[Effortpost] QM Revamp

[Sundance]

This will probably never be implimented, but if it's considered, could really change QM for the better making it a more inclusive, better-balanced and all-in-all more fun to play. What's my idea? Well here it is:

Remove "Order Items", replace entirely with "View Traders":
Currently, there's a list of stuff to buy, you buy it, that's it.
My concept is instead, have it entirely trader based. "So how do I order basic stuff, like metal? And medical supplies?!" you might ask. All of the items that are on the order list is now relagated to the appropriate trader. Construction supplies would be relegated to one trader. An already existing example would be botanical crates would be associated with Bulford Tenin. Each trader would also have a tag before their name, such as [Construction], [Medical], [Misc], to make ordering items more straightforward.

Is that it? Nope. There's more, and this is where it gets fun:

Each trader has a personality and a temperament:

Currently, traders have a form of "temperament", they have a kind of bargain treshold in which after so much, they will tell you to fuck off and leave, often not appearing until next market shift.

This idea adds more to this; temperament can go both ways, with trader portraits appearing neutral, angry and content.

What makes them angry? Over-bargaining is one. Sending crates of incorrect items another. Sending them a rigged crate will make them instantly pissed. Another mechanic is could be a "timed" request, where  if you accept this, you have to trade x item before next market shift as they need asap, and failing this causes them to be pissed.

What makes them content? Just sell and buy of them normally, and complete timed requests successfully.

As for personality, going back to Bulford Tenin, every so often he will drop his prices because he is a high motherfucker. Another example is Pianzi, who sells items of vague description. Pianzi (if you read the code) is also an asshole, he will accept if you accidently bargain items too high. As stated before, each already has a bargain treshold. So with more traders comes with more personalities. Here's some examples:
1. Capitalist: Will increase price of items per demand.
2. Socialist: Will decrease price of items per demand
3. Psychotic: Prices fluctuate significantly during market shift.
4. Nice tipper: Will include some extra items as a good gesture.
5. Bad tipper: Will shaft you of some items per purchase.
And so on so forth

Content and Angry: Rewards and Punishments
There's a reason for the temperament, and it's not just to see what Vulderak would look like pissed off. You'd want to get on their good side, because doing so unlocks extra items from their list, and causes them to drop the prices for items all round. For example with Bulford, getting on his good side means that he might sell you strange seeds, UV lamps and possibly a maneater seed for a high price. Each trader would have their own items to unlock, and these items can be quite good depending on how hard it is to get on their good side, but also the price.
Their bad side? Traders may not exactly like you fucking them around. Ordering an item off a pissed trader could result in them not only sending you wrong stock, but something BAD, like a rigged crate, plasma spores, space bears, high radioactive ores, light grenades, an angry sonnet, you name it. However pissing them off may also result in them leaving till next market shift, which depending on the sitaution could result in depravation for the crew (if they need x supplies)

This and Code:
QM code from looking at it, seems pretty straight forward as the treshold idea is already kind of in place. Adding in this would just mean that there's bad reprecussions (and a different portrait for the trader) if you fall under it, and good if you go above. Personalities could be easily implimented too.

This and being a bad QM:
It opens up alot of opportunities and makes QM more fluid. Traitors could take advantage of who they want to ally with (may want a good item from x trader) and who they want to oppose (may take advantage of the bad crates). They also could fuck with the station so that items are not available when the crew needs them.

Further ideas:
One thing bounced around in my head is tying this in with stocks. Stocks could be tied in with market shifts, and traders could be tied in with stocks. Some traders could be hard hit by the fall in buttcoin, and thus may need to sell their stock at a lower price.
Another thing could be contacting traders as a non-QM. These traders could then appear as an NPC trader in the market, allowing you to buy specifically from them, but also they may have special items seen as they went so far to go to the station themselves.
These however are just spin-off ideas, but could be cool tied in.

Thoughts?

[ferriswheel1]

I really like this idea, mainly because QM could do with some expansion. An interesting idea I was thinking of was for QM to have a communications dish, of which you could buy upgrades for to enable you to unlock new traders, change the market shift to roll for different traders and summon merchant shuttles.

Speaking of merchant shuttles, I really like the idea of letting every trader have their own shuttle. Being closer to the station, they'd be able to offer more interesting items, and it gives people more places to spend their money, which is always good.

In the end though, I'd like to see QM be able to buy and sell a larger variety of stuff, which is the major reason why cargo doesn't get so much love at the moment. A good quartermaster should be able to find anything for the right amount of money.

[atamusvaleo]

I think it's a great idea and from a coding standpoint, this doesn't seem like a deathtrap (looking at the code storm for borgs that's claimed countless lives).

One critique would be that QM needs to be more of a vital resource for the crew in order for the traitorous aspect to hold any sway. This ties into the old criticism of supplies being too abundant on cog2.

Side Note
What about giving the traders a physical location? Right now crates just kind of fly off into the debris field via belts and mass drivers. If items were teleported in and out, traders could have physical locations on the adventure z-level (if there is enough room for such a thing).

[Vitatroll]

Spoiler!

Remove "Order Items", replace entirely with "View Traders":
Currently, there's a list of stuff to buy, you buy it, that's it.
My concept is instead, have it entirely trader based. "So how do I order basic stuff, like metal? And medical supplies?!" you might ask. All of the items that are on the order list is now relagated to the appropriate trader. Construction supplies would be relegated to one trader. An already existing example would be botanical crates would be associated with Bulford Tenin. Each trader would also have a tag before their name, such as [Construction], [Medical], [Misc], to make ordering items more straightforward.

Content and Angry: Rewards and Punishments
There's a reason for the temperament, and it's not just to see what Vulderak would look like pissed off. You'd want to get on their good side, because doing so unlocks extra items from their list, and causes them to drop the prices for items all round. For example with Bulford, getting on his good side means that he might sell you strange seeds, UV lamps and possibly a maneater seed for a high price. Each trader would have their own items to unlock, and these items can be quite good depending on how hard it is to get on their good side, but also the price.
Their bad side? Traders may not exactly like you fucking them around. Ordering an item off a pissed trader could result in them not only sending you wrong stock, but something BAD, like a rigged crate, plasma spores, space bears, high radioactive ores, light grenades, an angry sonnet, you name it. However pissing them off may also result in them leaving till next market shift, which depending on the sitaution could result in depravation for the crew (if they need x supplies)

These points are nice. I like crates being directly tied to traders, because it's neat for RP reasons. I also like the possibility of unlocking more items, because otherwise there's no real reason to change the system.

There are no consequences for bad QMs. There are no benefits for good QMs. QM isn't even good at making money; a small hellburn or a good botanist/miner can earn many times more. Further, there's no incentive to send stuff to QM as they take all the profitsss for themselvesss.

So, QM needs a purpose that doesn't involve making them a necessity; reward progression is perfect for that. Though new items will probably need to be introduced - everything else you can get somewhere else.

Ooo, my potato is done - and thus my thought process ends. Because I'm part irish.

[Frank_Stein]

Couple of extra ideas

Rival Traders: Traders who sell the same kinds of goods as another trader. Prices and quality would vary, and buying from one could effect the disposition of the other.

Trading companies: Tying into rivals, some traders would could be allied under one banner. Improving your relationship with one helps overall, and you could get general discounts amongst them

New articles: This is already a bit implemented with stocks, but there should be a news periodical that you can read. Some articles would just be flavor text (fake celebrity news, buzzfeed style clickbait, drink and dining recipes) but others would provide hints to future pricing for items. Is the price of mauxite going up? Stock up now and sell it later for profit

Illegal goods dealers: Traders who operate outside the law. Their goods tend to be random items at low prices or illegal things marked up considerably. Selling them drugs or syndicate items results in high profits. You can also sell them things that other traders won't take. However, there's a risk that goods can be intercepted by law enforcement, resulting in no money or goods received, or even the entire market being shut down until the next shift while they're under investigation. Maybe packing illegal shipments with legitimate good helps avoid detection

[sen761]

The fall in buttcoin was bad

[babayetu83]

Couple of extra ideas

Rival Traders: Traders who sell the same kinds of goods as another trader. Prices and quality would vary, and buying from one could effect the disposition of the other.

Trading companies: Tying into rivals, some traders would could be allied under one banner. Improving your relationship with one helps overall, and you could get general discounts amongst them

New articles: This is already a bit implemented with stocks, but there should be a news periodical that you can read. Some articles would just be flavor text (fake celebrity news, buzzfeed style clickbait, drink and dining recipes) but others would provide hints to future pricing for items. Is the price of mauxite going up? Stock up now and sell it later for profit

Illegal goods dealers: Traders who operate outside the law. Their goods tend to be random items at low prices or illegal things marked up considerably. Selling them drugs or syndicate items results in high profits. You can also sell them things that other traders won't take. However, there's a risk that goods can be intercepted by law enforcement, resulting in no money or goods received, or even the entire market being shut down until the next shift while they're under investigation. Maybe packing illegal shipments with legitimate good helps avoid detection

rival traders sounds fun 

like imagine if you got on the bad side of someone and they hired either players or npcs to come to your office and break your legs in an effort to keep you out of the market

[NateTheSquid]

send a pizza to the wrong trader, the mafia comes and staples your butt to your head, i like it

[aft2001]

I like this, but, good luck coding it! I think. I dunno. It's an entirely new game mechanic.

I'd love this as it'd make QM less of a clicky-clicky waity-waity job and more of a "oh god he's pissed at me so I can't buy emergency supplies to deal with the bombings and murders"

[Superlagg]

It'd be tricky to fit all this interaction into an average round. 1 might be able to have a nice trader arc over the course of their weeklong shifts, but I don't see this being an easy fit for an hour and a half, at least if you don't want the traders to go through violent mood swings. Eventually, once the mechanics are found out, it'll end up with a meta to game the traders, a list of steps that pros go through to get item A out of trader B with the least amount of thought. Kinda like throwing on a hellburn and calling it a round ten minutes in.

So! One solution might be to make the traders' dispersions persist between rounds. Piss off Pianzi in one round and he'll still be waiting for a formal apology from the next guy. This way you can develop relationships with the traders over time without it feeling oddly rushed. That, and you can intentionally tank the relations as an antag and wreck everything for the next round.

Wait, that last part sounds awful! Maybe the relationships could be split into two categories: how much they like the station and how much they like the individual quartermaster. That way, one lone jackass QM wouldn't be able to obliterate too much of several rounds' work, while still leaving something of an impact.

[Cirrial]

god if only I didn't have a dozen other things already on my plate right now

I think if I wanted to tackle this I would first try some sort of refactoring to bring together NPC traders and QM traders a little more, such as inventories for remote vs in person deals, and enough details that some sort of generic NPC trader can be made and fleshed out if given a QM trader definition.

It's a non-trivial amount of work to make this system, and it has the aforementioned pacing issues. Intra round values could be one way around it.

I for one would love to tie the stock system into literally anything else, it's a damn shame that that thing ticks along every round with few to no people ever caring.

Edit: there's no NPC sprites for Vurdalak, Buford or Pianzi (sure he's a lizardmans but his outfit doesn't exist) and Gragg may want a slightly different sprite from a regular rock worm for differentiation. The other traders already have NPC sprites, but a bunch of the robot traders have no portrait. That's less of a problem, though.

Edit Edit: actually I can't see Vurdalak ever showing up in person so some sort of dubious shady lackey/acolyte type might be better suited

[Sundance]

Responses:

Speaking of merchant shuttles, I really like the idea of letting every trader have their own shuttle. Being closer to the station, they'd be able to offer more interesting items, and it gives people more places to spend their money, which is always good. 

The idea is that traders arriving on the station are already set to "good" mood, so they would have "good" stuff unlocked. This would make market items more lucarative naturally.

One critique would be that QM needs to be more of a vital resource for the crew in order for the traitorous aspect to hold any sway. This ties into the old criticism of supplies being too abundant on cog2.

Agreed completely, but with map rotation this may be less of an issue, and they would still be able to take advantage of bad crates.

Though new items will probably need to be introduced - everything else you can get somewhere else.

This is actually a pet peeve of mine in general, but there many things on the station that are limited, an example is magboots which I don't think you can get from another source?

*Ideas*

The first 2 points could literally be RNG based on the round. Bulford doesn't like vulderak who likes pianzi. Trading effects the "temperment" of either. Would spice things up quite nicely.

The 3rd point could be fairly easily implimented, mad libs kind of nonsense, but a smart QM could make shift through all the shit and find some nuggets of information that could serve him well.. theoretically

The last point could literally be slotted into personalities, and these illicit traders could be random, like the ones currently (the ones with no portrait) and could be tagged [Illicit]. The personality, could result in a station announcement of a hefty fine, or like you said no money or goods recieved. Its a gamble for QM's, one that could pay off if RNG favors them.

I like this, but, good luck coding it! I think. I dunno. It's an entirely new game mechanic.

It's actually not a new game mechanic at all. Alot of this idea is grounded on the current code that's already there, it's just expanding on it. Check out the QM code if you don't believe me, it's fairly straightforward.

It'd be tricky to fit all this interaction into an average round

Nope, it shouldn't be any more tricky than genetics is currently. There are obvious pitfalls, on a non-extended round, QM's are going to have to be picky about who they trade with. This is not a bad thing at all, it makes them use their brain a little? It also means they won't be able to unlock all the good items, which to me sounds balanced? If throwing in Frank Stiens idea, a little bit of RNG with traders could spice things up so it's not always the same. And being meta with items; this will always be the case no matter what. The way to combat that is to make the "good" item pool also RNG, so you're not certain to get the items all the time.

quickedit: I'm strongly against anything round persisting in general (other than extremely gimmicky stuff)

*Ideas*

Like last time, I'll commit to sprites if ye commit to a code :cb: 
*Backscratching intensifies

[Cirrial]

Fair!

Now to get all the other stuff I said I'd do done so I can make any commitments.

[Arborinus]

I've tried making trader portraits but I run out of ideas for them quickly. I could help with doing that if someone gave me inspiration.

Anyone could try it though. As far as I know they need to be 200 x 150 and have the screen overlay (a layer above the drawing), which I cut out for use here:

[Sundance]

Yep that's it alright.
I've already done up a mock one of [Construction] Dean DeAngelo, just as a supplementary concept. I tried copying angriestIBM style, with a heavy black border, simple colors and pixelated shading, but it's difficult to get 100% right.
As far as I'm concerned, this is anyone's game, so if anyone wants to submit a trader concept go ahead. This is the template:


Name: Dean DeAngelo
Tag: [Construction]
Description: (keep it brief). Part of the Nanotrasen Building Subsidiary. A well groomed man in a suit that's about as stiff as his expression.
Basic Inventory: Construction materials, empty crates, emergency goods.
Personality: Capitalist: Will increase prices per demand. Hard bargainer: Has low bargaining tolerance. Asshole: Will accept higher purchase/lower sell price than requested if accidently keyed in. Pure businessman: Hard to become friend but also hard to become enemy.
Enemy response: Will send x2 emagged firebots. 

Leave out what they actually sell, better to give a ballpark figure with the basic inventory, so if someone wants to take this up, it's not so rigid to implement.

Ps: I already have a [Medical] and [Medsci] mock up done, but I shan't do it without a sprite.

Quickedit: While concentrating on the departmental stuff, consider that [Botany] and [Materials] is already covered by Bulford and Gragg. You totally can make gimmicky ones, like Vulderak too, but make sure it's thematic.