Oolite Bulletins

Reading a thread in Testing and Bug Reports got me thinking.

Selezen wrote:

the shipyard is filled with multiple copies of the same ships. Sometimes it can be about three pages with only three or four actual ships available.

I do find this a bit frustrating, you need an excel spreadsheet or a calculator to work out what to buy if you are in buying mode.

Changing/buying ships is a pretty major decision and not necessarily done on a very regular basis, it normally occurs as part of strategic thinking about your gameplan, or sometimes if you just fancy a change.

In real life (what's that?) it's a bit like buying a car

How about splitting the shipyard into two categories, New ships, and second hand ships. New ships would come in just a few variants suitable for say competent, dangerous, deadly and possibly elite. It should be possible to refit "special" equipment from the ship you are trading in for an installation fee.

Mission awarded equipment eg cloaking device, naval energy unit etc, should not be able to be purchased on a new ship, but on very rare occasions they might occur on an expensive secondhand ship.

Secondhands ships, well no limits really, from dead cheap rust buckets to blinged out Imperial Couriers. Various warranties could be offered (at a price), to give some peace of mind, but buying secondhand can be a risky business in terms of maintenance, you could be lucky, or you might get stuffed.

Yeah, EVNova implemented this quite well, with secondhand ships having improved or reduced basic characteristics, representing the care they had experienced in their lives, which became unalterable.

Very much like cars, where there is little you can do to salvage a secondhand car that has been driven into the ground without any thought to its maintenance. (the Delboy mobile!)

Seriously scary analogy for a spaceship...!

That could work.

Can I suggest a mod though? How about two separate shipyards: Brand New Ships (no fitted equipment, although stuff can be fitted to order) and a Used Ship Emporium, for the tighter budget?

There might even be a possibility of an OXP or such here, for the growing possibility of a stolen "resprayed" ship for sale at cheaper prices.

That's exactly what I meant.

This question has always interested me, so we have new/secondhand for ships...

Why not extend this to equipment too? New/Junkyard!

'Nova modelled that too, with increased risk of equipment failure for cheap secondhand gear!

Maybe instead of having a completely different shipyard there could just be an extra column that has the year of manufacture.