The best system to implement, methinks, is to one day simply through it out there; that is, the option to make your virtual cash turn into hard cash. Now, it's vital that the numbers of dollars in the system be directly tied to the population of the nation. If you'll remember, and earlier point I brought up that's often overlooked is the cost of transportation. That's really the biggy when determining the value of money, and if there isn't approximately enough bills for everyone, i.e. some nations have 3 cu's of bills to a person, while Itanis have only 2 cu's of hard cash because of their overwhelming popularity. When the balance between actualy monies and people using them isn't observed properly, things get really wack in the grey systems. Serco bills are automatically going to be more popular in Sedina, because Sedina's that many more jumps closer to the nearest Serco outpost. However, so long as population over bills per nation is roughly similar to one another, supply and demand for a good will even the system out, even with people taking advantage of the stock market.

Naturally this only works when a 'true' economy is implemented, one where that neutron blaster you're using originally came from several mined asteroids across the universe and stuff, and when a system of ATM machines and cash exchanging services are introduced. National taxes wouldn't be a bad way to roll either. The best method of implementation is to just put it in, (maybe on just the T.S. at first) so we can test it out and find the best method of implementation.

Well, they better implement some kind of economy soon, I'm getting excited about it!

Transportation costs:
My original thought was that there has to be some sort of system for Printing Federal Notes. Perhaps it would be like a commodity that traders buy from the central hub of each nation; Itan, Dau, and Sol II would all be where this Gigantic Bank Station would be. Maybe the only way you can distribute Federal Notes to outlying systems in your Nation is to go to the Federal Bank, and have one of the options of Trading missions as "Distributing Bills", or something. The transportation missions would provide a way players could build their trade level other than trading goods, a government job.

What if the economy (in this suggested state) itself, facilitates the ability for political parties to rise from working for the government in such simple ways (at first anyway)? It would provide a basis for aspiring politicians to work and advance.

So wait, you get to be mayor for being a truck driver for the IRS? Sounds a little one-sided for traders if you ask me. But that's for another thread.

Well, no. I just mean it could lead to a better political standing, much the way the faction system works.

So, you don't like my idea of the UIT faction system being based on money, etc. the Serco faction system based on PvP skills and combat missions (both, not just one or the other) and Itani based on the players themselves?

Sounds to me like cargo running the distribution of a national currency is something that would fit right in with the UIT. Think about it...

Cargo, Running, Distribution, Currency, all things UIT are great at. Especially running. ^_^

lol

No, I love your ideas.

Separating and clearly showing a difference between all the nation's laws and governments is definately the way to go.

This can apply to all nations, (as all nations have money...) but perhaps moreso to UIT, I agree that UIT is very rich.

And, UIT being in the middle of things would have a greater need to distribute cash, since they'd have to worry about exchaning both Serco currency, and Itani Currency for their own, and stuff.

The UIT would be the hub for trading (there should be more missions on the list of UIT stations as well, and they should pay better).

I just hope someone takes this seriously, (on the devs side).

Remember back to when money was new? Well ofcourse you don't you weren't born yet. But everybody everywhere you wanted to go had all these different types of coins, and there was no credit system. Well, we have it good now. We have a credit system in this game, and it is very simplistic.

We need to add more to the money system in general. Hopefully we see something altering the current economy systme in the next update.

I guess all we're waiting for now is Kourier to take over and start handling new stuff.

So, the whole economy idea. Did that happen yet, sorry been away for a year...

I don't think it's fully in place yet. But thanks for digging this up, it was an interesting read. I'm somewhat against the implementation of physical cash in VO for the reason that I feel it detracts from the futuristic feel of the game. Already we're in a world in which the physical representation of money is de-emphasized in favor of credit, quite literally, credit cards. Credit and debt are traded as any other commodity so, it would make sense that anchor currency would be virtual in the far future, as it will likely be in the near future.

Christ... rhapsody, FFS you're not talking about a 'futuristic' feel... you're talking about a civilized one. (And personally, I don't trust credit for shit, so leave me out of your world view philosophies.)

Credit and debt are *NOT* traded as any other commodity; it's really hard to steal somebody's credit card account. It requires negotiating with whatever system they use to get their money back. Stealing cash is as easy as punching someone in the back of the head.

Now, can you think of a section in VO space that's generally less civilized, with people willing to punch you in the back of the head for your cash?

And if taxing was involved, through spaces such as, I dunno, UIT? And if trade was dealt with as that very clever fellow SuperMegaMynt described above, can you imagine a risky route through uncivilized territory that would potentially avoid most taxation through UIT space while trading currency between Serco and Itani Federal currency? Gee...

The next time you shoot a post down utterly, you damn well better have actually good reasons backed up. And I mean linear reasons, that you know, support eachother and junk. Like that thing, causality ya' know? Yeah, good stuff. I guarantee when the OP suggested cash he considered at least one scenario where somebody said "Wait, how about *NOT* cash?" and decided to post anyways. What does that tell you? It'd be kind of hard not to imagine that scenario, considering it's how the game currently is... considering suggestions are of course, generally not implemented at time of suggestion.

Mynnayage, I've been pretty calm about your personal attacks, and pretty restrained in not insulting you in return. You're welcome to disagree, and lay out an argument for why you do so, but a life skill that you might consider developing is polite disagreement.

That said, I must correct you on your assertions about credit and debt trade. They are very much traded as commodities are, especially by banks. As I hope you know, todays commodities markets don't actually have people hauling Gold and Platinum from one place to another, but really purchasing shares of the Gold and Platinum markets. Similarly, there are High Yield Bond and Loan Markets, Euro-Credit markets, and yes, Credit Derivatives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_derivative) for reputable US companies are traded openly on the market.

The fact of the matter is, what people are talking about when they say "Itani" or "Serco" currency, as in physical hard items, is just another trade good named "Itani Dinar" or "Serco Dollar," and if you had to carry them around in your ship's cargo hold they would function exactly the same as a trade good. And I think it's telling that nobody's mentioned anything you can do with the hard cash except trade it, distribute it, and speculate on it, which is precisely what one does with trade goods. I'll admit to being conservative here, but I just don't see the benefit of having a cargo crate with a different label.

While people may occasionally use the same word, "trade", when trading debts and chickens, they by no means have the same connotation. More important to the discussion at hand however, is that credit cannot be physically, thereby directly stolen. (Yes, I understand that again the same word, "stolen" is used when describing situations where some dude gets money you think you own, be it money from an ATM or your wallet, but again, yes, the two different meanings for this word are not similar, and the difference is the topic of discussion for this thread.)

The benefit of hard cash is that only you have control over what happens to it. The downside is that only you have control over what happens to it.

The benefit of credit is that your bank has control over what happens to it, and you have some, but not all the say as to when you can have it back, and so on.

Naturally in a wartime situation, if the Itani side is losing, I may not trust the banks in Deneb O-3 to securely hold my funds, etc.

The point is, your understanding of American affairs, I'm sure, gives you the ego to get up in the morning. Your understanding of hypothetical wartime situations in a universe that's 30 minute trip around... not so much. Remember that personal insult I threw at you about causality? Yeah. Work on that, except more to do with video games than 'real life' as you see it through your narrow window of perception, i.e. "They do it this one way, in this one country, at this one point in time, therefor it must be logical!".

Hmm.
While Mynnayage aka SuperMegaMynt is a bit rude, I tend to side with him. This game needs more interesting dynamics. Money in this game is simply too simple. If money could be an item, and cheaper to use than credits somehow, but obviously risky to bring into open space, I think it would be a lot more interesting...

Can you say "dynamic economy"?

Dynamic economy first, then once that is up and running, introducing differing currencies will be easy. You'll be able to trade currency just like other goods. Maybe there will be a currencies market as WELL as a VO stock market!

For, really, what is a credit except an abstraction of how may widgets you can buy? Once the economy is truly dynamic, you can introduce as many currencies as you like, with realtime varying exchange rates, etc, just as if they were widgets.

Physical cash is a virtualized form of goods.
Currencies (should) work same way as goods. I.e. you buy (exchange) them at low price and sell (exchange back) at high price.

The virtual currency could work same way. The only diference is that they depend on the bank (not countries)

For example: if I have my money in a bank which has no branch on the actual planet (or poor faction) ... then my credits worth less.

an idea!

Some isolated planets could have no commercial connection with the galaxy. So your credits worth nothing on the planet.
In this case you can get fuel and local goods only for your cargo :) And you have to spend all your local cache before leaving the planet or it is lost.