For a Better Command --- Suggestions

Hello fine people!

After having received positive feedback by @llol111 I have decided to try to spark some fruitful(and pleasant, I hope!) discussion about our command and heads of staff conduct.

This topic is born from this player report : For a Better Command

I will try to be concise, but knowing myself I will probably be verbose. So buckle up and get ready to read!

We all know that as heads we shouldn’t take the job just to use our gamer’s gear, to wear the cool capes and to powertrip at the expense of our dear personnel. And in the very vast majority of cases, I would say that this holds true.

What we lack though, is what follows from there on.

You see, not being a powergamer and being proficient at your job isn’t, can’t and shouldn’t be all that you’re aiming for. At least not if you’re aiming to be a valued addition to any command rooster.

What you should be aiming for is to be the best manager/mentor to all the crewmembers under you and near you. Being a shining beacon, an admired example. The professional equivalent of a parental figure, in a business environment.

In order to achieve so, you need to change your mindset.




COMMAND, THE GOLDEN ETHOS




Your job as command is not to insure your department is on the winning side against antag/problems. Your job is to let your people try their hands at it, while you’re coordinating them.

Don’t expect to win. Especially by your own involvement. Avoid being on the emergency’s scene for as long as possible and at all, if possible.

Expect to lose, directing your people, staying behind/on comms, in the most careful way possible.




COMMAND, THE GOLDEN ETHOS, NOTES

But how this ethos should translate in practical gameplay, especially during chaotic shifts?

Following not SOP, but what I like to call the GOLDEN SOP.

What follow is exactly the best way to act, at least in my opinion, on how to conduct yourself and communicate as command.




COMMAND, GOLDEN SOP




  1. Get informed of a situation. Immediately check for any angle to involve as many heads/department as possible. Do NOT relay too much on the AI. Assign a clear objective and clear names on WHO needs to do WHAT. Try to make everyone feel part of this evermoving entity we call the station!

  2. Be attentive on the comms, always adapting your instruction to the new conditions possibly reported by the personnel on the field handling it. Remember to continue to try to involve as many heads/department as possible.

  3. If the issue was solved, compliment the personnel who handled it and move on. If it wasn’t possible, do call a command meeting in person! Ask the chef and the barkeep to be present in order to supply such a refined party of high-ranking officer with the meals and the beverage they deserve! All together, decide if to raise the alert, rerouting the now lost department operation to another or just call the shuttle. Do announce after the meeting to the crew what was decided, using the pertinent announcement consoles.




COMMAND, GOLDEN SOP NOTES, AI

The reason why I wrote above to not relay too much on the AI is simple. Our dear AI players, being the most skilled, knowledgeable and efficient player we have on the server(otherwise they wouldn’t be playing AI, would they?) have become accostumed to be our babysitters. They are no longer the everseeing eyes that an AI should be, always on the piece, yes, but principally REACTIVE. And they have started to be increasingly PROACTIVE, no more simply aiding us waiting for our queries and offering us support, but actively leading us in the solution to everything.

Arriving to the point of even getting a shell and just do it themselves, if forced to… without even being asked to! That’s the reason why we have our AIs raising our alerts, instructing our officers where to go and even how to act, in some cases.

So please, by all means, do not ostracize them from being the vital piece they are on the station. But let them truly do their job, by asking and involving them, without relying on them for any physical or managerial final solutions, unless there is literally no crewmember/head still standing and able to do the job.

Bonus points if you get the AI holographically present for the command’s meeting!

In short, the AI should be REACTIVELY informing us of any issue/emergency, offering us a plethora of solutions. And only PROACTIVELY acting after hearing our instructions/if requested.




BUT I’M ALONE, I CAN’T DO IT

You know what I find funny in our SS13 community?

The false belief that ours is a community of degenerates, incapable of bettering itself. Just let me point to you the most clear-cut example of why the opposite is true. Back on golden I wasn’t even sure I would have been able to reach my office, as command, without being mugged by greytiders or killed by a plasma flood.

Now it’s the opposite!

I have still to live a single shift where I didn’t live up until the very end of the shift. Even if I was murdered during it. You can’t even imagine the difference this does make, knowing I will be fully able to play for the entirety of the shift, instead than being on the look out for my inevitable demise, probably in the first hallway just past arrivals!

There is still some validity in pointing out that a lone head won’t be able to be neither very conducive to RP nor effective in directing, without a cooperating crew.

And that’s why I devised a crewmember golden sop too.




CREWMEMBERS, GOLDEN SOP




  1. Acknowledge your superiors communication. Especially the captain. If you have a head but the captain is directly involving himself, this means the situation needs all your focus and expertise.

  2. Before starting to work on whatever has been assigned, if you have the chance to involve other crewmembers, do it. Clearly states when you and your colleagues are starting to act on the instructions received.

  3. Keep up to date your head at each milestone accomplished. “I arrived to cargo”. “The situation is worse than expected, the hull was breached and our environment is already inhabitable”. “I’m working on these doors and the air alarms”. “We just discovered the apc is broken too. We are working on replacing it right now/we’re returning to engineering to grab the pieces to fix it”. And so on.

  4. Inform on comms once the task is completed. Be ready to offer further explanation on the work you’ve done. Wait for further instruction if needed.




TLDR COMMAND : Quit acting as gamers as head. Park your back in your office and direct your deparment. Coordinate your workers on comms, preferably, or in person, if you must, and involve yourself directly only if your workers aren’t actively trying to solve the issue at hand. Be a head to direct and lead your department, letting them to shine and do not hug the spotlight.

TLDR CREW : Be very, very comunicative on comms. Keep your superiors up to date at each step. Always ask preemptively for backup, if available. Even if you don’t need another pair of hands to do the job, the time spent working on it will be far sweeter with some company!

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YES, oh dear god yes. you put it into words.
All I have to say to my Fellow HoS players.

  1. You’ll be needed to take to the halls and involve yourself directly out of necessity in lowpop for two reasons, there aren’t often alot of officers nor does anyone ever answer the call of deputization.

  2. The Ubiquitous need for SEC makes you often times more active in co-ordination than Legitimately half of the other command staff.
    2.5. Centcom says you’re the lowest ranked command staff. But on station, you are often the only readily available command staff, it is up to you TO KEEP YOUR STATION SECURE even if that means co-ordinating and advising other departments around abit to achieve that

  3. Z0RG help you if you are Acting captain, that shit is stressful but the high is real. this means command staff wise, there is no other command staff, that’s kinda fucked. However once a HoS has started Captaining about, if they’re doing a good job, once again HALF of the command staff that may or may not even arrive probably won’t even ask to take over captain duties, even though they officially outrank you, Situationally, you’re more flexible and already have the SEC team.

Posted this on the original thread you made, moved it here.

I still think that chat based radio chat is a major issue in the design overall. It becomes too easy to call things out, request things and what not. If Captain had 10 different channels to listen in real life you’d go insane after 10 minutes of 30+ voices speaking over one another. If you were really limited by the throughput of voices in the commons then common wouldn’t exist anymore and you’d almost be required for command to actually meet up to avoid all the noise. Plus antags as of now can very easily topple the station in minutes. Command has a lot of pressure on them and I know when I played a lot of Command that I got very jumpy, Command and Sec are stressful. Especially as antags can’t get banned most of the time but Command and Sec very much can. Antags has next to nothing to lose, Command does.

If you suspect someone is just being meta then you can try to ask questions to make them realize it themselves. In this situation I would’ve asked 'em “How do you know this is a heretical rune and not a shody paint job?”. Then they would’ve perhaps brought the janitor along and have him try to remove it and if not, then yeah, this is some shady shit. Perhaps you could’ve checked for DNA prints and brought the person into interrogation. Maybe not even searching them but just talking to them.

No it doesn’t. Green? Blue? Red? Delta? Rarely do I see anyone do anything to help, they just continue their job like normal. For example. How many crew members are on the shuttle VS. fighting the blob on red alert? Usually 50% of the crew.

Met them the shift before the one you mentioned, again as RD. He talked about it to me as well, thought it was in relation to the AI which he speedran with his possible meta friend who was my Roboticist pal for that shift that immediately stole the Ore Redemption Machine and pissed off all of Cargo on the start of the shift. Was honestly funny seeing him stuck as an AI with a REALLY pissed of miner. “Accidentally” let the miner into robotics and dropped an AI transportation card nearby. Even the Security Officer seemed sick of the AI. AI was… Jailed I think, no idea.

Unironically I think people listen to me less as RD than as Roboticist.

“Hey guys! We got a very serious situation to address. People bring booze and food!”
Food might be a good idea if there is a cook as I personally feel way too busy all the time to be able to take the detour to the kitchen, especially on Delta when it is across the entire station.

Had an AI explain Command to me after I already did most of the things they asked of me such as securing nuke disk, spare ID and assigning acting heads. However, I’ve also have heads who hasn’t touched the nuke disk AT ALL throughout the entire shift. Several Command players in fact.

This:

I really, really like this. But typing takes a lot of time. Time you could spend doing your job. Reporting it with your actual voice would be ideal but we are limited by the game itself here. I’d love to see a voice-to-text implementation and perhaps even a text-to-voice implementation with some fancy AI stuff. But atlas… you’re better off reporting more significant milestones. Over common of course as everyone needs to be informed…

I like this discussion topic. Sorry if I wrote a bit too much.

That’s exactly the challenge, and the beauty, of the whole job.

My trick is to avoid reading the common channel and just focusing on each deparment comms. This already helps a lot in filtering clutter.

For the rest the point you make is true, but at the same time that’s still a community problem. How many times the crew does ignore their heads, because they’re accustomed to just jump right to the captain for help because usually who play head does NOT DIRECT their departments?

That’s why I made that report and this post. I mean, why an RD is even interesting himself with security matters? Or a CMO? Or a HOP? With a HOS and a Captain present?

If in the vast majority of shifts the pertinent heads do never direct their departments, then we end up where we are now. But I can assure you, if all the heads will start managing far more than trying to do everything by themselves, then as captain there would be just one channel you should pay attention to.

Command.

Because everything should be filtered by the pertinent head and only if something goes beyond their jurisdiction or it needs your direct approval, then they will actually ask you on command channel.

So let’s improve all together and let’s make it happen!

Listen, I do frankly heavily disagree on this one.

I have read multiple times this sort of passive-aggressive attitude towards the adminning team. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re resentful toward the staff. But it is transparent, from the way you’re writing, that you think like you have a Damocle’s sword on your head at all times when you’re toeing the line.

From my experience RP, intent and context are supreme.

If you just avoid trying your best to make others redtext as much as possible, I can assure you that you won’t have any problem. Respect SOP and avoid being malicious, then you’ll see how the admins are here to help us and guarantee a fair game for all, not only for the antags.

Just to cite a swift example, on a shit where I joined as a late captain more than an hour in, I was welcomed by an esword duel just outside arrival. Then I saw 2 syndies, one in the topical red suit and the other in the elite one.

The alert was on green, if I’m not wrong.

The hallways were lost to traitors, the very hallways and the rest of the crew started doing whatever, because the situation was what it was. Well, on green, I found Liebherri the lone hos, deputised Jacob David that was a miner in that shift and immediately told them to treat everyone who was doing anything remotely traitorous as we were in delta alert.

Not even red, delta.

I explicitly told them to not try to arrest but to gun down them all, without giving quarter, so without accepting any hyphotetical surrender. Why? Because, if I remember correctly, I wasn’t even able to go to the console and raise the alert to blue without having the syndi in the red suit bombing my bridge. And the other in the elite hardsuit machinegunning the hallways.

I didn’t receive any problem for it. It was clear and apparent we lost any semblance of order and grip on the whole situation and so I decided it was time for an extreme show of violence in order to retake the control of our own station.

Because I was the one almost feeling as a traitor, on board of my own spacestation as captain, where even the very hallways were taken, boldly, by these traitors.

As I said, RP, intent and context are supreme.

Quit worrying about the rules(to an extent) and immerse yourself roleplaying.

You will not have any problem nor fear then!

That’s exactly what I did, more than one time.

Trying to make them realize, in game, that they were all utterly metagaming, without rping a single moment.

Unluckily they were probably tired and the routine of knowing everything that was truly happening got the better of them, I think.

Once again, community problem and not rule problem.

If, as in the report, the discovery of a single rune without a single violent incident makes a completely unrelated and unauthorized entity, the AI, to be law 2 forced to raise to blue when that is just a captain’s prerogative, the we can’t blame the officers.

I myself love to play sec for all the funny interaction one can manage to pull off with the antags and the crew. But I too do not pay almost any attention to the alert level, because it’s always abused. And we’ve got to the point where a captain that is trying to just keep the things calm and law and SOP-abiding, is even threatened with mutiny.

The only times I got to search on green I was the one, as a officer, to remind to the rest of the team that we need a printed and signed warrant in order to do so. And if, from now on, we’ll start managing correctly the alert level, then we’ll be blessed to have this kind of interactions far more often!

Aside warden Figueroa, that warden is a true gem of a SOP-abiding commanding officer!

If, as command, we will all start to use correctly the alert levels, then I, for first, will start to act truly differently between different alert levels.

How many times an alert is lowered once it has been raised? Almost never.

And that’s another playerbase problem, so us, instead than a rule problem. We have far more rules than we need, if we all just start following them, maybe we’ll even see the day we’ll be able to scrap some of them!

Well then I’m sure the admins will have to take some actions, followed by the coders fixing that exploit.

I have never understood people who uses cheats outside singleplayer games and to be honest, even if I’m old enough to remember when cheatcodes were plentyful, free, and inside each single game, I always… felt guilty using them.

So I don’t cheat/abuse exploit even in singleplayer games, it makes me feel dirty^^

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This is because the vast majority of RD players, aside few exceptions like Vyvian Armstrong, do not manage at all their departments.

I know this takes both time and effort, but start trying to direct.

Fight the urge to solve the situation at hand by yourself and ask 3 times, in a 5 minutes timespan, to help clearly mentioning the names of the people in your department you’re referring to. Or present the problem and ask for volunteers, again for few times in 5 minutes.

If you dedicate attention and care to your crew, once they’ll understand you’re doing it sincerly shift after shift to let them shine instead of bossing them around, then you’ll start see the change!

We will all do!

That’s, unironically, quite a good interaction!

See, the AI was REACTIVELY following your needs and inputs. You were a command rook and you asked your AI to assist you as it should.

Problems are born the other way around, when uninterested command force the AI to be PROACTIVE.

I don’t think our AI players are to blame, or at least they are to blame just a little.

The problem lies within us command players. Let’s all strive to be better, let’s all act more professionally and finally our AIs will be free to be the wonderful mechanical assistants they signed up to be!

If communicating each single step feels too much of a burden, then fall back to communicate just the essential step.

For example :

  1. Acknowledging the problem and your start on working on it

  2. Solving the problem and finishing the task

As of now the majority of the time we heads don’t even get the first point done.

Let’s take the miner’s situation. It’s true that a lot of time they end up dead and forgotten down on lavaland. But why?

Because they never communicate!

When I do play miner I do a comm check, while doing a gps check too, each single ash storm with all my colleagues. If I’m taking the shuttle up I do the same. And far more importantly, if I’m going to test my hands with a megafauna, I do communicate once again!

If all miners did it, then it would become very apparent when one ends up missing.

And aside unlucky chasms falls, I do bet that the miner’s recovery rate would skyrocket! Because the communication will move from “Miners, are you alive?” to “Hey, Marcus hasn’t check back from the last storm/shuttle call/megafauna attempt. Let’s check his gps, see if the other miners can recover him or I need to go down myself as QM”. Or even let’s call for security help in retrieving him if it was kidnapped by those nasty lizzie, and so on.

And the same would happen with the rest of the jobs!

I find myself not only managing all the emergencies at all times, but unluckily being forced even to ask for comms on heads-up about task completion! And yes, that can become very stressful at times when it shouldn’t be!

Communicating more would improve life for everyone, both for the crewmember handling the job and command!

Don’t you dare apologizing for being interested and passionated!

I loved reading and replying to your post, because it showed a very genuine effort born from true interest!

Don’t ever lose that curiosity, it will serve you well in life, friend!^^

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And ignore everyone begging for help. But I might try this for a few games.

I ask myself that as well. Why does I, the RD, who has been stuck in Science this entire time have to decide whether to go Blue or not? I guess it’s to prevent a crazy HoS and Captain. Usually I just go “Yeah, sure, whatever” as I trust their judgement.

But communicating in this game takes a lot of time, I consider myself a fast writer and still think it takes a lot of time. I could be building mechs, servers or doing toxins in this time, or even shooting at Syndies. So in that sense Captain would mostly be left in the dark. I’d considered if the Captain could be some sort of higher ranked Warden and sit in command flicking through cameras and checking what is happening. Perhaps even trying to manage department through the heads such as "CMO, make sure your chemist is doing meds. RD, how are those servers lookin’? HoP, got any resources goin’ from Lavaland?

I’d like cameras to be changed to make it easier to look around, like grouping cameras by area or simply connecting them all like the AI.

Poke ‘em over LOOC then. In regards to this you could also argue that you are metagaming by assuming they are metagaming. If you saw a symbol which you don’f recognize but clear has some meaning behind it, should be most modern symbols! You’d feel uncomfortable about it. Would it be worth a blue alert? Probably not. Would it harm going blue alert if you think shits goin’ down? Not really. In best case you’ll get a “Welp, sorry guys! False alarm, it was nothing.”, this happens in real life too.

I recently learnt that the Captain, even Acting Captain, can demote real Cent Comm approved Heads and that heads HAS TO obey the Captain.

I’d do this a lot more often… if I know how the dumb paper work system worked. I usually just ask 'em politely to search 'em and hope they agree to it or continue on my way.

It’s difficult to go back to normal when you know there are active threats on the station.

Recently got a note partly for assuming this is always the case. lol

Only time I figure out they are dead is when I am on Lavaland and out of… norms, not even SOP, pick up a GPS and notice someone is standing still for awfully long time.

Or just power game through as miners have no problem doing that with all that sick “mining” gear. Because they are miners. Honestly, just rename 'em. Half of 'em aren’t miners. Make another Lavaland role like “Wildlife Exterminator” under Sec and let them use the Sec shuttle to go back and fourth. Could even use the same weapons as the miners.

Ok Marcus, let me preface this by saying that, after reading your post, I think your current mindset is part of the problem. I’m not saying this to be offensive, to be negative or to diminish you in any way!

I’m frontloading my point of view because, knowing where I came from sincerely, I do think our chances of understanding each other can only improve!

Now, to the post!

I disagree wholeheartedly.

Even if someone is dying on common, the chances to notice it as a captain are very slim. And even then, it’s not your job at all to intervene.

You’re here to command, instruct and supervise!

You got 2 entire departments for that kind of emergency, security and medbay. Even if no one of them will notice anything, there is still the AI. And then the rest of the station that is not busy, as you are, manning the entirety of the ship/your department.

So I can’t fathom even a single case where your point stands true!

Well, why, instead than blindly trusting, do not take the time of just asking a single question made up by 3 letters?

Why? :wink:

If you’re automatically doing it the same thing each time a similar situation arises, you’re never gonna get a different result. You will never have the chance to further interact in the situation, getting to know your fellow heads and their reasoning better.

And maybe even changing their point of view on the whole situation!

Well Markus, that’s where I started to understand that, in my humble opinion, your mindset might be part of the problem.

If you sign for COMMAND, you DON’T sign to ACT. You sign to MANAGE.

You shouldn’t even press a single button in your department, if it’s well staffed! If you’re HOS and there are syndies, let your officers do the shooting! If you’re RD and we need a phazon, let your roboticists build it! We need more servers? Let your scientist handle it! Or even call engineering to help with it! You’re the last line of defence. If your department lacks staff or is too overburdened, then, by all means, do step in! Otherwise ask for volunteers/clearly states who will do what and coordinate them.

You’re not supposed to do anything by yourself, in person!

That’s the whole point!

You have an entire department that directly depends on you and should obey each single directive coming from you! Supervise them, consult them and tip them on how to do something. But don’t do it by yourself!

It’s like being the director of a bank. You never see or talk to the director unless it’s completely needed to! There is an entire staff of workers to do each single task, while the director supervise them!

That’s why I added the crew golden sop to the top post too. Because almost always not only I do need to issue the orders, I then need to ask again on comms how it went.

And that gets tiring, fast.

This is exactly how I do act as a captain.

The problem is that a lot of times, with the heads just acting as crewmembers with access to the entirety of their department, I’m met with a lot of attrition. Because they’re supposedly busy, while they have a fully staffed and idle department because they decided to do it by themselves.

While, instead, they should manage and supervise their department while the captain should manage and supervise them.

With the AI helping us all, when we request for it to assist us.

I wouldn’t give us, non-AI players, the same, unique way an AI can look at that station.

That is truly, both mechanically and thematically, fitting only for the everseeing AI’s eye. What I would do instead would be removing that horrible lag each time you use it and make switching through cams effortlessly as it should be.

There is a reason if, even if there people who would love to use that feature(like me and you!) never do it.

Fair point on the LOOC. I actually almost never notice it(I wear eyeglasses in RL and the addition of runechat has incredibly bettered my enjoyment of the game!). Plus, I was incredibly busy trying to manage it all, and I hate using it/reading it because it breaks immersion, but hey!

You’re right, if one does have another tool in his belt, why not using it!

Fair concern, but I do disagree.

For the simple reason that I was provided no other reasoning then “hey, old dude! It’s an heretic rune, we got a heretic onboard! Go look at it for yourself!”.

So no RP reason at all aside “I know because I’m command and so I know(the antags and their secrets)”.

Uhm… as you clearly pointed out I don’t recognize almost 95% of new fads.

I mean, I’m probably older than the majority of the server.

And I very recently started using discord after that our adorable Mu teached me how!

But no, I don’t feel uncomfortable about it? I do firmly believe that you, as me and everyone else do not have perfect knowledge of all the symbology currently(or not currently) used worldwide. And this does not make us uncomfortable in any way while we go on about our day. Plus as the rules clearly states, setting up the tone from which we should all start to RP from :

This is a normal shift. You’re a grown ass man, maybe even an old man if you want to roleplay as one. There is not a chance that you would get scared or suspicious by some graffiti, and even less you would get concerned over them!

You got an entire workday in front of you!

As a head of staff, nonetheless! This means it will be a busy day. No time to lose on some nonsensical mumbo jumbo painted on the floor when you aren’t the HOP and so you do not direct the service personnel!

Let me try to help you put what you just said in perspective, by using a real-life example it happened to me.

I live in a small town near Naples, in Italy. One year ago, short after New Years Eve, the apartments under my floor got robbed. Once the police got here we discovered, shocked, that we were the sixth call about apartment thefts on that day.

No news no other actions were taken by our law enforcement to do any publicity about it. They didn’t even take prints, simply acknowledging the robbery done and moved on.

Why?

Because spreading panic never helps! Let’s say you alarm the population making them known this fact. The next time the robber will rob an apartment maybe he will face a scared, untrained but armed individual.

And what will happen next?

You will have a dead robber AND a murderer on your hands to deal with.

Instead of an alive robber and some, emptier than before, apartments. I can assure you that no authority figure would risk the escalation of any situation by spreading awareness/panic because there’s no way than doing so will actually help with the situation.

That’s why you don’t put armed military personnel in public places to encourage a shootout. You place armed military personnel in a public place to DISSUADE any chance that a shootout will happen. And you instruct that military personnel to politely and calmy lie to any civilian about the real direness of their circumstances.

Well I wouldn’t bet on this to happen 100% of the time and yes, technically you need to obey to your captain.

But again, RP, intent and context.

And then anything can be true or false depending on the situation.

Just use a pen on a white paper and write, very hastily, something as HOS or WARDEN and put a security stamp on it.

No need for it to be fancy, it just needs to be functional!

Plus, if you’re an officer during that shift, it’s not even your job to compile a warrant! It’s your job to report to your superiors why a warrant should be needed in order to do a bag search and then wait for them to give one to you!

See?

Here was where, for the second time, the idea your mindset might be part of the problem started to make its way into my mind.

It isn’t difficult at all!

Our shifts alert raises currently look like :

  1. Green till the very first suspicion(not even physical act) of traitorous activity is reported

  2. Then blue

  3. Then maybe red

  4. Then shutle call

Instead it should be :

  1. Green even after traitorous activity and violent actions have been discovered.

If we pay attention to the wording, it clearly states “threat to the station”. The ENTIRE station! 3 or 4 dead crewmembers being violently killed can be argued that it still not warrants for a blue alert! A blue alert covers something as big as rioting or a full blown mutiny! These are threats to the ENTIRE station!

A murderous psychopath can be very dangerous and taxing on the crew mental and physical health. But it’s still just a serial killer!

Raising the alert and overstressing your crew starting to make them feel like living in a police state won’t help de-escalate… quite the contrary!

  1. Blue until the threat that has warranted the alert raise has not been dealt with.

  2. Green again even if there are other active threats. Lone traitors, blobs and whatsnot are NOT a sufficient reasoning to raise the alert, not even remotely!

Our job as command is not to make the lives of our antags as hellish as possible. Our job is to make our lives and the lives of our crew as professional as possible! We are a research station, not a military one. I find no difficulty in lowering the alert, and I do try my best to make it as hard as it can be to raise it, because by our own SOP that’s how we should conduct ourselves!

That’s not colonial marines! It’s Bee!

We need more hugs freely given, not more shots fired! :slight_smile:

Yes. That’s an absolutely viable and good way to notice if something wrong.

The problem? Almost no one does it!

Why? Because if as a miner you never communicated, reminding me of your existence and bonding with me, then, you know, there is no reason to even remember to check that damn GPS! If I can’t remember even your name because you never interacted during the whole round, you can bet I won’t remember to check the GPS once you went radio silent… because you were from shift start!

Even if, to my dismay, I can see where you’re coming from, let’s not face this discussion here. It’s not the right place!

Finally, let me just say that English isn’t my mothertongue. So I don’t know if my tone was right throughout the entirety of this post, but I don’t hold any ill will towards you(Why would I?!). I appreciate every word you wrote and even if, in my opinion, part of your mindset isn’t where it can be, I’m sure you enrich our games by your very presence! As all the other wonderful people of bee do!

And even if we will not see on this matter eye to eye, I would be happy to disagree, nonetheless!

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Hey Sírio. I wanted to weight in on this even if I’m on my mobile.

I think this is a very important discussion to have because I think it affects something I’ve been thinking of for a while.

Pacing.

While I was reading this thread I found myself thinking back at the times we interacted in game.

Specially when you were captain and that time where you where the nightmare.

Now, we both know we could talk endlessly. And we did at one point or another.
Imagine we talk for 20 minutes just the two of us.
In the meantime the station would collapse.

I always feel like everything happens a bit two fast. And I believe this is due to a vicious cycle.

People talk less, act more.
More action makes the round end sooner.
Round ending sooner makes people rush more.
People rush more so they talk less.

For instance, I’ve had times were I was an antagonist and I was on botany for example.

I spend 40 minutes preparing a collection of deadly and tactical vegetables to assist me in my goals.

As I leave botany I realize there’s a hole where the HOP line once was.
The station is on red alert and in disarray.

Suddenly I get space dragoned out of existence.

I will feel like I just wasted an antagonist round.

Thus, next time around I will rush (not me, this hypothetical me) to make sure I don’t waste it.

Then in the process I make a hole where the HoP line once was.

The alert gets raised. The station falls into dissaray.

And then I get space dragoned out of existence.

Now, I don’t know how the server was before, I’m a new player.
And I’m not advocating for endless rounds.
And I know 1:30 is already a long time.

But I believe that when things are set in motion they don’t… Move… They FLY.

Maybe this can be fixed with more meetings…
Less alerts…
More asking less doing…
And maybe… Less space dragons :sunglasses:

Anyways, I don’t know if this made any sense but I hope I added something worthwhile to this discussion from the point of view of a fairly new arrival.

Cheers!!!

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I think there is something to be said for using the warden as the training wheels for learning how to be an effective head since the warden by necessity does a lot of things Dmitri is suggesting.

  • They REALLY SHOULDN’T leave their department making them rely on delegation rather than personal action to get things done
  • They pay attention to general and security channels which isn’t overwhelming
  • They take the information they gained from that observation and use it to coordinate their underlings
  • They act as a pseudo-AI for security manning cameras, sec records, vital monitors. This helps with realizing what the AI can and can’t do, and how they can help you in other command roles
  • They have a boss so if you are ever unsure what to do you can just ask
  • Excellent room for RPing with any and all apprehended suspects

I could go on and on further on why the warden is an excellent role when played well but I would be here all day.

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Welcome in the topic, little Joon! :slight_smile:

Your point of view do matter. Especially as a new arrival! Because it means you can look at everything with fresh eyes, without having been accustomed to the strange, twisted way of doing things that this game is full of.

My compliments! What you just described is exactly the vicious cycle that ruled on Bee. Back then I even witnessed rounds end within 20 minutes or less, because if there was a skilled traitorous atmosian on board, then that was it.

A good old plasmaflood is always the most efficient way to destroy the entire station.

And then people would end up very bitter and started replicating this very attitude and so on.

Exactly as you described!

That’s why I was so suprised coming back, to find out that the environment radically shifted and from the everpresent LRP, the battle for Bee’s soul was won by RP! A very pleasant surprise.

Indeed it can! You see, let’s take a big hull breach as example. Caused by an eplosion so big it atomised even the flooring, covering 2 hallways.

For a lone engineer it would take at least 20-30 minutes to fix or even more (especially if you’re slow as I am!). But if we start to act more like the great squad I know we already are, then we’ll have a totally different experience. Because if all the 3 engineers on board, plus the CE and 2 atmosians, will truly start acting professionally, under CE’s supervision, the I can assure you that you’ll get the whole situation fixed and the atmosphere restorated in less than 10 minutes.

You’re experiencing the whole station falling so fast down into chaos because there is no one that conducts(read:succeed) an organised effort in restoring its original state. So each hit just moves the ticker towards total chaos a little bit more, each time.

A single graffiti gets cleaned, an entire hallway full of gibs stays like that.

A room spaced get fixed and refilled, an entire hallway breached becomes almost a permanent biohazard.

The SM delaminates? Time to call the shuttle before we run out of power.

And so on.

Now, thankfully, the example I just wrote up here aren’t absolute. So even if in the majority of cases that’s the norm, situations do get fixed sometimes. But the problem is that this usually happens only if you have a good and interested soul in that shift, in the pertinent department. And this is a very rare occurence if more than one department needs to take action to solve the matter.

You see, this would get fixed if both the command and crew started truly cooperating.

I lost count of how many times I needed to warn engineering and atmospherics about hull breaches or air alarms. That I discovered while staying in bridge, as the captain, with no comms or not seeing any emergency, but just routinely looking at the console.

And I don’t blame the players. Because they’re accustomed to not being asked to do anything aside setup the power at shift start. Or see the shuttle called each time they are working to do repairs. Because no one ever directs them!

But if instead we as command start directing our crew and the crew start noticing that not only their help is needed, but is being both requested and cherished by their head and the rest of the ship, then we’ll put to good use the incredible amount of expertise a lot of us have!

And then instead of having a crippled ship by a single emergency that was never handled, we’ll starting to see that the shuttle will be called only because we did everything that was there to do! As we should, that’s why NT pays us, anyway.

Good lord Darn, you’re the man! :smiley: (pun intended!)

I never noticed how 100% truly the warden hits the sweet spot for command training. Especially having another head over you to assist you in getting your footing.

Maybe we could put a small 10 hour requirement to play as one before playing any other head.

Wonderfully insightful comment Darn!

Thanks for your contribution!

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Hello one of the big problem i’ve realised and also seen with all these comments is the lack of awareness of people and command about the station and their own departement.
One easy fix i’ve found to better catch the important things is to use the higlight function for each shift and search the keywords depending on your departement. Search keywords that people may use when they need you, a janitor should maybe highlight (clean, janitor) and so on.
Every player should probably highlight: [their name], [their job], [their departement], help, dying
For exemple CMO should maybe highlight: medical, cmo.

This would greatly help comunicating and cooperating with other people when needed. Because information can easily be missed in the flood of information that is radio.

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Yes this helps a lot. Althought I only have my name. Because I’m always on random jobs and can’t be bothered to change the highlights everytime at shift start unless I am unfortunate enough to be sec haha

Well you should really take these 40 seconds to change your highlights. It’s not much more annoying than maxing your suit sensors.

As someone with a decent amount of experience being HoS and Cap on another server, as well as experience being HoP and Acting Cap on modern bee, I feel where alot of these complaints come from. It reminds me actually of how far things have come, on old bee there was like a 20% chance of the captain just ignoring his job and getting drunk or whatever. I’d actually say that the standards for command have gone up quite a bit from when I first played in 2020, at least from an RP point of view. However I agree, there’s still work to be done.

I think there are a few things that make the round escalate quickly/hold back RP in command:

  1. There’s a certain amount of players who just play the heads for the gamer gear and the extra access, and have little to no interest in leading their department
  2. As has been mentioned things that get broken don’t get fixed. A station that looks like trash will be treated like it, and it snowballs quickly. Same goes with crime: if there are no security personnel to arrest people doing petty crimes, things will escalate quickly. Relatedly, sec is often understaffed.
  3. Some baddies (for example cult) can snowball incredibly fast, and any conversion antag is basically in an arms race with sec. If command held a meeting to discuss the cult and how to deal with it there’s a very good chance of it being too late because of that. By this I don’t mean that command should be focused on redtexting antags or anything, or that culties shouldn’t be allowed to win; rather, I mean that if command is slow to recognize the threat by, lets say 10 minutes, it’s dramatically tilted the board in favor of the cult, which is an ultimately game ending antagonist for the station. Ultimately I think this is more of a game design issue than a player issue, and personally I like to play cult/ sec investigating cult.
  4. (personal rant bonus) HoP is hypothetically the second highest head on the totem pole but realistically there’s not much to do after the first 10 minutes in the hopline. I think this is in part due to their department being spread out more, and in part due to the QM doing most of the management for supply. The Head of Personnel is the head that acts least and is treated least like a head. I think the solution to this is almost entirely RP, with HoPs talking to service employees and involving themselves more in their projects and in solving their problems.

Anyway this is my little contribution, and I’d just like to say that I really respect the effort that you’ve put into this thread, have a lovely day.

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I very greatly agree with No.4

HoP’s should consider more than just ID modification as part of their job, Keeping the Qm from doing stupid shit, assisting in the renovations of bar/kitchen, ensuring co-operation between botany and kitchen, keeping botany from doing stupid shit and keeping note of the janitor’s work in keeping the station clean are all well within the HoP’s purview of authority and responsibility.

Additionally being the Captain’s gentle, open left hand is also a really good thing, helping to co-ordinate departments and such, given the HoP is effectively an LT.

(guess who’s the right hand man? The HoS the closed fist.)

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i am uncontrollable

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This is where we apply the aforementioned right hand or one of it’s subordinates.

Going to start off by saying this is a reply to several different comments. I will have quoted what I am replying to.

I dislike how easy people are to leave the station. I find it enjoyable to build up the station and fix it. So what if the main hallway has a massive gaping hole? Patch it up! Rebuild it.

I’ve had one Captain call the shuttle because the SM blew up. Did it make a tesla? Nope. A massive hole? Nope. What then? It destroyed the inner shielding walls and roughly ten hull tiles… I had an RCD mech which fixed it in ten seconds. Our Engineer and AI were there and were up to fixing it the SM.

Me on antag. I was destroyed so easily early into my days on here which has sort of been engraved into my mind into making me more cautious. Quite annoying.

Or if it is late into the game ask the Roboticist to make a Ripley with an RCD and it’ll take two minutes for the hull itself.

I’d like to see a Second in Command for each department. Like the CMO having their own variant of a Warden. A lil’ mini expert Doctor who does everything CMO does and acts like the CMO during their absence, but never does anything related to Command.

But then you need to change them when you swap department or even rank, and for people who play on random every time, like PinkSuzuki that’s a pain! Not to mention, if you’re an antag 90% of it can be useless.

Hehe… hacks into Cargo to upgrade Ore Machine.

I think this would be a lot better if converstion antags spawned late into the round, as then the station has at least gotten the bare basics down. Like some resources, basics meds, research, and whatnot.

THIS!! Game heavily favours acting and not talking. Voice-to-voice when? Let’s implement AI generates voices in the game so we can at least talk whilst walking in a line. lol

I played HoP once earlier this week and this is exactly the vibe I get from them. Just walking around and checking out each department and their head if nothing else!

I think for this reason that HoP should get additional radio keys. Perhaps mot Sec, but at least Medbay, Engineering and Science, so that they may communicate with the different departments. Maybe even acting like an announcer!

Markus*
It’s been a few days since my first response so sorry if I say things which conflict. I do have some conflicting opinions which I am not certain of.

But it is your job to remain informed and rarely do heads inform, why would they if it has been said over common?

I do, then they tell me then I tell them “ok”

Tell that to the miners demanding upgrades, doctors demanding research, wounded demanding treatment, everyone demanding power, and so on while your employees or coworker are off doing God knows what. Either people are completely independent, as in they know their job and do it, or don’t know shit and or are an antag busy murdering.

I ask if anyone is doing X, Y or Z, and if not then I guess I’ll do it myself. Please do note that I very often only play during low pop hours, usually around 10 people.

Doesn’t work, tried it as the CMO. While I can within 10 minutes make 30 sheets of plastic, 150u atropine, 60u inacusine, 60u oculine, 45u antihol, and just gotten the first batch of 40u Synthflesh patches. Almost every other chemist can’t make a basic Oxandrocyclic (Oxandrolone and Salicyclic Acid combined) after an hour and then they made Trico and called it a day. Even tried to fire them of which they then stormed off and became a liability.

And make groups of cameras for each room, even if it is just basic renaming to give them groups.

And that’s part of the game. Not going to lie, an actual tutorial of some sort of implementation would be cool. Maybe even weekly “How to” weekends for people wanting to learn Command or other roles would be nice and lore friendly.

So walking down an alleyway with tons of new symbolical graffiti in your local neighbourhood is fine to you?

Or the robber will be rational and realize, it might not be a good idea to rob this place 6 times in a row.

I rarely play Command now days, only ever acting so don’t blame me. Just play the game. Rarely does the alert lower. I think this is an issue with the game as it isn’t designed for a new wave of antags. If all antags are dealt with it is just another shift. Perhaps one or two arrives and becomes an antag but other wise, no, it is a greenshift now.

I think the players should be more resistant and antags come in waves. Perhaps you have the normal round start antag. If they don’t move a lot, the game will consider them irrelevant and start the second wave of sleeper agent awaking, then perhaps it is late game so then we’ll get xenos, and finally it is like three hours in and every possible threat has been delt with. All of the station fall asleep and wake up as revs!! That’d be a huge twist. I’d love that for an ending.

I agree with this. Maybe a few minor notes for all heads could set 'em straight? I don’t even remember this from reading Command SOP!

Which there rarely is as the threat is hiding in maints. It’s difficult to keep track on why there is a blue alert. Say that you find the threat and jail them or whatnot. Why was the blue alert raised? Already forgotten by then.

Miners are gamers. Jokingly said “miner check!” while operating on the miner while he was awake, they found it funny. Honestly, almost need to do that semi-regularly. During my hours I think I’ve built-up a bit of a reputation to talk to the miners decently. Often immediately offering a mining mech, fixing their ore machine, Quantum pad, and so on.

Spot on. Well, most of the time miners don’t need to communicate. Sure you might say they need bdtter ore satchels, but they only need better ore satchels because the station want resources. You get enough resources to upgrade your weapon and then fuck off for the rest of the round. What about late game for miners? Well you get your gamer gear and show it off on the station and MAYBE go mining a lil’ bit because you feel generous. There is no benefit for miners to mine.

That said, as a Roboticist I am VERY dependant on the miners and love those who do mine. Especially those who mine enough for me to continue work in Robotics

Despite English not being your mother tongue, you do have a way with your words to be very polite. I like that.

I don’t mind being criticised, I prefer it in order to learn. That’s how I learn things and better myself. <3

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Something like Orderly?