Freighter exploit and millions of civ cash

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

ORIGINAL: Shark7

The simplest fix is to simply disable scrapping or gifting of civilian ships. Exploit fixed. Then again, this takes away a diplomacy tool from the player (ship gifting). In other words, a catch 22, you fix one thing and break another.

Of course I will always fall back on the 'Don't use it in the first place' fix myself.

Honestly, it was never a problem till now, probably because most of us either didn't think to do it, or didn't complain about something we chose not to do in the first place.

Or simply remove all control of the civilian ships. They are civilian anyways. Why should you be allowed to gift them? Retrofit them? Scrap them? They are not under the player's control.

That way it would at least require some work with frequent design changes to exploit their cash into the player's bank account.

To be quite honest I can see the point or exploit as it were, but you would lose an awfully large amount of resources unless you constantly check the menus for there cargo, either that or lose the resources, personally I would not even think about. Tried a few last night, and the work needed far outweighs the returns, and you use up resources to replace the merchant fleet, so no, not a good idea in my book.

Darkspire

[Bebop Cola]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Or simply remove all control of the civilian ships. They are civilian anyways. Why should you be allowed to gift them? Retrofit them? Scrap them? They are not under the player's control.

That way it would at least require some work with frequent design changes to exploit their cash into the player's bank account.

In my opinion, from this perspective one should wonder why the State gets to design civilian ships at all. I mean, that's not how it works in our world for the most part. The State can set certain guidlines(safety, fuel standards, etc) that the private sector has to work into the designs, but the State isn't handling the design itself.

If we're going to sever State control of civilian ships, design should go out the window as well. The extent of State influence should be on the order of requiring them to use caslon for fuel, and what limits are placed on offensive and defensive systems.

[adecoy95]

im not seeing the exploit honestly, humans can perform this action with their unique government type anyways i believe.

[elanaagain]

Not seeing the exploit? The idea is this: when you ("I am the state") need cash, just scrap (or give away) a bunch of civilian ships. Then the AI will order new civilian ships to replace the ones that are gone. The civilian sector (run by the AI) has a target number of each type of civilian ship that is to 'exist' based on current empire's population, number of colonies, and number of space-ports (did I miss anything?). Of course, the building of new ships transfers cash from the private sector to the state (player) sector.

[Ob1ivion]

It still takes resources. Its not like its just free money. You're boosting your money while crippling your supplies. Doesn't really seem worthwhile to me.

[DarkThug]

Crippling your supplies and private sector's money. It's not like the money is pop up from nowhere.
You simply transfer the amount from private account to state account at the cost of all resource your freighters are carrying.

I don't think we should be restricted from scrapping civilian ship. I foresee more issues that way.
The problem here is that Private sector usually swim in money. So implementing this "exploit" is of no ill effect.
Robbing money from Private sector should cause severe consequent, potentially killing your own private sector off.
If we can somehow fix this. People will think twice before doing it. Only then this exploit will truly be "fixed" or rather "balanced".

I actually agree with paShadoWn here that it's a good practice to have game mechanic prevent us from doing so.
Of course we can control ourselves from abusing it but that doesn't mean the game doesn't need any fix.
This issue is, however, not high on priority. I believe there are way more pressing issues to be fixed first.

[feelotraveller]

Compared to retrofitting bases this 'exploit' is laughable. It consumes resources, ties up construction yards and restricts transport (not to mention the drain on fuel).

Really if you want free cash just open up the editor.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

Compared to retrofitting bases this 'exploit' is laughable. It consumes resources, ties up construction yards and restricts transport (not to mention the drain on fuel).

Really if you want free cash just open up the editor.

Yep, like I said before this is a non-issue, and the easy way to fix it is simply not to do it.

[Gas Can]

This actually brings a vary interesting aspect: A wealthy private sector should help boost your empire in many ways.
(1)They tend to spend more money on Space Stations and Luxury Station.
(2)More kids, cause they can afford it.
(3)More tolerant towards temporary high tax rate.
(4)Private patrol ships that only flies within the empire territory and is not controlled by the player.