Goonhub
12-17-2013, 03:33 PM
I've always thought that more departments should have ways to contribute to the station budget, or their own fortunes, beyond winning the lottery and playing slots, and two recent posts on the SA thread made me think a bit on how this might be done. I'm gonna throw a lot of stuff out there, so please consider each part separately.
Why do this? Well, I think if the station had more of an economy, with every division having its own budget, it would give department heads more specific duties. They would oversee sales of products using a departmental barcode machine that returns 100% of the profit to that department's budget (It would have to be usable separately from the regular barcode machines. And speaking of which, as I mentioned in other threads I still wish it were possible to NOT put a person's banking information on a barcode after anyone's card has been scanned. The current computer always puts that on, and it sometimes interferes with trader sales. Splitting the current barcode machine from the banking label function would be a very good idea.). It would also add to the HoP's job if the station budget were more complex. Very useful employees would could come to them arguing for raises and bonuses, which they could use to buy a variety of interesting things.
Of course, to really be useful, this would have to be implemented along with reintroducing scarcity to the station. As things stand, medbay has all the medicine it needs, chemistry has all the chemicals it needs, engineering has all the gas it needs, electronics has all the parts it needs, botany has all the seeds it needs. Instead of that, how about using departmental supply machines to send pre-paid requests to the cargo bay? Also, give department heads the ability to make purchases in person using their ID cards (or a departmental debit card?), including the QM, with that job split up between a single sub-department head QM and Cargo Techs. It would be nice from the QM to be able to make in-person purchases on behalf of the station using the shipping budget in this way, if nothing else.
QMs, miners, and botanists (in theory) all have the ability to make money as things stand.
Engineering: Make a microwave emitter to transmit and sell energy to NT. Totally "safe", especially for space pods that might be flying around. Although balancing this one could be interesting, considering someone recently achieved a power output of 10,644,000,000,000,000 W, 665.25 times more power than is consumed by all of human civilization.
Medbay: Harvest and sell organs -liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, butt- from donors (""). Don't forget to put them in a cold container, or inject them with cryostylane, or something. Maybe make them both buyable from and sellable to a merchant (It would make sense to have just one do both). Also, be able to transplant lots of different things would give a reason for having two surgical tables in the surgical theater. You can already do this with brains- Vurdalak sometimes asks for them.
Genetics (and also Pathology if it ever returns): Once all the information on a mutation or pathogen is researched, load it onto a disk, load the disk into a communication terminal and sell it to NT. Or to black market merchants.
Chemistry: Let merchants/traders sometimes ask for supplies of rare chemicals, with more difficult recipes being worth more.
Artifact lab: Sell artifacts. Big prizes for specific ones from traders/merchants, and add "small artifact" and "large artifact" to the shipping market, but only if identified. Give artlab a special labeler that lists all the possible artifact effects, including "nothing." Get it right, and you get a big payday. Or, as a traitor, deliberately mislabel something. Oops, did my full-healing artifact accidentally render you into gibs? I'm sure that was a complete mistake.
Security: NT bounty on traitors. Give security a mind-reading apparatus. A person, alive or dead, is put into it, their mind is scanned, and if they're alive useful information about the Syndicate is extracted (though only useful for NT, for gameplay purposes it does nothing). If they're dead, it only determines if the person was a traitor or not, and the reward is much less. But, if the person is not a traitor, the station gets hit with a big fine instead, because you've just invaded the mental privacy of a person/killed them (And opened NT up to a possible lawsuit, which is unforgivable). This will both incentivize live capture, and doing actual detective work to make sure you have the right guy, two incentives I think the station badly needs. Also, a bonus for turning in a PDA with unspent telecrystals to the machine. The detective doesn't see any reward, because what kind of gritty detective isn't constantly in massive debt?
Well, that's what I've come up with. Anyone else think the station could benefit from any of these things, or have other ideas for departments I didn't mention?
Why do this? Well, I think if the station had more of an economy, with every division having its own budget, it would give department heads more specific duties. They would oversee sales of products using a departmental barcode machine that returns 100% of the profit to that department's budget (It would have to be usable separately from the regular barcode machines. And speaking of which, as I mentioned in other threads I still wish it were possible to NOT put a person's banking information on a barcode after anyone's card has been scanned. The current computer always puts that on, and it sometimes interferes with trader sales. Splitting the current barcode machine from the banking label function would be a very good idea.). It would also add to the HoP's job if the station budget were more complex. Very useful employees would could come to them arguing for raises and bonuses, which they could use to buy a variety of interesting things.
Of course, to really be useful, this would have to be implemented along with reintroducing scarcity to the station. As things stand, medbay has all the medicine it needs, chemistry has all the chemicals it needs, engineering has all the gas it needs, electronics has all the parts it needs, botany has all the seeds it needs. Instead of that, how about using departmental supply machines to send pre-paid requests to the cargo bay? Also, give department heads the ability to make purchases in person using their ID cards (or a departmental debit card?), including the QM, with that job split up between a single sub-department head QM and Cargo Techs. It would be nice from the QM to be able to make in-person purchases on behalf of the station using the shipping budget in this way, if nothing else.
QMs, miners, and botanists (in theory) all have the ability to make money as things stand.
Engineering: Make a microwave emitter to transmit and sell energy to NT. Totally "safe", especially for space pods that might be flying around. Although balancing this one could be interesting, considering someone recently achieved a power output of 10,644,000,000,000,000 W, 665.25 times more power than is consumed by all of human civilization.
Medbay: Harvest and sell organs -liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, butt- from donors (""). Don't forget to put them in a cold container, or inject them with cryostylane, or something. Maybe make them both buyable from and sellable to a merchant (It would make sense to have just one do both). Also, be able to transplant lots of different things would give a reason for having two surgical tables in the surgical theater. You can already do this with brains- Vurdalak sometimes asks for them.
Genetics (and also Pathology if it ever returns): Once all the information on a mutation or pathogen is researched, load it onto a disk, load the disk into a communication terminal and sell it to NT. Or to black market merchants.
Chemistry: Let merchants/traders sometimes ask for supplies of rare chemicals, with more difficult recipes being worth more.
Artifact lab: Sell artifacts. Big prizes for specific ones from traders/merchants, and add "small artifact" and "large artifact" to the shipping market, but only if identified. Give artlab a special labeler that lists all the possible artifact effects, including "nothing." Get it right, and you get a big payday. Or, as a traitor, deliberately mislabel something. Oops, did my full-healing artifact accidentally render you into gibs? I'm sure that was a complete mistake.
Security: NT bounty on traitors. Give security a mind-reading apparatus. A person, alive or dead, is put into it, their mind is scanned, and if they're alive useful information about the Syndicate is extracted (though only useful for NT, for gameplay purposes it does nothing). If they're dead, it only determines if the person was a traitor or not, and the reward is much less. But, if the person is not a traitor, the station gets hit with a big fine instead, because you've just invaded the mental privacy of a person/killed them (And opened NT up to a possible lawsuit, which is unforgivable). This will both incentivize live capture, and doing actual detective work to make sure you have the right guy, two incentives I think the station badly needs. Also, a bonus for turning in a PDA with unspent telecrystals to the machine. The detective doesn't see any reward, because what kind of gritty detective isn't constantly in massive debt?
Well, that's what I've come up with. Anyone else think the station could benefit from any of these things, or have other ideas for departments I didn't mention?