Aside from the ships, I've been considering these others. I wanted to get some preliminary feedback on them, mostly to find out if anybody else is working on the same thing, or if there's some fundamental reason they couldn't be implemented, or other Very Important Things I should know before continuing work on them.
- Bonded Couriers This would be mostly missions, but also a (simple) station or two, maybe a ship or two. The idea is to invite the player to deliver cargo of some sort, often small but valuable, in a situation that's harder than the regular cargo contracts, and has a correspondingly higher payoff. I was thinking that since all ships have the same interstellar "speed", the mission would consist of an in-system pickup, from a presumably rather distant point (station) whose location you would receive when the mission was assigned, followed by a delivery to another system, all within a prescribed deadline. The in-system part would favor the faster ships, and the whole thing would test navigation skills and attention to detail. And for the more valuable contracts, there might be some, ahem, opposition at the pick-up point.
- Passengers I know there's been considerable discussion on other threads about the shortcomings of the built-in passenger contracts--they're a lot of trouble for relatively little payoff. And I know some folks have speculated on ways to correct that. Was just wondering if anybody is actively working on it, and if so, what's the status? I was envisioning new types of passenger berths as installable equipment, like a basic class (maybe 3T, 400Cr) that would net you low-end passenger contracts, the "standard" class (5T, 525Cr) that gets somewhat higher-paying clients, a first-class berth (oh, 7T, 1000Cr?) that would allow you to take mid-range contracts, and luxury berths (10T, 5000Cr, maybe) that would net you high-paying passengers. And the passenger contracts would, of course, have to be in the form of missions, since as of now, as far as I know, there's no way to affect the built-in F8-F8 passenger contract screen. Thoughts?
- Governments I'm quite fond of the Dictators and Commies OXPs, and I think that every government type should have a "flavor" OXP to go with it. The possibilities are numerous--new station types, new ships, even missions. There's also the Anarchies OXP, but I think of it as a somewhat different category than the others, since it has rather more far-ranging effects than Commies or Dictators. But that still leaves several government types not yet covered. My own first interest is in Feudals. I know that nijineko has mentioned them elsewhere, primarily in the context of kamikaze ships. That would make them patterned after feudal Japan, which is great, and which I'd love to see co-exist with feudal systems that follow other patterns, such as European chivalric traditions, and whatever else somebody is familiar with and wishes to implement. It's a big ooniverse, and I'm sure we could divide up the systems so everybody got a playground. If somebody else is also working on Feudals, or other government types, I'd love to know about it.
I can envision Royal Hunting Grounds, the King's Summer Castle station, blood feuds that the player could help settle, jousting and deuling against the Royal Champion, etc. Feudals are especially tasty since they generally have a small but very rich class who support themselves on the backs of the vast majority of poor toiling slobs, the next thing up from slaves. Endless opportunities for extravagance and wretched excess, no?
My first efforts for Feudals should appear as a teaser OXP within a few days. I hope!
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