- Created by Absolver, last modified on 2019-05-24
When it comes to Ratting, there are a few things that people often bring up as a revolutionary idea to improve on how we do things. Some of them are repeated with enough frequency that we actually have a page for them - and why they're not as good an idea as you might think.
Although this is a semi-humorous page, it also holds some seriousness to it. The discussions we end up having about the same topic over and over again begins to wear thin after a while, so please also take to heart the reasons as to why we're not making a particular change.
This, along with other variations separating the general mischief or other cases from the view of the client is one of the more popular suggestions new rats make after a while. Although there is merit to the theory of lessening "noise level" for the client, there are a number of practical and sociological reasons we have not done this:
Such a system would require the client to understand more of the concept of IRC.
IRC is perfectly suited to what we are doing, but it is for many an archaic system, and the concept of channels and moving between them is not readily apparent to them. The system we have in place now places them in the rescue channel, and pretty much serves up all the information we need from them in one neat package. The only thing the client is left needing to understand is when they are being addressed by name. This is, for the most part, quite simple.
Moving clients and rats into separate channels costs time. Time is O2. O2 is life.
Quite often, even if the client isn't on Emergency O2 when they reach us, they can be very close to it. The more time we spend doing anything but getting the client into low power mode, and sending rats on their way to meet the client, the higher the chance is that we get a Code Red case. And although we deal with those quite well, they are the shortest route to problematic rescues and client loss.
Even if we automate placing the client and dispatcher into new channels automatically on arrival (or when the rats have been assigned), it's a complication to an otherwise simple system that may (And probably will) prove more detrimental than it is effective.
Separating the clients and the rest of the mischief from the rescue workflow is dull!
Although #FuelRats on a busy night is a challenge to keep up with for dispatchers, and clients MAY at times find themselves in a room where 3+ other clients are being dispatched, the experience they take away from it is generally more 'Wow! These guys are such pros!' than it is 'Boy, this place is a mess'. #FuelRats is also our training ground for new rats, allowing them to see how we operate. Separating out the rescues into channels that contain only the dispatcher, the client, and the active rats leaves a complete disconnect between the mischief at large and what we are actually here to do. Ratting is very much a spectator sport, and removing that is likely to see us lose rats very quickly.
No... No we probably shouldn't. Discord is a fine program for general gaming comms and hanging out, but The Fuel Rats are not a traditional gaming community. The rats exist for a very specific purpose, and have very specific requirements for secure communications because of it. IRC allows our moderators to control the flow of chat in ways discord by design is at odds with. Keeping our chats exclusively in IRC allows us to manage who sees and is logging our chat, as well. With IRC, it's as easy as occasionally purging out unidentified lurkers to ensure only those who should be here are here. Sure we could turn off chat history in Discord to help with that kind of concern, but that just inconveniences those who are present for legitimate means.
Downtime control, and unexpected outages.
The TechRats pride themselves in maintaining a smooth sailing ship that experiences as little downtime as possible. In the past 2 years, our IRC server has experienced virtually no physical downtime. Even when our other services go down or the IRC servers split, rescues themselves have been able to continue largely unhindered. A large part of that is having the ability to control our maintenance windows.
That sounds like conservatism!
Nope. It's just using a hammer to beat in a nail, rather than a fancy 600 dollar nailgun. And the nailgun might be prone to failures we can't control, and we can't mess around with its settings, and..
In short, Discord is great for a ready-to-run chat server for your friends and your guild. Much of what we've accomplished today is possible only because we have complete control of the servers and software that runs our systems. Discord does not offer that. We also have far better moderation tools and security features at hand to prevent griefing and spammers.
But using Discord would enable us to do rescues by voice!
Why on earth would we want to? Imagine a voice channel filled with rats and clients, and a dispatcher trying to make sense of that? That would be a horror show without equal. No, IRC provides us with a textual medium with asynchronous chat capabilities. We'll take looking back two lines in scrollback over "Could you repeat that?!" any day.
No. Even though it is possible to do this (With a LOT of finagling, including having to make Rats give us access to their API key, which we won't ask for), being in-game is not a determining factor for whether you want to go on a rescue or not. Nor would it be possible to implement on the XBox side.
The one way we have for semi-automated jump calls is RatTracker, which is currently in development (SLOW development at that). We will not:
- Make the dispatch board have fields where you can enter where you are and your jump range
- Let the bot track where you are through the API
- Otherwise automate who gets sent on rescues based on their position.
Being sent on a rescue requires you as a rat to positively confirm that you want to go by calling jumps.
This section does not deal with Fleet Carriers which are expected to be released with Squadrons (soonTM). Up until now, there has been minimal information released regarding FleetCarriers. When more information is available, the use (or not) of Fleet Carriers will be determined.
So Canonn Research Group was awarded a megaship, The Gnosis, as a reward for a Community Goal. They will be using the ship as a mobile base for research and study, but there are limitations. The ship can only be moved once per week, can only jump 2,500Ly per week and has no shipyard so you can't leave ships there to travel if you wanted to.
Beyond those limitations what would we use it for? A mobile base for fueling operations more than likely. And where would we locate it? In one of our rescue hot spots like NLTT 48288, towards Quince, towards the Pleaides or near certain Community Goals.
As an example, particularly for the 1st three locations, without a megaship a CMDR runs out of fuel, contacts us, gets rescued, gets debriefed (and educated) and hopefully we never see them again in our channels looking to be rescued. Now put a giant base in their path, what happens? They get low on fuel, don't know any better, luck into finding the megaship and refueling, never learning about fuel scoops, KGBFOAM, route filtering or plotting. Then we move the station in the future to some other hot spot, and those CMDRs who are used to it being a certain location run out of fuel, and it's ironically our fault that they needed to call us. It's a PR nightmare waiting to happen, with little benefit that anyone has been able to provide other than "we deserve it for everything we've done", which isn't exactly a very Rat-like attitude to have anyway.
It's also believed that future megaships will not have ship docking capabilities, so their only use would be as advertising that we own a megaship and for use in manipulating the BGS.
Megaships can jump once per week to a maximum distance of roughly 450Ly. Therefore moving a megaship from one end to the other is in itself a 2-week process.
No.
But...
Still no. The Fuel Rats do ever so often get targeted by random gankers, or even sometimes by more concerted efforts to either kill rats or the clients. For those that target us through fake cases, monitoring our channels or similar, we have countermeasures that we can employ to deny them access to that information. Compared to the number of real cases, fake cases makes up for an infinitesimal percentage that honestly isn't worth changing our SOP for.
When Rats are playing in open and not on a case, they're as valid a target for PvP as anyone. While on a rescue, many PvP factions actually let you go on your merry way, but this is not something you should count on either. You might get lucky, you might not. But rat ships are cheap to rebuy, and most of our rescues are a short distance away, leaving very little actual consequence to successfully targeting a rat. (If you are strapped for money, ask around in RatChat, you'll find plenty of advice and help on getting a bigger buffer to feel safe with a few rebuys.)
Adding escort wings to rescue missions negatively impacts our response speed, adds unneeded complexity, and is actually more likely to cause fake cases, because PvP hungry players can then dial-a-fight with a combat ready wing.
Your best recourse when targeted by a "cat" is to shrug, report it to dispatch, and then move on. Nothing deflates them like being ignored for all their efforts.
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23 Comments
Tom X
You should probably include a link in case someone does have a great idea....
CrunchyBaton955
We do. It's covered under http://t.fuelr.at/frkb on the right column under "Have an idea you want to share?" which summaries this page, a Technical Look at SOP and includes setting up a JIRA account and submitting a Feature Request.
Yuri Voskov
Not sure if "great" but shouldn't systems ideally be designed so that two errors are needed for a critical (cr) failure? Eg if a cr client does not read irc/does not respond because they're in game, but their rat has ongoing voice with them, dispatch tells the rat to ask client to go look at irc urgently or just log to mm/prep/synthesise o2/whatever? Basically any cr fail paperwork should be reviewed by someone from the perspective of whether any sop addition/modification would have prevented it.
rik079
Why is there a link to this page at the bottom of, well, this page?
aarkein
Well, in case you have a great idea, of course.
Absolver
Because this page is the only "related content" we have to this page. Cope.
Captain Caine
Not sure if this would interfere with something, but we should add a command such as "ws" for "wrong session" it might make us look better instead of saying "Client is in solo session"
aarkein
Well, we already do that. Usually in the form of #n fr+ SOLO/PG.
Jamespg614
include a yes/no button in paperwork for scoopable/non-scoopable that picks up on future dispatches?
Absolver
Well, you're on the right page at least. Given that the dispatch board already shows if a system is scoopable or not if the system has been sent to EDDN, duplicating that work would be rather... futile. Mecha3 will likely report directly to IRC if the system in question is scoopable.
JoeD246
Hi. Am I the only spatch struggling with all the new ratlings' names, their platforms, and the various alt accounts folks have? How about a little database, with primary name, primary platform, alt names associated with primary name, alt accounts associated with these alt names and their platforms. Might as well add drilled / ND (so spatch doesn't have to scroll down list of irc names to look for tail). I know /whois gives some of this info. Any thoughts? Thanks! JoeD.
Pistou
It shouldn't be the Dispatcher's job to go around and ask/check every rat if they are on the right platform, correct nickname, ... before assigning to a case.
If a rat calls, take it as correct (except if it's obvious, like "xxx[PC]" calling for a PS case), and if mecha then screams about them not being registered you can directly !unassign and start wielding the trout in #ratchat.
For drilled/undrilled, most IRC clients displays / can be set up to display the user's mode directly in front of their nick in chat, to make it extremely easy to spot.
Darth Killian
I might be new but I agree. I set up my AdiIRC to alert ONLY on PC cases and turns them a certain color so I see specifically what applies to me. It should be the rats job to make sure they are calling correctly.
XTOX1CX
Not urgent but it would be a nice QoL change if the dispatch board coloured platforms the same way IRC does(PC Xbox PS). I know mecha yells at you if you call jumps for a case with a platform you don't have registered but A) if you have a console rat registered and call mecha won't bat an eye, and B) it's better avoiding the call at all IMO. Like I said not really an urgent change but it helps in rushes when there are 20 cases on the board and you don't accidentally call for the one existing console case.
Maveris2000
The Rats Academy
First of all sorry for my poor english (you can find tons of errors in this document) but I hope that at the end you can understand what all mean.
objective: increase the level of know-how for new drilled rats
I kwon how difficult is to schedule a training and a drill: minimum 4 people involved at the same time and that living in different parts of the world (in this case the real world, the real time and real problem to solve as well).
This idea was in my mind since I was ratting as a not drilled rat: why not split that in micro-jobs instead of big-jobs like training and drilling?
Confused? Ok, me too (just kidding)… So let’s start:
The Roles
1) Recruit Rat (x nickname)
The Recruit Rat is, like now, a CMDR that want join the Fuel Rats. They need to read and understand what is need to become a real rat (Drilled Rat).
To request a Drill the Recruit Rat need to pass, at minimum, the “6+2 rescues”, the condition is guaranteed by the Mentor Rat.Like now a Recruit Rat can call for standard rescue, but only if a Drilled Rat call first (mean no solo for Recruit Rat).The dispatcher in special circumstances can assign (knowing the risk) to a Recruit Rat solo rescues.The First Limpet that the Recruit Rat do or the rescue where they are involved don’t count if the Mentor Rat aren’t in wing… Speaking about discipline.
2) Drilled Rat (+ nickname)
The Drilled or Tailed Rat is, like now, a Recruit Rat that passing the Drill and this is the Rat that can call jump for STANDARD case, CR cases and, after briefing in chat, LRR cases. The procedure about the drill is like now but the Recruit Rat need to pass a Standard case (only to verify SOP) and a CR case (to verify SOP and procedure) in a row. 4 CMDR are involved: an OverSeer, a Dispatcher, a Damsel and the Recruit Rat. The Mentor Rat can’t be involved in any role.
3) Mentor Rat (* nickname)
The Mentor Rat is a new role and, per definition, is a Drilled Rat that for the number of rescue or the experience is similar but not experienced like a Trainer Rat. His role is volunteer like an actual trainer, and they need to ask to an Overseer if they can be accepted or not in that role.
Mentor Rat need to pass, at Overseers discretions or after certain period of time, something like a Drill about what they are teaching.
At any Mentor Rat an Overseer can assign 1 or 2 Recruit Rat until they pass the Drill, or to avoid extra job to the Overseers, the Recruit Rats can ask via private message if a Mentor Rat is available.
The Mentor is responsible about to teach the procedure (SOP) to the assigned Recruit Rats and do what is better to educate the future Drilled Rats, in order:
The point 1. and 3. are the at last the minumum, the Mentor Rat can increase the number of simulation until the Recruit Rat do and complete the simulations.
To do a REAL RESCUE the Mentor Rat need to compile a public calendar document like excel where are scheduled the date and the game-time when they are prepared to do the rescue. So the Dispatcher can check, verify and accommodate the rescue depending on client cases.
To avoid problem like: Drilled Rat can’t call jump because of Mentor/Recruit are in queue:
Odyssey PC Platform: max 2 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
PC Platform: max 4 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
XB Platform: max 2 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
PS Platform: max 2 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
At maximum a Mentor Rat can do n.2 SIMULATE or n.1 REAL STANDARD per day so the Recruit Rat can do the “6+2 rescues” in a week or two (depends of the number of the Mentors and the Recruits as well).
4) Trainer Rat (# nickname)
The Trainer Rat is an experienced rat that is involved only to organize and develop special training: TFP or complicated CR cases. His role is volunteer like now. The main difference is that during the training only the Trainer (role: Damsel/Dispatch) and the Drilled Rat are involved, no need Dispatcher and Overseer.
Trainer Rat need to pass, at Overseers discretions or after certain period, something like a Drill about the specializations they teach.
Hope that make sense, and that can involve drilled rat in other activities (like Mentor) here in Fuelum.
The numbers indicate here (like number of rescues) are only my suggestions, I think that Overseers and Old Rats can adjust in a realistic way.
I’m open to any suggestions and criticisms.
Thanks in advance for reading,
CMDR Maveris2000
Anja324
I would like to point out that I am not speaking for the operations team as a whole, but several have pre-read this prior to me posting it
I felt that the best way for me to respond to your ideas was to annotate your document(I took out and omitted some things for space). While I think your ideas are noble, and there are some good ones in there that hopefully could be utilized at a later point, there are many impracticalities, which I tried to point out as gently, but as clearly as I could below. Thank you so much for caring enough to think of us so much, and type out all of your ideas and sharing them with us
.. For ease of reading, I highlighted my comments in blue text!
The Rats Academy
First of all sorry for my poor english (you can find tons of errors in this document) but I hope that at the end you can understand what all mean.
objective: increase the level of know-how for new drilled rats
“I kwon how difficult is to schedule a training and a drill: minimum 4 people involved at the same time and that living in different parts of the world (in this case the real world, the real time and real problem to solve as well).”
Drills actually require a minimum of three people, using four is up to the overseer running the drill. Scheduling them is actually not so bad, as long as there are enough overseers to run them. I’m also thinking, from your statement above, that trainings are mandatory, which I’d like to clarify and say they are not. I’d also like to mention that scheduling a drill is also not mandatory, meaning that if it does not get scheduled right away due to lack of people, it isn’t honestly the end of the world. Everyone can still rat, and the #fuelrats channel moves on :). That being said, we as a team are always working on finding new talented rats to add to the training and overseeing teams, to make scheduling as easy for recruits as we possibly can.
The Roles
1) Recruit Rat (x nickname)
”The First Limpet that the Recruit Rat do or the rescue where they are involved don’t count if the Mentor Rat aren’t in wing… Speaking about discipline.”
Some rats go months without getting a first limpet. It honestly depends on so many factors, and having that as a requirement will significantly reduce the number of newly-tailed rats, especially for pcrats.
2) Drilled Rat (+ nickname)
“The Drilled or Tailed Rat is, like now, a Recruit Rat that passing the Drill and this is the Rat that can call jump for STANDARD case, CR cases and, after briefing in chat, LRR cases.”
The only difference I see here, is the addition of LRR cases being discussed, but as far as SOP goes, there isn’t much of a difference between a standard and an LRR case. The only difference is that sometimes scheduling is involved, and often the client is logged out. Not that we shouldn’t discuss, just, there isn’t much to discuss :)
“The procedure about the drill is like now but the Recruit Rat need to pass a Standard case (only to verify SOP) and a CR case (to verify SOP and procedure) in a row. 4 CMDR are involved: an OverSeer, a Dispatcher, a Damsel and the Recruit Rat. The Mentor Rat can’t be involved in any role.”
So it seems like, despite your thoughts that a drill is difficult to schedule, you are keeping it as is, while introducing a fifth volunteer person below, the mentor rat and adding a CR case to the drill. This is something that used to be included in a second drill, though that was later removed. Everyone has a lot of different opinions about what should and shouldn’t be included in a drill, but at the end of the day, a good overseer will know when a recruit is ready to earn their tail. I will say that our standard case drills last around 1.5-2 hours as is, and adding a second CR case to that would likely push it up to 3+ hours. Getting 4 people to make that level of a time commitment is...a lot for volunteers. Also, my experience in education tells me that most people have a lot of trouble focusing beyond an hour or so, let alone more. We already kind of push the envelope on that imo.
3) Mentor Rat (* nickname)
“The Mentor Rat is a new role and, per definition, is a Drilled Rat that for the number of rescue or the experience is similar but not experienced like a Trainer Rat. His role is volunteer like an actual trainer, and they need to ask to an Overseer if they can be accepted or not in that role.
Mentor Rat need to pass, at Overseers discretions or after certain period of time, something like a Drill about what they are teaching.
At any Mentor Rat an Overseer can assign 1 or 2 Recruit Rat until they pass the Drill, or to avoid extra job to the Overseers, the Recruit Rats can ask via private message if a Mentor Rat is available.”
I think, here, you are asking for someone to volunteer an awful lot of time here. I developed a mentorship program for up and coming trainers, and I can say honestly that *that* is a lot of time and involves no live rescue components(which are largely based on chance/luck). Trainers are highly vetted from the pool of tailed rats, and as such, are highly qualified to train. It seems like by introducing the mentor rat role, you are essentially giving trainers a different name. Also, overseers do not determine trainers. It is done by me, on a one by one basis, where many factors are considered. Honestly, the role seems like a rewrite of what a trainer does.
So, on my estimation, this process would take around, 8-10 hours of simulated time, and then 2 live rescues, which could take anywhere from 30 minutes each, to hours waiting for one. I just don’t think this is a realistic amount of time for any volunteer to give up as a mentor. I also think this would substantially utilize rats who should be on live cases but will be performing simulated ones. It would also dramatically reduce the number of rats who make it to drill, making us therefore less effective as an organization who strives to help as many people as we can.
“To do a REAL RESCUE the Mentor Rat need to compile a public calendar document like excel where are scheduled the date and the game-time when they are prepared to do the rescue. So the Dispatcher can check, verify and accommodate the rescue depending on client cases.”
This is creating even more of a scheduling nightmare than a drill would experience, and you are involving dispatch now, who already has plenty of work without having to arrange for live drill-like experiences. That is...it’s just not realistic.
“To avoid problem like: Drilled Rat can’t call jump because of Mentor/Recruit are in queue:
Odyssey PC Platform: max 2 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
PC Platform: max 4 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
XB Platform: max 2 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit
PS Platform: max 2 rescue in total per day reserved for Mentor/Recruit”
Again, you are asking dispatch to assign based on some recruit who happens to have a mentor. There are a million different reasons why a dispatch might assign one person over another(if they are doing it right) and this is not, and should not be a factor.
“At maximum a Mentor Rat can do n.2 SIMULATE or n.1 REAL STANDARD per day so the Recruit Rat can do the “6+2 rescues” in a week or two (depends of the number of the Mentors and the Recruits as well).”
This significant uppage of time required will, as mentioned above, negatively impact how many recruits get tailed, and will diminish the organization from the bottom up. As less rats stick around to become tailed, less rats eventually become overseers and trainers, and less rats eventually become parts of leadership.
4) Trainer Rat (# nickname)
“The Trainer Rat is an experienced rat that is involved only to organize and develop special training: TFP or complicated CR cases. His role is volunteer like now. The main difference is that during the training only the Trainer (role: Damsel/Dispatch) and the Drilled Rat are involved, no need Dispatcher and Overseer.”
Trainings have never needed overseers, nor will they ever as long as I am here.
Trainings do not require a dispatcher, that is solely up to each trainer.
“Trainer Rat need to pass, at Overseers discretions or after certain period, something like a Drill about the specializations they teach.”
I will mention again that overseers have never been who have determined the rats who become trainers. While they submit recommendations that I absolutely consider, that choice lies with me, and many many factors go into it. There will never, as long as I am here, be a “test” that someone will need to pass to be a trainer. The overall process is pre-screening, mentorship, post-talk, and full-fledged trainer-ship.
“Hope that make sense, and that can involve drilled rat in other activities (like Mentor) here in Fuelum.”
Drilled rats have many ways to be involved without there being an additional role added. They are more than welcome to assist in drills and trainings, which are both proven, and very effective. Should they wish to teach, they can inquire about training or overseering, and begin working towards those roles.
Again, thank you so much for your care and thought, and for giving me some ideas to play with as we move forward and make changes to our organization
Maveris2000
Hi Anja,
First of all thanks for your time about reading and comment my ideas, you know, I'm a new rat so I don't know any aspect about role here (expecially the high level roles: i.e. Admins and Overseers), thanks for point me to any of my ideas that can't be do for obviuos reasons.
I know and understand that here all is based on volunteer persons. I think that maybe my past period in the army (not so much but enough to change my mind on some problem-solving aspect) influenced my ideas as well: means now, after reading your notes, I really think that I develop a too tight hierarchy and that is not the spirit of our organization... Sorry about that.
Thanks again for your feedback, and see you around o7
CMDR Maveris2000
Anja324
No need to be sorry for posing ideas
They are always welcome.
ArcticTreat
I think we need to add an additional section to the SOP and Dispatch SOP regarding the new !gofr—carrier command and the usage of fleet carriers. I am hoping for a section detailing when and how carriers should be deployed and what the procedure should be and how to handle the case paperwork after. For example a set of principles stating something like "Carriers should only be deployed during rat shortages after a tweet is sent and X time has elapsed" kind of specifications for their usage.
Toby Charles
It would be nice to have, if not SOPs, suggestions/recommendations for when using an FC would be recommended and when it would not be, so that when disagreements come up about whether a FC should have been deployed to a case, there will be a point of reference instead of a potential argument. Right now SOP states here carriers must only be used for rescues where clients can't get out of the system without a FC, but SOP also encourages thinking out of the box with regards to unusual cases, and increasingly with console cases where rats are simply unavailable, sometimes up to an hour or even more, a carrier is the only option left to rescue a client. It will be helpful if there is an authorative answer on whether this scenario should be encouraged or discouraged.
Maveris2000
Looks that the some CMDR that ask for our help or wanna chat with us is under 13 year old. I know that this is real a problem, speaking about GDPR law, so my suggestion is write something like: "Due to international laws about privacy, you need to be over 13 year old to ask our assistance or chat with us" just before the buttons that links to our chats and with a character/color that you can't miss. I don't think that a child or teenager click the tiny link to read and understand the TOS before hitting the buttons (and I think that the adults don't do that as well).
Macro-T
We should have our own Megaship
Might be about time to change this just to "This section does not deal with player owned Fleet Carriers" or something like that.
There might also be room for a section on supplying tritium for stuck FCs while we're at it
Firehawk894
For temporary use regarding the HIP 22460 situation:
Encourage all Rats to equip a Long Range, Thermal Vent, modded Beam Laser where possible (Size is unimportant) and deploy in at least pairs.
Due to Thargoid combat mechanics, one Rat should be able to lure the interceptor to chase them by constantly damaging them with the beam, while the other refuels the client and escapes. Thargoids have difficulty tracking <20% heat targets moving at high speed relative to the interceptor