Insurance rate a year after SC launches

[Esctasy]

Just something that crossed my mind and wanted to see what your thoughts are.

In SC, ships are created but never destroyed. They are created when you acquire UEC and buy more ships, it is never destroyed because players are not likely to fly their ships without insurance (same as your car in RL).

This means that after a year of launch there could potentially be 5x more ships than at launch. Years down the road, the average player could own 20+ ships. In RL cars break down and so they can be destroyed (even with insurance). But SC ships don't break down.

How will SC deal with this in your opinion? Raise insurance rates so that it is expensive to operate all your ships at once? If this is the case then LTI will be extremely valuable in the future?

 

[FluffyVonRage]

Business wise, selling a digital product for cash, then having it degrade in game, is essentially PR Suicide.
Hence why ships are so expensive to earn - Sure you might earn a few new ones, but you'll never have tens of ships just sat gathering dust without good reason - You'll sell up and consolidate into bigger and bigger ships.

In theory :P

 

[Horatus]

I plan to park all of mine in a field and then let the grass grow tall around them.

 

[Ammorn]

I plan to park all of mine in a field and then let the grass grow tall around them.

Open the canopy and fill the cockpit with dirt and plant flowers in it for some yard art.

 

[Ammorn]

They have talked about having parts on ships wear and break down for realism and a money sink. You'd just need to get replacement parts. Ship hulls and items will wear too over time as you use them, so you could see a well worn and battle scared old mercenary or bounty hunter ship come in for a landing. They have also talked about for real old ship models parts and replacements would take longer to get as they become more scarce like in real life, so you might sell a ship, mothball it, or keep it safe in your hanger like a rare vintage car.

 

[Talonsbane]

Actually, CIG is planning on making it to where ships do break down (to a degree) over time depending on usage & quality of parts. They did a whole section on their website a while back about the component system.

Business wise, selling a digital product for cash, then having it degrade in game, is essentially PR Suicide.
Hence why ships are so expensive to earn - Sure you might earn a few new ones, but you'll never have tens of ships just sat gathering dust without good reason - You'll sell up and consolidate into bigger and bigger ships.

In theory :P

Except for those of us that have lots of ships in our hangers already that then also plan on helping crew the ships of other wonderful TESTies.

 

[supitza]

Just something that crossed my mind and wanted to see what your thoughts are.

In SC, ships are created but never destroyed. They are created when you acquire UEC and buy more ships, it is never destroyed because players are not likely to fly their ships without insurance (same as your car in RL).

This means that after a year of launch there could potentially be 5x more ships than at launch. Years down the road, the average player could own 20+ ships. In RL cars break down and so they can be destroyed (even with insurance). But SC ships don't break down.

How will SC deal with this in your opinion? Raise insurance rates so that it is expensive to operate all your ships at once? If this is the case then LTI will be extremely valuable in the future?

I don't see a problem with people owning lots of ships. They don't use storage space like in real life, they just despawn when they're not in use. Also, if I remember correctly, one person wouldn't be able to use several of his ships at the same time - so you can't send NPCs on your ships to do your bidding without you actually being there, so each player will use at most 1 ship at a time. Ofc, you can lend one of your ships to a friend, but then he'd be flying your ship and not one of his own, so it's still 1 active ship/player. It doesn't matter how many other ships you have in storage: an important part of the game is acquiring more and more ships and more and more UEC until the servers get taken down.

 

[Mushin]

Good discussion! I think that insurance is going to be the money sink. It's going to expand exponentially as you lose ships to get to a point where you are better off just buying a new one. It makes sense. While LTI is nice, you still have to pay the expedite fee and who knows how long the timer will expand into. I think insurance as it stands, is just a system to limit the ability to spam certain ships while increasing the time associated with recovering said ships after each loss.

 

[Printimus]

Ships will degrade over time.

 

[Esctasy]

Good to hear that ships do degrade, I didn't know that. What spark this discussion was the epic wars that happen on EVE. Their ships actually get destroyed in battles, but SC's won't. I just didn't understand how it could work. Eventually every 3rd person will be flying in a Polaris (trade ins from small ships) and with no consequence when engaging in large battles. Guess we will see epic fights daily!

 

[Printimus]

Good to hear that ships do degrade, I didn't know that. What spark this discussion was the epic wars that happen on EVE. Their ships actually get destroyed in battles, but SC's won't. I just didn't understand how it could work. Eventually every 3rd person will be flying in a Polaris (trade ins from small ships) and with no consequence when engaging in large battles. Guess we will see epic fights daily!

Ships will be destroyed in game. Have you ever crashed and blown up? Boom, ship destroyed. Dogfighting? Boom many ships destroyed.

 

[Mushin]

Im pretty sure it'll be ship parts that degrade with use but I doubt it will affect the hulls. I think the biggest hit to destroyed ships is just going to be the timer. You can wait it out or not. I also think they will replace the hull of a ship with base insurance but wont replace any weapons or components. More to add to the money loop gameplay.

 

[Esctasy]

My bad, I had no idea EVE had insurance for their ships. Just read an article about their epic battles and assumed there were no insurance in the game.

This is one of those articles I read.
Talk about epic lol

 

[Bruce]

As far as my memory serves me there will be two mechanisms
1) ships in hangars require maintenance fees ( landing fee etc. )
2) ships outside of hangars are subject of wear and tear

I vaguely remember that original backers could be allowed not to pay #1 fee on starting planet/station .. but it was too long ago

 

[Horatus]

No hanger fees on starting planet. To my knowledge it wasnt clear if that was for one or many ships.

 

[Black Sunder]

Open the canopy and fill the cockpit with dirt and plant flowers in it for some yard art.

Origin ships are great for this.

 

[Hybus]

No hanger fees on starting planet. To my knowledge it wasnt clear if that was for one or many ships.

There's the catch 22, sure you get a free hanger on a starting planet. For one ship, those other 20 you own, need to be ponied up for

-edit- I'm not sure if that's the case, but it's a possibility.

 

[Black Sunder]

My bad, I had no idea EVE had insurance for their ships. Just read an article about their epic battles and assumed there were no insurance in the game.

This is one of those articles I read.
Talk about epic lol

Having insurance in Eve is like saying you have flood insurance near an active volcano. Neither version of Insurance pays for what you just lost, much, or at all.

 

[Horatus]

There's the catch 22, sure you get a free hanger on a starting planet. For one ship, those other 20 you own, need to be ponied up for

-edit- I'm not sure if that's the case, but it's a possibility.

There has to be some kind of mechanic to avoid that. People with a billion ships will start out poor if that is the case.

 

[Radegast74]

I plan to park all of mine in a field and then let the grass grow tall around them.

Are you one of my old neighbors? :p