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Trade and insurance company?

Sep 15, 2004 Demonen link
First of all: My left hand is slightly injured so please overlook spelling mistakes related to the left side of the keyboard.

Futt and I have beeen talking a bit about setting up a "company" within vendetta.

At first we plan to organize trade-runs with escorts and call them "convoys". From this we aim to make a little money.
(escorts paid slightly less than traders pay for escorts)

Over time this may accumulate to a nice sum of credits.

If/when that happens we're talking about some sort of insurance.
The actual numbers are very fuzzy yet as this is complex math.

Let me just illustrate the idea with random numbers:

Trader pays (escort pilot lisence level * 1200) for the escort.
Escorting pilot gets paid (pilot lisence level * 1000)

This leaves the company 200c per escort job.
Several traders can "chip in" and together pay for a level 20 pilot to kick pirate a$$. The company only cares about making a profit ;)

A rough plan about the insurance:

Trader is transporting 1000c worth of goods.
Trader pays 20% of that (200c) insurance.
Trader gets blown away by pirates.
Insurance company pays 800c for the lost cargo.

If the trader gets meany registered trade-runs without getting blown up or if the trader hires escorts for the run, then the price is lower.

I'm thinking 20 incident-free long-range trade runs AND hiring two or more level 6 or higher escors insures both the cargo and the ship at only 10% of it's total value and the coverage (? the amount the trader gets back if blown up) is 100%

I belive this idea can be not only profitable in Vendetta Universal Credits, but also a whole lot of fun!

Anyone want to help? Anyone got any insights to share?
Anyone even got a name suggestion? Wayland Yutani was taken :|
Sep 15, 2004 quiveri link
Ok. Let me point a few things out:

-Who will pay the money? It wouldn't be fair for a single person to give away money, unless the person who pays the money is the person who recieves the fee from the trader(s). It wouldn't always be the same person, and that person must be trustworthy so they don't run off with the money.

-Escort privacy. First off, this might not have been the best place to post this, because once it is launced the pirates will have a new target. But where else to put it? Anyways, advertise in Channel chat, but when you find a customer, don't go, "Ok Eloi! I'll come and pick up your 4500 credits worth of cargo in Nyrius M-12 in 5 minutes!". Now I know you're going to say you wouldn't do that, but it happens. Nobody is perfect.

-Insurance fee. I think 20% is too low to pay. I'm looking at something between 30-40%. Or, the fee can be refitted for lower-ranked traders.

-Name. We'll need one. Something simple, like "The National Vendetta Insurance Company (NVIC)" or "Galactic Insurance Firm (GIF)" or possibly "Intergalactic Escort and Insurance Service (IEIS)".

Besides those, I think it's a great idea. I'd like to join. Give me a shout once you come up with a name.

-Eloi
Sep 15, 2004 ctishman link
Galactic Transnational Shipping Insurance (GTSI)?
Galactic Transnational Shipping & Escort (GTS&E)?
Sep 15, 2004 AlienB link
goatse?
Sep 16, 2004 toshiro link
First Vendetta Insurance Company (agreed, i kinda ripped off SF)
Aegis
Therapon
Sep 16, 2004 Demonen link
My thinking is that it's made as a dedicated website that works like the auction sites.

Once someone is a member they can set their status to "Trader" or "Escort". (Possibly "Both depending on situation")
The traders would flag themselves as "I want an escort", set "Desired escort level" and "Desired escort number" and the database will find matches.

(I know Perl and MySQL, so I could realisticly make the system too)

Once the matches have been found and the trader OKs the escorts and the escorts take the job the trader owes the company the agreed sum and the company owes the escrots the sum they get.

If the trader fails to pay he/she won't be able to hire escorts anymore until it's paid. (If this gets really big we might include some sort of intrest there too?)

If the company dosn't pay the escorts the escorts obviously will withdraw from the list and the whole idea will die by itself.

Traders pay the company before the mission starts and submits the purposed job to the system. It is now a registered traderun.

It might look like this:
"From Arta to Sol II including return escort, 10 runs"

If the fighters chicken out/run away during flight the company refunds the trader.
If the convoy is attacked and the escort gets killed: Good! It's your job!
If the convoy is attacked and the trader gets killed: Escorts get paid only if the trader reports "They did their best".

-- Anyone found to be lying or cheating the system in any way will be excluded for all eternity --

-- Anyone found to participate in piracy IN ANY WAY will be excluded for all eternity --

When it comes to insurance I want it to be as cheap as the company can afford at first, then increase the premiums as the player gets blown away by pirates.
We'll adjust the prices and returns as profitability is adjusted.

Insurance SHOULD cost more in a universe with two pirates per trader than in a universe with one pirate to every 200 traders....

There's just ONE thing we need for all this to work.
A guild needs to have a bank account where "senior guild members" or whatever have access to withdraw and transfer to any guild members account or whatever.

I was thinking about something like BountyBot, but that's not really realistic for someone (me?) paying a vendetta subscription just to keep a bot going on it.
Sep 16, 2004 NoAddedSugar link
If you want to set this system up prerelease (now), i couldt spend several millions to let you start without a risc, because i like this idea.
Sep 17, 2004 zamzx zik link
I will help to get this off, with money and help (as a trader I like this, as Razorclaw.....pray......)

Blackhole
Sep 17, 2004 Demonen link
I must admit I have a hidden agenda here.
I'd really like to see a huge convoy being hit by a well-coordinated pirate strike.

;-)
Sep 18, 2004 zamzx zik link
heh, don't we all....
Sep 19, 2004 quiveri link
I can't help with the bot considering I know little, if not nothing about making a bot. But I'll be glad to be a freighter. One problem though. Until a mass reset (or at least one where standings are wiped), I won't be able to go through Itani space. Not with NT Freighter anyways. I'll get to work on raising my Trade/Economy levels with Eloi. And I have a hidden agenda too. It's called school and wallowing in pain when I try to move. Broke my ankle, which you all probably know. Anyways, I'm all for the idea. Cheers to you.
Sep 22, 2004 Demonen link
I'm still planning this thing.
The way I see it we'll have to wait to implement/start anything until people have some cash again after the next reset or so.
Sep 25, 2004 Cam link
an insurance company...
interesting.

are rates based on number of deaths? :P
Sep 28, 2004 Demonen link
Get blown away too often and you can't afford the insurance ;)
Sep 29, 2004 Demonen link
Anyone for a guild signup?
We'll need alot more than 10 people tho'... We're not gonna be online all at the same time.

Right now I'm thinking about calling it "TG" "Traders Guild" or something boring like that.

After resets etc. we can look into a better name.
Oct 06, 2004 semaja2 link
Hey im new but i would like to be in this but i dont know what the advatnages of each nation is
Oct 06, 2004 Pwyll link
This sound really good, I am however new to the game (just started this last weekend) and still trying to figure things out.
Oct 10, 2004 Supreme Sausage!!! link
I'll voulenteer. just find me and we can talk about it... -SS
Dec 05, 2004 tboyz007 link
I think this is a great idea, but if anyone wants to get it started, there are still many problems.

A. The insurance system doesn't work the way it is explained in the original post. It is said that if a trader pays 20% of his 1000 credit cargo for insurence, and is blown away, he receives 800 credits. Does this mean that if someone pays 30% of their 1000 credit cargo, they'll only get 700 credits if they're blown away?

B. By setting up an insurance "company," one has to be careful that they are not just benefitting the pirates! If a ship carrying 1000 credits worth of cargo gets blown away by pirates, then gets more money with the collected insurence, buys more trade goods, and gets blown away again, the only party profiting is the pirates.

C. What are the target customers? Any trader customer with any amount of valuable cargo would have to be in either a centaur or another higher-level ship. This would also mean they'd have a fast-charge battery, and would be able to outrun any pirate, or they'd be experienced enough to battle the pirate(s). They would not need an escort, and would definetely not bother paying extra for one.

D. Its a giant risk for the customer to pay for an escort. The only way paying for an escort would pay off is if the escort happens to destroy a pirate on the route. This will not happen very often. Therefore, any intelligent customer would realize that they are paying too much. Eventually, as people start paying less and less for an escort, the escorts won't be getting enough income for it to be worth it, and they'll leave. Thats just my prediction.

Sorry if I seem to have all the problems and no solutions, but I think this is a really great idea and I'd hate to see it fail within a week.

D.