Trading - Brainstorming Changes

[Elsdragon]

Personaly I'd boost value of cargo by 3x and profits by 1.5x So you'd be at much more risk when encountered by pirates, that would make your life more fun... Or even more...

Also code weapons should become really expensive, so you could sell them to a dealer for say 1/4th of their "NY" price... that would help tiny freighters making a profit... wrecks should be filed with riches you can only get there, some expensive loots and such, so even if you are not hunting for codes you could get some 500 units of something extra valuable.. say 10mil worth of stuff...

THen on one uses codes.........AND pirates just charge more

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No longer a slave to the man!

[Benjamin]

Make it faster and more brutal. have money made faster, have pirates kill you/charge more/take all your stuff more often. If people veer away from freelancers/independent traders/zoners, they get relationships. Friends, enemies. bretonian and kusari corporations can attack each other, right? Why's no one running with that? It's basically combining piracy and trading.
If people played corporations more like actual factions in their own right, rather than just trading factions, I think there'd be more of that. Inter-corporation fighting would be great. Having your personal enemy pirate (like Hackers for Ageira) being fed info by some plucky ALG patriot to hunt you down.
Have tradeships more eminently killable, but also more deadly themselves.
Make it fast, make it focused on player interaction, make it fun.

Basically, this idea i have right here isn't enough of an idea to take seriously. It would need dynamics. Corporations being able to shut off their bases/commodities from other factions as alliances move around. Corporations being able to attack other people more freely. Traders needing to lose their protections (not the ones against caps though, that would still suck).

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Join Cryer Pharmaceuticals

[Gemini893]

If you make transports powerful enough to pvp with bombers and gunboats...

Isn't that part of the problem? Too many pirates using too many bombers and gunboats. Realistically these would be few and far between. In game, almost everybody and their mother's Aunt Hilda has a freakin' gunboat they pirate with. It's ridiculous.

The other part of the problem is every pirate demanding $2 mil or more along the way. Of course there's no fun in trading, the pirates demand more than you make in profit. All because they need to buy their gunboat. Pirates are out of hand and have been skirting oorp for a long time now but nobody wants to fix it because everyone has a pirate character. Pirates are not meant to be the way to make millions, that's what traders are for. My opinion is nobody should be able to pirate in cap ships, INCLUDING gunboats. Gunboats are for military purposes, not for pirating a lone trade ship. GET REAL.

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[NonSequitor]

How to make trading more fun?

1. Lower prices on vessels, armor, weapons, munitions etc. No need to monkey around with the trading routes or the buying and selling prices. Less "grind" trading - more trading in a genuine spirit of role playing.

and/or

2. Experiment with a dynamic economy for a month or two and see where the laws of supply and demand take us.

[FooFighter]

The only way to make trading ok-ish as it currently is is to fly in convoys and RP all the way along the route. That works for a while. But eventually, you'll get bored, as you just lack the randomness (read: interesting situations) you get when you aren't bound to fly the same routes over and over again, wasting as little time in a system as possible.

I would have an idea about how trading could be made fun though - here it is:

Freighters
They are supposed to be small and relatively agile for cargo ships. Give them the ability to fend off attackers and to escape them - give them two CM slots and some proper guns with which they can take down a lone fighter or bomber or, if skilled, maybe two of them in combat; give them the firepower of something between a SHF and a GS. Create multiple kinds of turrets - FLAK, anti-GB, rapid-firing chainguns etc, so you can try out different loadouts and find one that suits your style. This way, you wouldn't be bound to lose in a possible hostile encounter, although a trade vessel still should prefer flight to fight. Transports should rely on not getting noticed, but not to the point that getting noticed means sure death (or poverty).

Make them able to sell their cargo for a good profit. 20 - 30 millions per hour (yes, I'm serious). This way, they don't have to powertrade, and could also spend some time on just RPing with the locals (deliberately not jumping to the next system) and giving some cash to pirates also wouldn't mean that you have to trade another hour to get enough cash for your fighter.

Transports
Now, if freighter can already earn so much cash - the profits gained by trading in a transport would be awesome. But wouldn't it be far too much?

I think transports should make something around 100 millions per hour (150 for the especially risky runs). To make up for this however, lone transports should be extremely slow and vulnerable. Give them good shield and hull values, but don't let them mount thrusters, give them rather weak guns (hey, you *are* sacrificing firepower for cargo space here mate). A player flying a transport should be able to fend off an overzealous VHF if he's a good shot, but ultimately, flying with some serious protection should be an absolute necessity. If possible, don't let them cruise and give them a rather slow impulse speed drive (though, I've heard this can lead to problems when a slow guy is trying to form up with a faster guy - maybe we can restrict a ship's ability to form up with others somehow? Cannon?).

Pirates

While robbing a freighter should be similar to robbing a transport in the current trade system (just a little bit more difficult, as the freighter will now actually be able to defend itself), robbing a transport will be very special. They are the really big fish in the pond. Since they will almost always fly in convoys (an unprotected transport should be pirate Christmas), robbing one will require some teamwork: you need a fighter or two to take down the transport's escorts and a bomber to deal some hurt to the transport itself if it acts up. For optimum results, add a pirate freighter. Taxing the guy will be lucrative, as he's making huge profits and thus can also spare a lot - but what will be even more lucrative is cargo piracy. Bring a pirate freighter with you, and take some of the transport's goods. Either sell them for a nice price at the nearest pirate base (make sure only the right people can dock on them though, to avoid people buying cargo at lawful bases and shipping them to unlawful ones).

If you want to make even more cash, you could create your own black market - get a Barge and let your minions fill it up with pirated cargo. Sell said cargo to smugglers - instead of buying (let's take some example commodity) Gaian Wildlife from Perth and shipping it all the way to Cold Bay Depot, they could buy the pirated animals from you in Magellan, creating some profit for you and for themselves as well.

The results:

• Trading would still be grinding, but less so, and you wouldn't be bound to lose in any encounter as well.
  
• Especially when trading in transports, teamwork will be a must. The higher profits won't unbalance everything, as you'd have to pay your escorts as well.
  
• Since you no longer need to powertrade for hours to get a friggin' fighter, everything would be a little bit more relaxed. You could make a stop or two along the way, RP with some locals or pirates, without being forced to do another darn hour of boring F3-spamming.
  
• With my suggestion of the creation of black markets, players could play a role in the server's economy as well, which could actually be quite fun.
  
• Freighters will be used by other people than just newbies who can't afford anything better. Transports will still be used, but you'd also see much more escorts and pirates who both can now expect much better pays (seriously, why should I bother to escort a trader in my fighter for 2 millions if I could make 20 in the same time if I'd get into my transport as well?).
  

Oh, and screw all the grammatical mistakes I may have made while typing this post. It's 0247 AM here and I should be in bed by now, else I'll never get up early like I should >_< .

[Quorg]

Seriously, guys?

This is what I was talking about. Almost all of these ideas essentially punish those who enjoy trading in transports in and of itself.

It's rather hilarious that you all honestly think that making it harder to trade will make it any more palatable for those who would rather pew-pew.

Cut it out.

Some of the exceptions/good ideas out there:

"Make them (frieghters) able to sell their cargo for a good profit. 20 - 30 millions per hour (yes, I'm serious). This way, they don't have to powertrade, and could also spend some time on just RPing with the locals (deliberately not jumping to the next system) and giving some cash to pirates also wouldn't mean that you have to trade another hour to get enough cash for your fighter."


"1. Lower prices on vessels, armor, weapons, munitions etc. No need to monkey around with the trading routes or the buying and selling prices. Less "grind" trading - more trading in a genuine spirit of role playing."

"Personaly I'd boost value of cargo by 3x and profits by 1.5x So you'd be at much more risk when encountered by pirates, that would make your life more fun... Or even more..."


"Smugglers in freighters don't get "caught". If there's a guy in a correo hauling artifacts, if you're the "law" in what every area, let him go. If he's got a BWT full of em, lock him up. You could even put a "can't pirate freighters" rule in to make them appeal to lawful traders.

Put a 10% or 20% limit on transports. If a guy in a BWT has 360 units of contrabrand or less or 720 or whatever, assume it's "hidden" and again, let him go. Again, if he's full, lock him up."

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ATTENTION SMUGGLERS
The Midnight Express: A Slaver <strike>who doesn't completely realize what he's doing.</strike> (video)

Quorg, you're officially a moron.

...mongs like Quorg being like a malignant little cancer...

Way to be useless, Quorg.

[Elsdragon]

as long as mining is as profitable as trading, Im all for it. Nathreals propsall seems the best overall

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No longer a slave to the man!

[Ark]

So you want to give freighters a chance... well, how about trading missions? Deliver [research specimen, documents, exotic particles] from base A to base B, cash on delivery. Trigger a couple of persistent NPCs to hunt the cargo across systems.

You can only take one mission at a time, so freighters would be on even footing with transports... trains couldn't take four times the cargo for four times the profit. Missions can be really random so you're not likely to have a linear back-and-forth route, ever.

[Death.RunningVerminator]

Excellent and well-developed answers so far!
Trading! Trading! Not mining! Trading! Do people actually enjoy shooting rocks?

Its funner than stabbing myself to make the time pass. And i agree with Ark's suggestion, but it needs to actually be profitable, not 500k.. not 1mil like 2mil or so depending on the length and location.

[Cellulanus]

Lets take the shields off of transports! That will keep 'em on edge.


In all seriousness however, I would like to see trade profits buffed waaay up, but take all of the special rules about engaging traders taken away. Make a guy in a trader the same as a guy in a fighter rules wise. (Except perhaps for the 4 hour rule stuff)


EDIT: Possibly with a new rule stating that a trader can not be attacked until its escorts have been destroyed, make escorts worth something.