Machinists should be able to play as Zeng

[Loorey]

Hello Maintainers, This sentence is for you. Before you say no and just entirely dismiss it, read it.

Now, we all know that we're kind of strictly driving down the "2 corps per job or department" track, taking command roles from that which do not count as they're directly under the conglomerate. This might turn out to be a very controversial post because people highly dislike change, but Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals should be a corp that's playable by machinists, and the entirety of the Zeng-Hu lore page just gives this statement even more foundation.

Why? Simply put, Zeng-Hu has two subsidiaries that entirely fit into this branch: one entirely dedicated to cybernetics and cybernetics alone, which is Bishop, and secondly, Jeonshi, which is entirely dedicated to biotechnology. Those both greatly fit the flavors of the Machinist role, and while Zeng-Hu also entirely has their place in science and medicine, Machinist just has strong coverage via their backstory.

"But Loorey, you can entirely live those two subsidiaries out in science too!"

This is a tough one, and we're playing with the line of being frowned upon or outright bwoinked here for doing anything even close to what a Machinist does as a Scientist, and simply freedom of what you want to roleplay. If I were to become a Bishop or Jeonshi Scientist, I would absolutely be frowned upon, accused of stealing another department's job, or outright bwoinked for whatever reason if I were to do anything close to what a Machinist does, even though that scientist is a role with great freedom in my eyes, and that should not be frowned upon at all. Science has a lot of different flavors they can dip into. This brings me to the little compromise that would be logical if we were staying with "only two corps for each role!"

Science should be allowed to do something in those directions—something like a Machinist does—if they do not put themselves into the foreground and steal the Machinist's job. It's a lot of wasted potential; in my opinion, it would make for a lot of quirky and nice new characters (if people bother making them, I absolutely would) while doing absolutely no damage.

Thanks for reading this, if you did not entirely dismiss it after the first sentence. o7

[CatsinHD]

tldr; I'm in support. It makes sense in lore to allow ZH employees to be machinists.

Among the many things that make me rant (including the name of machinist), the position of machinist itself within the departments is one. I agree completely that ZH should be allowed to have machinists. The 2 major factions producing prosthetics are, quite literally, ZH and heph (we ignore EE since they are unplayable). Open the prosthetics selection. It's either a ZH affiliated prosthetic, heph affiliated, or unbranded (synthskin is questionable).

I think, in lore, ZH has a stronger connection to robotics compared to the other corp in the machine shop, OE. Not to say I want to see OE removed. I think it is a great option, but ZH has a very strong connection to robotics that is criminally ignored with their exclusion. Mechanically, I would love to see pink labcoats in the workshop. I pray the maintainers don't shoot this down.

[wowzewow]

Generally I think the larger issue stems from Machinist being stuck in Operations. This identity crisis issue has been here since day one of it's migration between departments.

[Triogenix]

I'm unsure if this should be a policy suggestion or not, I just wanted to give my two cents as loremaster.

At the end of the day, this is a game, and the lore is for the purposes of supporting the game, not the other way around. How exactly this is done is a subjective topic that there are wildly different opinions on, but I don't want to get into that here, the previous statement is just a fact. So, if the maintainers decide machinist should stay as is for gameplay reasons, we can rework zeng-hu so that it shouldn't be playable as machinist anymore. It'd be a fundemental rework, but it could be done.

 

My two cents personally? I'd rather not do that, it's a ton of work, and I think the issue is just with what machinist does as a job. They repair IPCs similarly to how doctors repair organics, but then also construct mechs similarly to how science constructs things, but also fabricate stuff non-experimental stuff like prothesis as operations would. It's a job that's never going to be home in any department. Instead I'd just limit the scope of what machinists do to one of those things, and transfer the others to the relevant department. I.E, move machinist back to science, but give operations the responsibility of printing prothesis/spare robot parts, and medical the responsibility of repairing IPCs.

Edited July 24 by Triogenix

[CatsinHD]

12 minutes ago, Triogenix said:

then also construct mechs similarly to how science constructs things, but also fabricate stuff non-experimental stuff like prothesis as operations would.

I have minor disagreements with how some aspects of the job are categorized here, and really disagree with removing prosthetics or mechs. Everything a machinist does is within the scope of mechatronics/robotics, and is one of the few jobs that manages to actually have a job in-line with their education. I would hate to see some of these aspects removed for a job that already struggles to keep enough gameplay (at least when I used to main it).

I would normally avoid bringing in other topics that are outside the scope of the thread (adding ZH in this case), but I'll do so anyways since it's already been brought up twice. Machinists are best put in medical. They are doctors for robots at their core, both IPCs and stationbounds, and have a heavy hand in implants, augments, and prosthetics which are primarily used in medical. Mechs/hardsuits are the only part which doesn't fit, but in all honesty, it doesn't matter. Mechs/hardsuits don't fit anywhere but machinist, meanwhile the rest of machinist is better attached to medical who most often calls upon them for X organ or Y prosthetic or Z dead IPC.

HOWEVER. Moving the machinist's department is already a long enough discussion as is that is not within the scope of the thread. It is simpler and less intrusive to either:
A. Deal with no ZH roboticists. There can be lore reasons, or it's handwaved as many things are.
B. Add ZH to machinist