Let's talk Engineers

[Kotlol]

I really feel bad for these guys... like really really really really bad.

They apperently have the job to fix the station, but also an engine to manage, fires to fight and more.
Yet... they don't have much to do outside of it.

Heck most of the time a mechanic or staff assistant or borg is building a new room somewhere.

Everytime I log into late shifts I see Engineers as the least filled role. (Sometimes I see a lack of security too)

So what can we do for these poor folk to do? Sure there is matscience but anyone can do that with acces to materials.
I just feel like engineers need a reason to have to do more.
Maybe make go-karts?

[BatElite]

There's a good chance that the station needs next  to no repairs in a round (lings/vamps/arcfiends all do minimal property damage, traitors are a toss up), but even then repairing the station kinda sucks and engineers don't have much going for them in that regard. The free carpenter trait is pointless if you already use carpenter, the engivac is more of an auxiliary tool than a construction help. The lamp fab though, good.

In my mind conworkers were the shit. And even then the productive ones couldn't build more than an extra room or two, atmos issues aside.

Invent a wall type in between regular and reinforced (let's call it sturdy for now) that maybe takes on the current rwall steps and has a slightly more difficult disassembly than normal walls. Keep the current decon steps on rwalls. Make RCDs only capable of making regular and sturdy walls. Make rwalls involved to build. Now you've got something in between "a welder and a wrench" and "toolbelt macarena" in terms of cleaning up, and rwalls become something unviable for blocking off hallways with.

From there it shouldn't be a problem to give engineers RCDs by default and a bit of ammo, since the largest vector of grief is gone. Mining will need to step up for getting the matter big projects, but the power nerds can hand over their ammo to the building nerds at roundstart otherwise.

also maybe throw a couple F&W planners in engineering storage or something, half the problem is you can't make built rooms look nice. I don't know what would be best for ABCUs, but they need some love too.

Also also, there's nothing to build that the station doesn't already have. I don't really have suggestions there either, but it's a good avenue to look in to.

[Cherman0]

The biggest issues are that engineering has basically two different jobs (run the engine and repair and modify the station) and both dont have a whole lot going for them.

For the engine, the burn chamber has been mediocre for years since the hellburn nerf and pipeburns have been made to be tedious and dangerous to the point of not really being fun to do (chemistry will never make you graphene, even if by some miracle they know how it's really tedious for them). The end result is that you either just do a "standard charburn" or run the chamber at basically the same efficiency with just 02 and Plasma and maybe oxygen B if mining has been productive. Neither are terribly fun, and neither will get you a notable amount of money from the PTL.

For repairing and modifying the station, you run into the problems mentioned earlier. Repairing the station is incredibly tedious. Floors, walls, air, lights, wires, equipment, pipes, etc. all need to be rebuilt in order to restore status quo. Most engineers will do floors, walls, wires, air, and maybe lights if they have the lamp machine on-hand. Aside from that, fiddling with pipes and shit is just too tedious, and is actually impossible (short of bombing the location again) if the pipes go under something that cant be deconstructed. I don't think anyone has ever repaired a MULE beacon, ever. I dont think repair being tedious is fixable or even should be fixed, as it necessarily involves recreating everything that was destroyed, which is usually a lot of things. Making that process speedy might reduce the impact of antags who damage the station, though some would argue that that isnt a bad thing.

The station already has everything that it needs in terms of rooms, and in the rare event that someone wants to build their own room they're just as well-equipped to do it as the engineers are (sheets and air and other equipment are all over the place) and so they just do it themselves. If anything, mechanics might get called to add scannable items to the room, but engineers arent wanted for the process at all. Limitations in how APCs and other room designations work also limits the usefulness of extra rooms.

[According_tome]

My issue with engineering is mainly construction. Reqires minimum 20 minutes of investment for something simple. If you want to build a simple thing lets say 5x5 room from scratch. You need a 12.25 sheets for floors 96 sheets for walls. (I usually keep rcd for other stuff) Need painting stuff from cargo. Need an air can or pressure greande.(o cans are precious) You need an apc which you copy with device analyzer. You might need a shield generator for air breach if you are trying to build a structure open to space or to fix a breach. If you are building something remotely you also might need to learn mechcomp for teleportation. An atmos analyzer for missed spots. Airlocks and apcs are buggy to build. But even at this point consturction is pretty fun but very time consuming that you cant enjoy the results half of the time. Halving the carpenter trait time and reducing the required resources for building can be helpful