Let's make the station more maintenance intensive!

[BaneOfGiygas]

Remove the solar hotwire imo.

I agree.

Give the engineers a purpose again besides the fixing the station (which they never do anyway).

I partially agree. Maybe keep the solar hotwire around, but fix it to where it only powers the base essentials of the station (which is probably what they were intended to do anyways) while keeping some of the less necessary areas (telesci, artlab, pathology, the arcade, etc.) on a limited power supply? That way, the engine has a purpose beyond busywork and hellburns, but there's still a modicum of functionality if no one bothers to fix anything.

[Frank_Stein]

Besides, let's be honest. People don't play scientist to cook up more medical chems for the doctors. People don't play genetics to clone people or distribute cool mutations to the crew. People don't play mechanic to help safeguard critical station infrastructure. No one plays miner to supply the station with ores. They play those jobs for the fun toys that they make for themselves personally. And nobody bitches at those jobs if they don't do those things. The only toys engineers have are spacesuits and yellow gloves, and they get those right at the start so there's really no benefit to them for doing their job. So why should they?

Eh, I disagree with that whole first part. Plenty of people do their jobs because it means having fun interactions with the crew AND getting to use neat toys.

Which is really where engineering needs improvement. You're right about there being little incentive for them. Setting up the engine is a fairly boring task they do alone, and repairs are slow and there's no one around to interact with while they do them, since no one without internals is going to stand around an airless room.

If Engineering needs anything, it's to make their jobs faster, more involved, and more unique.

For instance, give em metal foam canons for quick repairs as well as hijinx. Introduce a mechanic for selling off excess power for finacial gain.
Make the Engineering room more like Star Trek where they have to divert power to different systems. Meteor storm coming? Power up a new station wide forcefield. Magnetic storm shuts off communications? Temporarily sink more power into it to get them running again.
Let them buy/build some new equipment and machinery similar to the experimental generator. An atmospheric forcefield for bubbling off air leaks? More efficient APC batteries? Tesla coils?

[Walrus]

Remove the solar hotwire imo.

Yes please.

There is no difference between an APC randomly breaking and a leech critter randomly appearing and breaking an APC. There is also no difference between windows randomly cracking and micrometeors randomly breaking windows.

I beg to differ. Coding equipment and structures to include a chance of randomly breaking is not the same as adding external enviromental factors that may damage the station and may be stopped by the crew before the damage even occurs.

With the one in a million chance someone's going to be in the exact spot at the exact time to intercept a tiny space rock speeding on it's way towards the station I don't think it's worthwhile to say that's any different than windows cracking randomly under pressure due to wear.

One is invisible rng magic. The other is visible rocks and critters.

I have some bad news for you because some cruel twist of fate would have it that this "Invisible rng magic" would need to be used to trigger whatever meteors/worms/etc. you're talking about. They're obviously not going to be static and strike the same spot at the same time every round, so the BYOND boogeyman, ~invisible rng magic~, will have to spawn them in. It's either spooky code magicks breaking a window by itself, or chaotic arcane programming throwing a rock towards you.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of more PvE stuff but completely discounting this idea just because there's no visible indicator or way to prevent it is a bit silly seeing how similar the two are.

[Sundance]

Although I don't agree with every aspect that Ali0en says, I think the general gist of what he's getting at shouldn't be slammed at all.

Let's look at the scenario. The general feel of goon ss13 has always favored the antagonists. It's rare that there's security (i'm not talking about the lone ranger hos here, i'm talking about at least 2 officers).
Antagonists, the good ones at least, will create an absolute fuck ton of havoc on the station. I'm talking explosions, traps, flaming hallways, rogue borgs, shocked doors, depressurised and depowered rooms. This is done from bad guys alone. Now with the addition of wraiths and blobs, the environment can be extremely hostile. Lets not forget about how much damage asteroids do too.
Also general incompetence causes damage. As well as zealous assistants who want to bust into departments.

And this thread in general wants to pile on more chaos onto this. Chaos that wont be fixed like ali0en said, but not only that, cannot be prevented? FUCK that.

How about this? There's so much destruction in goon that it'd be nice if there was ways to repair that construction. There needs to more fluid construction methods, and making things look "pretty" or the original look. Fixing the constructed stuff so it's not a darker shade would be a start. Having an easier time constructing would also be good. It's the simple things, like gather up floor tiles, or laying wire that's often shit. Having that automatically gather/ place down instead of constantly clicking would be good.
I've seen people make really interesting stuff via construction, and interesting repair methods. We should encourage THAT. Rather than scaring engineers off with more tedious bullshit work. Because that's what more maintenance will ever add to. Tedious work.

And what of the engine? Well hopefully when cog 2 comes out, there'd be use for the laser beam that doesn't involve killing people. Perhaps blasting the absolute shit out of asteroids. More blown up asteroids = more material to make a better death ray. Fuck if I could blow up asteroids all day a death ray, that's all I'd do as an engineer. We could have more PvE scenarios there, where the laser beam could be used as a defense weapon, and that power would be used exactly in the manner that engineers would want, a selfish manner, something that non-traitor engineers need.
It'd fit nicely into nanotrasen policy too. Using plasma research as a ploy for a sustainable energy source, but also using it as weapon. Typical NT.

[Dastardly]

I don't think giving the engineers mundane repairs to tend to improves the job at all. Giving them busy work (Go to Window/APC x on the other side of the station and repair it.) isn't fun because the act of repairing things itself isn't fun, managing dangerous/crisis situations is the fun part! And as it is right now, even if there's no emergency you can just fuck off and do whatever you want/get into mischief because you're assistant+ with no responsibilities until shit hits the fan! It's great.

Also, I don't like the idea of randomly damaging parts of the station, because it takes away from the intrigue of "Why is this thing busted? Who busted it and for what purpose?" if it could just have been an unannounced random event.

[Frank_Stein]

Having that automatically gather/ place down instead of constantly clicking would be good.

Yeah, that would be nice for floor tiles. Have it toggle where you just drop them in place where they are needed from the stack in hand. I think wire bundles already have something similar.

[Marquesas]

If you're going to continue threadshitting I urge you to put a minimal amount of effort in.

Yo, man, I don't mean to alarm you but your hypocrisy just brought the roof down.

And I ain't fixin' that shit.

[salix_catus]

Although I don't agree with every aspect that Ali0en says, I think the general gist of what he's getting at shouldn't be slammed at all.

Let's look at the scenario. The general feel of goon ss13 has always favored the antagonists. It's rare that there's security (i'm not talking about the lone ranger hos here, i'm talking about at least 2 officers).
Antagonists, the good ones at least, will create an absolute fuck ton of havoc on the station. I'm talking explosions, traps, flaming hallways, rogue borgs, shocked doors, depressurised and depowered rooms. This is done from bad guys alone. Now with the addition of wraiths and blobs, the environment can be extremely hostile. Lets not forget about how much damage asteroids do too.
Also general incompetence causes damage. As well as zealous assistants who want to bust into departments.

And this thread in general wants to pile on more chaos onto this. Chaos that wont be fixed like ali0en said, but not only that, cannot be prevented? FUCK that.

How about this? There's so much destruction in goon that it'd be nice if there was ways to repair that construction. There needs to more fluid construction methods, and making things look "pretty" or the original look. Fixing the constructed stuff so it's not a darker shade would be a start. Having an easier time constructing would also be good. It's the simple things, like gather up floor tiles, or laying wire that's often shit. Having that automatically gather/ place down instead of constantly clicking would be good.
I've seen people make really interesting stuff via construction, and interesting repair methods. We should encourage THAT. Rather than scaring engineers off with more tedious bullshit work. Because that's what more maintenance will ever add to. Tedious work.

And what of the engine? Well hopefully when cog 2 comes out, there'd be use for the laser beam that doesn't involve killing people. Perhaps blasting the absolute shit out of asteroids. More blown up asteroids = more material to make a better death ray. Fuck if I could blow up asteroids all day a death ray, that's all I'd do as an engineer. We could have more PvE scenarios there, where the laser beam could be used as a defense weapon, and that power would be used exactly in the manner that engineers would want, a selfish manner, something that non-traitor engineers need.
It'd fit nicely into nanotrasen policy too. Using plasma research as a ploy for a sustainable energy source, but also using it as weapon. Typical NT.

I have a suggestion. A new kind of backpack. A kind of matter-compressing materials backpack. It would work like ore satchels and produce satchels, in that you can dragclick-auto-collect certain stuff into it, but you can use it as a backpack and take stuff from it. it would stack materials into numbered piles in your bag.
the stackable/autocollectable items for would be ores, sheets, bars, rods and tiles.
You would also be able to normal items into it. they just wouldn't stack.
This would make repair work far more easier.
a very nice compliment to this would be the suggested vacuum cleaner for the janitor: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4969

[Dr_Bee]

I have a suggestion. A new kind of backpack. A kind of matter-compressing materials backpack. It would work like ore satchels and produce satchels, in that you can dragclick-auto-collect certain stuff into it, but you can use it as a backpack and take stuff from it. it would stack materials into numbered piles in your bag.
the stackable/autocollectable items for would be ores, sheets, bars, rods and tiles.
You would also be able to normal items into it. they just wouldn't stack.
This would make repair work far more easier.
a very nice compliment to this would be the suggested vacuum cleaner for the janitor: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4969

you can already kind of do that with portable reclaimers. click-dragging scrap and broken glass along with broken rods will suck them up into the reclaimer for later use.

[salix_catus]

I have a suggestion. A new kind of backpack. A kind of matter-compressing materials backpack. It would work like ore satchels and produce satchels, in that you can dragclick-auto-collect certain stuff into it, but you can use it as a backpack and take stuff from it. it would stack materials into numbered piles in your bag.
the stackable/autocollectable items for would be ores, sheets, bars, rods and tiles.
You would also be able to normal items into it. they just wouldn't stack.
This would make repair work far more easier.
a very nice compliment to this would be the suggested vacuum cleaner for the janitor: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4969

you can already kind of do that with portable reclaimers. click-dragging scrap and broken glass along with broken rods will suck them up into the reclaimer for later use.

I didn't say anything about broken glass and scrap collection. this is about making it easier for engineers to fix things by providing a storage device that can autocollect materials and store a large amount of them, ready for fixing stuff with.( If you were responding about the vacuum cleaner, that is meant for more than just scrap)

[UrsulaMejor]

Sundance you can already auto-lay wire by using it in hand

[Paineframe]

Metal, glass, floor tiles, and rods all already stack. The problem is that carrying one stack of each already uses up most of your backpack, just like a full set of tools uses almost your entire box (unless you use a belt, but then you've got nowhere to stick an oxygen tank). Also, juggling those materials around to fix stuff isn't terribly much fun.

[salix_catus]

Metal, glass, floor tiles, and rods all already stack. The problem is that carrying one stack of each already uses up most of your backpack, just like a full set of tools uses almost your entire box (unless you use a belt, but then you've got nowhere to stick an oxygen tank). Also, juggling those materials around to fix stuff isn't terribly much fun.

Exactly. The suggested backpack would stack more than 100 per item type. Also you've been able to put oxygen tanks in your pocket for ages now.

[Walrus]

An easier way to manage materials would be great. Even more so if the silly mauxite/steel molitz/glass distinction was removed. No point in repairing anything if it looks ugly even after you've fixed it.

If you're going to continue threadshitting I urge you to put a minimal amount of effort in.

Yo, man, I don't mean to alarm you but your hypocrisy just brought the roof down.

Hey, man, I'm discussing ideas in this here discussion forum and if people are going to say stupid things because they can't read it's their fault not mine. I'm being perfectly respectful to people who are willing to put effort into their posts, but If they're going to plug their ears and scream the same thing over and over without bothering to reply to those who have replied to them, not so much.

[Ali0en]

If they're going to plug their ears and scream the same thing over and over without bothering to reply to those who have replied to them, not so much.

This hypocrisy is amazing.