Hey hey this item is really slow to pull! Fix it!

[ferriswheel1]

ive been thinking about this topic again lately, and thinking about belt hell

i like belt hell, i really do. its great flavor. every unsafe hellhole, as space station 13 is, needs places where people can fall in and get mangled and belt hell is great for this while also nominally serving a credible utility purpose

but lets be honest with each other, belt hell is not and never has been really mechanically necessary for moving crates. cargo transporters and their pads have been around for fuckin ever. belt hell, and the forklift, and cargo golfcart things, are not some kind of backbone features of the entire game that deserve to have sweeping changes made to basic movement mechanics for their sake

Since the worms seem to be back out of the can already, I'm going to say Misto has a point there.

I'm 100% for the movement changes, and really enjoy how it's changed game feel and hit and run kidnappings/thefts. I agree that long distance cargo transport isn't something that should be done by hand.

But the existing structures need improvement. It helps that we're playing on Cog1 more now, because I feel the belt hell infrastructure is designed better there since it's in the middle of that station rather than the outside.

Cargo pads are as good as they'll ever be. The MULE should be retired IMO.

Carts are where I'd like to see things go, because I feel there's a lot of unrealized potential there. Consider how much customization you can put into pods, that's the direction I would like to see carts go.

There's also the possibility of marrying telescience to cargo, and using the teleporter as a transport system, which I think would be equally interesting.

I agree with all of these points except removing the MULE, 'cause I think MULEs are kinda cool. Transport systems need to be improved, sure, but I think that we first need things of actual value to transport. Improving the variety and usefulness of cargo's orders would make transport systems see more use.

QM is probably one of the least-played jobs in the game, largely due to the fact that almost NOTHING they can order has any real value to other departments. Resource bloat means that almost any resource QM could order is within arm's reach of most crew members, and
the unique resources they have aren't much to write home about.

QM and resource availability need a revamp before transport systems, otherwise you'll end up with improved transports that people still don't use.