Goonhub
04-05-2020, 12:09 PM
Hello!
Bit caught up with the whole viral shenanigans due to the fact my job is both essential and political so I haven't had much time to commit to Goon, but i'll make an exception here to post some thoughts on the topic.
I'm super excited to see the sprite reworks, my wandering eye caught glance of it on #imspriter, some jolly good work there.
In terms of the direction, I might offer some advice:
- The restructuring of the Catering role is a bit confusing on how it might be implemented. If the issue that catering is left unmanned for many rounds, then i'm not quite sure how additional job vacancies, particularly the Head of Catering, would be beneficial in this regard. It might end up in another unmanned role.
That's not to say it's a bad idea, far from it - there would just need to be a fundamental shift in firstly how catering is done and why the crew would even bother eating in the first place, to warrant the need for more hands. Granted - both of these are being addressed in the rework, it's just something to keep in mind.
- Output. This one is simple. In the current method, making a single burger takes up not only a relatively large amount of time, but is extremely resource wasteful (1 meat = 1 burger) and taxing on the machines around you (one burger in the oven takes up space in the entire oven). All this when you want to produce food for a hungry 40+ crew station isn't particularly viable. ...or fun for that matter, as it is repetitive. And probably demoralizing as nobody will eat the 40+ burgers you've made apart from the clown who's spam clicking, occasionally barfing up undigested food. This might be something to address in the rework.
- I would agree with Gogorow in that there could be some form of device in the kitchen that acts as a mini/stunted hydroponics tray. In an ideal world, this is hydroponics job to deliver produce, however that may not occur on some (cough, most) rounds. Which means you may have to rely on the head of catering to resolve this, or you might have a plan C. The plan C could be that hydroponics tray, or more like a 32x32 unit (call it GrowFriend), that stores 3 miniature trays for plants. While this sounds buff and makes hydro redundant on paper, there are a number of caveats that you could add, such as the unit cannot accept chems other than water (so you cannot crank up the harvest) and/or severely reducing the output or quality of the harvest and/or locking it behind QM. This will give you stunted (you'll be running short here if you rely on it) output of produce.
- These changes would need to made in conjunction with some neat oddities to Botany too. For it to work fluidly, you need bodies at botany, even with the above suggestion, you'd still want a friend in botany. It seems that you're already kind of doing this with that Mandrake, so keep adding more odd stuff like this. More lethal stuff, stuff to backfire and blow up in your face. However, there also needs to a be a reason Botany will want to trade with you in the first place. Which leads be onto my last and most important point..
- The need for catering in the first place. I have made a number of suggestions in the past on how to tackle this, and a big ol' rework is a good time as any to raise it again.
Bioeffects was and still is a good idea - in that food gives background benefits. There needs to be a closer look on how this is implemented in the rework. I might suggest tieing this in with quality, if that's something you have planned. I do think the "timer" aspect of it is currently a bit misplaced - quality should affect the scale of the bioeffect, while the amount of sustenance (not a thing in code yet I don't think but it would be the difference between a bite of chips and a cheeseburger) should affect the time it stays in the system.
Ideally in my head, a chef cooking up a grand meal would have a niche but great benefit to the player while also staying in their system for at least 25 minutes or 1/3 of the round, but would be slower to eat than a bag of chips which you can effectively inhale.
Additionally there needs to be more bioeffects.
- I lied, one more point. There needs to be a larger nerf on spam eating. Currently, you could run into the bar and consume everything on the table so long as it isn't poisoned, while barfing up undigested chunks along the way, which you promptly and grossly eat also. While this can be humorous, if the rework is something putting more emphasis on meals, then you might want to remove the factor on one shithead eating entirely everything that was meant to be for the crew. Perhaps, like sustenance above, if there's too much food then you simply can't eat anymore. Or you could link it into the organs code where eating too much causes blocked intestines, requiring surgery or even possible removal of the stomach.
Anyway that's my 2c. Well, given the length more like 12c.
Bit caught up with the whole viral shenanigans due to the fact my job is both essential and political so I haven't had much time to commit to Goon, but i'll make an exception here to post some thoughts on the topic.
I'm super excited to see the sprite reworks, my wandering eye caught glance of it on #imspriter, some jolly good work there.
In terms of the direction, I might offer some advice:
- The restructuring of the Catering role is a bit confusing on how it might be implemented. If the issue that catering is left unmanned for many rounds, then i'm not quite sure how additional job vacancies, particularly the Head of Catering, would be beneficial in this regard. It might end up in another unmanned role.
That's not to say it's a bad idea, far from it - there would just need to be a fundamental shift in firstly how catering is done and why the crew would even bother eating in the first place, to warrant the need for more hands. Granted - both of these are being addressed in the rework, it's just something to keep in mind.
- Output. This one is simple. In the current method, making a single burger takes up not only a relatively large amount of time, but is extremely resource wasteful (1 meat = 1 burger) and taxing on the machines around you (one burger in the oven takes up space in the entire oven). All this when you want to produce food for a hungry 40+ crew station isn't particularly viable. ...or fun for that matter, as it is repetitive. And probably demoralizing as nobody will eat the 40+ burgers you've made apart from the clown who's spam clicking, occasionally barfing up undigested food. This might be something to address in the rework.
- I would agree with Gogorow in that there could be some form of device in the kitchen that acts as a mini/stunted hydroponics tray. In an ideal world, this is hydroponics job to deliver produce, however that may not occur on some (cough, most) rounds. Which means you may have to rely on the head of catering to resolve this, or you might have a plan C. The plan C could be that hydroponics tray, or more like a 32x32 unit (call it GrowFriend), that stores 3 miniature trays for plants. While this sounds buff and makes hydro redundant on paper, there are a number of caveats that you could add, such as the unit cannot accept chems other than water (so you cannot crank up the harvest) and/or severely reducing the output or quality of the harvest and/or locking it behind QM. This will give you stunted (you'll be running short here if you rely on it) output of produce.
- These changes would need to made in conjunction with some neat oddities to Botany too. For it to work fluidly, you need bodies at botany, even with the above suggestion, you'd still want a friend in botany. It seems that you're already kind of doing this with that Mandrake, so keep adding more odd stuff like this. More lethal stuff, stuff to backfire and blow up in your face. However, there also needs to a be a reason Botany will want to trade with you in the first place. Which leads be onto my last and most important point..
- The need for catering in the first place. I have made a number of suggestions in the past on how to tackle this, and a big ol' rework is a good time as any to raise it again.
Bioeffects was and still is a good idea - in that food gives background benefits. There needs to be a closer look on how this is implemented in the rework. I might suggest tieing this in with quality, if that's something you have planned. I do think the "timer" aspect of it is currently a bit misplaced - quality should affect the scale of the bioeffect, while the amount of sustenance (not a thing in code yet I don't think but it would be the difference between a bite of chips and a cheeseburger) should affect the time it stays in the system.
Ideally in my head, a chef cooking up a grand meal would have a niche but great benefit to the player while also staying in their system for at least 25 minutes or 1/3 of the round, but would be slower to eat than a bag of chips which you can effectively inhale.
Additionally there needs to be more bioeffects.
- I lied, one more point. There needs to be a larger nerf on spam eating. Currently, you could run into the bar and consume everything on the table so long as it isn't poisoned, while barfing up undigested chunks along the way, which you promptly and grossly eat also. While this can be humorous, if the rework is something putting more emphasis on meals, then you might want to remove the factor on one shithead eating entirely everything that was meant to be for the crew. Perhaps, like sustenance above, if there's too much food then you simply can't eat anymore. Or you could link it into the organs code where eating too much causes blocked intestines, requiring surgery or even possible removal of the stomach.
Anyway that's my 2c. Well, given the length more like 12c.