For time locks to be a doc i was thinking like 5 hours rifleman and at least 5 hours nurse
I haven’t even seen that much command roles incompetent at their departments job, good, CE is just greytider with CIC access and RO CT++, but when there is no XO, there are that many heads going “Woah, I don’t know how to use overwatch or make announcements, and I am too lazy to hold briefing, but being assigned commander is that cool!!!”, so command jobs should also have a few SO rounds as requirement too. (Of course I never played on russian splurt!!!)
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Bonkers. Shipside roles are completely distinct from being on the ground. There’s no part of getting shot and slashed and dying in twenty minutes that will prepare you for surgery and chems. I’m all for bumping timelocks up some - I know I got SL and Comtech way sooner that I even remotely felt comfy playing them, and before I needed to see more than three maps - but let’s not conflate clear distinctions in departments.
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Reason for the Rifleman hours is so that the person has a decent grasp of what happens to a marine, to cause them to be fucked up, understanding what causes damage is one of the simpilist ways to figure out the first steps in medical “slashed= bleeding” “acid spray= burns” etc etc its to allow a person to know what happens and to get a grasp of the game its simply to allow the person to figure out stuff
Space Station 13 is not a ‘figure it out yourself’ kind of game. In the middle of playing nurse, you can ask for help in a safe and friendly place. You can’t do that groundside.
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As a new pIayer think it’s good for making strong memories to be able to somewhat throw yourself in the deep end. Strong memories leads to higher player retention. This doesn’t just go for the incompetent person. Someone making grave mistakes potentially creates more interactions than everyone perfectly doing their job. Swear at that medic who overdosed you. Complain to the XO about the CMO who doesn’t know what research is. Mentor that bald comtech. (If they forgot to bring stuff groundside you can always get req to send it down.)
This goes back to The Story Teller Vs. The TDM CM - #9 by Wulferion . Not every round, not even the majority of rounds need to be a beeline to victory.
No one is saying that you need to be perfect first time, it is simply that with the systems of medical right now, ODing can ruin another players round, messing up chems can result in another players round being ruined messing up cades can ruin peoples rounds, being incompetent in a role is fine, but when it risks other peoples fun there is an issue
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You’re kinda missing the point of what people are complaining about.
Nobody cares if you dive into the deep end and get captured three minutes into the operation - people care if you take a role that, as WestRover said, could softgrief people (this has happened to me with bald medics ODing me) or a very limited and coveted role, just to immediately suicide because, as said before, you have potentially no game sense to know what is even going on.
I do agree that mistakes are part of the game… but that doesn’t mean you should be allowed to sabotage other peoples’ rounds and enjoyment when your mistakes are, at the root, because you have barely played the game and need to play more.
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I hate when there’s no xo at game start and I’m CE cause although I have run opps as CE that’s on low pop when it isn’t low pop you basically pretend you’re running an op for 5-10 minutes until the XO rolls up
Bald doctors is because no one who mains doctor wants to do it right now.
Everyround is a rush of making chems, then sitting in medical waiting for larva removal surgey to trickle in. And maybe a dropship evac rush
Pair it with the most dumbed down, basic surgery… theres no “getting good” anymore. Used to be the best doctor on the shift was the one who could do a ruptured lung without infections or necro.
Now you dont even have to use gas to fix organs… A little oxy and the marine will hold still
Sooo boring!
Its awful and boring so its just full of people who havent realized its awful and boring… and occasionally myself making poisons or teaching and still being bored
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tbh marines should be super weirded out by having surgery being done on them while they’re awake
Honestly, seeing new Players in Support roles is good and very healthy, but to people that are CM Regulars and have higher expectations because they see a lot of experienced players as opposed to newbies is very frustrating. You have to differ here, there’s people that are actually trying where you can actually feel that they’ve at least read the Wiki and maybe a related Guide someone wrote, but aren’t too familiar with mechanics yet and there’s people that have not done this and when you inform them of their mistakes as Department Head or higher up they just stay silent and ignore it.
Doing this will teach people the Basics of how a CM round goes, which is good if they’re new but I don’t think it’s going to help the fact that there are people that do not read the Wiki, do not read Guides and generally do not take their Jobs seriously. You should really differ from role to role here, some timelocks need to probably be higher though. Don’t punish potentially good players, punish incompetence if people repeatedly show it. There is absolutely no consquences to people being highly incompetent on important roles as of right now.
accidentally CASing the front 
butterfingers
All you can do is ensure the tools are present for new people to learn more about how a support role works, that’s the wiki and random fan guides for you.
Otherwise there’s not much that can be done, if someone does not want to learn, they won’t.
Of course you cannot shove the wiki and guides down someone’s throat, that’s no good. But there’s basics you really need with some roles, Doctors that don’t know Meds and Surgery properly can absolutely destroy the round of others, for example. I have seen plenty of cases where Doctors would fluke even simple things such as giving someone Blood and it ends in them not being able to play anymore. And there’s people that are repeat offenders on the List of incompetence, and those do not get punished whatsoever.
Learning by doing is totally fine as long as you don’t just destroy the round for others.
Learning by doing unfortunately will entail people making mistakes and ruining someone’s round. Its the nature of the beast.
The only alternative that I can think is just increasing the timeclocks of all major roles by a significant factor. You only need to be a Nurse for 1 hour before you’re given the big boy shoes, that’s barely a single round of gameplay. Not to mention you can run off to some corner of the ship, screw around for half an hour, and by the end of it all have accomplished nothing, but now you are fully qualified to do surgery and get Marines killed cause you can’t remove the larva. Same goes for Spec, Smartgunner and akin.
5 Hours sounds like a lot, until you realize some rounds can go easily over two hours or longer.
I play mix of low pop and high pop, i assume i notice it more low pop because the affects are more drastic, there is a more extreme effect if you have fuck all medics groundside and one of them is bald, then again a bald medic is still more useful to have than a rifeman
About some players not even knowing basic CM mechanics before diving into other roles, I once seriously was XO with the only other command member being the CE. The CE had a silver medal for CE and whatnot, and a platin one for MT, and seemed competent. So I asked him to help me in CIC, he quickly reads the wiki page and then helps me. So, after some time the queen went off ovipositor and the CE did not know what an ovipositor is, with two MPs and me trying to explain him marine basics.
Purely from an IC perspective that’s kind of cool, ngl. They’re a technician and not frontline personnel, so they might not know a whole lot about xenos or about how operations are conducted outside of their involvement in them.
My character always has opioid tolerance so he squirms like a mother fucker without gas