Heads of Staff - Required playtime

[Nervere]

With the Ssethtide on our servers, heads of staff roles are being taken up by newbies who have no idea what they're doing, mostly because the hour requirement is so low.
The current requirement for heads of staff is 3 hours of experience, and that experience is per department. We have a config to change this limit, and the administration is currently debating what it should be raised to.
I am currently thinking that something around 10 hours should be enough experience for a head of staff role.
What are your thoughts?

[TWATICUS]

yes

[Tlaltecuhtli]

100h

[NoxVS]

Is it possible to have the time broken up amongst all jobs that are in a department? So 3 hours as genetics, 3 hours as virology, 3 hours of chemistry, etc for CMO

[cedarbridge]

Any increase is a good increase. Head Roles, especially command roles, have been going to brand new and fairly clueless players quite as bit as of late and merely existing in two or three rounds is not enough to prepare any of them for the roles.

[MortoSasye]

I think something between 10 hours and 20 would be cool.

[cedarbridge]

Consider also: 1) new players are naturally drawn to command roles because the name sounds powerful and important 2) because the roles are locked behind time gates the new player gets a sense that they "unlocked" something new and will obviously want to try it out even if they're not equipped to handle it 3) often don't even look at their job preferences when they're near to starting out so will often land in jobs they don't have any idea where to start with. Its entirely possible to accidentally end up captain after randoming into a couple departments and pass the minor time gate. And then you get to wonder why the station exploded and why everyone in OOC is mad at you.

[Atlanta-Ned]

Were newbies not already restricted from head roles? Wasn’t that the entire point of the playtime unlock system?

[NoxVS]

Were newbies not already restricted from head roles? Wasn’t that the entire point of the playtime unlock system?

It’s too leniant to the point of anyone being able to get past the gate with ease. Especially because it can be done in one round if it’s long enough even if you don’t learn how to play the command role

[Skillywatt]

I understand the drive for this, but I will say that sending some clueless inept moron to head your department is exactly what I'd expect nanotrasen to do.

we arent a high or medium RP server and we arent supposed to worry about "winning" (lol).

I can see both sides of the issue, I don't think it's as cut and dry as "I want my head of staff to be leet pls I hate losing"

conflict drives the round and that has been a constant defense of the irritatingly broad asimov laws

[WarbossLincoln]

An increase of even just overall play time would be good.

3 hours of medical with 10 hours of total alive time would at least make sure the CMO knows what intents are.

[bobbahbrown]

yes

[terranaut]

24 hours total with at least one hour in every job where it makes sense (CEs that can't set up the Engine or don't know Atmos at all, RDs that can't put a battery in a cyborg, CMOs that can't make Mutadone...)
2 hours as every Head of Staff for Captain
12 hours as borg or 72 hours total for AI

[cedarbridge]

I understand the drive for this, but I will say that sending some clueless inept moron to head your department is exactly what I'd expect nanotrasen to do.

we arent a high or medium RP server and we arent supposed to worry about "winning" (lol).

I can see both sides of the issue, I don't think it's as cut and dry as "I want my head of staff to be leet pls I hate losing"

conflict drives the round and that has been a constant defense of the irritatingly broad asimov laws

I'm not sure where you're getting this focus on "winning" and "losing" from. We're discussing removing a needless bottleneck that's fun for neither the head role player (who is generally clueless and inept due to OOC reasons rather than interesting IC conflicts) nor their underlings who have to deal with their boss with access and additional specialized tools having no idea how to use or find any of them. It also hurts the learning process for new players because if they can't consult their Head of Staff to figure things out, they're hindered further when the Head of Staff theoretically should be at least passably capable at the components of their department. "How do I Xenobio" should be a combination of "consult the wiki" and "talk to your RD." That doesn't work if your RD doesn't know how to do anything up to and probably including removing a backpack.

[iamgoofball]

hour requirements are fucking stupid

let them learn to swim by having to avoid drowning

the heads of staff have zero responsibility other than "don't die" and "protect the disk" if you're the captain.

[Malkraz]

10 hours with their first connection being more than a month ago
That way it increases the likelihood they have more well rounded experience with the game systems and keeps out fotm shitters

[subject217]

current system doesnt support such a thing malkraz

anywhere from 10-20 hrs is fine, honestly i think erring on the longer side is fine

[cedarbridge]

let them learn to swim by having to avoid drowning

Punish the new player to spite everyone else. Brilliant.

[iamgoofball]

let them learn to swim by having to avoid drowning

Punish the new player to spite everyone else. Brilliant.

Why do you see it as punishment?

[Nervere]

This isn’t about roleplay, lore, or winning. It’s about not having your round ruined by a shitter captain, or a CE who immediately blows up the engine. As admins, we deal with this stuff OOC’ly, but we can’t always be there, and it has become incredibly frequent.

[lmwevil]

hi it me a squd, i think that captain and HoS should unironically be 20-30hrs of playtime

[Grazyn]

Is it possible to have the time broken up amongst all jobs that are in a department? So 3 hours as genetics, 3 hours as virology, 3 hours of chemistry, etc for CMO

I don't like this because even though it's good for a head to know how to do everything in his department, it shouldn't be mandatory just to unlock the role. Heads are mostly a management job and the bare minimum should be not blowing up your department. For this reason I'd argue that CE (and HoS on a smaller note) is probably the only job that should require mandatory experience as engineer/atmos, it's hard for other heads to ruin a round with their ignorance only. If you round is "ruined" because the CMO didn't know how to operate a cloner/chem dispenser and there was nobody else who could do it, I guess that round had other more serious problems.

[cedarbridge]

let them learn to swim by having to avoid drowning

Punish the new player to spite everyone else. Brilliant.

Why do you see it as punishment?

What is the "drowning" in your example and in what way is it positive?

[teepeepee]

I thought we weren't entitled to anything except rules being followed (and even that is not absolute because of the "secret rule of mayhem")
there's also rule 10:

Losing is part of the game.
Your character will frequently die, sometimes without even a possibility of avoiding it. Events will often be out of your control. No matter how good or prepared you are, sometimes you just lose.

does the spirit of this rule not apply to heads being incompetent?

[cedarbridge]

I thought we weren't entitled to anything except rules being followed (and even that is not absolute because of the "secret rule of mayhem")
there's also rule 10:

Losing is part of the game.
Your character will frequently die, sometimes without even a possibility of avoiding it. Events will often be out of your control. No matter how good or prepared you are, sometimes you just lose.

does the spirit of this rule not apply to heads being incompetent?

How is this related to anything discussed in the thread, exactly? New players are not entitled to head of staff roles.

[teepeepee]

how is asking if we really are entitled to good heads of staff not related to the thread?
can you get head of staff banned for not knowing all of your department for example?

[iamgoofball]

Head roles have the following responsibility:
1. Don't die.

Default roles have the following responsibility:
1. Don't die.

See the issue with putting heads up on a pedestal?

It's not mandatory to follow orders from heads either, so authority isn't a reason to lock it off.

The only exception is the captain. His responsibility is:
1. Don't die.
2. Pick up the nuke disk.

The second only requires basic knowledge of how the inventory works. Holding this job and other head roles up on a pedestal as needing tons of hours is insane.

[iamgoofball]

In fact, we could solve the didk issue by just spawning the disk on the captain if one is present, otherwise just default it to the normal location.

[zxaber]

Not all of policy leads to, or is driven by, bans.

Upping the playtime for heads is a good idea. The point is not to ensure that the heads are competent, but to promote it. It is more likely that a player with 20 hours of engineering can set up the SM than one with only an hour.

While we're at it, lets restrict robo play time behind like 20 hours of borg. I'm getting tired of yelling at other robos that place the basic power cell into borg shells.

[BeeSting12]

You guys are kinda going crazy on the long side here. You should not have to play for fifty hours to unlock every head of staff. Five hours in a department maximum, but unlocking head roles should also have a supplementary requirement of 20 hours playing as an onstation role. Easily long enough to gain enough mastery of the mechanics not to be a total screw up, and five rounds is long enough for a CE to figure out the engine. Every other role is so easy they barely need a time requirement.

RD= scientist with command access
CMO= super doctor
HoP= all access assistant jr
Captain = all access assistant sr, protect the disk btw
HoS= if youre qualified to play sec you can probably do this

CE’s the only one with consequences for the whole station and they can probably do that as an engineer anyways.

[carshalash]

You guys are kinda going crazy on the long side here. You should not have to play for fifty hours to unlock every head of staff. Five hours in a department maximum, but unlocking head roles should also have a supplementary requirement of 20 hours playing as an onstation role. Easily long enough to gain enough mastery of the mechanics not to be a total screw up, and five rounds is long enough for a CE to figure out the engine. Every other role is so easy they barely need a time requirement.

RD= scientist with command access
CMO= super doctor
HoP= all access assistant jr
Captain = all access assistant sr, protect the disk btw
HoS= if youre qualified to play sec you can probably do this

CE’s the only one with consequences for the whole station and they can probably do that as an engineer anyways.

People don't like having rounds fucked from someone who played 3 rounds of sec deciding they deserve to be a hos main now.

[Grazyn]

The HoS is just a sec officer with more access, he can fuck your round the same way a sec officer already can with no play time requirement. Being shitcurity is bannable so if an officer is abusing you because the HoS is going full Hitler, ahelp and it will be dealt with.

CE is different because even though a regular engineer can also single-handedly blow the engine, incompetence isn't bannable, but a blown SM means the round is over. That's why CE should at least know the basics so he can take over and fix the SM when his newbies engineers inevitably fuck with it.

[cedarbridge]

The HoS is just a sec officer with more access, he can fuck your round the same way a sec officer already can with no play time requirement. Being shitcurity is bannable so if an officer is abusing you because the HoS is going full Hitler, ahelp and it will be dealt with.

CE is different because even though a regular engineer can also single-handedly blow the engine, incompetence isn't bannable, but a blown SM means the round is over. That's why CE should at least know the basics so he can take over and fix the SM when his newbies engineers inevitably fuck with it.

Sec officers do not default with authority to sign off on executions. Paul Blart can put me in a cell for a few minutes. He can't execute me outside of very specific and harrowing circumstances or with permission from the HoS.

Despite what a lot of bad opinions in this thread have claimed, head roles are more than just "Role but also bridge access." I've also yet to hear a reason that we should want or need newer players to have access to head roles sooner rather than later.

[Grazyn]

I'm not an admin but I hope unjust executions are treated exacly like being beaten to death by a random officer (something that happened to me at least twice in the past few days, which is actually a low number). An officer can also wordlessly put you in a cell with no timer (again, this also happens with ssethtide sec players). There's not much difference in Paul Blart abusing you and Paul Blart abusing you because the HoS said so, both things are bannable.

[ABearInTheWoods]

You guys are kinda going crazy on the long side here. You should not have to play for fifty hours to unlock every head of staff. Five hours in a department maximum, but unlocking head roles should also have a supplementary requirement of 20 hours playing as an onstation role.

If you had bothered to read the fucking op post or the rest of this thread you would know that we can not do that under the current system and this thread is about what to change the config values under the current system to, not about theorycrafting better systems.

Back on topic: The current system actually uses a custom default for each head role, not a flat default value. Roles like hos are 5 hours by default but roles like ce are only 100 minutes by default. (Side note: Captain requires 3 hours of crew (not as heads like I thought it was.))

If we had to set this to a flat hour requirement for all head positions, than 10 hours would be best.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

does the timer count for living as job or even as dead?

[iamgoofball]

does the timer count for living as job or even as dead?

Living as job if it's the same code we stole from Yogs.

[ABearInTheWoods]

does the timer count for living as job or even as dead?

Living as job if it's the same code we stole from Yogs.

OMG are you still fucking on about that?

Yes yog's version was shit, no, we aren't using it, yes, it does still require you be alive to count for that role, that was never why yog's version was shit, yog's version was shit because it gave exp at round end and didn't give you any of the exp if you were dead at round end, not even for the time you were alive.

[iamgoofball]

does the timer count for living as job or even as dead?

Living as job if it's the same code we stole from Yogs.

OMG are you still fucking on about that?

Yes yog's version was shit, no, we aren't using it, yes, it does still require you be alive to count for that role, that was never why yog's version was shit, yog's version was shit because it gave exp at round end and didn't give you any of the exp if you were dead at round end, not even for the time you were alive.

Oh, we re-wrote it? Sick, alright, I was under the impression we used their shit verbatim since that was the last time I saw a PR up for it before it got merged.

[subject217]

The amount of time it takes before a headrole is unlocked for a given department is basically a minimum for brand new player who chose that department first to meet and go "ooooh shiny!" and immediately pick a head role the moment it's unlocked. Not everyone does this but some people will and they're the new players who cause trouble in head roles. So, every hour we can get in this regard is important for ensuring that new players don't cause a ton of trouble in head roles.

The problem is that since all a new player needs to cause trouble is one role, but an experienced player would like to have every head role unlocked, it is multiplicatively more annoying for a theoretically experienced player on a new account or something like that to unlock everything. And that effect gets considerably worse the longer the hour requirement is. So, in this regard there are two thoughts. One, we should get as many hours possible required and sit right below the "threshold of overwhelming obnoxiousness" for unlocking roles. Second, as admins we do have a tool that allows us to toggle people exempt from the job experience gated head roles. And there's no real reason why we can't use this to help out old or obviously well experienced players caught out by the time restrictions.

It's definitely a necessary change. 15 hours would probably be good. 20 seems too obnoxious.

Also, this is still really annoying, please do something headmins.

[Denton]

hour requirements are fucking stupid

let them learn to swim by having to avoid drowning

the heads of staff have zero responsibility other than "don't die" and "protect the disk" if you're the captain.

That would be fine if this was a singleplayer game, but having a CMO that overdoses people in sleepers or a CE that doesn't know how to fix atmos or tcomms is a complete shitshow for everyone involved.

[confused rock]

When I play a head of staff, it’s because I want to lead and teach coworkers while fixing things where they lag behind. Only Hop and Captain are particularly unique, with others mostly having extra access and slightly better equipment. As such, I don’t think new players deserve easy access to these roles, they’re mostly there for people with skill and desire to be a leader, not for people who wanna start with armory access and a tazer. The playtime could be long as fuck and it’d be fair, heads should be actually experienced. Medbay’s pretty gross even if the cmo is good, but when the cmo isn’t competent you’re fucked.

[EagleWiz]

I think the general playtime is far more important here then the departmental playtime - if a head doesn't know how to do certain things that fall under the departments duties, its kind of annoying, and not even that if one of the department members is willing to do it and the head is able to communicate. If a head has little understanding of the server culture or the basics, handing them a baton, expanded access, and the ability to call the shuttle is a bad idea.

[gum disease]

The playtime needs to be higher. 15 hours sounds good.

Had a non-antag CMO attempt to space a dead plasmeme because he didn't know how to put them out and didn't understand that they would keep igniting without their suit. I was the AI and was trying to help him over comms, I explained why defibbing wasn't working and that he needed to be cloned several times. I got ignored. The plasmeme eventually got cloned after I asked for someone to help and guess what, he wasn't catatonic. So this player had been waiting patiently for like half an hour to be revived when it should've taken a few minutes at most.

The negative impact that a poor head of staff can have on a round is insane. That CMO clearly was new to medical in general and should not have had that head role available to him.

[bobbahbrown]

if your first connection is after 2014 you cannot play head role

[Electronics]

if your first connection is after 20142012 you cannot play head role

[bobbahbrown]

if your first connection is after 20142012 you cannot play head role

ok

[Nervere]

Alright, we have now set the required playtime for heads of staff to be 15 hours. Reminder that this is a per-department restriction.
This is mostly to prevent new players from catastrophically messing stuff up as we've seen time and time again with the Ssethtide.
if you're an experienced player and have somehow found yourself caught in this restriction, please ahelp and an admin can make you exempt from this requirement.
Thanks for your input, everyone!