Back when engineering existed and was fun and useful, CE was a cool role. Now CE exists as MT+ but doesn’t really have anything else unique to do, not sure why we even have the role since SEA is meant to be the primary teacher of shipside roles.
I guess it’s nice to have someone to direct the fun cosmetic engineering projects, but as for actually leading engineering to do things outside of ship v ship events, ASO is more than qualified.
One of my fondest memories of old CM is playing MP and watching the CE drill his subordinates on how to seal a hull breach and actually create a controlled breach to practice sealing it, and engineers flooding atmos pipes with superheated gas to kill bugs (and everyone else) on hijack. Unrelated but i also miss combat Electrified Grills.
CEs only purpose with our engineering system is to check ARES logs whenever a shipside synth ( + Working Joes), and CO isn’t available, since those are the only three roles that get access to inner core, excluding the host-only AIST
Chief engineer, like all the other officer lead roles shipside (including QM), are ment to protray a vet in that field, that can then extend their knowledge to lead their department.
The giant problem is this. MTs, and CEs have litterary nothing to do shipside, mechanicly. Sure, they can go around like a WJ picking up garbage, and maybe build one of 10000 bars that have been built, but you are essentially playing as a WJ thats a human, but no funny voicelines.
Shipside engineering is boring, you’ll mostly either make a bar cause you’re bored, some people may ask you to build a TV for the CC camera, but other than that, nothing at all, and I know this because I have 55 hours on CE
its 100% MT+ except staff will yell at you for any reason. better to play MT and ask CIC for Command perms to print ammo, deliver maint crates to req, etc. let the “ASO” handle things otherwise because, well, screw em. same for whoever plays CE.
Shipside Engineering used to be critically important when we had an atmospherics system, even if this was usually just a case of them having to try and restore oxygen once it was lost due to aliens blowing stuff up.
(Or they would try to act like a malf AI and super heat the vents, either to make the vents so hot that it would kill any xeno that tried to use them, or to make the engineering core so super hot it would kill anyone who entered, thus making a trap to kill xenos)
Over the decade the role, more so shipside engineering, has been dumbed down due to a long string of incompetent engineers who struggled even with the most simple of engines.
In stock SS13 this is fine, but for CMSS13 it becomes crippling for the Marines to lose the Almayer because the Engineers either never spawned or have no idea how to keep the Engine going.
My very first round on CM I spawned as a MT and spent like 2 hours just fluoride staring at generators and repairing them. I felt good about myself because a MP came in 10 minutes before the round ended and gave me a coffee and said “wow great work man, you really like helping out huh”. Spent the next like 30 rounds playing nothing but MT/CE and repairing generators so the ship wouldn’t run out of power.
Eventually I learned you didn’t need to have all the generators on, you could switch half of them on and half would be in reserve, you could also turn off certain APC on the Almayer that drew tons of power but no one ever used like the chapel. I actually spent a lot of time working out the most efficient way to operate the generators/SMES to the point a new CE would wake up and think I’m trying to grief the marines by not having all the generators on running 24/7 and I had to explain to them they had no clue what they were doing.
I 100% have some brain issues tbh.
Anyways I honestly think all the marine roles are actually in a great place right now roleplay wise and none should be removed. Many people say like “oh remove DCC oh remove nurse oh remove this that” when it wouldn’t actually contribute anything to the server’s roleplay.
Everything is ina good spot right now(excluding research) imo including engineering, though I will admit it’s less than what it was in the past.
Bring back the need for Russian Red, there was nothing quite like having the supermater go critical 15 minutes after the marines deployed, leading to every marine being crippled by radiation poisoning.
Currently… there is no point. We dont even have the half assed “weld wireclip wrench” generators to deal with anymore… let alone a generator that takes thought and effort. Hell the CE on CM isnt even as skilled as a basic MT on any other server because no one remembers how to hard wire anything.
BUT we should leave the role in. I have heard whispers of engineering overhauls for like 3 years… and I hold out hope that as long as the role is alive someone might do it.
Just code it yourself isn’t the only obstacle. Balance is probably even harder than just coding some kind of engine.
It has to run by itself with no care for atleast hour and a half without doing anything that is too damaging to the marine side, like maybe random power outages for around a minute in random parts of a ship at worst.
But then it should somehow reward proper maintenance and a bit of min-max autismo, but not too much, since xenos have no way to counteract it. Maybe something like lower OB cooldown, faster ASRS random loot, faster ARES scans and such.
Maybe kind of a OT approach to CE, where he experiments and creates new stuff to buff cades, maybe some new marine structures, buffing sentries etc.
He could walk around the ship and try to repair some damaged/forgotten systems aboard to support groundside marines, like orbital flare lanucher that will light up entire colony for a while, decomissoned radar jammer that turns off xeno hivemind for a while simillarly to Queen dying.
Vanilla SS13 approach of having an engine that you have to maintain, because otherwise it will fuck entire station up literally, by destroying it, or just basically permanently cutting off power won’t fit CM in my opinion.
It would be like putting water and lava next to TNT in minecraft and then pretending it is dangerous reactor creating power.
That doesn’t mean that’s how they communicate, or that it’s the only way they see, and we don’t have any mechanics for xenos to be able to see anything that isn’t directly on their (or another xenos) screen, that lorebit is irrelevant to CM’s canon.
(Even if that was how the only way they saw, blinding the entire hive isn’t a fun mechanic (neither is cutting hivemind, honestly))
