The most thing I hate for being a captain is turning out to have no command or less command crew on the station. It is worst when there is no HOS at all as sec will expect you to be the HOS and it is not nice.
And oh the nightmare if I roundstart as captain and not a single head crew roundstart with me. Everyone would expect you to act as head everywhere and be everywhere to do their thing which is stressful.
My problem with captain is that its very high demanding role. You have to be in 4 places at the same time, monitor all departments, check comms, do hop job when hop is chilling in bar. and at the same time you have to be always carefull.
Its stresfull and demanding 100% of your attention.
I personally can’t do more than 1-2 captain shifts in a row.
I don’t play cap unless command is mostly staffed (especially HoS), it can be a pain in the ass having to do/boss around every single department by yoursefl.
Yeah, the stakes of playing Captain is always a turn-off. While 9 times out of 10 Captain is just a head with some cool perks, the idea that being in the wrong place at the wrong time might cause everything to go to shit (e.g. nukies) is really oppressive. Similar roles like AI get a pass because there’s no other job like it, plus your vulnerability to subversion usually means that antags prefer you alive and on their side, as opposed to completely out of the game.
Besides, most of the time heads are just regular staff with some cools clothes, a dubious obligation to lead the crew and a big ‘kick me’ slapped on your ass. I don’t know why anyone actually prefers playing heads on a regular basis.
Random spaceman: Captain, why can’t you give me you attention and hear my stupid idea
Captain: An entire department exploded and there may be nukies
Random spaceman: You Lazy noob, I’m gonna tell everybody on discord how you are cringe
I was expecting more people to choose to not be constantly worry of being killed by anybody.
The treat of anybody killing the captain was worst when members of command could be traitors.
Now people just don’t play command, which is maybe worst.
no matter what job you are theres the chance of being killed by anyone. Death is an inevitable part of the game, so being more likely to be killed isnt THAT much of a deal breaker. Besides, if you get killed as a Captain its more likely someones going to try and find and revive you than if you got killed as Assistant #7
I’ve played a few shifts Captain lately and I have to agree with others that a big part of it is it’s extra demanding because you also have to fill the roles of other Heads as they’re not present. Leaving on all channels on your headset means there’s a constant stream of information to examine and respond to, which really should be just left to the department Heads.
I’ve already posted in a poll in another thread that I think a large part of why Command is often empty is due to popcap, though a follow-up thread to this one about why you don’t play as the appropriate Head of your department might reveal some other interesting answers. Part of why I don’t usually play HoS is because I’d rather just do grunt Sec work and not the Command responsibilities.
If more of the HOS’s responsibilities were shared with the Warden (AND IF MORE PEOPLE PLAYED WARDEN!) then HOS wouldnt be such a hassle. Doubly so when there is no captain and you have to act as both Cap and HOS and sometimes Warden if there is none.
For me it’s personal preference to not play command. I don’t even have captain unlocked!
I don’t like or play SS13 for the antag-target dynamic, instead I play for how it spices up a round. The goofy RP aspect is what keeps me playing and coming up with fun gimmicks.
As captain I don’t really have much of a medium or lack of accountability enough to do that safely.
Tbf i do agree with the rest of your comment. I dont play Captain often because of stress either. But i would arguably say CE is more stressful because you have to manage the morons working on the engine and make sure it doesnt explode.