[IDEA] Ship Delivery Service

[imperium3]

This is just an idea for a script which I thought I'd float. It may be some time before I could actually get it put together, but I'd just like to harvest suggestions and opinions. Here goes...

Wee Jock's Industries Ship Delivery Service

In vanilla it is a pain to set up a fighter wing. You have to go to a shipyard which sells the correct fighter, and stockpile large quantities of the weapons needed (especially if the nearby EQ dock doesn't stock the right weapons). All this takes tremendous amounts of time and effort which could be spent on much better things like shooting Xenon or finishing the HUB (ugh... I'm still on the crystals).

What this script would do instead is add one command to the trade menu. This would get you in contact with the Wee Jocks' Industries computer system, which would take your order for the number/type of ships you want, what equipment you would like them to have and where you would like them to be delivered to. A carrier will then be sent to the required destination to drop off your ships.

Needless to say, as Wee Jock's Industries is a reputable organization you will only be able to buy ships/weapons which you already have the rep to purchase normally. Also, ships/equipment would most probably cost a bit more than normal, and you would be charged (as with hired TLs) based on the distance the hired carrier has to travel from the shipyard.

What do you think? Is this script worth my while to make? Suggestions/flames/slander* welcome.


*though if I were you I'd be careful with the slander, I hear LV's Force powers are stronger than ever these days.

[someone else]

Looks cool. And not so difficult to do (it is way beyond my skills though)

A guy that locates the ships and hands them over to you is feasible without "cheating in" the ships in imho (4-5 shipyards per race, at least one can sell the right ships).

the problem arises when you say "equipping them". I cannot find a SINGLE ISR or a SINGLE Gauss in the ENTIRE universe. And I'm smarter than a script (maybe not, surely more flexible though).

So the "equipment part" should be done by the Wee Jock's "Industries", i.e. that guy needs to produce the wares himself because no fab in the universe is in stock. You can cheat in the wares... but well...

Maybe you can add a "ware dealer" that can sell you stuff.

btw... another cool thing to have.... Xenon and Khaak ships (captureable ones) for sale. (at INSANE prices)

another thing... maybe having more than one salesman... randomly picked and each offers different things. (one specializes in "pirate" things, one in TS, another in M3.... and so on)

[Matterom]

you might be able to script in a new corp that sells and fabs most types of weapons. just place it in a worthless unknown sector then rename it to somthing corpy

[Fragile Ego]

someone else, it's amazing how much variation you can get from one universe to another. I had no problem finding 4 Gauss cannons for my Shrike and I capped 6 ISRs on some mission.

[imperium3]

Hmmm. Or even I could tie it to one of the existing corporations (Strong Arms? They are supposed to be weapons dealers IIRC). The trouble with adding a new corp is that (for me at least, and I can't be the only player that does this) Unknown Sectors are the prime target for complex building.

What might work is to have the different races of ships being sold by different corporations. So Split ships come from Strong Arms, Argon from Terracorp, OTAS from OTAS, etc. Only exception would be paranid ships which would have to be government controlled (since Duke's is a pirate organization). This would work imo and is in keeping with the game's backstory (as nearly all the corps are weapons dealers or shipbuilders). Weapons would have to be scripted in, as otherwise the script will strip the entire universe bare very easily, and I suppose to balance things they would have to be a bit more expensive than normal weaponry.

One really cool thing I could probably put into this script though is pre-prepared naming. eg you order a squad of fighters and you can choose their squadron name (Gold, Blue, etc) and numbering system (one, two three or alpha, bravo, charlie etc). Then the script would do the hard work for you. Certainly saves a bit of work if you have 50 fighters to name!

It's also easy to work out how far your fighters (in delivery carrier) would have to travel, as they would just come from the relevant HQ, probably by jumpdrive else they'll take forever to turn up. Of course you're paying for the distance .

btw... another cool thing to have.... Xenon and Khaak ships (captureable ones) for sale. (at INSANE prices)

A superb idea! Also maybe the occasional captured Terran (read: ATF) fighter as well. (I can't see the Terrans selling off their own stuff easily, paranoid as they are...)

[someone else]

someone else, it's amazing how much variation you can get from one universe to another. I had no problem finding 4 Gauss cannons for my Shrike and I capped 6 ISRs on some mission.

nope... I just depleted the stores a lot of time before... Gauss take years to manifacure, and rarely fabs have enough products to work at max efficiency. Same for ISR. Now i don't care, I have a couple fabs for each type of weapon that churns out things for me.

@Imperium3:
yep for reusing corporations,
yep for naming fighters,
not so sure on ATF... their fighters are "uncapturable"... if a Terran sees a Split flying in a Thor a lot of questioning will arise.

[Lifeforce87]

This idea looks great! It would be cool if someone is able to do that