[TECHWEBS] THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN - IDEAS FOR POINT GENERATION

[kevinz000]

Gist of it is, letting more people/departments/jobs get in on sciency action.

Botany - Plants growing in trays give points, subject to maximum caps and rates based on the species rarity etc etc
Security - Not happening.
Genetics - Give a semi-randomized point value to each superpower? Cloning someone gives a bit of points, but not enough to make repeatedly killing/cloning a thing? Possibly?
Medbay - I'd say something regarding treating patients but it's so easy it'd be another "janitor gets points by mopping", and people get injured a LOT and you can't really justify putting a bandage on someone giving points??
Bar - Drinks? Probably not.. Don't know.
Virology - We already have cargo bounties for this, maybe we can have certain viruses give points? Don't want to copy the bounty system too much, though.
Mining and assistants - I'm going to play the long game and wait for planetstation so we can implement something like xenoarch.

Etc etc.
Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments? Concerns?

[D&B]

Special device that detects the colossus crystal and gives large quantities of points when activated correctly.

[Mickyan]

Bar and kitchen should get points for every unique type of drink/food they make, give em a reason to get creative instead of making the same thing all day

All I can think for Medical Doctors is scanning people (once per person) with the health scanner, not perfect but tracking heals would probably be difficult and too easy to abuse. At least gives them something to do during downtime when there are no patients, go out and scan people for points to get better stuff when you need it.

[oranges]

Problem
1) techwebs is still owned by RnD so they are the only ones picking techs
2) it is weird to have departmental interactions generate "science points"

solutions

1) move techwebs to the bridge staff room or department heads offices, change it from techwebs to CentCom equipment/technology requests
2) departments earn money over time and for fufilling requests with a percentage going to a commons station budget that the Captain / HoP can approve node purchases out of.
3) money can be spent on nodes or they can be spent at the protolathe to generate items without the minerals (shipped in from centcom), maybe have the item go via cargo if purchased

Objective: techwebs becomes the way to introduce all new and advanced toys for departments without having to rebuild the same points systems over and over, new jobs can easily be setup to work with this system by simply giving value to the outputs of the job, departments are incentivised to do their jobs, mining is still useful but isn't as required as before. The janitor can get paid for cleaning and get a gold plated janicart.

Belief: good for the overall health of the game, easier to manage costs/scaling of items, can introduce departmental late game items that each department can have a chance of actually getting.

Thoughts/Questions?

[Shadowflame909]

I like it. But how do we get some nerd to code it

Edit: Also I have an idea to replace automatic point generation. Replace the experimentor/DA with a tetris machine. That generates points once you complete each line. It gives people doing RND something to do.

[oranges]

we're not going to add minigames that generate point randomly that is silly, they need to make sense from a game and department perspective

[Jalleo]

Problem
1) techwebs is still owned by RnD so they are the only ones picking techs
2) it is weird to have departmental interactions generate "science points"

solutions

1) move techwebs to the bridge staff room or department heads offices, change it from techwebs to CentCom equipment/technology requests
2) departments earn money over time and for fufilling requests with a percentage going to a commons station budget that the Captain / HoP can approve node purchases out of.
3) money can be spent on nodes or they can be spent at the protolathe to generate items without the minerals (shipped in from centcom), maybe have the item go via cargo if purchased

Objective: techwebs becomes the way to introduce all new and advanced toys for departments without having to rebuild the same points systems over and over, new jobs can easily be setup to work with this system by simply giving value to the outputs of the job, departments are incentivised to do their jobs, mining is still useful but isn't as required as before. The janitor can get paid for cleaning and get a gold plated janicart.

Belief: good for the overall health of the game, easier to manage costs/scaling of items, can introduce departmental late game items that each department can have a chance of actually getting.

Thoughts/Questions?

This but a step further. Move cargo money into the subsystem as cargo section. We have to stop thinking of research AS discovery but more that Nanotrasen is authorising your use of X by A,C, G, F etc means. Heck if its done like that the SM collectors can instead be converted more towards being quasi processors which slowly require more and more machineconnectionsto perform as Centcom demands(This can be done woth whatever in any department area really).

[Science as a department itself needs a clean slate as of now its really too disparate and could do better by moving sections to other depaetments and linking such areas into useful mechanical sections.
e.g. Circuits engineering (They become the focus for developing useful weird items and working the engines only),
Xenobio to botany and make a services head to mainly manage xenobio,
toxins to atmos and expabd atmos to be the people who fix breaches etc etc.
Robotics to cargo since it then adds divergent gameplay by moving certain aspects with how the game can progress completly (Removes the easy bomb genetics and robotics while adding the aspect of converting the robotics job to being a bit more of building stuff for export and so forth)

There are a whole bunch of things that can be done the real issue is breaking up a centralised idea that a research station means it is a research department onboard. A real crazy way is seeing the need to seperate it out so its easier for people to learn to play parts which are involved by being in depaetments that allow you room to mess about with one or two specific things while doing normal stuff beside it.

[EagleWiz]

Techwebs are bad and the points aren't even that useful, just admit that its a failed system.

[oranges]

t angry research poster

[SpaceInaba]

as some idiot who has played way too much RD it's better than playing wack a mole when the nodes become purchasable so I give it a +1

Techwebs are bad and the points aren't even that useful, just admit that its a failed system.

techwebs was designed to stop people like me from researching everything to max at the 5 minute mark, it may not be the most fun system but it's far from "failed"

[Dr_bee]

<mod edit: snip large quotes>

Move botany, genetics, virology, and xenobiology to the science department. Give science more overall station access to do research projects in other departments. I would love to see a scientist working in atmos with the techs to run gas production or working in medbay to do experimental surgery.

Spread research around the station but let the scientists go around with it to have them still help on research.

It would fit with the idea the entire station is devoted to research.

[Dr_bee]

science players will defend this post

well it would basically turn science into the troublemaker job instead of assistant, which would fit with how scientists are treated in pulp sci-fi. Considering that removing RnD is removing the only responsibility the entire science department has to the rest of the station.

It makes more sense for a scientist to cause chaos "FOR SCIENCE" rather than assistants, which are basically space hobos.

[Enzar]

Well, there is something in the lore mentioning how nanotrash scientist can upload researched technologies to a database for everyone to use. Seeing how RnD isn't actually researching anything, it's clear that they're simply downloading tech off the internet. Just upgrade the shitty default nt router and voilà, faster point generation.

Now seriously. RnD is so smoothbrainy simple, that we have to give science something new to do every five rounds, else they commit mass sudoku. How about this: increase the default point generation considerably, replace the destructive analyzer with a prototype printer. Now downloading tech only downloads the blueprint for researched items, that need to be recreated in the printer using semi-hard to get, role-specific item (like ion gun + geiger counter for x-ray gun), before it can be quickly and efficiently made in lathes. Basically destructive analyzer 2.0 - specific items boogaloo.

[Anonmare]

I think we want to make things for the actual scientists to do first before we get other departments involved. I heard Fwoosh suggest Science Bounties and that got me thinking, why not? Just make it so that it requires you to put objects in the DA and deconstruct to claim the bounty. Bounties are randomly generated and are specific to the sub-departments.


Examples:
Toxins: Place a bomb with the following devastation ranges [INSERT BOMB RANGES HERE] in the DA. This one should be more forgiving and accept bombs, even if they aren't the exact specifications, but with the following caveat: The closer you are, the more points you get. You get less points for being over or under, with the point loss being lower if you're only off in terms of light devastation or higher if you're off in the higher ranges.
Genetics: Place a genetics disk/injector with genetic data of the following [RANDOM POWERS/DISABILITIES] into the DA.
Xenobiology: Place a [COLOUR] slime core/[TYPE] potion/etc. in the DA.
R&D: Place [RANDOM ITEM]/disk with [DESIGN/TECHNOLOGY] in the DA.
EXPERIMENTOR: Place artefact with [RANDOM PROPERTY] in the DA.
Virology: Place a virus with the [RANDOM SYMPTOMS] into the DA.


It's not the height of gameplay but it keeps things making logical sense and gives you a reason to go after things that may not be optimal.

[XDTM]

Should definitely move the RnD console to the bridge, people keep thinking rnd is still a full job while complaining about boredom

[Cobby]

Toxins and robrotics are full on jobs, rnd is no longer a full on job.

[oranges]

<snip>
It's not the height of gameplay but it keeps things making logical sense and gives you a reason to go after things that may not be optimal.

stop thinking of techwebs as a scence job and you'll start to understand our thinking.

Scientists have plenty to do with xenobio, toxins and circuit construction.

[Shezza]

I think we want to make things for the actual scientists to do first before we get other departments involved. I heard Fwoosh suggest Science Bounties and that got me thinking, why not? Just make it so that it requires you to put objects in the DA and deconstruct to claim the bounty. Bounties are randomly generated and are specific to the sub-departments.


Examples:
Toxins: Place a bomb with the following devastation ranges [INSERT BOMB RANGES HERE] in the DA. This one should be more forgiving and accept bombs, even if they aren't the exact specifications, but with the following caveat: The closer you are, the more points you get. You get less points for being over or under, with the point loss being lower if you're only off in terms of light devastation or higher if you're off in the higher ranges.
Genetics: Place a genetics disk/injector with genetic data of the following [RANDOM POWERS/DISABILITIES] into the DA.
Xenobiology: Place a [COLOUR] slime core/[TYPE] potion/etc. in the DA.
R&D: Place [RANDOM ITEM]/disk with [DESIGN/TECHNOLOGY] in the DA.
EXPERIMENTOR: Place artefact with [RANDOM PROPERTY] in the DA.
Virology: Place a virus with the [RANDOM SYMPTOMS] into the DA.


It's not the height of gameplay but it keeps things making logical sense and gives you a reason to go after things that may not be optimal.

stop thinking of techwebs as a scence job and you'll start to understand our thinking.

Scientists have plenty to do with xenobio, toxins and circuit construction.

Yeah you're not doing a good job are you now?

And if you're going to complain that its a forum poll, ingame one was shot down due to fears of negative feedback.

[Shadowflame909]

But we want techwebs to be a job. Why do it if it's just for round development.

[EagleWiz]

stop thinking of techwebs as a scence job and you'll start to understand our thinking.

Scientists have plenty to do with xenobio, toxins and circuit construction.

One scientist has plenty to do with xenobio, toxins, and circuit construction - he gets to do xenobio, a fun job with plenty of ways to mess up the round as a traitor, a couple of ways to improve the round in major ways as a normal crew member, and quite a few ways to improve the round in less major (and sadly underused) ways. Its possible to have two people working xenobio, but unless both people are relatively new to the job (in which case the newer player can more easily learn the mechanics of xenobio), it is equally or more efficient to have one person do it. Additionally, doing xenobio when you don't really know how to do xenobio is fine - the wiki outlines most mechanics of the job, and you get feedback quickly as to what your actions did and where you went wrong if you make a mistake.

But what about the scientists who don't get to do xenobio? They have to do the other jobs.

Toxins, is a job that provides traitors a way to blow up large chunks of the station, and provides loyal crew members a way to blow up large chunks of the station and then get banned unless they had a really good reason. Realistically toxins lab can only fit one person actually doing toxins at a time, and the toxins mechanics are arcane, poorly documented, and have a history of inconvenient bugs making them more difficult then planned. The wiki outlines a slow step by step method to making a low power bomb, but does not explain any of the mechanics beyond that, and at least in the recent past the step by step method to making a low power bomb was not even fully correct, and would instead produce a dud.

But wait! Theres a new job in circuits, and up to two people can easily work in the circuits lab at once with little loss of efficiency! I think. I don't actually know much about circuits, because the circuit mechanics are even more arcane and even less well documented then the mechanics for toxins, and the only things people ever seem to be able to produce with circuits are bots that run around doing basic and utterly useless actions, and the occasional bot that runs around and can take people from full HP to dead in a couple server ticks.

In short, science has room for one person to work one of the better designed jobs in the game, and a bunch of people who get to work with over-complicated baffling systems that reward mastery with the ability to produce ways to indiscriminately murder.

[Dr_bee]

Give science more space for xenobio and toxins research if you are going to make those two things the focus of the entire department. Right now those are jobs for 1 person each max.

Also circuits is so obtuse to learn for so little payoff that it might as well not be a thing. If you are going to force them down the department's throat as "THIS IS YOUR NEW JOB", then at least add some fucking guide books or other documentation.

[oranges]

Yeah you're not doing a good job are you now?

And if you're going to complain that its a forum poll, ingame one was shot down due to fears of negative feedback.

The tears of upset science powergamers are not going to dissuade me from this path no matter how much you comment on this topic. I appreciate that a lot of people are upset, but we're not going to revert to the old completely broken system where science had sole control over end game content, no matter how hard people cry, science is never getting sole control over the research web ever again because it's fundamentally unhealthy for the game.

[oranges]

In short, science has room for one person to work one of the better designed jobs in the game, and a bunch of people who get to work with over-complicated baffling systems that reward mastery with the ability to produce ways to indiscriminately murder.

Feel free to add new content to science, personally I find there's plenty of content for scientists to do after the old go out and gather items in a specific order job to feed into a machine job was removed.

[Shadowflame909]

There's stuff to do. But you've just been given pretty great points on why that stuff to do sucks. IE: It's just a bunch of lame traitor stuff, or something the average player would never begin to understand how to do it. Unless they get prior knowledge outside of the game.

You're trying to ask a fish to climb a tree, but you don't give the fish the mutations to do so!

[oranges]

You, me and the rest of this thread are getting wildly offtopic now, if you want to improve science content that's a different thread and honestly what would be more valuable is coded implementations of new content for science.

If someone feels science is boring or they don't get the content available, they can try some of the rest of the job roles on station as well, so it's not like we're murdering the one thing that made ss13 fun.

What I was trying to impress upon people in a vain (apparently) attempt to keep the thread on topic is that techwebs is no longer a science job, so suggesting ways to make it more depth for scientists only is pointless. That's going to stay that way no matter how much people complain because of how annoying it was to add content for non science roles only for it to be hoarded by scientists and not distributed.

So, feel free to suggest point generation ideas but whining about the change of techwebs from science -> every department is pointless.

Any further posts along that line are just going to get deleted or split into the techwebs complaining thread.

[EagleWiz]

Objective: techwebs becomes the way to introduce all new and advanced toys for departments without having to rebuild the same points systems over and over, new jobs can easily be setup to work with this system by simply giving value to the outputs of the job, departments are incentivised to do their jobs, mining is still useful but isn't as required as before. The janitor can get paid for cleaning and get a gold plated janicart.

Belief: good for the overall health of the game, easier to manage costs/scaling of items, can introduce departmental late game items that each department can have a chance of actually getting.

Thoughts/Questions?

Heads of Staff wont initially know that you always rush the mining tech, although they will hopefully learn.

Most people/departments don't have much of a reason to care about techwebs, and still wont even with point generation - they are sorta tied to upgrading medbay, but that goes through both mining and science first (maybe if it didnt have to medbay would care more in the new system? also the things you can make with techwebs for chem are all sorts of broken, and should NOT be easier for chem to get), they are not particularly useful for science unless someone wants to make combat mechs (which are useless most of the time), security might like the improved guns, but none of them are particularly useful and no one can think of a way for sec to get involved in techweb point generation, non-mining cargo has no reason to care, and the engi department can make great use of the various boards to repair a department in the case it suffers catastrophic damage oh wait no someone called the shuttle nevermind. Mostly people just like bags of holding and flight suits.

[XDTM]

A good starting point to detach techwebs from science would be to add some mid-endgame experimental items to each department's protolathe. For example, there's a still unused shield projector that could definitely be an engineering tool; some new guns can make it into sec, medbay some advanced medical machinery.
The novelty/usefulness of these ideally will make those departments ask for them to be researched; when it's all of the departments that tug for their research instead of just science/mining, techwebs will (hopefully) be felt as a part of the station instead of part of a department. Either that or it will devolve into a nations round.

[Dr_bee]

Well there is support for different types of RnD points if I remember, it would be a good way to keep track of departmental point production.

On the subject of point production, Goonstation has a cloner mode that gives Genetics research points at the cost of cloning slower. Adding that to medbay for point generation would be nice.

Point generation should be from things a department is already doing honestly, as reward for doing their job, so instead of a research mode for the supermatter just have Engineering RnD points be generated from power production. And have cargo point gain also give a certain amount of cargo RnD points.

Have technology be unlocked using any department's points but certain techs get a discount when you use the proper points, for example you can spend 2500 points from any department or only 1500 purely from the proper department to get the same tech.

In short, tie techweb rewards to things departments should be doing anyway, I dont think ive ever seen anyone use the research mode for the SM for example as it both is hard to do and sucks for point gen.

[Grazyn]

as some idiot who has played way too much RD it's better than playing wack a mole when the nodes become purchasable so I give it a +1

Techwebs are bad and the points aren't even that useful, just admit that its a failed system.

techwebs was designed to stop people like me from researching everything to max at the 5 minute mark, it may not be the most fun system but it's far from "failed"

Well in the last few week I've seen more and more people earn 100k tech points with bombs in under 10 minutes so it's only a matter of time before RnD is "solved" once again. If you consider that you can also consistently get the omnilathe board in a very short time and people already get shouted at if they don't follow the optimal research order™, I guess it won't be long.

We definitely don't need more ways to farm points, RnD is fine as it is.

[oranges]

Objective: techwebs becomes the way to introduce all new and advanced toys for departments without having to rebuild the same points systems over and over, new jobs can easily be setup to work with this system by simply giving value to the outputs of the job, departments are incentivised to do their jobs, mining is still useful but isn't as required as before. The janitor can get paid for cleaning and get a gold plated janicart.

Belief: good for the overall health of the game, easier to manage costs/scaling of items, can introduce departmental late game items that each department can have a chance of actually getting.

Thoughts/Questions?

Heads of Staff wont initially know that you always rush the mining tech, although they will hopefully learn.

Most people/departments don't have much of a reason to care about techwebs, and still wont even with point generation - they are sorta tied to upgrading medbay, but that goes through both mining and science first (maybe if it didnt have to medbay would care more in the new system? also the things you can make with techwebs for chem are all sorts of broken, and should NOT be easier for chem to get), they are not particularly useful for science unless someone wants to make combat mechs (which are useless most of the time), security might like the improved guns, but none of them are particularly useful and no one can think of a way for sec to get involved in techweb point generation, non-mining cargo has no reason to care, and the engi department can make great use of the various boards to repair a department in the case it suffers catastrophic damage oh wait no someone called the shuttle nevermind. Mostly people just like bags of holding and flight suits.

They dont' care currently because they never get anything good from it, the thinking here is very long term, once there is a standard way to introduce new late game content to departments people can add stuff to it, but we have to build the base first, despite how scarce it might be for now.


As to the mining tech, that's why I suggested that the department budget can be spent on both upgrades and items, so you can reduce the need for mining, while still having a tradeoff (you can't buy as many content nodes)

[oranges]

as some idiot who has played way too much RD it's better than playing wack a mole when the nodes become purchasable so I give it a +1

Techwebs are bad and the points aren't even that useful, just admit that its a failed system.

techwebs was designed to stop people like me from researching everything to max at the 5 minute mark, it may not be the most fun system but it's far from "failed"

Well in the last few week I've seen more and more people earn 100k tech points with bombs in under 10 minutes so it's only a matter of time before RnD is "solved" once again. If you consider that you can also consistently get the omnilathe board in a very short time and people already get shouted at if they don't follow the optimal research order™, I guess it won't be long.

We definitely don't need more ways to farm points, RnD is fine as it is.

I tend to agree with this, but I also think that if we do split into department budgets it will reduce how quickly the tree can be brought out, the bomb point making probably will need rebalancing in that world.

[Shadowflame909]

I feel like Techwebs doesn't really play up that "Choose your skill tree" option. Because every shift everyone goes for the upgrades/mining tools at roundstart and focuses on all the trivial things last. It's clear that there's a set path for how you do things. Just like old RND. Also I have no Idea how people end up making these tritium maxcaps. I don't really see them done when I'm online anyways.

[Cobby]

But we want techwebs to be a job. Why do it if it's just for round development.

because it's the only way to get certain items, that's why you want techweb to be a job so you can focus on getting those items....

[Shadowflame909]

Not really. I want it to be a job again because the only thing that's fun to do in science and has any merit is xenobio. Two people are a crowd on xenobio though. Yet, I guess nanites is interesting as well now. Circuits is a waste of time if you don't know how to read the code, I'm pretty sure. Also toxins is a waste of time if you aren't an antagonist.

Tetris point generation guys, this is how you validate scientists into feeling like they're doing something useful. Y'know what else, allow them to make more tetris machines via the circuit dispenser. Thus allowing multiple scientist slotted roles feeling validated. This is how you improve tech webs!

[PKPenguin321]

For genetics cloning, write some kind of code that can check how similar two strings of DNA are. When you clone somebody it adds their DNA to an invisible database and checks it for uniqueness. Completely unique DNA gives a moderate amount of points. Completely non-unique DNA gives no points. DNA that is non-unique but has been slightly modified gives small amounts of points.
Maybe even make it a separate machine from the cloning machine.

[SaveVatznick]

Code Space Beans

[EagleWiz]

On the subject of point production, Goonstation has a cloner mode that gives Genetics research points at the cost of cloning slower. Adding that to medbay for point generation would be nice.

That just seems like an easily deniable way to dick over someone elses round. It might work for goonstation, but its definitely not going to be a good thing for TG

[Yakumo_Chen]

Nanites would be a cool department for science if it didn't take 30 minutes to get it running every round.

The problem is that making it available roundstart is also wildly unbalanced, but also the traitor applications of it don't work either since again, 30 minutes and assuming people actually want to use it, or the people you want using it.

The biggest problem of techwebs I've seen is that the rest of the station has near-zero incentive to actually print off anything science researches, because it takes so damn long for other departments to get any of the decent tech.

Take security for example. The techs for security are locked behind point barriers that are obscenely high. Security will almost never get the techs and by the time they ever do, its either because its extended or someone else is using the research to print off guns in science. Even then, as a security player, I never even have time to stop and get minerals and print out guns, and most of the guns are merely sidegrades of what I already start with. Sure, the advanced e-gun is great, but it only takes one ion shot for it to be utterly useless. I can always recharge an egun no matter how many times its ion'd.

Look at medical. When do you see anything ever printed from the medical lathe? That shit is never researched and when it is, the amount of time it takes to put in implants or do the surgery isn't worth it.

Remember how the janitor asked science every single round for the janicart upgrade? How often do you see janicarts with upgrades these days? Do you even know where the service lathe is?

Science can't actually print anything cool themselves except for two very griefy guns and I guess the new meme armor. Robotics gets shit I guess, but regular scientists can't do that (unless they turn Research and Development into Secondary Robotics). Oh, and the above nanite thing. 30 minutes in Not Surgery though.

Engineering and Cargo are basically the only jobs that actually get real benefit from anyone doing the research.

[Dr_bee]

The biggest problem of techwebs I've seen is that the rest of the station has near-zero incentive to actually print off anything science researches, because it takes so damn long for other departments to get any of the decent tech.

How the web itself is designed is the problem here, If tech were divided into fields of research instead of being divided by department and the tech of each department was mixed together then people might enjoy techwebs more.

So picking a research option would benefit more than one department at a time, like unlocking both mining and security tech in the same techweb node. Pick the biology path and you end up unlocking stuff for Medbay, Botany, and the Kitchen. Pick the bluespace path and you end up unlocking the stuff for mining and science as well as being a prerequisite to the high tech parts.

Goal really should be to have every tech node give something to two departments at minimum, so the fun is spread around.

[Pizzatiger]

So Orange, The plan is to have research points be fused with the cargo budget while also giving multiple ways to generate points/cash? Kinda like what goonstation does by splitting its budget between cargo and genetics, creating budget wars between the two departments? I'm just asking so i can properly know what kinda design space i should brainstorming for

[oranges]

Well it's more that I want departments to be able to
A) spend their money on unlocking new items from the research tree
B) spend their money on printing already unlocked items without needing minerals

So they can still produce some items if all the miners are dead but it costs them in how much they can unlock so they have to earn more

[oranges]

I suppose we could use the same budget to allow them to order and pay for things from cargo though

[Dr_bee]

I suppose we could use the same budget to allow them to order and pay for things from cargo though

So a money system basically? Finally adding an economy?

[Pizzatiger]

Robotics could get Research nanites which give cash in exchange for nanite generation

Security could get money for every minute that the warden remains in the brig instead of being the SUPER COP all wardens think they are that. If your going the full economy route and give everyone a bank account,then you can give security the ability to give fines or allow troublemakers to pay bail to get out of jail early.

Botany will get a list of constantly updating ingredients that will encourage them to make something that is weed or bananas. The Ingredients are scanned once they enter the Smart Fridge

The Kitchen gets a list of constantly updating recipes based on what Botany is tasked to make to encourage the chef to make unique recipes instead of the usual stuff. The kitchen will be given a smart fridge for the food to be scanned.

While Cargo also has the ability to sell crates/stuff in crates and do bounties they will need a new consistent source of money to help counteract the constant leaching that such a interconnected system will cause. My suggestion is to take this idea- https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15455 and allow cargo to make mini factories of various items such as coins, action figures, crates, canned food, hats, toolboxes/tools. This way they have some sort of income to help sustain them that isn't just 1 time massive pumps of cash from bounties and crates.

Medical gets a bunch of implants and useful surgeries that would improve the lives of the crew but are never used. What about giving Medical a few starting implants/useful surgeries that gives medical points when they are given to someone. Extra points are given if Medical follows proper safety standards and puts the person under Anesthesia before the surgery. This will encourage med bay to give out those useful surgeries and create a use for anesthesia past keeping a ling perma-stunned

More ideas to come

[Cobby]

I suppose we could use the same budget to allow them to order and pay for things from cargo though

It would be a lot easier to exchange between the two than intermingle them, I'd rather touch an exchange rate should balance go out of whack then have to hit the source because it helps out a particular department wildly but otherwise is sane for the others.

[Luke Cox]

Just came up with an idea: nanite program that generates points when different things are done to the host. Different types of damage, being injected with different chems, etc. Only awards points once per thing, of course. At last, we'll have human experimentation.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Chaplain whacking assistants for 30 minutes but this time it makes science points instead of making the chaplain completely overpowered

[Luke Cox]

I mean, the whack would only generate points once. Could totally see prisoners experimented on or people selling their bodies to science though

[Arcanemusic]

Why not just take a simpler approach, like making the deconstructive analyzer get a one-time point payout for items with a tech origin? Not trying to bring back the SUPREME FUCKING CHAOS that was the old duke science rush, but as it stands objects no longer have a reason to be scanned by science goggles anymore, and the analyzer is only good for unlocking illegal/alien tech right now. Granted, the payouts would need to be SMALL. Like, anything in the RnD office such as stock parts might only pay out 5 or 10 points, but something with some level of rarity like a spellbook might be 1000 or so, just to give the players who play science exclusively to get their validhunting gear SOMETHING to do between Industrial Engineering and High Eff. Parts every round. Maybe randomize what items do and do not have a point value would be a good idea.

[Hathkar]

Here's my idea for how Engineering can generate R&D Points:

New SMES Configuration: Research Mode
Similar to how the radiation collectors and tesla coils have a mode that generates points, add a setting/mode to the SMES units. The input mode would instead consume power based on the settings, and generate points based on how much power is being consumed by the SMES. Upgrading the SMES' parts = More Power Inputted/Consumed = More potential R&D points. Maybe the sprite could also be slightly different in R&D mode, so it's easy to tell. Make the SMES lights purple or something in that mode.

Something like this?