No money for insurance -> basically delete your game

Hi,

Even though I'm mildy mad, I'll try to explain the point (I'm sure this is posted every week, at least).
To start from the beginning:
Actually I do like and love hardcore games, I do like games that make me think, that make me want to get better, that have a very steep learning curve.
I don't have a problem with dying, or dying often, or dying every damn time in a damn game, till you learn how to develop yourself.
But what the actual is this? Never did the game explain to me, that if I don't have enough money for my insurance and the 600,000 loan are not enough, my progress of hundreds of hours is gone forever.
Details might bore you, but in 200 hours and 30.000.000 credits later, it was the first time ever I got into this situation. In this ressource point with these many asteroids, I got a lag and my Clipper crashed into the big damn stone.
Instant death.
And now I have to start over with the Sidewinder and the bit credits I got left _again_ to grind 200 hours _a_g_a_i_n_?!
Isn't there any better solution for this?
Frontier, don't you got any alternative, instead of basically deleting everything the player has ever achieved?
Couldn't there be a hardcore mode or at least a big damn warning sign at the beginning?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
you can make that dollar back son

The alternative is always have money for rebuys, lots of them, right now I fly a vulture and I have 50 million spare credits, I'm not upgrading(or sidegrading) to something like a FdL or python until I have 3-4 times that much

I've had 9 insurance claims, about 3 in the first hours of flight doing newb stuff like accidently deploying my weapons inside a station for example (lol oops)

I logged in a asteroid field once and came back exploded (always log in stations)

I got pk'd by a wing of fer de lance(that was interesting)

but the thing is always have to have more money than what your rebuy is, and I play it safe I guess but I'd rather be safe than sorry
 
Last edited:
The game explained it to me, its quite simple. Your rebuy cost is on the screen every time you look. If you don't have the money you can't rebuy the ship. This is the first time you died in 200 hours? I mean that really sucks but I find it hard to believe you didn't know.
 
To be fair you either did something very right or very wrong in the early game.

Yes it does not explicitly say you need it but then again this isn't the game to tell you anything, it just lets you loose and says "bye, have a nice time".
But most of us found out about the insurance issue early on when crashing our sidewinders and cobras and vipers with hilarious results or read about it on the forums, the wiki, the reddit, the instruction manual or generally the internet...

Yes its harsh but im surprised you got to a Clipper before realising the mechanics of it... Its like having a Vulture and not understanding power management.
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Even though I'm mildy mad, I'll try to explain the point (I'm sure this is posted every week, at least).
To start from the beginning:
Actually I do like and love hardcore games, I do like games that make me think, that make me want to get better, that have a very steep learning curve.
I don't have a problem with dying, or dying often, or dying every damn time in a damn game, till you learn how to develop yourself.
But what the actual is this? Never did the game explain to me, that if I don't have enough money for my insurance and the 600,000 loan are not enough, my progress of hundreds of hours is gone forever.
Details might bore you, but in 200 hours and 30.000.000 credits later, it was the first time ever I got into this situation. In this ressource point with these many asteroids, I got a lag and my Clipper crashed into the big damn stone.
Instant death.
And now I have to start over with the ing Sidewinder and the bit credits I got left _again_ to grind 200 hours _a_g_a_i_n_?!
Isn't there any better solution for this?
Frontier, don't you got any alternative, instead of basically deleting everything the player has ever achieved?
Couldn't there be a hardcore mode or at least a big damn warning sign at the beginning?

You still have your reputation gains - so you don't have to grind them back up ;)
 
Over 200 hours played and you never worked out how death and insurance works in game? So in those 200 hours, 30mil cr, all the ships up to the Clipper, you never died, never claimed insurance and never worked out how it all works?

Or is it that you're only complaining now when you took the gamble knowing full well the consequences..... and lost.
 
You lose everything only if your balance does not allow you to pay for the insurance and if you are flying the only ship that you have. Moreover, you keep the balance before you have crashed, which means that this situation is quite different from the clear save when you restart in the basic Sidewinder and 1000Cr.

What warning sign do you need? It is clearly stated in the right UI panel how much Cr do you have and how much are the costs of your insurance.

So you never even thought of what is going to happen in case you cannot afford insurance? But you have stated that your ship was destroyed (quite often), each time you had to pay insurance. And still you have not thought about what is going to happen if you cannot afford one?

The hardcore mode would be - you lose everything despite having insurance because your safety capsule was destroyed (ironman mode, which is not implemented yet). Now you keep everything except for the ship.
 
Last edited:
The manual explains insurance and loans and bankruptcy.

However, moving forward, in addition to never flying without insurance money, you can also take the path of not selling your ship when you buy a new ship. Having your assets sunk into several ships (instead of just one that you intend to sell) does mean you'll be waiting a little longer between buying new ships, but you'll always have unassailably safe assets should disaster strike.

Plus, only a monster would callously trade in the loyal ship that routinely saved his life and built him his fortune :D
 
Last edited:
You lose everything only if your balance does not allow you to pay for the insurance and if you are flying the only ship that you have. Moreover, you keep the balance before you have crashed, which means that this situation is quite different from the clear save when you restart in the basic Sidewinder and 1000Cr.

What warning sign do you need? It is clearly stated in the right UI panel how much Cr do you have and how much are the costs of your insurance.

So you never even thought of what is going to happen in case you cannot afford insurance? But you have stated that your ship was destroyed (quite often), each time you had to pay insurance. And still you have not thought about what is going to happen if you cannot afford one?

The hardcore mode would be - you lose everything despite having insurance because your safety capsule was destroyed (ironman mode, which is not implemented yet). Now you keep everything except for the ship.


Not to mention in the game manual (both physical and online, with links on the launcher!) tells you about insurance (pg 111 as seen in the table of contents)
 
Last edited:
If its any consolation at least now you know the pitfalls that you can avoid from first time round. Tough luck mate its not pretty for sure.
 
Hi,

Even though I'm mildy mad, I'll try to explain the point (I'm sure this is posted every week, at least).
To start from the beginning:
Actually I do like and love hardcore games, I do like games that make me think, that make me want to get better, that have a very steep learning curve.
I don't have a problem with dying, or dying often, or dying every damn time in a damn game, till you learn how to develop yourself.
But what the actual is this? Never did the game explain to me, that if I don't have enough money for my insurance and the 600,000 loan are not enough, my progress of hundreds of hours is gone forever.
Details might bore you, but in 200 hours and 30.000.000 credits later, it was the first time ever I got into this situation. In this ressource point with these many asteroids, I got a lag and my Clipper crashed into the big damn stone.
Instant death.
And now I have to start over with the ing Sidewinder and the bit credits I got left _again_ to grind 200 hours _a_g_a_i_n_?!
Isn't there any better solution for this?
Frontier, don't you got any alternative, instead of basically deleting everything the player has ever achieved?

Couldn't there be a hardcore mode or at least a big damn warning sign at the beginning?

I voluntarily deleted 30 mil (my save) just to give this old horse a kick start for 1.3 ('cause game sucks).
 
A couple of things that I might agree would enhance this aspect.

1.) Create a banking menu, provide the option for an escrow account (even better with the option to auto-debit a percentage of your income to a configurable amount) to put away money for insurance with a little warning when your insurance exceeds your escrow. You could also put some loan options on there too for quicker pay-off.

I like this, because it isn't hand-holding, just a tool that would likely exist in any reality. It isn't fully automatic, you have to set it up and use it and you'll be in danger while you are putting away money.

2.) Since the insurance in this game isn't actually like real insurance (paying after the crash) it could be changed slightly. The insurance payment becomes a copay and insurance itself becomes embedded in the price of the ship. So if you don't have the co-pay, you don't get your ship back, but you get in credits the value minus insurance. A royal pain as you have to go buy your ship stuff up again and won't get it to the same place right away, but you aren't dead for lack of a few thousand credits.

This makes a little more sense, but takes away a lot of risk, which I think takes away some fun. But then, I'm the guy who will buy a throw-away eagle and keep it for those times my credits run low so that I'm never running in an uninsured ship. So there really isn't risk except for people like this guy who just didn't realize the consequences.

3.) Put a grace period on the insurance. Slap them in a PoS (maybe an eagle with no shields, minimal hold, one laser) as a loaner and give them a time-limit to get the money and make the insurance claim. This would provide more advantage to having multiple ships as you can take the loaner to wherever your other ship is to help you make the money.

These options provided, I don't want to see death become meaningless. I've slammed a hauler-cobra full of high-value cargo into a space station and lost a ton of credits. I didn't get caught by the insurance, but I pretty well undid an entire night of trading. It sucked when it happened, but it was my own fault for taking a lot of risk by docking at ridiculous speeds to cut down the round trip time and make more money. And I had plenty of fun getting the money back the next day. Again though, not really an insurance problem, so I'm ok with adding in some better handling of that aspect and maybe focusing on other aspects on death (maybe requiring some damages paid depending on what you run into, etc..)
 
Back
Top Bottom