Roundstart Equipment Documents

src/SUMMARY.md

@@ -187,6 +187,7 @@ Space Station 14
 
 - [Roundflow](en/space-station-14/round-flow.md)
 	- [PR Guidelines]()
+	- [Starting Equipment](en/space-station-14/round-flow/starting-equipment.md)
 
 	- [Antagonists](en/space-station-14/round-flow/antagonists.md)
  		- [Traitors](en/space-station-14/round-flow/antagonists/traitors.md)

src/en/space-station-14/round-flow/starting-equipment.md

@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+# Round Start Player Equipment
+
+## Overview
+
+This page provides an outline for what types of items and machines are expected to be available to players at the start of their shift. It's particularly concerned with regular department jobs. Antagonists have different needs for starting equipment which are covered elsewhere in their respective design documents.
+
+This follows the discussion in [Maintainer Meeting (27 September 2025)](../../maintainer-meetings/maintainer-meeting-2025-09-27.md). PRs changing round start equipment are very common and represent a high workload due to subjective and unclear definitions. Round start equipment affects every round, so strict design standards need to be established for where players get what equipment.
+
+There are five main locations where crew obtain their equipment at the beginning of the shift:
+
+	- [Loadouts](#Loadouts)
+    - [Job Lockers](#Lockers)
+	- [Vending Machines](#Vending-Machines)
+	- [Lathes](#Lathes)
+	- [Mapped](#Mapped)
+
+Of these, only the loadout is unavailable for mid-round players receiving promotions or stealing gear. Therefore important items and essential job equipment should **not** be given in loadouts. This ensures these items are present in rounds regardless of player role selection. It also pushes players to visit their department / personal area at least once, connecting them to their department and to their coworkers before inevitably disappearing.
+
+In summary: Players spawn with clothing and RP props from loadouts, collect essential equipment from lockers they spawn next to, claim optional equipment in nearby vending machines, and find generic items in lathes and mapped.
+
+## Definitions
+
+### Essential Equipment
+
+A role's essential equipment are tools which have a nearly irreplaceable function, and can be recognized as thematically "belonging" to the role. A Research Director's stamp is essential equipment because it plays a unique RP function, and has the role's name on it. Epinephrine, a stun baton, the nuke disk, or a bike horn are examples of essential items. These are consequently the items least likely to be in the hands of a different role, and most likely for an antagonist to want to steal. Essential equipment is often contraband.
+
+Sometimes essential equipment is a set of several items at once, such a a toolbelt. Even if the contents of a toolbelt are generic, having a tool for every situation can be considered essential engineering.
+
+### Optional Equipment
+
+Optional equipment are items that serve an uncommon need to a role, but still recognizably belong to that role. The CMO's beret is optional because it has the role's name on it, but doesn't do anything. A ballistic shield, a substation machine board, or a rolling pin are examples. Strongly themed RP props like a stethoscope and clothing fall in this category.
+
+### Generic Items
+
+Items that are widely available, easily crafted, and aren't strongly connected to any role's identity. Hand labelers, flashlights, and water are generic.
+
+## Pillars
+
+### Consistency
+
+While antithetical to chaos on its own, consistency can be an important tool to maximize player agency and thereby a player's ability to create chaos. Individual items and equipment are the verbs for interaction. By simplifying where to find these verbs and codifying the barriers to acquiring them, players are more capable of planning and engaging in the mechanics they enable.
+
+### Functional, not Strong
+
+Tools provided at the start of the round should not be the most powerful option for an interaction. Certain tools are outright required to interact with certain mechanics, but mechanics should be deep enough that tools of varying effects and strength are available. This leaves room to diversify sources and options, allowing a sense of progression and choice later in the round.
+
+## Locations
+
+### Loadouts
+
+A loadout is the sum of all items on a player when they first spawn. Nearly every station job allows players to customize these loadouts as part of character creation. Being part of character customization, loadout options should focus on cosmetics and clothing. Beyond customization, loadouts are used to guarantee certain gameplay necessities, and to communicate the crushing conformity of space capitalism.
+
+Every role should spawn wearing department-identifying colors and clothing, with player options limited to different kinds of uniform. At minimum players should spawn with a PDA with ID, a backpack (or variant), a headset with their department's comms channel, and a jumpsuit. Learner roles _must_ spawn with a guidebook. Optional categories can exist for any other kind of clothing, but clothing **must not** disguise a player's identity (such as face or fingerprints). Hiding one's identity should be a deliberate action taken during the round.
+
+Trinkets are the non-clothing items available in a loadout. These should be RP props used to establish a unique character, and should say something about your character's personality. They should not be used to shortcut finding readily available and common items (like cigarettes) or to give yourself an advantage with some special functionality.
+
+Players should **not** spawn with job-essential equipment in their loadout. This includes essential clothing like armor and insulated gloves, as well as tools. This is done to emphasize roleplay by deemphasizing job simulation. Players don't need to be immediately capable of doing their job as it's only one part of the game. Instead they're encouraged to spend time talking with their coworkers in the locker room, delay their late arrival even longer by visiting the bar, or forget something and be unprepared. It's okay for a player to late join into chaos and not immediately possess the ability to combat that chaos.
+
+#### Role Time Unlocks
+
+Under discussion.
+
+### Lockers
+
+At round-start every role spawns near one (1) complete set of their role's essential equipment. For most roles this gear is in a nearby locked container (a locker), but for some roles additional items might be placed around their starting room (such as in a suit storage). Players can rely on finding a locker regardless of role in order to equip themselves to do that role whether you're an antagonist, getting promoted, or normal.
+
+Maps should have enough lockers to supply the roundstart + latejoin capacity of the station (learner jobs included). This allows any player who joined as that role to have their essential gear available (as long as no disasters get in the way). Secondarily this makes it very rare for vital tools to be a point of failure. Not having the tool you need to do your job _and_ lacking the ability to get those tools is a hopeless situation which doesn't feel fun.
+
+A player should want most items found in their locker or have a clear picture of why they would want them. Optional equipment can be included at random (as long as it's not selectable in a loadout), and generic equipment shouldn't appear unless it's _really_ funny. Expendable items in a locker should have adequate availability outside of lockers to discourage looting multiple lockers and leaving the next player with part of their gear missing.
+
+Lockers for specialized jobs in a department (including department heads) should include any equipment present in a "lesser" locker, unless that job has an equivalent item. For instance a toolbelt can be replaced by a toolbelt with more space, or a gun can be replaced by a cooler gun. This is also part of discouraging the raiding of secondary lockers as a source for your own gear. A player shouldn't need anything from a locker that they have access to which wasn't provided in their own locker.
+
+In addition to their own specialized gear, there are several items present in all command lockers.
+
+ - A personal stamp.
+ - A headset with encryption keys for their department and for command.
+ - A door remote controlling their department's airlocks.
+ - A box containing spare department encryption keys.
+ - A box containing spare circuit boards for vital machines and computers.
+
+### Vending Machines
+
+Vending machines in SS14 are the most straightforward source of items in game. They have a mostly consistent stock, and their consistent location in maps makes them a well-known, first choice place for gear. This availability helps players to better plan out their activities, their thefts, and their jokes, with the limited amounts ensuring they never act as a guarantee and trivialize resource gathering. Overall they serve as a simple solution to putting items in the hands of players.
+
+Every vending machine should have a clear identity that can be summarized in twoish words (its name). The items inside should trend towards core and introductory mechanics rather than complex ones, leaving advanced items to other sources (such as science or cargo). Roleplay and "useless" items are encouraged when they fit the theme. The stock should supply no more than 4 (four) players, with less supply inside machines with more specific accesses, and more supply for items that are expendable. A full set of department vending machines should be capable of gearing exactly two naked players with all the essential equipment, and a uniform.
+
+It must _always_ be possible to restock a vending machine through cargo.
+
+#### Tool Vendors
+
+Tool vending machines are one of the most common types, typically themed to specific departments. They provide a variety of essential and optional tools for performing a role, acting as both an entry point for new hires and a shared stock of expendables for departments. The ordering of items should go: `Essential -> Expendable -> Optional -> Roleplay`.  Clothing items typically belong in a wardrobe vendor, but a few exceptions exist:
+
+ - Filled Container Clothing
+  - - This typically means belts. While the belt itself is a clothing item, the items inside it are not and should not be available inside a wardrobe.
+ - Worn items that aren't clothing
+ - - Items like whistles or a backpack water tank. While they can be worn, they aren't "clothing" in an intuitive sense.
+ - Clothing not worn by the player themselves
+ - - These are things like a muzzle or a hospital gown. They're akin to tools in how they are used on others, rather than used for yourself.
+
+#### Clothing Vendors
+
+Wardrobes (or "drobes") are another common vendor themed around clothing. They allow players the ability to quickly change their look to the drobe's theme, and can include functional (and even powerful) clothing. Like any vending machine they should stick to their theme; Every item in a Drobe must be equip-able and be intuitively thought of as clothes. The order of clothing in a Drobe should have essential role equipment listed first, followed by: `Head -> Eyes -> Mask -> Ears -> Back -> Belt -> InnerClothing -> OuterClothing -> Neck -> Gloves -> Feet`.
+
+#### Other Vendors
+
+Vending machines can come in many forms as long the the theme is strong and the purpose is clear. A specialized role could have a dedicated machine to provide its tools and clothes at once, or a snack machine could be used to feed crew. A marijuana vendor in maintenance could inspire a drug dealer, or skip the middle man and get your sick kicks from the tobacco vendor. Not every vending machine is guaranteed to be mapped so consider themes that can be connected to a physical location such as a business, or enable an atypical job that encourage a player to interact with others in an interesting way. 
+
+#### Contraband Inventory
+
+In addition to their normal stock every vending machine can be hacked to reveal extra "contraband" items. While not necessarily illegal they are sometimes dangerous, but typically trend towards jokes. Items in this list should still thematically belong alongside other items in the vendor, but should also contain a small contradiction. Cow tools are tools but obviously not _useful_ tools. Poisoned wine belongs with booze, but also doesn't belong in a "safe" inventory.
+
+Vending machines are also capable of having a set of "illegal" items, primarily accessed by using a cryptographic sequencer (EMAG) on them. Items in the illegal inventory should be explicitly themed around the Syndicate and should not be particularly useful. These inventories are meant as low consequence disruption and anti-Nanotrasen roleplay, not as a source of restocking meaningful resources.
+
+### Lathes
+
+Lathes serve as the primary source for generic equipment in a round. They provide a quick, expensive way to gear players with (large amounts of) common items. They supply an even more consistently selection of more items compared to vending machines, but with a high cost as tradeoff for the lack of scarcity. Lathes also serve as the reward vector for the science department's research later in a round.
+
+Each lathe should be specialized with a clear theme for the items it has available. Autolathes are specialized in the most generic of items crew are expected to have in abundance, while department specific lathes are specialized in items for that department. Initial offerings from lathes should feel cheaper and lower quality than items available from other sources like cargo or vending machines. The more specialized equipment - including some essential equipment - should not be immediately available, and in some cases might never become available (requiring alternative sources like Cargo).
+
+### Mapped
+
+The items that start mapped for a department are their initial source for generic equipment. These are often materials, but can be anything appropriate for the access they are locked behind. Specifics are established in ( link mapping doc here ).
+
+#### Armory
+
+The armory is a special location on maps which belongs to the security department. Mapped inside is the station's supply of lethal weapons and protective armor. Similar to a vending machine the armory is a main source for the department's optional gear, except instead of a machine you have a very serious warden demanding paperwork.
+
+#### Maintenance
+
+Maintenance contains the widest variety of items for players, but is stocked mostly randomly. The random selection and spooky hallways cater to players seeking danger, uncertainty, and variety in their equipment.