In an effort to move towards rebalancing our economy, I would like to redo the costs of ships (and, eventually, other items).

At present, we have a cost spectrum that goes between zero and roughly 17000c for the purchase of ships. I would like to change this, to fit ship costs to a sharper curve at the "high end" of ship ability. So, while lower-level ships would remain mostly as they are, and midrange ships would only see a moderate increase, the very high end "faction-specific" vessels would have a very large increase in price. For example:

(Numbers are ballpark, and don't take into account faction-standing driven price variation)

Current Price New Price
EC-88 Free Free
EC-98 142c 142c

Atlas 2,472c 2,472c
Atlas Mk2 3,238c 5,500c
Atlas Mk3 3,865c 11,000c
Atlas TypeB 4,059c 22,000c
Atlas TypeX 4,786c 35,000c

Centurion 328c 328c
Centurion Mk2 394c 2,200c
Centurion Mk3 765c 5,000c
Centurion RevC 1,285c 50,000c
Centurion IBG 1,685c 65,000c

..and so on. This would impact all ships, including those special "Nation" ships and Corvus craft. The intention here being to allow newbies the same ready access to ships when they get started, while expecting more from experienced players. Part of the intention here being to attach more purpose to the acquisition of wealth, and attaching more import to the gain (and loss) of higher-level ships.

Yes, once we introduce larger ships (and other high-level goals), those will be that much more expensive, and provide a large potential money-sink. Still this is something I'd like to consider in the short-term to bring a little more balance to our economy before we start introducing major changes.

Thoughts?

no complaints.

For the short term it will cause us to spend a lot of our "hard" earned money, and will give us some experience dealing with higher cost items. I think an early adjustment of the prices of items will help us more than if the economy change happens in one update.

Make missles and rockets cost a LOT more!!!
That could help spam issues. If the ammo cost a fortune to reload, some may think twice and grab an energy weapon instead.

I think this is a fantastic idea. Even as a new player I though everything was too cheap. I think these ships are WORTH a lot more than we pay for them. It will be good to see the cost equal the value. Do it soon, because as soon as people read this the stockpile will begin like crazy!

> Do it soon, because as soon as people read this the stockpile will begin like crazy!

Heh. Just before implementing this, liquidate all players' station inventories of the ships and/or items that are having their prices changed, paying players back the old price, and then they can rebuy at the new price if they want.

As for the prices Incarnate posted, I like most of them, except I think the price increase on the Cents MkII & MkIII is a bit big. They're really not a whole lot better than the MkI. I'd think something like this might be better:
Centurion 328c 328c
Centurion Mk2 394c 750c
Centurion Mk3 765c 1,750c

I do think the prices Incarnate gives for the IBG & Rev. C are good. Also, any chance of bumping up the license requirements on them a couple levels? Considering they're among the best combat ships, only requiring combat 1 & light 2 really seems low.

[edit]
Rather tangential, but regarding the Centurion Mk2: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/10687?page=3#124630
[/edit]

Regarding stockpiling:

We have per-station inventory limits, ready to roll. We will put those into place before we make any economic changes, allowing people to either sell their excess inventory, or move it around. Thus, the amount of stockpiling will at least be less than the current unlimited insanity.

Regarding centurion numbers:

I'm not totally sure on any of the stuff I wrote there, it was mostly an example to illustrate generally what I want to do. I agree, having the jump for the Cent be that high seems a little too much, but I want to re-assess everything, taking more factors into account (location, faction, requirements.. as well as generally "how good it is" etc). So, take the posted numbers with a grain of salt, but they show the general idea. If people have ideas on how they think the numbers *should* break down, they're more than welcome to post them. Or, post them on some other website and link to them from here, so we don't have 50 gigantic posts full of numbers.

I agree with the price hike on all ships and with Everman's suggestion to also hike up the price of ALL ammo, not just missiles and rockets.

So that would be missiles rockets and mines then. :P

And rails. Although I dunno if rail ammo should be made more expensive. Rails are already hard enough to use, without having to curse ourselves over even more wasted money for each missed shot.

yeah it dose sound good, the only problam i can see is that it would likly course more running from the mentality "hey i paid a lot for this so i'm not going to let it blow up" and that might make everyone a little more stressed witch is never a good thing.

but i do think things need tweek they started out a bit high but now i think they are a little to low,it would allso help the newbies get into combat easier the lower cost of the lower end ships will probably make a few at leased go over to using a slightly inferior ship in order to save money witch meens it would be a little more even for the new players but if you are high level you have the option of using a better one for more money to help you win.

yeah over all i like the idea.

I agree VO needs a money sink.

Raising prices for ships sounds likse a good idea.
[EDIT] I hope this means the Maud and Moth will also see a price hike. Like 100,000cr for a Behemoth? So the Atlas is a viable option. [EDIT]

Repairs to ships should cost credits again and players should be given the option of auto-repair upon docking with the credits deducted directly from their account or manual repair.

I would also add a 30-50% mark-up for buying goods/ships/weapons in Gray space if you don't have the required licenses. This would enhance the blackmarket nature of that region.

Hopefully there will also be NPC pirates and Player pirates patroling that area to make it "abandon all hope ye who enter here". I used to be scared to enter Gray space. Now I'm not because my 'test' characters are rarely shot or followed. It makes me sad. I used to get a rush from 'sneaking' into gray space, buying something and then having to make a run for the border to escape with the goods.

I agree with the greyspace markup, makes sense. "I can give it to ye even if it's illegal fer you to have it, but it will cost ye more".

And yes, I also meant rail ammo needs to be increased. It will make them even more the "duelist weapon" people claim it is.

I only have 1 piece of advice regarding cost increases on ammo...

make absolutely certain that the launcher costs MORE than a full ammo load, or we'll just go back to selling the empty launcher and buying a new.. cheaper.. full.. one.

Alternatively sell the launchers empty.

Yeah, sell the launchers empty and make the ammo (rails, mines, rockets, missiles) a separate widget that takes up space and adds mass/cu...

(Prepares the game for crafting later on, when you could craft just a missile or a launcher separately if ya want...)

I agree with tumble - the ships have always seemed ultra-cheap to me. When your weapon systems cost 10 X more than your ship, something is goofy.

And, will the "limited" station inventories be limited to a station overall? Or limited per player? It would be interesting if a station only had SO MUCH space, and players had to compete to gain said space.

I've nothing constructive to add, but I want to say that this is a great change, and one I'd like to see as soon as possible.

There are some people in the game who have tens of millions of dollars. I am not one of them. I currently have a little over one million. I mined for days stockpiling then selling to get that. I also spend a significat portion of my time trading for faction and money.

This really won't affect the people who have money to burn but to me and newer players it will be devistating. Most new players and some older ones who don't mine or trade have about 100 too 500 thousand on average. (its just an estamate though) I adverage about that much usualy.

Making prices increase more then 35 times doesn't help the game it hinders it. The only people that will have any good ships are the people with millions. everyone else will be in EC-88. Or there will be no PvP while everyone mines or trades to get enough money to buy one ship.

I guess i would support a smaller increase say 5 to 10 times the current price might be good. I know the prices listed weren't final but the way it was going a Moth would cost about a million.

Edit: Death will mean alot more though. Most people won't want to lose thier very expensive ship.

Right now all the ships cost pretty much the same price, money has no purpose. This is to give money a purpose. Once you get the behemoth trading becomes extremely easy. Mining brings in good amounts of money. I'll be shocked if everyone is going to fly the EC-88 as you claim, because only the high end ships will cost a lot more, as Incarnate said. If you can't afford the Centurion IBG, you're not going to purchase an EC-88 as a substitute, you're going to purchase a Centurion Mk 3. In the end this is going to give money a value, eventually people will be less likely to just give away 1 million credits. Prizes for events will actually have value, which might get more people to participate in such events.

please keep in mind jestatis bess that this is part of an overall economic change. Right now money IS meaningless, but all the people who DO have millions from exploiting the BP will eventually run out.
The people that KNOW how to trade will still have money long term.
Additionally a change like this will encourage group effort, and if ships actually HAVE some value, then traders WILL pay for an escort if they need it, giving fighters another way to earn money.

On the same token incarnate.. are trade good costs going to be reassesed as well?

I'd like to see some more high end, high cost goods.. items that you buy for around 15K a unit that sell with a 3-4K profit. That would also encourage cooperation.

Also it maybe a good Idea to make the Beemer cost around 250k a ship, that way the other lesser trade ships will be used more, as the Beemer becomes the rich mans easy day cargo ship, and the maud and other ships like it become the regular mans ship, or the blockade runners ship.

Also pirating may become more viable now that people will be able to pay money to save their now costly ships.

All in all I like the idea, death will no longer be so easy to take and VO can start to move away from the FPS mentality and into some thing new.

i think jes has a point actuly i rarely have more than 400k at a time and that runs out a fair amount enless i get a windfall of some kind, plus thinking about it it would make it far harder for newbies to learn the slightly diffrent ways you can fly the better variations for much better combat success,it would make combat more anoying with having to allways be thinking about how much money you'll have left would take some of the fun out of it and make you have to trade a load just to be able to spend a day fighting, a bounty win comes along every now and again but i don't think it would be enough to conter it it will make a lot of people ether have to trade a lot to fight or make lots more runners.

it would give the game a more realistic feal i think it would do that well it's just going to take a lot of carfull balancing to do right so it dose not become to much of a drain on the players without millons.

. Very acceptable. I also agree with Leber, Spell et al that launchers should be sold empty, and reload costs increased.
. Thought: Move ammo directly to the Buy menu, and treat it like any other ship add-on? Availability limited to stations that sell the launchers?