This is kind of a first step towards the larger suggestion I made a few weeks ago. I think it's different enough in focus to belong in its own thread.

Allow players to put items from their inventory up for sale at conquerable stations. It would only require a user key. It could include everyday ships and items, or rarer items like we see now at unofficial player-run stores and businesses. The goal would obviously be to buy low somewhere inconvenient and sell it higher at a conquerable station somewhere convenient, but manufactured or bot dropped items would also be sold. You would select any item from your inventory at the conquerable station, set a sale price, and it goes up for sale at the station "store". The store could get its own tab in the station interface, but maybe not since conquerable stations currently don't sell anything but free buses and free batteries anyway. Anyone with a key could dock, check out the store, and buy an item that's up for sale there just like they would a regular item in the ship->buy or commerce->commodities tab at a normal station. The main difference would be limited stock. Each item would have to show how many units are available. Sellers could also maybe set a limit on how many units a single character can buy per day or something. Once sold, the credits paid for the item would be transferred to the seller.

Maybe a small percentage (5%?) of the sale price would go to the station for operating costs, like a tax. Maybe that "store fee" would be waived if the seller had an owner key. Alternately, the store fees could go into some sort of bank available to the station owners (or even directly to the owners, split evenly), in which case the owners could set the percentage. If they set it too high, nobody would want to sell their stuff there.

If 2 players put the same item up for sale at the same station, maybe the lower priced units would automatically be sold first. Once they run out, the higher priced units start to be sold. If they are the same price they can maybe alternate. Alternately, maybe the store would show the name or unique "Seller ID" number (if anonymity is preferred) of the player who put the item for sale, and if 2 players put the same item for sale, it would show twice and the buyer could choose which he wants to buy, a bit more like ebay or something.

+1

anything that leads to an eventually player driven economy, i'm all for.
a real market would be amazing, and if it has to start with conquerable stations, why not.. at least it would provide more point to these stations.

moreover, i think if you have stuff in your inventory at a conquerable station, and it is NOT up for sale, it becomes the property of the station workers when the new regime takes over.
i think it only logical right?
why would the new owners of the station (those who had to fight the previous owners for control) be willing to store your shit for you until the next time you took the station back from them??

but yeah... i think, at least for now, or until this proposed market runs through every station in the game, that if your item is for sale, it would remain that way until it sold, or you took the order down, regardless of station ownership.

of course, you cannot control who buys your stuff.. for all you know, you are supplying a pirate with LENBS or valks, or w/e.. you sold it to make a buck and that's what you shall get?

TBF

owners should be able to set who can have a "merchant key" at their station and should be able to set a tax rate if they so choose too. If two of the same items are for sale at different prices list them both. (this means we need expanding and collapsing station interface so we can sort things like "energy weapons" and "missles/flares" so the lists don't get crazy long)

+1

some visual representation of it would be great, like a container attached to station.

I think that those items should be kept among regular ones, with the owner name added to item name, becoming an unique key.
-Strat: Neutron Blaster 3. Price: 1234c
-Alloh: Neutron Blaster 3: Price; 4321c

limited to conquerable stations, of course.

And limit the number of items per station, like a global store deposits of Xcu. (?800cu?).

When station is conquered by someone else, should be offered to respect owners OR loot all things stored there. Bring risk to ConqSt shops...

--EDIT
The name of previous owner really should not be displayed, only kept in server for proper refund.

An excellent idea. This would add considerable player interaction and usability to the conquerable stations. +1.

+1.

Thread hijack, of sorts: Perhaps a tab in stations all around the universe, that shows items sold by players. This might help in a player-run economy.

A good idea , though I would tend to make it a universe wide system. Having a lot of manufacturing missions at the conq stations and at other stations throughout space which require a wide range of rare ores , trade goods and hive drops would create a market.

There are already missions that create markets, party errand is an example. Itani players not popular with serco buy quite a few loads of betheshee spices.

yeah.. a universe wide system would be better.
but let us either steal or destroy the goods left at conquerable stations..
the free pks are not worth taking stations usually.
i think strat was saying that the conq stations would be a good place to start.. but if it's all the same.... make it everywhere.
sounds more labor intensive to me though. (labor being something GS doesn't have)

Yeah. Conquerable stations seem like the logical place to start, especially since we're all trying to make them valuable and worth our effort. It's also the simplest place to do it since they don't sell any equipment now anyway. I'm not against potentially expanding elsewhere after that.

alloh. don't think. makes a strange smell.
having the seller's name beside it might discourage trade deals amongst enemies. it's better that they don't know 'til after the deal's gone down.

when more things become manufacturable (like.. how does EVERYTHING sound?), the devs can "seed" the raw materials into the market. players mostly interested in manufacturing of goods/weapons/etc do just that.. they go collect all this crap from various places at the best price they can find. the make the manufactured crap.. they sell the manufactured crap at various stations around the 'verse, fluctuating prices at different locations... eventually, stations wouldn't be selling much of anything via NPC sell orders. it would all be manufactured (via ores and other shit) by players and sold by players, to players.

yes, this economy requires a larger player base. but maybe if there were things such as this to DO in the game, we wouldn't lose so many fucking people due to extreme boredom.

actually... y'know.. with the player base now it would still probably work out OK. for example: ecka has stated that he spends 30+hrs/week in grey space.. this (be it true or not) means that he spends a lot of time online, in general. wouldn't it be great if he could mine ore, then spend a bunch of that time refining it and manufacturing it into usable shit, instead of just turning it into credits, selling it to imaginary station merchants?

then i could buy it from him and use it on him.

:D

it would take a bunch of time to set up. yes. andyou wouldn't be able to buy a whole lot of stuff on the NPC market for a while, until players had made stuff.. just stockpile stuff untill there's an abundance on the market.
tellin' ya.. it would make a better game... less pointless than the economy we have right now, imo.

oh.. i forgot to mention.. also placing contracts on certain items at certain locations as well, to encourage manufacturers and traders to bring shit there..

i.e.
Unknown Buyer wants 200 axia accelerated positron blasters in Sedina d-14. offers 1.2M cr.

Yeah. Some of that stuff is covered in my previous suggestion linked at the top. I'm trying to keep this particular suggestion relatively simple and focused to make it feasible in the short-term. As simple as it is, it would have an enormous impact on the economy and overall game.

looks like you wanna create shopping mall from conquerable stations. Dead conception, because this will be shopping malls and supermarket district instead of unaligned space.

I think all the stuff stored in a conquerable station, should be made for sale for free, until the supply's are used up if the station is conquered.

The reason for this, rather then just transferring it all to the conquerer, is that as the player count grows, it will become impossible for the conqueror to unload all the crap in anything resembling a timely fashion.

strat - i suppose i did get a bit ahead of myself. yeah.

pirren - you know those big things you fly your ship into and buy stuff at? those station things? the only reason they are there is because they are a "shopping mall" thing. it's just a market that could sell addons and crap whereas they sell NOTHING right now.. so the station exists for no reason.
EDIT - don't think supermarket.. think BLACK MARKET YARRR.. gimme some black market valks mofo!

LNH - yeah. maybe that is better... not having the station lockers be totally wiped clean or stolen when the station is taken.. could see some ragequits coming out of that for surez. (which is also kinda funny, but not really productive)

I wouldn't be against having station inventory or sale items at some level of risk if the station is conquered. We just need to be careful not to make the risks outweigh the benefits. It's important that people actually use this when implemented, otherwise it's all for nothing. I imagine this will be a point of much debate and I believe it has been already in other previous threads. However, I think most of us can agree that the store idea in general is something important for the future of VO's economy.

One feasible test:

Make conquerable stations "Buy" items, for 0c.
Item is stored as [player.item.seq#].

To establish a price, the owner must take a mission "Bazaar" in station. This mission list the items and queries for prices.

Then it appear as regular station item, as [item.seq#] for unique prices.

To receive credits from any sell, owner must again take mission "Bazaar". Then station pays owner.

To cancel offer, the player simply purchases it back and then is refund in "Bazaar".

1st month limits, to be evaluated:
* 10 items per player during 1st month.
* no transaction fee.

---
Sample Scenario
P1 sells to station one N3 for 0c
P1 takes Bazaar mission and set price 1234c
---
P2 purchases (p1.n3.01) for 1234c
---
P1 takes Bazaar mission and receives 1234c

I tried to use as much as possible existing VO UI elements...

I'd prefer not to do this with the poor old mission interface. We've already temporarily squeezed crafting into it. A new interface would be ideal. It wouldn't have to be anything fancy, just something that's intuitive and customized for these functions.

Yes, the mission interface seems a bit strained for doing this kind of thing. Besides, if your halfway across the universe, why would you want to go all the way over to the station just to *check* if you got any sales? The occasional seller might never get around to it.

[Stamp of Approval]™