Unlimited Civilian Slots

[FoS]

Civilian slots should always be an option. Why? Because otherwise people are going to take up job slots that they have no intention of doing and leave those jobs unfilled. People in general seem to be really displeased with the number of players who do not do the jobs they sign up for.

From what I understand about the current system is that civilians scale with the number of security officers. I feel that should be reversed. Civilian should always be an option so players are not forced to sit at the lobby screen and wait for the HoP to remember to open more job slots or for crew to remember to put SSD in cryo so new players can join. As far as I know getting a demotion/job change to civilian does not open up the job slot for others automatically.

At peak population it is very possible for new players to not be able to join at all shortly into the round so having Civilian always be an option will allow those new players to join and visit the HoP for a job change or just hang out if that is what they're keen on doing.

Obviously a huge wave of civilians poses its own problems which is why I'd suggest having Security and Medical scale up with the number of civilians. Automatically have more security officer and medical doctor positions open.

Tl;DR - Civilian should always be an option so players can actually play the game and not take up jobs they have no intention of doing.

 

[Fox McCloud]

Yeah, there should be.

 

If they're not uncapped, people will ultimately pick a job they don't actually want, then immediately request demotion---and that's at best. They could also just pick the job and faff about doing what they really want to do until they're fired, or, at worst, be a total nuisance. Forcing someone to play a job doesn't make them happier for doing so; it just makes them resentful.

 

Not all assistants are murderous greytiding jerks; some people just want to interact with other people how they may without responsibility--others are not inclined to the rigid structure that a traditional job imposes and would prefer to work more chaotically where they're needed at a given time. Others still have played for such length that they find the specific job of assistant to be appealing in and of itself, rather than other jobs.

There's also the fact that I don't think someone should be locked out of the game once all job slots are exhausted.

 

Due to the breadth and many criterion that pull people towards assistant (I'd argue more than most other jobs), I strongly believe that it should be uncapped; security officers should scale with total assistants, not the other way around.

[Streaky Haddock]

Admins can't even free up civilian slots manually. It's such a headache to have someone ahelp "why are there no jobs available" since they're a low hour account and the remaining jobs are all time locked or whitelisted.

[Vallidian]

From an administrative standpoint, I can see how having a hard-cap on players getting into the server would be a bad thing. From a player standpoint and a logical standpoint, wouldn't overpopulation in high tide be more of a determent to the station then a good thing? 

[Fox McCloud]

11 minutes ago, xProlithium said:

From an administrative standpoint, I can see how having a hard-cap on players getting into the server would be a bad thing. From a player standpoint and a logical standpoint, wouldn't overpopulation in high tide be more of a determent to the station then a good thing? 

We handle overpopulation via listing/de-listing, not job capping.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Fox McCloud

[Shadeykins]

I've been campaigning for this for aeons.

Fox has said all there really needs to be said.

[Nil]

What would the scale look like? One officer to every ten assistants? More, less? Why would it be limited to merely assistants; shouldn't officers scale with total crew? For that matter; why not scale every slot accordingly? Or, simpler; have a flat estimated slot ratio. Each critical path job should fulfill roughly ten percent of the total crew.  I mean, that makes sense, right? A functional ten percent of engineering to fix problems the other ninety percent caused and/or are influenced by. A  functional ten percent of medical to fix up the other ninety percent of sick and hurt crew. A functional ten percent of security to, you know, actually protect the other ninety percent (from injury; preventing medical problems) as well as assets (preventing engineering problems), as would be expected of any security force. Any less than a functional ten, would really be expecting too much and pushing limits, wouldn't it? Unless; are the medical, security, and potentially engineering departments expected and designed to fail? Is medical designed to have dead and sick everywhere, or is it designed to fluidly put people back on their feet in a reasonable amount of time? Is engineering meant to not have the ability to fix any moderate problem, such as a few hull breaches, or are a few hull breaches now reasonable excuses to call an ERT (filled with the dead in medical, or dead sec officers, because there were too few to begin with to reasonably, efficiently, effectively respond to any given scenario) and declare red. Speaking of which; shouldn't declaring red alert be taken far more seriously and be way less common? Shouldn't it especially be a short lived experience? If so; then departments should be adequately staffed to prevent such occurrences. Is security meant to flounder and fall into disarray and die off almost immediately? Unless, of course, the officers power or meta; which isn't a functional design or operation for something that will inevitably keep rounds in fluid motion without too many people being removed needlessly or unreasonably. 

Balance; that's what I am trying to get at. Unlimited assistants would be reasonable to handle, if departments had the potential to handle a large crew size. That doesn't mean departments have to be to scale at all times; just means that there are slots and equipment, to even allow the possibility. A balance and scale would be more enjoyable for all.