Ambiic telling the coders they can just delete lowpop
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I personally like this idea quite a lot. A way to get acquainted with everyone before the round, even if briefly.
Then it would also give some people an RP point when the re-encounter at some point during the round “oh I saw them at the shift place, I should perhaps ask em how their doin and how their plans for the shift have gone”. It removes (to some extent) the “rest of the crew are strangers, as they just appeared from maints or wherever, why should I care about a stranger?” and such. I may even attempt to whip up a draft “arrivals outpost”
Well, a chat before the round (an IC chat) to do the afore mentioned crew acquaintance-ing would give a kind of forced interaction, thus improving to some extent, the RP possibilities. Also to :-EDIT #2 good point, @Wrill I will admit I forgot about mentors, but to be fair that’s because I usually play when no mentors are online single out identify new players, so then anyone who is in a position to teach em can, before the teacher has decided on what they will do for the round.
EDIT#1: Whipped up a little arrival station. One problem I see however is that each station will have to have its own arrival station, due to the different sizes and spaces between the airlocks.
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Why not just have it as a large holding bay for the shuttle, with tiny fans and blast doors and all that rather than airlocks?
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Oh that’s a much better idea for the hanger! Just a large dry dock big enough to accommodate all the arrival shuttles. As for the code though, I know next to nothing about byond code 
I’ll volunteer to do the mapping though, if this idea gets properly considered to be added in.
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Going to attempt to learn some mapping and write more of an actual design document for this idea so it can be properly critiqued by actual devs and mappers. But please do keep discussing this!
I had this idea several years ago. I wanted to try and use something like that as a pre-round hub (originally my idea was sort of a space bus-stop). Instead of doing the shop stuff via the preferences menu, you’d do it all in that hub area. I also wanted it to act as a tutorial zone for new players. Something that’d provide a guided walkthrough on the basic mechanics for people connecting for the first time.
The idea ultimately fell through due to a lack of resources. It’s still something that I think could work very well and provide an immersive way to get into the game.
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I’ve love this too!
My idea only included allowing Heads to prepare for protentional newbies, but an actual dedicated in-character tutorial would be really neat too but most likely impossible. To be fair, we do have the existing ghost roles for tutorials in many fields. Podpeople for botany, Syndicate Base for Virology, Chemistry, Cargo(?), Engineering, Bar, Medical, and dialogue (Comms Agent), and then Free Golems which basically has it all.
In either case, I think all forms of tutorials for this kind of game REQUIRES that you have someone to walk you through it step-by-step out-of-character. I recently introduced the game to a friend and he had a lot of trouble with hands, picking things up and even how to talk in an RP fashion (he wasn’t entirely sold on the RP aspect of the game unfortunately). Point being that jumping into SS13 for the very, very first time is extremely difficult to tutorialize in-character.
a great place to debrief the department before entering the station, on strategy, distributing jobs, etc.
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I’ve tried to get into the habit of running around with my clipboard as RD and keepin’ a note of each of my staff members on what they’re working on, what they’ve worked on and their behaviour. But also to distribute work if there are available staff around.
However (more of a rant), some people, especially non-antags, don’t like having a boss being their actual boss. The slightest request would upset them. Had a Roboticist who was new to Robotics but was REALLY trying their best only to fail and was very apologetic. They weren’t an antag apparently… I had no clue. Then I had another Roboticist who fucked off like five times and went close to no-contact and had a big attitude towards me before they had to cryo I think, don’t think they were an antag. Some people are just annoying…
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On this note, I think the med department should be just one role, since MDs have a lot of downtime but medbay is short on doctors when overloaded. This would also help with autism fort geneticists/viros, and jobs could be assigned and such in centcom.
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I agree with this! I used to looooooooove chemistry, but if we get 20+ bodies into medbay then sure, I can do some basic tending and revival.
That type of knowledge crosspolinates too so making med like science seems like the easiest option
Crosspolinates? What?
Science wouldn’t really know surgery at all, maybe tending? Robotics most would know it due to their implant expertise and perhaps some other surgeries. However, Science could help in other ways such as constructing more life stasis beds.
This is what mentors are for, no? There is already an established system for this, all a new player needs to find is the mentor tab. I will say that mentors are overlooked far too often, to the point of frustration at times.
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Can be harder than you think. xd
How many buttons are there in this game upon joining? What does Mentor in the top right hidden away mean? If you wanna teach people, act like they are stupid. Because compared to you with 1 000+ hours in the game, they actually are. BRIGHT FLASHING BUTTON GIVING NON-EPILEPTIC’S EPILEPSY SAYING “ASK FOR HELP HERE!!” would be a subtle away of informing new players. I didn’t even know you could have a mentor until I had already learnt the game itself. lol
Also, this is getting… a bit unrelated to Starting At Cent Comm. I’d love to discuss more about this in another thread if anyone is willing to make it?
Yes, this is an issue that has been discussed plenty of times and it has been said equally as many times it needs to be more obvious to new players.
This is a terrible way to treat new players, they are clueless, but it’s insulting to call them stupid.
Simplifying things to make it easier to understand isn’t acting like they’re stupid.
I mean that knowledge between med subdepartments is usually the same so making the structure of med like science is organized seems wise, i’m not saying we should merge med and science.
have it as a HUD icon that can be disabled.
Fair, I am overreacting a lot. I am feeling quite annoyingly eccentric today.
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I usually tend to prefer learning ICly instead of trough mentor. I’ve done it extensively when I was a new player. Deciding to ask Heads of Staff to explain. Actually gives them something interesting to do I find!
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