Hi VO, Some of you know me as Subsonica in-game, I have a background in economics and I've been involved with the capship pricing for TRI and stuff as a personal favor to Neon Black.

I have done some preliminary pricing analysis based on the opportunity cost of manufacturing each of the constituent ingredients in the Trident Type M missions and I think I've come up with a good rounded number. Underlining these calculation is a rate of 5000c per cu per system shipping rate, based on the best trades I could find throughout the verse. This can of course be adjusted and should be if the opportunity cost of some trades is reduced there will be a net economic effect on the prices of manufacturables.

Anyway, below is the Google Docs spreadsheet which sets out my calculations for everyone to inspect, my suggestion is that these are market value of trident parts and the sell prices in stations should be adjusted accordingly. This should have the effect of ensuring manufacturers are paid fair prices for their little virtual creations.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnSBwFT_ngw0dFQzempfVWRidXN2c3RhLVpkbW53amc

For those that want the cliffnotes:

Fluid Formable Silksteel: 1,513,718c
Fused Composite Plating: 1,722,270c
Merged Cybernetics Array: 2,320,583c
Milanar Optical Sesor: 8,795,134
Milanar Master Computer: 126,445,374c
Reinforced Bulkhead: 21,209,552c
Internal Bulkhead: 77,504,456c
External Hull: 216,713,554c
Engine Pylon: 139,112,158c
Docking Bay Hanger: 187,613,902c
200 MW Reactor: 163,967,264c
80MW Engine: 100,825,669c

Total for a 'Trident Kit': 3,965,225,574c

Neat.. some things seem off though. For commodities and mined stuff it's based on the highest sell price, right? The prices for some ores are way too high then. Also superconductors sell for more.

If something can be acquired in the same system it's distance 1 right?

Fancy ore locations near the grey stations that I know of:
azek: helio, xith, pent
latos: denic
sedina: lanth, denic
odia: lanth, api
bractus: lanth
pelatus: xith
edras: pent (although most of it in nasty hive sectors)
ukair: denic
verasi: pent
jallik: helio (I was told .. never verified it)

All the premium x ores (except xith) should probably have a distance of 1 because they can be found everywhere.

Most hive drops can be farmed in odia. So you could possibly reduce the distance for some of the sensor and computer parts. Arklans and transports drop the most synthetic silksteel, right? There are some arklan sectors in pelatus too and it never took long to fill up a ship with it in the latos sorrounding either.

Usually it's based off the highest sell price within the distance that you could carry it if you didn't have to carry it to be manufactured.

Correct regarding the distance 1.

I tried to base my distance figures based on the most widely available. So with Synthetic Silksteel I used the Arklans in bractus for shipping to latos, and the Arklans in Pelatus for shipping to pelatus, unless I made a mistake there. I also adopted this principle for ores, but yes you may be right that there are more ore locations I have not yet come across.

Please feel free to fork the spreadsheet and make modifications as you see fit. I'll make some adjustments over time but at the moment I'm too busy to modify them.

do you take checks?

As far as Neon has told me, we don't yet have nearly enough members to produce a Trident kit in any reasonable amount of time. I'm sure if you ask him in-game he will give you an idea of the type of product we can produce and work that into your project. If we had maybe 40-50 active users it might be a different story, but at TRI we are well aware that ours is more of an aspirational goal rather than something that is achievable in the games current manufacturing framework.

You know, if you value your time at $20/h, and figure you can earn 10M/h (a generous estimate IMO), that puts the conversion rate at 500k/$, which means the cost of a Trident kit is nearly $8000.

Just a reminder about how absurd Tridents are.

Of course, maybe it's cheaper if you build a Trident yourself. I don't know how many hours it takes.

Many many many hours.

We know Tridents are absurd, the entire process needs reform and I hope theres some serious consultation with the existing builders as to what would make the process more enjoyable and worthwhile (you know, beyond shields :P)

Here's an idea... make a bigger badder boss bot than the levi that drops tridents!
but on a serious note...

$8000 seems conservative for the amount of effort. Puts it around 400 hours in game to build one. Especially if they are considering allowing players to build other types of cap ships in the future that are supposed to be much bigger and more complex.

I vote to cut down dramatically on the effort it takes. Should take a group of dedicated people no longer than a week.. this is super futuristic space isnt it? How long is it going to take to build the other types of cap ships (if we ever get them).

Another option would be to have the 'lighter' variants of tridents buildable that require less parts.
Buying tridents for absurd amounts of money is another option... like 10,000,000,000c (Would take just as long to make that ammount of money as to make it :-/ ok... bad suggestion.)

Since this is more of a player-generated content issue, shouldn't this be in Roleplaying?

my suggestion is that these are market value of trident parts and the sell prices in stations should be adjusted accordingly.

Looks like a suggestion to me?

+1 to draugath

No, this is the right place. He's suggesting that the station sell prices be the ones he posted, instead of whatever silly nonsense they are currently.

Except that stations don't sell those items, players do. Unless of course you meant station buy prices. Even then, station buy prices should be far below what you could potentially get from players, not what you would like to get for them.

Yes, I meant the price the station buys them for, and I do agree it should be lower than players will pay.

But, the quality of a suggestion is not relevant to which section the thread belongs in.

This should definitely change though, given it is easy to sell cappie parts accidentally. If you were to make these the buy prices for stations it would push the player market prices up, since you'd have to beat the convenience of just selling to a station, but there definitely should be at least some reflection of these prices in the stations for accidental sales and such.

Oh for fucks sake... just have the stations start selling Tridents/Trident Parts and drop in the other... (shudders and chokes down the bile.)... varients.

If you are going to all the trouble to manufacture something like a master computer, selling it back to the station would be a complete tragedy, unless it was then available for sale at the station. If for some odd reason it didn't sell in oh... a week or month, the station could include it in a convoy, leaving it susceptible to... interception. If it made it to destination it would be left for sale there, until foundering stock gets loaded again into convoys, and more parts are subject to the risk of space travel...

Yes, what she said!