Oolite Bulletins

Diziet Sma wrote:

Gimi wrote:

I like this. Anyone ever heard of a computer game that has "Anti Insurance Fraud" mechanisms built into it. It must be a first.

See slight update I made above while you were replying.. so far as I'm aware, it ought to be possible to track if the player was actively being attacked at the time, not merely condition red/yellow/green.

Could this be modified to "actively attacked by an offender/fugitive/Thargoid"? Or at least detect if the player is being attacked by the police? Insurance companies like their wangles, and it would stop the player just cruising up to the station, shooting it up, bringing the Vipers out and ejecting.

Gimi wrote:

Anyone ever heard of a computer game that has "Anti Insurance Fraud" mechanisms built into it. It must be a first.

TFX would get your pilot dishonourably discharged if you ejected more than once from a plane that was still reasonably safe to fly, though not for reasons of preventing insurance fraud.

A way to stop some of the exploits: you only get repaired to the state your ship was in the last time you launched.

Gimi wrote:

There is a deductible that totals to 3% (or X%) of the ships total value.

3% for a stock Cobra III would be 5,000 - only increased to ~8,000 for one with all the bits. The majority of the effectiveness of the core ships is in the equipment upgrades, and the majority of the price is not, which makes using ship value for anything a bit trickier.

After these comments I am thinking on an Insurance OXP which change the mechanics to the following:

Escape Pod give a Cobra MkIII with most basic starter equipments only, but there are additional insurances for monthly fees:

Cheap: give the stock version of the lost ship without missing equipments (maybe sold) and damaged remain damaged - get in from salvage yards to avoid hiring a worker to break these in a brand new ship.
Normal: same ship with all actual equipments in the last state (keep damaged status).
Costly: same ship with repaired equipments.

Fees deducted monthly but the times spent in docks are excluded to avoid pay for the safe siesta and repair times.
Fees scaled further with the ship: when buy larger ship or new equipments then the insurance can expire sooner.
Can be cheaper after time spent without eject and more costly after each awarded ship based on a bonus-malus system (here in Hungary there are 10 bonus and 4 malus level of car insurances).
To retain devices acquired by missions suggested to pay at least Normal Insurance which should not be a problem at that time.

But these are ideas only, I need strengthening from more people to make it.

My two cents' worth, from a pure player with no OXP or coding experience whatsoever...

The main issues seem to be:

1. Dissuading the Commander from using the escape pod as a free repair service.
2. The inherent strangeness of getting a replacement ship with equipment fitted that's broken.

As I said, I have no experience of OXP creation or coding of any sort, but how about this - the game takes a "snapshot" of the condition of your ship (as regards what is fitted and what is working) at every launch/Witchspace jump and uses that as the baseline for replacement. Should you eject, upon taking possession of your new ship, anything that was broken at the last snapshot gets listed, and you get the option of either paying a repair fee to get it fitted in good working order, or you can opt to not have the item fitted to your new ship and receive a nominal refund (a few percent of the cost of the equipment). Something like this:

"Greetings, Commander. According to our records, your <ship type> was fitted with the following equipment that was not serviceable before the incident that resulted in your ejection:
<list of damaged equipment at last snaphot>

You may choose to have a fully operational version(s) installed on your new vessel for a fee of <repair cost>, or opt not to have it/them fitted, in which case you will receive a refund of <percentage of equipment cost>"

Ideally, you'd want a snapshot taken every time your scanner goes red, but then you could end up in a fight that damages lots of your kit, but the final bad guy injects out of scanner range, loops back round and gets you, which would be the same dogfight as far as anyone rational was concerned, but would get classed as a new one by scanner status. I think that launch and jump are the two best snapshot points.

What do you think? Is it even feasible?

Capt. Reynolds wrote:

the game takes a "snapshot" of the condition of your ship (as regards what is fitted and what is working) at every launch/Witchspace jump and uses that as the baseline for replacement.

I like this idea the most, as it is simple and to the point. I would not even use the ship's condition as a baseline, I would just award a ship the same way it was at the time of last launch from a main GalCop station. Throwing one more interactive "Greetings Commander" screen can get frustrating quickly.

One option that might work is to have a No-claim discount (NCD) like car insurance.
The assumption should be that when an escape capsule is first purchased an 80% discount is applied to give the price of 1000Cr that we pay, but they get full insurance ie everything fitted to the ship is replaced as new. If a player uses the escape capsule (makes a claim) then they lose the NCD and have to pay full price for the next escape capsule, 5000Cr.
This should be a good incentive not to use escape capsules frivolously.

another_commander wrote:

Capt. Reynolds wrote:

the game takes a "snapshot" of the condition of your ship (as regards what is fitted and what is working) at every launch/Witchspace jump and uses that as the baseline for replacement.

I like this idea the most, as it is simple and to the point. I would not even use the ship's condition as a baseline, I would just award a ship the same way it was at the time of last launch from a main GalCop station. Throwing one more interactive "Greetings Commander" screen can get frustrating quickly.

I love the simplicity of this one. No extra insurance options introduced or anything. I fear that more complex you make this, less it will be used.

spara wrote:

another_commander wrote:

Capt. Reynolds wrote:

the game takes a "snapshot" of the condition of your ship (as regards what is fitted and what is working) at every launch/Witchspace jump and uses that as the baseline for replacement.

I like this idea the most, as it is simple and to the point. I would not even use the ship's condition as a baseline, I would just award a ship the same way it was at the time of last launch from a main GalCop station. Throwing one more interactive "Greetings Commander" screen can get frustrating quickly.

I love the simplicity of this one. No extra insurance options introduced or anything. I fear that more complex you make this, less it will be used.

Indeed! Easy to understand from an in-universe perspective as well - at each docking in a main GalCop station your ship's updated status is automatically transferred to your insurance provider. Presumably they will have offices at every main station.

<scratches head> I'm confused now - are you saying 'new for old' regardless of any damage prior to ejecting?

Cody wrote:

<scratches head> I'm confused now - are you saying 'new for old' regardless of any damage prior to ejecting?

I think so.
This has always been my preferred option as it more closely follows the types of insurance (eg car) which we are familiar with. The problem is the 'cheap-fix' cheat of course, hence my musings about some sort of No-clain discount.

Smivs wrote:

Cody wrote:

<scratches head> I'm confused now - are you saying 'new for old' regardless of any damage prior to ejecting?

I think so.
This has always been my preferred option as it more closely follows the types of insurance (eg car) which we are familiar with. The problem is the 'cheap-fix' cheat of course, hence my musings about some sort of No-clain discount.

Hmmm . The way I understood it, you get exactly the same ship you had when you launched. If you had some damaged equipment upon launch, it would still be damaged. As said somewhere before, that N/A can be interpreted as a coupon to get a new replacement equipment for the price of fixing it.

spara wrote:

If you had some damaged equipment upon launch, it would still be damaged.

That's fine, but what about damage taken after a launch - damage taken during the firefight that forces you to eject.

<wanders off in search of a hot-cross bun>

Cody wrote:

spara wrote:

If you had some damaged equipment upon launch, it would still be damaged.

That's fine, but what about damage taken after a launch - damage taken during the firefight that forces you to eject.

<wanders off in search of a hot-cross bun>

To my understanding that equipment would be fixed as your ship is restored to the state it was upon launch.

Thank you Capt. Reynolds, your idea about taking snapshots is good: the Insurance Company can calculate with the cost of the ship at the moment of launch and use this as the base for the whole trip to get the fee.

As another_commander I suggest to taking snapshots at launch only due to the jump can be a must when used to escape from a combat (for example when injectors are damaged) and in this case maybe save many damaged equipments.

But I suggest to take at every launch to avoid an unfair money-making possibility to dock on a non-main station, sell equipments, undock, eject to get back the equipments and repeat.

NCD is too few In my eyes due to the main problem is the return from the viewpoint of the Insurance Company. If an insurance is not time limited or the insured time is as long as the lifespan of a ship then the initial (and only) cost must be too high to the company do not become bankrupt in a short time, so an insurace with reasonably low cost must be time limited.

The most simple way is the Escape Pod alone, the rules in this case can be modified which is a thing what we can discuss. But this is not exclude a new line in the interfaces screen where player can buy better insurance if not satisfied with the simple one or want to spend his money to something after bought almost every other possible things.

Norby wrote:

But I suggest to take at every launch to avoid an unfair money-making possibility to dock on a non-main station, sell equipments, undock, eject to get back the equipments and repeat.

Good point, now we'll just have to come up with an in-game explanation of how the data is transmitted to the insurance company when launching from a Hacker Outpost .