Rebalanced Cargo Bounties (And Kalimba is percussion now)

[SpaceLizard24]

About the PR

In short, changed a bunch of cargo bounties so that you can't just buy things and immediately resell them for a profit.
In long...
Changed the Crayon bounty to make only 2000 from 4000, increased the amount of crayons needed from 24 to 25
Changed the donut bounty to make only 2400 from 6000, changed the amount of donut restock boxes in a donut restock crate from 2 to 1
Changed the figurine bounty to make only 4000 from 8000
Changed the percussion instrument bounty to make only 5000 from 15000, made the kalimba a percussion instrument, removed a kalimba from the percussion instrument ensemble crate.

Why / Balance

Okay, so cargo shouldn't be able to buy things, then slap a bounty tag and sell them instantly for a profit. That's bad!
Instead, these changes make it so that it won't be profitable (but might still break even!) to buy and resell some crates with a bounty.
Also kalimbas are a percussion instrument. They just are.
I did this entire thing because I wanted kalimbas to be percussion, when I changed it, it messed with the percussion bounty. Then I realized bounties were wack, so I fixed them.

Honourable mentions
The artifact bounty can kinda be bought and resold for a profit, as the bounty gives 2500 but an artifact costs 2000. However, artifact containment costs 500, so to package large artifacts it costs 2500. If you get lucky and buy a small artifact you make a profit, though. Overall, this does probably have a chance at giving sci more artifacts, which is good, and honestly this bounty sucks (as artifacts have better uses than being sold for 2500), so I just kept it as is.

The laser bounty is the only bounty where it's substantially better to ask someone for help while still being possible to buy and resell crates for a profit. I think it's okay to keep as is, because buying laser crates does raise questions, and most people will go to sec to print lasers for cheaper, anyways.

Media

You just need to read. No visual aids can help. If you want a picture of cargo, go play SS14. NOW.

Requirements

• I have read and am following the Pull Request and Changelog Guidelines.
• I have added media to this PR or it does not require an ingame showcase.

Changelog

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• tweak: Adjusted the requirements and rewards of some cargo bounties.

[ScarKy0]

I think investing in items to sell for a bounty at a higher price makes sense

[lzk228]

there is a pr for making kalimba percussion
#32262

[Tayrtahn]

We have a test that's intended to prevent this from being possible. Why isn't it catching these instances?

[deltanedas]

see my issue on why bounty test is a meme

[SpaceLizard24]

90% sure bounty test doesn't work when you need to buy multiple of a crate to make a profit

[GansuLalan]

We have a test that's intended to prevent this from being possible. Why isn't it catching these instances?

The arbitrage test only does a test that looks at single crates, so it will catch some but only if you can flip a single crate for a bounty. For instance with the crayon bounty you can't fulfil it with a single crate so the test doesn't trigger but buy a second crate and you can while still making a profit. I've got a pr to improve the test for these cases #34883 but there are still some cases it wont catch, see donuts and breaking the donutvend refill box. That pr also has some bounty rebalances for the test changes as well

[walksanatora]

how is the station expecte to provide crayons aside from cargo boxes? I dont remember if crayons are craftable in any way.

[AgentSmithRadio]

Let's break these down.

Crayons currently is a bounty done by purchasing 3 art supply crates at 500 each for 1500. You combine, slap a label on for 2500 profit. Your new version involves finding a random crayon on the station, and doing this anyways, for a profit of 500, turning it from a mediocre bounty to a straight up bad one. Outside of stations like Box that have a few accessible crayon box spawns, the only way to profit from this is getting lucky from farming Happy Honk boxes. You're not going to find 3+ crayon boxes under normal settings, you may as well just kill this bounty if it's getting nerfed.

I haven't seen the donut restock box meta (donuts are VERY accessible, especially if anyone knows how to hack the SecVend), but I can see why it would be a thing. This would make sense to nerf on the face of that. Currently donut restock crates cost 1200 for 2, and a restock box gives 14 donuts, so a single restock box fulfils the bounty. What's the point of cutting the boxes in half here? Vending machine restocking is already a barely used mechanic outside of ChemVend and NanoMed Plus restocking, even if there is a bonus box I'm not sure why that should be punished. This change to the meta would reduce profit from 4800 to 1200, or from 6000 to 2400 for people who do this bounty normally. It becomes a sad payoff for people who do this bounty correctly.

Figurine should probably be nerfed, but not because the crate for 10 figurines costs $4k. Figurines are now available in basically all clothing vending machines in their contrabandInventory thanks to 32934, which make them very easy to obtain, but even before that you could just go to a Happy Honk machine, raid the 14 boxes in it, and reliably get 5 figurines. If cargo needs this bounty nerfed, $5k at least gives a margin of profit for the lazy method, and prevents this from just being another sad bounty for the department, maybe $6k is warranted. My point is, this one, like donuts, is very easily completable legitimately by cargo techs, and we don't want to punish the legitimate players who know where to find the items.

Instrument bounties kind of just suck, and it's not much of a secret that Percussion Instruments has been a spend $5k to make $10k bounty, and give the station free instruments sort of bounty. Kalimba can be percussion, sure, I think it's technically a keyed instrument, but I'm not enough of a musician to actually say otherwise. This would make it a 1 crate solve for the bounty, making it $2.5k for whatever the end result is, if it's $5k, then it's $2.5k profit for buying the crate. Much like crayons, perhaps the argument is that this bounty shouldn't exist because the only realistic way it will ever get done is through purchasing crates.

Instead of trying to patch the current bounties as it is, the answer might just be that we need a refactor on bounties, and we frankly just need new bounty items to remove the problematic ones from the list. Or, maybe buying and reselling is actually a fun part of cargo tech gameplay, because it's yet another thing they have to manage that rewards game knowledge, and takes purchasing power away from the QM and can lead to strife and sabotage by having techs order things without having to bug their boss over every dollar, allowing chicanery to happen.

These are tough game design questions, but I'm not sure if your repricing and other changes are necessarily the fix for the current situation.

[SpaceLizard24]

Augh I forgot to explain my logic for these
Okay, so crayon bounty is a nightmare. I'm all in for removing it. My logic is buy 3 crayon boxes and find just one crayon to complete the bounty. Although it's hardly worth it.
Donut restock is so that you can't just break open the crate. Now you actually have to go to a monkin donuts vending machine (interact with sec) for a profit. I think this one is fine as I've changed it.
Figurine I feel is too easy for what it gives, so nerfing the return both makes it not worth buying and reselling, and still gives a fair profit for scavenging it. 4k for not interacting with a department isn't bad.
PLEASE blow up the percussion instrument bounty. I hate it. However, I did remove a kalimba from a percussion instrument crate, so it works as intended, needing to buy two crates to break even, or buy one crate and scavenge one other instrument.

So, are these changes good? Probably not. Are they better than what we have? Probably? Going off of the logic that interacting with other departments should have the highest payout, yeah. Going off of cargo making enough money to supply the station, maybe? These are nerfs, I'm not sure if cargo completely relies on these specific bounties to profit.

[AgentSmithRadio]

At this point I think we just need to do a refactor on the bounty system. Scrap the problematic bounties, come up with new ones, and rebalance the payouts on the existing ones. It's the tough route, but trying to fix the inherently broken bounties outside of straight removal just doesn't do that much beyond reduce cargo income, which, maybe that's warranted, but it just feels bad for the people who actually play cargo seeing their efforts be worth less than they used to be.

[GansuLalan]

No one has mentioned my favourite part about the current bounty list, that, unless another pr fixed it while I wasn't looking, the laser bounty can take power cells as it just checks for HitscanBatteryAmmoProvider, you can do it with 6 low capacity cells for 28k. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that the current bounty system just needs to have a big refactor. I would probably think that creating more random bounties on the fly would be a better system.

[SpaceLizard24]

Yeah, I'm not saying this is a solution that'll fix bounties. It's not. This is literally just so I can make kalimbas percussion instruments. Bounties probably need an entire rework the more I look into it.

[SpaceLizard24]

Yeah, I'm not saying this is a solution that'll fix bounties. It's not. This is literally just so I can make kalimbas percussion instruments. Bounties probably need an entire rework the more I look into it.

[SpaceLizard24]

No one has mentioned my favourite part about the current bounty list, that, unless another pr fixed it while I wasn't looking, the laser bounty can take power cells as it just checks for HitscanBatteryAmmoProvider, you can do it with 6 low capacity cells for 28k.

Imagine being a salvage caravan completely overrun with xenos. You decide to ask for emergency laser weaponry to try to survive. Sure enough, you recieve a crate, and you're filled with a sense of hope. Maybe you can survive the attack after all. But as you open the box, your face drops. They shipped you six AAA batteries instead.