Ships bought by the AI should be neutral to everyone for some time. Its too easy to exploit right now.

[Imperial Good]

I have suggested many times that NPCs should only pay on delivery and only accept ships delivered to a safe gathering point. The entire process would be automated (built, flies to place and then ownership changed without any user input required) but until it is complete the ship would use the player faction's cover. If the ship is destroyed before delivery then the player does not get paid, but that would require an enemy of the player to do so and the player would be inclined to deal with such enemies to avoid losses.

[Raptor34]

I have suggested many times that NPCs should only pay on delivery and only accept ships delivered to a safe gathering point. The entire process would be automated (built, flies to place and then ownership changed without any user input required) but until it is complete the ship would use the player faction's cover. If the ship is destroyed before delivery then the player does not get paid, but that would require an enemy of the player to do so and the player would be inclined to deal with such enemies to avoid losses.

Doesn't seem impossible tbh. The terraforming drones are using your faction and afaict you cannot control them as they fly off.
And change of faction code is already there, as seen from selling your ships remotely.
But frankly beyond that I want a price bonus for actually locating your wharf/shipyard in faction territory. Incentives the player to actually locate them in territories they are servicing.

[ajime]

I like to build a shipyard near two hostile factions so they kill each other and then have to buy more ships from me.

Profit.

Spoken like a true teladi.
On topic:It's fine. there's even an achievement for playing two sides of the coin. Profitsssssss.

[jlehtone]

If the ship is destroyed before delivery then the player does not get paid, but that would require an enemy of the player to do so and the player would be inclined to deal with such enemies to avoid losses.

Incentives the player to actually locate them in territories they are servicing.

Isn't the risk in delivery an incentive?


The "safe gathering point" could have Buy Offers for ships just like stations have for wares. The Trader at your Wharf could then reserve order, build, and deliver just like Managers send wares. You could take those offers yourself too, if you have a suitable ship. The latter we somewhat already have in the Procure a Ship-missions so a question is whether general offers and missions can co-exist.

That still leaves the pirate way of life to think about. How to get rid of junk that nobody wants? Shipyards could make offers for scrap metal (any ship&layout will do). Price could depend on how much of the ship they can strip (have space for wares) with fully stocked Yard paying only pittance.

[Nort The Fragrent]

Building ships needs to be far harder than it is, if your shipyard is producing ships for the enemy of another ! In real life, that yard would be bombed to stop this from happening. They didn't ought to be attacking the ships. They ought to destroy the shipyard. !

Make shipyards have affiliation, and or specified Blueprints. Reducing what a shipyard can make. Having all the blueprints available at one yard is silly, not very realistic.

If you build a shipyard, it needs to be set up to produce one factions ships, and no other !

This would slow the progress of Shipyard fever.

At the moment, Shipyards are cash cows, that vomit money regardless. They need raining in.

[Raptor34]

If the ship is destroyed before delivery then the player does not get paid, but that would require an enemy of the player to do so and the player would be inclined to deal with such enemies to avoid losses.

Incentives the player to actually locate them in territories they are servicing.

Isn't the risk in delivery an incentive?


The "safe gathering point" could have Buy Offers for ships just like stations have for wares. The Trader at your Wharf could then reserve order, build, and deliver just like Managers send wares. You could take those offers yourself too, if you have a suitable ship. The latter we somewhat already have in the Procure a Ship-missions so a question is whether general offers and missions can co-exist.

That still leaves the pirate way of life to think about. How to get rid of junk that nobody wants? Shipyards could make offers for scrap metal (any ship&layout will do). Price could depend on how much of the ship they can strip (have space for wares) with fully stocked Yard paying only pittance.

There is no risk. Like who is going to intercept you?

[Imperial Good]

Building ships needs to be far harder than it is, if your shipyard is producing ships for the enemy of another ! In real life, that yard would be bombed to stop this from happening. They didn't ought to be attacking the ships. They ought to destroy the shipyard. !

This is not how real life works. Arms companies happily sell weapons to both sides of a conflict and neither side would ever consider destroying their factories for it as long as they are also dependent on the weapons that get made there.

The player is acting as their own diplomatic agent in the conflict. They can choose to sell to both sides, and both sides can choose to buy their stuff, for the right price of course.

Now if they should punish the player for biased behaviour is another matter. In such cases there could be financial compensation demands that failing to pay would cause the faction to go hostile. Not sure how one could decide when and how much compensation has to be paid but basically it should only kick in if the player is clearly supporting one faction rather than another (selling ships to only one side, blacklisting other) and should still be reasonable and only eat a significant proportion of their profits.

Having all the blueprints available at one yard is silly, not very realistic.

It is very realistic given that this is the future and you can literally make high tech holographic furniture by throwing nano clay (comuptronic substrate) against a surface. Ordering stuff to be turned into a different design of ship made from exactly the same parts seems quite reasonable.

At the moment, Shipyards are cash cows, that vomit money regardless. They need raining in.

Actually the profit margins are not much higher than selling the components that the ships are made from. In fact in the case of Terran ship designs you can possibly lose money selling them as ships rather than the raw materials directly, at least according to some people. This is because all ship sales to NPCs have a 70% final price reduction so despite setting price to "150%" you are only selling for 45% of average price.

[Nort The Fragrent]

Imperial Good:
Your right ! However ! The shipyard Cash rout is absurdly out of balance. Rewarding the player so much, it is a joke. When you start building ships in the current format, you have nothing to worry about regarding where the moneys coming from. It pours in ! And that’s not quite right, is it ?
Or are players all want to be Trumps. If so, I feel sorry for them. !
The challenge has then gone !

[Midnitewolf]

Building ships needs to be far harder than it is, if your shipyard is producing ships for the enemy of another ! In real life, that yard would be bombed to stop this from happening. They didn't ought to be attacking the ships. They ought to destroy the shipyard. !

Make shipyards have affiliation, and or specified Blueprints. Reducing what a shipyard can make. Having all the blueprints available at one yard is silly, not very realistic.

If you build a shipyard, it needs to be set up to produce one factions ships, and no other !

This would slow the progress of Shipyard fever.

At the moment, Shipyards are cash cows, that vomit money regardless. They need raining in.

Yeah but that would require there to be actual diplomacy in the game. We are trying to come up with solutions that don't involve something we know Egosoft won't add.

As far as my preferences, HELL YEAH! BRING IT ON!! As long as we get the full diplomacy features along with it. The game would be 1 million times better if the expanded on the sandbox theme adding in actual diplomacy, meaningful territory control and the ability for NPC factions to actually declare war on the player once the player starts claiming sectors for himself. I can only dream of this game with a fully dynamic and ever changing political landscape with implications for every action that would make the game feel truly alive.

[MHDriver]

This is a nice segway into the whole make sector control meaningful discussion. If and that is a big if a player actually had control over the sectors they controlled and were able to select no hostilities then you could sell ships to whomever you like and not have the endless carnage and wrecks piling up.

I know, different discussion but I thought it fit here nicely.

[Midnitewolf]

This is a nice segway into the whole make sector control meaningful discussion. If and that is a big if a player actually had control over the sectors they controlled and were able to select no hostilities then you could sell ships to whomever you like and not have the endless carnage and wrecks piling up.

I know, different discussion but I thought it fit here nicely.

Please don't. Then I will feel like I hijacked the thread since I mentioned it just above your post. I mean I do always mention what I think this game needs in the off chance that if someone sees it enough, it will gain support and maybe even the ears or eyes of a dev with some power to make things happen, but I don't to make those comments into a hijack.

So yeah, I would love meaningful sector control but lets fix on issue at a time, like meaningful 20km radius of your own stations control hehe.

[Wraith_Magus]

This is not how real life works. Arms companies happily sell weapons to both sides of a conflict and neither side would ever consider destroying their factories for it as long as they are also dependent on the weapons that get made there.

The player is acting as their own diplomatic agent in the conflict. They can choose to sell to both sides, and both sides can choose to buy their stuff, for the right price of course.

Now if they should punish the player for biased behaviour is another matter. In such cases there could be financial compensation demands that failing to pay would cause the faction to go hostile. Not sure how one could decide when and how much compensation has to be paid but basically it should only kick in if the player is clearly supporting one faction rather than another (selling ships to only one side, blacklisting other) and should still be reasonable and only eat a significant proportion of their profits.

There's still a huge degree of obliviousness on the part of the computer, however.

I mean, players are overtly encouraged to sign up for every side of every war. Playing a double agent should be dangerous in at least some way, involve some kind of need for duplicity. Instead, I can happily take missions from each side of a conflict at the same time, and Argons don't care that I'm going into their wharf, buying mines, coming out, dropping the mines into Second Contact or Argon Prime, then taking a mission to set up laser towers inside True Sight, and fly by active engagement between a Behemoth and a station and nobody bothers shooting at me while I set down laser towers as directed. Nobody asks questions about this as both sides shower me with accolades as the most successful agent to be able to go deep behind enemy lines dropping all sorts of satellites, mines, and lasertowers all over the place. (But hey, since I guarantee all their agents will get to the front lines, sure makes sense to use the overtly neutral guy as the taxi...)

[jlehtone]

... makes sense to use the overtly neutral guy ...

That does raise a question: Why Teladi do not build ships for other factions? They have reputation of being neutral (aka take all credits that they can). If player can license blueprints, then surely the Company should too?

[Malchar]

That does raise a question: Why Teladi do not build ships for other factions? They have reputation of being neutral (aka take all credits that they can). If player can license blueprints, then surely the Company should too?

Game code forbide them to compete players. Only players can sell ships to everyone at high cost. Everyone buy to player without protesting, may be even if they have raws to build the same thing themself.