The state of Engineering

[Passive Engie]

very odd take on the teg, honestly

pre teg nerf, engineers (including myself) would speedrun a hellburn in the first five minutes of the round and have the hallway air too scalding to stand in at around the 30-40 minute mark, usually resulting in early calls. post nerf, reaching hellburn effectiveness can be a real challenge to fully figure out, which resulted in a lot of negative feelings when engi mains no longer got the funni number go up engine. it was sad, but the change brought a lot more to actually do with the teg. this is sort of just a preface to the point i want to get to though, which is that a new engineer doesnt even need to be worrying about these things right off the bat. burns are something that can be learned, experimented with, and improved upon over time. not understanding how to master a subject without hands on experience with it isnt a bad thing. 

the wiki is not the only resource for information on starting burns. engineers have a guide that spawns on every teg to give pointers throughout the setup process. for higher burns, players can experiment with reagent lubricants, material for a more effective semiconductor, etc. its a very learn-as-you-go department when you dont have another player to tell you the perfect hellmix pipeburn ratio to produce omegawatts of power that can really only be used for the ptl or hotwires.

a great thing about the mechanics - engineering merge is that it no longer has “hellburn” as the primary activity for engis to do until something explodes. they can set up a charburn and go work on mechcomp if they want to, or in the case of singulo, use mechcomp to make the engine more effective. engineers who are looking for something more out of the engine itself have all the tools available to them to do so

I don't think it's a bad thing that the TEG is more involved but, unlike some other departments, experimenting with the engine is much more likely to wreck the set up for the whole round and there is only one. A player trying to learn the engine isn't going the want to experiment if the result is so likely to draw the ire of the other engineers.

Not only that, high level Engineering now with the TEG had turned into pipe fixing simulator. It feels like the engine is constantly on the verge of breaking and, indeed, frequently does. I can't ever leave the department if I play CE because most Engineers don't want to take up the task of fixing the constantly breaking pipes so I can't go to mining to help get some MolB or go to genetics to see if there's fire/thermal resist available.