A few suggestions to make the game more similar to reality

[sheik]

1. As a shipowner one should not have to take over the control of the ship, etc. In game one should be able to appoint people to take over these non-shipowner functions. This will make gameplay more smooth and increase the over-all reality of the game.

2. Today one can only take single freightment contracts. One have to diversify between the spot market (single trips), the cargo market (often several years) and the time charter market were one charter in or out ships for a given time (often many years). In the end of the charter contract one should have a purchase option of the ship.

3. I do not get the status when buying ships. Today if you have the money, the ship is yours. Some creditors on the other hand may prefer customers with a decent track-record, but you can always get money either from sub creditors or from the stock market (see below).

4. The stock market in the game lack fundamentals. Adding player-companies on the stock market this should be an option from the start. There you can list your company, and get money through an IPO. This makes it possible to get in more money to the company via further share floats in game.

To sum this up. One does not have to steer the ships in person, one can operate in shipping without owning the ships, one does not have to handle cargo's but can charter in/out ships, there's always money to get and especially in the stock market. If these functions are added at least I would enjoy the game much more!

(Double-posted into the feature forum)

[rdklein]

yes thanks for the hints this is always helpful and will influence the future versions,

on the status system we think about how to chnage, but the status shoudl also reflect the gamers success so we though buying a ship is a goal of the game and should be used to increase the status, but some refinement might be necessary as we can see in the highscore the status can increas too much at the moement,

also the stock market is in the beginning, we will add more in updates.

[sheik]

I think the high score should be determined by the values of the company alone. The status of the shipowner is good when approaching some creditors (but not all!) and the stock market in general. If you have a low status the interest rates on credit could get somewhat higher, but not more than maybe 2-3 percentage points at worst. The main thing is the degree of leverage, say 80% financing versus 50% financing. Higher risk makes higher interest rates if the ships are not secured against other assets. The stock market would also tend to price your company lower if your status is low and risk is high. At the other end the potential gets much higher if you leverage sau 80%. Low status shipowners will tend to get a discount when entering the stock market, since the investors would request a lower price in IPOs and share issues.

I am looking forward to the future updates, and must remind that the stock market in the game have a high potential if more closely tied to the shipowning business.

[rdklein]

yes thanks and the stock market will be revised, we already have internal flags for dependancys also, like transportation stocks will be influenced by the current ship reults etc. also.