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//The other night as part of a diplomatic initiative, the barge delivered 25,000 slaves to Malta. There was a wide array of Outcasts there and needless to say, 25,000 free slaves given right at the planet moor was pretty exciting and welcome.So I wanted to point out one of the potential impacts of the barge--the ability to actually bring trade leverage into the game.

Flying the barge is time consuming, frustrating and tedious. You have to actually want and like it to be able to put up with it. I think the majority of players will say, "Meh" and walk away an hour after flying one--though some will adapt quickly. So we have the possibility of multiple barges flying about. On the down side, there will be the opportunistic "power trader" (I don't care for the term but I'll use it to make the point). The worst case scenario here is the one who silently plods 14 hours a day to amass billions to finance his import power playing friends.

Most of the barge routes are not any faster (usually slower) than a regular run. For example, in dense rocks, I average 1km per minute of speed. Docking a rocky field system gate near a close gate lane can take 10 minutes or longer if a lot of NPCs populate the system near the gate. Some bases are difficult to dock and can take upwards of ten minutes to finally complete. Missed jump hole and system gate docking attempts leave you stuck in cut scenes and require an F1 to clear (eventually you time out if you don't and a minimum of a minute is wasted waiting to come back). It takes three minutes charge to reach cruise and speed is reduced to 18kps (from the usually brisk 25, hehe) while you do so. Cruise speed tops at 264kps and your cruise can be disrupted as easily as a Rhino. Enemy and friendly NPCs have a tendency to fly toward you and "drift about"--colliding and throwing you off course. Breakable components of NPCs, mined ore or jettisoned commodities can 'stick" to your ship and pivot you like a lever or freeze you in place at no more than a crawl.

All that said, a few routes can probably be found where a repeated, robotic circuit can make cash fast. I think in time those will be identified and then they can be interdicted by hostile players. The frequent lane disruptions make it hard to "pull a fast one" as do all the things I detailed above. So on the whole I think the big impact will be a few "regular" players who actually have in RP routes and activities going--and these are the ones who can impact RP.

Hardly make any profit as a merc because the pay is low and the time great to escort. But imagine a barge captain offering a percent of the payload. Now imagine he is delivering it to a faction that eagerly awaits the infusion of cash when he arrives and distributes it. Suddenly, it IS worth escorting and protecting the thing. Or imagine the Outcasts getting snippy and telling the Junkers--"Shove off". The Junkers shrug and say, "Fine...no more barges of slaves for you." or tell the Corsairs, "No more supplies", etc. Factions that just don't care to make the effort to work in RP can suddenly get an incentive to do so. I had tried to approach the GC and got pretty psychotic and hostile responses on the whole. I cut a deal with a Dragon group and as soon as I was done they tried to hijack the cargo. Now let's say I bring another attempt at diplomacy and the same occurs..."Fine, kiss future shipments here goodbye--cya."

The barge actually brings real economic diplomacy into the game--something we mainly had to "pretend" at before. The same can be done with convoys by legal shippers--say guarantee so many runs and if the profit is at a certain level you pay a bonus to the faction who's base its being delivered to...or to the escorting faction--you get the idea. The barge has a tremendous impact because one shipment can have a huge impact and is enough profit to cover multiple players being involved.

Now Corsairs and Outcasts and the like can get their own barges but they have hostiles to contend with an players who will eagerly wish to intercept them--not to mention all the time away from fighters and bombers and cap ships required. More fun for them to protect the barges and get paid than to make the runs themselves and simply become slow traders. lot of potential.

My current recommendation? Drop the resale price of the barge to ONE CREDIT. This will make people think twice about getting one and can only help cut back on "barge spam" (which might not even happen). We might even have a day where "barge convoys occur". barge captains could lease their ships--lots of opportunities. Throw in on top of this the simple imaginative Rps you can do with them and you have a pretty good potential here.

I'm asking for some destructible cargo pods to be added to the barge to provide even more RP options. Intercepts in matches or arranged fights could be set up with parameters like, "There are passengers/hostages aboard--destroy the cargo pods but not the vessel. If successful, then the specified cargo would have to be given away. Or say, "If all cargo pods are destroyed the barge can no longer move"...whatever you can imagine.

So hopefully this will help advertise what can be done (as well as warn about some of the cons). Comments welcome.

Endorsed. This offers a huge opportunity for all the players involved; everybody can make some money (including those poor jobless mercenaries) and it generates some honest-to-god RP. I think I'll add a Barge section to the 101st Handbook for good measure in case we ever get another shipment like that again, in fact (I hope we do). We ought to develop protocols for dealing with Barge deliveries and such, systems for organizing delivery to the ground and the return of funds to the Barge. Good post.

' Wrote:Endorsed. This offers a huge opportunity for all the players involved; everybody can make some money (including those poor jobless mercenaries) and it generates some honest-to-god RP. I think I'll add a Barge section to the 101st Handbook for good measure in case we ever get another shipment like that again, in fact (I hope we do). We ought to develop protocols for dealing with Barge deliveries and such, systems for organizing delivery to the ground and the return of funds to the Barge. Good post.

I'll try to make it a regular run but when my set up Rp is complete, this one will be parked in PR:(

Admins allowing, I'll save for one more and that one I will use for the above on a regular basis (I know tricks for flying it now--and hard earned to darn it!).

Thanks for the feedback. It was actually really fun doing it.

*bump*

...because I can.

You have landed a barge on Malta? Does it not state that one is to avoid planetary landings no matter what?

' Wrote:You have landed a barge on Malta? Does it not state that one is to avoid planetary landings no matter what?

Didn't land--parked above the planet and passed out the rewards. landing on a planet in the barge is the Hotel California--you can check in but you can never leave.

' Wrote:Didn't land--parked above the planet and passed out the rewards. landing on a planet in the barge is the Hotel California--you can check in but you can never leave.

...I want to sig it, but then my sig would be oversized D:

No, when delivering a load on a barge the only way to do it is to enlist the help of whatever large-cargo'd vessels are floating in orbit of whatever planet.

I like this Idea...
The Barge for all:)

One suggestion would be to restrict the docking capability of the barge either by
- make the barge capable of docking on a very few stations - perhaps only on Shipyards
OR - making it impossible to dock anywhere (the player can then F1 in space - not an ideal solution)

This way, the player operating the barge cannot do independent trade runs, so no OORP noobs flying barges.
Else people might just do in-system trades with minimal margin per commodity but will yield large profits based on volume.

With this change, the Barge will require possibly 2-3 teams - 1 for loading materials from bases, 1 for security along the trip and 1 for unloading materials at destination.
Besides, from the design of the barge it appears that it was meant to serve this purpose - Much like an Oil tanker rather than an oil truck.

If this is done though, the cargo capacity might need adjustment - so as the captain can pay off the Loaders, Unloaders, Security and not to forget - insurance:)

I am somewhat against the no docking feature--though I understand the sentiment. At present, not docking planets is a very neat feature--as in the Malta trip. Enough of that is already built in. The simplest way is to have a role play review to make sure that the rp of the barge is ongoing or remains compatible with the initial request. So if you said, "I want a barge to do diplomacy with the Outcasts" and all you did was power runs over and over for six months, the admins could rescind your permission.

But there are things people will want to do that would require landing it on occasion and I'd hate to cut that out as it cuts rp potential back.

Those in factions often respond with, "You could have this person do that and these do this", etc. but a lone player may not be able to always have three other players on to help him.

I sailed to Alpha alone--solicited my help from players I saw on the way and made rp with the ones I was able to get there when I arrived. If I had needed other players at every step, I'd have never left dock. Using the barge shouldn't require a skype contact and scheduled event. You should be able to hop in it and drum up business.

As a Junker I have a good possibility of places to dock and lots of RP opportunities. A Zoner would be even more able to squeeze things out as far as profits go. So a defined rp needs to be presented when the barge is gotten. It shouldn't just "be there"--it should have a pre-stated reason and the logic of its operation should be compatible with that.

My character is a diplomat building a task force to oppose the Wild and is using the barge to help finance the fleet (haha--the barge and one ship) and more importantly, to impress and win over allies to his cause. The ooc news is after that's established, I'll use the barge to draw rp to Puerto Rico. and then maybe be part of planned events as well.

As long as the admins have a structure in place to "pull the license" I think we can let creativity give it a try. I'm being very careful to document every trade I make in this along with the reasons for them. So you can read "the story" and see everything I have done in my particular barge.

I've been careful to mine or loot ,most of my cargo and usually made myself dependent on the cooperation of others to successfully do it and I have selected cargoes for role play purpose--not just cash. Primarily I am trying to cover costs. I'll have enough cargo value aboard to cover the cost of a capital ship when I am set up fully. So it is expensive for me.

I also like the idea and intention of the Barge. There are great opportunities for willing role players to interact with this leviathan of a ship.

What I could imagine would be the following:
The last weeks we had this faction discussions coming up, about the rights and so on. I can remember that Dieter offered to give a CapVIII armor to factions which established. ALG for example has nearly no need for such a armor buff.

Why do not let the faction leaders decide, what they want: an armor upgrade or a Barge.:P

If the faction barges are used at all would be up to the faction leaders respectively the co-leaders. In my humble opinion this would give the trade factions a buff, which suffer (at least ALG) from constant personnel shortage.