Improvements to Janitor job

[TomFoolious]

 

Hey there! I know the Janitor isn't a major job, but after playing it tonight I have found that it is VERY behind on functionality. I have gathered quite a few things that are a nuisance and have evidence to support how it is a nuisance:

 

Janicart is really the largest contender and the one thing I had the most issues with tonight. Here are the items I found tonight that are either "behind on their times"/a nuisance:

 

1.) To ride the janicart you must click and drag your character onto the janicart (VERSUS, Paramedic tugger you can simply click on it to hop on). To get OFF the janicart (in this case, let's say with the trash bag attached to the janicart): First you must put the key in your pocket, click on the janicar to take the trash bag off, then click on the janicart with an open hand to get off of the janicart. (I cannot recall the exact steps to get off the Paramedic Tugger, so I cannot relate here, but I want to say you simply click on the Paramedic Tugger to get off).

 

2.) The key ("Pussy Wagon") for the janicart. The key must be held in a hand to drive the janicart (VERSUS, Paramedic tugger; the key can be inserted into the "ignition" and left there).

 

3.) The Paramedic cart can be powered on and off, also the battery can be upgraded. Now the Janicart doesn't have any kind of power (and is actually not a nuisance this way since the Janicart doesn't need charged! But it doesn't make sense when compared to the Paramedic tugger, if these two objects are identical pieces of equipment just labeled differently for the job).

 

4.) The Trash Bag can be put on the janicart, but cannot be used while attached to the janicart. I.e. You cannot pick up a piece of trash on the ground and click on the janicart to put the trash item in the trash bag (like you can with the pull behind janitor cart, the blue one with the mop bucket on it; That is: if the trash bag is attached to the blue pull behind janitor cart). You must put the key in a pocket, click on the janicart to take the trash bag off, then pick up the trash item in an empty hand, lastly click on the trash bag to put the trash item inside of it. To get back to what you were doing: With trash bag in hand, click on the janicart to put the trash bag on the janicart, then get the key back in hand to drive the janicart (which goes back to item #2). This kind of makes the trash bag pointless to even put on the janicart in the first place, other than to keep one hand empty (Which you need to open doors, touched on at Item #6). But since there is really nothing else you can do with an extra hand...yeah I think I've made my point here.

 

5.) You cannot use the back pack spray jet thing while on the janicart. Must go through all the steps (longer once again if you have a trash bag attached to the janicart from Item #1) to get off the janicart, then click on the back pack spray jet thing to put it into a hand to use.

 

6.) You cannot simply "drive into" doors to open them. You have to click on the doors with an empty hand (VERSUS the Paramedic cart that DOES allow you to "drive into" doors to open them (instead of having to click on the door you want to open with an empty hand), obviously if you have the access to open the doors, needless to say).

 

One item for the Trash Bag functionality (and maybe I was doing this wrong?): I found 5 bullet casings outside the custodial closet "Great!" I thought, "I'll grab the trash bag and click on the tile like a Miner's Satchel to pick up all items on the tile". Well that didn't work, so I clicked on the hand carrying the trash bag and hit Z to use the item and in the chat screen it appeared *Now collecting a single item off the tile* (or something like that), "Whoops that's not what I want". Hit Z again...*Now collecting all items on a tile*, "Ok time to do this again". Clicked on the tile and still wouldn't pick anything up. To sum this up: I tried all combinations I could think of, but was not able to collect any items off the ground with the trash bag. I had to individually pick up every bullet casing (very tedious by the way with them being a small sprite, I could've used the right click menu though) with an empty hand and place them in the trash bag in the other hand.

 

One last note and kind of a question: Maybe it is another codebase, but I thought the Janicart could be filled with water and could spray the ground? I wasn't able to fill the Janicart up with water at all and use it that way. Twinmold told me that the Janicart could be upgraded at R&D, so I'm going to guess that's where that functionality comes from. But I wasn't able to get R&D to upgrade the Janicart, so I wasn't able to confirm this for myself!

 

That's all I have for you guys. Sorry the list is long! If anyone needs something to do this is one area that could be touched up code-wise. And as I stated: I know the Janitor job isn't a luxurious position and not a high demand one or fun one, but it would be nice to see these items touched on at some point in the future - if at all possible code-wise.

 

Thank you for your time and I hope I worded everything alright (I'm bad with this sort of thing!). Yell at me on BYOND if anything needs cleared up! I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

 

-TomFoolious

 

P.S. - Thank you Twinmold for hearing me out and linking me to the forums here to post this suggestion! I've been very happy with the admins on Paradise and I hold the admins there in high respect from a great experience in all previous interactions!!