Make the Machinist part of Engineering

[Captain Gecko]

15 hours ago, Carver said:

*The picture*

Oh and I believe the clamp can pick up canisters. I haven’t tested if it can pick up pumps and scrubbers, depending on their age the answer is ‘maybe’ but clamps generally haven’t been touched in a very very long time.

Well dangit, another case of me being silly stupid. Sorry about that.

On the case of clamps I believe they can carry canisters, yes, not sure about the pumps and scrubbers.

 

11 hours ago, Carver said:

For perhaps the sixth time; Scientists produce bespoke equipment like protoguns, circuitry and similar. As do Machinists with hardsuits and exosuits. Machinists do fix, improve and maintain ship systems: As synthetics (especially the AI) are ship systems and equipment, and exosuits as well.

My issue is that on this angle, this would still be a science thing. With a full command department, it IS the RD's task to fix the AI when an ion law comes and so on. AI-related business is the RD's, and by extent Science's responsability. It would only be natural that this would also include the shipbound robots under the AI's command. Unless we count on making the AI the CE's responsability (I hope not), this arguement still makes no sense to me.

I agree that on this specific angle, Operation is not a good condidate, but neither is Engineering.

[Carver]

12 minutes ago, Captain Gecko said:

Well dangit, another case of me being silly stupid. Sorry about that.

On the case of clamps I believe they can carry canisters, yes, not sure about the pumps and scrubbers.

 

My issue is that on this angle, this would still be a science thing. With a full command department, it IS the RD's task to fix the AI when an ion law comes and so on. AI-related business is the RD's, and by extent Science's responsability. It would only be natural that this would also include the shipbound robots under the AI's command. Unless we count on making the AI the CE's responsability (I hope not), this arguement still makes no sense to me.

I agree that on this specific angle, Operation is not a good condidate, but neither is Engineering.

My one, core issue with them in Science and probably one of the biggest reasons this thread isn’t suggesting them back there, is the corporation choice. NT/Zavod/ZH just doesn’t fit as nicely as Heph/Zavod (and potentially NT in the future given the sprites for that exist, lol). Heph is core to Machinists, while Zavod fits decidedly better than Orion (yet by itself not nearly as well as Heph).
 

If you could be a Heph machinist in Science I’d have little issue with them going back there, as both Eng and Sci rather equally need a pop boost (Tho Eng could also benefit from variety in roles).

[Captain Gecko]

3 hours ago, Carver said:

My one, core issue with them in Science and probably one of the biggest reasons this thread isn’t suggesting them back there, is the corporation choice. NT/Zavod/ZH just doesn’t fit as nicely as Heph/Zavod (and potentially NT in the future given the sprites for that exist, lol). Heph is core to Machinists, while Zavod fits decidedly better than Orion (yet by itself not nearly as well as Heph).
 

If you could be a Heph machinist in Science I’d have little issue with them going back there, as both Eng and Sci rather equally need a pop boost (Tho Eng could also benefit from variety in roles).

Though I think lore is reason enough to make gameplay changes, especially in Aurora, I do not believe corpo lore is reason-enough, just as I believe it wasn't reason enough when we first set foot on the Horizon, but that may be just me.

What is not just me is that the matter still stands. The main/most represented exosuits are effectively just powerlifters, I'm pretty sure we spawn with at least two at the start of each rounds (one for each ship gun) as far as most people are concerned, exosuits are generally used for logistics. Of course, engineering exosutis are thing, just like rescue or mining ones (technically combat too, but they're exceedingly rare by fear of earning some boinks), but this doesn't change the fact that the basline for exosuits are powerlifters. Orion Express has as much if not more rights to have workers specialized in building or maintaining exosuits than Zavod.

AI and shipbounds are another matter, and while I just said that it would've made more sense for it to remain in Science on that matter, in the end I assume all corporations are used to having robots and AIs on their own ships. It shouldn't be a stretch to think that OE machinists got to work by the side of OE AIs and Shipbounds before... And I believe that positronics are not very popular within Zavod anyways.

 

And while at it...

3 hours ago, Carver said:

...one of the biggest reasons this thread isn’t suggesting them back there (in Science)...

I am not sure if I want the Machinists to return to science. It would make sense to me to have the Roboticist never leave the department in the first place, but what's done is done, and there are other ways we could fix that department, more important ones too... Which I am working on. But that's for another discussion. My main point when mentionning science is just for comparison's sake, and I still do not agree with most of the points raised to move the Machinist to Engineering. There are points to be made, clearly, but I do not think there are enough to justify such a move. Frankly I think there's as much reasons to put the Machinist in Engineering, as there is for moving them to Sec (exosuits are dangerous no matter what they're equipped with and can be armed, and of course, handling the AI is a very sensitive matter after all!) or Medical (cyborgifications, limb replacements, organ printing, and the occasional rescue exosuit all come from the machinist after all).

Though on the topic of science there is something I forgot to address. Previously you did say that "...the upgrading and repair of various machines that fall outside the Engineer's standard fare of the power network..." would be the machinist's responsability, among other things. I am very much against that, as it would be gutting something else from Science, we SERIOUSLY DO NOT NEED THIS. I understand that Engineering isn't exactly in tip-top shape either right now, but Science really doesn't need anymore things taken away from it. Upgrading machines outside of Research, Robotics, and the power grid is very rare, but when people ask it is generally science's role to take care of it. It's not that the machinist, in its current state, cannot do it, they technically can, but they are expected to take care of other matters generally. If the Engie-Machinist's responsabilities include doing just that, that does not technically prevent scientists from doing it either, but obviously people will then be asking Engineering for such things, and scientists get one less thing to do.

[Rabid Animal]

1 hour ago, Captain Gecko said:

Upgrading machines outside of Research, Robotics, and the power grid is very rare, but when people ask it is generally science's role to take care of it. It's not that the machinist

This is something that was 'culturally' removed from science in that, no policies were made, but 9/10 times the machinist DOES do these upgrades. Since I came back from my break I have not seen science ONCE get asked for upgrades, but I have seen the machinist do them, and I like to think I'm fairly active. 

So while the "don't gut things from science" argument is extremely valid and I've been screaming it from the rooftops myself, it already happened. I don't play machinist enough to be sure, but removing the protolathe from their workshop is the solution to this. Irrc the only thing they need from it is nanopaste, which completely trivializes their job to the point it has no mechanical reason to exist anyways.

 

Also engineerings gameplay loop involves repairing destruction, fixing them is as simple as encouraging people to blow shit up. Engineering has very few problems as a department right now.

Edited April 18 by Rabid Animal

[Captain Gecko]

2 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

This is something that was 'culturally' removed from science in that, no policies were made, but 9/10 times the machinist DOES do these upgrades. Since I came back from my break I have not seen science ONCE get asked for upgrades, but I have seen the machinist do them, and I like to think I'm fairly active. 

Once again, me being very stupid I assume. Sorry about that. Though it is extremely rare for me (science player) to upgrade machines, I haven't seen Machinists being asked do anything like this since the Horizon, but I do believe you.

 

2 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

Also engineerings gameplay loop involves repairing destruction, fixing them is as simple as encouraging people to blow shit up. Engineering has very few problems as a department right now.

My point was more about player population. It's nowhere near as bad as Science, and certainly not for the same reasons, but I do notice that Engineering is part of the least played departments, which sucks considering how important they are, that was what I was referring to.

[Rabid Animal]

2 minutes ago, Captain Gecko said:

My point was more about player population. It's nowhere near as bad as Science, and certainly not for the same reasons, but I do notice that Engineering is part of the least played departments, which sucks considering how important they are, that was what I was referring to.

I gotcha, server population ebbs and flows; in general you'd want to make sure everyone always has something to do, things to rp around, to actually incentivize people to play those departments. Security is overpopulated now because they get so much action, while some other departments genuinely just need stuff to do that works for /every/ round. Sometimes thats easy, like engineering. I made a post in the mission briefing thread lightly touching on this as well. This is getting off topic though LOL

 

To bring us back around; I'm 99% sure that robotics was moved to operations to justify the OMs existence, if the OM takes service with the XO rework, then the OM is just the HOP with a different title. Ironically I think you could justify robotics being medical, engineering, or science, far better than you could justify them being ops. People made the current configuration work in their minds, and that's where a lot of these justifications seem to be coming from. That's not bad though, server culture matters for these kinds of changes.