You seem to have this weird fascination that online piracy and this are the same thing. Online piracy is a crime in most places. Regardless they are not one in the same. StarMade has a distinct lack of playing styles and things to do. When broken down StarMade only has 3 things: mine, build, fight (if you are into fighting). Having a way to make it so your ships can not be saved as a BP would help create new playing styles and help build a foundation for player trading/interacting. Like building and don't like fighting? Or don't want to join a faction due to the drama that revolves around them? You could actually become a ship builder and it would be worth something. I don't sell ships because it's not worth spending weeks maximizing my builds to make just 1 sale. All they are going to do after buying the 1st blueprint is copy it to build their own. I'm not the only one who thinks that way.
You may be fine with the game as is and the lack of content, but many of us are not.
DRM on blueprints won't give any new content. It will just stifle the pace of innovation and design evolution.
You don't sell ships, but you do build them presumably, so DRM won't be encouraging any new builds.
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You are aware that is essentially impossible to sell the same ship to someone twice, yes?
Good? I have no idea what your point is I'm afraid...
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This is literally the worst analogy ever. A ship does have a cost: in-game credits or time spent mining for resources.
Either that cost is insignificant, and we can consider marginal cost to be effectively zero, or that cost is significant, and therefore there already exists a barrier to a ship being endlessly copied - people have to work to make a copy already.
Dr. Whammy Certainly does have the right to choose his business. However there is no point currently to the ship building business because you will only ever sell one ship. That's what this thread is about, boosting the Starmade economy by preventing people from outright copying your designs.
Yes, but no-one has the right to choose what business model will be
successful in an existing marketplace. It's up to you to create a successful business model to fit the market place (assuming profit is your goal).
As I've already said, DRM will stifle innovation. Designers whose goal is profit won't need to keep creating new designs. Good for them, but not the game/community.
It's definitely a waste if he spent that time making a design with the intent to sell it.
If profit was his only goal, yes.
Presumably to spend two months on something unlikely to make a profit means he must also get enjoyment from building. He also ends up with a design he can play with, and/or a design he can let other people play with. You can't just assume it's a waste.
Ultimately, this suggestion seems to have been made for two reasons, One: To prevent people design stealing and, Two (With farther reaching effect): To help build a living economy in Starmade. None of your 'suggestions' in this thread have any potential to do either of these.
Stealing? You're talking about something you willingly sold to another player. He hasn't stolen anything, and in this system where copying is allowed you can't even claim that the player has done anything wrong - you knew the score when you sold it.
Actually I've made two suggestions that could create a viable business for someone AND encourage innovation and growth.
DRM will stifle innovation.
Take a look at the fashion industry as an example: it's extremely innovative (endless "new season" styles), makes billions of dollars, and it does it all without any IP protection at all.