Suggestion: trading and trade ships

[General Retreat]

This proposal is to introduce mechanics that facilitate the legal counterpart to smuggling - trading. Currently the trade lane system doesn't so much reflect trading, as the tax revenue gathered from it.

Proposal

Traders are the lifeblood of the Empire, enabling the transfer of goods anywhere from the fortified Marches to the Core World heartlands. Many Lords will contract shipments of goods to independent captains, or even form their own trade fleets or corporations. Conditions: 1) The merchant must have a patron for inter-system trade, which can be a Lord or Condotierri. 2) The trader can only move one legal commodity per Transport Squadron. 3) A trader can only move goods between systems with an active trade lanes to each other. 4) Only one trade can be made per day with each ship/fleet. Goods: The profit of a route is calculated as follows: Take the base value of the commodity and divide it by 2,500 (need opinions). This is the profit per unit. Multiply the profit per unit by the amount of cargo space you currently have to work out the overall cargo value. The cost of the cargo is equal to 1/4 of the overall cargo value. Overall value is reduced by 1/4 if the commodity you are shipping is produced in a neighbouring system to your destination (including if that's you). Piracy: Pirate Interception roll: base chance 3/20, +1 for every system travelled through. +3 for a system that is currently being raided by a player pirate clan (in this case, the raid takes place in the system they are operating in by default. In the case of AI raids, you may choose which system). In the event of a pirate attack, make the standard rolls on the raiding chart, accounting for the pirate bonus for SOS signals. Note, if you have given your transports an escort, a battle is mandatory unless the pirate decides the target isn't worth it and breaks off. In the case that a pirate successfully attacks your transport, make a loot roll - d20*2% of the overall cargo value. The pirate destroys that percentage of your fleet and gains that percentage of your overall cargo value.

Example:

5 transports load Electronics in Solaris and ship them to Algol. 45,000 / 2,500 = 18 (cost per unit). 18 x 1,000 = 18,000 (overall cargo value). 18,000 = 4,000 (my expenses). To get to Algol, I have to travel through Mizar, Izar and Algol. This gives me a +3 to the base chance of a pirate attack of 3/20, making 6/20. I roll a 5. Whoops. Should have invested in an escort. On the SOS table, I roll a 9. No SOS call; I get looted. For the loot, I roll 10*2, which results in 20% of my fleet being destroyed and cargo stolen. In real terms: 1 transport ship is destroyed, and 3,600 goes missing. Flying through marauder space is bad joo-joo. This leaves me with a profit of 10,400 and down one ship. Obviously, if I'd invested in bringing three Destroyers or Light Cruisers along, this show could have gone very differently.

Notes: Obviously, the cons of this will be, as ever, mod workload. All of the above could be done in a single rolling session, but that still leaves the issue of potentially multiple convoys needing to be rolled for each day which could rapidly become a nightmare situation.

The restriction on only being able to trade through trade lanes is intended to make choosing who you trade with more strategic if you're planning on doing much trading.

Getting a partner with that all important 45,000 is nice, yes, but if one of their neighbours produces the same thing as you, that'll have a direct impact on your convoys.

Similarly, it makes who else your partner trades with more important, because you'll be able to chain routes together.

EDIT: Very important. Give transports a point value independent of their current attack value. If this system or anything like it were to be implemented with levy transports a mere 5 points a pop... *shudders*

[Honors Bastion]

I don't really see the benefit of trying to make trading harder then it needs to be. The way we currently do trading is easy to understand and requires little to no involvement from the moderators.

[Lucius Malfoy]

I don't really see the benefit of trying to make trading harder then it needs to be. The way we currently do trading is easy to understand and requires little to no involvement from the moderators.

I have to agree with HB on this one. We want to make things easy to understand more so than adding onto the current mechanic.
The more simple it is, the easier it is for mods. This proposal adds on more than what I, as a mod, would want to moderate.

[General Retreat]

Well, this would be in addition to the current mechanics. It just allows for the roleplaying of corporations in greater detail, and a wider variety of character types.

Plus more direct interaction with other players for pirates.

[Double A]

If anything, I would want to see tariff mechanics for goods just being moved through your system. I could keep track of that so no one else has to. Shortest route should have base income and every redirect takes off a bit. If you want to avoid two tariff planets, you'll get off real easy, but if you want to go around, say, Gateway-Durdane, you would lose more than what I'm charging.

[General Retreat]

That's not a bad idea. So people can set a tariff which deducts an amount from trade routes that go through your system. Then the issue is keeping track of that. People would have to declare the route they were using, and you'd have to scour through everyone's home threads to see who had ships going through your turf. Yuck.

If you set your tariff too high or another party feels victimised, maybe they could complain to the Lord Treasurer, who can impose fines? Would be similar to the Lord Justicar's ability to place bounties on pirates.