Forums » Suggestions
I know there's been talk from the devs of imposing storage limits, but I've been putting some thought into just HOW it should happen.
Let's face it, storage limits will suck. They will suck, because almost everyone here occasionally stockpiles goods or weapons for later sale or use.
I had touched on it briefly in my UI storyboard suggestion
http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/3122/vouistoryboard3nt.png
but really didn't go into depth (and, I suspect, nobody read it anyway)
So here it is: the in-depth version of my storage space idea:
Free space is limited to the capacity of one behemoth load of cargo. Storage of up to 12 pieces of equipment and 3-5 ships is also provided at no charge. Additional storage space would cost.
How would it cost?
You should have two options; you can rent extra storage space by the unit, and pay by the day while you use it, or you can buy it outright and be free to use the extra space at your discretion with no extra charge.
1. Renting Space
Renting space would be the cheap, effective way of securing extra storage space for something like a day of fighting (to stockpile ships/weapons) or a long trade or mining marathon in which you want to sell all your cargo at the end of the day. Rates should be low, but high enough to keep people from just putting stuff in storage and leaving it there. Something like 200 credits per unit of cargo space, per day, and 10,000 credits per extra weapon bin/ship bay per day (extra weapon bins would hold 20 weapons, ship bays hold 3-5 ships).
2. Buying Space
Buying space is for those places where you'll need the extra storage space with regularity. Instances such as a frequent staging area where you maintain a stockpile of weapons, or the end of a profitable trade route that you run frequently, or perhaps a station where you store and stockpile ore while waiting for the prices to go up. Buying space would be expensive - very expensive. A permanent extra weapon bin could cost upwards of 150,000 credits, and a ship bay a similar price. Extra cargo room could be bought by the unit, or by the bay, with a bay holding 100cu of cargo, and costing 250,000 credits.
Perhaps purchased cargo room could be lent back to the station, allowing them to use your unused cargo space for a low charge (1/2 to 1/4 of what it costs to rent, paid daily), so that you could in time, earn some of your money back.
Moneysink? definately! Good? Probably...
Let's face it, storage limits will suck. They will suck, because almost everyone here occasionally stockpiles goods or weapons for later sale or use.
I had touched on it briefly in my UI storyboard suggestion
http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/3122/vouistoryboard3nt.png
but really didn't go into depth (and, I suspect, nobody read it anyway)
So here it is: the in-depth version of my storage space idea:
Free space is limited to the capacity of one behemoth load of cargo. Storage of up to 12 pieces of equipment and 3-5 ships is also provided at no charge. Additional storage space would cost.
How would it cost?
You should have two options; you can rent extra storage space by the unit, and pay by the day while you use it, or you can buy it outright and be free to use the extra space at your discretion with no extra charge.
1. Renting Space
Renting space would be the cheap, effective way of securing extra storage space for something like a day of fighting (to stockpile ships/weapons) or a long trade or mining marathon in which you want to sell all your cargo at the end of the day. Rates should be low, but high enough to keep people from just putting stuff in storage and leaving it there. Something like 200 credits per unit of cargo space, per day, and 10,000 credits per extra weapon bin/ship bay per day (extra weapon bins would hold 20 weapons, ship bays hold 3-5 ships).
2. Buying Space
Buying space is for those places where you'll need the extra storage space with regularity. Instances such as a frequent staging area where you maintain a stockpile of weapons, or the end of a profitable trade route that you run frequently, or perhaps a station where you store and stockpile ore while waiting for the prices to go up. Buying space would be expensive - very expensive. A permanent extra weapon bin could cost upwards of 150,000 credits, and a ship bay a similar price. Extra cargo room could be bought by the unit, or by the bay, with a bay holding 100cu of cargo, and costing 250,000 credits.
Perhaps purchased cargo room could be lent back to the station, allowing them to use your unused cargo space for a low charge (1/2 to 1/4 of what it costs to rent, paid daily), so that you could in time, earn some of your money back.
Moneysink? definately! Good? Probably...
I like this idea. It would be more realistic and prevent the hoarding, even if just for a little bit.
It would also increase the possibilities for player interaction, especially if the available room on the stations were limited.
It would also increase the possibilities for player interaction, especially if the available room on the stations were limited.
I don't care for #1 because I might need MANY days to let prices rise to the point I can make a maximum profit on goods or ore.
I don't like #2 because it's too expensive per unit of storage and would take all the profit out of trading runs. Further, such small amounts of expensive storage would be useless for ore stockpiling.
I'm not trying to be too critical because you have at least thought about this a little bit. Just the act of limiting station storage is going to have to change the way a lot of people play.
I can't wait to see this whole new "scratch built" economy in action. Should be interesting, as in "May you live in interesting times".
I don't like #2 because it's too expensive per unit of storage and would take all the profit out of trading runs. Further, such small amounts of expensive storage would be useless for ore stockpiling.
I'm not trying to be too critical because you have at least thought about this a little bit. Just the act of limiting station storage is going to have to change the way a lot of people play.
I can't wait to see this whole new "scratch built" economy in action. Should be interesting, as in "May you live in interesting times".
i like the idea (the number probably need revisiting as they are most likely based on how much money somone can make now, rather than how much somone could make with these restrictions in place).
i think the more elusive issue is what hapens to all of our curent stockpiles when the limits are first introduced?
i'd say the best solution would be for all stored cargo, weapons, and ships to automaticlay liquidate at their local sell values (becuase it would be the easiest for those of us who don't actualy know what we have and ware, and would compensate thos who had large portions of their wealth in the form of ships and/or cargo.
however i expect that idea to be unpopular amoung those who collect rare widgets as well as those who stockpile ore.
i think the more elusive issue is what hapens to all of our curent stockpiles when the limits are first introduced?
i'd say the best solution would be for all stored cargo, weapons, and ships to automaticlay liquidate at their local sell values (becuase it would be the easiest for those of us who don't actualy know what we have and ware, and would compensate thos who had large portions of their wealth in the form of ships and/or cargo.
however i expect that idea to be unpopular amoung those who collect rare widgets as well as those who stockpile ore.
Love this idea, Cunjo. Renting space is the perfect way to keep the hoarding down and is also a good money sink. There was a looong discussion about this that related to that crafting thread from 6 months ago.
Jakob - renting space to store all your crap is realistic and will be NECESSARY for the dynamic economy, sez I. Setting arbitraty limits on storage per station is the wrong way to go about it.
Stations can be viewed as "infinite boxes" of storage, but you'll have to pay for every cu that you store there. Depending on how far the devs want to delve into the realism of economics, stations could (in order of increasing realism)\:
1. Popular stations could charge MORE for storage- i.e. Pelatus bunker would be ultra-cheap, but Sedina D-14 would be very expensive for storage. If every player stores 3000 N3's at Sedina D-14, then the entire station charges more for storage.
2. Stations would actually have limited space, and then the rules of scarcity would apply, with even more dramatic effects than #1, above.
3. Station "A.I." could figure out how to expand the station, would require resources to do so, therefore components would need to be purchased & delivered to teh station, which would need to be making money from storage in order to use the components to "add" extra space. If business dropped off, the station could either charge more per unit in order to make up the difference, or downsize.
4. Same as #3, but the actual physical outside dimensions of the station change and it's visible as to what stations are popular and which stations are not.
...and *I* read your UI suggestions, Cunjo...
Jakob - renting space to store all your crap is realistic and will be NECESSARY for the dynamic economy, sez I. Setting arbitraty limits on storage per station is the wrong way to go about it.
Stations can be viewed as "infinite boxes" of storage, but you'll have to pay for every cu that you store there. Depending on how far the devs want to delve into the realism of economics, stations could (in order of increasing realism)\:
1. Popular stations could charge MORE for storage- i.e. Pelatus bunker would be ultra-cheap, but Sedina D-14 would be very expensive for storage. If every player stores 3000 N3's at Sedina D-14, then the entire station charges more for storage.
2. Stations would actually have limited space, and then the rules of scarcity would apply, with even more dramatic effects than #1, above.
3. Station "A.I." could figure out how to expand the station, would require resources to do so, therefore components would need to be purchased & delivered to teh station, which would need to be making money from storage in order to use the components to "add" extra space. If business dropped off, the station could either charge more per unit in order to make up the difference, or downsize.
4. Same as #3, but the actual physical outside dimensions of the station change and it's visible as to what stations are popular and which stations are not.
...and *I* read your UI suggestions, Cunjo...
Love the Idea, but alteast make the stations look bigger so it looks like it can store lots of room!
Jakob:
You'd have to buy the extra storage en-masse in either of those cases. Yes, it would be expensive and take a LONG time for the cost to break even with the advantage, but that's to be expected when you're buying en-masse.
Yes, it will require some gameplay adjustments, as well as some economic adjustments if it happens. For example, you might choose to simply -not mine- in a location until the price is high enough that you could reasonaly mine and sell it in one day.
On the subject of initial implementation, it would be a simple matter to liquidate all stocks in excess of the alloted amount. We can assume it's not going to happen all at once, so players would have an advance warning to sell the stuff they don't want on their own, and distribute what they want to keep.
Leebs: 3 sounds nice, but might be hard to do...
I was thinking to keep it reasonable, the cost of additional space woudl increase proportionally to how much additional space is already in use at a station. There wouldn't be a hard limit, of course, but pricing should reflect demand (not necessarily availability, because you would have INFINATE availability - it's just that there would come a point when nobody would pay up for more) Prices would have to be mutual though (player A pays the same price per additional unit as player B, who had paid earlier on) which would mean adjusting a static rate based on projected (current) demand, and then perhaps making it go up the more you buy.
Blacklight:
Well, considering the stations now have INFINATE storage space at NO COST, I really don't see how making them bigger is an issue of storage space... it's more an issue of "just make bigger stations", which, as I recall, has sprung up in a number of different threads lately =P
You'd have to buy the extra storage en-masse in either of those cases. Yes, it would be expensive and take a LONG time for the cost to break even with the advantage, but that's to be expected when you're buying en-masse.
Yes, it will require some gameplay adjustments, as well as some economic adjustments if it happens. For example, you might choose to simply -not mine- in a location until the price is high enough that you could reasonaly mine and sell it in one day.
On the subject of initial implementation, it would be a simple matter to liquidate all stocks in excess of the alloted amount. We can assume it's not going to happen all at once, so players would have an advance warning to sell the stuff they don't want on their own, and distribute what they want to keep.
Leebs: 3 sounds nice, but might be hard to do...
I was thinking to keep it reasonable, the cost of additional space woudl increase proportionally to how much additional space is already in use at a station. There wouldn't be a hard limit, of course, but pricing should reflect demand (not necessarily availability, because you would have INFINATE availability - it's just that there would come a point when nobody would pay up for more) Prices would have to be mutual though (player A pays the same price per additional unit as player B, who had paid earlier on) which would mean adjusting a static rate based on projected (current) demand, and then perhaps making it go up the more you buy.
Blacklight:
Well, considering the stations now have INFINATE storage space at NO COST, I really don't see how making them bigger is an issue of storage space... it's more an issue of "just make bigger stations", which, as I recall, has sprung up in a number of different threads lately =P
If you are going to limit the storage space on the station, when more people start joining, there will be no practical use to have a full station and not being able to store anything else, by making the stations bigger, it could very well add more space!
No Hard limits... expense defined by projected amount of storge space needed per the average player, not accumulative.
Stations should be bigger, but that's another discussion.
Stations should be bigger, but that's another discussion.
I am sorry I did not get to this earlier, but grad school has eaten up far more of my time than I thought it might...
So, station storage... I know that LeberMac and I went over this a fair bit, and some other people had at least a couple comments in there (terribly sorry I do not remember who) I also read Cunjo's UI stuff, but that was a while ago and I forget it ATM.. Anyway, I do like the idea of having different types of storage, but I disagree with the prices. Also, I must note that I beleive equipment should be in CUs, so you should not need separate storage for ore and weapons, just stuff and ships.
First, I think there should be 4 types of storage: free, permanent, long-term, mid-term, and short-term. Free storage should be very small, short-term is by day, mid-term is weekly, and permanent is self-explanatory. Also, all stations around planets should be considered to have infinite space as far as renting storage is concerned.
* I think that free storage should be 2 ships and 100 CU at every nation station. This is plenty for newbies; everyone else can get used to paying for storing much of anything.
* I think that short-term storage should cost about 1cr / 2cu / day; 500cr / ship / day. This charge would be assessed every 12 hours, would be calculated from your current storage compared with your storage 24 hours ago, and you would only pay for what you stored for at least 24 hours (e.g. t-0 I have 12 CU, t-1 I have 167 CU, t-3 I have 10 CU and pay 5cr for it). This is low enough to not hurt small storers and to allow a short wait-time for selling low-cost goods (however, read elsewhere my ideas on the market(s)). Any time your storage exceeds your owned and rented storage, it counts as short-term storage.
* I think that mid-term storage should cost about 2cr / 1cu / week; 2000cr / ship / week and long-term storage should cost about 5cr / 1cu / month; 5000cr / ship / month. These charges would be assessed daily, however, unlike short-term storage, you have to actively decide to rent mid- to long-term storage, and you pay for it even if you do not use it.
Permanent storage would only be available on player-owned stations, which will not have infinite storage capacity. Stations without planets will all have to build storage components/expansions and thus will appear larger with many.
Most current station storage costs should be stable and not reflect demand because it will be much easier to balance the new economy, initially, including tweaking/training any A.I. Storage at non-planet station can then have demand-influenced storage costs added.
So, station storage... I know that LeberMac and I went over this a fair bit, and some other people had at least a couple comments in there (terribly sorry I do not remember who) I also read Cunjo's UI stuff, but that was a while ago and I forget it ATM.. Anyway, I do like the idea of having different types of storage, but I disagree with the prices. Also, I must note that I beleive equipment should be in CUs, so you should not need separate storage for ore and weapons, just stuff and ships.
First, I think there should be 4 types of storage: free, permanent, long-term, mid-term, and short-term. Free storage should be very small, short-term is by day, mid-term is weekly, and permanent is self-explanatory. Also, all stations around planets should be considered to have infinite space as far as renting storage is concerned.
* I think that free storage should be 2 ships and 100 CU at every nation station. This is plenty for newbies; everyone else can get used to paying for storing much of anything.
* I think that short-term storage should cost about 1cr / 2cu / day; 500cr / ship / day. This charge would be assessed every 12 hours, would be calculated from your current storage compared with your storage 24 hours ago, and you would only pay for what you stored for at least 24 hours (e.g. t-0 I have 12 CU, t-1 I have 167 CU, t-3 I have 10 CU and pay 5cr for it). This is low enough to not hurt small storers and to allow a short wait-time for selling low-cost goods (however, read elsewhere my ideas on the market(s)). Any time your storage exceeds your owned and rented storage, it counts as short-term storage.
* I think that mid-term storage should cost about 2cr / 1cu / week; 2000cr / ship / week and long-term storage should cost about 5cr / 1cu / month; 5000cr / ship / month. These charges would be assessed daily, however, unlike short-term storage, you have to actively decide to rent mid- to long-term storage, and you pay for it even if you do not use it.
Permanent storage would only be available on player-owned stations, which will not have infinite storage capacity. Stations without planets will all have to build storage components/expansions and thus will appear larger with many.
Most current station storage costs should be stable and not reflect demand because it will be much easier to balance the new economy, initially, including tweaking/training any A.I. Storage at non-planet station can then have demand-influenced storage costs added.
Isn't this going to be implemented already? I distinctly remember the Devs saying so a while back. Some free space for stuff and ships, then a money sink for more stuff and more ships, per station.
If you use the beta client, you can see that items that aren't in a ship show up in the station inventory as in a "Storage Container"...
Interesting. Very interesting. I anticipate permanent sorage needs for me in a few high cost helio markets and near my mining areas.
I like LordCommander's suggestion, probably because it costs less. In reality, if you bridge LordCommander's payment plan idea and a bit less of Cunjo's cost, you're in the ballpark of what it'll cost (or should cost). It's going to be an annoying bill, like in RL -.-
I like LordCommander's suggestion, probably because it costs less. In reality, if you bridge LordCommander's payment plan idea and a bit less of Cunjo's cost, you're in the ballpark of what it'll cost (or should cost). It's going to be an annoying bill, like in RL -.-
LC, I like some of your ideas, but I feel inclined to point out that a limit of 2 ships may be a bit low - 3 would better fulfill most daily needs.
I do still believe that storage should cost more than you're suggesting, although the limits on free storage should be slightly higher, to give people a better alternative to paying it if they're low on funds. When you consider the potential for revenue from each unit of cargo stored, it easily justifies higher pricing.
with regards to by-cu storage of weapons though, I agree. that is another thing I would like to see with the addition of the ability to transport weapons in the cargo hold.
I do still believe that storage should cost more than you're suggesting, although the limits on free storage should be slightly higher, to give people a better alternative to paying it if they're low on funds. When you consider the potential for revenue from each unit of cargo stored, it easily justifies higher pricing.
with regards to by-cu storage of weapons though, I agree. that is another thing I would like to see with the addition of the ability to transport weapons in the cargo hold.
um, you ment LostCommander, right? 'cuz i haven't said anything regarding how much things should cost or how many ships should be stored.
although i do think the eventual values will have to be drasticly lower than your original sugestion, but that will depend on a lot of variables with regards to to the eventual econamy redesigne.
although i do think the eventual values will have to be drasticly lower than your original sugestion, but that will depend on a lot of variables with regards to to the eventual econamy redesigne.
Yes, jexkerome, I believe this is being implemented already, but I thought this was for suggestions as to details/specifics.
I meant the free space to be below daily needs - it should basically always cost something except for the bare minimum. Besides, do you really need more than 1-2 extra ships in EVERY nation station. I think this is much more reasonable for when the game moves away from space-quake, thus hopefully significantly reducing the number of new ships needed per-hour.
Also, I could see scaling cost per storage CU based on the minimum value of Basic ___ Ore after the economy redux and reset by the same, updated basis every 3 months.
I meant the free space to be below daily needs - it should basically always cost something except for the bare minimum. Besides, do you really need more than 1-2 extra ships in EVERY nation station. I think this is much more reasonable for when the game moves away from space-quake, thus hopefully significantly reducing the number of new ships needed per-hour.
Also, I could see scaling cost per storage CU based on the minimum value of Basic ___ Ore after the economy redux and reset by the same, updated basis every 3 months.
/me pushes the game away from Space-Quake as well.
Make death mean something, and the economics of respawning cost something, and then we'll have a more interesting game.
Make death mean something, and the economics of respawning cost something, and then we'll have a more interesting game.
I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR REPAIRS TO YOUR SHIP.
Yeah that, too. And I'd like different stations have different skill levels and/or different cost structures for doing those repairs.
And I see Sarahanne is back with a Vengeance on the boards. Yelling, even... :)
And I see Sarahanne is back with a Vengeance on the boards. Yelling, even... :)
Well at least Leber is paying attention to me. :P