Possible projects (Do we need to fill these gaps?)

This is a query to see what sort of utilities in the setting that we might want to see as Players and GMs. Since there are some gaps.

After looking through the list of corporations, and businesses, I have noticed that we have a proliferation of manufacturers, producers, and think tanks. We are however short on distributors.

We have

1. Bravemart - A store chain run by the Reds with limited stock.
   
2. Origin-Mart (Ori-mart) - An Origin industries run outlet that sells exclusively Origin made items. (Needs an article still)

If there are other distributors in the setting, I have been unable to find them.

With this in mind I was considering writing up a fluff article for an international warehouse style store. One with thousands of square meters stocked with items from every manufacturer and developer in the setting.

The idea here is that I would dig through all of the product lists and compile a list of items that would be available for sale. This would consist of anything that the company does not have listed as restricted, and the prices would be marked up 10-30% depending on the circumstances.

With this project I would also note which items are illegal for sale in certain places. For example, Lazarus tries to sell to everyone, but they're not allowed in Yamatai space, so for the Lazarus made equipment I might include a note that they are unavailable in Yamataian locations.

This would allow FMs to control what items they may or may not want sold in their faction, while still allowing me to create a single comprehensive list of the things available for sale.

Beyond the general store page itself, I would probably include fluff that describes how localized stores are presented and run. For example a branch in Yamatai space might have a cleaner, more expensive premises and feature a cute mascot or something. While a branch in Nepleslia might be bare concrete floors, and armed to the teeth to fend off gangs who may want to score easy equipment.

Moving on...

A second gap that would probably be nice to fill is cybernetics. We have an entire race who is suggested to regularly use cybernetic components, however we have next to no information on them.

I suspect that many people might say that it is better to leave this open ended so that people can be creative with it. Which is why I would suggest merely compiling a list of examples of "common items" that can be found. This would allow for an explicit statement that better, or alternative cybernetic options exist allowing those who wish to be creative to be so.

This would potentially allow for more varied characters to be written aside from the occasional inclusion of a prosthetic limb, and might even help those players or GMs who want to have something special come up with a better idea by having a list of possibilities to compare with what they want.

These are the two ideas that I have had so far, and there may be more gaps in the setting that need to be addressed, however this is a place to start.

If you thing there are better alternatives, or other aspects of the setting that need to be addressed feel free to include them in your own response. Hopefully something good will come of this.

There is no major space faring civilization in SARP that has not recently experianced a doomsday level event.

Yamatai had the plague and years of unending war,

The spacers had the genocide,

The garts nuked themselves,

The UOC and its territory collapsed,

Nepleslia was/is nepleslia.

There isn't a robust commercial sector because it keeps getting blown up... But I think that is part of the charm of SARP because that also means there is plenty for people to make and do.

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That aside, there are a lot of small retailers that may not have fully made it to the wiki. Awesome Corp on nepleslia made an RP apperance as a warehouse full of armored vending machines with a holographic smiley-face sales bot to talk to customers.

And Wazu has sub-par cybernetics in his leg from Nepleslia largely because there are no major distributors for that kinda thing.

@Eistheid On my to-do list is to create a large-scale corporation for "general-use" civilian stuffs.

@Zack the "why" isn't the important part. It's more a question of, do we want a setting element that we can say "Characters X Y Z went to [store name] to get [UMC Product] [Phoenix Arms Product] [Novacorp/Tamahagane Product]" Rather than having to hunt down three separate and likely out of date corporation pages, digging through all their offered items etc.

@FrostJaeger this goes beyond providing general use civilian stuff, this is giving our characters a location in the setting where they can actually go to get stuff rather than having to order from the manufacturer all the time.

Basically we have a lot of people who make stuff, but nowhere actually sells it.

@Eistheid Ah, okay......!

You know what?

The company I'm making - originally intended as a agricultural/industrial behemoth - will now be a wholesale retailer (similar to, say, Costco)

Since @FrostJaeger is interested in writing a retailer/civilian aimed corporation I'll probably work with them on that.

Would a kind of space Amazon.com with space shipping and handling be a viable buisness in the SARP setting?

It could potentially. Given the proliferation of drones you could even automate to door deliveries.

By extension, is there already an interstellar space FedEx?

Not to my knowledge, though someone else might know.

Two major (or single depending on the service configruation) things we could use is an international carrier service for cargo and some kind of major transportation service (alah airlines).

We have one transportation service that is official. Other than that you need to hire people individually at the moment.

Effectively we need a transportation service for both people and material with bulk and individual capability. This service would also need to have both planetary services (city to city) and interplanetary transport capability and it would have to be international friendly.

International friendly things become hard... It would almost be simpler to have mid-way stations where you transfer from one faction's service to the other.

The "why" is important, because you want whatever you make to fit into the setting.

A new transport corporation should be a start up, and not instantly a wal-mart. This is mainly because the civilian sector is so damaged, a mature corporation popping up out of no where doesn't quite fit with that.

You misinterpreted my response so I'll clarify. This thread was not posed with the question, "Why do we not have these things?" It was posed with the question, "Is there any interest in having these things?"

Having all the reasons why the civilian sector is suffering is of no use if there is no player interest in having these resources. As such I was polling whether or not it would be worth investing the time to build civilian resources such as a retailer, and possibly a setting tool that would give better examples of what is possible with cybernetics in the setting.

To this end while I appreciate your endeavour to encourage the development of corporations that fit into the fluff of the setting, as that is how development should be done, I was still at the time asking for whether it was "wanted" rather than questioning the absence.

However after the responses to this it goes to show that there is some interest in having at least one fleshed out retailer, a courier service, and available transportation resources. As such it would fit with both player desires, and the void in the setting for a corporation to step in and fill that niche be it an offshoot of a larger parent company, the result of investors, or a small time start up.

Personally, I've been tossing around the idea of writing up a kind of retalier+courier service since last year. I just wasn't sure if I could come up with enough written material for such a company.

Edit: and I've been rather busy with school.

With the formation of a proper and solid alliance between most of the factions I think now would be a perfect opportunity for the launch of faction to faction courier services.

Hmm, I could try to make some kind of interstellar courier service... I was thinking this might be a good job for something like the Freespacers?

A lot of 'spacers still wouldn't work with Yamatai, so they're not the best option overall. Realistically, Nepleslia is the default for anything international, just because they don't have negative history with pretty much anyone BUT Yamatai.