Department Protolathes

[Professor Hangar]

I was ranting about this in OOC one night a while ago, figure I ought to flesh it out somewhere persistent.

Problem: Science gets a lot of reasonably useful toys from R&D, but rarely uses a lot of them. I can't remember if I ever saw Cryo Beakers/Syringes getting used, for example. (for legitimate uses or otherwise) Even the Bluespace ones rarely see much use. Usually this is because you have to go and beg science to share their toys, if they've bothered to do R&D, gotten materials from miners AND feel like cooperating with people. I do my best for that when playing Scientist or RD, but from what I hear most people don't. That and even when people ARE doing R&D, it's easy to end up fighting over the machine or monopolising it trying to get as much done quickly.

Solution: A sort of extension to the idea of the maps that have a public autolathe; give various ship departments a Protolathe setup that's set to a specific category; Medbay gets the Medical category with the implants, beakers, syringes and such, Security gets weapons and ammo, Engineering maybe gets Equipment, or at least Power, Mining is obvious (though they already have their own equipment progression, and giving them a reason to go to R&D is a good idea). We already have the server infrastructure to upload the research and sync it with other consoles- and for that matter, Robotics' fabricators already have their own sets of equipment based on R&D but can make stuff R&D can't.

Potential Issues: Assuming all the lathes/fabricators use the same system, then this would have more than just R&D and Robotics (and slightly the bar) competing for mining resources, and/or nagging R&D for them and do actually do their jobs and upgrade everyone's machines. That and who knows what issues may arise of giving each department easy access to fancy equipment. Depending if resource use increases, you might have to increase mining yields, and certainly give more departments access to the ore processor.

[D&B]

Yeah but now greytiders will moonlight all departments.

[Davidchan]

Hey let's take a department everyone thinks is o and give its most powerful asset to everyone! And let's make people fight over mining hauls even more!

Like, in all honesty I can see maybe giving cargo an advanced lathe that science can manually push designs to, but everyone? Fuck that.

[PKPenguin321]

Yeah but now greytiders will moonlight all departments.

That is NOT OKAY

[Dagdammit]

Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that it's justified with some "bluespace" handwave: What if each department's specialized protolathe came with an R&D requests console, a bit like the Supply Shuttle one visitors can use at cargo? If R&D has the resources, they can grant (or deny) the request; R&D's minerals get used but the item(s) print at the department protolathe. Could that work?

[Screemonster]

In all honesty, making science the department that does research and pushing the actual manufacturing of finished designs off to someone else would make sense. Obviously science would still make prototypes 'cause that's what prototypes are for.

It's kinda silly that the researchers are the ones expected to go around doing the gruntwork of upgrading all the machines on the station once the discoveries have been made.

[Dagdammit]

Well, what else are the lazy bums going to do?

[Gun Hog]

Science has no delivery system, and giving them one might trigger "mail bomb" riots. (which would be a legitimate concern) Because Science has no delivery system, people must walk to Science to get things, which often leads to conflict and other things (conflict is the fuel of SS13 though). If you want to forgo a delivery system in favor of local protolathes, there there MUST be a way to control resources - if EVERYONE has access to things, NO ONE will. If cargo and the ORM served as a 'repository' of minerals for all machines, and resource control afforded to the QM, HoP, and RD, we could have something workable. As for department lathes themselves, Sec could have "Equipment", "Weapons", and "Ammo", Engineering has "Equipment", "Electronics", and "Stock Parts", Medical has "Equipment" and "Medical", Cargo has "Mining Designs" and "Equipment", while Science remains unchanged.

I do not have a really good idea as to how it will work, but resource management will become critical if the bottleneck (no distribution method) is removed.

[Davidchan]

It's kinda silly that the researchers are the ones expected to go around doing the gruntwork of upgrading all the machines on the station once the discoveries have been made.

In theory it should be an Engineer or Assistant going about doing machine upgrades with an RPED. But you're never going to find one of the former willing to do such a menial task as anyone competent will be building an autism for or dead and the rest will be helping with the autism fort or also dead. The latter are just not trust worthy and might try to use the parts to make their own machines. Hell the former would too.

[Professor Hangar]

Understandable counter-arguments. I figure it might be one of those things that balances itself out since more or less everyone has access to the same resources, but that just means more fighting over them. (Hence why I suggested increasing mining yields, or maybe decreasing resource costs to some extent since everyone'e using the same resources) Alternatively, changing the resource requirements for the lathes.

At the very least, I think things like cybernetic implants should be more easily available to those who actually have the capacity to use them. Give the damn doctors something to do besides appendectomys.

[cocothegogo]

box and meta are already too "prepped" already and this will just kill any interaction with science

[Gun Hog]

Heck, you could do something even more simple (player wise), linked vending machines that list the available designs, and when clicked, send a signal to the RD and R&D rooms that a request has come in for an item. If the item is already in storage (the items would "physically" exist in the server room), the items are bluespaced over to that vendor after a short delay. You could make it work off the current cargo console's design.

[Dagdammit]

Sounds like the "list available designs, other departments can ask for them, and if R&D grants request you get it at your department" option has decent support.

[Davidchan]

I can't see any good reason to give Security a protolathe of their own to make weapons. They are have very little reason to cooperate with the rest of the crew and giving them reliable means to print more guns isn't going to end well with the current shitcurity mentality of 'us vs crew' where they take, confiscate or just plain steal resources from other departments, notably medical supplies, this is going to turn into security taking most if not all of the ORM metals and resources.

Engineering on the other hand is such a non-job these days you could replace the entire department with a power 'ON/OFF' switch and only a small portion of the crew would notice the difference. Giving them means to print even more crap for their autism forts isn't going to do shit in terms of making them cooperate with the rest of the crew or discourage them from taking what ever they can carry and fucking off into space.

Medical I can /kind/ of get behind having a limited ability to print out artificial limbs, prosthetics, synthetic organs and implants.Of all the departments that do their intended job and are noticeable if they aren't, Medical is probably on top here. Giving them ability to make implants would make them more prevelant, and It's hard to put into words the frustration of being in medical and needing a limb replacement but Robotics is fucking off doing nothing of value or spend all their resources making a murder mech they don't even have the science to put boards onto.

Cargo, as I've said before, is actually a pretty good candidate for getting a production level lathe to make more advanced gear for distribution and could even facilitate a manufacturing or labor tier job for turning raw resources into useable items for export or use on the station. Plus Cargo is best set up to distribute gear to crew members as and probably has the most stable and reliable relation to science to begin with.

So thats my say: Security and Engineering no. Medical a maybe for an organ/implant fabricator that directly relate to surgery and patient care, and cargo a tenative yes so long as their machine needs schematics pre-approved in science before being printable in Cargo.

[D&B]

Honestly it just seems like a flat out bad idea to remove one of the only interactions science has with other departments.

[Davidchan]

If by interactions you mean that place that's regularly broken into, ya.

[Gun Hog]

If an appropriate system is added, you will have more interaction, not less. Possibly less face-to-face, but more requests and sharing.

[Saegrimr]

Possibly less face-to-face, but more requests and sharing.

That's not really the good kind of interaction.

[420goslingboy69]

If rounds were longer, people would be willing to take their time and consider other players more, truth be told.
There are a lot of ties to the problem, but for lack of a better phrase, it is the player's fault and how the "meta" is perceived as a whole.

[kevinz000]

In my opinion the only way this could work.

Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that it's justified with some "bluespace" handwave: What if each department's specialized protolathe came with an R&D requests console, a bit like the Supply Shuttle one visitors can use at cargo? If R&D has the resources, they can grant (or deny) the request; R&D's minerals get used but the item(s) print at the department protolathe. Could that work?

[Jacough]

In my opinion the only way this could work.

Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that it's justified with some "bluespace" handwave: What if each department's specialized protolathe came with an R&D requests console, a bit like the Supply Shuttle one visitors can use at cargo? If R&D has the resources, they can grant (or deny) the request; R&D's minerals get used but the item(s) print at the department protolathe. Could that work?

Real question is how do we solve the problem of "Sorry, we can't make anything for you because we spent all the resources on advanced eguns and a phazon mech for ourselves"

[XDTM]

If the resources run out it's usually because the HoS/captain/clown/greytide really felt the need for six advanced eguns and printed them without asking