Library

[Mordent]

Mordent, I'm with you. I love making forms and stuff. Sadly, no one ever fills them out painstakingly. Sadly...

And yeah, I'd love to be able to save files to disks between rounds. But, anything except text documents have a chance of becoming corrupted, to prevent just creating a super-annoying script that does some stupid shit to piss people off.

Hell, actually, why not just build it straight into this library idea? Books withdrawn from the library could be paperback and/or digital.

Paperback ones are just that; it prints out the book right in front of your eyes (maybe have it require an entire tree log per book, because what is the environment?); digital ones are loaded onto an e-reader PDA cartridge (that you get from the PDA vending machine). If you want to go through the effort of putting a persistent script on them you have numerous steps to actually getting it somewhere useful:

• Get PDA cartridge
  
• Get script loaded onto PDA cartridge
  
• Build a computer with the cartridge reader module
  
• Load it somewhere useful
  

Which is roughly comparable to the other ways, time/effort-wise to get pre-round scripts into a machine somewhere.

Paperback books should have multiple pages (see stapled booklets for example - should probably just treat them as booklets with a different sprite). Also, I can't remember if this is a thing already but you should be able to rip pages out of books/booklets. This would a) let you remove the final page from amazing novels, and b) let you make books of forms (e.g. "NanoTransen Bureaucracy Hardcopies, Volume IX: Material (Construction Grade) Requisition Forms").

Submitting novels would be done via placing a booklet into some sort of receptacle, with a new console letting you edit its metadata as well as request books from the library.

The library would be a randomly generated from all submitted books in a stochastic (i.e. weighted) fashion. Each round each crewmember can vote up any books they withdraw from the library (linked to ID, so if you want to get your book to the top then go steal a bunch of IDs), giving it 5 points. Books all lose one point at the end of each shift. Books that have a zero vote by the end of the shift are removed from the library.

Numbers need messing with, but you get the idea. Alternatively, allow players to buy book "slots" using that persistent currency system people are talking about and let others rate the books 1 to 5 stars (on a player-by-player basis, players can change their vote on a certain book at any point by going to the console). The average rating is the weighting factor on whether that book is available at the start of the round.

Allow QMs to order crates of a random selection of books/have a book merchant (he may even buy books, encouraging mass felling of trees to make books to sell).

You know, my thoughts kind of got away from me here, so my summarised preference would be:

• New console, which can print books/"publish" inserted books/load e-books to a PDA cartridge (new type of cartridge, or just any old RAM?).
  
• Publishing book requires metadata (title, author, optional blurb)
  
• Printed books require wood to make, starts loaded with, say, 10 wood and can be loaded with more.
  
• Players give books 1-to-5 star ratings. Mean score is used to derive final stars.
  
• Players can buy book "slots" using GoonBucks or whatever. Alternatively, one book per player until that's implemented.
  
• Books available at round start are drawn from book pool using stars as random weighting.
  
• More books can be ordered from QM/traders/random loot crates (specific titles?)