Insurance [Solution]

[TannakaObi]

Reason
Although I've not been affected myself it's obviously confusing for some people, hence so many threads. But also it's not realistic, if only insurance worked like this... no one would bother.

Solution
Insurance should be an up front payment or a weekly bill based on your ship choice:

Pros
Less confusion, more upfront system, less moaning. More realistic.

Cons
You would not be able to buy what you can't afford. Meaning it would be a larger grind for your goal. However this would be more realistic so is also a pro. After all, many people could afford a Ferrari, keeping it on the road? That's another question.

Extra
It should also go up with better upgrades.... but meh!

 

[Raf von Thorn]

I do agree with you. Though i worry it would be too simple and any moron would understand it. And i love "i LOST my ASP!!!" threads...

 

[edd]

How do you pay the upfront cost on your replacement ship? I mean you buy a ship and prepay the excess. You crash it and get given a new ship. Now if you crash again you'd need another new ship so you have to prepay the excess again - it'd be exactly how it is now but with the extra payment at the start...

 

[TannakaObi]

How do you pay the upfront cost on your replacement ship? I mean you buy a ship and prepay the excess. You crash it and get given a new ship. Now if you crash again you'd need another new ship so you have to prepay the excess again - it'd be exactly how it is now but with the extra payment at the start...

Aye! Thats the point. No one can say, "boohoo, I lost everything therefore it's a bad game, nothing to do with me being an idiot."

Not to mention the small little fact that is what insurance is, a smaller protection payment in case of loss/theft/damage. It makes no sense that you only pay after. If you own more than one ship them it's a premium insurance that covers all ships.

Edit: you could even add in a no claim bonus each month.... not that anyone would make use of it.

 

[Jesters09]

Ah the old system was the best . . . you buy insurance, that gets you a life raft back to the nearest station/outpost and they deliver you a brand spanking new flea to fly in.
Your banked cash stays safe.

Problem solved, don't get dead, because that's a restart.

 

[Arkku]

I strongly disagree with the suggestion.

If the fee is recurring based on real-world time, then it hurts players who don't always have time to play actively, and the limited time they can play will be spent making money for insurance.

If the fee is recurring based on gameplay time, then it punishes players who play the game actively, i.e., they are forced to spend a large part of the time the play just grinding money for the recurring insurance payment (remember that these players will likely have expensive ships with insurance in excess of a million credits).

(Or for either of the above, if the insurance fee is made so low that it doesn't cause the above problems, then the fee becomes insignificant for other players.)

If the fee is up front when you buy the ship/modules, then it's just an increase in prices (which are already in the millions for a single module once you get beyond the Cobra) until you die once. After you die once, do you then have to pay insurance again to cover the next death? If yes, what if you cannot pay, and how is this different from the current system other than for the first death? If no, then it would effectively eliminate insurance costs altogether, making death even less meaningful…

 

[Pete]

Insurance should be an up front payment or a weekly bill based on your ship choice

No no no no no!
I don't want to stop playing for a few months, and come back to the game peniless due to recurrent insurance bills.

The current mechanism works mostly well, there's a real penalty to losing your ship if you're low on funds, it passes some actual responsibility onto the pilot! Not enough games hold you accountable for your decisions.

I do think it should be more of an obvious decision to fly without insurance though - so there should be a (clearable) warning when you try and leave a dock with insufficient funds to pay your insurance.

-- Pete.

 

[edd]

Aye! Thats the point. No one can say, "boohoo, I lost everything therefore it's a bad game, nothing to do with me being an idiot."

Not to mention the small little fact that is what insurance is, a smaller protection payment in case of loss/theft/damage. It makes no sense that you only pay after. If you own more than one ship them it's a premium insurance that covers all ships.

Edit: you could even add in a no claim bonus each month.... not that anyone would make use of it.

I'm not quite sure you got what I meant.
Now, if you can't pay the excess you don't get a replacement ship.
After, if you can't pay the excess on your replacement ship (which has to be paid upfront, i.e. when you lost your old ship) what happens? You don't get your replacement ship because you can't afford it?

I agree that the mechanics as they are aren't much like real life insurance but changing when you pay the cost from immediately after loss to upfront only has the effect of adding an extra charge when you purchase a new ship.

(Criticism doesn't apply to the weekly fee idea, but Arkku articulates the problem with that well enough)

Personally I'd like to see you just get some percentage of your ship value back as credits if you can't pay the excess for the replacement, if anything needs fixing in the system at all. I'm happy with it as it is though.

 

[Steve50]

imo there's no solution required, it's working fine.

It plainly tells you how much the rebuy cost is, well if you ignore that and put all your money into your cargo and lose your ship, I really don't have much sympathy.

 

[smsKONG]

How do you pay the upfront cost on your replacement ship? I mean you buy a ship and prepay the excess. You crash it and get given a new ship. Now if you crash again you'd need another new ship so you have to prepay the excess again - it'd be exactly how it is now but with the extra payment at the start...

This

No no no no no!
I don't want to stop playing for a few months, and come back to the game peniless due to recurrent insurance bills.

The current mechanism works mostly well, there's a real penalty to losing your ship if you're low on funds, it passes some actual responsibility onto the pilot! Not enough games hold you accountable for your decisions.

I do think it should be more of an obvious decision to fly without insurance though - so there should be a (clearable) warning when you try and leave a dock with insufficient funds to pay your insurance.

-- Pete.

This

imo there's no solution required, it's working fine.

It plainly tells you how much the rebuy cost is, well if you ignore that and put all your money into your cargo and lose your ship, I really don't have much sympathy.

And mostly this

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I love these threads that suggest solutions to non existent problems.

 

[GhostBirdofPrey]

I think the current system is fine if a bit unrealistic (though to be honest, you'rs isn't any better; no one would insure a combat ship since the reason insurance companies stay in business is that most insured items never have a claim made on them ie. NOBODY will ever insure a combat ship, only haulers, and only if they stay to areas deemed "safe").

What needs improvement is the relaying of that information to new players, so that they actually understand what it is, what it does and know to keep an eye on the rebuy cost of their ship. if they are properly informed of that, then it's their fault if they decide to risk all of their money on a big ship.

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

I love these threads that suggest solutions to non existent problems.

No, there's a problem.
It's just that the problem is not the mechanics, but how the player becomes aware of them.

 

[Flying Penguin]

The only change required is that it should be explicitly explained as part of the tutorials. Even if FD feel like being really nice, turning your re-buy cost red when you don't have credits to re-buy should be enough.

I don't want recurring costs, and requiring pre-pay takes away the *option* to fly uninsured. What do you do if an insurance claim wipes out your re-buy buffer?

 

[Gameassassin1020]

Some guy recommended doing missions to get your ship back if you cant pay for it.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I dont know how they can miss the text on the first page of your right hand MFD that states - "REBUY COST XXXXXX CR" directly under your credit balance.

 

[SuperMarco]

Insurance should be paid before and during your gaming session. For me, the actual insurance system is very wrong.

I think the insurance should be rework, because it's a really important thing in this game since you can die from almost anything. You should be able to choose what type of insurance you would use such as trading insurance (insure cargo loss) and cie.. and you have to pay daily/weekly/monthly? credit for that.

At the end, depending of your insurance, you will be able to get back your ship OR just the money for it, which mean you will have to navigate to buy your ship somewhere else (if the ship is not available in your station).

I know it's just the beginning but this kind of features a really important and actually teach the player to not doing stupid things with their ship. (like bumping into other at the entrance of a station..)
Also I would love to see the possibility to sell back our module on the market, having an auction house(station) would be just amazing, and would be an other way to make credit in the game. But this is an other subject ^^.

 

[GhostBirdofPrey]

I dont know how they can miss the text on the first page of your right hand MFD that states - "REBUY COST XXXXXX CR" directly under your credit balance.

Considering many new players might not even have figured out that page exists yet, it's very easy to miss.

Aside from mentioning supercruise and docking, the tutorials don't tell you how to do anything besides shoot, much less tell you what any of the screens and options do.

 

[Flying Penguin]

I dont know how they can miss the text on the first page of your right hand MFD that states - "REBUY COST XXXXXX CR" directly under your credit balance.

Considering many new players might not even have figured out that page exists yet, it's very easy to miss.

Aside from mentioning supercruise and docking, the tutorials don't tell you how to do anything besides shoot, much less tell you what any of the screens and options do.

This.

It's not a mechanic issue, it's an awareness/training issue.

 

[idono]

The insurance system is fine as it is. It's actually modeled semi realistic. When something happens you pay a "small" fee on the already insured item.

 

[Lustan]

This.

It's not a mechanic issue, it's an awareness/training issue.

If its an awareness issue then Frontier can make a change for quality of life. It should show on the shipyard what the rebuy cost is directly under the purchase price (and also for any stored ships, too). That would clear this up for people. And if people didn't understand what the rebuy cost meant it would at least get them asking the right questions.

Does it make sense that you have to buy a ship first to find out what the rebuy cost is?