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Some thoughts on dynamic economy...
I've already asked myself that question a few times: "how come all those stations are so well supplied all the time". The problem is, that I can't imagine all those deep-space outposts being able to produce all kinds of weapons and ships from the resources avilable in their sectors... So I came up with an idea (dunno if it's new or not) to make those stations actually *produce* the goods from resources brought from other sectors, with different weapons/ships/widgets requiring diffrent components in different quantities to produce. What I find interesting about this idea is the way it might balance the game.
Just imagine home (and other) sectors being left without resources to produce more advanced types of weapons and ships. That would not only cause the prices to rise, but also make bringing those resources nation's priority. And what would happen if required resources were available only in some remote sector? That makes convoys a reality. And what if other nations required the same resources? Given the limited capacity of stations producing them, waging wars over locations providing needed goods would really make sense.
Another aspect of this improvement is that it would make sectors like s9 self-balance themselves. The more people would be fighting and buying ships/weapons/ammo there, the more bringing necessary resources would become profitable. On the other hand, traders would also mean more pirating, but killing the traders would leave those sectors undersupplied and not very interesting... And so on... ;-)
The possibilities seem endless to me. What's important, it doesn't seem to be really difficult to implement. Just come up with some interesting relations among sectors/goods/nations with limited capacity of "factories" in mind, and players will do the rest...
It is, of course, a very rough idea but I think it's a relatively easy way to make the game more enjoyable than a simple ctf, with missions, convoys, wars and so on, all being created by players themselves. Please, excuse me if I'm difficult to understand but it's kind of late here. :-)
Just imagine home (and other) sectors being left without resources to produce more advanced types of weapons and ships. That would not only cause the prices to rise, but also make bringing those resources nation's priority. And what would happen if required resources were available only in some remote sector? That makes convoys a reality. And what if other nations required the same resources? Given the limited capacity of stations producing them, waging wars over locations providing needed goods would really make sense.
Another aspect of this improvement is that it would make sectors like s9 self-balance themselves. The more people would be fighting and buying ships/weapons/ammo there, the more bringing necessary resources would become profitable. On the other hand, traders would also mean more pirating, but killing the traders would leave those sectors undersupplied and not very interesting... And so on... ;-)
The possibilities seem endless to me. What's important, it doesn't seem to be really difficult to implement. Just come up with some interesting relations among sectors/goods/nations with limited capacity of "factories" in mind, and players will do the rest...
It is, of course, a very rough idea but I think it's a relatively easy way to make the game more enjoyable than a simple ctf, with missions, convoys, wars and so on, all being created by players themselves. Please, excuse me if I'm difficult to understand but it's kind of late here. :-)
I like the idea, it would be nice to have it so there was more of a supply and demand based on stuff going on. This would change trading a lot.
there are posts by incarnate regarding this idea. As I recall, for right now, supply stays static, demand is dynamic. Supply will become dynamic when bots are able to actually do trading as I recall. IE there would be bot fleets doing trading back and forth. Or that was/is the plan.
bots trading? will the bots attack people?
They will probebly have defence bots to gaurd the convoy...but i dont think they will leave the convoy and attack you...
Bots already can trade. The "bots can carry cargo" was in since 3.0. The "bots can change sector" has been in since 3.3
then why don't they?
I think that trading bots wouldn't change the game too much if they constantly resupplied the most "starved" stations. IMO it would be much better if economy was (mostly) left up to players.
Sounds great. And it would be a great addition to the game as it would give the pirates some bot convoys to attack. Which would actually take a bit more effort than just wasting the newbs. :)
If the bots supplied the starved nations it would be good because then there would be supplie, but minimal!
traders could become pirates on the bots and so earn more money for each starved nation they supplie...
traders could become pirates on the bots and so earn more money for each starved nation they supplie...
Incarnate made the post(s) in the general forum. Ya might want to search and find it first before posting your ideas here.
I've suggested similiar ideas in other games and, though the responce was favorable, they have never been implimented. The primary reason for this is coding. Personally I feel it's a lame dodge of the issue but I respect the right of a gamedev to pick and choose exactly how much effort they are willing to put into something.
Now to add an actually useful statement to this (meaning the gibberish I was typing before was just that):
Common supply trains should be regulated between systems of like races. Gov. must supply its people in order to control them ergo, the must have trade-routes. No gov. would rely on the "kindness" of commercial traders to supply its worlds thus, gov. supply routes are established.
Importance of raids:
Raiding, on a regular basis, gov. supply routes can and will (over time) effect the gov. ability to stock and supply NPC ships, stations, and even maintaining their hold on sectors.
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Just a little food for thought.
Now to add an actually useful statement to this (meaning the gibberish I was typing before was just that):
Common supply trains should be regulated between systems of like races. Gov. must supply its people in order to control them ergo, the must have trade-routes. No gov. would rely on the "kindness" of commercial traders to supply its worlds thus, gov. supply routes are established.
Importance of raids:
Raiding, on a regular basis, gov. supply routes can and will (over time) effect the gov. ability to stock and supply NPC ships, stations, and even maintaining their hold on sectors.
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Just a little food for thought.
"No gov. would rely on the "kindness" of commercial traders to supply its worlds thus, gov. supply routes are established."
-You wouldn't happen to live in Soviet Russia, would you? Because what you've described is exactly how Capitalism works, except replace "kindness" with "greed."
-You wouldn't happen to live in Soviet Russia, would you? Because what you've described is exactly how Capitalism works, except replace "kindness" with "greed."
Actually, no. What I was inferring was more specific to capitalism, mainly in regards to social side of trade. Even in America, with all our "free-trade", the goverment still regulates certain controls to ensure that our country is prosperous (meaning it controls trade so that its people do not complete starve out). Such regulations would indeed be difficult (if not impossible) to code as they deal with a slew of legal and diplomatic matters (not to mention the staggering formula that one would need to produce in order to have a "true-to-life" economic system). They can, however, be prosonified via gov. sponcered (and protected) trade routes, regulated prices, and player allowed interaction in buying/selling/mining (makes sense with all these bleedin' astoriods!)/station finiancing/storage facilities.
I'm not entirely suggestiong all of the above (though personally that would make for a friggin' awesome trade system, no?), I am merely pointing out that the govs. should have some play in this beyond simply being our color and what better way than to have direct interaction?
As I originally stated, gov. would rely on trade (taxes/levies/ect.) to afford more and better protection for its stations. Should trade be distrupted by another gov., that would weaken the others position, thus it would be in a gov's best interest to protect certain "contained" trade areas (contained in this sense meaning established trade routes).
No doubt there will be many private traders/groups that will go beyond these established routes for more profitable (and dangerous) and this should be both encouraged and penalized (govs. often establish "contrabanned" material from other govs. especially during war-time).
Bounties could be levied against both nefarious traders who deal in contraban and against enemy combatant ships, all leading to a rather "dynamic economy" structure (which is, I'm assuming, the point of this thread, no?).
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As I said, just food for thought.
I'm not entirely suggestiong all of the above (though personally that would make for a friggin' awesome trade system, no?), I am merely pointing out that the govs. should have some play in this beyond simply being our color and what better way than to have direct interaction?
As I originally stated, gov. would rely on trade (taxes/levies/ect.) to afford more and better protection for its stations. Should trade be distrupted by another gov., that would weaken the others position, thus it would be in a gov's best interest to protect certain "contained" trade areas (contained in this sense meaning established trade routes).
No doubt there will be many private traders/groups that will go beyond these established routes for more profitable (and dangerous) and this should be both encouraged and penalized (govs. often establish "contrabanned" material from other govs. especially during war-time).
Bounties could be levied against both nefarious traders who deal in contraban and against enemy combatant ships, all leading to a rather "dynamic economy" structure (which is, I'm assuming, the point of this thread, no?).
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As I said, just food for thought.
I'd like to see the grain a little finer that what TraderVix suggests: The general idea is that in a large-scale environment, nations such as the Serco, Itani, and NT should be the defacto territories, but smaller territories controlled/inhabited by rebels, pirate clans, free trading clans, trading companies should pepper the space between the large nations.
Characters should be able to be unaffiliated with any nation (wholly independant from governments; sector-niners or eighteeners in the current universe) so that they can trade between nations without national hostilities.
Players would have multiple affiliations: one nation/independant company/nonaffiliation (NT, Serco, Itani, IronCore Inc., Independant, Pirates' Confederation), as well as multiple guild/clan affiliations (Serco Defense Force, Independant Traders Guild, Vendetta Mafia, Privateers Guild). Players would also have a temporary contract affiliation for when fulfilling mission contracts.
How would this play out?
I agree that government relief convoys should go from one system to another when the need for certain supplies becomes absolutely desperate. However, I also believe that before it gets to the absolute desperate, governments should provide missions/incentives for traders so that traders can act like FedEx; either
- the goverment engine that needs supplies delivered to a certain system will give the supplies to the trader for free and pay half of the delivery fee on delivery and half on pick-up. Whatever cargo is lost is charged against the player's account at a slightly higher than normal rate.
or:
- the goverment that needs supplies delivered from one system to another "contracts" with a trader to sell the product to the trader at low cost and specifies that the target system will pay a higher than normal rate for delivery. The trader has the option of delivering the cargo elsewhere but less profit.
((While under the protection of this contract, the trader is invincible against the weapons of the members of the paying nation and anyone who manages to destroy the trader will have their bounty increased by alot more that usual.))
With a supply/demand engine, we'll also need to tell traders how to take advantage of the supply and demand flow.
Refer to my post in the thread "Options" on ship sizes as potential reward for getting rich... http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=3934&page=1
With the aspects of greed, national pride, and guilding, self-preservation, and rewards, players will have many options for team and/or independant play...
Characters should be able to be unaffiliated with any nation (wholly independant from governments; sector-niners or eighteeners in the current universe) so that they can trade between nations without national hostilities.
Players would have multiple affiliations: one nation/independant company/nonaffiliation (NT, Serco, Itani, IronCore Inc., Independant, Pirates' Confederation), as well as multiple guild/clan affiliations (Serco Defense Force, Independant Traders Guild, Vendetta Mafia, Privateers Guild). Players would also have a temporary contract affiliation for when fulfilling mission contracts.
How would this play out?
I agree that government relief convoys should go from one system to another when the need for certain supplies becomes absolutely desperate. However, I also believe that before it gets to the absolute desperate, governments should provide missions/incentives for traders so that traders can act like FedEx; either
- the goverment engine that needs supplies delivered to a certain system will give the supplies to the trader for free and pay half of the delivery fee on delivery and half on pick-up. Whatever cargo is lost is charged against the player's account at a slightly higher than normal rate.
or:
- the goverment that needs supplies delivered from one system to another "contracts" with a trader to sell the product to the trader at low cost and specifies that the target system will pay a higher than normal rate for delivery. The trader has the option of delivering the cargo elsewhere but less profit.
((While under the protection of this contract, the trader is invincible against the weapons of the members of the paying nation and anyone who manages to destroy the trader will have their bounty increased by alot more that usual.))
With a supply/demand engine, we'll also need to tell traders how to take advantage of the supply and demand flow.
Refer to my post in the thread "Options" on ship sizes as potential reward for getting rich... http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=3934&page=1
With the aspects of greed, national pride, and guilding, self-preservation, and rewards, players will have many options for team and/or independant play...
The devs have said the concept of nations will be radically different in the final product. Right now, Vendetta is still, essentially, three teams fighting each other for no good reason. It used to be CTF, but not really any more.
In the future, I expect nation just determines your home sectors and what ships classes, ship bonuses, etc you get. You player interaction would probably not be defined by your team as they are now. More likely it will move more towards faction oriented gameplay.
In the future, I expect nation just determines your home sectors and what ships classes, ship bonuses, etc you get. You player interaction would probably not be defined by your team as they are now. More likely it will move more towards faction oriented gameplay.