Pre-face:
The are a lot of FCs parked in systems of high interest (e.g. in engineer systems, crystal shard sites, or at the Peak). Some of them do not move at all during an extended period of time (months), and do not offer any service for the public (or the owner). Some of them are simply abandoned (e.g. real life priorities or playing other games, or waiting for EDO to be in better shape, or ...). They are not decommissioned because the owners have acquired enough wealth to be able to pay the weekly maintenance fees for years (specially when parked at the Peak).
Some FCs are parked somewhere on purpose (e.g. DSSA FCs).
The problem which I think needs to be solved is, that some systems accumulate over time more and more abandoned FCs and as such are taking limited parking space and get in the way of "satisfactory game-play" for the active players.
What I ask the community to comment on are use cases which I may have overlooked and which my proposals would prevent, or better proposals. And there's off course the hope that FDev would pick-up a proposal in the end and implement it (depending on priorities with performance issues and bugs off course being much more important).
The short version of the 3 proposals I want to present here are:
The long version of the proposals:
1) Special long term parking orbit in a quiet area of the system:
2) Let FCs disappear like the ships disappear on logout, if there was not activity on the FCs for x time units:
3) Incremental long term parking fee in populated systems:
Hoping for some constructive comments,
Cmdr netchild.
The are a lot of FCs parked in systems of high interest (e.g. in engineer systems, crystal shard sites, or at the Peak). Some of them do not move at all during an extended period of time (months), and do not offer any service for the public (or the owner). Some of them are simply abandoned (e.g. real life priorities or playing other games, or waiting for EDO to be in better shape, or ...). They are not decommissioned because the owners have acquired enough wealth to be able to pay the weekly maintenance fees for years (specially when parked at the Peak).
Some FCs are parked somewhere on purpose (e.g. DSSA FCs).
The problem which I think needs to be solved is, that some systems accumulate over time more and more abandoned FCs and as such are taking limited parking space and get in the way of "satisfactory game-play" for the active players.
What I ask the community to comment on are use cases which I may have overlooked and which my proposals would prevent, or better proposals. And there's off course the hope that FDev would pick-up a proposal in the end and implement it (depending on priorities with performance issues and bugs off course being much more important).
The short version of the 3 proposals I want to present here are:
- Special long term parking orbit in a quiet area of the system (auto-move of the FCs), if there was not activity on the FCs for x time units (e.g. 3 months).
- Let FCs disappear like the ships disappear on logout, if there was not activity on the FCs for x time units (e.g. 3 months).
- Incremental long term parking fee in populated systems (with some conditions, see below).
The long version of the proposals:
1) Special long term parking orbit in a quiet area of the system:
After a timeout of x time units (e.g. 3 months) and more than x% of parking spots occupied (50%?), move the FC automatically to a long-term parking orbit which doesn't attribute to parking limits (and can not be reached by normal FC jumps), but is far out in the system (e.g. 100 kLs, or double the distance between the star and the last planet or something like that).
The activities which should reset the long-term parking counter could be:
- selling or buying something in the FC commodity marked (to prevent a ridiculous high/low sell/buy price when there is a sell/buy marked order but nobody buys/sells)
- use of active services (e.g. refuel, repair, rearm)
- someone docked on the FC
- changes by the owner (enable/disable services, transfer money to/from FC, set a tariff, a micro-jump within the system, ...)
The positive part of this proposal is that active FCs stay where they are, populated and unpopulated systems are covered, and all FCs are visible all the time. DSSA FCs should stay in their position with this proposal (as they wouldn't reach the x%-occupied condition).
The negative part about this proposal would be how to explain this in the lore... taking 5t Tritium from the depot may not be possible (I would not mind if the pilots federation would donate those 5t for the micro-jump if it is not possible, surely possible in populated systems (5t donation by a faction to move to the long-term parking orbit), logically a little bit difficult at e.g. the crystal shards sites).
2) Let FCs disappear like the ships disappear on logout, if there was not activity on the FCs for x time units:
Ships/SRVs/Cmdrs disappear when the user logs out. FCs stay visible until they reach the x time units (e.g. 3 months) long-term parking counter timeout, then they disappear like the ships, and re-instantiate when there is activity. The long-term parking counter also needs to reset on activity.
Activity in this case could be:
- the owner gets into the game
- someone who is docked on the FC gets into the game (or someone docks before the timeout is reached)
- if the FC is locked to the squadron and someone from the squadron logs into the game (this may put unwanted pressure on the DB servers, and maybe it's overkill)
Re-instantiating would put the FC back in the same orbit as before the timeout, if possible, or in a long-time parking orbit if not possible. The special long-time parking orbit would need to be a little bit far away... maybe 100 kLs around the star. There is the possibility that this puts the system over the system-parking-limit, and my proposal would be to make another FC disappear, which would get into the timeout next. The FC which show up in this special parking orbit should trigger an in-game message to the owner about moving it away from the long-term parking orbit and a much shorter activity timeout (maybe a week) while it is in the long-term parking orbit.
Note: if you think this will get into your "my FC buys Painite from players" game-play... if nobody has sold a tonne to your FC in e.g. 3 months (which would reset the counter), your FC is not in a good place and 3 more months will not give you what you want.
The positive part about this is, that it covers populated and unpopulated systems, and is lore-wise on the same level as disappearing ships on logout.
3) Incremental long term parking fee in populated systems:
In the weekly maintenance add a parking fee after x time units (e.g. 3 month) of parking without activity in a populated system. The parking fee should increase by time (linear or progressively, TBD, for the purpose of getting rid of abandoned FCs a progressive fee with a very high limit (if at all) would be better).
The activities which should reset the long-term parking counter could be:
- selling or buying something in the FC commodity marked (to prevent a ridiculous high/low sell/buy price when there is a sell/buy marked order but nobody buys/sells)
- use of active services (e.g. refuel, repair, rearm)
- someone docked on the FC
- changes by the owner (enable/disable services, transfer money to/from FC, set a tariff, a micro-jump within the system, ...)
The positive part about this proposal is that FCs will run into decommission much faster, with active use cases being automatically triggering a reset of long term parking fee. This will cover only populated systems and as such should not affect FCs out in the black (like DSSA FCs). It will over time empty really abandoned FCs in engineering systems and the Peak. Lore wise a parking fee in populated systems is self-explanatory and doesn't need any special treatment.
The negative part is: it doesn't cover unpopulated systems (e.g. the crystal shard or guardian sites).
Hoping for some constructive comments,
Cmdr netchild.
