Suspend pay timers for ships in sectors with no players in them

[Eurgiga]

Simple enough concept. If the sectors are not loaded, the ships are not doing anything, including mining. If they're not going to pay for themselves while I'm away, why should I pay them?

[Mr. Nova]

Makes sense that I would agree with. Having to try and keep a fleet of different speed ships traveling through sectors together is ridiculously tedious with the present AI system. Half the time I just end up transferring the crew and salvaging the ships and just building new ones once I reach a suitable place. Having to pay for ships that for all intents and purposes be 'inactive' is illogical and irritating.

[Acid]

I understand this, but isn't it more realistic that you would have to pay crew who are employed by you? Why else would they stay on the ship if they're not getting paid? Maybe a better option would be to implement some form of docking where a ship is declared inactive and the crew are on leave?

[Eurgiga]

It's also realistic that they'd keep working while I'm away and not sit on their space butts. If they stop working but I keep paying the "realism" is already broken in a manner detrimental to Fun.

[Acid]

It will probably be best to wait until an alternative is made to freezing sectors, as that's the main issue. Ideally you would want to leave mining ships in an area to mine and generate income.

 

Otherwise, I think a sort of "dry dock" for inactive ships would be good.

[SageThe13th]

This only seems fair.  I would also like to add that while that mechanics regarding unloaded sectors will change in the future that it may be something that takes awhile.  In the mean time, this solution seems like an easy enough quick fix to the problem.

[kurikaktus]

If you want realism, then just have cryochambers and keep majority of the crew in stasis while a few are kept awake to maintain the ship.

 

I was just about to post the suggestion for cryochambers when I saw this post. I'm going to make my post and mention this as well.

[Coovargo]

For right now this would be nice to have implemented.  I have such a large fleet of ships floating around that I've basically deserted that it would be nice to just tell them to dismiss them from the fleet UI. Only speculation, but I would bet that Koonschi is working on something to keep sectors with player ships loaded on a simple 2D grid with basic functions and combat interactions to simulate fights, mining, and station processing/trades. Right now even stations wont produce (normally) unless the player is present in the sector, and you know that is not intended to stay that way. X3 could run the entire galaxy while the player was present in only one sector.