Economy System Feedback Thread

[Coconutwarrior97]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I'd much rather economy take on more of a fluff role. Right now it feels far too forced and in my face. Just some prices on fancy clothes or cigars would be nice. I really do like the pay machines though, their versatility is fun. Great addition for shops assistants sometimes set up for example.

[iamgoofball]

This is a bunch of tedium and wasted time for a piece of clothing. I don't see the powerful roleplay interactions that arise from this.

If it's just "a piece of clothing", why are you complaining?

If you want tools, become an engineer or ask an engineer to help you using that handy dandy radio system.
If you want medication or healing, become a doctor or ask a doctor to help you using that handy dandy radio system.

Likewise for this. Why the hell would I ask engineers to come down to primary tool storage? I might as well just go to the fucking autolathe. Are you going to make that charge money too? The medicine one I can almost see except that an ID lock is the most trivial of mechanics to make medbay relevant and doesn't make the role any more interesting or compelling.

I'm sorry you're incapable of talking to your fellow crewmembers to ask them to do you favors, or cooperating with your fellow players in a multiplayer online game. You should take steps to remedy this. And yes, autolathe is going to have a price attached to it at some point, likely when we replace techpoints with departmental budgets.

I'm also sorry you don't see how it might improve the gameplay experience of medical doctor players if they were actually asked by other players for medical assistance. Try placing yourself in their shoes.

Unless I'm mistaken I don't believe this is the case, it doesn't affect the regular ID lock system at all, you'd still have to hack it to get past that and when you did you'd still have to pay money.

You're mistaken, this is indeed the case. I removed the ID locks on vendors, the only lock is payment now.

When your defense of a change is "assistant mains are salty" and "too bad" it really seems quite a lot like grudge code. If you can't really justify why it should exist other than "I wanted to make a bunch of people mad" then it should be changed. You might not do so, but I will.

It exists because I got paid for it to exist, I was given a design pitch that sounded good, we needed to reduce assistant playcounts, and this allows us to encourage inter-departmental cooperation, reduce lone wolfing, increase need to trust other players, and in general make this more of a multiplayer "work on a station" simulator instead of a "grab everything you need and hunt the antag" asymmetrical pvp arena. Get over yourself, and get good. From what I can tell, the people in charge agree with me. Either adapt to the changes or quit playing, honestly. Citadel doesn't have it merged and neither does hippie(yet), those may be more up your alley?

[Ispiria]

To begin with, let me just say that an economy system in principle is not, necessarily, a bad thing. Paying the chef for his meals, tipping the doctor who's just saved your life, offering a cash bounty on someone repairing the floor of your bombed-out department, these are all good things that would be spawned by the introduction of a currency system. More player interaction, more incentive for active round participation, all great and things to be encouraged!

However, in its current iteration, the system is far too rushed and unpolished to be viable. To wit:

* Prices are arbitrary and apparently random - $25 for a single glowstick?
* Departmental budgets have no real purpose beyond padding the wallets of anyone with access to them.
* Paydays aren't actually tied to the in-game time progression system because... why not, exactly? We have a day and night cycle now, why not one payday per in-game day?
* The means of accessing your funds is, as others have pointed out, frankly ridiculous. It's no good to tout the "it encourages RP" argument if the way to withdraw or deposit currency is so baldly immersion-breaking. I mean really, shoving paper money into a plastic ID card somehow transports it directly into your bank account? I didn't know bluespace teleportation was meant to be so frivolously used.
* The currency tag itself - American Dollars, the actual $ sign, is so unimaginative and lazy it hurts. This is a sci-fi futuristic setting with an economy presumably managed and operated exclusively by Nanotrasen, and we're expected to believe that rather than create their own, entirely new currency (a concept art piece for which I've already created), Nanotrasen just stuck with the old, presumably extinct, American Dollar, with no change to inflation or the value of said dollar in the last four hundred years. Note also that we already have two canonically established forms of currency - Space Cash and Credits.

The system in principle is not broken or flawed or somehow incompatible with the way things are done on TG, and with several degrees more polish could be added to encourage all the benefits that could very easily come out of something like this. As it stands, however, the system is unarguably rushed to release, the motives for which could be speculated on but don't really matter in the context of this discussion. All the currency system requires is additional polish and balancing, and it could very easily be one of the greatest additions to the game in a long time. This is something that could go down in the history of TG as a gamechanging, revolutionary system, but right now it's just a broken, unfinished mechanic that we're being shouted at to swallow because it's not up to us.

[iamgoofball]

* Prices are arbitrary and apparently random - $25 for a single glowstick?

There's a way to add individual prices for items, prices aren't random.
Each vending machine has a Regular Price, and a Premium Price.

I don't have the time or willpower to debate the costs of glowsticks so I just mad eeverything default to that. You can override prices per item from the item itself, but I don't care otherwise to do so, because I think it's a waste of time and won't benefit the game. Feel free to go fill them out for items if you want and PR it.

* Departmental budgets have no real purpose beyond padding the wallets of anyone with access to them.

Departmental Budgets were going to replace Techweb Points(as in, research would be split between departments and heads would handle their department's research), but oranges wanted this done in a down-the-line PR. So, maybe later.

* Paydays aren't actually tied to the in-game time progression system because... why not, exactly? We have a day and night cycle now, why not one payday per in-game day?

Because the average round on the highest population server is 5 minutes, prices and the economy were balanced around the 5 minute pay period, and the day/night cycle is way too slow and often doesn't even trigger in a given round.

Additionally, if it's configured to be based on the server's local time, that could mean payday doesn't occur ever except during a round that happens to be during the switchover.

* The means of accessing your funds is, as others have pointed out, frankly ridiculous. It's no good to tout the "it encourages RP" argument if the way to withdraw or deposit currency is so baldly immersion-breaking. I mean really, shoving paper money into a plastic ID card somehow transports it directly into your bank account? I didn't know bluespace teleportation was meant to be so frivolously used.

It's 30XX.
Not only do I:
1. Not care about Immersion
2. Not care about realism
3. Not care about people's feelings in regards to sprite quality at all

ATMs are the reason economy doesn't work at Goon/Bay, since if you want physical cash you gotta go pull it out of the vending machine, and nobody actually gets directly paid by the payswipe machines there.

Our players will just gank you the second you AFK next to an ATM so that they can try to take your money you withdrew, or are trying to put into the account. So no. This is not happening, get over it.

* The currency tag itself - American Dollars, the actual $ sign, is so unimaginative and lazy it hurts.

[/quote]
You'll take your God-blessed American Freedom Dollars and you'll like it. What are you, a commie?

[Ispiria]

"I don't care" and "do it yourself" aren't really great counterarguments coming from the individual responsible for generating all of these complaints. It makes me feel genuinely sad to see that this is how constructive criticism is going to be handled here.

[Grazyn]

Some tweaks are still needed:
-arcade machine should cost money to play. Some toys are funny or useful for gimmicks and arcades not being free will reduce assistant playcounts even more. 10-20 bucks a game should do the trick.

-number of starting public toolboxes needs to be reduced, on meta there is a staggering amount of 4 (FOUR) blue toolboxes at roundstart (2 in public storage and 2 in dorms). Same goes for those lockers full of tools, wire, safety vests, hard hats etc.

-the amount of free stuff in maint should be reduced for the same reason. An assistant can find enough tools, clothes and random gear in there to not need money for the rest of the round. This is simply unacceptable. Alternatively, you can remove their maint access, but we know how that goes and there's always the slightest chance they could get it back from the HoP

-trash mass driver room should be cargo access only, again for the same reason. There can be useful stuff in the trash and assistants shouldn't have easy access to that.

-money in those dorm wallets absolutely needs to go

-meta needs a free stuff overhaul in general. There's simpy too much free gear scattered around, that fucking garden complete with everything you need to do botany, free livestock etc.

[iamgoofball]

"I don't care" and "do it yourself" aren't really great counterarguments coming from the individual responsible for generating all of these complaints. It makes me feel genuinely sad to see that this is how constructive criticism is going to be handled here.

I literally do not have the time to fill out individual prices for every item in the game that could be or is in a vending machine. If you do, then come up with a price and make a PR for it, All it requires is a single var on the item.

[iamgoofball]

-arcade machine should cost money to play. Some toys are funny or useful for gimmicks and arcades not being free will reduce assistant playcounts even more. 10-20 bucks a game should do the trick.

Ehhhhhhhh, maybe.

-number of starting public toolboxes needs to be reduced, on meta there is a staggering amount of 4 (FOUR) blue toolboxes at roundstart (2 in public storage and 2 in dorms). Same goes for those lockers full of tools, wire, safety vests, hard hats etc.

This will be addressed in the followup map edits PR.

-the amount of free stuff in maint should be reduced for the same reason. An assistant can find enough tools, clothes and random gear in there to not need money for the rest of the round. This is simply unacceptable. Alternatively, you can remove their maint access, but we know how that goes and there's always the slightest chance they could get it back from the HoP

Eh, not too concerned. This requires wandering in maint, a super dangerous area. A fair tradeoff.

-trash mass driver room should be cargo access only, again for the same reason. There can be useful stuff in the trash and assistants shouldn't have easy access to that.

It isn't? It's supposed to be, sounds like a mapside issue.

-money in those dorm wallets absolutely needs to go

I reduced the amount of money you could get in those wallets but honestly it provides incentive for people to go to the dorm, which isnt a bad thing.

-meta needs a free stuff overhaul in general. There's simpy too much free gear scattered around, that fucking garden complete with everything you need to do botany, free livestock etc.

Meta is one of those maps that were designed for highpop RP intensive servers where players don't need or like actually working for resources. It was also our first custom map.

[Grazyn]

I can confirm that the recycler room is set to maint access on meta, box and pubby, dunno about delta.

[Ispiria]

"I don't care" and "do it yourself" aren't really great counterarguments coming from the individual responsible for generating all of these complaints. It makes me feel genuinely sad to see that this is how constructive criticism is going to be handled here.

I literally do not have the time to fill out individual prices for every item in the game that could be or is in a vending machine. If you do, then come up with a price and make a PR for it, All it requires is a single var on the item.

This is perfectly understandable and I sympathize completely. Not having the time to add all the polish required to a system as pervasive and encompassing as this makes perfect sense, or at least it would do if there were any sort of ultimatum deadline on the release of the system. This is exactly why I and so many others have been using the word "rushed" in our reviews of the mechanic - the system is fine in principle, but it requires a whole lot of fine tuning before it's ready to be set loose on the servers.

If all it's going to take to reach an appropriate level of finalization on this is time, then why not use what currently exists as a proof of concept, which should be enough to secure the bounty on the system, and then disable it or at the very least singificantly reduce its impact until such time as the system has finally been tweaked to a level where it isn't going to generate quite so much public outcry? Again, there's nothing wrong with an economy system, but the condition in which it's been released is very obviously unfinished to even the most casual participants. We have faith that this can work, but very much wish the appropriate time had been taken to ensure it wasn't going to be as janky as it is before it was given to us.

Also, a disclaimer because I don't want to thrice be told I should be the one cleaning up the debris of someone else's party - I know nothing at all about the code or coding beyond what I've been taught for varediting. I do, however, fully understand that more time is needed here, which is why I'm encouraging that time be taken and given as necessary to properly finish the system.

[iamgoofball]

If all it's going to take to reach an appropriate level of finalization on this is time, then why not use what currently exists as a proof of concept, which should be enough to secure the bounty on the system, and then disable it or at the very least singificantly reduce its impact until such time as the system has finally been tweaked to a level where it isn't going to generate quite so much public outcry?

Nope. It functions as is, it functions well enough to be used on live. If you want to make followup PRs to adjust it, modifying the code is free and so is PRing. It's all up to the maintainers if they listen to you. Just remember that they are smart, and will call you on it if they think you're delib. sabotaging the intention of the feature.

[Ispiria]

Nope. It functions as is, it functions well enough to be used on live. If you want to make followup PRs to adjust it, modifying the code is free and so is PRing. It's all up to the maintainers if they listen to you. Just remember that they are smart, and will call you on it if they think you're delib. sabotaging the intention of the feature.

Also, a disclaimer because I don't want to thrice be told I should be the one cleaning up the debris of someone else's party - I know nothing at all about the code or coding beyond what I've been taught for varediting. I do, however, fully understand that more time is needed here, which is why I'm encouraging that time be taken and given as necessary to properly finish the system.

[Grazyn]

-money in those dorm wallets absolutely needs to go

I reduced the amount of money you could get in those wallets but honestly it provides incentive for people to go to the dorm, which isnt a bad thing.

It totals 60$ now, on meta it's 10$ per wallet which is still a gargantuan amount of money considering that it equals 2 assistant paychecks. If you ransack all the money, you hit the motherlode. A fair total would be 30$ or less, still worthy to go to dorms but not gamebreaking.

[iamgoofball]

I'm also getting real tired of this unfinished meme

example of an unfinished PR:
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/40195

this PR is actively not ready for merge as per maintainers and the design document for it was not finished.

this PR was finished, all 17 tickboxes were checked off, all requests from the contractor were handled, all maintainer concerns were fixed, and the design lead did not raise any complaints during the review process.

-money in those dorm wallets absolutely needs to go

I reduced the amount of money you could get in those wallets but honestly it provides incentive for people to go to the dorm, which isnt a bad thing.
[/quote]
It totals 60$ now, on meta it's 10$ per wallet which is still a gargantuan amount of money considering that it equals 2 assistant paychecks. If you ransack all the money, you hit the motherlode. A fair total would be 30$ or less, still worthy to go to dorms but not gamebreaking.[/quote]

Considering a medical doctor's paycheck is(iirc) 50 dollars every 5 minutes, this isn't much, at all.

Nope. It functions as is, it functions well enough to be used on live. If you want to make followup PRs to adjust it, modifying the code is free and so is PRing. It's all up to the maintainers if they listen to you. Just remember that they are smart, and will call you on it if they think you're delib. sabotaging the intention of the feature.

Also, a disclaimer because I don't want to thrice be told I should be the one cleaning up the debris of someone else's party - I know nothing at all about the code or coding beyond what I've been taught for varediting. I do, however, fully understand that more time is needed here, which is why I'm encouraging that time be taken and given as necessary to properly finish the system.

It's the exact same as if you were editing vars in game, just follow the template of every other variable and edit the price var, you can do it from the github website if you wanted to

[Grazyn]

Considering a medical doctor's paycheck is(iirc) 50 dollars every 5 minutes, this isn't much, at all.

I'm talking from the assistants' POV, all other jobs earn enough that 60$ isn't worth the walk to dorms anyway. But an assistant with 60$ in addition to his starting balance is able to buy almost a full set of tools at roundstart, which I don't think is intended.

[iamgoofball]

Considering a medical doctor's paycheck is(iirc) 50 dollars every 5 minutes, this isn't much, at all.

I'm talking from the assistants' POV, all other jobs earn enough that 60$ isn't worth the walk to dorms anyway. But an assistant with 60$ in addition to his starting balance is able to buy almost a full set of tools at roundstart, which I don't think is intended.

That's a single assistant buying, which is fine. That just paints a bigger target on his back for other assistants.

[Lumbermancer]

I still don't know, what am I supposed to buy. So lets pick an idea: botanists selling their shit in vending machine.

What can botanists make for sale, or rather, what would people want to buy from them? Truly not food plants, that's only interest of the Chef. Well, griff plants obviously. Exploding tomatoes, bluespace bananas etc. Truly NT can't wait for the increase in the performance of the crew.

But, what are Botanists supposed to spend their money on? Mutagen from chemist? What else? Probably not food, since it would be a plants4food deal with Chef. Hmm...

Speaking of chemist, what can Chemist sell, what others will want to buy? Oh Clown will want that space lube, that's for sure, tide will want it too. Hell, traitors with them noslips would love to make some deals with Chemists. They make all manner of drugs that will aid griefers and tators. Some grenades will sell well too I guess.

And Chemists will want to buy...hmm...plasma from mining? I don't know...I mean everyone will need food...

But let's step away from these primitive two way supply-demand chains and look at the big guys, cargo and science. What do THEY offer? Well Cargo will definitely want emag from tators right away, to unlock all the goodies. Then they can sell all the syndicate stuff, and guns and shit. Miners can sell their artifacts obtained from PvE instances for a hefty sum.
And Science makes all the weapons, and gadgets, useful items, mechs. They will never run out of orders, lot's of griff potential. Xenobiology will thrive too. Toxins are more straightforward, but there will always be people who want to blow shit up. If you got an emag, you might want to get your pet cyborg from robotics.

What does Engineering has to offer? Well, fixing stuff, but nobody fixes shit ever? They could go full Engietopia, and sell power holding everyone hostage. Well only until science builds their own reactor or some shit. Atmos could do the Cohagen and cut off the air, maybe make tritium? Hmm.

And fuck Bartender, Librarian, Mime and Clown, they are useless. I guess Bartender could sell his gun and monkey, that's all he has. Clown could sell pranks and murder, that could work too.

Oh I almost forgot about Medbay. Like Engineering, this is probably Medtopia time. You fucking die at our doorstep unless you have some cold hard cash. Oh you need prosthetic? That will cost you an arm and a leg, literally.

So now we look at the big picture, and just take it all in. What have we wrought.

[zxaber]

Honestly, my experience is that most people have stopped even bothing with it. An economy model only really works when eveyone puts value in the money medium. But after a few days of memes, it seems everyone has gone back to just doing shit because it's their job (y'know, like how actual companies work). In the end, the only thing that almost gives the money any value are vendors, but there's not much worth vending except tool storage and the occasional vanity item.

[Lumbermancer]

Well the novelty of the system that exists only to perpetuate itself wears off rather fast.

[Steelpoint]

Money is only truly worthwhile when it is 100% necessary to just survive. That is not the case, you won't die if you are broke or don't have any money, and outside of being an Assistant you won't be massively disadvantaged because you don't have money.

You don't need money to buy food, because you won't die of starvation. You don't need to buy better tools since the tools you got when you started the shift are not sub-par or breaking apart. You don't need to buy basic supplies because they are provided to you for free.

Unless there is a point where my character not having money is literally a matter of life and death, I don't think the economy will ever be something more than a background gimmick. Which is not inherently a bad thing.

[Dr_bee]

Money is only truly worthwhile when it is 100% necessary to just survive. That is not the case, you won't die if you are broke or don't have any money, and outside of being an Assistant you won't be massively disadvantaged because you don't have money.

You don't need money to buy food, because you won't die of starvation. You don't need to buy better tools since the tools you got when you started the shift are not sub-par or breaking apart. You don't need to buy basic supplies because they are provided to you for free.

Unless there is a point where my character not having money is literally a matter of life and death, I don't think the economy will ever be something more than a background gimmick. Which is not inherently a bad thing.

Goonstation economy is fun background fluff that you can use for gameplay advantages if you work on it, it isnt an intrusive system where everything costs money and the gimmick or training job gets no money because "lol get a job."

[Steelpoint]

Which is why I feel the distinction needs to be made if the economy system that is desired to be adopted is a more relaxed economy akin to Goonstation, or is a more invasive system where money has a major impact on how a character plays out a round.

[Rustledjimm]

* The means of accessing your funds is, as others have pointed out, frankly ridiculous. It's no good to tout the "it encourages RP" argument if the way to withdraw or deposit currency is so baldly immersion-breaking. I mean really, shoving paper money into a plastic ID card somehow transports it directly into your bank account? I didn't know bluespace teleportation was meant to be so frivolously used.

It's 30XX.
Not only do I:
1. Not care about Immersion
2. Not care about realism
3. Not care about people's feelings in regards to sprite quality at all

ATMs are the reason economy doesn't work at Goon/Bay, since if you want physical cash you gotta go pull it out of the vending machine, and nobody actually gets directly paid by the payswipe machines there.

Our players will just gank you the second you AFK next to an ATM so that they can try to take your money you withdrew, or are trying to put into the account. So no. This is not happening, get over it.

* The currency tag itself - American Dollars, the actual $ sign, is so unimaginative and lazy it hurts.

You'll take your God-blessed American Freedom Dollars and you'll like it. What are you, a commie?

lmao goof doesn't even know what millenium the game is set in. This is legitimate feedback and you're just throwing it aside because you want your money desperately. Just admit that this is a good idea but this pr is unpolished, immersion breaking and should still be tested and a WIP.

[iamgoofball]

* The means of accessing your funds is, as others have pointed out, frankly ridiculous. It's no good to tout the "it encourages RP" argument if the way to withdraw or deposit currency is so baldly immersion-breaking. I mean really, shoving paper money into a plastic ID card somehow transports it directly into your bank account? I didn't know bluespace teleportation was meant to be so frivolously used.

It's 30XX.
Not only do I:
1. Not care about Immersion
2. Not care about realism
3. Not care about people's feelings in regards to sprite quality at all

ATMs are the reason economy doesn't work at Goon/Bay, since if you want physical cash you gotta go pull it out of the vending machine, and nobody actually gets directly paid by the payswipe machines there.

Our players will just gank you the second you AFK next to an ATM so that they can try to take your money you withdrew, or are trying to put into the account. So no. This is not happening, get over it.

* The currency tag itself - American Dollars, the actual $ sign, is so unimaginative and lazy it hurts.

You'll take your God-blessed American Freedom Dollars and you'll like it. What are you, a commie?

lmao goof doesn't even know what millenium the game is set in. This is legitimate feedback and you're just throwing it aside because you want your money desperately. Just admit that this is a good idea but this pr is unpolished, immersion breaking and should still be tested and a WIP.

if you can't see the gameplay problems and how it'll slow down the transfer of money from making it so you can only withdraw/deposit via a fucking clunky UI, you're a lost cause

[iamgoofball]

Which is why I feel the distinction needs to be made if the economy system that is desired to be adopted is a more relaxed economy akin to Goonstation, or is a more invasive system where money has a major impact on how a character plays out a round.

It'll be more invasive as time goes along. Hell, things like true_ancap's medical machine charging into the medical budget might become a default thing. Tying techwebs entirely into money and budgetry is on the todo list, and making more things have a pricetag can definitely be arranged.

And before you say "cloning is a right and taking it away breaks the game", it's not taken away. We have defibs and we have podpeople if you can't afford cloning.

[Lumbermancer]

defibs and podpeople are not free. The tree of commerce and capitalism must must be littered with remaining currency of the poor. iamgoofball aka "goof" is not my coder. he is a porter and probably redditor as well. ANCAP not MAXCAP, ok? Praise NAP.

[iamgoofball]

defibs and podpeople are not free.

Of course, of course. Make sure to under-cut medical!

The tree of commerce and capitalism must must be littered with remaining currency of the poor. iamgoofball aka "goof" is not my coder. he is a porter and probably redditor as well. ANCAP not MAXCAP, ok? Praise NAP.

Did you just insult the Recreational™ McNuke™ brand name? Holy™ shit, that's an NAP™ violation. I'm on the way over with a Recreational™ McNuke™, sponsored by McSyndicate™.

[Steelpoint]

The concept of Cloning being a privilege that requires payment and not a right is an interesting concept to go with.

I can realistically imagine NT Medics having a 'account scanner' that checks if the patient has sufficient funds in their account to pay for treatment before attempting to render aid or ressussication.

I'm personally all for an economic system that is more invasive or at least has a bigger impact on a round, but the underlying concept needs to be well constructed, consistent and somewhat realistic (jamming money into ID cards goes off the deep end) but also that the general community is willing to see the concept brought through and tried on the server.

[teepeepee]

There should be an option to either pay a low cost every 5 minute service subscription or a one time big pay every time you actually use it so you choose wether medical is something you really need or of you'd rather use that money to pay in to the mc security service coverage all shift, same with engineering, if I'm paying a deluxe 50% of my payday fee my department should get priority fixing and powering. This would create productive competition between botany and the barman offering a second hand medical service (with hearty punch, barefoot, ambrosia, etc) and a shitty base of assistants operating the medical holodeck (as long as engineering provides the energy).

[Scott]

What's the point of it? You're just changing RP/fun based motivation to play and do things in the game with money grubbing. It also won't work if rounds are shorter than a couple of hours, an economy needs to get going to matter.

[iamgoofball]

(jamming money into ID cards goes off the deep end)

If you make a resprite for the space cash bundle, sure, I'll replace the sprite, but gameplay wise the method of withdrawing/depositing your cash won't change.

[Dr_bee]

The economy system as it currently exists disrupts both roleplay and gameplay and is an unpolished mess. Twisting the entire game around a lazily balanced mess of an economy system is a bad idea and goof's unwillingness to take criticism at all should be a sign that keeping it is a bad idea.

Seriously we do not need someone who counters constructive criticism with "no I did that on purpose its fine" to legitimate problems people bring up making a system that fucks with this much of the game.

[DemonFiren]

What's the point of it? You're just changing RP/fun based motivation to play and do things in the game with money grubbing. It also won't work if rounds are shorter than a couple of hours, an economy needs to get going to matter.

[Steelpoint]

I just believe the concept of pulling money out of your ID card, and putting money into it, feels odd even in a futuristic setting.

At the very least I'd suggest having wall mounted machines in certain locations that perform the task of withdrawing and depositing money instead of the magic ID card.

I doubt you'd even need to code a UI, just set it that clicking the machine will deposit any money in your hand, and clicking it with an open hand just gives you a text box asking how much money you want to withdraw.

[Rustledjimm]

This is why I think it shouldn't be done over ATM or cash. It should be done via PDA and you can swipe the PDA to pay for things.

If it requires a rework of some PDA code well, then do it. This is the fucking future and you have to care about the setting of the game whether you like it or not. It's a roleplaying game and so immersion is important goofball even if you don't care.

[iamgoofball]

It should be done via PDA and you can swipe the PDA to pay for things.

This is literally no different from the ID mechanically except that people can blow up your PDA and you now have yet another way to lose access to your cash, and PDAs are harder to replace than IDs

[Grazyn]

Just pretend it's holographic money made of hard light, come on, this is one of the few instances where realism would utterly kill the feature.

"Hey I got a wand of door creation, do you want it for 200$?"
"Alright, just let me go withdraw the money from the ATM first"
5 minutes later
"Here's your money, sorry the main hall was on fire"
"No problem, also I just realized I have to go to an ATM as well now to deposit these 200$ into my account lest I die without enough money to afford cloning. By the way, here's your obviously empty wand"
"What a story Mark"

vs

"Hey I got a wand of door creation, do you want it for 200$?"
"Sure, here's your money."

[Rustledjimm]

It should be done via PDA and you can swipe the PDA to pay for things.

This is literally no different from the ID mechanically except that people can blow up your PDA and you now have yet another way to lose access to your cash, and PDAs are harder to replace than IDs

Go to HoP office.

Get him to give you a new PDA.

Wow.

[iamgoofball]

It's a roleplaying game and so immersion is important goofball even if you don't care.

yeah see you keep saying this magic word, "roleplaying", every time I explain why something works for gameplay reasons, but when I turn it around and tell you "work with your fellow crewmembers and ask them to do stuff for you" when you complain about having to buy cosmetics or tools or medical supplies and not being able to lone wolf, you immediately clam up, but then right below when you're called on PDAs being hard to get:

Go to HoP office.

Get him to give you a new PDA.

Wow.

PDAs are the same availability as ID cards. What actual mechanical gameplay change occurs from switching from ID cards to PDAs aside from making it easier to lose access to your money?

[DemonFiren]

What's the point of it? You're just changing RP/fun based motivation to play and do things in the game with money grubbing. It also won't work if rounds are shorter than a couple of hours, an economy needs to get going to matter.

[iamgoofball]

This is the fucking future.

Why yes, this is the future, and we have hardlight holodecks that can magically materialize bees out of thin air, a machine that can turn sheets of metal and glass into sophisticated electronics and generate gunpowder from thin air.

Why do you keep citing "its unrealistic" but then citing "its the future" and not realizing the two null eachother out?

What's the point of it? You're just changing RP/fun based motivation to play and do things in the game with money grubbing. It also won't work if rounds are shorter than a couple of hours, an economy needs to get going to matter.

A sense of pride and accomplishment. See, I'm going to give a meme answer because despite this question being answered all over the place, you aren't reading it and don't actually want one, you just want le epic rebuttal zinger.

[Rustledjimm]

It's a roleplaying game and so immersion is important goofball even if you don't care.

yeah see you keep saying this magic word, "roleplaying", every time I explain why something works for gameplay reasons, but when I turn it around and tell you "work with your fellow crewmembers and ask them to do stuff for you" when you complain about having to buy cosmetics or tools or medical supplies and not being able to lone wolf, you immediately clam up, but then right below when you're called on PDAs being hard to get:

Go to HoP office.

Get him to give you a new PDA.

Wow.

PDAs are the same availability as ID cards. What actual mechanical gameplay change occurs from switching from ID cards to PDAs aside from making it easier to lose access to your money?

I'm not the one complaining about "work with your fellow crewmembers" etc. if you noticed, not that you actually read criticism properly. I don't care for the prices etc. I think it's a good idea. I'm saying your implementation is bad. PDA makes far more common sense than magic cash popping out of your ID card.

[iamgoofball]

PDA makes far more common sense than magic cash popping out of your ID card.

This was not the question I asked. The question I asked was:

What actual mechanical gameplay change occurs from switching from ID cards to PDAs aside from making it easier to lose access to your money?

Also, for people whining "muh 2 days of testmerge"
It was testmerged for 5 days. Wanna know how I know this?




Stop spreading libel and slander of maintainers and of the merge date.

[Grazyn]

Jesus, do you really want realism? Alright, here it goes

Each "banknote" is actually just a small piece of paper tracked individually with a unique serial hashed into a QR code printed on the paper. Information about the value of the single note is stored in the central banking system. When you scan a banknote with your ID, the hash is decrypted and the corresponing value in $ transferred to your account, and the serial is voided and removed from the system. Once voided, the banknote is functionally just useless trash with no value so, for convenience, you don't even see it anymore in the game. When you withdraw money from your account, the banking system generates a new hash and the QR is printed on another small slip of paper, one of many contained inside the ID itself. The slips are small (they only have to show the QR code and the numerical value) so a single ID contains enough slips to supply your needs of the day (which explains why they're functionally infinite).

[BeeSting12]

So to sum up everyone's complaints:

1. Department clothes vendors should be free for everyone.

2. They don't like that vendors in departments cost money, even though the money isn't charged to you if you're in that department.

3. I have to pay for items which were previously free. (tools, clothes, food, and drinks to list a few)

4. Cash should not be able to be drawn from ID cards- add ATMs.

5. The prices currently suck.

6. Cash shouldn't exist, and it shouldn't be called cash.

7. Accounts need PIN numbers or some sort of theft prevention.

8. There's nothing to buy besides pre-existing stuff.

I'd like to wait until the end of the player feedback polls to make any major changes, but here's how we can address these:

1. Make departmental clothes vendors free for everyone. They were meant to replace clothes lockers, not be a starting point to charge for them later.

2. Leave as is.

3. Build a bridge and get over it. Most real jobs can afford this stuff without issue- assistants, clowns, and mimes are the only ones with issues affording stuff. I'm considering moving clowns/mimes to the second lowest paycheck instead,

4. Add wall mounted ATMs- similar to newscasters. Two would be found in library study rooms if applicable. One in each department. A couple in dorms. It would work exactly like IDs, except on a wall. ID's money drawing functionality will be removed, but you'll still get messages for when you get paid and you can still examine to see your balance.

5. Figure out which prices suck and fix them.

6. Rename it to Space Credits or just Credits. Leave paper cash in though, or change it to holochips, whatever. I see no issue with physical money still existing in the future.

7. Theft prevention: The HoP gets more functionality added to the ID console. Basically, they put in their ID and log into the banking interface or whatever. If someone's ID card is in, they can access the settings for that person's account, if not, then they can search account numbers. Not names- they must know the persons account number to use it.

The account settings they can view are as follows:
Recent transaction history (last 20-30)
Name
Job
Current Pay
Current Balance
Linked ID cards

The account settings they can edit are as follows:
Current Pay
Linked ID Cards- they can add/remove them
Freeze the account- they can prevent the account from withdrawing money, performing transactions, etc.

This allows the HoP to help with ID cards getting lost/stolen while allowing the thief to have time to benefit from it.

8. We'll add more stuff to buy eventually. Please give me ideas for this. Right now, I'd like to see if we can get the economy to work with the stuff that already exists. The most common problem I've seen is jobs such as security officers not having anything to buy besides smokes and food. I'd like to see a lot of cosmetic stuff bought for money and some things that provide ingame benefits.

@iamgoofball
If this is going to work instead of getting reverted within a month, you need to start taking people's feedback instead of writing it all off as complaints from assistants. Are some of them assistant complaints? Yes, absolutely. Are all of them invalid because of this? No. If the majority of the playerbase thinks something sucks, then it needs to be changed or removed. (unless the majority doesn't support my view, in which case I ignore it of course.)

[Mickyan]

I'd like to remind everyone that goof tried to argue ID cards screaming about paychecks every 5 minutes and giving away your position was intended design among other things so maybe dont waste your time arguing with him, he's going to come up with an excuse for any bug and oversight you find

I'm looking into respriting space cash into a holographic token kind of thing for now, hopefully someone with the know-how makes the change from id cards to PDAs otherwise we can change ID cards to look like something more appropriate

[Steelpoint]

Current item pricing is something I expect will be constantly being addressed and changed, and it is entirely unreasonable to expect Goof, or anyone, to have a fairly balanced out pricing for every single item in the game right off the bat. It'll sort itself out over the coming months assuming this system remains in game.

---

Personally I feel that people without the appropriate access should not even be able to buy items from departmental vendors since only the people inside that department should have access to em (outside of hacking the machine). So I don't see people being charged for items from them if they are not from that department to be fine.

---

A shitty idea I have is to exploit our hatred of non-Humans and have the payment system coded to give non-Human species only a certain percentage cut of their wage. Humans would get 100% of their $120 payment, Lizardpeople might earn only 80% of their wage. Catpeople would only earn 50% and so on.

---

FInally, Goofball hates lore unless its Dwarf people. I'd expect other people to make the fluff changes to Goof's Eco System after the fact.

[Grazyn]

I still stand by my opinion that ATMs will kill the feature. The games on tg are fast paced, rounds are already in the endgame after 30 minutes, nobody is gonna waste time walking to the nearest ATM or waiting for the customer to withdraw money just to roleplay buying and selling stuff. It's clunky, it's annoying. It's taking an interesting feature and turning it into utter trash just for the sake of realism.

[iamgoofball]

hopefully someone with the know-how makes the change from id cards to PDAs otherwise we can change ID cards to look like something more

lmao, looking forward to buying Detomax carts en masse and crippling the economy every antag role

[Rustledjimm]

hopefully someone with the know-how makes the change from id cards to PDAs otherwise we can change ID cards to look like something more

lmao, looking forward to buying Detomax carts en masse and crippling the economy every antag role

Except you just go get a new PDA like you would get a new ID card?

[iamgoofball]

hopefully someone with the know-how makes the change from id cards to PDAs otherwise we can change ID cards to look like something more

lmao, looking forward to buying Detomax carts en masse and crippling the economy every antag role

Except you just go get a new PDA like you would get a new ID card?

Sure, until I've blown up all your extra PDAs.