I think I'll try my hand at this bull shit that's been bandied about lately called 'immersion'. First, let me preface my suggestion by saying using 'immersion' as a rationale is fucking bull shit. Immersion does not happen because some formula has been met. Immersion happens when one becomes so involved in what they are doing that the bits that don't fit, the elements that may seem 'cartoonish' are insubstantial to the activity engaged in because of the intense enjoyment being had.

I used to be immersed in VO, on a number of characters and a variety of activities from trade to piracy to nationalism. I used to be immersed to the degree that I resented anything apart from work and sleep that took me away from playing VO. That does not happen for me anymore on any char or activity. These days the only thing interesting about VO is trolling the forums, so yeah, maybe I still am immersed.

That said, in the spirit of 'immersion' it seems ridiculous to me that players can typically own hundreds of ships and have them scattered about many stations. If VO is headed towards a realistic economy, the cookie cutter McShip $0.99 menu just isn't going to work. It is absurd enough to think that a player can magically re-spawn, but being able to do so at a negligible cost is living in fantasy land.

A players ship should be their most significant investment, and a reasonable player should only be able to afford a handful to accommodate different tasks. They should be far more customizable and nameable. First off, there needs to be a couple of zero's added to the ship prices. Next, ships need to become part of the dynamic economy so that price and availability vary- a player should not be able to buy several hundred X1's as I've done, nor should they be able to stockpile hundreds of their favorite weapons and power cells at key stations ( which another thread debated )

Will this make VO more fun, in some ways yes. I would certainly enjoy working my way towards a better ship and equipment - the license system is an asinine way to do this. Would it kill PVP and just about all nationalist and other conflict? Pretty much. Would traders be willing to pay? You betcha! Would armed conflicts when they happen actually have more meaning? Sure! Will this harm VO's playability and long term prospects? I suspect so.

The important thing to remember here, is that what is lost in playability is more than made up for in 'immersion'. Its time to make that decision, Space Quake or MMORG.

troll.

I do not think that adding a set of 0's to the tab is going to end the "problem" of people having too many ships. If anything, you can start by doing what was suggested in another thread (I think started by ladron) and charge for storing said ships. Now, that amount you can make as large as you like and thus push players towards only having the ships they need instead of stockpiling X-1's through the nose. How the ratio is going to be set (how many free ships, or any free ships), I do not know. But I know that the community has strong feelings on the matter.

Putting a too high tab on ships will make it too difficult for new players to ever gain the skills they need for fighting. It would probably end PvP as well and make traders/miners/other persons who don't much like rats, hate them even more, thus adding to the already shrill tone of semi-hatred in the forum and to some extent the game.

Oh, and yeah. Immersion troll:)

Despite polluting a perfectly reasonable topic with flamebait sauce, trying to cover up the fact that he can't, for the life of himself, actually come up with any specifics for the general idea... it is a perfectly reasonable topic. A player should only be able to own one ship at a time, with the possibility open to rent basic variant ships to collect a bulk of dropped cargo (renting as in: only good for one outing, must dock at original renting location) or some other misc task. I also disagree with "adding two zeros to the end of ship prices" (or in the minor academics' terms: multiplying ship costs by 100)... I would much rather decrease the amount of credits earned; I.E. implementing flat rate formulas for escort missions, having all non-capital convoy ships drop cargo worth less than 1,500cr/cu, fixing trade routes that are less than two wormholes long and don't cross any dangerous areas, and decreasing hive skirmish and BP awards (credits, not exp) by just a little bit.

So yeah, I support the general idea (although you may have gone a little overboard on the desired repercussions). Ships should be a lot more individual. The possibility of named ships to go along with it is an interesting idea, too. Perhaps when buying a permanent ship (rented basic variant ships would not be named) one can decide what a certain ship would be named based on the variant (I.E. all CorMauds bought will be named "The Ball and Chain" or somesuch... lol EVN) so we don't end up with names like "Lady Serco's Wrath MCCCXXXVII" or something of the sort (although people may choose to do that manually).

The only way I see to accomplish that would be to tow the battereed hull of your ship back to your home base and then require repairs before it can be launched again. At the moment I believe we are just being cloned instead....

heh , Just remembered the scene from "fifth element" when they were wheeling in the remains into the regeneration area.....

You could always have an "insurance" system, so that replacing a lost ship isn't a huge deal, but buying a completely new one is.

I thought that "respawning" in Vendetta is somewhat relied to the 'toaster' tech in Battlestar Galactica.

So when you're killed there'll be a clone of yourself and all informations from your brainbackup that you made at the last station/managed to send to your home station prior to destruction will be transmitted in the brain of the clone.

and hey, there you are again.

and when it comes to the amount of ships, I've a much deeper question: How do so many ships in so big sizes (think of ragnarok/or the big trader ship) manage to stay IN a little tiny station...kinda strange

Shut up thread!

Really, VO's stations have some magic internal space multiplier, or storage shrinker...

Totally agree on limits, one possible approach:
1) You have 3 bays on your HOME station for free. That's why it's home.
2) To leave a ship docked on any other station, or more than 3 on home station, you must pay a space rental. Propose 3.000c/day.
3) Ships should be named, relate this name with the 4 slots on "Buy Ship". Simply add a string to each ship data structure a player owns.

Also increase the variation of ships per station type and faction beyond.

And why relate the ship's name to "ship/buy/preset" button? For continuity. I save 4 models of ships with name I like, and even if it is destroyed, after respawning and buying same preset, I resume flying same ship, including its name!

Whytee,

Your right. I was a bit too aggressive saying two zero's, I should have said one. Otherwise, ending pvp was where I was driving.

The whole point of my post was an assault on the use of 'immersion' as validation of realism suggested for implementation, and I used the Holy Grail of player ships and combat as my platform. This goes back to what you and I both alluded to in our posts, which was Landron's post recommending changes to storage, with which I agree needs to be part of the final economy. My argument that I'm currently pushing on this forum is that we and the devs need to think more in terms of both positive and negative incentives rather than just 'players use too much space, lets limit it or charge them' which is true and ultimately needs to change, but why not give players an incintive to sell their stockpiled ores as an example by putting in more manufacturing. Lets take for instance we have a player who is working towards the mining ribbons, selling that ore at anything near what its worth is going to take a long time and a lot of effort if they move it all over VO, so they either tank the stations, space it, or stock pile it. If they can use it to manufacture needed or wanted items, then you've added to their purpose in mining and possibly trading since I assume higher items would require other widgets to complete. That said, the manufacturing should be rational. The current manufacturing is not rational, and possibly rightly so, because the items are more extreme and should be used only in a limited form. This is the point I've been trying to make, and I was somewhat irritable last night and annoyed with the continued use of the 'immersion' defense.

Shank, I hope I've clarified myself in my response to Whytee. Ultimately, ship specialization is something I'd like to see, though I suspect I'm in a minority. My idea is that I lease a car that costs half my annual salary, for realism, I think players should only be able to afford a handful of ships at absolute maximum, unless they just trade and store safely (which would be rather silly). Players would trade up as they progress and gain credits, but the cost of losing the ship would be prohibitive towards serious pvp, hive skirmish for new players, and nationalism. So to maintain the playability of VO, we need that 'cartoonish' nature in VO along with the other cartoonish aspects that we accept because they make the game playable.

I'll agree that decreasing earnings capacity would work as well or better than raising ship prices, the how was not my point. Personally I think the hive skirmish rewards are reasonably fair. Unless much has changed since I last engaged in border skirmishes, they are a loss activity. If your meaning Border Patrol, then yeah, you've got a point. And I fully agree that current UIT and Grey escort rewards need to be redone.

I don't however agree that credits should become a grind to get. I said elsewhere, I suspect in Landron's storage thread, that the day a level 5 anything can't compete in any aspect of the game is when I leave. Does having a huge bankroll really give any advantage than ego and maybe a bit of taunting? Are we likely to see something implemented by 2.0 that gives them a greater edge? Right now, even a fairly new player can head to b8 or wherever and participate in a furball or simple pvp or adding to Impavid's pk count. I don't want to see that go away because they can't afford it. Otherwise, the only great pvp players will be the ones we currently have. That said, regarding trade. I made a suggestion a while back that was disliked. I tried to trade in Grey. The reality is, that such trade is currently not as viable as trade elsewhere. My post suggested either adding, redistributing or changing the station types to be more diverse. Take Odia to Pelatus. You have 5 barracks stations between those three systems. Honestly, why does Odia need 3? Why does Bractus need 2? And why would out of the way Pelatus need 1? Having so many of the same station type is not conducive to trade. Mind, the Serco side of Grey is somewhat better. Also, your right, if you want more multi wh trades going on, then you've got to put the INCENTIVES in. Right now, there really isn't much difference between same system and 2 wh's for most items. You also have to figure out how many jumps at how much reward makes a trade worthwhile. Personally, I find the 'enhanced routes' not worthwhile because I can make the same amount in the same amount of time doing the hummingbird.

Edit: The difference between the enhanced and hummingbird trades is that the hummingbird is more mentally stimulating because I'm constantly comparing trades rather than grinding my way to the next jump point.

Cheers,
And yes. I am a troll.

Even Trolls can have good ideas... sometimes...

If you use basic ships with low repair costs you can gain a lot of money in hive skirmishes, especially in ion storm skirmishes. I'm not saying a huge decrease as escorts require, just cut the ion storm skirmishes to 37.5% of what it currently is (that means a 50% bonus compared to normal skirmishes). I say this because, currently, a small ion storm skirmish can be worth 100,000cr; which should be worth a whole lot more and should be harder to get in the new economy. Ideally, there should be a curve in the reward multipliers given higher difficulty skirmishes, allowing sort of an advancement if a newbie decides to level up via hive skirmishes.

Alloh: my idea was to allow only one docking port per station, meaning only one permanent ship at a time (any more than one and it opens up the possibility of using shuttles to store ships in more than one place). Then, some stations would provide basic variant ships for rent such as some random EC variants, Vult MK1/2s, Revenants, basic variant Atlases, etc... or maybe a moth in the more popular systems. Rented ships can only be docked at the original station the player rented it from, if a player dies in a rented ship they go back to the original renting station instead of their home, they will have to pay a hefty fee (as in, they will not get back what they paid when they took the ship), and won't be able to rent that ship again for another hour. They also go to the renting station because that (hopefully) is where they left their permanent ship in the dock and it dodges a possible loophole where someone might leave a ship at a station, rent a ship, /explode, go home, and have a permanent ship in two places (preventing them to dock with that station ever again because of the lack of two docks).