Trading

posted on February 24th, 2013, 10:40 pm

One thing i really miss from the old armada 2 game was trading with your allies via trading stations and trade ships. I used to have nearly a fleet of trading ships with escorts going to and from my allies base, I find it more realistic this way than instant trading and it opens up more gaming strategy in online games for instance are their moons so fortified raiding is not an option? Well go for their trade routs they cant defend half the map and their trade ships would require escorts. You could make the trading ships rather costly so losing them would be rather harmful to one's economy so they would be worth protecting and make tempting targets for your enemies. Imagine if you came across a convoy loaded with tril and dil that's meant for his ally and you where to capture those resources not only would his ally not receive them but you would get say 1500dil or whatever they where hauling. For each trade ship that docks you could receive supply bonuses as well as small amounts of tril and dil its your mod you could always tweak it for balance but just an idea. Or instead of buying supplies from your star base make trading to get supplies there are many options. DS9 was all about trading and I would love to see it in the mod if possible. I would however for balancing make a limit to one trade station per player and it would have to be in close proximity to their starting point star base so they could not build the trading posts right next to each other. We have many ships classed as escort they kind of need something to escort at least in my opinion.

posted on February 25th, 2013, 9:23 am

I agree, I miss trading stations

posted on February 25th, 2013, 1:16 pm

i like the idea of npc trading stations dotted around the map, it would have to have a large no build radius tho.

dont know how the borg would deal with it tho

posted on February 25th, 2013, 2:53 pm

You wouldn't need to do anything for the Borg, they'd most likely ignore them.

posted on February 25th, 2013, 4:40 pm

I already thought about the borg they get that structure I forget what its called as I rarely play with them. It converts supply into dil and tril which they get free from incubation centers and not just that but they can upgrade 4 mining ships to get even more dil and tril for free, the other factions need something. If the developers think it gives the other races to much of an advantage then they could make it to where the borg could capture those convoys and used like the mix tech yard to unload whatever resources they capture or even stranger allow the borg to trade I am not opposed to it but it would be kinda strange to see the borg trade. If they where to implament this though I dount for realism the borg would trade but they could perhaps give that station that gives free dil and tril for supply more effect to balance the game so the other races can trade without causing any unbalance in the game, no race should have to much of an advantage I can understand that.

posted on February 25th, 2013, 10:29 pm

Issues with trading in Fleet Operations:

1. Players involved in the trade get unlimited Tritanium as STA2 gives Latinum as a currency and Tritanium replaces Latinum. Supply should make a good replacement resource.
2. Tied with issue 1: Dilithium and Metal are traded for Latinum. Collective Connections replaces Metal in Fleet Operations. Collective Connections are useless outside of the Collective. The Latinum resource would have to take the place in the trade menu of the Metal resource and Latinum is the metal used by Fleet Operations.
3. If issue 1 is resolved, players will have more Supply than they can deal with. Imagine after say 5 runs, both players have 5,000, maybe 10,000 supply each. They would need some way to use this supply as quickly as it's coming in.
4. Tied with issue 3: Assuming no visits from the Ferengi, players would literally be getting infinite supply from finite supply. Something that is scientifically impossible!
5. NPCs never give useful resources. Not even on very rare occasions. Making a small probability that you could get some useful resources should deter you from attacking NPC freighters.

Issues with some of the suggestions:

1. Sometimes, putting up a trading station near a base is not a wise course of action, particularly when the base is under attack. Trading stations should be allowed anywhere.
2. The more trading stations that a player has, the more income a player receives from nearby sectors. Allow multiple stations per player and see how the strategies turn out. It could be detrimental to the player to build multiple trading stations, seeing as how the player could easily run out of Supply while buying Dilithium and Tritanium.

posted on February 28th, 2013, 10:14 pm

For one I said small amount of supplies per freighter not unlimited say 5 supply per freighter so u would need many to make an impact and a limit to one station per players so they cant get unlimited money. It should be by the star base thats the point so there is a good distance between ally trading stations so the convoy can be attacked thats the idea. I was thinking in addition to receiving 5 supply per freighter maybe 25dil and 25 trit keep it small the trade is just supposed to be a addition income not something to rely upon as a sole source. It needs to be raidable so each freighter would require an escort. This opens many new stratagies for online play and would make the game more interesting in my opinion. This would also eliminate a problem in late game after I research my tech I always have a crap load of trit and very little dil being able to trade trit for dil even at a very high exchange rate would be useful and visa versa.

posted on March 1st, 2013, 7:02 pm

^I could totally go for that. Great idea.

My little addition would be that when you build a freighter your main outpost/starbase sends out a squad of fighters to escort it. If the freighter is destroyed then they either fight to the death(Klingon/Dominion) or they flee back home(Federation/Romulan). Ofcourse the Klingons and Romulans would just use true fighter varients of their scouts.