Tosh and I have been thinking of some ideas that could allow players to be more involved in the economy of Vendetta. Some of these ideas are related to the "player owned" station thread and the "skills" thread.

Players could become shop owners. The shops will be within a station, but the player doesn't "own" the station itself; rather, think of the station as a department store, and once a pilot docks, he can browse through shops through the station interface.
Owning shops in existing stations is much simpler than allowing players to build their own stations, and prevents the building of station clusters that could really kill framerate.

Players who are shop owners can train in particular manufacturing "skills" (see skill thread if you're interested), which would allow them to take raw material and elementary widgets and process them to form rare and valuable widgets as well as ships, batteries, and weapons.
Manufacturing skills can influence anything from:
--quality of widgets produced.
--efficiency (less raw material/widgets required to make the item you want)
--speed (it takes less time to manufacture each item)

If one wanted to make the skills more diverse, there could be separate manufacturing levels required for making energy weapons, ammo weapons, batteries, ships… etc.
Then, a shop that specializes in purifying ore may work together with a ship-building shop. Trade between shops will thrive, since each shop will almost always have needs that only another, different kind of shop can satisfy.

Where will the material required for manufacturing come from?
(1) NPC/faction-owned stations.
A pilot friendly to the faction with the required material will of course have a easier time acquiring the material (and probably get it at a discount too).
So pilots with good faction standing all around will be able to land more jobs and turn a better profit; pilots with not-so-good faction standing will be able to accept only jobs to certain sectors.
(2) Bots.
Different bots already offer different types of cargo. Good botters who can take down any bot (even when ganged up upon) in matter of seconds will be able to gather valuable cargo in less time. Your average noob can also make a niche for himself, gathering simple items like scrap metal.

Obviously, a shop owner would not be very productive if he had to scavenge all the material himself for manufacturing. Therefore, it would be expedient if shop owners could list “courier missions” on the mission interface, hiring couriers (your average, wandering pilot) to ship necessary materials to the shops. We’ve already seen plenty of examples of people ordering cargo to be shipped to specified locations in-game.
A skilled (high-level) shop owner will be able to make enough money to sell goods at a cheaper price and pay couriers better--he will also have faster shipping, since more pilots are likely to choose his missions.
A successful shop owner can also use his capital to expand the size of his shop. Cargo space can be purchased for stocking raw material and items to be sold.

One of the most important uses for a shop owner’s capital is to buy protection. A vulnerable shop is a perfect haunt and camping ground for pirates. Couriers would not deliver to a shop surrounded by pirates, and traders will not risk a stop at the shop on their trade routes.

Protection can exist as a separate “military stronghold” station, or simply be hired NPCs. Good fighters can also be hired, but that decision is left to the shop owner—a decision influenced by whether he is friends with pilots that he knows are trustworthy and skilled.
NPC protection doesn’t necessarily mean “Nation Guardian defbots”. It would be nice to have a full selection of bots to choose from.
For the beginning shop owner, perhaps 20 cheap, annoying drone IIs that mob a pirate (such bot protection stands very little chance in killing a pirate, but the drones could distract the pirate while alerting nearby players of the pirate’s hostile presence, and friendly players could interfere on the trader’s behalf.) How about 10 Sentries? 6 Assault Is? 5 (fragile but well armed) Furies? Expendable Recons could even be used to patrol the borders and sound the alarm.
Hiring bots should be a bit expensive, with Nation Guardian defbots only available at an insanely high price. The hired bots will not be able to leave the sector or attack other sectors… they exist to enforce “no-firing” within your shop’s local (which I currently define as the sector it’s in… I’m still debating if that is too large a range to protect). If a trader requires a wingman to accompany him out of the shopping sector, he can post a message (mission?) for assistance, or have a friend escort.
Bot service could be tied to either (1) time. Your shop and the area around it is guaranteed the protection of, for example, 5 Sentries for 6 hours. If your Sentries are killed during this time period, they will respawn after 10 minutes. (2) number of bots. If one of the drones from your 20 drone fleet dies, you’ll have to replace it by hiring another one.

Related to this is the idea of a cluster of shops being protected by one military stronghold. The shop owners work together to found a military stronghold with their immense financial capital—the stronghold will provide better protection (player protection, NPCs, or even turrets) than hiring a few NPCs on your own, but will take much more money to maintain. Founding a military stronghold will require much compromise and collaboration between the shop owners; when the “Guild” feature is implemented, this idea may have a better chance at becoming a reality. Guilds can grow and expand in size by mentoring noobs and beginning shop owners, sharing some protection with them until the new members can contribute to the guild.

So what do pirates get out of this new relationship between players, stations, and the economy? Pirating the area around a weak noob-upstart convenience store may be easier than assaulting the heavily protected convoys from the Nanite Vaults of NT’s business sector, but it’s obvious that pirating the latter will turn profits that are vastly larger! =D

To make this work, a menu of “shops” within the station you’re docked at will have to be added to the station interface, along with a series of “manufacturing skills” (“to level up to the next ‘ore processing’ level, you must have a shop with 800 cargo space and 500 iron ore widgets in your cargo hold… blah blah blah… bet someone can suggest more ideas for this process -_~). Since we already have a leveling up and license system in place… this idea feels feasible. I’d really welcome input from the devs… I know you guys are pressed for time (and there is no way this suggestion would get in until long after release, if even then!), but if you read this and make a small comment I’d be more than grateful. = )

Woohoo! IB has made me verbose… but now that I’m done posting, let the suggestions begin!!
(I’ll run off and see if I can find a link to the “skills” thread…)

Very well thought out. As soon as I'm fully awake, (it being 5:00 AM as I type this) I'll write a response.

Well.. the whole hire NPC's is more like for player stations not shops..

Usualy most stations have (or will) some kind of defense systems (are def turrents on it's way yet?), so it's really not neccesary ATM

But whole manufacturing/mining skill could be added:
you could go, mine some xintricite, refine it (to get low and high-yeld ore) and then you could made up (for some cash of course) railgun ammo, or (if your skills would be really high - 11/12lvl) some xintricite improved weapons (powered Taych, ubber flare?)

The same goes to other minerals.. (ice, water, rock etc)

Maybe to make it even more interesting for the players, the players could also sort of design what they're creating. If you've ever played Alpha Centauri; you have this 'unit design' thingy, where you can create your own unit using the available technology. If you develop better technology you can put better components in the unit, or you are able to put more components in an unit.

Maybe players could even do research; so you would not only have to buy resources and have skills to produce, but also technology. Players could possibly even trade these technologies if they want to make some easy money or develop better widgets.

For example with a rocket:

A rocket is made up of:

- hull (which holds all the components and comes in a pretty colour)
- engine
- fuel
- electronics
- manouvering devices

When you begin with your shop; you are only be able to buy a small hull, a light engine, 50 fuel unit, simple electronics and primitive manouvering devices.

When you get better technologies you can get more stuff (larger hull, larger engines, more efficient engines, faster engines etc).

You can also tweak every component (with sliders); if you have more 'tweaking skills' you can slide them up and down a bit further. So you could for example make the engine burn a bit more fuel so it can go faster. Or change the prox radius.

Developing better technology could also increase your tweaking skills, however if you get the technology from somebody else; it doesn't improve it. But it might improve your 'trading skills' or something

Hmm and the whole hiring bot is kind of neat; if there are a lot of barebone stations with almost no defense etc. And your shop in that station becomes major; you'd like some projection, wouldn't you?

It seems like we're bordering on creating a whole new crafting engine for this.

>>It seems like we're bordering on creating a whole new crafting engine for this.<<
bah... I was trying to keep to the system/work with things we already had.
ya think it's too complicated then?

Actually, it's a wonderful idea. We seem to be living in a capitalist universe, where business/faction affiliation takes precedence over national origin, so why are we using a Cold War-era system where there's only one shipyard, commodity market and upgrade shop, apparently run by the government of the state you're in. IMNSHO the game needs to go to a small-shop system, where a player can rent shop space and create one of a set of predetermined shop types. They set their own prices for goods and services, maintain rent and supplies, etc.

As a matter of necessity, some portions of this system would have to be automated, so as not to impede the fun factor. For example, a player could set his shop's prices and routes/wholesalers (Should be NPCs, allowing the devs to control the market from afar if need be) from which to restock, then leave it alone for three months, hoping nothing would change in the market. However, given that prices fluctuate, what a player gets out of his shop depends largely on the amount of time he is willing to put into it, adjusting prices with the market, switching to better suppliers as they become available, advertising (Buy a sign space and submit text to place on it, written in GTS).

Suggested types of shops:

Commodity Shop:
Sells goods. Prices fluctuate with distance from the wholesaler (and thus haulage cost)

Upgrade Shop:
Sells Upgrades, same caveats as the Commodity Shop.

Shipyard:
Sells ships of varying quality depending upon the parts available from their manufacturer. Prices do not generally fluctuate with distance, as they are set by the manufacturer's SRP, and the manufacturers pay transport costs. However, the salesman may choose to set a commission.

...and a few others that belong in another thread. Anyhow, pay your rent or lose your shop. Shop finances can be separate from personal finances if you so desire. Other transactions (gov't tariffs on commercial goods, franchise fees/payments, even bribes and protection money (Corvus comes to mind) depend on the station you choose to inhabit. Riskier stations have cheaper rent and greater opportunity, but subject incoming supply freighters to piracy.

Harvestmouse: I was referring to Sheean's post more than yours.

But the question is, will people want to do it? Every minute you spend in a shop means more time you don't get to fly around and enjoy the universe. You're essentially a captive of the sector you've set up shop in. And on top of that, if you focus on your "crafting" skills, you lose out on time to practice your combat and trading stuff so you're relegated to crappy equipment. It sounds like a great idea, but I'm not sure we'll find many people who are willing to sit in the station interface all day. The profit potential would have to be HUGE! relative to regular trading.

Some people like SimCity over Unreal, some people like Unreal over SimCity. Ofcourse not everybody wants to do it; but you don't want *everybody* to own a shop. Just like in real life only a select 'few' (in % compared to the rest) own and run a shop. This will just add an other direction the player could take.

>>But the question is, will people want to do it? Every minute you spend in a shop means more time you don't get to fly around and enjoy the universe. You're essentially a captive of the sector you've set up shop in.<<

When we traded cargo between players before, generally the person ordering the cargo had to sit outside the dock, wait for whatever courier was shipping to get there, and move the cargo into the dock himself.

The player ordering the cargo could just place cargo transport missions. Just list a few missions/cargo you want to be shipped, specify how much you're paying, where you could buy the cargo, even, and if there's a time limit...
After that, the shop owner can go about his own business, flying back to his shop occasionally to see if his orders were met.
The big time-saver is that the shop owner doesn't have to stay at his shop to make it run.

>> And on top of that, if you focus on your "crafting" skills, you lose out on time to practice your combat and trading stuff so you're relegated to crappy equipment. <<

I was hoping that manufacturing skills weren't too time consuming for the shop owner. If the requirement for the next license level were to have 800 cargo space and 500 iron ore widgets in shop, he could hire people to help him, with the income he gets from his shop. On the other hand, you can't really hire people to bot for you, so botting takes longer.
Much of the point of having "crafting" skills is to make better equipment at a cheaper price... which could come in handy for anyone.
(then again, people could also focus on manufacturing better widgets... but that's for turning a bigger profit. Buyers can buy 16 widgets at once, but only one engine, for example.)

I thought comes to mind:

A shopkeeper won't have time to bot for higher weapons levels.
So?
What would a shopkeeper need proxy mines for?
I'm not sure how an Avalon Torpedo would help my business.

<rant>

Even if I produce the Neutral Marauder for NT in my shipyard and sell them in Arta J-11 I don't need to have the levels to fly them.

Why do I need permission to use a weapon to produce it?
I assure you that the guys that make the penguin missiles IRL don't regularly mount them on their cars.

It's simply a choise. I can either go out and become the most skilled pilot in the universe and offer my services as a bounty hunter, or I can set up shop and sell purified water mined from ice roids.
If anyone interfers with my business I'll just hire a bounty hunter to show him who's the man.

</rant>

Sort version:
I have never plaid an RPG in my life where I have had all skills.

This argument brings another point to light. That point being that military organizations are often somewhat reluctant to share their prized technology (no matter how antiquated) with others, afraid of what it might mean to their enemy. New tech is built on old tech, which is built on older tech. Acquiring said technology could take different forms depending on your nation.

For example, to sell a Maurauder, you would have to have good family connections in the Neutral establishment, specifically with the minister in charge of shipbuilding, and drop 100k or so in bribes for each shipment to get through customs.

The Valkyrie, being a fast, sporty ship, would probably be available to civilians in one highly-neutered form or another. Acquiring the conversion kit would be the trick.

The Serco, being a proud, xenophobic people, would place every barrier they could in your way. To acquire permission to sell the Prometheus, you would have to have high standing with the Serco council, be a distinguished veteran of more than one successful campaign, and acquire hulks of destroyed Prometheuses from a Serco military boneyard. Resurrect them to operational status, and the council understands that if you value the Prom enough to put that much work into one, you deserve to fly it. Thus, they wouldn't send the usual battle group to destroy you and everyone on your station.

<Some people like SimCity over Unreal, some people like Unreal over SimCity.>

But would the people who like SimCity be attracted to a game like Vendetta unless you created a complex additional crafting engine for them?

Because they want something between the two extreme poles of gaming styles?

This is an excellent idea! It would provide a whole new direction for a player to take, and it provides countless new possibilities for player-created missions.

One nitpicky point: all other license levels are based on having enough skill points to pass the test, why would crafting levels be based on how much cargo your shop holds? What if you gained a small amount of crafting experience for every item you crafted, and when you had enough experience points you could upgrade to the next crafting license level, which in turn would allow you to own a shop with more cargo space/ better effeciency?

you've got a good point there.
Leveling should be broken down to many missions.
(heh I thought about how depressed I'd be, if instead of giving me combat missions, the mission computer said: "800 bots till next level!"
or trading was: "you have 5000 more widgets to ship")

Hmm. crafting widgets shouldn't be too time-based then (since we have to mass-produce widgets to make it worthwhile).