ahhh pre 3.2... it was so simple in the "Good Ole Days" (TM)

small, medium, or large

lvl1 or lvl2

lasers or ions.

red, green, or blue

and s9 being "deep" in enemy territory (for itani anyway) =)

ehhe, i liked those days, anyone remember the moneywar as the end of 3.1 before the reset?

hehe

well, mordok was kind enough to lend me 20k (which was lots back then), i brought my first heavy.....

.... and promptly flew it into a roid trying to turn.

i stuck with cents after that =p

asphy

I still think it would be interesting to go back to the days when each char could have one ship only. But we're WAY off-topic, so let's go back ON topic.

(My first -ever- post! And i've been around since early '02, hehe)

Here is a good reason for what the first post is talking about:

http://games.tproc.org/Vendetta/vendeta01.png

One side of that asteroid was literally -covered- in defnpc cargo.

Why, back when I started playing, we didn't HAVE money! :P

I think it was the same for when I first started as well... all the weapons were powerups that you picked up.

Yep. I do think however, that bots should be better integrated into the game universe. The world has grown around them, but your average sector bot is, story-wise the same as he was in 2.9. He's a random, weak character with an extremely bad attitude. What about applying a bit of the old Jolly Roger treatment to these doorstops-with-lasers?

I do belive bot cargo is too expensive. I have about 4million in bot cargo piled up.

/me reads Magus' story...
Hehehe... I had something similar to that happen when I was new. I had been struggling to figure out the game for a while (it took me about an hour to figure out how to dock... Damned activate key... :P ), so I put a message in main chat asking if anyone could help me start playing Vendetta (this was back in 3.1.8, when the community rocked). A few minutes later, I noticed my creds box was about 10,000 higher than it was before... That got me a heavy and a few loads of cargo, so I went trading... I died a few times, but eventually wound up with about 250kc...

hmm... sweet memories...

i know were getting sorta off topic but....

when i started (pre-3.2... not sure what exactly, think last december), i got blown up a couple of times trying to bot (the game seemed soo incredibly foreign back then). I then declared my newbness and asked if anyone would help me. Princess Penelope taught me the basics of flying and asked others to give me money. 15,000c later i was in a prome trying to get past pirates in s9.....and i got killed my blaster! In my awkward newbness i shot at him for absolutely no reason, so he killed me a couple times.... mmmmmmmm......pre 3.2...............

"With reduced income from trading being implemented"

I didn't know the income from trading was necessarily being reduced. Right now you can make a killing trading between virtually any two sectors.

It's rather pointless to argue about prices in the current test since the numbers are really place holders more than anything, but if you make it too hard to get any money from bots, the newbs would have a very hard time with this game.

When I first started playing back in 3.2.2 the first thing I did was fly around S3 until I got bored and jumped into S6, and I was like "wow, look at all those purple dots on the radar. Oh, you can sell them? cool!" Before I knew how to kill bots effectively (barrel roll :P) my first major source of income was flying around in a bus collecting cargo dropped by bots. Newb that I was, it took me about an hour to save up enough for a basic vulture, which promptly got destroyed by Icarus when I took it out exploring.

Point is, in terms of occupational hazards capping is harder than pirating is harder than trading is harder than botting is harder than cargo sweeping ;). You gotta have a safe, viable way for newbs to earn a little income when they first start out.

I think the def bots should not leave cargo. Since they are very good at killing themselves they leave a lot of cargo behind worth a 1000c a piece. After the reset when 2 bots collide at the station somebody just got themselves 2k for free.

Also with this idea imo bot cargo should be reduced in price so that a bot would leave the following
75bot-200c
150bot-300c
250bot-500c
350bot-700c

With reduced income from trading being implemented, bot income should be reduced as well. I can make money very fast and easy right now off the bots and have very little risk of pirates in my home sector or the one next to it, so would not have much of a reason to trade on a reduced profit economy. By making botting less profitable it would make trading more important.

Unless bot cargo will be dynamic as well...which would fix that problem all together.

This would not take away their income...just mean they need to spend more time collecting it. I could still make 4k of collecting cargo if I was a noob...but I would have to spend a little more time at it and not all that much more time either.

Cargo is good for n00bs. When I was a n00b, I got free cargo that someone had lost in s1. Apparently, someone died in s1 capping and they had cargo. I took it and w00t!

I really don't think the 1000c cargo is an issue. Money is way to plentiful to worry about a few people getting something extra by picking up what the def bots drop.

Currently, for either blue or gold, you can make a new player, and be flying a 30000c nation ship with everything, in under 20 minutes. How? Easy.

Make character. Buy bus. Go to Home sector with bots. Fly around, pick up 1 full load of cargo, its always out there left behind by someone. Dock at the station, buy as much of the most expensive trade item as you can. Blues, take it to sector 13. Golds, take it to sector 5. Sell it for 8000c. Fill your ship with whatever is most expensive there. Back to home sector. Sell full ship of cargo for 30000-40000c. Buy ship that can hold 8-12 cargo. Along with efficient engine and fast charge battery. Fill cargo hold with most expensive item. Go make 80000-160000c on this run. Buy whatever you want.

So that 1000c cargo isnt that big a boost.

Sure, things are going to change with a dynamic economy. But how much? Maybe it'll take you an extra 20 minutes here and there finding something that someone didnt flood the market with yet? Even if it takes you an extra hour, its still pretty fast to be in the nation ships...

So what's a 1000c every now and then? Perhaps the game dev's should set things up so a player starts with 500-2000c, for buying some cargo, or a weapon, or whatever you wanna start yourself out with.

"Cargo is good for n00bs. When I was a n00b, I got free cargo that someone had lost in s1. Apparently, someone died in s1 capping and they had cargo. I took it and w00t!"
-I'll never forget that day when I was a wee newb in S4, botting before the days when they left cargo, struggling to make a profit by killing bots and keeping up with the cost of repairs (it wasn't free back then.) Then the day came when I found a pile of 12 widgets right next to the station. I picked it up and tried to sell it and, surprise, it was worth over a thousand!!! I had never seen so much money. So I went and bought a centurion with an efficient engine and medium battery and phased blaster and promptly had it blown up.

I didn't play Vendetta again for a month.

Heh. I had FM to teach me. I didn't die. And then he gave me 250kc, which I still haven't paid back. /me looks for FiReMaGe