Cargo Ships and Trading Related Questions (For adventure mode)

[CheeseAlmighty]

As far as I understand, the ships that are available to us are just fighter ships, with little to no cargo bay, no cabin or living quarters of any sort. I couldn't find info on it anywhere, so it seemed appropriate to ask here.

Will there be cargo/trade ships available to our use? I'm really eager to carry cargo from city to city, hoping that I won't get attacked by anything. Or maybe we could have escorts with us, when we need to carry precious materials. Or maybe there'll be AI pilot controlled cargo ships for us to escort?  (I really want to fly my own trade ship though.)

Another question that pops into my mind is, will there be "safe" routes? Like PvP free zones, or routes with low pirate density. Maybe these roads could be longer in order to balance it? Because I don't really want to see my hard earned cargo to be blown into smithereens by a high level crew wreaking havoc on the trade routes...

Another thing I really wanted to ask is, which kinds of goods will there be available for us to carry, and will it need us to change the ship modules when carrying them. For example, say I'm carrying cheese and other foodstuff (I will carry cheese all day, everyday if they add it :3 ), in order it to not go bad (not the cheese though, cheese stays around for quite the while when in wheel form), will I have to add a cooling module to my cargo bay, otherwise it has a chance of going bad? Or maybe little pens to carry livestock? Ooor, safeboxes and secured shelves to carry volatile material, otherwise has a chance of explosion when got hit?

Ooooh, oooh, one more, one more, how will our trading affect economy. I never played Eve online, or a game that has too many numbers, and hardcore learning curve, but I did play a little online game(I still do sometimes) called Puzzle Pirates. There, there were AI controlled merchant ships that constantly come and go to the islands bringing goods, even though very little. In order to stalls and shops in the city to craft something(and yes, the stalls were player controlled as well)(TOO MANY PARENTHESES, but can we have player controlled shops as well?) , there had to be goods that brought from other islands that produced that good. Soo, raw materials brought to an island to be crafted to refined materials, that still was available for trading to other islands, and then crafted into final product, which was unavailable for trading. I'm not saying this system will work in GoI, but you guys might want to check the game out to see how they did it, considering the gameplay (at least the mentality) will be and is fairly similar behinds the veils of graphics and mechanics.

[Dr Pantaleon]

I'd say at the moment we don't have a large cargo bay simply because it's not necessary and would only hinder the gameplay.
In adventure mode there will be many different ships and I'm sure that they will vary in cargo capacity. There will probably be small and fast ships (like the Squid) which on the other hand can't transport a lot of cargo, while larger ships with bigger storage capacity could handle more like a Galleon.

I don't think there will be such a thing as "safe" routes. The game is based around airship combat, so if there are routes without enemies the concept falls to pieces. However, I could imagine asymmetric maps where either the defender or the attacker have a significant advantage. Those harder routes could then maybe get you to your destination faster, giving you a better price.

Balancing will definitely a serious issue, but I believe they have different ideas, mainly AI-controlled ships with different difficulty levels which are added to the weaker sides.

As far as we know, the cities will generate and consume the various trade goods, and when one commodity, let's say cheese, starts running out this will generate a mission to buy cheese in a city which produces it and bring it back.
So far, there haven't been any details made public about the actual resources, but the possibilities are endless. I could also imagine special missions where you have to retrieve unique items or rescue people and the like.

So far there haven't been comments on player-owned shops and businesses, and I doubt that they will be part of the game at release, but they could easily be added later (I hope).

Hope this helps!

[CapnGingy]

I think I heard that non-pvp routes or routes you can simply explore or travel are a stretch goal, where if Muse raises money to fund everything essential to the game, they will add it afterwards. You probably won't be able to carry cargo without pvp, though, or else like Pantaleon says, the game falls to pieces. I do also hope they implement player-owned shops/businesses when they meet their stretch goal. Otherwise, we'd have to make do with clans doing missions together as "businesses."

[CheeseAlmighty]

Thanks for the responses, but maybe I couldn't express myself properly on that "safe" routes topic. I am not suggesting entirely safe routes with no dangers, that wouldn't even fit within the lore. I honestly am not really afraid of the AI that much, surely that would be a way around them, a way to kill them, also I'm more expecting safer routes like in the Flight of the Icarus, albeit not empty ones. My issue is with the PvP.

There is no good way of assessing the skill level of the players in this game, due to it's highly cooperation focused gameplay, maybe W/L ratio or K/D ratio could be used, but still, a crew of high level competitive players destroying my ship with ease because I don't have a good crew, or good, but unresponsive crew is a instant rage-quit for me. Hell, maybe I don't want to play competitively for once, but no, a ship comes out of the blue and shoots me down with all my cargo... That honestly doesn't seem appealing to me. I know some people like the DayZ type, "hardcore" stuff, but it's a game after all, that I play to relax, not to get frustrated, or focus as if I'm performing an operation, as if I'm at work.

EDIT: A new idea popped into my head here, setting aside the balancing issue, there could be short and safer trade routes that are protected by that nation's sentinels. Only small marauder pirates that can fly under the radar may lurk there and players that try to attack trade ships might face few sentinels giving assistance to the trading ship(trading ship may have a way of running away from the battle by getting to a point in the map maybe? But the assailant can't so the trade ship can run away?).

 There could be even shorter routes, "shortcuts" if you will, but not protected by the sentinels due to their harsh nature, and maybe bigger dangers lurk there.

 And lastly, there could be long routes with a lot of pirates, that can be used to farm XP(if it will exist in any form whatsoever), reputation with the nations  (vigilante points?), and simply parts, stolen booty and such. Same way, if you try to pirate the other ships, the traders, you gain wanted points, and can't safely travel in the "safe" routes safely, due to sentinel ships trying to hunt you down.

[RistoH]

There will be cargo missions in adventure mode, you ship the cargo with your own fighter ship as long as i know. There will be routes which are safer due to lack of pirate activity or something else. Never heard before about the efdecting economy but it would be reeeally cool.

[Saull]

I think a cargo kind of ship would be cool though I think it'd only work out for adventure mode. It'd be a great trade off being able to carry more cargo for a lessened capacity to defend yourself and therefore have to rely on an escort ship and/or disable and flee builds and tactics. I'd imagine a cargo type ship to either maneuver horribly or have weak bifecta potential