Evacuation Rework #174
Evacuation Rework #174
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…mbamactionman-evacuation-rework.md
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really well written nice rework doc |
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Which console are you refering to? For normal shuttles, the CD is inserted into the existing Shuttle Console. Escape pods either use the station's Escape Pod Controller Console (EPCC) or the individual pods' Disk Consoles; if Command decides to dismantle the EPCC for some reason (why, when removing the disk does the same thing?), the Disk Consoles can always be used to set the destination if you have the CC CD. As mentioned in the proposal, Evac Shuttle is not changed and will not have any console that could be sabotaged.
Based on the end of the comment, there may have been some misunderstanding. There should only be one CC CD mapped on the station, located in the EPCC. While it is inserted there, individual escape pods do not require individual disks to launch. Command does have the ability to remove it from the EPCC, but ideally this should only be exercised for a valid reason. Rounds where traitors are dealt with, extended, nukies and survival are examples where Command have no strong reason to remove the CC CD, and if they do crew will be able to respond accordingly.
The proposal lists two ways this could be solved without mob pushing. |
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If there is a strong concern that Command will too often remove the CC CD to take the Cargo/Salvage shuttle to CentCom, thus making Escape Pods too often unusable, it'd be possible to make the EPCC provide CC FTL to both pods and non-evac shuttles. Then Command will only need to remove the CC CD if they want to intentionally restrict travel, and antags are further incentivized to break in and steal it if they want to force Command to use the evac shuttle. |
There's 2 problems here:
The priority should be making a round interesting and whatever measures antags need to hit a "greentext" are secondary. |
I agree that greentexts are meant to be motivators and suggestions for making a round interesting, and not goals to be blindly pursued. The proposal is written with this in mind. In the scenario you describe (which best fits in on a Traitor round), the onus is on the antags to ensure Command/Sec does not have the power to control the escape pod availability. Don't want Sec to force you onto the shuttle? Steal the CC CD. While it is a high-value target it is also not alone in being a secure item, so should an antag wish to use a pod with certainty they are forced to perform a heist, increasing round interestingness. If you do succeed you get appropriately rewarded with a much safer and trivial evacuation, which sounds less interesting on its own sure, but that safety comes at the cost of other antags who now have to use the shuttle and possibly get in conflict with Sec. Don't want to steal the CC CD and don't want to go to the evac shuttle? Staying on the station is always a valid option. Is it an escape from the station? No, but I think that's a suitable result for player who does not wish to engage with the end of round gameplay. I am not concerned about the CC CD being removed from the EPCC and hidden in a random drawer somewhere. We have rules for important Command items not being powergamed away so that antags have a chance to steal them, and this would fall within that territory. |
We're trying to reduce admin burden, not further increase it. Anything new must not impose increased admin intervention to ensure gameplay. |
Absolutely agree, which is why I referenced it falls under existing rules. The CMO's portable crew monitor was made into a similar kind of high-security item just a week ago, so we're clearly not opposed to adding this level of secure item if it contributes to positive gameplay, no? |
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a cmo would keep it on their person and not think of hiding it in a toilet at -17, 350 because "it has no use before evac" and "syndies might want it" |
One thing I did not include in the proposal due to its subjectivity was that I feel pods are underutilized in general. I barely ever see them being used myself. While I agree that the proposed change might make it harder for normal crew to use pods in certain scenarios/round types, my feeling was that this would impact a very small number of players. Since the concern has been raised that this will impact normal crew though, I took the time to actually check how commonly pods are being used. As the main use cited is RP, I decided to look at recent Salamander rounds (March 5th-7th) and counted how many players used the pods. I did not include rounds with the following:
Salamander rounds, escape pod usage
*Players were counted by checking the player manifest at the end of round screen. As such, there may be a small margin of error. This puts us at 1 escape pod uses every 6,5 shifts, or 1 per 350 players. While this is a relatively small sample size, I do think it's indicative of that if this change were to restrict the use of pods for normal crew somewhat, the impact of the "interestingness" of the round would be very low. Honestly I think that pod usage might even go up for regular crew; if the pods are guaranteed to dock at CentCom like the proposal suggests, crew are probably more likely to use them during the rounds where the CC CD is still in the EPCC. |
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I brought this up to a few other players and they made a good point that while Mander is the more RP-focused server, Lizard is more representative of what the majority of players experience. Excluded the following rounds:
Lizard rounds, escape pod usage
Players were counted by checking the player manifest at the end of round screen. Most rounds had >80 players on the list, likely due to leaving/cryo. This puts us at 1 escape pod user every 1,7 shift, or 1 per 58 players. This is a significant increase compared to Salamander! My theory is that shuttle bombing is a lot more prevalent on Lizard (I didn't explicitly count it, but I would say I saw it more during the Lizard rounds), making non-antag crew much more willing to use the escape pods just to avoid that scenario. From there it follows that if shuttle bombings are made less common, pod usage would be expected to go down. It's also worth noting that I found no antags using pods, in either list. My conclusion from this is that it's necessary to ensure that normal crew aren't screwed over by the rework, at least to the degree that they don't feel cheated if Command decides to remove the CC CD from the EPCC. I think a step in the right direction would be to have the EPCC provide FTL travel for both pods and shuttles. That way Command's only reason to remove it would be to control the escape options available to antags - while that would allow Security to more easily catch known antags, it also concentrates the crew. Leaving the CC CD may risk some antags getting away using the alternate methods, but at least crew will be more spread out around the station in shuttles and pods. I would assume the former scenario is preferable when there are known antags/stolen items, while the latter is when antags have been caught/zombie rounds. |
Let's resolve that weird thing where evacuating from the station in any way other than the evac shuttle doesn't actually count as evacuating, while also making it into an engaging gameplay opportunity for both crew and antags!
This has gone through a few iterations on Discord and on github by now, hope you enjoy it.