Recently, I was giving some thought to nation specific ships. I think that everyone is of the opinion that it would cool if there were some way (obviously hard and expensive) to acquire ships of a different nation.

I don't think that it should be something that is easily done, and I don't think that it should be something that is "grindable" to acquire an ass ton, if that makes sense.

My idea was to create a mission tree, about 4 to 5 missions long, that leads into a mission that allows you to purchase a nation's top tiered ships. I envision the cost to be around 5 to 10 million credits.

Besides the steep cost of actually acquiring the ship in the final mission, all the missions leading up to this would be extremely difficult.

I also envision a limit being put on how many times you can take the final mission.

I would have just made the mission to see the response of the rest of the PCC, but currently the only ships that can be given through a PCC created mission are tridents and superlights. So, this would actually require the ships to be added to the PCC give-able items. This being the case I think that it extremely important to get as much feedback as possible on this.

Please take this thread serious and don't get into arguments. This will give the devs a good basis to judge whether it is something that the player-base wants or not.

Whether it is for the idea or against it, I REALLY want to hear everyone's opinion on this.

+1 except....do not put a total limit on the final mission. Use limit based on time. If someone completes the allotment of missions now, they may want to take it again 5 years from now.

Yea, I planned to make it a 5 times a day limit.

Seems fair and will prevent over abuse.

If you maxed out in a week, you'd only have 35 ships. Plus with each one costing 5 to 10 million credits, you'd be done 175 to 350 million credits.

This would also give something for all you vets to spend all your credits on. :]

-1

This sounds like yet another way to circumvent current faction system and get a hold on faction specific top tiered ships you cannot normally purchase.

In my opinion the only way for different factions to be able to get other nations top tiered ships should be some kind of a Corvus black market and ships sold through that black market should be 'salvaged & refurbished' versions with slightly lower stats then the original top tier nation specific ships.

For instance:

Corvus refurbished Sky Command Prometheus in mint condition
Armor: 19000
Cargo: 16
Weapons: 2S, 1L
Mass: 10000 kg
Length: 21m
Thrust: 520 N
Turbo Thrust: 530 N

or

Mint condition & low mileage Corvus refurbished IDF Valkyrie Vigilant
Armor: 10000
Cargo: 2
Weapons: 3S
Mass: 3000 kg
Length: 12m
Thrust: 220 N
Turbo Thrust: 225 N

My suggestion is to make this a 'black market' mission tree that will allow such purchases from Corvus.
Successfully finishing the mission tree will send you to some Corvus station where you will be able to buy one of the 'refurbished' top tier ships that are currently on sale through their black market.

+1 bojan

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that.

I hadn't thought of the "refurbished" versions of the ships, but I did plan to make this a mission tree coming from Corvus.

And this is absolutely a circumvention of the current faction system, but only to acquire a limited number of ships.

It doesn't break anything about the faction system.

It keeps all the rules and regulations, but gives us another avenue to explore. The current rules of the faction system is not meant to specifically prevent someone from attaining those ships. How it exists in its current form makes the most sense logically (you're cool with one nation that's at war with another nation, then the other nation should hate you).

+1 for a black market mission from corvus

Flying into nation space in the 'refurbished' ship of that nation should make you KOS

It's unclear to me if the mission tree must be taken for each individual purchase or if it unlocks the purchase ability for X amount of purchases per time period.

I would be in support of the latter. Insane grinds and high costs for just a single ship not only would prevent people from doing the mission outright, but once they did they would never fly the ships. This might be fine if people were setting up museum collections of ships, but it would be better for the game if these were ships that were ones that people would actually use. Getting the balance of effort vs reward is important.

@bojan:

This sounds like yet another way to circumvent current faction system and get a hold on faction specific top tiered ships you cannot normally purchase.

That's exactly what this is, lol. What's your point?

Also, introducing new ship models is unnecessary, not to mention completely unrealistic. The high cost of the mission in time and credits would be an appropriate cost. Nobody is going to slave through an insane mission tree and pay out the nose for some piece of crap knockoff version.

Greenwall, the first 3 or 4 missions in the tree would be extremely difficult.

After that they could be purchased as you described. Specifically, I was thinking about 5 per day for a price of 5 to 10 million credits a piece.

I agree with everything else you said, as well. The balance between effort and reward must be right on the money for this mission tree.

If we get enough support for the idea, and this starts to move forward, I will be looking heavily to everyone for some suggested metrics.

I wouldn't go higher than 5 million. Something around 2.5 million per ship would seem better in my mind. Remember you want people to use these ships, not store them. At least, that's what I would want (and, even with all my money I wouldn't take a 5 million credit ship out to pvp in).

Yea, I hear ya. But I also don't want it to be abused.

And with Corvus at the head of the mission, you know those money-hungry terds would charge 5 million credits for one ship!

That's exactly what this is, lol. What's your point?

My point is that you cannot get top tier nation specific ships. VO faction redux was all about that since majority of players exploited all POS and all top tier ships buying on all nation chars.
It took Incarnate 10 fucking years to introduce the faction redux we have now. It's not perfect but it's far better then what we had before.

That is the main reason I suggested 'black market' and refurbished nation specific ships with inferior stats.

But the redux served more than just nerfing any nation getting any nation specific ship.

There was abuse of being POS with a nation that you were supposed to be at war with.

Like people flying into Sol II and popping newbs, after they home at the capital.

Now, you at least have to sneak into enemy territory and have a trident for repairs.

Pointing out the obvious is not a point. What I think you mean is: you think we "should continue to not have access to purchase top-tier ships of other nations".

Allowing people to purchase other nations top-tier ships won't harm or undo the faction redux, it will compliment it. A demand has been created for top-tier ships of other nations as a result of the faction redux -- this suggestion is to supply that demand at an appropriate cost. Giving people expensive things to spend money on is good for the economy of VO.

A demand has been created for top-tier ships of other nations as a result of the faction redux

Correct.
Players who have been exploiting all POS faction system are running out of their stashed proms and valks so... yeah, demand has been created.
That does not mean that we need to circumvent the current faction system and give whiners back what they want.

If you want to fly proms - create a Serco char.
If you want to fly valks - create Itani char.
If you want to fly UDV - create UIT char.

Nations are raison d'être of Vendetta Online.
It's unfortunate we don't have more nation specific ships designs that would cover all possible roles for every nation so whining for getting hands on other nations top tier ships would finally stop but, alas, if devs had the means to do it, they would have done it.

Black market refurbished ships with inferior stats can be an intermediate solution for whiners.

You don't want to be Serco or Itani, you like being UIT holy cow but you want to fly proms & valks, ok - buy inferior models on black market and stfu.

It wasn't an exploit prior to the faction redux to acquire toptier ships from other nations. Why don't you tone down your cheating-accusation rhetoric before you ruin another good thread.

You don't have to think up new ways to say what you've said already, we get your point.

I am a pirate. There is a thing that pirates are particularly noted for: theft. I do not care if you think people should have to create an Itani character to have a Valk. You are wrong, because I am a pirate.

People are "supposed" to get Ultra Charge Powercells by mentoring newbs. Although I do tend to be helpful, I have not officially mentored a single newb, nor have I bought UCs from people who do. Yet I have hundreds of the things. Why? Because I am a pirate, and I steal things.

Ships are also things. The notion that I should not be able to steal them is nonsense.

Ships should be hauled between stations inside capital ships, just like any other commodity, and they should drop when the capital ship is destroyed. Those dropped ships should be usable. It would be acceptable if they needed repairs first, but those repairs should bring them up to full functionality -- if an Itani can repair a Valk from 1% to 100% without loss of functionality at a Corvus station, then there is no reason I couldn't do the same. It would also be acceptable for high-end military ships to have flight computers that refuse to function for people with standings that would prevent purchasing that ship, thereby necessitating a visit to Corvus to pay a shady fellow to jailbreak it. It would also be acceptable to have using a jailbroken ship within the nation it came from result in faction penalties with that nation.

And if I should be able to steal ships, I should of course be able to sell them to others.

For that matter, people who can buy ships should be able to sell them to others. That may result in faction penalties of course, and may have to take place in particular venues to lessen those penalties. Buying dozens of Valks in Jallick and trying to sell them directly to another player is not a thing that should be permitted by the Itani government.

Rin, I'm suggesting the creation of a mission that allows anyone to buy any ship with certain limitations on the amount they can acquire in a given time period. This mission will be available at Corvus. Any thoughts on this in particular?

I don't really like the idea of being able to just buy foreign ships that are magically generated (or even manufactured) in grey stations. I think they should need to be first smuggled down from Nation Space. That could be simulated via missions, but if so the smuggling portion of the mission should have to be repeated for each new batch of ships you buy. Possibly preceded by scouting/espionage missions.

But I'd much prefer what I described above -- needing to discover ship-moving convoys in nation-space (these should be obvious due to the number of capships required to move ships in bulk), loot them, suffer the faction penalty for doing so (if you weren't already KOS), and then try to haul those ships out of nation space despite being KOS (you'll need a capship of your own to haul them, unless you're willing to try to move a moth holding just one small ship past the border turrets). Then even once you're in Grey, you'll need to make it to the nearest Corvus station before those stolen ships can actually be made usable -- or sell them to somebody and let them worry about hauling them to Corvus.

Generally speaking I prefer for things to be done without missions whenever possible. It's more immersive that way.

+1 OP and Rin

as long as getting another nation's ships remains significantly more difficult/expensive than being a POS member of that nation.