This is a concept I thought about when I was last online a few years ago - but back then the mechanics did not exist to implement it.
Remember the good old days of 4.84? No mining, no POBs, no events, no equalised trade routes. Using FLComp people quickly found the single best trade run, then the circus rolled into town along that run.
Slaves/Cardi in the Sigmas
"Dianobium"
That brief episode of Harris Disease (running goods between the planet and the nearby battleship)
I'm sure you oldies can remember others! :-D
To be sure they were fun times overall - like a permanent ongoing event in your system. Craziness and action every day!
But there was a problem. The Circus overstayed it's welcome, other areas were starved of activity, nothing ever changed.
So the current best run was nerfed - only to have it replaced with the next-best trade run. The Circus moved on...
Jump forward to today. We have the Event System, where a fun Circus can be created at will, anywhere in Sirius! Amazing stuff, but requires manual control to implement each event, and is done on an ad-hoc basis.
So how about using the event system to generate a "Daily Special" or "Weekly Special" commodity run automatically?
What do I mean by this?
1) Every faction IFF has a primary trade route open to it. Even Police and military factions have commodities like Criminals, Prisoners etc.
2) Draw up a list of trade runs - one per faction IFF.
3) Generate an event to last a day/week that gives a cargo bonus to that run for the duration.
4) Profit
It's actually a very simple concept given the scope of the event system. Here are the key features:
1) Covers all factions. A faction might be lucky enough to randomly get picked twice in a row, but given the number of faction IFFs out there it's a low chance.
2) Generates and spreads activity. It is human nature (namely greed) to seek out the best way to make a profit. This system exploits human nature rather than trying to fight it, and leads activity around Sirius on a merry dance. Even factions with no server presence can be represented (Synth Paste anyone?).
3) Conforms to RP canon. The selected runs are picked straight from existing appropriate RP trade routes. If someone is hauling goods where they shouldn't be, they can be dealt with exactly same as they would be dealt with right now.
4) Automated. Provided it can actually be automated! I would propose trialing this on a randomly picked, manually implemented series of events to see how it goes first.
Of course there are aspects to consider when implementing this:
What cargo bonus should be applied?
Do only faction IFFs get the bonus, or anyone who can dock at the relevant bases and collect the cargo?
(01-09-2017, 12:25 AM)Friday Wrote: It's actually a very simple concept given the scope of the event system. Here are the key features:
2) Generates and spreads activity. It is human nature (namely greed) to seek out the best way to make a profit. This system exploits human nature rather than trying to fight it, and leads activity around Sirius on a merry dance. Even factions with no server presence can be represented (Synth Paste anyone?).
3) Conforms to RP canon. The selected runs are picked straight from existing appropriate RP trade routes. If someone is hauling goods where they shouldn't be, they can be dealt with exactly same as they would be dealt with right now.
4) Automated. Provided it can actually be automated! I would propose trialing this on a randomly picked, manually implemented series of events to see how it goes first.
Of course there are aspects to consider when implementing this:
What cargo bonus should be applied?
Do only faction IFFs get the bonus, or anyone who can dock at the relevant bases and collect the cargo?
So....what do you think?
If we want to get attention for factions with no or not much server presence, like the Synth Food with its Synth crap Paste example you mentioned above, we should restrict the Bonus to the IFF i think. Though, i don't know if someone is in the mood to set up a synth foods ship just to participate in an event for them. I guess a just a day event for Synth foods IFF'd ships are not that interessting. A week on the other hand would be interessting enough to set up a new ship for some people.