Denied IC Phone and Keypad Config System

[Zen]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
For both the phones and the keypads, makes them at least partially configurable by faction leadership IC.

For phones, this would mean:

• Upgrading the phone config system as a whole to allow people (IC or admins) to update both a phone's allowed outgoing and incoming phone numbers.
  • Right now, you can only configure whether the phone you are looking at can call other numbers. If you want to update whether that phone can receive calls from other phones, you have to go around the map to each individual other phone and change it on those. This is a pain for admins, and would also be a pain with this new system.
• Giving SM+/LTCOM+/LTCOL+ a new button when they pick up a phone (in the menu to select which phone to call), which would open a basic phone config menu
  • This menu would allow the user to enable/disable the ability for different phones to call it.
  • Disabling an outgoing or incoming connection would just work immediately.
  • Adding a new connection between phones of the same faction would just work immediately.
  • Adding a new connection between phones of different factions would mark the change as pending, and require someone with config access for the other faction to accept/decline the connection in this same menu on that phone.
  • Civilian/MC&D phones would still need to be configured entirely by SL.
  • Might also be useful to allow them to change each phone's name.

For keypads, this would mean:

• When a SM+/LTCOM+/LTCOL+ right-clicks a keypad with their keycard, it would open a new, limited config menu
  • Within the menu, they can change the keypad's base clearance level and what overrides it has on it, and then submit that change for review by SL.
    • This may require making override configuration a bit more user-friendly, which as far as I'm aware, it might not be. Maybe a drop-down menu of all of the job-configured overrides that exist.
  • If a change is pending review, the same people can also see this listed in the config menu, and have the option to cancel the pending change.
  • Any other SL-specific config options would remain only available to them - only clearance and overrides would be configurable by faction leadership.
• Senior Admin+ would have access to a new menu, similar to the document approval menu, which shows pending keypad changes and allows them to accept/decline them
  • Upon accepting them, the change just happens immediately.
  • Upon declining them, the pending change disappears, and the person that requested the change gets a notification if they're online at the time.
  • If there were any pending keypad changes, there would be a banner text similar to the VComputers document approval one, notifying any online Senior Admins of the pending changes.
  • This menu would give the option to teleport to the specified keypad for each pending change, so they can see what is being changed.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Not as far as I'm aware.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):

• [Keypads] Makes it easier for faction leadership to make basic access changes to their bases
  • Which they already mostly can do - if they call a Senior Admin to do it, they'll mostly just do it for those ranks, unless there's a balance issue. This just allows them to do it easier and potentially quicker than is possible with SL requests and the like. Senior Admins are often busy, and the current system requires either one to happen to be available when a sit is called by the right person, or for them to go through SL requests, which often takes a fair bit of time - this way would mean they can just easily see them when they join the server and do them whenever they have 5 minutes, without having to scroll through a bunch of other SL requests or whatever that may be more complicated.
• Makes changes that faction leadership already have the authority to do more IC/RP-friendly
• [Phones] Frees Senior Admin time. Most phone config changes can now be done by IC faction leadership without involving a Senior Admin, so they can focus their time on other stuff.
  • SM+ should be able to be trusted with making basic phone changes - and even if they abused it, they'd be quickly removed (for something really stupid), and the existence of this same menu would make fixing it very quick and easy. A log of phone changes via this menu for SL to view wouldn't be a bad idea, though.
• [Phones] Allows phones to be properly configured.
  • They sometimes aren't fully configured properly, because the phone config menu is both only accessible to Senior Admins, and requires configuring connections one-way on every phone, which takes ages and makes it easier to mess up.
• [Phones] Allows phones to be configured faster on all sides.
  • More people able to do it leads to this, but so does actually being able to configure two-way connections in one menu, rather than once for every phone involved.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:

• Could be abused by a senior player throwing a tantrum.
  • This does happen now and then, but this would be a really stupid way to lose your position, so it seems a bit unlikely, and the details mention here should mostly trivialise that issue - having a log of changes, requiring Senior Admin approval for keypad changes, and limiting these features to the high ranks mentioned should mostly make this very difficult to achieve, and these same features would then make it very easy to fix and problems caused like this.
• Keypad changes may affect raid/breach/riot balance
  • It would still require Senior Admin+ approval, so this shouldn't be an issue any more than the current system of SL requests/sits already could.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
This would just be a really useful feature for faction leaders to have, and make phone and keypad changes much quicker to enact. imo the balancing and abuse concerns have been addressed in the details mentioned, so I don't personally think this could cause any major issues.

 

[Max Henry]

+Support

 

[Emilia Foddg]

Good. This is an interesting idea presented in an IMO compelling way and I think it holds merit. Some things to note:

Phones are a pretty underused feature, which I understand became more used when the /phone command was added so you could more sensibly use text chat to talk over the phone too, but my understanding is players will still tend towards the use of comms and such over phones, although they are still used somewhat; It saddens me to see a feature with a clear and significant amount of development effort and time put into it, end up largely overshadowed and underused.

I don't see this change significantly increasing the usage of phones - Especially since these changes are more clerical in nature, although I think the best way to improve the use of something is to increase its flexibility and general appeal, which these changes do to an extent. These don't have any immediate implications on RP, but I can see this making things better down the line. Hopefully CT & Devs see it the same way.

I don't have much to say about the keypads idea because it just generally otherwise makes sense.

This may just be me being skittish, but I've noticed a recent uptick in crackdowns on suggestions that group up multiple different ideas/reworks into one, which has always been against the suggestion guidlines, but is receiving more moderation as of late (But also, I think has been happening more too, so... Eh? Correlation and causation, etc.) - Where this comes into play here, is how this could potentially come across as a suggestion for configuring phones and a suggestion for configuring keypads. Yes, there's the through line of the clerical nature, giving RP leadership roles more direct control over a couple of things they already have the authority to do, however that may not necessarily marry these two ideas together enough for them to be considered to be under the same umbrella. It could somewhat reasonably be viewed as artificially trying to pass two distinct changes under the same umbrella?

I agree that in a sense of giving RP leadership positions more power to change things that they generally should be able (and as stated, already have the authority) to change, that these ideas belong under the same banner - However I would be surprised if CT see it as two distinct changes, because even though these two things are related in the sense I've stated, they're also unrelated in the sense that phones and keypads are two very different things with very different impacts on the server - Phones being a purely RP mechanic and keypads being a significant gameplay element (As keypads are able to decide who can and can't go where, which touches on almost every conceivable gameplay loop). Again, I could just be jumping at shadows, but I look at this and see a grey area.

In the circumstance that you'd be asked to cull one of these ideas and focus on one, I would personally go for the keypads idea as, even though as much as I do like and pity the phone system, the keypads thing holds more water as a mechanic that sees far more use. I feel like the phones idea at this current point in time may be denied at least partially due to the amount of work it would require compared to how much use it may get as a result. Meanwhile letting RP leadership roles be able to adjust keypads would be a considerably more used, especially in such a way that it would be beneficial to Staff and players both (That's not to say the phones change does not carry those benefits, but rather to such a lesser scale of usefulness that it may call into question the work required to implement it). Again, I think both changes are a good idea - It's just there's a clear odd one out here and it strikes me as something to deliberate on.
+Major Support

 

[Holland]

Suggestion Denied

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Hi @Zen ,

Thanks for taking the time to make a server suggestion.

The Content Team has chosen to deny your suggestion due to the following reason(s):

phones

We dont think this addition to phones is needed. RP leaders can already request SL to change phones edit them or spawn them in whenever they want along it has a reason, adding this feature is unneeded for a almost not used system and this addition wont change that in the long run.

keypads

Adding this feature is unnecessary, even if it seems cool. It can already be accomplished through an SL request, which SA+ primarily manages for management reasons. All MTFs have the ability to request changes, and SA+ can submit an SL request and, if needed, forward it to content for balance considerations. This suggestion complicates the system unnecessarily.

Your suggestion will now be locked and marked as denied.​