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Is Engineer job not as fun as it could be?
#1
Brick 
Engineering as it currently stands seems as the least picked job, and I rarely see engineering players that make any impact on the round unless they're antagonists. I don't believe this is a player problem.

On goon, my most enjoyed job so far has to be the medical doctor - you have an immediate task to heal people, people sustain damage easily and all the time regardless of low or high pop, and even if everyone's alive you can still preemptively scan people and give them health implants. They also have a unique item, the auto menders, that no one else has, giving the job inherent value. Auto menders are also designed with convenience for healing two of the most common damage types on the station.

Unlike medics, the engineer lacks anything to do until something breaks. Once that thing breaks, they hurry to fix it before the bored specialized engineering borgs fix it, now they're done - back to being bored and doing nothing or building random shit out of boredom. The engineers do have an opportunity to set up a powerful engine during round start, but more often than not it's a set up then forget kind of deal with only occasional maintenance.

In case of an emergency, such as a fire or an explosion, a good group of medics has always been important. So if you have a medi borg and a human medic it's really welcome, you need as many hands you can get to deal with people in crit.

There's no such thing for engineers - you only ever need one engineer, and what's worse is an engie borg will always do your job better than you due to having a built in RCD, no need to breathe and no danger from freezing to death if lacking a suit.

Engineers also lack a strong and convenient tool for building that medics have in the form of auto menders. While an rcd exists, from what I discussed with people on the discord it seems like rcd is more useful for DELETING objects rather than creating and fixing things! Isn't that kind of nuts??

Perhaps engineers should come in possession of better multi tools? Maybe give them a nanotrasen variant of the syndicate omnitool so they have immediate convenience that comes with the job that reduces the amount of inventory management, like the auto menders for medics?

It could also be a bigger problem - medics immediately benefit the station as they heal people, and there's always a need for multiple medics - more medics the better. Meanwhile, you only ever need one engineer to set up a engine and occasionally fix things when they sometimes break -  and yet the shuttle will be called anyway, so fixing it is pointless because it'll just get fixed next round.

Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I'm full of shit and just don't know how to pro engineer, but fact remains that I rarely if ever see the need in the job as a player, and feel really bored when I am the engineer - so what's wrong with the job, or what's wrong with my approach?

Edit :
Relevant threads & prs -
https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=17284
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#2
I always find that if a bomb goes off most times the station doesn't get fixed. Most of the work gets done by floorbots anyway. I think maybe engineers should have holo-blueprints or something like that. It feels practically impossible to return the station back to its original state.
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#3
(10-23-2021, 03:39 PM)gleb09 Wrote: I always find that if a bomb goes off most times the station doesn't get fixed. Most of the work gets done by floorbots anyway. I think maybe engineers should have holo-blueprints or something like that. It feels practically impossible to return the station back to its original state.

Once a bomb goes off it's usually just a "Fuck it, we can't fix this, call the shuttle/fix the breach and ignore the rest of it" kinda deal lol
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#4
Yeah I noticed it a recent game. Cloner got bombed and the first thing someone said on the radio was "Cloner bombed. Someone call the shuttle." What an unfun way to play.
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#5
Thing about a cloned bombing is it can quickly spiral the station out of control. All it takes after that is a few more holes in key areas cargo atmos and sec and say sayonara to the majority of the population on the station.
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#6
Actually I just remembered. There's that ABC-U. It can build whole rooms in space. Maybe engineers should make more use of that.
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#7
The ABCU is 1 use only and better at recreating than creating, it can easily put down a shape in space and replicate tiles that are otherwise impossible to, but it is still way too out of the way for most players and with the ammount of materials it consumes it is just often not worth it, it also doesn't have the best Ui I feel like a new one that showed you what the blueprint in it looked like and maybe even let you edit it would make it way better and more used.
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#8
it's held back a lot by the knowledge, time requirement and effort required to do some pretty basic things that cyborgs can do 5x faster. if the ABCU could perhaps use copy-pasted data then you might see more innovative engineering projects, but a good round is 40 minutes building a room and decorating it only for one or two dudes to go 'huh' and get back to what they're doing.
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#9
Cyborg comparison isn't really fair because cyborgs beat every job by a very long shot (with few exceptions like chef and antag scientist), the downsides being that they are extremely vulnerable to flashing, bound to laws and can't do anything outside their module. But station repair can be done by anyone very easily, not just borgs. Anyone with access to storage room can get some steel sheets, go to the depressurized room, and fix the thing in just a few minutes.

Engine operation is quite boring, and most of the time not even necessary because lol AI turned on solars. The fun of engineering comes from making stupid gimmicks like generator that runs on flying monkeys and vomit, and then putting those on display. How to make engine more fun? I don't know. Maybe make some random power demands like new QM orders work? Maybe give them a suit which gives bonuses or heals them based on current energy level, like powergloves but less antag?

Anyway I don't think Engineer's gimmick should be station repair or gimmick construction.
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#10
(10-28-2021, 03:55 AM)Vocalpocal Wrote: Cyborg comparison isn't really fair because cyborgs beat every job by a very long shot (with few exceptions like chef and antag scientist), the downsides being that they are extremely vulnerable to flashing, bound to laws and can't do anything outside their module. But station repair can be done by anyone very easily, not just borgs. Anyone with access to storage room can get some steel sheets, go to the depressurized room, and fix the thing in just a few minutes.

Engine operation is quite boring, and most of the time not even necessary because lol AI turned on solars. The fun of engineering comes from making stupid gimmicks like generator that runs on flying monkeys and vomit, and then putting those on display. How to make engine more fun? I don't know. Maybe make some random power demands like new QM orders work? Maybe give them a suit which gives bonuses or heals them based on current energy level, like powergloves but less antag? 

Anyway I don't think Engineer's gimmick should be station repair or gimmick construction.

I get what you mean. Station power is the thing you can do whenever, but station repair is something you anticipate and it's seen as pointless with the shuttle. Gimmick construction is a gimmick lol
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#11
I feel like there should be more crossplay between mining, engineering, QM, and Mechanics.

Like, more collaboration with Engineers using Mat Sci to manufacture goods for use and sale. A fast way to do that is take the Manufacturers out of QM and let Engineers manage that
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#12
(10-28-2021, 06:14 AM)Frank_Stein Wrote: I feel like there should be more crossplay between mining, engineering, QM, and Mechanics.

Like, more collaboration with Engineers using Mat Sci to manufacture goods for use and sale. A fast way to do that is take the Manufacturers out of QM and let Engineers manage that

QM doesn't fabricate a whole lot of tools themselves, plus it's not an engaging part of the job. QMs are just suited to do it since 90% of their job is in the QM room while engies are often out & about or busy.

i think more unique, open-ended items for them to craft at the nanofab would suit engineer, stuff that needs no mechlab knowledge and just does its things, IE:bear/snare traps, toll gates, wall spikes, earthquake machines, conveyor belts...

it's more effort but the material costs of gimmicks will rise for miners and engineers + mechanics can team up to make more elaborate projects.
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#13
Yeah, I agree that engineering needs a lot more open ended stuff and modular power options. I also think mechanics as a department need a real task and job to do. They essentially have the freedom of staffie, since they have no actual job to do, but also start with a ton of gear and outclass the other jobs in engineering by just being alive.
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