Removes mining tech

[SomeguyManperson]

General Documentation

Intent of your Pull Request

Fully replaces mining tech with clearance bounties, since science is completely separate from mining but is for some reason completely required for mining progression while cargo is the same department as mining and has literally fuckall to do with it
now there's a way to love and care for your terribly terminal plasma collecting monkies

Why is this change good for the game?

remove pointless point sink required for basic mining progression in science

Wiki Documentation

Briefly describe your PR and the impacts of it, in layman's terms.

removes both mining tech nodes
mining drills are now in basic engineering, jackhammer is in experimental tools
borg cutter upgrade is now in borg module upgrades
spacepod upgrades no longer require mining tech
express console, reward vendor and ore redemption are now in engineering tech node
KA mods for aoe mining and trigger guard are available as clearance crates once basic prospecting is complete, at a cost of 200 credits per
free miners and free golems can purchase things now locked off by the lack of a cargo shuttle for mining points, free golems can't buy plasmacutters because they can't use them
upgraded resonator and resonator are now cheaper in terms of mining points because they are bad (500 and 750 from 800 and 2500 for basic and advanced)
mineral prospecting bounties now reward 2000 (1000) 10000 (9000) and 2000 (1000) credits (old) on completion

What should players be aware of when it comes to the changes your PR is implementing?

mining tech does not exist so stop complaining to science about it
bluespace satchels do still exist though

What general grouping does this PR fall under?

Cargo and science

Changelog

Edit this changelog for changes that are noticeable by the players. Remove it if this isn't the case. If you add a name after the ':cl', that name will be used in the changelog. Leave it empty to use your GitHub name. Prefix the PR title with [admin] if it's something admin related. Prefix the PR title with [s] if you are fixing an exploit so it is not announced on discord and the server.

🆑
rscdel: fully replaces mining tech with clearance crates! Now all the miners will break into science for is a bag of holding! wait they already do that
rscdel: spacepod mining equipment nodes no longer require mining techs, as if anyone used those in the first place
tweak: resonators are cheaper
tweak: adds several KA mods and plasmacutters to non-mining mining reward vendors so free golems and free miners can still use stuff no longer printable with a lathe
tweak: mining bounties for clearance crates now pay out slightly better
tweak: drills and circuit boards that used to be in mining tech nodes are now elsewhere in similarly usually important places
tweak: several small changes to flavortext for crates and stuff
/:cl:

[Mqiib]

bluespace satchels do still exist though

Satchel of holding when???????

Also does this mean it's going to be a pain for mining borgs to get KA upgrades now since they have to run back and forth from robotics to cargo and back to get them installed?

[SomeguyManperson]

Also does this mean it's going to be a pain for mining borgs to get KA upgrades now since they have to run back and forth from robotics to cargo and back to get them installed?

would be a bit of an annoyance for midround miner borgs if they actually use KA mods which would get down to either grabbing a locker full of mods and hauling them to robotics or buying a crate or whatever

[UselessTheremin]

wait where do you get plasmacutters now

[SomeguyManperson]

clearance crate unlocked by shipping a bluespace crystal (not polycrystal) with the cargo shuttle, each cutter is 2000 credits

[UselessTheremin]

clearance crate unlocked by shipping a bluespace crystal (not polycrystal) with the cargo shuttle, each cutter is 2000 credits

ah, EZ

[Cartlord]

Also consider, however, the effect this would have on Free Miners and Free Golems, who don't have access to those crates

[adamsong]

Also consider, however, the effect this would have on Free Miners and Free Golems, who don't have access to those crates

From the PR

free miners and free golems can purchase things now locked off by the lack of a cargo shuttle for mining points

[boodaliboo]

im a bit confused on how your supposed to get tools is it crates

[adamsong]

Yes, the mechanic already exists to some degree, cargo has bounties that unlock crates of mining gear, but its not useful since it can all be printed instead.

I like the PR, admittedly I don't play much shaft miner, but I do like those bounties actually being useful now

[MegaEmpirical]

The upgrades for all departments are locked behind science so using science being another department as the excuse doesn't make sense unless you're aiming to give all departments their own progression without science.

[SomeguyManperson]

The upgrades for all departments are locked behind science so using science being another department as the excuse doesn't make sense unless you're aiming to give all departments their own progression without science.

most if not all departments are nowhere near as reliant on science to function effectively; most of engineering's tech is unlocked with a single node required for most of anything else to be researched, botany can go an entire round without getting upgraded parts since they are only really important for being able to make potency 100 disks, security only gets like one weapon they can use being the advanced energy gun, and most chemists can reliably ignore the tier 4 manipulator adding some more complex chems to the synthesizer
The only department that is mostly reliant on research burning points on department-specific nodes is like maybe medbay for advanced surgeries and the only two that are ever really used are the stronger tend wound surgeries (which can be danced around with other medical specific stuff like synthflesh) and maybe DNA recovery if there are lings.
Mining is the only department that near requires several thousand points to be burnt on department specific nodes just due to how integral the gear coming from them is, and on being researched both nodes are used maybe like 3 times to print something for each miner then never used again, unlike parts which are important for every department, experimental tools which contains slightly better tools usable by engineering science and medical, or even the advanced surgeries which are usable by both medical and robotics if they care enough.
Ordering them through cargo feels like it fits better since the bounty that unlocks the crates is done by the miners, the crates aren't burning a resource important for several other departments when they are ordered, and the resource that IS spent (credits) is fairly renewable and not used for much else most rounds due to cargo's current position as "replacement gear that can just be printed by a lathe anyways"

[adamsong]

I like the change, makes clearance crates useful, and stop the constant roundstart demand for mining tech

[Cartlord]

Some problems here
For one thing, Miners don't have cargo bay access; this requires them to depend on Cargo Technicians and QuarterMasters to actually bother with the ore bounties - this is actually rather rare, and a good few don't even know they exist when I tell them. I'm pretty sure most of Yog's cargo people just print & deliver bounty lists without actually READING the damn things.
For another, this requires those same CTs and QMs to look at the "clearance crate" section and see there's stuff there, AND actually buy it.
Plus this whole thing only works if Cargo's actually doing well enough that you can afford that stuff, which isn't necessarily uncommon but still isn't a guarantee - whereas research points are always gonna be there eventually.
also it completely falls apart if either there aren't any cts or the only one present is antag which i have seen happen

[adamsong]

Miners can always request access, and get it by default on lowpop

[SomeguyManperson]

all of those problems are basically also present with mining tech nodes, just for research instead of cargo

[Cartlord]

Problem is, Sci is more frequently played, and has more slots overall that can in-theory get this shit for Miners; the Science department simply has more people than the Cargo department, and is more frequently played due to having a bigger impact on rounds than Cargo Techs or QMs. And evenif Sci is somehow entirely absent, you also have the ENTIRE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, who can screw with their computer to make them able to research nodes for you. The end result, IMO, is that the bottleneck of shortstaffing is effectively nonexistent.
Cargo has, like, five non-miner personnel as far as I recall. And again, in my experience, most don't READ the bounty list - they just pass out copies and let those people do their work for them. I have had to, on multiple occasions, remind the CTs and/or QM that the ore bounties EXIST, because they don't even KNOW!
Whereas for Sci, researching nodes is a core pillar of their job, so it's nigh-impossible to not know about the mining tech node.

[Cartlord]

I'm gonna be frank: on an optimal day, I think this would be a good change; but I don't recall the last optimal day I saw on Yogs.
This change seems to completely disregard the nature of the playerbase.
Because from what I recall, it's the only thing in the game that actually requires a CT to read the bounty list - any other department bounties, just give everyone else a bounty list, and they'll bring the bounties to you for export.
As such, CTs don't read the bounty list, because they don't need to. And now you've added something that requires them to read it or the Miners get fucked, with no indication this is the case unless they read the PR.

[Cartlord]

Also providing some chatter about the subject to show that, no, I am not the only dude who hates these changes.

[SomeguyManperson]

Cargo has, like, five non-miner personnel as far as I recall. And again, in my experience, most don't READ the bounty list - they just pass out copies and let those people do their work for them. I have had to, on multiple occasions, remind the CTs and/or QM that the ore bounties EXIST, because they don't even KNOW!
Whereas for Sci, researching nodes is a core pillar of their job, so it's nigh-impossible to not know about the mining tech node.

maybe cargo doesn't know about bounties because they haven't been nearly as important until now? I want to put more stuff behind bounties so cargo has a reason to do them that isn't "earn money you won't use" and if they are going to have stuff locked behind it they are going to have to learn it's important
also science researching mining tech burns a shitton of points that they will never see again when the miners go off to get themselves killed or grab powergame loot that helps only themselves, and if they DON'T burn those points they have the miners screaming and crying and causing trouble for EVERYONE because one person researched stuff they "shouldn't" have

[Cartlord]

I totally understand wanting to make Cargo pay more attention to bounties, but I think something as crucial as mining gear is a bad place to start - maybe you could lock their precious grill behind a food bounty, or lock the bike behind a bounty, or lock whatever might be a common meme crate among CTs behind a bounty. I don't like locking a crucial thing such as mining gear behind a new system that's only explained to CTs if they read the entire bounty list (since all predetermined bounties are at the bottom, so a CT would need to scroll all the way there to see them).

[Cartlord]

....Would it be possible, to have the crates be visible in the console, with a label of some kind stating a bounty needs completed before the crate may be purchased?

[JamieD1]

Closing on theos request

[SomeguyManperson]

going to be handling this in a different way