Rent-a-ship!

[Weps]

Don't judge this idea too harshly, I've had it before my morning coffee. In any case, I thought to post it here and get some feedback and perhaps some improvement suggestions before sending it to the Feedback forum.

So I was pondering on how to improve the interaction between players, end-game activities and the such, and thought: why not let commanders share / rent ships to one another? There isn't any substantial advantage to this, but it would create an additional gameplay element for those billion-rich commanders with nothing left to do. It would allow them to role-play as a real mogul without having to create a complicated NPC system for it. It would also give commanders who are poor the opportunity to try out more expensive ships or unknown loadouts without having to worry about having lots of credits upfront or worry about the resell fee.

So how could this work? Here are some points:

- a commander has a certain ship with a certain loadout. In the shipyard screen, he can select an option to tag this ship as rentable. The ship must be in his "stored" list (he cannot be in the ship);
- there has to be some interface option for two commanders to agree on renting said ship (maybe via the communications panel);
- the commander who will be taking the ship to fly can maybe see it in the shipyard, by selecting a different tab and cycling through all available ships for renting (just like those available for purchase). Modules and their description are visible in that window pane;
- outfitting for that ship is locked once rented (messing around with which module belongs to whom would be too complicated);
- the rental fee could be a fixed sum decided by the Pilots Federation (maybe 10% of rebuy value). It should be more of a flavor payment, enough so that the ship can pull its weight. The idea is not to make rich commanders richer, but to give them some sense of being a boss;
- the rental fee is deducted automatically by the Pilots Federation on a weekly basis and payed to the owner. Maybe an e-mail accompanies the transaction;
- the owner of the ship has a different tab in the shipyard screen showing the last port where that ship docked (sorry criminals, if you're gonna use a rental, people will know where you are);
- the renter still pays for any insurance rebuys - the rental appears in the rebuy screen just like any other property;
- if the renter does not have any money available for the weekly payment, he becomes wanted for vehicle theft. In this state, when he dies he does not receive the option to rebuy the rental in the rebuy screen (only the free sidewinder or whatever ship he has stored at the station where he respawns);
- if the vehicle-theft wanted renter dies, the rental ship is automatically being stored at his respawn station, on the name of the true owner (his ship will be there for him to reclaim). If he switches ships, the same happens;
- the station where the ship was rented is being remembered as a "home base". To conclude the rental, the renter must return the ship to that shipyard (switching to another ship there is automatically considered a return and any outstanding rental fees are deducted automatically);
- the owner can use this tab to remove the rental status of any ship. The renter is being informed via e-mail and has a week to return the ship to the home base before becoming wanted.

Too complicated? Fire away, in the meantime I'm gonna get some coffee... [zZzZz]

 

[babelfisch]

It wouldn't harm the game, but it doesn't look like a must have either. If something like this would be considered by FDEV it should be on the bottom of their to do list. I would rather like to see them working on that orrey map...
It also sounds like a lot of work for a feature that wouldn't be used by many players.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I think that, properly managed (along the lines you have suggested), this could work well. It could well help players with limited budgets experience parts of the game that they would normally have to wait for, and it would also allow players who wanted to try a different aspect of the game to get a taste first (such as exploring).

 

[Thetele]

I would say that renting ships doesn't add anything to game. You can try and do any activity in sindewinder, and after couple hours you have the best ship for what you want to do. You try to address problem that doesn't exist.

Suggestion wouldn't add anything to game and would rather be harmful to player experiencing and playing the game. Part of the game is to get to bigger and better ships so renting would just by pass some of the progression and game play. it also would make game feel shorter and have less contend than it has now. Less things to achieve. Making contend easier to access won't make people play more elite or enjoy more or be more happy.

 

[Robert Maynard]

What happens to the rebuy fee when the renter cannot pay? It seems to disappear in the example.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

The first question that hits me is, what is the demand for this?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Not sure - however it would facilitate a form of "twinking".

 

[Ripbudd]

- the renter still pays for any insurance rebuys - the rental appears in the rebuy screen just like any other property;

I'd love to be paid deposit first. Ship rebuy cost = deposit. You trash it, you spawn in sidewinder (whatever you had) i get my ship back and will be paid full with deposit money. You return it, you get your deposit back.
Really nice idea of renting ships.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

What happens to the rebuy fee when the renter cannot pay? It seems to disappear in the example.

That thing has been invented since people started renting things: deposit.

 

[Weps]

It also sounds like a lot of work for a feature that wouldn't be used by many players.

I agree, it sounds like the backend spaghetti monster. But to give you some reason why I would like to see this: it's not a feature which would address a particular shortcoming in the game, but one which adds a multitude of small improvements:

- players with a fleet get to *somehow* make use of all their stored ships, instead of those gathering dust somewhere
- they get to play as a manager who has to keep track of his ships, recover ships which have defaulted etc. Imagine them having to track down players who don't pay and kill them to force them to respawn outside of the rental ship
- owners must have knowledge of and choose popular loadouts which renters will seek - no one will want to rent that E-rated Clipper
- players are encouraged to make friends and contacts to benefit from this mechanic
- players without the cash or reputation to fly certain ships could test them out without having to be forced on a specific progression path which they might not enjoy; however since it's not their ship, it could be revoked / recalled at any time, or the rental fee may prove to be too high for them to enjoy; buying their own ship in the future would still have its incentives by bringing piece of mind, sens of accomplishment etc.

...after couple hours you have the best ship for what you want to do....

harmful to player experiencing and playing the game. Part of the game is to get to bigger and better ships so renting would just by pass some of the progression and game play....

Your post is a bit contradictory. Either players can get in any ship they want within a very short period, and this feature is useless, or they don't, and have to go through a certain progression.

I'd argue that some ships can be acquired relatively fast, and some not. In the first situation, the utility in the feature is not that high, but you still get to spare commanders or having to scavange for modules, give them access to PP modules etc, and for ships which are hard to acquire, you give an alternative to a progression path which some commanders might find... let's just say not appealing.

What happens to the rebuy fee when the renter cannot pay? It seems to disappear in the example.

If the renter cannot pay the insurance, but still could pay the rental fee, I'd say that he should still be restricted to the free sidewinder / other available ships of his own. The rental ship is spawned and the same stations but has to be reclaimed by the owner. No one pays the insurance fee (death penalty) in this case, the renter's death penalty is that he lost access to the rental. The owner has to decide if he "will do business" with the renter again, because of the hassle of having to reclaim his ship this way.

EDIT:

That thing has been invented since people started renting things: deposit.

Also a fine idea. But I would like for renters to keep renting the ship without the owner having to be involved in each insurance claim. After all, we see a lot of reports of players being killed because of speeding, having a beer while playing, rail alpha and whatnot. These things happen.

 

[Thetele]

Your post is a bit contradictory. Either players can get in any ship they want within a very short period, and this feature is useless, or they don't, and have to go through a certain progression.

I'd argue that some ships can be acquired relatively fast, and some not. In the first situation, the utility in the feature is not that high, but you still get to spare commanders or having to scavange for modules, give them access to PP modules etc, and for ships which are hard to acquire, you give an alternative to a progression path which some commanders might find... let's just say not appealing.

I meant that you can get good combat vulture good explorer/mission runner asp or good trading ship like clipper really fast.

But for many people only coal in elite is to get to the biggest ship. Collecting money for cutter take sometime. But if you can rent cutter you by pass 95% of game play that you would other vice need to do to fly one and achieve the end coal to see all ships. After you have your A-rated cutter you have seen everything and can move on to next game. It would cut huge amount of play time required to achieve that goal and make players feel that there is less game play to be had in elite. Now new player have vulture in about 10 h and cutter in 10-1000 h depending on how much they want to exploit robigo. If you could rent cutter for 20 mill it would cut that time required to achieve cutter to much shorter without adding anything to game.

 

[Ripbudd]

Also a fine idea. But I would like for renters to keep renting the ship without the owner having to be involved in each insurance claim. After all, we see a lot of reports of players being killed because of speeding, having a beer while playing, rail alpha and whatnot. These things happen.

You can't have your cake and eat it too!
Player still have option to pay insurance for himself without owner knowing anything or press additional button called use my deposit to pay for insurance claim + return ship to owner.

Since there is not a single persistent thing in elite dangerous, and player saves are player exclusive, system will never know what happened to your ship if you lend it to someone. It's flawed that way. Since every player is isolated from others (in terms of save file) so you can easily combat log and lock your save file and nobody can shoot you or kill you because they don't have access to your save file. Same thing here, but it goes for rent and lending ships.

They'll need server for that, or better security where other players can access your save file. Or maybe use of multiple files that some are publicly read only and some are accessible. Stuff gets technical real fast.

 

[Robert Maynard]

If the renter cannot pay the insurance, but still could pay the rental fee, I'd say that he should still be restricted to the free sidewinder / other available ships of his own. The rental ship is spawned and the same stations but has to be reclaimed by the owner. No one pays the insurance fee (death penalty) in this case, the renter's death penalty is that he lost access to the rental. The owner has to decide if he "will do business" with the renter again, because of the hassle of having to reclaim his ship this way.

Sounds like any player could opt to save 90% of the rebuy by renting a ship - regardless of how much they had in the bank - and the owner would lose nothing. Would be exploited.

Also a fine idea. But I would like for renters to keep renting the ship without the owner having to be involved in each insurance claim. After all, we see a lot of reports of players being killed because of speeding, having a beer while playing, rail alpha and whatnot. These things happen.

The only insurance claim that the owner would need to know about would be the one that the deposit paid for - i.e. the ship was "returned" to the owner.

 

[Weps]

You can't have your cake and eat it too!
Player still have option to pay insurance for himself without owner knowing anything or press additional button called use my deposit to pay for insurance claim + return ship to owner.

Oh, I see what you mean. In the case where the renter could not pay the insurance, the deposit would be used as to not "cheat" the insurance company. The rest could work as I described it. This is a very good suggestion.

Since there is not a single persistent thing in elite dangerous, and player saves are player exclusive, system will never know what happened to your ship if you lend it to someone. It's flawed that way.

You're talking about the situation where someone rents a ship, goes to solo, and never returns it. Since the owner can't hunt him down, the bounty doesn't do much and the owner simply has to wait for the thief to screw up and die to an NPC. That's one of the reasons I wanted the rental fee to be payed automatically.

Thing is, I'm kinda liking that situation. Dude steals your ship, you don't know if he's still in Open to track him down... There's a vendetta starting between you two... There's a reason to put a bounty on him outside of the game... Thieves get to be known by reputation.

Eventually they will die, or have to change ships, or get back to Open if that is where they play. I don't imagine a griefer doing this and then exiling himself to Solo just to grief one person. Or stopping from playing the game for the same reason.

 

[Ripbudd]

Oh, I see what you mean. In the case where the renter could not pay the insurance, the deposit would be used as to not "cheat" the insurance company. The rest could work as I described it. This is a very good suggestion.



You're talking about the situation where someone rents a ship, goes to solo, and never returns it. Since the owner can't hunt him down, the bounty doesn't do much and the owner simply has to wait for the thief to screw up and die to an NPC. That's one of the reasons I wanted the rental fee to be payed automatically.

Thing is, I'm kinda liking that situation. Dude steals your ship, you don't know if he's still in Open to track him down... There's a vendetta starting between you two... There's a reason to put a bounty on him outside of the game... Thieves get to be known by reputation.

Eventually they will die, or have to change ships, or get back to Open if that is where they play. I don't imagine a griefer doing this and then exiling himself to Solo just to grief one person. Or stopping from playing the game for the same reason.

Or... every rented ship must fly in open. No exceptions.

Flag ship as stolen, you get your ship back and he will get permanent wanted status on his ship, if he dies, there will not be buyback screen only return to start location. If you can't pay rent and you have 0 credits then maybe you sell other ships to cover costs (it will be implemented in game anyway) or decide not to pay and be completely on your own, no insurance claims nothing, you die you get back to your ships you have.

Still, no central save means you can't do this yet because there is no system that can track ships between multiple players, you can only know what's up with your own stuff, and you can't track other people possesions if they are offline or change anything they own.

 

[furrycat]

So you specify a rental term. As soon as the player docks after the term is up the station eats the ship. If he never docks, because he went off exploring or ragequit the game or just wants to troll you, too bad you should have thought of that before you took his rental fee.

It would be a nice feature to have one day. I'd happily lend my ship to my trusted friends. Or maybe paying customers.

 

[Riktar]

Interesting idea. It would definitely add another element to the game.

As to if it's a "necessary" addition to the game? It's a matter of perspective.

From my perspective, I would like to see it tried.....

 

[Ripbudd]

I don't know when crew hits the servers but i guess with multi crew, renting ships won't be that hard to do right? They already need to solve problem of ship owner logging off so we'll see.

 

[Weps]

I'm fairly certain the save file can be accessed even if the commander is offline - players have had credits and ships added to their accounts by support. If the process can be automated is of course a different question. It may be that even if possible, carrying out such changes frequently on a large scale would cause problems on the server.

Regarding harshness towards thieves - I wouldn't want the ship to automatically be returned to the owner. Part of the interaction and emergent gameplay I am hoping for is for owner to have to track their ships down when they get stolen. But I suppose that some commanders might be uneasy with the idea of someone taking a ship and logging off forever; for such a situation, maybe the game would wait an additional week after deeming the renter to be a thief, and if he does not login at all, then automatically transfer back ownership to the owner - the ship can be picked up at the last station it docked at. The cops found it full of bird droppings and dirt, and it has a bad smell because someone had slept in it.

I wouldn't do the same for explorers taking a long trip around the galaxy in an unpaid rental. Let's assume the owner can track the system that ship is in instead of the station - he can then wait the explorers on their return trip and blow them and their exploration data out of the sky for not paying.