Weapons economy

[Amos.37]

Since the insurance system already exists, and weapons have a high selling price, would it be terrible to tie them into the insurance system? In the same way as an unregistered ship cannot have an insurance claim on it, maybe an unregistered/unlicensed firearm cannot either. Properly built small arms made with some kind of one-time use 'certificate' would allow them to be insured, which gives them a high return on value without needing to adjust its stats - especially given the current price of small arms (though that may change as they become craftable). On the other hand, unregistered/unlicensed small arms built without that certificate would be lost with the death of the endo, and enter either a fixable 'damaged' state, or despawning immediately without being able to be looted (or some other way of preventing insurance duplication - perhaps marking them stolen, like with ships). You'd have the opportunity for a black market commodity (unregistered or 'stolen' weapons), some high value cargo (weapon licenses), and a way to limit the proliferation of those nutty bazookas (insurance vs despawning).

I kind of like this idea. It adds a cost to crafting weapons, making them worth more.
It prevents them becoming super common. It adds a cost to death, especially if using uninsured gear.
It adds a form of blackmarket. Not what I was thinking, but still.
I could see this working.
It also doesn't prevent people from getting whatever weapon they want.

 

[PopeUrban]

All this licensed blueprints talk is an overcomplicated solution when an existing system could be leveraged in stead.

The simplest solution is to increase the materials cost of small arms and small arms ammunition and use the existing faction standing mechanism to handle smuggling and arms limitations.

You can still be a smuggler if YOU aren't licensed to transport or carry weapons in faction space, and you can still tie faction standing to that permission without all the overcomplicated nonsense of gun serial numbers and licensed blueprints.

Lets say faction standings work on a -10 to +10 system, and all the overt crimes drops standings, and all the doing missions for a faction raises standings. Standard stuff. You just tie weapon permissions in to that. Note that "weapons" in the following text also refers to ammunition.

*Faction standing below -5 (enemy of the state) shoot on site. Your spaceship can be legally attacked by faction members.

*Faction Standing below -2 (criminal) refused access at faction stations, not allowed to dock or use faction station services, can travel through faction space. Players at or beloy this status can no longer do missions to raise their standings, but may raise standings through other means (like attacking the other faction, or coming to some agreement in the case of player factions)

*Faction standing below 0 (disliked) diplomatic access only (you may not legally carry or transport personal weapons)

*Faction standing 0 (neutral) required to carry small personal defense weapons (Only equipped, and only certain types)

*Faction standing 2 (Ally) required to carry and transport military weapons for personal use (any weapon, limited cargo number of 10 weapons total)

*Faction standing 5 (member) required to manufacture and trade arms (unlimited number of weapons in cargo, can openly manufacture weapons)

*Faction standing 10 (maximum) required to purchase and operate arms scanner

Any faction member with an arms scanner can use it to manually scan cargo holds and players for weapons violations. If a violation is found that player has the option of reporting the violation or seizing the weapons. Reporting lowers the violator's faction standing relative to the severity of the violation and generates a time limited "Deliver weapons to the authorities" job. This job tasks the scanner with delivering the exact amount and type of illegal arms found to a station terminal, for which they will receive a reward in credits relative to the value of the arms collected.

It also creates an optional "surrender weapons to <player name>" job for the person that was scanned. This is a time limited job that requires directly trading the exact amount and type of illegal scanned arms to the player that scanned you. Successfully completing this job allows you regain half of the standings lost when the crime was reported. Completing this job also makes the "deliver weapons" job a required task for the scanner.

Should the scanner fail to deliver arms that were surrendered, they will experience standings loss. Your faction knows you collected illegal arms but did not turn them in.

This means you can smuggle arms if nobody bothers to scan your person or cargo, or if the person that scans you decides not to report it, you know, maybe because you bribed them, but only if you're not so low in standings they won't let you dock or fly through their space in the first place. It also means the scanner can be a 'dirty cop' through a number of creative arrangements involving exploiting the surrender arms mechanics.

None of this requires any serial numbers or limited weapon blueprints.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

I think it is important for people to remember that this is an MMO and not an RPG so like the Devs have stated it will be a player driven economy and as such there will probably be no or very little regulation. Its a game who wants to be forced to buy expensive equipment because its "Illegal to not buy licensed equipment" In any case all this licensing stuff just limits the number of players who can use this stuff to the rich people want to be having fun and limiting who can have the most fun is just asking for players to get annoyed and leave. Now I wouldn't be surprised if different factions gave out contracts to make equipment for them but individual players should and probably will buy from whoever is the cheapest or who they like the most

 

[Amos.37]

A number of people keep stating that this game is not an RPG, and no, it doesn't have set classes and roles and whatnot, but as a sandbox MMO with industry, economy and player interaction, I feel that most of the potential gameplay will come from people establishing and playing as 'characters.' They will set up roles for themselves. This doesn't mean a player can't swap and change roles whenever they want, but unless a player does everything themselves, there is going to be an element of roleplaying to the game.
It's not a straight up shooter, or dogfight game, there are so many more elements behind all that.
It is more of a society simulator, which is why people are discussing what rules said society might work on. These rules will most likely be set up and enforced by players, not in-game systems.

 

[Burnside]

That's not a weapons economy, that's blueprint gating. An economy would require variable weapons stats based on some crafting or weapons science attribute or attributes, preferably hidden to promote a more nebulous reputation system in the market rather than have it all be a numbers game.

With just straight parts, the economy is more in modules programming and ship designs than individual pieces until you get to mass industry and bulk orders.

ED: thinking more on it, what if Factions (not companies) could issue licensing/permits and any other Faction or Company could choose to honor or reject them- or even not recognize certain items as licensable (a "free state"). You could issue a license on a manufacturer basis, that is, only licensed producers would be able to create a licensed item, as well as issuing owner permits (licensed to own any of said item OR licensed to own certain grades or classes of legally produced products which have a manufacturer's license attached on creation), or a combination of the two. A licensed item could bind itself to the owner's CV and anyone not given access permissions found holding the item could be charged with theft. The advantage of licensing would be arms and theft control, or even something as tyrannical/monopolistic as controlling things like reactor or thruster manufacturing, or Tier 3 FCUs, etc. The advantage of not licensing is that you are more or less free to do as you please and don't have to worry about whether or not you'll be stopped for not having Empire-compliant batteries.