Keep your lite accounts around by allowing trident components like FFSA, RBH and FCP to be made in nation space. With this suggestion, these parts would have to fit in an appropriate lite account ship or would have to be transferred from within the station.

Traders need to be able to justify their existence otherwise we'll kill them all.

the start of a good idea

+1 to open up capship manufacturing to F2P and Lite. Once folks get heavily time-invested into the build process they might want to subscribe to finish the job.

-1 to in nation space.

F2P and Lite can already get the Behemoth Heavy Miner so really the only thing that needs to be reduced is the Reinforced Bulkhead down to 140cu.

+1 Being able to at least build the basic compents in Nation Space opens up the possibility of unguilded players possibly being able to actually get a Trident. THe whole building process would work great if we actually had a couple oif hundred players always on that could work together to take a station and keep it long enough to build parts. As it stand right now a small band (not counting all of Wes alts) are able to hold stations because we can;t get enough people to keep playing the game.

I see the same 30 or 40 some players all the time and I'm sure some of them are jsut alts of other players I see. It shouldn't bee this difficult for a player to get a dump truck for trading.

If the FFSA, FCP, RBH, and reactor missions level requirement were dropped from 5 to 4 that would allow a lite or F2P player to do a lot of work on a trident before getting a full sub, or just allow them to make an income selling these parts. Allow lite and F2P players to earn the BHM2, leave the size of RBH alone. I'd leave the manufacturing where it is. These accounts make good sense for casual trade-guild style play.

This is a multiplayer game, myacumen -- you're supposed to need help to hold stations and build Tridents.

+1 only for the basic parts in the op. I agree that this could help with retention and getting others to go full sub

I'd be careful not to give f2p people too much premium access. I'd also be careful not to assume that this is some magical fix that will increase player retention or increase trade. It's the start of a good idea, but as it stands will probably have more of an effect on vets (using alts to safely make ffssa and fcp for themselves) than it will for newbs. 99% of newbs get one sniff of the grind involved and they say no thanks.

@myacumen - We will never have hundreds upon hundreds of active players, let alone hundreds and hundreds of active players "working together", without MAJOR game changes. Don't hold your breath.

Greenwell I appreciate your support for the intent of this OP, however building components for a ship that F2P players cannot fly is hardly giving away "premium access" and is enough of a carrot to have some of those players sub-in. No assumptions made here Wally. Most tablet noobs have absolutely no business flying around grey space and when they do, they get griefed out of the game by some sorry sack of shit vet. What do we say to noobs? "Don't leave nation space!"

Trading, mining and manufacturing is EXACTLY what F2P tablet players should be doing, and they should be doing it in nation space.

Any manufacturing also validates traders and pirates at the same time. The game needs more manufacturable goods. Some of these goods should be exclusive to the UIT.

"...using alts to safely make FFSA and FCP for themselves." This has been going on for years with TGFT—The Guild of Free Tridents—alts. No secret there.

This is not a self-serving suggestion, I barely fly my own trident. I'm pro-manufacturing as a means of promoting interaction/user-based economy/trading/piracy.

Let's face it, the conquerable stations are a shit show. Making alts so you can make tridents and wave at each other is probably disingenuous to your main alt's intent and causes a lot of unnecessary friction and noise in 100 when friction should be applied with positrons.

Inc has said the conq stations were an experiment or an unfinished mechanic. Maybe it's time to change that mechanic.

Allowing them to do most of the trident build work on a free account is what I meant by premium access. You can fly a trident on a lite account, right? As long as you built in on a full sub? So what's stopping someone from spending $1 a month to build almost everything they need for a trident and then $10 for a single month to complete it.

I'm sure this concept is not lost on Incarnate and he wouldn't do something that unneccesarily harmed his own income.

F2P newbs mosty play this game for the pew pew, but then soon find out it's more boomboom for them. I just don't think making it easier for them to make things is going to have any effect on keeping them around.

Trading, mining and manufacturing are some people's cup of tea, but not most.

Which is it Wallace?

"99% of newbs get one sniff of the grind involved and they say no thanks."

Or

"Allowing them to do most of the trident build work on a free account is what I meant by premium access."

Yer talking out both sides of your mouth and arguing for sport. Yer an idiot. Please lock this awesome suggestion thread down due to personal insults and preserve it for its awesomeness and Wallys stupidity.

I'll give you one insult-free response, Ore:

"99% of newbs get one sniff of the grind involved and they say no thanks."

---> In context this was part of my argument that only vets would make use of the allowance, whereas newbs have little interest in it.

"Allowing them to do most of the trident build work on a free account is what I meant by premium access."

----> "Them" meaning mostly vets and maybe a smattering of trade-minded newbs.

So you as you can see, I'm talking out of the center of my mouth. I'm cautioning against making f2p accounts more attractive to people who want the cheapest path towards the endgame (the trident).

Premium account is required to fly trident.

Most vets who were hellbent on getting a trident already have at least one dent and some have another kit for a variant. Any vet that has built one, knows what a chore it is. If I were a trident-less vet, and I wanted a trident, I'd happily buy the RBH for it versus making it myself.

This isn't about vets Wally, though it does benefit us to have noobs doing the grunt work and it benefits them to learn the ropes while not getting their ass kicked in grey space.

The intention is to give f2p players some use in the game and nourish their interest levels to graduate to a full subscription.

I'm advocating for more manufacturing in general and for much of it to be done in nation space where nibblets can get their "wings" without getting their asses handed to them while still being useful and inclusive to the 'verse at large.

This is good for TGFT Wally.

I simply don't think adding manufacturing incentive as you've suggested is enough. Newbs aren't going to stick around in VO and make the rest of us a bunch of premo capship parts because it's fun. It is NOT fun....at least...not for most people.

I'd really love to see an enter and exit poll done on newbs who left the game -- I'm guessing it's at least 9 to 1 that they played VO initially for fun combat experiences, but they left because combat was too difficult on their mobile device and the rest of the grind was boring and unsatisfying.

We've already talked on these forums at length about revamping to make pvp combat more accessible to everyone (and by accessible I mean easier to engage in AND be successful at, to some degree). So I'm not going to start that convo up again. But I do think that any newb-attracting effort needs to include addressing the pvp angle.

Making trident parts in the safety of nationspace would definitely benefit TGFT. So what? No change is worthwhile unless it benefits the game as a whole.

I don't know what would help, but if it's not too hard to implement and not too much of a give-away, I suppose as an experiment the ffsa mission could be made available in Sol II and the FCP mission could be made available in Itan. (with the level requirements for these missions adjusted appropriately.)

If it's simple to implement it might be interesting to see what happens.

splitting up fcp and ffsa between nations is a good idea...

I am absolutely in favaor of fcp and ffsa being manufacturable in all nation space.

I see this as good for the game because players would not need near constant access to the conquerable station in order to seriously work on a trident.

-1

If you don't like conflict, bugger off.

I like conflict just fine Rin. But when you slaughter some noob on a tablet and tell them to sod off back to nation space, what are they going to do? They aren't going to get better at PvP on a tablet but there should be something besides combat in this game if it is to grow beyond the 30 of us diehards who have been here for several years.

Do you feel good about yourself after killing some helpless noob who can't steady his ship? I feel guilty as hell knowing that noob is never coming back and finds no value in the game.

Try and look past your own desires for more conflict. The game can't grow with a bunch of know-it-all vets blowing hot air like this.

Wally, I'm not claiming this to be a magic bullet for retention, that problem lies in the GUI.

It's an activity for noobs to busy themselves with while having some relevance when they come into the game.