I'm pretty sure this has been discussed somewhere, but I couldn't find where, so I'm sorry if this is a repost of an old, old question/idea.
What about a Manufacturing Ship that can turn basic items like "Basic Alloys" into other, more complex, items? The concept for this ship provides for alot of in-game Roleplay opportunity. You could contract Corporate/independent traders to bring you commodities, which you could turn into (manufacture) complex-items which could (in theory?) be "sold", via the trade screen, back to traders. I really think, that this would add some much needed dynamic economic elements to the game. And some military aspects, too, (escorts would be needed, as a Manufacturing Vessel would not be very heavily armed).
To expand upon this idea, and what it might look like, i'll throw out some random ideas on how to prevent abuse...
Make the process somewhat difficult.
-In the same fashion as "armor upgrades" take a certain amount of cargo space, have a "Manufacturing: High-Temp Alloys" module that "allows" the action on the ship, opening up a /manufacture (or something) command. Make this "module" specific for ONE kind of item, like High-Temp Allows or whatver the end-commodity is. Not sure whether to allow multiple modules on single ship.
-Require all items for manufacturing. For the above example (and feel free to tweak/expand upon the needed materials, this is definitely a ROUGH DRAFT) of High-Temp Alloys, require say 1/5/10/whatever Basic Alloy, and 1/5/10/whatever Copper, 10 units water, 3 unit oxgyen, and so on to create 1/5/whatever units of High-Temp Alloy.
-Require special "catalyst" commodity. Like "Industrial Solvent" or "Molecular Resequencing Gel" or whatever. Make this commodity relatively expensive and difficult to obtain. Only with the catalyst will the manufacturing process work. (Perhaps, make these particular commodities non-transferable, if that's possible, so the Manufacturing Vessel itself has to buy a supply, not sure how to work that, exactly.
Think of all the possibilities with this. (reasons why you might need these new goods, beyond just "potential profit")
Are you from X group/faction that can't buy Y commodity because it's only/mainly sold on hostile bases? HIRE TRADERS to ship those goods to you so you can manufacture your OWN luxury consumer goods or ship hull panels or High-Temp Alloys on a (most likely, ridiciliously expensive) (M)anufacturing (V)essel.
Corporations like Ageira/DSE can pool faction resources, by telling employees to bring X & Y & Z commodities to a M.V. that produces Gate Lane Parts for current gate-construction projects around Sirius.
Or
Say, as a wild example, you wanted to get a colony up and running... and that colony is on the FRINGE of Sirius, and it's hard to get food shipments for the planet/base/colony, so it's impractical to have food shipments all the time, have an "Manufacturing: Hydroponic Farms Module" to produce Food Rations, or Synth Paste or whatever.
Or
"Manufacturing: Ore Smelting" for mining groups to produce finished metals on-site (just a thought)
Or- whatever you think of! What's your idea?
Some quick issues that I'm sure will be brought up. Questions. (That I don't necessarily have the answer to)
-I'm not sure how our wonderful development team codes all this stuff so I'm not sure if what I envision, (or anything close to it) is even possible. What are the technical/specific obstacles to this?
-What sort of reasonable limitations will be placed on the M.V.'s themselves and the way characters acquire them?
-Is this Corporations only or indepedents and unlawfuls that are capable of this? (mixed feelings on this one)
-Is this something added (the modules) to existing ships or an entirely new ship type/model? (my idea definitely leans towards new ship)
-Should these ships be Special IDs/Special request? (limited number)
-What items and in what ratios would be required?
-How can abuse of this possibility be limited?
really where my thought came from. I was playing my Junker Char today, in a Debris field, thinking to myself.. why isn't there a way to turn all this scrap metal into say, Basic Alloys? And then I just expanded it to make it potentially workable for several factions.
I think this has alot of in-game and alot of roleplay potential. Opening up alot of new possibilities , especially for group cooperation. Useful for inter-faction roleplay, (Like Synth Foods deploys it's M.V.:Synth Paste/Food Rations to the site of a new Zoner colony while supply lines are established)
I know these are all really rough ideas, but I'd personally really like to roleplay one of these Manufacturing Vessels. I'd really like to see this happen! So even if it's still in it's crude form, weigh in everybody (or point me to where everyone already discussed it). I want to hear why you love this idea! I want to hear you hate this idea! I want to hear how you think we could make it way better then I ever even imagined! :-)
Abuse can be limited merely by making the group effort a must. However, i see this as a very good idea. /Summon cannon
IF this is possible this would add some good RP.
Another direction you can go with this is specialized mining ships that are able to process ore into the final version.
Another idea, that is similar to this, would involved the trading of VIP's, tourists, and vacationers. Maybe, assuming you take them to the sites they want to see you can change tourists into happy tourists and they sell for more value wherever you are going. Happy tourists can become very happy tourists. If you take them someplace they don't want to be, say Omega 11, they can become angry tourists and are worth less. This would also discourage transports that are oorp to haul these types of people since those types of ships would not recieve the benefit.
"Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to accomplish something."
-Thomas Alva Edision
This idea was employed over a few other RP servers back then, worked sufficiently. Could be a potential solution to the current lolcap problems. But you'll never know unless you carry it out. I'm sure an idea like this was proposed earlier on Disco but didn't pull enough people.
Well I am definitely hoping more voices will be raised, and that the important voices are encouraging. Whereever those voices are...? Busy people, to be sure, so I'm being patient. Please everyone, I really want your input and feedback. I think this could open up whole new worlds of possibility with a few (god I hope) simple and easy upgrades.
I definitely like the Ore-to-Final Product concept! That's a great starting point. Balance-and-fairness (AND RP!) should be paramount. Considering the already beefed mining bonuses (I haven't yet made a miner, although I plan to, to check out new bonus/ore system). In private discussion with other players, I really agree with them that these manufacturing vessels should be RP-driven and impossible (or extremely difficult and time consuming and less productive) to use when not collaborating with other characters.
Not only will this concept bring factions together towards collective goals (primarily:"profit" for corps or "infastructre development" or "Ship components for war construction" in the houses) and, thereby, collective and focused intent-RP. But it will also bring together the independent traders, escorts/mercs/f-l-ers for logical, appriopiate in-game RP, Most of those indies being, the newbies and neophytes, with little understanding of the complex economic nature and complicated political webs of Disco. Bringing them into group operations not only encouraging faction growth by default, but improves possibilities for dedicated indies to work collectively toward mutual (and individual) goals.
I guess, in my heart, I'm really, really hoping there isn't a good, logical, reasonable and thoughtful reason why this -can't- work. Because if there is I'll just have to accept it. But be brutual everyone. Or just chip in more ideas! Let's add just another layer of depth to our beloved Freelancer Discovery :-)
I realise this topic is a little bit old now, but I was unable to post any replies when it was fresh, due to a new user registration. So I'm going to post my thoughts now.
I am extremely new to Discovery, but I have spent a few hours going through the old multi page posts, and getting a general feel for the strength of the community as a whole. One major gripe everyone seems to be talking about is the fact that nonrp-independents tend to power trade to raise a large amount of cash, then purchase High Powered Ships and Equipment and begin to terrorize the server as a whole, never coming close to anything that can be considered Role Play. I've seen a few suggestions put forward such as Capital or Battleships requiring a faction to be purchased, with the obvious draw back being the loss of a large portion of the server population and the potential death of a server. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this basically where we've stalled. We all know what the problem is, but no one can agree how best to correct the issue.
This brings me to the revival of this dead topic. I feel that Manufacturing vessels could add a whole new dynamic to the game, and encourage independents to RP with factions. This is how I see it working.
1)Have 2 different classes of Manufacturing vessels. Smelting/Processing and Advanced Manufacturing. These ships would need cargo holds of about 10,000-20,000
2) Tweak Bottom Line Prices of all Minable commodities, raising them slightly, just enough to make it extremely expensive to purchase the Materials yourself, but still cheap enough for traders to continue.
3)Make a Manufacturing ID, and require it on all Manufacturing ships, make it so Manufacturing ships cant tractor, and thus cant mine on their own. They can have Others mine for them however
4) Require over 6000-10000 of each base unit prior to manufacturing, to force players to work together, this way more then one transport is required to get the base materials. (IE: 10,000 Basic Alloy to make 5,000 High Temperature Alloys)
5)Allow the Advanced Manufacturing Ships to be able to make Class 10 Weapons, either slightly or significantly improved versions of those commonly available to the independents. If it was possible, it would be neat to make ships too, but I don't think that would be possible.
If we were to implement something like this, Factions would be able to give Independents a bloody nose, due to their improved weaponry. They would be able to turn raw ore into Higher paying commodities for increased revenue. And, if the independents really wanted the high end hardware, then they would have to make a few friends and work together for a common goal, which in the end is what we want out of them anyways.
I hope its not presumptuous of me to post something like this on my 2nd post, I just really like the communal feeling on these forums, and I'd love to help anywhere I can.
I'm bumping this thread because not alot of people gave me feedback on this idea. I'm still really interested in it and i've yet to hear why it couldn't be possible in some shape or form. And I've yet to hear someone say it -wont- or -will- be done. So please chime in people.... purty please?