Post by spike on Mar 25, 2011 18:25:53 GMT -5
It seems odd to me that the personal weapons used by the Crew in boarding actions take up significant amounts of cargo space, tons and tons, or whatever a unit of cargo is, but undoubtedly a large amount. It also seems odd that the crates of weapons in the cargo hold can be used time and again in boarding actions without losing value. Also, how many tons of weapons can a crew realistically use? Surely a ton or maybe 2-3 tons would be more than even a large crew could carry?
Similar questions could be asked about why Records take up cargo space. There's in-game flavour text to justify this, but that looks like an afterthought.
Really, there is a class of things that can be carried on a ship but which don't use up significant cargo space - maybe one unit of space at most, regardless of quantity of items.
Actionable suggestions:
There should be 2 kinds of of 'Weapons'. One kind is the quantity and quality of boarding weapons available to the crew. This is more an attribute of the ship, than a cargo item. It is used in boarding actions. The quantity might be reduced by confiscation after searches or arrests. It might go down after boarding due to losses and wear and tear.
Separate from Boarding Weapons are Trade Weapons. These are just cargo like any other, that is bought and sold for profit. They attract Reputation risk (gain and loss), and the attentions of the authorities unless the relevant Permit is carried.
On the contrary, Boarding Weapons don't generate reputation effects, don't require Permits, and aren't subject to the authorities - at worst, a ship crammed with Boarding Weapons might cause the authorities to treat that ship with more than usual suspicion, is all.
The price of Boarding Weapons could (for convenience) be exactly the same as the price of Trade Weapons. The difference is that the Boarding Weapons are expensive, specialised, xeno-combat weapons, whereas the Trade Weapons are more standard bulk weapons in crates for use by troops - a much bigger market than the market for specialised shipboard weapons.
Trading in Boarding Weapons would not really be possible, except maybe to sell them at a significant loss in an emergency to raise cash.
Cracking open crates of Trade Weapons to use in a boarding action would not be allowed as it would effectively 'destroy' the valuable cargo. Also, we presume the Crew already have some basic standard weapons, they're not literally unarmed. Purchased Boarding Weapons indicate a level of armament higher than the basic standard crew armament. But Trade Weapons in cargo are just basic standard weapons, so there's no benefit in breaking the crates open to hand out to the crew what they already have.
With Boarding Weapons levels no longer constrained by cargo limits you would want some other kind of limit, or at least, a diminishing-return curve. E.g. you could set the useful limit as 1 unit of Boarding Weapons per unit of Crew, with excess Boarding Weapons having no further effect.
Currently, having 'Weapons' represent both things at the same time - crew weapons for boarding actions and crates of weapons for trading - seems fuzzy and for me blurs the belief in the game universe.
For Records, there should be at most 1 unit of cargo for the QEM pods, with infinite capacity. More sensibly, all starships are built with a QEM pod included, usable without reduction in cargo capacity. Records would be constrained by supply and demand factors - there's no reason to constrain them by cargo space, and it would be interesting to have some type of tradable goods that are not constrained by cargo space.
On which note, it might be interesting to add further trade types such as precious metals, gems, etc that don't use cargo space (or where 1 ton = effectively infinite amount of units). Other games have this and there is an element of realism to it.
Similar questions could be asked about why Records take up cargo space. There's in-game flavour text to justify this, but that looks like an afterthought.
Really, there is a class of things that can be carried on a ship but which don't use up significant cargo space - maybe one unit of space at most, regardless of quantity of items.
Actionable suggestions:
There should be 2 kinds of of 'Weapons'. One kind is the quantity and quality of boarding weapons available to the crew. This is more an attribute of the ship, than a cargo item. It is used in boarding actions. The quantity might be reduced by confiscation after searches or arrests. It might go down after boarding due to losses and wear and tear.
Separate from Boarding Weapons are Trade Weapons. These are just cargo like any other, that is bought and sold for profit. They attract Reputation risk (gain and loss), and the attentions of the authorities unless the relevant Permit is carried.
On the contrary, Boarding Weapons don't generate reputation effects, don't require Permits, and aren't subject to the authorities - at worst, a ship crammed with Boarding Weapons might cause the authorities to treat that ship with more than usual suspicion, is all.
The price of Boarding Weapons could (for convenience) be exactly the same as the price of Trade Weapons. The difference is that the Boarding Weapons are expensive, specialised, xeno-combat weapons, whereas the Trade Weapons are more standard bulk weapons in crates for use by troops - a much bigger market than the market for specialised shipboard weapons.
Trading in Boarding Weapons would not really be possible, except maybe to sell them at a significant loss in an emergency to raise cash.
Cracking open crates of Trade Weapons to use in a boarding action would not be allowed as it would effectively 'destroy' the valuable cargo. Also, we presume the Crew already have some basic standard weapons, they're not literally unarmed. Purchased Boarding Weapons indicate a level of armament higher than the basic standard crew armament. But Trade Weapons in cargo are just basic standard weapons, so there's no benefit in breaking the crates open to hand out to the crew what they already have.
With Boarding Weapons levels no longer constrained by cargo limits you would want some other kind of limit, or at least, a diminishing-return curve. E.g. you could set the useful limit as 1 unit of Boarding Weapons per unit of Crew, with excess Boarding Weapons having no further effect.
Currently, having 'Weapons' represent both things at the same time - crew weapons for boarding actions and crates of weapons for trading - seems fuzzy and for me blurs the belief in the game universe.
For Records, there should be at most 1 unit of cargo for the QEM pods, with infinite capacity. More sensibly, all starships are built with a QEM pod included, usable without reduction in cargo capacity. Records would be constrained by supply and demand factors - there's no reason to constrain them by cargo space, and it would be interesting to have some type of tradable goods that are not constrained by cargo space.
On which note, it might be interesting to add further trade types such as precious metals, gems, etc that don't use cargo space (or where 1 ton = effectively infinite amount of units). Other games have this and there is an element of realism to it.
