Best Of
Re: Feature suggestion: dynasty-owned ships (in other words, split between owner and captain)
Matlkael
1
Announcements post #68: New Dikamazi will be changing!
<pre>From: Starmaker Eukelade
Subject: New Dikamazi will be changing!
Have you been enjoying New Dikamazi? We hope so, because this weekend, we'll be adjusting this area to better fit the rest of the game. Some of the exclusive, time limited content we introduced last month will be going away or integrated into existing lootsets, and the level scaling will be adjusted to match the rest of the game.
If you haven't challenged Tsake Shayato yet, do it soon - successful participants will receive a prize!</pre>
Subject: New Dikamazi will be changing!
Have you been enjoying New Dikamazi? We hope so, because this weekend, we'll be adjusting this area to better fit the rest of the game. Some of the exclusive, time limited content we introduced last month will be going away or integrated into existing lootsets, and the level scaling will be adjusted to match the rest of the game.
If you haven't challenged Tsake Shayato yet, do it soon - successful participants will receive a prize!</pre>
Feature suggestion: dynasty-owned ships (in other words, split between owner and captain)
Here's the super duper short version: this is a suggestion for permitting a dynasty (or possibly a clan) to own a ship and to select people to captain it. First, a high level overview. Then, some possible uses of the system. After that, a TL;DR of the mechanics. Then, my recommendations for implementation. Finally, some concluding thoughts.
Does this sound like a good idea? Do the implementation details sound good? Please, discuss!
---
For various reasons, including defraying individual cost of owning ships like freighters and encouraging less experienced players to get involved in the space economy by giving access to ships they can't afford, I've been thinking it would be nice to let a dynasty (or clan?) own ships for use by select individuals within the dynasty. However, there are some potentials for abuse, which I will identify and for which I will offer methods of discouraging such abuse.
But before I dive into how I suggest implementing such a feature, here are some ideas for how players might enjoy using a split ownership-use ship system:
- Letting a new pilot fly a better interceptor or a corvette, as a perk of the dynasty.
- Sharing costs for a freighter that wouldn't be used much by only one person.
- Setting up a mortgage relationship, wherein the dynasty is the mortgage holder and the captain makes payments.
- Creating a dynasty floating home base of operations with lots of cool rooms and whatnot.
To offset the benefits of defraying costs to individuals and to discourage potential shady transfers of wealth/second account problems, I recommend substantially increasing the marks cost to purchase a used ship. Flavor it as an additional brokerage transaction fee, a tax, or a licensing fee. The seller doesn't get the extra cost; it's a sink. Similarly, I recommend such a measure for commissioning the construction of a new ship.
Doing so might look like this:
- A new ship administrator role within the dynasty is introduced to permit to permit ship administrators to do ship-related actions, such as set captains for ships, build new ships, buy used ships from the brokerage, and customize ships in the chop shops or the shipforge. There can be more than one administrator. An administrator can be a captain.
- Each dynasty-owned ship is able to support one or more captains, chosen by someone in the ship administrator role. An example command might be: DYNASTY SHIP <Starskipper> CAPTAIN ADD <Steve>. And when Steve goes and get it blown up fifteen times, the administrator could DYNASTY SHIP <Starkipper> CAPTAIN REMOVE <Steve>. (I don't know what number to suggest for the maximum number of potential captains per ship. Maybe this is an opportunity for spending more marks or... dare I say, credits?)
- Ship purchase costs, from either the brokerage or the ship forge, are paid from a group's marks account. Only the administrator can purchase a used ship from the brokerage or commission a new ship from the ship forge. The purchase of a ship puts the ship into the ownership of the dynasty. It has only one captain by default, the administrator.
- Ship refit, customization, and SF costs are paid from the group account. Only the administrator can work on an existing dynasty ship, and must be set as a captain and be captaining the ship.
- Insurance costs are paid from the dynasty's account. This occurs automatically, much like it does now from an individual's marks account. Debt would be incurred if dynasty account is empty.
- Supply purchases are paid by the captain currently piloting the ship. No thank you to buying 999 EM batteries on the dynasty's dime and then dumping the for pickup. If it were otherwise, this would be a major loophole for second/alt abuse.
That's all I've got. I certainly don't think this is a must-have kind of feature, but it would make a lot of sense, and I think it would allow for an opportunity to lay groundwork for doing things like setting up ship mortgages in the future. (Wherein you can captain a ship, but somebody else owns it.) I don't much care for the idea of a faction owning ships, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on (and, sadly, don't have time to figure out today).
And while I'm writing about ships, I think it'd be a good idea to add an entry-level hauling ship as an alternative to a corvette. Just saying.
Steve
6
Re: 1st Starmourn Alignment Poll!
Every morning when I wake up I roll a d10 for morality of the day. Also one for each nanite. Goes well with porridge and coffee
Re: Announcements post #67: More economy changes!
Let's see ...
* location and spec based bonuses should stack
* for the mining bonus, every asteroid/gas is treated as 10% bigger when you deposit it at a refinery
* freighters currently have the same malus as everything else if you aren't specced for mining
* personal orders somewhat reflect your spec - if you are autofactory specced, you get orders for finished goods, otherwise you get ones for refined comms; we will likely be tweaking this depending on how things play out
Garryn
4
Announcements post #67: More economy changes!
<pre>From: Garryn, the Reshaper
Subject: More economy changes!
The next batch of economy-related changes is now live! The immediate change that you will notice that all the refineries and factories have been removed, and you got the Marks (current price) back.
AUTOFACTORIES AND REFINERIES
============================
* Every player can now own TWO types of autofactories and TWO types of refineries, and at most two of each type (so a total of 4 refineries and autofactories), with specialization-based exceptions.
* You can now use autofactories belonging to other players
* Autofactory owners can use AUTOFACTORY <id> PRICEMULT <x> to set the cost (and their profit margin) when producing for others.
* Every player can now pick ONE specialization out of three options - MANUFACTURING SPECIALISE mining/refining/autofactory
MINING:
- 10% higher yield from asteroids and refineries
- no speed penalty when turning around with an asteroid
- reduced scoops movement penalty
- autofactories and refineries operate slower
- refinery and autofactory cost doubled
REFINING:
- refineries operate faster and taxes are reduced
- can own up to THREE types of refineries, and 3 of each type
- speed/turning penalty when hauling asteroids and clouds increased
- autofactories operate slower
AUTOFACTORY:
- autofactories operate faster and taxes are reduced
- can own up to THREE types of autofactories, and 3 of each type
- speed/turning penalty when hauling asteroids and clouds increased
- refineries operate slower
If you have no specialization, you incur all the listed penalties.
IMPORTANT - the specialization is a one-time choice. You CAN change it, but it'd cost you 100 credits, so pick wisely!
PERSONAL MARKET ORDERS
======================
Every player who has picked a specialization will now be able to take up to FIVE personal market orders every day. These orders are automatically generated, and are much more lucrative than other market orders. You can see them on your order lists, or you can use MARKET ORDER PERSONAL to list only the personal orders. These are replaced every RL day.
</pre>
Subject: More economy changes!
The next batch of economy-related changes is now live! The immediate change that you will notice that all the refineries and factories have been removed, and you got the Marks (current price) back.
AUTOFACTORIES AND REFINERIES
============================
* Every player can now own TWO types of autofactories and TWO types of refineries, and at most two of each type (so a total of 4 refineries and autofactories), with specialization-based exceptions.
* You can now use autofactories belonging to other players
* Autofactory owners can use AUTOFACTORY <id> PRICEMULT <x> to set the cost (and their profit margin) when producing for others.
* Every player can now pick ONE specialization out of three options - MANUFACTURING SPECIALISE mining/refining/autofactory
MINING:
- 10% higher yield from asteroids and refineries
- no speed penalty when turning around with an asteroid
- reduced scoops movement penalty
- autofactories and refineries operate slower
- refinery and autofactory cost doubled
REFINING:
- refineries operate faster and taxes are reduced
- can own up to THREE types of refineries, and 3 of each type
- speed/turning penalty when hauling asteroids and clouds increased
- autofactories operate slower
AUTOFACTORY:
- autofactories operate faster and taxes are reduced
- can own up to THREE types of autofactories, and 3 of each type
- speed/turning penalty when hauling asteroids and clouds increased
- refineries operate slower
If you have no specialization, you incur all the listed penalties.
IMPORTANT - the specialization is a one-time choice. You CAN change it, but it'd cost you 100 credits, so pick wisely!
PERSONAL MARKET ORDERS
======================
Every player who has picked a specialization will now be able to take up to FIVE personal market orders every day. These orders are automatically generated, and are much more lucrative than other market orders. You can see them on your order lists, or you can use MARKET ORDER PERSONAL to list only the personal orders. These are replaced every RL day.
</pre>
Re: Announcements post #65: July is Exploration and Xenozoology.
We talked very very briefly about xenobotany and yeah, it'd work like that (if we ever decide it's a fun feature). Same basic catalogue idea but you'd scan rooms as a whole and see what you discover.RebekahWSD said:I do plan on making a lot of plant based foods! More concerning gelatins, but without meat. Or just concerning things in general! Maybe we can have some kind of plant based hunting thing, but not scanning. Scrapbooking? Scrap...datasharding? Find hidden plants in rooms and add them to a collection, heh.
Ilyos
5
Announcements post #65: July is Exploration and Xenozoology.
<pre>From: Ilyos, the Arbiter
Subject: July is Exploration and Xenozoology.
Greetings, Starmourners!
<<<This announcement is sponsored by RoamTek, your one-stop corporation for all exploration needs!>>>
Ahem...so this month's theme is, obviously, exploration! With Planetary Exploration looming on the horizon, we thought we'd team up with our friends at RoamTek and bring you a month full of adventuring wonder. This is going to be a long one, so let's get at it.
First up, what is our monthly promotion? Well, we have these lovely chests full of awesome goodie---oh, I hear someone is saying we just had chests a couple of months ago. Alright, well these work a bit differently, as in they have some extra shiny added to them:
- All chests generate faction credits equal to the amount of chests bought (this is about double value than what buying credits would generate for your faction)
- Every 25 chests that are open in-game, a daily xenozoology bounty will trigger for everyone! Fulfill the bounty and you will be rewarded with an explorer-themed piece of loot. The bounty can only be claimed once per day, but if, say, 50 chests are open in a day, then the following day will also have a bounty and so on and so forth. But what is this XENOZOOLOGY you speak of? We'll get to that later!
As you might know, each chest gives three rewards, a BIG one, a Medium one and a small one.
Big rewards include:
Vehicles:
- a rugged RoamTek rover
- a four-wheeled ATV
- an earth-hued OutVentures rover
- a pale-sided Safari Elite rover
Artifacts:
- Personal Hacking Proxy
- Equipment Augmentation Kit
- Bioscanner Stabilizer - This makes your XENOZOOLOGY SCAN action uninterruptible (Again with the xenozoology and no explanations?!)
Awesome items:
- a RoamTek Trophymaker - turn this on via XENOZOOLOGY TROPHY and the next creature you slay will automatically be preserved into a life-like trophy (1 hr cooldown)
- a RoamTek warpbag - the safest in travel gear, you can attune this bag to a room on your ship and any item you put in your warpbag will automatically be transported to that room.
- personal augmentation casket - we've kept the Bushraki customizations a while longer by popular request
Others:
- 20-50 credit prizes
- 350 lessons
Medium rewards include:
- a mildly interesting thing - This is something you found on your travels...probably...allows you to CUSTOMIZE REQUEST NEW JUNK and send in your very own junk item that we'll add to our permanent junk list
- a bubbling fish tank
- a thorny hinka vine
- lots of fish for your fish tank!
- mods
- loot drops
- chips
Moving along now to FISH! Yes, we've had those lovely bubbling fish tanks for a while now and yet, we had no fish. Fear not, each of the major capital cities now has fish for sale that you can put in your fish tanks. You might find fish for sale in other curious locations as well as drops in our promo chests. Just remember to feed your wish with the feed from the shops! There's over two dozen types of fish currently available.
And now let's talk about XENOZOOLOGY. This is a new mechanic that everyone can enjoy and it will allow you to learn more about the rich, vibrant world of Starmourn. Everyone can go around the world and XENOZOOLOGY SCAN <creature>. Successfully scanning the creature will create an entry about it in your XENOZOOLOGY DATABANK, which you can consult at any time. The more distinct people scan the same creature, the more data is revealed about that particular creature. So bring your friends and get to scanning! Oh, you will probably need friends anyway to scan some of the more dangerous creatures since they don't really appreciate it.
We have almost one hundred creatures in the world of Starmourn at this moment, so let's see who amongst you is the best at cataloguing the sector!
And before I forget, certain shops in each of the major capitals now sell cans of paint remover. They're one time use and may be used to SCRUB <prop with graffiti> to eliminate troubling messages.
There's a few more things in the works, but we'll talk about those in the following days!
</pre>
Subject: July is Exploration and Xenozoology.
Greetings, Starmourners!
<<<This announcement is sponsored by RoamTek, your one-stop corporation for all exploration needs!>>>
Ahem...so this month's theme is, obviously, exploration! With Planetary Exploration looming on the horizon, we thought we'd team up with our friends at RoamTek and bring you a month full of adventuring wonder. This is going to be a long one, so let's get at it.
First up, what is our monthly promotion? Well, we have these lovely chests full of awesome goodie---oh, I hear someone is saying we just had chests a couple of months ago. Alright, well these work a bit differently, as in they have some extra shiny added to them:
- All chests generate faction credits equal to the amount of chests bought (this is about double value than what buying credits would generate for your faction)
- Every 25 chests that are open in-game, a daily xenozoology bounty will trigger for everyone! Fulfill the bounty and you will be rewarded with an explorer-themed piece of loot. The bounty can only be claimed once per day, but if, say, 50 chests are open in a day, then the following day will also have a bounty and so on and so forth. But what is this XENOZOOLOGY you speak of? We'll get to that later!
As you might know, each chest gives three rewards, a BIG one, a Medium one and a small one.
Big rewards include:
Vehicles:
- a rugged RoamTek rover
- a four-wheeled ATV
- an earth-hued OutVentures rover
- a pale-sided Safari Elite rover
Artifacts:
- Personal Hacking Proxy
- Equipment Augmentation Kit
- Bioscanner Stabilizer - This makes your XENOZOOLOGY SCAN action uninterruptible (Again with the xenozoology and no explanations?!)
Awesome items:
- a RoamTek Trophymaker - turn this on via XENOZOOLOGY TROPHY and the next creature you slay will automatically be preserved into a life-like trophy (1 hr cooldown)
- a RoamTek warpbag - the safest in travel gear, you can attune this bag to a room on your ship and any item you put in your warpbag will automatically be transported to that room.
- personal augmentation casket - we've kept the Bushraki customizations a while longer by popular request
Others:
- 20-50 credit prizes
- 350 lessons
Medium rewards include:
- a mildly interesting thing - This is something you found on your travels...probably...allows you to CUSTOMIZE REQUEST NEW JUNK and send in your very own junk item that we'll add to our permanent junk list
- a bubbling fish tank
- a thorny hinka vine
- lots of fish for your fish tank!
- mods
- loot drops
- chips
Moving along now to FISH! Yes, we've had those lovely bubbling fish tanks for a while now and yet, we had no fish. Fear not, each of the major capital cities now has fish for sale that you can put in your fish tanks. You might find fish for sale in other curious locations as well as drops in our promo chests. Just remember to feed your wish with the feed from the shops! There's over two dozen types of fish currently available.
And now let's talk about XENOZOOLOGY. This is a new mechanic that everyone can enjoy and it will allow you to learn more about the rich, vibrant world of Starmourn. Everyone can go around the world and XENOZOOLOGY SCAN <creature>. Successfully scanning the creature will create an entry about it in your XENOZOOLOGY DATABANK, which you can consult at any time. The more distinct people scan the same creature, the more data is revealed about that particular creature. So bring your friends and get to scanning! Oh, you will probably need friends anyway to scan some of the more dangerous creatures since they don't really appreciate it.
We have almost one hundred creatures in the world of Starmourn at this moment, so let's see who amongst you is the best at cataloguing the sector!
And before I forget, certain shops in each of the major capitals now sell cans of paint remover. They're one time use and may be used to SCRUB <prop with graffiti> to eliminate troubling messages.
There's a few more things in the works, but we'll talk about those in the following days!
</pre>
Re: Character Concepts
Just realized I never actually posted once the game opened and Slander came out. She's changed significantly from who she initially was but if she didn't react to events around her she'd be boring. She grew up in Oldtown, working from an early age and ended up addicted to a lot of drugs as a teenager. Ended up completely losing her shit, became a Nanoseer, a little bit more sober... And then shit happened and she got really bad on whisper dust again before kicking it a second time. Gang war events softened her somewhat and brought her odd ethical code into clear focus. Between that and some other shit that happened she's calmed down a lot, even if she's still not at all mentally stable. That's why she gave up being a 'seer, the strain on her mental health was too much. So now she's a Scoundrel and has dropped most (but not all) of her extreme sadomasochistic tendencies and bitchiness.
Slander
2
Re: Character Concepts
What a fun thread! I rarely ever go into a new character with a large background idea. Instead, I just plan out some archetypes and evolve from there. With Revelin the idea was basically "thrill-seeking young Captain Picard" and went from there. As time went on and who Revelin becomes more clear to me I decided that he grew up on a freighter with his parents. He got his sense of adventure from his Father, who would often find shipments to haul that came with danger. Transporting refugees and colonists was commonplace and because of it, Revelin was exposed to the plight of many Starmourns. His Mother loved history, specifically Earth history, and because of that Revelin shares in that love.
That's not mentioning the IG events that shaped Revelin, but that you'd have to ask him about!
That's not mentioning the IG events that shaped Revelin, but that you'd have to ask him about!
Revelin
1