Y. Hammadi's 45+1 Rules for Aspiring Good Engineers

[Tagada]

I've been around for a long, long while, but I've only ever posted once or twice before. Some of you may know my current main, Youssef Hammadi. This is a list of rules I've (he has) put together over the years for aspiring pro engineers. The rules come from numerous people, sources and Hammadi's head. It's not about the technical side of things (because we have more than enough guides for the essentials) but rather how an engineer should act, what he should think about. I often give a condensed, IC version to apprentices nearing the end of their training. (I can only wish that 'all' engineering everywhere started respecting them.)

For those of us bad at inference or lacking in experience, I'll expand on some of them OOC in italics.

Some of the rules a bit tongue in cheek - so take them with a grain of IC salt.

 

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0.  Communicate or die, always. (The most important rule. If you obey only one, let it be this one. Announce that you're beginning a task, announce that you've ended it, call out breaks, events, damage you see. In and out of a crisis, engineering runs on communication.)
1.  You will take time for your work. If you did not want to spend time on your work, you would not be an engineer.
2.  You will give thought to your work. If you did not want to read and learn, you would not be an engineer.
3.  You will give care to your work. If you did not want your work to have consequences, you would not be an engineer.
4.  You will be paid for your work. If command didn't want to pay fair wages, they would not have hired an engineer.
5.  You will make mistakes and commit dereliction. Some will be catastrophic. Make your peace and ask for pardon beforehand.
6.  Your best tool, safest refuge, base of knowledge and only hope are your working-colleagues in every field.
7.  You will trust the team until proven wrong. (And when wrong, if possible, give them a chance to be right.)
8.  You will give the speciality onto the specialist. (We have different engineering specialties for a reason. Let the engine technician call the shots on the engine. Let the structural engineer direct rebuilding, etc. It's better for organization and roleplay.)
9.  There must be a foreman. If needed, name one unofficially and coordinate your work. (Generally, when a crisis hits, someone confident enough fills the role in the absence of a CE. If not, make someone step up, or do so yourself.)
10. In any given moment, the C.E. is always right. Follow them.
11. In retrospect, the C.E. is often wrong. Forgive them.
12. Engineering assistants are your future. Take them with you everywhere. Make them do everything - twice. (For the love of god, explain the systems, not just the motions. Tell them "how", not just "what".)
13. You will cherish your colleagues in atmospherics. They can halve your work.
14. You will not use the AI. You will work 'with' the AI. (Intelligent orders make for intelligent results. Remember that the AI is another player with problem-solving abilities and heaps of access. If willing, the AI is an invaluable member of engineering.)
15. Treat your synthetics wisely - a well-trained cyborg works like ten men. (See 14.)
16. Remember that you are responsible for Crew > Superstructure > Infrastructure, in that order of importance. (Save the people, save the station, then save the RnD server or vending machine or Ian. Yes, Ian is infrastructure.)
17. You will protect your department. It is vital, expensive and dangerous. (Engineering may not be allowed to engage an antagonist directly, but you are very much allowed to make their life difficult as preventive defense, barring orders not to do so. Many an antagonist engages engineering because it lacks "hard" protection. That is a quick fix.)
18. Do not reject methods different from your own. Question them and learn from them.
19. You will strive to understand the basics of fields outside your own. (Learn "how" atmos works. Learn "why" the engine works the way it does. Not only because it is easy and will make you look smart, but also because it allows you to make quick, informed decisions in a crisis and look even smarter doing so.)
20. There is no such thing as "uncertain". If you are unsure, check. If you do not know, ask.
21. Professional jealousy is foolish. Learn from those who know and do better.
22. Your work is dangerous. Carry first aid.
23. Your work is physical. Carry your materials.
24. Your work is exposed. Carry protection.
25. Your work is demanding. Carry refreshment. (Frequent sips of coffee and a full stomach help enormously with movement speed, especially in a voidsuit. Alcohol works too, for all the functional alcoholics.)
26. You will *always* check the pressure. (This goes for bottles, tanks and rooms as well.)
27. You will perform a basic setup of every essential system, every shift. (Busywork saves you exponentially more busywork later on. It's an uncomfortable truth.)
28. Keep your workspace clean.
29. The more complex a system, the more unfixable, untraceable errors it will produce.
30. Physics in space is *weird*. Learn to live with it and learn to use it to your advantage. (But remember that people get bwoinked for abusing ZAS too obviously)
31. Never start a Search and Rescue operation alone.
32. Preparedness saves lives, including your own. Gather your gear, ensure that others have access to their own.
33. Standard Operating Procedure is otherwise called "Prudent Common Sense"
34. You will not launch anything you can not ultimately shut down.
35. You may not be the first to arrive, but try to be the last to leave.
36. Station and ship architects hate you. Do not be afraid to correct their mistakes.
37. Just because someone has access to engineering gear, does not mean that they should have some.
38. Never reveal the precise, actual time it should take you to finish a task to a superior.
39. You will not build pointless things. A pointless thing has no discernible, realistic purpose.
40. All maintenance tunnels are a part of Engineering. Period. (They are. Anyone pretending the opposite is a dangerously unbalanced sociopath, or an antagonist.)
41. A paper trail is a double-edged sword. It is nevertheless, a sword you should carry.
42. It's not the size of the wattage that matters, it's how you use it.
43. A flamethrower is never the answer to any question. Ever. (Yet someone will periodically suggest it as a solution to vines, spiders, antagonists. It is, however, always without exception, a bad idea.)
44. Gas is cheap. Nothing cools a space faster than the adiabatic method. Don't be afraid to vent and mix.
45. There are no rules like the ones you make.

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TL;DR: Be a better engineer.

If you can think of a rule that would look good up there and can be bothered, post it.

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Tagada

[Codename: Bear]

Oh wow these seem pretty solid. I especially like #12 since I've experienced people who follow it well or not at all.

Only thing I really gotta say is I'm pretty sure you mean "colleagues" instead of "colleges" in a few spots.

[Tagada]

That's what I get for trusting autocorrect to run with it. Thank you.

Number 12 is one of the more important ones - I generally make them do literally everything, again and again because that's how you create reflexes. It's why more experienced engineers do things so much faster: They don't need to think about what they're doing, at least for the basic stuff.

I do think people get that rule though 'and' apply it. Look around - We're currently living a "Golden Age of Engineering" thanks to enough people putting in the effort - the department is almost always staffed and our engineering roster actually understands what they're working with. Many of them were apprentices first.

[Flamingo]

Always a pleasure to play with you, Tagada. A comprehensive and well thought out list.

 

Teaching new players was always something I would make an effort to do (and still do, on the occasion I find myself in-game with one). I definitely cannot stress enough the importance of rule 0, and I am glad you agree. Nothing is worse than a quiet department with several members. It is exponentially more difficult to work as a team when no one talks to one another.

[Codename: Bear]

16 minutes ago, Tagada said:

That's what I get for trusting autocorrect to run with it. Thank you.

Number 12 is one of the more important ones - I generally make them do literally everything, again and again because that's how you create reflexes. It's why more experienced engineers do things so much faster: They don't need to think about what they're doing, at least for the basic stuff.

lol It's all good. I never trust autocorrect or myself so I live in a constant state of fear.

And yeah absolutely agree. Repetition is the best way to get something down. Still it's best to work with the apprentice instead of barking at them to do things a million times alone. Not saying you do at all (I don't know if I've ever played Engineering with you) but just stating it.

And going on Flamingo bringing the importance of rule 0. It's an outstanding rule for every department, sadly I think it is ignored sometimes. Though I do understand the need for radio silence to avoid certain death for some time, since trying to type something out forces you to stand still.

[Tagada]

Yes, I agree completely - the worst engineering rounds are the ones with six-seven people in the department and not a word on the channel - despite there being a crisis or work to do. I generally believe that it's the CE's role (should there be one, anyway) to stimulate this side of the work, with roll-calls, reminders and questions like "What exactly are you doing 'right now'?". If the CE can't precisely tell what everyone is/should be doing at any given moment, he's not paying enough attention to his department. (although even without command, an engineer's first instinct should be to Inform, Share and Report anyway).

Much more than literally any other department (save for perhaps security which a whole different bag of communication patterns) engineering needs to know what engineering is doing, otherwise it devolves into a handful of assistants with wrenches randomly fixing (or not) the issue. Aurora is actually good at this... We've had bad periods for engineering, but it's never completely frozen in.

Of course, stopping to type information in the middle of a fight is suicide. ?

As for assistants, my methodology is generally picking one or two and using them as my hands. Hammadi toddles around comfortably with a cup of coffee and a smoke (both hands taken) and narrates what the apprentices are doing for him in real time. He follows them around at a leisurely pace as they do literally everything his own hands would have done and explains the system in a steady stream of information. It works well because the apprentice can take as much time as they need, "alone" but accompanied and it gives everyone a chance to voice their questions and such in real time - as they pop up during whatever it is he's watching them do, instead of having to remember what it was that they're still unclear about later on.

Just telling an apprentice to "do a thing" and letting them fend for themselves is how you get grown-ass engineers not understanding what the scrubber loop does, why the circulatory pump is important or how to calculate pressure during a burn. (if the apprentice doesn't just give up outright in the face of indifference).

As an aside, I've always roleplayed that the duty to train and teach apprentices is literally in our engineering contracts (much like in the real world, where many companies that go through a 'lot' of interns have similar provisions for certain employees). It makes sense to me, but it would be nice to see it writ down somewhere, officially.

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Tagada