Economy Rework (Discussion) (POLL)

[Vivalas]

 

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.

 

 

Edited July 18, 2016 by Guest

[necaladun]

 

A lot of good ideas here, and I like the range of pay threshholds. I'd be tempted to put sec into the lower end for the classic of underpaid overworked officers, and for incentives for them to take bribes.

 

I agree completely that EFTPOS needs to go. I'm not sure about the whole "pay when you eat" for food - I think it'd be better to just give the chef a vending machine type thing.

 

I'm not sure entirely on the way the med stuff would work - It'd be nicer if that was a lot more automated. I think swiping ID would be the best way to charge a lot of that stuff. Cloning is the main thing that I think should be charged there, with cryo and surgery close seconds. There'd also need to be options for people without ID, humanized monkeys, etc.

 

Engineering - I think this needs a lot more work, or either to be discounted all together. I love in a lot of ways the "company town" idea of charging people for the air they breathe, but as it is the only reason the CE would enable those charges would be to be a douche.

 

Research selling mechs etc runs into the problem of who gets the money, and who owns the item - the bartender shouldn't be able to buy the only ripley and claim it as his own property.

 

Work orders in general would be hell for the HoP to authorise every one in a busy round on top of doing ID changes, planning a coup against the captain and patting ian.

 

[Vivalas]

 

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.

 

[necaladun]

I think for engineering, leaving them underpaid with little income is actually a good thing - encourages them to sell insulated gloves, etc.

[Jakers457]

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.

[Vivalas]

 

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.

 

[duckchan]

yoooooo i support this 100%. i've seen chef's and bartenders try to charge for food/drinks, and most people just say fuck them and go to the vending machines. so there'd need to be some sort of balance for that imho

[Kyet]

 

I like the idea, but I worry that if it was this involved, it would distract from the main fun of the round.

Though equally, people might enjoy competing for currency?

 

[liran424]

Maybe just import goon station economy?

[LittleBigKid2000]

Why not just have a vending machine in front of the kitchen that the chef can put food in and people can buy food from instead of 'nanopaste'?

[Doukan]

 

We really need this.

 

Something or anything to distract from the antag focused gameplay would be a fine addition, at current it's pretty much universally focused on acting/reacting on whatever the bad guys get up to and whatever bar arrpee people can be bothered indulging in.

 

I'd say put right below a better atmos system in terms of "whip the coder slaves into doing it" priority.

 

[saywat_the_15th]

 

This would be quite a big thing to implement, also it would directly affect a big part of gameplay. On one hand i feel like it would be a nice change but on the other hand it feels like not such a good thing.

 

Sure it would be nice to actually care about the money you got .

It could bring some fun RP trading stuff and setting up stores.

 

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.

 

I more tip on the -1 side.

 

[Vivalas]

 

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.

 

[Vivalas]

It's kinda weird a major change like this doesn't have much discussion or contention. I'm going to put up a poll then, to gather a more formal opinion. I'm kinda weary of doing so though because some people who see polls immediately vote without actually reading.

[FlattestGuitar]

 

One thing that most of these economy rework ideas tend to miss is the fact that on our server a single round is never an isolated situation. Most characters know each other from previous shifts and most characters tend to pick up similar jobs every shift.

 

If my character always plays HoS when the slot is free, and then, when one shift he has to be a lowly security officer his bank account is miraculously 20 times smaller, there will be some obvious problems in terms of consistency.

 

I like the way it is currently better, since money not mattering at all doesn't take away too much from gameplay and the people who want to RP it having value will do so regardless.

 

If we were to implement a proper economy, I think we should create a system that spans multiple rounds, allowing people to mass up wealth instead of it being constrained to a single round.

 

The thing I'd like to see gone is the FTPOS system and the departamental accounts, if they're to stay as useless as they are right now.

 

[Knightedskull]

 

I'll cast in my vote after a few discussions.

 

Before I forget : I don't think the bartender should be in the low class or any of the shop owners.+

 

While I like the idea of an economy system I don't believe it'd fit or work too well, especially in the medical department.

Correct me if I'm wrong on the lore but I figure most of the crew workers would have some form of healthcare plan.

 

I think what would be best would be just a budget pool for medical to spend as needed and gained from station funds (or donations/tips) for those with contracts to receive the health they need....the exceptions being civilians/tourists (yeah they'll need to pay and whatnot).

Maybe different types of healthcare plans would help that covers this-or-that.

 

Medical's budget would have to be used to get supplies from other stations but, currently, they are mostly self-sustainable with the abundance of supplies they start with and they have access to a chem machine...

 

Oh, right, what kind of limitations will we have for things like the chem/booze/drink machines? Assign every thing a value for each unit and to be taken directly from budget? Refuel canisters for each chemical that you need to buy through cargo? That would be a way to include an incentive to put a value on stuff that is essentially limitless....without limitations then the economy will likely get tanked either by people abusing/massing funds with something unlimited or not even giving it a value/stupid low one because it didn't cost them anything.

 

[Jguytriple5]

 

I'm loving the idea of an economy and i have supported all previous attempts at doing this as well, but it seems this time you've really got it figured out.

 

I really like the persistence element with the OOC account slowly building up, but i'm not too sure about the whole trader thing that could/should maybe just be a random event that could happen just like mice or electrical overloads so some people don't just observe from the start or commit suicide instantly to become a trader. So i'dd say make this trader idea either an event or karma locked role that people can pick from round start.

 

All other elements of your suggestion are great and i'dd love to see a system like this on our server.

 

My own suggestions to add to this

 

It seems that the station has barely any ways to MAKE money, as far as i've seen only cargo sending things back to CC and CC giving more money to the station. I'dd like to suggest to add more ways to make money, like a bonus for the station when RnD is completed. We are the nanotrasen science station cyberiad after all. Or security sending confirmed traitors to CC instead of executing them [spoiler2]Spoiler alert: They will be executed when arriving at CC[/spoiler2] to recieve a sum of money for the station.

 

Make an easy way to transfer money to another crewmember via PDA, this could be needed for when Richman McCaptain walks trough his station only to see all the greyshirts begging for money and he starts to feel a bit guilty for Beggar Greyshirt The Third.

 

A marketplace in the room that is currently the station garden. As far as i've seen i've never seen ANYONE use the station garden apart from disassembling the machines there for easy resources, so i suggest we make this into a marketplace where civilians can set up shop to make some extra money from selling all those toolboxes they've stolen. Kind of like the vacant office, but different in some way, if you catch my drift.

 

[Knightedskull]

The garden room is too small but there are plenty of civ-access and unused rooms near the entry shuttle. That makes the PERFECT place to set up shops and markets.

[Doukan]

 

It was the NCS Cyberiad not so long ago, changed it back to science from commerce because it didn't feel right or something.

 

Would fit quite well having some sort of bazaar thing going on, SS13 is more deep space 9 than SUPER HIGH TECH SEKRIT OUTPOST anyway IMO.

 

[Farya]

The only good thing in Goon economics - cargo works for money not meaningless points. And QM actually trade with traders, sell them station shit and buy artefacts and other rare stuff.

[Ignis_Sith]

 

While the OOC bankroll in the background would be nice, the only way I see there being any sort of value in the economy is if people, who survive the round and escape, get to keep what money they have. This would institute a form of rogue-like death. You got one life with your character, try to live. I'm sure there are people who probably do this to some extent already, but this would force it on others. Of course, this method could be abused, and might only work on a more heavy RP server, but it is an idea.

 

Overall, I like the idea of actually getting paid to do work. I really like the idea of making money in whatever way is possible. I do miss working as GOON QM and making money doing trades(Even though sometimes the trades fall through or glitch out.)/selling ores/setting up a market. Of course, I'm still new, so I'm just giving newblet thoughts.