Science and Engineering, the broadest department

[Kotlol]

Solars sustain the station just fine during the entire round, setting up the engine is practically unneeded in most situations.

And, may I remind you, mechanic got removed as a job, while doing exactly that: Separate engine management from mechcomp and packet experimentation.

However, you can't really see that if someone doesn't want to do a job, they're not going to do said job. If I want to do packets, I'm going engineer, and if you separate it on two jobs, I'm going that other job.
By separating these jobs you'll just make those roles nobody wants to fill empty, because nobody will want to fill them.

And about science, doing exactly one of the many tasks around is very boring if you don't have a plan, and sometimes, one area can benefit the other. For instance, doing artsci might lead to an art pitcher or beaker, which can be used for chemistry. Or telescience can bring artifacts and crates from space, while nobody uses guardbuddies because their use is mainly security, and securitrons already do that better, so they end up being used more by engineers for the headpass, or by antagonists.

What I'm trying to say is that by splitting science and engineering into sub-departments you're just making jobs more dependant on the presence and willingness of others. Sure, having no engineers that want to fix the holes is a problem, but having an engineer that wants to help and doesn't have access because that's now restricted to the Builder job is even worse.

That being said, I'm talking from a main player perspective, maybe interdepartmental cooperation actually works in RP, although I've always found it more of an impediment.

You missunderstood my "Sub division" idea.
It DOES not remove access from those departments.

So if a Scientist (Tele-sci) spawns in.. they can still access chemistry, toxins, art-sci and such.
Same as an Engineer (Engine duty) can still do Mech comp.

The idea comes more from the fact we see many people stacking 1 area in a lot of shifts while others are empty in the same department or people fighting over the same areas. The sub division is suppose to give people more meaning, but they can easily ask the HoP to change it's title or simply ignore it all together, but with consiquence that we know who rolled what sub division and is therefore "SLACKING OFF"

If all engineers are doing mech comp and are NEGLECTING OTHER DUTIES. The sub division idea will give you a place to point at... insted blaming the 1st engineer you see. Not a perfect fix.. but again.. it's just a dumb idea.

I want to focus this discussion on how to deal with situations where these departments stack 1 area and not do the other things even when the rest of the station needs it for some reason or another.
And last but not least... know when Admins have to intervene on neglect.