Science and Engineering, the broadest department

[Kotlol]

Before I start. Ironicly Medical Doctors have the same thing going on with this topic, since doctors tend to specialize in 1 trait then being a "Surgeon, Medicine and Nurse"
Anyhow...

Science and Engineering... pretty much two broad departments where the term "Scientist" and "Engineer" pretty much means: "You can do everything of that department"
But in reality...
When you roll these rolls, mostly you focus only on one aspect of the job.
Some engineers prefer permanent Engine duty, others want to construct and fix. Some might just want to be fire fighters. Others just wanna mess with Mech Comp.
Wich ends up in determint of the station... but before Mechanics and Engineers were seperated..they only became one since everyone was fighting to be a mechanic, engineers sometimes had nothing to do since Mechanics could build already... and sometimes when an engineer built a room, the mechanic had to do the wiring.

So before you think this is a "Please seperate the departments again." It's not.

But when we go to Science... the scientists pretty much have:
"Chemistry"
"Toxins/Explosives"
"Art-Sci"
"Tele-Sci"
"Robotics aka Secbuddies"

And from expirence as a scientist... most of the times we are all fighting over similiar departments.. ESPECIALLY ART-SCI AND TELE-SCI.

But here comes the next problem for scientists... if you are an "Arti-Sci" specialist Scientist but someone needs a specific chemical and you don't know how to make it.... then what? Well tough luck for them no? Their plan is stopped due to all scientists not being chemists... and that kinda sucks in my opinion. (though this never happens)

And this to me can be REALLY ANNOYING on broad departments. While for engineering... every engineer can do anything. It has happened a few times in my shifts that all engineers were doing mech-comp stuff but NON OF THEM, touched the engine causing power problems since Tele-Sci is draining batteries.

So now I wish to discuss, should we change these departments so it gets distrubited correctly in some way? I am not saying make science have: "Chemist, Toxin Specialist, Astrologist (Tele sci), Archeologist (Art sci)" and such.
I am just asking.. what shall we do so we don't have scientists fighting eachother and some engineers neglecting the engine to presue building a pipe rollercoaster?

I recommend some sort of "Sub-catagory" roll. So engineers and scientists can still access other areas, but it's clear who specializes in what like "Scientist (Art-Sci)"
But... would that also be bad?

Should we maybe put in some unwritten rules? Or maybe do we deal with this problem all differently?

Cause i'll be honest. A lot of science and mech comp makes me nervous to do and if I wanted to do something else that I can do better but it's oversatured.. you just get into eachothers way. And it just becomes awkward.

So yea, I put it here in general to gather more information and see what we can do, rather then putting a "mechanical" suggestion over it? What do we do when 5 engineers all wanna work on the engine? What do we do when every scientist is fighting over tele-sci?

[Dhaidburt]

I've given it some thought, and this feels like 2 completely different issues rolled into one post so I'll give my opinion on each though keep in mind I don't play goon1 anymore:

I feel the easy way to ensure people don't fight is to just have them spawn inside the artlab (the game chose ME to do artsci, alright? buzz off) though there's no real way to ensure even with sub-roles people won't just bolt for the artlab as a chemist. The way I see it when there's more than 2 people doing these jobs, you have issues if everyone just ignores the problem. But, you don't have to:

• You can technically do artsci anywhere, so why not just encourage scientists to go out into space for more? Just gotta grab the tools and a safe place for testing. Maybe increasing how many artifacts are out there, or increasing how often mining can find artifacts could help with this so there's enough work to go around. Scientists could also try to get engineers involved with a 2nd artlab, though I'm not sure how much they can scan.
  

• Telesci can very easily eat up as many scientists as possible once an adventure zone is found (at least on RP). Work together instead of against each-other, have one find the zone and any others gather up supplies. I feel like if 3 people want to do things with telesci, there's already plenty for them to do with the long range teleporter, the normal teleporter, and any supply gathering or creating.
  

As for what to do when an entire crew refuses to do a major role, like all engineers don't do squat about the engine.. I feel like that falls on the captain or AI or other heads to take over. Maybe it's because I only play rp nowadays (or because i don't play these roles lol) but i believe these cases are the reason why there are heads of the station. Someone to take charge or rain hell on those who would hinder the station.

[Kotlol]

As for what to do when an entire crew refuses to do a major role, like all engineers don't do squat about the engine.. I feel like that falls on the captain or AI or other heads to take over. Maybe it's because I only play rp nowadays (or because i don't play these roles lol) but i believe these cases are the reason why there are heads of the station. Someone to take charge or rain hell on those who would hinder the station.

Yes but if the AI doesn't know how to do an engine... or the heads don't do it.. then we got a problem again.
Now this is rare, but it did happen twice for me on shifts that I was playing a detective (and I know how to do engines) but no engineer, captain, HoP or AI knew how to setup engines. CE was MIA in both versions.

I did teach them this in charater and described it as: "An expirenced detective should know how these things work so they can find sabotage, let alone I dabble a little here and there."

But hey.. that's a heavy EXCEPTION (and this across thousands of shifts)

And yes people do missbehave and things like sub-classes won't stop the missbehaving. Even if 4 scientists want to do artsci and only 1 of them rolled it.
They want to do it and get angry at the game and such... but here's the thing...
"Start of round spawning gives you a random spawn too."

But anyway... back to the topic at hand.

While these are two problems... they come from the same core problem.

With engineers it can become a station wide problem if no Engineer wants to fix or do the engines.
With Scientists it just leads to infighting... but doesn't endanger the station.

And yes heads can keep order and such.. but remember Heads of departments/captains also are players and can be subject to "I don't wanna do this"
And in those rare occasions, nothing gets done. While in some cases it can lead to funny scenerio's... in a lot it will lead to frustrations.

Even in my rp times as a captain, I have fired an engineer for disobeying priority orders, cause he kept going off to do his own project insted of fixing a breach for 20 mins straight (it wasn't in a key area but still). So I revoked his access and took his stuff.. cause "You have a job to do."
Also he was the only engineer that shift and I already setup the engine for him.

Eitherway... I have no objections having them remain like they are. I just want to have a "clear way" how to deal with these kinda scenerios and knowing when to summon an admin to fix this mess.

[StaringGasMask]

Solars sustain the station just fine during the entire round, setting up the engine is practically unneeded in most situations.

And, may I remind you, mechanic got removed as a job, while doing exactly that: Separate engine management from mechcomp and packet experimentation.

However, you can't really see that if someone doesn't want to do a job, they're not going to do said job. If I want to do packets, I'm going engineer, and if you separate it on two jobs, I'm going that other job.
By separating these jobs you'll just make those roles nobody wants to fill empty, because nobody will want to fill them.

And about science, doing exactly one of the many tasks around is very boring if you don't have a plan, and sometimes, one area can benefit the other. For instance, doing artsci might lead to an art pitcher or beaker, which can be used for chemistry. Or telescience can bring artifacts and crates from space, while nobody uses guardbuddies because their use is mainly security, and securitrons already do that better, so they end up being used more by engineers for the headpass, or by antagonists.

What I'm trying to say is that by splitting science and engineering into sub-departments you're just making jobs more dependant on the presence and willingness of others. Sure, having no engineers that want to fix the holes is a problem, but having an engineer that wants to help and doesn't have access because that's now restricted to the Builder job is even worse.

That being said, I'm talking from a main player perspective, maybe interdepartmental cooperation actually works in RP, although I've always found it more of an impediment.

[Kotlol]

Solars sustain the station just fine during the entire round, setting up the engine is practically unneeded in most situations.

And, may I remind you, mechanic got removed as a job, while doing exactly that: Separate engine management from mechcomp and packet experimentation.

However, you can't really see that if someone doesn't want to do a job, they're not going to do said job. If I want to do packets, I'm going engineer, and if you separate it on two jobs, I'm going that other job.
By separating these jobs you'll just make those roles nobody wants to fill empty, because nobody will want to fill them.

And about science, doing exactly one of the many tasks around is very boring if you don't have a plan, and sometimes, one area can benefit the other. For instance, doing artsci might lead to an art pitcher or beaker, which can be used for chemistry. Or telescience can bring artifacts and crates from space, while nobody uses guardbuddies because their use is mainly security, and securitrons already do that better, so they end up being used more by engineers for the headpass, or by antagonists.

What I'm trying to say is that by splitting science and engineering into sub-departments you're just making jobs more dependant on the presence and willingness of others. Sure, having no engineers that want to fix the holes is a problem, but having an engineer that wants to help and doesn't have access because that's now restricted to the Builder job is even worse.

That being said, I'm talking from a main player perspective, maybe interdepartmental cooperation actually works in RP, although I've always found it more of an impediment.

You missunderstood my "Sub division" idea.
It DOES not remove access from those departments.

So if a Scientist (Tele-sci) spawns in.. they can still access chemistry, toxins, art-sci and such.
Same as an Engineer (Engine duty) can still do Mech comp.

The idea comes more from the fact we see many people stacking 1 area in a lot of shifts while others are empty in the same department or people fighting over the same areas. The sub division is suppose to give people more meaning, but they can easily ask the HoP to change it's title or simply ignore it all together, but with consiquence that we know who rolled what sub division and is therefore "SLACKING OFF"

If all engineers are doing mech comp and are NEGLECTING OTHER DUTIES. The sub division idea will give you a place to point at... insted blaming the 1st engineer you see. Not a perfect fix.. but again.. it's just a dumb idea.

I want to focus this discussion on how to deal with situations where these departments stack 1 area and not do the other things even when the rest of the station needs it for some reason or another.
And last but not least... know when Admins have to intervene on neglect.

[StaringGasMask]

Solars sustain the station just fine during the entire round, setting up the engine is practically unneeded in most situations.

And, may I remind you, mechanic got removed as a job, while doing exactly that: Separate engine management from mechcomp and packet experimentation.

However, you can't really see that if someone doesn't want to do a job, they're not going to do said job. If I want to do packets, I'm going engineer, and if you separate it on two jobs, I'm going that other job.
By separating these jobs you'll just make those roles nobody wants to fill empty, because nobody will want to fill them.

And about science, doing exactly one of the many tasks around is very boring if you don't have a plan, and sometimes, one area can benefit the other. For instance, doing artsci might lead to an art pitcher or beaker, which can be used for chemistry. Or telescience can bring artifacts and crates from space, while nobody uses guardbuddies because their use is mainly security, and securitrons already do that better, so they end up being used more by engineers for the headpass, or by antagonists.

What I'm trying to say is that by splitting science and engineering into sub-departments you're just making jobs more dependant on the presence and willingness of others. Sure, having no engineers that want to fix the holes is a problem, but having an engineer that wants to help and doesn't have access because that's now restricted to the Builder job is even worse.

That being said, I'm talking from a main player perspective, maybe interdepartmental cooperation actually works in RP, although I've always found it more of an impediment.

You missunderstood my "Sub division" idea.
It DOES not remove access from those departments.

So if a Scientist (Tele-sci) spawns in.. they can still access chemistry, toxins, art-sci and such.
Same as an Engineer (Engine duty) can still do Mech comp.

The idea comes more from the fact we see many people stacking 1 area in a lot of shifts while others are empty in the same department or people fighting over the same areas. The sub division is suppose to give people more meaning, but they can easily ask the HoP to change it's title or simply ignore it all together, but with consiquence that we know who rolled what sub division and is therefore "SLACKING OFF"

If all engineers are doing mech comp and are NEGLECTING OTHER DUTIES. The sub division idea will give you a place to point at... insted blaming the 1st engineer you see. Not a perfect fix.. but again.. it's just a dumb idea.

I want to focus this discussion on how to deal with situations where these departments stack 1 area and not do the other things even when the rest of the station needs it for some reason or another.
And last but not least... know when Admins have to intervene on neglect.

It still doesn't fix the problem. Even if you keep the access and the sub-division is just purely cosmetical, nothing prevents engineers from flocking into mechcomp or engine instead of station repairs. In fact, you'll be giving them an excuse to NOT fix the station at all, because they're job will now be to remain at their post managing the engine or whatever, and for scientists, I wouldn't even consider anything outside of helping cargo with arts a duty. Medbay can produce their chems even more easily thanks to the pharmacy having premade chemgroups, and telesci isn't needed at all.

So even though I struggle for finding a reason for engineers to be split, I find splitting science even worse.

[Kotlol]

So even though I struggle for finding a reason for engineers to be split, I find splitting science even worse.

You are too hung up on the "Splitting" part when I just want to discuss the problems that arise from time to time in these departments.

You are just dismissing the problems cause of my idea of putting a fix isn't gonna do much. And I know that.
It's very minor and cosematic and won't stop misbehaving but it gives some sort of guiding rule.

BUT.. I didn't make this topic to discuss "Splitting" the division. But to find ways to prevent or fix these problems insted of infighting or neglect of duty.

It would just be better if we had guidelines on these things.
After all it's kinda extreme for a captain to sick security on engineers who refuse to repair the station and drag their asses to work on it.

This is why I set up this topic. To find ways to put some order in these sections, be it mechanical, verbal, or guidelines/rules.
Because the situations I see has become more occuring on RP. Heck.. one time I had 4 scientists (including myself) wanting to do ArtSci. While I backed off and started learning Tele-sci... the other 3 did all spend time in art-sci and since it was a smaller room... you can guess how that went and how fast they ran out of artifacts too.