Change to PTL or million credit objective

[Splints]

Currently, there is a 'make one million credits via the PTL' objective for engineers and CE's. Since changes to both hellburning and the PTL this has become nearly impossible without extending the round time. Since the change to the PTL on March 26, one person has earned the related achievement. Looking at goonhub,  this looks like it might have required a four hour round that ended around the same time they earned it. This seems to be by far the hardest job objective as most can be reliably earned by a player within a typical round with a bit of effort.

I thought it might be better to discuss it here before PR'ing any changes. What are your thoughts? Do you like it as it is, or would you support a change to the objective or the PTL income curve? And if you support a change, what would it change to? Personally, I'd imagine 10k credits would put it on par with other objectives, but I am not an experienced engineer so this may be way too low.

[nefarious6th]

I've seen a decent mid-round 15MW burn that had been running for maybe 40 minutes make 3k credits on the PTL. I imagine by round-end this probably looked towards 7.5k (a little less than double what was happening at mid-round). This was an engine setup on basic w/o any agent b or molitz beta; I think 10k would be very reasonable given those circumstances, but given some stuff is still being shaken out in the PR realm with the agent b stuff, I'd like to see how that resolves before anything definitive on the credit amount, as that may become much easier or much harder within the next couple of weeks.

My own personal belief too is that it shouldn't be something obscenely difficult for people to do; I'm very interested and a huge proponent of trying to make engineering really accessible for players who might not otherwise think twice about it. Goals in other departments I don't think ever really had the same level of difficulty the PTL income goal had even pre-TEG changes, it was very much kind of a "bragging rights" badge for the early stages of those trained in the ways of Number Go Up. Something else I was never a biiiig fan of was that it's a CE-only objective. I think if the badge were to be looked over again, I'd like it to be something feasible for mid- to above-mid level engineers to attain, versus only high-level engineers, and I would really really like it to be a goal available to all engineers so that even non-CE engineers get an accomplishment for burning as a part of a team versus emphasizing solo burns. I like team burns, but that's maybe just me!

[coolvape]

imo now that hellburns are a thing that like, NT is just discovering(the RD molitz suitcase note), at current power production rates the PTL doesn't really make any sense as something that would even be installed?
like, the station is generating negligible amounts of power and sending it off station with a giant laser instead of whoever they're sending it to just generating whatever power locally? it's like, sure it's a game, but it doesn't feel like the PTL makes very much sense anymore

[Varali]

I've complained about PTL money before, ever since the changes it barely makes a few thousand credits with the much reduced output. We could definitely use lowering the medal amount, but also severely increasing the PTL credits.

[Azrun]

Constructive feedback!    I understand a lot of people haven't been happy with the PTL earning output, but unfortunately there hasn't been much real feedback regarding expectations or desires (or I failed to find it) besides more would be good.  https://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=15976 </rant>

Money Output:
What do you think the target money output should be be per 10min or round? What mechanics should be involved/required Pipeburn, Agent B, Mat Sci, Chems (Lubrication)?

Medal:
What should the target power output be?  What mechanics should be involved/required Pipeburn, Agent B, Mat Sci, Chems (Lubrication)?
* To put it on par with the pre-hellburn changes it seems like pipe burn or agent B should be a factor.
What should the duration that said power be maintained or essentially how long of a round does it need to be maintained?

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/npcbsv709f

I imagine is that the CE was the one that helped offer guidance and instruction to make it happen, if someone else wants the medal they need to hold that torch and rally the team.  That is an opportunity for someone else to try and replicate the behavior they have seen and hopefully play a leadership role. I think a separate medal for taking part in a "1.21 Jiggawatts" round is interesting though.


I think nailing down specific power output values should possibly wait until the Agent B stuff has settled, but I think some general consensus on goals/expectations  would allow for quick adjustment.  Though if Agent B burns is expected to be beyond the scope of the two items that is solvable today.

[nefarious6th]

I like the original changes to the PTL, I don't think I'd have a clear idea about the threshold stuff for the medal until looking at it in retrospect, but I do like and appreciate that on that PR the "floor" for PTL power production was lowered so that char and low-end chamber burns produce some money. I think now it's just about finding the "ceiling".

I'd say yes to pipeburn or agent B; I think to earn the medal it should be about pulling out and using a lot of the tools given to make burns exciting and different; and while I don't think it should be something only obtainable through minmaxing the engine in as many aspects as possible, I think it'd be nice if the engineers setting the engine for that burn could master let's say three of the four areas you listed in the course of their setup. They get good at matsci, know how and when to use agent b, and do the chemicals in the circulators? I think that's probably proficient. So, to relate to the last bit, I also don't think this is cleanly resolved until other agent b stuff is hammered out.

I'll second the medal idea too; maybe 1.21 Jiggawatts isn't the medal for any engineer, but maybe there's some sort of Junior Achievement medal level for being on the team vs. leading it that could be made? That way people can maybe take things one step at a time; work as a normal engineer until they find a setup that works, and then use that knowledge to teach others to try and replicate that success.

To be honest, I wouldn't know what to say about power scaling and what the Precise Number would be. My experience is anecdotal; I have only seen one person hburn to 500GW on Destiny since the engine changes and they did it on main without agent b and without matsci (not sure about circs, minmaxed creative gas combos), in a 70 minute round, but I think that's kind of the outlier scenario of the Very Best Case for someone running an engine.

[Varali]

So a recent round of mine I managed to get 395 MW stable on Oshan, using two artifact generators and hotspot stacking. After 20 minutes, I had only earned around 7800~ credits. That's not even enough to buy the Basic Power Kit for 20k. Two Fresh Produce crates can make that much at a decent market value, or a few syreline.

395 MW is something I don't expect any RP engineers to reach with a TEG, due to the lack of Agent B usage, so I'd expect at least a bullion's worth of credits, probably much more so a 20MW PTL can earn more than a few cigarettes. From my experience, RP Engineer TEGs hang around 2-6MW usually. I'm of the opinion that having the PTL be very profitable will grow the engineering community, because since the TEG overhaul there's been less and less interest in doing good burns. Just my two cents and attempt at feedback.

[Ikea]

The best Ive managed to do was a singularity, we got to 4 GW tops, this would be a good hellburn post changes (pre agent b tank removal). This was on a 2 hour RP round, only 50k total was made. Ideally a few gigawatts would get you a million total at least. Id say engines should get really profitable output on a few gigawatts, a few gigawatts is a good singulo, a good hotspot, or a good TeG setup.

[Varali]

On RP I've never seen a TEG burn past 100 MW, maybe even 50 MW, but I've seen GW hotspots and singularities every now and then, so it's difficult to place PTL somewhere reasonable. Obviously people that can't reach 50 MW won't be trying for the medal, but I'd still want the PTL to be somewhat profitable even at low levels so I'm going to be vouching for the low power profitability side.

I've been brainstorming and I'm reluctantly leaning towards 1 MWh = 1080 credits. That's 1 MW/minute = 18 credits and 1 MW/sec = 0.3 credits. For a million, you'd have to run 500 MW for a full two hours, and a gigawatt is one mil per hour. Preferably I'd add some sort of flat bonus to bump up lower MW profitability. Something as simple as ptlMoneyPerSec = (outputMW * 0.3) + 5; would make 5 MW PTLs make enough to be useful, going from 5400 credits an hour to 23400 credits an hour with the bonus. 1 MW PTLs would make 19k an hour, or 38k over two hours which is still something. I wouldn't consider that too over tuned as that's about the credits you'd get from a single sale of 20 telecrystals with only 1k profit each, if anything I'd say we can go even higher. 

Since I'm vouching for the low profitability side, I'd even say 0.5 credits a sec with like a 10 credit bonus would be nice. 1 MW would make 37k an hour, 5k would make 45k an hour and 100 MW would make 216k an hour. Works out to 258 MW reaching 1 mil over two hours and 536 MW reaching 1 mil over an hour. I really want engineers to do their job other than sitting around waiting for breaches and a high payout incentivizes more PTL usage even for less experienced engineers and promote power experimentation to make even more money. 216k an hour for 100 MW is still really low compared to Cargo and Mining credits per hour I think so I'd love to vouch for even higher amounts but I don't want to push my luck too much, especially since I've no idea the state of Engineering on Main and how this would affect them.

[Froggit_Dogget]

even with agent b cheesery; on main, in 90 minute rounds, i havent even been able to make a quarter million, even after reaching a terrawatt on the PTL. With agent B being removed from the place it was easiest to get it, i doubt anyone will get this medal again.

[Azrun]

With agent B being removed from the place it was easiest to get it, i doubt anyone will get this medal again.

That is the point of this thread though, to figure out how things should be adjusted so people can get the medal. Adjustments regarding availability of Agent B is also in active development. How long were you in the terawatts? Maybe my math is off...

[Froggit_Dogget]

not that long, took me all round, and in order to boost it to a terrawatt i started a pipeburn at around 250 gw