Break Up The Scientist Job

[Veterankyl]

Scientist is probably one of the most powerful jobs in the game currently. As their basic access, they have access to RnD,  the Experimentor, Toxins, Chemistry, and Xenobiology. Most of those are very powerful sub-departments. The only things a scientist CAN'T access in the science department are robotics, the RD office, and genetics, although a determined scientist can just make their own mech fabricator, which most do already for 'research purposes'. This job offers a lot of powerful tools to a single person, to the point where a single scientist can be entirely self sufficient, and an antag would have some extremely dangerous weapons. This power makes it difficult to add new things to science, as every new addition to science has to be balanced around what scientists already have access to. I think one of the best ways this issue can be taken care of is to divide the scientist job into new jobs, likely with their own access restrictions. Some examples of those jobs being:

Scientist: The primary researcher. They have access to RnD and Experimentor.

Chemist(Name not final): Works with chemicals and explosives. Has access to toxins and chemistry.

Xenobiologist: The guy that works with aliens. Has access to xenobiology and chemistry (Gotta test those chems on the xenos). Could have a section with plant trays added so they can work with xenoflora.

Most of the other departments already have their work divided up between multiple roles. Imagine if a doctor not only had access to the medbay and surgery, but also chemistry and virology. That's currently the issue science seems to be facing. Breaking up the job would reduce the power potential of the scientist. This would also encourage people within the department to cooperate more instead of one person doing everything by themselves.

[Comet Blaze]

I actually think we should go an extra step and split even further so that each type of scientist has only access to one area of science with the exception of the experimentor that would be tied with RnD access.

So, for instance: 

Scientist: as you sugested, RnD and the Experimetor

Chemical Reaseracher(since chemist is the guy from medbay): has access to only scichem

Plasma Researcher: has access to toxins

Xenobiologist: has access to xenobiology

This should encourage scientists to actually cooperate instead of doing everything themselves and hopefully fix the issue of "no one is doing rnd" since there is a role specificly for it

[Kyet]

I'd rather increase the freedom/options players have in other jobs, instead of taking away options in science.
Science shows us a little bit about what players find fun (ability to switch between stuff to avoid boredom).

If we ever were to split off a sub-area of science into its own job, the first obvious candidate would be toxins.

Toxins has little use in most rounds, but extremely high grief potential. Thus, its a prime candidate for being its own job, with its own access, and perhaps a higher playtime requirement.

[thatdanguy23]

honestly i just want them split into separate job roles so people aren't beating the shit out of each other over their spots. joining as a xenobiologist specifically to do xenobio and then someone with the job title of "toxins specialist" barging into and taking over the xenobio lab is really, really obnoxious.

[McRamon]

Honestly, i would make toxins+scichem into separate job, only toxins sounds stupid (10-minutes long round, 1h 50m of greytide and nothing to do time) but even combined there is really nothing to do and no goal (rnd has goal, xeno has top tier slimes to help station, medical has nonstop supply of work, atmos tech can also has something to do if there is a new room to supply with air or a breach to fix, all roles on station either have 1) constant work (bs looking after heads), 2) final goal (rnd, even genetics) or 3) rp oriented. Toxin/scichem is neither of those (well toxins has little goal of research but we all know its nothing)

There should be some goals/responsibilities to be implemented in those parts of sci, otherwise it would be stupid to make them separate jobs, imho

[Veterankyl]

On 5/2/2020 at 8:49 PM, McRamon said:

Honestly, i would make toxins+scichem into separate job, only toxins sounds stupid (10-minutes long round, 1h 50m of greytide and nothing to do time) but even combined there is really nothing to do and no goal (rnd has goal, xeno has top tier slimes to help station, medical has nonstop supply of work, atmos tech can also has something to do if there is a new room to supply with air or a breach to fix, all roles on station either have 1) constant work (bs looking after heads), 2) final goal (rnd, even genetics) or 3) rp oriented. Toxin/scichem is neither of those (well toxins has little goal of research but we all know its nothing)

There should be some goals/responsibilities to be implemented in those parts of sci, otherwise it would be stupid to make them separate jobs, imho

Perhaps the 'Materials' research category could be adjusted to accept chemical beakers, which would require complex chemicals in order to reach the higher tiers. That would encourage sci chem to make things other than smoke grenades while also contributing towards research.

[nokko]

Here's my piece: SciChem as it stands is just completely pointless.
60% of the rounds I play Sci, I see chemists beating up monkeys for no reason, making lube, making space drugs, making toxins, and using the lab for nothing else. Logical: there is no other thing to do, since making like 20 space cleaner grenades (more than a janitor will ever need) takes barely 10 minutes, nobody asks for anything (there's nothing non-illegal to ask for other than healing/cleaning/firefighting nades, which are all different tiers of useless), and there's no consequence if you do or don't do your job, correctly or no.

The chem dispensers in that room are more useful to the Botanists (for, y'know, growing plants that Sci needs for R&D) than to the Science department.

You can make the argument that it's there to train medical chemists.... I've never once seen it used that way, at least not in any structured sort of exercise. Regardless, even without SciChem, a novice chemist could just build their own chem dispenser and setup with R&D's help, and learn that way.

It's... pointless, as it stands. Basically just antag bait.