Cargo design doc

src/en/space-station-14/departments/cargo.md

@@ -1,26 +1,52 @@
 # Cargo Department Design Document
 
-## Concept
-The Cargo department is the primary resource generator for the station, enhancing the ability of other departments to perform their work via resupplying base materials and providing rare resources and items. Flavored around logistics, the draw of Cargo should come from the appeal of translating hard work into "profit", i.e. physical rewards that makes the effort feel rewarded. This progression should not come at the cost of providing to the station however, and the lack of station collaboration and resulting resource drain should be tangible on both sides.
-
-## Intended Experience
-- Mutual collaboration with crew; the department provides, and is provided to in return.
-- Hard work pays off; doing department tasks has a visible positive effect on the department.
-- Efficiency feels powerful; moving fast to keep ahead of the resource drain curve is encouraged, while mistakes slow things down.
-- A primary resource contact; other roles seek you out for resources and equipment, and you are expected to manage the requests.
-- Space contact; has one foot in the station, one foot in space.
-- Good for all ranges of player experience.
-
-## Responsibilities
-- Cargo is a major resource generator, extremely efficient in converting station assets & player effort into new resources.
-- Cargo resupplies base level equipment for other departments, and has the ability to enable better equipment relative to work put in.
-- Cargo is given the position to deal with locations outside immediate station-space by default.
+## Core Concept
+
+The Cargo department is one of the primary resource generators for the station and the main location for storing a lot of materials and items. Anyone can grab a parcel and deliver it, but what do you do when you have 30... 100? That is where the cargo department comes in, with a well coordinated cargo team and some well planned contraptions being able to deliver large numbers of materials and items and still have money left over afterwards for scurrets.
+
+## Introduction
+
+Cargo is very simple, you sell things to get money, you use money to get things, you deliver those things. For a low number of items this can be very easy for even a complete novice to achieve. Two legs and a go-to attitude only go so far, and eventually anyone would be overwhelmed by the number of jobs left to do. That is where cargo needs to get creative, using the tools available to them to optimize and automate.
+
+There is only so much a cargo department can achieve by itself, however. If they are going to be able to supply even greater quantities, they may need to rope in the science department for fancy tools or the engineering department for station expansions. If these departments work closely together, they should be able to achieve anything, with cargo as the backbone to supply it all.
+
+Despite the potential complexity, cargo is the most accessible department for new people. It is possible for anyone to contribute, but also for anyone to follow and understand the complex setups which have been made. A person can stand in cargo for 10 minutes watching crates move and gain the confidence to set up their own conveyor belt. The whole may be complex, but each individual part can be understood just by looking at it.
+
+## Design Pillars
+
+### P1: Anyone can contribute.
+
+Even the most inexperienced player should be able to contribute or help out in the department without needing a 30 minute explanation of the systems. There should be simple goals with clear paths to those goals; the path can get more complex for optimization, but there should always be a clear, potentially slower path.
+
+This goes for both deliveries and gaining money. Cargo doesn't require very deep options to make money but instead should have a lot of flexible options. The depth should come form how they can be combined or how the players chose to use them.
+
+### P2: Scale matters.
+
+No solution to cargo's problem should scale neatly. But there should be a possible solution at every scale.
+
+As cargo is sometimes required for other departments to access sections of their content, there must be easy ways to achieve the minimum that departments need. This method should be one that does not scale well, and if you tried to use it to deliver more items it would be unwieldy.
+
+The same goes in the other direction, there should be ways to deliver a ludicrous amount of materials to departments, but they require extensive setup and planning to get right. A waste of time if you only need a few things.
+
+These methods should not replace each other but have use cases in different areas, think: container ship, truck, plane deliveries. If you need something ASAP you can use a plane, if you need a lot you can use a ship, if you need flexibility you can use a truck.
+
+### P3: Logistics and Storage is hard, but cargo excels at it.
+
+Other departments should not have ways to trivialize storage. Practical limits should encourage requesting things from cargo when they have things in storage, and potentially giving cargo spare resources if they have too much, to avoid needing to store it all. Other departments should not feel like storage is a chore, however, but instead that cargo enables them to make storage easier and have the materials they need on hand.
+
+Departments should be able to store materials they need for basic tasks but any very large constructions or specialized goals should require cargo's involvement. Cargo should have the tools and space to store and organize large numbers of materials and items.
+
+### P4: Collaboration is an engine.
+
+The progression in cargo should not rely on just itself or just others. It should rely on both. This should be done using a feedback loop between departments. For example, the science department might be able to research an early tool to make cargo's job easier and allow them to deliver more materials. They may have a later tool which is an even more direct upgrade; this tool should be much more expensive in materials than the first tool, so that by first getting the first tool, the second becomes more achievable. There may be more helpful tools than this; they should take another order of magnitude jump in strain placed on cargo to acquire. The result of this is, even with infinite materials, science would still need to perform science to unlock the tools. Even with infinite science points, cargo wouldn't be able to jump straight to the end-game tools and would need to use the early ones to build up to it.
+
+This feedback loop should exist wherever practical for departments, with the departments gaining access to material-expensive tools which can be acquired most easily by first helping cargo.
 
 ## Desired Gameplay
 - First/second point of contact for a lot of base supplies and materials.
   - While not the only resource provider on the station, Cargo should be a reliable option when seeking out supplies. Having a solid foundation of materials always at the ready should be a goal to strive for. Cargo players should feel a desire to fulfill (reasonable) requests when they come in.
 - Friction when unable to provide.
-  - When resources run low (either due to a lack of work or outside influences) the reliability should come into question, with pressure to get back into operational quantities. A station without a working Cargo department should *feel* its absence.
+  - When resources run low (either due to a lack of work or outside influences) the reliability should come into question, with pressure to get back into operational quantities. A station without a working Cargo department should *feel* its absence, however, it should not prevent other departments from performing their role. No one should be waiting around for 20 minutes because Cargo is having problems.
 - Stronger when crew helps.
   - Cargo's gameplay should encourage crew collaboration where crew will want to help. The resource generation the department provides should be catalyzed by non-Cargo personnel using their unique role responsibilities.