Sorry, no Tl;DR... I wouldn't know how to compress it and still make sense. It already is hard enough anyway. ;-)
Currently the insurance system is pretty static and linear, you pay 5% insurance of your total ship value. So, how about making it more realistic and more fair?
To keep it simple, for now, lets say there is just one insurance company or if there are multiple, they have identical contracts.
Now, for every ship in the game statistics will be generated, either daily or once per week, to figure out which ships get destroyed the most. This only includes player piloted ships, not NPC destructions.
Additionally for every player there will be a statistic on how often that player died... and maybe even how.
Now we have a risk assessment for the ship and the player. Putting those two together we calculate the actual insurance percentage.
I would imagine that the relative number of destroyed ships would be highest for smaller ships, followed by traders, followed by large multi-purpose with the Anaconda at the end. Due to the survivability of the Clipper, it will probably be near the end as well unless all Clipper pilots are reckless and suicidal.
With this system it would generate a more realistic system to how much insurance you actually have to pay.
From the moment you start playing your in-game time is accumulated and the longer you stay alive without getting destroyed, the more points you get. This tells the insurance company that you are a good pilot or that you avoid dangerous situations, or both. It doesn't factor in how many ships you destroyed, since that doesn't matter and the insurance company wouldn't know anything about that unless the bounty agency or the combat bounds agents sends over those data. Lets assume for now there is no contact as this would make the whole concept A LOT more complicated.
So you fly a Viper, lets just pick a number out of the sky and say its base insurance is 20% due to its high risk assessment... but you haven't been killed, ever, or only a long time ago so your personal safety balance is very high / at max.
Now for maximum we take the factor of 0.5 and for the lowest (you die all the time) we take 2.
The good Viper pilot would have to pay 10% (20% * 0,5) of insurance and the pilot that constantly gets killed 40% (20% * 2).
Lets the the Anaconda has a base insurance of 5%... so you have 10% for the bad pilot and 2,5% for the good pilot.
A nice side effect would be that, if my theory about the ship destruction statistics is correct (smaller ships get destroyed more often than large ones) it would raise the insurance of the smaller ships and make them less disposable and would lower the risk for large ships, making them more viable to be used in conflict zones or in open play.
There are a LOT of factors that could be used to determine the risk factor of a pilot:
* online time since last death / since player started playing
* how did the player die? (not sure if the insurance company should care though)
* pre-paid / banked insurance money could be used to get a discount (since the insurance money can be set to work for the company)
* players with WANTED status should have a higher base insurance percentage, just because of the additional risk
Now to get back to the beginning. With different insurance companies and policies players that choose to align themselves with Alliance, Empire or Federation could get special packages to compensate for ship destruction by enemy forces. Or just have different policies you can buy depending on your playing style.
As Explorer I only really need insurance against stupidity or overheating... and for the first and last 500ly.
As Trader I might want extra insurance for lost cargo.
And now back to communication between authorities and the insurance company. A pilot that is destroying lots of player piloted ships might get their insurance percentage increased since he is causing financial damage to the insurance company since they have to pay for the ship he just destroyed. For this, having multiple insurance companies from different factions and anarchy systems would be a way around it.
The federal insurance company might be angry with you if you, as a federal pilot with federal insurance, are killing another federation pilot, but if you had an imperial insurance contract, they might not care... and the small independent insurance company from the anarchy system wouldn't care all all how many ships you destroy, but might be more expensive for bounty hunters and pirates.
Currently the insurance system is pretty static and linear, you pay 5% insurance of your total ship value. So, how about making it more realistic and more fair?
To keep it simple, for now, lets say there is just one insurance company or if there are multiple, they have identical contracts.
Now, for every ship in the game statistics will be generated, either daily or once per week, to figure out which ships get destroyed the most. This only includes player piloted ships, not NPC destructions.
Additionally for every player there will be a statistic on how often that player died... and maybe even how.
Now we have a risk assessment for the ship and the player. Putting those two together we calculate the actual insurance percentage.
I would imagine that the relative number of destroyed ships would be highest for smaller ships, followed by traders, followed by large multi-purpose with the Anaconda at the end. Due to the survivability of the Clipper, it will probably be near the end as well unless all Clipper pilots are reckless and suicidal.
With this system it would generate a more realistic system to how much insurance you actually have to pay.
From the moment you start playing your in-game time is accumulated and the longer you stay alive without getting destroyed, the more points you get. This tells the insurance company that you are a good pilot or that you avoid dangerous situations, or both. It doesn't factor in how many ships you destroyed, since that doesn't matter and the insurance company wouldn't know anything about that unless the bounty agency or the combat bounds agents sends over those data. Lets assume for now there is no contact as this would make the whole concept A LOT more complicated.
So you fly a Viper, lets just pick a number out of the sky and say its base insurance is 20% due to its high risk assessment... but you haven't been killed, ever, or only a long time ago so your personal safety balance is very high / at max.
Now for maximum we take the factor of 0.5 and for the lowest (you die all the time) we take 2.
The good Viper pilot would have to pay 10% (20% * 0,5) of insurance and the pilot that constantly gets killed 40% (20% * 2).
Lets the the Anaconda has a base insurance of 5%... so you have 10% for the bad pilot and 2,5% for the good pilot.
A nice side effect would be that, if my theory about the ship destruction statistics is correct (smaller ships get destroyed more often than large ones) it would raise the insurance of the smaller ships and make them less disposable and would lower the risk for large ships, making them more viable to be used in conflict zones or in open play.
There are a LOT of factors that could be used to determine the risk factor of a pilot:
* online time since last death / since player started playing
* how did the player die? (not sure if the insurance company should care though)
* pre-paid / banked insurance money could be used to get a discount (since the insurance money can be set to work for the company)
* players with WANTED status should have a higher base insurance percentage, just because of the additional risk
Now to get back to the beginning. With different insurance companies and policies players that choose to align themselves with Alliance, Empire or Federation could get special packages to compensate for ship destruction by enemy forces. Or just have different policies you can buy depending on your playing style.
As Explorer I only really need insurance against stupidity or overheating... and for the first and last 500ly.
As Trader I might want extra insurance for lost cargo.
And now back to communication between authorities and the insurance company. A pilot that is destroying lots of player piloted ships might get their insurance percentage increased since he is causing financial damage to the insurance company since they have to pay for the ship he just destroyed. For this, having multiple insurance companies from different factions and anarchy systems would be a way around it.
The federal insurance company might be angry with you if you, as a federal pilot with federal insurance, are killing another federation pilot, but if you had an imperial insurance contract, they might not care... and the small independent insurance company from the anarchy system wouldn't care all all how many ships you destroy, but might be more expensive for bounty hunters and pirates.