Change Science to an Expedition-focused department

[ReadThisNamePlz]

This would take a lot of work, but before I even begin writing down where to start - I want feedback and ideas for this.

Science is a dead department. We know this. The only thing that really happens with it is Expeditions. 

So.. why not make the whole department focus on expeditions? Exploring overmap points of interest, searching for Phoron and other goodies, etc. 
We'd gut RnD and turn the whole focus of the department into a expedition based thing. 

I'd want to move Xenoarcheology to Deck two, and add a second expedition shuttle - similar to the Intrepid, to allow for more than one destination to be visited at the same time... I'll put more thoughts down into this thread in a bit, I just wanted to get it going for now. 

[greenjoe]

One thought I had was moving some stuff that was made in R&D into Operations, adding a manufacturing element to them. As for how manufacturing could be set up, I'm not entirely sure on, but it is an idea I'm putting down.

 

Otherwise, I'm all for this, exploration based department is a cool idea.

[RexTenebrarumSum]

Why not just add an explorer role or job within science, add a wing dedicated to it,  along with all the equipment they'd need.  I've been wanting to make characters that are xenobiologists and xenobotanists, but I've been holding back until I apply for a skrell whitelist.

 

I used to like RnD but the round reset Everytime and everyone having what they need really kills it for me.  The ship can operate without science just fine, in my experience.  And it's a shame cause the whole purpose for the horizon is research and finding phoron.

[Noble Row]

As Greenjoe said above, I'd love to see the science department folded in to Operations, and then raise a new department for expeditions from the ashes of Science.

Machinists/Roboticists could have more personnel, or get renamed, or have more role variety. The machine shop can get reunified with its department, and it can be tasked with doing more machining. It'd make sense for machinists to take in the weapon manufacturing aspect of Science, they already make giant death robots, might as well make guns too. Research can be done by the machinists, or be done by a new role adjacent. The chem lab for science can be folded in to the machinist sector pretty easily as well. Again, I believe this should constitute a renaming of the machinist role, or an addition to the department that makes sense. Machinists machine things, build things with their hands. It can make sense for machinists to research things if the lore we have for research is getting things that already exist (How else do we justify researching the same technology every single round?) but otherwise, a role adjacent might need to be created.

Other notes though:

There is a TON of empty space on the right side of deck two near the leviathan, and that is just asking to be used.

The new expedition branch can include a variety of new/different roles to add variety to the branch. From the scientists and scouts themselves, to a possible guard, to other neat and fun little tidbits. It offers up a lot of potential development and expansion. More reason to make off-ship areas. More reason to make little fun things to explore planets like probes or buggies. But I can see expeditions getting boring pretty quickly if this development isn't considered.

My only negative comments are that I still believe Xenobotany and Xenobiology can be used. What for? I don't know. But they're interesting departments in and of themselves. Could slot them in to operations, could keep them on the expedition department. Who knows.

 

Either way, I like the idea, fold research as it is in to Operations, and let a new department rise from the ashes.

[wowzewow]

I still think Science/Research department should still exist, however they should be mapped closer together with Operations. I've been playing around with the idea of a big remap, and this is one of them.

Ideally, the departments would be shifted around so that Science and Operations border each other, with the Machinist right inbetween them, with Medical bordering Science at the top - Engineering taking the former place of Science. Intersecting all of the three departments, Science, Operations and Medical would be another interstatial elevator with a small "Expeditions" room where people can gather up and prepare for expeditions : Science can be the eggheads working on Xenoarchaeology, Miners can dig up stuff and do some combat with their KAs, and Medical keeps an eye on people's safety.

[Carver]

I’m supportive of this solely on the basis of the second shuttle so that one xenoarch isn’t hogging the only real shuttle on the Horizon all the time - especially if it means Command can regain primary oversight of the Intrepid. Maybe Mining can be moved into this as well, while as others have said the manufacturing elements of Science get merged into Operations?

[RustingWithYou]

I've seen this suggested a lot, and I have the same question every time - what does this actually look like?

Science can already do expeditions, and even discounting xenoarchs they're probably the ones I see doing it the most. The problem, however, is that aside from xenoarch there's very little to actually do on expeditions aside from looking at the same three away sites or occasionally running into an offship. What would be the goal of the new expedition department, aside from basically just running to sites and pretending that you haven't seen them 500 times before?

I'm not opposed to this as an idea, god knows RND is boring, but it would need a lot of thought put into how we change expeditions to be more consistently interesting for the players. Right now they don't happen a lot outside of mining and xenoarchaeology because those are the two groups that actually have things they can do on exoplanets.

[rrrrrr]

had to call up a friend of mine for his thoughts on this.

 

 

[Captain Gecko]

I think this could be interesting, honestly, but at the same the RD/scientists should probably still have access to the Operation RnD, since the servers are, for now, still in science. This would leave us with needing to replace it with something else for scientists to do. Chemistry is useful, and wiring can be very fun (if you want to try, and most people don't alas), but it can only get you so far.

[Boggle08]

I would be disappointed if we completely gutted science of its white collar, experimenting nature and turned it into the Nathan Drake department.

Having played the role a bunch lately, the biggest strengths of being a scientist is being able to procure unorthodox solutions to problems, and the implicit ability to retain a freakish amount of cross-departmental job knowledge. I've had great moments of cooperation with the crew, except for security. Those guys either assume we're antagonists(at least one of us usually is), or they deliberately exclude us out of fear of admin wrath. The culture surrounding science is just as neglectful as the mechanics are.

RND is honestly a chore, even if you're using tech processors, so it'd be better if we just started with it already done. A lot of people have been talking about wanting to remove modular guns, but in absence of other activities, they're a pretty big reason why people occasionally fuck with science at all. I would only feel comfortable seeing them gone if we had something to supplant them, or just heavily nerfed the high end combinations so people would feel comfortable accepting them from science again. Nerfing them would actually buff them.

I still agree that science's future is primarily in the overmap, and on planets that aren't exoplanets. The Horizon's stated mission is survey, not just for Phoron, but for potential sites for colonization. A common complaint is that we don't really do our stated mission at often, and most of the described abilities of the Horizon's sensor systems only exist in event announcements, and the sector printout BC's get. I propose we make science not an exploration department, but a survey department. Modular probes and drones, expansion of integrated circuit functionality, planetary survey equipment and beacons; Climatology and Geology. Hell, we could even give them access to the Horizon's mystical sensor equipment, where they can operate and improve it's various functions(whatever they may be).

The goal of science should be to help the Horizon complete it's actual mission, while making expedition/survey operations more convenient with probes, enhanced sensor readings, and drones. While still working on their little experimental passion projects.

(Oh and xenobotany/xenobio should eventually have an expedition game where they bring in planetary xenofauna/flora for analysis).

Edited November 5, 2023 by Boggle08

[Noble Row]

Also if we expand the machinist role could we add a learner role for them? The machinist is a role that is in demand nearly every round, and I've seen some pretty lost machinists that are new to the position. To have just one learner slot would help a lot on helping people enjoy the role.

[greenjoe]

If R&D was changed to manufacturing done by operations I'd want it to be a new role, separate from machinist, so a character who is just manufacturing things for the ship isn't forced into doing borgings and robot related things too

[Noble Row]

Machinists in real life machine and manufacture. If anything surgery should be removed from the machine shop and all the machinist provides is the cyborg body to an actual surgeon.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

On 05/11/2023 at 11:04, Noble Row said:

Also if we expand the machinist role could we add a learner role for them? The machinist is a role that is in demand nearly every round, and I've seen some pretty lost machinists that are new to the position. To have just one learner slot would help a lot on helping people enjoy the role.

We can add a learner role right now without this rework, Just call it an "Machinist Apprentice" or something. 

[Noble Row]

7 hours ago, ReadThisNamePlz said:

We can add a learner role right now

Only issue is that the machine shop right now is too small for two people working at the same time, it really can't handle three.

[Ublicto]

On 05/11/2023 at 01:11, rrrrrr said:

had to call up a friend of mine for his thoughts on this.

 

 

I think Dagoth makes a really good point here, RnD is very outdated compared to a lot of other systems and there isn't enough to do in most of the science department. However, it would be good to add ship-side stuff for science to do like assemble probes that can be used to study planets, make custom artillery shells with specific substances in them (for fighting enemies that only take a certain type of damage maybe), and there could be additional tools for antag interactions like studying captured changelings and curing (or inducing) vampirism.

[La Villa Strangiato]

IMHO the first step here is to add stuff to xenobiology and xenobotany.

I must once again reiterate the tired adage of "port it from Bay"; they have xenofauna (with limited custom traits), plants that spawn with randomized traits on planets, and a gun with custom shells that can trap animals.

[NerdyVampire]

Consider me curious and open to change. I think exploration should be a bigger aspect - but only if devs/mappers are open to making more away sites to accommodate more focus on it.

[Star Dust]

I'd prefer a massive rework then to change it fully, I'd also like to see a return of genetic engineering, and revamping of xenobotanists. Honestly all the rolls CAN be expedition focus buuuuttt don't force people into it, for some people like roleplaying prissy nerds who sit in a lab and analyze shit all day.

[Gem]

i don't want to see research made into an exploration department, but i'm fine with research focusing much more on exploration. random crew assisting on expeditions is soul that i don't want to see lost. i'm fine with RnD being killed off and just being kept as a laboratory for creating fun stuff or whatever.

researchers going out on expeditions more often in conjunction with xenoarchaeologists and xenobiologists would be ideal, though xenoarchaeology would probably need to be reworked to offer more interesting artifacts or points of interest and xenobiology the same but so that alien species on expeditions can be points of interest instead of slimes. asides from that, most away sites are meta'd at this point and don't really offer any interest or intrigue anymore, in the end they just turn into loot goblin runs. i think if there were more randomgen, both map and storytelling where able, it'd work much better.

honestly, a game cycle similar to Voices of the Void would likely work pretty well for research, where you could find, download, and process signals in order to find hidden points of interest on the overmap, whether it's some anomaly, a encrypted rescue signal, or a long lost ship.

example image for inspiration

Edited November 11, 2023 by Gem

[Rabid Animal]

obligatory reviving a dead post here;

I don't think taking things away from science in any capacity is a good way to attract new players to the department. It hardly gets additions, which is a big reason its so dead, removing features I can only imagine will make that worse. On top of that, science is already supposed to be expedition focused? They have the intrepid, though in recent days people seem to forget that yes - the intrepid is sciences ship, it (should) only exist for away missions, which is historically something the RD organizes.

The issue at hand isn't that the department isn't expedition focused, so much as the away sites provided are either very combat focused or, as it is with our current sector, completely absent. The most obvious and easy solution is to map more away sites, and make them appear more frequently. The new away sites should be science focused in almost their entirety, if I as the RD have to try and wrangle a person from each department because its REQUIRED not because its FUN, then it just gimps any chance of those missions ever happening - as is the case at the moment. Getting a group of science bros together to explore some wild ruin or do some detailed survey should be the expectation, NOT the exception. 

So then a few things;

1. We can aim to make expeditions more department wide by giving everyone in science access to the intrepid, and accept the fact that the ship is their toy, not a bus for people to ask rides on. If people want to use the intrepid, they can play science. This has the intended effect of allowing the department to feel more exploratory without detracting from the features already available to them. ADD DO NOT REMOVE
2. Give the roles given access above the opportunity to actually do things on their respective away sites. Expand Xenobiology to have a holding area for non-slime xenofauna.¹ Give them features and toys relating to the study of said fauna. Give xenobotany the same thing, allow them to take samples of the plants that are planet side. Someone already mentioned this above, and it seems bay already has these features in some capacity, its OKAY to port stuff. In the same vein, they're not EXPECTED to do these things, if people wanna be a lab jockey, then BY ALL MEANS, LET THEM.
3. And, finally, do not remove RnD from science. I'm not sure why people think this is a good thing considering removing robotics was one of the worse things to happen to the department. Asking to take away things from science because you do not want to play science is frankly a terrible idea? If you want to simplify it, thats whatever, RnD takes 10 minutes to setup; some people find it tedious to do, and thats fair.

Science depends heavily on roleplay, enable this with gameplay, I can lists things forever and ever on how to do this but thats not what this thread was about.² I want to reiterate, again, that taking anything away from science at this point will not help the department in the long run.  I also want to reiterate the idea that having science have exclusive access to !fun! things is how you get people to play the department.³ I'm not sure if that was particularly clear, but if people want to play with sciences toys, they can play science, do NOT lend their gameplay to other departments because people feel that these features are not getting used enough. The intrepid is theirs, RnD is theirs, etc, etc.

 

^{1 cages are currently really fucking broken, fix them so said fauna can actually be transported? Also man idk who the fuck remapped xenobiology but they have never played the role and its painfully obvious, the lab needs a remap.
2 things like bringing back exploratory chem, making microscopes do something for science, allowing fauna or even certain antags to be biopsied with unique results, so many things.
3 a lot of the fun things science has at the moment is barred from any kind of use because the rules prohibit human experimentation, and theres no other way to apply those toys. Loosen up or implement other ways to use said toys? idk}

Edited March 16, 2024 by Rabid Animal
typos

[CatsinHD]

I have mixed feelings on changing science to exploration. I used to be all for it, but I've done some reflecting on that and heard some arguments from others that has sorta shown me why it isn't inherently the best, and VERY difficult to implement in a way that doesn't end up like other exploration systems that fall flat and abandoned after the initial "Wow! Cool!" wears off.

The thoughts I'm about to throw out are not necessarily fully formed. I want to brainstorm a little, so we can all through some food into this pot we're cooking up.

RND:

Bluespace Probing: Related to telescience some, Bluespace Probing is taking a bluespace portal, and maneuvering around the still mysterious realm to gather more science and data. It takes on the form of "levels" and plays similarly to the Netrunning system from Cyberpunk Red. Each level, you can take a certain action. Some levels have dangerous "enemies" that can end your probing if not defeated. Some levels spawn artefacts at the portal if you choose to bring them out, etc. And, perhaps, the end point of one of these probing missions is a generated Bluespace Away Site, that you can then explore for whatever benefit.

General Probing: We're a ship searching for phoron, and we have a whole ass mining system on our ship. Give science the ability to probe planets. Scans give the atmosphere, what if science probes give mineral composition and other info that mining could find useful?

I doubt RND in its current state can really be transitioned in a satisfying way to something that can last beyond the initial cool factor, which is why I'd rather shift it to a new focus, like the ones mentioned above. Emphasis bluespace more, emphasis scanning and probing more. And does it really make sense to have traditional RND on a mobile space ship?

Xenobio: Revamping xenobio to move beyond slimes (however for the sake of simplicity, I will continue to use the word slimes). I feel like the best route here is to combine it with the above probing system, a xenofauna system on planets, and keeping the slime system. Slimes allow it to still have a loop and mechanical benefit, while the other 2 allow for some variability and RP opportunities. Now, these second 2 systems will be very RP focused as finding a mechanical benefit is... hard with xenofauna. But, cooking up some "xenofauna report" documents for xenobiologists would give some goal to bringing back strange new xenofauna. This might need some extra tools and systems to examine and perhaps dissect xenofauna to get certain traits that can then be noted down.

Xenobotany: I think xenobot really just needs a brush up. Overhaul the system itself, maybe, but beyond adding in a way to rope in xenoflora on planets, it isn't that bad of a system.

Xenoarch: Probably the best off section of RD so far. Adding more artefact types would be best. Also, give them the ability to set up tents and site camps. Maybe even the ability to dig down? There's some room to cook here, but it's still got the most going for it atm.

Now, again, not the most well developed thing. This is just me putting a pot on the stove and adding some stock. Feel free to add on.

52 minutes ago, Rabid Animal said:

things like bringing back exploratory chem

I will go ahead and address this. Exploratory chem is dead, and not coming back. Secret chems/recipes are not wanted, which ultimately betrays the point of exploratory chem in its base idea. A dev can correct me if I got this wrong, but a discussion on sci not too long ago had this point brought up and addressed by a head dev.

Science at it's current state is a hodge podge of old systems that we inherited and relatively new systems that were mostly built around a asteroid and stationary station. It's not the best for a general purpose cruiser, so adjusting it to reflect its new environment would be the best course of action either way.

[Rabid Animal]

I was mostly posting in reference to the topic of the thread, and actually agree with most of your points here though.

21 minutes ago, CatsinHD said:

I have mixed feelings on changing science to exploration. I used to be all for it, but I've done some reflecting on that and heard some arguments from others that has sorta shown me why it isn't inherently the best, and VERY difficult to implement in a way that doesn't end up like other exploration systems that fall flat and abandoned after the initial "Wow! Cool!" wears off.

I'm generally against it, hence trying to hammer in the idea of making it more of an addition rather than a replacement. Moving all of science towards exploration will interest people for a time, but yeah - in the long run its not great.

The bluespace probing is an excellent idea and brings telescience back to relevancy. I think something like that also allows for some interesting away sites not limited by the lore of whatever sector we're in. I know this is beyond the scope of this thread and even not 100% something great for aurora, but Goon has an ARG relating to telescience, and it makes it feel far more interesting to play round to round as theres a persistent puzzle to be solved. General probing is fine? I'm not sure exactly how it'll help mining or others because of the presumed setup time, mining will already be long gone before we're able to discern useful information. That said, you could expand a bit on that idea to spark interest in doing planetary survey.

Xenobio is complicated...I think theres a lot of really cool things you could do with it that require a lot of coding. Some map changes are a good way to start, and perhaps giving them a pseudo genetics system wherein you can clone xenofauna using samples gathered in the field? Obviously thats a little half baked, and probably deserves its own thread. All in all, most of science is just RP, so its not the worst thing - if you want mechanical complexity to keep people occupied, build on the genetic system to modify your samples or something? 

Xenoarch would benefit from having more of a separation between artefacts and anomalies, where the former are more or less what we have, and the latter can have tie ins to the other science roles. Having crossplay is always desirable imo, because I think one of the huge issues with science is that its not only an extremely RP based department, but its extremely difficult to justify hanging out with your peers if you know nothing about their research. And example of this could be an anomaly that resembles a large flower and spreads vines around when its active. Xenobotany then would have a reason to team with archeology and do RP around it.

Lastly, re; exploratory chem. I think as it was, its dead. I don't think bringing back the old system will do any good. I think giving each role in science a set of chemicals they can use in exploratory chem is another way to bring the department together, and I think that would be a better use of it than admin tier overpowered bullshit with 50 steps to make. Once again referring to goon, they've had exploratory chem for years and people love that shit, and most of their recipes are not anything groundbreaking or ridiculous either, its just FUN to discover things and then play with them and figure out what they do.

32 minutes ago, CatsinHD said:

Science at it's current state is a hodge podge of old systems that we inherited and relatively new systems that were mostly built around a asteroid and stationary station. It's not the best for a general purpose cruiser, so adjusting it to reflect its new environment would be the best course of action either way.

This is pretty much the crux of everything wrong with science. Polishing everything we have and updating those systems will do a lot for the department.

[NerdyVampire]

I think Reads ideas are all pretty good. I do want science to have more of a purpose, at this time no one really 'needs' science for anything. When is the last time you had a problem or opportunity, where science staff was the solution?

Fauna, anomalies and flora data are things that could be found on away sites, it just needs to be made into something that can be collected, and something that yields some sort of reward, like a mining point vendor.

[Nagito Komaeda]

We actually have this combination going on at Polaris - Science and Exploration are inherently very linked. Explorers go out, handling PoI's and bringing back artefacts, anomalies and things of high tech levels. Scientists over there range from the lab-bound ones like the Roboticist, Toxins Researcher etc. to some outside ones like the Xenoarchaeologist and the Xenofauna Technician. As someone who's been RD there, I can safely say: Yes.

Right now, Science suffers a lot from having this weird combination of a LOT of things and no things at all. R&D can yield great things, but relies heavily on materials and people actually asking for it. Xenobio&bot have super interesting gameplay, but it can get stale really quickly (especially xenobotany because there are so few rare seed spawns). Xenoarchaeology has the most expansive 'exploration' gameplay available to it, and people really gravitate to that as well.

Make Science both the lab and the field department. Scientists have a lot of tools available to creatively solve problems, but they don't ever get the chance to use said tools on the Horizon. Give them the opportunity to use those self-made guns on an expedition! Let them transport objects through portals in emergencies! Science needs something where they can be the ones who benefit from their own hard work once in a while.

 

I genuinely think people will be drawn more to Science if they get more action. And it's entirely opt-in! If your character is solely a lab-rat, but you want to be included? Join to set up a small monitoring camp! Gather data! You want to be more of a field scientist with an aptitude for shooting? Hell yeah, clear out those PoI's. There's absolutely potential here and it would be a shame if the opportunity wasn't taken.