Let's make the station more maintenance intensive!

[Carlarc]

Let's just stop shitting on everyone and start over again, okay?

[UrsulaMejor]

Let's just stop shitting on everyone and start over again, okay?

Your avatar is appropriate to your statement

unfortunately your statement is literally impossible :downs:

the only solution is to burn it all down

[Frank_Stein]

And then rebuild it with better engineering mechanics

[Sundance]

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

I had a feeling this was the case, I just thought it was just for the construction server.
That's good though. It means that stuff like that is already in code, so it'll just be a case of transferring it over to other stuff.

The tedious tasks of gather tiles and placing them down could be a simple automatic inhand option, similar to how you have Draw/Inject for a needle.
Only with the floor tile, it's Gather/Place.
Gather, the act of walking will gather them as you go.
Place, similar manner, will place the tile as you go.

My point is, aesthetic options should as replacing tiles, repairing grills and windows should be quick and simple tasks rather than the click click click why am i doing this mind numbing task. While destroying things such as walls should be particularly difficult.

For that manner, repairing grills (the damaged looking ones) should be simple as hitting it with rods. Windows should be easy to replace too. There used to be a case of melting glass shards with a welder would yield a glass sheet. This would be handy in on the job repair.

[Dastardly]

My point is, aesthetic options should as replacing tiles, repairing grills and windows should be quick and simple tasks rather than the click click click why am i doing this mind numbing task. While destroying things such as walls should be particularly difficult.

As an engineer I've never really cared about making aesthetic repairs to the station. Making them faster and easier will still not motivate me to do them, because they are totally pointless.

[babayetu83]

i like the idea but i don't think anyone ever wants to do boring grunt work

i feel like thats the general census here in the thread

[salix_catus]

Okay I sort of had a go at spriting a Compressed Matter Backpack.


Compressed Matter Backpack
This is a new kind of matter compressing backpack for engineers.
Drawing on RCD tech, it compresses all ores, sheets, bars, rods and tiles into manageable stacks when they are placed inside it.
You would be able to dragclick-collect items into the bag, similar to ore and produce satchels.
You can still place normal items into it, they just don't stack.
This would help address some of the issues raised in this thread.

[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.

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.

What's the point? 100 metal is plenty; the problem isn't running out but rather devoting four or five backpack slots to basic construction materials. One stack of metal, one stack of glass, one stack of rods, one stack of floor tiles.

[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.

What's the point? 100 metal is plenty; the problem isn't running out but rather devoting four or five backpack slots to basic construction materials. One stack of metal, one stack of glass, one stack of rods, one stack of floor tiles.

Perhaps it should create another tab, like cyborgs?

[Dastardly]

Having a unique backpack makes disguising as an engineer traitor kind of a pain, and doesn't seem to provide a significant advantage to compensate.

What's the point? 100 metal is plenty; the problem isn't running out but rather devoting four or five backpack slots to basic construction materials. One stack of metal, one stack of glass, one stack of rods, one stack of floor tiles.

Why would you carry around rods and floor tiles? You can make them with the metal!

[Sundance]

My point is, aesthetic options should as replacing tiles, repairing grills and windows should be quick and simple tasks rather than the click click click why am i doing this mind numbing task. While destroying things such as walls should be particularly difficult.

As an engineer I've never really cared about making aesthetic repairs to the station. Making them faster and easier will still not motivate me to do them, because they are totally pointless.

i like the idea but i don't think anyone ever wants to do boring grunt work

i feel like thats the general census here in the thread

Isn't that my entire point? I don't get tepid reaction to something that would improve and streamline a mechanic that is otherwise, like you said, grunt work. It'd take the whole grunt aspect out of it.

It's like the forklift. Ain't nobody likes dragging crates everywhere. But now with the forklift it streamlines this mechanic with the ability to carry THREE crates. That's like 3 times as many. #woah. #great.

Honestly the whole, "I don't do it, so why bother" is a fucking sell-out attitude. Guess what? I do it, because when i'm making a meth den with black-lights and reinforced flooring, I'd prefer it there wasn't shit all lying about from my construction. And i'd prefer it if there was an easier method at controlling those aesthetics. Faster methods of construction, that isn't the fundamentally flawed ABC-U (why does it have to be on a space tile? Why cant it just be a clear blank floor and requires no walls/obstructing turf instead?) and isn't the wall spam green eggs and ham RCD

Like to build a functioning room (or repair an existing one), it shouldn't take 40 minutes of monotonous clicking. It should take 20 minutes, of minimal clicking. If I want to build a shop and sell laser guns, then i'd like to do it before the escape shuttle arrives.

[Anticheese]

I don't think that the compressed materials backpack is a necessary idea at all for non-construction servers, but being able to automatically lay floor tiles - and perhaps have some tool, maybe like a floor buffer that could rip up broken tiles - would be a huge improvement, and not having constructed walls be a darker colour is a huge quality of life fix whether you're someone who wants to repair things, or a sneaky fucker who builds secret doors.

[Dastardly]

Honestly the whole, "I don't do it, so why bother" is a fucking sell-out attitude.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this.

I thought your idea was that "People don't do aesthetic repairs, so let's encourage them by making it easier". I don't disagree per se, but I thought your suggestion was a bit misguided on the grounds that it would not really change people's attitude towards fixing that sort of stuff (since what's the point when the round will reset in an hour?).

IMO even if you spend 20 minutes building a room it's still too much. That's twenty minutes you spent clicking on space or whatever that you could have spent talking to people or being involved in the round. Construction is thankless in part because of the nature of the game. However, there are several abandoned rooms on the station for you to turn into a drug lab or whatever, why not use/renovate them instead of building a whole new thing?

[Dabir]

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.

You can put oxy tanks in your pockets now.

[Vitatroll]

Lot's of salt for a simple idea. Overall: good idea; wrong server.

In the end it's all about fun. Most people join a department they enjoy, or try to enjoy the department they join. One APC or one broken wire or one smashed window can take down a department until it's fixed. That isn't fun. To some, maybe. To the tyrannical majority? Not fun. Not every engie will go round fixing APCs so those require a breaking in to. Wires would require a T-ray, which is still annoying and requires knowledge. Holes to space run the risk of causing atmos to bug out which means no air in there, wherever there is. If we wanna give engies something to do (not the focus of the thread, I think) then we should make it something that doesn't affect other departments. This is the reason for solars. Otherwise we'd run out of power every other round because somebody either didn't set up the engine, or set it ablaze in the wrong way, which would cause them to get yelled at for experimenting and having fun.

The bottom line is people have jobs. You take down their department and they can't do their job. This is fine and even fun when it's an antag that needs a chasing and a beatin' for blowin' up mah weeds. It's not so fun when it's just an RNG thing that stifles your ability to be creative or productive in your department. A single enterprising tater can break the station so hard that it's impossible to survive on without a space suit, fire suit, and internals. Not to mention assistants breaking all the windows, hacking the doors, and putting false walls everywhere. In truth there's no shift that doesn't have plenty to fix already. This is because: Goonstation. Hoot.

I really need to learn how to summarize my thoughts. Fuck.