Inter-Departmental Cooperation (co-op)

[ferriswheel1]

Cross-department cooperation, to be successful, has to have a mutual benefit. It also shouldn't be, as Sundance said in that other thread, necessary for basic-level stuff. Co-op has to be for high level gear or interesting things, and shouldn't be required to do a job. 

With that in mind, here's more bullet points detailing the current problems with cooperation by department:

• -QM's cooperative ability is severely limited by only being able to order very basic tools and materials, as well as a bunch of gimmicky stuff. Their transport systems are unreliable and slow as well.  The cargo bay needs to be able to order higher-level stuff that departments actually need to have a proper use. 
  
• -Mining are their own biggest customers for using ore, and have no incentive to send any of their materials the crew's way. Why send resources to others when you need them to build a spacesuit? The materials system can't produce anything useful outside of gimmicky crap and weapons, so why would they bother sending materials for public use?
  
• -Robotics sits upon a huge stack of basic materials, and only needs advanced materials for a few rare borg upgrades and eyeball augmentations. They will also occasionally grab medicine from medbay for surgery. 
  The roboticists have many opportunities for people to give them stuff, but their inability to give anything back means this rarely occurs. Giving robotics the ability to build robots/drones/humongous fancy mecha for the other departments would aid cooperation.   
  
• -Science can activate discovered artifacts in the artlab. Unfortunately, the mysteries of DWAINE and their inability to give anything in return mean that it's unlikely anything will be sent there, despite both the miners and QM being able to order artifacts. The random nature of artifacts also means that it's likely that sending artifacts to be activated will result in a large explosion, continuous annoying loud noises or both. 
  
• -Botany can produce a large amount of useful medical chemicals but, excepting omnizine, there's nothing they can produce that isn't already in massive over supply in medical. Sending plants to be sold at QM happens very rarely as well, as they're unlikely to receive any cut of the profits.  
  
•  -Medical has a colossal amount of medicines both basic and advanced, and rarely needs extra even in the face of massive usage. Pathology can in theory produce beneficial viruses but rarely does due to it's complex and long winded nature.   
  

As you can see, current departmental cooperation is hampered by the fact that most departments are either "givers" or "takers". The "givers" have large amounts of stuff to give out, but won't as they don't receive anything in return. The "takers" have lots of things they can create or do with outside help, but lack anything to provide in return for the help.  Making cooperation easier means giving the "takers" stuff to provide to the "givers" in return for their help.