Jump To Lightspeed Archive

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LAR wrote:

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Arnold_Farris wrote:

ok, i didnt read this whole thread word for word, so if this is already put up dont flame me, but has anyone thought of taking regular starport travel ships completely out of the game?

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It's not possible because JtL is an optional expansion. You cannot punish players who choose not to buy it.

Later,
LAR

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i dont see this as punishment, having to contact a player to charter you off-world, i see it more as a better immersion into the Star Wars Universe, just like Luke, Obiwan and Han in Mos Eisley, what makes this game so fun is that you have to interact with other players to do almost everything, and this is just adding to it. plus as i said before it could be restricted to the elite planets only, so it makes it even more elite to go to one.

Sounds good. However, as the system is now. Who would want to go trough all that trouble when you can take the shuttle from starports and get it done in a few minutes? (unless someone wants to roleplay, are lazy or just need to move a huge amount of stuff =).

Ideas are all great, but imo. there is no "real" basis for putting this into the game as it is now. There would, however, be a GREAT platform for it, if/when SOE adds one or more planets that you can only get to trough JTL space (which would be rather neat). But I think that is still far away.

Just my thoughts.

Great proposal! Hope the DEV's read and consider it or something like it.

INTRODUCTION

I believe that SWG and Jump to Lightspeed will be more funwith features that supportspace-based commerce -- in other words, space needs to have features to support both combat and commerce.

To this end, I've put together a number of ideas to support commerce in space. Some of them I've already discussed in other threads, some are new. The main new idea I get to toward the end of this message. If you're terminally impatient (heh)you can skip to the "SHIPPING TERMINALS" section, but I hope you'll try reading through the preliminary comments first -- they'll help the rest of this message make more sense.

SPACE EXPANSION: THE COMMERCIAL GAME

I put together a fairly detailed list of ideas to support space-based commerce in my thread "Space Expansion: The Commercial Game" (Core Systems thread #17565). This discussion wasn't so much about how to implement ideas for space commerce as it wasto talk about what kinds of commerce the Space Expansionought to have. It was a pretty good discussion, but I wouldn't mind giving these ideas a little more exposure -- if anyone thinks it might be useful to repost that thread over here in the actual Jump to Lightspeed forum, let me know.

The core of that thread that relates to this one is the list of three main types of space-based commercial service:

• passenger transportation


• freight delivery


• cargo sales

So how can we get these features?

PLAYER CONTRACTS

There's an idea I had a while back that would support space-based commerce without needing to implement any other new features. This is because it's a major new feature itself that goes well beyond supporting just space-based commerce.

This is the concept of Player Contracts. I've designed a contract system that would allow players to establish long-term and repeated contracts with each other to securely perform many different kinds of economic transactions, from the basic goods-for-money trade we currently use to crafting, repair, guard duty, player bounties(!), and even in-game marriage contracts.

If you'd like to check out the details of this idea, you can read the messages in thread #4421 in the Core Systems forum ("Player Contracts: A Design Document") -- there's also a somewhat shorter version ("Player Contracts: The Short Version") in thread #15183 of the Core Systems forum that gives you all the details in one message. (Admittedly, it's not all that short.)

A couple of the contract types Ipropose are Transport and Delivery. Transport contracts allow you to make deals with players to move items or players to a specified location; Delivery contracts let you agree to give specific items to another player.

If just these two types of player contracts were available, we would have a formal, game-backed way to perform twoof the most requested space commerce services: passenger service and freight delivery service. There's nothing preventing us from doing these things informallythe daythat JtLships... butit doesn't appear that there'll be any features to reliablysupport doing those things, either. And without a formal in-game system that protects the players who agree in good faith to make contracts with other players, these kinds of commerce just won't happen -- it'll be too easy to cheat the other guy by taking his money or goods or services without providing the agreed-on payment.

A game-implemented contract system would be exactly the kind of formal system needed tobe able to make trustable deals. But how would this actually work in practice?

One feature of player contractsthat would make a freight delivery system practicalwould becontract terminals. As a freighter pilot, you'd be able to go to a contract terminal near your favorite starport, find a delivery mission that suits you, accept the mission, take "delivery" of the item (I put delivery in quotes because you never actually see the item in your inventory -- it's put in a special contract account to prevent theft), travel to your destination, and have the item "transferred" to the delivery terminal, at which point your bank account is credited with the freight delivery fee offered in the contract.

Sound like it might work?

It must be said that although the developers have discussed the idea of implementing some systemsupportingplayer missions (which really is what my player contract system winds up being), they haven't mentioned it publicly in months. Nor do they show anysigns of considering implementing anything like a player contract or mission system.

So is there some other way to support space-based commerce? Is there some other relatively simple feature the developers could implement that supports not just freight delivery but cargo sales?

SHIPPING TERMINALS

Having gone through all the background details, let's cut to the chase. What we need is this: Bazaar terminals that can be placed inside starports, and that have been enhanced in two ways: to allow players toenter "want ads," andto provide automatic payments for delivering selected items to selected off-planet destinations.

(In what follows, remember the distinction between freight and cargo: freight is stuff you carry for someone else for a predetermined fee, while cargo is stuff you buy in one place and carry to sell in another place in the hope of making a profit between the two transactions.)

What we need is a new type of terminal -- a Shipping terminal -- that works just like a Bazaar terminal but with a couple of enhancements and a restriction:

• has a new "Wanted" category (in addition to Armor, Misc, Resources, etc.)


• has two new columns on all item categories (except the new Wanted category)




• Delivery Location


• Delivery Fee


• is only found inside starports

When you offer an item for sale on the Bazaar terminal, you have the option of marking it for delivery to another starport. If you take this option by selecting a Delivery Location starport from a pulldown list, you're prompted to enter a (non-zero) Delivery Fee as well. If you don't enter a Delivery Location, the item is listed for sale just like items are listed currently. Otherwise the delivery fee is immediately deducted from your bank account (if you can't pay it, you aren't allowed to mark the item for delivery) -- that way when someone delivers it they are assured of payment. If you later cancel the offer, the delivery fee is credited back to your bank account.

[Question: Would we want to allow items to be delivered to starport Shipping terminals on the same planet as the source Shipping terminal? Or should the pick list of possible delivery starports exclude all starports on the same planet where you're placing the item for sale?]

Only operators of multi-player ships would be able to accept freight delivery missions from the Shipping terminal. Starfighters will already have plenty of cool things that only they can do; they don't need to be able to haul freight or cargo, too.

To prevent the theft of freight, you never get the actual freight items in your ship -- you just get a ship's manifest that lists the items you're moving from one Shipping terminal to another. When you take a freight delivery contract from a Shipping terminal, the item is marked and displayed as inactive to anyone viewing that item ina Bazaar orShipping terminal. If you get killed in space, the item is marked back to active. Only when you successfully land at your destination and redeed your ship is the item removed from the source Shipping terminal, added to the destination Shipping terminal, and the delivery fee deposited to your bank account with an in-gameemail message telling you about the transfer. (It might also be nice to send an in-game email message to the person who offered the delivery fee to let him or her know that the item has been successfully delivered.)

[Note that if piracy and docking are ever implemented, having a ship's manifest of items being delivered would be a good source of items for pirates to steal.]

[Additional enhancement: What about allowing anyone to mark an item for delivery, even after it's originallybeen added by someone else to a Bazaar terminal? That way if you're on Lok and you need 1000 units of Resource X and someone is selling it on Dantooine, you can offer a delivery fee for someone to bring it to you. The only catch is that the person who placed the item for sale would have to authorize the delivery, otherwise you could have people griefing merchants by having their products shipped to undesirable locations.]

Finally, there would also be a new button next to the "My Sales" button on the Bazaar terminal -- this would be labeled "Wanted". Pressing it would allow you to create what would essentially be want ads. You'd enter text into two fields: a short Subject line (probably with something like a 30-character limit), and a Details text entry box. You'd briefly describe what you want to sell (or buy!) in the Subject line, then provide any other necessary information in the Details box. When you hit OK, this would create a new "item" that's only shown when you click on the "Wanted" category on any Bazaar or Shipping terminal. All Wanted items would automatically have, say,a 3-day lifespan, but you'd be able to cancel Wanted messages in a way similar to how you cancel sale offers on Bazaar terminals currently (the only difference being that you wouldn't get an actual physical item to retrieve, since there was never one to begin with).

SHIPPING EXAMPLE

So how would all this actually work? Let's try an example.

Congratulations! You're now the proud owner-operator of a YT-1300 -- she may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, and you're ready to start earning back what you paid to buy her.

You walk into the Coronet Starport with your YT-1300 deed in your inventory. Set amid the ticket stations are several new terminals -- they look sort of like Bazaar terminals, but seem to have a few more blinking lights.

You access this newShipping terminal, and click on the "Resource" category. On the right side of the terminal screen, the usual list of resources for sale appears... but you notice that there are two new columns: one for "Delivery Location" that for some resources lists the names of starports on various planets, and one for "Delivery Fee" that showssome number.All the resources marked as having a Delivery Location also have a Delivery Fee listed.

There's one item that shows a 500-credit delivery fee for taking some Radioactives to Theed Starport. You were already thinking of heading that way, so you mark that item and click on the "Deliver" button. You notice that there are two other items whose owners want them delivered to theShipping terminals at the Theed starport, so you click on "Deliver" for them, too. Now all three items are grayed out on the Shipping terminal display.

You deed your ship, travel (uneventfully!) to Theed starport, and redeed your ship when you get there. As you stand on your two feet again, you notice that your email icon is blinking. When you click on it to bring up your Email window, you see that there are three messages waiting for you, each one telling you that the appropriate delivery fee has been credited to your bank account.

"All too easy!" you think with a grin. Then you realize that while you were in Coronetyou could havechecked the Wanted category for Bazaar terminals on Naboo to see if there were any items you could have bought in Coronet to bring to Theed in the hope of making a profit.

You figure you'll head back to Coronet, so you access the Theed Shipping terminal and select the Wanted category for Corellian terminals. Someone is looking for Lokian leather; someone else wants as many crates ofMuon Goldas you can offer (but you're not desperate enough to try smuggling spice -- yet); and -- hey! someone wants Nabooian Fiberplast. You click on the Resources category, and sure enough, someone is selling 1000 units of high-quality Nabooian Fiberplast for 6000 credits. That seems a bit steep, but the person who left the Coronet want ad says he'll pay 8 credits per unit. That would be a 2000 credit profit, which would definitely pay the electric bill for a few days.

So you buy the fiberplast (before someone else can) and send an IM to the guy who wrote the want ad -- no response. You send an email, then jump in your ship and head back to Coronet.

When you get there, there's still no reply to your email. Now you have to make a tough choice -- do you hang on to the fiberplast in the hope of selling it to the person who wrote the want ad? Or do you put it onto the Coronet Bazaar yourself to try to make back what you paid for it (and maybe a little profit in the bargain)?

Welcome to the exciting life of a freighter captain.

QUESTIONS

So -- would this work, or have I missed some obvious flaw?

Are there other features that would improve these ideas?

Would this be too hard for the developers to implement?

Is there some other entirely different (and better) way to get space commerce?

What do you think?

--Flatfingers