Let cargo hail merchant shuttles

[Gerhazo]

The unpredictable RNG random event nature of merchant shuttles makes it very likely for them to appear in a situation where you don't have any money to spend, meanwhile also being very likely to not appear at all when you're actively looking for them. Add in the fact that their stock is sometimes very specialized(for example selling only synth-o-matic modules) and you end up in a situation where the vast majority of the time merchant shuttles arrive on the station and then awkwardly leave some time later with no one even having bothered to go inside.

Letting cargo summon merchant shuttles to the station in a controlled manner would allow the crew to prepare for their arrival and minimize the amount of situations where one doesn't arrive at all or the only one within the round that does sells completely different goods than what you're looking for.

This could be for instance cooldown based or cost some of the shipping budget to do, or a possible hybrid of both(the more frequently you call them, the higher the cost would get and is lowered the longer time you wait since the last hail).

Some of the merchants sell cool stuff and having them appear more regularly would not only allow for that stuff to come into play more often but also possibly bring more interest in expanding traders' stocks to make them even more enticing down the road.

[WhatATerribleUserName]

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Yes please, the RNG aspect of it can be rather unenjoyable

[Frank_Stein]

What if, certain station conditions attracted certain merchants? Like, if the machines in Pathology have been interacted with enough, or a certain amount of produce was produced, a merchant related to that would come by

[Tewf]

This would be an amazing addition to cargo. big +1

[Slacker Magician]

This would be a good change. It could also potentially allow cargo to do more active profitable sales, if the merchant's buy lists got updated.

[moistgrandmas42]

This would be amazing. +1

[Sundance]

Yes.

I had a similar idea on this before. Gosh let me find... nope. It's lost in the broth of posts that are these forums. I think it was probably as far back as 2015, showing my age.

But the reasoning behind it is effectively the same as Gerhazo.. in that it would encourage QM mass buying items for potential profit, expand trader stocks (include wacky things that normally wouldn't fit in a round (such as a knock off go-kart), even some weaponry) and basically have a "Hub" where you can buy things during a round. This means credits during game of course have potential use, much further than they would currently have.

Some trader stocks may have card locked crates if the items contained are particularly heinous (such as a weapon) but as they're businessmen, you could pay them more for an unlocked crate, as a separate option. Nefarious business could absolutely be expanded, such as a chance for them to sell counterfeit items that are faulty.

Basically my idea was to move the entirety of the merchant shuttles over to QM, increase the level of arrivals to establish this hub. The issue was that there wasn't really... any room in QM for this to happen. This was during the time of Cog2 release you see - and if you see where the merchant shuttles are on this map, it was not really designed with them in mind.

The ability to call merchants manually from QM is a good halfway house to this, but I would go far to say that there should be TWO active merchants shuttles at all times. One that is QM controlled, and one that comes and goes at random (3-4 times during a round, instead of a subtotal of 1), but is replaced just as quickly. I'd remove the station-wide announcement, and instead make it a PDA ping.

What this idea needs more than anything is the current item list that merchants actually offer. From my knowledge, it's VERY lackluster (items that can easily be stolen on the station and/or real basic shit) with a sprinkle of "Neat" items throughout. I know some nerd definitely has this on a spreadsheet somewhere.

[Adhara In Space]

good idea gerhazo !!!