Potential Issue with MindArk’s treatment of Hangar owners

Hi Entropia Community,

I have been tracking an issue for some time now regarding how MindArk handled the conversion of the hangars and their ships to the new space system and I’d like to get some feedback from the community to see if the issue deserves further attention or not.

Whilst many aspects of the conversion were handled ok in general I have not received (as I still own my hangar), or heard anyone else receive, the following:

• The PED contained in the hangar ship, representing its repair state, which could be up to 2000 PED.
• The Fuel contained in the hangar ship, which was up to 500 PED worth of Oil (TT value only).
• The full functionality of the ship as represented by the parts which were needed to make the old hangars functional.

Specifically this functionality included the ability to fly to and from Crystal Palace and the Asteroid, meaning the ship was powered and could travel in space (also reinforced by the types of parts needed to make it functional).

Equivalents in the new system would be the Energy Supply and Sub-Warp drive (as inter-planetary travel technically did not exist when the old hangars were disabled), both of which would be unlimited as the old ship was.

Other aspects of the conversion have been addressed reasonably well:

• Lost business opportunities due to the disabled hangars were compensated with PED via a share of the temporary teleporter system fees, even though this did not seem to differentiate between active and inactive (incomplete or otherwise) hangars.
• The Unlimited Thruster was provided as a replacement for lost surface to space (and vice versa) transit functionality.

To date all hangar owners have received the same hangar, same ship, and same compensation so it seems that MindArk has overlooked the state of specific hangars and thus the value people had stored in them.

Since space has now been out for more than a year (and was supposedly a focus during 2012), does this issue deserve further attention?

- Deathifier

 

I'll be putting the numbers together later since it's a question that's come up a few times.

In general those who were not doing anything (or didn't even have a working hangar) gained a lot from the transition since they got a free pile of PED from the community.

Those who actually invested in the old space system and wanted to continue with the new one did not do quite so well as you need to sink almost all the compensation PED in to Structural Integrity improvements.

Not doing so results in the ship and its passengers spontaneously exploding when someone sneezes.

The TT on the new item (the thruster) is 50 PED, the total TT value of the old items needed for hangar assembly was 273 PED (excluding rusty handle and basic wrench), so if looking at TT alone it's a bit short.

The features are also the same – the ability to travel in space.
Before this was done by adding the appropriate parts to the ship and now it is done by adding the appropriate parts to the ships engineering system.

The only real difference is that the ships can now carry more people and this is offset by the fact that you need quite a few people to keep the ship fully operational in the new space environment.

The issue is that MindArk took away the PED and Fuel in the ships and took away its old installed functionality - the ability to travel through space to at least CP/FOMA, implying what is now called sub-warp capability.

I don't see how this benefits the community or indeed anyone other than MindArk, who gets to pocket the removed value.

The only functionality they have replaced to some extent is the surface to space transit capability (via the unlimited thruster), although the actual Privateers cannot use this yet.

MindArk could take some simple steps to refund or replicate what was in the old system with their equivalents in the new system:

• Refund the PED repair state of the old ship or convert it to Structural Integrity in the new ship.
• Return the Oil contained in the old ship or add the equivalent amount to the new ship.
• Provide one unlimited Energy Source and one unlimited Sub-Warp Drive I to the owners of ships who previously had fully functional hangars, replicating the basic transport functionality that previously existed.

If MindArk has lost the records of who had what they can use the old maximum values (2000 PED TT + 500 PED Fuel + Fully functional hangar) and deliver it to the current owners of the Privateer ships.

This would address the issue perfectly fine, would be fair and reasonable, and still require the hangar owners to upgrade their ship to take advantage of new functionality (like shooting at things) that had not been implemented in the old system.

Bye,
Deathifier

 

2500 PED (and not even in PED, just in value-equivalent on the ship) and two items of little relevance in the new system is perfectly acceptable.

Asking for more isn't reasonable as the other functionality wasn't there in the old system and would have required more parts for the ship even if they had been implemented - there were equipment closets and such still empty and ready for use after all.

- Deathifier

 

Yes I'm aware of that, so hopefully the data has been kept in archives and can still be examined to work out who should get what.

Bye,
Deathifier