Ship discounts at plents that don't sell ships?

[khearn]

I'm assuming this is an alpha thing, which is why I'm not posting this in the bugs forum.

It sure is annoying when every contact I find that offers discounts on new ships lives in a zone that has no ships available to buy. Nothing like flying halfway across the galaxy map to some faction's "prime" planet to curry favor with some prince who says he can give me a good deal on a ship, only to find that the planet has a puny little starport that doesn't even do repairs, let alone build new ships.

It would seem that faction capitals (I assume "<faction> Prime" is the capital) ought to be decent starports, not little backwater landing fields with naught but a rusty old fuel tank to offer to visiting ships. If this was the case then all these Princes that live at the Primes and offer discounted ship prices might actually be able to deliver on their promises. 

But I've also seen plenty of other contact services that don't match the ports they're in. Like contacts on wilderness planets offering cheap fuel or repairs, despite the complete lack of port in the wilderness zone. What's really needed is a check to make sure the contact services offered match the zone services available, and either delete inappropriate contact services, or else add services to the zone to match the contact services offered.

I'm hoping that sort of thing is planned and just hasn't gotten into the alpha build yet. If so, please forgive this little rant. I was just a little frustrated after visiting every contact in my current game that offers discounted ships and finding that all of them are liars.

   Keith

[fallen]

Yep, definitely in the works! Thanks for the feedback!

[fallen]

I have improved the Prime Zone selector for new maps to include a lock on planets that have reasonable starports.

[khearn]

Cool, that should help the discounted ships issue, since all of the people who I've seen offering discounts are princes living on primes. Maybe I've just got a skewed sample set, but it certainly looks like a trend from my admittedly limited sample.

Maybe there should also be a market for buying "used" ships? Less reputable contacts could give access to the used markets. "Ahh yes, I've got a nice Frontier Liner for sale, cheap. It was, um, found drifting in Buhit Spiral with not a soul aboard. Quite the mystery <wink-wink> It's got a bit of battle damage, and you'll probably want to clean the blood off the decks. And the walls. And there's a bit on one of the ceilings too, if I recall. Needs a new main drive. But the hull is sound. Patched a bit, but mostly sound. Only looses a few kilos of air per hour, but that'll be easy enough to fix up. It'd be a bargain at twice the price. The, um, registration might be a bit complicated, though..."

[fallen]

khearn - in some Conflicts, certain high level Talents on some Jobs will allow the capture and resale of a ship. Future feature, hopefully.