The current capship insurance system is not so much insurance as a cheap way to buy capships over and over again once you've built one. Inspired by the fine ideas of fully purchasable capships (in https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/37817), I'm making this as an alternate proposal.

Rather than making capships (even slightly nobbled capships) purchasable as a credit sink, instead make the insurance payment recurring, regardless of whether your capship gets blown up or not in a particular week. The mechanics for regular recurring payments are already generally in place (station space rental), so hopefully the implementation wouldn't be outrageously complicated. Like station storage rental, the number of weeks of "back insurance" you'd be charged if you haven't logged on in a while should be capped, to avoid completely bankrupting those who step away from the game for a while.

At the basic level of implementation, of "flat fee per week", this change could very well encourage more capship battles. If the insurance on a goli were, say, 100k/week, no matter how many times it blew up, people might be more inclined to roll out the capships and go do battle. The cost of capship turrets would still be an imposition, but at least you wouldn't be burning 500k per hull.

If it is determined that infinite capship replacements is a bit too much, then a premium increase could be fairly easily applied to those who get blown up too often. Take a count of the number of times that the player has lost their capship over the past, say, 4 weeks, and increase the premium by 10% for every loss. So if you get hosed a couple of times last week, then rather than the usual 100k premium you'd be charged 120k. This wouldn't be a major imposition for most players, but for those who are just downright careless, it might start getting expensive. If you have a run of bad luck, it'll cost you a bit for the next few weeks, then settle back down again.

If you couldn't pay the most recent premium, then if your capship gets blown up you don't get the instant rebuild mission. The "recover your capship parts" mission would still be available, if you wanted to go down that route, as a way to get back in the capship game without having to grind the whole thing again.

I think it would also be useful to be able to opt out of paying for insurance, either because you were mothballing your capship for a while, or because you just like to live dangerously. A mission at M-7, "Cancel your <Goli|Dent> Insurance Policy", would do the trick. Reinstating your insurance policy would be the inverse mission, "Insure your <Goli|Dent> Today!". Like not being able to pay for your policy, if your capship is destroyed while you're uninsured, you'd have to take the "recover your parts" mission to get a new capship.

Finally, I'd like to note that I feel that this proposal shouldn't be implemented if the "purchasable capships" suggestion was implemented, as at most one type of capship should be a credit drain.

+1. Works both from a gameplay perspective and a universe one. That said, I might have 500k be the default weekly rate. You can make a *lot* of money in a capship.

I personally don't have a cappie but the fact that cappies once built are always insured has bothered me. So a big +1 to your idea, especially the one where you have the option to choose whether to get insurance or not. And I'd just like to say I really like how it's written...I should probably learn from it.

Yeah, the price of insurance is a tricky one to set. On the one hand, it is very true that you can make a lot of money in a capship. Heck, you don't even need a capship to make capship insurance money -- a couple of in-system XC runs full of weapons and you've got 500k in about 10 minutes.

On the other hand, though, not everyone wants to use their capship to make money, and would rather spend most of their time fighting in it -- and that's a perfectly valid use case that should be accommodated. So it's a matter of balancing those two competing use cases. I expect the devs would have the good data on how much your average capship pilot earns (and has laying around), which would help in setting appropriate prices.

-1 the time invested by players who have built the cap ships aas well as the isk put in would make this situation to me anyways seem like not worth building one and i own 2. i have built or helped build i think it was 10+ at last count. there was supposed to be a limit to the number of times you could get it back in a week once i belive it was. from experience i havent ever seen that maybe implementing that again would work but by requireing someone to pay for a capship even if RL takes over and makes it so they have ) time to play seems unreasonable

I would have to agree with krazyxcdriver, this would nullify any accomplishments from building a capital ship. After all the time spent building one is a lot of hours and years spent farming, hauling, and building. -1

We kinda already pay it in terms of station rent. A dent is 15k cu and a goli is 10kcu in a station

So its atleast 30k cu u need in a station and that only leaves 5k cu for anything else. And u would need that in dau L10, Latos M7, Odia M14 and Sol H13 or itan j11 if ur serco or itani. So we already have a pay rent sorta thing cuz we need to rent out more station space

Actually if you just leave your cappie in the NFZ of a nation space station you're as good as inside the station since your Callie is completely safe. So the need to dock a cappie should be pretty low...ofc this is from someone who doesn't have a cappie so it's just theoretical.

Making cappie insurance a regular payment will really increase cappie use in combat...since you've already paid your insurance you might as well take the chance of destroying the cappie. If insurance is paid only when a cappie is destroyed, people try harder not to destroy their cappies, and combat with them reduces.

-1. As I also agree with what krazyxcdriver says.

Your ship is not completely safe in the nfz.

Uh WAF why is it not completely safe? No one can fire addons in the NFZ in nation space. The only chance I see is that someone uses Avalons. Firing them from outside the NFZ and letting them strike the station is a possibility, but it's an expensive one and I doubt anyone would go that far...and don't the turrets fire at any incoming ordnance?

There are some experienced players in VO. If they want something done, they'll get it done. Sometimes people climb mountains just because they are there.

Turrets do not have the ability to fire at incoming weapons.

I think a weekly insurance policy isn't a good idea. What happens if you can't play for a while come back and there goes all your credits. Instead I think insurance on a capship should be astronomically higher like 50 mil or more, and should be a mission like it is now so if you don't have the funds you can buy it back when you do.

Inevitable if you read the suggestion carefully, there is a part which says that the insurance payments will stop after a certain period of inactivity, say a week.

Also WAF I'm not talking about the capship's turrets. I'm talking about the turrets around a station. Don't they fire and destroy incoming ordnance? Genuine question. I don't know the answer. And there is also the fact that the cappie will remain outside the station only while the player is online. After they log off, the capship also disappears, along with the players ship.

Don't they fire and destroy incoming ordnance?
Still no

Ok...I realise that keeping cappies in the NFZ isn't an absolute fail safe. But my point about a weekly insurance making capship combat more common is still valid I think. While I understand that cappie owners have to pay rent to store their cappies, the rent cost in terms of credits is very small, and in crystals is an amount that can easily be earned in a week. So I don't think that's reason enough to say that cappie owners are paying enough credits for their cappies and that paying for insurance will overburden them.

I personally don't have a cappie but the fact that cappies once built are always insured has bothered me.

Why has it always bothered you? You are new to the game, so how has this issue been so glaring to stick out to you?

-1

I would support more credit drains for capital pilots. I like the nuanced missions related to this. Pay the fee or work harder to recover your cap ship. This is well written, and I think should be considered. I hate when people just yolo their tridents into stations because they know they can simply replace it for 500k + gear about 1mil per death.

With the huge benefits capitals bring in credit generation this is nothing.

I hate when people just yolo their tridents into stations because they know they can simply replace it for 500k + gear about 1mil per death.

We've talked about cool downs before

Capital ship warranty cool down period.

Tweak the Trident Insurance mission

One of those suggestions got some traction with the devs, and I assume it will be implemented some time in the future. The other suggestion was not so well received.