Economy [MIAUW EDITION]

[Miauw]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10228

I am coding economy for /tg/station.

The general idea is that everybody has a bank account. This is linked to your ID card, which you use on whatever to pay for stuff. You can also put it in an ATM to get hard cash and manage your secret bank accounts. If somebody steals your ID card, they can use your bank account to buy things! However, the HoP possesses a computer that allows him to monitor bank logs and freeze bank accounts. He can also remotely wipe ID card connections and connect a new ID to an account.

The vault would contain a banking server. If this device is destroyed, all bank logs are lost and the monetary system cannot be used until it is restored. If multiple banking servers are built and one is destroyed, a portion of the logs are still wiped.
The vault will also contain a master banking computer, this computer has full control over the banking system, allowing you to set everybody's pay to zero, redistribute the Captain's wealth, put everything on an offshore Syndicate account, etc.

In addition to this, every department's head has a console that they can use to check their budget, allocate extra funds to their employees or in or decrease the pay said employees get.
Pay would be given every ~5 minutes or so, this is to be determined.
Currency name would be a server config option, so it can be easily changed :^]

I think that's the gist of it. If you have any questions/suggestions/etc, post them.

[Ikarrus]

Nanotrasen Points, NanoPoints, or NTP

Corporate funny money that is only valid in the corporate store.

[Scott]

No economy at all.

[Wyzack]

+1, this will make all sorts of fun shenanigans availible

[DemonFiren]

So long as you don't make it thalers.

[Grazyn]

Next we need a stock exchange system, so you can invest your earnings for a neat profit or loss, depending on random, or even in-game events

[DemonFiren]

Department stocks. Rule Cargonia.

[EmGee]

+1.

Now we just need to change cargo points to dosh.

[Cheimon]

Okay, so what things are being bought? What's the point of this money?

I can imagine vending machines, and maybe cargo (but that's still gated behind people). What else? Do I need to pay chemistry for things? Can I buy past my normal access on a secured vending machine (say, to buy gloves).

Is this money system at all linked to coins?

Would there be any point in issuing fines as security?

[Steelpoint]

For the love of everything don't suddenly force people to buy food and tools from vending machines to justify a economy change, keep it regulated to ordering equipment from cargo and the bar and other RP systems (such as a new section of the station that has empty stalls).

[tedward1337]

Add a traitor objective to transfer the stations cash to a syndicate bank
You have to emag the master bank controller to do this (like emagging a comms console to talk to the syndicate on it)

[Miauw]

yo you can probably join #coderbus right now to discuss dosh.
if you have any suggestions on where money could be spent or earned, please post them.

[Lumbermancer]

Where's the option "I don't want in game economy" ?

[Steelpoint]

In my opinion there's little actual value in a economy system, from what I've done on other servers there's little to do with money aside from cargo using it instead of points.

[Actionb]

In my opinion there's little actual value in a economy system, from what I've done on other servers there's little to do with money aside from cargo using it instead of points.

This. What is the money going to be used for other than buying ramen? Everything on the station already is readily available.

[imblyings]

equipment lockers? for department heads that is, I suppose.

hats?

maybe even hiring in new personnel (drawn from ghosts or something) as a new way of respawns, so the HoP can spend X amount of money on buying/hiring say an engineer or even an ERT engineer??

maybe a new class of vending machine items with tiny amounts of beneficial reagents like synaptizine or stimulant?

yeah there's not a lot to come up with tbh

[RG4]

Like if you guys wanted goonchem,many races, and a money economy then why not use gooncode?

[Steelpoint]

Like if you guys wanted goonchem,many races, and a money economy then why not use gooncode?

I guess someone forgot to show you the new design document of slowing moving the game over to gooncode.

My final honest point is that I think any economic system is not going to be relevant in game at all aside from changing cargo's points over to credits, thus I think there's no reason to go ahead with this when its a large change that will have almost no effect on the game at all.

[Jacquerel]

I can understand that it's cool to be able to threaten to dock people's wages and things but there really is not that much I can see this could really be used for.

[Incoming]

Either it'll be pointless and ignored or vital and thus rioted against for slowing down gameplay for no real reason.

Like I said on coderbus I really don't see any way this can end well.

[Wyzack]

Even if it adds a tiny modicum of roleplaying and nothing else is that so awful? It cannot exactly become more useless than lawyers or the library

[Incoming]

I'm just saying that if it's not accepted initially the temptation will be to gate things behind it to force it's relevance and that'll get people upset.

[Miauw]

there is no option for "i dont want economy" because i dont believe in polls.
they're ok for stuff like "the default value of a config that can be changed", though.

E:
also, i am very much aware of the issues of useless currency and want to give players incentive to use it, but i am also aware that forcing people to use it is pretty shitty.

[Wyzack]

Cosmic my point is that if some people think it might be fun and Miauw is willing to put in the work and he is not going to force people to use it then why on earth would you prevent the merge?

[iamgoofball]

FILTHY COMMUNIST SCUM

ACCEPT YOUR CAPITALIST FUTURE

[PKPenguin321]

>not wanting shekels as the canonical currency

[Grazyn]

I've been thinking about the stock exchange thing and I have some ideas. You know how in GTA5 you can alter stock prices by doing things, it could be the same here. Discover and execute a traitor sent by Donk Co.? Watch as their stocks plummet. Complete all levels of research? NT stocks rises, and if you took the time to invest your salary on some shares beforehand, you can make a profit. Or grow fucktons of bananas and crash the strictly regulated banana market. Prices for general supplies may be variable too, and since the station is supposed to be self sufficient, the more stuff you order without producing any, the higher the price should be. You can keep the price for a commodity steady, or lower it, by regularly sending some of that commodity to centcomm. And if the station is exceptionally productive, and the round goes on for a long time, the captain may embezzle the crew funds to buy enough Nanotrasen shares for a hostile takeover. Just think of the possibilities!

I think it would be somehow more original and entertaining than "I'm sorry you don't have enough shekels to order a viro crate, shame on you" over and over again

[Miauw]

Cosmic my point is that if some people think it might be fun and Miauw is willing to put in the work and he is not going to force people to use it then why on earth would you prevent the merge?

The problem is that it SHOULD be used, but I can't really force people to use it.
If nobody uses it, you end up with something that fits the description Zuhayr gave me of Bay's economy system.
I'll continue working on it anyway, it's not like I have a life

[Shadowlight213]

The AI should be able to have a lot of control over payrolls and accounts. Would make the corporate last a lot more interesting.

[Steelpoint]

Corporate AI with control of the bankrolls would result in everyone having a income of 1 credit per cycle.

[DemonFiren]

Then the AI needs to be reminded that angry crew wrecking everything because they're not getting paid is very expensive.

[Gun Hog]

I would LOVE to see a Corporate AI pull this stunt. Getting half the crew to pile the AI Chamber while I am free to blow my way into the armory and loot it clean sounds like a really interesting idea.

[DemonFiren]

No, no, what you do is infiltrate the upload, change its laws to state you are the only crew, and then watch the inevitable laughter.

Oh, and maybe pick off the survivors.

[Anonmare]

I'd like an economy for the RP potential and maybe some mechanical benefit. Like venders accepting credits for coined stock, items you need a coin for. But items get more expensive as more people order them. Add in a risk of malfunction and for the machine to "eat" the credits (which gives Science a reason to upgrade them).

We should also probably expand on the vendors stock options I think. But, the pure mechanical benefit would be for antags getting access to 'some' materials that they'd otherwise need to risk their neck for. Insulated gloves should also be prohibitively expensive just for the humor and why Nanotraens seems to use budget-gloves damn near everywhere that is not Engineering

[Antimattercarp]

I knew people were unimaginative, but really?
We already can see how an economy can be implemented because for one job it already *is*.
I, of course, speak of mining. For those of out of the loop, mining works currently like this: A miner starts with a mining voucher which gives them a set amount of points when assigned to their ID which allows them to purchase their starting equipment from the mining vendor which allows for mining to have some variance in starting equipment while later being allowed to get all the cool stuff. Now imagine we apply this to other departments.

Security should have the possibility of benefiting greatly from this, it has a problem of starting strong compared to other departments but quickly becoming outmatched as the round goes on. I can imagine security starting out missing a fair sum of its fun stuff like belts and teargas, as their hazard pay comes in and as the round progresses they slowly begin to unlock their more fun toys, both existing and not added due to not having a way to balance them in such a manner making it so that security progresses in a manner.

Cargo can be drastically changed as well to suit this: I want to imagine it running off of a drugwars-esque buy low sell high system where they deal with third parties to make cash by selling raw materials and finished goods and through arbitrage. Of course they could also have dealings on the black market which carries higher prices and higher risks, illegal of course and you also deal with some disreputable characters as well. Purchasing things from the black market could be the only way the station can get things off of the illegal technologies tree of R&D and carries risks of being shorted or having little extras coming along with your shipment like bombs or unfriendly russians. Speculation could be tied to random events that come over the newscasters which hold certain chances of prices rising or falling on the black and white markets.

Stationside Cargo can have great possibility of making money as well through such unsavory tactics of price gouging during times of crises or when R&D feels uppity but needs offstation components from cargo. To give cargo a reason to move outside of their department make it so that certain oddball crates cannot be mailed or shoved on a MULE.

Have I mentioned that I hate how R&D works? R&D has long had the problem of being fairly formulaic and needing infrequent interaction with the outside world while having flimsy gateways to its full power, let's change that. At the minimum we can integrate the requirement for offstation components to make certain products functional, which we already see with firing pins.We can also gate the higher research levels behind offstation disks and tech, allowing coders a guaranteed time limit behind stuff that otherwise stays adminspawn only.
A drastic way we can change how science works is by making it into science and production, utilizing those research levels and further integrating them with cargo who can have the ability to supply them with raw materials in exchange for finished goods to sell(with a bit skimmed off the top to go on the black market of course ) maybe making complex systems of machines that push goods along each stage of the process.

Each of these is but a taste of what the addition of an economy is the first step towards, allowing for both balance and much more fun things. I hear tell GoonEcon handles this quite well.

CAPITALISM!
Edit: Stan in the IRC suggests that instead of having the Protolathe require extra components from cargo, instead make it so that the protolathe makes components that are then crafted with things from around the station to create the end product.

[Jacquerel]

I really don't enjoy the idea of having to buy the equipment I use to do my job instead of just owning it already
that's exactly the kind of annoying busywork I would want to avoid in any economy system

[Antimattercarp]

It would be the same as opening your locker and sorting through that but instead of one size fits all you have a choice in equipment.

[Stan_Studnick]

Edit: Stan in the IRC suggests that instead of having the Protolathe require extra components from cargo, instead make it so that the protolathe makes components that are then crafted with things from around the station to create the end product.

Well, to expand on what I was talking about I'll outline what I suggested individually and explain:

- Multiple titles per occupation, just like Bay has

Essentially instead of having a mere scientist, I suggest the option to pick and choose which smaller subsection you want in each department. For right now though I suggest adding (in addition to the current roles) Xenobiologist, Research Scientist, Toxinologist/Explosives Scientist/Something, and keeping the original vanilla Scientist. This has no effect on the game aside from title and giving people the ability to identify who's who in the department without the HoP being bothered with changes that, really, should be there at round start. Then I also propose that the Cargo Technician get an additional sibling title, something like Factory Worker or Manufacturing Technician (something like that) and you'll see why in a bit.

- Giving cargo the ability to manufacture most, if not all, items on the station if raw materials are available

This would require an expansion on the cargo bay, but it would give the supply department the ability to make everything the autolathe makes and more, and ideally it would be spread out over several machines that could do certain components that the other machines could do, but at a slower rate. An example of this would be using a lathe instead of a purpose-built milling machine, the job will get done but it will take more time and potentially could waste materials. I'd also like it if the scientists had limited (or full if lowpop) access to this area, which brings me to my next point.

- Reorganize the R&D process in science and give purpose to the misc lab

Instead of the protolathe being able to make an x-ray laser, have it limited to making certain components of the x-ray laser, and the manufacturing plant producing the parts common with other items. (such as a stock, maybe the frame, focusing lens? something that other lasers would share) This might allow some weapon and item customization if people are up for that, so you could potentially produce a laser cannon with wooden furniture and a shiny gold case. Either way, science doesn't actually produce the item from start to finish, instead it requisitions the generic parts, assembles it with the prototype parts, and then puts it through a series of tests. At some point the objects should definitely break down, and if I recall correctly, there is already this mechanic that makes you test advanced things before deconstructing them to produce one that isn't a piece of shit. Well, this lengthens the process a bit and every step encourages contact outside the department and then when all is said and done the finished prototype is deconstructed and the manufacturing area can produce the finished design and perhaps ship them off to Centcom for more cash. Maybe Centcom will order some R&D items to keep things interesting?

- Reorganize machine cartridges

Currently, deconstructing a vending machine will yield a cartridge for that machine type. Well, aside from some really rare instances, nobody ever really needs to refill these and there isn't any way to expand on the capabilities of vending machines. I suggest that instead of deconstructing the whole machine to get at the cartridge, the machine can eject them (via the machine's interface) and load them by clicking on the machine with the cartridge in hand. I also think spent cartridges should be ejected and can be either recycled for metal or reused at cargo, either way the end user tosses them once they're spent. I suggest this because it gives cargo an opportunity to distribute the things they make through several methods, and constantly keep busy and be a vital part of the station. Why? Well, cargo has always been a popular choice for new players once they want to graduate out of their grey jumpsuit, and this gives them the opportunity to be useful to the station and it gives people who want to play cargo something to do rather than piss around building dumb stuff because they're bored.

So with that said, let me walk you through it a bit. Let's say the medbay vending machine is out of jerky, security needs a refill on cuffs and zipties, and the silly little fort the lizards made in maintenance needs lemons and/or limes, depending on which faction they are. Well, the two departments can requisition the things they need using the messages console like normal. (there would need to be a way to transfer credits from department/individual accounts via this system) Medbay says, "I need food in vending machine" and has chosen a rack of sandwiches to replace the jerky. Security says they need the cuffs, zipties, and they'd also like some security cameras and wires. All of these items have their own costs, even the sandwiches which were a custom item that cargo offered based off of the price the chef/bartender/whoever set. Cargo sees this request, sees that the departments have transferred the funds for the items and the additional fee (set by cargo) and decides to make it all locally. Cargo then forwards the request to the kitchen, where the chef starts cookin' up some sammiches, and in the meanwhile starts producing the other items. Then when all is said and done, the chef boxes up the sandwiches, wraps and labels the box, and tosses it in the disposals chute. From there cargo takes the box, clicks an empty rack on the box, and it automatically loads the rack and the box is unfolded at the tech's feet. Having received a second order for surgical tools, cargo boxes all of those up and the sandwich rack, and mails it off to medbay to be used. A doctor unwraps the box, takes it into surgery and sets it on the table, right-clicks on the box and dumps it (this is desperately needed) and finally loads the sandwich rack in the vending machine, tossing the spent one in the trash to be collected by cargo. Meanwhile the warden's doing the same thing in security. Then, having done all the important stuff, cargo momentarily stops ignoring the lizards and informs them that their vending machine rack is at the desk, where it is collected by the clown and spaced.

[TheNightingale]

Instead of the protolathe being able to make an x-ray laser, have it limited to making certain components of the x-ray laser, and the manufacturing plant producing the parts common with other items. (such as a stock, maybe the frame, focusing lens? something that other lasers would share) This might allow some weapon and item customization if people are up for that, so you could potentially produce a laser cannon with wooden furniture and a shiny gold case.

G U N S M I T H I N G

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Why do we need job subdivisions? It's only going to lead to "Gettouda xenobio shitfuck ur a toxins worker ". Any necessary divides can be done via new jobs, and if it's not important enough to make a new job, then it's not important enough to make subdivisions for.

[Stan_Studnick]

G U N S M I T H I N G

I know! I didn't want to mention it because people got assmad at Oxford's idea really bad.

Why do we need job subdivisions? It's only going to lead to "Gettouda xenobio shitfuck ur a toxins worker ". Any necessary divides can be done via new jobs, and if it's not important enough to make a new job, then it's not important enough to make subdivisions for.

This happens already, "I SPAWNED HERE ITS MY JOB GET OUT!!!" Or, the scientists all announce what they want to do over the radio and then fights break out because one scientist reneged on the sacred dibs-calling of jobs. Anyone who's played security for more than a couple rounds can confirm that science, cargo, and (on occasion) the bar/kitchen are popular destinations because people can't work together nicely.

I don't see your point.

[Cheimon]

Mostly people got mad because he was making too many threads about it, didn't have any interest in coding it, and it didn't seem to have a clear purpose (people weren't even sure what department it would go in).

Likewise, I'm not sure what purpose making a laser cannon with wooden furniture and silver barrels would have. Unless it has gameplay implications, all you're getting is a couple of pixels different on a tiny sprite. Most people aren't that into customising a very late game weapon like that. Now, if holy silver barrels gave it double damage against cult armour and a wooden trigger housing mechanism gave it distinctly faster unloading, maybe that would be different. I think there's been some really good points to that effect in the mech customisation thread, making it clear that being able to do something isn't the same as doing it being worthwhile.

[rockpecker]

I think that's the gist of it. If you have any questions/suggestions/etc, post them.

Why?

[Wyzack]

Why not?

[peoplearestrange]

This could lead to some nice new Antag missions

"Steal all the payrole for the sydnicate"
or
"Steal more than "x" in hard cash"