Being a frequent member/observer of the Cargo/Supply department has tuned me into several issues that I think could be addressed, both on station and on Lavaland with Shaft Miners. To summarize the current issues I perceive with both halves of the department:
CARGO TECHNICIANS:
- The services that Cargo offers to other departments is minimal at best, with most if not all cargo purchases only made to benefit Cargo itself. The two exceptions being Mindshields and Weapons.
- From my perspective this is mostly due to there being little in the way of required resources; departments are mostly self-sufficient and can get by without ordering anything.
- Aside from the joke Bicycle item, Cargo lacks significant late-game money sinks.
SHAFT MINERS: - Miners feel significantly more attached to the Science department than Cargo. Aside from BZ Farms on Lavaland, the Quartermaster and Cargo Technicians hardly interact. Even though the two share the âSupplyâ designation, they feel much more distinct than, say, Chemist and Virologist.
- Lavaland Balance is shaky at best. Most if not all outcomes are heavily deterministic on RNG; Tendril spawns and drops being the most significant. The difference in power between a Diamond Pickaxe and a Mysterious Core is massive, with the later being potentially round-changing. Megafauna (Which are again slaves to the RNG system in that only Hierophant and Legion are guaranteed to spawn, but the issue goes beyond that. Ash Drakes in particular have a loot pool that can result in the slayerâs main reward being a debuff (Ash Lizard Transformation), or a virtually unstoppable force in the Lesser Ash Drake transformation.
- Megafauna in and of themselves are a massive balancing issue. Entire systems have been created to prevent easy kills or other exploits. And of course, there is also the issue of them getting onto the Station Z-Level, where they can often be completely unstoppable.
All of this being said, here is a quick summary of the changes I would make to address these issues. This is mostly putting out an idea that I have certainty will never be implemented.
The biggest and most relevant change would be to separate Shaft miners into their own department labeled External Affairs. The job layout in both Cargo and this new department will be as follows:
CARGO:
Quartermaster
Cargo Technician
Coordinator
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS:
External Affairs Officer
Shaft Miner
Field Paramedic
Allow me to go in-depth on these departments and what each role, specifically the new ones, would do.
CARGO REMASTERED:
In its new state, Cargo will keep the ability to purchase their current crates and sell items for credits, but this will no longer be their main purpose. A reworked Bounty system gives the Quartermaster agency to pick time-limited bounties from Centcom (Generated at random). The new Coordinator job will serve as a dedicated role with basic, universal department access(Not AA, just enough access to, say, get into the Medbay lobby, Brig, Science and Engineering lobbies) to obtain bounty items. Items submitted via the Cargo Shuttle that are directly requested by Centcom will reward the department with both credits, a new reputation statistic, as well as grant Cargo the ability to purchase new varieties of crates. As Cargo accumulates more reputation from submitting bounties, Centcom will start to offer more difficult bounties (Basic bounties may be things such as simple foods or slime extracts while later bounties would require things like specific Slime Crossbreeds, Viruses with certain symptoms, rare chemicals, large amounts of power in storage, Hyper Noblium) If Cargo can accumulate enough reputation with Centcom, they will gain the ability to purchase extremely useful and even exclusive items, such as fully complete exosuits, ERT and Deathsquad gear, unique diseases and chemicals, Bluespace Shelter-like items that can produce ships or rooms, rare pets or, with extremely costly bounties, Marauder and Seraph-Class Exosuits.
Reward would not come without risk, however. Similar to the Heretic Target system, the Quartermaster will be given the choice of one of three randomly-selected bounties, which each display the credit, reputation and crate unlock reward, and a time constraint. If the bounty is not fulfilled in time, some reputation will instead be lost. The Quartermaster should be given a time limit to also choose which bounty, to prevent him from waiting to choose until the bounty item is obtained.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS:
The External Affairs department would be based in the station areas where the current Aux Base is located (On Pubbystation, the Maints above Departures instead). The purpose of the department is the same as Mining: Supply the station with resources. Instead of having mining be an accessory to the combat and exploration offered by shaft mining, however, it will now be intertwined.
Mining Research will no longer exist (To the relief of the Scientists). Items such as Bluespace Sachels and Plasma Cutters will be purchasable from the start VIA Mining Equipment Vendors. A simple change will force Shaft Miners into doing their job to obtain their better gear and PKA upgrades, while having the added benefit of no longer slaving R&D into using the first ten minutes of the shift on their research.
Necropolis Tendrils will be retuned into Necropolis Lairs. These will take the form of staircase-functional holes that lead into a separate Z-Level, where a randomly pre-generated dungeon will have a Necropolis Chest at the end. To access Necropolis Lairs, you will require the use of Necropolis Stablizers⌠an item purchasable for a small amount of mining points. Additionally, Miners can use their Mining Scanner to determine the difficulty of the dungeon inside, with Advanced Mining Scanners additionally displaying the reward at the end. Difficulty will scale with reward: dungeons containing Boat-In-A-Bottles will be relatively simple while ones containing Mysterious Cores would be long, treacherous and properly scaled to drop such a useful item.
Megafauna will no longer spawn in random locations on Lavaland. Instead, The Necropolis (The enormous structure at the north of Lavaland) will serve a new purpose. The current Ash Drake statues on the outside will be replaced with one statue of each Megafauna, which can be activated with Necropolis Stabilizers. Only one statue can be activated at a time. Once activated, any number of miners can enter the room within the Necropolis, which acts as an elevator, to enter a section of the earlier mentioned Z-Level. There, they will be given a sizeable arena to fight whatever Megafauna they chose, locked within a self-contained arena that cannot be escaped until either all challengers are defeated, or the Megafauna is. An alternate choice could be offered by instead requiring Miners to activate the Statue with a Legion Core. Doing so would provide a more difficult version of the encounter for greater rewards tuned for multiple Miners to fight at once, with either more health on the Megafauna or a more difficult arena layout. The harder fights would provide the victors with the most powerful drops in Lavaland, such as a confirmed Lesser Ash Drake transformation, at an extreme challenge.
Finally, there will be an addition of one, final purchasable in the Mining Equipment Vendor. For an extreme amount of points, miners will be able to purchase an item to activate the Gateway, relocated into their new department. This would give the currently-defunct structure a proper home and use.
Moving on to the new jobs in the Mining Department, the External Affairs Officer (Or Expedition Leader, whatever is preferred) serves as a new Head of Staff. The EAO spawns in the External Affairs departmentâs control room, where they will be given access to multiple terminals and systems they can use to track Miners. Shaft Minersâ jumpsuits will be fitted with a camera the EAO can look out of, to observe his minersâ progress. Mainly, however, it will serve as a way for dead miners to be located and retrieved. The EAO will also be granted the ability to join his miners himself, on both Lavaland and in Gateway Expeditions. For unique equipment, he can be provided with a unique Proto-Kinetic Crusher, with its ranged function doing the same damage as a PKA in addition to marking the target: the ultimate fauna-slaying tool. His cape, and the color thematic of the department as a whole, would be a dark green.
The Field Paramedic would be a role similar to Brig Physician, in charge of retrieving, reviving and healing Miners both in and out of the field. On their downtime, they can join the EAO in watching the progress of the Miners, before heading out into Lavaland to retrieve and surgically revive them in their own small medical room.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk I appreciate it have a nice shift
