Fwurg

[Mercury]

At this time, it is possible to build Holonet Relays, but not possible to sell them to other players. It is, however, possible from a practical perspective. In this case, the selling player simply assigns the usage rights to the buying player and agrees that the buying player will pay all upkeep indefinitely. From a practical perspective, this option is enough to complete the transfer of ownership, however the selling player remains the owner, which is weird.

To resolve this, I propose a new rule:

It is possible to transfer ownership of a Holonet Relay station from one player to another player. This can be either a base station, an upgrade station, or a duplex station. In all cases, the amount of must be a multiple of 500.

The transfer process works as follows:

1. The seller declares they are transferring the ownership of the station to the buyer on their turn report.
2. In the same turn, the buyer lists gaining ownership of the station from the seller on their turn report.
3. The next turn, the buyer becomes responsible for the connecting of the station to a base / duplex station.
4. The buyer at that time also becomes responsible for the upkeep of said station.
5. Despite costing upkeep, the station does not yet become operational. It must first be converted.
6. Conversion costs 50 per 500 , so 50 per base station, upgrade station or duplex station.
7. Once the station has been converted, it can now be used as if built by the new owner

How do people feel about this? Is the amount fair?

Disclaimer: I am currently in an agreement with the Astrians about buying their Holonet Relay stations.

[Gerben]

6. Conversion costs 50 per 500 , so 100 per base station, upgrade station or duplex station.

That does not make sense to me, what is to be the cost?

* Is it 50 per 500 ; or
* 100 per base station, upgrade station or duplex station?

Other than that, this proposal seems reasonable enough.

[Mercury]

I fixed this typo, apologies

[Dragonmaster352]

Seems fine to me.

[Brend]

((TL;DR: Because of longness, I have highlighted the important parts.))

Unfortunately, I feel I have to be a bit of a stick in the mud at this moment. I have three points, two of which are effectively transplants from your previous attempt.

Before I go into this, I would like to note that we have made ad-hoc decisions on Corporations in the past. I have no problem with solving the current holonet situation with an ad-hoc ruling instead of a blanket "Holonets are transferable" rule. I think that this is an event of some magnitude, that is not likely to repeat. By solving it ad-hoc we sidestep the whole mess that is rules for transfering stretegic assets. On the other hand, the game is mature enough that transfering strategic assets to other factions ought not to break things.

Why no technology?

In contrast with the earlier tech, this proposal makes the ability to transfer holonets cheaper by removing the technology research cost, and by halving the payments per 500 . Why is the approach of making a tech that allows for an additional option is abandoned in favour of a (cheaper) rule-introduction approach?

I currently have no strong opinion on the amounts necessary to facilitate a transfer, but the question is more one of tech-vs-rule.

What about duration?

You have yet to address the duration point I made in reply to your previous proposal for a tech:

• There's no duration noted for the actual transference process. If this is about retrofitting hardware to work with your own systems, it might be useful to require a duration of at least N . This prevents mona lisa buyouts. Maybe a minimum duration of 4 or so?

Why only holonet?

I think that assigning all usage rights is almost enough to complete the transfer of ownership. There is one sneaky difference: the Holonet Relays are not only virtual statistics on a wiki page. Those statistics represent actual physical objects in the game world. To me, the rules-wise ownership is a property that determines which faction is actually operating the holonet relay: which faction sends out military if the holonet relay is poked by pirates, or if an antenna breaks down, or sends over the painters to give the station a shiny new paint job?

In this interpretation of the rules, even if all usage rights are assigned to the buying party, the selling party still operates and maintains the hardware. Because of this, the selling party can still unilateraly decide to kick the buying party of their network. Of course, in doing so, the selling party would violate an IC agreement -- but that is something that can be sorted out ICly.

Note that the selling party's control over the holonet relays is not guaranteed either: an enemy of the Union could fly a explosive-filled shuttle into the Holonet Relay -- such an event is not covered by the rules, but is sure to impact the Union in a less-than-fortunate manner. The takeaway for the readers is that many rules are an abstraction of the actual IC universe, and not the natural laws of the IC universe ^_^

I strongly agree that what you propose would be a logical extension of the rules to model what should be possible in the game universe: for another faction to start operating the actual hardware. However, I fail to see why Holonet Relays should have an exclusive rule for their transfer while all other assets are still locked down.

Shouldn't other strategic assets (space habitats, hyperspace lanes, corporations, trade fleets, moons, planets, outposts, etc.) be equally transferable?

Especially since this is now a rules proposal, I feel that it is more important that we look at other transferable assets as well. To me, this could be as simple as determining the transfer and adaptation fees for other types of things. I would also be happy with the simple note "Transfer and adaptation fees for other things can be proposed when needed.", that way, when I finally convince someone to literally sell me the moon we can quickly determine a cost per zone and be done with it.

[Mercury]

Why no technology?

In contrast with the earlier tech, this proposal makes the ability to transfer holonets cheaper by removing the technology research cost, and by halving the payments per 500

Why is the approach of making a tech that allows for an additional option is abandoned in favour of a (cheaper) rule-introduction approach?

As you know, I support a technology for this (having proposed one myself, as per your link) - I do, however, want to get this matter sorted out since its been itching for a while now and seems to be stuck. Other players are being affected by this not being sorted and there is possible confusion over who is paying the upkeep (cause -I- am not paying upkeep since I don't own them OOCly even if I do ICly). By removing the technology, I figured there would be fewer components and fewer calculations necessary, thereby speeding up the proposal. If the lack of a technology is an issue, I'll gladly re-add it.

The halving of the listed cost was done as the Duck for Queen Isabella of Spain - so something could be altered and everyone would feel good about it. I'm happy to set it back to 100 (or a different value if someone can offer a sensible calculation - I wasn't able to think of anything, so this is a "lick your finger and stick it in the air" kind of value).

What about duration?

You have yet to address the duration point I made in reply to your previous proposal for a tech

Actually, a duration is listed but its implicit and therefore hidden: the listed duration is one turn. You transfer in turn X and get it in turn X+1.

The reason for this duration is so that the turn auditors don't have to check further back than last turns turn report (which they'd naturally check anyway) to make sure transfers of holonet relays aren't being forgotten for purposes of upkeep and bookkeeping.

Why only holonet?

(...) I fail to see why Holonet Relays should have an exclusive rule for their transfer while all other assets are still locked down.

First off, the primary reason I only do Holonet Relays is because my proposal would be much bigger if I included other objects, resulting in longer discussions on the topic.

Holonet relays are different from zones in that they could literally have been constructed from scratch by the player buying them, if the holonet-relays had been used by that player instead. In other words, while you can certainly get all de-facto usage rights to a zone, you could not have actually had that zone by your own making since it lies outside your system. In other words, once the transfer of ownership of a holonet relay is completed (but not once the transfer of a zone is completed), you are still in a "legal" state from the perspective of the current game rules.

Moreover, Holonet relays, unlike trade fleets, are identical in function no matter who built them. Trade fleets by contrast are limited in the routes they can fly since they must be housed by the owner of the fleet. Thus, you cannot "de facto" sell a trade fleet within the current rules, but you can "de facto" sell a holonet relay, without outside dependencies, within the current rules.

Corporations would be the closest match in terms of de-facto ownership and identical function regardless of the builder, and we have already established that they too need rules to move ownership from one player to another - we already de-facto allow this through "shareholding". The reason Corporations aren't included in this proposal is that they have several other factors involved which need to be addressed in such a case.

I have no issue with rules for transferring ownership of other objects. Holonet Relays are the simplest possible item to allow transfer of ownership, with the fewest complications to take into account and the fewest special rules. As such they seem like the best starting point.

What do others think? Would this be more acceptable if there were a tech to allow this, with the listed rules, and 100 per 500 ?

[Brend]

Brend gets all worked up about some text on the interwebs... Pfff... Click to open...

As you know, I support a technology for this (having proposed one myself, as per your link) - I do, however, want to get this matter sorted out since its been itching for a while now and seems to be stuck.

I must admit that I am feeling a tad annoyed by this statement. I know that we need to get this matter sorted out, but in my opinion the reason it hasn't yet been sorted out is not because we were blocking this in any way. Nor because we were taking to long in deciding and calculating. In my opinion, the previous tech proposal was not so much held up by more components and more calculations, as much as it was delayed because you simply did not reply to that thread... Me, Dragonmaster352 and Elmer gave our opinions, and you remained silent for 2 months.

If you were waiting for other players to, I have to disappoint you -- other players will only throw their two cents in the thread if the tech directly impacts them (or if it is about growing more population :P). And then mostly when you are done working on it and want to have it approved. And this has been known for a while, so waiting around is not all what it is cracked up to be. I love all the players on FWURG, but they can be very apathetic about anything not directly related to their world.

Anyway, what I am trying to say here is that I do not like the "It must be fixed now, so we'll ignore the old discussion and comments" attitude if it comes after a two-month delay that was incurred by the person saying "It must be fixed now".

We all know the not-so-old adage: "Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in the mud; at some point you realize the pig likes it." and I do have tendency to be said pig and argue. But we could have been mud-wrestling for two months already -- and I would venture that we would have sorted it out already by now ^_^

Though I strongly disagree with your reasoning of why only holonets should be covered by this rule, I will let the matter rest for now to speed things up -- The faster we get the current holonet relay situation sorted, the faster things start making sense again.

In that light: Should I understand you skipping a quote/reply on my proposal of quick-fixing with an ad-hoc solution (way at the top of my post) as a dismissal of an ad-hoc solution on your part? I.e., do you expect this situation to crop up more often, and therefore prefer a more structural rules/tech solution that can be applied again and again?

EDIT: I support the ad-hoc solution, at 100 per 500 , so we can get everything sorted out and the IC/OOC strangeness is gone. Then we can give the transfer rules a once-over without pressure behind it.

[Mercury]

I skipped over the ad-hoc since I wasn't sure how to answer it. Thinking about it, I have no problem using an ad-hoc solution for this particular case and then making a more generic rule regarding ownership transfer.

[Gerben]

The ad hoc solution works fine for me as well, should I wish to consider a similar action as either mercury or dragonmaster.

The cost is reasonable as well either at 50 or 100 , it does not have that much impact.

[Chriz]

I agree that we solve this case with an ad-hoc solution at 100 / 500 . However I also believe that this does not fall under technology and we should look into rules for this on a larger scale as Brend proposes for all strategic assets.

[Mercury]

Does anyone object to the 100 / 500 ad-hoc proposal? If not, I will begin implementing this in the turn after next turn (so the first payments will be in the Turn 246 turn report) - this fits reasonably nicely with the deal made with the Astians.

[Elmer]

I must admit, I am a little lost at what the proposal is with the 100 / 500 ad-hoc proposal.

In case you can pay a 100 per 500 , and transfer the all the relays, it feels a lot like a mona lisa.
In case you can pay a 100 per per 500 per , than I have no objections.

With the mona lisa buy out, I cannot find the argument why with this ruling we go for mona lisa while with the rest of fwurg we explicitly are against that.

[Brend]

The idea with the ad-hoc proposal is to allow the transfer of holonet relays for this case at a transfer cost of 100 per 500 . In other circumstances this might be a mona lisa acquisition, in this specific case it is not, purely due to the amount of available to the IO.

I agree that for the rules, we need to take into account Mona Lisa Acquisitions. But for this ad-hoc ruling, we can safely say that the IO can not pay the full transfer costs I estimate at 5600 in a short span of time.

Math yo... Click to open...

Regardless, 100 per per 500 per is literally the same as 100 per 500 , as can be seen from the following analysis:

(Tax per Turn) per (Trade per Turn)

= (Tax per Turn) * (Turn per Trade) // dividing by division is multiplying by reciprocal

= (Tax * Turn) per (Turn * Trade) // multiplying divisions means multiplying dividend and divisor separately

= (Tax) per (Trade) // elemination of common term Turn in dividend and divisor

[Mercury]

I'm not sure what you mean by either proposal you list either, because of confusion.

Basic history and details of the deal

The Astrian Colonial Authority has 28000 in the form of 6 base stations, 7 duplex stations and 44 upgrade stations, spread out over 13 sectors. They are not using this capacity, but are paying upkeep for it. They want to get rid of their Holonets.

The IO Protocol at the same time wants to have a bigger holonet network and wants to built stations in those 13 sectors.

Based on these two facts, both players came to the logical conclusion that the ACA will sell their Holonet Stations to the IO Protocol. However, there are currently no rules to allow this type of sale.

Looking for solutions, we found that while there is no rule, it is already practically possible to make this sale at no cost to either the IO Protocol or the ACA. To handle this sale, the ACA agrees by IC agreement that the IO Protocol owns the stations and has full rights and privileges over the station, and the IO Protocol agrees IC to pay the upkeep cost of the station, as they are now responsible for this as the new owners.

At this point, everything is 100% within the rules, the IO Protocol has their holonet stations and all is good.

The OOC discrepancy

Except there is an OOC discrepancy. Because the OOC rules do not allow a transfer of ownership in this matter, the bookkeeping of 28000 capacity cannot be completed, and those stations remain on the ACA page, the ACA continues to pay the upkeep and the IO Protocol would transfer the tax to the ACA. This will quickly get messy if the IO Protocol starts expanding upon the network, making it far less clear how much capacity the IO Protocol has available, for example.

This OOC discrepancy seemed a simple thing to me at the time when I made the deal with the ACA regarding the sale. Since its merely a bookkeeping thing, I'd propose a technology to allow the transfer of ownership, I'd pay some additional cost (of the tech and for the transfer) and transfer the OOC ownership to me, and then my bookkeeping problems would be over.

Under this erroneous presumption, the ACA and IO Protocol went ahead with the deal.

Proposal Problems

To resolve this OOC discrepancy and the confusing bookkeeping, I have proposed, twice now, a method by which ownership of the holonet stations can be transferred from one player to another. This is identical to the earlier situation, and merely resolves the OOC bookkeeping issue.

One of the reasons that these proposals haven't gone through yet is that we want to acknowledge that if this "transfer of ownership" is allowed between players for holonets, it should also be possible for other objects (i.e. corporations, outposts, possibly things like fleets). This is a reasonable objection. To resolve it, we need to make a more generic rule and shouldn't make a specific rule that applies only to holonet relays. However, a generic rule is in turn far more complicated due to special factors and considerations for these other objects. Therefore it will take time to make a detailed proposal, discuss it and get it sanctioned.

Apology

I messed up in this. By agreeing to the deal before the technology question was settled, I created this problematic situation. As an explanation, but not a justification, I figured it'd be a minor thing, since Holonet Relays are the simplest possible case for ownership transfer and the technology would go through easily. This, as such, is my fuck up.

I'm not the only one affected by it, however. This is affecting Brend (as he is now unable to connect to a base station which is owned by either the ACA or the IO protocol and nobody knows who can say if he can attach), and Dragonmaster352 (who is currently still paying upkeep for a station which rightfully should be paid for by me, except that I don't own it yet).

For myself, I've been in a holding pattern in terms of development for my world for the past three months, since I don't know what direction to go until this matter is settled.

All in all, the situation is a mess and its my fault. I just want to get it sorted, or at least en-route to being sorted.

Resolution

The one-off proposal here is to allow this specific matter (the sale of the ACA stations) to be resolved while we look for a more generic solution without the pressure of this matter drowning the discussion. Notably, the sale of holonet-relays is the simplest case of a transfer of ownership, when compared to other objects.

This transfer notably does not -create- a special situation (even if the transfer itself -is- special).

All it does is say "to prevent the OOC bookkeeping issue, from now on, we pretend as if it was not the ACA that built this Holonet Relay Station, but the IO Protocol". Beyond this singular fact, no changes are made to the world. Notably, it is perfectly possible within the rules for exactly that to have happened - this is different in cases of the IO protocol owning a moon in the ACA's system, for example, which could not have occurred. As such, the transfer itself is, indeed, a mona-lisa, but the outcome of the transfer is no longer such. We don't keep a mona lisa situation in existence.

I would be very much in favour of allowing other players to transfer holonet relays between them following the same mona-lisa (at that point not really mona-lisa anymore), should this situation occur before a more generic rule is introduced - though I suspect it won't be something anyone wants.

I will add a promise to help ease your mind: if the final rules for transfer of ownership are approved and are worse for me than the rules for this transfer, I am happy to pay the additional cost then. Additionally, I won't make claim to return of investment if the rules turn out to be better than the deal I got.

I just want this matter to be solved in a more sensible manner.

Summary of the proposal

The details of the actual proposal are as follows:

• The IO Protocol will pay to the ACA a sum of 17500
• The ACA will transfer ownership of its 6 base stations, 7 duplex stations and 44 upgrade stations to the IO Protocol
• The IO Protocol will of course pay upkeep for these stations as their new owner
• Additionally, the IO Protocol will pay a one time fee totalling 5600 in transfer cost to OOCly resolve the ownership issue and solve the bookkeeping issue

There is no time limit on the transfer payments, but since I am also paying off the 17500 to the ACA, I can assure you that the 5600 will -not- be paid off in one turn - in fact, I can guarantee it won't be paid off in ten turns either, I just don't have that kind of money.

I would propose handling this on a per sector basis, as in, once the transfer cost for all stations in a singular sector are paid, OOC ownership of all stations in that sector is transferred. I would be fine with a limit that no more than one sector can be transferred per turn, though frankly I'll average below one sector per turn.

[Brend]

I would propose handling this on a per sector basis, as in, once the transfer cost for all stations in a singular sector are paid, OOC ownership of all stations in that sector is transferred. I would be fine with a limit that no more than one sector can be transferred per turn, though frankly I'll average below one sector per turn.

I am in full support of the proposed limit. The IO get to assume control as fast as possible for them. While at the same time introducing an anti Mona Lisa Acquisition barrier to prevent one or two fat loans from boosting them through.

It clearly states that there is a minimum duration for assuming control, and at the same time it does not create further IC issues because the IO are simply not rich enough to pay any faster.

Everybody wins.

[Elmer]

Everything is clear to me now, thanks.

I think the summary of the proposal of Mercury is fine. I think it is wise to include the limit of 1 sector per turn as well to prevent future mona lisa discussions.