Make Robotics easier, not with more gimmicks.

[Caio029]

This is more of a long rant than a suggestion, but if a bored dev wants to experiment with a new thing to make the Roboticist role more appealing, here it is. 

Skip to the second paragraph and on-wards for the actual suggestion.

This rant started when I was discussing in the Discord server about how the Roboticist role could be improved, since it's current job is to get ignored by the people wanting to get treads and build a shell for the AI, occasionally borging the antagonist that the SecOff looks forward to grinding. A lot of people suggested giving more upgrades for the Roboticist to implant people with, such as extra arms, a small robot army or something in the same category. I took issue with that because the Roboticist role isn't plagued by the lack of upgrades they can give to people, but rather how hard it is to get people on their table with complete trust on them, even harder to get enough metal to be able to print a single set of limbs; and that distrust isn't baseless! The surgery system is such a wobble-wobble of muscle-memory scapeling, sawing and scissoring that anyone who is not with the Doctoring wiki page open on another window will doubt that they are doing the correct thing, now consider those who don't even use the wiki for anything. And that is not even the end: the amount of people I had to teach about committing a mistake while doing a surgery is beyond astounding, because the last thing that someone thinks about is getting them some sleepy gas to do proper surgery. Now that I got that part of the surgery system out of the way, I can talk about how often you'll see people critting in the operating table because the patient either lost too much blood or received too much brute damage. I've had cases where Roboticists would have to clone someone because the procedure went wrong, which as much as it can relate to real-life, is just stupid in the year 205X. And for anyone who says, "well, I take preventive measures so my patient does not die in an operation", most of the people who do surgeries in-game do not take those preventive measures. Last things last about surgery is the big elephant in the room: self-surgeries. Funny, but is a big open door to completely ignoring Roboticists and power-gaming without the help of other people. You could argue that the SecOff who has 7 shrapnel inside them and has no competent MD near them should be able to remove said shrapnels, I will argue that the Captain shoving me away from the manufacturer and occupying the operating table when someone needs a new arm shouldn't be something fair.

Now that I criticized the entirety of the surgery system, I can get to where I want to: make Roboticist simpler, not with more gimmicks. The lack of materials to print objects, the difficulty of getting someone on your operating table, the difficulty of not getting ignored, the difficulty of not letting your patient die or build extreme distrust over your surgeon hands and the overall disregard for your work is something that will severely affect any new thing they add to the Robotics Manufacturer, so why not giving the Roboticists an engaging-yet-easier way to give people cyborg implants or a new way to do surgeries altogether? I was thinking of something like the GeneTek, but for the Roboticist. He wouldn't worry about materials, those automatically will regenerate over time. It would be a reason for the "Research Budget" to not be called "Genetics Budget", it would make things extremely simple for both the implanter and the implantee, and even if it did damage the implantee, the implanter could easily heal them instead of having to saw them 5 times until they saw the implantee's butt off. It doesn't even need to be a Robotics-themed GeneTek, it could also be a tool, or just a special skill that the Roboticist could have to make everything much easier. Then you could add spider arms for the Roboticist, or a special organ to interact with things wirelessly like the AI, or a face modification for them to be able to spit chems from their bloodstream, or whatever techno-aberration someone from the 205X could think up.

You thought I forgot the other reason the Roboticist is called the Roboticist, right? The AI infrastructure with the Cyborgs and other human-controlled robots. If it wasn't for this, anyone could rename the Roboticist to Surgeon and nobody would notice a difference, except if they did it right now, nobody would notice it either. The current capability of the Roboticist is to build some Cyborgs, now that the Manudrive has been implemented, with the help of the MDir, make a new AI, and that's it. No fancy other robots that can only be obtained through them, no extra control over how the AI or Cyborgs behave, nothing more, which is an extreme disappointment for someone who should be a techno-god controlling all that is machine. Not to compare it to other code-bases, but TG has an exosuit system which not only is extremely badass, gives the Roboticist a more metallic taste to it's name. What I'm trying to say is: why is the Roboticist most remarkable role in the station the opposite of what it should be? It's a real shame that this is all the Roboticist currently is: making some borgs and being ignored when people do self-surgeries to get treads. And there doesn't need to have a big surgery rework for it to work, just enough space for the Roboticist to do his job quickly and favorably towards the crew and station. And there doesn't need to have an overhaul of how Cyborgs or the AI is built or even how the Roboticist operates to justify the Roboticist being called the Roboticist, just enough for him to matter. So the current issue is not "how much content can we fit into this role", but rather "how can we assure this role is enjoyable and has some importance to the station"?

Anyone can disagree with my points, I know myself for doing bad takes and for extrapolating problems way beyond it's original scope, but damn I really want to see a change to the Roboticist role.

[Kotlol]

I always had some ideas for Robotics, some for new gimmicks and ideas and others for stream lining.

In my opinion the Robotcist is suppose to be the streamliner and automatisation of the crew with improvements or replacing organs.
The thing is.. we got artifacts that can replace limbs too. So... let's see your ideas before going to mine.

EXOSUIT IS A HARD NO. Please do not add TG content to Goon no matter how cool.
Robotcists has access to research budget? YES.
Robotcists has a "Robottrek" Yes.
Robotcists can do their own "modifications" after researching the tech? Yes.

But here's another idea to make research interresting. Hear me out.. NEUROLOGY.
Pretty much the "Robotrek idea" or as I would call it. The Robotizer Pod, will be able to read Neurons of nerves in the subjects system.
Now most "standard" parts we know these days are "multipurpose" and can be added via surgery but also via the pod wich removes the whole surgery bit, but has you have to add medicine and treatments by command and that stuff needs to recharge. (Think like a sleeping pod/port-a-medbay)
So you could technically do a full surgical change, but the person will die of brute damage since you cannot "automend it away"

When we get to more advanced implants like suggested, for example a stomach that digest everything or a cyborg eye with all eye functionalities. That's when you have to do Neurology to have the implant match the neurological signal of the patient. You 1st have to research it of course to obtain these things, but now you have to do an extra minigame to get the part to function and any screw up gives your patient brain damage.

As for research parts. This requires you to fabricate parts and mixing and matching parts together like chemicals. So for the all purpose eye, you need to have made every eye implant and reconstruct them into the all purpose one. For other parts you need to develop chips and implants to upgrade cyborg parts into new parts but you always need to make them. Thus the research budget now comes into play, since you need that to order the parts you need.

Finally I will add one more "idea" of mine is the "Chip station"
Where you make chips for new parts, this is essentially put going to be the neurology mini game again but this time you have to "connect" the chip's connections in a way to get a new result, wich costs in this case "copper" or "gold" or "insert conducting space alloy"

Now to explain the "Neurology" mini game. And I will take a book from "Among Us" as the concept. Do you know the wiring mini game? Where you have to connect the wires to the right colors? It's concept lies in that, cept....
"There are no colors" Just prongs to neurons and you gotta figure out the right combination. So how do you figure it out?
You connect a "prong" with a "neuron" and do a "test signal" to see the results. It will have flavor texts saying things, but if you are wrong. It will show the person took brain damage. The more wrongs you got... the more braindamage, leave the implant in wrong, the person will keep taking braindamage over time.
Of course the more complex the implant, the more prongs and neurons.
We will start with 3 prong and end with 6 prong combinations.
The same goes for the chip research where you do the same, but the signal patterns stay the same over each shift. So some basic chips can be made acording to the book.

And that's it so far for my ideas...

[Technature]

I want to address my personal issues with this thread.

I never found Robotics to be hard specifically, no harder than Doctoring in general anyways. You're generally not expected to deal with more than Brute damage, Blood loss, and basic limb replacement, and while it's definitely a daunting job, I feel it's a good entry in learning surgery. The wiki is helpful, but it also has a lot of information on any given page and thus it can be very difficult to actually learn what you need at a given time (pretty much anything not involving organs can be done with "Keep a few brute patches per limb on hand, keep a blood bag on hand, helpfully target the limb you want to remove, have a scalpel and bone saw on each hand, alternate hands until limb is off, staple new nerve, make sure target won't die on their way out of medbay" and even half of that is needed if you (intentionally) don't care if the person dies), but actually knowing these things on hand isn't something I expect a new player would just know and I can understand the issues. All I can suggest is ask people around you.

As for people doing your job...Well, if it's the classic server then it's just expected, but on the RP server you should be yelling at people about this, and not just in character either. It's in the rules on RP servers to not but in other peoples lane. Even the captain shouldn't be doing your job for you (after all why are you being paid?), and you should mention it to them. This goes towards sleeping gas as well. Especially on classic, it's generally not used because it takes up time for pretty much no benefit for the patient or the well meaning doctor whatsoever, but it should be mentioned on the RP servers if you want to use it.

People also can't do self-surgeries if they're in the right state of mind for the most part (so they need to be drunk, more or less). I know bullet removal is the exception, but I could see someone dealing with the pain to do that.

I'll also cap this off by mentioning that something that is "From that one server" is probably not going to be added. I know the admins mentioned it more than once.

[Kotlol]

People also can't do self-surgeries if they're in the right state of mind for the most part (so they need to be drunk, more or less).  I know bullet removal is the exception, but I could see someone dealing with the pain to do that.

Adding to this, I see plenty of players on RP doing self surgery and getting drunk to do so.
I actually started ahelping this stuff, cause let's face it. If there is a doctor or other robotcist to help, you ask them.
But too many times I see the robotcist going: "I WANT MY THREADS" Then insted of asking his fellow doctors, just runs to the bar or chem dispenser, gets drunk and goes to town.
IF YOU SEE THIS ON RP OR IT HAPPENS TO YOU! SCOLD EM! AHELP IT!
It is not allowed to purposely get drunk so you can do self surgery.

As for the suggestions aren't bad and having a surgery point is fine. I am just thinking it wouldn't be bad to have an "easy surgery machine" but only for specific things.
But then again... we will see.

[Caio029]

I'll also cap this off by mentioning that something that is "From that one server" is probably not going to be added.  I know the admins mentioned it more than once.

EXOSUIT IS A HARD NO. Please do not add TG content to Goon no matter how cool.

Yeah, I worded that poorly. I meant that Robotics can be more than just implants and making conscious robots, and the exosuit was the thing that came to my mind. We already have submarines, we don't need more things ramming people on the corridors.

Even the captain shouldn't be doing your job for you (after all why are you being paid?), and you should mention it to them. This goes towards sleeping gas as well. Especially on classic, it's generally not used because it takes up time for pretty much no benefit for the patient or the well meaning doctor whatsoever, but it should be mentioned on the RP servers if you want to use it.

Yes, this is generally aimed towards Main, and if they are already doing self-surgeries, you know they are going to ignore you trying to talk with them. Trust me, I've tried before.

[...] but actually knowing these things on hand isn't something I expect a new player would just know and I can understand the issues. All I can suggest is ask people around you.

This isn't my issue, generally. I just see so many new Roboticists who do the role without knowing a thing about surgeries that maybe if we made an easier way for them to be a Roboticist, they would do it without actually removing my liver instead of my appendix. Surgery isn't very complicated, but you'll see a lot of struggle (and often deaths) below the hands of your most likely fresh surgeon.

[Kotlol]

This isn't my issue, generally. I just see so many new Roboticists who do the role without knowing a thing about surgeries that maybe if we made an easier way for them to be a Roboticist, they would do it without actually removing my liver instead of my appendix. Surgery isn't very complicated, but you'll see a lot of struggle (and often deaths) below the hands of your most likely fresh surgeon.

The most common way I mess up surgeries are these two methodes:
- I get a bad RNG and "fail" the surgeon action, but I do the next step anyway and lose my train of though"
- I accidently attach/put my knife into someone since I lost track of the steps and figured I needed one more then I go "WHERE DID MY SCAPEL GO?!"

Anyhow enough huge derailment. i do think a few "easier" option would be fine but at the same time shouldnt replace the old.

[Technature]

If people are getting drunk for treads on Classic servers, there's not a whole lot that can be really done about it.  Especially because everyone that isn't security is a potential traitor, and traitors can go on murderous rampages for literally no reason.  Even if it's for good intentions, someone offering to do the job for them (especially with sleepy gas) can be very suspicious.

As for new people, constantly ask anyone who wants to do surgery if they know what they're doing, and offer tutoring if they don't.  Even if they just want to learn on their own, point out that they can do whatever they want to monkeys without consequence (if they're handled properly).  Some people may take offense to it, so make sure they know you're only trying to help.

[Roninnozlo]

I like this idea. I like it a lot.