My feelings are this, as the Zoners are predominantly supposed to be independent of the houses and mainly trade based this is an excellent suggestion.
The name of the "cargo" in question should simply be Zoner workers, I think of the Zoners as traders and manual workers mainly, I see them in pretty much the same light as oil rig workers or engineers, out in space on distant installations tinkering with wrenches (not wenches Mal before you start!), andgetting their hands dirty.
As Gran is the only homeworld we have that would be any Zoners ultimate holiday destination and the place they are most likely go for a break so that would naturally attract the highest return, and likewise the farthest Zoner bases would have the lowest price for this commodity, i.e Freeport 6, ames, FP10.
N.B. As Zoners are predominantly anti-house, any workers would be unlikely to step aboard any ship that isn't at least a freelancer or ally's therefore only people with those id's should be allowed to transport them.
A few zoners does nothing else than: Zoning. travelling from port to port, with ,,rp loot,, like living persons in the (modified)cargo hold and just having fun on stations or Rping while doing so.
In most cases the ,,zoner passangers,, are refugees or their equivalents. People from different systems who decided to NOT live among their old shackles.
Why would someone become a ,,zoner,, if he did not born to that? Why?
a few answers: they got enough of their old place cause of problems/owerpopulation/lack of fun/too mutch fun and seeks for a spot what tehy can call own even if its only a gitano lf.
My suggestion:
fill up every imaginable problematic place (aka confront zones) with ,,refugees,, name them to ,,wannabe zoners,, or something but definately not ,,zoner workers,, (give scra ,,workers,, as commodity and leave the freedom of zoners- Yes Iron, maybe your zoners are dirty cog-workers, but thats not even 0.1 percent of the zoner population so....*shhhh) to let people escape from there and start new life. Explorers if you like the term better than refugee. But hell not Dockworkers and mechanists only. Not soul-dead people in brown and grey clothes please....
so: dozens of locations (in problematic or already zoner palces).
Please if its possible:Put not only 1 or 2 but several lille humans on the picture of the new commodity in colourful clothes (f.e.: put a refugee and a vacationer pack together add a tourist and voila' you have complete zoner family what wish to start a new life). And put dozens of locations where they could find a place, and remove the ,,highestprofitinnotime,, ideas.
(If someone wants to make huge cash there are a lot better alternatives than transing zoner refugees (aka. zoner passangers). Thisway the Zoner Passanger could stay for good and colourful rp commodity instead of a widely sellable VIP clone.
Ofc its not a prob if we will end with profit but still, it should be more than a ,,thing to transport,,
Sorry again for my bla-bla.
wish you good luck, and I hope you find a good sollution for most of the zoners.
Cheers and thanks for reading this crap-of-mine threw.
Dusty, even if you don't own a Juggy (neither do I) I would listen to you over a lot of other players. Not listening to others and forgetting to put the shoe on the other foot is a problem with the Zoner playerbase, so having non-Zoner input is something always needed; even if we don't like it. Though, I will admit you do confuse me at times.
I am indeed saying no return trip. A person leaving Gran Canaria with the intent to resettle back in house space is no longer a Zoner at heart. As you stated having them end up on most of the Freeports isn't really a good idea because a Zoner Whale or BWT full of them would use all of the stations supplies within the week. However, Gran Canaria and the two stations in Omega-50 support large populations.
I am essentially saying:
FP 6/2 (starting points) -------> other FP (medium profit) --------> Gran Canaria/Boa Vista/Porto Novo (highest profit)
This brings life to two of the dead Freeports and ties into other trade routes so that you don't fly empty or with extremely low profit cargo to another station. It also allows you to transport the passengers as filler cargo at times.
Xoria didn't ask for suggetions for names but I guess giving ideas isn't a bad idea.
Zoners. Zoner Immigrants. Zoner Refugees. Zoner Passengers. Something generic. Zoners come from all walks of life. Military men and women, farmers, shipyard workers, miners, diplomats, politicians, businessmen, not so legal types, technical peoples, scientist, researchers, actors, exporers. You name it, you can potentially RP it as a Zoner. We are a smelting pot of peoples. So something generic is a must.
I hear what you're saying and I think that the spirit of it is fantastic. An agreeable route which provides incentive for Zoners to move from one freeport to the next would be a delight.
However I just have a hard time conceptually with the idea of doing it with people. Freeports have, according to their bit of infocard anyways, such subdued populations.
Technically you could evacuate the entire population of a freeport in a pair of Dromedaries... Let's not combat the logic of that right now though lest we go mad.
I guess if I just ignored the oddity of a base with a population of 250 spewing out thousands of passengers every few minutes I would be able to get over it, smile and say "right on yeah!"
Aye, your points are valid about the people living there full time. However, we can't forget that the RP of a Freeport is that of a trade hub, there will always be far more people on board than it can house full time. Refugees awaiting a transport to god knows where, a people shopping in the trade quarter, pilots having mechanics one over their fighters, diplomats having meetings there, etc etc. All in all, there is always a high number of temporary people on the Freeports.
One can RP that the load of passengers I just picked up at Freeport 2, had booked tickets with me weeks earlier. They found their own way to the Freeport, my business with them is getting them off the cramped station and to Gran Canaria.
My statements are my opinion however, I am keen on seeing what other faction and indie Zoners think and how they feel. I am also curious as to how we managed to acquire such a perk? If it is to keep us more in the border worlds, I thank the dev team.
FP 6/2 (starting points) -------> other FP (medium profit) --------> Gran Canaria/Boa Vista/Porto Novo (highest profit)
This brings life to two of the dead Freeports and ties into other trade routes so that you don't fly empty or with extremely low profit cargo to another station. It also allows you to transport the passengers as filler cargo at times.
This seems to be the consensus so far, both from Zoners and other erudite contributors.
I welcome any further comments.. would be nice to hear from the Trading Consortium and other Z-Indies on the matter. But, as it stands, the scenario above seems to be the most logical, and reasonable.
As to the conundrum of Freeport populations, we of necessity "suspend belief" in dozens of other ways daily to play this game we so love. Just one more incidence of "getting away with our Reality", it seems.
I'd go with Canaria and FP9 (or FPXV, right next to each other) being the dropoff points, with all other Zoner stations selling them for a price based on distance to those two dropoffs. Best route in this commodity chain should be Erie to Canaria, as Zoners will want to be leaving Erie for Canaria, due to Liberty's annexation of it.
I just think having two dropoff points would be better than just one, and it'd allow people to have a varied trade route, instead of everyone going to the same place, some can go to GC and then take one of those export routes, or to FP9/FPXV and take one of those export routes, depending on which they prefer or is better in-RP.
Posts: 2,122
Threads: 244
Joined: Oct 2007
Staff roles:
Quote:Canaria and FP9 (or FPXV, right next to each other) being the dropoff points, with all other Zoner stations selling them for a price based on distance to those two dropoffs. Best route in this commodity chain should be Erie to Canaria, as Zoners will want to be leaving Erie for Canaria, due to Liberty's annexation of it.
Secondary routes show the rate of return going to the alternate destination.
Secondary routes are entirely dependent on the pricing of the main routes, and cannot be changed independently of them.
Check out my Trade Development Blog
for all the latest news on Nerfs and Final Nails, or to request trade changes.