# Mining Produce Console

Mining produce consoles is a replacement for the Mining vendor, a Mining-variant of the Chef produce console that allows you to send orders through cargo to get the stuff you need.

## Goals

- Make Shaft Miner feel more part of the station
- Make Cargo and Miners feel more important to eachother.
- Give more power to the Quartermaster over their miners.
- Remove the Mining vendor's infinite stock.
- Make Miners affected by things going on in the station.

## Non-goals

- Turn Mining into a waiting game for orders to come in.
- Block Shaft Miners from getting the tools they need to do their job.
- Make Cargo Techs able to entirely block Miners from getting their orders.

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Shaft Miners use the Mining Produce console to put in a private order for everything they need, like the Chef Produce Console.
Because the Kitchen is one department and Miners are individual people, this is not a general 'kitchen crate', and should instead be tied to the purchaser (Non goal #3).
Miners also are more limited in what they can do in some cases, because of this they need the express option to be worth using. Mining points are also harder to get than credits, so the express console should not be as expensive as the Chef produce console (Non goal #2).

Shaft Miners are a innately a mechanic-focused job rather than a roleplay one, but this doesn't mean they are limited by it and can't have pauses between it. While their order is processing, they are free to do anything else (much like ordering any cargo manually). To allow for this, Cargo should be able to tell who ordered the crate on first glance, such as naming the order after the purchaser (Goal #2).
- This extra time allows them to explore some of the non-lavaland aspects of being a Miner, such as their cargo bounties, getting things implanted, selling lavaland artefacts, checking in on drones, going to the bar or kitchen (opening the possibility of removing food from pods), or even operating the Cargo shuttle if the department is understaffed. It also counts as an excuse for antagonists to explain why they're on station, if needed.
- If all of this is unwanted, the miner is also free to mine while they wait for their order too, they just won't have the equipment they have just ordered given to them immediately (more time to get mats instead of hunting megafauna, I suppose). This really is just up to the player.

Currently things that go on around the station rarely impact the Miner. As long as their ORM exists, regardless if it's synced so the station can make use of it, Miners have little to no reason to care about the station being torn apart. If Cargo was destroyed, blown up, or is just missing, Miners can now feel the effects of that, because they would be obligated to use their express mode and eat the additional cost (Goal #5).

## Alternatives

- Make Mining vendors use stock, like other vendors already do. This would mean Miners can only buy a limited amount of their needed items until they need Cargo to order them a restock unit. This however, goes against Goal #1 & #3, because Miners still do not feel part of the station, and instead feel like a chore for Cargo to have to do.

## Potential Changes

If the current prices feel too gouging, they can be lowered. They are currently made with intent that the base price should be going through cargo, not express.

There could possibly have some way to avoid paying the Express payment. Possibly some LTSRBT-esque machine built through Science printed at the Cargo techfab, which would allow miners to use the Express option at no additional cost, but instead it will be delivered to the Mining-LTSRBT instead of podded to the person. This would have to be optional like in the black market uplink, for ghost role purposes.

To cut down on travel time, the Mining shuttle could perhaps be upgradable with their engines, though that's something that already exists, it could perhaps be expanded (though this would probably be an expansion on engines in general).

## Changes that should not change

Express should not be the base price, the UI only shows the price you'll pay if you order through Cargo, which is what we should be focusing on because it is how we want them to purchase as the default.

###### tags: `TGstation`