land ownership as reward for missions for Feudal lords?

[Disembodied]

Only problem is most players agreed that getting cash for doing nothing wasn't how things are done in Oolite.

A solution to this might be interest payments. If you make the cost of a station high enough (and let's face it, buying even a small harbour will cost a LOT more than buying a ship), then you can arrange things so that the player has to keep working, and keep his station running, to keep up the interest payments and maybe eventually clear the debt. The player would need to put up a very large sum as a downpayment only. The running costs should be enormous, too: it should be possible to make it so that owning a station, even once you've paid off the debt, doesn't just become a fountain of perpetual wealth. As owner, you'd be very very rich, but almost all your liquid capital would be tied up in the station itself. If you wanted to make a sort of sim-game out of it, you could have various figures to adjust: set your docking fees too high and ships stop coming; too low and you don't cover your costs. A strict approach to the law keeps you in with GalCop, but means you miss out on some juicy opportunities; too lax though and you could end up getting stung and facing a huge fine (as well as attracting rather too many shady types to your station).

Station management could also involve stockpiling commodities - being able to buy and sell far more than 128 t/kg/g at a time - and again, these would be money sinks. You could be rich in assets but maybe cash poor: a sudden repair bill or fine or bribe or demand for protection money could see you having to sell assets at a loss to get the cash together.

There would need to be a lot of balancing involved, and you'd need some way of adjusting costs to assets: richer stations would face higher taxes, perhaps, and would be bigger targets for pirates - that sort of thing.

[Switeck]

Even buying and running a Rock Hermit could be a money pit.

1.The miner/scavenger ships may seem like a source of income, but you have to pay for pilot/s and for maintenance.
2.Any defensive ships would require replacement pilots to keep them ready-to-launch at a moment's notice 24 hours of the day.
3.Station equipment costs -- energy shields, energy generation units, heat shields.
4.How many ships (and how large of ships) can be docked at once?
5.How much cargo can be stored inside the station?
6.Having a fully functional automated Commodities market.
7.Having a refueling station.
8.Can you buy other equipment there? (basic Missiles, Large Cargo Bay, etc...)
9.Can you buy, sell, and store spare ships there?

To improve any of that, VERY expensive upgrades might be needed.
And as you sink more money into it, maintenance costs probably go way up as well...

[Cholmondely]

I came up with the idea that perhaps Feudal lords could give land ownership on the planet as a reward for successful missions. in turn, these lands could give the player certain tonnes of food, liquor/wines or similar agricultural products. These could be placed in the station, or the planet, and the pilot could collect them upon arrival. As a result, the pilot would receive some income from these "lands". Other types of materials could also be given, eg if the Feudal system has a high tech level, maybe the pilot could receive a factory as a reward, offering computers or machinery, and so on.

This is now do-able with Diplomancy. Not so much the giving of the commodities, but the granting of subjecthood on a planet with the concurrent taxes and the clobbering by enemy systems if one's ship is flagged.