Loans/Fines Autopayment

[Ripheus]

Having a great time with the game, it's a better game for free than a lot of things I've paid money for.

That said, something's been bothering me and I've been trying to put my finger on it. The same white-hot rage I felt when I discovered 'Death Benefits' returned with nuclear fire when I was fined for illegal wares by Republic ships who were themselves intruding into Free Worlds territory. I had an epiphany and figured out what the problem is.

The problem is that the installment payments on fines/loans/etc are made automatically, every jump, without your permission. If I'm a pirate king who scoffs at the authority of the Republic, who never GOES into Republic space, the idea of a fine from them is something I should be belly-laughing over.

What's currently happening. You do bad thing. You get a fine. The fines automatically garnish your wages with laser accuracy and follow you across the galaxy. How? My plundering money is dissapearing into thin air because of unpaid parking tickets from the other side of the galaxy. How?

Here's what should be happening. You do bad thing. You get a fine. The fine appears in your Bank screen. You can choose not to pay it. Interest piles up, your credit rating goes to crap, and you don't care because piracy is a cash-only business.

So two questions. One, has anyone modded anything along these lines. Two, if I have to do it myself, what's the most fair way to implement it. Obviously a poor credit score means nothing to most players, so should it also start negatively impacting your ability to accept transport goods quests? What else? Maybe worlds you've conquered are the only places you can still get a full range of quests? Post your thoughts below.

[Wrzlprnft]

It requires source code changes which go further than most content based plugins we have so far.
I don't know if someone has modded it, but there certainly was a discussion about it. If i recall correctly it ended up as : of course should a pirate player be able to ignore any fines. On the other hand, the republic or another authority is probably just going to freeze his/her/apache helicopter account. So, you wpuld not be able to use most outfitters and shipyards. Additionally to reputation changes.

I do like the cut of quests idea, but i guess a pirate player does not do them except maybe bounties.

Something like this may be supported in the vanilla game at some point, so if you are honestly going for it, you might want to check on github or mailthe dev about his thoughts.

[Blork]

Won't making Death Payments a choice be a bad idea?

[Ripheus]

Originally posted by mandheersingh02:

Won't making Death Payments a choice be a bad idea?

Probably.

We'd need to make unpaid death payments hamstring your ability to get new recruits.

[Amazinite]

This may have just been me being unlucky, because I haven't been able to reproduce it, but the first time I missed a ton of payments and got down to 0 credits because of all the debt I had piled up, I found myself encountering a lot more pirates in human space, even in the Paradise Worlds and near Earth where it's suppose to be almost pirate free.

Maybe have it so that refusing to pay fines causes bounty hunters to come after you much more often, possibly the bank doing some shady business to try and get their money back.

[Mr. n]

Preamble: I'm not opposed to the idea and I'm not trying to shoot it down. I'm all for meaningful gaming choices :)!

That being said, in real world the Galactic Bank would have frozen your account (or, conversely, just take money from it in parts as it does now on Republic's authority). You block someone's Visa and suddenly they're not a billionaire any more when they go abroad.

Payments could stop when you are leaving the human space, but you shouldn't be able to use them to buy outfits from aliens as well.

[SneakyLilBastard]

I would like to have seperate accounts for the different areas of the galaxy. Then the bank screen should have the option to change between currencies for said areas. If you gain to much negitive banking in one bank system you lose access to that system and thus no shipyards/outfitters and/or add in garnishment when you do convert between. I would love to see all ships/outfits available everywhere but the prices be based on some metric from its presumed manufactured location. what costs X where it is made is 10, 20,1000x etc where it would be hard to ship the items into. This could tie into pirate activity and if to many shipments go missing then prices go up.

[Ripheus]

Originally posted by Wrzlprnft:

republic or another authority is probably just going to freeze his/her/apache helicopter account. .

Originally posted by Mr. n:

frozen your account.

The problem with this thinking is that if the all-powerful government can instantly ground any ship (which would be the result of not being able to pay your crew) then this is a universe where no piracy, nor war, can happen.

The government would just instantly zap any opposition.

Since piracy and war still happen here, cash must still exist. Or enough independant e-banks that the pirates can still do their thing.

[Blork]

Originally posted by Riph:

The problem with this thinking is that if the all-powerful government can instantly ground any ship (which would be the result of not being able to pay your crew)

Slave children?

[jafdy]

Originally posted by SneakyLilBastard:

I would like to have seperate accounts for the different areas of the galaxy. Then the bank screen should have the option to change between currencies for said areas. If you gain to much negitive banking in one bank system you lose access to that system and thus no shipyards/outfitters and/or add in garnishment when you do convert between. I would love to see all ships/outfits available everywhere but the prices be based on some metric from its presumed manufactured location. what costs X where it is made is 10, 20,1000x etc where it would be hard to ship the items into. This could tie into pirate activity and if to many shipments go missing then prices go up.

This has been noed by MZ. #667[github.com]

[Mr. n]

Originally posted by Riph:

Originally posted by Wrzlprnft:

republic or another authority is probably just going to freeze his/her/apache helicopter account. .

Originally posted by Mr. n:

frozen your account.

The problem with this thinking is that if the all-powerful government can instantly ground any ship (which would be the result of not being able to pay your crew) then this is a universe where no piracy, nor war, can happen.

The government would just instantly zap any opposition.

Since piracy and war still happen here, cash must still exist. Or enough independant e-banks that the pirates can still do their thing.

That's a very good point.

I would like to know the official, lore-friendly explanations for this paradox.

[Amazinite]

Originally posted by Mr. n:

Originally posted by Riph:

The problem with this thinking is that if the all-powerful government can instantly ground any ship (which would be the result of not being able to pay your crew) then this is a universe where no piracy, nor war, can happen.

The government would just instantly zap any opposition.

Since piracy and war still happen here, cash must still exist. Or enough independant e-banks that the pirates can still do their thing.

That's a very good point.

I would like to know the official, lore-friendly explanations for this paradox.

This universe doesn't have only electronic money tied to the bank. Physical credit chips still exist.

[Mr. n]

You would still have to use an ATM somewhere to get them out of the Bank (that's subject to the Government) in the first place, wouldn't you?

[Wrzlprnft]

Umm.... No.
If people trust in it so it keeps it's value, it can be used as money. Be it rare minerals, actual money-just not official- or processing power(like bitcoin and ether).

[SneakyLilBastard]

The concept of a credit chit confuse's people with the word credit. If the money is phyicaly loaded into the chit then it acts just like hard currency. Who ever holds the chit owns the money (just like hard currency today). That would be needed to keep goverment X from cracking down on dissent

[Blork]

Originally posted by mandheersingh02:

Originally posted by Riph:

The problem with this thinking is that if the all-powerful government can instantly ground any ship (which would be the result of not being able to pay your crew)

Slave children?

Pirates use slaves and children as their crew.