Everyone has their idea of what the game needs. In my opinion, the infinite availability of product needs fixed. there is no inter-player trade because there are no shortage of goods. My proposal is to limit items on a per station basis. x items in y hours can be sold to any player. items slowly become available, so there is never a longterm shortgage, and it makes stockpiles worthwhile and player trade a reality.

Need 100 widgets for your capship? player a has a stockpile, so he can sell them for a profit.

On a related suggestion, there should be restricted items that aren't allowed to leave a nation. Border defenses should scan for them and attack anyone trying to smuggle them out. The price could then be adjusted in hostile territories to compensate for this danger. If you get caught (blown up) smuggling, you should get a faction hit.

-1

Unless there is a way to do this that doesn't as heavily favor massive guilds and leave everyone else at a disadvantage.

That is a good starting step. I would like to see it actually go a little bit further. Don't have all stations produce all the types of goods they sell, only some. Then use convoys to distribute things. Some of this is already happening at some level - convoy logic is based on what goods a station is running low on - but it isn't impacting prices or availability of goods.

This way blockades and piracy would have impacts on what a station has available for sale and how much it costs. Also, what people are buying will impact convoys. If I buy up all the gauss from a barracks station, convoys heading to it will be more likely to be carrying gauss. (Though like I said, that part *might* already be happening; I don't know if stations decrease their inventory when they sell things, or if they just have a timer based decay.)

That also means that the pricing for escort missions can be adjusted based on how badly a shipment is needed.

In order to supplement limited stocks ay stations, it should further be possible to manufacture every item.

Yeah 1+ and 1+ to what Rin and Draugath were saying. I liked what i've heard about the Jumpgate model where stations would cry out for resources and unless those resourced were delivered then nothing would be manufactured.

Although I think I share ryan's distaste at elitist hierarchical power structures ruining the game for the average player, I think that such things can be implemented in a way that disincentivises large groups of individuals allying together to hog resources. For instance, limiting manufacturing missions to a certain number per day or per week, which I know was an idea of Rin's re: conquerable stations.

+1 to improving the economy in general. I have but one thing to say: In reality, larger corporations hold the power.

+1 Been requested over the years in many forms.

I would personally like to see this implemented in a fashion that encourages SENSIBLE manufacturing of items.

Trade guilds would have an advantage to a point- as they should, otherwise, why bother? But I don't think that advantage would necessarily harm an independent trader.

The economy needs scarcity.

+1
normal equipment should be available at all stations all the time
but high end stuff should only be available at certain stations and only if certain stuff has been delivered to said station

The fact is, some sort of illicit trade or genuine black market for goods will stimulate gameplay.

Perhaps all the spices, ales, and wines would be a good start. Make it illegal to move Divinia spices through Serco space and Bethashee spices through Itan. Make it so Pelatus spices are banned in UIT space.

The same for the ales/wines.

Weapons and military hardware could also be treated this way, though it might mean creating specialized versions of things like Gauss in the way Axia has its own positron.

The risk of getting caught should be balanced between high return in credits and the need to avoid NPC guards or nationalist players with cargo scanners. Of course, this would make the cargo spoofers useful. Perhaps a player can be protected from taking a faction hit as long as they shoot a player carrying illicit cargo and then destroy the cargo by shooting it.

Of course, cargo containers would need to be made shootable -as they should be.

The result would be: if you can stay 1000 km from an NPC or player with a scanner; spoof the NPC or player; and move your cargo to a station that wants it, you can sell it for handsome profit. If you get too close to an NPC or player with a scanner, the ability of a spoofer to work should be inversely proportional to the distance.

After a while, a nationalist player can become suspicious of the "janitorial supplies" that keep getting moved through his/her borders and the risk of losing faction becomes worth it. Maybe a bounty gets paid automatically for catching a smuggler. But, by the same token, the smuggler with Admire could really move "Janitorial supplies" once in a while to keep the nationalist on his/her toes.

Create a smuggler badge hierarchy similar to mining and you'll have a whole new class of players and perhaps guilds.

-1 for absolute daily limits. How would appropriate limits be determined in the first place? And as the population fluctuates the limits would no longer be right, which would make the game no fun. Oops, guess the station is out of inventory... guess I'll try again next Tuesday.

+1 for scarcity of high-end products, but only if there is a means to get production rolling again, such as manufacturing.

Meridian, that is why they would repopulate incrementally. Example, station receives x number of new widgets per hour, or per y minute period.

+1 but I bet 1mil credits we'll never see this implemented

economy and trade fixes have been ask for years. would be nice

Meridian + Savet, It should be based upon the amount of deliveries received in raw minerals and other materials etc.. i.e. the popularity of the station. If you want a certain good that a station sells, you have to deliver things to do and/or pay someone to.

This is a pretty big undertaking, but I'm not against it. We actually have a lot of the wiring for this in the economy already, it just is "artificially supplied" right now. That said, I'm sure as soon as we tried enabling supply-side issues, it would probably explode.

But, this is something we could look at, perhaps using some outlying stations as an early test case. The problem with increasingly dynamic economies is their tendency to go haywire, which is why I opted to sidestep supply-side issues (with just a simple artificial "demand") in the early days for the sake of getting the game out the door.

Anyway, the continued feedback is welcome. Don't expect this stuff tomorrow, but I'll continue reading and see what we can do.

Inc, that makes me very hopeful. Could we try it with a single item, like Ineubis Ravens Ion Cannons?

Don't you dare take my Ravens!!!!!

JK, this is a good idea, actually. Why not do this with some 'premium' items at the Deneb border stations, like Ineubis Ravens, Axia Positrons, etc. Things that already make sense to be limited availability because they're manufactured on the other side of the galaxy.

"Create a smuggler badge hierarchy similar to mining and you'll have a whole new class of players and perhaps guilds."

NO. Why in the world would we want a badge to indicate our criminal activities?

Fair enough, if part of a move towards a true dynamic economy.

+1 to pirate badges!