Oolite Bulletins

Well it's not exactly what I'm looking for... but I might give it a try.

I have been giving this whole "get rich quick" idea a little think.

Specifically, the idea that when you graduate from Lave Academy you get your ship for free.

1) Everything in this game costs money: equipment, new ships, fuel etc. Why would Lave Academy be free?

2) If Lave Academy is giving you a ship upon graduation, how is the Academy paying for the 150,000 credits for the ship? Unless that price of the ship is included in the tuition?

3) Unless you have a relative die and leave you a ship (like in Elite), most people can't afford a ship. Most people can't even afford to borrow this much money.

For example, let's say the Academy costs 30,000 credits per year. Four years of study (like a naval academy) equals 120,000 credits PLUS 150,000 credits for a ship Plus 100.oo credits for buying cargo. That's 270,100.00 credits.

That doesn't sound free to me...

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't have to be paid. (After all, you graduated, didn't you?)

4) What if someone can't afford that much? Then what can they do? What if they are just some blue-collar worker trying to make a living in space?

5) In the real world, people who drive large trucks (18 wheelers) have to pay for training, then buy a 120,000 dollar truck before they even start. Who is going to loan someone money to buy a ship to trade in space when they might get killed?

It doesn't sound like Lave Academy would be free. When was the last time someone gave you a free car, or house?
How would the average person trade in space?

As Dennis Miller used to say on his show "That's just my opinion. I could be wrong."

Also, now that I think about it, what if someone couldn't afford to buy their own ship? (As in the above example)

What if the pilot got paid them to trade for someone? This would mean the owner would make the profit from trading, BUT would have to pay for the ship, equipment, pay the pilot, and possibly pay for OoInsurance.

This would eliminate they need for the pilot to pay for the ship, and allows them to make money to buy their own ship.
The pilot could earn a percentage of the profits, so the more they make for you the more the pilot can earn...

This way the onus would be on the owner to repay/recover the debt, and it would take a long time to pay off everything. This would make it a lonnnnng term investment.

So much for the get-rich-quick!

As Dennis Miller used to say on his show "That's just my opinion. I could be wrong."

Danam22315 wrote:

I have been giving this whole "get rich quick" idea a little think.
Specifically, the idea that when you graduate from Lave Academy you get your ship for free.

You are exactly right, but this is where our imagination has to fill in the blanks. It is of course possible to make an OXP, in the line of Black Monks, where you start off owing a lot of money and have to pay it back. (Not my idea, has been suggested before).

However, this conundrum has been discussed before, and possible solutions (more or less plausible) have been thought of. Please look in this thread and this one.

I probably missed a few threads.

Before the Forums/Internet/Oolite the reasoning behind having a brand new Cobra Mk III and 100Cr in the bank was that you, Commander Jameson were the recipient and sole beneficiary of an insurance pay-out/Will.

It's only because we all interact with each that we now know that there are thousands of us all starting at Lave with the same ship and the same amount of money, that it's starts to ring hollow.

That's why, when Ahruman was still planning on Oolite 2.0 and collecting suggestions I suggested there should be, as well as the original start conditions, an opportunity to start (randomly) in any system in the 8 charts, with any of the jump capable single pilot/crew ships (I didn't go as far as suggesting a random amount of money, but that could work too, as could a random amount of debt)

I have always presumed however, that Galcop want people in space - trading and dying because tax on trade is lucrative and dying just means more space for the new pilots to think they can get on too without the space lanes being crowded.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I have always presumed however, that Galcop want people in space - trading and dying because tax on trade is lucrative and dying just means more space for the new pilots to think they can get on too without the space lanes being crowded.

So, if I get you correctly, we're all stuck on a Darwinist Malthusian hamster exercise weel energising an economic power plant...

As long as Oolite isn't multiplayer, the rationale for the Cobra 3 and 100Cr holds, but I like the idea of starting in debt for the ship's value - it brings Tai-Pan* to mind.






* Young whippersnappers probably won't know this classic game, but it was something akin to a XIX Century Elite in which you could go about in the towns trading and/or smuggling, eating, getting drunk, visiting brotels and casinos , gangpressing sailors and having pissing contests with the town watch guardsmen just before they threw you in jail... Upon being released, you raised sails and headed out to the high seas for a bit of trading and/or piracy (tactical sailing, broadsides and boarding parties... hmmm) and occasionally had your crew mutiny and throw you overboard.
If you care to try it, you need the emulator and the game.

Cmdr. Maegil wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I have always presumed however, that Galcop want people in space - trading and dying because tax on trade is lucrative and dying just means more space for the new pilots to think they can get on too without the space lanes being crowded.

So, if I get you correctly, we're all stuck on a Darwinist Malthusian hamster exercise weel energising an economic power plant...

Darwinist in the sense that weak idiots tend to get eliminated in favor of the competent and strong? Heh, if only the game was that positive. It's a dog-eat-dog universe...and even if you're competent and strong that just means more stupid idiots will try to eliminate you at once.

Malthusian assumes some sort of population limits which will eventually cause population die-offs. Absolutely none apparent in the universe unless Thargoids conquer many systems. If that started happening, more factions (traders, individual system governments, assassins, and even possibly pirates) would start taking Thargoids seriously.