Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If Amazon can sell me millions of books from the comfort of my home, why does this game require that I go physically pick up my skill books and then lug them around in a separate system until I am ready to read them?

Here are my proposed changes to the skill book system:

1. Allow for them to be distributed 'electronically' such that they could be purchased from anywhere. Ideally, corps/sov should be able to control what books they offer in their own space/stations and the pricing under which they are offered.

2. Allow players to inject any skill book that they own. Having to carry around books for future injection is an unnecessary pain and it screws with a character's ability to build a skill plan. I have plenty of books that I have to remember to go back in and inject once I've trained the prereqs. I've also bought books at good prices that I've had to keep in storage for ages until I could inject and then I have to remember to carry it with me whenever I move for when I'm ready for it.

Thanks!

No.

Lore reason:

As Komi said... these aren't "books" as you know them. Think of them as USB sticks... except you plug then into your brain.

You will always want the "hard copy" of the data at all times because it needs to be as accurate as possible.

Sending the information via wireless signal opens up the danger of the information being intercepted (either by random natural phenomena or other unsavory parties) and being corrupted.
And you don't want to risk downloading incorrect data into your brain when you are flying ships the size of skyscrapers that can lob antimatter shells, plasma streams hotter than the sun, and nuclear warheads the size of Volkswagens.

As for injecting all skills you own... nope. You can't start on Applied Physics until after you have fully understood basic math.


Gameplay reasons:

- Providing skillbooks in remote places is a niche market for some players.
- Having to go to empire space and ship these books for yourself opens you (or an ally) up to risk so you can't just sequester yourself in some far flung corner of the map.
- It forces you to plan ahead rather than Ctrl-A on skill sheet, drag to queue, and Apply.
- Not everything should be ultra-convenient or on-demand. You want something? Go get it! You planned ahead but now you have to lug around your "plans" with you? Boo hoo, tis the price of planning TOO far ahead. This may be a game... but the game is based on overcoming conflict and difficulty (or exacting conflict and difficulty on others).