What if a physical cash (probably some kind of national Bills) were introduced?

I would certainly be interested in exchange rates and the like! Imagine, Itanis, UIT, and Serco all have their versions of their nationally, historically renowned figureheads posing for the camera on a piece of paper. They are thin pieces of paper, that are not very useful for buying things (at least with computers).

However, in a TRADE MENU where you exchange goods for other goods and/or money, The ONLY thing you may use for compensation is some kind of physical currency, which can be taken out at your local station ATM (for a surcharge if you are not in your own nation).

Also, buying or selling anything outside of your nation should also require a small fee.

Another idea that could come from this is players going back and forth over the border exchanging needed goods to the nations that need them more and will pay you more for your effort, because your nation charges you for an export fee (or something of the like)

An even further idea is trying to exploit the system somehow, and actually make a good profit off exchange rates, but after about 2 weeks of observing the rates ofcourse. One wouldn't be able to make profit on it overnight because of the atm surcharges.

I heard someone was going to be working on the economy, I figured I would post what I was considering on the issue.

not enteirly in line with what you sugested, but perhaps the barders of each nation's space could be patroles such that any ship in the wormehole sector will be hailed, and required to stop for a custums inspection. preferably this would be a stop at a station that is positioned either around the wormehole or failing that near the wormehole. then the player is charged export fees, based on what cargo they are carying and posibly required to jetein some cargo before crossing (if they were carying something that's illegal to export/import). if you don't dock at the station before aproaching too close to the womehole you'll me set to temporary KOS and if you actually make it to the womehole you'll take a faction standing loss.

this would open up the posibility of actuall smuggeling, as additional features like bribabbe custums agents at some grey space boarders become available. of coarse on the short term you could just run though the blockade taking a faction loss and possibly some hull damage in the process.

as for your curency sugestions,
i do like the idea of multipe curencys and exchange rates, but i don't see how your surcharge idea would hinder making a profit on curency exchanges. as i see it it would actually help. for example:
an Itani player goes to an ATM in a wealthy itani system (where curence has the least value) and takes out some cash (no surcharge because he's in his home nation). then he crosses the boarder to UIT space, and finds a statuion where Itani cash is in high demand (perhaps the home station of a Itani player who likes to fly the TD warthog). he then sells his Itani cash for UIT cash, at a fair profit because Itani cash requires a surcharge to be withdraw locally (so he can mark up the price by any amount less than the surcharge). Then he takes his UIT cash back to Itani space and looks for a UIT player who flys Valks, rince and repeat.

I'm certainly all for nation borders becoming more like actual borders, with patrols, customs stations, etc.

Hell, having customs patrol-bots that fly up and 'scan' you would be awesome.

I'll 'scan' people with my intermitted neutron ray.

Seriously, though, I'm for it.

Yeah!

This would make border-running all that much more fun!
Zooming through a border system without getting scanned would be like toll jumping on the subway!

Especially if we had a dynamic economy, we could speculate on relative currency rates and such. Would grayspace be a completely barter economy?

I see the following occuring in grayspace:
QUI-GON : I have 20,000 Republic dataries.
WATTO : Republic credits?!? Republic credits are no good out here. I need something more real...
QUI-GON : I don't have anything else. (raising his hand) But credits will do fine...
WATTO : No they won't. (QUI-GON, using his jedi mind power, waves his hand again.)
QUI-GON : Credits will do fine.
WATTO : No, they won't. What you think you're some kinda Jedi, waving your hand around like that?

Anyway, I like the multiple-currency idea, with fluctuating exchange rates and stuff. But, we'd need a dynamic economy first.

Well supposedly in the near future an update of the economy is in order. Based off that will come more ideas and such for improvements.

For ATM fees, anywhere you go there are ATM fees (in credits only, no point changing the money you're getting out). The question though is how much will be enough to discourage the many "quick buck ideas" people will get. The fees should be relative to the distance from the nation's Hub bank. From even the hub though, it should be very difficult to make serious money by buying and selling daily. It should though, be relatively easy to make serious profits over a long amount of time.

For example Jim Kirk buys 4,000I (Itani Ien), and wants to sell it the same week in UIT space. Now, UIT is the trade Nation, but only because it's the safest (trading by the border of Serco and Itani space is dangerous, and should therefore be a little more rewarding somehow, lower atm surcharges and slightly higher purchasing power perhaps). The UIT Federal Note (UFN) decreased value very slightly during the week. Itani Ien increased in value (from the selling of 3rd party goods to Itani Stations, which lowered the total Ien in the Nation, and therefore made Ien more valuable. It increased only 0.7% which is in effect multiplying Jim Kirk's 4,000I by 1.007 equals 4028UFN. For dealing with Currency, you have to pay a fee to sell it if you are in a foreign nation. (The fee gets less and less the higher your Exchange Trade level gets. (Jim Kirk is a level 3))
The fee for a level 3 seller is .8% of the Selling Total. (4,000I * .008 = 32I)

40284I - 4032I = a loss of 4 I|UFN.

Jim Kirk decides not to sell it yet and wait for the percentage to grow because selling it now would mean incurring a net loss, or not having enough of a gain for the transaction to be worth his time and efforts.

He subsequently convinces his friends to buy from Itani space and sell elsewhere. They do, and they purchase Ien as well. All of them trade like madmen, and at the end of the week they check the percentage and it Jumped about 15.431. During the 3rd day of the week, Jim Kirk bought 2,000 more Ien, and his friends bought a total of 4,000I when the Ien value already increased 2%. The friends and Jim had 6,000I purchased after it had already increased value 2%, and Jim had 2,000I more that had a full 15.431% left to gain. They sold all of their Itani Ien to UIT's central hub at Dau, which still charged the max 1% for Lowest Level Sellers (which is all except Jim who is a higher level, and gets charged .8% or .008).

The friends sell:

4,000I * 1.13431[which is 15.431% - 2%] = 4,537.24UFN
4,537.24UFN * .01(1% Selling charge) = 45.37UFN
4,537.24UFN - 45.37UFN = 4491.87UFN (Which in case of cash is rounded up because you are already paying a Selling surcharge) = 4492UFN
4492UFN - 4000I (at the time purchased equaled 4000UFN) = a net profit of 492UFN for both friends together.
492UFN divided by 2 =
246UFN for each friend of Jim's

Jim Kirk Sells:

4,032I at 15.431%(from first week without friends) + 2,000I at 13.341% :
(4032*1.15431=4654.17792) + (2000*1.13341=2266.82) = 6920.99792UFN * [selling charge of .8% for level 3 seller] (100%-99.2%=.8%) .992 = 55.36798336UFN charge
6,920.99792UFN - 55.36798336UFN = 6865.62993664UFN = 6866 UFN

6866UFN
- (4,000I + 2,000I = 6,000I)
=866UFN profit for Jim Kirk

Profits increase substantially as you advance in level, as you can buy more per day, and sell with less of a percentage being taken out of the Selling price. At some point, levels get very difficult to advance just like anything else.

The sub-skill of Exchanging Foreign Currencies, should be very easy to manage, and there aren't really any ways of messing with the system because of the surcharges. After a certain level you would be able to take out bigger sums of cash, and invest with the cash in other Nations. There would be only a couple of "National banks" that would become the central hub of banking for each Galactic power. They should be located in each of the Nation's Capitol System.

For grey space the Bank should be in Sedina and should be accessible to everyone and anyone reguardless of standing but at a slightly higher than even average stations in the boon-docks (Corvus is in it for the money). What the Corvus Bank offers in return is priceless. They should then implement a system for betting on games, events, and other things Player related.

Normal Stations everywhere offer ATM's as well, but are expensive in relation to the Capitol Bank in each Nation.

Am I right to say that the less money a nation has, the more that money is worth?

Worth is a term that can only be applied to different, comparative parties. In this case, a nation's value of money is based on what supplies it can get from other factions through a certain percentage of it's total currency in distribution. Obviously there are two factors that affect this; they are how much money is being hoarded, and therefore effectively lost, and the cost of transporting bought goods to and fro around the nation's territory. Take into consideration the varying distances between factions, and the unique items they have for sale (not to mention varying prices for similar items) and vwa-lah! Dynamic economy.

Jim Kirk, I'm loving the idea, and here's why. Inflation now becomes an important and real issue, which forces the devs to make a system where every station has a real number of commodoties and dollars. Those convoys you see flying from station to station would start packing real, limited numbers of goods, and the universe will learn that all those pie-rats don't hatch from cargo that's been left out too long. Standard trade missions will find their place in the universe, and so will mining and bot hunting for scrap. All these are steps on the way to implementing player owned Cap-ships, and eventually... (drum roll) Player owned and operated stations! Thankyou, thankyou, you're wonderful, thankyou.

Um, yeah, the whole nation patrol ship thing? That's friggin' sweet. I see a whole ton of potential outcomes with the simple trick of teaching the Vendetta Online Mind to threatening players to cut their engines, recognizing when a player has complied or whether he's trying to run, getting within scanning range to check for appropriate licenses, or equipment, or taxes, whatever, and then responding appropriately through faction loss, attacking, or maybe taking bribes, etc.

This concept of letting NPC's adminster what's "right and wrong" within a boundary takes another step towards player owned stations, because we no have the choice of selling illegal outfits to individuals, particularly to those without the proper licenses to purchase them. Hell, players could even sign on to run a patrol, somewhat like Liberation, but more dull. Now we can get into NPC run raids into different nations on the basis that we'll have players who's mission is to respond. If you find yourself patrolling a lone system, you'd have the liberty of accepting bribes, letting your friends pass for free, or whatever. Don't get caught by your employer though!

Now take all this, and put it into an expanded universe. When NPC's become so sophisticated, a whole new level of gameplay will be opened up that I suspect has never been reached by any other online rpg.

Wow, when you put it like that, damn. I envisioned that whole "scanning cargo animation" in my mind, that is really cool. First though, we need outlawed stuff. Stupid things like, maybe all nations except serco have prohibition in affect. I don't want to suggest other drugs because the devs would prolly have to slap a "Drug content" on the outside of the box or something.

-Stupid things like, maybe all nations except serco have prohibition in affect.

-Itanis don't allow implants so transporting them into Itani space pays well.

I dunno come up with more illegal crap people!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I know some people don't really like my ideas on this issue, or are just indifferent, but I'd like to see what everyone thinks, even if they don't like these ideas. I'm not into changing the game, I just wan to make the money in the game more dynamic and useful, rather than meaningless, unaccounted-for, and the one-tracked current method.

If licenses are here to keep dangerous weapons out of unqualified hands, then why aren't there more illegal weapons? And this one always bugged me...

Station Guard Dan: "Say, where'd you get that Law Enforcement Neutron Blaster?"
Daggoth Korronath: "... older boy gave it to me."

You'd think after the 100th time they'd think to stop sending more vultures into the lightning mines, or atleast get mad at the guy doin' it. Come on guys, this time it'll work, I promise!

/me digs out his long forgotten stash of fake Zimbabweans dollars /soon to become most valued VO currency/ for future bribe purposes. :P

Heh, seriously though. If not for the currencies being different, like every other nation (in our world) what other differences would there be between nations? (besides laws, which aren't different in VO either.) Am I the only one who thinks that this would be very interesting and fun to invest VO money in? I mean the money is kindof useless itself, you need something to buy. What better to buy than something that fluctuates in value on a virtual rollercoaster as players and npc's purchase and sell goods accross the universe?!

How about being able to purchase stocks in the respective nations, stock prices could go up/down depended on many things such as who won the CTC, major battles, economies between the nations??? This way you could make money without actually doing anything, there could be balancing to ensure as many people loose money as people who make it. Let me know what you think :)

I don't know a whole lot about stock markets, just that buying on margin (or purchasing stocks with borrowed money) is a recipe for disaster. So, if someone learned would comment on the idea of instituting seperate stock markets for the 3 nations, that'd be fantastic. I'm thinking about something along the lines of what Lord Q suggested, some sort of tax on trading goods between borders that would be based on the goods' projected difference in values from the different markets. I suppose border guards would have to be implemented to halt players when they try to make the jump from nation space into grey space, and administer the appropriate tax.

In fact, a player might take advantage of this buy purchasing a 'moth load of metana sweets, and making the trip down to Edras I-2, the last Itani station, where upon a station guard would inform the player that there's a minor tax on Metana Sweets based on the agreed trade relations of Itani and UIT emissaries, and additional tariffs might ensue upon enterint UIT space. He would ask a nominal fee to proceed, and after paying it you'd be free to go. (Or try toll jumping, as Lexicon suggested.) However, Metana Sweets sell big time in Initros, so instead of entering UIT space and being subject to more fees, one could brave the risk of pirate space, and attempt to run the goods all the way down to Serco territory for some major extra profits.

Humm, interesting thread. For the record, the plans for the new economy do include full propogation of events all the way through the economic system. So: people mine ores and deliver to stations, stations refine ores deliver to other stations, stations generate goods and either sell goods or deliver to other stations, and so on. So price and availability of items becomes based on each aspect of the chain, going back to fundamental ores and minerals, which the Hive also desire and will compete to mine (lethally, if need be). "People" can be either NPCs or players, consider equal in the eyes of the game (much as how the trading convoys and hive-hunt missions are working now, prototypes for the larger system).

Now, this is still with the current single monetary unit. I would like to also add stock markets, down the road, so people can trade TPG or Axia, and stock value can oscillate in relation to the production / sales performance of the actual companies (or, potentially, in relation to news about said company, or other factors).

But this thread seems more about actually having a federal reserve per nation, and dealing with national macroeconomics (which gets into bonds and other stuff). I think that's really interesting and neat, and look forward to seeing what you all have to suggest, although I don't promise anything of course. Please keep the input coming.

Thanks for reading this thread incarnate, I was starting to worry that the devs (and players) didn't read it, or just didn't want to read it given the boring sound of the title. Now that I know you think it's interesting, it gives me a little more inspiration into trying to spot problems in implementing this into the game before it's even thought up completely, and coming up with easier ways of making it do-able.

Like Miharu, many people think complicating this game will ruin it. I disagree completely. I think this game needs more complications to be more fun and immersive. Changing the basic idea of credits would be a good start.

Everything we do in the game has an end result of credits. We do a mission - credits. That's pretty much the game works right now. I would like to see that changed dramatically.

For purposes of this thread I won't go into the mission system here, I will keep it to the bling bling and money-credits and cash bling bling.

I would like to see credits become more like checks (or e-checks for that matter). They don't clear for a couple of hours, but most stations in protected space accept them instantly, and charge you a bounce fee if you don't have sufficient funds to support the tranaction.

We need more pictures in this game anyway, why not actually have some faces on the Bills? We could even have credits have a little icon as internationally accepted credits.

Heh for the Serco picture we could have Lady Serco! For Itani we could have some reclusive looking guy (since Itanis were so alone for so long)... and for UIT we could have the CEO from TPG (since TPG is UIT basically).

I'm not sure about Itani's picture, may need work...

Anyway, feel free to post pics of bills here:

bump...

Hey Inc - Will the effects reach all the way to Hive productivity? Meaning, will the Hive make decisions based on losses and gains within various systems and sectors? Meaning, if we kill the hell out of the Hive in a certain sector and cause it more losses than gains, will it possibly make the decision to leave that sector/system rather than continue operating at a loss? Will the hive be a constantly replenishing organism based on resources instead of the current reset every X hours?

That would be SO cool.

WOW. I didn't even think of that possibility. It makes perfect sense. It actually gives incentive to the whole "Push back the Hive" mentality. I also suggest that the hive group in sectors that provide the best material for what they are currently in need of. Ex: if they need Ferric Ore, they go to a Ferric system and mine it to hell

But anyway, back on topic. What do you think the best way to implement this system would be?'

Anybody, Buler, Buler, Buler, Buler...