I've been trading awhile, and i've racked up some cash. quite a lot in fact.
so im faced with a dilemma. do i buy a cap8 armour, or do i start a bank.
banks have tried and died in the past, but i think i can make this one work:
Collateral.
if you want to borrow some cash - you need to give me the account codes to a ship of yours. If you don't have a ship that can cover the amount of the loan, then you need a friend.
A guarantor. A faction leader, or a good buddy.
of course, there will be the usual caveats - the OWNER of the ship signs the loan. its up to him/her where the money goes.
the money must be paid back, with the interest by the specified date, or the ship goes on the forums - where it can be bought by the highest bidder. failing a sale, the ship will be scrapped, and the guns sold to code-dealers, and the armour and ordinance sold to whomever.
The owners of the ships can rest assured that i won't sell the ships unless i absolutely have to - cos otherwise its a bunch of paperwork that i just dont want to do - and they can also be assured that the business will be built on trust - as soon as there is the whiff of nefarious dealings, then the whole bank is sunk, cos people just won't take the loans.
to that end, the loan amounts will be higher than the value of the ships, but lower than the value of everything if i split it up.
i'll be interested in all sorts of loans - from tiny little ones requested by new players to get them started, to big loans for people to hire a barge for a day/week/etc.
However, i know im missing something though. i know its exploitable, somehow. but i can't see the wood for the trees.
Quite a good idea! Banks can add good rp in game and in forums..but the guy can simple take your money and movechar his ship from the account in your possession.. but as you said its a business of thrust.
A hint i give to you try a bank with low size loans(for new players) all times i GIVE them money as start up they insist to pay at all cost. I think it can work that way.
Well better for the person to give you the collateral, which will be returned with repayment. Of course this means the person taking the loan is put out for the time period it takes to repay. This should only be done for larger loans though. I have just seen to many people get screwed doing this. Talk to flash for horror stories. I do however loan people just starting out all the time. interest free mind.
Try a base as a bank to store your credits than how you gives loans depends on how much they want so maybe 1-20 mill will be something like if they dont pay back they get bounty on their heads and something like big amounts like 20-200 mill can be movecharacter code and you store the ship on a bank account which you can have as many as you want and higher well you can think of that ^_^
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it's been tried before, also with collateral, but my impression is that it makes the process very tedious. You'll have to make sure that those codes correspond to an actual ship of significant value and so on. You'd have to spend time verifying stuff like that.
in my opinion the best scheme was the one used years back by the collectors - have people vouch for the person taking up the loan (guarantors), and if someone can't come up with two decent references (and its totally up to you if a reference is good enough) then it's just too bad. this way the work is on your client, rather than on you. and you get a similar level of security.
its hard to strike a balance when in the loans industry: either you are a blood-sucking vulture or you end up running some kind of charity where the amount of hours you put in doesn't correspond to the profit.
I found your loophole:
You have no idea what ship the guarantor is giving. Could be a Starflier, wouldn't know until you get behind the seat, which is -after- the movechar command.
Now assuming they -show- you the ship. What's to stop them from changing that ship into a Starflier? Sure they may lose a few credits in the process, but that amount is offset by the loan which they will just take.
I hope I found your "missing holes". Loaning is dangerous business.
That loophole can be closed by verification of value of ship - easy to do, just wander over to a ship dealer and press 'buy ship'. it will give the actual value of everything on it. will take five minutes, if that.
i will also move the character to one of my accounts, so they can't rob the collateral away until the loan is done.
I also had a further idea - Savings Accounts. Paying in money into the First Sirian Bank means that you collect the interest - the more you deposit, the higher the rate of interest.
Long-standing customers would also be eligible for loans at preferential rates of interest. I.e. invest when you have the cash, and then when i see that you are a normal player, when you need to hit me up for 100m, i'll look upon it more favourably
In time, i also hope to be able to assist governments and beleaguered factions by issuing 'War-Bonds' if they need to raise cash fast.
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Since you don't have the force of law backing you up, you're going to end up unhappy if you enter this intending to earn a return on your investment. If you do this as a form of roleplay, fully accepting that it may cost you more cash than it earns you, then just look at it like operating a capital ship: it's a way to roleplay that may also costs you cash, but the experience is the reward by itself.
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force of law - no more than any other player here. there are sanctions for 0.0/1.2, and they've been meted out in the past for those who jacked off loans. I was intending to RP as a loan shark anyway, but with more reasonable and realistic rates of interest. IF i do this, then i might stipulate that only a member of an official faction can act as a guarantor for loan amounts over a certain amount - that way i have a fully set up, repped and tagged ship to sell back to the faction if the indy does a runner.
but you have given me an idea.
setting up ships for new members to a faction can be an expensive business - $40m easily, if you include codies, guns, snacs, armour, sheild, CM, CD etc etc. I could act as a bank, lending money to the recruit to set up their tagged ship; dealing exclusively with official factions (yeah, i know, factionlancer) would give me some protection from scumbags
Capital ships MAKE money - just take high level missions, and sell the credit cards/fit a jumpdrive and become a bouncing zoner
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