Persistent Job Qualifications

[SnipeDragon]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Rather than a time-based whitelisting procedure, as has been suggested previously for jobs, my idea would involve a more literal approach to qualifying for certain positions in-game. This would mean training and tests being required to unlock certain jobs.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): We have all seen it, an inexperienced person in an important role can cause a massive, negative impact on the entirety on the round. Requiring a new player to join in a basic role, or an 'in-training' role and pass certain benchmarks before being able to officially hold a role would ensure that we wouldn't have an untrained player being one of the only two doctors on the Sulaco. Or an untrained CO/XO/BO in charge of 70 players with no idea what to do.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): Time based job whitelisting is a good idea in principle, but in actual implementation, playing the game for a certain amount of time does not mean you are good at whatever job you have been performing. This idea involves actual training (both automated and in-game) as well as final 'tests' to earn yourself qualification for a particular role. The community as a whole could work together to come up with tutorials/tests for positions requiring a specific qualification.

For instance, a Medical Doctor's test could involve the scanning of, prioritization of treatment and the actual treatment of several different types of injuries. Deaths or improper procedures would result in points being counted off. A certain amount of points would be required for a player to earn their Medical Doctor qualification.

To help players learn a position, tutorials could be made (or use of the already extensive wiki in self-study) and a new job could be added for selection at the start of a round, '[Job] Assistant', so a 'Medical Assistant' would work under the guidance of the Medical Doctors on the station, watching, learning and pitching in where able.

This same 'qualification' requirement could be expanded to important jobs around the Sulaco and in squads, the hopeful end goal would be never having to worry about having someone in a position that didn't know how to perform at the very least, the most basic procedures involved with their job.

I honestly feel that a system like this would benefit the community more than a time-based whitelist system.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): This would be unique to Colonial Marines. I am not aware of any other SS13 server that uses a system like this. Some have time-based whitelisting and some employ manual whitelisting for certain positions. However this system would be a method to automatically test, grade and assign job qualifications without the interference of staff.

The basics for whitelisting a position are already included in Baystation, modifying that system further to check a player for their qualifications would be the first step for this. Second, the addition of verbs for staff members to manually assign and revoke these qualifications. Third would be the selection of 'qualification required' jobs, the further development of documentation for those jobs and the development of testing to earn those qualifications. Fourth, would be the implementation of 'Testing Rooms' where 'Staff Assistants' could go on the Sulaco to study for and eventually earn qualifications for their chosen position, again, through automated testing.

[coolsurf6]

Command and security maybe but i think it would take too much time. If they want to then let them and deal with it. Its either a new commander or no commander. Its ss13 dammit thats how it works.

[Desolane900]

+1 because fucking baldies ruining rounds n stuff

[SnipeDragon]

Command and security maybe but i think it would take too much time. If they want to then let them and deal with it. Its either a new commander or no commander. Its ss13 dammit thats how it works.

On normal SS13, you bet. Having an inexperienced person in a position can be a lot of fun and contribute to the general shenanigans that players come to expect from the game.

On an RP-oriented server like Colonial Marines? An inexperienced person in a high-responsibility position can ruin the round for everyone that depends on that person.

[coolsurf6]

On normal SS13, you bet. Having an inexperienced person in a position can be a lot of fun and contribute to the general shenanigans that players come to expect from the game.

On an RP-oriented server like Colonial Marines? An inexperienced person in a high-responsibility position can ruin the round for everyone that depends on that person.

Then as you mentioned in tutorials on the wiki, we need people to make those. I have no clue how to doctor when i started but the wiki is used to help. Even very experienced doctors use the wiki. We just need something for command that talks about how to deal with situations, how to..., how not to... and how you command like Briefing, On ground etc.

Thats wha

Edit: (trackpad hit submit)
Thats what most people rely on in SS13. We just need compatant people who know how to write guides, or just get someones permision to put a bunch of finished guides on the wiki on the front page.

[Tristan63]

This would add unnecessary pressure to the admins to teach probably children to do military-things on a 2d spessman game.

[Daisuke08]

I vote nay. That's just needlessly complex and would keep people away from those roles simply because it would be a long and tedious process. If people want to get good, they'll get good. The game's not hard enough to warrant this kind of thing and the roles while important need their own tuning first.
Good players shy away from them and mindless baldies take them because most the time you're spent on the sulaco not actually playing the game (the entire reason people come on this server in the first place). It's the issue with having RP elements in a largely action-based game. Aliens have all their players working towards one goal, no role is particularly useless. Marines have several job slots where you generally have little to no impact on the round (looking at you MPs and MTs). COs are important but they don't prevent marines from killing themselves and losing the round.

[enkas]

Nonsense. An experienced doctor should know the surgery steps like the back of his hand.. The only acceptable thing to use wiki in this case, is chemistry, and even so, experience teaches that as well.

[Jroinc1]

You know... are we overthinking this? Could we just put in a lock for characters with BALD hair at setup?

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Nonsense. An experienced doctor should know the surgery steps like the back of his hand.. The only acceptable thing to use wiki in this case, is chemistry, and even so, experience teaches that as well.

I call bullshit on that claim, I would call myself a very experienced doctor but its bullshit to say know every single surgery step on the back of my hand when in reality this doctors in the server really only need to know about 5 (Alien removal, Bone repair, organ repair, brain repair, and eye repair, -you do get the occasional limb reattachment if the ravagers getting choppy). The rest you will rarely ever use and might need a wiki due to various reasons like the CL trying CL things and 'persuades' you to insert a device into the CO. I would have no idea how to do that normally since cavity surgery is so rarely used even on standard servers.

But to the actual suggestion, -1, Honestly this just makes everyone's lives harder and fact is people could come from other servers however I wouldn't complain if there was a timelock for some department heads like CMO (you shouldn't be CMO if you don't know to be a doctor.)

[coolsurf6]

Nonsense. An experienced doctor should know the surgery steps like the back of his hand.. The only acceptable thing to use wiki in this case, is chemistry, and even so, experience teaches that as well.

Nope. I've seen pretty much all doctors use the wiki when ever i play it.

[MrJJJ]

Nope. I've seen pretty much all doctors use the wiki when ever i play it.

Guess you aren't playing with really experienced docs then

[coolsurf6]

Guess you aren't playing with really experienced docs then

Bone Repair is easy. The worst thing is when you take a larva out of someone and find out that they have a bullet and broken bones and then the person LOOCs saying "look at the wiki" and i would say "Ok" and i take his anesthetic off and throw him our of medbay... (I have yet to have the guts to do that to the next person who fucking LOOCs me about shit!

[MrJJJ]

Bone Repair is easy. The worst thing is when you take a larva out of someone and find out that they have a bullet and broken bones and then the person LOOCs saying "look at the wiki" and i would say "Ok" and i take his anesthetic off and throw him our of medbay... (I have yet to have the guts to do that to the next person who fucking LOOCs me about shit!

Oh yeah those guys, they never stop being annoying, especially when they have like 5 surgeries to do and they looc you to look into the wiki because you are taking long

[Sarah_U.]

Neutral, I've teached more players than I can count into roleplaying and how to respect rules, perform their duty and be proper... (Other game)
From my experience, if you begin making ANY FORM of manual training one-by-one you'll have some staff members starting to loose sanity and probably a whole lot of baldies and whatnot getting banned for trolling, acting stupid, etc. during Greytide and off during the rest of the yea.

It's a really nice method to get people PERFORMING... But to keep stability it's a so-so approach as it implies a direct approach of the staff team and potentially a whole lot of salt and trolling;
Especially since most new players that caused problems were the ones NOT LISTENING to begin with... At least from my experience. Though you could call that method a good one to cut out the weed from the rest of the harvest.

[Logi99]

So you're saying we should make a new mode called Training mode and like depending on the rank you want you'll train for it?: I don't get it.

[KingKire]

So i had a small idea on this today and instead of requiring jobs to have pass a certain tests of aptitude to work that job, have it be optional!

A great way to distinguish veteran soldiers from green ones are the medals they have accrued over the years of battle. Since CM and space station 13 in general are always reset at the end of the rounds, there's no way to know the veteran troopers from the run of the mill grunts. Everyone gets a clean slate every round, but because there is no object permanence in this world, everyone always starts out "green" technically. New fresh players could say that their character served out 15 deployments, yet be as bald as a baby when he pops out of cyro.

But how does one earn a medal? Well we could set up a small aptitude test button next to each class ( programmers willing) that would hyperlink to a community created test ( or if that's too much effort, maybe just a guide, and a button on the end that says " yup, i read it").
Successfully passing ( or reading...) the test would give their character description " They are wearing the "Medal of Leadership" on their shirt". ( or heck, maybe have it as a special item they spawn with that they could pin to their hat/shirt/etc)

I feel like that could be a good way for players to know if they have veteran troops at the helm, or green officers who only had two deployments...this being one of them.

-Doctors, Researchers, Engineers could also get their own medals, distinctions, laurels for knowing their stuff. ( This doctor wears the Lapel pin of Health, This engineer sports the Double Wrenches of Not Blowing Up Reactors)
- Some classes might be able to have multiple medals or maybe we could have it so its only one medal per role
- You could enable or disable the medal on your characters bio if you read the guide but feel like you want to roleplay a "green" recruit.

[SnipeDragon]

On the optional front, the tests themselves could be optional, and then have the game prioritize placement for people who have completed the training modules for a specific job. For instance, multiple people have 'Chief Medical Officer' selected as their 'High' priority job. The game would first check to see if any had completed the Doctor training module, if they had, those players would be prioritized over players who had not. The optional training/testing would just increase your chance of being selected for a job.

[TopHatPenguin]

I quite like this optional training quiz/test idea but I think perhaps stick to one or two medals per role if we are going down that path.

So -\-1 to the optional idea, generally because setting up the test/quiz wouldn't be too hard and wouldn't distract the staff either the only hard thing I can think of would be coding how the tests results would be linked to a ckey/character setup.(that is a plus by the way, I just lack the plus sign on my phone)

[Peachy2912]

I'm liking the idea of an optional test that if/when you complete it gives you a higher priority for certain jobs (if that's even possible to code) and adds something to a persons description (such as a medal or qualification certificate, basically something to inform others that you've completed x test/quiz.)

It would be nice to be able to tell at a glance whether the Marine/Doctor/SL that you're working with has any idea what they're doing or whether they perhaps need some help and guidance from the more experienced players on the server.

I feel like a system like this would allow people to not only help each other out (both ICly and OOC) but also end some of the frustration that can be caused by people not knowing how to play the role that they have selected. So if something is like this is able to be implemented it gets my +1.

[Snypehunter007]

Old, lack of continued interest.

Locking.