Reduce the Chief Engineer's minimum qualifications

[GeneralCamo]

From the wiki article:

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Chief_Engineer

The Chief Engineer's job is to organize the engineering department, and sometimes get their hands dirty if no one else can do it. This is basically a glorified office job, which do not get me wrong is important on the Horizon, however the stated requirements that you need a Doctorate in an engineering field is way too high for this position. Someone with a doctorate in engineering field is expected to contribute to research in that field, and indeed already has with a thesis paper. They would be well overqualified for the Chief Engineer position, and should look into a job in Research instead.

My proposal here is to reduce the requirements for a Chief Engineer to a Master's Degree, or a Bachelor's Degree with relevant experience. This would fit in line with the requirements for the Head of Security, a similar job with a similar role on the Horizon. I should note that several Chief Engineer players do not play on the Horizon with the "Doctor" title that would be attained to them with a doctorate, which suggests that this is already treated as de facto the policy on the Horizon.

[Roostercat]

The CE is in charge of maintaining an engine that utilizes a super death crystal that could vaporize half the ship if it overloads, multiple weapons systems including a massive experimental energy cannon, and on top of that the entirety of the ship's other functions. Technically all of engineering has to do this, but the CE has the extra burden of having to know off the top of their head what makes these systems work, whereas engineers can ask question, usually asking the CE. I think all of that is worthy of a Doctorate requirement, personally. 

 

Plus, all the experimental stuff with the temperamental engines and the giga death laser can easily fit to the research role you mentioned. Going to have to -1 this one.

[GeneralCamo]

I would argue that it's more fitting for a master's degree, being that it's a technical and practical consideration. A Ph.D holder would be more into experimenting with the most optimal way to run those temperamental engines in a controlled environment, not attempting to fix them in the field. Based on the wiki, the Chief Engineer isn't meant to be doing the experimenting himself, just keep the experimental stuff running. If this were changed so that the CE was allowed to handle research into these fields, and recruit the engineers into running these experiments, that would be different and I would retract this. My point here is that the practical real world expectations for a doctorate in engineering is out of line of what's going on in the game, and how most players play their characters as Chief Engineer.

[Arrow768]

Moved to policy suggestions as thats not something (primarily) code related

[Happy_Fox]

1 hour ago, GeneralCamo said:

I would argue that it's more fitting for a master's degree, being that it's a technical and practical consideration. A Ph.D holder would be more into experimenting with the most optimal way to run those temperamental engines in a controlled environment, not attempting to fix them in the field. Based on the wiki, the Chief Engineer isn't meant to be doing the experimenting himself, just keep the experimental stuff running. If this were changed so that the CE was allowed to handle research into these fields, and recruit the engineers into running these experiments, that would be different and I would retract this. My point here is that the practical real world expectations for a doctorate in engineering is out of line of what's going on in the game, and how most players play their characters as Chief Engineer.

A master's makes more sense imo. Generally our education requirements seem to match real-world equivalents, although I know this isn't a hard rule. For engineering a Doctorate (PhD or EngD) would be appropriate for someone responsible for engineering research, a faculty position or an executive position in an engineering organisation. A Chief Engineer for a large vessel IRL can get to that position with a bachelor's degree and the requisite experience. The work being more practical than research/academic, they typically focus on achieving certifications related to various aspects of maritime engineering and management. As we already have a high requirement for our ship's engineers (in a real ship the equivalent to our Engineers would be officers, in charge of teams of Engineering crew AND wouldn't need (and most likely wouldn't have as a minimum) a bachelor's degree) it seems reasonable to bump the requirement for Chief Engineer from a Bachelor's to a Master's degree for minimum. A doctorate would not necessarily be something useful to hold in such a position because of how applied the role is towards engineering issues.

Consider as well that your engineer has somehow managed to work within engineering for 10 years while having achieved a master's in engineering and a PhD in engineering all part-time after leaving college at 20.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Happy_Fox