Idea: Linking Economy to Organized Full Scale Raids

[Fletcher]

This is an idea that would require some FLHook magic and a secondary economic template. I'll explain.

Right now, the primary goals of the military is to interdict, isolate and destroy enemy military forces, including large scale raiding bands from pirates. There is no real goal to actually fly into enemy space other than terrorizing the place being a general nuisance, and blue messages for both of course.

This is where the ability to raid the economy comes in. At the moment, the worst you can do is destroy transports, not really effecting a group at all. Just the individual.

All large scale stations, inside and out of house space are now susceptible to being raided. How does this work? Simple, you attack the station. However, you are unable to destroy it, you will only lower its ability to do its job, be that fuelling or supplying ships. But how will this affect the economy? Simple, you alter that stations specific job.

For example, Gas Miner Naha for example is one of the primary H-Fuel stations, a supplier. If this station is attacked and damaged enough times, it will be rendered in a "Raided" state where its ability to fuel and supply ships with fuel. This will cause a price spike in the H-Fuel prices, damaging that entire supply route for a period of time. While say if The Ring is raided, its prices for Beryllium will plummet, since it cannot process it at the moment and will need its cargo bays for repair equipment.

Here is an attempted summary of the idea:

• Raided Time Limit: 4-6 hours of damage downtime
  
• Supplier Price Change: Up to 250% e.g. from $150 to $375
  
• Importer Price Change: Price falls by about 30% - 60%. e.g. From $7,000,000 to $3,500,000 by 50% drop.
  
• Raiding Limits: Each House/Faction can only have up to two stations raided at any time to avoid total crashes and total trader riots. Cannot raid planets/docking rings/mooring points.
  
• Station Health Limit - Would take sustained fire from up to battleship fleets and bomber wings, aka hard to do while under fire.
  

This is a draft of an idea, I know there is an ability to attach health points to stations, I remember a mod for it. Maybe with FLHook it would remain hidden from normal view, but FLHook will announce system wide that the station is down for x amount of time.

This could coax players to play military/police, could even get more time up for Kusari with the military actually in need to do something more. Though it would all rest on military organization and player activity. Would give pirates and opposing miltary targets more of a propoganda victory too "We have successfully not only destroyed the military here in x, we also hampered their economy!".

So, thoughts?

EDIT: Grr, this should have been in here: Discovery Mod General Discussion. Mods wanna shift this over? :ylove:

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Gentlefood]

Biggest issues with this are that Military/Police can't be everywhere, there are a lot of stations, station defenses are fairly weak/inaccurate, and bombers can just spam it from out of range.

And honestly playing a Trader is frustrating enough, the amount of 'roleplay' they get subjected to often makes it not fun to begin with, and adding on the possibility that their time could be further wasted by making it so they have to pay more to get their trade commodity back, ie: they were destroyed or robbed for full cargo, or that they narrowly escaped from the pirate and the pirate's buddies decide to ruin his day by 'destroying' the station.

While I like the idea in general I just feel as if it can't be implemented properly or in a way that doesn't make roleplaying a trader ever more frustrating.

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[Fletcher]

Maybe add station regen that outperforms up to three bombers to help combat loan bombers?

Trading is annoying, its boring. Not much you can do about that without getting escorts that RP.

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Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[jammi]

Or a swarm of Clydesdales, Liam.

Also, I'm looking forward to filling a Barge full of a high sale price cargo, getting my mates to blast the station, then selling for well over the odds I brought them for. Rinse and repeat every six hours.

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[Fletcher]

That would be mean, for the barge caught doing that.

The swarm is powerful Jamie, but it is not THAT powerful.:P

EDIT: A way to stop that type of abuse would be to actually remove that item from the items that can be sold, but I think that would be taking it too far. Or make it so that item cannot be sold back to the station.

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Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Stefan]

While I'll probably be quoted as an exception, I enjoy trading a lot - mainly cause I get to watch series, movies or do forumlancing while at it - like answering to this thread. Other than that, the interactions I have had while on my Zoner transport outweight many of those I've had on my pirates.

Why? 'cause differently to most traders or miners I meet while pirating, when I'm on the other side of the gun I make it enjoyable to both parties. I don't mind paying as long the player roleplays. Anyone doubting this, hunt The.Lexicon server wide and try me:P. Surprisingly, it's exactly this kind of attitude that seems to have made most pirates I've encountered so far to actually play nice. I can count on my left hand the times I had to pay to leave - and there's still to come the time when my Whale gets blown to pieces.

Taking aside paying, the difference between role playing or not while being on a trader dictates whether or not you're going to lose ten minutes of game time and a few millions. When you're pirating, it doesn't matter much if your ooc or ic - you got close to nothing to lose, you can act like a mean mother huber, and sometimes dying it's even the fastest way to go home.

Side tracking? Not really.

Although interfeering with economic balance and giving some the nice sensation of destroying a station, if not properly done this kind of thing is gonna destroy the triangle. Decent trade route gets cramped, pirates leave, militars leave, system gets abandoned for what, 6 hours? It's too much I think. Besides, I've seen more than once groups of lolwuttery on the server - I can quote several if you wish, including a certain time where three Gallic caps tailed my Chameleon on Edinburgh before noticing I was faster.

All you gotta do to destroy something is jus' keep clicking that mouse button.

Ways to improve this idea, however:

• Do it, but in an event like situation. Every friday said players get to explode certain stations and during the following week the results develop. Complicated? I think so too.
  
• After being raided, said station sells their stuff for less but also buys certain stuff for more - like scrap metal, ship hulls, etctera. Complicated? I think so too.
  
• Make so that only official tagged ships can destroy stations, should filter the lolwut bomber squads.
  

So summarizing: If trading is supposed to be considered annoying and boring, adding a way to trample it further is not going to change things in any positive way.

[Fletcher]

Ways to improve this idea, however:

• Do it, but in an event like situation. Every friday said players get to explode certain stations and during the following week the results develop. Complicated? I think so too.
  
• After being raided, said station sells their stuff for less but also buys certain stuff for more - like scrap metal, ship hulls, etctera. Complicated? I think so too.
  
• Make so that only official tagged ships can destroy stations, should filter the lolwut bomber squads.
  

So summarizing: If trading is supposed to be considered annoying and boring, adding a way to trample it further is not going to change things in any positive way.

I approve of those ideas, could be seen as a prize for the military forces in the weekly events. Also can't believe I forgot to add in repair supplies going up in price, like parts and robots. Derp there for me.

Must destroy The.Lexicon :rolleyes:

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Stefan]

The downside I see is the constant maintenance. Sirius is a pretty big place - kick two stations down and people might find a way to exploit this feature.

The butterfly effect, really.

Also, be gentle.:$

[Diomedes]

Limited to certain timed "events" this could work brilliantly.

Left as an always on feature, I unfortunately think this will just get abused depending on who is logged at any given time. (Oh hey, there's no one in Gallia....privateers log and demolish some stations or vice versa with GRN on Stokes and LD-14).

Having it in limited events means that both sides can be organized so you know, there would actually be someone defending the thing since automated defenses and NPCs are more or less useless outside Gallia. This would also stop the wandering lolwut raids.

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[Stefan]

Eh, something that occurred me to prevent the barge exploit.

Instead of raising the price of the stuff sold on the base, remove them, and leave the price the same.