CMC as true corporation

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

I was thinking, why not merge CMC and shipping lines into a fully fledged corporation feature, that would have civilian ships, CMC, garrisons on CMC. And perhaps with the judicious use of a checkbox for 'more' would even be allowed to have limited military assets that they would use (rarely) to raid another corporation only? Unless you want to eradicate them because they just attacked a corporation you see as more vital, so you would have to police them a bit and they would be allowed to retaliate.

The first pass would be to have shipping lines build and pay for the installation of CMCs, and these CMC in return would provide income, so not a that large change, except the 2 civilian entities are now regrouped into one.
The second one is probably not something everybody will want, but that would give a nice alternate setting where  it's not just me against big badass aliens, but me against corporations in the home system that do nasty things against each other. Kinda like very simple NPRs with focused role and abstracted logistic on many aspects (if they can have a few FACs, you can skip the whole 'have shipyards', 'develop techs', etc.).

[Gabethebaldandbold]

only if I can tax them dead, and kill them if they dont pay.
they are already out of controll as it is, and I would rather have ways to keep them in line.
on the other hand, that sounds like an awesome setting, and I would probably enjoy playing it.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

The second one is probably not something everybody will want, but that would give a nice alternate setting where  it's not just me against big badass aliens, but me against corporations in the home system that do nasty things against each other. Kinda like very simple NPRs with focused role and abstracted logistic on many aspects (if they can have a few FACs, you can skip the whole 'have shipyards', 'develop techs', etc.).

one way to do that would be to have them sort of borrow your shipyards when they are not in use, and then you can either let them access comertial and/or military shipyards, or deny them access, and keep them under tighter controll.
a greater spectrum of freedom of business vs. government controll and regulation would be interesting to the game as an optional thing that can be turned of, in the same way as maintenance and jump point stabilization, to much controll and they start to shrivell and die, too little and they start private wars, and could even try to take controll.

[Lamandier]

The second one is probably not something everybody will want, but that would give a nice alternate setting where  it's not just me against big badass aliens, but me against corporations in the home system that do nasty things against each other. Kinda like very simple NPRs with focused role and abstracted logistic on many aspects (if they can have a few FACs, you can skip the whole 'have shipyards', 'develop techs', etc.).

one way to do that would be to have them sort of borrow your shipyards when they are not in use, and then you can either let them access comertial and/or military shipyards, or deny them access, and keep them under tighter controll.

Or you could simply have the option of giving/selling surplus ships from your fleet to your corporations. I do like the idea in general, but the thought of AI corporations being able to use my shipyards at the drop of a hat - thereby depriving me of their use - seems problematic. Instead, just sell them old, obsolete FACs or whatever you're not going to use anymore. And if you want to RP some uppity megacorp designing and building their own battlefleet, you can do that manually, and that way you could do it without the AI upsetting your development plans for the military by randomly grabbing up all your yard space. Perhaps even give extremely rich corporations the opportunity to build a military shipyard of their own, though there'd likely have to be some kind of limit on it.

a greater spectrum of freedom of business vs. government controll and regulation would be interesting to the game as an optional thing that can be turned of, in the same way as maintenance and jump point stabilization, to much controll and they start to shrivell and die, too little and they start private wars, and could even try to take controll.

Might be tough to code, but I think this would be a really cool feature.

[alex_brunius]

only if I can tax them dead, and kill them if they dont pay.
they are already out of controll as it is, and I would rather have ways to keep them in line.
on the other hand, that sounds like an awesome setting, and I would probably enjoy playing it.

Yeah I think this would make alot of sense. Something like this is what I would like to see:

Minimum taxation = current level ( so out of control growth most of the time )
Double taxation = balanced so they are stagnant/don't expand at all but could be a useful option to keep growth in control and get a bit of extra cash in a tight spot.
Triple taxation = balanced so CMC/SPL will gradually die over a period of 20-50 years ( new feature, CMC can be closed down before minerals are exhausted if not profitable ).

[Ri0Rdian]

I hate to have 4-5 and new incoming companies with ships, plus various CMCs on top. Having one or two would sure be awesome.


The mention of using your shipyards is very intriguing though. If they HAD TO use your civilian shipyards (they are not building your ships) it would instantly give the player CONTROL. You would finally be able to check their expansion and allow them as many ship as you like. This is what many people are looking for atm. I had to disable construction now because they simply had hundreds of ships and were building more, in what appeared to be exponentially faster speed.

Getting a popup asking they want to Build or Upgrade a ship and whether I allow it or not would be awesome.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In terms of civilian companies I think there is a general problem and that is that they don't pay any maintenance on what they have, they simply just earn more wealth and build more stuff over time.

Companies should act as real companies and actually have to earn wealth to pay for their fleets and mining operations, if the cost at any time outweigh their income they will have to cut down on their fleets or even close down low yielding mining operations.

If the player could tax them more or less that would also help the empire to manage them in addition to this. You can get more wealth out of them but at the risk of them earning less and that means less tax for you too.

I also think that everything that is mined should not just disappear, the civilian part should want and need minerals too and demand them. If they gain too few minerals there should perhaps be moral and or production issues on such planets.

This way managing the civilians also becomes an interesting third party in the game too. Even fuel should be part of the civilian fleet economy and not be free. If you have too little fuel production then fuel prices go skyrocketing and the companies earnings tank. So it will be important for civilian companies to replace older ships with newer more fuel efficient engines as a matter of fact not just because they do.

[IAMTHEONE]

Could include an expansion of the contract system for the ship yards.  The Corps can set up contracts for your shipyards that you can edit.  Something like 3 ships from a specific shipyard for a certain amount of wealth/minerals.  It would a way to get the minerals that disappear into the civilian market into your own coffers.