Making fuel for the nuclear reactor more accessible.

[RubberRats]

Right now, upgrading or experimenting with the nuclear reactor requires a source of materials, either from mining, from using the siphon, or from recycling construction materials. While wires and sheets can be reclaimed to make slightly worse copper and steel components, fuel rods have no easy substitute, and aspiring engineers will have to go well out of their way to get their hands on radioactive materials if mining can't (or won't) bring any in. This is not ideal, as the nuclear engine is entirely reliant on interdepartmental help to do anything other than the most basic setups.

My suggestion is to add an alloy that could be made from copper and ectoplasm and used as a less powerful fuel material. It would be noticeably worse than cerenkite, having lower density and radioactivity scores. However, both materials in its recipe can be acquired from the station (by reclaiming cables and from horrortastic cola), so engineers would have at least some options for upgrading the reactor on their own.

My main concern would be making radioactive materials much easier to access. Floor tiles and arrows are two potentially dangerous uses for this new material. However, the reduced radioactivity compared to cerenkite would make them significantly less dangerous, and if the alloy in question was typed as organic or similar it would need to be alloyed for those uses, which would lower the radioactivity even further.

[Lord_earthfire]

I like that thought. Not sure if i would take ectoplasm, though. It's kinda overloaded with interesting mechanics in the otherwise very bland area of material science anyway. Maybe a material that is done by chemical/material interaction? Like melting rubber and mixing it together with radium or another chem to make a chem that creates a radioactive material upon splashing (with high enough treshhold so it's not easy to smoke powder it)

[Garash]

Interdepartmental coordination to make a department perform above it's baseline is really good design though.
All engineers have access to the siphon so to me Nadir is really in the clear.
Though I can think of a good change that would help engineers get more fuel on Clarion and Cog1: make the Quantum Telescope public access. That way you can work on scanning a cerenkite/koshmarite asteroid, and ask the miners to "pull, mine, and put in the rockbox that asteroid you just scanned." Or ask a head to give you mining access if it's lowpop... Or hack into it, you're an engineer after all!

[Ikea]

Just add a cargo purchase for cerenkite or something similar when there's a nuclear reactor on the map

[Meggal Bozale]

I've played miner a lot, and honestly, unless you pull a cerenkite asteroid, it's pretty much tough luck in regards to getting enough cerenkite for a good reactor setup. And even if you DO, it's up to chance if you get a decent amount. I'd rather there be a reliable way to obtain ores like cerenkite, without being on the quantum telescope for half the shift. (It gets boring, very fast.)

Also, as a reactor engineer on goon1, your best shot is to just do mining's job for them. In one shift, even after scanning a cerenkite asteroid and asking them to mine it, I came 20 minutes later to see they didn't even pull it in. Interdepartmental cooperation is great, but I find things rarely happen unless you do it yourself.

[Kotlol]

I've played miner a lot, and honestly, unless you pull a cerenkite asteroid, it's pretty much tough luck in regards to getting enough cerenkite for a good reactor setup. And even if you DO, it's up to chance if you get a decent amount. I'd rather there be a reliable way to obtain ores like cerenkite, without being on the quantum telescope for half the shift. (It gets boring, very fast.)

Also, as a reactor engineer on goon1, your best shot is to just do mining's job for them. In one shift, even after scanning a cerenkite asteroid and asking them to mine it, I came 20 minutes later to see they didn't even pull it in. Interdepartmental cooperation is great, but I find things rarely happen unless you do it yourself.

This is a hard problem to tackle. I love interdepertmental cooperation, but.. a lot of the times most departments don't want to.

A botanist doesn't want to grow that 1 fruit for the order, cause they wanna grow weed.
Science doesn't want to mix chemicals for engineering, they want to make their own stuff.
Mining doesn't want to mine cerenkite, they wanna mine the fun stuff.
Engineering doesn't want to remodel a chapel, they want to work on the engine or do their own stuff.

Heck there is litterly a thread of "GENETICS NOT GIVING A SHIT MOMENTS"
And while funny.. it kinda highlights the problem with interdepartmental communication.

"As long as it's not my department's problem I don't care." Even if the station is being destroyed and such.
See it as the "Nope, not getting out of this chair"

So how do we fix it? How do we incentivice players to do this stuff?
Cause... why would mining do you a FAVOR? So you can MAKE MORE MONEY, but that money won't go to mining or doesn't effect mining?

This is why we need a more symbiotic outcome.
Insted of: "Engine goes better"
Why not go: "Engine goes better and can super charge the mining magnet, allowing safe faster yields or bigger yields?"
This makes mining get the cerenkite and get a benefit out of it.

The fun part of working together with departments is that their outcome is shared. Like the chef taking botany's growth to make amazing food that botany gets 1st dibs on. (though it doesnt decrease waiting time)

As long as there is a way for it to be fun or benefical. People will do it, but it doesn't.. why bother? in the end of the day you are playing the game to have fun...and if the cooperation ain't fun.. people won't do it.

[Meggal Bozale]

That too, but there's no personal responsibility to do the task. If Department A wants Department B to do something, and there's 8 employees in department B, diffusion of responsibility / social loafing takes effect. Players who cooperate with other departments, if cooperation is truly to be rewarded, should see a return on their investment, regardless of whether or not what they give is used.

Additionally, my personal feelings on such cooperation is that I simply do the task better, nine times out of ten. Mining is busy doing whatever, I hack their doors and grab tools, pull in cerenkite, slap some charges, grab ore and I'm out. Took me what, 3 minutes? 5? It'd take mining ten minutes most shifts for the same thing. I'm sorry, but at least on main (RP this would be a no-no, fine, okay), I end up benefiting from NOT relying on other departments. See what I mean? Trusting other players to do something for me adds risk, and often takes longer. I imagine this is a big reason as to why cooperation doesn't happen.

This wouldn't particularly matter if I was just goofing around, but when I have a set plan in mind, which has a real time limit, the clock is ON. It's not reasonable to expect mining to dedicate their time for me, and then get nothing in return. So, instead of that, the end result is I, the player, find a way to do it on my own.

I'm not sure how this gets solved really, except to have job requests you can send, and then have those job requests accepted by another player, who is then responsible for the task. That can currently be done with communication like "Hey (x), you're a (job), right? Can you do (y) for me?", but again, there's no "I'll give you (z) in return", or even the guaruntee that player (x) will WANT (z). And honestly, because Goon's atmosphere doesn't pressure anyone to do anything in particular, I don't think interdepartmental cooperation should be forced, either. Let engineers mine cerenkite, it's whatever.