Engineering Alt-Titles Feedback

[KingOfThePing]

This thread is for feedback/ideas for the return of ENGINEERING'S alternative job titles of the following PR: 
https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/21195

After a lengthy discussion on Discord I gauged that there is now a big support for the return of alternative titles. 
Some safeties will be put in place to not repeat past mistakes, most importantly the expectations of players and their job, no matter the alt-title they choose, if they choose one.

You will now see a little blurb when selecting an alternative title in the job controller (see image). I would also like the wiki team to put a big, red disclaimer on every job page (preferably near the top) that says the same thing and explains that these alternative job titles are mostly for fleshing out a character with higher education or augmented/specialized education. This does NOT exclude ANYONE to not perform the duties laid out in the wiki's job guides.


Below you can submit your ideas on what should be added to the alt-titles list. No more than three alt-titles because that was the amount of alt-titles we had before.
Currently engineers can be:

• Ship Engineer
• Reactor Technician
• Maintenance Technician
• Systems Engineer

Atmospheric Technicians have not been forgotten:

• Atmospheric Technician
• Life Support Engineer
• Drive Systems Engineer
• Fire Control Technician

 

Please don't be mean, I had a hard time coming up with these alt-titles. I will gladly accept better/more fitting/more popular ones.
Please discuss everything below. Please refrain from discussing alt-titles for non-engineering jobs in this thread, thank you.

Edited yesterday at 00:30 by KingOfThePing
edit 1: Engineer > Ship Engineer, edit 2: Enviromental Technician > Drive Systems Technician

[CatsinHD]

I do like many of the alternative names! However I have a comment/suggestion:

We should standardize technician vs engineer.  To steal from an article, "In short, and with some generalization: Technicians tend to fix or install systems or products that already exist, while engineers design and build from the ground up." (Interesting Engineering - What’s the Difference Between an Engineer and a Technician?)

I'd rather technician, but I reckon the maintainers will have their own thoughts on the matter. Is it very semantical and edges on the cliche "medmain irl therefore this is what should be implemented"? Yeah. Take it as you will.

Otherwise, the wiki regardless of the result of the PR will be updated to address all alt-titles sharing the same duty. Perhaps one day we will see a return in alt-titles...

[KingOfThePing]

1 hour ago, CatsinHD said:

I do like many of the alternative names! However I have a comment/suggestion:

We should standardize technician vs engineer.  To steal from an article, "In short, and with some generalization: Technicians tend to fix or install systems or products that already exist, while engineers design and build from the ground up." (Interesting Engineering - What’s the Difference Between an Engineer and a Technician?)

I'd rather technician, but I reckon the maintainers will have their own thoughts on the matter. Is it very semantical and edges on the cliche "medmain irl therefore this is what should be implemented"? Yeah. Take it as you will.

Otherwise, the wiki regardless of the result of the PR will be updated to address all alt-titles sharing the same duty. Perhaps one day we will see a return in alt-titles...

Funny that you mention this. Initially I wrote something like "[...] that these alternative job titles are mostly for fleshing out a character, for example with higher education (specialized engineer) or lower edcuation (like technician)..."

However I was not really sure about the implications in english so I left it out. I would have no issue with standardizing it by someone who knows more about engineering than I do to explain it to me. I also didn't know if it might interfere with the baseline duties of regular (no alt-title) engineer.

Edited Thursday at 20:20 by KingOfThePing

[CatsinHD]

3 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

I also didn't know if it might interfere with the baseline duties of regular (no alt-title) engineer.

In theory it shouldn't, since arguably the work engineers do on the ship are mostly technician's duties (installation and repair of existing systems, not the design of novel solutions). Would the SCC rather full engineers just in case? idk, maybe. My main concern would be the qualifications required for the position rather than the duties. I also defer to someone with more experience/knowledge in these things than an engineering (technology) student and google searches.

[KingOfThePing]

If it is reflected in the wiki job guides (the general difference between engineer and technician, that is) for qualifications, it should be no problem, then.

[kermit]

My mind isn't made up on alt titles (personally, i lean towards just having 'Ship Engineer/Maintenance Technician' and 'Atmospherics Engineer/Atmospherics Technician' for the qualifications flavour, instead of splitting it by specialisation, as the qualifications/pathway you entered the job is often more relevant in my experience).

but, for this implementation specifically, as an atmos tech player:

'Atmospheric Technician' and 'Environmental Systems Technician' are very samey — i interpret them to mean the same thing. i'd instead use that alt title 'slot' to represent the propulsion side of Atmospherics (Ship Propulsion Technician) and/or the bluespace drive side of things (Drive Engineer).

[KingOfThePing]

Very good idea. I didn't think about the actual engines and it is a valid specialization on a space ship.

[Mr.Popper]

Thank you very much for tackling this. Here are some suggestions I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Shorten "Shipboard Systems Engineer" to "Systems Engineer". Systems engineering is a real field apparently and it sounds cleaner.
2. More atmos tech variety, what Kermit said + maybe something like "emergency fire technician" for those leaning into emergency response.
3. Definitely should be an electrical-focused engineer title like "electrician". As for which to replace, I'd say either Maint Tech or combine Reactor and Maint Tech into one job called "technician". The reactors are theoretically important even if they're static almost every round, while Maint Tech would probably just be the job for playing with maint panels.

I personally think the devs should go crazy with adding as many alt titles as they like, but if that's too "bloat" the basic engineer/technician divide Kermit mentioned is the next best thing, minimizing what's actually in the game while giving players the tools to self-flavor however they like. It would be VERY cool if you could pick both your discipline and engineer/technician to mix and match (ie. electrical engineer, electrical technician, life support engineer, life support technician, etc.) but that's a lot more work.

[KingOfThePing]

9 minutes ago, Mr.Popper said:

many words

Thank you, glad you like it. You make a lot of good points. I implemented kermit's suggestion and replaced "Enviromental Systems Technician" with "Drive Systems Engineer". Drive Systems because it can include both traditional and Bluespace drives and engines. 
I like your second point. Initially I had something like "Damage Control Technician" or "Crisis Response Technician" in mind but found it too specific for engineer. Giving it to atmos who also double as firefighters is a good idea. That would be occupy the third and final slot atmos has free. I refrained from using electrician because personally I found it too broad and too far away from engineering you have in mind when you think about our engineers on the Horizon. I think scratching "Maintenance Technician" for something better would not give me any pain. Reactor Technician just sounds too cool, I would be sad to let it go, to be honest. If you have a suggestion on what the electricity related title should be just let me know.

I agree that alt-titles are great for flavour. Workplaces are full of different job titles even if they are similar. It might be hard to find a sweet spot that's all a discussion for another day. 

Edited Thursday at 20:23 by KingOfThePing

[zha everything broken]

Suggested alt titles for Ship Engineer:
- Maintenance Engineer
- Reactor Technician
- Electromechanic

I don't think we should have something like 'Electrician'- these alt-titles aren't like Medical jobs, where each one has a distinct role. All these titles ought to sound like people who know the full range of the (engineering or atmospheric) systems for which the role is responsible. They ought to suggest additional expertise, not sole domain.

Edited Thursday at 20:38 by zha everything broken

[CatsinHD]

I will re-enter the convo with my own suggestions. These are mostly from cursory delves into the terminology and description of what that title does so as to not mix up job titles (like machinist)

I think my suggestions would be:

• Maintenance Technician

• 2 hours ago, zha everything broken said:

  - Reactor Technician
  - Electromechanic

• Only mentions for Zha's suggestion is that I think Reactor Engineer works equally as fine as Reactor Technician and Electromechanic is a better term for Electro-mechanical technician (which is what the title would be, typically)

Atmos tech

• Atmospheric Technician
• Propulsion Technician/Engineer
• Damage Control Technician/Fire Technician (Damage control technician works here, but might give a bad impression)

[zha everything broken]

Just posted a change request on the PR for a technical issue, but my thoughts on actual flavor are less firm so seemed better to drop them here.

Re:Cats: To me, 'Reactor Engineer' suggests a more design/architecture role, whereas a technician is more an operator. While that argument can be applied more broadly to the entire role, I'd still lean towards 'reactor tech' over 'reactor eng'. I'm not super fussed by that one, both vibes are fine.

Re:Ping: Echoing Popper & Cats in swapping out 'Shipboard Systems Engineer' with something else. As an alt-title its coupled a little too closely to 'Ship Engineer' by my thinking.

I really am doing my best to resist going full ham, god i could happily wax poetic about imaginary engineering specialties all day if you let me

[KingOfThePing]

Implementing Popper & Cats suggestion. As well as agreeing with Batra's by retaining "Reactor Technician". Not leaning towards Reactor Technician nor Reactor Engineer so I will leave it as is for now.
I replaced "Shipboard Systems Engineer" with "Systems Engineer", added "Drive Systems Engineer" for Enviromental Systems Technician and added "Fire Control Technician" as a compromise between "Fire Technician" and "Damage Control Technician". Would have liked to see Damage Control Technician but I think I see the wrong impression it might give.

[zha everything broken]

Recommend replacement of Drive Systems Engineer -> 'Propulsion Engineer' due to semantic similarity to 'Systems Engineer', per Github comment?

[rrrrrr]

This is great --- I highly support it (although my support doesn't mean much) and it'd pair nicely with the skill system, when that comes around. Baystation 12 does something similar with the way their engineering department works. (Curiously, they also have a "Senior Engineer" role... could be worth discussing in the future? Who knows.)

[KingOfThePing]

8 hours ago, zha everything broken said:

Recommend replacement of Drive Systems Engineer -> 'Propulsion Engineer' due to semantic similarity to 'Systems Engineer', per Github comment?

My only gripe is that Propulsion Engineer doesn't sound cool enough 😎. But I wouldn't be opposed.

[evandorf]

2 hours ago, KingOfThePing said:

My only gripe is that Propulsion Engineer doesn't sound cool enough 😎. But I wouldn't be opposed.

Thrust Master > Propulsion Engineer

[zha everything broken]

Whatever you change it to, so long as it doesn't have that same semantic repetition between engi/atmos please! Honestly, the big drawback to alt-titles is not being able to, at a glance, quickly identify who sits in which type of seat. Shitty example: every engineer alt-title having 'engineer' at the end, every atmos tech title having 'technician' at the end. Again, shitty example, but people who have never played any engineering at all should, ideally, be able to recognize whether or not someone can help them with the air or with the electricity.