Perhaps...

Don't get me wrong, I still think this is an excellent suggestion that I'd love to see happen, but as I've thought more about it, I think it might actually be too good for CtC. One of the big things that would make this battery more useful for CtC than it should be is that it would be able to jump through WHs extremely fast. If a player using this mini-FC grabs CtC cargo in say Bractus E-2, they can jump through the WH to Pelatus, wait for any pursuers to jump through, and then jump back to Bractus, gaining an automatic 4 second headstart while the pursuers wait for their normal FC batteries to recharge to full. 4 seconds is enough to guarantee escape handily.

As a possible solution to this, the mini-FC could have a variable charge rate like I've suggested previously ( http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8405 ). Have it charge faster the lower it drains, and slower the higher it charges. That way it would still give infiniturbo to lower level traders, which is the big thing that I think it should do. But because its charge rate would slow down as it got higher, it would still take as long or longer than the normal-FC to charge to the full capacity needed for WH warps.

Of course, the problem with that would be that it would be much harder for the devs to implement than simply adding a new battery.

I suppose an exact duplicate of the current FC that was available at trade 4 in some UIT systems would be a good compromise. No rebalancing CtC and the traders get infiniboost without having to level up in combat.

We really need a trade battery. Without it, the "trader" path is useless because you're stuck with a free battery unless you bot!

theres nothing wrong with botting

Ayuh, but here's a quote:

"build your reputation as a military pilot, explorer, merchant, mercenary, pirate, and more."

That's from the box. Right now, you can't be a merchant unless you want to go kill bots for a few hours to get a decent battery. I see no reason why a simple battery like the ones suggested below wouldn't work to encourage a pure commerce path:

Trader Battery
Mass: 800kg
Capacity: 75e
Charge Rate: 45 e/s
Level: -/-/-/3/-

Trader Battery Mark II
Mass: 900kg
Capacity: 50e
Charge Rate: 50e/s
Level: -/-/-/4/-

The high mass and low capacity should discourage use by fighters who would otherwise enjoy the low requirements, but should be fine for traders who are already looking at 70000kg ships.

Still needed. One of my chars has 0/0/0/4/1 and needs to use a free battery.

I know it's been said before, but this has reminded me of the concept of Weapon slots being used for cargo... another way to seperate combatants and non-combatants more in their possible playing styles.

Now that the NPC traders have 0 combat license, it would make more sense for them if there was a trader battery.

on a side note, id like to see an industrial capacity battery, 1000 cap, 40 charge, 500kg mass, takes a long time to warp, and isnt the best charger, but it would really help those heavily gunned ships in a fight, and a lighter ship in a dog fight will drain it pretty quickly and have energy issues due to the slow charge. A battery like this has the potential to make those ships with lots of weapon ports truly frightening to go up against.

[EDIT] possibly 35 charge, but thats pretty damn slow for a batt with a capcity of 1000 The ctcers wouldnt touch this thing due to the charge time, since when you warp your batt starts at 0, and it charges slow. Same for the pirates, but when you need truly heavy guns, it would shine.

That battery would shine if you only needed to shoot once, cause as soon as it's empty you'd have a problem.

A variable charge battery that charges fast when it's empty and slower when it's full would be much more interesting. You could even give it a charge rate of 55 when empty. That would give some of the fighters infiniboost, but only on an empty battery so they wouldn't be able to shoot...

@tram: that battery would make the heavy fighters easy targets jumping throught wh as they cannot run for long or shoot if the wh is "camped"

I am now 0/0/0/5/2. Still only Free Battery. Maybe I'll get a Behemoth and STILL only be able to use a free battery?

OMG, Moth with a free batt... I'm going to have to do that now, just for kicks.

Heavies already are easy targets, and the battery isnt intended for solo trading/fighting really, more aimed at group settings/botting when you really need some firepower, and the main reason a battery with that capacity CANNOT have a very fast recharge rate is, it would obsolete other batteries, and get generally abused. with 1000 capacity you can let off quite the barrage of fire. then you can back out a bit with just small test shots here n there till it charges to an acceptable level (which is the tactic any heavy of that kind of class should be using anyways.)

Actually, a 1000 capacity 50 charge battery wouldn't obsolete the F/C, IMO. Choose waiting ~20 seconds to jump, or waiting ~5 seconds. But it would obsolete the Heavy battery.

0/0/0/6/3 and still no decent trader's battery.

simple solution, make the batteries we have now available to _either_ their current combat level, or to the same trade level plus one. ie, you get the FC at 0/0/0/5/0 as well.

or:

trade 2:

200 cap / 35 delivery

trade 4

150 cap / 40 delivery

trade 8

100 cap / 45 delivery

but just throwing up numbers.

I'm with rene, for once, why not just give them access to some better batts than the free that require 0 combat levels too.

Or maybe give traders access to a batt that cannot fire energy weapons?

Same stats as light, med, heavy, FC, only you cannot shoot? Or something along these lines, I like the above idea though.