[Design/General] Engineering Progression Tree

[Sirryan2002]

Department Progression

Edit 12/31/22: Rewrote the doc now that I have a firm grasp on what I'm doing

Persisting Issues which I'm trying to solve

Since doing a lot of reworks, I've realized a few important things. The game is not ready for an actual credit economy as the supply of money makers and places to spend that money is too low to sustain an actual fun economy. Furthermore, a lot of these issues stem from linear and content-dry department design. Here is the detailed breakdown of these issue:

1) Lack of Player Spending Options:
At the moment, there still needs to be more for players to spend money on, at the moment it only includes clothing, food items, and crates if they so want. However, after the first or second paycheck, there’s little left to be desired that may be traded for in space credits

2) Credits Restricts Engineering rather than establishing choice paths
Now that engineering is endowed with credits that can be spent on crates, the expectation was that this would force departments to make better choices because of scarcity. However, I realize that this scarcity really only serves to slow down engineering rather than force tradeoffs in decision-making. There are a few reasons for this

• Players tend to know what the most powerful and efficient items are, therefor the dominant strategy is just to use those particular items. This is the consequence of a lack of non-combat item balance and lack of measurable tradeoffs between “equally powered” items
• Engineering every round has at least one "must-buy" crate (i.e. station goals), so making credits scarce doesn't actually affect what crates they choose to buy

3) Engineering Department progression is linear
Engineering Department progression for the most part is linear and hard to understand for most players. The goals of the department are to 1) maintain the engine and power the station 2) to complete station goals and 3) to repair the station when it breaks.

• The station goal is always going 1 of 4 things every round. For all except maybe the BSH, the novelty wears off after the 2-3rd time building them. They do a good job at making engineering players employ base engineering mechanics to complete them. However, there's little variability in how you can approach them so it gets boring/monotomous.
• Once the station goal is done, if there is nothing to repair and the engine is set up, there is no goals set for engineering players. Veteran or non-new engi players set their own goals such as building/playing around with engines or using construction mechanics to make new rooms.
• There is little to no actual in-game awards for a player utilizing an engineering mechanic successfully or improving a skill. Beyond producing a bit extra power (usually power you can't even use), players only get a feeling of being powerful or relishing in the awe of other players at their accomplishment which in itself is a reward but it's not enough for long-term sustenance.

3) There is little incentive to use Cargo
I’ve noticed before the rework and even more during the rework that people avoid using the cargo supply console to acquire goods. This is even supported by Blackbox data where many crates in the past 500 rounds have NEVER been ordered. Many crates were only ordered 1-3 times in those 500 rounds as well.

I have some theories for this:

• A consequence of pricing things higher is that players are now facing significantly more feelings of loss aversion. Now that players have limited resources and aren’t taking out of a pool of resources that weren’t necessarily their own, they feel actual loss when paying for crates themselves
• Crate approval is an invested process, an absent QM or Head of Staff makes crate ordering impossible for anything with dept restrictions. This can be demoralizing and really annoying to deal with, I’ve tried streamlining this by allowing Heads of Staff to delegate crate approval permission and auto-approve certain non-restrictive crates. It just isn’t enough sometimes
• Crates tend not to be that useful or are only used for people’s personal projects. Do note that weapons and station project crates are actually useful. Every other crate, however, does not provide much benefit for the orderer except out of initial novelty, as roleplay objects, or fulfill a niche mechanical purpose.
• Whatever resources/tools the crew needs to use to succeed are generally available in someway at round start or are generated someway else early in the round that doesn’t include cargo crates. By the time the crew can afford crates, they already have everything they could ever want.

4) Lack of Income Opportunities:
Crew members and departments have little are no ways to make additional funds. Besides paychecks, departments (only service, supply, and science) can make additional funds through exports. Scientists/Roboticists can also make money through job objectives. However, that is every way to make additional money. This means that for the most part, whatever players get from their paychecks, that’s it. This means players have no way to trade goods/time spent in exchange for space credits that they could spend elsewhere.

Proposed Ideas/Next Steps

A) Establishing Branching Progression Paths for Engineering
The department will make an early choice to choose a specific path that unlocks unique toolsets, machines, and functions for the department. Unfortunately, this will entail large content expansions and reworks. The below tree is a mockup of what this progression would look like, however, it's a bit outdated for what exactly I want it to look like.

Proposed Engineering Progression Tree:

At round start, engineering gets to research a module. This module will unlock new base mechanics for players to use in engineering.
The design of each of these progression nodes is that it gives new equipment (for example, the power module gives access to wire pliers, rubber boots, and multimeters) but most importantly each unlocked feature has skill ceilings:

• Players can improve the speed and success rate at which they build things and complete module tasks
• Each module has a few base-level constructions/features that give players lots of movement to experiment with parameters, especially with later progression node unlocks
• Ample opportunities for these features to be used for department responsibilities such as station repair, life/power system upkeep, and station project progression
• Opportunities for players to complete module tasks and export constructed items for personal credit gains that also further along department income.

This will all be handled through an “Engineering Department Management Console” which will also serve as a platform for managing employees and department resources/funds. There will additionally be a "player shop" where players can spend their own credits to get equipment or materials that they can use to personalize themselves or progress their characters (a.k.a upgrade themselves)

As I work on this doc I'll explain my decision in more depth.

B) Reimagination of the Supply (Cargo specifically) Department
The current implementation of cargo is flawed. It’s interesting, and I love the idea of importing and exporting things to the station; However, if cargo becomes a necessity for other players, having an absent or unproductive cargo department is devastating. This is why I’m proposing some changes to how it works

• The cargo supply console is split up into many departmental consoles -> Remote Ordering
• Module-specific crates are not at all available to crew members, they must be ordered through the engineering management/supply console (This will also reduce crate bloat)
• The cargo shuttle now rotates on a timer and doesn’t have to be force called/sent/recalled; Once crates are ordered, a timer is run down before the shuttle will leave CC to come to deliver the crates; The shuttle won’t leave until those crates are removed from the shuttle; Cargo still retains a lot of control (can still force the shuttle/delay its arrival)
• Cargo gets better paychecks the quicker stuff is delivered/rotated in and out of the shuttle
• Improved crate delivery/storage methods; PDA notifications for when crates arrive for the ordered; Forklifts that can be unlocked through the engineering’s vehicle module; Crate Stacks; Pallets

Reasoning:

• Cargo needs to be as streamlined as possible, the easier it is for people to order, the more likely they’re willing to go through with ordering.
• If the QM is absent or incompetent, crates still need to be coming in and out
• If crates are coming in even though the QM/Techs aren’t regulating the amount, they now face a new challenge of learning to deal with large amounts of orders at a very fast pace
• This will hopefully have the side effect of making cargo more fun to play, atm, the "fun" of cargo isn't in cargo mechanics, its in the crates you can buy which tend to contain things that aren't baked into the actual mechanics of cargo.

Roadmap

(most of these are their own design docs/projects)

• Economy Rework [Design/General] Economy Overhaul - Space Cash & Supply Points #18652
• Power System Overhaul [Design/General] Power Rework #19786
• Cargo Overhaul
• Department Progression & Player Shop Backend Work
• Power Module
• Vehicle Module
• Hydraulics Module
  -Inter-module Projects
  -Station Goals Overhaul