Oolite Bulletins

Norby wrote:

1% is too cheap in my eyes but discounts are acceptable for larger ships. I imagine rebates from the whole insurance fee over certain amounts. For example if an Adder or a few equipments insured for less than 10.000 credits then pay 5% for refunds and 10% for refits, but a Cobra MkIII refit (which including transport to systems under techlevel 7) costs more than 10.000 so can get 20% discount and pay 8% of the stock price. The maximal discount maybe 50% over 100.000 credits (for ships over 2M).

I'm not sure if this is the best way to work it. People in smaller ships tend to have less money, and their ability to earn money is reduced too. A single trade run in a Python can clear over Cr3000 net profit; it would take three top-end runs to make that in a Cobra, and around 20 in an Adder. For game balance, I'd think that bigger ships should cost more. Arguably, too, the insurance companies would want to extract more money out of people with the ability to pay.

I also think that regular payments might be better than a one-off fee. One of the things that the game lacks (except right at the very beginning) is a real sense of running costs. Ship maintenance comes along once in a while, but with fuel so cheap, the player has very little sense of having to spend money to keep their ship flying.

vsfc wrote:

making another OXP to reverse affect of an OXP sounds a bit silly.

I tried to say that if extended insurances built into the core then an OXP will revert it so I do not recommend to put insurances into the core.

Disembodied wrote:

insurance companies would want to extract more money out of people with the ability to pay.

Right, so better to use fixed percents but less for the ship hull than for equipments, for example 5% with transport service (similar with refit equipments for 10%). Refund ship hull is not so good so I think it can be leaved out (not so simple due to player must be in a ship all time so must award one which must sell for lower price to buy the insured type in an advanced system by hand, so should be forced to buy full insurance which can transport the insured ship).

Regular payments can be applied over a certain price. Ships in the first part of the game can insured with an one-time payment but later when player get rich and the ship is costly then must renew regularly. This is good to the customer to get lower initial price and good for the company to earn long-time incomes to cover the loss of the one-time business.