Persistent Department Accounts & Allowances

[Zundy]

Essentially have the departmental accounts be persistent across rounds and have characters recieve an allowance which is handed out by whoever has authority to do so in game. So you'd spawn with maybe a small amount of money, but would be given an allowance by your, say, head of staff or perhaps the HoP. In the case of extreme low pop maybe you could contact centcom and someone might be given interim authroity.

I think it might be fun and a somewhat good step in the direction of a persistent economy. You could then work out believable costs for goods and services organically based on consumption and spending. Just a thought, let me know what you think.

[Myazaki]

I think none of this is possible while some antagonist types have the ability to spawn hundreds of thousands of credits from their uplinks.

I don't know if it is sensible to make such a thing only work for extended rounds, and I don't want to remove that item from antagonists.

[Zundy]

We could remove the antag money spawn since without persistence it's somewhat meaningless and with persistence it throws it off.

[Myazaki]

Mmmmmmaybe. If we can come up with a decent list of things money would be used for?

[KingOfThePing]

Why would it be persistent - all money that gets made in whatever way would be siphoned by NT, only the set default amounts (again, set by NT by whatever standards) are left, so the station could use the money for emergencies or out of the ordinary purchases.

[Zundy]

16 hours ago, KingOfThePing said:

Why would it be persistent - all money that gets made in whatever way would be siphoned by NT, only the set default amounts (again, set by NT by whatever standards) are left, so the station could use the money for emergencies or out of the ordinary purchases.

You're talking about departmental budgets which don't really work like that IRL but regarding in game, remember that the money given IS from NT for providing services and goods to centcom. For example, when you send phoron away, it's sent to centcom who they pay the cargo department. It's not the cargo department selling ore for NT but more providing ore to NT to be sold for a "bounty." It makes more sense in this case to be persistent. For me, I just feel like it'd be a fun thing. It opens the door for cross department RP (budget needs to be managed by command staff, characters/command need to talk about allowances) and makes money somewhat tangible.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Zundy

[Zundy]

19 hours ago, Myazaki said:

Mmmmmmaybe. If we can come up with a decent list of things money would be used for?

Well I guess everything it's used for now. It could be a foundation for another proposal where departments start with lesser equipment/supplies and will beed to spend their budget to order more but this isn't part of this suggestion and I'm not sure how I personally feel about that one however it does lay those foundations for later on if we wish.

I'm sure there's things that will come up that need to be tweaked to make it "balanced" because at the moment costs of goods/services and the way in which people can earn money is arbitrary and not really designed with persistence in mind but I'm sure we can address those as and when. We'd need to have it exist first to be able to gauge and produce a realistic supply and demand model. I don't know how much to charge ciggies because I don't know what the spending power would be for characters with this change. It will still be arbitary figures as we have no market data because we've never had a market like this.

Regarding allowances - I imagine it'd be a staggard system based on role and race, with human captains having large allowances and vaurca assistants having low and all inbetween. In fact thinking about it, it sounds even more fun. Now when I do a job for a scientist as an assistant and they tip me 100 credits, I'll actually be happy to have it because of my allowance unlike now where it's essentially meaningless unless I RP it to be so, which I of course can, but I can RP anything without mechanics to be honest. I like the idea that being tipped or given a bonus would have an effect in game. Obviously command can hand out bigger allowances to whoever, their friend maybe if they're corrupt, but this might net them a CCIA visit assuming of course the accounts can be monitored. Silly things like a captain blowing the station budget on corgis would be a whitelist issue and thus we could just roll back this "shitspending" and discipline the player.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Zundy

[KingOfThePing]

I know what you mean - maybe I didnt explain what I meant clearly, I'll try again: Why would NT pay cargo for the ores in the first place, let it be bounty or whatever. They are already paying them as employees. Even if they are paid why does it go to the departmental account, if you want to see it as a 'bonus'?

I mean I am not against the suggestion, we should only consider: "does it make sense?" and "does it actually add /anything/?" because reasons or opportunities to use the money are already sparse as is.

[Zundy]

I get you. All I can say is that it's already set up that way (send ores, get money to buy stuff, buy stuff for departments, charge those people/departments money), so changing it away from that would be another suggestion entirely.

[KingOfThePing]

Maybe we can add a few more ways to spend the money then? While we are at it, I mean. But I couldn't think of anything that could be added for it.

[Carver]

Wouldn't persistent budgets get demolished when heads burn them on frivolous purchases that aren't persistent? Then you have the IC questions of 'why is our money still here but our medical supplies and guns aren't'.

[Zundy]

On 20/11/2020 at 15:01, KingOfThePing said:

Maybe we can add a few more ways to spend the money then? While we are at it, I mean. But I couldn't think of anything that could be added for it.

If we can think of anything, sure. Like maybe charging for drinks and food maybe.

18 hours ago, Carver said:

Wouldn't persistent budgets get demolished when heads burn them on frivolous purchases that aren't persistent? Then you have the IC questions of 'why is our money still here but our medical supplies and guns aren't'.

I'd class a command member wasting their budget on memes as a whitelist issue but potentially I could see something similar being done ICly with IC consequences. Like hosting a staff party and going over budget thus incurring the wrath of CCIA. Again, for me that looks like more RP opportunity.

Re. "why is our money still here but our medical supplies and guns aren't", I can see that being a question but to me it's just a "meh." Why does my hidden stash of pizza in maint vanish inbetween shifts? Why doesn't medical gear persist now? Crew change? Maybe the last crew didn't use the budget, in the same way the last crew has for some reason thrown tonnes of trash into the spotless maint tunnels. You can easily explain it away with a little hand wave.