Engineering and R&D Suggestio

[SmithPants]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): Currently both R&D and Engineering are mostly useless, only really needed for cloning help and starting the super matter engine, respectively. I know this is colonial marines, Not Colonial R&D, however, The two departments should get an upgrade.

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): Increases the length of games. Games would last longer- Marines would want to wait for the extra tech and items they would get from bagging an alien, or finding some uranium. Aliens currently get stronger the longer the game goes on. Giving a little love to Engineering and R&D- something to let them give the marines the necessary strength to compete later in the round. Longer round with less people sitting dead for longer. Awesome slogs back and forth. Some round you might get everything, some rounds you might get nothing. It would add more uniqueness to every round. Discourages meta rushing the aliens because think of the cool toys you can get to play with.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc):

<Researcher> Research could be changed from it's current "Find an item and break it down" to a more time sensitive version. Items could be inserted to the analyzer, and would slowly output research based on their tech origin. A tech origin analyzer could be made to show the levels of the item before sticking them into the deconstruction analyzer. This would remove the Meta-gaming that is necessary right now to be a good researcher. (Looking up stuff's tech level or just remembering the tech levels from previous rounds) This could also be influenced by the ratio of aliens to marines. The more marines, the slower the research, The more aliens, the faster the research.

<Engineer> I have been playing as an MT for a while now, and really, it's just sitting around for 30 minuets, checking the reactor, doing a janitorial round of the station, and then rinse and repeat. Everything that Engineering is necessary for is at the start of the round. As the round progresses, having more than one MT is pointless, unless you are doing a super project, witch often distracts MTs from their actual jobs and can often go disastrously wrong. It would keep engineering's idle hands busy. Engineering would be needed to actually make the parts necessary for the Research stuffs.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): I have no idea how to implement these ideas. Except for the stuff I talked about in the main body, I am not really sure what to add to this section. Hopefully I can develop this section after some people comment.

[NoahKirchner]

Having multiple suggestions in one is against the suggestion rules, just a heads up if it gets denied, that's why.

[Sarah_U.]

Red shirts.

Also, -1 for that. PArt your suggestion.

[SmithPants]

How? The Engineer part Relies on the research part- So the Engineer part would be irrelevant if the Research part doesn't get picked up. I'm not asking for all those thing I suggest to go in the game- I am asking for updated research methods to give some meat to the two departments.

I edited it too to make it less against the rules from the random ideas I threw in.

[Surrealistik]

Research is anything but useless; their value is primarily in creating drugs, medbots, spare cloners, drills (for LV in order to circumvent alien deathgauntlets when assaulting the hive), explosives and efficient cloning (they can prematurely release clones).

That said, I will grant that there are plenty of useless researchers who squander their time and the department's resources.

[SmithPants]

Research is anything but useless; their value is primarily in creating drugs, medbots, spare cloners, drills (for LV in order to circumvent alien deathgauntlets when assaulting the hive), explosives and efficient cloning (they can prematurely release clones).

Unless they're creating New Drugs or Explosives, Nothing else on that list is overly "Researchery" (Medibots, I guess, but they don't seem very complex, and require no "research" to make at the start of the round) I've never seen command tell R&D to make them some Drills, When I play research, I get all the research done early and then just sit around cloning people the rest of the round. The "Research" part of their job is almost totally irrelevant later in the round. Now, I am pretty new, But Every game I've played no one cares about R&D unless they're cloning. There is no reason to have a "Researcher" right now, they're just as effective as any doctor.

I will give you that they are basically the cleanup crew for all the jobs that kinda fall out of the Doctor's areas. And if that is all people want then to be, That's fine.

[Surrealistik]

Unless they're creating New Drugs or Explosives, Nothing else on that list is overly "Researchery" (Medibots, I guess, but they don't seem very complex, and require no "research" to make at the start of the round) I've never seen command tell R&D to make them some Drills, When I play research, I get all the research done early and then just sit around cloning people the rest of the round. The "Research" part of their job is almost totally irrelevant later in the round. Now, I am pretty new, But Every game I've played no one cares about R&D unless they're cloning. There is no reason to have a "Researcher" right now, they're just as effective as any doctor.

I will give you that they are basically the cleanup crew for all the jobs that kinda fall out of the Doctor's areas. And if that is all people want then to be, That's fine.

Actual research itself is pretty meh for the most part.

Drills are of an immense help when raiding the hive on LV; it's uncommon in the meta so most commanders overlook it (for that matter, I've never heard of Command really demanding anything of Research). Laser scalpels are marginally useful, and extra cloners in Medbay can make a huge difference. That aside, yes, most of Research's utility is in mass producing drugs.

In general the protolathe could use more goodies to make research worthwhile; likewise the things that Xeno parts can be reprocessed into should probably be improved and expanded.

[SmithPants]

Part of this suggestion would also be adding a proper chemist role and room for mass production of drugs. Or perhaps even a machine set up to auto synthesize them, (THAT YOU COULD RESEARCH!?) But I don't want to ask for a million things because I did and people got mad at me right away :/.

Upstairs cloner would be very useful- but there is rarely an incentive to do so. Command never asks. CMO might, but you are often too busy cloning people to get it set up. Also there is little room in there already, so trying to slap an extra cloner or two down would cramp things a lot, wherever I think to put it. It's concept would be REALLY useful, I don't know if the coordination, motivation and space are available to actually do it.

Oh, and the new ramming update means that marines will have a lot harder time late game.

Actualy- and I am afraid to give the Devs heart attacks- Making the Ras breach repairable, and the ras itself recoverable- would be awesome. spending ages to fix the ras so you can assault the planet again would be epic. Perhaps even ras upgrades from research.

[Shyguychizzy]

Back in ye old pre-alpha don't have any of these fancy nonsense, thing is the way it is now it has come far from what it was originally. Back then all you could do was research stuff and test nades in a bomb (Thought was legit cool and loved) but that bit is about besides capturing live xenos and locking em up in the holding room made for which i missd the most. That was all you had, now research and engineering have a use, engineering would b repairing the Rasputin on a basis or maintaining the SM so it doesn't detonate or even making defenses. Many good and bad yes but eh... currently I quite am happy here they are then again cloning is in progress of being completely gone possibly a researcher thing only maybe. Anyhow, researcher can provide many goods that help as well RP involved or can be. I do agree with others have stated or said it depends on the researcher not all researchers are efficient or competent. Gonna have to give yah a -1.

[wastedfate]

-1 I would agree that Research needs an overhaul or to be scrapped completely, however I don't think that this is the way to do it. Perhaps allow the researcher to manufacture weapon upgrades, or weapons? The problem with that though is having a resource cost to balance it out. It's not like shaft miners fit well in the game right now.

[SmithPants]

It's not like shaft miners fit well in the game right now.

Actually, There are plenty of resources on the maps that the marines could scavenge. I learned this while talking to someone or other yesterday, There are "Alien artifacts" that drop random materials, Like uranium. Apparently planet-side in research areas. However, I only had someone tell me this while I was discussing with them in voice chat, and as of yet I can't seem to find any. This might just be because Ice Colony. The apparent reason for them was "Role play reasons". Then he had to go, so I couldn't debate that mechs and new guns are cooler than some random artifacts that give 300 uranium.

Additionally is the fact you can order as much metal, glass and plasteel you want from RQ.

[Snypehunter007]

We are currently rethinking research. This is going to be locked for now.