[Jackriip]

This is very much in progress and many of the things in the description will be changed and adjusted.

A full balance pass on money, gear, research, missions and NPCs, built around the 6-hour round. Strong crews no longer have top-tier gear within the first hour or two. Instead, gear comes in steps you earn by working your way out from the green zone, and the dangerous zones pay better. Green-zone crews can still get every kind of resource.

Goals

• Progress across the whole round. Crews start with what their ship carries. About an hour in, a strong crew should be opening yellow stock and research. Around hour two, advanced gear, and from hour three on, elite gear for the crews who fought for it.
• Danger pays. Yellow and red zones give more ore, better loot, better pay and tougher fights. Green stays viable for every resource.
• Top-tier gear comes from the world. The best guns and weapons come from loot, traders and hard missions, and cargo no longer sells guns.
• No easy loops. Repeatable ways to print money, research or rare gear are closed.

Round length

• Every round ends six real hours after it starts, even when the server lags or sits empty. Ships get a fleet jump warning twelve minutes before, with a countdown in the status panel and red alerts at five minutes and one minute. The fleet jumps out at 5:58 and the round ends at 6:00. Transfer votes are off while the timer runs; admins can still end the round or cancel the jump.

Money and trade

• The mining console's cash bill is now a 500-credit bill for 2,000 mining points.
• Titanium no longer pays extra mining points from boulders, and the ore redemption machine shows its real rates.
• Materials market base prices: diamond 120, bluespace 80, gold and titanium 40, uranium 30, silver 15, iron and glass 2 per sheet. Iron and glass never drop below 1 credit, and a market boom tops out at 1.5 times the base price. Stacks still sell whole, so timing a sale still matters.
• Trader contracts only ask for things you have to go out and get: fauna harvests, ruin finds, salvage, raw telecrystal and glacial cores. Kitchen orders, fishing requests and hides are still around. Ore and sheet requests are gone.
• The suit fitter asks for recovered MOD salvage.
• Cargo loans pay their bonus once.
• Nanite program disks no longer export for cash.
• Cargo pays only for an empty gas canister, not the gas inside. Vex and gas harvest contracts still buy gas.
• Vex's legion core requests and voucher window, and the clinic's gland counter, only take cores that are still fresh or were stabilized.
• Traders and the order consoles charge less for everyday supplies: food, medicine, tools, ammo, boards, MOD modules and the like. The riot shield and the laurel cost less too.
• The mining console's MODsuit costs 7,200 points.
• Outpost checkpoints cost 5,000 credits to save and 2,000 to update, a ship bay 6,000 and an advert 500.
• Trader favor and its discounts are gone: everyone pays the same price. Trader specials, cargo coupons and a peddler's thanks for help in an ambush remain.
• Traders and cargo won't buy back goods bought from a trader, an order console or the black market uplink, including contract rewards. New things you cook, craft or smelt from them can still be sold.
• The Patch-Up Clinic only buys natural organs and no longer takes defibrillators.
• Materials bought from the market have a minimum price per sheet: diamond 230, bluespace 160, gold and titanium 80, uranium 60, silver 30, plasma 15, iron and glass 5.

Research

• The survey console pays research only, no credits. Survey values were reworked so bigger targets and more dangerous zones are worth more.
• Survey scanners work only at natural sites, and a site gives out over time. Coming back later or swapping scanners doesn't refresh it.
• Experiment rewards belong to the crew, so printing a fresh source disk doesn't pay them out again. Refunds only cover discounts you actually paid for, and merging research notes no longer adds a bonus.
• Restoring a nanite backup needs the programs to be researched on the ship you're restoring to.

Ore and mining

• Every rock wall rolls its own ore. Green zones have every ore type, and higher zones have more ore and better odds of the valuable kinds.
• A spent asteroid field moves to a new spot in its zone, and charts lose track of it, so you have to find it again. Ore no longer re-rolls just by redocking.
• Ore vents run out. Each vent makes a limited number of boulders and shares a reserve with its planet, and vents follow the proper rarity of each material.

Anomalies

• Planets have one, two or three natural anomalies by zone.
• Raw anomaly cores and anomaly charts are sold by a trader instead of cargo, and more charts are on offer. Cores cost 8,000 to 12,000 credits and charts 4,000 to 6,000.
• The Event Horizon has no scope.
• Supermatter hazards no longer drop cores, a planet's ice demons can only drop a couple of cores, and trader MOD modules can't have their cores pulled.

Weapons and gear

• Melee weapons and guns are sorted into green, yellow and red tiers, and loot, traders, freight crates, NPC drops and ruins follow the tiers.
• Gun schematics, the receivers printed from them and the schematic imprinter are gone. Weapon crafting and R&D weapon prints otherwise work as before, and player ships keep their starting guns and ammunition.
• Some gun kit research needs crew reputation: Electric Weaponry needs 4, Advanced Beam Weaponry needs 11, and Illegal Technology and Unregulated Bluespace Research need 22.
• Shuttle shield, interdiction, data siphon and electronic warfare research need 11 reputation. The weapons console, missiles, lasers, cloaking and assault pods stay open.
• Buying a laser gun, C-20r and WT-550 magazines or a cutlass needs 4 reputation.
• The Undertow's strong stock now needs reputation. At the Chop Shop, Coolant Loop and Dead Channel need 11, and nine other pieces need 4. At the Exchange, the stimulant pen and minibomb need 11, and C-4, frag, EMP and smoke grenades and the boarding axe need 4. The Clinic's penthrite pen needs 4.
• More research needs crew reputation. Combat Exosuits, Night Vision, Riot Suppression, Shuttle Repair Swarm and Precision Shuttle Fabrication need 4. Assault and Infiltration Exosuits, Combat Implants and Instant Shuttle Fabrication need 11.
• Strong designs moved out of open research into their own nodes, and everything else in those nodes stays open. At 4: sonar, inert bags of holding, jaws of life and the mech RCD, the quantum swapper, the upgraded resonator, the crew pinpointer, advanced grenade casings, .38 thermal rounds and nanite remotes. At 11: the blank tech shell, taser and meteor slugs, heavy magazines, x-ray eyes, the MOD stealth and dampener modules, the perceptomatrix and voltaic heart, the H.O.N.K. horn, the energy crossbow kit, the illegal borg module and the desynchronizer.
• Research that was gated too high came down. The advanced energy gun kit and suppressor need 4, and the crossbow kit, illegal module and desynchronizer need 11. Exosuit Firearms costs less. The tesla revolver moved up to Advanced Beam Weaponry.
• Trader gates follow gear strength. Sarge's metal bat needs 11 and costs 1,000. Quartermain's vest, riot shield, flashbang, frag and security belt, the Fitting Bay's bluespace storage and night visor, night vision goggles, the .310 clip and the weighted net need 4. The six strongest exploit cartridges need 11. On the MOD bench, reinforced plating needs 4 and composite plating needs 11.
• Atlas, Rigger, Gorilla Arms, the riot suit and several MOD modules need less reputation than before.
• Overpriced gear costs less, including Boffin's thermals and night goggles.
• Waystation Halcyon stocks basic armor, medicine, gloves, magboots, street chrome, plain blades and sunglasses.
• Strong-Arm implants and stingbangs are sold on reputation 4 shelves instead of through cargo, at the same price.
• Arm weapons come back slowly: Mantis, Monowire and Gorilla Arms take about 66 minutes per restock.
• Loot follows weapon strength too. Combat knives, shortswords, fire axes, officer's sabres and cleric maces turn up in green loot. Claymores, cutlasses, the bloodletter, grey-king blade, veal and honk renders and the toolbox moved to yellow, alongside boarding axes, old cutlasses and rusted claymores. The Thompson moved to red loot and red peddlers. The armory's tactical vest and riot suit swapped tiers.
• No Quarter's heavy cartridges can be crafted by anyone and fit only No Quarter.
• Military ammunition needs crew reputation to research: SMG, rifle, C-20r and WT-550 magazines need 4, and L6, Bulldog, sniper and explosive ammunition need 11. Pistol, revolver and shotgun ammunition is unchanged.
• Cargo no longer sells security gear, single guns or conversion kits.
• Traders sell guns in limited stock, with stronger guns at higher-zone outposts. Sold guns come back slowly.
• Peddlers on planets are rare, and sell for about a quarter less than traders. They carry one gun or melee weapon from their planet's zone, for credits and with no reputation needed.
• Armory caches and freight crates are more likely to hold a gun in higher zones, and otherwise give a melee weapon.
• The strongest melee weapons are no longer sitting on maps or guaranteed from certain enemies.
• High-end MODsuits are no longer placed in ruins. Ruin suit storage stocks a suit to match its zone.
• Free hulls carry ordinary MODsuits in place of command-grade ones.
• Each pirate cache bundle holds one gun.
• Every way into the three trader outposts goes through a guarded weapons checkpoint: lockers to leave your guns in, a scan chamber that checks everyone and everything inside it, and a one-way exit. Work tools and disablers are fine, including kinetic accelerators and plasma cutters. The guard sells a short personal weapons permit. Anyone caught inside with a gun and no permit, or who forces the door, is treated as hostile and turned away for a while.

Missions and bounties

• Mission pay is lower across the board and climbs with the danger of the zone the job is in.
• The outpost contract board posts new jobs on a steady schedule, and old offers expire.
• The ship mission console offers a fixed set of jobs that refreshes on a timer, so abandoning a job doesn't get you a new one.
• The rarest prizes (elite and specialist MODsuits, the captain's laser and a few unique gadgets) only come from dangerous guarded jobs like named kills, hunts, captures, poacher busts and lairs, and only now and then. A crew can earn at most one suit and one gadget a round.
• Survey missions pay useful field gear instead of guns.
• Delivery missions ask for goods from the field.
• Bringing a rescue survivor back healthy pays a smaller bonus.
• A kill contract can't be farmed by leaving and coming back: the target and its pay only come once.
• Pirate ship bounties pay 20% less.

Zones and reputation

• Your crew has one reputation number, and every job at either board earns it. Safe jobs like deliveries, supply requests and exploration pay 1. Dangerous jobs, criminal bounties, lairs and pirate bounties pay 1, 2 or 3 depending on the danger. Player-posted bounties pay nothing.
• Reputation opens contracts farther out, better trader stock, traders' back rooms and some research at 4, 11 and 22. Green work can only raise it to 4, and yellow work to 11. Imported research still works, and gated gear can still turn up through exploration and looting.
• Mission boards, trade windows and contract boards show your number and the next step. Job cards say what a job is worth, the completion message says what you earned, and locked goods say how much they need.
• Reputation belongs to your crew, not your ship. Lose the ship, build or buy another, and the crew keeps its name.
• You belong to one crew at a time. A crew can run more than one ship, and only the crew's leader can bring a new ship into it. Anyone else who buys or claims a ship starts their own crew with it. The crew hears who leads when the leader changes.
• Prize limits and experiment rewards are shared by the whole crew, across all its ships.
• Green-zone crews keep access to every raw resource, ordinary research and the basics every trader sells.

Survival, cyberware and nanites

• Cyberware capacity counts everything installed: chrome, tg implants, cybernetic organs, surgical upgrades and nanite programs. Prosthetic limbs don't count.
• Nanite programs cost capacity according to how strong they are.
• Governor Delete moves to the chest OS slot, competing with the Sandevistan and the other OS chrome, and gives a bigger capacity boost.
• Nanite armor spends nanites on every hit it soaks.
• The reviver implant no longer revives someone straight back into critical condition over and over.
• The nanite defibrillator follows the same rules as a real defibrillator and only signals success when it works.
• The voltaic cyberheart absorbs EMPs again.
• Implant buttons and arm weapons stay down while chrome is offline, and an EMP during Lazarus no longer wastes its charge.
• The Monitoring, spreading and Sting nanite programs work.

NPCs

• NPCs in yellow and red zones hit harder and take more punishment instead of showing up in bigger numbers. Bosses scale too, by less.
• Planet wildlife, nests and patrols are no longer more numerous in dangerous zones.
• A pirate boarding party is one wave sized to your crew, led by a boss in red space.
• Pets, hired guards, recruits, arena fighters and summons don't scale.

Fixes

• The first chaplain of a round gets a null rod.
• Officers' sabres and surgery kits that never spawned on some ships now do.
• Delivery contracts accept genuine Syndicate documents.
• Idle ships no longer hold the limited hunt, capture and poacher jobs away from other crews.
• Traders charge and pay the ship account you pick.
• Commissioning a ship no longer pulls in people from another crew.
• Spent ore vents say so, and refused nanite backups and updates say so.
• The Hoarfrost Matriarch is scaled like the other bosses.
• The destructive analyzer links to a research server with a left-click of a multitool, and its window opens even without a server.
• Nanite remotes send their codes and messages.
• The reviver heals someone who's only asleep for free, and Lazarus waits for crit instead of waking a knocked-out user.
• The photon cannon leaves its fire trail, and the luxury paywall laser fires.
• HEAP and low-yield rockets gib like the other rockets.
• A burning syndicate bomb core burns away without going off.
• Baton clumsy checks work.
• Plasmaman EVA suits refill to all 10 charges.
• AI upgrade disks aren't used up for nothing.
• The Understudy knife leaves no fingerprints, and Fixer's Fingers and Second Shadow say what they do.
• Vex's insurance isn't spent when its recall can't happen.
• The worn credit chit follows its earpiece's network.
• Printed brain implants stun for about 5 seconds on an EMP instead of 20, and the mindshield costs no neural load.
• Found deathrattle implants report to their wearer's crew.
• Exosuit ablative insulation halves EMP burn.
• Wick only pays for control units with a core.
• The chameleon suit's armor covers the chest.
• Outfits, the vendor and the Hyena hand out 9mm magazines with 9mm guns.
• Mechaton's two base belts are toolbelts.
• Reality tears play their sound when they open.

Upstream tg files touched (all marked VOIDCREW EDIT)

code/__DEFINES/dcs/signals/signals_atom/signals_atom_x_act.dm, code/controllers/subsystem/market.dm, code/controllers/subsystem/stock_market.dm, code/datums/components/crafting/crafting.dm, code/datums/components/spawner.dm, code/datums/mapgen/CaveGenerator.dm, code/game/machinery/computer/crew.dm, code/game/machinery/computer/orders/order_computer/order_computer.dm, code/game/machinery/syndicatebomb.dm, code/game/objects/effects/spawners/random/random.dm, code/game/objects/items/defib.dm, code/game/objects/items/melee/baton.dm, code/game/objects/items/robot/ai_upgrades.dm, code/game/objects/structures/lavaland/ore_vent.dm, code/game/turfs/closed/minerals.dm, code/modules/admin/team_panel.dm, code/modules/admin/topic.dm, code/modules/admin/verbs/debug.dm, code/modules/admin/verbs/secrets.dm, code/modules/cargo/exports.dm, code/modules/cargo/markets/market_item.dm, code/modules/cargo/materials_market.dm, code/modules/clothing/chameleon/generic_chameleon_clothing.dm, code/modules/clothing/spacesuits/plasmamen.dm, code/modules/events/shuttle_loan/shuttle_loan_datum.dm, code/modules/jobs/job_types/chaplain/chaplain.dm, code/modules/mining/equipment/monster_organs/regenerative_core.dm, code/modules/mining/machine_redemption.dm, code/modules/mob/living/basic/icemoon/ice_demon/ice_demon.dm, code/modules/mob/living/basic/lavaland/hivelord/hivelord.dm, code/modules/mob/living/basic/lavaland/hivelord/spawn_hivelord_brood.dm, code/modules/mob/living/basic/lavaland/legion/legion_brood.dm, code/modules/mob/living/basic/lavaland/legion/legion_tumour.dm, code/modules/mob/living/basic/lavaland/legion/spawn_legions.dm, code/modules/mob/living/living.dm, code/modules/mob/living/simple_animal/hostile/megafauna/legion.dm, code/modules/power/singularity/reality_tear.dm, code/modules/power/supermatter/supermatter_extra_effects.dm, code/modules/projectiles/guns/energy/beam_rifle.dm, code/modules/projectiles/pins.dm, code/modules/projectiles/projectile/energy/photon.dm, code/modules/projectiles/projectile/special/rocket.dm, code/modules/reagents/chemistry/reagents/cat2_medicine_reagents.dm, code/modules/research/techweb/_techweb.dm, code/modules/shuttle/mobile_port/variants/supply.dm, code/modules/spells/spell_types/conjure/_conjure.dm, code/modules/surgery/organs/internal/cyberimp/augments_chest.dm, code/modules/surgery/organs/internal/cyberimp/augments_internal.dm, code/modules/surgery/revival.dm, code/modules/vehicles/mecha/mecha_defense.dm, tgui/packages/tgui/interfaces/DestructiveAnalyzer.tsx

code/datums/components/crafting/crafting.dm only loses its old blueprint edit.

Changelog

🆑
balance: Money, research, missions and gear are paced across the 6-hour round. Dangerous zones pay more, and green keeps every resource.
balance: The mining console bill is 500 credits for 2,000 points, materials market prices are lower and booms are smaller.
balance: Traders charge less for everyday supplies, outpost fees are lower, and cargo no longer pays for the gas in canisters.
balance: The survey console pays research only, and survey scanners wear out a site.
balance: Ore is spread by zone, spent asteroid fields move elsewhere in their zone, and ore vents run dry.
balance: Melee weapons and guns found, bought or looted are tiered by zone.
balance: Military and explosive ammunition, some gun kits, some ship combat research and a few trader weapons need crew reputation.
balance: Strong chrome, grenades and combat pens at the Undertow need crew reputation.
balance: Exosuits, night vision, combat implants, riot gear, advanced shuttle fabrication and other strong research need crew reputation, and strong designs moved out of open research.
balance: Trader gates and prices follow gear strength, Waystation Halcyon stocks basic gear, and arm weapons restock slowly.
balance: Melee loot groups follow weapon strength, and the Thompson is now a red gun.
balance: Mission pay climbs with zone danger, the rarest prizes come only from dangerous guarded jobs, and pirate bounties pay less.
balance: NPCs in dangerous zones are tougher instead of more numerous.
balance: Cyberware capacity counts everything installed, including nanite programs, and nanite armor costs nanites per hit.
add: Crews earn one reputation number from every job, which opens better contracts, trader stock and research. The boards show it, and it stays with the crew when its ship is lost.
add: Peddlers carry one gun or melee weapon from their planet's zone.
add: A crew can run more than one ship, and each player belongs to one crew at a time. Only the crew's leader adds ships.
add: Trader outposts have guarded weapons checkpoints with gun lockers and personal weapons permits. Armed trespassers are treated as hostile.
add: Rounds end with a fleet jump six real hours in, with a countdown and red alerts before the jump.
balance: Vex and the clinic only buy legion cores and monster glands that are still fresh or stabilized.
balance: Traders and cargo won't buy back goods bought from traders, order consoles or the black market.
balance: Market materials have a minimum buy price, and the clinic only buys natural organs.
del: Gun schematics, receiver printing, the schematic imprinter and the cargo security catalog are gone.
del: Trader favor and its discounts are gone.
del: High-end MODsuits and the strongest melee weapons no longer sit in ruins or on hulls.
fix: The reviver implant no longer loops revives into critical condition, and the nanite defibrillator follows defibrillator rules.
fix: Cargo loans pay their bonus once, and kill contracts can't be farmed by leaving and coming back.
fix: The voltaic cyberheart, the Monitoring, spreading and Sting nanite programs, and several cyberware shutdown gaps work again.
fix: The first chaplain gets a null rod, and missing sabres and surgery kits spawn on their ships.
fix: The destructive analyzer links on a multitool click and its window opens without a server.
fix: Nanite remotes, the photon cannon's fire trail, the luxury laser, HEAP and low-yield rockets, plasmaman suit refills and AI upgrade disks work.
fix: Lazarus waits for crit, the reviver heals sleepers for free, and Vex's insurance isn't spent on a failed recall.
fix: Ablative insulation, deathrattle implants, the worn credit chit and the chameleon suit's armor do what they say, and brain implants stun for less on an EMP.
/:cl: