Reworking engineering/ research.

[KingKire]

Its old news, but i still do think that these two departments are not working as one would hope. When i play as an engineer, im looking for a way to be clever and to show that there are multiple ways of solving problems that are placed at your feet. When i play researcher, im looking for an outlet to show that deep understanding of something can be way more useful then just basic knowledge of a subject. I dont know if others feel the same way, but i do know that i find it somewhat lacking when there isnt that much game depth to these two knowledge based roles.

Im unsure of what could be done to help improve these roles. Possibly:
- have more data that research can access. Physical papers, data archives, photos, journals of the survivors that are on the colony. Things that if the researcher had in his possession, he could start to make conclusions on the nature of the threat to the marines, possibly even before that nature was encountered. A way to learn that a queen is actually called a queen for a reason, etc. etc. I think having more in-game details that someone with the researchers knowledge and tool access can uncover would be great to help flesh this role out more. Possibly ways that they can help out in a indirect sense like bishop did when he accessed the communications array to help call down the shuttle remotely.

-Engineers need more physical problems that they can help out with, or at least have more solutions to those problems that only the engineers would have access to. The equivlent problem is what do you do with a locked door. A marines solution is to kick it open, while the engineer could hack it, weld around it, or give it the engineers boot with a nice c4 pack. Having more solutions to a problem that they can choose from is what a player who chooses engineer craves imo.

Possible thoughts?

(also, maybe have the roles bounce off one another. a good engineer can go access those locked away data archives for the researcher to access, which allows the engineer more data/ tools to uncover more archives, cycle repeats, etc.)

[SmithPants]

http://cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?t=10741

Boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

You posted in the wrong bar. Or not. But this seems like the same thing I am suggesting about.