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Author Topic: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)  (Read 36951 times)

hadesian

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Re: Economy Mod (in development)
« Reply #30 on: June 18, 2012, 11:04:06 AM »

How's it going?
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sdmike1

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Re: Economy Mod (in development)
« Reply #31 on: June 18, 2012, 03:23:15 PM »

 :o :o :o :o :o
if this was minecraft i would give you diamonds  ;D

sdmike1

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Re: Economy Mod (in development)
« Reply #32 on: June 20, 2012, 12:02:11 PM »

So how goes it?

CrashToDesktop

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Re: Economy Mod (in development)
« Reply #33 on: July 04, 2012, 07:35:28 PM »

I got bored yesterday and decided to throw a mod together.
Boredom...is an amazing thing. ;D
Gets me to do stuff I'd rather not do for my life. :)
Anyways, I hope you get around to that update you talked about in the other thread, good luck.
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LazyWizard

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Re: Economy Mod (in development)
« Reply #34 on: July 05, 2012, 01:26:02 AM »

I updated the main post. Hopefully a simple color-coded list of features will be easier to keep up to date.

-------------

Sorry about the lack of updates. I did a near-complete rewrite of the mod since the last time I posted. I realized it was becoming a nightmare for modders to implement; the new version is much cleaner and simpler to hook into an existing mod.

Also, I finally got trade convoys working last week. It might not sound like much, but that was a pain to figure out. Here's a screenshot of the very first successful trade run:
Spoiler

Ignore the discrepancy in the Hegemony funds, it's just some lingering test code that gives them cash each day.
Also, ignore how ugly this is. It looks much better now. ;)
[close]

With trade convoys implemented, the core of the mod is complete. Things should go slightly faster after this. I won't give an estimate on when this mod will be finished - ever since I mostly abandoned the API to work directly with the core code*, things have gone much slower. Obfuscated code is evil. It also opens up some major compatibility problems, but I'm willing to put in the effort to fix things after each update.

I'm currently working on dynamic fleets. I think I've figured out how to get that functional, so I won't have to use the workaround of having dozens of fleets defined in the faction files. Balancing this is going to be fun. </sarcasm>

One final, minor change. I realized one-use financial newspapers were a terrible idea in a future dystopian setting, so I changed it. The new concept is that you're paying a bribe to a friend in the faction to get them to pass along information to you. This also means that if diplomacy is added in the future (by update or mod), there's a justification for receiving less information if you're hostile to that faction, or having to pay more.

*Other modders, don't worry. You will only ever need to pass in API objects to the economy. It will do all the heavy lifting for you.

-------------

Stuff that's probably only interesting to other modders below:

Per-faction technology is finished, sort of. I might need to re-write it later, it's ridiculously inefficient. You pass a massive list of technology to the faction, it creates each ship/weapon/whatever, grabs the needed data off of it, assigns it to the relevant categories, then discards the created object. This is kind of like ordering every item on the menu at a restaurant, taking a single bite of each one, then throwing them all away. In this analogy, finding a simpler method would be like asking the waiter what the meal tastes like. On the upside, all you need to do is pass a list of variant/weapon names and rarity values to it, and it does all the work. It's pretty foolproof. ;)

I've also been working on helper classes that should be useful to other modders. Mostly they let you bypass restrictions of the current API, but some of them are just for convenience. Working on them isn't taking away development time from this mod, because I'm making heavy use of them myself. I'll release them to the modding community soon-ish.
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sdmike1

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #35 on: July 05, 2012, 02:23:43 PM »

thank god that this mod is not dead!
 

ClosetGoth

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #36 on: July 05, 2012, 03:06:10 PM »

Holy wow, this gets better and better! I am really looking forward to this mod, and I think it will probably end up either being integrated into vanilla, or used as a basis for the vanilla economy (if done right). At worst, it is the basis for many mods that surpass current mod capability and epicness.
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Upgradecap

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #37 on: July 05, 2012, 03:10:36 PM »

At worst, it is the basis for many mods that surpass current mod capability and epicness.

Why at worst?
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Sunfire

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #38 on: July 05, 2012, 03:18:25 PM »

At worst, it is the basis for many mods that surpass current mod capability and epicness.

Why at worst?

he means at the least
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keptin

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #39 on: July 05, 2012, 05:52:28 PM »

This is hands down my most anticipated mod.  I look forward to the first release and its continued development.

sdmike1

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #40 on: July 29, 2012, 11:11:41 AM »

This is hands down my most anticipated mod.  I look forward to the first release and its continued development.
This /\

ciago92

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #41 on: August 09, 2012, 09:52:30 PM »

just praying this is still alive and kicking. it has amazing potential! hope to see a release soontm
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LazyWizard

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #42 on: August 09, 2012, 11:33:48 PM »

just praying this is still alive and kicking. it has amazing potential! hope to see a release soontm

What, this old mod? It was cancelled a month ago. Did I forget to make a post about that?



... Totally kidding. All jokes aside, development has been a bit slow lately. Since my last post in this thread I've only worked on this mod a few hours a week (and not at all since .53 was released, as I was experimenting with the new API changes). After a lengthy conversation with Alex last month, I will only be using API methods from now on. I have yet to update the mod with said changes (which is extra sad since I knew what was added to the API in this update a full ten days before the rest of the forum), but I'll put aside some time this weekend to do that. The big thing that's broken right now are trading fleets, as the current item value code is too transitory to be included in the API. I'm still brainstorming workarounds for this, as it's pretty crucial to the mod ;).

-------------------------

Holy wow, this gets better and better! I am really looking forward to this mod, and I think it will probably end up either being integrated into vanilla, or used as a basis for the vanilla economy (if done right). At worst, it is the basis for many mods that surpass current mod capability and epicness.
This is hands down my most anticipated mod.  I look forward to the first release and its continued development.
This /\

Wow, no pressure, guys. ;)

Now that I think about it, I think it's time I unleashed the:

Great Expectations (Lowerer)

Keep in mind that this mod really is just something I'm throwing together in my spare time. Don't expect some professional-grade economic systems here - I'm not looking to recreate X3 or Eve. I didn't choose to make an economy mod because I'm good at math (I'm at best only above average), but because I enjoy coding complicated systems. Also, this is explicitly a temporary mod, so I've avoided making the economic systems too detailed. A lot of what I'm implementing will be pretty basic stuff, at least at first. If I feel something could survive an actual economy implementation, I've been putting more effort into it.

-----------------------------

And because I'm a lying liar who lies, I'll follow that paragraph with a list of all the stuff I've been working on for the past month. I'm not exactly sure what the current state of completion is on some of these, as it's been almost two weeks since I even glanced at the code. :(

First up, there are several new inventory items. I mentioned bribes last time, and those are definitely in and working. Bribes are relatively cheap (5k currently), and allow you to get a one-time glimpse into a faction's finances. There is a small chance that you will be caught each time you purchase one of these, leading to a reduction in faction relationship. There is also a chance that the official will take your bribe and run (only if you have negative relations with that faction, and again only a chance). If either of these events occurs, the item disappears from the store for a few weeks to represent the time spent finding a new official amenable to bribes.

Second, you can now hire hackers to grant your fleet access to the faction's financial network. This is expensive, but permanent (though I might add a small chance to be caught over time), and is required for the weekly financial report I've shown in previous screenshots to include that faction. When you first start a new game, only the player will be shown in these reports (more on that later).

Third are donations. These are used to revive dead factions, or if you want that faction to bring better cargo in future convoys. The donations are anonymous, so you don't get a relations boost by buying them. Right now there are three 'tiers' of donations with set costs, though I might switch to a single 1-credit item with a massive stack size. Opinions?

Modders:
Spoiler
These items are relatively painless to implement. You just need to follow the proper item id naming conventions (factionID followed by base item name), and they will be added automatically to any faction stations registered with the economy. If the item doesn't exist (for instance, if you decide your faction is too pure to accept bribes), that particular feature will be disabled for that faction.

Here's an example resources.csv that includes entries for the Hegemony
Code
name,id,cargo space,base value,stack size,icon,order
"Anonymous Donation - 10,000",hegemonydonationlow,0,10000,10,graphics/icons/cargo/econ/donate.png,101
"Anonymous Donation - 50,000",hegemonydonationmed,0,50000,10,graphics/icons/cargo/econ/donate.png,102
"Anonymous Donation - 150,000",hegemonydonationhigh,0,150000,10,graphics/icons/cargo/econ/donate.png,103
"Bribe Hegemony Official",hegemonybribe,0,5000,1,graphics/icons/cargo/econ/bribe.png,104
"Hack Hegemony Financial Network",hegemonyspy,0,50000,1,graphics/icons/cargo/econ/spy.png,105
[close]


Aside from the items, I've also been working on implementing player trading fleets (though I'd better hurry before Verrius overtakes me! ;)). The way these are planned to work is that there's a station that's basically a clone of the Abandoned Station, with one item already in the inventory. You mothball the ships and items you want in your convoy, then take the item. That triggers the creation of a friendly fleet using the stuff you dropped into the station, which immediately heads out of the sector. Provided you equipped it well enough to survive to the maps edge, it will return after a week or so. If it makes it to your station again, it dumps the ships that survived, and you get the value of the cargo plus a very healthy profit on top. This will all be implemented as a sort of pseudo-faction in the economy, so you will show up in the financial reports and everything.

There are also a few secret mini-projects, but I don't want to reveal anything on those until I know for sure that they are possible.

--------------------------

Again, sorry about the lack of updates. Whenever I sit down to write one of these posts, I end up spending hours on it no matter how short I tell myself I'll keep the post. It leads to me not wanting to post at all, as it takes away from time I could spend coding. If I go too long without an update, just PM me a nudge and I'll try to get around to making another post. :)
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keptin

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #43 on: August 10, 2012, 01:30:27 AM »

Any economic system is worth getting excited over because of that additional layer of depth.  Don't worry about high expectations damage control, this is understandably a player mod with API limitations, dev time constraints, and the possibility of wavering dev interest.  The potential I see in mods like this and Verrius' is that at this stage in game development, it can help shape how Starfarer officially manages its economy and API, for example.  It doesn't have to become a super mod to be influential, just talking to the devs about what you need from the API and flushing out things that they only have on paper has a positive impact.

CrashToDesktop

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Re: Economy Mod (yes, it's still in development)
« Reply #44 on: August 10, 2012, 08:04:51 AM »

Ah-ha!  That last paragraph is my favorite already. ;D
Hopefully you'll need to provide crew and supplies to that fleet as well, no?
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