As more, and bigger, ships are added to the range it must come to a point where someone has a huge cargo hold and can just fly around making loads of money. Now this is not a bad idea with a single player game but it causes a few problems in a multi player game.
The large ships are hard to control (mass and maneuverability)so forward facing cannon are next to useless.
Multiple weapon systems (turrets) need to be manned.
There is no limit to the profit... upgrades... etc.
My thought is that, for larger ships, you need crew. You can pick up crew from three places...
1) the adverts on the computer system (like wing men)
2) the bar (another option here for some characters)
3) do it yourself ... or become a crew member ... fly a mission by piloting or manning a turret on a large space frailer belonging to someone else...
there is a lot of AI already running in this game it would not be much of an overhead to put a little of that AI to use manning a turret gun or flying the ship while you shoot the hell out of bandits.
In a multi player game a player can then crew/fly wing man for another player!!!!
But crew come at a price... good pilots/gunners will demand a higher percentage of the profits made from the trade run. There is always the chance of a mutiny and the captain, you, having an "Accident" with an air lock ....
.... so getting good crew, the best food and good accommodation will help.Working this way anyone who just wants to "trade" can fly a large ship with a good crew and not have to play the "shoot-em-up" side of the game so much.... unless they want to go for high profits and fly to dangerous planets with minimal crew!!!
Any thoughts?
All the best
Iain
