About Research Directors purchasing guns at round start with their budgets.

[Isy232]

I have heard many complaints about how research directors use their budgets to purchase guns at the start of the round without reason and have seen it myself. I often like to play in the science department and often see the research director run off to cargo at the start of the round without doing anything for their own department. I find this very unrealistic. I understand the research director ordering guns with a confirmed and active cult, war ops or revolutionaries. I would also understand ordering a crate or 2 of disablers from cargo once the enemy transmission gets intercepted or the alert level reaches blue.

I would be fine if the research director gave the budget card or money to someone and letting them do whatever the fuck with it, but as the head of an important department, you shouldn't run off for no reason from your department.

I would also like to add that I do not want to see the science department budget get nerfed too heavily though, SS13 is a plasma research station. I would recommend making the budget only generate half of what it would normally though, I have played research director and getting half a million by the end of an hour long shift is a bit excessive.

Overall, I think it should fall under breaking rule 4 for a research director to immediately order swat gear and lethal weaponry without a very good reason to.
"but non-antagonists are not allowed to pre-emptively search for, hinder or otherwise seek conflict with antagonists without reasonable prior cause."

[Cobby]

They shouldn't be able to buy the best cargo has to offer roundstart to begin with.

[imsxz]

really cancer and metagamey/powergamey in general but IMO it's a code issue with the head of staff budget cards. all they do is shit out money and isnt really useful outside of giving to cargo, effectively no reason to not give it to cargo roundstart. Even if you use the budget I cards only in emergencies for ordering guns like nukies or blob, it's still immensely overpowered and shits out 5-10 CRATE S of laser guns per 5 minutes.

The way I'd go about nerfing it is A) reduce the amount they generate overall and/or B) add actual drawbacks to dumping the funds out of budget cards. Some ideas just to get a conversation rolling are a mood debuff for the department or something.

[Steelpoint]

It is a code issue. I've have many rounds where the RD runs off to cargo, buys infinite guns, then acts like its their god given right to carry all those guns, then they start shooting at security.

I have to wonder why the RD's card has so much money, yet everyone else gets jack shit for funds. The HoS's 'Defence Budget' can barely afford one crate of guns or mindshield implants yet the RD can buy out the entire armory five times over.

[Kangtut]

Most budget cards don't generate that much cash, the defense budget only ever has about 10-15k in it at most. Meanwhile the Sci Budget is based on how many research points have been generated and spending said points does not decrease the sci budget. Budgets and money in general have very little use outside of buying directly from cargo but the cost for most items can only be bought by budget cards. On top of that, few people buy anything from cargo besides weapons too.

But that is besides the point. Buying weapons with anything other than the defense budget makes no sense from an IC point and is clearly just powergaming (unless there is a major threat as stated above).

[Steelpoint]

Off topic but there needs to be a centralized way to manage your departments budgets, and for someone (HoP or Capn) to manage the entire stations funds and all budgets.

[Nilons]

play research director and dont do that then

if you want the budget play the head imo

[CrazyClown12]

The past few days I've been maining RD and I can't help but feel that I am the one that has caused this thread to be made. I don't think you should start arbitrarily restricting behaviours because of nonsensical decisions in coding. The Science department has a lot of money at round start and makes a lot more with no effort required. Being in charge of those funds, what are you supposed to spend them on? Am I expected to empty out every vending machine on station and spend the rest on corgi crates?

Science themed the only thing worth buying (of the top of my head) are oxygen canisters (though you'd still need atmos to give you extra plasma) for toxins or maybe TTVs if you somehow manage to use/lose all of the ones that you start with, then maybe monkey cubes for xenobio if slimes weren't ridiculously broken at the moment. If you go to the effort of deconstructing the console to hack it then there may be ~20,000 credits or so worth of meme items. Maybe if you want science to be self sufficient in power generation you could spend another 10,000 credits or so.

Otherwise, I have a lot of cash and very few options to spend it on. If I want to give everyone in the department swat outfits, tasers, stun batons, combat knives and either autorifles or shotguns to defend against the greytide that inevitably break in then it is my God given right to do so. If you think otherwise, you hate capitalism.

[charmisokay]

I have some general feedback on department budgets.
I don't feel like they enhance gameplay. Sharing the same budget constraint is an interesting dynamic.
It creates dilemmas when two different goods are requested. It also removes some of the duties cargo would normally perform, like seeking permission from the captain or HoS when science asks for combat shotguns for RnD. People rarely work together to raise funds anymore. Bounties and tech disks etc don't pop up as often as they used to. I haven't seen anyone drop by with a crate in a while. It also makes things like mindshields a lot more accessible, which I think is a shame.

[somerandomguy]

I have some general feedback on department budgets.
I don't feel like they enhance gameplay. Sharing the same budget constraint is an interesting dynamic.
It creates dilemmas when two different goods are requested. It also removes some of the duties cargo would normally perform, like seeking permission from the captain or HoS when science asks for combat shotguns for RnD. People rarely work together to raise funds anymore. Bounties and tech disks etc don't pop up as often as they used to. I haven't seen anyone drop by with a crate in a while. It also makes things like mindshields a lot more accessible, which I think is a shame.

Both science combat shotguns and tech disks are useless now
Also being implanted is better than being bucklecuffed for 10 minutes or executed on the spot

[WarbossLincoln]

I might be a pessimist but it's a code issue and it's not going to be resolved unless a different coder takes over the project and fixes it. If no one else steps in it's just going to suck until it gets removed and abandoned.

[iamgoofball]

Remove budget cards

[TribeOfBeavers]

As mentioned by a few different people in the thread, this is a code issue rather than one of policy.

If the RD has the funds to buy a bunch of guns they're allowed to buy them, assuming theyre not using them to grief or intentionally waste all the funds just to be a dick.