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Author Topic: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)  (Read 16338 times)

Debido

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #15 on: October 25, 2014, 09:28:34 AM »

Yes, industry will become a feature of the game eventually well that was the plan anyway. Nothing is set it stone, however if you read some of the descriptions of things in the games it would seem that there are plans for the ability to take over planets and possibly stations, and certain bonuses apply under certain conditions of ownership by other factions.

Anyway the current economy is an interesting tech demo of the features the game may or may not have in the final version after all balancing and features are complete.
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Kipcha

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #16 on: October 25, 2014, 09:30:21 AM »

Quote
Just check whats high/low on the price map
The only time you actually make any profit is where there is trade embargo or famine. considering your goods price has to be able to take TWO 30% taxes. on a single unit of Supplies at 20 credits (around the lowest ive seen) thats 26 credits cost to you per unit. Then you take that to sell for '50' credits (highest non-alert price ive seen recently) Theyre actually paying you 35 credits per unit. you make a total of 9 credits profit. A run from Corvus to Magec runs me 880 credits in supplies and fuel for two Cerberus freighters, Max cargo load of 200 Resulting in a whopping 920 credit profit.

This does not take into account the diminishing price as i said before the price on most goods is only correct for the first unit, from there it starts going down pretty steep. even at 1 per unit;
200 Units of Supplies bought at 26 Credits each.
Units sold for; 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27... Thats a grand total of 45 credits of profit trading 9 Units. Minus your 880 credit travel fee. lets say you half that because for 9 units you would only need a single Cerberus. Thats 440 credit travel fee.

Leaving us, after meticulous planning; -395 GGWPNORE

There shouldn't be large, profitable trade routes/triangles.
Well first of all, there should be static trade routes. simply by how supply and demand works, unless you introduce stations being destroyed. now you can add as many loops in as you want, make it a "static trade dodecahedron" if you fancy. The trick is to keep things interesting, leave options open. With this comes information. Each station should be either a) near production station or b) have its own production, meaning that you can go from Mine-Refine-Produce-Consume or even just Mine-refine-Mine-refine. depending on how the economy is looking and where the AI is.  You should be able to go "well i could take X resource from here to there, or Y resource" and see what nets more money. Those values will change in an evolving economy, Perhaps you cant take the more profitable Y route because its a pirate base, then you settle for the X route. or perhaps the Y route has no ore available so you take the X route.

There is a lot more that could be done, saying that "trading station to station is not fun"

As it stands now either the Ai is ruthlessly effecient and willing to stay in one system and accept 1 credit margins shuttling goods from one station to another within a star or the AI has infinite money / GM fiat.

One thing I've gathered from Alex's blog posts is that he wants the game to be fun and one of the ways he does this is by completely removing elements that give in game benefits for unfun behavior. He considers static trade routes to be be this (I disagree a bit - I had great fun in OOlite finding them and mercilessly driving up profits), or at least that they don't fit in with the "after the end" tone of the game.
[/quote]

Which in removing these "static trade routes" has implimented a system where trading is resorted to "wait for an event, run the 'temporary trade route' as many times as you can.
I just don't think  an economy that you want would be that fun after a while. I really don't want to have to grind.
Actually all i want are lower tarriffs and less effecient AI merchants so there is an actual decent way to trade rather than "wait for an alert"
As for "i dont want to grind"
Its about options, you can go out and grind frigates, you can go out and grind buffalo, you can go out and grind trade lanes, some of us have fun with our economnomnomics.

Its about providing more options for making money rather than forcing people into one or two ways to grind.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2014, 09:53:00 AM by Kipcha »
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arcibalde

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #17 on: October 25, 2014, 09:57:28 AM »

I thought trading was meant to be unprofitable because it would go against lore or something? I don't really remember.

Yup:
Quote
The main problem is caused by having easily repeatable trade runs, so let’s just take care of it at that level. The economy will work in such a way as to make most (if not all) trade runs unprofitable by default.

Why does this make narrative sense? There’s a race-to-the-bottom in the profit margins for safely shipping rocks, and that’s before you factor in faction-affiliated cargo fleets that don’t even have to operate at a profit. Frankly, if you think about it, it *wouldn’t* make sense for easy profit to be available for shipping food or some such, under normal circumstances. Not of the magnitude the player would be interested in.

The way for the player to make a profit in trading, then, is to take advantage of extraordinary circumstances – a short window of opportunity that they can exploit in various ways.
It's from blog post:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/03/02/on-trade-design/
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Kipcha

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #18 on: October 25, 2014, 10:09:52 AM »

Quote
The main problem is caused by having easily repeatable trade runs, so let’s just take care of it at that level. The economy will work in such a way as to make most (if not all) trade runs unprofitable by default.

It's from blog post:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/03/02/on-trade-design/

my issue with that is just that it makes things equally (if not more so) boring. Because now i just sit outside of my nice bunker station waiting for alerts. occasionally checking intel for if i need to go out and get more bargain food.
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Sethfcm

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #19 on: October 25, 2014, 10:15:31 AM »

Well, here is where I disagree entirely with anyone in favor of anti grind, for once.

The problem is this, you can already 'grind' what do you call hunting pirates? the same repetitive space ship battles over and over? I'd say that's grinding. Sure it's got flashy lasers and boom explosions, but it's still grinding.

Why is it that the same trade route is a boring grind anyway? We have pirates, tolls to pay, and random events occuring.

Let's just take a moment to examine this in a more 'realistic' price market. You pick up heavy industry at planet A, knowing a factory on Planet B in another system will pay a reasonable amount (you'll net 20-40% net profit depending on tariff fluctuation and local demand changes) so you start to head there, now an event occurs wherein prices collapse in it's system, so you now decide okay I'll head to planet C which will net me 10-30 percent, and I can dump this cargo before it becomes a terrible loss, Or I can turn around offload this cargo for a small loss, pick up weapons and head to planet B hoping to make 30-50% profits.

We now have just from one event created interest, and choices, now let us continue this line of thought/scenario. Now you decide to head out to planet C since it's relatively in the same direction, and pick up weapons at the pirate base or something instead in order to 'double profit' a decent idea, but you also detour meaning you'll make less on the weapons if you choose to do it this way, but you decide it's worth it got it.

So you do that, and along the way have to dodge paying a toll, 3 pirate groups, and get forced to fight a small pirate ship (a lasher or something) that has augmented engines so it caught up to you (surprising you) and you end up in a heated fight with your merchant tug, eventually managing to escape (barely) now you're even lower on profit, but hey it'll work out right? You dock at planet C, unload cargo and find that you're making a decent profit, but there are no weapons in this area, other merchants beat you to the punch on planet B, and now you missed out on the event, but thanks to a comm sniffer you pick up intel on planet D that needs food, so you pack up and head that way.

Now, can you not see how having regular trade routes is helpful? now only do you know where to pick things up, you also have normal gameplay as a merchant where you can net small profits, but have decent risk, and high risk high reward event gameplay. Perhaps also implement a system where events effect tariff's and local patrol scans etc. An area with a big boom in weapon or drug demand is probably going to try to crack down with it's law enforcement on smugglers etc.

Also perhaps since Marines say they give cover for ground operations, have a system where trading on the black market can actually be dangerous/risky as law enforcement breaks in, or criminals decide to double cross you, that way the black market for anything above like one weapon or afew items at a time becomes actually risky, like a real black market with the need for a skill like blackmarket contacts to make things less so, and more profitable etc.

Don't just crack down on grind, eliminate grind by making things interesting not just punishingly ***. There is no point in developing a huge dynamic economy and so many flavourful cool stations if there is no reason to ever visit them/interact with the economy besides raiding merchants.
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TJJ

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #20 on: October 25, 2014, 10:17:56 AM »

http://fractalsoftworks.com/2014/03/02/on-trade-design/

Can't say I agree with that sentiment.

Sure, having safe, highly profitable trade routes is a huge flaw. (The classic Sol<=>Barnards Star, Luxury Goods/Robots)

However if safe trade routes are made to only reap a marginal gross profit (such that only the most efficient mega carriers can turn an operating profit), the player would instead be forced to attempt the riskier(but more exciting!) profitable routes.

For this to work however, you need two things that we don't have ATM.

1) risky routes. Everywhere is safe at the moment, and even if there were far far more pirates, they'd be easily outmanoeuvred due to the mechanics of travel.
2) a greater correlation between transport size, transport efficiency, and necessary capital investment. Big ships need to cost much much more, and small ships need to be far far less efficient.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2014, 02:52:08 PM by TJJ »
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Toxcity

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #21 on: October 25, 2014, 10:20:20 AM »

I think a good compromise would be that having a better relationship with a faction would decrease the tariff. Would make it so that you could have profitable trade routes later on, but not have the player be able to grind easy money at the start.
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Megas

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #22 on: October 25, 2014, 11:14:07 AM »

Quote
However if safe trade routes are made to only reap a marginal gross profit (such that only the most efficient mega carriers can turn an operating profit), the player would instead be forced to attempt the riskier(but more exciting!) profitable routes.
Or go bounty hunting.

So far, the extent of my "trading" is either exploiting food shortages or dumping excess ingots looted from battle into the nearest base.

Trading aside from food shortage exploitation should be profitable, but maybe less so than bounty hunting (since player is less likely to fight) unless player has built for it.
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Steven Shi

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #23 on: October 25, 2014, 12:41:36 PM »

After just a hour of playing as a trader, I was rolling in so much money (500k-ish) I really didn't care about the tariff. I can make $60-100K per trip off just 3 mid size freighters so a while a 30% hair cut might sound harsh, that just means you need to maximize each trip. Trading food gives you a 400% profit margin consistently! Why are we worried about a measly 30% tax?

If you think starsector's trading is tough, that DOS game Gazillionaire's AI trader would make you curl into a thumb-sucking ball.  ;D

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Oathseeker

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2014, 01:17:37 PM »

After just a hour of playing as a trader, I was rolling in so much money (500k-ish) I really didn't care about the tariff. I can make $60-100K per trip off just 3 mid size freighters so a while a 30% hair cut might sound harsh, that just means you need to maximize each trip. Trading food gives you a 400% profit margin consistently! Why are we worried about a measly 30% tax?

If you think starsector's trading is tough, that DOS game Gazillionaire's AI trader would make you curl into a thumb-sucking ball.  ;D

I believe the point is that the tariff, combined with the low fluctuation in price besides events, makes regular trade routes useless. No-one is saying exploiting food isn't profitable.
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Sethfcm

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #25 on: October 25, 2014, 01:23:16 PM »

Exactly, no one is saying you can't make money, we're just upset (or at least I am) that it can't be made without exploiting events.

Basically why bother with a dynamic fully functional economy if it in fact is not functional? Merchants can't make money unless they take advantage of specific circumstances, so why do I even see them? why do they even bother? why is there a market place etc.

Also the argument that it's anti grind is actually quite wrong, because it's only grinding if it's boring, and has no variation, provided pirates, events, and proper variance is added to the mixture (variance in prices, and circumstances) there will be little grinding, and more 'adventure' to even just a typical trade route.
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Debido

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #26 on: October 25, 2014, 01:32:42 PM »

Although I don't presume to know what Alex knows, I'm fairly sure he is aware of the exploitable events to make millions, and I'm also fairly sure that his pirate bounty hunt system isn't complete yet.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the amount of groundwork that has been done in this release, the bones are mostly there, and procedural generation and industry are on the cards as well.

There is probably one more major framework update before we're on the homestretch I suspect, but I havent seen the project plan so I can't really comment.

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Megas

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #27 on: October 25, 2014, 05:03:37 PM »

What I like to see is the ability to build my own assets so I can attack everything with impunity.  Vengeful?  No problem if I can make my own stuff or repair ships in my own fully operational bases.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #28 on: October 25, 2014, 05:51:07 PM »

What I like to see is the ability to build my own assets so I can attack everything with impunity.  Vengeful?  No problem if I can make my own stuff or repair ships in my own fully operational bases.
Speaking of vengeful relationships; does anyone know how to get OUT of one with a faction?
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Megas

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Re: Economics glitch (and tariffs are OP)
« Reply #29 on: October 25, 2014, 05:58:26 PM »

I read somewhere (forgot where) that player needs to do unpaid bounty work - i.e., kill faction enemies without bounty rewards.  I have not tried this myself to confirm.
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