Once a player reaches a threshhold of a few million credits, there isn't much in the universe to purchase ... I mean, you could fill each of the stations with trade goods, ships, parts ... whatever ... but that is pointless.

May I suggest having some really high price items that one can purchase. They don't even have to be useful (but useful is better).

I know player owned stations are on their way, but what I am talking about are rare items (eg. Itani Golden Scimitar 4.57mil credits - something that has a historical background), or 'land' (well, in this case 'space') - maybe we can own sectors ... whatever. Stuff that can be traded/auctioned independently of trade goods and has a huge price tag.

Having tons of credits is nice, but 'wealth' is about ownership of 'stuff'. The materialistic side of me is bored.

Anyone want to expand on this idea?

millions of credits may seem like alot but it can go pretty fast if youre having fun.
there are many other things to do now that you have a good number of credits. i dont think anyone should ever be able to own sectors in the game, claiming one as youre own and then using it for a guild base would be fun though. once the devs put in more stuff im sure your materialistic side will be happy but im sure that most special items will require you to do tasks instead of have money.

It seems that the only overheads (credit wise) in this game are for replacing ships/equipment and re-arming. For those who are fully into the combat aspect of the game, I can see how the credits could be chewed up.

However, the trading and mining aspects of the game are just as promoted, yet offer nothing in the way of the same overheads. I have read posts about casinos and stockmarkets and P2P trading, yet none of these exist - and until they do, the value of trading and mining and thus the accumulation of credits serve no purpose - other than for financing the combat. I believe that other 'credit sink holes' need to be created.

I don't think that financing combat should be the sole purpose of trading and mining.

it would be neat if factions put variable taxes on income depending on how many convoy's / warship they lost to war or serco

since i havent found anything useful for my 30 someodd mil,

i find it fun to boom noobs and pay them 50k for the kill....

that's called pk-whoring. doesn't help the noob.

I can go through a mil in an hour, easily.

If you need help finding a way to blow money, just home in Sedina and fly a rag or corvmaud around a lot.

You might consider joining a trade guild and get involved in the organization and sponsorship of events for the benefit of the vo community as a whole.

Have a chat with players from TGFT , CDC , PA or SSc ....

The 10 Million Cr /week that gets awarded in prizes at events is actually earned by the trade activities of players.

Ecka

why is it called pk-whoring...

i think "n00bing for dollars" sounds better

hold a contest of your own design with a million for first place, 500k for second and 200k for third. document the results and write a news article for i.g.

...or you could try to buy Impavid's a1k0n pelt:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/15963

I have a shop in Latos N15 that sells rare items, weapons, etc. I've got High Density mining beams, Ultra Charge batteries, Adv Mineral Scanners, Repair Module mkIIs, assorted rare cargo widgets and many subfaction weapons. If you're looking to buy some rare things, come by the shop. You'll be suprised at what I have.

-Nautargos

Do you have tequila?

you dont want that cheap serco-made tequila....

All jokes aside, all this just goes to illustrate that there is a large *lacking* in VO. When the only use for credits (apart from combat) are *gifts* and *charities*, then why promote a dynamic market or have trade and mining licences?

I would really like to hear the Devs' take on this.

I'll take a case of that tequila, by the way.

-> jackscream

There are currently no items useful enough to be worth more than a million credits. If the devs put in some strange artifacts, they might be bought, or they might not. The need for a little crappy piece of "unique" data, claimed to be a historical artifact won't have too much demand, so the price will be low. If, for example, owning certain artifacts unlocked certain abilities, it may be worth investing in.

When Player-owned stations finally "come out" there should be plenty of money being spent on all kinds of various add-ons and defenses for them.

Answer to your question, get more credits.

I agree, there is a lack of "money sinks". I see alot of "visual" improvements, but so far (i've only been here for a month or so) not too much along the lines of "content". Hopefully, we will get much more content (money sinks, missions, etc..).

Money sinks are the heart of all MMO's....

Just wait for station storage limits and fees to happen...

Storage limits and fees and charges and taxes is ... not what I am talking about. Limiting the income of a player by syphoning a percentage from their hard earned cash is not the answer - I agree it would make the game more realistic if you add these, but what we need is other opprtunities to use the cash we earn. To have the choice.

To have other avenues to spend the cash (voluntarily) that still add to the enjoyment of the game.

The real problem is a lack of economic "endgame". Money sinks (taxes, fees) like he says, don't solve the problem. There needs to be a progression to a Next Level. And that's something we are working on, both in a sense of player-owned stations with their own NPCs doing various tasks, capships and the like. We're a bit further behind with this than expected, due to the sudden Deliverator rewrite starting in December. Most of the "endgame" sort of stuff we'd like to do (including making the economy more dynamic and driven by available resources and manufacturing, plus a stock market) requires the underlying mechanism to be stable. And that mechanism really hasn't been stable.

Lecter and a few others have asked for other stopgap "endgame" type products.. like making the Trident available in the short term. That's not impossible, but it still has a number of caveats before it's feasible.

It should not be necessary for a mining or trading-centric person to spend their money on combat, there should be progressions for all directions. We're still working on this. Once the Trac system I keep babbling about is filled out and posted publicly, hopefully our intended direction will be a little more obvious. But in the meantime I keep juggling long-term design with short-term needs (like say, dealing with exciting accounting problems).

Anyway, the lack of an upper-level endgame, beyond that which our player base creates for itself, is one of the greater flaws of VO, and it's been our principle target for about two years. It's actually why Deliverator was made in the first place, so we could potentially *have* high level NPC control that made "wars" between nations possible. Something with real impact and meaning, not just some bots fighting in a sector. The same system is intended to deal with the intricacies of say.. economic imbalances induced by hive encroachment on a given mineral type, when then propagate into stock/commodities markets and so on. Or, for that matter, having NPCs controlled by user stations go do things they command (like prospect and mine a given mineral). That in and of itself isn't the "solution", but it's kind of the heart and soul of actually implementing a real long-term solution, instead of just throwing together a dancing bear that loses its luster after a month or two.

With the release of Kourier into production, we're getting back on track towards those goals.

i wanna hear about exciting accounting problems!

edit: like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL3y1qVQ0Hk