Yes. Is there a downside there I don't see?
Thinking of getting a Merchantman
- Thread starter diabolus_ex_machina
- Start date
This ship more than any other multi-crew ship does ask the question, can it really just be solo flown with a crew of NPC's. Not that you would want to fly alone as you'll always want a support wing depending on the area traversing, but the ship itself seems to be more suited than others towards a solo merchant looking for rare and exotic trinkets to sell to players. I can easily see explorers and salvagers having a working relationship with a few MM pilots whom they know they can get a good deal from without having to deal with trying to find other buyers. From the Kraken privateer, we know they intended to have the bazaar merchants be NPC with an interface to select their merchandise and prices and buy and sell orders. So really the only thing the crew would do would be the maintenance of the ship, security, and man the turrets.
Ploeperpengel
Space Marshal
But can the BMM make it in less than 12 parsecs?beer run
It's crew will run out of beer before then
well, it is the BMM ( beer millennium merchant ). its pretty much a blockade runner and with test as pilots and crew i am confident we can beat that record or at least crash into a sun while doing it
How else do you think you can get enough speed?
That'll be movie night, for inspiration. Along with Blues Brothers.
Not sure that's what they call it when you pick up the package but sure it's not like drake has a monopoly on questionable cargo capabilities
So does an MSR btw... people often forget that's what that cargo space that's hard to get to is all about. Cough. I mean sniff, sniff... "That's good shit, man."
Still trying to figure out how to dump the servers in the MSR and put in some dancer poles. No plans on running people transport for old men and their sniveling boys. It's hookers and blow all the time. Who needs data storage as that didn't work well for epstein.
Only if the beer fridge has run dry ...
Well I know just who to call if that ever happens. He's threatened to drop beer kegs from an A2. I keep saying you can deliver more in a C2 just by landing.
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
I'm not disparaging anyone. I literally do not understand the purpose behind roleplaying a job. I have a job.
I do have a 5e character who is a scribe and cartographer, and makes serious bank during down time scribing 1st level scrolls with metamagics included. Thing is, you don't actually roleplay downtime, so I don't have to actually roleplay working another job. That would be boring. I sit at a desk 12 hours per day writing. Who wants to RP that? No one, but you don't RP down time.
I'm not faulting players wanting to play trades, I just don't get it, unless of course you include dramatic trades like explorer, or bounty hunter, or mercenary, or ex military with PTSD who won't rest until all the Vanduul are dead. Those make perfect sense to me.
Oh, I can pitch in on this one, as a big fan of weirdly specific and typically overwhelmingly dull roles in games, plus the 11k hours of RP in a game where I often actually played roles that were effectively shopkeepers. It's largely a slice of life thing, but exploring the minutia of a character, even in their typically boring roles, can be really engaging when you look at it from the perspective of getting to know a role, getting to know a character and feeling like you're part of another world. In essence, sure it can be boring, but it's just as much about putting yourself in those shoes to see things from that perspective as the exciting roles. When you do it through RP and similar means it's not something that comes off the same as doing a job (insert Simpsons Yard Work Simulator joke here) so it ends up with a different appeal. Part of that is the psychology and gamification of the role and having no pressure to perform other than to appreciate how it all stacks together to work, essentially, for entirely your own goals rather than literally living and dying on it, much like how fun hobbies can become crushing if you turn it into a steady source of income as the inverse of that.
There's more to it, of course, and everyone surely has their own perspective as to why it works for them, but it's how I often see those roles, and it's why I'm often happy playing it up as a simple sightseer, space taxi driver, and general do-all be it exciting or slow and methodical.
You said it better than I do. A piece of the argument hits really close to home.
@Shadow Reaper
Combat adventures and exploration, the like, these are the things that brought me into the game originally - but they're not for everyone all the time. I've said before that not all of us can even do combat, and it's not their fault. There are enough people for example, with real life disabilities that impede that, yet they still play SC. I know this because I'm one of them, I have a lot of fun in the game despite that - but it does impede a lot of my ability to do combat now. So my fleet that was almost all combat ships, is now a more healthy mix for me. Yep I still have some combat ships, but I have others.
But there's more to it too. Just for example, following the Sons of Orion story line: Someone is going to have to pay for the supplies and work for the materials and fuel that will pay for flights into Vanduul space, otherwise nobody is going. That's how the game is going to work. So maybe running a trade mission isn't going to float your boat, but someone is going to need to pay for your expedition.
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