State of assistants on paradise

[sirius]

15 hours ago, TerrorOnTheSeas said:

Bridge hoboing is dumb from an RP perspective because if you really wanted to hang out somewhere you wouldn't do it in a busy hallway. Imagine if on a college campus a bunch of students just brought folding chairs and sat on the path leading to the administration building instead of sitting in the grass, cafes, or other amenities the university offered. That's what bridge hoboing is. Hanging out in the bar, dorms, garden, or library makes sense because that's what those rooms are designed for.

I'd like to emphasize again that bridge hoboing really only happens on Paradise. We should ask ourselves why that's the case. Obviously standing in front of the bridge to look what command is doing or talking to them shouldn't be prohibited but this whole meme of people bringing couches and chairs just to lie down in front of the bridge should stop. Maybe it's something that can be enforced IC instead of OOC like a no loitering law or something.

In my school people literaly sat on the most used crowded staircase there was so its not that weird to be honest

[sirius]

1 hour ago, Miraviel said:

Personally, as command, I just fully ignore bridge hobos, they annoy me endlessly. I want to see people walking up and down the hallway but I sometimes just use the shutters so I don't have to see minibar #39851 being built in the middle of a main corridor.

As for the phenomenon itself, I think we have bridge hobos because a lot of people love to see the security vs antagonists gameplay in person (and sometimes try to get involved as well, breaching our validhunting rule), and the best places to experience that are 1) the Bridge that is always a hotspot for both RP drama and mechanical conflict and 2) medbay.

I think a solution for bridge hobos would be making the bar/other recreational areas more mechanically interesting. Henri's NT recruitment arcade game, for example, lured a lot of people into the arcade / made them install new machines around the station. Some people know how to use cards well and host blackjack games in the bar. We need more of these, and then, I think, people will be less likely to gawk at command, waiting for the free circus, and instead they'd go and make their own fun.

If bar had any fun things to do it would be used yes but most bars are redecorated for an hour to even MAKE something cool cause its hard to get the materials for redocation and the other half of bars just stay the bar; 3 tables and wooden chairs with 0 fun stuff to do. The arcade is good as it is for fun minigame stuff but the bar seriously has nothing of interest AT ALL besides RP with alcohol which again can be had anywhere else like for example the front of Bridge. What i want is some fun stuff like a Ragecage Unum table be part of the bar or some new things like a boxing ring or anything engaging at all really

[Landerlow]

In regards to the other job titles: I'd love for example 'off-duty' and 'retired'.  I mean .. I even have an old-man character! It would fit very nicely!

[Quinn]

I don't have any specific memories from dealing with assistants, but nowadays whenever i even see an assistant strolling into a department that isn't medbay my first thought is always "oh no. they're gonna do something stupid". In general i notice a pattern in assistants being the ones that have the lowest rp standard, buuuut that may just be me being constantly harassed by tiders

[Aligote]

5 hours ago, Endar said:

Bridge shutters

 

4 hours ago, Spacemanspark said:

Tinted windows.

Both of these aren't one way windows.

[Aligote]

4 hours ago, Meow19 said:

Bridge hobos are a curse and a plague upon the game.

Bridge hobos are a blessing and a cure for the game.

[BottomQuark]

I think I did see one directional windows somewhere?

 

Not sure where tho, and it was a long time ago so maybe it's on another code base.

If it's not possible, disregard this suggestion 

[AidanFair]

Seriously? There are plenty of people who take an actual job and don't do it all round. At least assistants aren't taking the position just to get access and gear.

Sometimes you just wanna hang out. Take that away and you'll have a bunch of hobos doing nothing but taking up job slots. (more people doing nothing taking up job slots I mean).

As for bridge hobos, I've seen some of the most interesting builds done above the bridge by hobos. And sometimes it's comedy gold. Like when a bunch get run over by a MULE. And the absurdity of it all is a plus. That's one of my favourite things about this game. The absurd mixed with the deadpan RP. Does it really interfere with your RP enjoyment to have random assistants hanging around above the bridge? The station has a literal clown that honks!

The absurd and the deadpan compliment each other. Take away the absurd, and you're left with boring, predictable HRP. Take away the deadpan RP, and you just have an un-fun LRP gamer situation. Where the best gamers have all the fun. And the rest get fucked.

To pretend to quote the existential absurdist Camus; "One can spend eternity trying to change SS13 to create paradise. When paradise was right in front of them the whole time. And they were too busy being hobophobic to see it....... Honk."

[Hostail]

The one time I actually went as assistant to Science to actually assist and be helpful, i got constantly stopped by security or questioned what i was doing even though i had RD's permission.

Its fun sometimes to be the guy who goes around the department helping people out with the simplest of tasks, but a lot of people also think their workplace is holy and really do not want outsiders to mess with it.

And about bridge hobos, i just see it the same as people gathering on a town square to hang about, see the life move around and what not. Its not maybe the greatest place to hang about, but it is also the most central place of the station community and that's kinda what attracts people.

[Sadhorizon]

Regarding alt titles, I have opened a PR that adds "Off-Duty", "Retired" and "Intern" as possible ones!

I hope this change helps with assistant issues, at least a tiny bit!

[necaladun]

My general idea for ages I've never gotten around to implementing is to have the current 'assistant' job renamed to Civilian, with numerous alt-titles such as tourist, off-duty, etc.

Assistant itself should be a seperate job with limited slots, part of service, with an SoP that requires them to actually assist departments if they're able to. This could then have alt titles such as Engineering Assistant, Medbay Intern, etc. 

Thus we can split the people who want 0 responsibility and RP into their own job, and leave assistant for people who want to help out departments in minor ways, and be a great job for newbies.

[Landerlow]

That would be great. We could also actually make SOP or something in that regards for assistants that they actually do have the responsibility to work on the station. 
But as for assistant: Would you want a separate 'general' assistant role? Or would you like for there to be an assistant role for each department (though I would exclude command and security for that, there could be separate roles, constable comes to mind as entry-level security job - I hope that gets implemented). 


For command... secretary? I would be more RP-focussed but god the possibilities. (And before people start: The moment any secretary puts on a schoolgirl outfit, goes UwU and does weird shit, I would obviously deal with that :P)

---
But let's not derail too much. 

[AidanFair]

On 10/4/2023 at 4:32 PM, necaladun said:

My general idea for ages I've never gotten around to implementing is to have the current 'assistant' job renamed to Civilian, with numerous alt-titles such as tourist, off-duty, etc.

Assistant itself should be a seperate job with limited slots, part of service, with an SoP that requires them to actually assist departments if they're able to. This could then have alt titles such as Engineering Assistant, Medbay Intern, etc. 

Thus we can split the people who want 0 responsibility and RP into their own job, and leave assistant for people who want to help out departments in minor ways, and be a great job for newbies.

I like this

[donnieg]

If I remember correctly we used to be able to change the assistant title to civilian/businessman. Implementation of a whole separate role for those two wouldn't be a bad idea in all honesty. Having the business person title was good for people setting up shops and civilian is obviously good for when you just want to mosey around doing this and that. 

[Shaw]

I don’t see bridge hobos as a negative by themselves. I do see bridge hobos as a negative when they:

Crowd primary hallway with difficult to traverse terrain, buildings, vending machines, tables, walls, and windows (without CE approval. Which is never.) 

Spout incoherent nonsensical shit at command trying to get their attention for something stupid (“Captain givbe me ur soap ehehehe aren’t I quirky? I’m not gonna stop *scream spamming until you do! Fucking comdom”)

Try to break into the bridge by dismantling windows and generally other tider behavior and then throwing a pissy fit when sec comes to brig their ass and they start screaming “shitsec! Riot!”

 

When bridge hobos aren’t doing these things, yea, it’s usually cause they wanna just vibe and hang out with the added backround noise of listening in on the goings on of the bridge and centralized nature of the bridge area. Like having the TV on while you’re in a conversation. It’s just backround noise. 
 

As long as hobos aren’t being shitters, I don’t see them as a problem. If command desires, they can slam the shutters and ignore them. 
————————————

On assistant titles: 

If I recall, we did away with “businessman, tourist, civilian” job titles because that seemed to give people the idea that “I don’t work here. You can’t tell me what to do. So fuck off and how dare you suggest I go do work, HoP.”

I’m exaggerating, but I think this was the general behavior. “I don’t work here and am in no way expected to have to listen to anyone”. Having everyone as an assistant helps reign that mentality back a bit. Yes, you do work here. Nothing is generally expected of you, but stop trying to claim sections of maints as your sovereign territory or whatever it is you justify doing as a “civilian”. 
 

Personally I feel the removal of the alt titles have been a slight improvement, but it’s nothing catastrophicly game changing. There will always be tider assistants, regardless of what the job title says on their ID. 
 

 

Besides. We all live for the moment admemes let Mr Antagman minibomb the hobos. Teach those bums a lesson. 

Edit: I’m convinced bridge hobos do it for the backround noise and central location. You don’t have bridge hobo culture (at least not as strongly) on Farragus because it’s not centralized and bridge command is out of sight at the computer area

Edited October 7, 2023 by Shaw

[LiberatedWaveMan]

On 10/4/2023 at 4:32 AM, necaladun said:

My general idea for ages I've never gotten around to implementing is to have the current 'assistant' job renamed to Civilian, with numerous alt-titles such as tourist, off-duty, etc.

Assistant itself should be a seperate job with limited slots, part of service, with an SoP that requires them to actually assist departments if they're able to. This could then have alt titles such as Engineering Assistant, Medbay Intern, etc. 

Thus we can split the people who want 0 responsibility and RP into their own job, and leave assistant for people who want to help out departments in minor ways, and be a great job for newbies.

I would like to take a moment to emphasise that we used to have alt titles such as civilian, tourist, and trader, but they were axed in PR #17103, with a decent amount of support from the community- this was intended to emphasise the role of assistants on-station so that they would do something, but in reality this only backfired and diminished creative freedom for roundstart assistant, because you just can't force someone to do something they don't feel like doing. This isn't a major issue of any sort, nor am I really keen to talk badly of anyone, but I figured the information was worth having here.

[AidanFair]

5 hours ago, Shaw said:

Edit: I’m convinced bridge hobos do it for the backround noise and central location. You don’t have bridge hobo culture (at least not as strongly) on Farragus because it’s not centralized and bridge command is out of sight at the computer area

That's a good point. But you used Farragus in it so it's invalid.

[Landerlow]

10 hours ago, LiberatedWaveMan said:

I would like to take a moment to emphasise that we used to have alt titles such as civilian, tourist, and trader, but they were axed in PR #17103, with a decent amount of support from the community- this was intended to emphasise the role of assistants on-station so that they would do something, but in reality this only backfired and diminished creative freedom for roundstart assistant, because you just can't force someone to do something they don't feel like doing. This isn't a major issue of any sort, nor am I really keen to talk badly of anyone, but I figured the information was worth having here.

The support wasn't 'that' big but besides that: It didn't work. Players already said on the PR that it would most likely only diminish creative freedom and not change much else, as you can't just 'force' someone to play differently, and I agree. 

I think the current PR up is a good one.

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/22701