Ship cost increase could lead directly to an increase in "Medic" players. It could, in fact, become a very lucrative trade...

On a side note, I think the AGW should cost more than the TPG Atlases. The wraith is supposed to be a fighter-bomber, whereas the atlas is supposed to be a trade-ship first and foremost. But I hava a thread somewhere on how the Wraith should be a better figher than the Atlas, so perhaps that needs to be changed first...

well, I think UncleDave has a point. right now, the game revolves around PvP and these costs will make PvP a lot harder to just keep doing with no other concerns. so, uhm, will people trade for a while to be able to PvP for a bit? maybe, maybe not.

the problem won't be running, the problem will be finding people to fight. why bother going to grey? what's in it for a trader right now? imagine a trader who stands to loose a lot of cash from his ship as well. Corvus faction? why do you *need* it? more cash? not really, grey has some good routes, but they're not *that* great, especially compared to the risk of losing a ship.

this will also create a larger distinction between good players and the rest of the player base. since good players won't need to trade nearly as much as the average Joe. with better bots and better AIs, it'll also make botting more expensive and more annoying.

if prices are radically changed, there should also be some radical changes in the PvP and PvE rewards out there. I'm not saying that missions and trade need to result in more money, because the rewards are fine compared to the prices suggested, but if it'll be required to do a fair bit of trading, making it a bit more interesting than it is today is highly suggested.

I don't want to spark a big debate on this, I'd like to keep this thread mostly on the topic of ship-pricing.. but I do not think that "running" should be a reason to not increase ship prices. Running is another problem entirely, and one which may-or-may-not have been relatively "fixed". Running in and of itself isn't inherently bad, as some people point out, it just shouldn't be trivially easy. I even advocate supporting forms of "running", through Stealth or Decoy addons and the like. Just not simple, pointlessly easy running that negates all in-game risk. If it still is a problem, then it should be addressed, elsewhere.

There were points in the Test era when the economy was well balanced, and running was possible but not easy, death had economic meaning and I would frequently go broke trying to defend some flag-capture attempt. I traded my way back from being broke (I never money-cheated on my alts), sometimes losing cargo runs to the pirates of the day, but I always enjoyed the fact that it felt like it had meaning. The pirates meaningfully appreciated their livelyhood being bostered through my loss, and my loss had meaning to me. Does anyone even care if they pirate people anymore? I mean, you do it to shoot people and to "play" the pirate, and it's probably frustrating to the person being pirated, but where's the point? It's not like you *need* to anymore. People using /explode to teleport across the universe is a pretty good indication that ship loss no longer has any import whatsoever.

And yet, as people have said, we don't want to completely negate the value of instant, free-for-all combat. The ability to jump into the game and fight someone without spending a ton of time worrying about your snazzy ship. Well, for the short term my solution lies in the balance of ship costs. If "midrange" ships are still pretty cost-effective (say in the 5 grand range) and decent, and only the highest level ships are ultra-expensive, then it stands to reason that we should be able to still have Fun Combat with lower end ships. Some of you guys will remember when we had the "black market" station in Sector 18, where you could buy a Valk if you were Serco and so forth, but paying a premium of 30k or some such. And people who went through that (while the economy was still balanced, at least) would treat those ships like garage queens.. like the guy with the Ferrari who won't drive it if it looks like rain. Because it was a major pain to buy them, they cost a lot and even reaching sector 18 was a bit of a sojurn. The acquisition and loss of those vessels had *meaning*. I imagine the same would be true of the person with a RevC or fancy Prom. If they wanted to dance around and shoot some people in Sedina B8, they'd probably pick a cheap vulture instead, saving their "nice" ship for more important activities.

I don't really think this would negatively impact newbies, or cause them to try less ship configs. On the contrary, I think people would be *more* inclined to try ship configs that were known to be "less ideal" simply because they were more economically feasable.

Terjekv makes a valuable point though. In the past eras of economic balance and stability, we had a small universe that was easy to statically balance. Short runs in your home nation didn't get you much, but you could do a lot of them in relative safety. Still, most of us went for the riskier "big score" long runs that would take us through S8/S14 or other areas where pirates would frequently lie in wait. If there isn't a point to going to the dangerous places, then no one will go there. And that, along with the rest of the economy and PvE goals, will have to be re-assessed (and is, I'm just starting small with this topic).

Well put, Incarnate!

Incarnate:

The last paragraph of your post is the sticking point. An increase in ship prices needs a balancing increase in reasons to go dangerous places, otherwise people will simply avoid dangerous places or avoid combat with anyone they think they might lose against. Please don't raise ship prices dramatically until there are at least a few missions or incentives to bring people together in combat.

well, uhm, how lucerative should going to grey be? I mean, what risks are we talking about? is the population of traders and pirates balanced to the point where we can say that players will offer both the risk for traders (by having pirates) and rewards for pirates (by having enough traders)? make the rewards too high, and anyone trading while checking the player list can make a killing with no risk. make the rewards to low, and they won't come at all. maybe some NPC corvus pirates (who attack anyone with <800 corvus, pirates or traders or CtC transports, no matter) might help?

as for border patrol, a change in the economy will make border patrol a very different beast. I'd like to see BP have a relevance outside the skirmish itself (akin to CtC, there are goals over time) before we ask people to spend money for few real rewards.

I don't just mean going to grey. I mean some incentive to engage in combat to the death. Running *should* be possible, but if it's possible and death is such a big problem, people will take that option instead of sticking around.

What I'm asking for is incentives to do things that reward you enough for sticking around in, or punish you for leaving, a fight. That doesn't necessarily mean, "Make grey space stations super profitable", although making them more profitable might be part of the solution - it means making more PvP missions with penalties for losing, or victory conditions that require you to be in a sector and make a certain number of kills. Or something along those lines.

So, ready to roll, does this mean we'll see it soon?

Oooorrr.... Making your Kill-to-death ratio be a limiting factor in which weapons you can buy? Almost like a license level? Perhaps work it into your combat levels?

Or, maybe just Kills? Kinda like the Adv Rails.
You need:
10 player kills to be able to use Neut Mk 2's
25 player kills to be able to use Neut Mk 3's

(I know that the PK to Death ratio limiter would hurt me a great deal, tho I could live with the straight PK limiter)

Or would bot kills count? Say 50 Bot kills = 1 PK, come up with some formula for your "Deadliness" and make the higher-level weaps require better "Deadliness"/combat skills.

The Point: And you have to kill PLAYERS to become better. Or insane amounts of Bots. PvP would naturally be encouraged.

Incarnate makes a good point... people will probably use the lower end ships for extended free-for-alls which is more fun anyway.

Yay buswars!

Its ok if the price of the equipment is high enough. But can I have some insurance? For example free reequipment 3 times a week? Or the ship wreck can be saved...

Just imagine: you spend all your money to buy a new ship and lose it at station gate because of a pirat raid.

Regards,

Darkwood

Even during the so called balanced test people would do /explodes to get to another place quickly. To me it seems that this increase in available money is there due to the nonexpected profitability of BP. And I can hardly believe that there is nowhere any statistical reference for each player to the amount of money received through it.

Just reduce BP money a bit more, and do this retroactively while clearing out the total inventory (after reimbursing the money from the ships). Then make a small increase to the hullcost of all ships. (x2 or x3). But not as exorbant as proposed by various other people.

And phaser, I am more inclined to not see people go along with these free for alls if the prices get increased as drastically. Since why should they be punished for not being able to play 24/24. Just watch at the decreased amount of people doing capbattles or ctc (boring and not worth the loss) or... And really come on, people can only become better by practicing, and usually this demands a death from one of the sides. And low prices attract experimenting.

And please ctishman, how can people learn to fly ships if these ships are to expensive to loose for a person? The game needs to stay entertainable for the people that can play like 1 - 3 hours a day (which it is at the moment), not for the people that can play 24/24 and have all the time in the world to play and earn enough money to sustain these expesnive ships in battles and free for alls. As if it isn't enough that these people are more skilled, now they should also be allowed to have an equipment advantage.

But in the end it isn't my decission. But all in all, it seems more to be a last resort to create diversity by adding another balancing factor. Then implimenting it to solve the economic problem.

PS: if you want to add moneysinks then make the moneysinks items that change the exterior of the ship but not its fightingabilities. Ergo: buy a standard prom skycommand hull at a reasonable cost. Make the moneysink the ability to change the colours of the ships, the positioning of some dockingports, naming of ships,etc. These are items that do not impede on the competivity or the fun, but just aesthetic items that caress a persons ego.

For all I care you add x versions of the bus to have the same fightingcapaibilities (stats) as the cents (mk1, mk2 etc) or the other ships and let them keep the same low price as we have now, or a slightly hightened price. And then make the nice looking ones x times more expensive as now.

50k a rev c...I don't make that much money, especially after the war with another guild but, that's over. I'm not saying I can't survive w/o the rev c but isn't that price really steep. I'm wouldn't want to pay 50k + weps and battery for a ship that will probobly get popped by swarms and rockets since they seem to be very cheap. For 50k the rev better be able to do alot more than it can now, like the energy drain and everything.

Just change you flight style so that ships are no longer throw-away. Combat will probably be much slower in the expensive ships (using cover, etc), but perhaps?

Making money is absurdly easy. Raising ship prices will make Making money IMPORTANT. As it stands, once you hit a million, you can fly for weeks without generating another dime of income. It shouldn't work like that. These changes will deffinately help.

Tumble, the fun is not in the making money, the fun for me is/was the fighting with people the pvp (duels, wars) and pve (blast bots) part. Not the dullingly unfun steps of fetch item x here and bring it there congratulations you have succeeded here is your reward.

Being chased by a pierat or whatever, makes it for me not much more entertainable (but im not going to go into that discussion once again).

But a newbie that finally amasses a mill, will lose it quickly once he starts going to grey and do some pvp. Make money less readilly available and all you will accomplish is newbies staying newbies longer and being prey for the more elitist people. Since in vendetta, advancement walks hand in hand with loss. And the suggestions I heard will only make loss way more painfull in stead of a necessary evil. As if constantly losing isn't a bitter pill enough, now you guys want to add to it wasting 30 mins of playtime on trading.

If you look at inc's numbers, basic versions of vultures, hogs, etc.. are still easy to buy.

But the ships on the verge of being unbalanced are not. What's wrong with that?

I've been flying the Hog mk III and Vult mk III the last few days. And honestly, I do fine.

I can't always keep up with the zippy rev C's but I have a good chance.

Don't fly an expensive ship if you don't want to lose money.

My point is that a prom mk1 flies diffeently from a prom skycommand. And that learning to fly a skycommand even if it is somewhat powerfull is already a costly experience and necessary if you want to be able to say you know how to fly one. Just as well as terkjev needed a lot of practice using rails properly on different shiptypes and agaisnt different shiptypes you have the same item with any other shiptype no matter if it is an mk1, mk2 or...

Besides shape, saying that you can do adequately agaisnt other people in 'lesser' versions and so can anybody else is like saying checkmaster x has beaten computer y (that supercomputer). This means that any other jack joe can beat that computer also...

expendable equipment means that there will be no mission which gives you a better ship or gun. Only money, licenses, contracts.

The missions losts a lot of atractiveness.

Regards,

Darkwood

Guh.
Just make grey space 3x's more profitable and keep nation space the same.
Of course the deeper into grey you go = more mula.
This will encourage pirating if you don't want to trade.
Also if this is done then pirating needs to be made MUCH easier.
Turboing in a straight line with the moth works almost all the time unless the chaser has a valk with 2 flares and 1 neut II.
Even then, all you have to do is put some mines on and your good to go.