Forums » Suggestions
Economic reorganization to make trading more intuitive.
Ok, I know we only have a few weeks til release, and that the devs have a HUGE amount to do, but the economy is, well something of a confusing mess.
way way way WAY WAY back when, about a year ago when they first introduced the dynamic economy in its most basic form, there was some talk of making what stations produced dependant on what raw materiels they recieved, and then having the stations only purchase raw materiels that they could actually use. Obviously this cant be added in the time we have left, but I would like to propose a reorganization of the economy we currently have.
I propose changing the cargos availible at each station so that there is a little bit of common sense in what gets traded where. This is where the post starts to get long winded, so anyone who bores easily probably needs to move on to another thread. :)
First, I'm going to be using some terms that i should probably define right off the top,
each station has 3 terms associated with its place in the economy. they are
PRODUCE - what the station produces, these are the items it has for sale
DEMANDS - what the station wants, the station pays top dollar for these items.
IGNORES - things the station has no real interest in. it will buy these items, but it wont pay a very good amount for them
For ease of describing I've lumped the various cargos into "families" based on what they are used for, and I've renamed the station types based on what they do. I'll start with the cargo "families"
ORES - umm pretty self explanitory, anything with the word "ORE" after it.
REFINED GOODS - things like Steel, X-rite Alloy, precious metals, etc. basically anything that is produced directly from an ORE or combinmation of OREs
SUPPLIES - Byproducts of refining ores and miscelaneous building materiels, things that are used to produce better items on down the line. Dyes, Synthetic Hydrocarbons, Chemicals, Synthwood, just to name a few.
CONSUMER GOODS - items that make life easier for the average citizen of space. Simple Plastics, Textiles, etc. The inexpensive commodities that everyone wants and uses daily.
LUXURIES - High end consumer goods, Consumer robotics, Luxury items, things of this nature. The high priced items that everyone wants but most people cant afford. :)
MILTECH - High end goods with a military application, Plasma cores, Phase arrays, Cooling systems.
===-------
And now for the station types. How each station reacts to the various cargos above is listed under those 3 terms i mentioned first.
MINING - mining stations harvest ores from the asteroid fields. different stationd mine different ores depending on where they are. mining stations
PRODUCE - ORE
DEMAND - SUPPLIES, CONSUMER GOODS
IGNORE - REFINED GOODS, LUXURIES, MILTECH
REFINING - refining stations turn the ore into usable base materiels for the rest of the galaxy. refining stations
PRODUCE - REFINED GOODS, SUPPLIES
DEMAND - ORE, CONSUMER GOODS
IGNORE - LUXURIES, MILTECH
MANUFACTURING - Manufacturing stations are the civilian arm of the economic process. they produce the day to day items that everyone uses. Manufacturing stations
PRODUCE - CONSUMER GOODS, LUXURIES
DEMAND - REFINED GOODS, SUPPLIES
IGNORE - MILTECH, ORES
RESEARCH - Research stations are the military manufacturing arm. working on new military technology and producing items for arms production. Research stations
PRODUCE - MILTECH
DEMAND - SUPPLIES, REFINED GOODS
IGNORE - ORES, LUXURIES, CONSUMER GOODS
BARRACKS - Barracks stations are the defense networks of the various factions. Military units are organized and equipped here. maintenance is done and armerments provided. Barracks stations
PRODUCE - NOTHING
DEMAND - SUPPLIES, MILTECH, REFINED GOODS
IGNORE - ORE, CONSUMER GOODS, LUXURIES
COMMERCIAL - Commercial stations are a clearinghouse, Most items can be bought or sold here, you pay more to buy than if you get it from the station that actually makes it, and you sell it for less than you would to a station that actually wants it. commercial stations
PRODUCE - EVERYTHING
DEMAND - EVERYTHING
IGNORE - NOTHING
CAPITOL - Capitol stations are the center of a faction/nation, they are population centers, commercial zones, and barracks all rolled into one. they function very much like a commercial station, except that they have a higher base price for most items. Capitol stations
PRODUCE - EVERYTHING
DEMAND - EVERYTHING
IGNORE - NOTHING
You may have noticed that i have not mentioned food or water at all. The reason for that is that these cargo's have a special set of rules that go with them. I'll explain here.
WATER - water gets a class by itself because of the way I see it working. Water is refined anywhere in the universe that there is a station in an Icefield or over an inhabited planet. Hence any station TYPE can provide water. WATER is always demanded by stations that have no ice or planet.
FOOD - food functions somewhat like water, it can be found at any TYPE of station, as long as that station is above a planet. As far as it goes I assume most stations can hydroponically grow enough food to support themselves, so the cargo FOOD is really more special items, fresh meat, vegetables, etc as opposed to the staple items.
Lastly I would like to add 1 more type of cargo.
BULK CARGO - Basically this is the little stuff that everyone sends to friends, family, etc. People furniture when they move, that kind of thing. It would be availible at all stations, have a mass of 100 and a volume of 1. it can always be purchased for a cost of 10 and always sold for a 15, as long as you are selling it to a new staton. It is the only thing that would be availible to purchase at a barracks station. Basically you can choose to work for the IGPS (intergalactic postal service) for a 5 credit profit per item. Just something to fill up that cargo hold on the way back from a barracks.
The equipment availible at a station would be limited to very basic weapons and ships at MINING, REFINING, and MANUFACTURING stations, a better selection and more trade ships at COMMERCIAL stations, and the best selection at CAPITOL, RESEARCH, and BARRACKS stations.
Most of the changes i have proposed could be accomplished server side by merely reorganizing the cargo we have now at the various stations, (and changing their descriptor name) For a fast fix all that would need done is making the stations sell the items under "PRODUCE". that would leave them demanding things that i would personally like to see them ignore, but at least you would be able to tell at a fairly quick glance what a station was going to want and not want.
As the game progresses and the devs have more time, the cargo could be sorted down even finer, with this manufacturing station needing steel, synthwood and chemicals to produce luxury goods and consumer electronics. eventually the stations could be set up so that they HAVE to get the raw materiels to produce the next step in the chain.
way way way WAY WAY back when, about a year ago when they first introduced the dynamic economy in its most basic form, there was some talk of making what stations produced dependant on what raw materiels they recieved, and then having the stations only purchase raw materiels that they could actually use. Obviously this cant be added in the time we have left, but I would like to propose a reorganization of the economy we currently have.
I propose changing the cargos availible at each station so that there is a little bit of common sense in what gets traded where. This is where the post starts to get long winded, so anyone who bores easily probably needs to move on to another thread. :)
First, I'm going to be using some terms that i should probably define right off the top,
each station has 3 terms associated with its place in the economy. they are
PRODUCE - what the station produces, these are the items it has for sale
DEMANDS - what the station wants, the station pays top dollar for these items.
IGNORES - things the station has no real interest in. it will buy these items, but it wont pay a very good amount for them
For ease of describing I've lumped the various cargos into "families" based on what they are used for, and I've renamed the station types based on what they do. I'll start with the cargo "families"
ORES - umm pretty self explanitory, anything with the word "ORE" after it.
REFINED GOODS - things like Steel, X-rite Alloy, precious metals, etc. basically anything that is produced directly from an ORE or combinmation of OREs
SUPPLIES - Byproducts of refining ores and miscelaneous building materiels, things that are used to produce better items on down the line. Dyes, Synthetic Hydrocarbons, Chemicals, Synthwood, just to name a few.
CONSUMER GOODS - items that make life easier for the average citizen of space. Simple Plastics, Textiles, etc. The inexpensive commodities that everyone wants and uses daily.
LUXURIES - High end consumer goods, Consumer robotics, Luxury items, things of this nature. The high priced items that everyone wants but most people cant afford. :)
MILTECH - High end goods with a military application, Plasma cores, Phase arrays, Cooling systems.
===-------
And now for the station types. How each station reacts to the various cargos above is listed under those 3 terms i mentioned first.
MINING - mining stations harvest ores from the asteroid fields. different stationd mine different ores depending on where they are. mining stations
PRODUCE - ORE
DEMAND - SUPPLIES, CONSUMER GOODS
IGNORE - REFINED GOODS, LUXURIES, MILTECH
REFINING - refining stations turn the ore into usable base materiels for the rest of the galaxy. refining stations
PRODUCE - REFINED GOODS, SUPPLIES
DEMAND - ORE, CONSUMER GOODS
IGNORE - LUXURIES, MILTECH
MANUFACTURING - Manufacturing stations are the civilian arm of the economic process. they produce the day to day items that everyone uses. Manufacturing stations
PRODUCE - CONSUMER GOODS, LUXURIES
DEMAND - REFINED GOODS, SUPPLIES
IGNORE - MILTECH, ORES
RESEARCH - Research stations are the military manufacturing arm. working on new military technology and producing items for arms production. Research stations
PRODUCE - MILTECH
DEMAND - SUPPLIES, REFINED GOODS
IGNORE - ORES, LUXURIES, CONSUMER GOODS
BARRACKS - Barracks stations are the defense networks of the various factions. Military units are organized and equipped here. maintenance is done and armerments provided. Barracks stations
PRODUCE - NOTHING
DEMAND - SUPPLIES, MILTECH, REFINED GOODS
IGNORE - ORE, CONSUMER GOODS, LUXURIES
COMMERCIAL - Commercial stations are a clearinghouse, Most items can be bought or sold here, you pay more to buy than if you get it from the station that actually makes it, and you sell it for less than you would to a station that actually wants it. commercial stations
PRODUCE - EVERYTHING
DEMAND - EVERYTHING
IGNORE - NOTHING
CAPITOL - Capitol stations are the center of a faction/nation, they are population centers, commercial zones, and barracks all rolled into one. they function very much like a commercial station, except that they have a higher base price for most items. Capitol stations
PRODUCE - EVERYTHING
DEMAND - EVERYTHING
IGNORE - NOTHING
You may have noticed that i have not mentioned food or water at all. The reason for that is that these cargo's have a special set of rules that go with them. I'll explain here.
WATER - water gets a class by itself because of the way I see it working. Water is refined anywhere in the universe that there is a station in an Icefield or over an inhabited planet. Hence any station TYPE can provide water. WATER is always demanded by stations that have no ice or planet.
FOOD - food functions somewhat like water, it can be found at any TYPE of station, as long as that station is above a planet. As far as it goes I assume most stations can hydroponically grow enough food to support themselves, so the cargo FOOD is really more special items, fresh meat, vegetables, etc as opposed to the staple items.
Lastly I would like to add 1 more type of cargo.
BULK CARGO - Basically this is the little stuff that everyone sends to friends, family, etc. People furniture when they move, that kind of thing. It would be availible at all stations, have a mass of 100 and a volume of 1. it can always be purchased for a cost of 10 and always sold for a 15, as long as you are selling it to a new staton. It is the only thing that would be availible to purchase at a barracks station. Basically you can choose to work for the IGPS (intergalactic postal service) for a 5 credit profit per item. Just something to fill up that cargo hold on the way back from a barracks.
The equipment availible at a station would be limited to very basic weapons and ships at MINING, REFINING, and MANUFACTURING stations, a better selection and more trade ships at COMMERCIAL stations, and the best selection at CAPITOL, RESEARCH, and BARRACKS stations.
Most of the changes i have proposed could be accomplished server side by merely reorganizing the cargo we have now at the various stations, (and changing their descriptor name) For a fast fix all that would need done is making the stations sell the items under "PRODUCE". that would leave them demanding things that i would personally like to see them ignore, but at least you would be able to tell at a fairly quick glance what a station was going to want and not want.
As the game progresses and the devs have more time, the cargo could be sorted down even finer, with this manufacturing station needing steel, synthwood and chemicals to produce luxury goods and consumer electronics. eventually the stations could be set up so that they HAVE to get the raw materiels to produce the next step in the chain.
I hope they get the time to throw this together. The best part of trading in Privateer was being able to think "Mining station - they'll need food and porn." and then buying the appropriate stuff. Now you just kinda have to guess at what a trade route is going to be.
I think this idea rules. Not only does it simplify setting up trade routes by adding a level of in-game common sense to it, but it fits VERY nicely into the world that's been created. Mad Props on this brainstorm, Spellcast!
I like this idea, a lot.
It would make the economy much more dynamic.
Now all we need is a way for players to create items and build and own stations...a totally self sufficient dynamic economy would RULE. (Thinks about EVE...almost, but not quite there...)
(BTW:
I'm enjoying this much more then I did EVE, not to bash a game or anything, since the games are about polar opposites :D)
It would make the economy much more dynamic.
Now all we need is a way for players to create items and build and own stations...a totally self sufficient dynamic economy would RULE. (Thinks about EVE...almost, but not quite there...)
(BTW:
I'm enjoying this much more then I did EVE, not to bash a game or anything, since the games are about polar opposites :D)
Excellent idea.
Good layout of the producer/consumer relationships. I would say that luxuries and consumer goods should have limited demand at all stations, but that it should drop off rapidly; after selling 5-10 units of luxuries, a small station should have little demand for them.
Tieing in to that would be the notion of station size -- stations should have a "population" rating which indicates roughly how fast they produce or consume items. Small outlying stations should have high demand for items, but easy to saturate.
Tieing in to that would be the notion of station size -- stations should have a "population" rating which indicates roughly how fast they produce or consume items. Small outlying stations should have high demand for items, but easy to saturate.
I hope Waylon has the time to address this issue. I think he's in charge of the station inventory among other things.
Great ideas Spellcast. :) I think you've done a great job synthesizing many players ideas into one cohesive proposal.
Great ideas Spellcast. :) I think you've done a great job synthesizing many players ideas into one cohesive proposal.
Bumping this thread:
Where is the logic in the current system, I wonder? I can buy Ore cheap in a commerse station and sell them at a mining station -for a profit- (slight, but still)
On the other way around, the mining station produces nothing that I can't get from the commerce station in the same place. erm?
And, the Mining station that has luxury goods, something you can't even get in the Capitol, Research, Barracks or Commerce stations around? What the.... ?
please, some kind of logic? An extra grouping for all widgets ("ore" "Mining utilities" "Manufacturing tools" "Weapons utils" ) to give a hint of where they would be well recieved? Currently the bonus makes a good and fast check (compare what gives +8 for a wiggit with other places) but still.. consistency.
Where is the logic in the current system, I wonder? I can buy Ore cheap in a commerse station and sell them at a mining station -for a profit- (slight, but still)
On the other way around, the mining station produces nothing that I can't get from the commerce station in the same place. erm?
And, the Mining station that has luxury goods, something you can't even get in the Capitol, Research, Barracks or Commerce stations around? What the.... ?
please, some kind of logic? An extra grouping for all widgets ("ore" "Mining utilities" "Manufacturing tools" "Weapons utils" ) to give a hint of where they would be well recieved? Currently the bonus makes a good and fast check (compare what gives +8 for a wiggit with other places) but still.. consistency.
Thank you sarah.
I spent a fair amount of time working this out, I just dont find that the trade system promotes a "you are there" feeling IMHO. It is too random and illogical. No real world economy could function with the economic chains set up the way vendettas are. The supply/demand aspect is there, but the supplies and demands are in randomized locations it seems.
I know that waylon has lots of other stuff to do, so if nothing gets done before release i dont think anyone will be really upset about it, but i hope something happens with the economy soon(tm):). Having a logical economic structure is an important part of any game. It dosent have to be super-realistic, as long as it is logical.
The way i tried to lay out my suggestion was with the intent that it would be easy to start implimenting this or something similar. (just change what the stations we have currently sell and rename their descriptor tags) It could then be expanded upon and broken down into more and more detailed economic chains as the devs have time.
I spent a fair amount of time working this out, I just dont find that the trade system promotes a "you are there" feeling IMHO. It is too random and illogical. No real world economy could function with the economic chains set up the way vendettas are. The supply/demand aspect is there, but the supplies and demands are in randomized locations it seems.
I know that waylon has lots of other stuff to do, so if nothing gets done before release i dont think anyone will be really upset about it, but i hope something happens with the economy soon(tm):). Having a logical economic structure is an important part of any game. It dosent have to be super-realistic, as long as it is logical.
The way i tried to lay out my suggestion was with the intent that it would be easy to start implimenting this or something similar. (just change what the stations we have currently sell and rename their descriptor tags) It could then be expanded upon and broken down into more and more detailed economic chains as the devs have time.
I must say this is one of the best thought out suggestions I have seen for a long time. It makes logical sence and should be easy to implement and leaves plenty of room for expansion. Great work on this one Spellcast.
Dang, Spellcast, not only do you see the big picture problem and how if affects the players, you also think through how to make it easiest on the Devs to fix that problem.
You're a freaking genius, man. This is one of the best ideas I've seen on the boards since I started playing in January.
Uh, in case you can't tell, I'm dyg|RK (formerly vImbe') and I approve this plan.
dyg|RK
You're a freaking genius, man. This is one of the best ideas I've seen on the boards since I started playing in January.
Uh, in case you can't tell, I'm dyg|RK (formerly vImbe') and I approve this plan.
dyg|RK
Did the stations get reorganized? or did Ray sneak in and re-sort my excel file "stations and cargo of the UIT"?
PS.
After talking/interrogating Ray I have formed opinion I need to be more patient. Devs have much hidden just below the surface. Wish I COULD make Ray the time dialation machine he wants.
PS.
After talking/interrogating Ray I have formed opinion I need to be more patient. Devs have much hidden just below the surface. Wish I COULD make Ray the time dialation machine he wants.
yes the stations got reorganized again.
I know there is a lot under the surface, I remember one of the devs remarking offhand a while back that everything in vendetta has a "parts list" of cargos needed to make it. (maybe that will become important when the mission system is updated?)
Meanwhile my post was merely an idea for a quick and dirty fix in the event that there isn't time for anything more drastic.
I know there is a lot under the surface, I remember one of the devs remarking offhand a while back that everything in vendetta has a "parts list" of cargos needed to make it. (maybe that will become important when the mission system is updated?)
Meanwhile my post was merely an idea for a quick and dirty fix in the event that there isn't time for anything more drastic.
bump