Also, please do not force R&D to work with mining. It's not fun for anybody when half of your potential job is cut off just so teamwork is enforced. Scientists end up sitting on their asses half the time, or miners end up sitting on wasted plasma half the time because one or the other is busy and/or incompetent. I mean, yes, generally, I see more teamwork on Urist McStation, but things happen. Not to mention that the low server-pop means that you might not get people to do certain jobs.
So very much this. As an example, even though Robotics is technically part of R&D, if theres no one actually doing R&D (they could be in toxins, accidentally blowing up toxins, or be in xenobiology, possibly die in there, or mucking about in the misc. research room, or the RD could be sitting around in their office for no raisins) and no QM the roboticist can't do a damn thing except make a couple medibots and be an engineer with a labcoat but without the access to anything worthwhile.
I'd actually like to see this changed in the future. Hydroponics has this same problem in being totally unable to do anything except make pumpkin masks, corn cob pipes, and get high without the assistance of other jobs, as does the chef. Honestly? It makes the job that much less fun to play. Come to think of it: why wouldn't roboticists get access to R&D? Hell, maybe R&D could be split up into two sections? After all, there is the
server. Why couldn't roboticists contribute half the R&D? On top of
that, why don't the engineers have a circuit imprinter? If all three jobs worked together, a hell of a lot of R&D could be done. Although, to be quite honest, R&D would have to be crimped and cut in certain places to ensure that the engineers don't end up with a bunch of Advanced Energy Guns. Maybe like 4 R&D sets: one in robotics, one in science, one in the bridge, and one in engineering, but with varying access to levels of tech. Only the bridge would have access to syndicate-type tech and the weapons-tech. Which wouldn't really change much in terms of the Research Director's power, since he still has access to the Bridge and thus access to all of R&D.
If there's any good coders out there they could make a new engine and for the time being I could put a magic SMES.
I'm not a fantastic coder, but I could certainly make it easier to run the existing engines. Not anything complex like Goonstation's combustion engine.
Actually, hmm. I wonder if I can make the otherworldly creature mob emit radiation? That would be amusing: having a horrifying abomination locked away in a dark room aboard the research station, fed only by a few spare monkeys, powering the entire research station.