Quartermaster

You're a Quartermaster! Lets make Money!

Number One Hustla'

Your 'official' job capacity is to take orders from the crew for such things as medicines, bots, and weapons. In practice, you will sometimes go entire rounds without getting a legitimate order, so your job is just as much anticipating needs as anything else.

An active Quartermaster will also often account for well over 90% of the crew's final score at the end of the round. They are also pretty much the only office on the station that actually turns a profit, so if the station ends up in the black it's completely creditable to the QMs. While meaningless in the long run, it's still kind of satisfying to see that while the rest of the crew was preoccupied with such important things as passing out in a pool of vomit, wearing their own ass as a hat, or trying and failing to strangle a chimpanzee, you've made the entire station worth it.

Making Money

At the start of the game, the Quartermaster budget stands at a measly 10,000 space credits. You're not going to get very far with that! Your crew objective is to have 50,000 in liquid assets, and you will probably want more than that to fulfill any wishes the crew manages to come up with.

See that orange console near the airlock? Time to get acquainted with it. You're going to be spending a large amount of time glued to it.

Managed to get over to the console without serious injury? Well done! Click on the console and then click on 'view market'. This screen shows you the value of various commodities on the station, such as metal, robot parts, glass etc. In an ideal world, you would identify the things that are in high demand, and by hook or by crook obtain large quantities of it to sell on the open market. Like everything else, though, life on SS13 is often not ideal, so while you're learning, focus on the following 4 commodities:

• Metal
  
• Glass
  
• Molitz
  
• Mauxite

Scan the market and figure out which one of these is selling for the highest price. If it is metal or mauxite, order as many metal sheets as you can afford. If it is glass or molitz, order glass sheets. To order a crate, click on order items, find the crate you want, and click the link. A comment box will appear. You do not need to fill anything out here, but if you do it will be tagged when it comes in. This can be helpful for keeping crew orders straight. Click OK past the comment box and the computer will confirm your order.

You can make the ordering process faster by rapidly clicking the crate you want and ignoring the comment boxes until the system complains that you are out of money. You may then click OK on all of the comment boxes to order en-mass. Be aware this will make the computer less responsive/very annoying for a while, but it is still much faster than ordering crates one by one.

After everything is ordered, click Call Supply Shuttle. The shuttle will take 3 minutes to reach the station, and during this period you basically have downtime. Feel free to do whatever, or to just zone out for a few minutes.

When the shuttle reaches the station, first unload any crew orders to make sure you don't accidentally send them back. Use your Cargo Transporter to send it to the appropriate destination; if the crew member is planning on picking it up at your office, just send it to the Cargo Bay Teleport Pad. Otherwise they will usually specify where they want it sent.

After the crew's needs are sorted out, it's time to see to yours.

• If the highest priced commodity was metal or glass, don't touch your orders. Simply send the shuttle back to get your profits.
  
• If the highest priced commodity was mauxite or molitz, you will need to use the General Manufacturer to break the material down into ore. Open all your crates and pick up as much of the material as possible. Stuff it in your backpack, use both hands, make two trips if need be. Put all the material in the manufacturer by clicking on it with the sheets in your hand. Drag a crate with you and stop it next to the manufacturer. Click the manufacturer with an empty hand, and click the link showing your ore. Choose to eject all of it. Drag the crate over the massive pile of ore on the ground, close the crate, then put the crate back on the shuttle before sending it.

When you are ready, go back to your computer and click Return Supply Shuttle. This automatically sells everything on the shuttle for market prices.

As a footnote, you can also buy Electrical Crates and refine cable into pharosium, but this process is so painstaking and slow that you can probably handle two shipments in the time it takes you to process one load of pharosium, so it is generally not worth it.

Other sources of money

NPC traders will occasionally offer you trades. Most of these are useless, but occasionally you will get offers that will pay for material at much more than market price. These can occasionally make you 100,000 credits less than 10 minutes into the round.

When you're more comfortable in your station, consider bugging people for stuff you know they don't need. Miners, for example, have no use for most gems or the minerals Syreline and Cobryl. They tend to command nice prices on the market, however, so if Mining cooperates you can get some nice help there. Botanists will also sometimes grow way too much weed and you can shore up your bank account by becoming an intergalactic dank dealer.

Also, the AI, Captain, and Head of Personnel have access to the station's bankrolls and can shore up your account if things go wrong for whatever reason. Of course the other half the time these idiots are the REASON things go wrong, as the Captain siphons off your hard-earned money to fund his alcoholism and the AI zeros out your bank account to make some traitor fabulously wealthy.

Other ways to waste money

NPC traders will also occasionally offer to sell you things. Occasionally these are simple commodities at below market price, but much more often they are unique things that are hard to get in other ways. Always accept these trades if you can afford to without crippling your budget. Occasionally the dealer will screw you, and you'll pay thousands of credits for something useless like flashlights, but it's the cost of doing business.

Funding gimmicks or insanity is also an acceptable way to use your fat stacks of cash, particularly if doing so in spite. If the Head of Security orders you to buy a million guns to outfit his personal army, consider ordering a shuttle full of liquor instead and telling the Head of Security that his team will still be loaded.

You're gonna need to sign for that

As a quartermaster, you will sometimes get people asking you to order things for them. Some people will be very polite about this, coming down to the Cargo Bay in person, using the appropriate computer, and leaving clear instructions on delivery. Others will be very rude, simply barking an order over the radio and not responding when you ask them for details.

Generally speaking, you should be generous with people who are kind to you, and ignore people who are rude. This is not just for your ego - rude people will often forget to pick up orders, and you will then have a clutter crate that you don't want and don't need lying around. If the need is urgent or coincides with an emergency on the station, though, you should obviously make exceptions. The Chief Engineer is not going to come down and ask nicely for you to order tools, Floorbots, and metal when a bomb just went off in the chapel.

When someone comes down to the Cargo Bay and asks you for something verbally, ask them to use the requests computer outside your office. They will order exactly what they want, and you can later just approve the order on your terminal. This limits mistakes and overbuying.

Beyond that, there are a few things you can buy that will never be unappreciated. Emergency Supply Crates have lots of emergency internals - gas masks and air tanks instantly become worth their weight in gold when the station starts depressurizing. They also carry Floorbots, which will handle the hardest and most dangerous step to repairing a hole in the station - putting the floor back down so people can work. Medical Supply Crates are also much appreciated, and will be opportunistically picked clean if you leave a few outside your office. This is not a bad thing. These crates are cheap and it's a good thing for people to keep medicine on them. Beyond that, try doing something nice for a department that hasn't asked for it. Hydroponics loves getting a few Hydroponic Crates since it is the only way for them to get more pots to grow with. Robotics loves getting metal, glass, and cables since they consume huge amounts of the materials they break down to. The Chef loves getting food crates, since his kitchen can run out fairly quickly.

Crew Objectives

As a loyal crew member, you can sometimes be assigned some strictly optional objectives to keep yourself busy while you wait for something to happen. As a quartermaster, you can expect to see the following:

Have 50,000 credits in the shipping budget at the end of the round
Pretty trivial to accomplish if you just do your job. You will, however, have to hope that you don't get any meddling from the AI, a greedy head, or a traitor with a financial goal.

Syndicate Shenanigans

A traitor Quartermaster is as good or as bad as his plan. Quartermasters can essentially produce things out of thin air, and most of the things they can produce have frightening potential. However, all of these options can ironically be the traitor's downfall, as he flounders around trying to get everything, often ending up tipping his hand and doing nothing at all. When starting your round as a traitor QM, use the first few minutes while waiting for metal and glass to arrive to consider exactly what you want to do that round. If you want to cause a drone revolution, focus on robotics crates. If you want to gut the station, get emergency supplies crates (so you can emag the Floorbots). If you want to go on a psychopathic rampage, order lasers and be sure to murder your co-workers the instant you're able.

Your Cargo Bay is pretty isolated, which makes a good base of operations, but also makes you very suspicious. Security is used to getting calls that the QM is doing something shady, and they don't often need much of an excuse to demand a search. Always have a backup plan to keep yourself as inconspicuous as possible. A stealth storage in the corner of your office makes a great place to hide your incriminating toys until you're ready to go, and the airlock next to your computer provides a quick place to get rid of murder victims. A surprising number of things can be loaded into the autolathe and broken down (jumpsuits, for example), and the mail chute next to your autolathe provides an easy way to hide things that can't be. You also may consider just holding off on spawning your gear at all until the second you need it. If the AI announces you're killing someone in the cargo bay, get rid of the evidence and insist the AI is lying. As little as people trust you, they're way more used to the AI being corrupted.

As a traitor QM, an emag is basically required. It allows you to break the cardlocks on all of the crates you can order, interacts with many of the items you get (like robots), and you can even emag your ordering console to unlock a special ops crate with fun stuff in it. Exactly how you spend the other points is purely up to your plan. If you are going to get violent, you might consider a cloaking device. If you need people distracted while you do a few things, consider the voice changer and agent card combo. If drone revolutions sound like your style, consider some EMP grenades to send the bots insane en-mass.

Items you can order

Item	Cost	Contents
Empty Crate	10 Credits	Nothing (Crate only)
Paint Cans	1000 Credits	A selection of random paints.
200 Metal Sheets	2000 Credits	x200 Metal Sheets
100 Metal Sheets	1000 Credits	x100 Metal Sheets
50 Metal Sheets	500 Credits	x50 Metal Sheets
200 Glass Sheets	2000 Credits	x200 Glass Sheets
100 Glass Sheets	1000 Credits	x100 Glass Sheets
50 Glass Sheets	500 Credits	x50 Glass Sheets
Internals Crate	500 Credits	x3 Gas Mask, x3 Air Tank
Cooking Supplies Crate	250 Credits	x40 Assorted Cooking Ingredients (Chef's Standard Kitchen Cabinet)
Electrical Supplies Crate - 4 pack	1000 Credits	x4 Cabling Box (x28 lengths of Cable)
Electrical Supplies Crate - 2 pack	500 Credits	Contents: x2 Cabling Box (x14 lengths of Cable)
Engineering Crate	1000 Credits	x2 Mechanical Toolbox, x2 Welding Mask, x2 Insulated Gloves
Experimental Local Generator	10000 Credits	x1 Experimental Local Generator
Medical Crate	1000 Credits	x1 Regular, Fire and Toxin First Aid Kits, x1 Anti-toxin, Inaprovaline and Sleep Toxin bottles, x1 Syringe Kit
Janitorial Supplies	500 Credits	x3 Buckets, x1 Mop, x3 Wet Floor Signs, x3 Cleaning Grenades, x1 Mop Bucket
Hydroponics Equipment	500 Credits	x2 Watering Cans, x4 Compost Bags, x3 Weedkiller bottles, x2 Plant Analyzers, x2 Plant Pots
Mining Equipment - (Cardlocked [Mining])	500 Credits	x1 Powered Pickaxe, x1 Power Hammer, x1 Optical Meson Scanner, x1 Geological Scanner, x2 Mining Satchel, x3 Mining Explosives
Lab Monkey Crate - 2 pack	250 Credits	x2 Monkey
Lab Monkey Crate - 4 pack	500 Credits	x4 Monkey
Plasma Assembly Crate (Cardlocked [Research])	500 Credits	x3 Plasma Tank, x3 Igniter, x3 Proximity Sensor, x3 Timer
Weapons Crate - 4 pack (Cardlocked [Security])	10000 Credits	x4 Laser Gun
Weapons Crate - 2 Pack (Cardlocked [Security])	5000 Credits	x2 Laser Gun
Experimental Weapons Crate (Cardlocked [Heads of Staff])	2500 Credits	x3 Plasma Tank, x3 Incendiary Grenade, x1 Stun Gloves
Emergency Equipment	1500 Credits	x4 Floor Bot, x5 Air Tank, x5 Gas Mask
Alcohol Crate	300 Credits	x8 Assorted Liquor
Robotics Crate	2000 Credits	x1 Security, Floor Repair, Cleaning, Medical, Firefighting and Mining Bots
Novelty Clothing Crate	15000 Credits	x7 Assorted Novelty Clothing