Wow this thread has really come full circle. Allow me to explain.

So I agree with Greenwall, completely (stars in alignment, tear in the fabric of spacetime material right here), to whom Incarnate says: Okay, and I appreciate the feedback cases, those are interesting. But, again, I don't see why any of those are problematic with the existing trade income levels?

They aren't problematic at all! Like you can take two 8+ years vets word for it - they are not at all a problem! Only Roflor says they are a problem and now he has just given two reasons why:

(1) he was, by his own admission, hopelessly inefficient in the construction of his trident, he had to outsource a bunch of it and he had to pay a million pirates because there is no labour market for private security and despite this still died over 2,000 times - hardly the poster boy for a successful trident build or a good sample case to form the basis of whole-of-economy change; and

(2) his trade plugin has apparently not been updated for ages making it hard for him to identify good trades to make up all this money - great, you've identified a fix for that which makes sense - Darth's views here should also be given weight as he knows trading outside of TGFT.

[Note: as Roflor points out below, it was not his trident, it was other player manufactured items]

So there you have it - thread solved - there is no issue with the income levels you can make in most trade scenarios. Hooray!

Now moving swiftly on to the remaining three issues in the economy, aside from inflation (which we accept will change with an influx of new players and content and such):

(1) most combatant scenarios pay too little - as a result poor Roflor has to be inefficient in his trident build by paying pirates instead of hiring private security; and

(2) most combatant scenarios pay too little - as a result people who should be making money on just combat activities are busy tanking Roflor's trading routes and preventing him from making money to pay pirates or private security; and

(3) most combatant scenarios pay too little - as a result combatants have to take breaks from their preferred content in vendetta online to play trader content which they find boring, and therefore they are unavailable to protect Roflor for a reasonable fee as he conducts his trident build.

Summing up, it's important to note that most combatant scenarios pay too little, and this is a really important economic reform. Lets make a thread on it to discuss the specifics.

If I do any spend analysis I will use Greenwalls scenarios, as well as some of my own, they are consistent with my experience also.

I never even mentioned a trident build. I built my trident back in 2015/16 before there was even a test goliath.
This thread is about trading in the new economy and not combat pay.

I just wrote 'trident' instead of [insert item of player generated content that you spent money on here].

This is Incarnate's original question:

Perhaps it would be illuminating to help me understand how you spent Several Billion credits? Because, that's a hell of a lot of furballs in B8. I'm well aware that people can chew through credits quickly on a lot of combat, but that's also a lot of credits.

The reason for the question being: If the finances were spent primarily (or even in large part) on P2P traded player-generated content that is overvalued by the players, then why is that the fault of the game?

How is it the fault of the game? The answer is it isn't the fault of the game.

The thread should be about how combatants can't make enough money to sustain their playstyle such that they might otherwise help you to defend yourself.

What I meant to say is that it would seem at present that the rest of the market DOES agree with those prices. And newb influx or not, you are still going to have gobs of old money floating around influencing prices. The only way that old money goes away is if 1) you take it, 2) you make something in the game worth spending it on, or 3) ALL those old players retire. Otherwise it just moves from one account to another.

At least until such time as this fabled gate opening occurs and the masses eagerly rush in, the current P2P market is going to make trade routes seem woefully underdelivering on profit; you can choose to view this discussion as exclusionary to the P2P market, but players can't really separate the two as it's all part of the game experience.

I'm just trying to get the game-side economy to a more robust and fun place, so we can port the parameters over to the Latos system (and use it more broadly), and make and the whole economy more scalable.

The dynamic "latos economy" already makes it much more robust and fun. Expanding "best price" detection universally is another good step, though I would suggest the range tiers-up with the Trade license (and perhaps also tie foreign nation-space price detection additionally to standing, which it might already be).

_____________

Finally I'll add that I am, much like TRS is, admittedly biased towards combative gameplay. It's the only thing that interests me at this point in my experience, and I can see how that view is not necessarily representative of the average newb starting out or mid-level player. To me the prospect of having to do any activity that requires an uneventful time sink is more a reason to quit the game that it is to play it. So the idea that I'd have to run trade routes for a couple hours to support myself for an equal amount of time in combat makes me just fall asleep with boredom just thinking of it. Even botting, with their predictable behavior and predictable drops is soporific.

I don't really like the idea that a game which bills itself as a "chart your own path" kinda game that then has one gameplay style purposefully "baked in" over others. And this gets to TRS's point: Why should I *HAVE* to support my combat activities with trading, but not the other way around? *

(last paragraph edited for clarity)

"The dynamic "Latos economy" already makes it much more robust and fun. Expanding "best price" detection universally is another good step, though I would suggest the range tiers-up with the Trade license (and perhaps also tie foreign nation-space price detection additionally to standing, which it might already be)."

This sounds like a great idea to me. It makes good sense, both from a game play standpoint of giving newer traders a goal (other then bigger numbers for bigger numbers sake) and from a believability standpoint.

TRS makes some good points about combat not being profitable enough. I will say however that I am not in agreement with his third point on that. It is not a structural problem with the game, but rather the fault of the trader wanting protection.

If a trader wants to hire escort pilots, the trader needs to be willing to pay them enough to make it profitable for them. They most likely will not do the job at a loss and should not be expected to do so.

As a further data point, I would say that Greenwalls spending numbers on combat are rather reasonable, I spend a bit less, as I have loads of weapons that umm, fell off the back of a behemoth.

The suggestions made by Rolflor and many others seem fairly reasonable.

The Devs are on a path to make the entire verse into a more realistic economy, Like Latos, and I believe some changes in the buy/sell pricing is way overdue. Some may not like the trade route that some of us prefer over the combat route, but all paths are existing and were put there by the Devs for the in game experience. This is not just a combat game and there needs to be some improvements in the trade economy and mining economy and the building economy in this game.

And before someone blast me for this, check out Greenwalls post about the Combat Pay and you will see my agreement there also, as long as not paid for going on rampage killing noobs.

Combat in the context of TRS, is a misnomer... How much combat do you get out of blowing up XCs..? Not much sport. Risk free and 100 % profit. So I don't think that his argument stands up.
All in all, whatever happens, everything will balance out.
I have read with interest all posts.. But from my perspective, the most valuable commodity in the game is time... Simply that.. Nothing elaborate, so please keep everything based on the time spent achieving profit.. Easy

Returning player. I quit because I ran out of things to do that I found fun (could not justify monthly cost). Trading is my primary activity.

The old trading system is dull and rewards in system or close by weapons trades in the main.

Whilst a new dynamic system would be welcomed I would personally like to see:

* More high value, small loads with a high risk/reward, yes you get good pay, but failure is expensive;

* higher reward for long distances /smuggling. Serco Ale to Itan? Corvus Holo disks & Itan Crystals to Serco, that sort of thing. Unique items for far away places pay more (as they did in the real world);

* Passengers, again high risk/reward, failure hurts standing and finances. Pay a bond when accepting. Perhaps this bond could be dropped when destroyed. May encourage more interesting piracy (as opposed to "XC go boom after WH") and new/mid players to move around more.

Nobody does any trading in Latos anymore, and the place has become a wasteland. The stations are barely stocked with anything.

I've been extremely busy this week and did not have the opportunity to monitor this thread. I am disappointed that there was some de-evolution into personal attacks, so I have made some edits. Some will feel I edited too much, some not enough. I retained the actual suggestions and responses to them.

Be hard on the process, but easy on the people.