Lets say that X is equal to the average credits earned per hour

The balance can be expessed from this as follows:

Player income:
Tradeing in nation = X * 0.9
Mining = X * 0.75
escorting in nation = X * 1.25
Trading in Grey = X * 2.0
escorting in grey = X * 1.75
Botting missions = X * 0.5
skirmish = X * 0.6

Ship costs:
1st tier = X * .25
2cnd tier = X * .5
3rd tier = X
4th tier = x * 2

Once the Basic balance is determined all that is left to do is simply select a value for X. The scheme can also be broken down to a very fine level.

Mining Aquean = X * 0.2
Mining Xithricite = X * 0.5
Mining Denic = X * 0.75
Mining Heliocene = X

Using the cost and time it becomes a straight forward matter to calculate the desired ore purity and asteroid mass.

Expressed different way all that needs to be determined is the average amount of time a player should work in order to aquire a given item.

Neut 2 - 1.7 minutes
Gauss 3 - 2.0 miniutes
Sedina chocolate - 6 minutes
Lawgiver - 15 minutes

X cannot be set to "mining heliocene," since the credits per hour of that activity will vary wildly based on distance to various sale points and the given rate of exchange for heliocene at each.

One could assume or determine an average flight time for each trip and usage of the best equipment. The point is simply to create a basis that the economy can be balanced on and not a hard rule.

If average round trip takes ten minutes and mining takes ten minutes then a heavy moth full of heliocene should sell for an average of X * .33 If X is set for 2 million per hour then 140 crates of helio should get about 600k or 43k per crate but thats assuming 20 minutes total per load. If the devs want to know what the activity actually takes on average then simply stage a mining contest...

I think the economy would balance out if there were more people in game to be completely honest. Would make common trading routes less profitable, resources harder to get, and it would force people to take more risks and actions to secure a good source of income. "Safe Haven" nation space would quickly become less competitive with the lucrative gray space trade routes becoming very attractive to traders.

Traders=Profitable Pirates =more pirates = more conflict... etc etc.

The economy won't be balanced until after the devs have reworked it. Currently they've made some changes and have developed tools to study their effect on the routes and prices. The VO economy is in a state of flux and will probably be changing for a while. It is too soon to expect balance.

Once they've reworked it, I would assume the simplest and best solution is to simply let supply and demand set all prices, and there's no need for silly arbitrary formulas.

Why is this in General?

Moving to Suggestions..

NOOOO!!!! not the suggestion box....

I am only forwarding a way to help express the relative relationships between all the different elements of a complex economic system. Sooner or later the Devs have to convert our ideas into logical and mathmatical statements anyway...

There is nothing arbitrary about it and even the need to adjust to the player base can be expressed if we find the right equation...

In the end if you find this way doesnt work for you then try a different one.

One prob I see with this pyro is the most rare ore in teh verse currently and yet helio is the most expensive. That is *NOT* correct. pyro should command a much higher price than helio simply due to supply. Just look at spot metal values to determine that.

I still say the only viable way to do the economy is to introduce a stock market approach to mining.

Maybe it's not very useful for anything?

Blacknet, silence! Or I kill you! Heliocene is and should be the best and most expensive ore in all of VO.

Real World: The price of a mineral is also a matter of the uses and especially the demands. So, Helio could be the most expensive ever by virtue of being essential.

It could also be that blacknet is too stupid to have found out that, in certain sectors, pyronic is insanely easy to get.

It's sound that the more rare a resource is the more it costs. A metal could be in high-demand and that can trigger higher prices but if that demand can be met, then the price stays steady, drops , or rises based on inventories.

Pyronic ore is more scarce than Heliocene, both can be found in sectors and obtained easily but Heliocene by far has more sectors/roids in which to obtain it.

And useful less? Name a metal in this world that doesn't have a use.

EDIT: However, the universal redux and economic changes will make the current situation of ore scarcity and prices moot.

Demand is as much a part of the final price as rarity is. Perhaps Pyrocene has little use in VO....

At the other end of the spectrum Aquean would be one of the most heavily demanded ores but its so easy to get it becomes worthless.

True on the redux and Pentric is the scarcest of all....

A metal that has no use: Ununhexium.... Most of the trans-uraniums.
I am saying that Heliocene could be essential for making jumpcores. You would need obscene amounts of extreme quality and that would ensure the very high price. Where something else would be of little value even if it is scarce. Like Promethium which is not used but insanely rare. And thus of little value but novelty.

But back on track with PaKettle's thread. Sorry for the roid jacking.

Promethium does have a use and from I what I can tell isn't a marketed item. Trans-uraniums are mostly synthetic metals with no natural occurrence known, with plutonium and neptunium as the exceptions, and are sure to have a use in some fashion but most likely are not marketed.

To the topic of this thread, that's not a proper way to the balance the economy. If you want the economy to balance itself then you must let it be a laissez-faire with no intervention.

One way to go about that would be putting REAL limiting factors on ore resources. Where the miner would deplete an area and move on, the area probably should replenish in a few days. Furthermore, I think a single cu of ore should go along way in making something, which would limit the need to mine massive amounts; take the widow maker and superlight for example, their requirements to produce are excessive imho.

How the economy gets balanced out is the Devs problem. Incarnate would like to know what that balance should be and being able to express ourselves in a bit more definative way might help him do that....

In the end I think the real problem the devs face is simply the lack of any real limits to anything which effectively makes everything worthless....And I havent seen any indication that they plan to change that situation. We have to play the ball where it lays untill we get told that it will be moved....