Forums » Suggestions
escort idea
a quick passing idea while i was hauling, what about a mission that takes invenotry and sends an escort with said items loaded and run it as a normal escort mission from there to destination. simple rules of cant take to conq stations, must have dock access and can only escort so much cu per mission, also a fee to make the escort.
to run the mission 800cu =800k, 1k per cu to move, max of 800cu per escort mission taken.
feel free to add tweaks + ideas to it, sounds like a decent way of hauling stuff without the half alive half dead approach to hauling that it is atm. also gives people a reason to put themselves on the line more when transporting their own goods.
to run the mission 800cu =800k, 1k per cu to move, max of 800cu per escort mission taken.
feel free to add tweaks + ideas to it, sounds like a decent way of hauling stuff without the half alive half dead approach to hauling that it is atm. also gives people a reason to put themselves on the line more when transporting their own goods.
+1. I think rent-a-voy would add some interesting gameplay.
IIRC, Inc has mentioned in the post something like this as a possibility (in one of the "we should be able to player-trade in stations!" topics, from memory), so cross-fingers it'll get implemented.
IIRC, Inc has mentioned in the post something like this as a possibility (in one of the "we should be able to player-trade in stations!" topics, from memory), so cross-fingers it'll get implemented.
So, the current escort / economy works on the basis of "missions" that are posted (I mean, internally). While the escort stuff is visible, to some extent, much of the overall mechanics are not, and players cannot directly use the mission system to hire NPCs.
But, the intent has always been:
- Players and NPCs should be interchangeable, when it comes to the economy.
- Players should be able to post missions, to move stuff around, and those could be fulfilled by either other-players, or NPCs.
- Player-owned stations would likely need this, to support longer-term Manufacturing goals and the like, as well as maintaining consistent item availability, etc.
- Pricing tradeoffs not unlike those suggested, for hiring an NPC captain, so there would be benefits to choosing to run routes yourself.
But, there are a lot of different design factors, and also technical challenges. Like, when we built the system originally, we had massive pile-ups of convoys, convoys getting stuck ramming into stations, all kinds of things that, while pretty silly-looking, are also not always the most trivial to solve in a generic and scalable way (especially if you throw in objects being movable, like asteroids that can be re-positioned and sectors that may change, which makes "navigability" more challenging to pre-calculate).
Anyway, the simple answer here is.. "Yes". But, the development-distance that we have to traverse to get to where that's fully achievable in a really robust, balanced way that can scale and doesn't need a lot of server-CPU.. that's been a road of many years.
There's a big over-arching "Stuff Like This" that I could point to, of which this is only a part, which has been why we spent years re-writing how the server works, how capships work, and other invisible background stuff that.. people get frustrated about in terms of lack-of-visible-progress. But, quite frankly, this stuff isn't simple.
We are getting a lot closer, these days.
But, the intent has always been:
- Players and NPCs should be interchangeable, when it comes to the economy.
- Players should be able to post missions, to move stuff around, and those could be fulfilled by either other-players, or NPCs.
- Player-owned stations would likely need this, to support longer-term Manufacturing goals and the like, as well as maintaining consistent item availability, etc.
- Pricing tradeoffs not unlike those suggested, for hiring an NPC captain, so there would be benefits to choosing to run routes yourself.
But, there are a lot of different design factors, and also technical challenges. Like, when we built the system originally, we had massive pile-ups of convoys, convoys getting stuck ramming into stations, all kinds of things that, while pretty silly-looking, are also not always the most trivial to solve in a generic and scalable way (especially if you throw in objects being movable, like asteroids that can be re-positioned and sectors that may change, which makes "navigability" more challenging to pre-calculate).
Anyway, the simple answer here is.. "Yes". But, the development-distance that we have to traverse to get to where that's fully achievable in a really robust, balanced way that can scale and doesn't need a lot of server-CPU.. that's been a road of many years.
There's a big over-arching "Stuff Like This" that I could point to, of which this is only a part, which has been why we spent years re-writing how the server works, how capships work, and other invisible background stuff that.. people get frustrated about in terms of lack-of-visible-progress. But, quite frankly, this stuff isn't simple.
We are getting a lot closer, these days.