Economy Design Doc

--- tags: Design, Abstract, Economy, Ongoing title: Economy Design Doc --- # Economy Design Doc [toc] ## Maintainer Design Flows :::warning This section describes design flows that are meant to be upheld in the PR process. **PRs that go against this section are subject to closing.** Please do not edit this section unless you are a maintainer. Comments via sidebar are welcomed. ::: --- --- ## Non-Maintainer Design Flows :::info This section describes various design flows that are not yet incorporated into the maintainer-approved design. **Working towards these flows does not guarantee merge, nor does going against these flows guarantee close. Please resort to `###` and below for heading tags, and preferably `Title (Author)` for easy reference. Titles can be set with YAML metadata. Ping Cobby on Discord if you need assistance embedding/generating your note.** ::: ### The Economy Design Doc. Fuck. Everyone and their mother has about 100 different ideas and designs for economy, and as established by my lack of a degree in clownmanship, I suck dick at juggling. So, this is where I angrily split up the document between a few DIFFERENT DESIGNS for economy, in the hopes that some greens come up with ONE CLEAR VISION to go forward with in terms of the economy design space, because otherwise it'll fly under the radar until we have another excuse to remove it. ## Things that need to happen regardless of the overarching Design: * Logging for Economy interactions needs to be finished and completed. There's no way to determine how to lead and direct economy if there isn't a way to see what effect it's causing on the game, and how much money exists within a round. --- ### Arconomy: In Quick, Easy Bulletpoints (2022 Edition) I'll make this fast. > Economy exists, individual items purchased by staff costs money, but items from their dept autolathe, dept cargo gear they are authorised to buy etc, are all free "paid by NT" * Economy is a secondary system in the game, in that it is not round critical but can be used as a resource to **make players rounds more interesting**, or provide **secondary objectives** for the player outside of their jobs. * Players naturally make a **low, but consistant** amount of credits naturally by playing the game. This means that players have resources to interact with the economy all throughout the round, even if they're not doing economy-related tasks. * Prices for items purchasable on station (through vending machines) are subject to inflation, to encourage players to spend money before they get too expensive. * Jobs should strive to have **secondary sources of income**, allowing them to add to their personal source of money, **built into their job's gameplay loop**. * Eg: Chefs can serve tourist bots to make additional money, to buy more exotic ingredients. * Similarly, jobs should attempt to uniformly have content that is partially **tied to economy**, but **not required** to do their job without it. * Eg: Security getting equipment sidegrades or options, purchasable through their vendors or through cargo. Medical getting unique tools like the amputation shears. BEPIS techs should be treated like this as well, but clearly they need to be implemented better. * Players should have an **incentive to seek and accept credits** in exchange for goods and services, either via personal accolades, or to attain premium content/fun things to play around with. * **Players should not be able to obtain infinite credits in a single round**, either through cargo nonsense or through the game having a round lasting way too long. * This is attempted to be offset by inflation, dynamic threat, and through repeated balancing of the cost of certain items. * The intent of economy is to have a somewhat balancing network of resources that designers can draw from if they want to make an aspect of the game that players can draw from. **It should take thought to add new ways to MAKE credits**... * ... **and very easy to add new ways to SPEND credits**. Done. End of bullet points. Go nuts. --- ### Capsandi's Super Accessable Economy This is based off of Arc's Primary Economy design, but is a bit more strict, focusing on encouraging use of the system by increasing accessability and interaction with the economy over the shift **Bullet points!** * Removal of all passive income from all jobs, and cutting down on shift start funds, aiming to allow around a maximum of 3 transactions before running out of dosh(only station crew arriving on the arrival shuttle or at roundstart get this) * Removal of cash accounts, Cash is tied to the card, and any card can have cash inserted * Replacement of barcode scanners with a machine at cargo which adds a irremovable barcode to the item, removing the need of a specialized item and allowing more crew to run past cargo, slap a barcode to an item, and get some dosh * Addition of a few round start custom vendors to the halls and simplification of vendor UI so the owner can slap an item into the vendor and name a price with nothing more than their worn id and the product itself * Conversion of the bar drink dispensers and chemistry from energy-liquid converters to refillable.. dispensers, and the addition of cargo crates containing space tide pods which refill the dispensers. **Pros** * Anyone with an id physically in their hands can use the economy(free golems, slave golems, other ghostroles allowed on the station) * You no longer need wrapping paper for each item you are selling * Without a constant influx of cash from any sources, the economy(scarcity of cash, not the system itself) can change from shift to shift based on how cargo is doing and how much the crew is using the barcode machine. * More player to player transactions via the custom vendors, the need of the bartender to charge patrons for their drinks, and the need for medical to charge patients for their drugs * Seriously wounds two birds with one stone; Removal of the magical chem dispensers also discourages reliance on drugs and gives some scarcity to chemicals, requiring medical traitors to replace the chemicals they use, lest the CMO ask why the exact ingredients of RDX are missing * The briefcase full of cash becomes a more applicable traitor item * Cargo can no longer tear barcodes from the items to get 100% of the profit **Cons**(feel free to add some) * This puts even more emphasis on keeping your id safe, as you will lose your money with your card * DOOMPING EET with the suspicious telephone is now more destructive, and will pull more of the crew to the crab's location. Perhaps it should be exclusive to cargo tech traitors? :::info I think we could lower drain-rate or add another way of making it less destructive that doesn't lock it to a specific job - Floyd :::