Forums » Suggestions
I understand the concern over development timing. But, keep in mind the same convoy mechanics are a requirement of the Latos N2 economy being functional. So fixing the convoys, and making them robust is a pretty high priority anyway.
The basics of loading and spawning convoys obviously already exists, as it's actively used by the game.
The persistent voice chat problems were obviously not great, but it was also an orthogonal feature. Where the functionality of convoys is fundamentally critical to many of our upcoming gameplay goals. That's why being forced into improving them is not necessarily a bad thing, and moreover, an implementation like this will directly cause a whole lot of "player-monitored testing" to take place, meaning we'll really know that it's solid (or not).
If people don't fundamentally dislike the convoy idea, I'm not convinced it's bad on any technical or timing merits.
So, aside from timing or technical concerns, is there any other feedback about my suggestion?
The basics of loading and spawning convoys obviously already exists, as it's actively used by the game.
The persistent voice chat problems were obviously not great, but it was also an orthogonal feature. Where the functionality of convoys is fundamentally critical to many of our upcoming gameplay goals. That's why being forced into improving them is not necessarily a bad thing, and moreover, an implementation like this will directly cause a whole lot of "player-monitored testing" to take place, meaning we'll really know that it's solid (or not).
If people don't fundamentally dislike the convoy idea, I'm not convinced it's bad on any technical or timing merits.
So, aside from timing or technical concerns, is there any other feedback about my suggestion?
The persistent voice chat problems were obviously not great, but it was also an orthogonal feature. Where the functionality of convoys is fundamentally critical to many of our upcoming gameplay goals. That's why being forced into improving them is not necessarily a bad thing, and moreover, an implementation like this will directly cause a whole lot of "player-monitored testing" to take place, meaning we'll really know that it's solid (or not).
If people don't fundamentally dislike the convoy idea, I'm not convinced it's bad on any technical or timing merits.
So, aside from timing or technical concerns, is there any other feedback about my suggestion?
I'm not a big fan of the proposed implementation as the initial method for large scale trade for the following reasons:
1. There isn't any RP or game mechanic that indicates large scale trades should have to traverse multiple sectors. If a large scale trade can occur over long distances, it should be able to occur locally.
2. Burying large trades inside of a convoy adds too much obscurity to the trading process. Convoys often slip by unnoticed. When someone is sitting in B8 in a Valk or Prom, they aren't going to randomly attack every convoy hoping it was commissioned by a player. In order to even know this trade is going on, it requires a cargo scanner and someone actively looking at said cargo. A local trade still forces the player to work out the logistics of transport, which carries a lot more risk and is a lot easier to intercept.
I'm not suggesting that this should not be a component of the total trade improvement, but to implement it before we solve the problem of tedious local transfers would be putting the cart in front of the horse, IMO.
If people don't fundamentally dislike the convoy idea, I'm not convinced it's bad on any technical or timing merits.
So, aside from timing or technical concerns, is there any other feedback about my suggestion?
I'm not a big fan of the proposed implementation as the initial method for large scale trade for the following reasons:
1. There isn't any RP or game mechanic that indicates large scale trades should have to traverse multiple sectors. If a large scale trade can occur over long distances, it should be able to occur locally.
2. Burying large trades inside of a convoy adds too much obscurity to the trading process. Convoys often slip by unnoticed. When someone is sitting in B8 in a Valk or Prom, they aren't going to randomly attack every convoy hoping it was commissioned by a player. In order to even know this trade is going on, it requires a cargo scanner and someone actively looking at said cargo. A local trade still forces the player to work out the logistics of transport, which carries a lot more risk and is a lot easier to intercept.
I'm not suggesting that this should not be a component of the total trade improvement, but to implement it before we solve the problem of tedious local transfers would be putting the cart in front of the horse, IMO.
I like the convoy idea, takes away some of the boredom and the cargo is still at risk. Seems like it might be a basis for a compromise among the interested parties here.
Yeah, and we might see it implemented not sooner than 5 years out. But rest assured that when it IS implemented, we'll be trying it out on a well-established mobile VR platform. Because reasons.*
*I know reasons are likely not something even largely within the Devs' control, much less their preference...but the absurdity of the situation is somewhat mind boggling.
*I know reasons are likely not something even largely within the Devs' control, much less their preference...but the absurdity of the situation is somewhat mind boggling.
Okay. Again, can we skip the "will it ever happen" commentary, and just stick to the relative merits of the proposal at hand?
Really, you can't separate the two. As between 'decent in two weeks' versus 'really cool in 2-5 years', the first is more meritorious 100% of the time. Nor does it preclude you doing something "better" later.
Case in point: I love your roving pirate station-ship idea. But this https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/31453 should be in-game ASAP because it'd be a huge improvement despite being nowhere near as cool, and take (from my obviously outside perspective) a relatively minuscule amount of time.
Case in point: I love your roving pirate station-ship idea. But this https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/31453 should be in-game ASAP because it'd be a huge improvement despite being nowhere near as cool, and take (from my obviously outside perspective) a relatively minuscule amount of time.
Yes, but that's the problem. You have no idea how long things will take, in fact: none of you do. Even other game developers wouldn't know the specific design/implementation challenges of our codebase. I wouldn't presume to know how long it would take Blizzard to do two different feature implementations, so the notion of anyone else thinking they can make that determination about us is a little silly.
A big part of the value of Suggestions, for me, is getting feedback from the playerbase on perceived gameplay ramifications. I don't need help with development, or scheduling. Ironically, the ones among you who are the most experienced programmers, usually give the least advice on that, because they know how little they know. It's just a waste of all our time. So, give me the benefit of the doubt on development scheduling, and focus on the potential gameplay impact.
A big part of the value of Suggestions, for me, is getting feedback from the playerbase on perceived gameplay ramifications. I don't need help with development, or scheduling. Ironically, the ones among you who are the most experienced programmers, usually give the least advice on that, because they know how little they know. It's just a waste of all our time. So, give me the benefit of the doubt on development scheduling, and focus on the potential gameplay impact.
We all get that part by now...but. If you'd care to claim that what we've pegged as the "simpler" suggestions are actually equally time consuming/more time time consuming than what we've pegged as the "complex" suggestions... do so. Otherwise, what things take in terms of absolute time is not particularly important, and the relative difference would seem to be the main issue.
If all that matters here is what's best for gameplay, we'd like convoys and roving pirate stations and a whole fucking flock of unicorns. We look forward to seeing no more than one of those things by 2022...and my money would be on the unicorns.
If all that matters here is what's best for gameplay, we'd like convoys and roving pirate stations and a whole fucking flock of unicorns. We look forward to seeing no more than one of those things by 2022...and my money would be on the unicorns.
It's hard even for me (or Ray, for that matter) to make absolutely accurate claims of things being "equally" time consuming. We often discover problems when we start actually doing the implementation.
But yes, the suggested OP is simpler, and simpler is usually easier. I think the comparison is on the order of a day or two versus a week (where the "week" is actually also a day or two, and then sporadically more time doing exhaustive testing on related content).
But the "week" results in something else we also really need. That's actually a big part of what I do, trying to figure out how to uhh.. kill as many birds with the fewest number of stones. To use the anti-bird analogy.
Bugs that are complex and go un-fixed for long periods of time are usually due to relative impact (like voice chat, which was highly annoying but orthogonal to basic gameplay). Where, if we really put some effort into tracking it down (as we have more recently with voicechat) we can resolve things. But it's tough to justify fixing voice chat when something more mission-critical is also breaking.
In this case, I would rather burn the week and get a lot more value for my money, so to speak, than burn a couple of days on something that's not as valuable to the game, or the development process, as a whole.
But, that all changes if people come up with gameplay specific arguments against particular ideas, and the like, which is one of the big value points of discussions like this. It's easy to say "well of course we like the more complex thing better", but Savet, for example, did not.
Yes, I know, all things "being equal" people would love to ride unicorns through space to their personal planet where they build houses out of mud bricks or whatever. But this isn't about that, I really need cogent feedback on the relative perceived tradeoffs of different gameplay. Let me judge the development risk/cost assessments, I'm in a much better position to do that.
But yes, the suggested OP is simpler, and simpler is usually easier. I think the comparison is on the order of a day or two versus a week (where the "week" is actually also a day or two, and then sporadically more time doing exhaustive testing on related content).
But the "week" results in something else we also really need. That's actually a big part of what I do, trying to figure out how to uhh.. kill as many birds with the fewest number of stones. To use the anti-bird analogy.
Bugs that are complex and go un-fixed for long periods of time are usually due to relative impact (like voice chat, which was highly annoying but orthogonal to basic gameplay). Where, if we really put some effort into tracking it down (as we have more recently with voicechat) we can resolve things. But it's tough to justify fixing voice chat when something more mission-critical is also breaking.
In this case, I would rather burn the week and get a lot more value for my money, so to speak, than burn a couple of days on something that's not as valuable to the game, or the development process, as a whole.
But, that all changes if people come up with gameplay specific arguments against particular ideas, and the like, which is one of the big value points of discussions like this. It's easy to say "well of course we like the more complex thing better", but Savet, for example, did not.
Yes, I know, all things "being equal" people would love to ride unicorns through space to their personal planet where they build houses out of mud bricks or whatever. But this isn't about that, I really need cogent feedback on the relative perceived tradeoffs of different gameplay. Let me judge the development risk/cost assessments, I'm in a much better position to do that.
Look. I love Guild Software and the game you guys have made, but I have to just throw this out there: 2-3 years ago you said that the Type S&P tridents were going to be released that weekend. It's been 2-3 years. What system of time do you guys use?
I don't have a problem with the need to use cargo scanners. They're a tool of the trade.
The main problem I see with the convoy approach is that it also gives people a way to move cargo around the universe a lot more safely than hauling it in their personal ships. Particularly since the convoy can have the cargo spread between a lot of ships all flying at once, meaning only a small portion of the cargo would be at risk -- you can only kill so many ships per minute, and the rest will arrive safely. However, if the player is forced to haul it themselves, then they're making a bunch of solo trips, effectively making all of the cargo vulnerable. A convoy also significantly cuts the window of opportunity in which the transfer could be attacked.
That said, they'd still have to move the goods to and from the capship stations at either end of the trip. It could be a significant decrease to the amount of hauling involved in getting something from one end of the verse to the other along with huge safety benefits, but there would still be some vulnerable portions.
One way to lessen the safety would be to have a maximum size beyond which the transport order would be automatically split into multiple convoys launched over a period of time.
The main problem I see with the convoy approach is that it also gives people a way to move cargo around the universe a lot more safely than hauling it in their personal ships. Particularly since the convoy can have the cargo spread between a lot of ships all flying at once, meaning only a small portion of the cargo would be at risk -- you can only kill so many ships per minute, and the rest will arrive safely. However, if the player is forced to haul it themselves, then they're making a bunch of solo trips, effectively making all of the cargo vulnerable. A convoy also significantly cuts the window of opportunity in which the transfer could be attacked.
That said, they'd still have to move the goods to and from the capship stations at either end of the trip. It could be a significant decrease to the amount of hauling involved in getting something from one end of the verse to the other along with huge safety benefits, but there would still be some vulnerable portions.
One way to lessen the safety would be to have a maximum size beyond which the transport order would be automatically split into multiple convoys launched over a period of time.
Yes, but that solo-tripping is also boring for the traders, so it's unfair to make them do it.
for the convoy idea, will the basic convoy defence ai be used? will it be adjustable based on price/location/etc? Also, will rates go up/down depending on how often a certain route is used? (say, more shipments occur from dau to odia than dau to itan (theoretically, I haven't a clue about inter-nation trade these days), so dau to odia would have higher/lower rates (which sounds more reasonable?))
Given that the convoys only work at capstations, pirates would still end up being able to go after solo pilots (noobs stuck in grey, traders hauling goods from capstation to another local system (odia->sedina, etc), and other pirates) at the wormholes. all the convoys mean is that a large amount of goods are moved a majority of the distance; traders still have to move it to their precise station/system.
Given that the convoys only work at capstations, pirates would still end up being able to go after solo pilots (noobs stuck in grey, traders hauling goods from capstation to another local system (odia->sedina, etc), and other pirates) at the wormholes. all the convoys mean is that a large amount of goods are moved a majority of the distance; traders still have to move it to their precise station/system.
It doesn't matter, because you can bet a turn-key trident kit that such convoys will never actually be implemented.
It doesn't matter, because you can bet a turn-key trident kit that such convoys will never actually be implemented.
Hmmm, I could cover that bet. Can you wait for all eternity to claim it?
Hmmm, I could cover that bet. Can you wait for all eternity to claim it?
...of course, I would have to transfer it to you via convoy.
OP: I see both sides of this argument. Ryan Reign once hired me to mine 50,000cu of xith so he could tank the market. I went cross-eyed after transferring him 25,000cu. But grinding aside, the mechanic as is makes zero sense, as if I had a cargo bay in a station full of SSS, I should simply be able to hand over the keys (and paying the station fee to have the manifest verified). However, the zero risk transfer is not what VO is about. I get that.
Inc: I'm all for (and I'm sure suggested before) player-generated convoys chosen from available NPC's at the station of origin (if a trident or connie pilot happens to be in the bar, score! if not, it's moths and centaurs for you!), carrying player cargo via player-determined routes, selling to player-determined stations. Allowing them to drop off said cargo to another player's (or even your own) station inventory is intriguing.
Why not both? hire an NPC (or better: a cargo bot) to repeatedly undock and redock at the same station, delivering to the other player? Should an enemy kill it, it would interrupt or at least stall the transfer, and the NPC/bot would take some time to respawn or be replaced. That puts the cargo at risk, costs the player, and can be effectively shut down by an enemy. Sure it doesn't expose 2 players in XC's to being PK'd, but you usually only get one round of that before it turns into pew pew (or so I understand ;)
Inc: I'm all for (and I'm sure suggested before) player-generated convoys chosen from available NPC's at the station of origin (if a trident or connie pilot happens to be in the bar, score! if not, it's moths and centaurs for you!), carrying player cargo via player-determined routes, selling to player-determined stations. Allowing them to drop off said cargo to another player's (or even your own) station inventory is intriguing.
Why not both? hire an NPC (or better: a cargo bot) to repeatedly undock and redock at the same station, delivering to the other player? Should an enemy kill it, it would interrupt or at least stall the transfer, and the NPC/bot would take some time to respawn or be replaced. That puts the cargo at risk, costs the player, and can be effectively shut down by an enemy. Sure it doesn't expose 2 players in XC's to being PK'd, but you usually only get one round of that before it turns into pew pew (or so I understand ;)
I too think that having direct transfers of inventory in station would 'make sense', however it does present a major game play concern. The elimination of risk. The developers have repeatedly stated that there are to be no "safe spaces" in this game. The training sectors are, strictly speaking a violation of that, but a minor one as I can't see any players staying there indefinably while continuing to play the game.
I am able to understand how moving load after load of cargo from player to player can get boring though.
I rather like the convoy idea, within limits. Using a convoy of regular behemoth heavies mixed with a couple of centaurs and atlases (the lighter ships being presumably hired on) with the usual escort would be interesting to pirate. For the time being, I do not think having Constellations and tridents move the cargo as part of convoys would be desirable. The intended risk could be greatly mitigated by using several deliveries one jump each (bucket brigade).
The convoys however, should not launch immediately. There are several reasons for this.
1) It would break with realism for players to be able to expect that there are fleets of transports and escorting warships just loafing around, waiting for work.
2) Given the current amount of players online at any one time, it would be simple to just launch them at 4-6am game time, when player activity is the lowest.
3) It is a trivial matter to scout ahead along the convoy route to check for storms and such beforehand. You could argue that is just proper due diligence. But the reason for using convoys is to introduce a level of risk.
If a semi player generated, or player cargo supplied convoy system is introduced, there should be a fee for using them to haul stuff. Probably a price per kg per jump. IE I need 2,000kg of widgets moved 5 jumps at a rate of 100credits, so I pay 1,000,000. I am NOT suggesting any particular price, just a pricing method.
Also, certain types of cargo should be strictly off limits. Anything available at the destination for purchase for instance.
The first reason for this is to avoid people just spamming out convoys of bus guns to piss pirates off.
The second reason is to prevent abuse when something glitches in the dynamic economy, say some weapon suddenly becomes worth moving from A to B at X shipping rate. If that kind of situation were to come about, it would make perfect sense to move piles of chaos swarms for instance. Right up to the point where the holding costs would force a loss. If somebody want's to trade that way, let them do it manually, less the value of credits (already low) drops to insignificance. Such a drop would almost invariably cause a revaluation of the currency, as we saw several years ago, massively hurting new players. Such a revaluation would probably help me, as I am a bit of a hoarder.
VERY large shipments should be broken up among multiple convoys over a period of time, launched more or less randomly between two hard values (more then 4 hours less then 8 apart for instance)
Before this is implemented, the NPC pirates (unrats) should come back into play. Not in the 20 plus swarms we used to see, probably no more then 3 camping a worm hole and a few roving bands of say 5. NPC convoys should always fight it out, unless the contracting player has provided funds, in advance for paying "tolls", and then only until those funds are depleted.
They should only attack ships carrying cargo. Give them a cargo scanner for and an unlisted extra port for it if possible. Though having them magically know would work fine too from a players prospective.
The buyout option should be set based on what kind of ship they are attacking. Having them just ask for cargo didn't work so well as people were just carrying aquean ore to mollify them. Which is the equivalent of throwing a few washers along the sidewalk to distract pan handlers.
I have no problem with being able to contract a convoy to ship goods from one player to another, as long as it is an inter system delivery. The players will easily adapt to that I think. Those needing to transfer some large amount of cargo to another player in system will burn through their current stocks, and future P2P transfers will simply be done inter system, or manually.
One problem I see that I don't currently see a solution for is using the convoys for easy trading in nation space. It would be simple for somebody to just buy up 10,000 cu of whatever in Divinia and have it moved to Eo, with basically no risk.
This would be made easier if you have two accounts, one alt at one end, the second at the other end, the money could be moved through guild banks. It could even be done entirely with plugins, generating free cash. You could even do it with trial accounts, running a pile of them at once, with a timer on the script that dumps all money into the bank before the clock runs out. I could easily imagine dozens of trial accounts, doing this all the time. This would again lead to the devaluation problem I mentioned earlier.
The only solution I see for this is a only a temporary one. This would be only implementing player hired convoys either originating in grey space or ending in grey space. This hardly seems realistic, but it's the best I've come up with. Even then there are corner cases, UIT has a station in grey, so do the Itani, the Serco have two. Limiting the convoy spawn rate would help, but only so much as it is easy enough to just check every so often to see if the shipment has gotten there yet, still allowing people to pile up billions on trial accounts.
I don't really expect any of this to be implemented soon, but the unrats shouldn't be a major hurtle, even if they are just rabid ass-hats. I would think limiting their numbers so they don't pile up to sector lagging levels would be relatively easy, check how many of them are running in a sector before spawning more.
I am able to understand how moving load after load of cargo from player to player can get boring though.
I rather like the convoy idea, within limits. Using a convoy of regular behemoth heavies mixed with a couple of centaurs and atlases (the lighter ships being presumably hired on) with the usual escort would be interesting to pirate. For the time being, I do not think having Constellations and tridents move the cargo as part of convoys would be desirable. The intended risk could be greatly mitigated by using several deliveries one jump each (bucket brigade).
The convoys however, should not launch immediately. There are several reasons for this.
1) It would break with realism for players to be able to expect that there are fleets of transports and escorting warships just loafing around, waiting for work.
2) Given the current amount of players online at any one time, it would be simple to just launch them at 4-6am game time, when player activity is the lowest.
3) It is a trivial matter to scout ahead along the convoy route to check for storms and such beforehand. You could argue that is just proper due diligence. But the reason for using convoys is to introduce a level of risk.
If a semi player generated, or player cargo supplied convoy system is introduced, there should be a fee for using them to haul stuff. Probably a price per kg per jump. IE I need 2,000kg of widgets moved 5 jumps at a rate of 100credits, so I pay 1,000,000. I am NOT suggesting any particular price, just a pricing method.
Also, certain types of cargo should be strictly off limits. Anything available at the destination for purchase for instance.
The first reason for this is to avoid people just spamming out convoys of bus guns to piss pirates off.
The second reason is to prevent abuse when something glitches in the dynamic economy, say some weapon suddenly becomes worth moving from A to B at X shipping rate. If that kind of situation were to come about, it would make perfect sense to move piles of chaos swarms for instance. Right up to the point where the holding costs would force a loss. If somebody want's to trade that way, let them do it manually, less the value of credits (already low) drops to insignificance. Such a drop would almost invariably cause a revaluation of the currency, as we saw several years ago, massively hurting new players. Such a revaluation would probably help me, as I am a bit of a hoarder.
VERY large shipments should be broken up among multiple convoys over a period of time, launched more or less randomly between two hard values (more then 4 hours less then 8 apart for instance)
Before this is implemented, the NPC pirates (unrats) should come back into play. Not in the 20 plus swarms we used to see, probably no more then 3 camping a worm hole and a few roving bands of say 5. NPC convoys should always fight it out, unless the contracting player has provided funds, in advance for paying "tolls", and then only until those funds are depleted.
They should only attack ships carrying cargo. Give them a cargo scanner for and an unlisted extra port for it if possible. Though having them magically know would work fine too from a players prospective.
The buyout option should be set based on what kind of ship they are attacking. Having them just ask for cargo didn't work so well as people were just carrying aquean ore to mollify them. Which is the equivalent of throwing a few washers along the sidewalk to distract pan handlers.
I have no problem with being able to contract a convoy to ship goods from one player to another, as long as it is an inter system delivery. The players will easily adapt to that I think. Those needing to transfer some large amount of cargo to another player in system will burn through their current stocks, and future P2P transfers will simply be done inter system, or manually.
One problem I see that I don't currently see a solution for is using the convoys for easy trading in nation space. It would be simple for somebody to just buy up 10,000 cu of whatever in Divinia and have it moved to Eo, with basically no risk.
This would be made easier if you have two accounts, one alt at one end, the second at the other end, the money could be moved through guild banks. It could even be done entirely with plugins, generating free cash. You could even do it with trial accounts, running a pile of them at once, with a timer on the script that dumps all money into the bank before the clock runs out. I could easily imagine dozens of trial accounts, doing this all the time. This would again lead to the devaluation problem I mentioned earlier.
The only solution I see for this is a only a temporary one. This would be only implementing player hired convoys either originating in grey space or ending in grey space. This hardly seems realistic, but it's the best I've come up with. Even then there are corner cases, UIT has a station in grey, so do the Itani, the Serco have two. Limiting the convoy spawn rate would help, but only so much as it is easy enough to just check every so often to see if the shipment has gotten there yet, still allowing people to pile up billions on trial accounts.
I don't really expect any of this to be implemented soon, but the unrats shouldn't be a major hurtle, even if they are just rabid ass-hats. I would think limiting their numbers so they don't pile up to sector lagging levels would be relatively easy, check how many of them are running in a sector before spawning more.
"The convoys however, should not launch immediately. There are several reasons for this."
"VERY large shipments should be broken up among multiple convoys over a period of time, launched more or less randomly between two hard values (more then 4 hours less then 8 apart for instance)."
If I were to use a convoy to transport my own goods, I would expect to be able to escort the convoy to its destination.
I'm okay with large shipments being broken up into multiple convoys, but a 4 to 8 hour delay chosen randomly would prevent me from providing an escort. Even just a 15 minute delay would be somewhat annoying, in which case I'd probably sit AFK in the station and do something else until the convoy is ready to launch.
Not being able to provide a personal escort of the convoy is a big deal for cases where the convoy might get stuck somewhere along the way. A personal escort is also necessary to be able to pay off pirates and unrats encountered along the way.
"VERY large shipments should be broken up among multiple convoys over a period of time, launched more or less randomly between two hard values (more then 4 hours less then 8 apart for instance)."
If I were to use a convoy to transport my own goods, I would expect to be able to escort the convoy to its destination.
I'm okay with large shipments being broken up into multiple convoys, but a 4 to 8 hour delay chosen randomly would prevent me from providing an escort. Even just a 15 minute delay would be somewhat annoying, in which case I'd probably sit AFK in the station and do something else until the convoy is ready to launch.
Not being able to provide a personal escort of the convoy is a big deal for cases where the convoy might get stuck somewhere along the way. A personal escort is also necessary to be able to pay off pirates and unrats encountered along the way.
Abuse by free/trial accounts can be avoided by requiring some minimum trade license hire convoys, which really should be a requirement anyway.
As for paid accounts doing automated nation-space trade, nation space trade shouldn't really be very profitable in general, so the solution there is to make sure that it actually isn't very profitable (barring potential future player influence causing prices to rise due to blockades or whatever), and to make sure that the fees for using the convoys are higher than the profit.
As for paid accounts doing automated nation-space trade, nation space trade shouldn't really be very profitable in general, so the solution there is to make sure that it actually isn't very profitable (barring potential future player influence causing prices to rise due to blockades or whatever), and to make sure that the fees for using the convoys are higher than the profit.