Vgstation13: Ideas to Decrease Latejoining

[Kurfursten]

Unfortunately a lot of people still latejoin instantly at shift start. Some ideas I've had in order of how good I think the idea is:

Remove Disincentives to Ready

• Improve readyup tools so that you can "get next job if coworkers present". Good for people who want to ONLY botany solo or who like to "fill in" a department that is missing crucial staff (e.g.: will set up power if there is no engineer but already a doctor) #28413
• Rewrite assassination objectives. Either do away with them in favor of something more interesting or make it so they get their target revealed to them at 10 minutes. Many modern objectives are flexible to modify themselves in the datum age so this is no problem codewise. #22153

Incentives for people who are ready at roundstart

• Goodie box like high prio latejoins?
• A a free cosmetic/vanity item selected in your prefs like HRP servers have? e.g.: a hat, a pack of cigs or cigar, a hazard vest, extra cash.
• Or perhaps even special stuff you can only get this way. E.g.: a box filled with small bottles of random dispenser chemicals, a cheat code for the arcades, a pAI RAM expansion chip
• Make some kind of mechanism by which the spare goes to a ready head of staff (e.g.: what I attempted with the heir to the throne PR)

Meta incentives for ready up

• Congratulations for staying the whole shift on credits if still present
• Some kind of goodboy points. Not even necessarily with a use, but just for bragging rights, using persistence. For example, "who" might show an asterisk next to their name for each hundred rounds readied up. Or the labor records could track this data (if we ever get them back).
• Slight weight preference in antag rolls?? (Uncertain this would be wise)

Disincentivize early latejoins
I'd prefer not to do this because I think it could crate odd distortions in player behavior, but we could do something like

• Disable latejoining for 10 minutes
• Spawn latejoiners at centcomm and make them take a shuttle to arrivals, making latejoining less convenient

[SonixApache]

I still don't see why latejoining is even remotely an issue, aside from 'muh jecties'.

[Kurfursten]

Affects roundstart rulesets

[DrSnips]

While the roundstart manifest prediction has solved a lot of issues related to people wanting to latejoin it also has created a few new ones for example.
-You see a single engineer ready.
-"Oh ok. I guess engineering is set I will pick [role here] instead."
-Round starts
-Turns out that the only engineer ready is a mouth breathing retard and is just doing it for a free hardsuit.
or
-The player that was ready had the hopes that someone else would ready up to help teach them.

[boy2mantwicethefam]

Go for the high road, go for higher antag chances :dancer:

[SonixApache]

First two are a good idea.
"Free HRP item of choice" is also a nice idea. Something I've wanted to implement for years, actually.
The rest, not so much. People will sometimes latejoin 1-10 minutes in regardless.

[SGuivenne]

• Improve readyup tools so that you can "get next job if coworkers present". Good for people who want to ONLY botany solo or who like to "fill in" a department that is missing crucial staff (e.g.: will set up power if there is no engineer but already a doctor)

I will say that this is the primary reason I latejoin at roundstart. As much as I love playing meme or chill jobs like chef, botanist, or mining/QM, if there arent' people in head roles or medbay or engineering or security or whatever its far more vital to round progression that I join as those, and as a result joining round start is actually a detriment to station game quality.

If you fix this I'd happily ready up at round start.

[DrSnips]

I'm not sure how this would work in practice but I'd imagine some kind of "experience" info for each department(sci, engi, med, etc excluding non-department roles like clown) might help supplement the manifest prediction. It could be done by player input or by stat tracking how many rounds you join as a department.

• A simple bar graph or an X/10 rating calculated from the average of some data.
• The data if player input based would let players set their skill rating for each department to "Very skilled"(10 points), "Semi-Skilled"(5 points), and "Not very skilled"(0 points). This allows players to tell if a department is going to have babies running it or 300 IQ autists.
• If stat track based More rounds played = More points. ~30 rounds would max out your points. Might not be the greatest way to know since a mechanic who solely plays the job for a hardsuit 30 times and never touched and engine ruins this.
• Admins can slap players who show a lack of skill or just to fuck with them for memes with a point lock/decrease as more of a slap on the wrist rather than a full on job ban.
• There would be two bars a potential and a certain rating. Both depend on the current people ready.
• Potential is based on high and medium. Certain is based only on high.

[SonixApache]

skills

😟

[Caboozles]

I like the ability to skip a role if occupied. I find solomed fun, and I have at times missed ready up to join because I tried to hastily back up to change roles.

Disabling latejoin for X time would be pretty bad, because sometimes when you start the game it’s already 2-3 minutes in, and if it’s between waiting 7 minutes and obsing or doing something else, I’ll always choose the latter.

If you’re so concerned about threat, why not add a second variable to threat calculation that can add anywhere between 0-25% of the starting pop as a phantom count to predict possible latejoining. Lowpop would still be low, but 14 players could fire as 16 to account for the maybe three people joining.
I don’t think latejoining is as big of a problem anymore, but it’s not like threat doesn’t already have a chance of totally shitting the station. Pushing to the next threshold could just be another aspect.

[ShiftyRail]

I really wouldn't be against non-crucial heads - ie, anything but HoP & Captain - being forbidden for latejoiners.
A slot can always be opened at the HoP's meme machine if needs be.

but why

A latejoin head always destroy the fragile equilibrium in their department, notably if a lesser role already assumed direction of said dept.
Captains and HoPs are different because they have all-access and they are sometimes needed and impossible to replace.

[spoonylove]

I like the latejoiners taking a shuttle to get to the station bit. Rather than having people instantly pop up in the arrival shuttle having it come in when a player joins or maybe at set intervals like the beginning of an animal crossing game, we do already have the voices for it.

[Kitfox88]

It'd be nice to have new folks arrive in an actual shuttle that comes and goes in regular periods, as well as maybe having a way for folks to leave the round that isn't just 'hide in locker suicide succumb'

[SonixApache]

Othercode servers (Polaris, I think?) have a 'tram station' that people spawn on, that has an actual arrivals shuttle to get on that leads to the main station. Could work.