I just had an idea come to me from reading the Test server patch thread. Bear with me here because this is literally hot off the press.
On the Test Server we have an NPC who sells us rare weapons for testing.
On the Retail Server we all have hundreds of rare parts in our collections but many of us have missing ones. We usually have 3 or 4/5 or 5/6 to most guns and thus we continue to farm our asses off to get the last part.
What if we could buy these parts from a vendor in the HQ of our faction (if we had 100 sympathy) and they were available for huge amounts of money?
Right off the bat I can see one negative - buying the rare parts needed would kill the trading economy.
Ok so we set this price at 1m NC+ and this alleviates the problem of people buying an entire set of whichever gun they want. I do not know anyone who will pay 6m for a gun they might get 0 slots on.
The rare trading economy is now protected. People can still farm and trade as they did before but the fabulously wealthy/stupid players can buy a set of parts if they want to for that exorbitant amount or they can continue as before - trading and selling their parts to collect the majority but perhaps finally succumbing and coughing up 1m creds to get that last part they needed to complete a weapon.
Positives would include - removing a huge surplus of cash from the economy whilst at the same time allowing for player to player SALES and TRADES (part for part).
No one part would ever be worth more than any other now (you would hope) as parts would instantly have a capped value of money (1m credits) and the vendors get to suck money from out of the economy.
I remember a post a while back from Trivaldi talking about worthwhile and viable cash sinks. This (in my mind) would provide that cash sink perfectly.
In terms of new players also - over the course of a runners life - even as a brand spanking new player to the game they will amass a small personal fortune in credits. It is tough not to in nc. This sort of system would aid those players (particularly the ones with less time to farm) with getting their first, second or subsequent rare weapon. It would probably encourage some of them to pvp more (with the adequate tools).
It would probably help ALL of us get our fucking Special Forces chips... (please note the SF chip is now called a fucking special forces chip because it is so fucking rare )
It would appeal to casual gamers as well as hardcore ones. It is akin to a pay to win system without actually charging real money!
Having lots of money would now be useful at times rather than a chore!