Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: [1] 2

Author Topic: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages  (Read 2748 times)

cytokine

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 59
    • View Profile
Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« on: August 16, 2022, 01:45:53 AM »

I imagined what it would be like, being a small-time trader or smuggler. So I started a new game, and there I was, in my dinky little Wayfarer, a tiny speck in a bustling dangerous world, staring at the commodities screen in Jangala Space Station... Which pretty much told me to buy supplies in Nova Maxios and sell them in Epiphany/Chalcedon. Again and again and again. No rush and no danger, although I got to pay 'tithe' a couple times. Then I bought some Shrikes, then some Buffalos, then an Atlas. Then, a Conquest.

And then I imagined again what it would be like, being a small-time trader or smuggler. The core worlds got small and tame very quickly, with nothing pushing me out of the comfort zone. And believe me, I'm not implying that I'm especially skilled or experienced with this game. Which I am not.
~
This issue of getting all this free money, is caused by pirates and LP having low in-faction production, combined with low market accessibility from the "hostilities with other factions" debuff. Leading to persistent shortages for them. Which makes all the other options for making money get crowded out. Even if you make your own rules, putting a post-it note on your screen saying "never sell to raiders", then you still can't see the smaller opportunities on the commodity listings, only the same Umbra, Qaras, Epiphany, Chalcedon. The rewards from bar quests seems trivial by comparison. And the options for exploiting --or creating-- transient shortages seem ... uncertain and complicated. Why bother,  when supplies cost 120 in Sindria and sell for 300 in Umbra? Or 80/200 for Maxios/Kantas Den, or whatever. The lack of consequences from black market trading with pirates and independents adds to the problem. And does it really make sense that a haven for smugglers and looters have shortages of such things as weapons and banned drugs?

I don't see an easy solution.  Pirate activity counting as an industry in itself would make some sense. I mean, taking stuff from others being ... a source of stuff. Anyway, those were my experiences with trading early-game.
Logged

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2022, 09:35:23 AM »

The easiest solution would be to limit how many credits do these pirate and luddic path bases have.

Drazan

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 287
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2022, 12:30:16 PM »

Yeah it would really be nice if the money each colony can pay you for comodities were limited. Some random pirate dudes might really need those supplies but it is sure they dont have as much money as tritach or whoever.
Logged

Nimiety

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 115
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2022, 05:24:05 PM »

luddic path/pirate should not be allowed to broadcast their shortages/surpluses on the open market imo. Just forbid their colonies from showing up. Bar missions point to shortages and surpluses for pirates and luddics anyway.
Logged

cytokine

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 59
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2022, 01:31:46 AM »

The easiest solution would be to limit how many credits do these pirate and luddic path bases have.
Yeah it would really be nice if the money each colony can pay you for comodities were limited.
I guess that would work. But it would limit the profits from market disruptions made by the player... and those are so damn satisfying, finding the weak point in a faction economy and cripple it with a few sneaky raids. As it is, the pirate economy is crippled from the get-go, without the player needing to figure things out. It's these chronic shortages that are the underlying issue IMHO.
luddic path/pirate should not be allowed to broadcast their shortages/surpluses on the open market imo.
Wait a minute... there's not even a comm relay in Al Gebbar! If the market info can't even get into Epiphany, then how does it get out? Rocket mail?
« Last Edit: August 17, 2022, 01:37:18 AM by cytokine »
Logged

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2022, 08:32:36 AM »

It could be set that only procgen pirate stations have a limited number of credits. A more scalable solution would be to have the number of credits available be dependent on the size of the colony - something like 10^n or 10^(n+1), so a size 3 colony would have 1k or 10k credits, size 4 would have 10k or 100k credits, and size 5 would have 100k or 1m credits, and so on. 10^(n+1) is probably the better formula.

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2022, 09:13:40 AM »

I think it should be based on population levels. If a pirate colony was big enough then even the local despot warlord would be bringing in enough loot to pay for some random trader to supply supplies. Or luddic cell.

Chalcedon (Path), Umbra (Pirates), and, Qaras (Pirates) are all size five colonies with hundreds of thosends of people living on them, so they aren't all size 3 backwaters with nothing on them, they must have a sizeable civilian population doing all the normal "don't die" stuff down there rather then just being a parking garage filled with grungers.

If anything I'd ask how these colonies even have that much raw demand that they'd need thosends of goods to be paid for?
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1889
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2022, 01:47:04 AM »

At the moment it does kind of feel like the player is just supposed to not notice that they can fly into a pirate planet without their transponder off, sell their goods on the black market, and make bank.

The main problem is actually that piracy is a strict negative system. When fleets are destroyed this creates shortages/stability/accessibility penalties where the ship was going to.

But it doesn’t create surplus/stability/accessibility bonuses where the Raider came from

Moreover there isn’t an established pathway between the pirate and the legitimate economy.

Like… think about yourself as a pirate. What do you do with those goods you steal? You go back to your pirate town and sell them. But then what? Your pirate town takes in luxury goods but then dies for lack of food because they don’t have any and no one will trade gold for bread with pirates because England will find out and kill them.

Well all those goods needed a fence to get back into the “legitimate” economy. So staple supplies could be procured. Or so Pirates could retire in a place that they would want to live. Fungible wealth so to more easily move to a stable place.

I once proposed a kind of provenance system. When you destroy a fleet the goods you retain are tainted. They’re either paperless or the papers they have show them to be someone else’s. (Salvaging exploration content would be fine because the papers would show that the ship was lost long before you left port with an empty cargo bay).

As a result black markets demand regular goods but also tainted goods. And therefore pay less than the legitimate market for goods. And then turn tainted goods into legitimate goods. When a raid was successful this would increase the accessibility and production of temporary pirate bases… which would produce tainted goods. Which would supply permanent pirate planets/bases with tainted goods. Which would supply Pirates with legitimate goods. (Which they need to interact with the shortage system but can also export)

The downside here is that this is quite complicated to understand.

The upside is that it should work
Logged

Drazan

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 287
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2022, 01:50:51 AM »

I once proposed a kind of provenance system. When you destroy a fleet the goods you retain are tainted. They’re either paperless or the papers they have show them to be someone else’s. (Salvaging exploration content would be fine because the papers would show that the ship was lost long before you left port with an empty cargo bay).

Really love the idea. However it does not solve the problem of buying legitimate goods on low price on maxios and sell them for the shortaged pirates for huge $$$
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1889
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #9 on: August 18, 2022, 02:16:10 AM »

I once proposed a kind of provenance system. When you destroy a fleet the goods you retain are tainted. They’re either paperless or the papers they have show them to be someone else’s. (Salvaging exploration content would be fine because the papers would show that the ship was lost long before you left port with an empty cargo bay).

Really love the idea. However it does not solve the problem of buying legitimate goods on low price on maxios and sell them for the shortaged pirates for huge $$$

Well you would have to buy on the legitimate market (you would not be able to purchase goods with a provenance on the black market) and then you would have to sell on the legitimate market thus paying two tariffs. Or sell on the black market for reduced price.

If you wanted to supply tainted goods then the prices on them could be more tightly controlled.

Logged

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #10 on: August 18, 2022, 02:33:18 AM »

Yeah I always felt that with black markets being present at every colony actual piracy should be tied in closely with the economy and the pirate actions.

Selling to pirates should heavily boost pirate activity, whom raid for their own profit decreasing available stuff for the civilised economy, thus decreasing pirate activity over time until it stabilizes.

Selling to the pirates for £££ once makes sense, but for a while after they should become self sustaining from their raiding while the core worlds become unstable outside of their black markets. Pirates from a particular colony whom successfully take down trade fleets should see their colonies needs fulfilled.

The problems from what I witness are perpetual shortages, when really they should go through their own booms after piracy and planet raids in particular!
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

BCS

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 279
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #11 on: August 18, 2022, 09:13:08 AM »

I don't see an easy solution.

Drastically limit the amount of goods that can be traded on black market. For example to 1/10 of what is available on the open market. That's both buy and sell. Or maybe tie it to Stability somehow, like (11-Stability)x5% or something.
Logged

robepriority

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 409
  • robepriority#2626
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2022, 07:33:33 AM »

The primary crux of this is accessibility as a mechanic - it's also the primary killer of player colonies when starting out. Giving them conditions to raise accessiblity as smuggling/cell actions/base raids happens or just flat out giving colony modifiers to bypass accessibility issues might help without having to overhaul access itself as a mechanic.

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2022, 08:04:24 AM »

Give Pirate/LP bases limited purchasing power. How are they coming up with millions of credits? If they had that kind of cash on hand, they wouldn’t be flying junkers. All black market activity could theoretically be capped: not because of legal consequences per se but due to lack of funds. While I’m sure the criminal underworld might be rich in some places, it wouldn’t be in others, especially out on the frontier. You shouldn’t be able to make millions from some temporary pirate base off in the far reaches.

Meanwhile, legal activity isn’t capped because it’s above board and you can imagine you’ve got the backing of banks, factions, militaries, family connections, etc.
Logged

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile
Re: Excessive profits from Pirate/LP shortages
« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2022, 09:12:21 AM »

All black market activity could theoretically be capped: not because of legal consequences per se but due to lack of funds.
That's similar to my idea, of giving all markets in general a money cap. Putting it on only black markets might not alleviate the issue, if a single 30% tariff is not enough to remove the profit from smuggling.
Pages: [1] 2