Grismar
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.12.11 10:18:00 -
[1]
I don't feel the need to prefix what I'm about to say with a resume, since what I'm saying hardly becomes a better idea just because I'm the one saying it. If you want my resume, ask for it. That aside:
There is no incentive to leave Jita, that's the whole problem essentially.
Without introducing new 'technology' or services in the game, like the suggested trade networks or activating Interbus, the main motivation for people to do stuff is the availability of resources and the associated cost (in either time or isk).
If docking wouldn't be free in all stations, but would incur a fee, then people would think twice before docking in a system like Jita, if the price went up with the number of people that recently docked. The logic for ramping up the docking fee could be similar to that of S&I slots.
The fee can regulate itself, as long as it keeps ramping up when more people than desired dock in a given time and it can slip once a system quiets down again. With a system like this in place (for any and all stations, including outposts perhaps), docking in most systems in the galaxy will still be free, but in a system like Jita, it will quickly rise to the point of driving people out into cheaper systems.
It won't be bad for the market, because now there is an actual business case for traders to move stuff out of Jita: you pay a single docking fee for a Freighter, load it up with goodies and put them up for sale in a nearby cheap docking system. You make a profit, since people will save their Jita docking fee by shopping your in station, so they'll be willing to pay a slightly higher price.
Possible problems:
Artificial ramping up of docking fees in systems that don't have an actual problem. Imagine Goon Fleet getting all of their Ibises in a fleet and docking them all in some unsuspecting backwater system, instantly raising the docking fee for the poor, nooby locals to millions.
Or just some vandal spending a day docking and undocking in some station, just to pester the locals, burning some isk he doesn't know what else to do with.
Problems like these can be solved by properly designing the curve for ramping up the docking. For example: only make a dock incur a fee when you've at least left the grid the station is on (redocking would be free). Another solution could simply be in the ramping up being very slow; after all, Jita has to deal with tens of thousands of docking actions, not just a few hundred. With a sufficiently slow curve, the cost of driving up prices would be insane.
Just a final thought: the cost would have to be on docking and not on the duration of the stay or the undocking, since that might result in people not having enough cash in their wallet to be able to leave. You could think about making the docking fee be for 24hrs, automatically undocking you when you're unable to pay for your stay (which would put you in warp to the station when you were offline when it happened). But that will result in people abusing the mechanism to getting out of camped stations 'for free'. Anyway, that's just details, I'm curious what people think of the main idea.
Greetings,
Grismar.
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