Divide the protolathes and circuit printers for R&D and the machinist shop.

[Bejewledpot]

So originally, this thread was going to be titled "remove R&D, add more things for science to do." But the more and more ive written about it and gave it thought, i think this suggestion might be a less intrusive method to get the desired outcome. In its current form, the R&D Lab and the machinist bay feel very similar in form and purpose. They both have access to the protolathe, and they both have access to the circuit printer. The only differences: science can make tech processors, science has access to the destructive analyzer, and that machinists rely on research to be able to do a lot. This often leaves the really cool things like KA parts, mech parts, and hardsuits locked away. Scientists are often in short supply, likely because the gameplay is rather dull.

So, what do I mean by "divide the protolathes and printers?"
Right now, the protolathe and circuit printer only has one list of things it can make, and its shared by both parties. Both can, provided they have the materials, make everything the other can. What we could do, is change who has access to what items. For example, the machine shop would never really have a need to print experimental beakers, data disks, modular weapons, or experimental computer parts. Thats much more a science thing. And on the other side of it, Science doesn't have much need to print mining gear and mining circuit boards, mech boards, hardsuit boards, or half of the things in the experimental weapons tab. Things like the freeze gun and the plant mutation gun, and the syringe gun, for example, falling much more into Science, and force gloves, special shotgun ammo, and such fall more into the machine shop's wheelhouse.

Okay so lets say we do that. Then what? You're still relying on R&D for the levels to access those things, right? Well, we change that. Anything that the machine shop has access to that R&D doesn't have access to, should just be unlocked at round start. All of those things now belong to tech level 3. Likewise, with just about anything in the mech printers, where the majority of the parts require silver, gold, diamond, or uranium to make. Which already puts up a pretty good barrier for preventing people from getting easy access to combat mechs and hardsuits. I think this could be further aided by making all of the ranged mech weapons and some other things, cost some third material that you can only get from mining. Minus the taser. For example, the immolater gun adds an extra 500 gold to its crafting. Same with the ballistic gun. Combat pattern mech parts would require, 500 diamond each or something arbitrary. Amounts of materials that are franky trivial costs, but act as a good way to impede round start combat equipment that would be really annoying to get griefed with. The hardsuits already do a good job of preventing this by costing these barrier materials already. So you can print all of the combat modules you want, but you'll have no access to a hardsuit to use them on with just steel and glass.

Finally, anything shared by both departments, like stock machine parts, biotech devices (nanopaste my beloved), and power cells for example, require a scientist to still unlock the better versions of. I think this keeps the spirit of machinists relying on science to some degree, and gives some obligation for scientists spend the 5 minutes to do R&D.

Is there a much easier way out? Yeah, you could just give both their own servers. Science keeps theirs, operations gets their own tech server put somewhere out of the way relative to their own office. Like the warehouse, where the ECD used to during the Silicon Nightmares Arc. But, that would also require removing the hard rule of "Machinists don't get to make tech processors." And I do think thats a good rule. So I wouldn't want to see this be the implemented option unless there's just no bandwith for a larger project like the one ive detailed the theory of above.

Edited March 24 by Bejewledpot
grammar mistakes ive missed despite re-reading this several times.

[Nagito Komaeda]

In my opinion, the 'Change Science into an Expeditionary department' thread that resurfaced recently had some great insights on the protolathe specifically. My thoughts are that, honestly, the Machinist should get the responsibility for lathing just about anything. That job has substance to it, while being a Scientist has little to none. A scientists does R&D, waits for materials, maybe does some telescience... and then what? Nobody asks for guns, the cool things (exo's, hardsuits) are the Machinist's responsibility, circuitry can be done by both, the chemistry aspect is realistically a moot point in my (albeit limited) experience, etc.

My suggestion would more be that the Machinist should be primarily responsible for the entire breadth of what the protolathe makes. Be it weapons, KA's, specialised tools etc. Right now, Machinists get access to it anyways, and I don't think making a division between what R&D can print and what the Machinist can print will solve the current issue with the Scientist role.

[Rabid Animal]

I don't think removing RnD will help science, I took a break and on return I found it so odd that the machinist took over a lot of their responsibilities, the role keeps getting gutted and their things given to other roles and we wonder why people don't play science. If anything the machinist should go back to just doing robotics work, or be moved back to science. I touched on all of this in the expeditions thread so I won't repeat myself too much here.

[MattAtlas]

16 hours ago, Bejewledpot said:

The only differences: science can make tech processors, science has access to the destructive analyzer, and that machinists rely on research to be able to do a lot. This often leaves the really cool things like KA parts, mech parts, and hardsuits locked away. Scientists are often in short supply, likely because the gameplay is rather dull.

The problem I have with these threads is that they always start from the "This is a problem for robotics" presupposition. There's not been a thread in recent memory that starts by describing a problem "with science", they're more like "there's a problem with robotics", and the answer proposed is always either some sort of science gutting, since the role lacks players to oppose the changes (as has happened in the recent years - making science start with everything unlocked is a form of gutting, much like the main SMES starting upgraded + full has been gutting for engineering, and rightly reverted) or some sort of robotics buff that leaves them completely independent from science.

I want to bring particular attention to the "independent" part because robotics is an extremely powerful department. It's the one that can potentially alter the course of the round by itself, such as by shitting out combat hardsuits (pretty justifiable in just about any merc round, really) or mechs that are a pain in the ass to deal with for any antag that doesn't have a PEAC or ion rifle or whatever. Now, the only reason we don't see things like these happen often is because science works as a sort of double gate; you need materials, but you also need research, thus limiting the amount of times that you can effectively make combat hardsuits/mechs. This is a sort of self-balancing act, because if machinists were to start with all their shit unlocked and only with a need for mining materials, I can guarantee without a shred of doubt that in one-two months, two things will happen:

1. Machinist players will demand a way to get materials quicker.
2. Combat hardsuits and mechs will be nerfed into the ground, either by making EMPs more accessible for antags or making them far easier to kill for normal antags.

I'm not suggesting a dismissal of this thread, but this is more or less my general look at the machinist problem. I think it's balanced on a tightrope that's best not cut away at - anything that happens to it should be a larger, more thoroughly tested rework, because I don't much like the gameplay implications of making mechs and combat hardsuits that much more common for ship characters.

[Bejewledpot]

6 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

I don't think removing RnD will help science,

I agree, hence my suggested idea of focusing less on removing and more on changing who has access to what over my first thought of "lol lmao lets remove it."


Alright, the following  is largely going to be feedback to Matt's own view of these, but I'll be using Nagito's reply for quotes as well.
 

3 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

The problem I have with these threads is that they always start from the "This is a problem for robotics" presupposition.

That's fair, its never examined much from the science perspective. But, that's also largely because there's not many R&D Science players around to propose it from their point of view. My suggestion comes from a place of being someone playing a machinist currently. And, my not having touched R&D science in about 3 years due to its general lack of things to do/explore. That being said, I still say this fundamentally is a problem for the machinist*. Every other job does have features locked away behind other job titles, but they all have work arounds that are intended design. For example, security not having access to the armory if there isn't a warden. The head of security, an executive officer, the captain, or anyone who has the captains spare ID can open the armory. Engineering can either hack their way in, or blow open the doors or walls through more destructive means. And operations can use their budget to order weapons.
Medical often benefits greatly from having a pharmacist around. However, there's not always one around. The workarounds they get are: Using a combination of surgery and cryotubes, using warehouse medicine, and using the limited supply of medicine on hand through the medical vendors, first aid kits, and medicine lockers.
Machinists just do not have a work around that they can do to get access to a significant amount of the job content, if there's no one in science. They do in the form of the tech processor or building their own destructive analyzer, but again, thats off limits for good reason. At that point, you're just doing two jobs. No good.


Now all that being said, and still saying this is a problem for this job, I'm no longer convinced that the solution is what I've thought of, at least not fully.

9 hours ago, Nagito Komaeda said:

That job has substance to it, while being a Scientist has little to none. A scientists does R&D, waits for materials, maybe does some telescience... and then what?

This, specifically, is what changed the narrative in my head. My suggestion doesn't fix the problem, it treats a symptom only by making the root problem worse. Which was further supported by:

3 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

Now, the only reason we don't see things like these happen often is because science works as a sort of double gate; you need materials, but you also need research, thus limiting the amount of times that you can effectively make combat hardsuits/mechs.

When I was first thinking this through, I didn't think of it as a genuine barrier compared to materials other than 'needlessly' requiring one more person to achieve the same result. R&D typically only takes a couple minutes, mining is usually half an hour. Hence, my recommendation to make materials the main gate. But, after thinking of it more in this light, I'm coming around on it. Especially in the context of:

3 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

shitting out combat hardsuits [...] or mechs that are a pain in the ass to deal with for any antag that doesn't have a PEAC or ion rifle or whatever.

On a round type like Merc, this doesn't as matter much. But, on lower pop with these changes? It would result in the machinist effectively killing most aggressive antags changes by just existing, and with very little cooperation with others. As much as I like shitting out exosuits and hardsuits ad breakneck speeds, the capacity to make them the combat variants over the utility/medical/engineering variants I want to make would be a major issue.

So, where does that leave this?
My suggestion was well thought out, but ultimately its not a reasonable ask with much more consideration and feedback. The cause of my problem isn't the reliance on R&D, because its not a problem. Its an intended balancing feature that is doing its job very well. By limiting gameplay by a completely unrelated problem.
The solution to this symptom isn't to change how R&D works in this specific capacity. But rather, to add and change to R&D Science to create engaging gameplay that is fresh. That's a far more reasonable ask, though as Matt says, requires a much larger rework and is frankly a pretty massive project to undertake.

Thank you very much for engaging and replying, everyone. especially you Matt.