Trading - Brainstorming Changes

[Wuselkobold]

- Transports are slow and turn like a rock, while Freighters are fast and agile. In my opineon, Transports should be used in long shipping runs, from House to House, using the 'highway' Trade Lanes (For example the Independent worlds, straight forward routes without sharp turns from TL to TL). They should exclusively dock at the distribution bases which avery house has at least one of (Kensington Shipping Platform and Trenton Outpost for example). These bases should provide profitable routes to the other Houses, with many options where to go next, so Transport pilots are not tempted to dock at the main House Planets/Bases.
The small transports could pick up the delivered goods and use the 'coutry roads' to deliver them on the Bases they are needed on, with moderate profit but doing more runs in the same time. The big Transports would keep their freedom to go all across Sirius, making big profits, while the Freighters could be doing distribution work inside the Houses, which would give them much more traffic (wich is much needed in Bretonia, Rheinland and Kusari).

I was giving this idea a few further thoughts while riding home from university.
It would be possible to make to different commodities for each one that exists now (Like there are two MOX items). The first Commodity type would be ment for long-range transportation between the Houses or major Bases/Planets in the Borderworlds, generating much profits over long distances in large transports, but being nearly worthless on all bases but the Shipping/Disributing Bases, so the Transports actually keep going on their long circles around Sirius.
The second Commodity type would make average to good profit between the producing/requesting Bases and the small Freighters could make profits by making much more runs in the same time it takes a big Transport to complete a long-range run.

This would possibly draw many Pirate Gunboats out to the Independend Worlds too, since a Gunboat can't catch a thrusting freighter and the presence of Transports in the Independent/Edge/Borderworlds would increase considerably. More Freighters in House Space would result in Pirates being able to use other Ships as Bombers/VHFs too, a Freighter can be pirated even in a LF or HF, so the variety of used shiptypes in House space would rise as well, and the Police could actually do something in thier LFs.

Any thoughts?

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A wild goose chase (RP story)

[Unseelie]

Ok, aside adding RP (which I believe is what makes everything in this game more fun, so it doesn't really count, as its an even application anywhere) Or building a dynamic economy (just not likely..) We could 1: make more and varied trade routes, which would again, help up the RP of trading. lots of work, there.

So, Piracy is apparently -fun-. It involves sitting around, waiting for a transport to come, trapping it, then some RP, then forcing it to lose, either by paying or dieing.
Trading is -not- fun. It involves flying a ship, trying to avoid pirates(Lawfuls count in this case) if caught, RPing, then trying not to die.
Trading and Piracy should be equally fun, as, so far as I understand it, they have much the same ammount of downtime. The only difference I can see is that Pirates end up holding most of the cards, and win nearly every time there's a real encounter. If the fights were even, I daresay transporting would be just as fun. Get in a ship. Fly around, run into pirates, have a fight. Actually, that sounds like the lure of being a police character...

My suggestion for a while has been to not expect transports to lose.
Yes, Transports haul cargo. Either Legal or Illegal cargo, to be pirated or policed, etc. This sets up feedback for the police and the pirates, gives them something to do, namely, pwning the transports. Anyone notice the problem, there?
The people who the entire system depends on are expected to lose the encounter. They're balanced based on how far they can run from the fight, and then safely dock.

So more than a Grind, its a boring, dull grind where if you encounter a fight, you're expected to lose. Not because the enemy is better, or brought friends, but because you can earn money.
We can make trading fun by giving transports and frieghters a bit of combat love. Give them the option to stand and fight, drop some interesting weapons on them (Codes, guns, torpedos, pulse cannons, cerbs, flak, missiles, the list goes on and on and on, and still, transports have...turrets.)

Winning's fun. Challenges are, on occasion, fun. Fighting a bomber in a transport? A GB...not so fun. There's a sinking feeling, a losing tide rising against you.

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[Exsiled_one]

Well i dont know what to say to be honest. I guess people do piracy wrong out there in non border worlds. Here we patrol around and if you're sneaky enough you'll byass us every time.

maybe it would help if police did its job out there in liberty and made sure tradelanes are safe?

because if you take jump holes thats a risk man, risk you must be willing to take.
tradelines always seemed safe to me.

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<span style="color:#33CC00">I AM GIVING AWAY MONEY TO CREATIVE MINDS*</span>

[Unseelie]

[quote name='OPG Ivan' post='681929' date='Aug 7 2009, 01:32 PM']
Well i dont know what to say to be honest. I guess people do piracy wrong out there in non border worlds. Here we patrol around and if you're sneaky enough you'll byass us every time.

maybe it would help if police did its job out there in liberty and made sure tradelanes are safe?

because if you take jump holes thats a risk man, risk you must be willing to take.
tradelines always seemed safe to me.
[/quote
That is exactly my point. I'm not -interested- (ok, on occasion I am, but having fighting capability doesn't at all change my capabilities at those times) in sneaking around. I'm interested in attracting attention, and having my bit of PVP. AS A TRADER. I think it would be brilliant if I could encounter a pirate the same way a lawful police or military character does, 1 on 1, and have a reasonably even scrap with him. This comes down to a Spaceship fighting game, with added RP. Much of the fun comes from the fighting. Of course ships that can't fight aren't considered as much fun as those which can.

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[Exsiled_one]

Well I seldom encounter a trader who wants to fire back upon my pirate transport.
One even won today and I had to flee away to not get blown up. His 12 brettonian turrets were stronger than my pirate transport and there was no choice but congratulate him

Huzzah.
But problem arises because one side usually overpowers the other side, and then things get ugly. and I don't mind ugly, I just mind people giving up hope. Its all fun, you just have to look at it from another perspective.

you know what's least fun?

least fun is when pirate of a faction catches a smuggler of his hostile faction. it usually ends in droping all the cargo and going back from where you came from, and leaves that bitter taste in your mouth. But I guess thats what you get for meddling with illegal.

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<span style="color:#33CC00">I AM GIVING AWAY MONEY TO CREATIVE MINDS*</span>

[Janus]

There are, I think 2 distinct types of traders, those who are just doing it to finance ships/characters they'll enjoy more and those who actually enjoy trading, rping a trader etc etc.

There's also the whole smuggling/OORP trading vs legit trading argument.

To my mind, smuggling *should* be more lucrative than legit trading. It should also come with concurrent risks which seem to be somewhat lacking. However..

A BWT or whatever else flying through house space full of cardamine isn't exactly realistic. Modern day smugglers go to great lengths to hide their cargos, coffee crates with drugs hidden in them for example.

Also, if you look at the NPC bulk traders, they are usually carrying genuine bulk commodties, oxygen, water etc. No PC carries these except as a fill in to get from one profitable leg to another as there's just no money in it.

Additionally, are the most used commodities in Sirius really slaves, cardamine and artifacts?

Some suggestions, some of which I'm sure it's possible for the software to handle

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.

That's one way of making freighters more appealing and cutting down on the totally unrealistic smuggler powertrading. I'm not saying do away with it entirely, I'm saying make it more difficult and other forms of smuggling less appealing.

As to the commodities themselves, perhaps a limit on how much can be bought? Got a whale? Sure, we can sell you 5000 units of water, or oxygen or food or whatever. Oh, you want gold? We've only got 1000 of those. It gives players a bit more scope and choice. Do they want to carry bulk cargoes in large ships or smaller more valuable cargoes in smaller ships Or mix things up a little.

Old fashioned trading ships would often have mixed holds, swapping one portion of their cargo out at each stop along the way. A Zoner whale for instance, making the rounds of the freeports, trading 1k of cargo at each stop.

There would obviously need the prices modified somewhat, to make your 5k of oxygen as worthwhile as your 1k of gold or whatever else

[ugliestmoose]

If you make transports powerful enough to pvp with bombers and gunboats, what will be the point of having lawful characters? No one will need any protection if the traders are packing major heat...

I like Thexare's suggestion, though. Make freighters cruise considerably faster, so that they become favored for smugglers and freelancers who rely on jump holes for travel. Also, as opposed to transports, freighters could be balanced in such a way that they can fight themselves out of a jam.


EDIT: Another thing that I've seen suggested elsewhere is to make bulk commodities such as water, oxygen, food and so forth, take up less cargo space than regular commodities. Like, having 5 oxygen = 1 unit of cargo, or something like that. That would help to add more variety to trading.

[farmerman]

When there are other people around to join in the trading and there are a variety of routes (it's certainly a lot better now, could improve still), I find trading to be fun.

As to freighters and the like, right now they need a lot of love to be able to compete with anything. They have less firepower and maneuverability than fighters and less cargo space than transports. To make them worthwhile, one of the two has to change. What if they were better able to defend themselves than transports? I think it'd be neat if the escort ship of choice was the freighter - then escorts could make some money while still defending.

Alternately, make another type of jumpholes that were inherently unstable. Then when ships other than fighters or freighters used them, they would lose a random amount of hull and cargo. Thus, freighters would be able to sneak through trade wise. Of course, routes would have to compensate.

The other thought is to make specialized ships. Like if Liners had 25% their current capacity but human cargo took up 20% as much as it did in other transports. Freighters could have something similar with contraband, or in certain combinations?

Point traders to the big book of RP so they can establish motivation to play their trade ship whether it's said 600 cargo freighter or a big fricking Shire. Encourage interaction with other players.

Call me weird but I enjoy smuggling whether I'm hunted or not. Sometimes it's uneventful, but the magic of pretending to be a stolen freight launderer or war profiteer never really ceases to entertain me.

To hell with actual profit. That's just the icing on the cake. I'll run a 20c/s route as happily as a 220c/s as long as there's RP involved and a chance to be interacted with.

I agree. Though all other things being equal, I'd take the extra money. And not all interactions are made equal. I'll gladly earn next to nothing if it means interesting encounters. We need more of those.

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[El Nino]

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...

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[Bass_masta992]

As far as the trading goes, I want to see more defined trade 'circuits' instead of linear trade. Linear trade absolutely sucks, and its part of the reason people die of boredom.

For smaller freighters, I would suggest trading 'missions' Where the freighter's hired by a base's bar missions to take an object somewhere, and in turn they get a bit of bank, and then have preset pirates come in and attack at a given point on the route.

Make the routes somewhat valuable, 500k or something like that, but require that you have 500-1000 cargo space. What this will do is enable you to consistantly move from place to place via 'trading' and you probably won't get bored nearly as easily.

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