Delivery System: Improvment suggestion to Space Travels and Transport

Granny Rowan said:

What a shame that this has descended into yet another 'there is no middle ground' battle over logging off or not in space.

I agree in some ways with JBK and others... logging off is not ideal, that more action in space could be good for the development of space m and possibly ultimately rebalance trade.

However...
The simple answer is you cannot just introduce a 'no-log off scenario' - you cannot expect people to risk hundreds or thousands of ped, dollars, pounds or yen in a situation where they have no control.
By no control I do not mean that passengers can't help repair, man the guns etc and have to just hope the crew is good enough. I don't mean some form of insurance is impossible... there are endless possibilities on how risk could be actively rather than passively controlled.

Unfortunately ....
Players have no control over a CTD (even top end systems can have these, either software bug, virus, or corrupt data and mega lag from Mind Ark Servers, internet connections etc)

Can we really expect people to have to risk what could be a large chunk of a very real investment just because of a power cut, a HDD failure, having to hit exit game to handle a real-life emergency?
I have been in-game when a soc-mate had to leave hurriedly to deal with a kitchen fire, I have been in-game when a severe storm had water suddenly cascade through my ceiling onto me as sat at the PC.

This is a real-cash economy, but it is also a game.. somewhere we can have fun, and yes take a few 'calculated risks'
But do we really want to add to people's real-life tragedies by letting them get robbed in-game while they are not in a position to have any input?

Let's stop the pointless argument over whether logging of is meant to be, or ever was meant to be, a game mechanic.. move on... look for real solutions.. developments that will benefit not just some but all players of EU.

Click to expand...

Just to give you one possible solution at hand on how the issue could be fixed without interfereing with players choice to log whenever they want/need to:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduce a new type of containers for interplanetary transports which can only store lootable goods but has an immensely high weight if under planetary gravity (like 1000kg planetside and 10kg in space for example).
Whenever a player is going to enter space, be it through flying up with a sleipnir or quad or be it through accepting a summon , include in the warning message an info message that all lootables which are not in an interplanetary transport container will be relocated to the planetary storage.
There could be a security check on the planetary storage to make sure that the items can be relocated there if the player accepts the warning message, if the storage is already full access to space could be denied to the player with the notice to utilize an interplanetary transport container first.
Pilots of sleipnirs and Quad who have passengers who have not yet accepted the space warning message or who have not enough capacity in their planet storage should not be able to enter space and get a respective warning if they tried.
There would be 4 types of interplanetary transport containers: a tiny one for quads, a small one for sleipnirs, a medium one for privateers and a large one for motherships.
The respective container size would be the upper limit for the respective spacecraft, a sleipnir for example could carry tiny and small container types and a mothership could carry all of the above container types.
Depending on their size they could store more different items and would have higher weight limitations.
Every avatar could always only carry one of these containers.
When entering space those containers would get sealed (no access to them possible while in space).
Loot that is received from hunting in space would be placed in normal inventory.
When a player logs out in space or gets disconnected for a time exceeding 2 minutes his sealed transport container would get relocated to the last planet this avatar was on. (in case of introducing storages on spacestations, this relocation could also be to the last spacestation this avatar was on)
The loot in his normal inventory would stay on him, so that when he logs back into game he would still carry it.
The logout time regardless if through disconnect or intentional logout should be the same 20 seconds in space, this will help to avoid players pulling the plug to get out faster.

If another player gets lootet all his loot (from the sealed container and normal inventory) would be placed in a temporary 5th container type (with unlimited capacity and treated like a single item) which has a tracking sensor so the original owner could track his loot while its in the hands of another player.
This 5th container type would also be sealed and not tradeable, but has a counter which ticks down as long as the avatar is in lootable space pvp.
This would allow the original owner to fight to regain his lost loot, or even to hire a headhunter to hunt down the pirate and return the loot back to its original owner.
In case the pirate gets lootet by another pirate or team of players this 5th container type would still remain sealed and be treated as a single item loot to not get spread out over a team,
this would also avoid the risk of a pirate transferring a part of the loot to another team mate wich is not part of the battle via team loot split options.
Every time this temporary container would change hands through being lootet by another player the counter attached to the container would be reset.

Containers could be L with very low TT, so to be used only a few times, as they could decay a pec per switch between planet and space.
This would allow to phase out old container types and introduce new container types with different stats as deemed necessary by the balancing team.

The above concept would make sure that loot that is scored through hunting in space is under full lootable pvp conditions and players knowingly take the risk while loot that is transported between planets can be rescued by their respective owners either through logging out or hunting the person down who stole it.
The container concept further allows to limit the amount of goods moved between planets on a single flight and differentiates between the various shipclasses and their respective size.
It is also a very basic concept and should not take to much development ressources and i cant think of a possible way how this could be exploited.
Furthermore it allows for easy adjustments as space development continues, by adding other container types with different stats.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The point is not which solution it will be in the end, the main point is to think outside the box and not just to say - it cant be fixed so leave it.

Other solutions might be better / covering other aspects, i just wanted to show that there is ways how players can be made to play the game without bypassing its content and still have their freedom of when or how long to play as well as a choice on securing their possessions themself by either logging out in time or choosing a more secure transport service.


Interplanetary transport containers would also go hand in hand with adm's suggestion in the first post, as it could be an option to sent them via an freight terminal and transport service to another planet without having them to carry oneself. So many options possible.

Whatever solution is chose, if any, it has to be simple. Making it over complicated will just make most people avoid it.

The easiest would be an automatic system where anything carried while on a ship is fair game. We have a location on all our items, it's accessible through the item list on the website so changing the carried status to carried on ship shouldn't be difficult.

The bigger problem is when the system misplaces our location and we're no longer on a ship but the system still has us there.

Personally I'm more likely to believe that this will just lead people to avoid traveling with any loot or switch to using personal transport.

If people took time to spur planet economies (like arkadia) and stop feeling like they have to take all their loot to calypso to feel like they have a chance to sell it.. then much of this is a moot issue. We're looking at ways to reduce the risk of space flight mostly to bring loot to calypso. Solve this and this only...This is something we can do ourselves.