Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Ever hear about piracy? Of course you have.

We cannot have the real version made famous in stories, however. GOLD was their prized target.
And why? Because transactions in those times was based on gold.
Gold was often most vulnerable when being transported.

Gold on a spanish galleon, enter the high seas pirate to boldly steal it!

Gold on a train moving between cities, enter the train robbers who snatch it in the desolate part of the tracks!

Our ISK is stored electronically. Immune to theft.
Sure, you can take the things ISK purchases, but not the ISK itself.

It is, in opportunity killing ways, safe.

But what if some regions decided to change things around...
Let's suppose region Heimatar is growing envious of the ISK flowing into 'The Forge'. The Forge has Jita drawing all those buyers in, and paying those amazing brokers fees, and other marketing costs.
Now, Heimatar has some activity, but they feel too much of the ISK being earned there is going to 'The Forge'. How can they hold onto some of that, for their own profit?
Then it came to them.
Pilots are paid in stations where they sell their mission loot, or sell refined ore, even bounty tags.
(In this case, mission bounties are paid at a player designated station, just like their med clone is at a designated station)
What if transferring that ISK elsewhere invoked a fee?

See where this is going?

Now, with fees on transmission based transfers, ISK funds become localized. Need funds at the trade hub, to buy supplies?
Then you will want someone to transport the ISK, (securely of course), so it can be at the trade hub, and still avoid the larger fees.

ISK could be monetized for security from counterfeiting, but the demands of making it proof against this force a standardized version to exist.
Million ISK cells are the minimum transfer amount to be considered worth the effort between stations.

Transfer requests can be done overnight, for a small percentage fee.
Amounts UNDER 10 million ISK are automatically insured against theft during transfer.
Amounts OVER 10 million ISK can be insured for a premium. (Amount to be determined by balance aspects)
(The transfer of UNINSURED ISK could be a potential target, but should be difficult as noone without a massive fleet should attempt a hardened convoy like this, balance encounter for risk vs reward)
ISK that has been insured won't be possible to intercept, as most of that insurance went to pay for Concord to move this. (A small amount was profit out of that too)
Concord does not explain to outsiders how they do this, but some are guessing at specialized jump drive tech...

This makes it practical to consider large amounts as directly withdrawn from one place, and directly moved by the player themselves. No cost to transfer or insure, but the player assumes all the risk of transport.

What if you still need to use remotely stored ISK, possibly for emergency purchases?
Lets say your ISK is not in the local region. For a higher percentage use fee, a transfer can be made. These emergency purchases must sometimes be made, they understand this, but expedited service gives the bean counters an excuse to charge more.
(CCP would simply place a fee on ISK used from other regions, making it worth the effort to move the ISK or buy locally to avoid it)

This allows player effort, especially on corporate levels and higher, to avoid fees; Effectively benefitting the owners of the ISK in question. As always, an element of risk is present.

Ideas and comments?
(Thanks to Gizznitt for pointing out the need to redo the OP)

Gold wasnt transported as the main commondity associated with piracy though any form of it was obviously prized by pirates.

The practice of transporting goods at every stage of a vessels journey was important and still is today to maximise the profits from a ship moving at all, as such the gold would be used to purchase these goods for transportation. Thus commodities useful to the destination as trade would be transported as the main prize on ships for piracy as opposed to vessels with chests of gold.

And at one point salt itself was an invaluable commodity. Trade in it was extensive.

The Roman empire at points paid their military in this manner, according to some texts.
It is where the phrases,"worth his salt" and "salt of the earth" came from, as descriptions of people who had value in society.

It would also promote a counter action of traders moving items more to where ISK was, as much as the reverse.
This, as you may have noted, will result in commodities traveling more, and thus being exposed more to piracy too.

Small shipping corps may find industrials suddenly more worth buying, to ship goods to ISK rich areas not considered today.

Interesting notes on smuggling.

Here is my view on trade, and I find it passes logic tests.

Trade hubs exist due to a common aspect of convenience.
Type 1: It can be convenience for shipping / manufacturing, like Jita is.
Type 2: It can be convenience to ISK location, like my idea would cause.
Type 3: Or it could be isolated from authorities who would prevent commerce, such as a smuggling hub possibly inspired by your concepts.

Right now, we don't really have anything but the first version, since ISK magically follows us around.

We have a couple of the type 2 instance reversed, in that they are buying loot from missions or ore from mining local to where they are sourced. This gives the seller a poorer value for the items, but saves them time of taking it to the trade hub where they would likely get higher value.

Now, if ISK became localized by my idea, trading specialists would be competing with each other to buy these items at the type 2 source hubs. This would get them products to resell at higher value at the type 1 convenience hubs.
This would mean players who mined or missioned for loot would get a better return at the local sale.

We don't live in the ancient past and we do not travel on the high seas. The whole idea behind currency was to make tranactions more convenient, to allow the sales on consideration (future actions or promises), and to secure property. You aren't suggesting removing ISK.... right? Property already has to be moved in game.. that can be considerable risk. I see no reason to mess with this aspect of the game.

I wonder if you want the other parts of real piracy like the fact that they didn't sink the ship. They wanted the sailors to KNOW they would be ok if they would just give up. Plus they could not take all the loot, only the few best stuff would go, the rest they would let go on.

Also, when it came to a head to head battle, they almost always lost. Many times navies would set out bait ships that looked just like the pray....how about a hulk that has big guns on it that you can not see until it fires? how does that sound?

no in fact i believe that your hacker argument is not really valid either, the banking system is mostly secure, hackers are playing at the edges.

1.) Isk is already subject to theft from shared wallets.

2.) Isk transports sound wonderful, but really add a unneeded level of complexity to the game.
--- Where is collateral collected and dropped off? Where is the payment for the contracted collected/dropped off?

--- Moving becomes much more difficult. Bringing your POD is not good enough... you have to bring isk too, or else you can't pay to upgrade your clone, you can't pay the shipping of your goods, and you can't pay for goods on the market!! Essentially you can get stuck very easy!!! I see lots of recruitment scams now that destroy peoples skillpoints, not just their ships.

--- Third party transportation becomes much more difficult. If someone makes a big journey (imagine JF needing all its fuel to get from point A to point B), and forgets their isk, their ship could easily become stuck. They couldn't buy anything off the market, becuase they don't have any isk with them.

--- Seeding markets for your corp becomes much more annoying. I have billions of goods for sale in my corp's home system. Transporting goods in and out is annoying enough, forcing me to transport isk back and forth too adds a lot of risk cost.

--- All of a sudden, the money you earned in one region of the game can't be used in another.

I realize that many entrepenuers will step up and provide funding services that reduce the annoyance of many of these activities, but overall I don't think this added level of complexity is good for the game.

I don't think this will be good for the game. Why don't you start smaller... make it so NPC bounties are no longer paid out automatically!!! From now on, to get the "bounty" on a ship, you have to collect tags from the wreck, and deliver those tags to a concord office to get the bounty. This will essentially have the same effect of what you're asking... and most players will despise you just for suggesting it!

Good points here, and I will do my level best to answer them smartly enough.Well, that is true. You refer to more like embezzlement than genuine armed robbery, but I agree it could be called theft fair enough.

I do not advocate making each individual station completely separate. As long as you are on good terms with your stations, you can still purchase as you do now. (Player owned stations can block access to services, I won't presume to remove their authority)

Let me be clear here, you can buy items from your station anywhere in your region. I would not remove that ability. Just remember you already need to fly over to those stations to pick up your goods too, it won't deliver itself. For a finance fee, I can see same region remote access to your funds. This fee would be barely noticeable, but still present as another ISK sink. You can always buy from your home station for free as usual. Think of each station as a bank, if you use the ATM of another bank, they can charge you a fee for the convenience.

Now, outside your region, you can't see the markets or buy goods. I would extend that your ISK is not present either.


You make strong points, and argue them well.

I feel this will cause many markets to become localized within regions. Convenient trading hubs will see both goods and ISK hauled over regularly.

I expect some logistic oriented corps or alliances will act as a balance between the separate markets, bringing goods to where the prices show the highest demands.

I think the initial effect may be like you say. But I think too that we will see someone notice a chance to make shiny profit, and find their happiness filling a role like this.

I expect the end result will be more convenient than not, with each region ending up with it's own version of Jita, and Jita itself fading into being just a regional hub.

Now, I fully expect the million ISK cell to be the standard monetary unit.

Possession is 100% of the law. By taking your ISK cell out of the station hangar's safety, you assumed full responsibility for it's present and future ownership, in that noone else can be blamed or held responsible. ISK cannot be destroyed in transit, so it will always be dropped by a wreck.

Paying off pirates or smugglers? noone cares.

So, let's say due to details, that the basic size of this million ISK cell equates out to 1m3.

A shuttle could hold 10 cells, or 10 million ISK. Of course, you can transfer that amount with free insurance for very little.

Now, that might sound like a large size for ISK. But the gameplay mechanic is what I am considering.
(We could simply say that each ship has an ISK hold of comparable capacity to the cargo hold, the ISK itself being trivial is relation to size)

The more ISK you are moving, the bigger the ship. Now, specialty ships may be created just for this, but I am referring to existing models exclusively at this point.

You destroy ransoms with this suggestion!

I also, we already have "demand side" economics (as you mean it). This is why most people sell their stuff in "market hubs". When I build my stuff, I don't put it on the market where I built it.. I move it to so it's within easy access to my customers. All this suggestion does is limit the areas you'll find isk, essentially destroying convenience sales (which are typically the most profitable).

Think of it this way, compare a person that purchases their goods with a bank card vs the person that purchases their goods with cash.

-- The person that lives by bank card, carries their card with them. If they are low on gas, they stop and buy gas at the closest store. If they need food, they go to the closest convient store to buy goods. If their car breaks down, they call a towtruck and have it fixed... right away because they can pay right away. They always have their full buying potential, meaning they can afford the costs of convenience.

-- The person that lives by cash only will only carry so much cash on him at once, as carrying "lots" is a big risk. They are limitted in what they can purchase by what they brought with them, which significantly reduced their buying power. If their car breaks down, and they don't have enough isk on them to repair/replace it, they are S.O.L. (even if they are filthy rich).

In EvE, the cash only player has many, many issues. They often can't take advantage because of good bargains they happen upon, assuming those bargains cost more than they brought with them. They can't repair a ship in station unless they bring enough isk with them. In a roaming gang, if you lose your ship, you can no longer stop by the random station and buy a new ship because they wont' have access to their isk!!! If they get podded to station in which they don't have assets, they can't upgrade their clone, they can't change the clones station, and they can easily be stuck!!

None of these are good things. We want people buying new ships as convenient as possible when they lose their ship!! We want people to pay extra for convience!!! The only way they can do that is if they have access to their isk the moment they need that convenient item!! You essentially limit a huge part of the economy (convenience market sales) so you can loot isk from wrecks. I'm sorry, but I don't think this is a worthwhile or acceptable tradeofff!!!!