New Game Mod: Competitive Market

Suggestions
1

Was just zoning out and thought about some kind non combat, RP focused game mode that might fit bee’s vision. Hope it inspires some people because i’m not touching the atrocious code that is byond. So here it goes.

Competitive Market

Antagonists
At the beginning of shift some people (Designed as “Sellers”) spawn with the goal to sell certains special products, these can vary but each of them are unique to this game mode and can be something useful or interesting.
They can get these goods by ordering them from a special device similar to how you get traitor gear and they get sent to you directly via drop pod. But maybe you could have them delivered from cargo for a lesser cost.

Objective
The Sellers need to generate more money than their competitors at the end of shift.

Why it’s a good idea
It’s a non combat RP focused game type. And everyone like this but i don’t think we really have a dedicated game type, or even antagonist that isn’t combat focused in some way.
Many people enjoy making shops and selling things, this game mode would fully support this and further encourage people to interact with the shopkeepers to get these normaly unobtainable items.
It would allow people to get creative with their selling methods. You could go “door to door”, seeking customers directly or take the time to build your own shop !

I see so many people taking the time to create shops and other businesses. Everyone find them cool but you will always hear the same thing: “But only 1~3 people came.” and that’s a shame !
It being a dedicated game mode would insure that there isn’t some kind of apocalypse going on, preventing people from enjoying these “non essential” encounters.

This idea still needs polishing
Right now i haven’t thought muc about how to prevent people from gaming the system too much by not getting their money from selling their goods/services. But i think this idea is interesting enough to spark a conversation and together we should find a way.
Like what kind of goods sellers could sell ?

Here is what i came up with so far

Here it is

Competitive Market

The Antagonists

Sellers : Sellers are tasked to receive the most space dollars at the end of the round and compete with each others on who made the most money in sales.

Namak : Namaks are a small race of humanoids that the Sellers can hire, they are physicaly weak and unfit for combat but can do anything a normal crew member can, they cannot speak galactic common but understand it.

Objectives

Every 10 minutes each person on the station receives 50 space dollar, they can use this currency to buy from the Sellers.

The Sellers starts the shift with 500 space dollars and need to generate the most money in sales and they and the one that generated the most at the end of shift wins.

Mechanics

Fines : Security can issue fines to a seller if he is caught selling illegals wares. Fines remove current credits from sellers but also from their total ammount of money generated. Proper ammount of fine depending on illegal wares sold depends on what it is. Here is a list.

Purposefuly selling bootleg or deffective products : Product needs to be reimbursed to the victim and a fine of 25 SD per sold products, and current stocks of the product need to be ceised.

Selling illegal wares : The product needs to be ceised and a thorough search needs to be done, a 50 SD fine per illegal ware found and also a 106 infraction of Illegal Distribution needs to be applied (5 minutes prison sentence) The trading licence may be revoked at the security departement’s discretion.

Illegal Namak : A fine of 300 SD and a 109/110 effraction of Trespassing needs to be applied on to the Seller and the Namak. The Namak may then receive a proper identity or be made into a slave for nanotracen this time or be disposed of at the security departement’s discretion.

Tools
  • Portable Trading Link (T.D.L) : T.D.L are the Seller’s uplink. They spawn with one, their location can be tracked with a special app the Seller’s PDA has. Sellers use it to order more merchandise and put the space dollars they get inside of it to add them to their funds to order more merchandise and add it to their total ammount of money generated for the end of shift.
  • Namak Contract [200 SD] : Order a Namak that is slaved to you, it will arrive via drop pod to your location. More information in the Namak section.
  • License [300 SD] : A licence to be legally allowed to trade on the station. It costs a significant ammount of money and reduces the money you get from sales by 30 %. If you sell contraband security can revoke it and you will not be legally allowed to sell things on the station. (You can still do it but prepare to be fined or arrested if caught)
  • Space Dollars : It is the currency you need to use to buy things from your TLD and what is counted for your total sales score. It is a special kind of money that each person on the station receive each 10 minutes. It appears via bluespace at the feet of everyone on the station.
  • Exclusive Contract : Exclusive contracts are a special perk that can be taken once, at any time. It locks you into only buying certain brands of items but they come 20 % cheaper. This will allow you to buy and sell more wares but become specialised and lock you out of other kinds of wares.
  • Trader App : The trader app is a special app on your PDA, it allows you to track the position of you TDL and also allow you to send messages with pictures and discount cuppons of your choosing via bluespace science to everyone on the station every 5 minutes.

The Art of the Trade

You will have to convince people to buy your stuff, so you will need to advertise yourself and your products. This can be done by using multiple strategies here are a few :

  1. Door to Door Selling : Simply walking up to peoples and advertising your ware, this can also be done by sub-contractors that you can employ using the SD Receiver.
  2. Advertising : Use your Trader App’s function to send PDA messages to everyone along with maybe discount cuppons or buying an advertisement pass that allow you to send a message as a station message.

Wares

Wares arrive via drop pods to your location once ordered.

The Wares
  • Upgraded Pai [50 SD – Bootleg 25 SD] : Comes with extra storage capacity, upgraded softwares and unique ones too. [Such as loudness booster also giving the musician mood buff, or having a 5 unit auto injector of epinephrine, a booze dispencer with a maximum creation capacity of 15u that recharges very slowly. Will probably make its own section] Malfunction only has normal PAI functions but still looks like an upgraded one.
  • Portable Pill Compressor [25 SD – Bootleg 10 SD] : Compresses any reagents put inside and transform them into a pill with a custom name. Malfunction causes the compressor to waste 50% of the reagents while compressing.
  • Mortician Autoinjector [10 SD] : An autoinjector that comes loaded with 3 units of formaldehyde and nothing else. Prevents organ decay in dead bodies.
  • Berserker Injector [100 SD – Bootleg 15 SD] : An auto injector, comes loaded with 10 units a special reagent that instantly heals 40 damages of every kind except stamina on all limbs and further heals 3 of all damages every ticks. Continualy gives stamina damages, slowing you down after 10 seconds and knocking you in stamina crit after 20 seconds. Malfunction injects saline glucose instead.
  • Auto Charging Battery [45 SD – Bootleg 15 SD]: 2,5 Kw cell that recharges 1% every 5 seconds. Malfunction auto recharging feature stops working after 10 minutes.
  • Civilian Auto Doc [70 SD]: Allows you to do various surgeries on yourself such as implanting something you put into it or replacing select organs with upgraded ones (you need to insert the organs that will be implanted into the auto-doc), one time use item. Malfunction causes a random limb to be amputated instead, can’t amputate head.
  • Black Market Auto Doc [150 SD – Illegal] : Works the same as the civilian one but can also perform more dangerous surgeries like replacing an arm with a chainsaw or brainwashing.
  • Screwdriver Pen [10 SD]: The Etherware company produce these small miniturised tools that also act as pens. Takes 20% longer to use compared to regular tools.
  • Wrench Pen [10 SD]: Takes 20% longer to use compared to regular tools.
  • Welding Pen [10 SD]: Can hold 15 units of welding fuel. Takes 20% longer to use compared to regular tools.
  • Namak Contract [200 SD] : Gives a beacon that when activated calls via drop pod a Namak, along with a licence and passport, legal paper allowing the Namak to be on the station.
  • Black Market Namal [75 SD] : Gives a beacon that when activated calls via drop pod a Namak, although it doesn’t come with a licence, so security may detain him and give you a fine of 300 SD.
  • Paintable Figurine [15 SD – Bootleg 5 SD] : A paintable minuature, needs to be painted with minature paint. [Will probably add the miniatures from arcade loot here] Malfunction causes the painting process to always fail at the end.
  • Figurine Paint [15 SD] : Used to paint miniatures, this is a long 1 minute process that if it is interrupted permanently ruins the miniature. [Have a room hidden in maint full of illegal Namaks painting miniatures]
  • Plushie [30 SD – Bootleg 10 SD] : A plushie of your choice ! Malfunction cause the plushie to break after picking it up and/or activating it in hand 10 times.

Discounts : 5 items (Only 2 if an Exclusive contract was signed) may be discounted for a duration of 2 minutes, every 10 minutes. (The duration is made that way to prevent Sellers who were jailed from accessing them)

Bootleg/Malfunctioning Products : Certain wares have a 5% chance of being mafunctioning, or you can buy bootleg versions of the item for much cheaper although this is illegal. Both are the same things it’s just that the way to get them differs.

Maint Loot : Each of these items that aren’t illegal and cost less or equal 75 Space Dollars can naturaly spawn as maint loot, although their malfunction rate is higher at 30%.

Cargo Orders : You can order wares via cargo and they will cost 10% less this way.

Plushie Cover Up : You can order illegal wares from cargo, they will cost 40% less and will be hidden inside plushies, they need to be opened with a sharp item to be recovered.

1 Like
2

The only way I can see them working is if they’re supporting antags that spawn alongside traitors, with roundstart syndicate encryption keys. What you‘re making is essentially a soft greenshift, and I don‘t really get how anyone would even be allowed to buy the traitor stuff if only those shopkeepers are antags.

Also, despite naming your gamemode competitive market, you seem to miss the rules of supply and demand. People generally just don’t buy from shops as you said yourself. At the same time, a lot of shops are being built because doing that is fun. Forcing rounds to have even more shops increases supply, but not demand, which is the exact opposite of what we need. You’re gonna see people visit stores even less.

3

this seems better as a midround

4

This does seem like a very good idea but it stumbles over a pretty huge pebble - our economy. It’s kind of a huge mess, where science can print 50 000 credits in 10 minutes with Toxins, Exploration can provide a substantial amount of income through the round, Cargo can get a bounty for a contained tesla ball which costs ~15 000 credits to make but earns at the very least 100 000+ credits.

5

@LodedDiper Oh i wasn’t talking about selling illegal stuff or any kind of “gamer gear”. More like some everyday items like plushies, toys, or other novel items.
Maybe they could also have some weird items with a little bit of usefulness. One of the things that come to mind that are already in the game are the screwdriver pens (have an often needed tool in a very small format(can be used to switch batteries on machines like chemistry producers)), gas masks (just an oxygen mask that you already spawn with but with a different appearance and the added ability of concealing identity when worn without an ID).
Or maybe have a cheaper way to get consumer goods like plushies/certain costumes.

For the rule of demand and supply part well, it’s true that the demand could be lacking so that’s where the sellers will have to advertise their products. Bother people with it, talking to them and interacting to convince them to buy this more or less useless things. Having these things be unusual and otherwise not seen on the station could help. And it would make people talk to each other, RP and all.

You are right in the fact that it is a soft greenshift, but i think greenshift as always made roleplaying and interacting socialy with people easier. And i think these kinds of things are important.

@WilsonPH It’s true that money is a bit broken if we take into account what each departement can produce but what i have in mind isn’t really to sell to big groups or rich roles but really the everyday guy, in a much more direct manner. So maybe instead of using normal money we could use a special kind of money, ditributed to everyone at fixed intervals. Like everyone get 50 Freedom Dollars every 10 minutes to buy from these sellers. And this is where we can escape the problems of the economy.
It also becomes more like a voting game on who was the more ingaging in their business strategy.

6

Hmm I really like this, it immediately started getting me thinking “How could this work? What could they sell to keep everyone engaged and make them a proper antagonist?” I had a few ideas too! Lemme start with the hardest to sell (pun moment) what if they could sell a crime ticket? something that lets the buyer perform non-lethal antagonistic actions such as thievery and B&E, something like that could certainly get security involved in a round without worrying about “Oh great an antag I gotta lethal before they lethal me” and it would cause a “Solve the seller” mystery. 2
Another great thing was I thought if we could give them some special items to sell that only they can bring into a round, haven’t given much thought to what they could be but maybe like a self-charging battery stronger than the charged yellow extracts? Maybe they could sell other departmental radio keys? Perhaps something like a rare single use “instant healing” chem for medical that can restore any victim?

But as mentioned before, money is an issue as some departments are just… better at it… BUT WHAT IF, this is a mode that has 1) the sellers, competing against each other, but ALSO 2) the banker, someone the sellers are aware of and who exchanges a special currency for items or goods from departments. Then that particular banker suddenly decides the value, always changing the value of items per round. Maybe one time the banker is hurt and really needs medicine or treatment? well 100 Banker credit to the doctor who patches him up. Hungry but you’re an Apid and noone ever makes you food? Hey botany how about 10 banker credits per apple. Stuck in prison and an antagonist broke you up? well now that’s gotta be worth a few credits.

It all sounds fun to me and personally I think this could be a really fun idea if implemented, unfortunately I cannot code either so these are all just ideas that sound personally neat to me

7

Well i think this could be something good in all rounds really and not just tied to this game mod. On skyrat (i know shame one me) they have a system to request authorisation to do some gimmicks that may be more or less antagonistic. And admin would review it and give the okay or nay. We can also do that on bee by just doing an Ahelp but these always get used just for reports. Having a special wdget for these kinds of use would inform and encourage people to use it like this.

Yes this is exactly the idea! Maybe not making these self charging batteries actualy stronger than charged yellow would be a bit too much, making them similar or weaker than slime batteries would still give them value since they would be more accessible than yellow slime batteries since it would just require the Seller to order them instead of doing the time conssuming slime breeding. Instant healing chem is a bit much but maybe it could be balanced if you fall asleep for 20 seconds like 30 seconds after using it. Really this last ditch effort in a fight or to try to save someone. I would make this pretty expensive though.

Yes that’s why i think introducing a special currency that isn’t directly tied to what the station can produce would bring everyone on an equal footing in their buying power. Making the economy stable by like giving everyone 50 spess dollar every 10 minutes. And this would really bring scarcity and thus true value to this money. Value for the seller since the one that generated the most money wins the round and value to the crew for the unique, not too broken but very convinient items.

Personaly i’m not a fan of it, i think i would need to try it in a round to make up my mind but let me tell you what i think right now. This would be puting the whole round within the hand of the banker. He would be the one that could decide who wins simply by giving more money to certain people. This would add too much complexity and would in my opinion go against the idea of going to each and every people to sell stuff. It would instead converge everything around this figure because he’s so much more important with all the money he can give you.

I also though a little bit on my side of what the sellers could sell and i realised something.

Sellers don’t need to sell products, they can also sell service Something immaterial like a clowns performance, a fortune teller or anything. But the system should still be able to support such thing so i had an idea.

Introducing the slave/migrant worker helping hand !

It would be a little helping hand, a character that is ghost controlled and comes in a drop pod. It has for objective to obey all your command and you can use it as extra man power for your bigger projects. I would make them unable to use gun, frail and killed easily, also unrevivable to not make them an obstacle to antagonists but otherwise allow them to handle tools and everything normal players can. They would be smaller creature like the Jawas from starwars so maybe not the best when it comes to communication but they would be bound to their master and obedient. Maybe make them speak really weird too or not at all.

Then when you need a normal face for a job you could just hire an assistant as a full time employee ! You could give him a special console so that the credits he takes when selling comes back to you, maybe he could take a cut from it if you agreed. Making him a more expensive workforce on the longrun compared to the slaves Jawas, who may cost a bit much but it is just an initial purchase and will come cheaper on the long run.

image

So yeah when you need a face and someone socialy apt to your business you may have to hire an assistant. Or you could buy Jawas but since they aren’t on the crew mannifest they may get taken by sec for unauthorised boarding of the station. Maybe ask HoP for an ID so they can work there ?

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Updated it a bit. Care to share what you think ?

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