Fighters can fight their way out, sneaks can sneak their way out, but what can merchants do when under threat? For the space game I'm working I've got a slight problem where merchants are concerned: The game environment has a number of reasonable and unreasonable enemies, ranging from pirates who can be bargained with to malfunctioning defensive drones to roaming space monsters. Combat oriented players can always shoot their way out of an unreasonable enemy challenge. Sneaks can control their signal emissions and sneak through. But a merchant neither good in sneaking or combat is going to have problems with unreasonable enemies that cannot be placated with goods. I thought about simply restricting traders to non-combat areas, but I don't like that solution because it closes off the gameworld and makes a merchant unable to participate in the game's core storyline, which is about going into dangerous places and reconnecting the galaxy. So, for lack of a better phrase, what about the concept of "enemy repellant" for traders? Theoretically, there would be one type of consummable item or device per class of enemy which merchants would have to trade up to in order to get. They would be speciality items that would be exorbitantly expensive to buy, but could be traded for rare commodities in turn, which the trader would get more easy access to. Each "repellant" item/device would have a limited number of charges and a duration of effectiveness. They would also have a strength level that matched the challenge level of the enemies in question. Storywise, the repellant would be classified as things like: *IFF Codes - Allows you to pass through areas dominated by defenses that are still operating long after the defenders are dead. Random ciphers cause the codes to change again and again, invalidating previous codes. *Sensor Pulse - Creates energy signals that drive away certain types of Siegers (space monsters) for a limited amount of time. Monsters adapt to the pulses, causes new "patterns" to have to be traded for at nearby bases. *Pheremone Drones - Fly though an area causes any deadly animals to attack one another or flee danger scents. Drones would have to be repaired and replaced over time. Does the idea of repellant hold water in general? Could it be improved or expanded upon?

I am really sleepy, so please excuse me if this does not make sense.

Monster cages: Works in theory similar to your repellant. However, these devices allow the mechant to capture the monster and sell them at the next stop. You just need enough have enough of the right type of cage.

Whatever you do should cater to the merchants specialty of money.

There is something to be said about the methods used in the past by merchants to go through dangerous areas. Usually, they hired mercenaries to escort the caravans, thus being a merchant defended by a fighter, to use your terminology. In other cases, they sneaked through, or hired someone to do it, to smuggle goods through well-guarded borders, becoming merchants aided by sneakers.

While this quite breaks with the symmetry of the game (with merchants needing the other classes to be active) I think that it is also easier for a fighter or sneaker to operate when he is being sponsored by a merchant (thus having access to cheaper goods, paid contracts, and a stable source of revenue should they be successful).

Now, concerning your repellant idea, this is a game mechanic similar to "find the key": while fighters can bash the door open, and sneakers can lockpick their way in, merchants are left with buying the corresponding key and opening the door the old-fashioned way. This also adds some interesting gameplay twists in my opinion:

- Should someone plan the player's demise, he could give the player (or sell, in order not to appear suspicious) incorrect keys to a given area. While it is possible to check if pheromones are the correct ones, it's harder to know if IFF codes will be recognized without approaching the defenses.

- Similarly, should two "key" retailers want to disrupt each other's market, one could sell, the other's one-use keys (such as anti-Sieger pulse emitters), which are easy to copy, thus making his copies invalid (so he can sell them and ruin his reputation, or throw them away and lose money).

- Having monopolies over certain types of technologies could be interesting. For instance, to pass through an array of killer drones, one would need a special drone key, that nobody knows how to create except for a rogue AI cell that can provide an AI bomb to disrupt the drones for a few hours. Or the the spaceborne giant metallophage leeches of X can only be repelled by species Y's bodily fluids.

- Some missions could even involve a sneaker needing such a device in order to rescue a group of stranded NPC merchants in a dangerous area. While a fighter could break his way in, then out, a sneaker can go back and forth undetected but the merchants can't, so the sneaker would need a way to allow the merchants to pass.


Considering the various dangers/keys, here are some ideas:

- Crystalline asteroid belts: these asteroids grow at a fast rate and can break through most hulls. Fighters can blast them, and swift sneaker ships can navigate without harm. Merchants need to use a special dissolver to create a hole in the belt.

- Migration maps: you can buy from astronomers/biologists maps that predict the location of monster swarms over the next few days. You can use this to move in using a just-as-fast alternate path without encountering the monsters.

- Decoys: cause the enemies to follow a drone that emits a much more attracting signal than your ship, be it a mating call for a female-starved group, or a very large reactor for energy eaters.

I think it's weird if the merchant has the ability to use "monster repellant" while fighters and other classes don't have that option. I can see two possible scenarios that would allow this:
1. The "repellants" take a lot of space, so only the immense cargo ships are able to carry them and still fulfil their main role.
2. The "repellants" are extremely expensive, so only rich fat merchants can buy them.

If only merchants can use them since merchant guilds keep the technology hidden, it's safe to assume that it would still end up on the black market.


Traditionally the merchants hired armed guards to help him in case of an assault. They also bunched together in caravans to present possible attackers with an overwhelming number of men (say 5 guards per merchant, 50 merchants, or so).

During WW2 fleets of transport ships were protected by military wessels. They were frequently hassled by subs but that's about it.


Possible ways to allow the merchants/traders do their job:

1. Bulk transports are immense. It should be possible to mount a lot more automated or manned turrets on those than on any class of fighter. Think worlds biggest oil tanker vs even Nimitz class carriers.

2. Trade routes are prized targets for pirates, but also well guarded by police/armed forces etc.

3. Trading and selling goods make a good profit. Hire a fleet of guards.

4. Sorta like repellent: An extreme amount of guided missiles. One use, but a swarm of missiles makes gravel out of any attacker. A viable tactic for pirates would be to attack in waves, so perhaps smaller swarms of missiles would be better.

5. A single trading vessel is easy pickings. Travel in a fleet for added security.

6. Repellent: Pheromone drone like you suggested. Catch is that the feromone is impossible to synthezise so it's extremely expensive. It can only be harvested from the monsters themselves. A dead monster has enough for 0.5 to 1 dose, while a captive can produce x doses per month. It can also escape and destroy it's captors, hence the price. Possible income source for the more "aggressive" classes could be to hunt monsters for the pheromone. Capturing a live one is possible, but extremely difficult, not to mention the difficulties in transporting a live monster.

Let me think. I remember this being dealt with, in various SF epics, in very many different ways.

1. If you're a merchant, with your own ship, I don't know why you'd be handicapped by a lack of any weaponry. Even traders have their own guns - they just don't rely on them exclusively.

The Millenium Falcon was a cargo ship, for example :D

2. I remember reading a story where the aliens were VERY peaceable, and trader types. The way they kep "bad guys" away was by englobing their ships with HUGE electromaginetic fields, a power of magnitude stronger than the shields (which they also had), which repelled the enemy types, by, umm.. electrocuting them.

3. As far as the IFF code and sensor pulses go, that seems like two good options. Maybe even the Pheromone stuff.

4. Escorts! Player interaction, especially for traders, is ESSENTIAL. I just quit a game called Jumpgate - a space combat RPG, with economy and all. In that game, the trader vessels were easy meat for the fighters - unless they hired escorts. It made the disconnect between trader and PvPers SO much less, that it was truly great. It may be an idea to almost FORCE the synergy between the two, imo.

I dunno though. I don't see that merchant vesselsshould be overly handicapped as far as defensive measures go.

I just really don't know. merchants, imo, should have MUCH higher defensive capabilities - they have the money to afford it, and a sound reasoning to justify it - they're protecting their livelihood. Strong, strong defense just makes sense imo. If they have strong enough defenses to last until they can call for help, that makes those whom they could pay to come to their aid much more likely to actually come.

*shrug*

EDIT: Added from this point
Now, as far as actual implementation?

That really, truly, depends on how "economy" is implemented in your game. How dynamic is the economy you're planning? I suppose I'll go look it up, and see if you say anything about it.
Ok, found it. If you're going to have THAT much competition, and if the cut-throat tendencies will be that available, the merchant ships will HAVE to be armed (if not as heavily armed as combat ships), and will HAVE to have at least an "in" with some sort of militant group. Be it mercenary, private army, or what have you. Just because they are merchants does NOT mean they have to be defenseless. A fighter's commodity is his fighting skill, a sneak's commodity is his stealth, and a merchant's commodity is his MONEY, and trading ability - to simplify it.

If I were a merchant in your game, here's what I would do.

1. Join a consortium/business venture.
2. Get in good with the "mercs"
3. Ensure my profit margin includes "protection" expenses.

As a previous poster said, there is strength in numbers. There is also more money in better defense. If a fighter wants to fight, he either has to work for the military, be a pirate/buccaneer, or a mercenary, right? As a military pilot, he fights other militaries. As a Pirate, he preys on the weak. As a mercenary, however, he fights for whoever pays him! Who would THAT be, do you think?

Merchants are the glue that binds everything together, imo. The problem we had in Jumpgate was that the merchants were too stingy to hire escorts. Thus, they got shot up, died, and left, eventually. The escorts, even if they were willing, were too enamored of "military" action to want to spend the boring time necessary to escort a slow, heavy-laden cargo ship to it's destination.

I played a mercenary character. I escorted the cargo ships (for a share of the exorbinant profits of the cargo haulers), or added my skills to militaries in need of numbers. I made a truly sick amount of profit in a short amount of time, because I "fit the niche" created by demand - which was ONLY created by other pilot's unwillingness to "break from tradition", and do what they weren't USED to doing. If you create the DEMAND , you'll create the NEED for interaction. The demand for escorts, in Jumpgate, only depended on the willingness of the fighter pilots to prey on traders. When there was no willingness, there was no demand for my services. The traders got so mired in their habit of being able to make stupid amounts of money with no risk, that they were often unwilling to hire a merc to protect them - until it was too late.

If that demand is going to be "hard-wired" into your game, I'd suggest you also ENSURE that the profits from more dangerous missions are QUITE worth the extra expense required to interact. Reward interaction, but don't penalize non-interaction - just emphasize interaction by the increased rewards available.

I could elaborate, but it's hard to tailor a "system" to something I don't know very well. Thus, why I related it to something I've actually played :D

EDIT: Well, you got my juices flowing. Let me expand on this a bit. Stand by for a more involved question + statement on economy for the traders, and their role in "society"

[Edited by - RazorsKiss on August 30, 2004 10:02:08 AM]

Well I agree with the idea that Merchants probably won't have the most fighting prowess you can't just give them an item to make monsters go away.

I would think that it would be more fun, and challenging, if you made the merchant able to talk his way out of a situation. Most merchants, at least the good ones, have very high charisma (Think Bill Clinton but on lower scale =P).

What I would suggest is that maybe instead of having an attack power that the merchant should have a coercion power where he can talk the monster out of killing him. Or, something along those lines. Even so much as to tricking the moster into following you to town and being sold off, as similarily suggested by Thermodynamics.

Just make sure that these options aren't exclusive to merchants. It would break the game too clearly into "classes", which is an antiquated system.

Instead, include a number of methods by which to resolve conflict. Weapons, shields, cloaking systems, rapid jump systems, defensive countermeasures, monster traps, decoys, jamming units and all other anti-bad guy gear should be available to any starship pilot.

After all, civilian-grade defensive tricks might have unexpected tactical applications for warships, or it might be possible to make a dangerous courier mission with just one laser turret instead of a dozen tons of spaceshark bait.

In Escape Velocity, I remember buying a flare launcher for my shuttlecraft, because actually arming my ship took valuable cargo space and I could generally jump out before lasers penetrated my armaplast. With flares to counter missiles, I was okay for the tougher parts of the galaxy. Later, when I splurged on a heavily armed Corvette-class ship, I installed a flare launcher. I didn't really need it, with the tritanium and the shield capacitors, but I kinda liked it, and sure enough, it saved me a few times.

So don't just try to think of things for merchants. Think of alternative ways of overcoming threats, and then adjust the prices and sizes and ease of use so that a merchant or a soldier or a spy will tend to use the gear that is most associated with his trade. Be careful not to preclude a little Han Solo-ism.

To answer your original question, I've always liked the idea of a civilian craft emitting a big cloud of shiny metal strips, radioactive effluent, and water vapor. It would scramble rudimentary sensors and tracking systems, and let them make an emergency jump out of harm's way.

NPC mercenaries would seem like the logical choice. Relatively tough, they stick around for a fixed time or fixed numberof battles. They effectively work as a non-player controlled weapon (non RPGs have had a "berserk" ability where your player will become very strong but lose control for several turns, attacking no matter what). The merchant uses purchased goods to defend himself (shields, stun grenades and other no-skill based toys) while the mercenary does the damage. By making them cost a lot you can make them less useful to other classes (more effective for them to just buy better weapons and use their own strength). The cost of supporting one or more mercenaries could help balance a merchants normally overwhelming amount of cash.

Having read the suggestions in this thread, I feel compelled to repeat a piece of advice that I know you've heard many times, Wavinator: Be careful to balance your options carefully. It would be strange indeed for a merchant courier to be more difficult to catch, target, or damage than a military craft. With a ship built to haul cargo above all else, it should be entirely possible to be in a hopeless position. Faster, more dangerous vessels, armed with the tools of war, should not be easily countered.

Make sure that even the best-prepared space-entrepreneur must still weigh risks, instead of costs, when deciding on a route.

I attended a defensive tactics course sponsored by Benchmade, called "Cutting Edge", which is highly regarded by law enforcement and military organizations. My instructor, a highly trained martial artist and experienced policeman, taught us a wide array of techniques designed to escape or defeat trained and untrained assailants. One of the cadets kept asking him "what if" questions, and while the instructor usually had sound advice on what to do, there are no escapes from certain types of attack. When the "what if" guy asked about counters for some special forces assassination techniques, the instructer said simply, "Sometimes, you die." So it should be in the game. There shouldn't be a trump card for every scenario, and if interstellar ninjas come for your barge, it should take more than toys to escape.

There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are few old, bold pilots.

Maybe just surrendering would be the right thing to do. Give the pirates your cargo, and hope they go away. Submit to a scan of your cargo bay, and bear the wrath of local laws. To return to the example of Escape Velocity, nothing hurts your wallet or your pride so much as having to bail out of your shiny new Kestrel, but sometimes it's the only thing to be done. If you must make it possible for a player to survive any situation, make them take a total loss on cargo, ship and crew to do it sometimes. Reward intrepidity, but punish hubris. Where that distinction is made I leave to you.

Perhaps I'm being unimaginative, but why not jsut make merchants rich enough to purchase fighter escorts?