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The PTL/QM Suggestion thread (2019 Edition)
#1
So back when the PTL was added in mid 2015 I noticed how it was pretty much breaking the stations economy and completely making QM/Mining irrelevant. Though back then there might of been more planned for the PTL and it was nerfed over time (You would easily get over hundreds of millions of bucks instead of a few million from a good hellburn) It still makes the departments who were supposed to be in charge of getting the station money, pretty useless. So I proposed a few ideas back then that had some good reception though, things happen. Threads were burred and moved on. The ideas are still pretty valid though.

So the idea here is promoting more inter-department cooperation and communication to add more things to do within the game for these departments. First off. I always felt that, outside of the space traders and whatnot, QM is the main department in charge of making the station money. Which should go to other sections of the station or people for stuff. The PTL circumvents that completely. 

So we have a few suggestions here that can either work together or separately depending on whatever the coders want to work on.

Idea 1: Remove control of the PTL from engineering and give it to QM. Not all of the control though. Engineering can set how much power is allowed to go out, or if engineering wants to deny the PTL from being ran or needs to shut it down due to an emergency that's all fine. However QM should decide if they want to just beam the power off to space for whoever wants it (Though they won't make a lot of money per W, MW, GW etc. Doing this..) it's the fastest way to get something. 
The main point of the idea here is that QM can choose to sell the power at different going rates to other space station or large ships passing by. (Could say it gets bounced off a redirection satellite, it's something that's implied but not shown.) You can haggle prices of per unit of power with each of the different people calling for power in a new QM sub-menu.  Could even add quotas and time frames for money bonuses. Say a trade ship at the start of a round needs 100mw of power in 15 min. They will not only pay for the power per cycle, but also give a 200k bonus for example. Which can really test and stress engineering how quickly they can get a hellburn going. 

On the engineering side for idea one. they also get a new terminal where they can check the prices and if they think the QM is doing a poor job or if there is a better deal they think they can handle, they can ping QM through the console. this would give the QM a PDA ping as well as mark what trader the engineers want to be selling to instead. If they think they can meet the demands. And if engineering and QM are having a quarrel, the CE can step in and tell em to knock it off.

Idea 2: Removable, chargeable SMES units in different sizes. Instead of choosing to sell the power off station, you can redirect the PTL laser into the station by using mirrors into a specialty quick charge, charging station. 
So you have a new fab that makes either small, medium, large and X-large battery sizes. While empty they are light and move around like normal, the bigger the battery the slower you pull them when they are fully charged (Could even suggest that large and XL needs the cargo trucks/conveyors to move them for selling) The cycle is pretty simple. Take a uncharged SMES battery, pull it to the station, turn it on, the station locks and plugs it in, redirects the PTL, charges it to full, turns the PTL off or resets it back to normal, then releases the battery. Which during this process (And a emaggable station) you can do things like. Set it to overcharge, it may cause all sorts of effects like multiple arc flashes, bursts of extreme heat and depending on the battery size, the batteries bursting out a gush of acid everywhere melting people and the room. Or exploding spectacularly if it's the XL sized ones.  screw with the redirection mirror (A PTL that's running really high can and should burn through walls. maybe make the mirrors scannable by traitor mechs for even more fun) On top of all this the station can use its own charged batteries or buy them on the market if the station is low on power, and plug them into their own ports. giving the station a boost of power needed for the round. Could even possibly add plug ports per major departments. Like say medical can have two ports for their own backups, science can have one, the bridge always runs out of power first. so why not? There is a lot of possibilities here for these things. The downside to them however is, unlike their normal dedicated SMES counterparts, the batteries are volatile when fully charged and can be lethal if mistreated. (Large amounts of heat could set them off, an explosion, a hot wired generator, etc. Gotta have some downside to them, right?)

If both these ideas are put in together. Charging and selling batteries should sell more per power unit than beaming to space, since it's more work intensive to charge these up and send them to QM to sell them than just shooting a beam off a satellite.

Anyway, hopefully you guys like these ideas. They are here for promoting people to actually have fun and work together with stuff, giving new options for things like power problems, and new, interesting ways for antags to mess the station up with.
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