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Author Topic: Economy needs some serious rebalancing  (Read 5692 times)

isara

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Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« on: December 20, 2021, 09:59:00 PM »

It's such a great game, which is why I don't want to see it gets broken by economic exploits.
Currently, it's way too easy to make money by simply trading commodities, well it's simply muling them from one colony to another,
there are two major problems to this, firstly it renders other means of earning money pointless, random quests, bounties, surveys suddenly loose their appeal completely.
secondly making too much money too fast totally ruins game progression.
I'd suggest rebalancing the commodity trading mechanics as well as buffing other means of making money,
1. making colonies with large price gap in commodities far away from each other, and the price data only showing nearby systems
2. increase income from surveys/bounties/random quests, surveys that are far away needs higher reward;
bounties/random quests needs reward/difficulty scaling based on your fleet strength, it would be amazing if there's varied difficulties like normal/hard/legendary,
right now the reward is just too little, sometimes it can not even cover the supply&fuel cost,
it'd be nice if there's also varied rewards other than credits.
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JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2021, 11:13:36 PM »

They aren't exploits, it's just the game.  Play it how you will.  Or fail how you will.  But artificially forcing extra distance to compensate for extra money from shortages strikes me as... both short-sighted and unrealistic.  Making knowledge of price vs. distance is a more interesting suggestion, but since player doesn't have option to sit in the bar and drink (ie, time doesn't pass when at port), it's moot since player can't wait for more info about cost differences from colonies that are further away; in-game explanation are comm relays being ansibles, basically.  Increasing survey payout per distance also interesting, but also kinda moot since basically all factions are equidistant from edges of sector due to being concentrated in core (what, an extra 10K because survey mission is from Luddic Church instead of the slightly closer Hegemony?).  Bounty scaling is definitely weird, payouts seem to assume perfect victories, so no extra money for prize ships; this prolly could use some love (but player gets rep for killing bounty target, so kinda balances out since more difficult to raise rep in vanilla vs. Nex/other mods).

And more varied rewards?  Would you prefer payment in food or ore?  Are the costs of the sale tariffs being considered, so player gets extra food/ore?

Play longer, and you'll realize that shortages are generally more organic, pirate activity etc.  Heck, once player gets some cash and a decent fleet, they can start artificially inducing shortages with piracy!  But even if player doesn't feel like raising the black and slitting some throats, all shortages inevitable end.  So wait until 8 years into a run and player be broke as hell since fleet is expensive, lack of shortages to exploit, and fleet too expensive to run exploration missions (the solution is to store/sell ships to make fleet cheaper to run, then do exploration missions!).

I have also played this game enough to realize that shortages seem to be somewhat more common in early game, prolly to give baby player more opportunities.  But by year 12, not necessarily as common...
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isara

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2021, 03:59:16 AM »

"They aren't exploits, it's just the game.  Play it how you will.  Or fail how you will."
I disagree, most modern games, if alive, would constantly release rebalancing patches to fix broken mechanics, by your logic rebalance shouldn't even be a thing.

"Bounty scaling is definitely weird"
When I have an end-game fleet, I don't want to get a bounty asking me to kill some guy with a few starter ships, I just want some challenge

"And more varied rewards?  Would you prefer payment in food or ore?  Are the costs of the sale tariffs being considered, so player gets extra food/ore?"
I agree it's not necessary, since everything can be converted to credits, but again, why most modern games have diversified rewards?


"Play longer, and you'll realize that shortages are generally more organic, pirate activity etc.  Heck, once player gets some cash and a decent fleet, they can start artificially inducing shortages with piracy!  But even if player doesn't feel like raising the black and slitting some throats, all shortages inevitable end.  So wait until 8 years into a run and player be broke as hell since fleet is expensive, lack of shortages to exploit, and fleet too expensive to run exploration missions (the solution is to store/sell ships to make fleet cheaper to run, then do exploration missions!).

I have also played this game enough to realize that shortages seem to be somewhat more common in early game, prolly to give baby player more opportunities.  But by year 12, not necessarily as common..."


That's the equivalent of saying you'll understand when you're older or you can enjoy life after you retire, I just can't agree with this mentality, what percentage of the player population of a game are veteran/hardcore players? 5%, 10%? The majority are casual players, and their gaming experience definitely matters, after all, it pretty much determines whether they're gonna stay to become a veteran or just quit after a few hours.

so instead of subjectively expressing our feelings, how about we get just a little bit more quantitative, can you explain to me how this is balanced:
on average each mercantile voyage takes me about 5 minutes, making approx 250k income, minus 20k base cost that's 230k profit/run, 46k/min, I'm not talking about the best case, I made 500k once, admittedly it's kinda boring if you do it constantly
at the same time, a bounty gives a 50~100k reward while takes on average 10 min to finish, because they tend to scatter in the outer reach of the core world,
since there's combat involved the base cost oftentimes goes beyond 50k, giving me 0~50k profit, 25k/run on average, 2.5k/min, good thing is you do get to play a lot of combat.
now let's talk about surveys, those are normally in the deepest space, more than twice the distance of a bounty run, the reward is generally around 90k, minus the base cost of 80k, you get about 10k profit/run, let's assume it also takes 10min to finish, that's 1k/min
« Last Edit: December 21, 2021, 04:03:36 AM by isara »
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Yunru

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2021, 04:10:32 AM »

but again, why most modern games have diversified rewards?
They don't.
They either reward you with currency, progression, or something you would want to get with currency.

Also if you can't explain why someone does something, you can hardly then point to them and blindly say "well they do it!" as a supporting argument.

JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2021, 05:02:53 AM »

"They aren't exploits, it's just the game.  Play it how you will.  Or fail how you will."
I disagree, most modern games, if alive, would constantly release rebalancing patches to fix broken mechanics, by your logic rebalance shouldn't even be a thing.
This game is still in pre-release.  By a very small studio.  So don't compare it to most "modern games," which by your stated definition are either some Paradox crap, Microsoft re-release of Halo (or Ubisoft/Call of Duty, or Activision-Blizzard/Warcraft or Diablo) or NBA 2k16 when publishers realized real life Steph Curry was dropping better stats than video game Steph Curry and had to literally "fix" their shooting algorithm so that the game was as good as real life.  Plus, there is a difference between a player not understanding how a mechanic works and a literally broken mechanic (which means it either isn't working properly, or is unintentionally and improperly exploitable).  If mechanic is working correctly and average player can't figure it out, that doesn't mean rebalance it.  It means explain it better.  Or at least consider your target audience, not all games are Roblox for children... but some ARE!
"Bounty scaling is definitely weird"
When I have an end-game fleet, I don't want to get a bounty asking me to kill some guy with a few starter ships, I just want some challenge
Well, admittedly it's hard to do research on this forum, search function sucks (seriously, Googling the forum plus a keyword is more efficient).  But the reason game still drops puny bounties when player is nearing end-game is in case player gets soft game-over and basically has to start over.  Just ask Alex.  Or don't, since he has literally already confirmed this as the reason, Google it.  But when I was referring to bounty scaling, I was more referring to this (specifically the Bounty Level hidden stat, which as far as I know hasn't changed):

https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/Bounty
"And more varied rewards?  Would you prefer payment in food or ore?  Are the costs of the sale tariffs being considered, so player gets extra food/ore?"
I agree it's not necessary, since everything can be converted to credits, but again, why most modern games have diversified rewards?
I mean, I guess Alex can always add loot boxes and stupid cosmetics... oh wait, this ain't Fortnite, and, unlike Epic, can't afford to drop extraneous $$$ on cosmetics.  That's what modders are for!
That's the equivalent of saying you'll understand when you're older or you can enjoy life after you retire, I just can't agree with this mentality, what percentage of the player population of a game are veteran/hardcore players? 5%, 10%? The majority are casual players, and their gaming experience definitely matters, after all, it pretty much determines whether they're gonna stay to become a veteran or just quit after a few hours.
I mean, there is an easy option for a reason... even if those darn casuals refuse to use it.  Plus, game has an entire forced training wheels tutorial that isn't skippable.  I hated having to waste a few hours when I first got game being forced to do tutorial, but having both enjoyed and suffered the nuances of this game since, I can authoritatively say that the forced tutorial barely scratches the surface of the game (although I dunno how much has maybe changed since, running Nex mod and tutorial seems to sometimes break game, and Nex mod is practically required since basically adds everything game doesn't have yet.  Plus, pretty tedious to replay tutorial once a player knows how to play game).
so instead of subjectively expressing our feelings, how about we get just a little bit more quantitative, can you explain to me how this is balanced:
on average each mercantile voyage takes me about 5 minutes, making approx 250k income, minus 20k base cost that's 230k profit/run, 46k/min, I'm not talking about the best case, I made 500k once, admittedly it's kinda boring if you do it constantly
at the same time, a bounty gives a 50~100k reward while takes on average 10 min to finish, because they tend to scatter in the outer reach of the core world,
since there's combat involved the base cost oftentimes goes beyond 50k, giving me 0~50k profit, 25k/run on average, 2.5k/min, good thing is you do get to play a lot of combat.
now let's talk about surveys, those are normally in the deepest space, more than twice the distance of a bounty run, the reward is generally around 90k, minus the base cost of 80k, you get about 10k profit/run, let's assume it also takes 10min to finish, that's 1k/min
The answer is that it isn't balanced.  On purpose.  Trading on open markets with tariffs is an intentional act to degrade profitability of trade.  Trade on black market either generates "heat" for player, or player has to sneak into port.  Regarding bounties, player isn't obligated to do them, so why fly out to middle of nowhere when you can just wait for a closer target (unless player is also exploring out in middle of nowhere, basically).  As for surveys, well, they have crazy long time limits... why do just one at a time?  Game is kinda riddled with noob traps, some intentional, some unintentional that therefore might get fixed, or get kept since might alter normal gameplay in interesting ways.  As for trading, it's much less profitable without shortages, plus game used to straight trumpet trade contracts, but that got shifted into contacts system in 0.95 and effectively neutered much of rush of hitting trade deadlines (be nice if contracts gets mostly dragged back out of contacts system, I barely visit half my contacts; seriously, where are the phones in this dystopia that has instantaneous interstellar communications?).

Edit:spelling, grammer, murder
« Last Edit: December 21, 2021, 05:08:14 AM by slowpersun »
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Histidine

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2021, 05:09:57 AM »

Trade may well be OP for moneymaking at present, especially with certain routes well-known to veteran players.

Though re. surveying missions, you can get a lot of exploration done in addition to the survey, you don't just pop over to the destination and back. Also no survey run should cost 80k to do if all you're doing is the one survey (as opposed to taking the whole warfleet out for a multi-constellation exploration run, which is still less efficient than trimming back to a specialized survey fleet).
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SCC

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2021, 05:43:29 AM »

Trading was good since forever, since it's all reward and no risk. I would have made pirates target successful traders, but I'm not Alex.

Megas

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2021, 06:22:26 AM »

My problem with the economy is there are plenty of Black Markets to trade at without interference from patrols.  There are at least three systems without any patrols, and few others with light patrol activity that it is easy to turn off transponder at the market and dock.  And then there are the zombie pop-up bases in the fringe.

Black Market might as well be Open Market.  There is no risk and consequences.  Just drop the tariffs from all markets.

Same reason why I do not care about planting Commerce just for the shop.  I go to the nearby zombie pirate base and dump vendor trash without the 30% tariff at my colony.

Bounties definitely need a higher reward, at least as much as those offered by contact bounties, if not more:
* If it is a challenge, you will likely lose ships, and restoring or replacing them will likely cost more than the bounty reward.  In other words, flawless victory required unless player has Hull Restoration.  Player wants or needs a godmode turkey shoot for the money, not a challenge that will rob them money.  If I cannot safely fight bounties (because they level up faster than I do), then I will trade my way to power.

* Due to the above, it makes no sense narratively.  Why would NPC bounty hunters try to fight bounties when the outcome will almost certainly result in heavy losses?
« Last Edit: December 21, 2021, 06:24:59 AM by Megas »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2021, 08:27:26 AM »

Does OP know that bounties scale up as you do more of them? It sounds like they have never progressed past the starting bounties. You can get 300k+ multi capital ship bounties in the intel tab, and contacts can give 500k+ bounties after a while.
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Sundog

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2021, 08:47:47 AM »

I would have made pirates target successful traders, but I'm not Alex.
Same. I'm still hoping to add that to ruthless sector some day, or make a new mod for it. I'm also a big fan of how Jaghaimo made black markets only accessible when transponders are turned off in Starpocalypse.

Szasz

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #10 on: December 21, 2021, 09:25:59 AM »

I would have made pirates target successful traders, but I'm not Alex.
I would love that. At some point the game nudges the player towards combat anyway and there's still an unclosed loophole of getting along with everyone and boringly profit.
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Anvel

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #11 on: December 21, 2021, 09:33:47 AM »

For the love of god stop asking for more punishments and nerfs, it's not trading and smuggling that need to be nerfed but other sources of income need to be more rewarding, this is what you should ask.
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Alex

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #12 on: December 21, 2021, 09:42:38 AM »

I would have made pirates target successful traders, but I'm not Alex.
Same. I'm still hoping to add that to ruthless sector some day, or make a new mod for it. I'm also a big fan of how Jaghaimo made black markets only accessible when transponders are turned off in Starpocalypse.

FWIW, I've got some notes in this general direction, especially vis a vis smuggling and the risks (or lack of risks) inherent in it.
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Szasz

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #13 on: December 21, 2021, 09:55:37 AM »

For the love of god stop asking for more punishments and nerfs, it's not trading and smuggling that need to be nerfed but other sources of income need to be more rewarding, this is what you should ask.
Nope, nope, blood-eyed pirates sounds more fun.
I'm sorry that I can't relate to your problem, the game's just a joyride. Even if I agree in a sense, because I think balance is one of the most important aspect of a video game. However there are bigger issues with the economy model imo, that's why I read you post in the first place and diddling around with a sub-issue (?) may not be time best spent, furthermore fixing the economy in its core probably means a solution for you problem as well.
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Megas

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Re: Economy needs some serious rebalancing
« Reply #14 on: December 21, 2021, 10:11:36 AM »

For the love of god stop asking for more punishments and nerfs, it's not trading and smuggling that need to be nerfed but other sources of income need to be more rewarding, this is what you should ask.
I agree with this.  Why fight if having challenging combat punishes the player (and NPCs that simulate it if they had limited resources like the player)?  Fight is not challenging if the chance of flawless victory is high.  In terms of combat, boring because player is a god is good because player is not punished, at least if playing as a god does not interest him.

I am not asking markets to be nerfed.  Open Market is useful for the following:
* Market installing items in their industries.
* Buying items you need or want now and the other markets do not have them or do not have enough.
* Place to sell blueprints without empowering pirates.  (I want pirates to be as weak as possible since they are a zombie faction.)

If none of the three conditions are met, I do not want to trade there (or Military Market).  Black Markets for the win.

Sometimes, I visit bars for deals.  If I get a good contact, I buy ships from them too.

Plus, who cares about patrols if the faction is an enemy (like pirates or indies after a sat bomb)?  Just kill them (if not too close to the station) or run away.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2021, 10:13:27 AM by Megas »
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