The Chief role and how we should play it

[Renomaki]

Recently, I had been thinking about how we go about a certain role, and if we are really playing it correctly or not. The role in question happens to be Chief roles (AKA the CMP, the CMO, the CE, and even the RO).

The 4 heads of each department are mainly there to ensure everything is running smoothly and to tend to more important duties that are beyond their lackeys. At the same time, they are there to keep everyone busy and assigning duties as the game moves along. However, oftentimes this isn't really what happens.

Sometimes, a chief role has to get a bit more involved in his work when staff are short and demands are high, and this is understandable. But if they have a full department and yet STILL feel the need to do his team's job for them, I feel that is a bit of a problem. Mainly in that it steals work from OTHERS, leaving them with less to do and thus bores them. Lemme state an example...

Lets say you have a full staff of doctors, enough for all the ORs. You might be one of these doctors, who no doubt is probably a tad bored waiting for the first batch of wounded marines to arrive. Soon enough, however, you got some hurt marines rolling through medical (lets say there are 4, one for each doctor), and you get hyped up to make peoples owies go away!... But then for whatever reason, the CMO just takes one of the wounded for himself and denies you the chance to do your job.

A more common example is MPs, and how the CMP very often is found patrolling the halls looking for crime to bust when his MPs should be the ones doing that job. Infamous Jack Knight is known for being a hardcore CMP, but the way he behaves is more akin to a lower ranking MP. So why take up a leadership position if you are just going to do the job for your staff and deny them any action in a rather dull role?

Now, everyone has their own way of doing things, and I can't change how people play, but after awhile, I can't help but consider past experiences and wonder if we really are utilizing chief roles correctly. They aren't supposed to be an elite variant of an ordinary job, but rather are leadership positions and guides for those who are less experienced. They should ensure everyone in their department is occupied with something to do while dealing with things their staff can't do, such as paperwork and talking to the commander.

I'm not saying that people playing in chief roles should NEVER do their staff's jobs for them (sometimes having low staff can require one to get involved to make up for the lack of said staff), but if you have a full department, wouldn't it be better to organize and assign duties to them throughout the round, and thus make their jobs more interesting?

That is just my thoughts on the matter. What do you think? Should Chief roles focus more on leading and less on doing? How do you feel when you have opportunities to do your job taken from you by your department head? how do you play a chief role?

[CSolaris]

As the CMO, I usually tend to take upon myself the more tedious task(s) or the more severe injuries for myself. Things such as making the medic supply and other various things, or treating the marine that was run over by the tank, shot to pieces by fellow marines armed with buckshot, trampled by the queen beno and then OD’d by marine medics yet somehow still survived. Apart from that, I just let doctors do doctor things and I find something else to do (pushing papers, making extra medications, spinning in circles in medbay lobby or finding new clothes to wear). Of course, if someone else wants to do chemistry or try their hand at patching up whatever is left of a marine, then all they have to do is say so.

[coroneljones]

In my example, its less that I bind the MPs to the brig, but more that everyone is out on patrol, which means the more people we have out on patrol the more areas we can cover in less time, for maximum visibility.

That and half of the time I cant even trust the MPs to do it properly

[RaidenFTW]

You're sort of right with what you are saying. It is indeed really annoying when CMO/Researchers decides to do the doctor job when not needed. Not long ago there were 4 doctors in medbay, a CMO and a researcher. I was playing as a Doctor, and hella bored because most of the medics decided not to use the medevac that often. Once an injured marine came up with DS1, CMO decided to rush to it and treat the marine himself.

Same thing happened while playing as a MP. CMP decided to chase the wanted marine herself, arrested him and brought him back to brig. She sentenced him for 40 minutes and called a MP to wait there until he's sentence is over. As predicted, MP and the suspect gone SSD.

Now i know it is annoying to see chiefs to do their employees' job instead of leading them, but when playing as a chief you can get really bored for doing nothing. For example, when i was playing as a CMP i decided to collect folders for each case, and did the paper job. (Like shooting the photos of inmates, a report of the MP who arrested who, if the prisoner complies to give a confess, recording of it, analyses/photos of the contraband items.) It was fun when you had to do stuff. But not every round goes like that, most of the time CMPs just do nothing when there are experienced enough MPs to take control of everything. I think there should be a rule about this situation to stop leaders to do their employees' job, when not necessary.

[TheMusician321]

Personally, CMO should both be doing surgeries AND delegating other stuff to other docs, mechanic-wise he has the /fastest/ surgery speed which can really speed stuff up, delegate other stuff to doctors or researchers such as triage, stabilization, making chems.

[Sir Lordington]

I'm a big proponent of administrative CMO, I really am. However, the fact is that doing surgery is the optimum way to CMO since he is faster than doctors.

Playing a hands off CMP is great and all but most of the time I find that I cannot trust the MPs to do the job correctly and end up having to do it myself.

[spookydonut]

Cmo is just slightly faster on average, they can lose the rng rolls and end up slower on any given surgery

[Vispain]

In my example, its less that I bind the MPs to the brig, but more that everyone is out on patrol, which means the more people we have out on patrol the more areas we can cover in less time, for maximum visibility.

That and half of the time I cant even trust the MPs to do it properly

As a regular MP I find that MPs do need to be monitored by the WO and the WO should take a stance of being involved.

Usually when I'm MP and I end up having to take charge of other MPs and reprimand them for having weapons out or just am teaching new MPs they refer to me as Boss. Which is hilarious and sad as this occurs even when I'm not their boss. Just another MP helping them.
A WO should monitor his MPs and actively participate in patroling and MP duties as, asides from Brig duty or say CIC Guard Duty, the WO has no reason to be not doing really doing anything actively. Monitor how they act. Monitor the marines. Monitor Command. Monitor proper procedures for arrests and such if you have newer MPs or ones that don't know what they are fully doing yet. Delegate and participate. It can be done.

Personally, asides from a rare few, I feel I can usually do the job better than my fellow MPs. For example...yesterday we had a MP in the brig for several misdemeanors and he was pending demotion. The MP who put him in didn't realize the law changed regarding IDs so he left the MP with his ID on. I noticed this vaguely but it didn't occur to me to remove it. Seconds later....the fellow runs out of the brig because his MP ID has full access and we are both too slow to catch him and we can't track him for unknown reasons. Meaning....a rogue, wanted MP is now loose on the ship with all access. Brilliant work team.

[Retrokinesis]

I feel like it depends a lot on what specific chief role we're talking about here?

CMP: this one seems to be the most "administrative". You have the final word on interpretation of marine law for the round (unless staff chooses to intervene) and MPs will ask for it somewhat frequently. Even when they don't, you should be correcting bad charges. You're also responsible for appeals and contacting High Command if necessary. Primarily, though, you have to tell MPs to do things. Even just "get on the checkpoints" early on will save people a lot of grief. Tell them to patrol for SSDs, remind them to update the records (and do it yourself when they fail to), guard the prisoners in the brig so they can keep patrolling, etc. A good CMP can make the MPs far more effective and less grief-inducing. A bad one can turn them into nightmares that inspire a mutiny.

CMO: on one hand, you can't really do anything a regular doctor can't. On the other, you have an actual mechanical advantage in that you do surgery slightly faster than they do. I feel like a good CMO should first be ensuring that medbay isn't getting overwhelmed, since it's so easy to tunnel vision on your current patient as a doctor and ignore absolutely everything else. Ensure the medics are supplied, either by getting a doctor to man chemistry or doing it yourself. Ensure triage codes are being used so people with IB and horrific organ damage aren't laying on the floor in a stasis bag while the doctors treat single fractures. A good thing to do is make sure the autodoc is running constantly to cut down on overflow, since doctors only tend to check if they walk past and see it empty. In my experience, this is also the chief role that involves the most teaching. You'll see a lot of "Professor, what does... " and should be prepared and happy to answer them.

CE: my experience with CE is weird. I've found that the department is usually either completely empty except for myself, meaning I'm doing literally everything, or it's massive and half full of people who are doing their jobs and half full of people who are borderline antagonists that are going to cause problems and get arrested in 20 minutes. The only thing you can really do that MTs can't is repair comms without having to hack the door open first, which barely counts, so I do the most delegating as CE. Typically, I'll babysit the reactors so the MTs can go off and do whatever they want to do. You can also be a direct link between the squad engineers and req in case the SOs aren't doing their job, which is helpful.

RO: you generally don't have much of a choice in the matter; req is a small department at the best of times, and you usually end up either having to run a line or running both of them yourself. It also has the dubious honor of being both a massive bottleneck that can slow deployment to a crawl and a job that attracts new players because they've played CT on other servers and figure it's basically the same here. The real thing you should be doing is controlling how points are spent. Don't let anything be purchased without your approval, because you're the one who's going to have to explain why req felt ordering a bunch of spec ops crates was more important than getting the FOB squad metal and sandbags.

[superjo98]

As a CMO in my opinion one of the most crucial things you should be doing is making sure that someone good is running chemistry, Getting medics better medicines will make your life so much easier and have clonexodone will also help medbay greatly, you should also ensure that EVERYBODY gets treated at some point. Most people understand when a doctor treats another patient that is in a worse condition, but sitting in medbay with enough broken bones to stop you from being robust but not enough to make you a priority can be really frustrating, also make sure important roles get treated too. If 2 marines come in, ones a SL and ones a normal boot. Treat the SL first since they would have a larger affect on the round.

[Wesmas]

RO: you generally don't have much of a choice in the matter; req is a small department at the best of times, and you usually end up either having to run a line or running both of them yourself. It also has the dubious honor of being both a massive bottleneck that can slow deployment to a crawl and a job that attracts new players because they've played CT on other servers and figure it's basically the same here. The real thing you should be doing is controlling how points are spent. Don't let anything be purchased without your approval, because you're the one who's going to have to explain why req felt ordering a bunch of spec ops crates was more important than getting the FOB squad metal and sandbags.

To my mind, you are missing some of the tasks of the RO. Planning supplies in bags for crates is a big part of being prepared for req. The bottlenecking is a real issue, which must be absolute hell during high pop rounds.
Cheif roles can also do fun little bits of RP too. When its quiet in req and we have all the supplies I want bagged, I tell CTs to go on a break for 5. Gives a chance to explore the ship, interact with other players and a good chance for a snack, both for character and player.

[x31stOverlord]

I mostly play the Head Roles as administrative and guiding more than hands on. You can't deny the effect seeing that black beret has on marines though. Suddenly acting like grammar school graduates rather than crayon eating marines.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

CMP: Unless you are short handed you don’t need to be patrolling. I mostly watch on the Cameras because that’s how you end up catching the MTs who try to break into the officers mess to steal alcohol. The CMP is more of a dispatcher and law reviewer in my opinion.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

As a CMO, I basically just prep the paperwork for chem, yell at someone to do chem, yell the same ole boring stuff about prepping IV and ORs, and basically let all of my doctors do the work while I find something else to do on the ship. If they're overwhelmed, then I'll return to medbay and help man the autodoc and body scanner.