Engineering Busywork

[rrrrrr]

Inspired by this thread. A few ideas for random events and making it less easy to fix things in ten seconds. Keep in mind that this is a knee-jerk thread with ideas that I came up with in two minutes. I'm going to the grocery store.

random events, haha

- Rats chew some wires in maintenance. Ten-to-fifteen minutes later, an announcement is sent out with GPS coordinates, ala "space fungus." Wiring in a "normal" area (i.e, covered by flooring) could just "short out," I guess. This would be neat, because you could feasibly "catch it" before the announcement goes out, if you're paying attention --- substation power would start dropping... gotta go and figure out why!
- A section of pipes in an area burst (be they disposal, scrubber, or air.) Much like the above idea, an announcement revealing the exact location is delayed by a few minutes... possibly a long time. Carbon dioxide build-up, garbage piling up under the floor... wow!
- "Hull damage." A section of the outer hull receives mild damage. Why? I don't know. Space debris. Who knows. Go outside and fix it.

making things more difficult in general

make walls more time-consuming to build. not in terms of actual time but in terms of steps. make it require bolting the sheet metal onto the girder and then welding it in place. same steps for reinforced plasteel walls.

autolathe supremacy

this is a "dante must die" mode-level idea i.e in terms of "what if things were just more of a pain to do" but: remove the ability to just fabricate rods floor tiles and crap by hand. yes it is convenient. how are you doing that though

make getting these things require an autolathe and add an autolathe to engineering. (alternatively: no lathe in engineering. either build your own or work with operations/the machinist and use theirs.) instead of walking around with your twenty-five sheets of steel you have to actually understand what the problem is before you show up in order to fix it.

[Sparky_hotdog]

10 minutes ago, rrrrrr said:

random events, haha

- Rats chew some wires in maintenance. Ten-to-fifteen minutes later, an announcement is sent out with GPS coordinates, ala "space fungus." Wiring in a "normal" area (i.e, covered by flooring) could just "short out," I guess. This would be neat, because you could feasibly "catch it" before the announcement goes out, if you're paying attention --- substation power would start dropping... gotta go and figure out why!
- A section of pipes in an area burst (be they disposal, scrubber, or air.) Much like the above idea, an announcement revealing the exact location is delayed by a few minutes... possibly a long time. Carbon dioxide build-up, garbage piling up under the floor... wow!
- "Hull damage." A section of the outer hull receives mild damage. Why? I don't know. Space debris. Who knows. Go outside and fix it.

I don't have any outright objection to these ideas - They all seem like fun little problems to solve for engineering - But I don't think they really address one of the big things that the original thread highlighted to me (And I may be alone here), that being teamwork, or the lack thereof. These all seem like they would, similarly, be able to be seen to by a single engineer. More variety and frequency might help, but doesn't feel like its solving the root cause to me.

14 minutes ago, rrrrrr said:

making things more difficult in general

make walls more time-consuming to build. not in terms of actual time but in terms of steps. make it require bolting the sheet metal onto the girder and then welding it in place. same steps for reinforced plasteel walls.

See above

14 minutes ago, rrrrrr said:

autolathe supremacy

this is a "dante must die" mode-level idea i.e in terms of "what if things were just more of a pain to do" but: remove the ability to just fabricate rods floor tiles and crap by hand. yes it is convenient. how are you doing that though

make getting these things require an autolathe and add an autolathe to engineering. (alternatively: no lathe in engineering. either build your own or work with operations/the machinist and use theirs.) instead of walking around with your twenty-five sheets of steel you have to actually understand what the problem is before you show up in order to fix it.

Now this, I fully support. This I can see slowing gameplay down (for the better), and adding the actual potential for coordination (One person goes to see the damage, another goes to lathe the required stuff).

[Mr.Popper]

These are all great ideas. In other (non-HRP) SS13 servers problems like rats or hull damage are frequent occurrences that keep engineering busy. You might say it's too chaotic for an RP server, but I would argue in moderation they'd be even better here as events like blackouts or breaches necessitate cross-department interaction. Restricting recipes to the autolathe would also encourage teamwork, ie. "hey Bob it looks like we need 26 floor tiles can you print them on your way here?"

I like the autolathe idea especially because of how it could interact with a future skill system. Instead of being locked out of certain repairs because you lack the skill to craft whatever items, a wood chair with woodworking for instance, you just have to do it more slowly by printing them out with the lathe. You would actually feel the effects of a small engineering team rather than one person having the ability to solo fix every problem on the ship. Ideally, this would lead to a division of labor where everyone is happy with their share of gameplay, solving the issue posed by the original thread.

[party]

The 'craft shit by using a sheet of <whatever> inhand without any other tools required' thing was always weird on HRP (especially when you relegate most of those crafts to engineers, who are apparently master carpenters and metalworkers on top of all the other systems they need to know). Even as someone who doesn't play engineering, putting most of those crafts into the autolathe instead (and making it spit out a frame you can assemble Ikea-style where you need it instead of an entire damn bed or something) would be an improvement.

[Rabid Animal]

I'm generally in favor of gameplay over RP, the game needs to be enjoyable to play for RP to happen in the first place. The game is literally less fun than it was years ago because of all the little debuffs made in the name of 'RP', so in that way I wholly disagree with the autolathe idea.

 

That said; I'd love more events in general and I'd like to see current events be more impactful. Blobs should be harder to kill, and spawn on low pop, for example.

 

There were a few events that got removed from the old map I'd like to see readded, like random stray munitions hitting the station. They cause minor damage usually to minor areas, and just give you something to do. I also think round events in general are really good for antags and general engagement - and I'd like to see a lot more added, beyond even just stuff for engineering.

[hazelmouse]

I'd definitely like to see more crafting put on an autolathe rather than being done in-hand, if anyone were to try implementing that. More immersive, and engineers having to run back and forth to manufacture and deliver processed materials from the autolathe would give the department a lot more to do.

[Fyni]

APC Explosion

An APC explodes, doing minor damage to the area around it and maybe destroying the APC. Make sure the APC gives a warning before exploding (or make sure it's not going to kill someone stood next to it at least.

Atmospheric Malfunction

An area panic vents (against with plenty of notice for the people in said room), and can't be fixed from a distance - maybe the air alarm cuts out a room.

Waste System Extreme Backpressure

A random part of the disposal system breaks. This should shoot trash out of the whole in the pipe.

 

IMPORTANT

There should be some check that most of the "round changing" random events can only happen if there are engineers on shift, possibly some of the worse only with multiple.

[Rabid Animal]

Power blackout

The ships power network has a malfunction and blacks out for some period of time. It resolves on its own but engineering can intervene to fix it faster. Good for antags to abuse, generally not too impactful otherwise.

Supermatter Energy Surge

A bit more dangerous, idk the fluff for this but maybe a fault in the crystal or some bluespace BS causes it to heat up temporarily. Not enough to blow up, but enough for some runaway reactions to occur if coolant isn't injected or if the setup was poorly done.

[KingOfThePing]

I propose this again:

I have the necessary sprites (as shown in the thread and even 3 more) though they would need some glow-up. 

@atteria offered to help with this a while back. I'll see if she is still down to help. 

[rrrrrr]

Wow, that's really cool... would those go well with the current walls?

[hollyhock]

ohhh i LOVE the fluff maintenance panels

[KingOfThePing]

8 hours ago, rrrrrr said:

Wow, that's really cool... would those go well with the current walls?

No, but as I said, Atteria offered to help with a glow up. 

[Lmwevil]

As a CE main I agree with making things be slower, lathing of metals, workflow, the steps to produce things etc. 

Random events are also rad, another suggestion I have for a random event is a pressure regulation error (air vents in an area begin to fill it as if it were in vaccum, making pressure build up), a random event that is made far more dangerous if atmospherics hotwires 999999999999kpa of oxygen mix into distro, but still resolvable 

Potentially too you could have really mundane ones like floor tiles getting scuffed and their edges being bent upwards if they got damaged or by random event, causing some people to trip if they run over it and requiring the floor be crowbared, weldered or w/e to bend it back down 

A 'lesser blob' event would be interesting, it doesn't eat through walls but it spreads on the floor ala the meat thingies changelings make, just ignoring airlocks and whatever. Stepping on it without shoes might burn a bit but otherwise it's harmless as it just kinda spreads out and vibes. 

Shorting out APCs would be a simple random event also, just random room is announced with electrical issues and then the APC after that fries and needs to be fixed. Airlocks depowering could be a similar event idea, just some random airlocks temporarily stop working for say 5 minutes (engineering can cut and fix wires to make it faster) 

[CatsinHD]

I will say, everyone is cooking and I love that. One idea I'd like to posit is to restrict how much is revealed via announcement to hopefully lead to 2 things:

1. Potential injury that can spur on medical involvement
2. The need to actually investigate errors

I suggest this mainly to avoid things slipping into the territory of immediately responding to the funny red text and add some spice. Obviously for dangerous events, like an SM power surge, something would be announced. Alternatively, if an announcement is still desired, make it vague. Something that tells you something happened, but not what exactly

[Rabid Animal]

I actually love that, greimorans (either the eggs in a room or the larva all over the ship) would benefit from this as well, maybe fold it under level 7 biohazard, or even make a new biohazard announcement like level 5 or something (and add a few other triggers so people don't know it's grems)