I find it difficult that there is currently no way (that I am aware of) to earn income passively. With a community that consists primarily of mature, family caring and job holding adults, I honestly expected to see some method of establishing passive income.
This could potentially include allowing the players to setup orbital mining platforms around metallic planets that could be harvested an a regular basis via transport (perhaps daily or weekly). Of course it should take a fair amount of capital with a minimal to moderate return on investment to begin with, but it could start out much like the current Class / Rating system for system equipment where each piece of the mining platform has varying quality and it's up to the CMDR to upgrade it from a small laser 'hand drill' to a Death Star style orbital mining platform with lots of blood, sweat and tears.
Another thought is perhaps allow the players to buy NPC own transports with the ability to specify trade routes. Initially it seems like the reward that the player could receive from this would be too great - imagine non-stop trading by a fleet of NPC ships all reporting to one CMDR at what would be a normal traders income (1-5mil / hr) - that simply will not do. Instead have the CMDR earn a small percentage of the NPC trader's constant income as a finder's fee, perhaps 5%-10%. Then program the NPCs to have sleep / break cycles and be vulnerable to pirate attacks. This gives me a second thought just now - allow players to hire NPC pirates or miners (I think NPC explorers would be a bad idea and detract from the spirit of the game). Song long as the return on investment for each of these NPC roles is balanced appropriately I think it would be great fun. Ultimately I would like to see myself able to exercise a small sphere of influence over a few systems in which I would play a big role, but that is thinking really long term. Right now I would just be happy with some passive income.
Also, please make mission timers stop counting down when a player is logged out. As a full time employee and father, I almost never have time to sit down for more than a half-hour or hour in one sitting and knock out just one mission. Please, I beg you Frontier... PLEASE!
Thank you for all of your hard work, I truly love this game and if I didn't I wouldn't be in here making suggestions.
This could potentially include allowing the players to setup orbital mining platforms around metallic planets that could be harvested an a regular basis via transport (perhaps daily or weekly). Of course it should take a fair amount of capital with a minimal to moderate return on investment to begin with, but it could start out much like the current Class / Rating system for system equipment where each piece of the mining platform has varying quality and it's up to the CMDR to upgrade it from a small laser 'hand drill' to a Death Star style orbital mining platform with lots of blood, sweat and tears.
Another thought is perhaps allow the players to buy NPC own transports with the ability to specify trade routes. Initially it seems like the reward that the player could receive from this would be too great - imagine non-stop trading by a fleet of NPC ships all reporting to one CMDR at what would be a normal traders income (1-5mil / hr) - that simply will not do. Instead have the CMDR earn a small percentage of the NPC trader's constant income as a finder's fee, perhaps 5%-10%. Then program the NPCs to have sleep / break cycles and be vulnerable to pirate attacks. This gives me a second thought just now - allow players to hire NPC pirates or miners (I think NPC explorers would be a bad idea and detract from the spirit of the game). Song long as the return on investment for each of these NPC roles is balanced appropriately I think it would be great fun. Ultimately I would like to see myself able to exercise a small sphere of influence over a few systems in which I would play a big role, but that is thinking really long term. Right now I would just be happy with some passive income.
Also, please make mission timers stop counting down when a player is logged out. As a full time employee and father, I almost never have time to sit down for more than a half-hour or hour in one sitting and knock out just one mission. Please, I beg you Frontier... PLEASE!
Thank you for all of your hard work, I truly love this game and if I didn't I wouldn't be in here making suggestions.