Cargo Containers: An alternative to crate hauling

[Alkheemist]

About the PR

Collaboration with @Temoffy and @blackknight954, adds

• A new system of tagging items with bonus value if they are on a grid docked to another grid tagged as a valid destination.
• New ships only purchasable at a special shipyard for purchasing shipping containers
• A receipt/voucher system to sell the new shipping containers
• New sprites for cargo pallets (shipping container fills)

Why / Balance

Turns cargo hauling from cratespam and dragging hell into an engineering challenge of having enough thrusters/docking points to haul more cargo.

How to test

• Fly to Cargo A/B
• Buy a shipment docket from the HaulVend
• Use the docket to buy a shipment from the cargo shipment shipyard
• Dock with the shipment, fly it to and dock it with Trade outpost/mall
• Using the docket, sell the shipment
• Count your profits

Media

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.

Breaking changes

Makes quite a few changes to shipyard code for the dockets, need to revisit if these changes can be done in a way that compartmentalises them more. By default, vouchers now have a field which affects whether you need the voucher AND money, by default it's just the voucher.

Changelog

🆑

• add: Shipping containers can now be purchased, dock with them and fly them to a destination for a payout. Space Trucking!

[Alkheemist]

future upgrades: A way to dock shipping containers docked to your ship remotely

[github-actions]

RSI Diff Bot; head commit 4c740aa merging into 990eb8e
This PR makes changes to 1 or more RSIs. Here is a summary of all changes:

Resources/Textures/_NF/Objects/Misc/shipyard_voucher.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
shipping			Added

Resources/Textures/_NF/Structures/Freight/freight_barrels.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
black			Added
blue			Added
gray			Added
green			Added
red			Added
steel			Added
white			Added
yellow			Added

Resources/Textures/_NF/Structures/Freight/freight_boxes.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
box1			Added

Resources/Textures/_NF/Structures/Freight/freight_pallet.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
barrel_straps			Added
base			Added
crate_straps			Added

Resources/Textures/_NF/Structures/Machines/VendingMachines/shippingvend.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
normal-unshaded			Added

Resources/Textures/_NF/Structures/Machines/computers.rsi

State	Old	New	Status
shipyard_shipping			Added

Edit: diff updated after 4c740aa

[Alkheemist]

OK review time! Ignore the fact that the shipment is broken right now (never let me touch yml), I'd like to request a review on the general concept, feedback about balance/prices and ideas for shipment maps that are different to "Pioneer but unpioneered"

Currently, a shipment costs 80k and sells for about 100k at the destination or 77k elsewhere.
I'd probably like to tweak this a bit so that a shipment costs 75k, sells for about 100k at destination, sells for 60k elsewhere.

[immortalartisan]

i really like this idea in comparison to crates I have to say. It gives me idea for a capital class cargo hauler with a shuttle space to help it move cargo containers into place. Also are call cargo containers the same size or do they vary?

[Temoffy]

Shipments are implemented the same way shuttles are, so there can be many shipments with different prices, sizes, gimmicks, ect. For the moment there's just one shipment with the Pioneer's profile.

[dvir001]

Ill be honest im not a fan of this system from few core issues:

People buying massive amount of them and possibly adding a lot more lags from grids and grids hitting one another, even worst when they block docks for longer, or crate massive lines you need to fly around.

People buying them at the same time not knowing who who is, blocking all docks when flying around to collect them

Flying in space with anything docked to you is fucking pain and sucks.

I think you can reuse the containers and code you made as a random find in space wreck pool / spawn in events.

[Alkheemist]

Thanks for the feedback.

People buying massive amount of them and possibly adding a lot more lags from grids and grids hitting one another, even worst when they block docks for longer, or crate massive lines you need to fly around.

For server lag reasons, I understand that many many grids are bad. The intention is that this is tempered by their high cost. Hauling 13 containers costs you 1 million spesos and nets you ~325k in profit. I would imagine the average freight runner would carry maybe 4 containers at a time max? And 13 pioneer sized grids doesn't make that large of a line to fly around.

People buying them at the same time not knowing who who is, blocking all docks when flying around to collect them

I agree that this is an issue. This is why the initial concept we settled on was for the containers to be ferried from cargo depots back to trade and not the other way around. The hope is that if there's someone buying shipments, other people would wait their turn to place their order since there is only one shipment purchase console.

Flying in space with anything docked to you is fucking pain and sucks.

That's... kind of the point? Running cargo goes from zero thought cratespam conveyors go brrr into actually being able to fly and manouvre containers around to get the docks in the correct position. I tested using a comet and 4 containers, with a balanced load it's actually fairly easy to fly around.

I think you can reuse the containers and code you made as a random find in space wreck pool / spawn in events.

If it goes onto being found as a wreck, there needs to be some way to claim the derelict containers to sell them at trade outpost.

[dvir001]

You forget how people play on this server, if you give them the option to buy 20 containers, they will buy 40.
Human greed knows no bounds, and people will be constantly posting pictures of 100 of them just to one up other players.

People posting "I know this is bad but here is 400 crates jammed into one another ah ah" every week.

The issue with grid to grid is massive issue with flying, the game breaks your flying when you actually carry another linked ship, very badly, some ships have it worst then others.