[Aphelion]

Oof, economy stuff, headache...

Controlling production is good. Custom producers at POS's could be good too. Factories and investing could be fun... oh man economy stuff hurts my brain.

[GrimGriz]

Originally Posted by Wild_Bill

GG, I'm not sure I'm giving your POS factory module a fair shake. Could you explain in greater detail how it would work please?

Particularly how do you determine/change what's produced? If production is fixed, then I don't really see the value in this, especially if folks can't buy from the POS but are allowed to produce using your POS factory. If you are having to haul the commods to your station to produce the widget and then have to haul it back to the station to sell it, where's the advantage of the POS factory over the Station factory? I think I'm missing something here.

Well I haven't completely thought out every nook and cranny of the idea, as my application at ND was denied but is apparently on file for the next 10 months or so....but....

First off you don't want to force noobs or anyone really to buy off the auction house, so every faction would have to make serviceable gear. Like weapons with no +4 to strength or +2 to damage. It works, but there's better available.

Then, I'd go with 2 types of factory, commod and equip. That may be a little bit simplistic in the long run, but like I said this is just off the top of my head. Now, they'd be blank slates...with you could fit the commod producer to produce any commod and the equip producer to make any equip. You could set additional requirements to make certain equip (depending on the direction the rest of the game went) i.e. skill points in soldering to make electronics, or you have to have a hydroponic bay to make organic foods. You could have a commod factory module have 4-8 bays on it, and thus it could be capable of producing multiple commods.

Equip factories have a lot of options too. My personal favorite at the moment would be to give each character/squad reputation with the various corporations and production licenses. For example, in order to produce the chime radar, you'd have to acquire a production license from T&P. In order to keep your production license, you'd have to maintain your reputation with T&P (by occasionally running missions for them, not running missions for their competitors, etc).

Then, of course, I'd throw in arti-gambling. Say you're producing sharks and you have some UC-4 laying around. You could check a little box to use the UC-4 in the next production run. The UC would be destroyed, and you'd either wind up with a pilojunk(tm) or a shark with extended range, or lower power consumption, or more damage. It'd be like an arti (one of a kind and gone when your ship goes boom).

Aside from those things, the advantage of a POS factory over a station factory could be as simple as me having a thorn gun producing module on my POS in Wake sector. Or my production center in Dark Gateway is easy access to miners coming from unreg.

Crafting can really add a lot to a game if done well (and also be a big turnoff if done poorly).

[Wild_Bill]

Okay I see the interest in your "crafting" version and it makes sense. I hope THEY do something at least similar in Jumpgate Evolution. I'm still not crazy in favor of the POS factory deal, but I like it a lot better since you explained it. Thanks.

[dahalb]

Crafting adds more things to do/try and if there is randomization in the outcomes when including the arties then I'm all for that too.

Not sure if you would want every player to have multiple "factories" tho. Might get a bit much. High entry cost might be one way of deferring that but we shall see what they are up to. Hopefully SOON(tm)