Untill now most of the software changes have been in favour of the warlike affl. They are getting the new software and the trader will have to do with the increased expenses in defending themselves.

Within a couple of months the new combat rules will be in effect, but the traders are still waiting on the promissed infrastructural changes.. if they ever come.

So, I think that you should stop complaining about the increased costs and be happy that something is happening/

Since one of the stated purposes of the changes is to make harder the building of the 800-strong battlefleet, able to wipe out any HQ colony in one day, it would be a bit counter-productive to compensate for this, surely?

I'd be in favour of any fair method of doing this apart from that announced, as it turns a 17-month heavy-hulled shipbuilding bonanza equal to five years effort for anyone who wasn't able to take advantage of it, not including the infrastuctue to actually assemble the things.. Fait accompli though.

One of the counter arguments, put forward by Mica, for not simply making ships easier to kill, especially against starbases, was that the war-affs would just preserve their battlefleets for use against easy targets, as apparently happened in the last few years of BSE. You cant both be right, surely?

Btw MT, what, if anything in the announced changes actually benefits, or even just makes more interesting, the role of trader? The only thing I can see is the battlegroup orders which will shave 1% off the trading effort, by making it easier to run escorts. Except those that go through stargates of course, 'cos having only two keys for one stargate and one key for another, the 'battlegroup' would have to be constantly assembled and broken down again...

The role of IND just got a lot more interesting and powerful though. I should imagine it's just a matter of time though before somebody just posts the merchant vessels of any aff he didn't like, making them sitting ducks with a guaranteed reward, able to be targetted by anyone... After that, IND will just be free-fire targets...

Why? It's not Harder to kill them, is it? I havn't gone into the combat intricacies, so I might well have missed this.

TonyH

Just not sure if everyone in hte vacinity is going to each send in all their spare HH ships to deal with the matter as soon as someone calls 'pirates!'

Well, there will be no fewer HH vessels about as potential respondees than now, and there will be fare fewer potential HH PIR vessels because they'll be four times harder to construct/replace. Normal-hulled PIR vessels might increase as a proportion of the total number of pirate, so effectively PIR will be easier to kill.

It's a bit silly taking about this anyway - I've been running a fleet of merchant vessels for well over a year - big, fat merchants with valuable cargos; and havn't seen a single pirate. As for those encounters that I've heard of; it hardly makes any difference if a basic-tech broadsword, equipped with quarters and an ordinary bridge, is jumped by six state-of-the-art Nebulons/Sols/Direwolves or just three. The result is the same.

When even the RIP get out of piracy, it's untenable - except as just the 'plausable deniability' arm of the military affs.

TonyH

Don't really think that anything will change.

Okay, HH ships are more expensive now, and people will notice it for an while. But newer players won't be bothered with it (as even with 4* they are more cost-effective then Normal hulled ships).
Only for the ones who are now building one ship per turn and now only one ship per four turns they will notice it and think about the good times... The same good times that DTR goods in Yank where worth 25% more then they are now.

I'd agree with this. Less it's of a forum, more of a bulletin board: "Now here this! The following changes are announced and will be effective from..."

Whereas, any potential proposals are usually argued over by people with just as little influence as myself, or commented on with something along the lines of "This was discussed back at the pre-phoenix pubmeet in June '02, and it was agreed...".

If the GM is adamant that "He runs the game, not plays the game" I think it would be nice to have taken into account suggestions by people who play a variety of aspects of it. Widen the focus group.

not a lot until the infrastructure changes, except perhaps the new preference/targetting order, which will probably move cargo ships down and the ability for escorts to shield ships.

But there's a huge one in the announcement - having to put goods on your market, rather than use the sell to local population order. If that doesn't increase the possibility of trade, nothing will...

Dan

Really, I can't really see the improvement or difference??

I myself try to make sure that the persihable goods get sold first. If this is no longer possible, I will have to reconsider buying those goods... And if more people will do this, I will have an hard time selling my goods. I might even be temped to decrease my production and start using my modules for factories instead of resources..

Actually, i am already selling most of my goods on the public market. But its gets bought for other markets. So, I am not really see the difference...

Lets way untill the idea clears down.
The current idea doesn't sound like something important... Anyway, I fail to see how it should work. Are you going to sell directly to the local pop while getting an cut from the starbase??

Clear isn't the word for the idea.

But if it means that players will have to put more goods on the market... I will be happy... But I am not holding my breath... I got the new improved strategy "lets wait and see."

Sell to local population is also used to partition out the demand on some planets..
If you make that impossible you will get some problems within shared systems.. I am thinking about Yank, Solo and other smaller systems...

I am not sure if removing this kind of control (which is also used for giving access to outside affls to your own system) will really work.

The only solution the host-affl would have would be reduce the number of merchandising complexen considerably... Not all planets get an lofty demand.

Which is a very good point. However it is entirely possible that with the new rules the local demand will be more flexible - or maybe the local population will just go for whichever starbase is offering the best deals?

Richard
AFT

You basically put the trade good on your own market and either ppl from the planet will buy it or other players can buy it to sell on.

The price that you sell it for will then determine how much is sold vers other markets on the planet and the price you sell it for (relative to the estimated local value of the product).

It eliminates the whole issue of getting less money than you expect for a item.

You may sell less of an item if there are other starbases, selling the same product, but you will also beable to milk markets where you are the only supplier (offering the item at a greater price than the estimated one will reduce the sales but makeing more valuable if you have a small supply).

Sorry lost me there ?

Some affl don't allow other starbases on their planets. And if they do so, its under strict conditions. Like "you are not allowed to sell more then 1000mu per week".

The new system will don't allow that anymore. So, making more then one aff on the same planet a big problem. Basically the current system works, its not really flexiable, but it works. Especially as it allows affl like the AFT on planets.

What you are basically saying is that "sell to local pop" and "sell to market" will become the same. So what will stop some people from shipping the goods itself in, and sell it to the market value price to everyone?? That is what I am doing with the Falconian Woodcraft I bought in Acropolis and selling to the local pop.

Well yes and no.

Starbase assaults should not be about crushing the starabse from orbit, it should be about going in on the ground. Ships can now be used to screen a drop fleet and put troops on the ground at the same time as blockading the planet to block reenforcemnts. You can not target a fleet in orbit of a planet with a starbases directed weapons unless you attack the starbase with directed weapons. So the starabse is left with platforms, spacfighters and missiles, all with can be countered effectively by a heavy hulled fleet with interceptor support.

If you are desterate to clobber a starbase you can use mass drivers / missiles /torps from normal hulled ships without being hit by the SB.

With the changes normal hulled ships will still be vunerable to mass missile attack while they will just bounce off heavy hull ships.

No what i'm saying is that "sell to local pop" will become "Market Sell", which i think is different. You have to have SB on the planet to actually sell anything.

I'm not talking about making a planetary market, i'm saying that you put the goods on your market and population buys them.

Well that will be more transparent as the goods you will be selling will be on the website.... or readable via market scan.

I think that Sjaak's point is that currently, planetary demand can, by the governing affiliation, be shared out roughly evenly (e.g. 60k demand, 12 starbases -> each starbase is allowed to sell 5k per week). Under the new rules, the implication is that each starbase would have to sell different items, otherwise they will get very little merchandising income at all unless they are offering the best price.

How do we ensure that it is the perishable goods that go first? (other than having only them on the market)

Richard
AFT

This is only a problem if the code just looks at all the markets and choices the lowest price first and that it..... but thats daft. The current system is very poor cos it allows dumping, in the new system there will be a case for a local governement saying please have a less uber market but unless the other starbases have very poor markets the effects will not be bad.

Basically there will be some local tow in the markets, so its better to by local for a certain portion of the sale but ti will not be complete so tehre can be competion.

If this is a real problem we can add a something in civil governments to allow the maximum retail at a starabse / week to be set. Back to your quotas with no major effort.

Ok this is an issue that needs thinking about.

I think that we might be saying the same. But as always an example is always better then 1000 words.

I am shipping in Falconian Woodcraft (Prodis in Yank) from Acropolis. When the goods arrive they get to the Open Market, at an price I would like have for them, this is almost the same as the price I can get if I sell them to the local Population. So ships can buy them, and if they don't get sold, I will sell them slowly to the local Population. For me, it doesn't matter, I will get an income anyway and selling to ships is even faster. Please be noted that the shipping in goods are meant to be sold to the local pop, so the sellprice is quite high. And it saves them a full jump.

My price is really high, but if I don't do this (as my buying price is also already very high) somebody else buys the whole lot and sell it themself to the local pop. To the same local pop I can sell it to for the price..

What you are actually saying, (and as far as I understand it) you will make this kind of behaviour standard practice. In the Woodcraft case its not a big deal, as my supply of woodcraft is on Prodis purely for those who are willing to travel further and got nothing else to buy. Putting it on the open market is just an optional thing. And the current stock of Acropolis (you can see it on the market) is not really influenced by my purchase.

I am afraid that if this kind of strategy is going to be standard, that there will be some un-expected side effects. Any way, some of the flexibility of the "sell to local population will be removed" which does seem to have some possible unwanted side-effects. And actually it doesn't add anything to the current game.

The only way to get it working is to make sure that market prices (prices the local population is willing to pay) will be different in each planet and each system. Which is ofcourse quite reasonable. It also will mean that it should be possible that an price goes up when there is no supply... If this means that I need to run some marketing complexes, then that will be no point. No using SA's for this is a big no-no. I will like to spend my SA's to do something worthwhile.
Please be noted that SA's costs RL money, which some people do like to spend on real 'special things' and not getting 0.10stellars per sold Kastorian Delicacies.

David, I really don't want to sound harsh, but was preventing dumping the same goods over and over again not (at least) one of the reasons why some of the modifiers are reduced??

There is already an system in place to prevent this, so, I really don't understand why you AGAIN use this reason to change an working system.

I was also under the impression that it would be possible that modifiers would be going UP instead of only DOWN. To be fair, at this moment I haven't seen ANY movement up, even as I know that there are some systems who get NO supply of some system-based goods at all.

I would suggest to concentrate on the other parts of the planetary upgrades, before you start messing with something that seems to be working.

And to be blunt if players insist on keeping goods inside their own circle of friends than there is no way for you to change that behaviour. Ofcourse the only solution would be to dis-allow all movements not going through the open markets.

The big difference is that the recent changes required special intervention by the GM, and affected entire systems. The new system should be much more dynamic, not involve GM intervention, and allow things to change on a planet-by-planet basis, rather than only system wide.

Dynamic trade pricing is something that I am fully in favour of, and having been asking for for a long time. And given that you were complaining earlier about trade affs not getting any changes to help their aspect of the game, why are you complaining now?

Richard
AFT

Yes, if I understand David correctly, you will have to have your goods on the open market. So there is a possibility that they might be bought by somebody else, not the local population. But if that person is on the same planet, then they will have to sell it themselves at a higher price or not get any profit. Thus if you and they are both selling it, the local populace will probably come to you as it's cheaper. So you get profit both ways.

Richard
AFT

The problem with this, is that the demand is at this moment quite artificial.
Its all Trade Goods or Life Goods. (okay there are some racial things in it).

The only way to get this working is an real flexiable market. So, that nobody has sold any ( example Falconian Woodcraft) on that planet that the demand will get higher...
If you need some "marketing complexes" to increase the demand, I am all for it.

As long as I don't get the impression that the demand per item is going to be modified I am not in favour of the new system.

And no manually GM intervention is not a real answer.

Ofcourse the new system has to be looked into carefully to prevent dumping, but that would sort itself out if the software is smart enough..

ahh pants!

I was hoping it just related to the optical depth of the planet (ie, if it was transparent enough then the starbase could open fire with photons even if the targets didn't have them).

my bad.

My military advisor () tells me that ground assaults are just not viable without naval bombardment having reduced the defending forces. The cost of raising an army of tens of thousands of troops, then getting them to their destination and assaulting a starbase would be prohibitive. Yet the strength of starbases under the new rules, with platform screening and improved shield depth, combined with the cost of hulls, means that the chance of getting together a large enough fleet for naval bombardment is extremely low.

My larger starbases, in a not-at-all-military aff, have several thousand troops each. Allowing for the fact that the defender should have an advantage, that means that an opponent would need at least 10,000 troops to attack. At a cost of 10k stellars per week, plus the transfer fees to actually get into an attacking ground party. Scale that up for a military installation, and I can see that it would get very expensive, very quickly. Hence the need for naval bombardment, which as I said earlier, has just got a lot more difficult to arrange...

Richard
AFT
solicitor to Satan :-)

Well its not easy but its in no way prohibitive, when you know your target you can gather your forces. That itself is the advantage. The fact taht some affs have a 100k surplus every week could be turned in to a real assault, but they choise to build....

One thing that will have changed is the screening will now allow forces to be landed, in a guarded fashion, which was not the case before.

So, would you say that 100 times the base value of $10k is a reasonable estimate of the cost to take out a larger AFT starbase?

$1,000,000 to capture an AFT starbase?

Not a bad investment really. So some heavy duty logistics are in order, still a lot easier than a decade of management. A veritable bargain considering that the starbase must be worth in excess of $10 million stellars.