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Cargo Ships Are They Needed?

Majestic

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I need some opinions here. Do you the members here think that cargo ships and trading stations are needed for a multiplayer only mod?

I am not sure whether we should include them or not as currently I am going through the races and seeing what we need to complete and completing them.

The Klingons, secret race and Federation are almost complete shipwise so that alone should show how busy I've been these last few days. :lol:

I would really like to hear the opinions of anyone who wants to add them. :)
 

Jasoneagle

Drive'n Electriction
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In my personal experience I only build (for Instant Action as well as Multi-Player) Trading Posts and Ships for completeness of the Ship station List, to have at least one of everything Built.
 

Lord_Trekie

Bah Humbug!
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I would, it adds another objective to the game, and what else could you use a K7 station for? :rolleyes:
 

Jasoneagle

Drive'n Electriction
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True, and if they had some more things reliant on them, Like a new ship type other than Just a Trading ship maybe new miners or something of the sort.
 
S

StarBlade

Deleted Due to Inactivity
Former MSFC Member
I need some opinions here. Do you the members here think that cargo ships and trading stations are needed for a multiplayer only mod?

There are three good reasons for keeping the cargo ships and trading stations in your mod:

- There are no other ways to trade resources between players;
- They generate latinum through the Ferengi cargo ship (I changed mine to a Merchantman a looooong time ago) and you need latinum in order to build anything worth the effort (battleships, advanced research etc);
- If there's ANY map in your mod where you can mine latinum as easily as the other resources, it's not realistic-- latinum's great worth comes precisely from its considerable rarity; finding it on every given battlefield in copious quantities doesn't make sense, it'd be like trading in grass....

Ultimately you're going to want to work in cargo ships, even if you use an unarmed or downgraded version of the frigate for the role.

:D
 

Majestic

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We have some of the cargo ship models as well as the trading outposts already made so it's not an issue of models. The only downside is in YY there is no latinum, it has been replaced by a resource as there are four resources required for construction of each vessel/station making resource gathering more important to the empire you are playing.
 
S

StarBlade

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Former MSFC Member
there is no latinum, it has been replaced by a resource as there are four resources required for construction of each vessel/station making resource gathering more important to the empire you are playing.

It can be latinum by any other name, even biomatter by any other name.... you've still got the hard-coded cargo ship process in play, and the need to move resources from one site to another in multiplayer. You can have four resources or forty-seven, and they'll still have a relative value in trade. And you can specify in the tradingStation.odf and cargo.odf entries what's up for trade, etc., so there's lots of flexibility in that regard in the game engine. There's no reason you couldn't work in specific traders hauling different items-- deuterium fuel vs. metals/minerals vs. dilithium, each using the same base model with different colouring/effects on the hull or something.

Plus they represent a really nice target for 'commerce raiding'. And some campaign missions (are you leaving the campaign as-is or working on mission modification as well?) require cargo ships in order for the scripting to work.

:D
 

Majestic

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It can be latinum by any other name, even biomatter by any other name.... you've still got the hard-coded cargo ship process in play, and the need to move resources from one site to another in multiplayer. You can have four resources or forty-seven, and they'll still have a relative value in trade. And you can specify in the tradingStation.odf and cargo.odf entries what's up for trade, etc., so there's lots of flexibility in that regard in the game engine. There's no reason you couldn't work in specific traders hauling different items-- deuterium fuel vs. metals/minerals vs. dilithium, each using the same base model with different colouring/effects on the hull or something.

Yeah I have changed the tradingststion.odf to trade TMP era goods and not TNG ones. Thanks for the suggestions I will certainly look into it, I might after all keep the cargo transports and trading outposts in game. I don't use them much but it seems many here do. ;)

Plus they represent a really nice target for 'commerce raiding'. And some campaign missions (are you leaving the campaign as-is or working on mission modification as well?) require cargo ships in order for the scripting to work.

:D

Commerce raiding... hmmm sounds like a nice idea. :)

As for the campaign, we originally had one but I have decided not to worry about it now for the A2 versions and save it for the RTS game version we will be making afterwards.
 
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