Departmental Gameplay Improvements

[Kryson]

Oranges has expressed a desire for the development in the near future to focus on improving the core departmental gameplay.

Reworks:
Chemistry - chem factory with piping by Time-Green
Mining - rock factory with conveyors by Qustinnus
Medical - darksouls medical by Cobby

Good progress is being made to:
Hydroponics - We have had bamboo and garlic added recently and have some promising pending PRs, including my own. The department seems to be well liked and is already in a pretty good place compared to other departments.

Departments that i feel are in a pretty good place despite some stagnation:
Bar - Not many drinks have been added since i added mine.
Kitchen - Custom ice cream and snow cones, not much other new food or changes to core gameplay.

Departments that are stagnant or lacking at a more profound level:

Cargo - Mosins were a really nice addition, but other than that, gameplay is stagnant and the budget cards and private purchases thrown off balance in a major way.
Genetics - core gameplay is pretty horrible, it still has good powers(sadly hulk is pretty much useless now) but not much has happened since goonetics were introduced. Trying to melt down into a skeleton or snail, or irradiate yourself into a gorilla is more fun than the powers themselves. Genetics could really use some love.
Virology - Since you are not allowed to release meme viruses anymore the gameplay has been reduced to making a single healing virus per shift if not antag. I know someone floated a rework but i've not seen anything come of it yet.
Science - Toxins doesn't have enough going for it and xenobiology, while cool, only has room for two scientists in the best case scenario, in the worst case senario, your powergamer colleague will demand to work alone and crit you with a toolbox if don't leave. We could really use a third type of scientific study.
Robotics - Mechs have been reworked a bit, but there have been no new mechs, borgs, augments for quite a while and no bots except the firebot.

I have no clue about engineering or atmos since i don't play those departments.

How would you like to see the various departments improved? I am especially interested in the opinions of people who have the ability to contribute to the development in some way and maintainers, but all ideas are welcome.

[gallowsCalibrator]

Hey, seeing a broader thread like this is pretty cool. I was afraid to start one myself

Is there an overview of Cobby's current planned / envisioned medical changes available somewhere? Also, personally, I still really like GuyonBroadway's idea for medical.

Also on the subject of medical, as well as research and genetics; there's been some discussion regarding cloning lately, right? Depending on the changes there, would it make sense to make Geneticist a purely research role? As far as additions to Genetics itself, I have a couple thoughts. With the current system, maybe there could be more emphasis on the 'combining' mechanic, the thing that makes hulk from radioactive + strong? More diversity of powers overall and such. Hell, you could expand it into a full-on Biologist or Augmenter role with extra attached systems, too.

On the same subjects, I think ideally I'd like to see some research purposes for chemistry? Chemicals being used in certain machines or in experiments, etc. Chemists could inherit the department-split niche of Geneticists at the moment, using a combination of the current dispensers and the new chem-factory system to supply both.

[oranges]

Good thread, also, while bartender and chef are in a good place, it is always interesting to see new types of things added to each role, i.e bartender gets something new besides just mixin drinks.

[Mickyan]

I stand by the idea that the current finance rework PR is a huge step up to restore cargo balance even though some maintainers disagree. We tried to turn every department to money making and it didn't work, but by having all money come directly through cargo we don't have to deal with the impossible task of balancing money intakes side-by-side with cargo prices and it turns money into something of an equivalent to research points, which are responsibility of a single department but are of benefit to the entire station

[Shadowflame909]

What if we just brought back the experimentor to give science something to do other then go braindead after xenobio gets taken

[knacker48]

I've had an idea for genetics for a while now. Basically I think the chromosome system needs a rework. The way it works now is when you successfully use an activator on someone it becomes 'filled'. You then drop it off into the DNA scanner console and you get a random chromosome. Now it being random is bad enough but the worse part is that most of the chromosomes don't have any affect on the most mutations. Wanna use a power chromosome with hulk so you punch even harder? Doesn't work. Ever tried to use an energetic chromosome with shock touch? Sorry bud. There's also the fact that some of them don't see any use, namely the synchronizer chromosome. If your an antag you don't want to make negative mutations less bad and if your not antag why would you want to give someone a negative mutation in the first place?

So for what I had in mind is a new machine in genetics, the DNA Splicer. This how I see it working. Instead of dropping filled activators into the scanner console for chromosomes you would drop it into the DNA splicer and you would get DNA points. You could then use those points to lock in changes to a loaded mutation. Basically replacing the the random aspect of chromosomes for something more manageable. You could then balance different changes around their DNA costs. Maybe make reducing instability the most expensive change while making a mutation mutadone immune relatively cheap.

This is just a rough idea and I'd like someone to tell me what I'm probably missing or just getting wrong here but I do think something like this would be helpful

[Dr_bee]

What if we just brought back the experimentor to give science something to do other then go braindead after xenobio gets taken

Nanites are pretty fun and basically a better version of virology. Viro really should be moved to science, it would honestly fit better in that department as another job that can be done than as its own job now.

There are actually interesting synergies with viro and nanites that I almost never see because no viro will ever talk to a scientist to do them.

Viro isnt deep enough to be its own job, and science needs more stuff to do so a move wouldnt be a bad idea.

[Shadowflame909]

nanites usually gets researched at the science end-game because mi techwebs pattern.

And the fact that its generally more griefy instead of used as a tool to heal.

All I'm saying is. If it's just virology except someone has to research it later in the shift. It's not being used because everyone who does it is just doing virology.

Also because the RD will fire you for researching it when you could be researching tier 4s or advanced mining.

It doesn't fill the job position.

[FuryMcFlurry]

Two years ago I've posted an idea.

It was called Organ Research which allows for (another) medical/science type of thing to take place.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12735&p=387772
heres the thread.

Sure, it might be harder to add a place on each station for a new department, that is also tied to both genetics and medical.
Unless you are willing to add this to geneticist job.

[Ty the Smonk]

I've had this idea for xenobio for a while and I kinda wish i knew how to do it instead of just sitting on it, basically my idea was to make xenobiologists go to lavaland and capture creatures there, put them in a pen and observe them doing something for research points and some extra things, I don't know what but killing a Megafauna corpse and bringing it to xenobio before gibbing it should do something.

[Shadowflame909]

It seems like everyone in some form has an idea for science to incorporate mobs.

For me it was simple mob evolution and revival. Linking ancestors and related simple mobs, as a job to replace the experimentor.

IE frog > ??? > Leaper

Monkey > ??? > Gorilla

[halitosisman]

As an engineering main, I constantly find attempts at repairs and large construction projects frustrated by shuttle calls. Maybe make the current engineering tools faster or the rounds longer? Also, mineral availability currently is not balanced for some large scale endeavors.

[oranges]

As an engineering main, I constantly find attempts at repairs and large construction projects frustrated by shuttle calls. Maybe make the current engineering tools faster or the rounds longer? Also, mineral availability currently is not balanced for some large scale endeavors.

Changes to wiring and hopefully soon pipes will follow a similar building schema.

I'd like to touch core building (walls/doors) but mso has been historically touchy about how these are crafted, which is going to make it hard to change them to be simpler.

[gallowsCalibrator]

On the topic of engineering, as well, what kind of big projects do folks normally like to do? Maybe focusing on that could be a good idea?

There's been a lot of discussion about power systems, too, and more incentive for high power, which would be neat.

[kevinz000]

science: psionics?

[halitosisman]

As an engineering main, I constantly find attempts at repairs and large construction projects frustrated by shuttle calls. Maybe make the current engineering tools faster or the rounds longer? Also, mineral availability currently is not balanced for some large scale endeavors.

Changes to wiring and hopefully soon pipes will follow a similar building schema.

I'd like to touch core building (walls/doors) but mso has been historically touchy about how these are crafted, which is going to make it hard to change them to be simpler.

RCDs made the time investment for wall/door construction a non issue, although making it even faster would always be appreciated. The main problem in construction is all the little things like machines/lights/air alarms/APCs/pipes etc. It takes a lot of clicks to lay all that stuff down.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

apc fixing / building takes a retarded ammount of time yes but the real issue is the inability to add overlays ingame when 90% of the station decoration is literally overlays

[MisterPerson]

RCDs made the time investment for wall/door construction a non issue, although making it even faster would always be appreciated. The main problem in construction is all the little things like machines/lights/air alarms/APCs/pipes etc. It takes a lot of clicks to lay all that stuff down.

Lots of clicks but also memory and dedication. That shit takes long enough to map, it's even worse when people are also trying to kill you.

[NecromancerAnne]

Engineering has been seeing a lot of attention with PR's looking to expand gas interactivity with the Supermatter and some other quality of life additions that have been added to engineering equipment, like forcefield generators and RCD upgrades. Engineering basically has presently the most variety of things to do because you really can do anything you want. Nothing wrong with that, it's a good role to take when you want to just mess about.

Spoiler:

Or validhunt with a scrap gun

Atmospherics recently received a major overhaul and it has had some wacky and fairly significant effects on what atmos can do. I feel like anything that touches atmos should be sanity checks on the temperatures. The other things available include selling gas via cargo but outside of bombs and fusion fuckery there isn't much. But people enjoy that so I couldn't say what else you could do other than bring more of these gases into the list of usable gas for Supermatter setups.

[halitosisman]

Cargo has a lot of underused potential as a trading hub. Most player's however, don't know the power of disposals, and most cargo techs lack the stomach to demand payment for minerals and services.

[Dr_bee]

Cargo has a lot of underused potential as a trading hub. Most player's however, don't know the power of disposals, and most cargo techs lack the stomach to demand payment for minerals and services.

More stuff really should go through cargo and not techfabs. Or make cargo actually have to approve techfab print jobs. Right now cargo is just for guns during war ops and implants during revs, and not much else.

[Ghilker]

Atmospherics recently received a major overhaul and it has had some wacky and fairly significant effects on what atmos can do. I feel like anything that touches atmos should be sanity checks on the temperatures. The other things available include selling gas via cargo but outside of bombs and fusion fuckery there isn't much. But people enjoy that so I couldn't say what else you could do other than bring more of these gases into the list of usable gas for Supermatter setups.

Muh Supernova in a can! Dont touch it!

Seriously tho, coders should add tiered canisters that can hold those kind of temperatures and pressures (like tier one normal canisters, tier two plasteel canisters, tier three bluespace canisters, tier four forcefield canisters)

[Kryson]

Good thread, also, while bartender and chef are in a good place, it is always interesting to see new types of things added to each role, i.e bartender gets something new besides just mixin drinks.

I thought about what that could entail, while i have a few drink sprites ready in case i want to create more drinks a secondary activity would be really nice.

The thing i felt was most thematically appropriate and promising was if the bartender could set up some gambling machines such as space roulette, non-lame slot machines or maybe even something like a cockfighting ring.

From what i've seen on servers with better slot machines, they tend to be somewhat popular. I think it would also make the economy more relevant.

The downsides i guess is that we have at least one player that objects to even fictional gambling, i don't know how widespread this sentiment is.

If this is something the maintainers are interested in, i could take a crack at making a roulette wheel.

[gallowsCalibrator]

On that topic, maybe you could make cards a lil easier to work with too? Like some kinda 'game mat' item that you could set on tables and would let them work as a cards minigame. Casino dealer bartender sounds fun, heh.

Chef should get stuff too, but I'm not sure what. More incorporation of nutrition / nutriment into medicine could be a good thing, but that'd also need to go with the medical overhaul in general, and that'd also just make their current thing more rewarding / productive.

[kevinz000]

more realistic suggestion has anyone thought about giving engineering hull shields that draw massive amounts of power for bragging rights when meteor storms hit?

[Arathian]

Some thoughts on my main departments (science and robotics):

1) "Science" should probably not be a job. Instead, each job should get a title. There is no "science" job besides clicking a button every 5 minutes unlike, say, doctors or engineers who do a variety of things. Instead, a large bunch of jobs should be under the "science" umbrella. Current jobs should be Toxins Specialist (2 slots), Xenobiologist (2 Slots) and maybe even experimentor (1 slot). That also avoids the problem of scientists toolboxing each other to death over who gets to be in xenobio.

2) Science should also fully get genetics. Currently genetics is in some super weird spot where it's in both sci and medical. It should be in science and cloning should not be part of a geneticist's job. They never do that anyway.

3) Science should have some kind of "adventurer" role whose job is to roam in space or lavaland and find secrets to unlock research points and new technologies. More techs should be locked behind such secrets. Passive point generation should be removed completely or SEVERELY nerfed in my opinion. Things like dissecting corpses should be significantly buffed at research gain and more departments should be able to contribute to research generation.

4) Robotics should become a larger area and roboticists should be 3 or even 4. On busy shifts, I almost never manage to keep up with what the fuck is happening and i am a very experienced roboticist. Also half the time my partner will fuck off or be new and I will scream internally. Robotics needs new stuff that is NOT combat related. Fuck combat. Things like janitor mechs which were not merged. Also expansions on augs to not be half-useless or so time consuming to do as now. Robotics has a ton of potential but it's being constantly hampered by salty cunts who cry about muh power creep. Maybe one roboticist should even be a designated "augmenter" whose job is to just augment people. Gets his own little room and mech lathe even.

[gallowsCalibrator]

Those are probably some good calls re: science. Given the mining rework, I'd expect the replacement Explorer role to fall under Research as well. Also, here's kind of a crazy thought, I'm not certain exactly. Given how said mining rework is shaping up- the boulders thing- would it be possible to move it to something more like Goon's system? Using a machine that generates turf with ore in it stationside? It'd free up lavaland / that z-level to become something fully dedicated to exploration at least. Granted I dunno how fun that'd be for either job involved.

More on science. Is there enough toxins content to justify the role just for it, or even keeping it at all, really? Not saying we should remove it, but more mechanics could be cool. Expanding it into a general plasma / materials research, maybe with more kinds of matter / plasma to work with and experiment on?

[oranges]

The downsides i guess is that we have at least one player that objects to even fictional gambling, i don't know how widespread this sentiment is.

I don't see it being that widespread.

If this is something the maintainers are interested in, i could take a crack at making a roulette wheel.

That sounds great, barman running a licensed casino and then the greys running an unlicensed maint casino

[oranges]

Some thoughts on my main departments (science and robotics):

1) "Science" should probably not be a job. Instead, each job should get a title. There is no "science" job besides clicking a button every 5 minutes unlike, say, doctors or engineers who do a variety of things. Instead, a large bunch of jobs should be under the "science" umbrella. Current jobs should be Toxins Specialist (2 slots), Xenobiologist (2 Slots) and maybe even experimentor (1 slot). That also avoids the problem of scientists toolboxing each other to death over who gets to be in xenobio.

Been saying this a while, probably need to move the techweb machine to heads offices to finally get the point across, but the idea of making each of the slots unique is an interesting one.

Do like the explorer role as well.

[oranges]

Cargo has a lot of underused potential as a trading hub. Most player's however, don't know the power of disposals, and most cargo techs lack the stomach to demand payment for minerals and services.

More stuff really should go through cargo and not techfabs. Or make cargo actually have to approve techfab print jobs. Right now cargo is just for guns during war ops and implants during revs, and not much else.

Cargo really got gutted over the years, through roundsstart map bloat and the techfabs/protolathes getting more and more stuff, im not really sure how to solve it in a meaningful way right now, since nobody will be happy if we take away any of that stuff and lock it behind cargo.

[knacker48]

Cargo has a lot of underused potential as a trading hub. Most player's however, don't know the power of disposals, and most cargo techs lack the stomach to demand payment for minerals and services.

More stuff really should go through cargo and not techfabs. Or make cargo actually have to approve techfab print jobs. Right now cargo is just for guns during war ops and implants during revs, and not much else.

Cargo really got gutted over the years, through roundsstart map bloat and the techfabs/protolathes getting more and more stuff, im not really sure how to solve it in a meaningful way right now, since nobody will be happy if we take away any of that stuff and lock it behind cargo.

While you may not want to take existing stuff and put it in cargo, you could probably put new stuff that might otherwise end up in techfabs in cargo to give it more relevance. You could put a lot of sidegrade stuff or stuff that you may want to gate. The techweb is getting kind of bloated anyways with things that nobody researches until the hour mark(I'm looking at you nanites).

[Arathian]

Been saying this a while, probably need to move the techweb machine to heads offices to finally get the point across

I would definitely like some way for the RD to at least be able to restrict random research. To give an obvious example, any greytide can break into sci at minute 40, quickly research AI tech and print stuff to subvert the AI from maint.

It's come to the point where the moment AI is researched, I kinda have to start locking down science. Which is metagame-y and I don't like it.

Perhaps that is a separate discussion though. I, in general, don't like how easy it is to fuck with the AI. Fucking with the AI should require some planning and subterfuge, not half a sheet of diamonds, 1 sheet or iron, a glass and a toolbelt. There's a "point 5" if I had to add.

but the idea of making each of the slots unique is an interesting one.

Also an obvious one, if we are to accept that it "pressing a button every 5 minutes" isn't actually science's job but instead the sub-departments are.

Do like the explorer role as well.

That would be a dream. I think goon has one of those. I recently realized ayy tech can only be gotten in lavaland and not in fucking space. That's....fairly stupid if you think about it. Space is heavily underutilized in my humble opinion.

[Swagile]

Science is massively hampered by RnD. The reason why xenobiology is fun is that:

A) By default, you don't need massive RnD investment to make it fun.
B) The improvements that make it more fun don't take forever (can get it roundstart through Industrial Engineering for decent upgrades).

Compare this to Robotics and Nano tech:

Robo: You need SEPARATE RnD tech webs for mechs (this is after getting all the tech for miners, which takes a while, and you also have to wait for miners). All of that added up means you don't get to have fun till around 20-25 mins (if miners are good), 30-40 mins (if miners are bad / dead so your forced to do it yourself).

Nano: You have to wait for above to happen because everyone forgets nano technology, so you have to wait for all the T2-T3 techwebs, miners stuff, bluespace, THEN you can research nano tech (if robos don't research mechs first). By the time you get to have fun the round is over unless its green shift or antags are really shitty.

Nano tech especially suffers from this; you can't do shit in that department for a LONG time so I have no idea why it even exists if 75% of the time you can't do any nano stuff in a reliable manner. Especially because nano technology is like virology; outside of being an antagonist, your stuff is only useful when its beneficial to the crew, and that doesn't matter on a greenshift / when antags are bad and got caught early unless crew begins to self immolate out of boredom and start griefing each other.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

i dont consider xenobio being isolated for 50 min a positive, it does have stuff that would interest other department (yellow slimes to engi, silver slimes to botany/chef, slime bounties, purple slimes to medical, stabilized slimes to sec/tiders, metacomm slime to captain, etc) but if you want it you ll have to go to xenobio yourself and self service with the slime fridge, because the scientist working there will pretty much leave 90% of the slime cores unused, get itself some buffs and thats it. i guess its just a problem of good players being attracted by more outgoing jobs where you ll be in the same screen with someone else that didnt come for free xenobio shit

robotics is one of the most complete content wise job, you have silicons, bots, mechs, ais, organ upgrades, tech storage + anything sci already has except toxins.
stuff is locked behind techwebs yeah but you will be busy with silicons control/maintenence, cleanbots, greytiders who want all access no resposability stun immunity free antag 90% of the times (borging), basic ripleys (to mine and get miner loot) and they even have xenobio access for free. all of this limited only by miners being cultists (you can still mine yourself efficiently with a ripley and get free valids at mine cult base) and your creativity

nanites tend to be as good as the dude making it which means its literally not worth taking them except if you know who did them has more braincells than letters in their name, which is almost never , people will just stick to the meta of miner upgrades then t4 then whatever because yeah even if you make parts cost 50k people will still do it because it helps the station more than anything else you can research ( i m talking to u cobby making high eff and t4 did what i told u in the pr, making people not branch out on different techs after getting those midgame as the whole techweb concept was supposed to bring but ppl will just always rush t4 and any other department will never get anything except if they research it themselves (t4 should me locked by rare materials like fucking adamantite))
also there is those 50k bombs with youtube tutorials which just make any sci discusion useles

[py01]

The techweb path meta has been pretty stale and rigid. Virtually every round people rush adv mining then t4 parts, and then the round is almost over unless it's extended/traitors who have all been stealthy/someone followed a science research bomb tutorial.

One issue with the multi-department research things like dissection is that science will often not spend the points on any techs that benefit you, and then not let you use their lathe for the things they did research.

What if every department had a separate techweb, and a console for it in the respective head's room? Each web would have much lower passive generation, but research like dissection would only benefit the department it was performed in.

Instead of science making all research decisions, each department periodically researches one tech for themselves.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

there is already a framework for different tech points (example as engineering research points, biological research points)
having better parts timegated to slower and more stable point gen like teslacoils/sm rad collectors (example: t3- t4 needs 10000 engi research 5000 sci research) so sci can in the meanwhile research stuff for other deps as they will literally have no point saving basic sci points an choose if either get super medical things or give sec guns or n*nites or a mix of them

also having too much decentralization like everyone their own linear tech tree will be worse, denaturalizing the "choose what to focus" even more

[oranges]

Im pretty confident I want one global techweb, but i am open to allowing dept heads to have a personal techweb budget % from the main budget that they can spend on their dept.

It should be small that they can't invest in every path their dept would want but they can get say 1 path fully completed.

[deedubya]

On the topic of techwebs, here's a big question for something I was on hiatus for: Why did the techwebs get changed from actively deconning items to timegated casual trash? In the past, "scientist" or specifically R&D was an actual job. Now it's just cookie clicker.

Also, while we're brainstorming new roles for the science department, how about a "Mechanic" role? Not sure if they'd belong under Science or Engineering, but they'd have access and an encryption key for both, as well as basic access to every non-security department. They'd be the guys responsible for going around upgrading and repairing machines, which would also take some of the burden off of Engineers when massive damage occurs and an area needs to be rebuilt. Engineers could focus on the structure while mechanics could focus on the machinery. I'd also suggest giving them a purple "mechanic's toolbelt" that is able to hold an RCD on top of all the tools a toolbelt currently holds. Perhaps have their default uniform be a purple science jumpsuit with a hazard vest?

[gallowsCalibrator]

I'd definitely support that Mechanic role, yeah. Though ideally there'd be more content added for it, too- a workshop space of some kind, maybe with new machines of some variety? Then, like the split w/ Geneticist, the CE would govern station repair and upgrades, while RD would govern workshop projects?

[oranges]

On the topic of techwebs, here's a big question for something I was on hiatus for: Why did the techwebs get changed from actively deconning items to timegated casual trash? In the past, "scientist" or specifically R&D was an actual job. Now it's just cookie clicker.

Also, while we're brainstorming new roles for the science department, how about a "Mechanic" role? Not sure if they'd belong under Science or Engineering, but they'd have access and an encryption key for both, as well as basic access to every non-security department. They'd be the guys responsible for going around upgrading and repairing machines, which would also take some of the burden off of Engineers when massive damage occurs and an area needs to be rebuilt. Engineers could focus on the structure while mechanics could focus on the machinery. I'd also suggest giving them a purple "mechanic's toolbelt" that is able to hold an RCD on top of all the tools a toolbelt currently holds. Perhaps have their default uniform be a purple science jumpsuit with a hazard vest?

it was about the point I decided that we needed a global content gate and that techwebs was the appropriate use, even if it would remove one scientists job

[TrumpetPlaya]

maybe science can be improved by adding more ways to accumulate research points, right now it's just toxins and destructive analyzer (which nobody uses)
all the toys that science has like nanites, xenobio, and the experimentor don't contribute to any actual research. science would be a much more cohesive department if every scientist's job was to accumulate more research points rather than dicking around with xenobio for an hour in absolute silence.

[davethwave]

On the subject of the department magic money making cards. Perhaps allow some stuff like a department card specialty thing where you can only buy certain stuff like lets say a large multiblock structure like the dna vault requires the department medical card to buy on a normal round, would also work with the meteor shielding for engineering. Just bloat up the price so that it takes a while for the cards to build up enough price to buy it.As for cargo complexity. I would say that items that you can buy and bounties could be interlinked between. Such as have to complete so and so sec themed bounty before centcomm allows for buying combat shotguns and the like. Though I would say to only add this restriction to high tier items like said shotgun. On the subject of the department magic money making cards though. Perhaps allow some stuff like a department card specialty thing where you can only buy certain stuff like lets say a large multiblock structure like the dna vault requires the department medical card to buy on a normal round, would also work with the meteor shielding for engineering. Just bloat up the price so that it takes a while for the cards to build up enough price to buy it.

For Engineering I would say to make it more interesting in other ways. For instance an idea I just thought of is a energy to mass device that would hook straight up to the SM. It would be basically a drill that mines SM shards(lore behind the device on how it works doesn't actually mine SM shards) in order to create super batteries or a higher tier or of equal tier of ore like diamond required for some higher tier stuff for instance bluespace batteries and phazon mechs or could be used in a new kind of reactor as some kind of upgrade on the SM(we are on research station after all). On the subject of encouraging of more power throughout the station is pretty easy. The higher tier part you put in the machine the higher the power requirements.

[Ziiro]

https://github.com/vgstation-coders/vgs ... pull/18555

Unironically

[Critawakets]

Engineering should have something like a Matter Fabricator that can use a variable amount of power to make materials or just money or even if they wanted to, research points.

Of course, that would require balancing power and ooh boy. SM requires a nerf to CO2, tesla is ridiculous when you use more than one tesla in the containment and dont even get me started on the TEG.

TEG could be balanced by lowering the overall power that it makes, along with making it so that if you cool the gas too much at once it implodes in on itself, to stop fusion from just completely breaking everything.

[Cobby]

maybe science can be improved by adding more ways to accumulate research points, right now it's just toxins and destructive analyzer (which nobody uses)
all the toys that science has like nanites, xenobio, and the experimentor don't contribute to any actual research. science would be a much more cohesive department if every scientist's job was to accumulate more research points rather than dicking around with xenobio for an hour in absolute silence.

Dissection is a nice avenue for this, I haven't seen anyone elevate certain mobs in the system yet.

[ATHATH]

Re: Virology: XDTM said that he was making a virology rework, but I don't know how soon it'll come out (if at all). In the meantime, I've been cleaning up some virology code, trying to buff/add more depth to some lesser-used symptoms (IMO, no symptom should be a "pack filler" symptom that exists solely to clog up the symptom pool (having good stats is fine, though)), and generally make the virologist experience better.

To be honest, the biggest improvement that virology could get right now is a headmin ruling that virologists can, indeed, release purely cosmetic viruses that don't harm anyone as non-antagonists, since that could open up some possibilities for some "technically helpful but also somewhat troll-y" symptom effects. That's more of an administration problem than a code one, though.

I've also been thinking of coming back to my idea of adding "rituals": specific circumstances/conditions that can cause your species to change if you meet them (i.e. a dullahan ritual might involve being beheaded by a guillotine while having at least 5u of strange reagent in your system). I dunno if that'll get blocked by our weird species-related code policies, though.

[ATHATH]

We might also want to perhaps port some of the cooler stuff that Hippiestation has: locker mechs, circuits (from what I've heard, Hippiestation has found a way to balance them (although they might have to be nerfed a bit during the transition to /tg/, since the power levels of stuff on Hippie are general higher than those of the stuff on /tg/station)), etc.

Nanites could probably also use some love. I might add a couple of hallucinations to the pool of chooseable hallucinations for the hallucination program. Some more cool programs (laser blasts, perhaps?) would be nice.

[ATHATH]

https://github.com/vgstation-coders/vgstation13/pull/18555

Unironically

I was just about to suggest this.

[ATHATH]

Oh, I know something that someone can work on: finally fixing this bug: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/issues/45850

It's really, really annoying that the roundend report doesn't accurately display the number of survivors and (non-ghost) shuttle escapees, and this bug has been around for AGES. WHY has it not been fixed yet?

[Indie-ana Jones]

I'll admit, I don't really have much room to speak in terms of departmental jobs sans xenobio, so I'll just focus on that.
The list below is my current gripes with the system:

- Xenobio currently is meant to operate with two people, but as OP posted, usually only one person will ever function in there at a time. Honestly, if we split the roles of science up into individual jobs like posted above, we can pretty much solve this issue. You're way more of an asshole if you tell your coworker who can only work in your section of science to fuck off than if you told that to some dude who could work anywhere else, which would hopefully stop people from doing it.

- For being a deparment called xenobio, you don't actually work with many aliens much at all. Gold slime cores are as close as you get, and the best you can do with them is make sentient creatures, most of which can only smash stuff.

- Most of xenobio's slime core creations are self-serving or useless. However, the ones that are useful to other fields (yellow slime cores and speed potions for the most part) usually only leave xenobio if directly asked for.

- running Xenobio isn't as engaging as it used to be. Back before consoles when you had to personally feed slimes (and the larger ones could break containment), being the xenobiologist was a much more involved task. The only thing now that might harm you in xenobio is either an idiot compatriot who teleports living slimes on top of the grinder or if you get lucky enough to spawn with an alien (which usually gets instantly killed by another scientist once the department knows it spawned).

My thoughts on how it could be better:
- If Explorer's were added, having them send animals to xenobio to experiment on could finally inject some more ayy into the job outside of slimes. Any other additions which let xenobio utilize other mobs in a useful manner would be a plus.

- Have xenobio's work actually benefit the station outside of occasionally being the infinite battery easter bunny. One thing I thought about was how xenobiologists can make sentient mobs. Most of the mobs are useless outside of smashing shit, but some like the lightgheist are very useful to certain departments. Perhaps we could look into making xenobio's sentient mobs having utilities which benefit the station? A system which also lets those unused cores circulate to those who could have use them would be godly as well.

- Perhaps make slimes more of a threat. The combination of xenobio becoming super safe to operate and the slimes being made weaker has made xenobio pretty much accident-proof, which is less engaging.