Start a shipping company

[Imgran]

I think it would be a cool add to the game to be able to hire pilots to fly Zorgon-Peterson Haulers along preset routes. The economy in this game actually doesn't really exist on the scale that it needs to. Swamping the inner systems with haulers carrying enough cargo to actually move supply to where the demand is would be an interesting evolution of the game and a little passive income never hurt anyone.

It would also force players out of the inner systems and high security areas, since those would be dominated by the auto haulers, and force them to get a bit more creative (and take a few more risks) in doing their own trading.

The rules:

Only Haulers can be used. The Hauler is supposed to be the ubiquitous transport ship of the ED universe. Let's go ahead and make it ubiquitous.
All subsidiary Haulers are D rated and unarmed, with a jump range of 15 LY and a carrying capacity of 16 tons.
The cost of the Hauler is factored into the cost of the new pilot. Hiring the pilot automatically pays for his Hauler which will then appear in the C&C center.
All Haulers fly in open
All Haulers always surrender when interdicted by players and NPCs (it's not their ship, not their cargo, not their problem).
The more valuable the commodity you haul, the more likely an NPC will interdict the Hauler and relieve it of its cargo, meaning hauling large quantities of Palladium around the universe is not likely to end well. Obviously flying through conflict zones or Pirate havens is not a great idea either if you want your goods to get all the way from A to B.
The pilot takes 10% off the top of any proceeds (proceeds, not profits, so plan your routes well)

If the player wants to C&C the operation after releasing his pilots he has to rent a Command and Control center at a station, which will relay changes to the pilots' orders that they will receive and process after their next stop. That station then becomes the headquarters of the shipping company and, for an added fee, your ships will be considered part of the controlling faction of the station for as long as you pay your rent. (this would be a particularly cool feature for players with a PMF).

Information about where your C&C is and all rental information will show up in the Transactions window alongside your active quests, and you will receive a message to your ship that would allow you to renew your rental when it's nearly up even if you happen to be far from home.

Only stations with controlling factions which you are Allied to will rent you a C&C center and if the controlling faction loses the station, and you are not Allied with the new controlling faction, you lose your C&C until you find a new base of operations.

The result would be a large number of new ships traveling through space in open at the indirect order of players, meaning some fresh targets for pirates and ne'er do wells, as well as some new economic/strategic content that can be added to the game based on risk and reward and making better use of the skeletons of an economic model that already exist in the game

It would also mean that even Solo players who want to start a shipping company couldn't necessarily hide everything they do from Open players, since the Haulers fly in Open.

Which also means if players want to protect a specific hauler on a high risk high reward mission they would have to fly in open to do it. Again -- risk/reward, twisting the balance a bit in favor of flying in Open without being ridiculous about it.

So, thoughts?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I'm sure some people will approve, but personally I'm against psssive earning mechanisms. There are so many active methods that FDev could implement and I'd prefer they focus on those.

 

[Imgran]

I see where you're coming from, but this passive method as I envision it will actually generate content for active players. People will be able to find and pirate or destroy these Haulers and create a strategic cat and mouse game between the passive C&Cers and the active pirates. I think that potential content is worth allowing a passive earning method if it's done in that way.

Another thing I envision is that if a contract Hauler is destroyed, the C&Cer would know the name of the pilot that destroyed it. That could create an interesting game where a particular commander picks a fight with the ships of a particular other commander hoping to force them into Open for a showdown. Done that way, there's a significant potential content boost in a new feature similar to this.

 

[space voyager]

I'm sure some people will approve, but personally I'm against psssive earning mechanisms. There are so many active methods that FDev could implement and I'd prefer they focus on those.

Same here. FD always said that the aim of this game is not EVE or X series economy. You fly and earn.

 

[trollson]

Not likely to happen -- Elite is a "Han Solo" model - one pilot and one ship (at a time), and any auto-cash or auto-pilot mode isn't compatible gameplay.

Not to stay that something like it cannot be achived. There are two routes:

1. Players can be patrons and offer jobs which can be picked up by other players. You don't get to choose who gets the job though, as the game acts as the broker.
2. Beef up interactions with Minor Factions as a route into politics and economics. A minor faction represents (is) the Shipping Company, you have status within it, can promote, defend, help expand, and benefit from its success -- but don't have the key to the safe. Other players can participate, along with a corpus of NPCs based on the size of the faction.

On the OPs suggestion though, if the Haulers only fly in open that also deprives non-open players from gameplay -- and there is suppose to be equality between open/group/solo (abiet strained by multiplayer!).

 

[Manticore]

As long as it was only human players banding together to undertake some type of trading joint venture.... that might work.