So do you guys think that crystal will give a higher value to ships owned by a f2p player? How will this effect gameplay?

I think it may. People may become more concerned about dying in some cases. On the other hand, the quantity of crystal required is so low right now, that I don't expect people to be very concerned. I considered this during design, obviously, but I think with the right balance of cost-vs-acquisition, it'll work out. We'll have to wait and see what other effects emerge, particularly as we tweak values, acquisition rates and crystal-costs for the better content.

At 10 crystals for a Rag MkIII, things like Border Skirmishes and station battles could get really expensive really fast.

People on mobiles can't participate properly in station battles anyway, they're just going to avoid the content altogether if it means losing their ships which they purchased with crystal.

Will there be any kind of visual/ID that distinguishes a crystal or IAP purchased ship from others? I, for one, would like to know whether the ship in my crosshairs might be particularly valuable to its pilot, or if I should just shoot & loot without any offer of quarter.

There shouldn't be any marker to distinguish. If you, for one, would like to know whether you should kill a pilot or not, then ask like all the other sad pirates in the game before opening fire.

There should be absolutely no way to know whether a player is using one subscription method or another to play the game. Just like there is no means of knowing whether a player is on android or pc or mac etc. Such things only serve to identify weaknesses in game play interface to exploit. Morally, just a smidge above someone who outright cheats with exploitative scripts.

A possible solution to participating in missions that have a risky nature is to reduce the cost or perhaps eliminate the cost in crystals if your ship is destroyed by NPC and instead revert back to the regular currency for re-purchase. I haven't looked into it, but i assume both currencies exist for Free to play users. Just some things use crystals and some use the original. It shouldn't be too much of a change to make NPC kills dictate cost for these players. We obviously dont want to enforce a miner or nation only userbase who is reluctant to travel interact much at all with the game's combat aspects.

If NPC death is not much different than regular subscribers, then it really makes PvP interactions extremely important. Both in trust and teamwork, and in the function of those silly pirates where now asking for payment actually means something more than an annoying 10 minutes of redoing what you were just doing with no actual drawbacks.

Kill 'em all and let the rage quits sort it out. Works for me :D

The cool part is they won't bother asking you to compensate them for the ship you just boomed because they know you don't have crystal.

I see that I get 1Cr added to my account for a kill. Where is the ledger for my account posted so I know what Crystals I've accumulated?

Where is the ledger for my account posted so I know what Crystals I've accumulated?

It shows your current number of Crystal in the info floater on the lower right-hand corner of the PDA/menu (which, incidentally, is also a button to get to the In App Purchase interface).

We don't have a ledger in the form of a progress log, which shows what crystal you received for which type of task. Although that would be kind of interesting. I think it does print it in the chat field, so you can scroll back there.

Incarnate, about 3 years ago, I tried writing a ledger plugin for tracking credits. It works fairly well, but I was never fully able to get the Border Skirmish reimbursements working right, and I never did implement Bounties, plus it has some performance issues. I'm not terribly proud of the UI code (my early days of figuring out IUP). It could probably be extended in some way to track crystal expenditures, though a standalone might be better.

Regardless, it would be nice if the information from credit and crystal purchases was a little more detailed than it currently is, regardless of where or how it's printed. Especially considering there is zero indication of ship reimbursements from border skirmishes.

Hi Incarnate, I checked the lower right corner info roster. There is no info about crystals there. There is an option button that when pressed will lead u to a page that gives u the option to purchase play time, Lite and Premium. But no crystal info or option to purchase.

And yes, the Cr added to ur account is posted each time in the main chat window so u can look back in history. Where this account is, idk. Nothing accessible or visible on iPad 2 yet.

People on mobiles can't participate properly in station battles anyway,

Can and do.

but I was never fully able to get the Border Skirmish reimbursements working right

That's because there is no indication at all from the game when you are reimbursed, which sucks. Newbs don't even believe it happens. I put in a ticket for this once...

Where this account is, idk. Nothing accessible or visible on iPad 2 yet.

Crystal has not yet been rolled out onto the iPad version. We're still working on that. Until it happens, you will not be able to properly see everything displayed there. Also, if you have a Premium subscription account, you will not see Crystal displayed on your interface, as you don't have to deal with it.