Quartermaster
| SUPPLY STAFF | |
  Quartermaster |
Alternative Titles: Stock Controller, Cargo Coordinator, Shipping Overseer Access: Cargo Bay, Quartermaster's Office, Delivery Office, Mining Station, Mining EVA, Maintenance, Mineral Storage Additional Access: N/A Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Head of Personnel Subordinates: Cargo Technician, Shaft Miner, and Mining Medic Duties: Paperwork, order stuff, paperwork, send your underlings to collect crates, paperwork, coordinate mining, paperwork... Guides: List of the supply crates Minimum Age: 20 Quote: In theory, the quartermaster exists to simply order supplies. In practice, you're the one thing standing between the station and a painful death, and security giving everyone a painful death, or both. |
Do not play this without some experience as a Cargo Technician first; otherwise, you'll ruin the round.
As a Quartermaster, your primary job is to flood the station with paperwork and more paperwork order equipment to help keep the station running. Make sure points aren't wasted, kick the clown out, and make sure your Cargo Techs aren't getting into trouble - and pull their arses out of the fire when they do get into trouble. You have three helpers to run off with anything not bolted to the ground and ignore you help you redistribute things throughout the station. You also have authority over mining, and should try and coordinate the Shaft Miners to meet the needs of the station. Primarily, this means passing on requests from Robotics, Research, and Engineering.
You have sunglasses, a unique jumpsuit, mining access, and your own office. This is all that distinguishes you from a Cargo Technician. The Head of Personnel can waltz in at any time and order or take whatever they want.
Bare minimum requirements: Do not leave the cargo bay unattended without good reason, keep an eye on incoming and outgoing shipments. Keep track of your techies.
Supply Shuttle Console
"Who the hell blew all our points on Wizard Costumes?"
The Cargo Bay and your office is filled with paper, paper, and more paper. Most importantly, there is a console to order items. Everything that people will expect you to order that cannot be procured from the autolathe will show up on the Supply Shuttle once it arrives at CentComm. Each order will produce a requisition form, which is usually best just shoved in the adjacent filing cabinet and forgotten until Security kicks down your door, demanding to know who flooded the station with shotguns and clown outfits. In general, try and make sure that you know who ordered what. Don't worry about point-jackers, either: Your console and the one in the Cargo Office are locked, requiring Cargo Bay access to function, meaning that only your subordinates (Cargo Technicians) and Superiors (Captain and Head of Personnel) can order stuff.
Supply Points
Every order requires you to spend supply points. You can earn bonus points by shipping certain items back through the supply shuttle:
- 500 supply points per crate
- 200 supply points per correctly stamped supply manifest (GRANTED if the crate had the right contents, DENIED if it didn't – must be in a crate when sent back)
- A full refund of any correctly denied supply manifests (some things to check: destination station, contents)
- For 1 sheet of metal ~ 4 supply points
- For 1 sheet of glass ~ 4 supply points
- For 1 sheet of silver ~ 48 supply points
- For 1 sheet of gold ~ 122 supply points
- For 1 sheet of diamond ~ 491 supply points
- For 1 sheet of plasma ~ 200 supply points
- For 1 sheet of uranium ~ 98 supply points
- For 1 sheet of bluespace mesh ~ 295 supply points
- 4 supply points for basic tools
For additional money sources check your bounty page on station.
Crates are money. Find them. Hoard them greedily. Steal them if need be. The more crates you send back, the more stuff you can order.
What's in Those Crates?
See the list of Supply crates.
First Things First
You start with quite a few supply points, so here are some good first choices for the prepared Quartermaster:
- Insulated Gloves
- Engineering Equipment
- Metal/Glass
- Brute Medkits
- Standard Medkits
How To Order Crates
"Robotics is bugging me for a Ripley Crate - Everyone point and laugh."
Crates are the lifeblood of your department. Ideally, you'll be ordering quite a few of them. There are very few jobs which will require a crate early into the round, so until something special happens or their progress gates are met, you'll have the pool of points to play with all to yourself. This includes the Autolathe. While you start with no materials, Auxiliary Tool Storage is just a ten-second walk away and will keep the lathe running for quite some time if you get all the metal and glass.
Eventually, you'll get a feel for what different people want. The Roboticist will almost always want either metal and glass, while the Virologist will perhaps want a Virus crate. The Bartender might want to borrow a circular saw for his shotgun, and the Botanist might want seeds. One of the marks of a good Quartermaster is the ability to anticipate someone's order and have it ready for them. This often means keeping a stock of insulated gloves and welding masks (if you're the type to hand those out to certain people) and checking out who walks in. If you just hand out everything to everyone, you are a security risk. Use your own judgment - an Assistant should not have an RCD, but an Engineer definitely should. Likewise, the clown should not have a combat shotgun, but Security can have one if they want it.
Junk mail: Disposals mailing
- Wrap your item/crate in packaging paper.
- Use the destinations tagger to choose where to send it.
- Tag the package.
- Stick it on the conveyor and let the system handle it.
Slave Revolt
"Confirmed Revs! Loyalty implants and nothing but!" - Anonymous Quartermaster, shortly before suffering a tragic work-related accident
During a revolution, you can turn the tide for either side. The Quartermaster quickly becomes one of the most powerful people on the station, able to order loyalty implants or weapons en masse depending on what side they're on. Your sunglasses will stave off the revolution, but they won't hesitate to beat you down and steal them to ensure your brainwashing. Implanted, you are a secondary Armory and the greatest ally of Security. And if you happen to be one of the scant few bourgeoisie who has taken up the cause of the working man, remember to convince your comrades that it is time to rise up and throw off the chains of the opressors - Those who suffer the most under the harsh yoke of the capitalists will be your staunchist allies in the glorious struggle. Always remember Comrade - A true revolutionary seeks a peaceful solution, if at all possible.
Tips
- If you're riding a MULEbot, you can't get facehugged.
- You can flip caps backward by right-clicking them in hand or on your head. Don your trusty cap and tell the Captain to eat your shorts as you ride about on a MULEbot.
- Lethal projectiles can open crates, albeit slowly. Make use of a .357, the Bartender's Shotgun, Emitters, or any other projectile weapon to bust open Secure Crates.
- Packaging paper allows you to wrap things up and put them in your backpack when they wouldn't otherwise fit, like space suits!
Tips for traitoring
- Emitters can open locked crates, as can Gibtonite explosions.
- Crates can be trapped: Get a crate, put stuff in the crate, close the crate, apply cable coil, apply Electropack.
- Emagging the Cargo Consoles allow two special crates to be ordered:
- The Spec Ops crate contains several grenades and a parapen, as well as other assorted good
- The NULL_ERROR_ENTRY crate contains a random Syndicate bundle - The same kind you can buy for 20 TC in an uplink!
Requisition Me a Beat(ing)
"Fun is Contraband. And we're all about contraband."
Many members of the station know that the QM can make things they aren't supposed to, and most security officers will overlook a little recreational hacking. Hack the Autolathe to make nifty toys like RCDs and Flamethrowers. You don't even need a multitool for this. Just snip and fix till you find the one that turns off the blue light - Remember your rubber gloves, because the green light makes it shock you. As long as you don't try to wall off Cargonia with an RCD, most people will forgive you for wasting resources on it to be prepared.
It's common for the Quartermaster to, at the very least, enable the MULEbots' nonstandard cargo and speed the motor up, though you can also upgrade the power cell if you have spares. The MULE is one of your best tools as a Quartermaster, and can make your life (and subsequently the lives of the rest of the crew) so much better.
See here how to use a MULEbot.
Contraband
Contraband posters contain inappropriate themes that Nanotrasen has deemed too vulgar and have subsequently banned them from their space stations.
How to obtain:
- Get the circuitboard of your supply computer
- Multitool it and set its receiver to the appropriate spectrum
- Put it back in. You can now order contraband
- Note that contraband is illegal. Security can do whatever they wish to it, and therefore you for bringing it on board
There's also a certain way to open crates you shouldn't, if you can get your hands on it. Security will often panic about a Quartermaster that is better equipped than they are, so keep your ill-gotten gains hidden and secure until they are needed.
Ordering a Good Helping of Death
"Why is there a Singularity being built in Escape?" - Commissar Jesus, Chief Engineer
Being a Traitor QM is one of the best damn things in the game. As a Quartermaster, you have direct and easy access to weapons and tools many other jobs do not, and can easily conceal most of your nefarious deeds. Cutting the cameras is the first step to success drawing attention to yourself, followed closely by ordering and hiding a weapons crate. Better yet, send the crate back and stash the loot in your locker. Hell, you can even order a ton of weapons and give all of them to the greyshirts. Maybe they'll accomplish your objectives for you.
If you're feeling daring, order a Cryptographic Sequencer and use it to unlock any crate you want. You can even emag the ordering computer to get the Special Ops and NULL_ENTRY crates, which contain some nifty things. Problem is, this makes it a dead giveaway that you're a traitor, so pocket what you want to keep, space what you don't, and send the crate back. Don't forget to awaken the MULE's bloodlust -- that'll cause some havoc, creating an amazing distraction, and you can blame one of your slaves to take the heat off yourself.
