Hi there. For various reasons, I would like to reduce the "free" station cargo limits to about 10,000 cu per character, per station. This is down from the current limit of 200,000 (which was arbitrarily chosen as to not impinge on anyone at the time). A couple of new things:

The limit being imposed, for the short term, would only prevent people from being able to offload more items into their station inventory. Eventually (down the road) the station would impose a "fee" for the additional storage over 10k, but for the moment the overstock would be kept for "free", you just wouldn't be able to add more to a station that was over-inventory.

"Over-limit" people would be grandfathered for the time being (probably months), but additional space would be available for a "fee" to everyone else. The fee would be something on the order of credits per cubic-unit per unit-time. Maybe something like 1 credit per 10 cu per week? Day? Not really sure, welcome feedback on that and other areas. In theory, such funds would simply be deducted from the player's credits automatically, but if the funds were not available, the station would begin selling local inventory to cover the costs. Different stations might have different fees, and faction standing might also influence costs.

Thoughts?

I vote to only reduce it to 50k

because some people have ore and stuff stockpiles

A lot of people have stuff stockpiled. I have list from the database of exactly who, what, and where. But that's part of why "over-limit" people will be grandfathered for the time being, they just won't be able to add anything more to the inventories of those stations.

Regardless, I would like a lower base limit, like on the order of 10k. If I just change it to 50k now, I'll still want to drop it to 10k later, and there will be still be plenty of people "stockpiling" at that time (maybe more), so the issue will be the same, if not worse.

[stamp of approval]™

Well, I'd prefer to see it as a set of storage limits for the station itself for each type of goods, as suggested in

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/19691

The 10 k cargo space would then be for ships and addons , which would be reasonable .

However , as an interrim measure lowering the players storage to 10 k and charging for excess baggage would be interesting .

( oh , and sorry if TGFTs inventory broke the printer Inc :-) )

I would hope that guild-wide inventory and storage were implemented before this much of a drastic change.

Capital ship production should be kept in consideration here; guilds will have the resources to create these monstrosities, but the logistics of getting the materials together without guild inventory will be absolute hell without a "central" repository for ores and construction materials.

I have no problem supporting this idea. The existence of free storage always kind of surprised me. When guild stations make an appearance this will be a way for guilds to collect 'taxes' on non-members, guilds may even be able to impose a modest 'docking fee'.

I like it, Incarnate.

Huge stamp of approval.

Absolutely.

I think 10k is a good number. I would like to see whatever cargo is still inside a ship not take up more room than the ship itself. Say if a moth takes up 300 cu, and it has a pile of 200 cu of stuff beside it, it takes up 500 cu total. If that cargo were to be loaded on the ship, however, ship + cargo would only use 300. Just so long as the player has to manage the loading of stuff into ships instead of the game doing it automagically (or simply manipulating the numbers or whatever).

I object to having any free storage. Unloading anything to a station should cost credits per cubic unit, at the time of unloading. Reloading it does not constitute any refund, nor is that fee or storage reusable. Unload 10 cu, pay credits. Reload the 10 cu, no charge. Unload same 10 cu, pay more credits.

Don't over complicate the issue. Make it a simple formula, where people will not have to try and juggle storage between characters/stations/guild etc. Storing 1 mil cu should cost the same regardless of how many characters/stations it is (or isn't) dispersed across.

edit: wouldn't you rather give people an excuse to consolidate their holdings? would it be easier on your database for me to store my 92,441 widow makers in one station, or divide them across the 100+ stations of the galaxy?

edit2: why are we having this conversation prior to having a feature to remotely sell any (and/or all) inventory items. I have items in stations that i can't even dock at. how much storage fee is that going to cost me? and what if i decide i don't want to pay?

Well, I better move my heliocene into more stations I guess. Or pay the fee. But good idea, it will take the brunt off powertrading, nothing bad in that

Sounds good. And I'd like to second putting in guild-inventory. Also, isn't 1 credit per 10 cu like....way low? Doesn't that make an extra ship cost 100 credits per week? Which is like nothing?

i disapprove, for the time being.

if you give us a mean to remotely sell our stuff (say, for a fee as it's been suggested by myself long ago), then sure, go ahead.

but as time goes, we routinely end up piling junk throughout the universe and some of these place i can't even go to right now.

so unless we can manage our stuff (gee... how hard can that be??) from afar, dont touch the quotas.

(oh... and yes... my main account 'mgl_mouser' is, in fact, an active and paying customer)

I sort of like one credit per cu. That is still only 200 credits for an entire XC load of junk. Which is a drop in the bucket. I would also make it recur bi-monthly. Now storing your extra 200 cus for a year costs a measly 4,800 credits for an entire year. A brand new marauder costs more than that.

That seems sort of pointless, then. I'd say more like 10c/cu/hr. Really, if it's small (even Inc's suggestion of 1c/10cu/week), then nobody will change behavior at all, because even I have millions of credits (and I, as a rule, don't trade...)

Storage in real life is a major pain, as is moving. This is a game - I like not having to deal with dull logisitcs. Please don't make storage too cumbersome.

Hmmm 10,000 cu limit per station? Well that's not much because you can fill that up in a span of 2 hours of game play. 2,000 profit per cu. I must admit this is all short term storage and nothing long term.

I'm currently thinking 1 credit per cu per week. So to double your storage space, about 10,000c/week. This could be considered "low", too, but again.. I can vary it greatly. Like make capitols much higher, other nation stations cheaper, and grayspace rather expensive.. or something like that. Plus, standing affecting it as well. Could create some interesting tradeoffs to storage in different locales.

Dunno, more feedback on pricing is welcome.

Pricing seems almost too low, Incarnate. To get to 200k now, that would be a mere 200kc a week, which is easily earned in a single escort mission. I think the pricing should be scaled so that if you have a lot of storage, you have to spend a fair amount of time in getting the money back for upkeep. Maybe as a starting point, 10c/cu/wk(resulting in 2m/week upkeep for 200kcu storage) would be better. It's a decent amount, and if you need that much space it's fairly certain you have the income to pay for it.

Though, in the future when the economy is reconfigured, it would be a good idea to come back and balance any figures we end up with. And hopefully one can stop payment on storage and have that space expire at the end of the current storage billing cycle.

Also, I'm wondering how the station would decide which stored items to sell to make up the cost