Just curious, Cliffski, but is a Starship Tycoon 2 still in the works? 
Iāve enjoyed my time playing Stardockās āGalactic Civilizations IIā, but I would really prefer to play a new Starship Tycoon. I prefer the peaceful management approach of ST over war-centric games. 8)
Not right now. I did start it, but never go past 20% into it. That was a while ago. I would like to revisit it one day though.
If you manage to get out a sequel please avoid adding weapons. I want to play Starship Tycoon not Starship Tyrant.
If thereās any combat it should be between some sort of hired escorts or drone fighters that accompany the ships and is resolved through some combat odds system. A little pop-up that says like the pirates strength is 100 your strength is 400 do you want to fight or pay and then it happens automatically. This could also allow for VIP escort jobs.
One game i suggest you take a look at if you havenāt is EV Nova. One aspect of the game was missions that could be high priority requests for passenger or cargo transport and this would trigger a chance of ambush or malfunction. Essentially high risk for high pay.
I could see it in starship tycoon as missions that require certain crew levels or x amount of this or that module for VIPs.
More modules would be nice. The ability to build up a cruise ship with spas, baths, theatres, etcā¦ transporting 50 first class passengers sounds like a nice thing to make as a potential path to riches. And similarly for each cargo. Maybe low-high crade cargo holds that are similar to the passenger cabins and higher hold ratings let you take more valuable goods as well as charge more.
To go with the business feel it would be interesting to see the ability to set up permanent somethings. Someone mentioned starbases and some of the perks that were mentioned sound good. I was thinking more like corporate headquarters for a large sum of money. It could improve your rep automatically so you could get more passengers/cargo as well as charge more at that planet. Get cheaper gas, modules and ships like a 15% discount or something.
To make it more immersive it would be neat to see a sort of RPG like inclusion. Maybe some of your cash or just as you hit certain accumulated wealth check points. As in in your lifetime youāve collected a total of 200,000cr in that time youāve improved x and you put a point into a stat like Company Finances = each point 1% interest per year, Bargaining = each point is a 2% discount, Engineer Training = your ships go 5% faster and have less malfunctions, Corporate Expansion = You can set up a corporate headquarters on a planet and you need 1 point per additional headquarters.
Of course larger maps would be nice too.
Iād say i like the game being a mostly single-player non-competitive affair and i donāt see any need to add competitive AI which could just get very messy buggy. A couple things other things that have been mentioned, would definately like to see a current fuel = x distance number somewhere. And maybe too just the things of how many modules/engines/passengers etcā¦ your current crew is able to handle.
Without adding AI competitors iād still like to see factions/relations scores of some sort. If planets were also assigned either grouped or individual reputation tracking then like doing a lot of missions/jobs to and from a couple planets could build up status which would then also make it easier to get jobs or smuggle in goods if you so desired. Similarly there could be some missions i.e. to smuggle weapons from one planet to another for a rebellion that you get out of the bar in a planet with a good relation and it further raises the rep for the start planet but drops rep for the target planet. Enough of that and then they one that hates you just wonāt let you dock etcā¦
Finally, if youāve managed to read this far, crossutilization of crew skills came up. Maybe something like let players know their ships overall ratings in each category as determined by full points from an assigned crew member and quarter points or half from all others. That way a very overall talented crew might be able to handle more or just as much as a more membered but specialized crew. This would also justify the cost of wages vs droids since if you got some crazy person who was all 10s or something theyād also contribute 2.5 or something to the other stuff. Or if you could assign Primary and secondary job where primary is full points and secondary is half points.
Anyways, this was a heck of a long post. Hope youāve had a good read if youāve made it this far.
Hopefully i also think most of my suggestions could be accomplished by adding to the existing idea of starship tycoon.
Also, i think youvāe done a very good job of how the trading works which i havenāt seen in other games. Usually everything is determined by what the planet is selling you cargo at vs what another planet is buying at and the same for passengers having a hard offer of money. Self-determined prices feels much nicer and also makes having something like a small fast low cargo/passenger ship for long trips worthwhile which usually isnāt a good option in most games.
We believe in you cliff!
P.S. if you put in something like a mission system - remember you can always slap up another request post and iām sure youāll be overwhelmed with suggestions. Congrats if youāve read this insanely long post.
Iāve just tried the demo so far, but once I get a bit of spending money Iāll pick up the full game. Itās quite fun!
My comments:
No combat, please. Handwave it by saying that weapons are strictly forbidden on private craft, just like with todayās cars. Iād just rather see all the focus on trading and business.
Missions: occasionally when you land, you may be approached with a business proposition, maybe smuggling some high-risk goods, or something like that. Some could be one-shot, others recurring.
Events: Some planets could be hostile towards each other, and if you have good trading relations with one, then the other will be less likely to want to trade with you, and more likely to charge you more for docking, or find reason to turn you away. Tying in with point one, you could also get events to bring in spies or extract spies from one planet or another, or even engage in blockade running. Smugglers compartments, or a really fast ship with a good pilot, would have a much better chance of breaking through. Governments you get friendly with might even grant you a monopoly, if theyāre a more autocratic government, on certain routes or goods, allowing you to make greater profit on them.
āLooseā goods: you could buy goods on one planet, then shop around to find a buyer on another planet, rather than just getting contracts to deliver something, as seems to be the case now. You might even be able to start your own profitable trade route, and obtain a monopoly.
My apologies if some of this is already present in the game - like I said, Iāve just played around with the demo so far, and if I come up with other ideas after buying it, Iāll be sure to post them.
Finally, I want to name my ship Serenity. 
Agreed, that is by far the most needed feature!
Hello, sir!
Iāve recently had the pleasure of purchasing both Starship Tycoon and Democracy 2, and must say I love them both dearly.
With Starship Tycoon in particular, though, I enjoy it tremendouslyā¦for about two hours of gameplay. On a good map. Then I have to start a new game. For a game like Democracy 2 where individual missions are designed to be short and intense, itās not so much of aā¦I hesitate to use this word, but, a disappointment. Starship Tycoon, though, is a great game and Iād love to play an individual map for much longer than I can currently stomachā¦but I quickly get bored with the options. Once I get my first ship the way I want it and buy a second ship, thatās it. I run more cargo and passengers for a while, but I eventually end up chucking the save out the window and starting a new game. What I really want to see for the game (or itās replacement, as the case may be) is a series of improvements to increase the length of playability for individual random-map games.
For starters, I desperately crave actual competition from rival freight and passenger companies. Not just random ships with amusing names, but entire companies that own several ships with amusing names which have to track expenses and profits and need to upgrade their ships, buy new ships, buy droids, hire crew members, and everything else just like I do. What I would love more than anything right now is a screen that tracks my company along with half a dozen or more others. It would require an increase in computing power, but having actual companies to compete against (and being able to track their progress as well as my own) would be a great improvement for me.
Along with this Iād love a sort of customer loyalty modifier where some passengers would only hitch a ride on ships from a certain company and the same with businesses and their cargo shipments. Being able to land on a planet and actually bid for long-term contracts against other companies would be a great addition as well. Individual planetary corporations would hold exclusive shipping rights under our nose and the right to ship that cargo would go to the lowest bidder (with possible modifiers based on past performance, reliability, and possibly some ālawfulnessā rating). Loss of cargo (hazardous cargo exploding due to poor containment, perishable cargo going bad, illegal cargo getting seized) that youāre carrying for one of these contracts would reflect poorly and could eventually cause you to lose your contract early (and also reduce the chances of you getting that or other contracts again in the future). These contracts would last for however long it took for the set amount of cargo to be delivered or for a set time limit (for example, 65 tons of grain delivered to XXX or 90 days) and then would be lost until they come up for renegotiation. I see a contract like this popping up on any given planet about once per in-game month or so. The contracts would be up for bid for a set amount of time (for example, 10 in-game days) during which any ship (and itās parent company) that visits the planet can place a bid (or lower a previous bid) until the time runs out and the contract is awarded.
Another change Iād like to see is two-fold. First, an increase in the total random cargo to be delivered (Iām sure this can be modded into the current game somehow, but I wouldnāt know where to begin). Second, a significantly increased rate of cargo replacement. Once I do pick up any cargo that might be available, it takes so long for a planet to generate new cargo as to make it a worthless stop for the duration of most of my games. I always end up running one ship with 5 passenger cabins and about 11 total cargo bays and a second ship with 8 passenger cabins and no cargo bays, and can still barely fill my first shipās cargo bays to half capacity (even delivering cargo to two or three different locations at a time) because I run into planets with 60 passengers wanting to go somewhere (with most of those passengers going to only two or three different locations) but only 20 or so tons of cargo, with no more than one or two tons going to any one location. This makes shipping passengers extremely lucrative while running cargo is a sure way to bankruptcy. Iād really like to run a more dedicated cargo ship, but there are usually only two or three planets in the entire sector with enough cargo to support a cargo ship, and even then only for about a month. Increasing both the amount of cargo available at any one time and the frequency at which it regenerates would make for a more interesting and robust game.
Also, Iād love to see an increase in the rate at which ship components for sale at A and B starports regenerate. I only run two ships in my games because I can only outfit two ships. There are only so many Turbodrives, Fuel Tanks, Cargo Bays, Hazardous Cargopods, Repair Subsystems, and 1st class passenger cabins in the galaxy, and when they run out itās the end of me increasing my fleet. New modules do seem to regenerate, but even more slowly than cargo (which makes sense, of course). Iād really love to see some more dedicated planets, maybe two or three per random map sector, that actually actively manufacture new ship components at a steady and relatively fast rate. This can be extended to planets that build new ship hulls at a steady rate, as well. The rate of regeneration can still be fairly low per module type, but something gets created every week or so at these specific planets. This, along with a universal increase in the regeneration rate, would then balance against other actual shipping companies also needing to upgrade their ships with those same components. New types of ship components are also encouraged, of course.
A regenerating pool of droids and crew members would also be nice. Having a new droid added to some random planet every week or month or so and having new crew members show up every so often (with perhaps surges of new crew members triggered on individual planets or sector-wide by random events). Maybe this happens now, but in fifteen or so random map games I havenāt seen it yet.
Something not related to the longevity of individual games (not exactly something that would make me happy, per se, butā¦) would be an additional cost to droids. Honestly, they are so much more cost effective than crew members that itās just crazy. Crew need to get paid all the time, they constantly whine about not being paid enough, they leave if you donāt increase their pay every once in a while, they get sick (which is a great, but infuriating, feature) and ruin the effectiveness of the entire companyā¦droids just sit there and function perfectly for a very low initial cost, all things considered. Now, I donāt necessarily recommend making droids any more expensive to buy, but it might be nice (and also infuriating) to have them go on the blink every once in a great while. Less often than crew members get sick, but once in a blue moon a droid will break down and have to be repaired in a starport (with costs rivaling minor ship repairs). Maybe (and this might already be in the game, but I canāt tell) passengers are more pleased with organic stewards than their robotic counterparts, so that a droid (always level 10) can still care for the same number of people as a level 10 steward crew member, but the droid only makes the passengers as happy as, say, a level 7 or 8 steward crew member. The whole wanting to ātalk to a real personā deal. And, you know, just because it would be a geeky delight, Iāve always wanted to see one of my steward droids go on a rampage and kill all my passengers, or a cargo droid āaccidentallyā vent Hazardous Cargopod 3 into the vacuum of space, or my pilot droid āmissā the landing pad, or my engineer droid sabotage the engines orā¦you get the picture. I would hate having it happen to me, but it would be a fun addition to the game and would add a bit of extra (though random and extremely rare) cost and risk to the ownership of the droids.
Also, pirates. No combat, because thatās a different type of game alltogether, but Iād love to have pirates or something similar to actually contend with. Getting boarded by the authorities is a pain in the pattootie, but since I never carry illegal cargo, who cares? However, having actual pirate ships show up on the map on occasion which can board your ship mid-flight (they have fast ships, and if they āovertakeā you on a delivery run they get to board your ship) and take your cargo would be a neat feature. Right now there are lawless planets who supposedly have pirates, but the only thing that ever happens is every once in a while you get a damaged landing gear or a vandalized air lock (which is way too expensive to repair, by the way). Space-ninja rivals optional.
Hey, you know those tiny little useless ships? Maybe your company could, over time, get a couple of those of itās own. They add a steady, but small, income that you donāt have to personally regulate. They just run some random course repetitively and add 250 CR to your income per tiny ship, per day, or something like that. Thereād be a maximum number of these that your company could haveā¦say, fourā¦and you couldnāt ābuyā them, they would just randomly generate over time (perhaps as your company hit four different, widely-separated amounts in your treasury). Nothing particularly important, useful, or even fun, but those tiny ships have always teased me with their speed and efficiency and un-clickable-nessā¦I just want to own one too, really.
I really like the Mission, Event, and āLooseā Cargo ideas of EricDerKonig as well. Actually, I like a lot of the stuff these other guys have mentioned. Especially the transferring droids between your ships without having to buy, sell, and then re-buy them. To simulate the joys of modern air travel, perhaps you could even shuttle passengers and cargo between two of your own ships docked at the same starportā¦one ship could pick up cargo and passengers on its route and transfer it to another one of your ships on another route that will actually go to the destination. I like the starbase idea as wellā¦but not as your company owning it, so much as there being ārefuelingā stops along certain paths between distant planets. The starbases could even import (but probably not export) a bit of cargo and have their own passenger trade. I donāt like the idea of buying entire planets, myself. Too infeasible. Buying buildings on a planet, thoughā¦setting up company HQ, training grounds, maybe a repair facility thatāll do ship repairs for you cheaper (but not free, as your company still needs to pay itās technicians and buy the parts) than other starports will do it, other business-related stuffā¦that would be awesome. Maybe some planets offer land for sale, and as your company makes money you can by a bit of land or an empty building and develop it. These buildings would cost you a daily/weekly/monthly fee to maintain, but theyād add some benefit to your company. Different ship types, larger maps, and modding capability (even though that feature would be lost on me) are all good, too.
Iām always opposed to multiplayer, myself, as I find it to be a complete waste of code and disk space (if I wanted to play with other people, why would I be sitting in my room? Thatās what the outside is for! I have all the āinteractionā I can stand at work, as it is.), but I know a lot of other people seem to love that sort of thing. I suppose if you had the time to wasteā¦
At any rate, hereās to hoping you get back to working on the game again soon! Iād love to give you some more of my money, should a sequel ever ariseā¦
Ceijiz