Vivalas
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Posts posted by Vivalas
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But i feel like it just would make unneccesarily complicated.
For example what if you are flat ass broke and you get injured, you can't get medical treatment or surgery because that costs.
This isn't true, read the debt system. Hospital bills are yet to be balanced, but some feedback on what you feel are appropriate medical costs would be appreciated.
Maybe just import goon station economy?Goonstation's economy is about as useless as our economy, the only difference being that you can buy some neat toys if you get enough money, but people don't prioritize money really all that much on goon.
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I like the colored frames but IMHO the wires underneath are meh.
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Eh. I kinda like them being a unique thing to the warden. I can see the idea behind this, but the blueshield already has ample equipment to defend heads with.
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2000 isn't really that much cash seeing as a bar of chocolate is twenty credits. We'd need to make a fake exchange rate between IRL cash and in game cash to get an idea of what makes sense when it comes to the cost living. I believe Aurora has something we can pluck from their wiki for that. I mean, the lower class having 200 credits? That's 20 candy bars, and that's kind of madness in regards to it being their work place. If this was a city server, maybe it'd make sense.
The economy is supposed to be intentionally harsh, otherwise it falls back into obscurity as an underused thing. Things in the game actually need value, or nobody will use money. Unless you're buying 100 chocolate bars, that's not much, considering you get paid 500 every 20 minutes. For lower class, I agree it is more difficult, but that is intended. We could establish a value for a credit, but I feel like I like the way it is now. Lower paid crew will have to resort to other means to pay for gas tax, fines, and hospital bills, as well as food. Scrounging for supplies in maint to sell to cargo will be the main source of income for civilians, as well as tips if they actually help out. If we make it too "easy", it'd be like there is no economy, and we're back to where we were in the first place. Having to find interesting ways to make money sound pretty fun, even resorting to robbery to steal money from people. By making money an integral part of the game, we open up many different interesting experiences. A bazaar where people buy and sell junk. Assistants who peddle insulated gloves for cargo, money making schemes, shady contraband dealers in maint, the possibilities are endless. Right now none of this is really practical because money has no value.
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Some good points you bring up, but work orders are completely optional. If the station is somehow turning a profit without them, they're not needed. Also whenever I play HoP I have pretty much the whole round to do absolutely nothing, but maybe that's just me. As far as work orders go, they're not meant to be a a compulsive "authorize me as soon as I am made" type thing, only when they are actually needed. And the interface is planned to be smooth and easy to use, like clicking a bunch of buttons in order, ACCEPT / DECLINE type thing.
As for the CE, gas tax isn't meant to be a burden on any individual person, but I struggled to find a good income source. I don't think departments should be charged for repairs, and 40 credits an hour doesn't seem too burdensome. Of course the CE can jack the tax rates up, but that should be an IC thing really, with the captain telling him to turn them back to normal, or the crew just outright revolting.
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This is an idea I have had in the works for a few months, and I posted it a couple times on other threads regarding reworks of our mostly unused economy infrastructure. The purpose of this thread is to get feedback for improving the proposed system, as well as gathering community support, as well as admin support, before working on this project, as it will be very wide reaching and change quite a few facets of gameplay.
As this is a discussion post, please leave feedback and use constructive criticism. Thoughtless "-1"/drama/salt/"THIS IS THE MOST STUPID FUCKING IDEA EVER" without any explanation to why you do not like the proposed system or how to possibly improve it will be mostly ignored. Likewise, if you like the system, if possible explain what parts you like the most.
This is a recycled post, so parts of it may be incomprehensible, but most of the meaning is there.
I plan to fully implement this system myself if it is approved, and if it does it will be implemented in many small parts.
(Large Wall of Text)
Starting Wealth: Different occupations start with different amounts of credits at the beginning of the round. A key theme throughout history of creating economy-based drama and conflict is the addition of wealth gaps. I'm imagining there'd be three 'wealth classes' that determine how much money you start with at the beginning of the round.
"Upper Class": Command, NT Rep, Blueshield, etc. These would start with 2000 credits in their account each shift. They wouldn't really run into any monetary problems over the course of the shift.
"Middle Class": The "big" three (or four) departments: Engineering, Security, Medical, and Research staff would start with 500 credits in their account. The QM also falls into this class.
"Lower Class": The largest class, and also the lowest paid. Players in this class would be greyshirts, mime/clown, shaft miners/cargo techs, and the service department. These would start with 100 credits in their account.
The idea is that the different classes have about a 4-5x seperation in wealth, creating a noticeable gap.
Accounts: Each department account would start with about 1000 credits in it. There would also be a main station account with 20000 credits in it, a payroll account with 15000 credits in it, and an emergency account with 10000 credits in it.
Wages: Wages would be paid once every 20 minutes from the payroll account. The base wages for the different classes would be: 50 per cycle for Lower Class, 100 per cycle for Middle Class, and 500 per cycle for Upper Class.
Take an example station: 5 heads of staff, about 5 in each "middle department", and 20 total lower class workers. This is a mid-to-high pop station. The amount per cycle in the payroll paid to employees would be (5x500) + (20x100) + (50x20) = 4500 per credits per cycle. This would take about an hour usually to deplete the starting payroll budget, so usually, along with other money sinks, there would need to be management.
Management: The HoP gains the responsibility of managing the station budget and "work orders" which will be explained lower in the post. Various departments would have ways of managing their expenses and generating income, and the HoP is the one in charge of the station accounts and the budget. More on this will be explained lower.
Money Sinks/Gains (For the station as a whole): First of all, the current method of transferring money (EFTPOS scanners) are inefficient and unwieldy. A simple and quick replacement for EFTPOS scanners will need to be created and made widely available to the crew. However, the current barrier to paying for services (such as food, and medical care) is how loooong it takes to set up transactions, and is generally not fun. There needs to be made faster ways to process these that are almost automatic. Let's call these "work orders".
Each department would have various ways of acquiring income.
Service: The kitchen gains a "nanopaste injector" which can inject food with nanobots that mark the price of the food. This price can be seen by examining the food. When food is eaten, the nanobots take the DNA of the consumer and use this to generate a "work order" based on the medical records found by that DNA string. A work order with the price is sent to the HoP and the linked account for processing.
Medical: A "medical ticket" dispenser could be added to the lobby. These holographic tickets can be printed out for a small fee, or a diagnostic charge. These will last for 20 minutes and mark the user on medical HUDS. The dispenser can be configured to automatically grant access to medical bay if these tickets are bought (so patients can buy their way in), but this would start off by default and be up to the CMO. This "fast entry" feature can also be configured with whitelists and blacklists so that, for example, crew can buy a ticket to enter medical bay and get treatment, but a certain crew member or profession (clown or mime, for example), that prints the ticket but does not grant access. (So to prevent unwanted entry into medical.) Additionally use of health analyzers on patients can generate seperate work orders based on the severity of the injuries of the patient. Cryotubes and operating tables can also be configured to generate work orders (surgery is expensive, yo!).
Security: SecHUDS can be used to fine criminals based on infractions on Space Law. The HoS must approve these fines at his request console. The base fines would be "Disturbance": 10 credits (anything that grants a warning from an officer or a very minor infraction that does not end in brig time) Minor Crime: 50 credits, Moderate Crime: 100 credits, and Major Crimes : 500 credits. These stack with multiple offenses. This helps security generate revenue but also discourages self-antagging. Capital Crimes would warrant a "termination" of the convict's account, freezing the account and transferring all credits to the station account.
Engineering: The CE can choose to instate a "gas tax" or "safety tax" which is a small automated tax on every crew member. The base tax would be 10 credits every 15 minutes.
Research: Research can generate work orders by upgrading machines with the RPED (which automatically charges the affected department's account), and selling mechs/upgraded equipment.
Work Orders: All the above things (and possiblly more) generate "work orders" or "payment orders". These must be approved by the HoP, and will collect over time. In short, none of the above things will actually charge the crew's accounts unless the HoP actually processes the orders. This is to prevent abuse by crewmembers spamming RPEDS or health analyzers on other crew to gain money for their department and the station. For things like medical and research, these orders can be "grouped", and an automated algorithm can be useful for doing so. If a doctor scans a patient's vitals multiple times, the HoP can condense these into one charge, not multiple. This process is also completely optional. A HoP might find themselves never approving any payment orders, depending on other income sources they might come across. In this matter they collect over time, so an hour into the round the HoP might be low on funds only to open up the work orders screen to find tons of orders they can process to raise money.
Balance of Powers: It is important to note that the HoP has no control over, say, the price of the gas tax, the cost of medical treatment, or the fines set by the HoS. The HoP simply has the power to accept/deny these orders and set the "tax amount" (how much of the money goes to the station account and how much goes to the department account. Default 50/50). The different department heads control the various prices of their services, so this introduces some meaningful department politics. Additionally. the HoP cannot transfer money out of department accounts, only in.
The Captain, however, is the central authority on the station budget, having complete control over all prices and departmental/station funds. As they, of course, are the CO of the Cyberiad. This gives the Captain a lot of political capital to shift around when negotiating/making deals with other heads. Piss off the captain by toe-ing the line and you might find your department's budget mysteriously a few hundred credits short.
Money Sinks (station): Of course, department and station budgets are useless without money sinks to be worked around. The most obvious and largest money sink of course is the payroll, which will have the largest effect. Faxes to central and such cost money, as well as a small "operating cost" whenever a shuttle is moved (cargo/mining/research/etc.). Another sink is the cost of calling (and recalling) the emergency shuttle, which is a flat 10000 credits to call, 5000 to recall. This is the primary purpose of the emergency budget. Additionally cargo would be moved to a system based on credits rather than supply points, and all items in the game would recieve an arbitrary value so lower-class crew trying to scratch a living to get food and medical treatment could sell stuff to cargo. Another possible money sink from the station would be "audits" from central command, or audits from the NT Rep.
Crew Side of the Economy: So far all this talk has been about the station and various budgets, but what about the individual? Well, for one, the starting pay of most crew will serve to pay off food and medicine until the first few pay-rounds, but there are various other ways to get money, such as transactions with other crew members.
A system of bonuses/raises can also be implemented. Heads could give crew bonuses/raises, which come from the department budget, to reward or encourage good work from their staff.
As for money sinks, this is the fun part. The above systems add plenty of ways to go into debt and become bankrupt. Getting robusted by the clown not only means getting a face full of medical bills, but also a possible fine if security believes (falsely, of course, those fascist skreks) that you were part of the fight. Another spectrum of gameplay is added where crew also have to balance their money as well as the other parts of SS13.
Debt: It's inevitable, and it will eventually happen. The HoP is able to set two thresholds, a "debt cap", and a "debt limit". The debt cap (default -100 credits) is the maximum amount of debt an employee can go into before they are cut off. The station budget automatically pays off the indebted money, up to the limit, unless the money is going to the station budget itself. Accounts in the red will reroute all recieved money into the station budget until they are out of debt. While the debt cap only cuts off spending, it is still possible to accrue extra debt, such as from hospital bills or, probably the most common form, from security fines. When the account's debt reaches the "debt line" (default -1000 credits), the HoP will recieve a message from his PDA or request console, and security will also be notified. If the captain or HoS agree to it, then the HoP can order a crew member past the "debt limit" detained. That crew member will then be forced to work at the labor camp for a certain amount of time at which point the station will pay off the crew member's debt. Alternately, the HoP could also freeze the employee's account to prevent further debt.
Station Debt: The HoP dun goofed, and now the station is out of money. What happens here is really up to the admins, either CC can leave the station in the rain and politely tell them "you're fucked, you're here to make us money, not cost us money", or bail out the station. In the latter case. the HoP will most likely be demoted for incompetence as this is a breach of SOP on the HoP's end. In the event payroll is not able to be paid, the crew will probably be very pissed off, and CC will send some stern warnings to the station.
Aggressive Money Making Strategies: If the station is running out of money, the HoP is expected to take more and more vigorous measures to ensure bankruptcy never happens. Such things can involve higher prices and taxes, or more departmental tax (e.g., 95% percent of work order revenue goes to station budget rather than 50), or even sales tax on transactions between crew members (security now gets to enforce these and arrest people who try to conduct under-the-table sales using cash). What happens is really up to the captain/HoP but the more authoritarian command becomes the more likely the crew will get pissed off and simply mutiny or quit altogether.
Cargo/Accounts: Since cargo would use departmental budgets to order everything, they take on a more active role then sitting around waiting for orders. They can barter and buy things from the crew (like a pawn shop), to sell back to CC. The use of department accounts comes into mind here because various staff can use their department accounts to purchase things like virus crates or sheets of metal.
Because of the nature of accounts though, getting your head to come authorize all purchases can be painstaking though, so a "permissions system" could be made to allow certain trusted staff to use the department budget in absence of the head/
The ore-redeemer can also serve as a source of revenue for cargo. And would be the main money sink for research.
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Optional Fun Idea: Traders
A ghost-join role where people "visitors" can dock with the station and sell goods/services to the crew. They would have a special Z-level where they can use special vendors to buy stuff to sell, and can make multiple trips back and forth.
Visitors would fall under a special SOP, where space law does not apply to them.
In the event they cause trouble, they can be politely asked to leave the station, or be permanently detained. In the case they do not wish to leave peacefully, their ship and all it's possessions can be seized and sold/auctioned to the crew, and the ship can be forcefully undocked form the station. Such aggressive manners of conducting business are looked down upon by NT however, and abusing this power to anger traders may result in some unkind CC announcements. Matters regarding visitors fall entirely upon the Captain, and the magistrate has no say in the matter.
As a rule, about 2-3 traders can be active at any one time, and only about 1 or 2 can join the round every 30 minutes.
This system would help the economy and allow outside trade for things not normally find able on station. Insulated glove merchants anyone?
To combat contraband, the warden, HoS, and captain can alter a list of "restricted items", using the newscasters.
This list falls into two categories: "prohibited items" and "restricted items", and these lists would be available to read from newscasters so to keep traders and the crew update on import/export laws.
"restricted" covers items like insulated gloves and guns, which only certain jobs are permitted to have
"prohibited" covers things like explosives and hand teles, that only command or nobody at all is allowed to have.
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Persistence (Optional Fun Rule #2): As the framework for this is already in place thanks to failed earlier attempts, this could be looked at again. An idea I have for this is to make in-game accounts separate from OOC accounts. Mainly, all players have a shared account across their characters that starts with 100 credits. At the end of the round 10% of all money they have in their personal account goes into their OOC account (provided they escape on the shuttle or pods alive and not in the shuttle brig) . All players will start with a special device they can use to withdraw money from their OOC account, when they need it in a round.
This way, OOC accounts are a useful tool if you need money in a pinch and they grow slowly over time. They can withdraw from their OOC accounts over the course of the round, just not put money back in.
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So, in closing this I realize this is a bit hastily typed and may be a bit indecipherable. If you something needs clarification just ask and I can explain it better.
Tl;dr: HoP gets more stuff to do, cargo gets more stuff to do, departments get a seamless way to charge for services without using clunky EFTPOS scanners, and command politics becomes a thing.
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Dealing with greyshits who think they know things.
>Arrsted for breaking into kitchen to steal knife, brutally assaulting chef, yakety saxing, and assaulting officers>Takes away tool belt
>hey u cant strip me shitsec fuck
>HAL!p shITSEC GREIFIng me!
This honestly reminds me of a video I watched earlier today:
I watched that after I saw it on Reddit. The whole 35 minutes too. The part where that one officer breaks a window on a car with his own hands by bending it backwards then just fucking rips the guy out reminded me off SS13 security for some reason.
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On CM, breaches are a lot more dangerous. I assume this is the ZAS a lot of people speak of.
It is a shame that it causes a fair bit of lag, though.. I do agree that the current one is only really dangerous with big breaches, otherwise it isn't too problematic for engineers to fix and atmos to fix.
Maybe one day someone will tinker up something that takes the best of both codes to make something that is a little more like ZAS, but with a bit less lag, you know?
CM indeed uses ZAS as it is based on baycode. ZAS works by dividing the map into zones. Like Rimworld. Confined spaces are their own zones, and so air transfers happen over the entire zone instanenously. If their is a breach in ZAS you will know because everyone in the room will immediately be flung towards the breach, or on higher difficulty settings, even sucked out the hole entirely. ZAS is great fun because generally idiots like to open those giant emergency doors and so air is constantly shifting around knocking people over. The downside is lag and occasional bugs that happen after fires or explosions that cause zones not to split and merge properly leading to wonky things happening.
Linda is the shitty replacement we have, reskin of the older FEA engine that SS13 was designed on (I say designed on because SS13 started as an atmospheric simulation in BYOND). Linda uses a tile-by-tile method, which causes less lag but is generally more tame and boring because, say, if a room breaches, the air will very slowly and painfully shift over tile by tile until it decompresses. The downside to Linda is it is a literal hugbox and is boring as hell, plus the fact that playing engineering is a hassle because refilling rooms is a pain in the ass.
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So far the only problems I see stated here are:
1. They are good at their job. So? Security Officers are too. I'd much rather play a regular sec officer than a borg. Stun immunity (but not really) isn't worth all the drawbacks.
2. People are dicks when playing them. This I agree with. But, so what? We have admins for a reason. If a sec borg is being shit, report the problem, so it actually gets fixed, so the asshole that is bad at playing sec borgs STOPS playing them. I've never been for removing features "because people can grief". The number of issues I've had with bad sec borg players is nowhere near the amount needed to justify this as a chronic problem that needs fixing.
Just because you can't greytide with immunity then disarm spam the sec borg that comes to arrest your ass means that sec borgs are OP. They have a niche role, and that is about it.
To summarize, officers are better all-round to everyday security tasks. They are adaptable. Greytider? Whip out the pepperspray. Greytide? Whip out the flashbangs and riot gear. Hostiles? Whip out the pew pews. Rogue engineer? Whip out the hardsuits.
Sec borgs can do certain things better than officers, yes, but their overall performance is subpar. Their role is one of assault. Few people go up against sec borgs directly while unprepared. Their conventional stun immunity makes them great for prowling maintenance during high alerts without worrying about being killed or kidnapped. Their design is suited towards direct action and combat. If you go up against a borg 1v1 unprepared, you will lose every time. They are also decent against greytide (unless they have flashes), and have a few other uses, but they also have tons of disadvantages. They can't interact with most objects, meaning you can trap them easily. They can't navigate past panel'd doors like crew can by whacking the door with an ID, they have to recharge constantly, and probably the worst of all, one flash pretty much spells death for a cyborg unless they have backup. Not to mention their lack of an effective area stun weapon, or any sort of lethal ranged weapon short of being subverted.
Security officers are more general purpose. Sec borgs are more specialized. The latter is not even closed to being OP, and eliminating an entire role is not really justified because some people play it badly.
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When are the senseless security nerfs gonna stop? Secborgs are not super cops. They have to recharge, and can be robusted by pretty much anyone with a flash (or even a bucket of water). They have their niche role to fill, but by no means are they a game changer. They have their upsides and downsides, like regular officers.
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>Arrsted for breaking into kitchen to steal knife, brutally assaulting chef, yakety saxing, and assaulting officers
>Takes away tool belt
>hey u cant strip me shitsec fuck
>HAL!p shITSEC GREIFIng me!
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Junior professions should be tied to the actual job, not to civilian. It would essentially be the same as joining as that job, but letting everyone also know you're new.
As HoS I pretty much transfer everyone into security as a cadet with limited access, until they earn it.
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It honestly seems like the OP would fit in better on a HRP server. I played on BS12 for about 3-4 years before coming here and its recent death saddens me. I had so many great memories with that station and the merc rounds were the best (I fucking played as a space hitler wrestler named the Fascist Fist as the whole merc team tried to wrestle the station for the champion belt. There are different kinds of servers because people have different tastes. I used to play HRP almost exclusively but started leaning to Paradise for something new, and I loved it. The pace was perfect, and, I've said it again and again, the perfect mix of RP and action. Well things have changed a bit, and that's not entirely true but I still like it.
I really play in cycles. I used to switch between goon and Bay when I got tired of RP or got tired of mindless violence. I love engineering, med, and science on HRP because the RP is so fucking great (especially in science if you're creative, xenoarch used to be my honeypot). That's really the main reason I play command and security almost exclusively on Paradise, the other departments feel so meta'd out there's almost no need to play them.
But rose-tinted rant aside, you probably should try a few rounds on Bay or Polaris. You might really like it. I wish there were more meta restrictions on Paradise, but I don't think it should be full HRP. When I first started playing here that balance was perfect and we've started shifting more towards the LRP end (3 big things: tesla, goonchem, and cryo auto-eject / magic defibs).
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Listing generally makes security more interesting but also increases the amount of UristMcSilentBaldAndHarmbaton officers.
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so this just happened
gj admins
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In my opinion magistrate should be whitelisted rather than karma-locked. It's too vital a role to the security process to be locked behind a karma wall.
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First one falls under the "you are expected to know this going in " category.
This is assuming people aren't rule-lawyering assholes, which they are. If you tell someone to do something on code red and tell em "it's because code red, you need to listen to me" they'll go "the fuck it is, show me where officer".
Almost all of SOP can be condensed into common sense. If you leave that bit out you can bet people won't follow it.
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Wow this thread is approaching dangerous levels of salt, but I completely agree with everything here.
I often compare paracode with baycode, given I played on bay for 3-4 years before I shifted here. When I first joined Paradise and it was listed, I loved it. The general atmosphere was great. There was always something going on, I remember half the station being blown up by the furry freedom force, and jist playing my violin and smoking with some Tajaran dude in the hallway as we complained about life. It was great. Now it just feels kinda dull. I loved paracode at first because it was a nice mix of bay and /tg/, but now we're leaning way too close to the /tg/ end of the spectrum. I miss the complexity and difficulty of baycode.
I think medical and engineering have been completely ruined. I used to play engineering and medical almost all the time on bay, but now I rarely play engineering and barely ever touch medical. LINDA is absolute hugbox and the Tesla is a joke. There is literally no point in playing medical other than for surgery because of the almighty cryotube magical omnipotent healing machine. Sure, maybe it's Rose-tinted glasses, but I still remember my first few games of SS13 in 2012 and I miss it. And no I don't like retro SS13. I've downloaded and ran OpenSS13 and OldBay and both were utter shit.
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8-Ball knows best. Clown threw it at me and so I picked it up and asked it a question.
Abductor led security on a chase through primary hallway gunning at them as it ran. In the resulting shootout the thing was downed and this continued for like at least 30 seconds until the CMO started screaming that the damn thing was dead and there were cultists in medbay that needed dealing with.
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The only thing I see missing on a preliminary glance is that you omitted the whole "crew must comply with security requests" and "security can demand enterance into departments during regular patrols" thing on code red and blue. These are useful and I think they should be in.
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I like the idea but agree this isn't really limited to the psych. I say it should be medical's job in general to restrain and help the pandos but the psych and CMO should be in charge of it. Psychiatrist doesn't need to be an important job. It should remain an RP thing. But this does sound cool and would give psychiatrists some people to RP with.
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I agree defibbing should be nerfed. I like the idea and sound effects of the defibs, but they are really overpowered. Cloning really isn't that easy or streamlined. It takes time and is a hassle. I like the way defibs work in colonial marines really.
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I think cloning should be made much more difficult and have more permanent and long-lasting consequences. I designed a possible system for a seperate game I'm working on that involves using a big claw-like thing to rip pieces of flesh from the corpse, and put the flesh into a series of machines with the end product being a embroyotic vial that gets put into a cloner. The victim's brain has to be transplanted into the new body, which has to be defibbed. The whole process is labor intensive and time intensive and so would only likely be used on high ranking and important crew. I drew up a diagram and if I can be bothered to find it I will post it here.
The whole procedure carries possibilities of permanant and irreversible brain damage as well.
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To beepsky, I'm a new level of low.
(Attacked beepers with a loyalty implant.)
Random idea
in Suggestions
Posted
This would be cool as some sort of green newbie helmet with neurotransmitters or whatever in it that the HoP and department heads start with that they can give to newer players for a ghost (or mentor) to talk directly into their head and help them out. The helmet also tells everyone you're a newb.