Senior Researcher

RESEARCH

Senior Researcher

Сложность: Medium Глава: Chief Science Officer Обязанности: The Chief's right hand. Handle day-to-day operations of the Research department. Ensure that orders are carried out quickly and efficiently. Stop slime outbreaks and anomalies containment breaches as they happen. Рекомендуемые руководства: Guide to Research and Development, Guide to Xenoarchaeology, Guide to Xenobiology, Guide to Xenobotany, Guide to Anomalies

The most senior member of the Research crew, the Senior Researcher is in charge of seeing that the rest of the schlubs in the department know what they're supposed to be doing, and are actually doing so quickly and professionally. It is their job to translate the Chief Science Officer's orders into actions and to oversee the day-to-day operations of the department to be certain that everything is done correctly. They are the executive to the Chief Science Officer's administrator, the Sergeant to the commissioned officer, the one that turns the list of priorities and instructions into actual work by the rest of the department. They are the middle-man between the CSO and the rest of Research, and should coordinate closely with both.

Starting Out

The Senior Researcher doesn't have any urgent things to get to at roundstart. If you don't have a decently sized team of scientists, then it might be worth it for you to do R&D yourself just so that the ship can get access to upgraded parts and equipment later down the line. If you do, however, then you may want to have one of your researchers do it so you can focus more on coordinating the department. At roundstart, you should be making sure you're aware of what all your Scientists and Research Assistants are up to – what kind of slimes Xenobiologists are focusing on, when and with which shuttle Xenoarchaeologists are planning to leave on, et cetera.

Essentials of the Job

As Senior Researcher, you're the second-in-command of the Research Department. You're generally the most experienced of the scientists on-staff, so try to have at least a basic knowledge of all aspects of science before you play this role. You're an executive, not an administrator, meaning you're expected to still participate in the lab work an ordinary Scientist would when you're not occupied by other duties.

Your main job as Senior Researcher should be coordinating the department, keeping everything working smoothly and by the book, and ensuring the various laboratories are all running smoothly.

• Keep your team safe. Make sure your scientists are using proper protective equipment and following safety procedures. They probably shouldn't be injecting research assistants with mutation toxin (without filling out the proper forms first).
• Offer advice or guidance to researchers that need it. Be sure to check in with your researchers regularly and see what they're working on and if there's anything you can do to help it. However, keep in mind most scientists don't exactly like being micromanaged, and attempting to constantly oversee everyone will probably result in a squad of angry nerds shoving you out an airlock.
• Keep things above-board. Handle making sure all experiments conducted follow proper regulation and procedure, as well as that all the consent forms have been filled out if human test subjects are being used. In addition, you should make sure that findings are properly documented and reported to the CSO so that they can stick it in a filing cabinet and never look at it again.
• Get the lab what it needs. Make sure needed materials are ordered and that your researchers aren't wasting supply credits by ordering resources you already have, before you have to fend off a mob of Deck Technicians armed with crowbars and a lust for scientist blood.
• Keep the department running smoothly. Make sure that any coordination between laboratories is done smoothly - getting Xenobio to share their dark purple slimes to keep your phoron supply well-stocked and making sure your Xenoarchaeologists bring back lots of anomalies to play with, for instance.
• If there's no CSO, coordinate working with other departments. Engineering and Medical might both need to be called in if an experiment goes awry, and they'll likely need replacement machines or upgraded parts and equipment from you too. Exploration is also very important to your job - make sure the explorers are gathering samples and specimens for your team to play with, and you might want to send a Xenoarchaeologist or a Field Assistant down as well.

As a Senior Researcher, you should also be ready to organise your team to respond to any anomalous or xeno-scientific threats to the Torch, as well. If there's a xenobiological containment breach, a deadly gene-modded vine or a dangerous anomaly threatening the ship, it's your job to organise the neutralisation of the threat and, ideally, yelling at the researcher who allowed it to get loose in the first place.

Tips for Antagonising

• As a Science Traitor, you have access to a large array of tools. Fabrication and chemistry can provide some very nasty tricks, and even Xenobiology and Xenobotany can come in useful as well. These can be very helpful, both for yourself or for your teammates in roundtypes like Cult and Mutiny.
• You have access to the largely secluded Petrov, which can be useful for fabricating suspicious items away from the prying eyes of the rest of the department.
• The Senior Researcher has one advantage over the rest of science: their maintenance access, an invaluable tool for any enterprising Traitor.
• If you need to escape in a hurry, you also have access to the helm of the GUP, though be careful you don't get caught unawares by security teleporting aboard.

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