The Final Frontier???

Space.
I own a nice little empire, but no enterprise.
There's merit in starting an enterprise to progress in game levels, but... I think I might want to head into space first.

As I understand it, starting an enterprise will cost me 30gc/month. Relying on the game level bonuses to pay for that endeavor is unsustainable. But where else would I get those gc? Direct trading? I can make some gc direct trading, but certainly not 30/month.

So, aside from direct trading, level bonuses, and outright purchasing gc, where else is there 30gc/month? Space.
Space is an expensive place to reach. But it won't cost 30gc per month just to exist.

I'll soon be sitting on 400 gold coins - which is what I consider the minimum to guarantee a successful launch into space (300 to buy a dock, 100 to purchase, operate, and maintain a fleet). So tell me... why should I build an enterprise instead of a space fleet? Why

Lot of info there. Maybe I can best help by pulling out as many questions you can and do a little Q&A.


How do I get coins to sustain an enterprise?

You are right to start doing math on this. Idle or underused enterprises are a gold coin hole. You should consider an enterprise, in my opinion, when you have a good shot at getting game level 7 (peaceful) or game level 9 (full game) on a world.

Check my Game Level Guide on this same forum. The first few game levels earn 110 coins to game level 4. Then it is best to plan whether you want to go as high as 7 going the peaceful route or 9 by switching to the full game requirements. Going from 4 to 7 adds an additional 310 coins but 9 earns 710 over game level 4. This coin collection will pay for your enterprise for almost a year or more.

Okay, after I get the game levels, why would I still retain my enterprise?

If your sole aim was game level, m

Thanks for taking the time to write all that.

I don't like sharing, I guess. Less than 25% of the profit from the sale of highest quality product just doesn't appeal to me as much as 100% of the profit from a lower quality product. It's a decision I made about 2 months ago, when I bought back all my corporations. I now have the knowledge and ability to get around that, but I lack the ambition (for now).

Aside from that (and I could be wrong about this), but there might be some merit in selling lower quality upgrades. Specifically, a weapon or an ammo upgrade seems to do the same whether it's 280Q or 350Q (again, correct me if I'm wrong). Since we're talking gold coin transactions, there's a bit of a disconnect between price and quality; production costs and gold coins earned. You, of all people, know this from your direct trading of electrical power. But from a sellers perspective,

A couple things there. A "truly" public corp benefits from higher sales using less workers compared to any other corp. The profit you are concerned about losing can by mitigated in several ways. Remember that tax income happens first, before profit transfer. Also, you may have other entities of your own, such as investment funds or enterprises you control, purchase shares. It is possible to own most, or even all, of the shares of a corporation with different entities of your account and, as long as the controlling entity owns less than 25%, the corporation remains a "truly" public corp.

According to game news, weapon and ammo upgrades perform in a "linear" way according to their quality. To be honest, I have taken this at face value and have not done extensive testing and have even, to no avail, emailed the gamemaster in the past to get clarification on exactly the utility of using higher quality weapon and ammo upgrade pro

Thanks again for the information.
Now about shuttle maintenance...
It looks as if the only way to buy shuttle maintenance is to make your own, or to buy/rent a dock on space station Libra. Is that right? How else does one get a hold of SC maintenance units? And exactly now does one apply SC maintenance units to a shuttle? I might be blind, but I haven't seen it yet.

Another thing I noticed is that it looks like I have to have my own dock to buy from a space station. Is that right? Seems to me, I should be able to request and get permission to dock at someone else's dock to complete a transaction. (naturally, someone should be able to deny permission too).
But I don't see anything for that either.

As far as SC maintenance, I have been advising players to make their own. I have considered whether I can make a business selling maintenance in space and it simply doesn't seem feasible with the price of a dock. Like now and most times I check, SC maintenance is not even available for sale in space by any seller.

To make maintenance, you need to make or obtain shuttle boosters and shuttle components. One shuttle booster corp will quickly make more boosters than you will need for some time. You often can find a player to sell you plenty of them. If not, make one corp and when you have your fill of boosters, close the corp. Components you will need more regularly. An ongoing shuttle maintenance program is ideally one shuttle components corp and 8 SC maintenance corps. The one components corp can create enough product to supply the 8 maintenance corps.

You are right that you must have a dock simply to be a space customer. Note, differen

Thanks. So for now, it's far cheaper to keep horse trading shuttles with those who can maintain them, or buy MUs directly. You need to be GL5 to build the company and that requires an enterprise and that requires 30gc/month (for me). It's not worth it, not even on a temporary basis.
There's more than one way to skin this cat (so to speak).

As an aside, I can see a market for refurbishing and reselling old shuttles with players <GL5.

Postscript: word of wisdom - never, never, never, ever put in a request for shuttles. Not even at rock bottom price. I manually bought a few good shuttles with over 3K missions left on them, then put up an request for cheaper shuttles. What I got was junk with just barely over 1100 missions left. Lived and learned.

As for "refurbishing" shuttles, there is no way to do this. Maintenance units simply allow a shuttle to operate normally. For example, if a shuttles has 1000 missions but no maintenance it would consume more than 1 mission per flight, so after one flight it may gave 996 missions or so left. I forgot to add, to give a shuttle maintenance, simply move the maintenance to a space center they are likely to visit. The shuttle will pick it up automatically as it visits and leaves the center.

Wow, I read nothing on that.
AFAIKT, I can't dock at anyone else's dock, and nobody can dock at mine. So buying and selling SMUs have to be done between docks at Libra before being transported to any other space station. Am I right about all that?

So we pretty much HAVE to have a dock on Libra if we're going to be in space. Otherwise, all our shuttles simply fall into decrepitude.
That seems such a rip off.

Seems to me (incoming opinion!), we should be able to buy a product on any station and dock our shuttles wherever our product is. So if I sell you Air Force Maintenance at Ceti, you should be able to dock at my dock to load it up.

But I can foresee an issue with people buying stuff and leaving it on someone else's dock. So, after 48 RL hours, they would have to pay 4GC rent on the dock while the owner retains use of the leftover dock space. After 10 RL days, ownership of the product reverts

Found it. Here it is:

" When starting a new mission, a cargo shuttle will be required to use one space craft maintenance unit. This product is available on all worlds and is traded on the space station Libra. It is the player's responsibility to have such a maintenance unit either on the shuttle itself or at the space center or docking station where the shuttle is launched for its next mission.

If a maintenance unit is not available, the shuttle will age 5 times faster.

The spacecraft maintenance units can be bought and stored at space centers and docking stations."

So it is 5 times faster aging without maintenance.

I have considered a similar model for space docks as you suggest but I foresee it being a more complex change than it needs to be. If the dock price was simply 100 coins, sellers could afford to work this out with buyers as I have described.

Again, most players operating shuttle