Free the NanoTrasen engineers!

[firstact]

In the current state of engineering, hephaestus is largely the only option for a large majority of characters due to zavods species restrictions of humans and ZI-IPCs only. NanoTrasen has employed atmos techs and engineers in the past, and while some of their navy was retconned I imagine they'd have still employed many ship and station technicians throughout their large collection of assets. So, why is their presence so limited on Horizon? While it certainly makes sense to limit NT out of security and supply given the other factions with dominance in those fields, it hasn't made much sense that NanoTrasen wouldn't have any presence in the engineering sector. While the ship was largely designed as a joint effort between heph and zavod, NT has the staff to operate in this kind of setting, especially when it comes to supermatter technicians. Opening up engineering to be staffed by NanoTrasen alongside the other factions would allow more diversity within the department and their characters origins. Additionally, it would hopefully not be difficult to implement assuming the NT engineering outfit sets are still in the codebase, though that will have to be seen. In general I would say there needs to be more crossover in department employment where it makes sense, and not every department needs to try and restrict down to two factions. Specifically, Zavods other presence on the ship is in departments with two other options, NT and Zheng-hu for sci, and PMCs or Idris for sec.  I think it stifles the ability to create certain characters when their roles are limited to potentially restrictive backgrounds. Please, tell me what you think about it.

 

Note: I probably won't respond immediately to anything as I rarely come on the forums or check my associated email, but I'll try to respond.

[ClemTheDuck]

Dont really mind either way, but Zavodskoi is not human and ZI-IPC only. Unathi and Zo'ra Vaurca are also allowed

 

[firstact]

Wow, I don't think I've seen an unathi zavod. (I have probably seen a zo'ra though) I just mostly see them played by russian/dominian humans in the past year and a half, but my lack of whitelists is showing.

[Arrow768]

You have proposed a solution to a problem I don’t see at the moment.

Why is it an issue that you can’t play a specific corp in a specific department.
The corps are currently set up to allow every species to play every department.

[greenjoe]

Hepth  being the only option for tajara  means that anti-hept tajara, kinda just... can't be in engineering without betrayal

Himean tajara for example, just can't be in engineering without being marked for treason

Operations had the same issue during the planning of the NBT, prior to Orion being added

[GeneralCamo]

A possible alternative solution is to allow taj in Zavodskoi though. Breaking the rule about 3 departments per corporation is opening floodgates that would be very problematic. 

[Dreamix]

NT in engineering is not happening as it already has three departments. It would also be boring as hell, NT being the "default" corporation.

I'd prefer we just add Orion to engineering too. It makes perfect sense. Orion needs love too.

[EJJ]

5 hours ago, Dreamix said:

'd prefer we just add Orion to engineering too. It makes perfect sense. Orion needs love too.

I'm surprised Orion didn't get added to Engineering first over Service. So +1 to this suggestion.

Also Zavod gets a lot of departments. I'm surprised no one's said they should lose a dept.

[Carver]

I'd take any addition to Engineering, NT or Orion. Zavod really doesn't feel fitting at all in Engineering thematically, even as the developers of ship weaponry (which Engineers don't really touch outside of the Leviathan) and while Heph belongs there you have a non-insignificant number of backgrounds that would realistically almost never work for Heph unless they were outcasts from said background.

[firstact]

On 26/11/2023 at 05:11, Arrow768 said:

You have proposed a solution to a problem I don’t see at the moment.

Why is it an issue that you can’t play a specific corp in a specific department.
The corps are currently set up to allow every species to play every department.

The problem I find is that engineering is the department with the most restrictive backgrounds at the moment, it's not about playing specific corporations. I mostly suggested NT since I was unaware of the 3 department restriction and it simply made sense from their lore. However, I think adding orion to engineering would be a great solution for allowing full diversity in character creation.

On 26/11/2023 at 15:57, EJJ said:

I'm surprised Orion didn't get added to Engineering first over Service. So +1 to this suggestion.

Also Zavod gets a lot of departments. I'm surprised no one's said they should lose a dept.

While Zavod doesn't make much sense in engineering to me, I think at this point it'd only be detrimental to remove a department that's assigned to them as there's enough established characters in zavod that it would disrupt or force to change.

 

On 26/11/2023 at 09:55, GeneralCamo said:

A possible alternative solution is to allow taj in Zavodskoi though. Breaking the rule about 3 departments per corporation is opening floodgates that would be very problematic. 

I don't think zavod itself needs to change, especially given the changes to make them more dominia-focused, which makes the restrictions on species seem more reasonable.

 

By opening up engineering to orion as some of you suggested, this allows a more diverse choice in backgrounds for non-zo'ra vaurca, himeans (and free council taj), fringe coalitioners, free IPCs, non-heg unathi, and probably some other kinds of backgrounds I'm missing or are more rare. The mixing of departments and corporations on horizon has improved much since launch and now I don't find any issue when determining a background for my characters in any department excluding engineering, where a large amount of potential character types are limited solely to hephaestus; Which as greenjoe has said, can be largely incompatible with hephaestus and may not even be able to choose zavod, or would struggle to fit into that corporation archetype. A benefit I saw to having orion start in ops was the amount of different backgrounds played while orion was new, which included many of the more restricted character styles such as himeans, plutonians, and guwan, and I believe this would have a similar effect in engineering and may encourage some more population within one of the most vital departments on the server.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback in general guys and I hope the discussion continues in some form. Engineering definitely needs some more options regardless of how it's accomplished!

[furrycactus]

I don't have much input beyond agreeing that Orion Engineering would be pretty based.

[rrrrrr]

orion express engineering uniforms for engineers, atmos techs, and apprentices. basic palette swap using the orion colors used in service/cargo (brown/silver + departmental). credit to whoever made those because these use essentially the same colors.

includes rolled up sleeves and that sort of thing

anyways my thoughts re: this are that orion engineers would be cool. NT engineers already have uniforms in the game but they don't exactly look "great" (the light blue/orange is not a great combination). if NT engineers were also added i would be bold and suggest just retouching the default SS13 uniform sprites for engi/atmostech? they're v iconic

 

orion engineering.dmi

Edited January 6 by rrrrrr