Station Pets - Loadouts, Objectives, Wawa!

[FairlySadPanda]

This design document outlines a proposal to lift the pet freeze by moving pets over to becoming loadout items, unlocked via playtime for various job roles. In addition, it outlines gameplay mechanics that encourage players to roleplay owning and taking care of their pets. Afterwards, it outlines the principles behind pet ghost roles and when a pet should be unlocked for latejoiners and the recently deceased to play. Pet Carriers are discussed, and we then dwell for a short time on the Captain and Head Of Personnel's pets and their gameplay importance. Finally, it covers the unique trio of pet-crew ancestors (Pun Pun, Kweh Kweh and Wa Wa), their purpose in gameplay, and their unique circumstances as Junior Assistant Bartenders.

This document provides a vector for introducing scurrets to the game ahead of their starring role as the protagonists of the Pizza Delivery Critter role. This is done via introducing them via Wa Wa, an unlockable Bartender pet, alongside Kweh Kweh, a kobold bartender.

[nikthechampiongr]

I was asked the position on pets by the Wizard's Den Admin Team.

Currently pets such as Ian, Slime, Renault, etc. while not considered crew(no I am not talking about how borgs see them) still have certain protections from the rest of the crew. Crew cannot kill them without a reason, although they can justify killing a pet or otherwise harming it with much less justification. Additionally all members of the crew can have "attachments" to pets, as such harming a pet can count as escalation against crew members that care about that pet. Obviously the captain may care much more about hamlet or Renault than a random janitor.

[FairlySadPanda]

Something something "chipping" station pets with something so AI can see them (think mindshields)

[walksanatora]

I like the ability to select stataion pets roun-start. mabey command will actually start taking care of (evacuating) with their pets.

[FairlySadPanda]

I've updated this document to cover the workload I'd propose for Strike Team Wawa, incorporate Nik's feedback (with slight editing to make the admin design fit the document's style) and added notes on future workload.

This introduces the notion of "User Stories" to the project, which I am sure is going to horrify certain professional members of this project.

[slarticodefast]

Probably for the best if the captain only has one pet instead of two.
But the captain being able to select if there are extra TC on the station or not leads into powergaming territory.

[FairlySadPanda]

True, I'd welcome suggestions on balance as I don't know here. You could potentially have the Captain's pet always contain TC, but then the Cap has to choose between "safe docile fox" and "anger and hunger given hamster form" and that means you will never see Hamlet.

I think having the Captain have to decide if they want to have a traitor goal or a shitter ghost role is a good tradeoff but I'd welcome help on this.

[FairlySadPanda]

@slarticodefast I've updated this design. Let me know what you think.

[FairlySadPanda]

Updated the document.

Note that I've done a pass on "the Captain's pet" and the logic for spawning pets.

Of particular note:

1. The Captain's pet is always a ghost role and always has 5 TC on them. Do you wanna play as a fox? You can play as a fox.
   1a. This may be the closest @ScarKy0 will be able to play Vulps for the time being ;pensive:
2. Pets always spawn in a Pet Carrier. This simplifies logic and completely removes Optional pets from mapping requirements!
3. A random member of a given role gets a pet, not the most-senior. This corresponds to Bhijn and Myr's (fully correct) goal of making SS14 a healthier game for people with obsessive or addictive personalities. (Bhijn and Myr - sorry I'm flubbing on your Github handle rn)

[FairlySadPanda]

Oh and I've clarified a few free agent and antag interactions - zombies, Para Clones, etc.

[FairlySadPanda]

[ghost]

I think it would be fun to watch Ian as a ghost role too, with his own goals (Of which, of course, would be to stay alive on this station). After all, he's almost the mascot of the space station

[sudobeans]

This proposal is great. I like the ideas for how antags should treat their pets. I love the pet carrier idea, this could make it easier to evacuate the station with pets.

[sudobeans]

How much playtime do you have in mind for this? I recall that Slarticodefast said "Players should not be encouraged to 'grind' the game to an unhealthy degree" in #436 (comment)

[FairlySadPanda]

That's a maintainer balance topic rather than something I can express. "In line with maintainer expectations and Bhijn & Myr's overall health goals".

I personally love big numbers to grind for, but I know that that runs contrary to what Wizden wants to do.

[TaoNewt]

Despite how awesome this doc is and how much I want to see this ingame, non player-controlled pets are currently too annoying to have with you, and having to keep them safe and cared for will highlight this more.

You either A - drag them with hand/tail slot, slow your movement speed lots, and they end your drag every 3 seconds so you have to go and get them again making this a chore.
B - have them in a pet carrier, pets in a pet carrier are for all intents and purposes not pets anymore, you have a pet carrier not a pet. You cant see or hear them. having them with you in this case also takes both hand slots.
Or C - Leave them in a room. Either theyre in a locked room where you never see them, or if lucky youre lucky, you work in a closed room like ward, botany or chem where this works ok.

Feel free to come to your own conclusion, but I think there really needs to be some sort of pet follow mechanic to make actually having your pet out with you in the open not a pain.
The two options that come to my mind are -
1 - The easier option is a 'follow' toggle accessed by right click options, where a whistle sound effect plays and the pet in question changes its ai behaviour to something like the carp/dragon or rat/ratking behaviour.
2 - A collar/harness that is worn by the pet with a lead/leash. This would have the pet follow close by, aiming to not be dragged, or just be dragged if it is unable to catch up.

[FairlySadPanda]

Some sort of "follow AI" toggle for a pet and its owner is a good idea, as long as cats don't have it.

[FairlySadPanda]

Just to break down this feedback a bit, I think you're correct in that pets would be frustrating to work with without some way of controlling them. It's important to remember two things:

1. Whilst greentexting is a little pat-on-the-back to players, greentexting is firmly optional
2. It's hard to design ahead at the moment to cope with how players would interact with the system

I'm thus not going to add this "pet follow" mechanic to the doc, but it's definitely something I'd look into during implementation, especially as we already have an example in the Ratking's mice for how it can work in gameplay.

[FairlySadPanda]

I think it would be fun to watch Ian as a ghost role too, with his own goals (Of which, of course, would be to stay alive on this station). After all, he's almost the mascot of the space station

For specific pets beyond Pun, Kweh and Wa I'll leave that space open to others. I have seen adorable "playable Ian" sprites on SS13 servers.

Sparlight has been working on the Borgis, who will cover "I wanna be a goddamn corgi and be ADORABLE" pretty well :>

[FairlySadPanda]

This document has been open for about six weeks and I'm thinking the comments are generally positive, and maintainers do not have big concerns. In addition, the good work that the maintainers have been doing keeping the PR count on Wizden stable tells me that it is currently a good time to work on content.

I am probably going to sit down and try and make this work as a PR; I'm going to focus on Pun, Kweh and Wa first, because bar needs the most help.