Oolite Bulletins

Not speaking from a great deal of experience here but anyway...

The current maintainence charges are based on ship and equipment costs, with frequency determined by 'damage' received (am I right?)

Assuming that's the case, it seems to me that once you can afford a big hauler, you will have the potential to be absolutely raking it in. That's probably the point of owning one of those things I expect (never done it myself, so don't strictly know what I'm talking about here )

If cargo capacity were also a factor (to a greater or lesser degree) in maintainance costs then might that be a good idea? I wouldn't want to take away the point of owning a hauler but might there be a case for tempering those rewards just a little more? Whether this was to simulate more mass to clean/repair/refurbish or crew costs, I don't know. But I think if I did own a hauler then I'd like to enjoy hauling for some time rather than get rich as quickly as I'm imagining under the current system.

Are pirate AIs able to particularly target the bigger traders, so that they have enough costs to cover or are the pythons, anacondas and the like able to make so much money that maintainance costs are small change to them?

Redspear wrote:

The current maintainence charges are based on ship and equipment costs, with frequency determined by 'damage' received (am I right?)

Yes - though even if you don't take a hit, making witchspace jumps will also generate wear and tear which needs maintenance eventually.

Redspear wrote:

Are pirate AIs able to particularly target the bigger traders, so that they have enough costs to cover or are the pythons, anacondas and the like able to make so much money that maintainance costs are small change to them?

In theory, a big trader will be a much easier pirate target - it's bigger, slower and less manoeuvrable than a multi-role ship. Pirates will also make larger cargo demands of a freighter than of a small ship.

In practice, they can all be fitted with injectors, military lasers, and at least one shield booster - and anyone who's got the cash together to buy one in the first place will know how to use those to fight most pirates and run away from the rest. (NPC freighters never get injectors, relying on escorts for defence instead)

Also in practice, anyone who can afford the 400,000ish for a fully equipped Boa probably doesn't actually need the money anyway...

If you want to play around with the maintenance costs, though, have a look at the new renovation_multiplier property. You could easily set that quite a bit higher on the freighters to make it a challenge to keep them profitable.

A Python can have a decently cheap overhaul cost, but the Boa 1, 2, and Anaconda are far more expensive to overhaul. Not being able to have military shields keeps the costs down, but makes fighting pirates a lot more risky.

cim wrote:

Also in practice, anyone who can afford the 400,000ish for a fully equipped Boa probably doesn't actually need the money anyway...

Boa 1's really need to be reduced to about 300k, just to keep them balanced relative to Boa 2's and Pythons. As-is, they're too close in price to the much more powerful Boa 2. ...Or just raise the Boa 2's price about to the same as the Anaconda?

It doesn't matter that Anacondas can haul "ridiculous" cargo loads -- their insanely slow speed and the fact the normal main station's commodity market won't let you use more than a fraction of it makes it more game-balanced than the Boa 2 is. Banking up a couple station's worth of cargo across several jumps can increase profits, but it's still not as good as a RI/PA system pair. Long-range cargo contracts for >200 TC hardly make up for that -- their opportunity costs can make them negative credit "earners". Needing a maintenance overhaul after each long one can eat up what little they pay.

Thanks cim, a few things I didn't know there...

Switeck wrote:

It doesn't matter that Anacondas can haul "ridiculous" cargo loads -- their insanely slow speed and the fact the normal main station's commodity market won't let you use more than a fraction of it makes it more game-balanced than the Boa 2 is. Banking up a couple station's worth of cargo across several jumps can increase profits, but it's still not as good as a RI/PA system pair. Long-range cargo contracts for >200 TC hardly make up for that -- their opportunity costs can make them negative credit "earners". Needing a maintenance overhaul after each long one can eat up what little they pay.

Thanks for the explanation Switeck.

What about cargo scooping? With a MkIII I would often find that I'd have to leave behind quite a bit of 'free money' on my travels if I'd choosen to fill up with cargo at the station. With one of the bigger traders I wouldn't have that problem. In your experience can that make much of a difference?

Short of major war zones, you don't really need more than about 5-20 TC free cargo space to scoop "leftovers".
It pays to scoop ALL cargo canisters even if it means dumping (at dead stop or slow speed) the least valuable ones.

If there's a station nearby, you can sell off all your cargo even if the sales price is 0 Cr. Then you can go fill up on cargo and dump there as necessary.
Once done, buy back your starting cargo assuming you still want it and continue on your way.
Unless you have OXPs/OXZs that make buying and selling prices for cargo different, the net cost for doing so is only the docking/launching times -- usually 11-15 minutes per station visit.

It helps to pause if you go away from the game for a long time, otherwise you may find all the cargo swept clean by scavengers by the time you get back.

Switeck wrote:

Short of major war zones, you don't really need more than about 5-20 TC free cargo space to scoop "leftovers".
It pays to scoop ALL cargo canisters even if it means dumping (at dead stop or slow speed) the least valuable ones.

If there's a station nearby, you can sell off all your cargo even if the sales price is 0 Cr. Then you can go fill up on cargo and dump there as necessary.
Once done, buy back your starting cargo assuming you still want it and continue on your way.
Unless you have OXPs/OXZs that make buying and selling prices for cargo different, the net cost for doing so is only the docking/launching times -- usually 11-15 minutes per station visit.

It helps to pause if you go away from the game for a long time, otherwise you may find all the cargo swept clean by scavengers by the time you get back.

Neat trick I've found is to do such dumping at a rock hermit... Once all the loose pods have been collected I go back there and buy back anything which has a higher price at the main station (Market Observer comes in quite handy) Then I can sell them off at the main station and earn a profit on them. Of course that doesn't always work to well if too many Pirates decide to set up camp at the rock hermit during my second or third trip back for more pods.


- Neelix

I always assumed it would be gone by the time I'd returned/found it, unless I was right by a station (even then it has often been scooped by others).

Seems I've been missing a trick.
Thanks guys

I'm running a Boa 2 with all of the add-ons generally available in the game. About the only thing I've added with a potential to affect cargo capacity is Vacuum Pump, which consolidates gem and precious metal captures into a single container per material - I only added it last week, so far I've used it two or three times, and had to pay to repair it once (which is bloody expensive and needs a high-tech planet) so I don't think it's affected balance much. I should mention I have Thargoid Wars installed.

What I generally do is take about 150 tons of cargo and leave 25 tons free, since I generally get attacked by pirates and/or Thargoids most trips and want to have some room for salvage. If not I usually stop to mine an asteroid or two to fill most of the empty space. It doesn't make a huge amount of money, but it's free.

One thing I should say is that the Thargoid War is a huge money-maker; warships are worth a lot, spy satellites are sitting ducks and worth a lot, you can make money as bounties or by grabbing robot fighters as cargo, if in doubt and you have time just grab them, check the local cost of alien artifacts, and if they're worth more as targets do a dump and shoot. They count as kills if you destroy them, but since I'm already Elite that isn't a big consideration for me. The really good part is that if you run the Thargoids generally bugger off and leave the robot fighters behind, you can return and grab or shoot them. Every now and then you get 1000 credits from the Navy, though it probably doesn't do much more than cover the cost of a couple of repairs it's worth having.

My current cash balance is just over 4 million, so I think I can safely say this is a reasonably viable set of financial tactics. What I would really love is a way of using the money in-game - there's only so much equipment you can buy before it gets silly or affects balance. What I'd like is the ability to use it for other things e.g. spend a million credits to raise a planet's tech level or wealth, buy the right to have a planet named after me or my ship, buy NPC-crewed ships and set them to work for me, etc.

Hi ffutures and thanks for your thoughts

ffutures wrote:

My current cash balance is just over 4 million, so I think I can safely say this is a reasonably viable set of financial tactics.

Agreed

That's the kind of situation I'd like to avoid: where money becomes almost meaningless. I suspect however, that my suggestion above would only be delaying it.
Interesting that you mention the Thargoid War addition though...

ffutures wrote:

What I would really love is a way of using the money in-game - there's only so much equipment you can buy before it gets silly or affects balance. What I'd like is the ability to use it for other things e.g. spend a million credits to raise a planet's tech level or wealth, buy the right to have a planet named after me or my ship, buy NPC-crewed ships and set them to work for me, etc.

Ah, now I've not heard the tech level increase idea before but I know that some of this stuff has come up previously...

Buying/hiring resources to work for you could be seen as making the 'problem' worse, i.e. even more money. True, there could be risks and potentially giant losses but what would you do with the extra money anyway? Buy more business stuff???

I think David Braben answered a similar question (i.e. will that sort of thing be in E:D) a while back. If I recall, he made the point that such an addition risked making the game less player centric, in the sense of making it less about what you did in your ship and thereby devaluing that experience... I could be wrong there
I suppose oolite doesn't really support that kind of enterprise at the moment (in the sense of what to do with even more money).

Maybe your planet influencing idea could be made use of by a mission...

Rather than being financially rewarded, do you need to pay to gain information or influence in order to succeed?
Do you need to fund a group of allies to buy you time in order to accomplish an objective?
If the mission is then an expensive undertaking, what is the reward for the player? besides (hopefully) a ripping good yarn?
Is it gratitude in that a station is named after you? (a planet might be a bit ambitious) or that the police in that system will offer you a free escort to a neighboring system/planet whenever you visit?
Is it a medal or a title (instead of 'commander')?

Hmmm... It's easy to create rewards that make it easier to make more money, so that would require care...

Oh well, I suppose the encouraging thing is that there are people on here who've been playing consistently for years and still aren't bored, so the situation can't be that bad

ffutures wrote:

My current cash balance is just over 4 million, so I think I can safely say this is a reasonably viable set of financial tactics. What I would really love is a way of using the money in-game - there's only so much equipment you can buy before it gets silly or affects balance. What I'd like is the ability to use it for other things e.g. spend a million credits to raise a planet's tech level or wealth, buy the right to have a planet named after me or my ship, buy NPC-crewed ships and set them to work for me, etc.

Planets have economies into the billions of credits, with the economic inertia that comes with it. A million credits would do almost nothing.

But for spending lots of credits...perhaps I can suggest a smaller-scale idea:
I haven't even begun the first bit of code for it, but one thing I thought up was "sponsoring" Rock Hermits. It'd be a money pit at first and then maybe barely profitable (like 1000 credits a week).
You can sponsor a Rock Hermit for 10,000 credits -- but all that gets you is that it'll be there when you come back much later and you have it as a beacon so it's easy to find.
I don't know yet whether you should be allowed to have more than 1 Rock Hermit sponsored, maybe 1 per Galaxy Chart?

Maybe make it so you can store up to 100 TC of cargo there for "free"...which gets sold off automatically after 1 week but at only about 80% its main station value to you?
This would be vaguely similar to how HyperCargo works, except it only works while docked with the Rock Hermit.

Increasing its cargo or ship storage, defense shields, hiring defensive fighters/miners/scavengers, or improving its commodities market incrementally up to main station levels should easily cost into the millions of credits.
To make the Rock Hermit "yours" (which assumes it's unowned or up for sale) might cost 10 or even 100 million credits.
Upkeep for such a station should eventually be into 1000's of credits a day and income the Rock Hermit makes as a trade post, scavenging, and mining operation may only partially offset that.

There's potential for such Rock Hermits to become something like ConStores from Your Ad Here, Space Bars from Random Hits, Astrofactory from Dicators, etc.
But if you don't keep pirates from taking over, you could have a den-of-thieves on your hands.
Lots of potential to build missions off that and just day-to-day traffic can be busy.

ffutures wrote:

buy NPC-crewed ships and set them to work for me

I have similar goal with [wiki]Carriers[/wiki]. I guess 4Mcr is needed to fill up one with well-equipped ships.

Switeck wrote:

ffutures wrote:

But for spending lots of credits...perhaps I can suggest a smaller-scale idea:
I haven't even begun the first bit of code for it, but one thing I thought up was "sponsoring" Rock Hermits..

*cough* *cough* -----> https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... nt#p170088

I missed your message thread on the subject of ownable stations at the time you made it.

There is also an unfinished Asteroid mining OXP somewhere which crashes spectacularly when I try to use it.