Question on purchasing and taking ships in battle

[kazza]

Hi

As a newb hope you forgive the questions if it they been asked already. Purchased the Elite version as it is such a great game.

Station purchase:
You can trade in or purchase; if you trade in do you lose all that is in your cargo hold or is that calculated in the price?

If purchased outright do you keep both ships?

In combat when you decide to take the enemy ship do you lose all your cargo stuff?

I ask these questions as this appears to be the case and if so you end up having to buy certain stuff again and occassionally being left short of water re your journey.

Thanks

[sgtcookie]

Yes to all.

When capturing a new ship you have to transfer cargo you want to keep.

[kazza]

Thanks for the response, one more question:

How do I transfer the cargo when i capture a ship after a battle in space or is it done automatically?

[sgtcookie]

There should be a cargo button.

[diablodestroyer]

Transfer the cargo backwards into the enemy's ship hold, before you take ship. On the screen where u can decide what to do with the enemy upon winning i.e victory screen, u can find out how much cargo you have put on the enemy.

It will be written as the captured ship has XX number on the cargo. That is the amount that u have transfered to him and that he is holding

[kazza]

ok will look to do that just cannot remembering seeing anything to do with cargo transfer...maybe was not looking for it - thanks for the help guys.
K

[Cory Trese]

it is a little bit weird and needs improvement. The UI looks a little bit off, you have to do the opposite of what you normally do. The idea is to "unload" your ship.

So slide the bar the other way to "unload" your ship and check the "Hold" of the other ship until it is full of fun stuff.

[oldalchemist]

As far as looting goes, why does the Take All button have to go away?
Also, taking a ship ought to drop you right away to the cargo screen.
Is anyone going to take a ship and not immediately manage the cargo?

[darkmonk]

^ Completely agreed with ship capture leading immediately to the cargo screen. I've never once not (double negative ftw) wanted to move my water fuel over to a captured beauty.

[Cory Trese]

^ Completely confused. I have not taken any ship without using "Cargo" screen.

---

If I force you the player into Cargo after doing Take Ship and they mess up the Cargo allocation (AKA, over-cargo one ship) then the transfer will fail and the Take Ship Operation would also need to fail.

This type of multi-step fail management is dangerous when you are talking about ship deletion.

Pure straight up fact is that this is the ONLY part of the game that caused saved game corruption during pre-release.

Ship deletion is also the cause of the only other reported issue with saved game corruption.

The way it works today is atomic, fast and almost certainly not going to fail.

I am all for changing this interface if someone presents a workable solution (or I come up with one) but the bar is pretty high regarding reliability.

[jeffjway]

Ok. A purchasing question:

In Star Dock,
The Trade In option is shown
I see "Your current ship is valued at $XXX,..... <blah blah>, the <other ship> you see here is a bargain at $YYY

Your Operating profit on a trade is $XXX (ie, same as the value of your own ship)

I think before update 3.4 the operating profit is correct ($YYY-XXX), but now the cost is wrong, and the <Trade In> button always appears now, regardless of how much cash you have (ie, even if you can't afford a trade-in)

Second thing, Is there a max number of ships I can have in dry dock? I have hit a point where I can't purchase new ships (can trade in) even though I have more than enough cash.

[oldalchemist]

It's definitely not worth an easy transition to a new ship if it corrupts the game. Point well taken.

It's just pretty confusing, especially for a new player, when taking a ship. I feel like I should be able to take the ship and still pull cargo and crew from my old ship before leaving the screen.

[Cory Trese]

no doubt confusing.


"I feel like I should be able to take the ship and still pull cargo and crew from my old ship before leaving the screen."

I will work towards this. Anyone else have goals in mind as we refactor this page?

[Kelvin Zero]

I think the problem comes in that most players are likely taking a ship that is larger than their present ship. The captured ship could take the cargo of their present ship with no problem and they may be assuming, "Just lump the cargo into the new ship and let's go."

However, you may be taking a ship that has a smaller cargo. Perhaps your ship is now in really bad shape from that fight while the new one, while smaller is in better shape. Or maybe it has features better than your present one but just a tiny cargo space. Thus you can't lump everything in one ship.

For that scenario, it is better to keep the ability to individually transfer your cargo pieces from the old to the new ship, since you want to make sure you balance your need for water-fuel with any expensive cargo you want.

The part that usually confused me was the order in which to do things and what would happen. If I was taking a ship, I would transfer the cargo to the losing ship first and then hit the Take Ship button. I would never hit the Destroy Ship button afterwards as I didn't know if the game knew I meant my old ship.

One way of trying it would be to have explanatory pop-ups to explain what will happen and give the option to back out.

Hitting Take Ship: "You want your crew to take the "New Ship Name" and dump the enemy crew onto our old "Old Ship Name"? (Y/N) "Okay, Captain. Everyone of your crew is on the "New Ship Name" and you are now commandeering the "New Ship Name." Don't forget our original cargo is on "Old Ship Name." You may want to review what you want to keep."

That would be the hint to use the Take Cargo button and shift the cargo.

Hitting Destroy Ship after using Take Ship: "Captain, you mean to blow up the old "Old Ship Name" with the enemy crew aboard?"
If the Take Cargo button wasn't used yet: "Captain, don't forget your hard-earned loot is still aboard the "Old Ship Name." Do you wish to destroy that also?" (Y/N)
If the Take Cargo button was used: "Aye, Captain! Setting charges and maneuvering to a safe distance. Ah! That was a fine explosion, don't you think, Capitan?"

That setup might make it easier to minimize accidents.

[jerry]

Nah, too much popups and confirmations.
"Do you want to do this" - yes
"Are you sure you want to do this" - YES
"Are you really sure you want to do this", $%# YES! (shoot's the insolent officer for being such a nuisance)

For me, it's ok to learn the games on my mistakes or "oh, I thought it would do different thing", as long as I don't die from it and it doesn't have long time consequences.
After all, this kind of popups are needed only once or twice at the beginning.

That's what the ingame tutorials/popups are for. But hey, remember that it's only a 2$ game, not 20$. I'm sure Cory has better things to do (like earning money for living
And even if he has too much free time on hand, wouldn't you want him to fix something more importand? After all, we already know how to play this game, and don't need the "tutorial mode"

But still, this "tutorial mode", that makes popups for each action you do for the first time, would be a great option for newbies.