Fed II Star - February 12, 2006

PLANETS MAKE MONEY FROM SHIPYARDS

Planet treasuries are now raking in money from ships sold on the out-of-Sol worlds. Although shipyards on the planets are private enterprises, not owned by the planet-owner, the planet takes a 5% cut of the transaction. The percentage is applied to the amount the player actually hands over in order to walk away with the new ship, so the second-hand value of the old ship is deducted first. This represents money being pumped into the economy by the activities of the shipbuilders.

So that's one reason why POs will be trying to encourage those who want to trade in their ships for something bigger, faster or sportier to do it on their particular worlds. There are other reasons that will become relevant soon, to do with the ship registration - more details in next week's news.

In order to attract custom to the shipyard, POs can decide to subsidise the building of new ships. This lowers the price for customers, which means the POs rake-off on each sale will be lower - but the difference should be made up in volume as hordes of punters flock to buy the cheapest ships in the galaxy.

Alternatively, POs can add a surcharge to the ship price so they get more on each individual sale, even if the higher prices mean fewer ships sold.

The command to set a discount or a surcharge is 'SET YARD amount' where 'amount' is the percentage of the price that you want the ship mark-up to be, between -10 and 10. Setting it to a negative number makes the price cheaper for purchasers; setting it positive makes ships more expensive. The percentage is applied to the gross price - that is, before the trade-in price for the old ship is applied. When a potential buyer is given their quotation, the final amount of the invoice includes the discount or surcharge so there will be no hidden extras.

Jarrow Shipbuilders on Earth will continue to offer their ships at the standard prices, since the Galactic Administration has pledged not to apply any discounts or surcharges.