Game Economy

[TheKurt]

There is one basic mechanic to any economy that has yet to added to starmade...

The drain: makes resources disappear.

In this game a basic weapon type could require ammunition that could be manufactured.

Movement could drain a fuel that could salvaged and refined.

Food, water and atmospheric life support could be finite, quantifiable economic drivers that need harvested or

manufactured.

Build blocks could be only available for entering while in a sandbox creative mode, or removed from the game replaced with another block type.

Stations should be billions to establish with a special block required, a quantum stabalizer of sorts to justify imovability.

I hope to see this game grow into its potential in a "vanilla" form and let that be a good jump off for mod servers.

Thank you for making the fun game you have already.

 

[lazarus78]

Reasources are \"finite\", but travel time between planets is small. Not really an issue.

Ammo for energy based weaponry doesnt make sense, but for missiles, sure.

Fuel has been discussed to death. I personally think its silly for this game. Sounds more micromanagement then anything for larger ships.

Food/water/air, I will quit immedatly if this is ever added. I dont want to micromanage.

Why remove build blocks? They facilitate the mechanics neede for building things. They work. Nothing to change here.

Making stations cost billions would just push people to planets for bases more. Why pay billions for a station when i have a free one right there?

 

[NeonSturm]

Stations should be a lot better for cost. You are only required for credits to make them less spamable (not 1 station per sector with just 1 block)



Ressources which are drained somewhere, should re-appear somewhere else (or their manufracture ingredients) as 100^3 fuel-empty sectors around spawn makes the game boring (once planets become rarer).



I would like suns for refuel, but currently we have too many to be able to limit direct access to very valueable trade routes.

 

[TheKurt]

You are entirely right.

And entirely wrong simultaneously.

I am referring to a game mode where there is some simulation, some drive, some reason to keep playing, outside just building big stuff and looking at it.

I was referring to a game mechanic that exists in every game you\'ve ever played and liked... These listed items are a suggestion for a survival mode.

progress!

 

[Angus and Alexis]

-1 to all of these.

 

[TheKurt]

This is completely my bad...

I should have never suggested a crucial game mechanic be added in any form to be used or modified by anyone for any purpose, but definitely not in an attempt to better enjoy the game.

Well... not on a public forum anyway.

 

[AxNinjaX]

Hey, input is appreciated. Just because someone is critical of your idea doesn\'t mean that you should whine about it. Consider their side of the argument.

Also, I should mention that the discussion thus far has been quite civil. This post makes you seem like this:

http://i.imgur.com/TYIrkr1.gif

Also, I thought you were heading in the right direction with some of your ideas, but I do agree that given the current game\'s mechanics, many would be rather inconvenient. Much like strip-mined and devastated build regions about spawns on Minecraft servers, limited resources would lead to devastated areas around SM server spawns.

 

[Ixalite]

Back on topic, I personally feel that consumables should be available, but not necessary for gameplay. Engines should work reguardless, but hyperspace should cost fuel. AMC should be free, but missiles should cost ammo. Shields should be free, but Flares, chaff, and decoys should be expendable. In that way, there could be drive to keep the economy turning, but no micromanagement required.

 

[Ithirahad]

I\'d like to see food, water, some kind of life support that consumes (minor) resources if used for a larger ship, shielding or making invulnerable a station should cost some resource (Faction Points?) after a certain size, etc., AMCs and missiles should consume some item, but very, very slowly... some equivalent of a Star Trek phaser coil or something, that needs to be replaced \"every few years.\" Missiles should be really cheap, but still need to be bought... But flying around shouldn\'t cost anything. In other words, there should be consumable resources, but not obstructive, annoying ones. It should feel natural... which fuel wouldn\'t help with, IMO.

 

[NeonSturm]

But still... worlds around spawn should not have fuel. They should have a gate-network to prevent peoples requiring fuel there.

And fuel for non-combat things should cost only time to archive (maybe you collect it while orbiting suns at +2+2+2 or +3+0+0 with 80% not-harmful sun level).

 

[TheKurt]

Yes thank you.

No need for any fretting over balance, Schema has made it clear he wants players and cummunity in charge of their experience, everything is adjustable/ modifiable or easy to turn off. Some real mechanics that will turn this into a Game (whatever form it takes) is all I am requesting here.

 

[ltmauve]

Er, having missiles be the only weapon requiring amo puts it down quite a lot. Maybe you could buy ammo, but what it actually does is lower the reload time if you have ammo. So you would buy ammo for any type of weapon, load it into the appropriate computer, and then as long as you had ammo, you could shoot your missiles faster or lay down more mines, or whatever.

Also, fuel for FTL might work. I propose that having a ship that can jump from anywhere would require fuel, but stations could mount FTL generators that would allow docked ships to go FTL without using any fuel (assuming they had an FTL drive)

 

[Viridis00]

I can\'t really agree on any of these either. Especially not stations costing billions. High barriers to entry like that will just cause less to be made at all, which not only limits creativity but since such a small amount of people will actually do it, the credit sink doesn\'t benefit the overall economy.

Food isn\'t such a bad idea in and of itself, but why add food into the mix? The one thing I agree with you about is air. That pretty much is just like a food mechanic when it comes to survival in space, so it makes food redundant. Might I add air is a confirmed feature and we already have the helmet (despite it not doing anything right now). Ships could be stocked with air and helmets could retain x amount of air outside of ships.

Build Blocks I won\'t even comment on since there are a bunch of dedicated topics to that. Most players realize that it needs limitations, but removing it isn\'t a good idea overall.

Fuel I can\'t get behind because a lot of sci-fi methods of travel don\'t require fuel like our cars every so and so miles/km, but use exotic principles and materials to have very long lasting energy sources you wouldn\'t need to replace unless they got damaged.



What kind of credit sinks could we add then? The best thing I can think of is if NPCs can repair damaged ships for credits alongside players using astrotech beams that use the actual blocks to replace damaged areas. Most players would rather pay for the repairs in liquid asset like credits compared to assets like blocks themselves which is more useful to save for more ship building and emergency repairs when away from stations. They really need to limit the default stations spawned for that to be effective which we thankfully can already change in server.cfg.

Player credits upon death and pirate loot dropped on defeat can be adjusted already as well. A default could be set to better values to slow rate of inflation.

Crew hiring is already a credit sink. I\'ve watched enough Star Trek to know crew members die easily, especially on away missions. (creatures on planets killing crew, anyone?) If crews consume air on ships, that would make air consumed faster and need to be replenished faster and stocked higher as the cost of maintaining a crew. Which isn\'t much \"micromanaging\" at all in my eyes.

Trading Guild taxes upon shop purchases. I don\'t even need to explain that, and I bet a lot of people are going to disagree too. It might sound bad, but MMOs keep economies in check that way, and it works pretty well. Gives in game incentive to open player faction shops. And who doesn\'t like the idea of tax evasion when the Space IRS can\'t do anything.

Reworking the way trading guild shops value resources will also go a long way. Everyone does the whole \"find ice planet - harvest ice crystal - ??? - profit\" technique. Matching generation rate of a block with the retail value will make it so you can\'t get rich quick. This is the most massive inbalance right now, but also the most obvious and will probably be the first thing changed. It\'s probably like that right now so players can test the waters by buying things faster if they don\'t want to use commands.

 

[Ithirahad]

Considering my belief that FTL should be necessary to travel even between two adjacent star systems in any less than 15-20 minutes (and without running into pirates sneaking around in deep space), I don\'t support the idea of FTL fuel... Though again, some kind of \"FTL Driver Coil\" component that needs to be replaced every 50 or 60 warps (Becomes slower and less efficient until it breaks altogether at around the 50-60 mark, possibly randomized a bit)

 

[Zovc]

I accidentaly abused build block, was going to make ametal planet, I gave up

I tried to hollow it out

 

[PhysX]

IRL Antimatter cannons would not be an unlimited source of destructive power like in starmade, antimatter is the exact opposite of matter and so it would have to be made into bullets to be fired.

 

[Kaamio]

I think the main issues come from mining and manufacturing being rather inefficient because of the tiny asteroids and planets and manufacturing process being illogical and inefficient, thus main source of actually useful material is stations and spawned pirates.



If a planet could be made into sustainable, efficient mining operation able to provide materials to many very large ships over time (maybe not every type of material form one planet, but in general) sinks could be worked in the game without causing spawn desolation and other unpleasant side effects. Maybe destroy some of the ships electronics when the core is destroyed to reduce salvaging efficiency, or some other stuff.



When I last played salvaging pirate ships and stations was by far the most efficient way of getting the useful blocks beside mining an ice planet for crystals using the build block. That said, build block is merely a shortcut, and easy way to avoid floating pixels planets that result from beaming a planet into your hold.



I\'d like to see manufacturing boiled down a bit to mainly go with mine -> refine -> build -> high tech products, relatively easy to manage and less random than the \"spend loads of modules you want to build and get random recipe that may cost millions per block to use\" system that was used the last time I played and I think is still in use. Best was probably when I got a recipe for L5 mineral that had no use but sold for several millions per unit, made with a handful of dirt, some sand and green paint. Basically, logical procession rather than completely random recipes with random stuff, not necessarily set in stone but with controlled variables.

 

[Winterhome]

Block cost to buy blueprints already is an option, so block cost to repair ships at automated player built shipyards would be next in line - that is, repairing from a blueprint.

Allow NPCs to repair ships for absurd credit costs (up to 10x block values) using their shipyards.

Add an option to toggle ammunition usage for a given class of weapons (cannons, missiles, mine layers). Ammunition can be manufactured. Each unit of ammo represents a given mass of ammo, so high caliber guns take more per shot thansmall ones.

Rapid recharge devices - basically furnaces - use a mineable resource to recharge your power dramatically faster than normal reactors.

All things may be mined and manufactured, but they can also be bought from the trading guild at nearly prohibitive prices.
All things may be toggled and configured by server.cfg.

 

[GaeasSon]

Economy, yes. That means scarcity, aquisition through time and effort, and then trade. It also means consumption or your little economy will soon be saturated.

Fuel, Yes. This is one very sensible form of consumption. Heck, give me lots of fuels for all sorts of reactors. Heck, give me a thermal reactor that consumes wood and water and I\'ll build a steam-powereed starship. let the consumption rates be server settable.

Food, water, air. Yes. Mine-craft is fun. Survival mode minecraft is challenging. I see the same dynamic in StarMade. Make it an option.

I would like to see some renewable \"Green\" energy options, like solar, so you CAN fuel your ships without mining planets.

 

[HerrColonel]

I like all these ideas

Having fuel for FTL is maybe not the most liked option but I think managing the fuel for traveling can be interesting and fun. If you have no way to extract and refine fuel on your ship by mining asteroids or planets (only an important ship should be able to refine fuel) you rely only on the neutrals and players shops to extend your FTL autonomy (which can be designed for long or short travels, but cannot be infinite). Getting fuel by destroying an enemy ship should be possible, but only if you\'re not under fire like in \"faster than light\" (you just need to manually extract what you need from the debris, so you can\'t be under fire). So if you want to get back home from the other side of the universe, or if you want to travels a far distance for any reason, you may want to take his fuel to an isolated ship passing by.

The fuel, if it\'s implemented, will be a very demanded ressource like in reality. Larges fleets will have heavy needs for it and every faction will want to know a very good deal to get it, with the raw ressources on hand or with their commercial agreements. If you sell lots of it, you can increase your profits by being sure nobody else have the possibility to sell it, or to sell it low enought, in the area you control.

We should have a possibility to start FTL with some other friendly ships if they are around, sharing the cost of the FTL jump. It will permit a fleet constitued of different ships to travels as a group of vessels.

Maybe the oxygene will be a hard thing to manage because a single block makes the difference between a safe pressurised ship and a devastated ship with no crew. But I\'m sure we\'ll have an option to make your crew equip their helmet while fighting for safety. It would be awesome if it was an alarm for it, so you know when you have to put your helmet quickly, and repair the breach if it\'s possible in a reasonnable time. It would be awesome too if the sounds really makes you have the \"space\" feeling like in \"dead space\" (no sound, respiration and footwalk excepted.)

But these life supports should be implemented in the game, even if it makes it look more like minecraft, because it makes sense to design a ship with a life support for the crew. It\'s not micro management, it\'s the base for alive people to stay alive, even in space, even in sci-fi.