Gal-Mex?

[Dad Rock]

Proposal: Create a unique Module Exchange where Commanders can buy and sell engineered modules. A Galactic Module Exchange - GALMEX.

Gal-MEX is an exchange board where modules of various engineering levels and functionality can be bought and sold, completely anonymously. A Commander who has no use of certain engineered modules, for whatever reason, would like to clear up space in their storage. They can post the module, with it's specifications, on Gal-MEX, for a certain price.

Another Commander, wanting an engineered module, but not interested in spending time gathering materials, can run a search in Gal-Mex for the module they are interested in, and can compare prices and module engineering specs. When they find a module at a price that they like, they can submit a bid and the exchange happens automatically.

The Commander who enjoys tweaking builds and engineering modules and ship builds to the limit gets rewarded for their efforts by being able to sell experimental modules and earning some credits, and Commanders hard pressed for time can buy what they need with credits. Everybody is a winner and has fun.

There have been suggestions in the past to allow Commanders the option of buying engineered modules, but I think this suggestion is different, because Gal-Mex will keep buyers and sellers totally anonymous to prevent abuse. It also helps connect Commanders across the Galaxy together and gives us another way to interact and play the way we want.

 

[CMDR X]

I love it!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

because Gal-Mex will keep buyers and sellers totally anonymous to prevent abuse.

I'm not sure exactly what sort of abuse you're worried about, but one option that's still possible: list a 1E G1 system-focused power distributor (or something equally cheap and useless) at 1 billion credits. Probably the only person who will buy it is the person you've arranged through separate channels to pay you 1 billion credits, but if not, hey, free money.

To avoid it being used to bypass module transfer fees or timers, presumably either whatever price you paid for it would have to then have a "shipping fee" added to it to move it from wherever the seller had it stored to wherever the buyer is, or you buy it but it's still in whichever station the seller left it. Either way the location of the module being sold would have to be added to the description, which would again help deanonymise purchasing and make sure you bought the right 1E G1 distributor.

There's also - which might concern Frontier more - the possibility of getting engineered modules you couldn't actually get for yourself: why bother travelling to unlock Palin/Brandon if you can just pay someone else to make a G5 Thrusters for you? Or a day 1 pilot could unlock a first engineer, make a fake module (I'm assuming you can't sell stock modules this way), sell it to their squadron for 1 billion credits, then use that money to buy a fully engineered ship (apart from the hull) from their squadron's parts bucket without having to touch the rest of the engineers at all.

 

[Maur]

If you're in a squadron, and you are a Day 1 player in a stock sidey, your squadron mates need only drop you a few tons of void opals and point you toward a high-sell station to make you an instant multi-millionaire. Don't pretend that collusion between players doesn't result in rapid advancement.

 

[CMDR X]

...without having to touch the rest of the engineers at all.

That's the whole point of this. Not having to touch the engineers. Not everyone has the time and soul to grind through their little activities. Things they would never do otherwise. Alot of us who have to face this crap 9-5 don't want to clock in again afterwards at home.

Blaze that trail...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If you're in a squadron, and you are a Day 1 player in a stock sidey, your squadron mates need only drop you a few tons of void opals and point you toward a high-sell station to make you an instant multi-millionaire. Don't pretend that collusion between players doesn't result in rapid advancement.

Oh, I'm not - and wing missions might well be an easier way to transfer that money, in a big squadron. And a good bunch of the engineer unlocks and material hunts can be accelerated substantially if you have a couple of other players helping you out (the mining and "get 50 rares" ones especially) which I suspect is how they were intended to be done.

But at the moment you still have to actually use that money to build the ship yourself, and you still have to engineer it yourself. It's pretty clear that Frontier are using the engineers and materials as the actual progression system, since money is increasingly irrelevant for that. (And don't get me wrong - I think things like core mining are a good thing to have)

That's the whole point of this. Not having to touch the engineers. Not everyone has the time and soul to grind through their little activities. Things they would never do otherwise. Alot of us who have to face this crap 9-5 don't want to clock in again afterwards at home.

Yes, and if Frontier intended engineered modules to be available without going through that process, they have many easier ways than a player market to do that. They've made engineering considerably more straightforward and less time-consuming since the original 2.1 release ... but being able to get an arbitrary engineered module without even unlocking any engineers is probably several steps too far for them, based on their previous decisions.

If that's "the whole point" of this, then there's no point in asking Frontier because the answer will be "no", just like it has been every other time. If it was restricted in certain ways:
- you can only trade engineered modules for other engineered modules of the same grade (plus a fixed cash amount equal to the difference in base module value)
- you can only purchase a module if you have access to that blueprint yourself (regardless of whether you've ever owned the materials needed to make it)
...then it could be a great way for people to focus on the activities they like, do engineering with the materials they get from those, and then swap the modules with someone who likes something else, without being exploitable for gold sellers or allowing people to be flying a fully engineered Anaconda an hour into the game, and without going completely against Frontier's long-standing design for engineering.

But if the idea is "please remove all the consequences of me actually blazing my own trail" - you can choose to only ever explore and never run missions, but you'll never unlock the Fed or Imperial ships if you do - then Frontier aren't going to do that.

 

[Jimmox72]

If something like this were to be implemented, make it so that engineered modules cannot be repaired if they have engineering done to them beyond what the Commander who bought them has unlocked.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Proposal: Create a unique Module Exchange where Commanders can buy and sell engineered modules. A Galactic Module Exchange - GALMEX.

Gal-MEX is an exchange board where modules of various engineering levels and functionality can be bought and sold, completely anonymously. A Commander who has no use of certain engineered modules, for whatever reason, would like to clear up space in their storage. They can post the module, with it's specifications, on Gal-MEX, for a certain price.

Another Commander, wanting an engineered module, but not interested in spending time gathering materials, can run a search in Gal-Mex for the module they are interested in, and can compare prices and module engineering specs. When they find a module at a price that they like, they can submit a bid and the exchange happens automatically.

The Commander who enjoys tweaking builds and engineering modules and ship builds to the limit gets rewarded for their efforts by being able to sell experimental modules and earning some credits, and Commanders hard pressed for time can buy what they need with credits. Everybody is a winner and has fun.

There have been suggestions in the past to allow Commanders the option of buying engineered modules, but I think this suggestion is different, because Gal-Mex will keep buyers and sellers totally anonymous to prevent abuse. It also helps connect Commanders across the Galaxy together and gives us another way to interact and play the way we want.

Tot totally anonymise trades and block "gold selling" module prices could be set by a tariff, for example, stock module +5% for G1 mod, +15% for G2, +35% for G3, +60% for G4 and +90% for G5. This would prevent folks selling in game credits for real world cash, as in "heres $100 by paypal, buy my g1 thrusters for 1Bn credits."

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Tot totally anonymise trades and block "gold selling" module prices could be set by a tariff, for example, stock module +5% for G1 mod, +15% for G2, +35% for G3, +60% for G4 and +90% for G5. This would prevent folks selling in game credits for real world cash, as in "heres $100 by paypal, buy my g1 thrusters for 1Bn credits."

There should also be some sort of auctioneers fee for the seller to pay, so as to prevent it becoming a new gold rush with videos popping up on youtube of "make 500 million credits per hour selling engineered modules".

 

[Dad Rock]

There's also - which might concern Frontier more - the possibility of getting engineered modules you couldn't actually get for yourself: why bother travelling to unlock Palin/Brandon if you can just pay someone else to make a G5 Thrusters for you? Or a day 1 pilot could unlock a first engineer, make a fake module (I'm assuming you can't sell stock modules this way), sell it to their squadron for 1 billion credits, then use that money to buy a fully engineered ship (apart from the hull) from their squadron's parts bucket without having to touch the rest of the engineers at all.

That's a great point that I hadn't considered. Maybe a simple "level" lock on the Exchange would stop a user from buying modules for Engineers or levels they haven't unlocked yet, or if they are on a non-Horizons version. I can't imagine it'd be difficult to have these types of controls on there...

o7

 

[Dad Rock]

If something like this were to be implemented, make it so that engineered modules cannot be repaired if they have engineering done to them beyond what the Commander who bought them has unlocked.

+1

Or maybe that they can't be fitted till the Engineer has been unlocked by the Commander.

 

[Exeider]

Sounds like a Mexican side dish.... I'm down. +1

 

[Jimmox72]

Or maybe that they can't be fitted till the Engineer has been unlocked by the Commander.

That could work too, but had I the choice I'd still make them fittable but irreparable, so that the buyer can get a taste of what engineering can do.

Bear in mind that I think that while engineering is a good concept, in practice it is seriously OP. I'd like there to be the above taste of what it can do, even were it taken down to reasonable levels, so that people can decide whether engineering is for them or not and not have to pursue it just to keep up with the meta or whatnot. Of course, this would also mean dealing with the gross oversupply of credits, but that's another topic.