Chief Engineer

The Chief Engineer is the individual in charge of the ship's integrity, electricity, and IT network. That means making sure there are no breaches, equipment remains operational, and that the communications network remains online. As the chief engineer, you have authority over ship's engineers and the atmospheric technicians.

Role
You are the head of the Engineering department, which includes not only Engineers, but Atmospheric Technicians as well. Essentially, your job is to boss Engineering and Atmospherics around and make sure the engine, atmospherics, and the solars are set up so that the power and air are constantly flowing.

Other than directing the workflow of the department, you're also expected to carry out general Engineer duties and maintain the telecommunications network. To be a good chief it is imperative that you have a good working knowledge of how APCs, SMES cells, and power in general works, how to decipher atmospherics, how to efficiently set up the supermatter and thrusters, and how to lead and delegate effectively. Knowing how to work the Tesla reactor will be necessary too.

Duties
Your primary jobs are direction and education. Teach your engineers how to do things on slow rounds, and assign them to specific tasks on frantic ones; ideally, the only time you will be getting directly involved is when your own personal skills are required. You do not necessarily need to know everything about engineering - there is quite a bit of it - but you should be familiar enough with the department to solve both common and uncommon issues, or at least personally skilled enough to deduce solutions, and most importantly, teach! There is no job that surpasses the capability of an atmospherics technician to be completely clueless about his own department.

At the Start of the Round
You will find yourself spawning in the meeting room, surrounded by your department. Your first priority should be to identify any trainees present and see what they need to learn, if anything. Once the trainees have piped up with their needs, assign an engineer to teach them, or do it yourself if no one is available. For your engineers themselves, what tasks you can assign to individuals will vary depending on the size of your team, but as a general rule you will want shields, RCON, thrusters, and a reactor (Tesla or Supermatter) being tended to by someone before you let them all leave. If you take to charge these first minutes of the round, your staff will be far more likely to listen to you should crunch time start. If you stay quiet or give poor direction, you can guarantee that you are going to have a hard time getting anyone to do anything at your call.

The Supermatter Reactor
Setting up the engine and supplying power to the ship should be the first priority of the engineering department. Most of the time your team will be fairly competent and you'll only need to supervise, but sometimes you'll have to step in, such as if trainees are the only ones available. Read the guide, and make sure you know it, though you should have experience with it already. You may wish to give an order on where the waste will be sent even if you do not tend to the supermatter personally - your two options are atmospherics and the scrubber network. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Solar Panels
Whilst the supermatter outputs a ton of power, it's always nice to have a fallback plan. This is where solars come in. Unfortunately, you don't have any solar arrays on the Horizon! You do have a crate of solar equipment in engineering hard storage, though, which you can use to set up a solar array if all else fails.

Tesla Knowledge
The default setup is already almost complete. Add some missing parts from the storage (never forget the grounding rods!) and make sure to have someone set up the beacons, just in case. Prevention is the best cure. Feel free to give your engineers or trainees a pro tip in that the Tesla particle accelerator terminal can be hacked like a machine by clicking on it with an open hand then switching to a tool. If you cut the right wire, it'll make a grinding noise and you unlock an extra power level to get the Tesla going faster.

Atmospherics, the Great City-State of Pipes
The supermatter is radiating, the thrusters are firing and the engineers are at your beck and call. The ship is getting a steady supply of power and you're confident your team can maintain this and repair any damage to the hull. Your job is done, right? Not quite. You need to understand Atmospherics.

Yes, as hard as it is to accept, that convoluted bundle of pipes and its clueless staff are under your jurisdiction and it's your responsibility to make sure that it's keeping everybody breathing. As the CE, you are expected to know the basics of how atmos works, how to optimize it, and then how to keep people from messing it up. If possible, it's recommended that you have as much experience in Atmospherics as you do in regular construction and engineering. Nobody likes a Chief Engineer that does not know how to re-pressurize a room correctly. Again, read the guide and learn it.

All you really have to do with atmos is get acquainted with its staff (You can do this at round start along with your direct minions, as they share the engineering channel), make sure they know how to optimize it (if not, do it yourself - better yet teach them), make sure that the thrusters have been brought online, and then check back in periodically to ensure some one hasn't tampered with it.

Continued Maintenance
Now that the ship's systems are running at maximum capacity or are in the process of being made to do so, you can relax a little and think of some other activities.


 * Inquire with your department to see if anyone has some projects they have been meaning to work on.
 * Periodically check out Atmospherics to make sure nobody's messed it up.
 * Keep an eye on the alarm console for issues. When you hear of one, send a couple of engineers out to mend the damage.
 * Supervise the supermatter and take action if it looks like it's going to breach out of containment.
 * For longer rounds, make sure that someone re-energizes the Tesla to keep it from fizzling out.
 * Talk to your team. Make sure the thrusters are on, and if necessary, ensure there's always at least one engineer in Engineering to monitor power levels or alarms.

As Chief Engineer, most of the time final project authorization will fall to you. The only person who can overrule you in matters of ship projects is the Captain, or if the work is being done in a specific department, that department's head. Try to be lenient in what you allow - most of the time, your engineers won't ask to do nonsense projects, though you should deny them if they do.

Links to Other Departments
You coordinate actions between the captain, the other heads of departments, and your engineers. You'll be working with Security when they need to get into a crime scene that happens to be depressurized, with Medical when they need to rescue someone in an area that's minus atmosphere or plus poison (do try to keep them from rushing in and adding to the casualties), and with Science when they've inevitably unleashed a xenobiological monstrosity.