Expenses / cash sinks (plus crime)

[OddBob]

Okay on IRC we were discussing expenses.

Early game is fun. There are lots of cool choices to make and one of them is what to do with your money. However is is all too short because pretty quickly you can be rolling in filthy lucre - unless you start an Akan habit in Rigel or something you will generally not want for cash except for a few one time purchases. It's fun to have to sell your fuel for ammo or to pay off your black market debt or whatever. Being rich is curiously enough not that great.

So we thought, what are some things we can do to add more costs for the player? Right now if you don't count upgrades (which more often than not you just find laying around) you have fuel and the occasional armor repair to pay for and even those you can find laying around.

So here are some things which might cost you (an expense is required or constant and a cash sink is optional or one time - there is a bit of overlap between them sometimes)

Docking permit/docking fees - aka parking meters

Membership fees for various things

Fines - for littering, speeding, firing your weapon in an inhabited zone - not all the time but occasionally you may get hit with one, especially if they don't like you. Some stations may be overzealous and fine you basically everytime you pass (for looking at them funny or something)

Item permits - to use items of level X you need the appropriate permit (or a sufficiently well-forged fake permit).

Ship maintenance -

Basically adding a whole bunch of devices like reactors (also we propose the "default" reactor be actually installed, same with default engines, etc).
Note that these can be 0 slot items or use special slots. Most of them need to be maintained.

Every ship has these systems:

Weapons system - this ties all your weapons together and lets you handle basic firing, etc. Governs what type/how many (note ships can still dictate number of weapons)/what level/size of weapons you can install, may provide bonuses, etc. Occasionally needs a repair or maintenance or weapon performance will suffer. (an item could do these maintenances as well as a station service)

Life support - keep you alive, of course. Better life supports could provide protection from radiation or other effects. Must be restocked with food/air every now and then. (again, can be from an item)

Engines - just your drive - we are suggesting that the default be given a device and be replaced when you add a drive enhancement. In addition, occasionally will require some maintenance to change the space oil or whatever.

Reactors - same as now but the default is an item as well and they occasionally need a tuning.

Maneuvering thrusters and targeting computers can also be devices in this vein, with better ones providing better turn rates and aiming services like reticles and etc, respectively.

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more expenses:

Ship loans/leases- ships can't be cheap so you may have to lease a ship or get a loan.

If the black market/anyone is angry at you, instead of paying them outright by docking, it might be more interesting to pay in installments - so you dock sometime (or are forced to dock) and they are waiting for you, demanding the next payment, giving you the opportunity to scramble to pay or run if you want.

If a station destroys a ship that is attacking you it could charge you - this will cut into alternate ways to destroy enemies so we propose the following:

If you are either far enough away or you can trick the enemies into attacking the station instead of you (would require less singleminded enemies) then you are not charged for the service.

Also, since that would require enemies be a little less cautios around stations (right now they won't even think about firing near one) all good from stations are marked and if you try and sell stolen goods that is illegal (can still fence them at the black market though).

I also suggest in a somewhat related idea that corp cruisers be more reckless - if you were in the area, you are guilty too (only counting towards freelance ships, no chain reactions in St K's , and of course not blacklisting like if you destroyed it yourself, it should just fire on anyone suspicious around the destroyed station, with attempting to loot the station being a crime as well)

Also since this adds a lot of smuggling we suggest being able to be 'pulled
over' and searched.

EDIT: Another idea is leased or rented items.

[Betelgeuse]

I would like for the starting ships to have a lease on it.

But all this is more to have a goal. Having a motive to get money (getting new items isn't enough due to the ease of getting items anywhere) and having to worry about cost over time for equipment (like for the systems idea) would add an interesting dynamic.

[george moromisato]

I really agree with the sentiment. Some comments and ideas:

1. I wish I had hard data on where all the money comes from. What percent of a player's money comes from selling found items; what percent comes from various trading schemes; what percent comes from cracking friendly stations; what percent comes from mining. We all have guesses, but no one knows the actual numbers--this is another thing that gameplay instrumentation will help with.

2. In general, I would avoid "chores". Refueling is the one and only chore that we should bundle all other chores into. In other words, I wouldn't want to add another regular chore like replace your CO2 scrubbers every 300 ticks (or something). Instead, maybe fuel/refueling should be more expensive (at higher levels, probably).

4. Of course, I can think of exceptions to rule 2 above. The player might choose to do a chore to gain a certain power. For example, imagine an Engineer Auton. You can dock with the auton to repair your armor and install/uninstall devices. The tradeoff is that you have to constanly supply the auto with fuel/resources/ore (whatever). Or perhaps you have to constantly spend money to keep it working. But the essence is that the player freely chooses to make that trade-off.

5. In general, I would avoid equipment that "decays". Equipment that decays over time can be really annoying because you feel like you're not making progress (anything you gain is likely to be taken away from you when it decays). Unless, of course, it is really easy to restore decayed equipment--but if it's really easy, then it just turns into a chore.

6. Again, I can think of exceptions to rule 5 above. Superconducting shields are a kind of decaying item; Transuranic armor is also. Perhaps there is a way to balance that kind of equipment better and to introduce new kinds of equipment along similar lines. [But I don't think we should force the player to always use decaying equipment.]

7. I know it's orthogonal, but I like the idea that the stock ships start with a default reactor and default engines.

8. I like the idea that some of the starting ships require a loan. I don't think I'll get to that in the base game, but I'm sure it is possible to create a mod for that. [The trick is to figure out how the player repays the loan and what happens when the player defaults.]

9. In general I think that the different ways of getting money should be audited and balanced. For example, we know that it is too easy to get money by mining.

10. Maybe it would help to have more trade-offs in the various ways to make money. Right now, making money is often just a function of time. I can spend x amount of time mining and then spend y amount of time making more money by trading. Because there is no limit to x+y I never have to make a choice about mining vs trading--I can do both. What if you needed more investment to mine or trade? In other words, maybe mining should require a certain investment in equipment (or permits). And maybe that investment cannot be used in trading. For example, maybe mining requires a special kind of cargo hold (to hold raw ore) and that cargo hold cannot hold regular goods. Or maybe mining requires some device to bring the ore aboard and that device takes up your cargo slot.

[F50]

Cracking friendly stations I don't do anymore, but you can easily get exorbitant amounts of cash for selling BM weapons.

Mining -> only volcanic rocks like the ones near suns. Tons of cash for doing so though.

Trading schemes: Ice farms are really the only trading scheme I use.

Most cash from from cracking enemy bases and found items.
Oh, and repair -> sell armor, especially light blast plate.

The other exploit I don't do is upgrading armor using the barrels at an armor dealer and selling it back for exorbitant prices.

Fuel prices have at least quadrupled in the Hard Mod, and its really not a big problem. If it were doubled again, then I would start to worry, though.

[Betelgeuse]

I don't know even if I only get money from enemy ships and stations I have more than I would ever need because there is nothing to spend it on. I find mining boring and never do it so I can't say how much money you are getting from that but I never want it to be required.

The problem is there is little reason to spend your money. You can often find just as good items off enemy stations so buying items isn't ever needed. So whats left to spend money on? Consumables are cheap (fuel and enhancers) and if needed you can farm for fuel (I rarely refuel at stations and never buy fuel at stations) so you never need money for that.

What is there to spend money on?

[OddBob]

2. In general, I would avoid "chores". Refueling is the one and only chore that we should bundle all other chores into. In other words, I wouldn't want to add another regular chore like replace your CO2 scrubbers every 300 ticks (or something). Instead, maybe fuel/refueling should be more expensive (at higher levels, probably).

I have been thinking about this because I don't like chores either - what if it worked something like this:

All of those components to your ship can be devices (they don't even need to be shown but if they were it could just be down at the bottom of the ship configuration) - so you have a 'fuel scrubber' or whatever installed on your ship.

A fuel scrubber, or life support system, or weapons controller, etc is just a commodity, like bottled water or red nebula beer - if you find a crate of fuel scrubbers, you can sell them at any CW station that accepts commodities and you will get a nice profit.

When you are at a station, you have the option or servicing your ship along with the refuel. It might look something like this:

You need 34 fuel rods which will cost X
You moderately need a fuel scrubber replacement at cost Y
You severely need life support air filter replacement at cost Z

and so you can just hit okay if you never want to deal with the minutiae of this - I don't expect these maintenance tasks to happen all the time, by the way, you ought to have to refuel several times in between them. However, you can take more control over it if you wish - you can choose only the fuel if you don't have/want to spare the cash, and then you are risking life support/whatever failure. However, you can also, if you do happen to have fuel scrubbers or air filters in your hold, install one yourself - this allows you to function without being tied to stations. You may need a device to install it or to monitor whether you need replacements or not though.

I guess it is still a "chore" but I personally like managing my fuel so I am biased I guess. I don't find maintenance tedious as long as it is somewhat forgiving - I am not in favor of instakilling you for not keeping your ship in repair, just penalizing you; well, at least not without notifying you in some way - and also if it is not too frequent - unless you ARE flying a scrap heap of a ship that does require constant repair I am not suggesting it be the focus of the game either.

I think if you can reasonably automate a chore (as described above) then you get the benefits (a constant expense) without the tedium (constantly checking the fuel scrubbers to see if they are okay). Personally I enjoy managing fuel though, maybe I am just strange like that however.


EDIT: er, I apparently misread "c02 scrubber" as "fuel scrubber" and that's why that features in my argument. Apparently fuel needs scrubbing.... They are just example devices though anyway.

10. Maybe it would help to have more trade-offs in the various ways to make money.

We also came up with a lot of devices that encourage specialization in this thread:
http://www.neurohack.com/transcendence/ ... php?t=1276