Fwurg

[Mercury]

The IO Protocol will, at some point in the near future, be rebuilding their Open Market Zone to something more useful. However, since I have three trade fleets and only two are supported by my base planet (the third requiring the Open Market Zone for support), what will happen regarding my third fleet when I remove the zone?

[Brend]

I would say that the fleet ought to be destroyed.

This may sound harsh at first, but the reasoning behind it is as follows: if the fleet only goes dormant, this will be a strong incentive to simply refurbish over your open market zone when the fleets are not necessary. Afterwards, when the fleets are needed again, you refurbish back to Open Market Zone (with Industrial Services Repurposing).

I think that the 'requires an Open Market zone' condition for fleets should have some weight beyond 'when in use'.


Maybe we should have a way of merging trade fleets together (with some loss of capacity and a cost)? I see green fields of new technological developments!

[Elmer]

I think that the 'fleet will be destroyed by default' is a reasonable and valid rule. After all, when the fleet cannot be supported, the fleet will fall in disarray due to lack of maintenance and such, and over time you will have a space ship graveyard. And as Brend says, this is a nice area for technologies.

[Mercury]

I considered a reclaiming fleet mechanic, but the Trade Hub makes this technology needlessly powerful, which would likely set the cost too high to be usable for me (I can just buy a new trade fleet). I will deliberate on what to do with this next and possibly get back with a proposal!

[Brend]

I considered a reclaiming fleet mechanic, but the Trade Hub makes this technology needlessly powerful, which would likely set the cost too high to be usable for me (I can just buy a new trade fleet).

Actually, this technology has also been considered in the trade hub thread... The same thing happens there: people might want to merge fleets (at some fee).

I do not think that the trade hub should be used as the calibration point for techs like this, since it is really madly powerful. The thing is, even if the actual trade hub project is not allowed, you can still set up an outpost with 10 open markets zones and simply offer trading services to everyone -- so that scenario has actually existed since the inception of the outpost as we know it T_T

[Mercury]

I'm mostly looking at my own situation where we're talking about a single 500 capacity trade fleet, which simply isn't that big or valuable, and hence won't justify a large investment to save.

[Brend]

Fair enough. Though a lot of people have 'small' (i.e., 500-1000 capacity) fleets that will be outmoded purely by the existence of the trade hub.

[Chriz]

This technology can still work, would be best if the merge cost is based on the smallest of the two trade fleets you merge. The technology itself does not have to be expensive.

[Brend]

Or the cost involved is not necessarily but a small amount of and time?

[Mercury]

I'm actually very late with this, but I came up with a potential project. It seems to me like this would be reasonable.

Fleet Mothballing

When a trade fleet is unsupported by a system, it is normally destroyed. Fleet Mothballing prevents this from happening. You cannot use your trade fleet while it is mothballed, until it is once again supported by a zone.

The cost to mothball a fleet is 1 per of the fleet being mothballed. Note that you have to pay this cost each time the fleet loses its support. Once the fleet has support again, it can be reactivated for free.

This would allow me to store my trade fleet away for 500 , and it cannot be used until a new open market zone has been built.

What do people think?

[Elmer]

I think the tech and special project are cool and useful ideas. I also don't see how it is broken. I don't know about the price, but since this is not powerful in my opinion, I think the price of the special project is fine. And the price of the tech don't have to bee expensive either. Maybe in the line of 500 is good enough.

[Mercury]

I was currently envisioning this as working without a technology, as it seems to me like this is a basic function that was simply lacking in the current system. However, I'd be curious to see what others think on this.

[Gerben]

That seems fair, I can agree with the arguments as presented by Mercury. However 1 / seems a bit to steep for my taste.. 500 does indeed seem more reasonable.

[Brend]

My proposal is to have a very simple technology to enable the project, and to give the project a fixed cost:

Orbital Hibernation

By placing a series of vessels in a parking orbit and disabling all non-critical systems, the longevity of the vessels is greatly increased while lowering maintenance costs.

When a trade fleet is unsupported by a system, it is normally destroyed. Fleet Hibernation prevents this from happening. This technology enables you to hibernate your trade fleets. You cannot use your trade fleet while it is hibernating, until it is once again supported. Furthermore, a hibernating fleet can not be upgraded.

The cost to hibernate a trade fleet is 250 , and the use of 1 Orbital Capacity while the fleet is hibernating. The orbital capacity is freed once the fleet is reactivated. Note that you have to pay this cost each time the fleet is hibernated. Once the fleet has support again, it can be reactivated for free. Both hibernation and reactivation take 1 to do.

Cost: 500 / 1
Prerequisites: Compositional Pattern Engineering

[Brend]

Since there's been 1 week and 6 days o silence, I'm going to assume that people are not against this tech.

I'll put it on the wiki in the weekend of 26-27 september.

[Brend]

Done and done: Orbital Hibernation.