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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Ship costs and availability  (Read 16778 times)

BTracer

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #15 on: August 23, 2019, 10:09:02 AM »

So why not a ship listing? If you don't need the money right away, you can buy cargo space and store your ship (as the game already lets you do) with the option to name a sale price. Undercutting market rates will get your ship sold faster, and vice versa.

Kinda interesting - but it would only push back the insane profit to a later date. If say you could only have one ship on the market at a time, with on average a month to sell for frigate size, longer for each size larger - maybe a balance could be found? But honestly, making money isn't really an issue between cargo/bounty runs and colonies, it's pretty easy to snowball.
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Sinosauropteryx

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #16 on: August 23, 2019, 10:25:56 AM »

Storage already costs money. Maybe there could be a listing fee on top of that, and it goes up the more ships you have listed. So to really make more money than just selling for scrap, you'd only be selling the cream of the crop. Maybe turn a profit making ships with your nanoforge, shipping them to other faction's colonies that don't normally sell the ship, and turning a decent 30-50% profit. Coordinating and scheduling monthballed shipments to different colonies, making sure not to oversaturate the market on any given one, lest you rack up listing fees. And defending those convoys with escorts, balancing reasonable firepower with operating efficiency.

I agree money is easy enough to get. If anything I'm imagining an alternate way to play the merchant game, not a supplement to the usual tomb raiding.
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TrashMan

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #17 on: August 23, 2019, 11:02:43 AM »

I can do a single cargo run and have enough money to buy 2 cruisers. That's BS.
These are military starships, not used cards.

Jesus why people look at ship prices like it's all there is. You have to be able to maintain such ships, not just buy them and finito. You need crew, supplies, fuel, weapons and so on. Sure you could buy a cruiser in early game as fast as possible but that's not gonna end up well.

True. But that doesn't mean earning money to buy it in the first place should be easy.
Can you buy a us navy carrier?
IS that cheap?
And trust me, that is way, WAAAAAY less complicated and cheaper than any spaceship will ever be. The simple fact it has to operate in space makes the requirements and resources (and thus costs) far more extreme.

Buffing up ship costs would also make salvaging a viable source of income AND incetivize players to use salvaged ship more (because new ones would be expensive and even rarer)
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Thaago

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #18 on: August 23, 2019, 11:13:22 AM »

Eh I dunno, salt water is a pretty nasty environment, not to mention fouling, storms, and birds pooping on deck /s. Once the tech level is high enough (and SS is a ridiculously high tech level, just one that has been in decline) then space is sterile in comparison.

And while you can't buy a US navy carrier, you can buy a Russian one, or some of their old subs, and probably some surface ships. Meanwhile private companies develop and build the warship and fighter jets we are familiar with - all it would take is a regulatory change and private people/companies could buy them. In a place as horribly dangerous as the Sector, why wouldn't respectable traders be able to buy military ships to protect themselves?

In the age of sail companies, rich individuals, and developing nations all bought warships and the armaments for them countries with the capability to build them, so its not even historically unprecedented.
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TrashMan

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #19 on: August 23, 2019, 11:13:54 AM »

These are military starships, not used cars.
They are Military TYPE ships, not ships owned exclusively by the military. As far a lore goes, anyone with the blueprint can build them. After 206 cycles, 6 warring factions, and billions of private citizens, and Pirates, I'm under the belief that yes, anyone can own one and the 'military' wouldn't raise an eyebrow. Also yes, they are very much like used cars. Traded, repaired, sold, recovered, stolen, modified, etc. The very definition of used car.

And that is exceptionally naive way of thinking. Something like that would/could never happen for several reasons.
1) blueprints are rare and heavily guarded. Not everyone can make them
2) Those ships costs resources to make. The nanoforge doesn't magic them into existence. Every ship is an investment. And you can bet that the military will track every single one (as i does)
3) The massive war would not make ship more available, given how many would be destroyed.And it'+s precisely during war times hat you'd be even more strict about who can have one.
4) Pirates use mostly trash and they are NOT welcome in civilized society. Just like in RL, you don't see somali pirates in a modern destroyer, do you?

No sane government, no sane people would every let just anyone own a weapon of mass destruction (which any warship is by definition)
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TrashMan

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #20 on: August 23, 2019, 11:15:14 AM »

Sector is essentially some African tier colony(or maybe Australia compared to amount of people with dirty background getting send there) that is cut from the world and gone crazy with out no tech and aids(as it was developing and rely essentially on Domain bucks).
Hegemony should be (and maybe Sindra to lesser extent) only one to have military grade equipment(like Ambrams and Humvees) as they were military arm of Domain here.
Tri tachs should rely on their own PMC forces and some rare high tech one(but its should be rare). Other militaries should have some older Doamin stuff(like T-55 and other post soviet stuff) and most(even including Hegemony and TT but maybe to some lower extent) should just run with reporposed civilians and old scavanged military stuff(think about technicals and mad max style armored cars).

Cost and availability to real military grade equipment and high tech stuff should be very limited. Sure quartermasters can miss or get away with few missing Humvee or M16 but not with missing aircraft carrier or dozens of Abrams or F-16. getting them on black market should cost a lot of cash(A LOT), need right connections and still have high chance of failing.
Player should either get high rep and license for it or find them in the wild.

I mean the whole trading/black marketing thing is kind of shallow right now.
There should be trading license that allow trading stuff in open market(with lesser tariff) or maybe it should be rep scaling. Even forbidden goods should be possible to trade if you have high enough rep and righ connections(license) like Weapon dealer or medical dealer license(for drugs and weapon trading). On the other hand black market should be limited by connections or/and need for bribes. So you want some stuff that is not available for you at open market(either illegal or you black rep/license/ there is shortage) - you either need connections(good rep) with local quartermaster/postmaster or criminals.
If you track goods by the way you acquire them - its open whole new thing for trade/smuggling. Star Traders:Frontiers is the best example for that sort of thing9sadly the game have less enjoyable combat and gameplay). Liek you need to forge papers for that new set of 'xxx' cargo if you want to sell it legally.
Yes that would mean that all factions have full set of licenses - making cross faction trading harder but infaction trading easier(if you get only one set). Some faction would need only cash payment for it, some good rep, most both.
Salvage is another matter. Now for some different reason selling ships is completely unprofitable. I get them but it could expanded.
Make player get a salvaging license(with few degrees maybe) if he want to salvage in peace - and track ship by faction origin. So a Conquest scavenged from battlefield over Sindra - you can haul it to Sindra docks(if you have salvaging license) and get a cash prize for it - or get it into pirate dock and repaint/hack ID - or simply cut it into pieces if nobody watching. Even if player repaint/change ID chips if he appear with conquest and don't have right papers on it  - he is asking for trouble.

Overall I wish we get longer early/mid phase and definitly squah the amount of power level in the end game(that come to fast).
Now if player don't play with self imposed rules/RP early game is short and mid game is non existent. Squashing the size of the fleets would be good start.

Ohh..I like this
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Thaago

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #21 on: August 23, 2019, 11:27:10 AM »

...

No sane government, no sane people would every let just anyone own a weapon of mass destruction (which any warship is by definition)

Well thats the problem: ANY ship in the SS universe is a weapon of mass destruction because they use anti-matter as fuel (not to mention having infinite in system engines, which is just as bad). A Kite is a weapon of mass destruction, as is a buffalo. Its like restricting H bombs when the local fishermen are literally sailing A bombs out to work every day.
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TrashMan

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #22 on: August 23, 2019, 11:37:37 AM »

Eh I dunno, salt water is a pretty nasty environment, not to mention fouling, storms, and birds pooping on deck /s. Once the tech level is high enough (and SS is a ridiculously high tech level, just one that has been in decline) then space is sterile in comparison.

Bird poop? You honestly compare that to cosmic radiation and micro-meteor impacts? I'm sure the regular sea ship motor is completely the same as a jump drive in terms of complexity and maintanencne requirements.
And MASSIVE amount of energy required to get anywhere. Are you forgetting that spaceships use antimatter for fuel?
Can you ram a sea ship into a city and destroy it and half the continent? No?

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And while you can't buy a US navy carrier, you can buy a Russian one, or some of their old subs, and probably some surface ships. Meanwhile private companies develop and build the warship and fighter jets we are familiar with - all it would take is a regulatory change and private people/companies could buy them. In a place as horribly dangerous as the Sector, why wouldn't respectable traders be able to buy military ships to protect themselves?

You can buy an old, stripped-down carrier hull to convert into a floating casino or something.
You cure as hell can't buy a fully working one. Even PMC's hat work for governemnts and have licences operate only smaller stuff in limited number.

You seem to forget that regulations exist for a reason and spaceships make those regulations even MORE necessary, not less.


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In the age of sail companies, rich individuals, and developing nations all bought warships and the armaments for them countries with the capability to build them, so its not even historically unprecedented.

One time in history, under very special circumstances, and only by select individuals. And it led to rampant piracy after which everyone agreed it was a very stupid thing to do. And again, not comparable with spaceships, because a wooden boat with 4 cannons does not compare with a high-tech spaceship that can ram your planet.
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Thaago

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #23 on: August 23, 2019, 11:41:07 AM »

Well I did put the /s on there indicating that the comment was sarcasm/humor :P I see why trolls do their thing though.
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Grievous69

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #24 on: August 23, 2019, 11:45:09 AM »

Can you for the love of god stop comparing real life stuff with a *** GAME set in a fictional universe, I don't get this massive hard-on for realism just to make the gameplay annoying for it. And now I actually remember some of your older posts/comment TrashMan, I'd advise everyone who wants to keep their sanity, stay away from this thread, or at least skip some of the comments.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 12:03:57 PM by Grievous69 »
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Please don't take me too seriously.

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #25 on: August 23, 2019, 11:51:28 AM »

Comparing to the current earth navy is pretty ridiculous. There are only 10 active aircraft carriers total in the US navy and like ~430 total ships. It also takes half a decade to build and test ships on earth while in starsector ships can built in a month or less. Obviously if 1 of your 10 aircraft carriers goes missing you will be upset but in starsector, there are hundreds of capital ships active at any time and they are being destroyed by the dozen per year. Who knows if the ships on the black market even were stolen from the local military, they may have been stolen from the enemy factions or savaged and brought there to sell. The local military might even be taking a cut of the profits. It's just clearly a false equivalence. I generally agree that it's too easy and inexpensive to get top tier ships, (mostly because of the black market which is way too easy and forgiving), but I don't think comparing to the state of earth currently makes much sense. Arguments should be made using gameplay and to some extent lore reasons, not tenuous equivalencies to earth.
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BTracer

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #26 on: August 23, 2019, 01:40:42 PM »

.

And that is exceptionally naive way of thinking. Something like that would/could never happen for several reasons.
1) blueprints are rare and heavily guarded. Not everyone can make them
2) Those ships costs resources to make. The nanoforge doesn't magic them into existence. Every ship is an investment. And you can bet that the military will track every single one (as i does)
3) The massive war would not make ship more available, given how many would be destroyed.And it'+s precisely during war times hat you'd be even more strict about who can have one.
4) Pirates use mostly trash and they are NOT welcome in civilized society. Just like in RL, you don't see somali pirates in a modern destroyer, do you?

No sane government, no sane people would every let just anyone own a weapon of mass destruction (which any warship is by definition)

Seriously, what game are you playing?

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blueprints are rare and heavily guarded. Not everyone can make them
What in the the name are you talking about? Blueprints are everywhere.

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And you can bet that the military will track every single one (as i does)
You seem to think this game takes place on Earth. It doesn't. Which military is tracking which ships? How many times have powers risen and fallen, who's checking ship ID's and keeping track of owners, who's stopping CIVILIANS LIKE THE PLAYER from building colonies, and how is it difficult to imagine other colonies started by other PRIVATE people. Whatever it takes to build a ship, the resources are there and NO ONE is stopping anyone from building anything.

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The massive war would not make ship more available, given how many would be destroyed.
Says who? I can't think of one military produced weapon/ship where there were more destroyed in war then what remained. 1000's of fighters were lost in world wars, and there we're many times more waiting to be deployed. The war didn't wipe out the entire stock.

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And it'+s precisely during war times hat you'd be even more strict about who can have one.
I think you imagine it was just business as usual after the gates shut down. It would have been chaos, not the place where orderly ship registrations take place. LOL. Resources / blueprints / ships / entire planets would have been up for grabs. Things changing hands over 200 cycles. Think about it, how would any sort of accurate records ever survive that turmoil and time scale. Who's enforcing laws that don't even exist?

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Just like in RL, you don't see somali pirates in a modern destroyer, do you?
No, just super-freighters... so far. But your point is moot anyways since they would happily capture one if given the opportunity - which they would have in a galactic war.
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Plantissue

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #27 on: August 23, 2019, 02:16:38 PM »

The blueprints to make ships are not everywhere. They are not available in the core worlds without having to deal with said heavy guard.
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Dov85

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #28 on: August 23, 2019, 03:18:05 PM »

Uh if by "the military" you're thinking of the Hegemony... XIV Battlegroup - the guys who became the Hegemony - arrived in the sector only 50 years or so after the Collapse. They were set to replace another battlegroup that had already left the Persean Sector and the gates collapsed on them mid-travel and they ended up a few lightyears away from their destination.

Add to that that they lost or had to scrap most of their fleet during the travel before they were able to make it there, that the people of the Persean sector had started to organize, recover and even start waging war on each other and that Tri-Tachion was surprisingly ready when the Collapse happened and you don't really get the "US military in a third world backwater" situation you're imagining.

They're certainly powerful and I agree it is a bit weird they would let warships and weaponry be sold on the open market in their territory when it is supposedly illegal to do so but they're not "the military" that everybody else recognise as the rightfull autority in the sector. They can't fully enforce their diktat of Hegemony in the systems they nominaly control, can't deal with a splinter group that pretend to be the real, legitimate Hegemony and can't crush Tri-Tachion after having waged two wars against them.
I don't think they're at the point where they regulate ship IDs and specifications sector-wide just yet. If you read the description of the Valkyrie troop-transport you learn that they tried to restrict that hull and miserably failed at it. (Yeah, somehow the first thing they tried to ban was a ground landing crafts, not the battlecruisers or carriers. Though it makes sense considering how important it is to keep your blueprints and infrastructure safe.)
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 03:33:24 PM by Dov85 »
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Locklave

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Re: Ship costs and availability
« Reply #29 on: August 23, 2019, 04:05:17 PM »

Does restoration need to be made cheaper? Personally I think so.

It bothers me when restoring a ship is only 20,000 less then a brand new zero D mods version on the market. So 100% agree with you on this, restoring is too expensive.
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