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Author Topic: Credits limit to planets and starbases  (Read 1346 times)

vorpal+5

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Credits limit to planets and starbases
« on: June 19, 2019, 08:19:38 AM »

It feels quite prone to exploit that you can sell on a regular (short) interval even to a backward colony for nearly a million worth of credits of anything you happen to find (trade goods but also pricey blueprints and proscribed stuff found in far systems).

If not mistaken, M&B had a limit on how much money a given merchant had? Most game do in fact, to prevent such exploit. If Alex can ponder and consider that perhaps it can do good to the game balance, a kind of dynamic reserve that resplenish over time... Having better relations can also perhaps boost this limit, there is a whole gameplay stuff to tap here!
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Re: Credits limit to planets and starbases
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2019, 08:39:10 AM »

It feels quite prone to exploit that you can sell on a regular (short) interval even to a backward colony for nearly a million worth of credits of anything you happen to find (trade goods but also pricey blueprints and proscribed stuff found in far systems).

If not mistaken, M&B had a limit on how much money a given merchant had? Most game do in fact, to prevent such exploit. If Alex can ponder and consider that perhaps it can do good to the game balance, a kind of dynamic reserve that resplenish over time... Having better relations can also perhaps boost this limit, there is a whole gameplay stuff to tap here!
Yeah, selling 500k worth of survey data to a lvl pirate station before destroying it feels weird.
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Megas

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Re: Credits limit to planets and starbases
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2019, 10:22:51 AM »

At a big world (or even size 3 pirate bases that send raids) that can produce multi-million credit fleets at will without any problems, anything the player brings is probably a drop in the bucket of their economy.  If not, maybe the factions practice deficit spending if they do not have enough.  But since the player cannot see their bank statements, player will never know.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Credits limit to planets and starbases
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2019, 10:27:24 AM »

Have you seen some of the defending fleets around those pirate bases?  They've clearly got plenty of credits and supplies. :)

More seriously, as for the "exploit" nature of it, I'm not sure I understand.  As you sell stuff to the same place, the amount you receive in payment goes down, so if you sell too much, your return per unit goes way down.  So even if you find a lucrative trade route, it'll go away naturally quickly.  And its not like you can produce an infinite amount of loot without actually putting effort in.

More seriously, I don't see the benefits from a gameplay perspective.  You've defeated the fleet and salvaged it for scrap or succeeded from coming from the deep black after particularly lucrative finds, and now you've got to spend a bunch more time just flying between planets to sell everything?  That doesn't sound exactly fun to me.

From an immersion standpoint maybe, although just because the station itself is poor or in poor condition, doesn't mean there aren't rich well connected buyers there avoiding taxes - the black market by definition is not associated with those running the station.  Also, the amount I sell tends to be peanuts compared to mission payouts or colony income.  I feel like some of the larger delivery missions can have payouts in the hundreds of thousands of credits when delivering to small stations.
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vorpal+5

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Re: Credits limit to planets and starbases
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2019, 08:54:07 PM »

Well, good arguments, I can't deny that. I'm mostly favoring the 'is it fun gameplay' side before plausibility anyway.

Some stations are in perpetual need of trade goods, and the credits you can get from that dwarf even big missions. e.g. Survey a remote planet can give you 240.000 credits, but filling up the needs of a planet that has been raided can lead to more than 1.000.000 credits earned, and that's easy to do. Heck sometime there is even a market in the same system able to provide the needs.

So you end up in December 206 FTL with 1M creds in your pocket. Bye bye early game tension, you are already well into the mid game.

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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Credits limit to planets and starbases
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2019, 04:04:21 PM »

Please for the love of the Void, NO! I HATE this mechanic in games because it is a "fly vs. howitzer" approach with balancing. The factions already want a third of my profits for taxes and now you want to add on top a CAP on how much they can PAY you? NO thanks
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xenoargh

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Re: Credits limit to planets and starbases
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2019, 04:48:34 PM »

I totally agree with Midnight Kitsune on this. 

All this kind of thing does is waste our time, having to circle around to multiple vendors.
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