More specifically, regarding ship/module packs as currently implemented:
Background - I run my FC essentially as a bounty hunting hub near a haz res, and have had a good amount of player interaction bringing people to wing up for wing massacre missions; they bring in other ppl, etc. All good. I have all services installed and get good use out of them (except for secure warehouse.). I have a lot of newer players come in; many times my wing missions help them get a lot of new cash. Also, having my full fleet hovering about 20Mm away from the target haz res is AWESOME. I mostly am very happy with my FC so far. It also is a convenient drop-off site for a lot of mining hotspots on the planet I orbit; and I can ferry some commodities for later resale from an adjacent outpost.
After completing a bunch of bounty hunting wing missions with players, one or two things typically happen:
1) Player with new money says: 'What kind of bounty hunting ship should I get?'
What I would like to answer: 'Well, I sell ready-to-go, A-rated FDLs on my carrier, you can buy one of those and have at it' (or insert whatever ship it is you want to offer)
2) Some of the mission drop-offs are at outposts and a wingman only has his anaconda with him.
What I would like to tell him: 'Well, I have a stable of fitted Hauler-taxis in the FC, you can just grab one of those and be on your way.'
But, of course, I cannot do that. At least, not very well.
Some of the ship packs are workable. The FDL/Mamba pack? Sure. And I can get the hauler/adder kit as well to provide taxis. (There are a few pretty bad packs IMO, but I won't get into that here.)
And the outfitting... well... Again, some of the packs are decent. I actually find the Ballistic Weapons and Energy Weapons packs to be decent offerings, and have made some sales on them. But a lot of the core / optional module packs are problematic.
Want to provide A-rated powerplant for the FDL I sell? Well, I can get the A-rated Tier 3 pack, yes, but I only need to offer players the size 6A out of that if I'm pairing i with FDLs, certainly not many multiples of sizes lower or higher than that. Ditto for FSDs, Thrusters, etc.
There are also three other problems I have to deal with when buying this stuff:
The current sort-of workaround:
You can sort of accomplish this by buying a pack, and then one-by-one selling off the stuff you don't want. It's super tedious, grindy and time consuming ("Welcome to Elite"); and in the case of ship stock, necessitates losing money as you sell ships. I have done this to offer haulers, selling off adders from the ship pack. It saves on the carrier capacity at least.
Doing this would be super tedious for internals, when some packs stock 50x of things you don't want ... didn't even bother.
Ideas: Please note that these are separate ideas, not necessarily meant to be taken together.
1) Need a lot more tweaking on what packs are available, preferably a wider offering of packs that are less broad than what is currently offered.
or...
2) Allow FC owners to purchase specific ships and components to stock, and do away with packs entirely.
or...
3) Allow FC owners to assemble ships on their own, and then after landing it on the FC and putting it in shipyard storage, give us the option to put it up for sale as-is, at a price we set independent of tariff/gal avg
--- I don't know how this would work with engineering, or even if it should. Maybe limit this to non-engineered ships/modules. I dunno.
--- Perhaps submit it as a template, allowing us to easily stock up on multiples / restock at carrier admin systems?
and/or
4) Allow FC owners to submit ships, as with the above, but for rental instead.
--- Would make more sense for offering engineered ships for players to 'try out', rather than non-engineered ships.
--- Disable all outfitting/remote workshop while in a rented ship.
--- Allow FC owner to get back 10% of all income earned while player is in rented ship; or just have a set cost for renting it.
--- As for managing rentals: perhaps automatically fedex it back to FC if player switches to their own ship; or, permit lock them to the system with the FC until they switch back. Something like that.
This would definitely be great utility for my bounty hunting spot. Dunno how it would play out with other FC roles out there.
Do other FC owners use the shipyard/outfitting for selling stuff? What do you think of the current system?
Background - I run my FC essentially as a bounty hunting hub near a haz res, and have had a good amount of player interaction bringing people to wing up for wing massacre missions; they bring in other ppl, etc. All good. I have all services installed and get good use out of them (except for secure warehouse.). I have a lot of newer players come in; many times my wing missions help them get a lot of new cash. Also, having my full fleet hovering about 20Mm away from the target haz res is AWESOME. I mostly am very happy with my FC so far. It also is a convenient drop-off site for a lot of mining hotspots on the planet I orbit; and I can ferry some commodities for later resale from an adjacent outpost.
After completing a bunch of bounty hunting wing missions with players, one or two things typically happen:
1) Player with new money says: 'What kind of bounty hunting ship should I get?'
What I would like to answer: 'Well, I sell ready-to-go, A-rated FDLs on my carrier, you can buy one of those and have at it' (or insert whatever ship it is you want to offer)
2) Some of the mission drop-offs are at outposts and a wingman only has his anaconda with him.
What I would like to tell him: 'Well, I have a stable of fitted Hauler-taxis in the FC, you can just grab one of those and be on your way.'
But, of course, I cannot do that. At least, not very well.
Some of the ship packs are workable. The FDL/Mamba pack? Sure. And I can get the hauler/adder kit as well to provide taxis. (There are a few pretty bad packs IMO, but I won't get into that here.)
And the outfitting... well... Again, some of the packs are decent. I actually find the Ballistic Weapons and Energy Weapons packs to be decent offerings, and have made some sales on them. But a lot of the core / optional module packs are problematic.
Want to provide A-rated powerplant for the FDL I sell? Well, I can get the A-rated Tier 3 pack, yes, but I only need to offer players the size 6A out of that if I'm pairing i with FDLs, certainly not many multiples of sizes lower or higher than that. Ditto for FSDs, Thrusters, etc.
There are also three other problems I have to deal with when buying this stuff:
- I am not terribly concerned about upfront costs - I have the money. But economically speaking (in a buy-low-sell-high sense), these packs are not great deals for me, at least as I've seen them. For what I could buy them at, reselling them at galactic average prices nets only something like a 3% profit. (Maybe Li Yong Rui space would give me better deals, I have not tested this.) Considering how much stuff they force me to buy in bulk, this is ... kinda pathetic.
- They can take up a lot of carrier space. It is basically impossible for me to offer any kind of comprehensive bounty hunting options with the packs as is, at least if I want to continue using my carrier for anything else. The ship pack with anaconda/python (and both kraits) is just over 10,000 carrier space!
- If you operate inside the bubble as I do, any shipyard/outfitting offerings you give will have to compete with Shinrarta. Good luck with that, considering how it currently is.
The current sort-of workaround:
You can sort of accomplish this by buying a pack, and then one-by-one selling off the stuff you don't want. It's super tedious, grindy and time consuming ("Welcome to Elite"); and in the case of ship stock, necessitates losing money as you sell ships. I have done this to offer haulers, selling off adders from the ship pack. It saves on the carrier capacity at least.
Doing this would be super tedious for internals, when some packs stock 50x of things you don't want ... didn't even bother.
Ideas: Please note that these are separate ideas, not necessarily meant to be taken together.
1) Need a lot more tweaking on what packs are available, preferably a wider offering of packs that are less broad than what is currently offered.
or...
2) Allow FC owners to purchase specific ships and components to stock, and do away with packs entirely.
or...
3) Allow FC owners to assemble ships on their own, and then after landing it on the FC and putting it in shipyard storage, give us the option to put it up for sale as-is, at a price we set independent of tariff/gal avg
--- I don't know how this would work with engineering, or even if it should. Maybe limit this to non-engineered ships/modules. I dunno.
--- Perhaps submit it as a template, allowing us to easily stock up on multiples / restock at carrier admin systems?
and/or
4) Allow FC owners to submit ships, as with the above, but for rental instead.
--- Would make more sense for offering engineered ships for players to 'try out', rather than non-engineered ships.
--- Disable all outfitting/remote workshop while in a rented ship.
--- Allow FC owner to get back 10% of all income earned while player is in rented ship; or just have a set cost for renting it.
--- As for managing rentals: perhaps automatically fedex it back to FC if player switches to their own ship; or, permit lock them to the system with the FC until they switch back. Something like that.
This would definitely be great utility for my bounty hunting spot. Dunno how it would play out with other FC roles out there.
Do other FC owners use the shipyard/outfitting for selling stuff? What do you think of the current system?