Discussion regarding features for cargo

[GansuLalan]

Cargo is overall my favourite department in the game, though having played it for close to 70 hours of the department across a few different servers I have developed some opinions on the various mechanics of the cargo gameflow. I was wondering what other people thought and am unaware of where to best discuss this sort of thing so I figured here would be fine, please direct me elsewhere if there is a better location.

The bounty system (and the joys of flipping)

I am not the biggest fan of the current bounty system. Overall I find it to be the primary source of money for a cargo team on the average round. Sure, there are other potentially very profitable methods, such as atmos and salvage, however those department tend to be preoccupied with other tasks and thus do not often contribute to cargos money making ways as rounds often end before they can really get going. This leaves the bounty system as the method to acquire funds as simply selling the stations loose items is not profitable enough to justify and in house methods are looked down upon as they are disengaged from the rest of the station and often considered powergamy.

The main problem with the bounty system is that it is also quite powergamy and therefore in my experience doesn't encourage roleplay too well. There are two primary elements to bounties that contribute to their current problems. First, bounties want to be completed fast, this is primarily an early round thing as this is cargos busiest time with the early round resources being a common order between sci and med. This causes problems as due to the speed it can feel the game wants you to move at this early if you encounter much difficulty with waiting for someone to get the items then it's often best to just dump the bounty and move on, this is of course dependent on factors such as player count. This speed can also somewhat hinder rp as most interactions involve approaching the desk, stating the bounty and placing the note and then either waiting for a pickup or running off to start on the next bounty depending on the item in question. People also begin to play around these assumptions, a bartender I saw a few rounds would always immediately empty their bottles out into whatever and then take the empty bottles to cargo just so that the beer and wine bounties could be considered over for the shift, I think when people begin playing around what bounties could come up rather than what has come up there is a design flaw somewhere.

The other major problem with bounties is flipping, or just buying to resell. If a bounty can't be flipped, it's often either makeable in house at cargo or comes from service or just skipped. If you see a QM print off some bounty notices and then head to the shuttle, digiboard in hand, the early round of cargo in regards to money is often over right there as, assuming no major shenanigans, a cargo department only really needs about 20k at most to last a round, with 4-8k easily achievable in a good flipping trip. Flipping should be rather self explanatory in its problems so I shan't dwell.

So I've laid out my current negatives for bounties but what are my current ideas for solutions. Well there's the quick and easy solution and the long solution, the quick and easy solution is a rebalance of starting money, as well as disabling relevant products when a bounty is currently in the system. The long solution is to change the bounty system entirely and I've had two thoughts here as well. The first is to make bounties more dynamic, have a list of items that can be "bountyable" and create the bounties randomly. The goal should be to create bounties that, while technically flappable, you would never want to flip as to buy all the components would be too expensive to justify. The other idea is a lot scarier to implement since it would be a large refactor but would be to forgo the bounty system entirely and swap to an item based economy where items are individually bought and sold with fluctuating prices determining the "chase" items. This would also naturally solve the flipping problem as well, as items would have higher buy costs than sells unless cargo feels like developing a different sort of gambling addiction, the item stock market. This would require a large overhaul so it's a scary idea but could work maybe perhaps.

The stocking problem

For a job called the Quartermaster there sure isn't much quarter to master over ( the dorms are woefully underutilised (╥╯﹏╰╥)ง ). Terrible attempt at word play aside, for how big some cargos are a lot of the space arguably isn't needed as cargo rarely needs to hold anything "in stock" as most products get taken straight off the ats/ cargo shuttle and into the wider station to be delivered to whoever ordered it. The current only reason to hold an item is if one of a few mobile roles ordered it like the clown, janitor, or passenger. In some ways this is arguably fine, better to not hold up the whole station because cargo didn't have a thing in stock, but you can't deny it wouldn't make for potentially interesting rp opportunities as emergency mining teams have to be sent out to get more steel since the stock ran out and none is available for purchase except for maybe an extortionate emergency delivery supply. The item based economy could help with this sort of idea as it is naturally a good idea to stock up on certain things when they are cheap and be buy averse when expensive. The other idea would be to limit the selection of products available at a time, my general thought was something like the RimWorld space traders if you've ever played that game. This idea would also help with the flipping problem as if we consider bounties as items that CC is looking for then getting them from a passing trader should be a viable idea.

Other rp observations

These are less problems I would personally want to address but more just interesting discussion topics

This is more a general question but I feel is an important one I haven't really seen an answer to but, what are we doing exactly? Setting is one of the two main pillars of roleplay imo but the setting can sometimes feel questionable. For what purpose does the station exist? Because I can without qualm gamble away the entire stations bank account and face no issues, the station feels very isolated in that way as no one really cares how much of the station budget cargo "wastes" and no one ever audits cargos completely black box spending. More of an eh point since the idea is so general but the seemingly lack of NT care for the stations activities has been a big part of my ponderings as I order things.

The department is way too trustworthy imo (also departments in general tbh). As QM I can order two laser crates and no one questions it and even if captain does question it I can just say laser bounty and it's all good. I could be about to storm bridge with a group of 5 other people to take the station but no one will consider this a possibility because it can't be one, the general rule of command can't be antag is so overwhelming that I find as QM I can do some real wacky things without being questioned as the meta knowledge that a QM who is being to evil will just get role banned is always there, so the moment someone establishes themselves as a multiple round QM, they get a lot of free reign as they've shown themselves to not be worthy of roleban. Rounds are often to short for non antag conflict to come about as well which is a shame and more avenues for not so much self antag levels of conflict but just some level of interpersonal conflict could be an interesting thing to pursue. The corrupt officer is a very popular trope for how seemingly impossible it is to occur in a round, especially considering how much potential drama and intrigue a corrupt QM can bring especially.

Finally, the circuit imprinter is way too useful. LRP it's a must grab for cargo and even on MRP it's worth getting as there isn't a conceivable reason cargo wouldn't want one in house. New players often go to cargo to try and get circuits since it's the place basically everything comes from so why not circuits. This makes it nice to have one as you can just give them the circuit rather than pointing them to science. It's also so cheap it's hard to justify denying on roleplay grounds especially since it rarely makes sense to deny someone something so cheap, especially if the QM asks for it themselves as command is trustworthy.

I hope this wasn't all to rambley, I thought about just going straight to trying to do a design document but I'm curious about general thoughts regarding the department. I didn't touch on salvage since they are somewhat separate and currently seem to be undergoing stuff. My main concern is this is to idea-guys-ee but I'm at least somewhat confident I could implement any ideas I present here, I just hope this is the right sort of place to discuss this sort of thing... Maybe I just want HRP

[metalgearsloth]

Cool post though issues aren't for bikeshedding. Use the forums or discord.