Planetform, left behind.

[Cerberus]

im a platformer and also finding not much to trade around the place

[FooFighter]

As another guy with an admittedly rather inactive-ish Planetform trader, I approve of this thread. OK, so trading generates a much lower income now in .85, bad enough as it is (yes, I did prefer .84 trade routes, except for the Diamond-Niobium run, which was an abomination), but the non-smuggling non-Zoner Guard routes are really ridiculous in their income values.

[Colonel.Tigh]

As someone who has flowen a Planetform Train for far over half a year now, i can only say : "signed", currently the Bokanovski idles at Perth station, cause theres nothing useful to do xcept running the same trades as Bowex and Gateway, Planetform as just another shipping company.
The traderoute trough Liberty get too less money for the dangers it offeres (the most pirates, specialy in California), and to Harris you can only get when the server ist full, and the NPC Battleships do not wftpwn you.

[Exsiled_one]

I give you my support. New trade routes, sure, why not.
but you have to stay in rp here. Machinery or scientists, cheap labour. something in planetform inc. level.
not like... things of crap that brings alot of income but doesn't have anything with planetform

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

[Cyberanson]

Gloucester, you have my vote, too.

As the leader of ALG, I sometimes feel left behind, but that is something you can actively help to change. Contact those who develop trade routes (mainly Xoria, but that will change), those who develop special company things (Dab for example for Synth) or the house developers (Seth, Thacker, ...)

Try to get in touch with them vie Skype, it is extremely efficient. Talk to them about you ideas, make some brainstorming, etc.

I think this is the best way to improve YOUR company. ALG will 'hopefully' get some boost with the next mod version, and I want to support this development with all my power, which is free to do so.

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ALG Waste Disposal
Faction Status - Recruitment - Message Dump

Rheinland Military Information Center | Marinenachrichtendienst Central Computer

[reavengitair]

Definatley agreeing.

In fact, there are alot of things we need to do in the trading area, and its not just planetform. Most shipping companies need a boost, and hopefully we should start seeing factionised traders instead of boring old Indy/Zoner. (hypocricy here)

[Weedalot]

You got my vote, I almost never, ever see Planetformers.

yea i admit you see them less and less. Go for it.. Good luck.

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♠ Because we can ♠

[eyvind]

I agree with essentially all that has been said.

However, I would like to point out that DSE is heaven compared to Cryer, Planetform, or Synth Foods when it comes to shipping options; we have several profitable routes. Don't try too hard giving DSE more love, focus on the truly neglected corporations.

I've been thinking that perhaps the easiest way to balance problem areas in the trading system, such as factions without many routes, would be to simply add many more commodities. Each added commodity would need to be balanced over the currently existing ones but I can't imagine that being terribly difficult. Each added commodity would, on the other hand, create additional options at more bases.

As they exist today, commodities are quite general. It would be simple to create more specific derivations of existing commodities, such as more types of liquor, different types of Synth Paste, different Pharmaceuticals, more medical commodities, and so on. These could be added to bases that don't have exports or imports and efficiently patch holes in otherwise broken or awkward routes.

The lack of commodities seems to be the fundamental problem with the mentioned corporations, so it would likely help them quite a bit. Also, more specific commodities would perhaps make it easier to recognize which bases they would be bought and sold on.

I also think that adding many more commodities will make balancing the trade system easier. If there are more commodities, fewer bases close to each other would sell the same commodity and the prices could be balanced more purely proportional to the distance traveled (which is the essence of trade route balancing). Several types of Robotic Components (merely taking from the infocard: gyros, stabilizers, sensors, manual manipulators, etc) for example, could allow several bases all over Sirius to manufacture and export Robotic Components with the high-profit selling locations being far away without the other manfucaturers breaking (or affecting at all) the routes.

Bringing this into context, Synth Foods could produce different types of Synth Paste in different parts of Sirius. This might not be intuitively in-RP but could still be explained, and could even be qualified with another commodity: Cellulose, and perhaps even more of the raw ingredients Synth Foods uses. They could be shipped to plants here and there that could produce the various types (colors?) of Synth Paste that have over the centuries become favored in different parts of Sirius. Blue might be highly saught after in Liberty, Green in Rheinland, Brown in Bretonia, and Yellow in Kusari for example. Each respective production facility could be located reasonably far away from the populations that adore each paste.

For Cryer, different types of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment can be produced in scattered plants much like the Synth Paste, and sold in much the same way.

For Planetform, Terraforming Gasses could be easily diversified and handled the same way.

These corporations fit a solution like this better than most, I think, since they have bases in several different parts of Sirius. If this solution was implemented they could very well get the visibly high populations that would be so beautifully in-RP.

Of course it is possible that this solution is not at all feasible due to some aspect of it that I have overlooked or am oblivious of. If that is the case, that's too bad, but I think all possible solutions should be explored before being discarded.

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<span style="font-family:Agency FB">Good Morning!</span>

[Belco]

Just even a few more bases in existing systems would probably help trade routes, yeah, maybe being devoted to manufacturing new commodities.
for example, Planetform could start making any number of planets in new systems hospitable, and they could mine something rare and all link together via trading.
Ageria and DSE really take too long to build their new jumpgates, but there is potential for new jumpgate building sites, a new jumpgate would open another system to lawful factions that dont use jumpholes, and access to the resources within. (think tau-31 gate construction site and java station) and yeah maybe new commodities or just creating new routes for existing ones.

and theres potential for further corporation expansion in Pennsylvania, Ontario, Munich and such, they are House systems, it makes sense corporations would make use of them.
I mean, there's all that helium in Pennsylvania with no NPC faction mining it?

Edit: just remembered it's too cold to mine in there, also, the miners would have hilarious voices

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Ingame: Luxury Liner PGL-Winfield | Sal_Paradise | Victor.Fane

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[Ash]

I had a planetformer, it was one of my first ever serious trading characters on the server. But sadly it good sank into the hunger for credits my other characters needed to satisfy. As a consequence the RP went out the window mostly in exchange for the vacant powertrading chatter.

Planetform have been left behind and it seems only fair that it should be fitted into the new mod instead of being squeezed out between other routes for other factions. It should have a solid base should anyone ever want to create a Planetform character and not be dissapointed.

As for capships in planetform. I just cant see it happening.

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