Settlements self-sustaining?

[Coops]

We have quite a lot of self-sustaining settlements from no-longer active players. Some of them had terrific permanent installations. But as the business contracts expire, the empty slots leave the remainder of the settlement useless or nearly so. It's better than having all the settlements disappear, and allows players to return after an extended absence. But it would be even better if they could continue to function for the benefit of visiting players.

I suggest that for at least some contract types, the player could have it auto-renewed rather than expiring. Some obvious examples are CSTS, Ashar/Wesbec and Svens. This would benefit players who don't play regularly. Even more, it would be a big help for the entire community and keep the game looking more active and alive.

How to implement this:
Create a settlement business manager that could be purchased from CE store.

The owner could select which contracts would auto-renew; alternatively, there would be a few that the business manager always renews if present. I'd prefer to have it determined by the owner, since the fees could cause a settlement to fail because it took it over the line of self-sustainability.

Possibility: the owner's guild could purchase the settlement business manager for an inactive settlement of a guild member -- I'd like opinions on this.

I think this would be a powerful addition to CE that helps maintain an active game over the years.

I have pulled this post by Starsurfer out of the Suggestions thread as I feel it might need a little 'feed back' in general from players and didn't want to dilute the reason for the Suggestions thread.

We hover around 150 Settlements in game. Currently, we are at 272. Players create settlements for a myriad of reasons, some to be a base of personal operations, some as part of a Guild funded system to give certain offices at key locations. Some just for the kudos of owning 1 or two of them. Recently, some of you have been taken the chance to own three, lol.

From a purely Dev point of view, a player is responsible for the upkeep and offered promenade services. Players take on the responsibility of managing a settlement and keeping it 'whole'. We added mechanics to remove settlements where the owner is inactive and either the Finances dry up or the Morale drops to an unacceptable level.

These mechanics act to 'refresh Settlements' over long periods of time. Freeing up the slots for others to take on the challenge.

To be clear I'm not excatly agaisnt the idea of a Manager for a Settlement but ti would still have to fall within the current wrap up rules, whereby the settlement still needs a level of acceptable morale and finances.

I'd love to hear others thoughts on this before I consider it any further.

Good, bad or perhaps with modifiers...

Coops

[pikolinianita]

Interesting question...
Let's consider allowing us to extend contracts multiple times. If a contract is less than 180 days I can click extend (right now it is a few weeks, iirc). Make this a CE Store extension, and allow stack four times. A contract for two years is more than enough.

Also: Old, empty settlements block nice places, forever. After one year without login, empty (with no contracts other than csts) settlements should be placed in Large Interstellar Magazine Based Outside (aka LIMBO), Buildings are saved, resources and cash too, but no new resources nor research points. Should the staff be hibernated too?
When the player returns, he must buy a new license and have the settlement back.

This leads to the idea, that active players could offer a hefty bribe to the dev to put their settlements to the LIMBO.

Guild Settlements - nice idea. The Player can set a trigger, that after a year without login, Guild Leader can reassign his Settlement to another player. Option: without resources and cash.
Option: put to the guild-owned LIMBO. A guild member can pay (CE Store) to get a Settlement, if the guild leader agrees.

[TechnoBeast]

One or two renewals ahead on the shorter term contracts would be nice, but the long term ones should have to be done manually imho. I feel that settlements should be something that is actively maintained for the most part, so that there are not basically dead ones, with no services available, blocking spots that might be used by active people that want to have active stations.

I just don't really like the idea of settlements being around for years if the player is not active at least monthly or better. Too many I see here and there that have only the basic services, which is pretty much just taking up space that another player could utilize.

[Bethany]

What if it's like settlement insurance? You buy a policy and it covers you for a certain amount of time and that policy covers the cost of renewals. It kicks in if you haven't logged in for a certain number of days, so it takes care of you sett if you're unexpectedly away.

[Porrima]

Settlement management should player as its is now. The process for remove long inactive settlements is perhaps too kind. I suggest speeding up the process. The current credits and morale thresholds should remain. That will do away with inactive settlements that are not protected or low on funds. Settlements of an inactive player that are well funded and well protected could remain in play for a very long time. I suggest f say, player is in active for 6 months shoot him an email that the settlement will be removed at such and such future date. The remove can be of two varieties: closed/dismantled as is done now, or mothballed.

[Fitzbacon]

If I understand the mechanics of Settlement closure correctly; a settlement is earmarked for closure should funds be in the negative for a period of time and/or Morale drops below a certain level (Forgive me for not knowing the actual levels)

I think that we seem to be creating a problem where one clearly does not exist. If the player deserts his/her Settlement, either because they have stopped playing or for other RL circumstances, then why are we so concerned with implementing a galactic coup d'etat to wrest control of that Settlement purely because it has an expired Wesbec or Ashar.

The fact that these settlements have contracts that have expired and there remains nothing on the settlement except the bare minimum, is of course a minor inconvenience given the overall impact this has to game play. Perhaps, I might wish to have a settlement with nothing on it but Commercial Storage. Somewhere for me to dump my stuff. Would you then advocate a forced takeover simply because I have no services you want? From a personal point of view it irritates me if I come upon a settlement with no Union Office....I mean why would someone NOT want to advertise passengers after having gone to the trouble of putting tourist stuff in their sett.

The mechanics of Settlement removal already exist. When an existing Settlement disappears through known reasons and a vacancy occurs then let some other intrepid explorer build one in its place. To suggest that Guilds take responsibility is specious at best or greedy (your choice) , but Guilds have Starbases already. Why add to the burden.

If one adds to the closure protocol an E-mail to the account in question with the warning of impending Settlement Implosion in ----Say 28 days ----Say would give the player ample time to revisit the game and his/her assets within. Of course after 28 days closure procedures can be initiated.

And If the Settlement remains viable (funds, Morale) then so be it, even if it retains only the bare minimum of services, it is not IMHO a reason to effect a hostile take over..

Flame away

Fitz

[pikolinianita]

If I understand the mechanics of Settlement closure correctly; a settlement is earmarked for closure should funds be in the negative for a period of time and/or Morale drops below a certain level (Forgive me for not knowing the actual levels)

You are right. But if you config your settlement right, it makes money and not lose one battle (=> no morale loss). So my settlement will be active as long as my account is active. It can be quite a lot of time...

[Coops]

Good to see the responses and the varying end of thoughts on the idea. I will leave this open for further discussion. I figured this one would need discussion and I also felt there would be opposing ends to the argument for and against, so good to see healthy discussion on the topic.

Coops

[StarSurfer]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to think about this. There have been a lot of good ideas (I especially liked the insurance idea from Bethany!)

I brought it up because we have a lot of empty settlement slots at planets, and many setts without active owners. This is about the game, we want it to be alive for long term. I played years ago, the difference between 6 years ago and now is that there are many fewer active settlements.

This is only my personal impression, but I think the game was more interesting to new players when there were more active setts. Maybe it's because I remember people who aren't there now... I would like settlements that players spent years on to stay alive (assuming they are self-sustaining)

It's Coops' game,and all of you who have played for years have big personal investments. So whatever the decision is, thank you all for caring enough to answer.

StarSurfer ( originally FlyingFish)