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Author Topic: Yet another economy suggestion (long)  (Read 7185 times)

Mr. Nobody

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #45 on: October 18, 2019, 07:12:36 AM »

I don't get the issue, really.
The open market is perfectly fine, you use it to not lose reputation, for money there's the black market and procurement missions, or you can go just get a commission and make money that way, or make a colony.
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Goumindong

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #46 on: October 18, 2019, 11:49:09 AM »

You know what? I give up. It's pointless trying to debate people that refuse to understand something as simple as Chekhov's gun.

I am sorry. We are now talking about the dramatic structure of a visual play wherein an object is placed so as to be important later despite looking like it was a piece of set dressing? (Or maybe shown to be important so it could come back later?)

I dont understand what this has to do with the core gameplay cycle of a video game that doesnt have a predefined story. The Open Market isnt a plot point that were going to come back to later and surprise the audience with. Its a tool for the progression of the core gameplay cycle.

The core gameplay cycle in Starsector is

1) choosing which fights to take or to not take and navigating in a way that achieves this
2) fighting
3) upgrading your fleet so you can fight bigger and badder things

Trading profitably on the open market (which, to be clear, you can already do*) circumvents the first and second aspect of the core gameplay cycle by negating the need to make a choice and so negating the need to navigate. You then skip right to 3 for upgrading your fleet. This catapults you to lategame and skips the majority of the game. That is bad.

*you just have to interact with the dynamic elements which increase the probability that youre going to have to nagivate.

Its true that this doesnt have to be the gameplay cycle. But it is. The game is not Space Patrician. It never was intended to be.
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Alex

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #47 on: October 18, 2019, 11:59:44 AM »

Alex spend a lot of time on making this system and when he realized it could be easily abused and that the abuse would turn the the game into a grindy and not at all fun slog he gimped the system via tariffs.

Just a real quick note here that tariffs and "open market trade isn't generally profitable (and never as profitable) as black market trade" was in the design - and a core, intentional feature of the design - since the very first version of the economy.

The open market is still useful for buying stuff you need or selling salvage etc without attracting suspicion/negatively affecting your reputation. And, as mentioned, it can be used for profit situationally. Generally, though, the whole thing is meant to make you look at black market trade, which leads to more interesting gameplay because it creates conflict.

Also, if there was no open market, the first question would be "why can't I trade legally?". Having the open market is a way of, essentially, answering that question. It's not that you can't, it's just that you often won't want to.
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AlucardNoirsFolly

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #48 on: October 18, 2019, 12:55:59 PM »

Alex spend a lot of time on making this system and when he realized it could be easily abused and that the abuse would turn the the game into a grindy and not at all fun slog he gimped the system via tariffs.

Just a real quick note here that tariffs and "open market trade isn't generally profitable (and never as profitable) as black market trade" was in the design - and a core, intentional feature of the design - since the very first version of the economy.

The open market is still useful for buying stuff you need or selling salvage etc without attracting suspicion/negatively affecting your reputation. And, as mentioned, it can be used for profit situationally. Generally, though, the whole thing is meant to make you look at black market trade, which leads to more interesting gameplay because it creates conflict.

Also, if there was no open market, the first question would be "why can't I trade legally?". Having the open market is a way of, essentially, answering that question. It's not that you can't, it's just that you often won't want to.

...so, in place of as asking "why can't we trade legally?" we're left wondering "why can't we make a profit trading legally?". "Great" game design. Sorry if I come a little bit snarky but since I'm not the first person to point out the idiocy of tariffs I think you already know that.

Might I suggest you either:
1. rename tariffs to sales tax (there's already enough apologists here claiming that's what they are, might as well make them wright)
2. maybe consider having a different "tax" for every polity in game?
or
1. remove the open market
2. remove the ability to acquire civilian freight ships from the ships markets
3. ensure that if we recover, from destroyed trade fleets, civilian freighters they're always mothballed and can't be brought online
4. ensure that the only starts the vanilla game has to offer are either as a smuggler or as a mercenary. Difficultly can very based on fleet size, but the backgrounds don't need to.

That way the answer to the question you anticipated we'd ask is simple: this isn't a space trading game, it's a game about smuggling, piracy, privateering and being a mercenary - with all that that entails. And preempts the: but if you remove the tariffs this is literally just like the trading system in Sid Meiers Pirates or Escape Velocity Nova counter people like me will have.

Explaining colonies will be difficult, but it won't be any worse then the broken by design legal trading system we have now. Plus, it makes more sense to fence the goods we get from raiding a trade fleet on the black market of a  world that needs them then to just apar out of "nowhere" and sell exactly the good a planet needs at the exact volume that planet needs on the open market.

Also, sorry, for assuming you had simply made a more complex version of the trade system one can find in old games like EV NOVA and then gimped it. It's clear to me now that the gimping was in the original design. Still bad design, just from a completely different point of view. You find trade itself boring but felt obliged to put it in to preempt people inquiring about it, that being said: It's your *** game. IF you aren't interested in trade then don't fuckign have it in. If building a trade empire in X doesn't make you moist, if playing Truck Driver doesn't get you hard then, you know? maybe don't make a game that from the surface looks like something that would appeal that that demographic. The parts you like about the game are already good enough, no need to tack on a system you don't actually want, or like, to appease potential customers that wont something different then you do. The game is still in alpha, it's not too late to change things and strip things that you think aren't working. IF the only reason you have the legal trade system in game is because you don't want people to ask about it then grow a pair, strip it out and make it clear smuggling is the closest thing we're ever getting to trading in your game.
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Mr. Nobody

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #49 on: October 18, 2019, 01:03:56 PM »

Alex, can we have Salt as a trade resource? Harvested from ancient data caches of course.
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Q8

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #50 on: October 18, 2019, 01:06:50 PM »

[...]

Just for you I'm making an exception and making just one more comment. You learned all that since you wrote this a month ago?
O.o? The hell does that has to do with anyt... whatever.
I honestly think you should calm down.


Alex, can we have Salt as a trade resource? Harvested from ancient data caches of course.
What? you want to be able to harvest Angelina from data cashes? the hell? didnt she cut of her boobs?
« Last Edit: October 18, 2019, 01:09:42 PM by Q8 »
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Thaago

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #51 on: October 18, 2019, 03:52:34 PM »

Salt from troll tantrums being included in the game would be the worst! I cannot imgine any possible gam3 d3sign that could be that bad!1! Old games that I played in my formative years that had completely different focuses didn't include troll sweat salt so if this one does than its obviously a **s**@#$**!!**muppet**!1996**#%casserole**s@^&** game! Maybe if troll sweat were renamed humanoid derived sodium chloride it would be ok because then it would match my preconceptions. Anyone who disagrees is a **#@^$&%(@genderedinsult#*@&^!*muffin!
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Histidine

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #52 on: October 18, 2019, 06:52:18 PM »

In an attempt to restore some productiveness to the thread:

Just a real quick note here that tariffs and "open market trade isn't generally profitable (and never as profitable) as black market trade" was in the design - and a core, intentional feature of the design - since the very first version of the economy.

The open market is still useful for buying stuff you need or selling salvage etc without attracting suspicion/negatively affecting your reputation. And, as mentioned, it can be used for profit situationally. Generally, though, the whole thing is meant to make you look at black market trade, which leads to more interesting gameplay because it creates conflict.
Tariffs smaller than the current 30% (Nexerelin uses 18% normally, 9% for free ports) would still fulfill this goal, while not rendering open trade unprofitable even in cases where the design says it should be, such as cases where the the loss to tariffs exceeds surplus/deficit price effects (with 30% tariffs on both ends, you need an 85.7% markup to break even).

If combined with reduced price volatility (since huge price differences are no longer needed to make disruption event trading profitable), this would also fix smuggling being excessively profitable.

It would also throw a bone to non-traders, especially newbies who don't know they're 'meant' to use the black market, when buying things they need and selling vendor trash on the open market.

EDIT: Also, good points have been made (here and elsewhere) about open market and black market overlapping too much in their niches, such that black market ends up being 'open market, but better'. Right now black market is broadly open market minus the tariffs and with better gear selection and occasional rep losses; if they were more differentiated, the choices involved would be clearer.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2019, 07:17:23 PM by Histidine »
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Alex

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #53 on: October 18, 2019, 07:16:36 PM »

I could see definitely adjusting the tariffs, yeah. I think I've actually already reduced the price volatility a bit in the dev build.

I think what I want to do at some point is have another look at the possible disruptions etc; it feels like there could be more done here content-wise. Food shortage type events, etc... plus right now the trade volumes aren't, imo, high enough - e.g. a shortage of food might only bring profit on 1000 units of it. Delivery missions do fill most of the gap - they're essentially "trade for a profit", just handled a bit differently - but just more variety might be nice.

But, well, more content *almost everywhere* would be good, so we'll see how it goes :)
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bobucles

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #54 on: October 18, 2019, 07:34:12 PM »

The amount of profit available from illegal items is pretty good, and and Ludd marine profits are absolutely wild. You can definitely make good money off of them and even walk away with a few capital ships. I don't see much value in trading medium tier goods like transplutonics, but they are fantastic when offered as mission targets. Crew are very fickle for trade, if you end up paying their monthly salary it kills the already small profit potential. I don't even think there are crew transport missions?

Low tier stuff like metals/food/organics are almost never worth trading. The individual profit per item is too low (cargo space isn't free!), and the severity of demand is WAY too low. It struggles to be worth the effort with pure black market trade, and the missions suffer from scaling very steeply on cargo space. Cargo trade does reach diminishing returns with fleet size, and it's a big chunk of upkeep to always keep 4000 empty cargo for a random food mission. I'd probably have to see a demand for 1000 food or 2000 ore before planning a manual trade run, at least compared to a demand of 200+ illegal goods.

Mordodrukow

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #55 on: October 18, 2019, 09:53:23 PM »

I guess, it would be good if one, who wants profitable trading will have to buy freighters instead of battle ships. I mean: A LOT. As been mentioned above, cargo space is not free. Your fleet spends money every day and every month and every light year, so, basically your profit is negative. With 3-4 cargo ships it will be barely over 0. With 15 - profitable. And ofc it wil demand a player to make some math.

Bad thing here: it is not that hard for player to perform, cause the world is too soft. Almost nobody wants to kill you, and if one does - you can escape the hard fights and pretty easily destroy those, who runs fast.

Also, about softness. May be you, Alex, need to change reputation system instead of tariffs. It looks a little bit idiotic when you killing a baby, then removing 20 cats from the trees and helping few grannies to pass the road and bam: your reputation is 0 again.

I mean smuggling must be punished a lot harder, so Open market could became more interesting option.
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Q8

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #56 on: October 18, 2019, 10:04:00 PM »

I for one, dont know/think if thats even important.
If i can make chairs for 5$/h and tables for 10$/h, im basically always making tables.
But in a game? does anybody ever sat infront of the screen, and tough to himself, well, i would go and hunt for that bounty there, but that exploration mission is more profitable, so i guess im doing that!? anybody?
Do you people really think, that to make "trade" more... hmm... useful? used more often? whats the word... valid? ... you have to make it more profitable?
...I dont know man... i dont know.
Especially since ingame time is not important at all.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #57 on: October 18, 2019, 10:11:10 PM »

My experience attempting to trade has been similar: low value goods just never make enough profit to be worthwhile, even with very extreme price events: 400% profit on food is like 50 credits per unit or something, equivalent to a ~10% profit on heavy armaments. Smuggling things like marines, drugs and heavy armaments tends to work out much better, but also heavily incentivizes smuggling since those good are illegal anyway. I think volatility is fine for low value items, but it becomes an issue with high value stuff. Perhaps varying levels of volatility for different commodities would help.

My experience with price events is that they are bit too unreliable to depend on for trade. Maybe either having more trade convoys to attack, or better information on where/when they will be traveling would help make that feel more reliable. I would like it if I could consistently decide to cause a shortage of a certain good. Right now it more feels like I randomly stumble on a trade convoy, rather than intentionally chase them. I also could just be bad at it. Another idea is to have conveys be guaranteed/more likely to spawn when the player is in a system.
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Lucky33

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #58 on: October 18, 2019, 10:58:37 PM »

Open market is the retail. You want to buy in bulk in the retail for reselling and be profitable? Get real.
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AlucardNoirsFolly

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Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)
« Reply #59 on: October 19, 2019, 01:34:28 AM »

I could see definitely adjusting the tariffs, yeah. I think I've actually already reduced the price volatility a bit in the dev build.

I think what I want to do at some point is have another look at the possible disruptions etc; it feels like there could be more done here content-wise. Food shortage type events, etc... plus right now the trade volumes aren't, imo, high enough - e.g. a shortage of food might only bring profit on 1000 units of it. Delivery missions do fill most of the gap - they're essentially "trade for a profit", just handled a bit differently - but just more variety might be nice.

But, well, more content *almost everywhere* would be good, so we'll see how it goes :)

Just remove the open market from the game already. If open, legal and profitable trading isn't what you want in game then don't bother with it.

Also, delivery mission are trade for a profit the same way a fetch quest is trade for profit. This reminds me of The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind where you get several fetch quests from multiple NPCs. One in particular is extremely egregious because you can literally buy what she requests from the NPC doing the requesting.

EDIT. and when I say remove it I don't mean that in a mean spirited kind of way. This is Starsector TV Tropes page. Wile I might have only acquired the game as a result of Seth's and Mandalore's videos, even as far back as 2015 when that page was originally made people thought of Starsector as a trading game. True, a trading/exploration/space combat game, but a trading game nonetheless. If that wasn't your intent then removing trading seems like a better idea. Just looking at this thread it is clear this was never meant to be a trading game and most people here seem to take umbrage with actually making trading viable enough to warrant such a descriptor. But as long as the open markets are there that is one of the first things people will think of when they open your game for the first time.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2019, 03:57:19 AM by AlucardNoirsFolly »
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