: **Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:20 am**

what's the point of delivering mats as a miner if you've got everything you need to print advanced gear within arm's reach anyways? scientists withholding points is a nonissue, you can just yell at the AI to do research or steal a board from tech storage if they give you lip.

Posted: **Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:38 pm**

The resource meta is still shaking out but I was under the assumption that QM had some special role in mineral management. It's frustrating right now but a lot of the solution are far from ideal too. The system obviously needs to be more centralized, its a mess right now where mining now appears to take their shit right to the Cargolathe and just dumps in everything they can, when I need minerals I typically just get full cargo access since not only is the ORM internal again, but the Cargolathe is going to be holding most of the rare minerals anyway. But if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction and the system becomes much more automatic/efficient (i.e. protolathes all use a central resource system, only consuming what they need to create objects) then it probably gets TOO easy to print "rare" items and you run into the problem of random newbies in departments blowing the entire uranium supply to buy 2/3rds of a flightsuit, not realizing its a set, then tossing it into disposals. I think the old clock cult (and to some degree, the new one) illustrates the problem of a collective/automatic centralized resource system.

I think the right balance (for now) is to give the QM a pre-programmed tablet with a program that would give notifications for mineral requests, and if approved, would transmit the requested resources to the protolathe. A computer containing that program could also sit somewhere in Cargo.

Also, almost every decent RND item came with an added mineral cost (silver/gold/uranium/etc.) for balance purposes because RND could be done in 5 minutes at which point you needed mineral costs to prevent RND from being completely broken. Now that its decentralized and it's much harder to "finish" research, the costs probably need another pass.

Edit: Kev you need to fix the device linkage code, department consoles never seem to find their protolathe.

Posted: **Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:58 pm**

Oldman Robustin wrote:The resource meta is still shaking out but I was under the assumption that QM had some special role in mineral management. It's frustrating right now but a lot of the solution are far from ideal too. The system obviously needs to be more centralized, its a mess right now where mining now appears to take their shit right to the Cargolathe and just dumps in everything they can, when I need minerals I typically just get full cargo access since not only is the ORM internal again, but the Cargolathe is going to be holding most of the rare minerals anyway. But if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction and the system becomes much more automatic/efficient (i.e. protolathes all use a central resource system, only consuming what they need to create objects) then it probably gets TOO easy to print "rare" items and you run into the problem of random newbies in departments blowing the entire uranium supply to buy 2/3rds of a flightsuit, not realizing its a set, then tossing it into disposals. I think the old clock cult (and to some degree, the new one) illustrates the problem of a collective/automatic centralized resource system.

I think the right balance (for now) is to give the QM a pre-programmed tablet with a program that would give notifications for mineral requests, and if approved, would transmit the requested resources to the protolathe. A computer containing that program could also sit somewhere in Cargo.

Also, almost every decent RND item came with an added mineral cost (silver/gold/uranium/etc.) for balance purposes because RND could be done in 5 minutes at which point you needed mineral costs to prevent RND from being completely broken. Now that its decentralized and it's much harder to "finish" research, the costs probably need another pass.

Edit: Kev you need to fix the device linkage code, department consoles never seem to find their protolathe.

This is a good solution, but what do you do if there is no QM, fall back to HoP?

Posted: **Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:02 pm**

Linkage is intentional but I'm going to rework the interface on department protolathes to not suck shit.

Posted: **Tue Nov 28, 2017 4:47 pm**

Yea that's been a roadblock for me. I initially started working on the console because I assumed it would be the main interface for each department - then I realized almost all the useful information (material available, designs available) is stored on the Protolathe.

Then I also realized that a Linked Protolathe and an Unlinked Protolathe have two totally different UI's and just had to stop there.

oranges wrote: This is a good solution, but what do you do if there is no QM, fall back to HoP?

It would hinge a lot on the default behavior of a non-response. We could make it so that if QM + Cargo doesn't respond to a request, it will be accepted after X minutes. Otherwise there'd have to be fallbacks to Command or AI or else it would be a lot of "tough luck kiddo" for rounds where cargo is AFK/lazy/deserted/dead.

Posted: **Tue Nov 28, 2017 5:13 pm**

Oldman Robustin wrote:Otherwise there'd have to be fallbacks to Command or AI or else it would be a lot of "tough luck kiddo" for rounds where cargo is AFK/lazy/deserted/dead.

So we're back to the "but nobody did R&D" thing.

Posted: **Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:43 pm**

daily reminder to move techweb consoles to department offices

Posted: **Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:28 pm**

Only if that was the consensus Cedarbridge.

I favor having the orders go through by default if cargo doesn't explicitly reject them within 2 minutes. This would still hinge on the QM or others having a convenient way to read and process them though.

Tablets seem like an obvious choice but I'm really afraid of going into tablet code, probably lose a day trying to figure that shit out.

I really just need to figure out whats going to happen with the UI. Is every dept. going to get a console like engineering does? Will the dept. access the lathes directly or through a console?

Posted: **Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:36 pm**

Any chance that weapon tech cost can be reduced? Right now you cant rush it if there are operatives for example. Remember that weapons are locked behind security now, so giving up other areas of research to get weapons should be a choice that can be made.

Posted: **Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:04 pm**

Dr_bee wrote:Any chance that weapon tech cost can be reduced? Right now you cant rush it if there are operatives for example. Remember that weapons are locked behind security now, so giving up other areas of research to get weapons should be a choice that can be made.

Pretty sure testing a single maxcap lets you rush weapon tech.

Posted: **Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:40 pm**

Oldman Robustin wrote:
Dr_bee wrote:Any chance that weapon tech cost can be reduced? Right now you cant rush it if there are operatives for example. Remember that weapons are locked behind security now, so giving up other areas of research to get weapons should be a choice that can be made.
Pretty sure testing a single maxcap lets you rush weapon tech.

Unless this is how the system is meant to work indefinitely, then we should still adjust the levels and access to match a more ideal gating and fixing the imbalance than balancing against the silly method of points dumping.

Posted: **Thu Nov 30, 2017 5:39 pm**

Is the deconstructor broken to only allow accumulation of points?

Had the alien surgical tools and they added 0 points to the alien related tech. Not sure what the purpose of the deconstructor is anymore out side of a generic points adder.

Posted: **Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:15 pm**

delaron wrote:Is the deconstructor broken to only allow accumulation of points?

Had the alien surgical tools and they added 0 points to the alien related tech. Not sure what the purpose of the deconstructor is anymore out side of a generic points adder.

Yeah decon appears unfinished or broken, scanning alien tech or syndicate tech gives no benefit.

/tg/Station 13

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