Revising Trade Ships

from Sins Forums
Now I freaking love sins. It is truly most excellent.
But a mate and I were chatting about the trade ships in the game, and were wondering what any of you modding geniuses out there (or even the game developers if they wanted to patch it in) would think of making trade ships perhaps have an upgrade of some sort, that keep the small ones but adds like 1 big one per trade stztion. Perhaps this could only be for the TEC as I'm sure a trade coaliton would have trade ships bigger than most capital ships in any of thier fleets. This as well as adding another cool looking big ship, would mean that you actually have to think about protecting your trade routes with fleets, and being a bit more careful about whose territory your trade ships pass through. Over all I think the TEC trade coalition having some sort of trade advantage like that would be cool. But all of the races would be good with a bigger more valuable trade ship.

Having said that, its just a sugestion, the game is terribly awesome already.
modding
4,824 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Actually the bigger trade ships of TEC were turned into armed vessels

But nonetheless you could change in FrigateTechTradeShip.entity
the value of
maxCargoCapacity 50.000000
to a higher value since each of the 3 race got its own tradeship entity.

..not to mention that if you set slotcount to a negative value you will get fleetcappoints.. if that is not an incentive to protect poor traders..
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Well, not really what you have in mind, but the new race I am building for my mod The Last Stand will have an incentive to protect its cargo ships simply because trading is going to be about the only continuous source of credits for them. While not as dependant on that resource as other races, a Xin player would have to think more about his trade routes that way.

Also, I plan to test adding a small price in resources for construction of trade and refinery ships. This would function simmilarly to the credit drain you get while developing planets, a trade hub would cost money and resources to develop, and each destroyed ship would mean a small resource loss as well. So blocking a trade route would now be of a greater strategical value as you could actually put a meaningful drain on your enemy's coffers.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
.. so iam not the only one who wondered why the trade and refinery ships didnt cost anything
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
tell me, oh wise ones, how am i supposed to protect dozens of traders roaming around like everywhere? Traders that can be sniped most easily by fighters, bombers, lrm frigs, assailants, cruiser jousts (kodiaks...) and the like?


So, before you start trying to break the credit economy by making tradeships a drain on the player, try to find a way for the player to actualy guard them effectivly first.

thx.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Well you needn’t have dozens of trade ships, just a handful doing the rounds and since they’re larger, more health points and carrying a hell of a lot more credits, it would be like guarding a unarmed capital ship through sectors.

I personally like the idea. :D
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, the number of trade and refinery ships will be reduced, but their effectiveness increased.
Also, in the case of my mod, the drain will not be drastic. But it will slow down your economy a bit if you keep losing trade and refinery ships. In other words, it is a "realism" factor, but one balanced so that you can ignore it in most cases.