nortonweb
	So heres the story. I see myself a ship and its been floating in the same space for what seems an age. Its an IND Caravel Class High G Freighter and I do a detailed scan on it. Its got some cargo. Cool so I board it... In the process I loose 14 Human Marines and 5 Human Veteran Marines. So what happens next... have you guessed... Boarding Successful - Position now under your control. Notice - Position destroyed (start-ups can not be transferred). Yeap it self destructs... What the heck is going on here??? I mean yes we all know that pretty much every 20 hull Courier we come across is a start up so don't bother boarding as it will go boom but the bigger ships too!!! There are two points to this rant the first is this: Why can't we board, buy and trade the ships that came with political positions. I mean they aren't the free start up ships these ships cost money, real money at a rate of two pounds a week for in some cases a heck of a lot of weeks (if your in double figures that works out at roughly just over a grand). Yes the free ships should self-destruct but these ones!!! Why??? and second if we are going to be forced to keep the self destructing start-up ships can we have a flag that’s visible when you do a detailed scan as to if the ship is one or not so as there are no wasted boarding’s and the sad loss of human life that that involves!!! Oh also so I stop my ranting Pete
Lord Scrimm
	Actually, these ships ARE free - when a player signs up with a political, KJC gives them a Caravel and a Broadsword to promote trade and more activity for their 2 quid a week. There are no Affiliation resources used to build these new ships, so, for all intents and purposes, they are free as far as I'm concerned. The part about not being able to transfer/board these new positions is for the following reason: I join Phoenix using some anonymous Hotmail account and set up a Political position - I get 3 ships in the deal: A Courier, a Caravel and a Broadsword. I then either transfer the lot to a friend, or let him know that I'll be moving all these ships to an out of the way place so he can board them. Then I drop the Political Position. Repeat process ad nauseum. Additionally, this policy acts as a "somewhat" effective method to prevent newbie bashing by some of the less ethical affiliations out there (this coming from the CIA ) Hope that helps. Rich Fanning aka Lord Lawrence Scrimm CIA Intelligence Director
nortonweb
	So that doesn't comment on point two about knowing which is which!!! Are you saying all Caravel and Broadsword's are start-up positions??? So no-one is building them??? And your example puts the Courier in the same class as the Caravel and Broadsword which is not the case. You only get the Caravel and Broadsword once KJC has your money, and will keep taking your money (I sent an email to KJC about this quite a while ago asking what happens if I want to stop playing) until you ask them to stop. So in essence they are not "start-up' positions and are only sort of free. To get your system described to work you would need to create and pay money into a large number of KJC accounts (a good thing for KJC as its all profit) and pay in (from the KJC site) a minimum of at least four turns (not sure if this is current policy) being 8 pounds for Phoenix. So for your 2 "free" ships you have to: 1. created a hotmail account 2. contacted kjc for an account 3. send off payment for a minium of 8 pounds for this account 4. created a polictial 5. transfer your ships to your friend/sell them to another player all for 2 ships... I think not Why not cruse the highways find some dumped ships and board them.. oh yeah cos you don't know if they are going to blow up or not!!! And its not even stopping new player bashing Courier's are starting to get blown out the water from all over at the moment!!! Nope doesn't help and I'm still ranting Pete
Mica Goldstone
	You definitely have a point about flagging ships that cannot be transferred.
Sam_Toridan
	On the plus side that ship should have turned into a debris field and there should be cargo/loot there you can grab - even if it was your own men
nortonweb
	Ok so I've been thinking about this and agree that there is a small chance that some people with not a lot better to do may attempt to 'work the system' if "new" start up ships can be boarded (and I bold new for a reason). But... that still means there are heaps and I mean heaps of ships floating around that are no-longer being played or the owner just has left there for ages (some I have on my list are freighters of the Caravel class that are IND and been in the same spot for over 85 game days or 4 and 1/4 real months) and this is just for my scans of the places that I have been. Now I could be using that ship.... So how about the flag being dropped after a set time. Say one year for Courier Class and 6 months for Caravel and Broadsword Class. The flag would still need to be seen in a detailed scan but would mean these ships don't stay out of bounds forever. It also opens up a new Job Class of a repo-man. Also if these ships are back in circulation and able to be captured we could see a more active trade in ships. We may even see some used shipyards. Why leave a ship hanging around to be captured when you could sell it on!!! Just some ideas based on the fact I hate to see all these ships just sitting there begging me to take them... Pete
Rob Alexander
	This might not help in the situation Pete described, but how about having Political ships become transferrable once the Political position has been run for a while, e.g. three months. At £2/week for 13 weeks that's 26 quid for a couple of ships. Pretty steep really if you're planning to drop the political once you've got the ships, but no cost for players on the straight-and-narrow. I take it that if a player drops out, their non-transferrable positions just disappear? yours, rob
Sam_Toridan
	I think whats actually meant to happen is that the ships fall apart after 3-4 months due to lack of maintenance and they are removed from the game that way.
nortonweb
	Well Caravel class has an Integrity Mod of 2 so that would take just under a year to happen. Broadsword Integrity Mod of 0.5... I don't know about wages and what would happen once crew stopped being paid. But then I guess all those Courier that people were complaining about being docked to there starbases would go... mind you what does happen to a ship where the crew isn't being paid any more? do they go rouge? would they still be flagged as start-up? Hummmm... Also would the lack of R+R make them just well leave their jobs??? on the other point by Rob. I think after a brief email exchange with Mica that no if some one leaves their ships will stay. Hence all these ships I keep talking about just sitting there, some are even still called NEW SHIP!!! All these lovely ships... [looks lustily] Why is it the only things you end up really wanting you just can't have Pete