Roboticist to Science + Medical

[WickedCybs]

It's been a while and to me It's increasingly been feeling like the roboticist doesn't have much of a purpose in Operations. They're still reliant and must communicate with research, now made harder with the lack of radio comms. They also frequently tend to collaborate with medical due to some overlapping stuff like prosthetics or augments but there's been less of this due to their distance and getting bypassed with nanopaste. When it comes to operations, they're alienated from the their department by being so far away and have no real overlapping duties. At most, it facilitates ordering stuff and talking to miners.

What I would propose is moving them back under science while also giving them medical access and a medsci headset so they can communicate with both departments. I was toying with making this an actual PR, but I wanted to see if it would get shot down first. I think their location would have to stay for now, but I want to move them to the second level as well and find something to put where they used to, maybe maintenance.

[Carver]

I like their ties to operations just for the ease of access to materials. If anything, it might be nicer to keep them under ops and give them a combined ops + sci headset so they can directly ask for research as well.

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Seconding Cybs' suggestion. Having played as a machinist (and since deleted the character because I found the role so boring) the role was dreadfully boring and overly-reliant on a department you were unable to communicate with and unable to access most of operations. Their spot is also very inconvenient to access, especially in a blackout. Making them medsci and moving them to where the charging bay currently is would go a long way

33 minutes ago, Carver said:

I like their ties to operations just for the ease of access to materials.

In roughly ~20 rounds as machinist I never got materials before the hour mark and often did not get materials at all. My machines were also painfully slow due to having no access to upgrades. I'd much rather have to go down to operations to ask for parts than go up to science for upgrades.

Edited October 8, 2022 by NewOriginalSchwann

[Scheveningen]

Keeping them down in ops doesn't really make any sense to me, so I second this.

[Butterrobber202]

Please. The role, as it stands, is painfully out of the way and unengaging.

[Dreamix]

I have no real opinion as I don't play machinist, or really ever need anything from machinists.

But.

I do think it makes very much sense for them to be in ops rather than elsewhere, so they can coordinate with mining (even though mining departs at like 00:10 without informing anyone where they are going), go to the warehouse to get materials (machinists do have access to it, just need to go through the mail room, lol), etc.

Machinists are supposed to supply other departments with stuff (organs and limbs for medical, mechs and hardsuits for everyone). Sort of like the operations department as a whole, which is its main and only purpose really.

As for communication... Just use the common channel. I don't really see machinists talk to medical or science much, to warrant giving them these radio channels. And like, you could say the same about ops as a whole - give medical radio channel to cargo techs so they can resupply medical better with warehouse and ordered stuff.

[EJJ]

I think some of this would help with QOL improvements for mining or Roboticists and Science getting some basic gold, silver, diamond, etc, etc in their storage guaranteed rather than having to wait on a miner who might be:
- Not wanting to go out/not ABLE to go out. (Rock is hilariously far away and would take a lot of fuel to get there quickly or take like 20 min to get there and 20 min to get back and Horizon either can't move yet or isn't able to.)
- An antag and stays ship-side and never goes mining.
- Goes mining and dies/gets in the RP Zone with off-ship stuff and ends up back at 1:50.

This isn't to say this would immediately improve this. But a lot of the pain in machinist role comes from Science not doing research and machinists needing research and being unable to do so. (Without jumping through a ton of hoops or breaking into sci.) While Aurora mining still had danger, Horizon mining has a lot more of a chance to either end up with a miner dead and a run needing to be canned and reset or with mining being unable to leave because an antag stole the Intrepid at 0:10 and now command wants the mining shuttle to follow the Intrepid because we only have two shuttles.

The forbidden suggestion lies here: We get rid of tech levels. Much of the broken stuff needs phoron, which, obviously isn't very easy to make.
But that would also strip more work Science gets to do so I dunno. I feel giving science and machinist some basic supplies from mining would be pog.

[Montyfatcat]

Honestly, the fact that machinists are the only department actually heavily affected by R&D should say a lot about how little use R&D actually has. Giving the ability to do R&D to the machinists and giving scientists time to just enjoy doing random projects would streamline the process so much, and if they really can't be moved from ops then they can label R&D as "machine calibration" and move it over.

I wouldn't mind machinist getting a place in either science or medical, but I'd favour medical since so much of their job is an overlap with the vanilla scientist and they need so much surgery knowledge to do their jobs. It would also help curtail the super-doctor phenomena that Aurora has been having lately (with surgeons being able to install and repair mechanical organs). It would also make more sense as everyone with a mechanical limb has to visit the machinist eventually, so giving the machinist an easier to access location would help massively (do we really need the giant wards upstairs in medical?).

Moving out of ops would also help the job be treated a little more respectfully, as right now science players seem to treat it as discount science and medical players sometimes view the role as an inconvenicence, meanwhile it's a heavily qualified role compared to the rest of ops (I'm fairly certain it's the only one in ops that requires a degree). The only issue with moving out of ops would be explaining why they're producing stuff like mechs as a medical role, but that could be given to science as something to do instead, especially considering how niche mechs usually are.

 

19 hours ago, Carver said:

I like their ties to operations just for the ease of access to materials. If anything, it might be nicer to keep them under ops and give them a combined ops + sci headset so they can directly ask for research as well.

This doesn't really impact that much, the only difference is that they get their mats just before science does by virtue of being on the route to science. Occasionally I've yelled at them over ops channel to deliver mats already, but honestly I did the same on the aurora back when roboticist was in science but instead over common.

[WickedCybs]

My plan at the moment would be having the Machinist be nominally under research (The RD is their boss, they're close to more stuff they need to interact with). They would also have some basic medical access and a medsci headset. I don't really think the the role needs to be changed radically or lose anything, but to just have these additions. Anything more would be out of scope for what I have in mind.

The position of where it should be exactly is a little harder to work out as gem has plans for the area I initially wanted to use. I will likely wait for that PR to finish before seeing what can be done as it may still be in roughly the same location as the relatively unused charging room on the second deck, unless there seems to be another good spot to insert the workshop in. So this might be a while, but It's on the List™.

 

 

[Boggle08]

Operations is an appropriate department for what the machinist does. They may have many areas of expertise, but the bottom line is that most of, if not all of the equipment they make is supposed to leave their hands.

Moving it back into science won't change the way machinist plays, and it just means they have another commline to yell at someone do research. I'm actually in favor of giving the machinist a destructive analyzer instead. Science as a department is anachronistic in its design, and has been gutted over the years for it. Robotics going back to science just feels like a step backwards.

Moving the department into medical is a rough option too. They've lost their ability to work with mechanical organs in surgery steps by default; any additional medical knowledge a roboticist posseses is "extra" rather than "intrinsic" to the role. They print organs, nanopaste, limbs, and then deliver them. 

Moving the machinist around to different departments won't fix anything about the way they play, nor their dependencies in the slightest. The Machinist being off the main level is a problem, however. It's a role that can get more traffic and requests than even the cargo desk at times, they could stand to benefit from either a relocation, or ladder/stairs access. They're actually in a half decent spot, it's just not on the main level.

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Boggle08

[Mneme]

As one of the few players who consistently plays Research Director and who has had a character in Research for most of my time on Aurora I can say that taking machinists/roboticists out of Research has crippled the department player-wise, mechanically doesn't make a lot of sense in my mind, and in my opinion butts heads with the lore. One of the few roles that was consistently filled within Research was the roboticist, now it is a miracle to see more than two people in the department at any given time, I often joke as Qiao Ling that Research has a rule of two because its either her and one other person or just her. Additionally machinists are the only individuals who can repair IPCs, unlock stationbounds, handle the AI, and perform cyborgifications, not even the Research Director has the appropriate access to unlock a stationbound or has the tools needed to conduct a cyborgification. I don't believe the SCC would task Orion Express with all of the aforementioned, nor would they put an individual responsible for advanced neurosurgery and making sure their vessel's artificial intelligence isn't off the rails, in the same department as someone who hits rocks with a pickaxe. I genuinely believe that most of what the machinist does is advanced work that really only has a place in Research.

In my opinion, the answer isn't to cripple Research as a department more by radically altering Research and Development, or to give the machinist a destructive analyzer so they can bypass our one central job all-together, it's to re-add them to Research and place them more centrally within the department. A good place for the machinist would be right where the un-touched mechbay is outside of R&D, instead of in a corner at the bottom of the ship. Machinists right now in a not good place, and re-adding them to Research would fix a lot of their issues while also boosting Research as a department. If a lot of people are absolutely against moving the machinist back into Research, then the Machinist should be stripped of their ability to repair stationbounds, the artificial intelligence, and conduct cyborgifications, and all of that should be transferred to a role within Research or access should be given to Research all together as it doesn't make sense in my mind as to why someone who would have the knowledge to do all of that, would come from Orion Express or be in Operations.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Mneme

[Boggle08]

28 minutes ago, Mneme said:

snip

Research needs more than just the machinist to solve any of its problems. RnD is the one thing that allows them to contribute to rounds, but it's a shape matching game with only half the pieces. Most rounds I see RnD just being a nanopaste dispensary that occasionally passes out tools. I can understand moving roboticist back if just to make the population numbers less miserable, but that's just trading out the current status quo for the old one. Roboticists will still have the same dependency issues, science will still be an anemic, underutilized department. The entire department needs a big rework, but that's outside the scope of this thread.

[Montyfatcat]

21 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

The position of where it should be exactly is a little harder to work out

The old position was the massive mech charging room (that is frankly way in excess of any reasonable number of mechs) and the meeting room. Moving it back there and halving the size of the meeting room (since the meeting room already has double the capacity of the science department as a whole) would make the room fit plus we already had a good design for the area. The mech bay doesn't need 4 god damn chargers, it needs 2 at most, nor does research need 10 seats in the meeting room when all of research being in the room at once is already excessive due to how massively different their jobs are.

3 hours ago, Mneme said:

In my opinion, the answer isn't to cripple Research as a department more by radically altering Research and Development, or to give the machinist a destructive analyzer so they can bypass our one central job all-together, it's to re-add them to Research and place them more centrally within the department.

I'd disagree there. R&D is one of the more unneeded aspects of the server already. The only parts that are affected drastically are firearms development and mech design, and since it's generally agreed that research firearms are only to be used when shit is utterly fucked that means that the only aspect left is mechs and hardsuits. Upgrades rarely make much of a difference outside of robotics (except mining, which can get their job done ever so slightly faster with an upgraded smelting setup), and honestly if machinists lose their ability to make their own upgrades then it goes back to begging the other guy to make them for you, when they likely won't understand what you need and rarely understand why you need them.

Science in general would need a full redesign before I could accept robotics being moved back there, since right now the department is treated as something that doesn't neatly fit into the incredibly stiff department designs of the ship and game as a whole.

5 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

They've lost their ability to work with mechanical organs in surgery steps by default; any additional medical knowledge a roboticist posseses is "extra" rather than "intrinsic" to the role. They print organs, nanopaste, limbs, and then deliver them. 

This was never made clear, and turning the role into a factory has definitely not made up for it. The medical expertise and anatomical knowledge made for great cross-departmental conversation when talking to medical, and caused more interactions when surgeons didn't hog the mechanical organs during non-vital repairs. There are still multiple medical-esque aspects to the role too, such as prosthetic repairs and IPC repairs. I would say that machinist honestly has more potential in medical than anywhere else, not only because of location but also because the extra stuff added in the map change just treads on the toes of other departments without adding much benefit.

[WickedCybs]

As far as I'm aware and have ruled in tickets for now, they haven't lost their ability to work with mechanical organs. Everything mechanical is something they can work with.

Edited October 9, 2022 by WickedCybs

[Boggle08]

16 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

As far as I'm aware and have ruled in tickets for now, they haven't lost their ability to work with mechanical organs. Everything mechanical is something they can work with.

Someone needs to look at the guide to surgery on the wiki then. I used that for this discussion, and it insists the only thing roboticists can do now is cyborgify and affix limbs.

18 hours ago, Montyfatcat said:

I would say that machinist honestly has more potential in medical than anywhere else, not only because of location but also because the extra stuff added in the map change just treads on the toes of other departments without adding much benefit.

I've only seen roboticists interact with medical in two ways: as stand-ins on lowpop, and consultants on highpop. If you're talking about making roboticist a member of the medical department, I don't see it fitting well. Medical already has friction in delegating work between people, the roboticist would continue to function in an auxiliary capacity. Specialized roles in the department will continue to have priority when it comes to their area of the med game. It adds more cooks into a department that constantly debates with itself if it has too many cooks.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Boggle08

[WickedCybs]

13 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

Someone needs to look at the guide to surgery on the wiki then. I used that for this discussion, and it insists the only thing roboticists can do now is cyborgify and affix limbs.

Will consult with the wiki team soon if that is the case, and staff in general to see if we're on the same page. 

That aside, I'm remembering now that changing its department would also mean Machinist would have new employers. I think in this case that would be Zavod, NT and Zeng for research.

[Carver]

1 hour ago, WickedCybs said:

Will consult with the wiki team soon if that is the case, and staff in general to see if we're on the same page. 

That aside, I'm remembering now that changing its department would also mean Machinist would have new employers. I think in this case that would be Zavod, NT and Zeng for research.

Hephaestus absolutely needs to remain an option for Machinists. Their entire thing is robots!

[EJJ]

1 hour ago, WickedCybs said:

Will consult with the wiki team soon if that is the case, and staff in general to see if we're on the same page. 

That aside, I'm remembering now that changing its department would also mean Machinist would have new employers. I think in this case that would be Zavod, NT and Zeng for research.

 

2 minutes ago, Carver said:

Hephaestus absolutely needs to remain an option for Machinists. Their entire thing is robots!

I think a good middle ground to this, but probably a pain in the ass would be allowing corps to have some roles in other departments.
Hepht roboticists, Zavod pharmacists, etc
But idk how much lore/dev team would wanna do this

[WickedCybs]

6 hours ago, EJJ said:

 

I think a good middle ground to this, but probably a pain in the ass would be allowing corps to have some roles in other departments.
Hepht roboticists, Zavod pharmacists, etc
But idk how much lore/dev team would wanna do this

They don't want to do this. If a megacorp is in a department it'd have to be in every role within that department, minus the SCC of course.

[Gem]

On 09/10/2022 at 22:47, Montyfatcat said:

massive mech charging room

this is being tweaked by a open PR of mine.

[Dreamix]

19 minutes ago, WickedCybs said:

They don't want to do this. If a megacorp is in a department it'd have to be in every role within that department, minus the SCC of course.

In that case, I think it'd kinda, very much suck to remove machinists from ops. Leaves Orion with only two jobs then, hangar tech and miner. Also Heph not doing the thing they're kinda the most famous for, and that being robotics.

Also just echoing what was said before. Machinists supply other departments with stuff, so they should stay in ops. They have no place in medical - the most medical-adjacent thing they can do, is fix mechanical organs and libs. They also have no place in science - machinists do not really do any research or development, and do not invent or discover any new things.

[Gem]

3 hours ago, Dreamix said:

[...]

i second this.

[WickedCybs]

12 hours ago, Dreamix said:

In that case, I think it'd kinda, very much suck to remove machinists from ops. Leaves Orion with only two jobs then, hangar tech and miner. Also Heph not doing the thing they're kinda the most famous for, and that being robotics.

Also just echoing what was said before. Machinists supply other departments with stuff, so they should stay in ops. They have no place in medical - the most medical-adjacent thing they can do, is fix mechanical organs and libs. They also have no place in science - machinists do not really do any research or development, and do not invent or discover any new things.

I think it is kind of hard to say they had no place in research when they have even less of a purpose now that they've shuffled into ops. On paper sure, it's the "supplying" department, but science does that too on the technological end and roboticist players by and large don't really seem to be getting anything out of the transition.

Should it lose Heph I'd pretty much see it as a necessary sacrifice given the whole justification of "Well robots are their thing" could be raised about stuff like Idris handlers and the like. If it didn't exit operations it would still need its location moved and additional things added to facilitate its interactions with the research and medical departments. I'll probably have to see the why on why it was moved to ops in the first place too.

 

[NewOriginalSchwann]

13 hours ago, Dreamix said:

Machinists supply other departments with stuff, so they should stay in ops.

By this logic we should move bartenders, chefs, and (arguably) pharmacists to operations. They all supply other departments with things: drinks, food, and prescriptions respectively.

[Dreamix]

6 hours ago, WickedCybs said:

On paper sure, it's the "supplying" department, but science does that too on the technological end and roboticist players by and large don't really seem to be getting anything out of the transition.

Ehh, dunno. Science is kinda. Lots of people advocate for removing parts of it, or reworking it as a whole. The tech levels are pretty bad, and do not really fit out setting. Personally, I would love to see science reworked to be mainly about expeditions, with the tech levels and the "supplying" part being removed. Same with xenobio and the funny materials slime core spam. With the possible proposed changes, science wouldn't really be supplying anyone with anything.

But that's hypothetically I guess, when or if the hypothetical suggested changes actually get implemented, which might as well be never. At the moment, I do not really see science supply other departments with much. With the exception of supplying mechanists with tech levels I guess. No one really needs anything from science, and everyone has all the tools they need to do their jobs. The most common that I see lately, is science producing translators.

 

5 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

By this logic we should move bartenders, chefs, and (arguably) pharmacists to operations. They all supply other departments with things: drinks, food, and prescriptions respectively.

Honestly, not sure if this is a serious reply.

Ops supplies departments with things that these departments require for operation and doing their tasks, or at least help with such. Security might need to order guns or ammunition, engineering might need materials, medical might need a surgery tools kit if someone stole those, etc. And pretty much any department can use a hardsuit or an exosuit to make their jobs easier or more efficient.

Bartenders and chefs do not really "supply" departments with drinks or food. Like for example, security as a department does not need a glass of vodka to function. But individual officers might get drinks or food in their free time.

(And in case you *are* joking... Let's move everything to ops. Engineering supplies other departments with repairs. Medical supplies everyone injured with gauze and ointment. Security supplies antagonists with bullet holes. Command supplies others with IRs and the consequences of such.)