An extremely silly question, buut...

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Or maybe an abandon ship order. You lose control of the ship and it sits derelict until boarded by someone. Of course that could be abused. You build a massive fleet and park it some where and abandon it and keep a fleet of cheap boarding ships nearby to take over when needed.

What about allowing you to mothball a ship regardless of whether or not you have a space yard available, but only allow unmothballing with a space yard handy. That would do it, and shouldn't require too much in the way of code changes. Just remove what ever flag tells it you have to be at a space yard.

Geoschmo

Obviously, there needs to be a distinction between 'abandoned' and 'mothballed'. 'Mothballed' means 'preserved' after all. Can a desperate crew forced to abandon a ship possibly take the necessary measures to 'preserve' their ship? By definition, no. Simply, a ship that has been abandoned will break down and disintegrate. Just have it lose a certain number of components every turn after it has been abandoned. When the components run out, poof! I'd say at least 2 components per turn wouldbe good.

[ June 05, 2002, 19:45: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]