It is my personal belief that trading in discovery is unbalanced. I am not taking about the routes themselves. I am talking about the ships that haul the goods.
Allot of people complain about cap ship whoring. Many agree that raising the price of cap ships is our only really safe deterrent. It has been countered that the whores will just trade the extra day to get the cap ship. Both groups are correct. It take next to no effort to raise 100million for a cruiser or the like.
Why is that? Because it takes next to no effort to raise the money to fly the trade ship that makes the money for the cap ship. Its true, it takes less then 30 hours for an experienced player to get into the cockpit of a train.
Thats allot of money very very fast. When you have money you want to spend it, thus the big ship.
This is actually fixable. In the summer I played a mod called Shattered Worlds. They had an interesting approach to trade balance.
A Rhino cost you 1,200,000!!! That right, just over a million. It had its forward guns striped (Deemed unnecessary on a freighter) and it had its hold upped to 120.
When I say this thing, I was like Holy frak! But affter playing for some time I saw the beauty in what they had done. Trading was now a challenge like never before. It took me 45 hours to reach a Dromedary, and couldn't have been happier.
They had setup the Freighters like this.
Rhino
1.2 million
120 cargo
Class 1 Turrets
Clydesdale, Mule, Drone
roughly 3.3 million each
300 cargo
Class 2-3 turrets
Dromedary, Humpback
6 million
500 cargo
Class 4-5 turrets
For players flying Fighters the above trade ships were more then enough to support a garage of fighters.
But for those who wanted the big money, there were the trains and transports. A small transport was going to start at 30 million, have roughly 1500 cargo and mount capital class 1 turrets. (essentialy what is our class 7 turret)
With gaps like that between trade ships I believe that players will be less inclined towards the large ships. Only a faction or a team of traders could even afford an advanced train (They had it priced at 900million) which would be required to even attempt to finance a battleship which was being projected at over a billion.
What is the public opinion on a trade system like this?
Eh, I don't really see how this adds anything to the mod... It makes it take ages for people to get the ship that they want. This might deter some people who just play to earn a lot of money and get their big ship, but it also hurts people who genuinely want to RP a specific character.
I've never been fond of the 'pay your dues' mentality, where newbies have to spend a 50 hours of playtime before they can get a ship that any older player can get in 5 minutes with a money transfer.
[quote name='bluntpencil2001' date='Dec 5 2007, 02:06 AM' post='147021']
It would make things horribly time consuming, yes, and looks attractive.
However, this would require a player-wipe.[/quote]
One of those is slowly becoming necessary anyway thou isn't it? We all may not like it, but one is going to need to happen.
[quote name='bluntpencil2001' date='Dec 5 2007, 02:06 AM' post='147021']
Also, nobody wants to have to trade for hours on end to get their first VHF.
[/quote]
They had HF's under half a million, VHF about 750. They also had the Fighter weapons rebalanced to only 5 different levels. So it wasn't too bad.
[quote name='bluntpencil2001' date='Dec 5 2007, 02:06 AM' post='147021'
And, once those Battleships are bought, they can't permanently die. They will slowly accumulate until we have too many.
[/quote]
A bit more of a long term problem, yes. No system is perfect, but we may as well make people work for their big toy.
Plus, the current problem isn't cap-ship whoring... it's people not knowing what the hell 'roleplaying' actually means. That and the politics are screwy, but that's another matter.
Also, once one person gets enough money to get their one big trading ship, it's not hard for that person to trade enough to give their friend enough to get HIM a big trading ship, then the two of them can trade enough to give a couple of other friends enough to get a big trading ship... So all that really ends up happening is people who don't have someone to give them a bunch of money gets screwed. This happens even now, it'd be worse like this.
I, as a Trader, love that system.
trading is boring me, because I see no point.
I can do anything with money, because it is so easy to get, I am not afraid to offer the most rediculous bribes.
and, as for the 'Pay your dues' mentality, well, we need one. If everyone here really wanted to RP, then, we could make everything cost nothing....
but, I like trading, and I like the idea of being forced to work together for something.
' Wrote:I, as a Trader, love that system.
trading is boring me, because I see no point.
I can do anything with money, because it is so easy to get, I am not afraid to offer the most rediculous bribes.
and, as for the 'Pay your dues' mentality, well, we need one. If everyone here really wanted to RP, then, we could make everything cost nothing....
but, I like trading, and I like the idea of being forced to work together for something.
Problem is, once you get your big trade ship trading goes back to being nothing but a cash grind. Could still make money just as fast as you do now.
' Wrote:Problem is, once you get your big trade ship trading goes back to being nothing but a cash grind. Could still make money just as fast as you do now.
Yeah, I got my first L-Train thanks to a loan. I was able to pay it back with 5% added within an hour of trading.
Even charging horrendous amounts for these ships, you'll be able to shell out for your buddies, and get interest.
' Wrote:Plus, the current problem isn't cap-ship whoring... it's people not knowing what the hell 'roleplaying' actually means. That and the politics are screwy, but that's another matter.
80% agree. I encourage you to make a tread about that topic.
' Wrote:Also, once one person gets enough money to get their one big trading ship, it's not hard for that person to trade enough to give their friend enough to get HIM a big trading ship, then the two of them can trade enough to give a couple of other friends enough to get a big trading ship... So all that really ends up happening is people who don't have someone to give them a bunch of money gets screwed. This happens even now, it'd be worse like this.
Yes your right, that would take place (and did)
Funny story:
Was playing Shattered Worlds and went up to Tau-37 for some cheap Niobium. I was in a starflyer and hostile to the outcasts. Since we all know the outcome of Sabre or Stileto vs. Noob Flyer, we can assume I was royally trapped once I got there. I found myself running pharmaceuticals back and forth from the freeport to Falkland just so that i could have enough for a bribe. Many players offered me money, I declined. Until an admin showed up. This pattern of flying back and forth must have made him crazy. I go and dock and find my Rep completely blank, and I am up 1 millions dollars. I was told I earned it through preserverence. :cool:
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