I am not for locking yolo at all. Mostly because good code should cycle through the player base. Forcing people to innovate if they want to stay ahead of the curve. The other reason is because without a method of getting the enemy code in game. Players will just take their espionage outside of the game. Which just breeds animosity amongst the player base. Capturing ships should come with the yolo. That's not to say you can't protect your yolo by making sure it blows up with the ship. That should be part of your design consideration. That said i don't think shared ships should yield the yolo. The ship owner should be the only one capable of changing the code.
Not allowing shared ship yolol to be editable by mon owner.. and preferably not viewable, is a step in the right direction..
Arguments for why code should be unlockable can be equally applied to ship bp..
Eg.
We should be able to just click on any ship and have a button "copy ship bp".. this would mean good design is cycled through the community and players need to keep designing to stay ahead of the curve
The buyers market will devalue ships with locked yolol significantly.. so good code+ unlocked ship code +good ship will be worth alot, thus plenty of incentive release code
There will be economic value to selling code unlocked.. so unless the code is bleeding edge and adds enough value to counter the loss in profit it will most likely see the light of day quickly
No locked yolol will REDUCE what is available.. to think that a coder will invest significant time to produce something that can be ripped off is naive.. the yolol coding will thrive more with locked yolol, coding could become an actual professsion in game.. unlike now where a coder could at best be a labor slave to the rich ship designer whose work is protected as a product.
Locked yolol equal MORE stuff created and MORE on the market
Starbase rules:
14) You may not publish, make available, promote, or otherwise disseminate any blueprint, YOLOL code, or other in-game user-generated materials, documentation, or information without the express permission of the original author.
While the rules dont explicitly prohibit a pirate from using code he obtained via pirating for themself... they could not share it with freinds, sell it, etc... without breaking the rules
If we get to the point of company wars..The war time company to company espionage and animosity will already be at maximum.
Companys currently just dont share the code or systems outside the company
If there was locked yolol the rest of the players would get access to better stuff
I'm in the collective.. I have been advised to never sell or give anyone the code from my valuable systems (blackjack table, poker table, etc. )
Perhaps they will be safely installed in safe company locations for internal use only and destroyed/removed at the first sign of threat..
But never sold to outsiders because the code could be stolen so easily.
And for now, because not so usefull until game gets rolling, I will never even print a single copy
Which seems sad, because if people had in game things like these, and there was a community of professional coders creating and selling this kind of stuff, it might help the game grow
My tables could be used to hold poker tournaments, run casino nights, or just give people something yo do in game while hanging out at a base
But if I sell even one copy I'm an idiot, all that work and I will get nothing in return...
in this a game of economic competition
ship designers are protected "your creation is protected and marketable as a product blessed child you create valuable products worthy of market rewards"
But yolol coders are treated like trash "your creation gets no protections.. go work as a slave you piece of garbage.. good code has no economic value as a product"