Allow Scientists to pilot the Quark

[meep109]

Every other role in the department is allowed to pilot it. I do not see the reason for scientists not being able to, especially since the whole premise of scientist right now is a freeform-esque role.

[GeneralCamo]

The intention is that scientists are a ship-bound role, intended to handle research aboard the ship. Expeditions are the job of Xenoarchaelogists, Xenobotanists, and Xenobiologists. If standard procedure should change, the proper process is to go through the XO or RD to change access first, not unilaterally have scientists decide to change it themselves.

Edited February 20 by GeneralCamo

[meep109]

A lot of things that scientists do are enhanced by off ship gameplay, like modular weapons and telescience and as it stands right now I think the scientist role could really benefit from the loosening of restrictions they have on accessing the overmap to do strange and wacky experiments you could not normally do on ship.

[Nagito Komaeda]

11 hours ago, meep109 said:

A lot of things that scientists do are enhanced by off ship gameplay

I don't disagree with this, but Scientists have a lot to do on the ship to begin with (I know, Science is a gameplay department with sparse gameplay). Modular guns and telescience can still be tested on the station pretty easily, and they can absolutely be field tested in collaboration with others! But a Xenoarchaeologist/Anomalist has barely any gameplay on the ship and needs the Quark to get artifacts. Looking at it from the gameplay perspective (I don't play Xenoarch so I can't universally speak for those players) I think it would suck if the Xenoarch has to wait with doing their own thing because a Scientist wants to prepare things for an expedition/field test later in the round.

There's already plenty of options to go on an expedition and do field testing. Xenoarchs/botanist/biologists are all allowed to fly the Quark, as can the Research Director. Shaft Miners can also be a pilot for anyone wanting to do an expedition, as can Bridge Crew, the OM, XO etc. I think it's lightly redundant for Scientists to get shuttle access if them working together with other pilots stimulates connectivity and roleplay.

We shouldn't bar the Scientist role from doing field research, but we already have plenty of possible solutions (e.g. pilots), and interdepartmental reliablity isn't a strange thing (see the Machinist).

[Boggle08]

I'm kind of wary of this. Before I made my scientist into an RD, usually I'd get what I'd want through a mix of networking and the promise of facilitating something to do for people bored in extended rounds. Unlocking the Quark to scientists means that there could be 7 different people in a department contesting a single shuttle, each with a different reason to use it. 3 players contest a shuttle in mining, except all three players want to go to the same place, do the same thing, and have an incentive to bring everybody. Between the Canary, the Intrepid, and the Horizon itself, there's a flight seat available for every single one of the bridge crew. 

Granting the entire science department full access to the Quark wouldn't hurt right now, and only because science is depopulated; the scientist role itself has very little incentive to go out there. I could see it turn into a long term problem, however. What if scientists, or the xenostudies departments gain further incentives to go out there? What if more people start playing, due to improvements made by the community or because of new features added in preparation for their new role in the NBT2? Either due to these incentives or character gimmicks, you could get science team members that routinely grab the quark at the start of the round the same way miners or Xenarchs do. And Xenarchs have nothing to do aboard the ship if they don't have any artifacts.

 

Edited Monday at 17:49 by Boggle08

[kermit]

all of the xenoscience roles can also pilot the intrepid when the quark is unavailable, which is scarcely contested as BCs have the canary as their designated shuttle, so i dont think xenoarchs are going to get stuck often bc a scientist/other xenoscience role beat them to the quark. 

generic scientists being allowed to pilot the shuttle does stop them bringing in a pilot to fly, but scientists being able to launch their own expeditions independently means there's more chance engineers/medics/others get the opportunity to join such an expedition. 1 scientist relying on finding 1 pilot vs. 1 scientist being able to give an opportunity to all crew to join an expedition (not that a scientist may open their expedition to all crew every time, but the few times make it count perhaps).

anyway i fancy the idea bc i like playing non-mechanical social scientists, but that locks me out of starting expeditions (eg. visiting local cultists to do a social survey) unless said social scientist is an RD, which then has its own restrictions (not being able to leave ship if you're the sole command member, ie. most of the eurohour rounds i played on that character)

Edited Tuesday at 16:45 by kermit