Reinforce Engineering's Division of Labor

[Mr.Popper]

The problem is engineering's jobs suffer from a lack of identity. Engineer and Atmospheric Technician gameplay is mostly interchangeable, with random arbitrary differences that leave the division of labor confused. Currently, the trend seems to be people preferring Engineer over Technician because it's less specialized and restricted. Incentives need to be given for playing Atmospheric Technician without undermining the gameplay of Engineer. Fortunately, the department's culture is fairly good at dividing the gameplay, but there are still cases of Engineers intruding on atmos gameplay or vice versa.

Ideally Engineers are the electricians of the ship and do most of the engine work, while Atmospheric Technicians respond to emergencies and deal with propulsion. Construction is a gray area where I think Engineers should usually take priority except in cases of breaches or pipework. There won't be a good solution to everyone in the department doing construction until skills are added, so I will ignore it in this suggestion.

My goal with this suggestion is to give the jobs stronger identities with mechanical changes rather than policy ones, however these changes only target Atmospheric Technicians so far. I would especially appreciate feedback from the atmos players this will affect or suggestions to change Engineer in the same vein.

1. Increase Atmospheric Technician's airlock access. It seems the biggest hurdle working against Technicians is the lack of insulated gloves forbidding them from accessing zones where they're desperately needed. This forces them to either: A. Be totally reliant on Engineers to do the very basics of their job, or B. Find a pair of gloves and start doing things outside their purview. I am against giving Technicians gloves; electrical work is one of the only things exclusive to Engineers and it should stay that way. However, it's awful that "emergency personnel" can't even access most departments during emergencies. So just give them wider access to the ship. I'm not sure where all Paramedics have access, but they would be a good baseline as I rarely see them have trouble getting into somewhere. Remember: Atmospheric Technicians are the de facto firefighters of the ship. Fires, contaminations, breaches, etc. kill people and they should be able to respond quickly without stopping to hack a door open.
2. Remove Atmospheric Technician's access to electrical computer programs, namely RCON and Power Monitoring. This should be fairly self explanatory. Engineers don't have access to the atmospheric control program because it's not their job, why do Technicians have access to electrical systems? Unlike the supermatter, the RCON is not required for keeping the round afloat, it's just suboptimal to ignore it. One job shouldn't be min maxing the gameplay of another.
   1. Alternatively, keep Power Monitoring open access and add an equivalent "air monitoring" program for Engineers that shows the atmospheric status around the ship without access to air alarm settings. This would make solo Atmospheric Technician/Engineer a little easier without letting one invalidate the other.
3. ID lock atmospheric equipment like pipe dispensers and the gas tank controls. This is one of the only non-hackable ways to keep Engineers out of the Technicians' toys. It would also make atmos grief much harder, not that it's really a problem. The downside is Engineers would be unable to make significant modifications to their reactors without a Technician present to unlock a dispenser.
4. Jaws of life for forcing open airlocks. While wider access would be a huge boon to Technicians, there would still be the occasional high-security airlock their access wouldn't reach. This also works independently of point 1. Already PRed: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/20138
5. Limit shield generator access to Engineer. The shields are one of the biggest power draws on the ship so it's only natural to give them to the job focused around the electrical grid. In the case of an Atmos only manifest, no shields means more breaches for them to fix, and ergo more gameplay. It would also make the shields a more valuable resource and hopefully give Bridge Crew pause before flying through an asteroid field.
6. Give Engineer access to telecommunications. Telecomm outages, whether natural or malicious, are fairly common and it's annoying that only the head of the department has access to them. I understand why the Chief Engineer is in charge of telecomms, but it really just means Engineers end up hacking in and out constantly and it's tedious. Making it officially their responsibility would make sense considering telecomms problems tend to be electrical in nature. This goes beyond the scope of this suggestion, but if telecomms was ever updated so the coolant of the room actually mattered that would be a great way to involve Atmospheric Technicians and thus the entire department in upkeep.

Edited November 3 by Mr.Popper
Added points 2.1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 based off feedback

[hazelmouse]

I quite like this idea, particularly giving atmospherics similarly broad access as paramedics. It's very awkward how atmospherics technicians are meant to be emergency responders while lacking the skeleton key engineers have to actually get to emergencies. 

[GeneralCamo]

I tried proposing this many times in the discord. It was rejected each and everytime. @Sneakyranger is a major critic of the idea, so I'm pinging them to get their feedback here.

[FabianK3]

As an atmos tech main for over a year i fully support your initial post Mr.Popper, i absolutely agree and thought about this pretty often myself already.
I think the ideas you brought up are sound and a good step. I concur, currently every common person playing engineering has a very good understanding of what is considered engi or tech gameplay primarily.
I also agree that atmos techs don't need gloves as electrical work is not their intended job, i also strongly agree that techs lack access to properly let them fill the role of emergency personal - It's a pretty daily task to ask engineers for wires or even gloves just to even get to any worksite that is outside of engineering. I also agree with removing rcon/powermon access for the techs as it's not their primary job anyways.

Since i joined the server and picked up atmos tech i heard about some resistance to these changes, but never fully read an "official" reason against them, it's nice to see somebody pick up the issue engineering faces.

Prime example i personally had a couple of weeks ago:
- Breach on the bridge, one engineer and AT on deck
- AT goes up to breach, engineer agreed to take on other task in the meantime
- AT can't get in the bridge, asks for wires. Engineer (not aware ATs don't have gloves at that time) continues with back-and-forth "just hack the door".
- After the situation got resolved engineer shows very visible confusion on why ATs don't have access or gloves
While the bridge obviously isn't considered for regular access, it's a prime example for ATs not beeing able to do their job without the assistance of at least one engineer.
Every engineer would've simply hacked in, the type of area to be entered doesn't matter in this. With raised access this issue would be resolved.
It such a bad feeling standing an airlock away from a breach or even a spreading fire and yelling for access, it's depressing.

[kermit]

Agreed with the proposed changes as an AT player of some time now. ATs have been given a lot of rather engineer-exclusive toys lately, its only fair to give a little back to engineers.

I would additionally suggest making the shields equipment access-restricted to engineers only. Shields are a power sink, makes sense an engineer manages that. If anything, this is a gain on an ATs end too, because it means rocky maneuvers with no engineer/shields will result in breaches for an AT to fix.

Edit: Maybe lock telecomms equipment too. This one has the capacity to impact rounds a lot more as if comms go down for whatever reason, an AT can't get them up. Telecomms is another ancient series of mechanics, but if modernised it would be a big thing for engineers to have as their own thing.

Edited November 3 by kermit
telecomms edit

[Shimmer]

Why not give atmospheric technician the jaws of life the AI borg has? That way they can access locked areas in an emergency and pull people out of rooms with bolted but broken airlocks.

[FabianK3]

2 minutes ago, Shimmer said:

Why not give atmospheric technician the jaws of life the AI borg has? That way they can access locked areas in an emergency and pull people out of rooms with bolted but broken airlocks.

I think the idea is great, but those bolted down and broken airlocks are a NIGHTMARE if you have to fix more then two of them. Not sure if engineering would appreciate that.

[Aticius]

I'm sorry if this is confusing, I don't have an editor, but I do have a ton of thoughts.

A huge chunk of my experience in SS13 is related to Engineering, and how it's evolved over time. Right now, the only mechanical distinction between AT and ENG is access regulated to Air Alarms, APCs and Lockers, and I think that is genuinely OK. These two jobs are absolutely not equally different and over time, they've both lost chunks of their identity to one another as time went on. Engineers getting access to PAPs and Scrubbers was perhaps the single biggest change that ever affected Baycode Engineering since... ever. And that's okay, really. Engineering as a concept is in a better spot now.

The listed changes here;

2 hours ago, Mr.Popper said:

 

1. Increase Atmospheric Technician's airlock access. It seems the biggest hurdle working against Technicians is the lack of insulated gloves forbidding them from accessing zones where they're desperately needed. This forces them to either: A. Be totally reliant on Engineers to do the very basics of their job, or B. Find a pair of gloves and start doing things outside their purview. I am against giving Technicians gloves; electrical work is one of the only things exclusive to Engineers and it should stay that way. However, it's awful that "emergency personnel" can't even access most departments during emergencies. So just give them wider access to the ship. I'm not sure where all Paramedics have access, but they would be a good baseline as I rarely see them have trouble getting into somewhere. Remember: Atmospheric Technicians are the de facto firefighters of the ship. Fires, contaminations, breaches, etc. kill people and they should be able to respond quickly without stopping to hack a door open.
2. Remove Atmospheric Technician's access to electrical computer programs, namely RCON and Power Monitoring. This should be fairly self explanatory. Engineers don't have access to the atmospheric control program because it's not their job, why do Technicians have access to electrical systems? Unlike the supermatter, the RCON is not required for keeping the round afloat, it's just suboptimal to ignore it. One job shouldn't be min maxing the gameplay of another.

I do not think would be a meaningful addition or subtraction from either job. As things stand, Insulated Gloves not being a part of an Atmos Tech's kit is a genuine meme. It's such a glaring oversight in the safety equipment of their workplace and the amount of electrical work that Engineering does (i.e. Doors & Vendors) could entirely be justified as hobbyist in the far future of 2466. Increasing airlock access for Atmos Techs rather than tackle the root problem of "Listen, they need to get places that aren't going to be powered on all the time" isn't really a solution and neither is yoinking a QOL feature (RCON, i remember when we had to WALK there...) and a monitoring feature (Power Monitor). It wouldn't be unlike if half of Medical couldn't use the suit sensors. Atmos Techs having the Atmosphere Control console is different, in my opinion, because it can resolve an emergency remotely. There isn't really an equivalent for electricity; though an "Air Monitor" that lacks remote control wouldn't be unwelcome, I think. The more Engineering knows as a collective, the better they work.

Instead, I think Engineering and Atmos Techs have historically benefited from doing a lot of the "Emergency" work of the other. I remember when ATs had to leave pumps in the old lobby of Exodus and they were screwed without it and to this day, Engineers have been doing back alley deals for their precious yellows just because doors and vendors are a headache.

ATs have gotten many, many, many things since then, and Horizon currently has a bunch of things for them to poke at, maybe forever. With the loss of Leviathan, Engineering tangibly lost something (however infrequently it was used). Seperating AT and Engineering off of the Cool Big Things and letting them share the same pool of basic things they can do (i.e. build walls, windows, throw wires down and hack various things) is both anti-frustration and personally, important to having the jobs be fun without worrying that they're somehow breaking the rules by throwing down some floor tiling or fiddling with some wires that really ought to be simple in operation.

In short; Engineering should handle high-power systems and Atmos should handle anything that involves a pipe, but the menial roundstart and random event work really shouldn't be anything split along lines. Give Engineering sole responsibility over Shields for now and consider adding their own thing to experiment with. Maybe several. The various "Engineery" things now aren't particularly exciting and I don't think anyone's gonna cheer that they can remotely touch substations; it's just a routine thing. Detracting from AT in this case would be a negative.

And, since, it'll probably get brought up: I don't think merging the jobs is a good idea anymore, though it definitely was before NBT launched.

[Fluffy]

I had the same idea as Shimmer reading this, giving them the jaws of life is like the firefighter tool used to crack open the car door to pull someone out; for the door fixing part, it's an emergency situation (you're not expected to break open every door outside of emergencies clearly) and frankly there's essentially no airlock that couldn't simply be left broken because it's needed, and it's gameplay/content for engineers so I don't see an issue with it

[Nagito Komaeda]

Atmos Tech entering their halligan era confirmed.

[FabianK3]

Getting into the locations where ATs need to be is the thing with most priority for me, what ever it takes.
Nonetheless i think Mr.Poppers ideas have some potential to follow up with, unrelated to ATs trouble to getting into places.

[FabianK3]

The first step: Jaws of life for Atmos techs to resolve the issue of having to rely on engineers.
https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/20138

[Mr.Popper]

22 hours ago, kermit said:

I would additionally suggest making the shields equipment access-restricted to engineers only. Shields are a power sink, makes sense an engineer manages that. If anything, this is a gain on an ATs end too, because it means rocky maneuvers with no engineer/shields will result in breaches for an AT to fix.

22 hours ago, Shimmer said:

Why not give atmospheric technician the jaws of life the AI borg has? That way they can access locked areas in an emergency and pull people out of rooms with bolted but broken airlocks.

These are great suggestions. Shields are in line with focusing Engineer on the electrical side of the ship and making them nonessential means piloting would be more strategic-- as it stands Horizon is borderline invulnerable most of the time. I almost suggested giving Technicians more fire axes to deal with inaccessible areas, but the jaws of life would be way more convenient. While it sucks that the door will have to be repaired, it's core to balancing that one job can't perform the same tasks as another at the same efficiency. I'll add these ideas to the original post even though the jaws of life already has a PR.

21 hours ago, Aticius said:

As things stand, Insulated Gloves not being a part of an Atmos Tech's kit is a genuine meme. It's such a glaring oversight in the safety equipment of their workplace and the amount of electrical work that Engineering does (i.e. Doors & Vendors) could entirely be justified as hobbyist in the far future of 2466. Increasing airlock access for Atmos Techs rather than tackle the root problem of "Listen, they need to get places that aren't going to be powered on all the time" isn't really a solution

The problem with the lack of gloves is how limited Tech's mobility is. It's a lose-lose situation: they don't get gloves so they can't hack autonomously, but they don't have access so they end up hacking with an Engineer's help anyway. Increasing their access and/or adding more ways to force entry (jaws of life) would make the gloves issue all but disappear. As for extreme situations like when a door is an electrical hazard or blocked by a blast door, I think it's fair enough for them to need an Engineer's help. Using the medical comparison, my ideal Atmos-Eng relationship would be Technicians acting as the "Paramedics" of the department, doing the most time sensitive tasks like fighting fires and sealing breaches, while Engineers are more like the Physicians or Surgeons tackling heavier duty problems (setting up emitters, cleaning up the 50 shattered windows the vampire made).

21 hours ago, Aticius said:

neither is yoinking a QOL feature (RCON, i remember when we had to WALK there...) and a monitoring feature (Power Monitor). It wouldn't be unlike if half of Medical couldn't use the suit sensors. Atmos Techs having the Atmosphere Control console is different, in my opinion, because it can resolve an emergency remotely. There isn't really an equivalent for electricity; though an "Air Monitor" that lacks remote control wouldn't be unwelcome, I think. The more Engineering knows as a collective, the better they work.

I disagree because RCON is nonessential to the round. All of the substation bypasses start enabled, the only thing a lone Atmos Tech needs to do is start one of the 2 engines they have access to and they can ignore power for the rest of the round. Job identity comes from giving each job unique strengths and weaknesses. If an Atmos Tech can set up the power as optimally as an Engineer, then why do Engineers exist? Why don't they give the ship hot thrust as well and min-max atmospherics' setup? Because it would corrode Atmos Tech's empowerment as a unique job with only things they can do. Atmosphere Control is arguably essential compared to RCON because it can stop the ship from falling apart with the click of a button, but I still wouldn't want Engineers to have it for the same reason I don't want Techs to have RCON. Atmosphere is essential to keeping the round afloat, similar to a reactor being on, however Engineers can handle those problems with suboptimal tools like PAPs that Atmos Techs wouldn't waste time on. While in a perfect world Engineers and Techs would communicate what problems they're facing, an air monitoring program would be great QOL for solo Engineers just as power monitoring is for solo Techs, so I'll add it to the original post.

21 hours ago, Aticius said:

ATs have gotten many, many, many things since then, and Horizon currently has a bunch of things for them to poke at, maybe forever. With the loss of Leviathan, Engineering tangibly lost something (however infrequently it was used). Seperating AT and Engineering off of the Cool Big Things and letting them share the same pool of basic things they can do (i.e. build walls, windows, throw wires down and hack various things) is both anti-frustration and personally, important to having the jobs be fun without worrying that they're somehow breaking the rules by throwing down some floor tiling or fiddling with some wires that really ought to be simple in operation.

I do want to maintain the skill overlap but we differ on where we want that overlap to begin and end. Electrical is the de facto realm of Engineer. They are in charge of (most of) the engines, they're the only job issued insulated gloves, they do the hacking, it's core to the job's identity. If you take that away then what does Engineer have that Atmos Tech doesn't? A solved and mundane reactor in the INDRA? Just as the current state of Atmos not getting gloves disproportionately favors Engineer, giving Tech full rein over electrical work would render Engineer an obsolete job.

As for what I think should be shared, I agree on construction. The job dedicated to upkeeping the atmosphere of the ship should be able to seal breaches without external help, and the difference between building a borosilicate window and laying a floor tile shouldn't be getting anyone bwoinked. This creates a nice symmetry with the electrical-atmospheric divide where the two jobs share in general construction but one replaces cabling and the other piping. I also like the status quo of Engineer having PAPs/scrubbers and Techs having access to the supermatter. These things are essential to keeping the round going and it's not uncommon for a manifest to only have either Engineers or Atmos Techs. Here's a VERY rough venn diagram of how I think gameplay should be split:

(pls don't make fun of my chart)

[greenjoe]

13 minutes ago, Mr.Popper said:

Wouldn't the bluespace drive be a crossover thing too? While atmos does provide the fuel for it, actually configuring and controlling it might be for the engies?

[Mr.Popper]

13 minutes ago, greenjoe said:

Wouldn't the bluespace drive be a crossover thing too? While atmos does provide the fuel for it, actually configuring and controlling it might be for the engies?

In theory anyone in the department can run it, but the culture right now is a cooperative effort where Engineers setup the containment equipment and Atmos Techs do the fuel calculations. Preparing the fuel is a whole process in itself of modifying piping and preparing the right gas, while containment setup is as simple as wrenching and welding a few things. So it's technically shared but Atmos bears the brunt of the work.

[N8-Toe]

at the Jaws of life PR. I'd make sure they have atleast two so if there are more than one tech they're not fighting over it

[Nagito Komaeda]

Just now, N8-Toe said:

they have atleast two

Probably two fire axes and one jaws of life. The fire axe is supposed to be the "oh shit" tool, while the jaws of life are more 'precise' as a tool as far as I can gather?

[FabianK3]

2 minutes ago, N8-Toe said:

at the Jaws of life PR. I'd make sure they have atleast two so if there are more than one tech they're not fighting over it

 

Just now, Nagito Komaeda said:

Probably two fire axes and one jaws of life. The fire axe is supposed to be the "oh shit" tool, while the jaws of life are more 'precise' as a tool as far as I can gather?

Not planned. @Fluffy explicitly pointed out to me to add only one and i concur.
Also, i suggest moving PR related comments into the PR, my PMs or code-dungeon to keep the thread cleaner ❤️

[OolongCow]

Most of the "anger" at the other role comes from a feeling of "stealing" the only meaningful gameplay most engineering players get in the form of fixing things. No engineer actually cares if atmos does something engineering-related when they didn't want to do it in the first place (lightbulb replacements, fungus events, etc.). They care when the only meaningful gameplay they might get that round is "stolen" from them. So why do we keep trying to make it impossible for the "other role" to do these things, instead of give each role useful and fun things to do besides repairs? The turbine I suggested for atmos last year that was added and the INDRA are good steps, but engineering genuinely needs a REASON to do crazy setups and optimizations. The ONLY thing that regularly matters beyond the basic setup is thruster mixes, and that's both a lost art and something that still only occasionally comes up.

There's no point to creating a super stable, or super hot and energetic supermatter setup. There's no reason to experiment with the INDRA to maximize output. There's no appreciable difference between four hydrogen cans and 30 shots and a min-maxed supermatter setup riding the red line so precariously that it takes constant babysitting to keep it going. It doesn't actually do anything besides let the really jankily-coded shields take one more small asteroid before you turn them off and on again to repair them (because for some reason they don't regenerate). The engineering department has three separate energy sources where half-assing a single one fully powers the ship and makes doing anything with the others pointless. There isn't even the satisfaction of being able to quickly charge the Leviathan anymore after its removal.

I don't suggest requiring multiple engines be on for the ship to work. I suggest adding things that are just nice to have that engineers can be proud to have turned on.. Features and fun things for them and others, akin to R&D, that incentivizes pushing the limits of the engines and being good at your job. What that could be would have to be discussed, but I feel really strongly that the answer to the problems people have is not to keep removing gameplay from engineering jobs so the other can have it, but to just add more new things for each of them to do.

Edited November 8 by OolongCow

[Mr.Popper]

On 08/11/2024 at 06:43, OolongCow said:

Most of the "anger" at the other role comes from a feeling of "stealing" the only meaningful gameplay most engineering players get in the form of fixing things. No engineer actually cares if atmos does something engineering-related when they didn't want to do it in the first place (lightbulb replacements, fungus events, etc.). They care when the only meaningful gameplay they might get that round is "stolen" from them.

This is not a salt suggestion intended to gimp a job out of malice. The point of this thread is to brainstorm low effort solutions to make engineering a more fully fledged department with distinct gameplay loops, rather than the current broken system of one unreasonably niche job (Atmos Tech) and another that is far too broad (Engineer). Can you honestly say every job in Engineering has unique gameplay that makes it worth playing over the other? I would say no, and that's a problem. Atmos Tech is borderline unplayable without an Engineer/CE to hold your hand and if their handicap, lack of insulated gloves, is "fixed" they just turn into normal Enginers. Engineer meanwhile can do everything atmos if they feel like it with only minor inconvenience. You'd be hard pressed to find any other department where one job so laughably outperforms another at its supposed specialty.

Quote

So why do we keep trying to make it impossible for the "other role" to do these things, instead of give each role useful and fun things to do besides repairs?

Because that's what makes a job a job. Paramedics don't do surgery, security officers don't run investigations, and janitors don't mix cocktails. What makes engineering any different?

Quote

The turbine I suggested for atmos last year that was added and the INDRA are good steps, but engineering genuinely needs a REASON to do crazy setups and optimizations. The ONLY thing that regularly matters beyond the basic setup is thruster mixes, and that's both a lost art and something that still only occasionally comes up.

I agree these things are nice, more variety is always better, but new branches don't address the rot at the tree's roots. Engineering has two jobs, the least of any department, and yet they still manage to be the two most similar jobs on the ship. Implementing even half of the six suggestions we've gathered would improve the situation.

Quote

There's no point to creating a super stable, or super hot and energetic supermatter setup. There's no reason to experiment with the INDRA to maximize output. There's no appreciable difference between four hydrogen cans and 30 shots and a min-maxed supermatter setup riding the red line so precariously that it takes constant babysitting to keep it going. It doesn't actually do anything besides let the really jankily-coded shields take one more small asteroid before you turn them off and on again to repair them (because for some reason they don't regenerate). The engineering department has three separate energy sources where half-assing a single one fully powers the ship and makes doing anything with the others pointless. There isn't even the satisfaction of being able to quickly charge the Leviathan anymore after its removal.

This goes beyond the scope of this thread but I 100% agree; power is way too cheap with far too little to spend it on. I would start by severely nerfing the INDRA (seriously, it makes 4x the power of the supermatter with a fraction of the setup time) and adding a consistent power sink, like reworking the shields, but that's for another thread.

Quote

I don't suggest requiring multiple engines be on for the ship to work. I suggest adding things that are just nice to have that engineers can be proud to have turned on.. Features and fun things for them and others, akin to R&D, that incentivizes pushing the limits of the engines and being good at your job. What that could be would have to be discussed, but I feel really strongly that the answer to the problems people have is not to keep removing gameplay from engineering jobs so the other can have it, but to just add more new things for each of them to do.

I know I'm repeating myself but I want to reiterate: adding a million toys that take time to code/map won't give Atmos Tech the access they need to do their job, nor will they give Engineer a niche. The jaws of life for atmos is a great idea because it's already mostly coded and it consistently pertains to their gameplay loop. The bluespace drive? The INDRA? These are cool add-ons but they follow the same life cycle: 1. Cool toy gets added 2. Someone finds the meta for the cool toy 3. The cool toy becomes mundane. It's unsustainable.

Edited November 10 by Mr.Popper
Clarity

[Sneakyranger]

On 02/11/2024 at 12:52, GeneralCamo said:

I tried proposing this many times in the discord. It was rejected each and everytime. @Sneakyranger is a major critic of the idea, so I'm pinging them to get their feedback here.

I don't log in to the forums often, so I didn't see this ping until I decided to reply anyway. To get it out of the way first:
I have always been a proponent of dividing engineering's labor better because I don't want them to be merged - you must be confusing my critique of your ideas in the past for critique of this one; we have butted heads in the past over your desire to merge the jobs, as shown on the easiest example I could find:

I generally support the overall idea of division of labor between the jobs because I think a job merge is silly. 6x engineer on the manifest or alt titles that are ultimately meaningless. At least with tech and engineer there is some degree of "i dont have to deal with that" and "i cant do that".

 

Now I'll get in to responding to the OP briefly and then at the end I'll outline what I actually logged in for in big old letters to keep it from being missed by skimmers.

1. Eh, neutral.

2. Like. A lot of people say "atmospherics technicians have less access to things than engineers!", which is true, but pointless because the things that technicians DO have access to are, with the exception of insulated gloves, far better than anything engineers have exclusive access to. Atmosphere control is incredibly valuable; RCON you press once and then never open it again. The RPED is the ultimate answer to any breached area and far surpasses anything an engineer can do with air pumps.
By the way, power monitoring basically doesn't even work since A the subgrids have been remapped so many times with people adding things without cleanliness it's hard to tell what is attached to what substation and B you can't even get a full grid reading because for some reason the grids you can see varies depending on what deck you're on. Techs lose nothing and are better placed in their lane by removing their access to these things.

3.  Like, generally. The INDRA gas modifications are only ever done by pipe monkeys because pipe monkeys are the only ones who care. On the other side of the coin, you can count the people who give a shit about modifying the supermatter on one hand. The "con" to this one is really non-existent; the supermatter has been kind of left out to dry ever since the phoron crisis made its primary funtime gas prohibitively expensive to use.

4. Neutral.

5. Fine, I guess, but let's not pretend the shields aren't another press-button-and-done lame activity like most of the engineer's exclusive things. The reason I pushed so hard for the INDRA to be engineer exclusive is because everything the engineer has is one and done or extremely lame. Have fun with your vendor virus while technician andy can spend a full round working on the thrusters if he so desires (and is not spoiled by meta monkeys).

6. No. The reason the chief engineer has exclusive access is because the radio logs of every channel are stored in telecommunications; this includes medical which can be relaying private medical information, or security, or whatever. The only way this can be acceptable is if the radio logs are moved somewhere more secure or access restricted; right now, they're neither.

 

 

Now for big mode. This is the important part.

As seen above most of Popper's proposed changes I have no issue with; keep that in mind for what I write below.

However, Matt is working on skills right now. I think that this should be kept in mind because, to me, the skill system is the ultimate tidy solution to engineering's problems. I logged in to caution about too many changes to the department before the arrival of this system, because it may be that inefficient solutions are implemented that get underfoot unnecessarily and become redundant once skills arrive.

 

[FlamingLily]

As a long time engineering player (It's been my first job on multiple ss13 servers, including here, and I've taken it to the point of being CE), I 100% agree with the intention of the proposal here. Now it's time to break down each numbered point.

1. I absolutely think that ATs should be the first responders of Engineering. IMO, a "normal" (read: a calm ss13 round) emergency response to an engineering emergency (whether it be a breach or a fire) should be: ATs are the first ones on scene, extinguish any fires and stabilise any breaches via inflatables. They're the damage control team. Then the engineers come in to fix the damage, to patch the breaches and clear out the ashes.

Now, I don't think this should be a HARD ruling, I think engineers should still be allowed to respond to breaches and things, but the "protocol" is that ATs are the ones that should be first on the scene.

2. I think removing ATs from RCON and power monitoring is fine, I also think letting them keep power monitoring is fine. There is an Atmosphere Monitoring program that the CE has access to which has remote monitoring and control of all the air alarms on the ship. I don't think ATs should have access to that program (unless they already do, in which case ignore this point), due to the remote control feature, but a neutered version of the program that only has the monitoring functions wouldn't be amiss.

3. I disagree over ID locking most atmospherics equipment. I think sneaky has a really good point, and that this is probably something skills would (or should, if they don't on release) handle. Especially with how prevalent atmos devices are in non-engineering contexts (fuelling shuttles, etc.)

I BELIEVE that air alarms can be unlocked and used by any engineering staff, and assume APCs are probably the same. I'm not 100% sure that restricting them is for the best, but I do think it's worth a deeper consideration. Or, I'm wrong, and they're only accessible by the relevant job and disregard this.

5. I agree with limiting Shield Gen to engineer (though maybe, again, via skills as opposed to ID? This one I could go either way)

6. I disagree. I think this is too high value of an area to justify having open access like that, and honestly, if something goes wrong you can just ask a command staff member. If there's none, then things are probably so deadpop that everyone's at the bar anyway.

 

In any case, I also agree with sneaky. I agree with most of these changes, but they should be considered in the context of imminent skills update

Edited November 20 by FlamingLily