Spitballing for Piloting and dillema solution suggestions

So some great ideas for piloting were had by people on ooc and I thought I’d share, but I don’t know that this actually makes the topic post because I haven’t used the forums yet, so before posting…. Test.

Okay, great, it did.

So an idea was put forth with the intent of making piloting more interactive. The general consensus is that there would be a renewed interest in piloting if Large (Read: Not heavy) ships were able to be owned by individual players, rather than just clans. This would create an environment where there would be more interest in learning how to use said ship types, because there would be an ability to benefit from them. I think it would create a much more interesting atmosphere to the game if there were pilots-for-hire. I’ll explain this. Seed the galaxy with two or three dozen ‘asteroids’ which are bases that individual players or clans can purchase / capture (OT: Some or most flagged for invulnerability so someone has to develop a deathstar if they really want to be a dick and blow them up. Because really? Who wants to spend the time it would take to hammer a rock that’s mostly metal into dust with a regular fleet of ships?) These bases could be used as friendly (refueling) sectors, which could make things more interesting for naval dynamics in general. But rather than just adding ownership to Large vessels and opening up flight for more players, there should also be a stick with the carrot. Capital vessels should cost upkeep to maintain. By this I mean a static amount of credits should be deducted from a personal (or clan) account linked to the ships, thereby opening up a new dynamic to owning fleets. If you want to have a huge ship fleet sitting parked somewhere, then you should be prepared to pay out the nose to maintain it, this would help create a balance in things, because really, shouldn’t there be massive maintenance fees for a massive naval force? As for regular players owning Large vessels, they should have to work to maintain them, ie. pilot for hire, rather than just getting them and sitting idly. There’s more, but I’ll add it later, I’m distracted now.

To Recap:

☻ Large ships available to unclanned players.
☻ Semi-random asteroid bases ownable by individual players or clans (capturable/ctf ownership dynamic? Should be able to change hands quickly.)
☻ Ownership fees for Capital ships.

Suggestions, questions, or commentary?

I’m back and forth on some of it. Personal large spacecraft aren’t that uncommon, if you have a decent reason to own one the imms will let it by. It’d be an interesting experiment though.

I’m all for the first and last recap bullet, the middle one seems a little complicated and annoying for my tastes, but I don’t have to be part of that, I suppose. Fleets should definitely have an ownership fee, though. Each large+ ship-type could have a “maintenance” value slapped on it at creation and have a withdraw at the same time bank interest hits or something of the price of maintenance. For example, the current Empire would have to pay out 1,350,000 per day, if each ISD was 90,000/day, which isn’t really all that bad. If clans have large fleets that they can’t really support, maybe they could add a sort of “dry dock” station that they could dock up their fleet with and it would lower maintenance for times of inactivity. Clans could develop ways to lower maintenance costs and stuff like that, too.

Oh, and if the clan doesn’t have the credits to pay for maintenance at maintenance tick, the ship slowly start losing shields and hull over the course of the next day or something like that.

Actually I spoke with Zeromus and he had an interesting theory on how maintenance fees should work for both clans and individuals.

The price of maintenance would be based off of the price of the ship blueprints, with an escalating amount as determined by the amount of maintenance that would ICly be required. Or kind of like taxes, but operational costs.
☻The first 5 ships require 30% of blueprint cost per ship
☻6 through 10 require 40% of cost
☻10+ will be 60% of cost

In this way, clans will have to be fiscally responsible with balancing their ships and budgets, rather than just making a massive stockpile in the eventuality that they lose some. Working from that model, no clan would get to build-up a massive stockpile unless they were funded through the teeth, and it would give them something to do with credits other than develop.

I’ve said a lot of these things myself at one time or another so I agree. Let’s see some privateering and pirates, and a few maybe noble houses (Princes, dukes, the Ambassador of Druidia) or mercenary crews that roll in a big ship or with a small fleet. Ensure your success in the next naval battle by hiring Starfox!

I actually fucking love this idea… too many coded things restrict RP for my liking.. if you have the RP behind you with the credits available to you… why CAN’T you icly hire a crew of your own large spacecraft? Public docking/maintenance platforms etc that cost daily to store your ship there perhaps?

I also like the asteroid idea, in random empty systems… you come across an asteroid… it would bring a use for buildstructure perhaps?

I am all for this idea, I think it will bring a lot more RP for pilots and for people that simply don’t like RPing with the same old aim cliques in clans.

My only issue with maintenance fees is that most major clans already have a lot of credit sinks with very few viable alternatives (both passively and actively) to gain credits in return outside of the one or two people, or one or two people’s alts, who choose to bot cargo. I know there are a few ways to circumvent some of the sinks, but with as little influx of credits as most major clans get, it seems like a needless handicap and just another way to suck what few credits they have out of their coffers.

Other than that, looks good.

I think he means maintenance fees for the player owned ones

I like the concept but I’m not sure how I feel about the maintenance fees thing. You could always just run some cargo, make some jewelry, or also own a fleet of taxis to make all the credits you could need for anything. But other than that potential problem I like the idea even of the maintenance fees just to sorta make sure that individuals with capitals/fleets of their own actually keep them active be it by being a mercenary fleet to a government or being galactic pirates or whatever. If just anyone and everyone with credits could have this stuff, I feel like the biggest upside would just be new players getting a feel for the space combat system here which is good and all but maybe not worth such a drastic measure.

Going down the list.

Gyndi: I don’t mean planets, having asteroid bases that act as friendly/refueling sectors would be interesting but they should have a high turnover rate. Maybe make it so they have a capture-the-flag style and when you capture them, for maybe 12 or 24 hours, they’re yours, then they open back up so that someone else can waltz in and put their name on it. In this way it would address the need for individuals that own their own capitals and members of a clan to have a fair draw. (By that I mean once you hold it for X amount of hours, it -stays- yours, but once the safety limit expires, someone else can claim it that -isn’t- you/your clan.) I feel that this idea would vastly enrich piloting on lotj, because it would give people something to compete over. They work for clans too, but their main point, at least what I intend with the idea, is a safetyzone for independent operators to park. And with 24 or something like that, a larger number, that’s a lot of points to control and patrol.

Kirash: In regards to the maintenance cost system, once a clan gets to a certain point, there infact ISN’T much to spend their credits on besides developing. While obviously the numbers in my suggestion are high, they could be tweaked, but it’s basic economic management. There’s nothing to stop a clan from stockpiling a huge amount of ships, but they would have to invest in keeping them, my plan is that this system would prevent something from happening with a situation where one clan has 25 ships, and one clan has 6. The best explanation is that the situation can still happen with this implemented, but now they have to work to maintain that rather than sitting on their hands and chuckling. So if someone wants to have it big, they should have the active players to support their plans, or alter them.

Neven: That’s my point with having them in as a balance to owning a capital ship. You should be actively engaged with the game. If you go idle, you eventually lose what you earned. And you’d still need at least 100 piloting to fly a Large ship. :p